World news | The Guardian

Advocates fear that other donors will follow Britain’s reduction to the Global Fund for Aids, TB and malaria

The UK is undermining its legacy in fighting infectious diseases including Aids and malaria by cutting money pledged to a leading global health fund, campaigners claim.

The 15% reduction in the contribution to the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced this week – in a year when the UK, alongside South Africa, is co-host of the fund’s replenishment drive – risks encouraging other countries to cut back commitments as well, advocates fear.

The Gates Foundation is a major private contributor to the Global Fund. The foundation also contributes to theguardian.org, which funds independent journalism at the Guardian

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Passengers held on runway for 12 hours after landing in Johannesburg without travel documents

South Africa will investigate the “mysterious” arrival of scores of Palestinians who were kept on a charter plane at Johannesburg for 12 hours by border police because they did not have travel papers, the president has said.

A group of 153 Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo international iarport in Johannesburg on a chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya on Thursday without departure stamps, return tickets or details of accommodation, according to the border authorities.

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Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.

Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.

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Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise

A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.

The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.

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British American Tobacco pushed Zambian ministers to drop or delay ad bans, health warnings and restrictions on flavoured products, letter shows

British American Tobacco has been accused of “utter hypocrisy” for lobbying against tobacco control measures in Africa that are already in place in the UK.

A letter seen by the Guardian, sent from the company’s subsidiary in Zambia to the country’s government ministers, asks for plans to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship to be abandoned or delayed.

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Sonia Guajajara tells Cop30 the rights of traditional communities must be maintained in the face of exploitation by the mining industry

Countries must recognise the demarcation of Indigenous lands as a key component of tackling the climate crisis, and civil society must help in the defence of such lands against mining interests, Brazil’s minister for Indigenous peoples has said.

Sonia Guajajara, a longtime Indigenous activist before being appointed a minister by President Lula da Silva, said: “[Among the goals of the Cop30 summit is] a request that countries recognise the demarcation of Indigenous lands as climate policy.”

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Munduruku people demand to speak to Brazil’s president, saying they are never listened to

• Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in Brazil

Protesters blockaded the main entrance to the Cop30 climate conference for several hours early on Friday morning, demanding to speak to Brazil’s president about the plight of the country’s Indigenous peoples.

About 50 people from the Munduruku people in the Amazon basin blocked the entrance with some assistance from international green groups, watched by a huge phalanx of riot police, soldiers and military vehicles.

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The $C56bn plan focused on investing in a resource economy falls short of changing Canadians’ day-to-day lives

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, likes to say that when he was young, “we used to build big things in this country, and we used to build them quickly.”

That idea – of sprawling projects that transform nations, has influenced both his narrative as an economist turned politician and his government’s multibillion-dollar investment spree. “It’s time to get back at it, and get on with it,” he said in September.

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Authoritarian leader calls for US to make peace amid military buildup and strikes against alleged drug smugglers

• Explainer: is US preparing to attack Venezuela?

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”.

Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region.

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About 600,000 people seeking compensation a decade on from disaster that killed 19 and devastated villages

The global mining company BHP Group has been found liable for the deadly 2015 collapse of a Brazilian dam, in a landmark ruling that could pave the way for a multibillion-dollar payout.

The high court in London on Friday, Mrs Justice O’Farrell ruled that BHP was responsible for the collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana despite not owning the dam at the time.

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Bangkok had earlier said it was suspending ceasefire, accusing Cambodia of laying landmines along the border

The US has put pressure on Thailand to recommit to a ceasefire with Cambodia, warning trade talks could be halted as Washington seeks to keep a Donald Trump-brokered truce agreement from falling apart.

Earlier this week, Thailand said that it was suspending the ceasefire deal, accusing Cambodia of laying fresh landmines along the border, including one it said wounded a Thai soldier on patrol, who lost a foot in the explosion.

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Sanae Takaichi says the use of force against Taiwan could warrant a military response from Tokyo

China has advised its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan, escalating a diplomatic feud sparked by comments from Tokyo’s new prime minister about a hypothetical attack on Taiwan.

