World news | The Guardian

Seven children reach shore as dozens of people intercepted on risky route, which authorities say is now used more often

About 100 people, including several children, risked their lives by trying to swim from Morocco into Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta early on Saturday morning, as the territory’s authorities warned that its overwhelmed reception system was close to collapse.

Recent weeks have seen a rise in the number of people trying to reach Ceuta, with more than 50 children swimming across from Morocco on 26 July alone.

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Africa Rice initiative aims to give farmers more control over their land in order to reduce flooding and increase yields

Salmata Ouattara remembers 2023 as the turning point for her rice farm.

June is usually the peak of the rainy season in Ivory Coast, but in the preceding years she and other farmers in M’Be on the outskirts of Bouaké, the country’s second biggest city, would wait weeks for rainfall. Then in September, they would watch helplessly as their farmlands were flooded. Some abandoned their farms, frustrated by fluctuating crop yields.

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Duke of Sussex ‘absolutely committed’ to supporting children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana

Prince Harry is considering establishing a new charity after a dispute that led to him leaving Sentebale, a spokesperson has said.

It comes after the Duke of Sussex was criticised by the Charity Commission for allowing a row with the chair of Sentebale, which he co-founded in 2006, to “play out publicly”.

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Guardian investigation finds number killed in April attack by Rapid Support Forces far greater than current estimates

• ‘They slaughtered us like animals’: the inside story of how one of the biggest atrocities of the Sudan war unfolded in Zamzam

More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.

A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for.

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Incineration of $9.7m of contraceptives to lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions, IPPF says

A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m (£7.3m) of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.

More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.

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More than 470 Canadian fires classified as ‘out of control’ as scientists say climate change exacerbating the burning

With hundreds of wildfires burning out of control, Canada’s 2025 fire season is already the second-worst on record, as scientists report climate change is prolonging and exacerbating the burning, leading to more destruction, evacuations and smoke-filled skies.

More than 470 fires across the country are currently classified as “out of control”, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).

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Rightwing presidential hopeful, who had been in hospital in Bogotá since shooting, has died aged 39

Miguel Uribe, the Colombian senator and presidential hopeful who was shot in the head at a campaign event in June, has died, his wife has confirmed.

Uribe, an opposition candidate with the rightwing Centro Democrático party, was shot twice in the head and once in the leg during a campaign stop two months ago while vying for his party’s nomination for the 2026 elections.

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Police found 800 cartridge cases at the scene, where gunmen had arrived in two pickup trucks and opened fire

Eight people have been killed and two others wounded when a group of gunmen unleashed a barrage of gunfire on a crowd outside a nightclub in a town in south-western Ecuador.

Law enforcement arrived on the scene following an emergency call alerting them to a shooting, and found “several people wounded and seven bodies”, said Javier Chango, the police colonel, at a press conference on Sunday, adding that an eighth person died in the hospital.

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Parts of Spain and Portugal likely to bear brunt of heat, while drought conditions sweep North America

• Europe live – latest updates

After a period of cooler weather, swaths of central and eastern Europe face another heatwave as hot air over south-western Europe pushes north-west.

Since late July, large parts of the Iberian peninsula have endured persistent heat, with temperatures frequently climbing to the high 30s to low 40s celsius.

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Far-right ex-president’s devotees pin hopes on pressure campaign but tariffs and sanctions appear likely to fail

Each morning, Edite Costa steps out of her bungalow on Brasília’s sun-baked savannah, stands beneath a mango tree and lifts her hands to the sky in prayer. “I ask God to work so that not just Trump but all Americans come to help us rip out the evil that has taken hold of the country I love,” said the 66-year-old Baptist, who is a fervent supporter of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro could face decades in jail for allegedly leading a murderous conspiracy to seize power after his leftwing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat him in the 2022 presidential election. But Costa believes her populist leader can still be saved – if her prayers are answered and Donald Trump intervenes.

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Footage shows Chinese coastguard vessel with its entire bow caved in after colliding with warship near contested Scarborough Shoal

The Philippines has released dramatic footage of a Chinese warship colliding with a vessel from its own coastguard while chasing a Philippine patrol boat in the South China Sea.

The incident occurred near the contested Scarborough Shoal on Monday as the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) escorted vessels distributing aid to fishers in the area, Philippine authorities said.

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Bourses in Australia and Japan hit record highs as hopes grow of trade deal within latest 90-day pause

• Business live – latest updates

• George Magus: Why Peak China may finally have arrived

Donald Trump’s decision to extend a truce in the trade war with China has triggered a stock market rally across the globe.

On Monday night, the US president signed an executive order extending the deadline for higher tariffs on China until 10 November. Beijing said early on Tuesday it would suspend additional tariffs on US goods for a further 90 days.

