World news | The Guardian

After a month-long investigation it was concluded that Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter, which won the £10,000 Caine prize, was ‘human-written’

The Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza has been cleared of using AI to write a prize-winning short story, after the prestigious Caine prize for African writers concluded that his entry was “human-written” after a month-long investigation.

Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter, which charts the declining fortunes of a family after the father invests in fish tanks, was announced as the winner of the £10,000 prize on 6 October.

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Seven-time F1 world champion tours border area and logistics warehouses operated by Egyptian Red Crescent

Lewis Hamilton has visited Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip to meet organisations sending humanitarian aid to the territory.

The seven-time Formula One world champion has spoken out about conflict and humanitarian crises in the region, and has called for peace. He has frequently posted on social media about children killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and called for a ceasefire.

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President orders prompt investigation after one train derails in collision in al-Ayyat about 50km from Cairo

Seven people were killed and at least 125 injured when two trains collided on Sunday south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, officials said.

The crash occurred in al-Ayyat district in Giza province, about 50km (30 miles) south of Cairo, when a train travelling to Fayoum province crashed into the rear of a train heading to the southern province of Aswan, according to the transport ministry.

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See My World, an event highlighting the pan-African thought via film, poetry and dance, builds on momentum sparked by local activists and creatives

African philosophies including exploring how lessons from the past can shape the present and near future have inspired a film festival coming to Manchester.

See My World, a day dedicated to independent creators from across the African diaspora in the north of England, will take place at the Contact theatre on 21 November.

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Paul Mackenzie convicted over deaths of children and one adult after followers were ordered to starve themselves and their families

The leader of a Kenyan doomsday sect has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult disasters in recent history.

The sentence, comprising 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years by direct homicide, came two weeks after the court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa found the cult leader guilty of the crimes.

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People around the world have contended with unprecedented weather events and their fatal effects caused by the climate catastrophe

After the world’s hottest summer since records began in 1850, the death toll from extreme weather in 2026 is already in the high tens of thousands. That is a conservative estimate and is certain to rise much higher.

As Cop31 continues and scientists warn that climate breakdown may be accelerating, the Guardian looks back at a year of droughts, fires and floods as a reminder that, unless the world takes urgent action to cut emissions, this disastrous year will be one of the best of the rest of our lives.

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Heavy rain and strong winds have also caused disruption across British Columbia, Canada, over the last week

Storm Charles has brought destructive weather to the Iberian peninsula this week, particularly in Portugal and the far south of Spain. Heavy rain and strong south-westerly winds arrived first in the Portuguese island of Madeira, before the system headed towards the mainland on 11 November. A wind gust of 84.5mph (136 km/h) was recorded at Funchal airport, alongside rainfall totals reaching 355mm (13.97in) in 12 hours. In Lisbon, 183 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, about a third of its normal daily traffic, while Madrid Barajas airport had 155 cancellations.

After causing widespread flooding in Spain and Portugal, the system moved on a north-easterly track through southern France and then towards northern Italy. This resulted in significant flooding in parts of Cannes, some of which caused rock falls and led to the closure of roads along the French Riviera. The Italian weather service issued a red rainfall warning, its highest level, for the area extending from Tuscany to Venezia. Further heavy rain is expected to fall in Italy and the Balkans over the next few days, with the latest forecast models indicating an additional 100mm could accumulate widely, while totals close to 200mm are likely in more mountainous areas.

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Remains believed to have belonged to Africans or Afro-Brazilians repatriated after being flown back by diplomats

Two skulls, including that of a man believed to have taken part in Brazil’s greatest slave revolt but whose remains were taken to the United States and used in racist eugenics studies at Harvard University, were repatriated on Wednesday.

The remains had been outside Brazil since the 19th century. One was taken about 190 years ago from Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia; the other, about 160 years ago, from Rio de Janeiro – and were welcomed back in moving, subdued ceremonies in both cities.

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Leonardo Bertulazzi, 74, awaiting extradition to Italy, reportedly used harness to flee custody

A 74-year-old former member of Italy’s radical Marxist group the Red Brigades has escaped from house arrest in Argentina, the country’s security ministry confirmed on Wednesday, after he reportedly hid his ankle monitor inside a tube of pork and lowered himself from a fifth-floor balcony.

Authorities placed Leonardo Bertulazzi under house arrest in Buenos Aires in 2024, prior to his extradition to Italy to serve a 27-year prison sentence. He had received the sentence in 1987 for joining a subversive association and belonging to an armed group.

