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‘Neither war nor peace’: Palestinians in Gaza on existing amid disease, despair and ruins

Ahmed Ishtaiwi has six chairs. They are cheap and plastic and battered, but they are among the 43-year-old driver and mechanic’s most valuable possessions. Ishtaiwi lives in a tent near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza with his two daughters. Their former home is far to the north, in the now ruined town of Beit Lahiya, uninhabitable and impossible to reach. “When I sit on those chairs, I remember sitting in the garden at home, having breakfast and drinking tea. They remind me of my life there,” he said last week. Wednesday is the anniversary of the raid on 7 October 2023 by Hamas militants into southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggered a relentless Israeli military offensive that killed 73,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, wounded many more and reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble. When Layan al-Jbour, a 15-year-old from the southern city of Khan Younis, tries to bring some order to the crowded makeshift shelter she shares with her parents, brothers and sisters in al-Mawasi, a strip of coastline at the southernmost end of Gaza, she recalls life before the war. “When I tidy the tent, I remember our home and how I used to tidy it. I remember my room and how I used to make my bed. When I put a sheet over a table and arrange the bedding, the place looks like our old home,” al-Jbour said. “We hardly took anything with us from our home. We left everything behind, and the only thing I took was my schoolbag. It is the most precious thing I own now. It reminds me so much of my school days. I loved going to school and meeting my friends there.” Across Gaza, Palestinians describe daily routines full of challenges that nothing in their former lives prepared them for: shortages of water and of nourishing food, minimal healthcare, disease, unemployment, economic collapse and the continuing threat of death or injury. Despite a ceasefire a year ago, Israel’s airstrikes continue. Palestinians who have approached the “yellow line” that divides Gaza into zones controlled by the Israeli military and by Hamas have been shot dead. In the last year, the overall death toll has risen by a further 1,400 people. In recent days, Israeli attacks have intensified, killing at least two Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, according to health officials. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted militants. On Wednesday, Gaza medics said at least two Palestinians were killed and others wounded in airstrikes in Beit Lahiya and Khan Younis. “It is what we feared … a ceasefire that just isn’t a ceasefire,” said one international aid worker now based in Amman, Jordan, who worked in Gaza throughout much of the conflict. “Daily life is horrible. People aren’t hungry any more but they are still malnourished. Our local staff are telling us that this is just the next stage of the conflict.” Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told the UN security council last month that despite the increase in supplies entering Gaza, the health situation remained critical, with “infectious diseases … widespread amid overcrowded displacement sites and inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions”. Inadequate funding for relief efforts exacerbated the “shortages of medical supplies, fuel and the overall humanitarian response”, Alakbarov said, while “restrictions on the entry of critical humanitarian items imposed by Israel” were slowing preparations for cold weather. Israeli authorities deny shortages and say adequate supplies are reaching Gaza, with more than 600 trucks entering the territory each day. Saleh Kilani, 70, from Beit Lahiya, used to have a farm and olive trees before the war. “Around this time of year, I used to press about 60 containers of olive oil. But I lost all of that too. If I go to my home I may die, and if I go to my farm, I may die too. This is not a life. We are exhausted and we have lost hope.” Kilani said life before the conflict seemed very distant. “We never used to think twice about seeing orange and peach trees, green fields, grapes and figs. These things were simply part of our lives. Now when we see them, we are surprised,” he said. Hamas, which swiftly reimposed its authority over the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in the third of Gaza not under the control of the Israeli military, has rebuilt a rudimentary administration which provides patchy education, some healthcare services and limited policing based on deterrence through often arbitrary punishment. Donald Trump’s plan to definitively end the war in Gaza has stalled, with little progress towards disarming Hamas, securing the withdrawal of Israeli troops and beginning the vast job of reconstruction. “My biggest fear is that this situation will continue. We are living through a period that can be described as neither war nor peace,” said Kilani. The only time Esraa Abu Taiba recalls her prewar existence is when she gets to practise her former profession: beautician. The 26-year-old lived in Bani Suheila, a town to the east of Khan Younis and now within the zone controlled by Israel. Of her five brothers, two were killed in the conflict, two were wounded, and one is among the more than 1,500 Palestinians from Gaza in detention in Israel. “Before the war my life was quiet and good,” she said. “I could go wherever I wanted without fear or restrictions. We lived in our own home. We had a washing machine, a tap and a garden. The house belonged to us and we lived there comfortably. “Now we live in a tent. Our lives depend on carrying water and getting food from the community kitchen. A water truck comes to the end of the street and … I go to collect it because my mother cannot carry it.” Like most Palestinians in Gaza, her family was displaced multiple times during the conflict, and they have lost everything from their former home – except a house key, which her mother keeps close. “The only thing I still do from my old life is some beauty work. I cut girls’ hair in the tents around us and do their makeup for weddings,” said Abu Taiba. “It takes me back to a beautiful and happy period of our lives, when we used to celebrate weddings and other happy occasions before the war. It takes me away from the misery we are living through, even if only for a little while.”