Sanae Takaichi told Japan’s parliament on 7 November that the use of force against the self-ruled island claimed by China could warrant a military response from Tokyo. Japan has since said its position on Taiwan – just 100km from the nearest Japanese island – is unchanged.

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Reaction follows Wall Street’s worst day in a month and unprecedented slump in investment in China

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Global markets suffered another day of volatile trading after a tech sell-off that fuelled Wall Street’s worst day in a month and weak economic data from China showed an unprecedented slump in investment.

The FTSE 100 fell by 1.1% in London, closing down about 100 points at 9,698, as bellwether banking stocks tumbled. Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest slumped between 2.7% and 3.6%.

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Vincent Karremans called semiconductor supply chain crisis a ‘wake-up call for western leaders’

The Chinese government has expressed “extreme disappointment” with the Dutch minister at the heart of a row over chip supply to the car industry.

A spokesperson for the ministry of commerce was responding to a Guardian interview with Vincent Karremans on Thursday in which the politician described the standoff between China and the European Union as a “wake-up call” for western leaders.

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Anthropic says financial firms and government agencies were attacked ‘largely without human intervention’

A leading artificial intelligence company claims to have stopped a China-backed “cyber espionage” campaign that was able to infiltrate financial firms and government agencies with almost no human oversight.

The US-based Anthropic said its coding tool, Claude Code, was “manipulated” by a Chinese state-sponsored group to attack 30 entities around the world in September, achieving a “handful of successful intrusions”.

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‘We maintain our position that tariffs on any Australian products are unjustified,’ trade minister Don Farrell says

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The Australian government has welcomed the Trump administration’s removal of tariffs on beef and other agricultural exports to the US.

After previously insisting his import duties were not fuelling inflation, the US president, Donald Trump, on Saturday morning Australian time signed an executive order reversing tariffs on food imports including beef, coffee and bananas.

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BoM forecasts possible storms from tropical north and WA to central and eastern parts, with potential for strong winds and heavy rainfall

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Much of northern and eastern Australia faces a risk of severe thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon and evening, with millions of people potentially in the firing line.

“It’s another severe thunderstorm outbreak for eastern parts of the country. It could be an active one,” said Angus Hines, senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology on Saturday.

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Footage shows the man jumping the red carpet barricade of the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, then rushing towards and embracing the star

A court in Singapore has charged a man who grabbed Ariana Grande at a premiere of Wicked: For Good on Thursday night with being a public nuisance.

Video footage shows Johnson Wen jumping over a barricade at Universal Studios Singapore and rushing at Grande on the red carpet. Grande’s co-star Cynthia Erivo immediately jumped in to help protect her and Wen was moved away.

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Senator accuses the government of not treating reform with ‘urgency it deserves’ – with no modelling done on the cost of reversing or replacing the JRG scheme

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Reversing the program that has left Australia’s arts students paying $50,000 degrees is facing more delay, as the body tasked with reforming the controversial job ready graduates scheme is unlikely to be ready on Labor’s timeline.

The education minister, Jason Clare, is set to introduce legislation to formally establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) in the final sitting week of the year.

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Exclusive: Victorian education department apologises to mother who alleged her nonverbal child was sexually assaulted by the man. He denied the allegations and no charges were laid

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A school bus chaperone who allegedly sexually assaulted a nonverbal child continued working with students for months during the subsequent Victorian police investigation, prompting an apology to the girl’s mother from the state’s education department.

The allegation was denied by the chaperone and did not lead to charges. But Victoria’s education department apologised to the mother last year for failing to implement risk mitigation strategies during the police investigation.

In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International

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PM makes opposition to support for Ukraine central to Fidesz campaign as it loses ground over cost of living crisis

Hungary’s prime minister has kicked off a weeks-long “anti-war roadshow”, turning criticism of European support for Ukraine into an early campaign message before next year’s elections.

Viktor Orbán’ is scheduled to stage an event in five cities before the end of the year, and started with an assembly on Saturday in the north-western city of Győr.