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Lawyer says Britain wrong to believe in historic doctrine that crown has sovereignty over parts of oceans

Britain should not be permitted to act as a 17th-century colonial power treating the waters around the Falkland Islands as a Dominium maris Britannici, Argentina has told an international tribunal.

Marcelo Kohen, representing Argentina at a hearing in Hamburg, mocked Britain for apparently believing in the historic doctrine that the British crown has sovereignty over expansive parts of the oceans.

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Filipino entry, pop and rap song Sobra-Sobra, takes 19-year-old to victory at grand final in Bangkok

Carmelle Collado has won the first Eurovision song contest Asia, taking the Philippines’ entry, Sobra-Sobra, to victory in Bangkok on Saturday night, at the first regional edition of the contest to be staged outside Europe.

Eleven countries competed at the One Bangkok Forum in central Bangkok, and the show ran for two and a half hours including advertising.

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US commerce secretary faces sack as questions emerge over senior Trump officials’ knowledge of alleged Chinese spy’s ties to Jensen Huang

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The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is facing growing pressure over his apparent lack of action over the Nvidia spying scandal as other Trump administration officials publicly raise questions over his decisions.

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, blamed Lutnick’s commerce department for the fact the US had not imposed export restrictions on certain Nvidia chips to China.

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Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law and journalist Danny Vincent on the sentencing of the iconic Hong Kong campaigner Joshua Wong to another 10 years in prison. Send your comments and questions to tif.questions@theguardian.com

He has been leading protests since he was 14. Joshua Wong has been on the cover of Time magazine, the focus of a Netflix documentary and an icon for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Wong has been leading the fight against a Chinese squeeze on freedoms in Hong Kong for the last 15 years. He will now spend more than 16 years in prison.

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Decision disappoints experts hoping for world’s biggest emitter to take global lead on climate crisis

China has ruled out hosting the Cop33 UN climate summit in 2028 after months of deliberations, leaving the field open for other Asian countries to hold it, the Guardian understands.

The decision will disappoint many countries and climate experts, who had hoped the world’s biggest emitter would take the lead on the global stage, as the US under Donald Trump has vacated all forms of international cooperation on the climate.

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In today’s newsletter: US intelligence reportedly believes the former tech executive was recruited by Beijing, raising questions about the security of the AI industry and Trump’s close ties to Nvidia chief Jensen Huang

Good morning. Espionage is supposed to be a secretive business, and spies are supposed to be virtually invisible. That hasn’t been the case for Alice Huang, the mysterious Shanghai executive who formed a romantic relationship with Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia, one of America’s most powerful tech companies.

Many questions have arisen since it emerged that US intelligence believes that Huang (no relation of Jensen’s) is an asset recruited by the Chinese intelligence services to spy on behalf of Beijing. This morning’s newsletter explains what we know about the story, and what it tells us about the effectiveness of Chinese espionage. That’s after the headlines.

UK | Ministers are considering changing the law to force the entertainment industry to better protect women and children in the wake of the revelations over David Walliams and the conviction of Russell Brand.

Climate | The UK government has appointed the world’s first special representative for climate security, in the strongest sign yet of fears that climate breakdown will bring chaos to the country.

US midterms | Democrat Scott Colom has become the first Black senator in Mississippi to be elected since Reconstruction, in a stunning upset after more than a week of vote counting in one of the country’s most reliably red states.

Europe | Millions of people across Spain have joined the country’s first general strike in 14 years, setting up picket lines to protest against soaring housing prices before an election in which the far right could be catapulted into power.

Technology | Police officers risk arresting innocent people, especially from ethnic minorities, if they treat inaccurate facial recognition data as evidence, an official report has found.

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With Myer’s profitability battered and share price languishing near all-time lows, DJs’ slide into administration raises an uncomfortable question

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When the retailer’s doors slide open, shoppers are greeted by rows of slashed price tags, frantic discounting, and all the other hallmarks of a department store closing down.

Except, this isn’t David Jones, the embattled upmarket retailer that is shutting half its 38 stores.

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Parliamentarians across factional lines share concerns about policy that legal expert says ‘paints the imprisonment of children as therapeutic’

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Until December last year, Meena Singh was Victoria’s commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people, a role in which she advocated for some of the state’s most vulnerable children.

