Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy will not give up land in exchange for peace, president’s chief of staff says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not agree to give up land to Russia in exchange for peace, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak told US magazine the Atlantic in an interview published on Thursday. “As long as Zelenskyy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. The comments were published after Vladimir Putin said Russia will fight on unless Kyiv withdraws from territory Moscow claims as its own. Ukrainian and US delegations will meet this week, Zelenskyy has said, to work on points raised at the Geneva talks to bring peace with Russia and provide security guarantees for Ukraine. “We need a peace, but not a pause that provides Russia a chance to retreat and regroup,” the Kyiv-based human rights lawyer said.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 13:37 UTC
Palestinian-American teenager held in Israeli prison freed after nine months
A 16-year-old American citizen was freed on Thursday after spending nine months in an Israeli prison. Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian-American teenager from Florida whose case was first exposed by the Guardian in July, was released following a guilty plea and suspended sentence, according to his family. View image in fullscreen Mohammed Ibrahim with his father Zaher, following his release from Israeli prison. While reporting on his story, the Guardian learned that his younger cousin Mohammed Ibrahim had been held since February. “There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel’s abuse and torture,” Kadur said.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 13:34 UTC
Flash flooding in Sumatra kills 69 as rescue crews search rivers for survivors
Flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island have killed 69 people, with 59 missing as emergency workers search in rivers and the rubble of villages for bodies and possible survivors. Monsoon rains over the past week caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province on Tuesday. In North Sumatra province the death toll rose to 37 as rescue personnel recovered more bodies on Thursday, said provincial police spokesperson Ferry Walintukan in a statement. Rescuers were searching for 52 residents reported missing, but mudslides, blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering search efforts, he said. View image in fullscreen Flooding in the Lubuk Minturun area of Koto Tangah, Padang City, West Sumatra, caused damage as tree debris and mud affected residential areas.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 13:32 UTC
France to introduce voluntary military service amid threat from Russia
France is to introduce voluntary military service of 10 months aimed mainly at young people aged 18 and 19, as concern grows in Europe about the threat from Russia. Under the new military service, men and women, mostly aged 18 and 19, could volunteer to sign up for 10 months. Photograph: Blondet Eliot/ABACA/ShutterstockThere is so far no suggestion that military service in France could again be compulsory, as it was before the then president, Jacques Chirac, abolished conscription in 1997. After the programme, participants could integrate into civilian life, become a reservist, or stay in the armed forces, he said. Macron’s office said polling data suggested high support for the armed forces among 18- to 25-year-olds.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 12:40 UTC
Fear Santos gas plan may start fracking rush that poses ‘major risk’ to NT water supply
Santos has published plans to drill 12 fracking wells at Tanumbirini Station, a 5,000 sq km cattle station about 340km south-east of Katherine. Dr Kirsty Howey, executive director of the Environment Centre NT, described the plan as “the biggest ever gas play in the Beetaloo for Santos”. “Fracking undoubtedly poses a major risk to this huge, quite incredible aquifer that many Aboriginal communities and pastoralists rely on,” Howey said. Methane bubbles have been observed at hot springs at Tanumbirini Station, suggesting connections between surface water and the shale gas layer to be targeted for fracking. “We’ve already seen incidents of uncontrolled releases of wastewater from shale gas fracking sites in the Beetaloo from other operators,” he said.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 12:31 UTC
Palestinian Australian assaulted and abused on Sydney train ‘shocked’ police charged assailant with assault but not hate speech
Palestinian Australian film-maker Shamikh Badra, who alleged to police that he was assaulted and racially abused on a Sydney train after an anti-immigration march, is “shocked” that police charged his assailant with common assault but not hate speech. The facts state that “due to the escalation of the interaction”, Majed took out his mobile phone and began to film. The facts state that “a short physical confrontation” ensued before the parties separated after the train stopped at Macdonaldtown. 1:12 Palestinian Australian brothers allege racist abuse on Sydney train – videoThe facts reference that the incident was captured on mobile phones and CCTV. Critics of the offence, which came into effect just before the train assault, have accused the Minns government of ignoring its own 2024 review into hate speech.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 11:35 UTC
European progressives must tackle housing crisis to beat far right, say researchers
Housing costs in major EU cities increased by about 50% between 2015 and 2023 alone. View image in fullscreen Renters’ protest banners in Berlin in 2024 proclaim ‘Don’t displace us’ and ‘Affordable housing for all’. “Our research shows that, after the mid-1990s, Social Democratic control of local councils simply no longer translated into more social housing,” Vinæs Larsen said. “The political effort to expand social housing effectively disappeared.”This, he said, reflected changes in “who mostly lives in social housing, and who votes Social Democrat”. But he also cited possible solutions, such as higher social housing rents – as long as they are still cheaper than private ones.