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Katrín Jakobsdóttir and her co-author want the 350,000 people who speak the language to fight for its future

Iceland’s former prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has said that the Icelandic language could be wiped out in as little as a generation due to the sweeping rise of AI and encroaching English language dominance.

Katrín, who stood down as prime minister last year to run for president after seven years in office, said Iceland was undergoing “radical” change when it came to language use. More people are reading and speaking English, and fewer are reading in Icelandic, a trend she says is being exacerbated by the way language models are trained.

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Embattled Hungarian leader says he won an indefinite reprieve from sanctions on oil and gas from Russia, but the US has since disputed this

As Viktor Orbán would tell it, he had the perfect meeting with Donald Trump.

After visiting the White House last week, the embattled Hungarian prime minister quickly declared victory, saying he had secured an indefinite exemption from US sanctions on oil and gas imported from Russia. The deal would shield Hungarians from skyrocketing energy prices ahead of parliamentary elections next year and potentially boost Orbán’s chances of extending his 15-year rule.

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Ukrainian minister says more than 800 attacks recorded since start of year as Moscow seeks to destroy country’s logistical capabilities

Ukraine has recorded a threefold increase in the number of attacks on its railway system since July, according to a senior minister, as Moscow seeks to scupper one of Kyiv’s key logistical systems.

Oleksii Kuleba, a deputy prime minister with responsibility for infrastructure, said attacks on the network since the start of 2025 had caused damage totalling $1bn (£760m).

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Rolex denies ‘any negotiation’ with US although luxury watchmaker entertained Trump and gave him gold clock

Donald Trump agreed to cut US tariffs on Switzerland from 39% to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters.

The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms.

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Natalie Boucly says supplies are ready but only about half of what is needed is getting into territory

Israel is breaching international law by continuing to impose restrictions on aid flows into Gaza, where the population remains critically short of food and life-saving goods as winter sets in, a senior official at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.

In an interview during a recent visit to Brussels, Natalie Boucly, an Unrwa deputy commissioner general, said the whole world – including the EU and US – needed to increase the pressure on Israel’s government to ensure the unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza.

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Exclusive: Almost all Palestinians have been displaced to ‘red zone’ where no reconstruction is planned

The US is planning for the long-term division of Gaza into a “green zone” under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a “red zone” to be left in ruins.

Foreign forces will initially deploy alongside Israeli soldiers in the east of Gaza, leaving the devastated strip divided by the current Israeli-controlled “yellow line”, according to US military planning documents seen by the Guardian and sources briefed on American plans.

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Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.

The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.

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Exclusive: Ramsi Woodcock, who calls for an ‘end’ to Israel and military intervention against it, says the university violated his first amendment rights

A tenured law professor sued the University of Kentucky on Thursday after he was banned from teaching and from the law school for comments he made about Israel, including characterizations of the state as a “colonization project” and calls for the world to wage war against it.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, Ramsi Woodcock, an antitrust law scholar, argued that the public university violated his first amendment and due process rights when it abruptly placed him under investigation in July, just days after he was promoted to full professor, over allegations that he violated university policy – including anti-discrimination rules that incorporate a widely disputed definition of antisemitism.

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Isaac Herzog makes rare statement on often-ignored violence as settlers injure Palestinians and attack soldiers

Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, injuring four Palestinians and attacking Israeli soldiers in the latest incident of rising settler violence.

The settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf, setting vehicles on fire and damaging property belonging to a Bedouin community, with charred remains of cars left behind the next day.

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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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Critics say constitutional amendment, which will also limit supreme court’s independence, is ‘funeral for democracy’

Pakistan’s parliament has passed a controversial amendment to its constitution that will expand the powers of the army chief and grant him lifelong legal immunity while limiting the independence of the supreme court, in a move critics described as a “funeral for democracy”.

Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief who is widely seen as a de facto ruler of the country, was the main benefactor from the 27th constitutional amendment, which was passed by the parliamentary lower house on Wednesday.