She had held the role since 2022. In all that time, she says, nobody from the Victorian government had approached her with a proposal like the one the Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, announced last week: a $204m “tough love” plan to send children who commit low- and mid-level offences to secure facilities, including the former Malmsbury youth justice centre, for schooling, drug and alcohol treatment and to learn life skills.

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Andrew McLachlan says he chooses ‘real forests over virtual ones’ as he urges Labor government to consider AI’s impact on artists and environment

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Outspoken Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan has raised the alarm about the approach of his party and the Labor government to AI, urging artists’ copyright not be “sacrificed” for investment and that building new datacentres must not be prioritised above environmental concerns.

As Labor considers copyright changes in an AI policy suite including datacentres, online safety, energy resources and economic benefits, the South Australian backbencher added weight to mooted constitutional challenges as to whether watering down copyright law would be an illegal acquisition of property.

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Experts say disruption exposes ‘Australia’s reliance on foreign technology’ as software giant says services being restored

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The Microsoft outage could be a disaster for the Australian economy that forces some small businesses to close, with costs expected to run into the billions of dollars, experts have warned.

The US software company has said it is “deeply sorry” for a widespread outage that caused disruption to millions of users, organisations and businesses across the globe – and that it has “addressed the underlying issue”.

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Sydney and Melbourne airports say flights were affected by now-lifted ban on departures in US

• US flight outage – live updates

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Some US-bound flights from Sydney airport were grounded or delayed on Saturday after American authorities halted departures and delayed landings at all US airports.

Flights from Melbourne airport were also affected, with travel for passengers expected to depart for Los Angeles shortly after 10am being delayed by almost three hours.

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James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, a Cox Enterprises heir, faced a two-hour hearing about alleged support for Hamas

A two-hour hearing in Spain’s high court Friday on the US extradition request of wealthy leftwing activist and philanthropist James “Fergie” Chambers turned out to be a study in contrasts.

Chambers’s defense took most of the session to query the US citizen and detail irregularities in the Trump administration’s extradition request – several of which the Guardian has reported on – as well as the figures of Spanish law that would lead the three-judge panel to deny the request; while the prosecutor sped through his case, head down, asking Chambers no questions at all.

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Eurotunnel owner Getlink wants to replicate ‘airport experience’ at Folkestone and Calais, without making people get out of cars

Airport-style passport and fingerprinting controls are to be introduced at Eurotunnel in an attempt to prevent “short-term and long-term chaos” in Folkestone and Calais.

In a breakthrough for travellers, the European Commission has agreed to a new system in which an “eagle eye” camera system, already used in Rome and Paris airports to supervise fingerprinting and facial imaging, will be used at the border between the UK and France.

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Prospect of partial return to Budapest by Central European University suggests confidence in Hungary’s future

A university that Viktor Orbán tried to chase out of Hungary is open to expanding its presence in Budapest, in a mark of confidence in the country’s democratic future.

Carsten Q Schneider, the interim president and rector of Central European University (CEU), said it was interested in increasing its programmes in Budapest, as long as this did not damage the student experience.

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Anti-corruption agency carried out searches as part of investigation into Orbán-era minister accused of taking bribes

Hungary’s anti-corruption agency said on Friday it had seized cash worth $19.5m (£14.8m) buried in forests and hidden elsewhere while investigating an ex-minister of nationalist former leader Viktor Orbán’s cabinet.

Miklós Seszták, Hungary’s minister of national development between 2014 and 2018, is accused of taking bribes in a scheme involving the state transport company, purchasing secondhand buses at inflated prices.

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Kaja Kallas says Moscow is trying to divert attention from its aggression by raising issue of European security

The EU’s foreign policy chief has warned against “walking into the traps that Russia is setting” as she said Moscow was trying to start a debate about European security in order to divert attention from its aggression.

“We have one aggressor and one victim, and the aggressor does not have security concerns,” Kaja Kallas said on arrival at an EU leaders’ summit in Dublin. “Nobody has ever attacked them. They have attacked others. I mean, keep the focus, people.”

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Prime ministerial hopeful calls Arab minority ‘an integral part of the Israeli story’ as he seeks to form government

Israeli prime ministerial hopeful Gadi Eisenkot condemned a “racist and aggressive campaign of delegitimisation” against the country’s Arab citizens, after the caretaker prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Arab parties of electoral fraud without evidence.

Netanyahu has repeatedly targeted Arab parties and Palestinian citizens of Israel after his party received a disappointing electoral showing, accusing them of manipulating the election and being linked to Hamas. Israeli electoral authorities have rejected these claims as not being backed by evidence.