María del Carmen Abascal, symbol of Spain’s housing protests, dies aged 87

María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died. News of her death came two weeks after Maricarmen, as she had come to be known across Spain, was evicted from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for more than seven decades. The pensioner, whose apartment had been purchased by an investment firm who sought to hike her rent by 230%, swiftly became a symbol of the many left behind by Spain’s surging housing market. Scenes of the eviction, which saw police use rounds of teargas as they carried out the order, made headlines across Spain. The shocking images – showing Abascal being forcibly removed from her home on a stretcher, flanked by protesters and police – swiftly crystallised into anger. About 10,000 people took to the streets of Madrid hours later, wielding signs such as “Shame” and “We’re all Maricarmen”. From Spain’s north to the south, people poured into plazas to protest the suffering wrought by rents that had soared 80% in the span of a decade while house prices had climbed 63%. From the hospital where she was being treated for severe exhaustion, Abascal cheered on the fledgling movement. “I would like to be there with you all,” she said in a video shot from her hospital bed. “But I’m not that lucky. So from here, I ask you all for courage and to fight and defend what is yours.” As encampments began springing up across the country, the investment firm that bought Abascal’s home said she could return. The deal did little to quell the anger that had boiled over in the wake of the eviction. This week the wave of outrage led the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to call a snap general election after rightwing and far-right parties voted down two emergency decrees his government had proposed to address the housing crisis. The Madrid tenants’ union said the solution had come too late for the octogenarian. “This was a completely preventable situation following an agonising ordeal,” it said in a statement announcing that Abascal had died in hospital, reportedly hours before she was due to sign a new lease with the investment firm that had evicted her. “The events triggered by the injustice of her eviction undoubtedly mark a turning point in the history of this country: massive demonstrations, encampments in the squares, an early election, and the call for a general strike,” it added. “The housing debate is at the center of it all, but the cost of getting to this point has been too high.” Sánchez offered his condolences to Abascal’s family and friends. “A hug also to everyone who’s feeling this loss today as their own,” he wrote on social media. “Rest in peace.” Spain’s health minister, Mónica García, said Abascal’s plight had “served to awaken awareness across all of Spain, lighting a fuse that cannot be put out”, and adding that her “dignity and courage” had shown the way. The Podemos MEP and former equalities minister Irene Montero was more blunt. “This isn’t a death; it’s a murder,” she wrote on social media. “Such bloody anger. Thank you for fighting, Maricarmen.” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party (PP) – which voted against last week’s emergency housing measures – also offered his condolences. “No campaigning, no political parties, no partisan ends, no more bricks in the wall,” he wrote on social media. “When a person dies there should be nothing but respect.” Her death came a day after Sánchez’s cabinet approved two new housing decrees intended to “maintain the spirit” of the two previous decrees that were voted down in parliament last week by the PP, the far-right Vox party and the rightwing Catalan pro-independence Junts party. The 21 measures include facilitating renting or buying a new home; extending eviction protections for vulnerable residents; regulating room rentals; imposing a new tax on seasonal rentals; prohibiting speculative real estate purchases; and granting tax breaks to property owners and tenants who pay on time. With the lower and upper houses of parliament dissolved following the calling of the snap election, the decrees will be voted on by the permanent council of congress, a special council that operates when parliament is not in session. The body’s 69 members are distributed proportionally among the various parliamentary groups to reflect the composition of the lower chamber, meaning Sánchez will probably have enough support to get at least one of the decrees passed. In the heart of Madrid, where campaigners have set up a giant protest camp, news of Abascal’s death was met with a moment of silence. Soon after, hundreds marched from the camp to the country’s parliament chanting: “Maricarmen lives on, the fight continues.”

