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Cyril Ramaphosa says US has had ‘change of mind’ but does not confirm Trump’s attendance in Johannesburg

The US has changed its mind about attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa’s president has said, without confirming whether Donald Trump, who had said the US would boycott the event, now wanted to come.

Trump has claimed that South Africa racially discriminates against the minority white Afrikaner community, which led the country during the apartheid regime that ended in 1994.

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Judge says Nnamdi Kanu used his Indigenous People of Biafra group to incite attacks on security officials and civilians

The Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu has been sentenced to life in prison on terrorism-related charges by a court in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

Judge James Omotosho said prosecutors had shown that Kanu, who also holds British citizenship, had used his Indigenous People of Biafra group (Ipob) to incite attacks on security officials and civilians in south-east Nigeria and during anti-police protests in Lagos.

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Sorfequiline shows stronger action than existing treatments against illness that killed 1.23 million last year

A new treatment for tuberculosis could boost cure rates and shorten the time needed to treat the disease by months, trial results suggest.

Globally, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB last year and 1.23 million died from it.

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It is one of the world’s most vital carbon sinks, but this tropical rainforest is losing out when it comes to climate policy and funding

In October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.

For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI).

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Campaigners say the company is contributing to rising rates of childhood obesity, while the firm says it is helping to combat malnutrition

Nestlé is still adding sugar to most baby cereals sold across Africa, according to an investigation by campaigners who have accused the company of “putting the health of African babies at risk for profit”.

The food firm was accused of “double standards” over the researchers’ findings, which come at a time when rates of childhood obesity are rising on the continent, prompting calls for Nestlé to remove all added sugar from baby-food products.

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UN secretary-general António Guterres earlier used speech at Belem summit to urge countries to find compromises in final hours of negotiations

Inside the halls of Cop30 you see people from all around the world, and it can be easy to forget that there are many people who remain unrepresented.

On Thursday morning, Magne Tony was standing with compatriots from French Guiana outside the entrance to the conference centre, trying to push pieces of paper into the hands of arriving delegates and observers headed: “Our Amazon is dying”.

The main problem is that France are in 9,000 kilometres from Amazonia, from South America, and they’re taking decisions. [But] they don’t really know what is the problem really. They’re taking the decisions from their own mind and the problem is that they’re far from reality.

That’s why we decided to alert the people in the world about [our] problems: water coming up, getting enough to eat, more heat – in some parts of French Guiana, people don’t have water.

These crises, a consequence of Western capitalist madness, primarily affect the most vulnerable: women and communities dependent on forests and rivers. But they also concern all of humanity: French Guiana is part of the Amazon, a regulator of the global climate and essential to planetary balance.

We remind you that French Guiana is the last colony in South America without self-determination. We will not be able to protect our environment or guarantee our food and energy self-sufficiency, essential for our collective survival, as long as decisions are made in Paris without consulting the affected communities or taking into account local specificities.

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Release of report comes amid conjecture Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuelan president

The White House under Gerald Ford tried to block a landmark Senate report that disclosed the CIA’s role in assassination attempts against foreign leaders and ultimately led to a radical overhaul in how the agency was held to account, documents released to mark the 50th anniversary of the report’s publication reveal.

The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research group, as it sought to highlight the report’s significance amid conjecture that Donald Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, amid a massive US military build-up against the country.

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Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he is ready to fight for transition roadmap despite opposition from some states

• Cop30 climate conference – live updates

• All the coverage from Cop30

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has told Cop30 delegates that he will take his fossil fuel transition roadmap to the G20 in Johannesburg this week to campaign for it, despite reports that petrostates have said they will not accept the plan.

Before leaving Cop30 in Belém, the figurehead of the global south told civil society representatives he was ready to fight for the proposal to phase out oil, coal and gas in whatever forum was necessary.

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Scourge of goldfish has become growing problem as fish are released by pet owners into increasingly warm waters

City officials in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, plan to cull thousands of feral goldfish from a stormwater pond, a decision that reflects the pervasive spread of the species throughout the region.

Earlier in the year, city staff removed 5,000 fish from the city’s Celebration Park. But as many as 1,000 more are believed to still be living in the water.

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The former president’s far-right supporters have discovered a new interest in prison conditions as incarceration looms

He fought the law and the law won.

Two months after receiving a 27-year sentence for trying to “annihilate” Brazil’s democratic institutions, former president Jair Bolsonaro finally looks jail-bound.

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It’s a climate-vulnerable nation, while also being the world’s sixth-largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Global investment in climate action is vital

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Penny Wong says translation notes were ‘taken hastily’ by official who was not accredited translator and were ‘for internal purposes only’

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A top secret translation of the Nauruan president’s public commentary on the NZYQ deal will remain suppressed for a decade after the Albanese government considered its release “inappropriate”.