Source:The Guardian
November 28, 2025 09:10 UTC
Odermatt wins super-G at Copper Mountain as Kilde’s return leaves Shiffrin in tears
Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt started the World Cup super-G season with a Thanksgiving win at Copper Mountain on Thursday, while Aleksander Aamodt Kilde reduced fiancée Mikaela Shiffrin to tears by making his comeback after nearly two years out. It denied Austria a clean sweep, with Raphael Haaser a further 0.05 back in third and Stefan Babinsky in finishing fourth. Odermatt, the defending overall champion, has won the crystal globe for the season-long title in super-G for the past three years. She later took a photo of Kilde with Odermatt, who was congratulating the Norwegian on his return to competition. It was a 47th World Cup victory for Odermatt, and his 16th in super-G.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 21:38 UTC
Pope Leo warns of risk from ‘piecemeal’ world war in first overseas trip
A new world war is being fought “piecemeal” and is endangering the future of humanity, Pope Leo has warned, as he arrived in Turkey for his first foreign trip since becoming head of the Catholic church. Recalling a description of the world’s conflicts by his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, Leo said “a third world war is being fought piecemeal”. View image in fullscreen The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pope Leo attend a welcoming ceremony in Ankara on Thursday. View image in fullscreen Pope Leo attending a wreath-laying ceremony at Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara. View image in fullscreen Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Turkey’s culture and tourism minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, after disembarking from his plane in Ankara.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 21:30 UTC
Field of Dreams-like shrine to cricket built ‘from bud to bat’ – photo essay
View image in fullscreen Above: Newstead and Hepburn meet in a Castlemaine & District Cricket Association match at the self-made ground at Cricket Willow. Cricket Willow was opened in 1999, in time for Ian’s 50th birthday, and has been filling up with miscellaneous – mostly cricketing – items ever since. “They host functions here and, with all the history, I really don’t know whether there’d be anything else like it.”Will Cricket Willow bat on? View image in fullscreen Ian Tinetti stands with a bat at Cricket Willow in Shepherds Flat. These days, the families are fracturing as young people move away, and the conversation turns to the fate of Cricket Willow.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 17:54 UTC
Gopichand Hinduja
Gopichand Hinduja, listed at his death aged 85 as the richest man in Britain, was one of four brothers who took their father’s Indo-Iranian trading business and turned it into a vast international conglomerate. Gopichand worked closely with SP, head of the family until his death in 2023, when Gopichand took over as chair. View image in fullscreen Gopichand, left, Prakash, centre, and Srichand Hinduja outside a court in New Delhi in 2001, after a hearing on the ‘Bofors affair’. Born in India, Gopichand was in fact the third of five sons of Parmanand Hinduja and his wife, Jamuna – Girdhar, the eldest, died in 1963. More outgoing than the publicity-shy SP, Gopichand was happy to front for the company.
Source:The Guardian
November 27, 2025 02:05 UTC
Study claims to provide first direct evidence of dark matter
Nearly a century ago, scientists proposed that a mysterious invisible substance they named dark matter clumped around galaxies and formed a cosmic web across the universe. What dark matter is made from, and whether it is even real, are still open questions, but according to a study, the first direct evidence of the substance may finally have been glimpsed. Scientists have searched for dark matter particles ever since, but so far ground-based detectors, space-based telescopes and vast machines such as the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have drawn a blank. To search for potential dark matter signals, Totani analysed data from Nasa’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which detects the most energetic photons in the electromagnetic spectrum. The signal “closely matches the properties of gamma-ray radiation predicted to be emitted by dark matter,” Totani told the Guardian.
Source:The Guardian
November 26, 2025 18:31 UTC
World Cup 2026 draw to adopt tennis-style system for the four top seeds
Spain, Argentina, France and England – the top four in descending order – are to be split into different brackets in the 48-team finals tournament, with the aim of preventing Spain from facing Argentina, or England from playing France, before a possible final. The seedings leave England and France in line each to play one of Spain and Argentina in the semi‑finals. Fifa said the pathways would be drawn randomly, meaning it would not necessarily be Spain (No 1) v France (No 3) and Argentina v England. after newsletter promotionQuick Guide The four pots for the World Cup draw Show Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, US, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany. One day after the draw, on 6 December, Fifa will announce the match schedule for the finals tournament.
Source:The Guardian
November 26, 2025 17:46 UTC
Cyril Ramaphosa closes G20 summit after US boycott and handover row
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, closed the G20 summit in Johannesburg by banging a gavel, having rejected a US proposal for him to hand over to a relatively junior embassy official for the next summit in Florida in a year’s time. South Africa presented the two-day event as a triumph for multilateralism but it was marred by a boycott by the US, which has repeatedly accused South Africa of discriminating against white-minority Afrikaners, a claim that has been widely discredited. South Africa had offered to arrange for an equivalent “junior” diplomat to formally hand the G20 presidency to the US at the foreign ministry. South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, told reporters: “From us, the ball has moved. Putin is wanted by the international criminal court, to which South Africa is a signatory.
Source:The Guardian
November 24, 2025 06:24 UTC
Penny Wong says Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be upheld amid global backlash to Trump plan
Foreign minister Penny Wong has warned any peace plan for Ukraine must not hand new territory to Vladimir Putin, amid furious international backlash to Donald Trump’s proposal. The US president’s plan prompted a furious response from Ukrainians at the weekend, before the country’s European allies released an alternative plan during talks in Geneva. That plan omits some of the pro-Russia provisions included in the original, US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected. On Monday, Wong echoed that call and said a resolution to the nearly four-year war was needed. It also rules out a European peacekeeping force and sanctions for Russian war crimes.
Source:The Guardian
November 24, 2025 06:06 UTC