WHO says it does not have ‘full picture’ from Russia following suspected plague death

The World Health Organization has said it does not have the “full picture” from Russia following the suspected death from plague last week of a 28-year-old laboratory worker in Siberia. Darya Shipilova died two days after falling ill with cold-like symptoms. She was an employee at the anti-plague research institute in the eastern city of Irkutsk, with some reports suggesting she was infected after a workplace accident. The Russian authorities have denied a connection with the institute and say Shipilova died from “pneumonia of an unknown aetiology”. They insist there is no danger of a plague outbreak and have described the “sanitary and epidemiological” situation in the region as stable. At the same time, officials have imposed sweeping quarantine restrictions at the lab where Shipilova worked and in nearby hospitals. Staff were locked down inside the institute for three days, sleeping on the floors and on chairs, while tests were conducted. On Wednesday the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “We don’t yet have the full picture of this event and we’re not able to conduct a full risk assessment. “Timely, complete and transparent information sharing is essential to clarify conflicting reports and enable an accurate assessment of potential public risks.” Tedros said he also wanted more clarification from the Russian government following unconfirmed media reports of “a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause”. “We assess any reporting from the community,” he said. “We asked Russia to respond to that. We’re waiting for an answer.” The WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said the agency still did not know how Shipilova became infected in the first place – and with what viral disease. If pneumonic plague was ruled out, “what did she actually die from?” Kerkhove asked. In an interview with local media, Shipilova’s 64-year-old mother, Svetlana, discounted the theory that her daughter had been infected after smashing a test tube. “I know the truth. I’m fending off stupid friends who believe this. A test tube is unbreakable, even if you throw it against the wall,” she said. She described her daughter as a dedicated worker and “pure person” devoted to her job. Former classmates are also sceptical she was infected at her workplace. One reportedly said: “They’ve smeared a woman without properly investigating. Knowing how hard-working and responsible she was, it just doesn’t add up for me.” The Kremlin has sought to downplay the incident and has brushed aside an offer of assistance made earlier this week by Donald Trump, the US president. The White House has pressed Moscow for more details of the case, while stressing the risk to the US is very low. On Tuesday Trump said he would speak about the plague issue “very soon” with Vladimir Putin, who celebrated his 74th birthday on Wednesday. The Kremlin said no call had been arranged but could be quickly organised. According to the Baikal Medical Journal, health officials in Irkutsk have taken extensive measures to stop a potential outbreak from spreading. Neighbours said workers in white protective suits and gas masks disinfected the two-storey brick building where Shipilova lived several times after her death last Friday. “The smell was unbearable and very pungent,” a woman in her 40s said. “A woman knocked on our door. I said: ‘What are you treating here?’ I already knew about the plague rumours. “She said: ‘It’s for cockroaches.’ But we don’t even have any cockroaches in our building. I saw her packing her overalls into a bag. I was like, ‘Well, I get it.’”

French police suspend use of stun grenades at school protests as minister rejects accusations of brutality