Nauru declined to endorse an informal translation by Australia’s high commission of the 10-minute public interview uploaded to Facebook in February, nor did it provide its own translation, newly released documents reveal.

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Guo, who pretended to be Filipina to become mayor, found guilty of human trafficking after raid on compound where more than 700 people were forced to run scams

Alice Guo, a Chinese national who became a mayor in the Philippines while masquerading as a Filipina, has been sentenced to life in prison along with seven others on human trafficking charges, state prosecutors have said.

Guo, who served as mayor of a town north of Manila, was found guilty of overseeing a Chinese-operated online gambling centre where hundreds of people were forced to run scams or risk torture.

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Prime minister has accused the Samoa Observer of inaccurate reporting during his eight-week medical stay in New Zealand

Samoa’s only daily newspaper has been banned from attending press conferences with the Samoan prime minister, in a move that critics say threatens the democratic integrity of the Pacific nation.

Relations between La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Fosi Schmidt and the Samoa Observer have deteriorated in recent weeks, with the prime minister accusing the newspaper of inaccurate reporting during his eight-week medical stay in New Zealand.

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Australia had been pushing to host climate conference next year with south Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters

Papua New Guinea has voiced frustration after Australia ditched a bid to co-host next year’s UN climate talks with its Pacific island neighbours.

“We are all not happy. And disappointed it’s ended up like this,” foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told Agence France-Presse after Australia ceded hosting rights to Turkey.

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Former attorney general says it is ‘past time’ for another vote. Follow today’s news live

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Victoria makes it free to change gender on birth certificate

The Victorian government will make it free for trans and gender diverse people to officially change their gender on a birth certificate.

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Queensland researchers studying intimate-partner killings found one thing common to more than half the cases

• Police made potentially critical mistakes in Hannah Clarke murders, new evidence reveals

• Read more from Guardian Australia’s two-year investigation here

When researchers in Queensland catalogued data from seven years of intimate-partner killings, they found one thing common to more than half of those cases – a victim’s own sense of fear about their impending death.

Statistically, the most reliable way to predict a domestic violence homicide is to believe the victim.

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SunCable says massive energy project proposed in NT could position Australia as global leader but critics are concerned about scale

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Energy company SunCable says a massive solar farm it has proposed building in the Northern Territory could power an AI datacentre precinct in the region to position Australia as a global leader in “green industrial development”.

The development would be Australia’s largest solar farm and would generate up to 20GW of electricity, or 10 times the output of a large coal-fired station. It would add to the company’s plans to build a 12,000ha solar farm at Powell Creek Station, south of Elliott, as part of its proposed Australia-Asia Power Link project.

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Exclusive: Guidance distributed to MPs seeks to pre-empt questions about plan’s compatibility with Paris agreement, indicating opposition is aware of potential breach

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Coalition MPs are being told to argue that the decision to dump a net zero emissions target is “entirely consistent” with the Paris agreement, despite leaked documents suggesting the opposition is aware such a position could conflict with Australia’s obligations under the climate pact.

Guardian Australia has obtained talking points issued to MPs to help them stay on message about Sussan Ley’s new energy and emissions plan, which was finalised on Sunday after months of bitter infighting.

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AFP allege the 30-year-old sent a ‘menacing message’ to an MP believed to be Allegra Spender after she condemned far-right protests

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A 30-year-old man has been arrested and charged by Australian police after allegedly harassing a politician who condemned a neo-Nazi protest outside the New South Wales parliament.

The Australian federal police arrested the man in the Sydney suburb of Bondi and allege he sent a “menacing message” that encouraged abusive and hateful messages to be directed towards a federal politician as a result of the condemnation.

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Ukrainian president’s office issues statement after other officials condemn ‘absurd’ plan to end conflict

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said he will negotiate with Donald Trump on a US-backed peace plan that called on Kyiv to make painful concessions in order to end the Kremlin’s invasion of his country.

Zelenskyy’s office on Thursday confirmed that he had received the draft peace plan, which was prepared by US and Russian officials, and that he would speak with Trump in the coming days about “existing diplomatic opportunities and the main points that are necessary for peace”.

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Statement from Ukrainian president’s office says country supports all ‘meaningful proposals capable of bringing true peace closer’

In the last hour, Ukraine said it had received from Russia the remains of 1,000 people that Moscow said were killed Ukrainian soldiers, in the latest repatriation – a rare area of cooperation between the warring sides, AFP reported.

“Today, repatriation measures took place. 1000 bodies, claimed by the Russian side to belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on social media.