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First direct attack on US military installations for months was in response to US airstrike on communications tower

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has targeted and destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain in response to a US airstrike on a communications tower in Sirik overlooking the strait of Hormuz. It is Iran’s first direct attack on US military installations for months.

“This is a serious warning to the aggressor enemy to end its aerial mischief and oil smuggling in the strait of Hormuz,” the IRGC said. “In the event of repeated violations and aggression, the IRGC aerospace force is on full alert to confront the enemy without constraint.”

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Political prisoner Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, one of seven athletes at risk of execution in Iran, given prestigious Magnitsky humanitarian award

A boxer and political prisoner on death row in Iran said he will “never surrender” as he accepted a prestigious human rights prize on behalf of “the generation that is paying the price of freedom with their lives”.

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, an Iranian boxing champion, coach and political prisoner, has been sentenced to death three times and is one of seven athletes at risk of execution in Iran. He was given the Magnitsky award for outstanding human rights activist at a ceremony in London on Thursday night.

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Mostafa Sepahvand and Farhad Javadi Manesh carried out surveillance in an effort to inflict violence on targets

Two men of Iranian origin who were hired through social media as part of a plan to “eliminate” journalists in the UK have been found guilty of assisting Tehran’s intelligence services.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, carried out surveillance and reconnaissance between August 2024 and March last year in an attempt to inflict violence on “subjects” in the UK.

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• F1 driver urges Israel to let aid into Gaza

• Trip involved tour of facilities with aid workers

Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton said on Wednesday that Israel must allow aid ⁠trucks into Gaza, a day after he visited the Rafah border crossing in Egypt.

Hamilton, a seven-time ⁠world champion, arrived ⁠in ​El Arish on Tuesday, where he was briefed on how aid is prepared and coordinated before it ⁠is sent into Gaza, as he toured the Rafah crossing and the Egyptian Red Crescent’s aid warehouses.

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Former prime minister faces death penalty upon return after being sentenced in absentia over deaths in 2024 uprising

Sheikh Hasina is “confident” she will return to Bangladesh in December, according to exiled members of her party, after the disgraced former prime minister applied for a new passport this week.

Hasina has been living in self-imposed exile since August 2024 when she was toppled from power by a mass uprising against her authoritarian rule. She crossed the border to India, where she has since been allowed to live freely in Delhi.

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From the assassinations of her husband and mother-in-law to press stonewalling under Modi, Belonging offers an insider’s account of India’s political evolution

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Few love stories have been as closely entwined with a nation’s history as that of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. The former’s much-awaited political memoir, Belonging, offers a strikingly candid account of her journey from a small town in Italy to the highest echelons of power in India – all for love, she says.

The veteran Congress party leader has been fiercely protective of her personal world. In Belonging, she opens up for the first time about the extraordinary twists and turns of a life that has largely unfolded in full public view. (The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen has a rare in-person interview with Gandhi, and you can read an excerpt from the book here.)

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Mumbai facility is part of Reliance Industries, owner of world’s biggest oil refinery and funder of controversial mega-zoo

The Prince of Wales’s Earthshot prize will host its forthcoming annual awards ceremony at a venue owned by the billionaire Ambani family conglomerate, drawing criticism from conservationists over their fossil fuel businesses and their foundation’s controversial mega-zoo.

A spokesperson for the Earthshot prize, which awards £1m to five winners every year to invest in conservation work, confirmed to the Guardian and the news outlet Mongabay that this year’s ceremony will be held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai on 17 November.

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A previously unseen family archive offers a glimpse into the Indian Nobel prize winner’s artistic process and personal relationships in his final years

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It’s easy to run out of words to describe Rabindranath Tagore. The first non-European to win the Nobel prize in literature, Tagore was a Bengali poet, musician, novelist, philosopher, songwriter, painter, humanist and educator.

Born in 1861, Tagore left an indelible mark on the subcontinent’s literature, music, education and art. Among his enduring legacies are the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.

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Guardian and Mongabay reveal approaches to officials and MPs on behalf of Vantara zoo ahead of UK-chaired Cites meeting on endangered animal imports

British government ministers were told not to engage formally with Vantara, the controversial mega-zoo run by the Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, after lobbying efforts by the private animal sanctuary in the run-up to a UK-chaired meeting on the trade in endangered species, according to documents.