France’s interior minister has suspended the use of stun grenades by police at high school demonstrations but rejected mounting accusations of police brutality during two weeks of protests marred by often violent clashes that have injured hundreds. Laurent Nuñez told RTL radio on Wednesday that he had ordered a temporary halt on the use of the grenades “in the context of the high school students’ movement” after a 15-year-old boy lost a hand during a protest in Lens, northern France, on Monday. Authorities have not confirmed the exact circumstances – in particular, whether the boy had picked up the grenade or been struck by it – but said up to 200 protesters had been hurling projectiles at police when the riot squad intervened. Nuñez said he was suspending use of the grenades “until we know exactly what happened in this case”. But he later told MPs that accusations of “police repression” were “excessive” because officers “are not intervening if the protests are peaceful”. The injured boy’s mother said on Wednesday that her son’s hand had been amputated. She told BFMTV: “His life has been stolen. He’s a 15-year-old kid, how can children be treated like that?” She said her son had not tried to pick up the grenade. The education ministry said classes had been wholly or partially suspended in 429 of the country’s 3,700 lycées – high schools attended by pupils aged between 15 and 18 – on Wednesday, a significantly lower number than on Tuesday. However, 80 university campuses, including the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris, were blockaded in largely peaceful protests by students on Wednesday, unions said, and teachers’ and other unions said they backed further strike action on Thursday. Nuñez told parliament that 215 teenagers and 89 school staff had been injured since the start of the protests – which were triggered by chronic teacher shortages, crowded classes, dilapidated buildings and long school days – while 761 police officers had also been wounded. He said 18 internal police investigations had been launched over allegations of brutality during the demonstrations, including one incident in which a young protester lost multiple teeth and another in which a student lost the use of an eye. He said inquiries were always opened over accusations of “non-proportional” policing, but he insisted officers were there to protect the students. Rights groups and trades unions have repeatedly accused the police of using unnecessary force. On Tuesday at least 250,000 pupils, parents, teachers and unionists took to the streets in cities across France on the biggest day yet of the campaign, prompting the president, Emmanuel Macron, to hold an emergency cabinet meeting. Most marches passed off without serious incident but some, including in Paris, ended in sporadic vandalism and running skirmishes with riot police, with officers firing teargas and carrying out baton charges to disperse protesters. French security forces do not have orders to “confront” protesting high school students, the prime minister said on Wednesday, as allegations of police brutality mounted following days of protests. Hundreds of students, police and teaching staff have been injured since the movement demanding better conditions in high schools began. After rights groups, unions and the students accused authorities of using disproportionate force, the government said it would suspend the use of stun grenades by police at student-led demonstrations. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in a televised address on Wednesday night that the country could not be “indifferent” to the concerns of high school students, acknowledging that the “anger of young people does not come from nowhere”. But he too denied police had “orders to confront” the protesters. He promised the government would present an action plan focusing on replacing absent teachers, renovating school buildings and reorganising timetables by the end of October. Lecornu on Tuesday condemned the violence and told parliament it could not be tolerated, while also rejecting accusations that the government had ordered “police repression” against the protesters. Over the past two weeks, demonstrators have set dustbins on fire outside their schools, destroyed bus shelters and hurled projectiles at riot police, who have responded using batons, teargas and riot-control rounds. Twenty-four schools have been burned or ransacked, while more than 6,600 people have been arrested, almost all of them minors. More than 1,800 are being prosecuted, nearly 1,500 of them under 18, the justice ministry has said. Anne Savinel-Barras, the president of Amnesty France, on Wednesday welcomed the decision to suspend police use of stun grenades as “an important first step” but said the devices should be “permanently banned from the policing of all protests”. She added: “Protests should not be battlefields. Stun grenades are designed to shock, disorient and sow panic, often among dense crowds. Some can cause permanent hearing loss as well as life-changing mutilations due to the blast and shrapnel.” The protests, months before key presidential elections to choose Macron’s successor, have rattled a government trying to reduce a ballooning budget deficit amid mounting investor concern over France’s sky-high debt and weak economic growth. They have also sparked a heated political row, with the government accusing the radical-left La France Insoumise party of encouraging and even orchestrating the movement after numerous LFI MPs attended school blockades. The party’s veteran leader and presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has strongly supported the protests while urging non-violence.