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Pakistani ministers attribute deadly suicide attack to Indian state terrorism but India denies claim

Pakistan has opened an investigation into the suicide attack that killed 12 people outside district court buildings in Islamabad, after the prime minister made unsubstantiated claims that “Indian state terrorism” was behind the blast.

The attack took place in the middle of the day on Tuesday as the area was thrumming with people. The bomber made several attempts to get inside the buildings before detonating a device next to a police car, killing 12 people and injuring 27.

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Major incident declared in Wales, with rescues and evacuations in Monmouth after river bursts its banks

Snow could be on the way for parts of the UK with a cold snap set to arrive in the coming days in the wake of Storm Claudia, the Met Office said on Saturday.

The storm had a significant impact in Wales where a major incident was declared, with dozens of people rescued from their homes or evacuated in the town of Monmouth following severe flooding when the River Monnow burst its banks.

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Police believe device was deliberately planted near frontbench to disrupt proceedings, prompting heightened security in parliament

Police have arrested two men in connection with a mobile phone hidden in the House of Commons that was reportedly planted there to play sex noises during prime minister’s questions.

The phone was found near the frontbench during a routine sweep of the chamber. It is believed to have been intended to interrupt the keynote weekly showdown between Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch in September.

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Business secretary Peter Kyle says appeal of far-right parties like Reform due to ‘their dogma of disruption, division and despair’

Nigel Farage is “today’s incarnation of the politics of Enoch Powell”, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, said at the Co-operative party conference.

Kyle described Reform UK as “far right”, while stressing that boosting economic growth was needed to “build an economy and a politics that people can trust to deliver for themselves, their families and their communities”.

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As party’s rise fuels fears over future visa rules, people share how the lives they have built are in jeopardy

As Reform UK soars in the polls, Britain’s migrant communities are facing an uncertain future.

The party has announced a swathe of hardline immigration policies, including its plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain – the right to settle permanently in the UK after five years of residence.

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Cooke, who worked for the Observer for 25 years and was described as its ‘backbone’, was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year

Tributes have been paid to the journalist and critic Rachel Cooke after her death from cancer.

Cooke, 56, was diagnosed with the illness earlier this year and died on Friday. She worked for the Observer for 25 years, where she was described as “the backbone of the paper”.

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From Texas and Iowa to Arkansas, faith leaders are wading into politics to counter the rise of Christian nationalism

He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.

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Seemingly identical signatures appeared on clemency orders, which White House blamed on technical error

The Trump administration’s clemency drive is coming under scrutiny after the justice department this week replaced pardons posted online that bore strikingly similar copies of Trump’s signature with others that are distinctively variable.

The corrections came after online commenters seized on the similarities in the president’s signature granting “full and unconditional” pardons to seven men, including to former New York Mets player Darryl Strawberry, former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada and former New York police sergeant Michael McMahon, on 7 November.

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Ex-FTC chair was among first to go after practice of folding local firms into larger ones leading to higher prices

Experts say New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s selection of Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair, for his transition team acts as a warning to private equity firms in the state that have raised rents and monopolized local healthcare industries.

Throughout the US, private equity has increasingly monopolized industries through the practice of “roll ups,” acquiring many small local firms and rolling them into one larger firm, giving them power to simultaneously raise prices and lower quality.

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Scramble to find replacement for George Tidmarsh shines light on dysfunction at US regulatory agency

After the dramatic ousting of the top drug regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) two weeks ago, officials have scrambled to find a replacement in a process that has revealed the agency’s internal cracks and tensions.

It’s troubling news for a regulatory agency that has previously enjoyed a reputation for stability and consistency.

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Marina Lacerda, 37, recounts the abuse she experienced and what inspired her to speak publicly amid new revelations

When Marina Lacerda woke on Wednesday to learn that thousands of documents about Jeffrey Epstein had been released by House Republicans, she braced herself for a spate of new revelations.

Before deciding to waive her anonymity in September, Lacerda was known for years as “Minor Victim-1” – unknown, unheard, another teenager groomed and abused by the paedophile financier.

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