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Samoa, Fiji and Tonga among the worst affected amid warning the disease and others will become ‘more common and more serious’ as the planet warms

The climate crisis is driving a sharp rise in dengue fever cases across the Pacific islands, experts say, as infections hit their highest level in a decade and several countries declare emergencies.

Pacific Island countries and territories have reported 16,502 confirmed cases and 17 deaths since the start of 2025, according to the Pacific Syndromic Surveillance System (PSSS), which collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies. Infections across the region are at the highest level since 2016, the WHO said. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are among the worst affected.

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Fish once as large as grizzly bears have become far smaller in recent years due to overfishing, dams and climate crisis

The size of megafish in the Mekong River has shrunk alarmingly in recent years owing to overfishing, a study has found. The length of the largest and most endangered freshwater giants, some as big as grizzly bears, decreased by 40% in seven years.

Some fish, like the Mekong giant catfish, have been studied for over a longer period and show a decline in weight of 55% in the past 25 years, dropping from an average of 180kg (397lb) to 80kg.

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White House denies suggestions resort in Vietnam presents conflict of interest amid row over compensation rates

Villagers whose farms in Vietnam will be bulldozed to make way for a $1.5bn golf resort backed by the Trump family have reportedly been offered rice provisions and cash compensation of as little as $12 for a square metre of land by state authorities.

Thousands of villagers will be offered compensation based on land size and location, according to a report by Reuters. The agency spoke to elderly farmers who said they feared they would struggle to find a stable livelihood.

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A report finding 75% of coral is bleached or dead along a 1,500km stretch of WA coastline is released as fossil fuel giant inks partnership extension

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The WA Greens and the state’s peak conservation body have condemned the extension of a research partnership between the Western Australian Museum and Woodside, as the state reels from a record-breaking marine heatwave that has killed corals over a 1,500km stretch of ocean.

The five-year continuation of the “longstanding collaboration”, in which the gas giant supports the museum’s biodiversity research along the WA coastline, would allow for further targeted research along the Gascoyne coast, according to announcements.

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The prospect of lower rates is good news, but Michele Bullock’s vision for the future appears blurrier

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Three down, three more to go.

For mortgage holders, that was the most optimistic takeaway from Michele Bullock’s press conference after the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to cut its cash rate for the third time this year.

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NAB said it would wait 13 days to pass on the 0.25% cut to borrowers, while Westpac announced it would wait 14 days

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Mortgage rates will slide after the Reserve Bank announced a third interest rate cut of the year – but borrowers with some major banks may have to wait weeks for relief.

Lenders have lined up to reduce their rates by 0.25%, with 20 banks – including each of the big four – announcing on Tuesday that they will pass on the cuts but only two of them doing so immediately.

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Party appoints four people to lead a months-long review of the 2025 campaign, despite its biggest victory in decades

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Labor will use a review of its historic 3 May election victory to better prepare for cyber misinformation and artificial intelligence threats in future federal campaigns.

The party’s national executive has appointed four people to lead a months-long review into the campaign, despite Labor winning 94 seats in the lower house and securing its biggest victory in decades.

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Greens senator David Shoebridge says communities will have ‘no way to protect the land’ from waste that will be radioactive for millennia

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Critics of Australia’s Aukus submarine deal say the government has given itself the power to nominate any place in Australia as a potential nuclear waste dump, without proper consultation with communities and indigenous landowners.

Australia has agreed to take sole responsibility for the management, security and storage of all nuclear waste from its fleet of proposed nuclear-powered submarines, including the spent fuel from the submarines’ reactors – high-level nuclear waste that will be radioactive for millennia once the submarines are decommissioned from the early 2050s.

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Union calls for increased spending to revamp vehicles and station houses that it says are an insult to officers’ dignity

Germany’s biggest police union has complained about the dilapidated state of hundreds of police stations across the country and a fleet of aged vehicles, saying conditions are a threat to officers’ health and an insult to their dignity.

“Decades-old toilet bowls, mould in the offices, vermin, broken heating units and holes in the ceiling that let the rain in,” said Hagen Husgen of the GdP union, citing just a few of the complaints his organisation had received from members.

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Ukrainian president thanks EU leaders for their support and calls for further pressure on Russia

Just days before the Trump-Putin summit, Ukraine’s authoritative DeepState war map showed that Russian forces had advanced by at least 10 km (six miles) north in two prongs in recent days, part of their drive to take full control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Reuters reported.

The advance is one of the most dramatic in the last year, it stated.

“We’re waiting for the US to follow through on the on the commitments they’ve made, the clear political commitments they’ve made, and, and that’s where we are right now as soon as we have any updates, we’d be happy to provide them.”