Houthi forces appear to make slow advance in south-west Yemen

Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances on Wednesday in south-west Yemen, approaching the city of Taiz and firing a missile and an explosive towards the airport in Aden, the chief international hub of the Saudi-backed government. The explosive hit the key airport moments before a plane was due to land. The British ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, said the attack could have endangered thousands of people. It forced the flight – from Cairo – to be diverted to Jeddah and led to a review about the safety of flights in Aden. Independent observers said there was a danger that the Houthis were on course to capture Yemen’s third city of Taiz, with some signs that forces linked to the Saudi Arabian-backed government were pulling back to secure Aden. Saudi warplanes had been using their air superiority to try to hit any Houthi accumulation of forces near the city, especially to the west. Houthi forces also claimed that they had fired missiles towards two airports in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh. Saudi authorities initially said the attacks had been repelled, but then said three people had been killed and 36 people wounded. The Institute for the Study of War said it was adjusting its previous assessment that Houthi forces on the coastal plain were collapsing “in light of evidence in the last 24 hours indicating that the Houthis have stopped Yemeni government-aligned advances”. There has been widespread criticism on social media of some of the claims about Yemeni government advances issued at the beginning of the week. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the reclusive leader of the Houthis, gave a lengthy address marking the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and singled out the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera for criticism of its coverage of the Yemen war. Trying to link the various conflicts in the Middle East, he urged Yemenis to investigate the Saudi role in the Palestinian cause, “stressing that whoever searches will only find it stabbing the nation in the back”, and said the formal positions taken by the Saudi regime did not in reality benefit the Palestinian people. The Houthi leader also stressed that the Saudi government was not content with complicity in Gaza, but played a key role in conspiring against the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, where it incited everyone against Hezbollah in a single front with the US and Israel. Southern Giants forces – a pro-government militia in Yemen – are still leading efforts to recapture the Bab al-Mandab strait, the narrow waterway at the bottom of the Red Sea that had been the first target of an offensive launched by the Yemen government on Monday. The group is now positioned in the military airport sector in the Dhubab district near the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Tropical Storm Isaias near Mexico is forecast to become a hurricane

Tropical Storm Isaias formed early on Wednesday in the warm waters off eastern Mexico and forecasters said it was expected to strengthen into the first hurricane of the belated Atlantic season, as early as Thursday, before hitting the US Gulf coast later in the week. Isaias succeeded Tropical Depression Nine as it strengthened overnight. It was located about 285 miles (460km) west of Progreso, Mexico, and about 580 miles south-west of where the Mississippi River spills into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm on Wednesday morning had maximum sustained winds of 40mph (65km/h) and was moving east to north-east at 8mph. The first hurricane of the Atlantic season has not formed this late since 8 October 1905. Communities in the potential path of Isaias moved quickly to prepare for landfall, forecast as soon as Friday evening. Some Gulf oil wells paused production and an Alabama beach city canceled a weekend festival known to draw thousands of tourists. Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency for more than one-third of the state’s counties. Isaias could become a major category 3 hurricane, with winds of 111mph (178 km/h) or stronger, before it strikes land, said Michael Brennan, director of the NHC. “We’re expecting multiple dangerous, life-threatening impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast beginning Friday and continuing into the weekend,” Brennan said in a video briefing Wednesday. It was not immediately known where the storm may make landfall on the US Gulf coast. The NHC issued a hurricane watch from Bay St Louis, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, Florida. The watch means hurricane conditions are possible within 48 hours. The hurricane center’s initial projections said the center of Isaias could come onshore somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. People in those areas were urged to prepare for the storm. “There is an increasing risk of dangerous wind and storm surge impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast,” the hurricane center, based in Miami, Florida, said. “Residents from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle should closely monitor the latest forecast updates and ensure they have their hurricane plan in place.” Forecasters added that there was “uncertainty in where the system makes the northeast turn and how fast it moves toward the coast”. The direction of the storm could see it make landfall where Alabama meets Florida early on Saturday, but the NHC reiterated that the exact path was uncertain. In Gulf Shores, Alabama, the storm threat caused organizers to cancel the National Shrimp Festival that had been scheduled for Thursday through the weekend. The event drew an estimated 325,000 people last year. The storm comes as the Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year owing to a particularly strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over that ocean. Storm activity in the Pacific has been above average. This year’s huge El Niño is causing climate chaos around the world. Temperate records have already been broken, with extreme heat reported from western Europe to California. Meanwhile, Bangkok is suffering massive flooding and the weather phenomenon is projected to cause a further 450,000 deaths globally by February. The Associated Press contributed reporting

Flávio Bolsonaro’s advance in Brazil’s election is grim jolt for climate campaigners

