World leaders at Cop27 urged to press Egypt over prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah

Global spotlight on host country has heightened scrutiny of human rights record, with Biden due to meet Sisi

As Egyptian officials strive to control the narrative and isolate the case of the detained British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, pressure is mounting on world leaders at Cop27 to acknowledge Egypt’s poor human rights record and raise his case.

The Egyptian authorities have engaged in a sweeping public relations campaign to try to discredit Abd el-Fattah, including a digital campaign depicting him as a threat to national security.

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Rapper who protested over death of Mahsa Amini faces execution in Iran

UN calls for international action as regime announces public trials for protesters and Iranian lawmakers seek harsh punishment

Three weeks after he was violently arrested at his home by Iran’s security forces, Saman Yasin, a young Kurdish artist and rapper, is facing execution. He has been charged with waging war against God after posting his support for anti-regime protesters on social media.

His fate, which will be decided in the coming days by the Iranian courts, could be shared by thousands of other young protesters being held in detention as human rights organisations warn that the regime may unleash a bloody campaign of revenge in an attempt to quash continuing protests.

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Iran and Russia find common ground through Syrian and Ukraine wars

Tehran’s supply of drones to Moscow deepens a collaboration between two unlikely allies

When a Russian plane arrived in Iran with €140m in cash and a booty of captured western weapons, an exchange for Iranian drones, it marked a new phase in a seven-year alliance between two unlikely bedfellows.

The delivery of cash and weapons was reportedly made in August, after Russia received its first deliveries of drones to support its war in Ukraine. It was Iran’s first known contribution to the Russian offensive in Europe. But the bond between the two countries had been forged on another continent ravaged by war, the Middle East.

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Israel: leader of far-right Jewish Power party pays tribute to late racist rabbi

Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose party helped prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to power, praises Meir Kahane at memorial

A far-right Israeli lawmaker, whose surging popularity helped propel former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to power in last week’s general election, has delivered a glowing tribute at a memorial event for an extremist rabbi assassinated in 1990.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party emerged as the second biggest group in Netanyahu’s bloc and the third largest in the country, praised the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane in a speech at the memorial in Jerusalem on Thursday.

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World Cup stadium workers ‘had their money stolen and lives ruined’, says rights group

Report on conditions in Qatar alleges labour abuses are widespread and calls on Fifa to set up compensation fund

Migrant workers who constructed stadiums for the World Cup in Qatar have endured “persistent and widespread labour rights violations”, which include nationality-based discrimination, illegal recruitment practices and, in some cases, unpaid wages, according to allegations in a new report by the human rights group Equidem.

While the report also documents a number of cases of good practice, including “adequate channels for reporting concerns with working conditions”, good access to healthcare, satisfactory safety measures and decent living conditions, Equidem’s findings conclude that Qatar has been a “hostile environment” for stadium workers.

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Imprisoned activist’s lawyer denied access at Egyptian jail during climate summit – as it happened

British-Egyptian Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has been on hunger strike for months, stopped drinking water when Cop27 began

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We promised you the full story on fossil fuel lobbyists, and here it is.

There are more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at the Cop27 climate conference, a rise of more than 25% from last year and outnumbering any one frontline community affected by the climate crisis.

While the average delegation at Cop1 was 88% male and 12% female, this has shifted over time. For example, Cops 23 to 25 all had an average gender balance of 62% male to 38% female, while Cop26 had a balance of 64%-36%.

The provisional gender balance of Cop27 is similar, clocking it at 63% male to 37% female.

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Drone analysis in Ukraine suggests Iran has supplied Russia since war began

Guardian visits space used by Ukrainian military intelligence to examine captured drones

Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine’s military has shown the Guardian evidence that at least some of the Iranian-made drones used by Russia in its war were probably supplied after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February.

Ukraine said it first noticed that Russia was using Iranian-supplied weapons in September. Since then, Russia has successfully used them to target Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, causing serious power shortages.

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Civil society groups report surveillance and intimidation at Cop27

Attenders say actions of Egyptian authorities are threatening their participation at conference

Members of civil society attending Cop27 have described how surveillance and intimidation by the Egyptian authorities is threatening their participation in the climate conference.

Problems reported by attenders include overt surveillance, control of their meetings by conference staff and problems with accommodation.

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FTSE 100 firms hand billions in dividend payouts to Qatar investors

Critics say everyday UK consumer spending has funnelled billions to controversial World Cup host since 2010

Some of the UK’s largest listed companies including water and energy giants have handed almost £500m to Qatari state-owned investors this year, raising concerns that blue-chip company profits are supporting the controversial World Cup host.

The dividend payouts are the result of the Gulf nation’s investments in a raft of FTSE 100 firms, including Barclays, Shell and utility firm Severn Trent, which have reported strong profits amid a cost of living crisis and the worst UK drought in centuries.

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Biden says Elon Musk’s connections to other countries ‘worthy of being looked at’

President had been asked if he thought the new Twitter boss was a threat to US national security

Joe Biden thinks Twitter boss Elon Musk’s relationships with other countries is “worthy of being looked at”.