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Foreign ministers express misgivings about draft US-Russian peace plan favourable to Putin

• Europe live – latest updates

Europeans must be involved in any attempt to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, the continent’s top diplomats said after reports of a US-Russia plan favourable to Kremlin interests emerged.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, welcomed any “meaningful efforts” to end the war, but said Ukrainian and European input was needed for any plan to work.

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Pedro Sánchez says his country must defend the democratic freedom ‘wrenched from us for so many years’

Spain has marked the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death with an absence of official events but a call from the prime minister to heed the lessons of the dictatorship and defend the democratic freedom “wrenched from us for so many years”.

Franco, whose military coup against the elected republican government in 1936 triggered a civil war and brought about four decades of dictatorship, died in Madrid on 20 November 1975.

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French government withdraws funding after claims of toxic management and dismissal of staff member who lodged rape complaint

One of the world’s most prestigious comic book festivals is under threat of cancellation after leading graphic novelists and publishers announced they would boycott the event and the French government withdrew a tranche of its funding.

In the biggest crisis in its illustrious history, the Angoulême festival of la bande dessinée (comic strip) may not take place in 2026 after claims of toxic management and the dismissal of a member of staff who had lodged a rape complaint.

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Medical officials say 17 people killed in Khan Younis area and 16 in strikes on Gaza City

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 33 people and injured many more, according to medical officials, in one of the most serious escalations of violence since the US-backed ceasefire came into effect last month.

Officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said they received the bodies of 17 people, including five women and five children, after four Israeli airstrikes targeted tents sheltering displaced people. In Gaza City, medical officials said two airstrikes killed 16 people, including seven children and three women.

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Saad Almadi’s family thanks Trump and state department as announcement comes after meeting with crown prince

Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.

Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.

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Exclusive: Images are first indication that Israel has used cluster munitions in nearly 20 years

Israel used widely banned cluster munitions in its recent 13-month war in Lebanon, photos of munition remnants in south Lebanon seen by the Guardian suggest.

The images, which have been examined by six different arms experts, appear to show the remnants of two different types of Israeli cluster munitions found in three different locations: south of the Litani River in the forested valleys of Wadi Zibqin, Wadi Barghouz and Wadi Deir Siryan.

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• Trump shrugs off Khashoggi murder during Saudi prince’s White House visit

A reminder that Donald Trump’s family has a strong personal interest in Saudi Arabia. In September, London real estate developer Dar Global announced that it plans to launch Trump Plaza in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

It’s Dar Global’s second collaboration with the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by the US president’s children, in the kingdom. Last year, the two companies announced the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah.

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Senior aide to Mohammed bin Salman allegedly led campaign to identify users who were posting critically about Saudi regime

A senior official in Mohammed bin Salman’s entourage, who is expected to travel with the crown prince on his first trip back to the US in seven years, has previously been accused by US prosecutors of playing a central role in a conspiracy to infiltrate Twitter and identify users who were posting critically about the Saudi regime.

Bader al-Asaker, who has headed Prince Mohammed’s private office since before he became crown prince, has never been formally charged by the US government for his role in the 2014-15 scheme, but was accused in court by a US government lawyer as having led the campaign to find a “mole” who would be able to extract sensitive information from the social media company, which is now known as X.

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Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’

The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.

Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.

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Hasina sentenced in absentia by court in Dhaka over deadly crackdown on student-led uprising last year

Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Dhaka for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

A three-judge bench of the country’s international crimes tribunal convicted Hasina of crimes including incitement, orders to kill and inaction to prevent atrocities as she oversaw a crackdown on anti-government protesters last year.

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The accidental explosion comes days after a deadly car blast in New Delhi which killed at least eight people near the city’s historic Red Fort

At least nine people were killed and 32 injured after a cache of confiscated explosives detonated inside a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police have announced.

The blast occurred in the Nowgam area of Srinagar, the region’s main city, late on Friday while a team of forensic experts and police were examining the explosive material, said Nalin Prabhat, the region’s police director general. He ruled out any foul play, saying it was an accident.

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Investigators believe an explosion that killed 13 people may be linked to group operating in the disputed region

Police have carried out raids and made several arrests across the Indian region of Kashmir in the aftermath of a car explosion in Delhi that left 13 people dead.

On Wednesday, the Indian government confirmed it was treating the blast as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”. The explosion took place outside one of India’s most significant monuments during rush hour on Monday evening.

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Cabinet says explosion near Red Fort that killed 12 is suspected to have been perpetrated by ‘anti-national forces’

India has confirmed it is treating the explosion that killed 12 people outside Delhi’s Red Fort on Monday as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”.

The statement by the cabinet, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, confirmed mounting speculation that a terrorist attack was behind the blast that took place during peak time in one of the capital’s busiest areas and outside one of India’s major landmarks.