More fire, more ash, more crime, more death. And a globally important ecosystem driven ever more rapidly towards a point of no return. That is the prospect for the Amazon rainforest for at least the next four years if Flávio Bolsonaro holds on to the lead he established this week in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election. This appears to be of far more concern to the outside world than to voters in Latin America’s biggest, richest and most biodiverse nation. The far-right son of the former president and jailed coup-monger Jair Bolsonaro won 47% of the vote, putting him in pole position before the 25 October runoff with the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was backed by 44.2%. The result is an unnerving jolt to climate and nature campaigners. Taken out of context, this appears to be a vote against the forest. The current administration of Lula (as the veteran Brazilian president is best known) has reduced deforestation in the Amazon by almost 50%. But that success secured little noticeable electoral traction for either Lula or pro-forest candidates in other polls held the same day. The former environment minister Marina Silva lost a bid for the Senate and Joenia Wapichana, a former head of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, failed to win a seat in Congress. Out of 57 Indigenous candidates, only two won. Flávio Bolsonaro is the heir to the political legacy of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain whose four years in power resulted in a 59.5% increase in Amazon deforestation, roughly equivalent to destroying 2bn trees. If he wins, Bolsonaro has promised to free his father, who was imprisoned for plotting a military coup and attempting to annihilate democracy in Brazil. He has said that his father could have any position he wants in his administration. Flávio Bolsonaro has shown that he will be just as willing as his father to dismantle protections for climate and nature and allow illegal miners, loggers and land grabbers to invade Indigenous territories. As a lawmaker, he backed a 2019 bill to eliminate requirements for landowners in the Amazon to conserve a proportion of native vegetation. In his manifesto, he completely ignored the climate crisis. And he has courted support from some of the most predatory landowners in the rainforest. He is also part of a movement – Bolsonarism – that is geared towards maximising profits for extractive industries regardless of the environmental cost. Take its victorious candidate for the Amazonian state of Pará, Daniel Santos, who was fined $275,000 (£208,000) for deforestating 280 hectares (690 acres) of his land without authorisation and is now promising to waive such penalties. As a result of Sunday’s election, Bolsonarists now control seven of the nine states in the Brazilian Amazon, and could win an eighth in the runoffs. Bolsonarist influence in the legislature, which is dominated by agribusiness interests, is also growing. Flávio’s brother, Carlos, and mother-in-law, Michelle, were elected to the Senate, while an uncle and brother won seats in the lower house of deputies. Even before the election, Congress had been pushing hard to weaken environmental protections. Now it will be almost impossible to stop, particularly given the current chaos in the supreme court, which has been a partial check on untrammelled expansion by miners, ranchers and monoculturalists. Against these forces, Lula would struggle to govern even if he wins the runoff. As a result, it is not just the Amazon that is in peril, but all of Brazil’s biomes, its traditional peoples and the stability of the global climate. The question now is why voters paid so little heed to these concerns. That inquest is already under way. Many focus on the influence of social media, which has been used far more effectively by the far right. During the Bolsonaro administration, his sons were part of the “hate cabinet” that spread fear and disinformation via WhatsApp groups and other online channels – Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos, was indicted by federal police for leading the group. Environmentalists were often the target. Another factor is the expansion of US-style Pentecostalism, which is steadily supplanting Catholicism across Brazil, particularly in the Amazon. The political and environmental consequences of that religious shift can be seen by comparing the pro-nature treatise of the past two popes with the sermons of many evangelical preachers who encourage followers to seek wealth today as much as, if not more, than following moral creeds to ensure a good afterlife. Lula, 80, has been slow to adapt. Although he is arguably the most iconic and successful Latin American politician of the 21st century, his messaging seems less attuned to the people than it was in his heyday. The Workers party has struggled in an era of weaker unions and in some ways been the victim of its own success – with education and social policies that raised millions out of poverty and created greater expectations for consumption and entrepreneurism; and huge subsidies to farmers, who now support the right wing because they chafe at environmental limits. Tied into those explanations are the geopolitics of the climate and nature crisis, which is exacerbating great power rivalry between the US and China and amplifying extreme ideologies as much as extreme weather. In this light, the Brazil election is just the latest in a broader pattern of the far right taking control to expand extractivism despite growing evidence that the capitalist economy is breaking planetary boundaries. In the past two years, Donald Trump has ripped apart environmental regulations in the US and treated the rest of the Americas as his sphere of influence. Argentina was already onboard. Venezuela has been invaded for its resources, while in Colombia, Peru and Chile there has been a sharp shift to the right. Will Brazil be the next domino to fall to Trumpism and its bonfire approach to nature? The Bolsonaro family certainly hope so. Jair went so far as to salute the US flag. His son Eduardo urged the US to apply tariffs on Brazilian people to “punish” the government for imprisoning his father. The Brazilian intelligence agency has warned that the US was trying to interfere in the election. That election isn’t over yet. Lula stands a small chance if he can win over the many millions of voters who chose not to mark their ballots for either candidate. But the odds are stacked against him. Most of the eliminated candidates were on the right so their supporters are more likely to switch to Bolsonaro. No first round leader has ever failed to win the runoff of a Brazilian presidential election. Voters, of course, are allowed to change their minds. Either on 25 October or, constitutionally, in four years’ time. But for how much longer will that be possible? If Bolsonaro wins, it won’t just be Lula that is finished, it could also be the Amazon and democracy itself.