Biden was asked at a news conference on Wednesday whether he thought Musk was a threat to national security and if his acquisition of Twitter with help from a Saudi Arabian conglomerate should be investigated by the US government.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Israel’s president says ‘world is worried’ about far-right partner in Netanyahu coalition

Isaac Herzog said the views of Itamar Ben-Gvir will cause problems, as Religious Zionists party gets set to join the governing coalition

Israeli president Isaac Herzog has said “the whole world is worried” about the far-right views of Itamar Ben-Gvir, who appears set to become a minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition government.

Herzog’s statement was caught by a microphone that he apparently thought was off as he held consultations with an ultra-Orthodox political party about the next government, expected to be led by former premier Benjamin Netanyahu following the victory of his right-wing alliance in last week’s election.

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Prominent Iranian actor removes mandatory headscarf in defiant protest

Taraneh Alidoosti posted image on her Instagram account in support of protests sweeping the country

One of Iran’s most prominent actors posted an image of herself on social media on Wednesday without the headscarf mandatory for women in the Islamic republic.

Taraneh Alidoosti’s apparent act of defiance comes as weeks of protests have rocked the country since the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman died in mid-September after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly flouting the country’s strict dress rules for women.

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Sister of Alaa Abd el-Fattah accused in Egypt of ‘spreading false news’

Complaint, which prosecutor has yet to accept, raises risk of Sanaa Seif’s detention during Cop27

The sister of the jailed hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been informed that a pro-government lawyer has filed a case against her with the Egyptian public prosecutor accusing her of espionage and “spreading false news”.

The news comes a day after Sanaa Seif spoke at an event at the Cop27 climate summit being held in Egypt, which was widely reported on. The case accuses her of “conspiring with foreign agencies against the Egyptian state, foreign agitation, and incitement against the Egyptian state and its institutions, and deliberately spreading false news.”

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‘Significant’ moves on climate disaster funds lift Cop27 hopes

Small but symbolic moves at summit where finance is critical include new loss and damage money and debt relief

A series of symbolic moves on climate finance at Cop27 suggests positive momentum could be starting to build on a pivotal issue at the UN summit in Egypt.

The UK said it would allow some debt payment deferrals for countries hit by climate disasters, while Austria and New Zealand put forward funding for loss and damage, which is the cost of rebuilding in poorer nations after unavoidable climate impacts.

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Cop27: ‘It’s humiliating’ – Indigenous voices say they are being ignored at climate summit – as it happened

A Kulkalgal activist from the Torres Strait Islands has said Indigenous people are ‘fighting for their homes’ as conference discussions focus on climate finance

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More photos from today:

Xie Zhenhua continues to say that Beijing is willing to contribute to a mechanism for compensating poorer countries for loss and damage caused by the climate crisis.

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Oldest known written sentence discovered – on a head-lice comb

Timeless fret over hygiene picked out on engraved Bronze age comb from ancient kingdom of Judah

It’s a simple sentence that captures the hopes and fears of modern-day parents as much as the bronze age Canaanite who owned the doubled-edged ivory comb on which the words appear.

Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

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Cop27: Ukraine president says peace is vital for saving climate; US called out for blocking ‘loss and damage’ funds – live

Volodymyr Zelenskiy appears at climate summit via video link; climate experts say US has acted ‘in bad faith’ for decades

I’ve been looking at what some climate scientists on Twitter have been saying about Cop27. Here is a small selection:

Dr Chandni Singh has been checking out the displays at different country pavilions, including one from Pakistan.

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Iranian leaders resist growing demands for referendum on constitution

Hardline parliamentarians insist only response to recent unrest is for violent protesters to be executed

The Iranian leadership is resisting growing demands from clerics and some reformist politicians to stage a new referendum on Iran’s constitution as hardline parliamentarians meanwhile insist the only response to the recent unrest sweeping the country is for violent protesters to be executed.

The power struggle among the country’s rulers appears to leave the government sending out mixed messages on how to respond to the protests, but in practice the security forces have gone ahead with a severe crackdown and arrested nearly 10,000 people, including 60 journalists.

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Spain asked to explain deaths at Moroccan border crossing

Doubt cast on official version of events after deadly crush at border fence in which at least 23 died

The Spanish government is facing growing calls to explain how at least 23 people died during a mass storming of the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla almost five months ago.

MPs who visited the border on a fact-finding trip have appeared to corroborate reports – first aired in a BBC Africa Eye investigation broadcast last week – that dead bodies were dragged out of a Spanish-controlled area by Moroccan police.

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Release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah key to UK-Egypt relations, former diplomat says

Ex-ambassador warns hunger striker’s situation at crucial stage after Rishi Sunak meeting with Egyptian president

The release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the detained British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist who is on hunger strike, has become the defining issue for British-Egyptian relations, the former British ambassador to Egypt John Casson has warned.

His comments came as Abd el-Fattah’s aunt, the novelist Ahdaf Soueif, said there was a danger the British “are allowing themselves to be fobbed off with the excuses they have been given since last December when we started asking for consular visits”.

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