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Report from inquiry’s second module also says Johnson as PM ‘at times actively encouraged’ chaotic culture

• ‘Too little, too late’: report condemns Covid response

• ‘Chaotic and indecisive’: UK’s response under Tories

Dominic Cummings “poisoned the atmosphere” of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street during the Covid crisis, the official inquiry into the pandemic has found, saying he helped create a toxic and macho culture with the full connivance of the then prime minister.

Johnson’s chief aide “strayed far from the proper role of a special adviser”, the report finds, making “key decisions in 10 Downing Street which were for the prime minister to make”.

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Findings of inquiry into handling of pandemic by Boris Johnson’s government paint picture of delay and inaction

In an interview with ITV, Keir Starmer also defended the decision to delay the publication of the government’s review of educational provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilties (Send) in England until next year. He said the government needed to take time to get this right. He said:

We do need to attend to Send provision. I think uniformly there’s a sense that the system at the moment isn’t working and needs reform.

My strong view is we need to get that reform right and therefore we need to take the time to consult with parents and others.

These breakfast clubs are a real gamechanger.

They’re free and you saw this morning how much the children enjoy them. They’re getting a decent meal, and they’re getting activity, and that sets them up for the day.

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Official report condemns handling of pandemic by leaders of the UK’s devolved nations

Nicola Sturgeon excluded senior advisers from decision-making during the pandemic by holding “gold command meetings” with a small circle, reducing transparency and accountability, the Covid inquiry has found.

In a damning report on how UK politicians handled Covid, former prime minister Boris Johnson was criticised for presiding over a “toxic and chaotic” culture and making late decisions that cost lives.

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Liz Kendall and Jo Stevens intervene after about 20 people claim they witnessed or were victims of Farage’s behaviour

Cabinet ministers have described detailed and multiple allegations of racism by Nigel Farage as a teenager as “repulsive” and doubled down on Keir Starmer’s call for Farage to address the claims.

Liz Kendall, the secretary for science and innovation and technology, said she was appalled by the descriptions reported by the Guardian.

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Stephen Lawrence’s mother tells inquiry she did not believe Michael Howard when he told her he did not know police had spied on her family

The mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has told a public inquiry that she does not believe claims by the former home secretary Michael Howard that he did not know undercover police officers had spied on her family.

Doreen Lawrence told the spycops inquiry on Thursday that Lord Howard, a former leader of the Conservative party, invited her to a meeting shortly after the inquiry was set up in 2014.

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Karoline Leavitt says Trump doesn’t want to execute Democrats after president’s earlier social post suggesting their behavior is ‘punishable by DEATH’

The Trump administration presented a new plan to roll back regulations in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Wednesday, a move experts fear will accelerate the extinction crisis if adopted.

The proposed changes would allow the federal government more power to weigh economic impact against habitat designations, remove safeguards against future events – including the impacts from the climate crisis – and rescind the “blanket rule” that automatically grants threatened species the same protections as those designated as endangered.

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Trump calls group of lawmakers ‘traitors’ over X video of them urging US military members to refuse illegal orders

• US politics live – latest updates

Democrats expressed outrage after Donald Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of being “traitors” and said that they should be arrested and punished “by death” after they posted a video in which they told active service members they should refuse illegal orders.

The video, released on Tuesday, features six Democratic lawmakers who have previously served in the military or in intelligence roles, including senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and representatives Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan and Jason Crow.

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Senate majority leader, John Thune, and others push the attorney general to release Epstein records within 30 days

• US politics live – latest updates

Within hours of Donald Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, Republican senators were on the ground to issue a pointed message to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi: don’t bury these documents.

The bill’s passage marked a rare moment of bipartisan support in an otherwise ideologically fractured Congress as it now sets a 30-day deadline for the release of Department of Justice files related to the actions of convicted sex offender of minors and financier Jeffrey Epstein, dubbed by a judge “the most infamous pedophile in American history”.

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San Francisco supervisor, 47, highlighting work on affordability for working families in US House run

Connie Chan, a progressive lawmaker who serves on the San Francisco board of supervisors, has entered the race to succeed the former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi next year.

In a Thursday announcement, Chan, 47, said the race was about “local neighborhoods versus outside money” and highlighted her work trying to make San Francisco more affordable for working families.

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Joe Biden and George W Bush attend Republican’s service, while Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are notable absentees

Donald Trump and JD Vance have been snubbed, by not being invited to former vice-president Dick Cheney’s funeral, taking place on Thursday, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.

Cheney, the former US vice-president to George W Bush and a Republican defense hawk who became a fierce critic of the current US president, died earlier this month at the age of 84.

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