This week, the UK heads a 32-country committee meeting in Geneva of Cites, the United Nations body that regulates trade in endangered species. The meeting will examine how India has responded to compliance concerns about imports of endangered animals.

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Appeal for information comes after Brenda Raymond, 80, was set on fire outside her flat on Monday

The family of an elderly woman who was set on fire outside a block of flats in Watford have said they are “desperate for answers”.

Brenda Raymond, 80, was found set alight outside her flat on Caractacus Cottage View on Monday. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she is in critical condition.

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Exclusive: 2,850 more patients a month would need to be treated within 62 days to meet March 2027 goal, as experts warn of failure of leadership

Nearly 10,000 more cancer patients in England will not be treated on time because the government will fail to meet its targets, amid a failure of leadership, focus and resource, experts have warned.

The NHS set an interim target to treat 80% of cancer patients within 62 days of urgent referral or consultant upgrade by March 2027. But with little more than 100 days to go, the proportion of patients starting treatment on time in September was 70.7%, down from 71.9% in August, NHS figures show.

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UKHSA warns of threat to vulnerable people from frosty conditions expected to last until Thursday

More cold health alerts have been issued for parts of the UK on Sunday night and next week.

The alerts were issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) for the north-west, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, and will be in place from 9pm on Sunday until 9am on Thursday.

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Raising borrowing costs too far risks laying waste to whatever growth there is in the economy

A head of steam is building up behind the Bank of England raising interest rates again. With the latest forecasts by the central bank showing inflation rising to 5% next spring, another increase in the cost of borrowing seems inevitable, and may come as soon as next month.

A growing number of analysts predict the Bank’s policymakers will don Scrooge masks when they meet on 17 December to deliver a message of austerity and sacrifice.

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PM accuses Tories of burning ‘all our bridges’ and says deal he is pursuing with EU will ‘get food prices down’

Andy Burnham has said the UK has “lost more than we gained” since leaving the EU, the prime minister’s latest in a string of comments criticising Brexit.

Outlining his desire to form closer ties with Brussels, Burnham accused the Conservative party of having “burned all our bridges” with the bloc after Brexit and said a new deal he hopes to secure with the EU next week will “get food prices down” and put more money in the pockets of British exporters.

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Although booster exploded, company caught upper stage for first time in campaign to make megarocket reusable

SpaceX’s megarocket Starship returned to its Texas launch tower on Saturday, a milestone in the company’s efforts to make the craft suitable for human spaceflight.

The 171ft (52-meter) bullet-shaped upper stage descended into the clutch of the tower’s mechanical arms, ending a 22hr mission where the craft orbited Earth 14 times.

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Peoria officials said a bomb was found at BioUrja Renewables and later defused; FBI said it is investigating

Residents were ordered to evacuate parts of an Illinois community on Friday after the mayor there said authorities found a bomb at a local ethanol- and alcohol-production plant.

The discovery reported at BioUrja Renewables in Peoria triggered a mandatory evacuation over a one-mile evacuation zone encompassing sections of that city as well as the adjacent municipality of East Peoria. Officials ultimately lifted the evacuation zone at about 1.25pm local time on Saturday – but only after making it clear there had genuinely been a bomb found and ruling out the presence of any other explosives.

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Thousands of flights still canceled as officials blamed ageing air control system for nationwide grounding

The Trump administration says Friday’s four-hour nationwide Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop that delayed or canceled thousands of flight stemmed from routine maintenance.

At a news briefing on Saturday, the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said that the issues began when a contractor was performing “routine maintenance” at a remote FAA facility to “switch telecommunications lines” from copper wire to fiber optic cable.

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Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins’ victory means Democrats will now hold 30 US governorships after midterm blowout

Democrats have captured Alaska’s governor’s seat for the first time in nearly three decades, marking another major victory for their party in a midterm election period that has dramatically shifted political power across the US.

Former Alaska state legislator Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins defeated three Republican opponents, including a candidate backed by Donald Trump, becoming the first Democrat elected governor of Alaska since 1998.

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Authorities declined to file charges against napping woman whose truck accelerated on to field during youth game

A soccer mom napping in her pickup truck when it suddenly accelerated on to the field at a Kansas youth tournament where her child was playing, killing two people, won’t face criminal charges, a prosecutor has said.

Investigators believe the 34-year-old woman had failed to put the Chevrolet 1500 in park and likely put her foot on the gas pedal while sleeping at the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita on 17 October. They conducted multiple interviews and even ran a test in the same parking spot with a similar vehicle.

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