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Statement on Ukrainian sovereignty signed by all EU leaders except for Viktor Orbán before call with Trump

• Read all our coverage of the Ukraine war

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

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Scientists received €735m in grants in 2024 after UK rejoined programme as associate member post-Brexit

• Europe live – latest updates

The UK is quickly recovering a prime position in the EU’s £80bn science research programme 18 months after becoming a participating member following the resolution of Brexit problems, data shows.

The country was frozen out of Horizon Europe for three years in a tit-for-tat row with the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, over the Northern Ireland trading arrangements.

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Temperatures of 44C predicted as blazes rage across Europe

Almost 6,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in northern, central and southern Spain as wildfires continue to burn amid a heatwave that could bring temperatures of 44C to some parts of the country.

The deadly heat across large parts of Europe has created what scientists have called a “molotov cocktail” of climatic conditions that is fuelling vast wildfires.

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Representatives from countries including UK, Australia and France say that humanitarian suffering has reached ‘unimaginable levels’

In a post on X, Israel Defense Forces claim to have “debunked” what it called Hamas’s “starvation campaign” in Gaza.

The IDF said that reviews of documents showed that most deaths by malnutrition in Gaza were linked to “severe pre-existing conditions” and that only a handful of the 133 deaths by malnutrition claimed by Gaza’s authorities in July could be “verified”. The post said that the “expert review concluded that there are no signs of a widespread malnutrition phenomenon among the population in Gaza”.

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At least 15 people queueing for food among the deaths, and five people reported to have died from starvation

Israel has stepped up bombing Gaza, killing at least 89 Palestinians in 24 hours, including at least 15 people queueing for food, despite global outcry over the deaths of six journalists in the territory the previous day.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City had intensified in the three days after Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the war in the territory.

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The PM’s escalating criticism of Israel comes as the French president overnight welcomed Australia’s plan to recognise Palestinian statehood

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Benjamin Netanyahu is “in denial” over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Anthony Albanese claimed after a phone call with the Israeli leader, saying frustration with Israel’s military campaign in the besieged territory was part of Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

The prime minister’s escalating public criticism of Israel comes as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, overnight welcomed Australia’s commitment to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN general assembly in September.

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Members of press and influencers covering devastation are being silenced despite protection under international law

• Anas al-Sharif, prominent Al Jazeera correspondent, among five journalists killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Israel is running two Gaza campaigns: one for military control of the strip; another for narrative control of how the world understands what happens there.

In theory, Palestinian journalists and social media influencers documenting starvation, mass killing and other Israeli war crimes in Gaza are protected civilians under international law.

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CJP says the period since 7 October 2023 has been the most deadly for journalists since it began gathering data in 1992

Journalists have been prominent among casualties since the war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s incursion into Israel in October 2023.

Some were working for well-known international media, others were employed by local news organisations. Several were high-profile veterans, but many were newcomers to the profession.

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Investigators warn in a report that ‘frequency and brutality’ of atrocities in the country are continuing to escalate

Children as young as two years old have been detained by Myanmar’s military, often as proxies for their parents, and held in prison facilities where there is systematic torture, UN investigators have warned.

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which was set up to document and share evidence of abuse with national, regional and international courts, said in a report that the “frequency and brutality” of atrocities inside the country had continued to escalate, more than four years after the military seized power in a coup in February 2021.

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Judge cites attacks on children among grounds for ruling but animal protection groups say decision is inhumane

India’s supreme court has ordered the immediate removal of thousands of stray dogs from the Delhi capital region, citing canine attacks and the country’s alarming rabies toll.

The sweeping move has set up a clash between public safety advocates and those who see the animals as beloved fixtures of their neighbourhoods.

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Hong Kong hit by 350mm of rain in 24 hours, while mountainous state of Uttarakhand badly affected by landslides and flooding

Large parts of Asia have been especially wet this week and the heavy rain is forecast to continue into next week. Hong Kong issued four black rainstorm warnings – the most times this warning has been issued in a single week.

The worst of the rainfall was on 5 August, with more than 350mm in 24 hours, the highest daily rainfall recorded in August since 1884. This caused widespread disruption on roads and flights.

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Censorship order accuses books of promoting ‘false narrative and secessionism’ in disputed territory

The government in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has banned 25 books, including works by the Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, accusing them of promoting a “false narrative and secessionism” in the disputed territory.

The censorship order was issued by Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, who was appointed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) under the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Sinha was previously a minister in Modi’s BJP government.

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Large-scale search and rescue operation under way after at least five people killed in Himalayan region

Dozens of people were missing after a fast-moving surge of water and mud smashed into a town in India’s Himalayan region on Tuesday, tearing down a mountain valley and demolishing buildings, killing at least five people.

Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying river of muddy water engulf the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state on Tuesday afternoon, sweeping away entire homes and apartment blocks. In footage recorded at the scene, people could been seen screaming in fear as they tried to escape the surging flood waters.

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Exclusive: Chancellor also looking at tweaks to capital gains tax to try to bridge £40bn-plus spending gap before budget

The Treasury is looking at ways to raise more money from inheritance tax amid growing pressure on the country’s finances ahead of the autumn budget, sources have told the Guardian.

Officials have been tasked with examining whether tightening rules on the gifting of money and assets could be one way of addressing a gap between revenue and spending that is estimated to reach more than £40bn.

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Unemployment remains steady but vacancy rates drop and pay growth slows

• Business live – latest updates

• Analysis: this is a slowdown, not a collapse

Employers have cut annual pay increases and pared back hiring in recent months as the economic slowdown took its toll on the jobs market.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released on Tuesday, showed that UK unemployment edged higher in the three months to June but the official jobless rate was unchanged at 4.7%, a four-year high.

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Home Office data shows 474 migrants arrived yesterday in eight small boats bringing the total to over 50,000

Rachel Reeves has been taking questions from journalists in Belfast. She says Northern Ireland is “absolutely crucial” for the UK’s growth prospects, pointing to the nation’s strong TV, film and video game industries.

The chancellor claimed stability has returned to the UK’s economy despite mounting concerns about its ability to respond to shocks amid global uncertainty from Donald Trump’s trade war. Job losses are rising, fewer employers are advertising for staff and inflation remains high.

If you look at the growth numbers in the first quarter of this year, we were the fastest growing economy in the whole of the G7. Whilst the US economy shrunk in the first quarter of this year, the UK economy grew.

We’ll get data for the second quarter of this year later this week. But we are creating more jobs, 384,000 additional jobs compared with a year ago, wages are rising at a faster rate than inflation, putting more money in people’s pockets.

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Exclusive: Ecctis alleges Cloud Bai-Yun used profits from government contract to buy out her shares in breach of fiduciary duty

The company that runs visa services for the UK government is suing its former chief executive for £6m over her alleged improper use of profits earned during a period of record immigration.

Cloud Bai-Yun, who once represented the UK on an international ethics and fraud advisory body, is accused by Ecctis of a breach of fiduciary duty, according to court filings.

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Former minister says Tories are ignoring heartland voters and risk losing ground to Reform in next election

The Conservatives are “not close to recognising” how badly they are positioned for the next election, the former cabinet minister David Gauke has said.

Gauke, a former justice secretary who also worked in the Treasury under George Osborne, said many in the party were not willing to fully repudiate Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

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Justice department accuses Joshua Schroeder of ‘reckless misrepresentations’ and seeks financial penalties

The US Department of Justice is seeking sanctions against a lawyer who sought to block the deportation of his client, in another sign the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to enact mass deportations.

Earlier this year, Joshua Schroeder, a California-based attorney, was able to briefly delay the deportation of his client, a Hmong man from Laos, through several court filings.

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Chuck Schumer called Trump’s decision to federalize the DC police and deploy national guard to the city an ‘attempted distraction’ from ‘other scandals’

Later on, we’ll hear from the Trump administration for the second day in a row. The president won’t make an appearance, but press secretary Karoline Leavitt will hold a White House briefing at 1pm ET.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth says he’s proud to be part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, an archconservative network of Christian congregations.

Pastor Doug Wilson, a CREC co-founder, leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the network’s flagship location. Jovial and media-friendly, Wilson is no stranger to stirring controversy with his church’s hard-line theology and its embrace of patriarchy and Christian nationalism.

Wilson told The Associated Press on Monday he was grateful Hegseth shared the video. He noted Hegseth’s post was labeled with Christ Church’s motto: “All of Christ for All of Life.”

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The US president deployed troops after taking control of DC police, sparking fears of similar moves elsewhere

• US politics live – latest updates

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, has pledged to work “side by side” with the federal government as national guard troops arrive at their headquarters in the capital.

The show of force came after Donald Trump announced that he was sending the national guard into the capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low.

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Court refuses to block ‘department of government efficiency’ from accessing data such as citizenship status

• US politics live – latest updates

A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected a bid by a group of unions to block the Trump administration government downsizing team known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing sensitive data on Americans.

The Virginia-based fourth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 decision said the unions were unlikely to prevail on claims that Doge would violate federal privacy laws by accessing data at the US Department of Education, treasury department, and office of personnel management.

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US medical journal article about 60-year-old with bromism warns against using AI app for health information

A US medical journal has warned against using ChatGPT for health information after a man developed a rare condition following an interaction with the chatbot about removing table salt from his diet.

An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a case in which a 60-year-old man developed bromism, also known as bromide toxicity, after consulting ChatGPT.

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