Canada to indefinitely bar mental illness as sole reason for access to euthanasia

Canada’s federal government said on Wednesday it would advance legislation to prevent people whose sole health condition is mental illness from accessing euthanasia, an effort by the ruling Liberal party to address a clash in the country over who has access to physician-assisted death. Under the current rules, people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness have been barred from accessing medical assistance in dying (Maid) to end their lives. But that ban – due to be lifted in March – has divided lawmakers over whether to permit this expansion of the Maid program. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the justice minister, Sean Fraser, said his government would indefinitely bar people whose sole condition is mental illness from accessing the program. He said that while there was no “perfect consensus” on this issue, upcoming legislation reflected the “correct” approach. Earlier this year, a government committee concluded the government should expand access to Maid and should “indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying”. That report also flagged the need for “increased and more equitable access” to mental health services. Canada’s Maid laws, drawn up after a 2015 supreme court decision, initially only permitted those who are terminally ill to be eligible for the procedure. But in 2019, a Quebec judge ruled that restricting access to those who had a “reasonably foreseeable death” was unconstitutional, forcing federal lawmakers to amend and expand the existing laws. In 2021, the law was updated so adults could receive an assisted death if two doctors confirmed an irremediable physical condition causing immense suffering that cannot be relieved. Given the uncertainty surrounding mental illness, lawmakers in 2021 initially put a temporary exclusion in place for people who suffer solely from a mental illness. They renewed that pause in 2023 and 2024. According to the latest government figures, the vast majority of Maid deaths – 95.6% – involved people whose natural death was considered “reasonably foreseeable”. Only 4.4% were cases in which death was not considered reasonably foreseeable. Those include people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and incurable neurological disease that can causes profound disability and immense suffering. The Liberal party’s legislation is also an effort to ward off a private member’s bill that would amend the section of the criminal code covering Maid so that “a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition”. Advocates for expanding Maid to include mental illness alone say the current rules violate their constitutional rights and access to healthcare. Fraser acknowledged to reporters that a federal case – led by the advocacy group Dying With Dignity Canada – challenging the government’s previous decision to delay access to Maid for people with mental illness could affect the upcoming bill. Fraser said lawmakers would also work to decriminalize what are known as advanced requests, effectively giving people suffering from some illnesses such as Alzheimer’s the chance to choose Maid before their illness deprives them of the capacity to consent. At present, Quebec is the only jurisdiction that permits the use of these requests. Fraser gave no specifics on the timing of the legislation but said that provinces will decide whether to provide advance requests. While the province of Alberta has already said it will not permit advance requests, the justice minister said the bill attempts to ensure “the doctors who provide the services will not be treated as criminals for doing so”. In Canada, Crisis Services Canada can be contacted at any time on 1.833.456.4566, or via text on 45645 from 4pm-12am ET. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org