Pro-Palestine march will be one of UK’s biggest ever protests, organisers predict

Police to put tight controls on protesters’ movements with hundreds of thousands expected at event on Armistice Day

The organisers of the pro-Palestine march due to take place in London on Armistice Day believe “hundreds of thousands” of people will turn out for what they say will be one of Britain’s biggest days of mass protest.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan police said the policing of the remembrance weekend would be “far greater and more complex than we’ve delivered before” and that officers would draw on “an extensive set of powers to prevent any disruption whatsoever”, with tight controls put on the movements of protesters.

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‘Our wish is to be martyred’: defiant Hamas fighters count their losses in West Bank

Hundreds of men, some armed, march with bodies of the dead through Jenin as violence escalates

At 8.30 on Friday morning, Jenin’s morgue was crowded. Outside, dozens of young men in black baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans stood quietly, some with their weapons between their knees, their green Hamas headbands tied tight across their foreheads. Older men sat in front of shuttered shops.

Inside, a metal door was opened and a corpse wrapped in the green flag of Hamas was drawn out on a stretcher. A teenager with an assault rifle in one hand touched the dead man lightly on the forehead, then helped to shoulder the stretcher and with five others set out through the throng, down the rubble-strewn streets to the home of Hamed Fayed, where the women of the family waited.

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Civilian death rate in Israeli airstrikes higher than in past conflicts, study finds

Monitoring group says increased fatality average in latest Gaza air campaign may indicate shift in strategy

Each recorded fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza since 7 October has caused an average of 10.1 civilian deaths, a monitoring group has said, amid warnings that reported civilian casualty figures are likely to be an underestimate.

The fatality average is far higher than in the three previous Israeli air campaigns in Gaza, of which the most deadly was Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, where the equivalent figure was 2.5.

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Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to meet on sidelines of Apec summit

‘Everything is on the table,’ US official says of first face-to-face interaction between leaders in a year, on Wednesday

The US president, Joe Biden, will meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, face to face for the first time in a year on Wednesday, the White House said, in high-stakes diplomacy aimed at curbing tensions between the world’s two superpowers.

The closely watched interaction, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in the San Francisco Bay Area, could last hours and involve teams of officials from Beijing and Washington.

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UK couple on holiday in Egypt died of carbon monoxide poisoning, coroner rules

Susan and John Cooper, from Burnley, fell ill after hotel room next door was sprayed for bed bug infestation

A woman whose parents were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning during a holiday to Egypt has said her family is “broken without them”.

John and Susan Cooper, aged 69 and 63 respectively, died after falling ill in their hotel room after a pesticide was sprayed in the room next door to kill bed bugs, a coroner ruled on Friday.

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South Africa to introduce shared parental leave after landmark judgment

Country will be first in Africa to introduce measure after its high court ruled that both parents must have right to time off

South Africa is set to become the first country in Africa to introduce shared parental leave after a high court ruled that both parents must have the right to time off after the birth of a baby or adopting a child.

The landmark judgment allows parents to choose how to divide four months parental leave between them.

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EU strikes landmark deal on law to restore and protect nature

Legislation will set targets to restore 20% of EU land and seas by 2030, and 90% of degraded habitats by 2050

EU lawmakers and member states have struck a deal on a landmark law to protect nature after watering down rules that critics argued would trouble farmers.

The nature restoration law, a hotly contested pillar of the European green deal, will force EU countries to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s land and seas by the end of the decade. It contains binding targets to restore at least 30% of degraded habitats by then, rising to 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050.

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Drop in Latin American drinking prompts Diageo to issue profits warning

Shares fall in world’s largest spririts company as consumers seek cheaper brands

The Guinness to Johnnie Walker drinks maker Diageo has issued a profit warning as a result of cash-strapped customers in Latin America and the Caribbean consuming less alcohol and seeking cheaper brands.

Shares in the world’s largest spirits company plunged more than 11% in early trading on Friday, making it the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, as investors worried that the trend in the region might spread to other markets.

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Ransomware attack on China’s biggest bank disrupts US Treasury market

American arm of ICBC is latest victim of hackers and is investigating

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s US arm was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted trades in the US Treasury market on Thursday, the latest in a string of victims ransom-demanding hackers have claimed this year.

ICBC Financial Services, the US unit of China’s largest commercial lender by assets, said it was investigating the attack that disrupted some of its systems, and making progress towards recovering from it.

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Spanish police investigate possible Iran link to shooting of former politician

Alejandro Vidal-Quadras told police from hospital bed of his links to exiled Iranian opposition, source says

The Spanish rightwing former politician Alejandro Vidal-Quadras is recovering in hospital after being shot in the face on a central Madrid street.

Police said they were not ruling out any theories for the attack on Thursday afternoon, including a possible link to the former European lawmaker’s ties with the Iranian opposition.

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Kim Jong-un closes slate of North Korea’s embassies as sanctions bite

Regime can no longer afford all its diplomatic missions, including some to longtime allies such as Angola where it has maintained ties since 1975

While Kim Jong-un basks in the afterglow of his recent visit to Russia, North Korea is scaling back its presence overseas, with reported plans to close almost a quarter of its diplomatic missions blamed on its sanctions-hit economy.

While the regime moves closer to China and Russia amid new tensions on the Korean peninsula, years of UN-led sanctions have forced it to close embassies and consulates in as many as a dozen locations, including those in countries Pyongyang views as longtime allies.

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Ukrainian film-makers ‘looking for right angle’ as military drone operators

Cinematographer Yaroslav Pilunskiy and film editor Ivan Bannikov are part of drone unit fighting Russians in Donetsk

Sometimes, if the situation allows on Ukraine’s brutal eastern frontline, Yaroslav Pilunskiy will fly his drone to “a place I know where the Russians are constantly shelling over a lake, against a beautiful sunset.”

Moscow’s expenditure on the munitions represents a movie budget that Pilunskiy, 51, could only dream about in his former life as one of Ukraine’s most respected cinematographers. “When the command staff ask what I’m doing, I say: ‘When else will I be able to film these pyrotechnics?’”

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Sweden’s schools minister declares free school ‘system failure’

Exclusive: Lotta Edholm aims to limit the profit-making ability of friskolor in her plans for education reform

Sweden has declared a “system failure” in the country’s free schools, pledging the biggest shake-up in 30 years and calling into question a model in which profit-making companies run state education.

Sweden’s friskolor – privately run schools funded by public money – have attracted international acclaim, including from Britain, with the former education secretary Michael Gove using them as a model for hundreds of new British free schools opened under David Cameron’s government.

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Israel-Hamas war live: US says ‘far too many’ Palestinians have died as Gaza’s health ministry says toll is over 11,000

US secretary of state says country has proposed longer ‘humanitarian pauses’ to Israel; Hamas-run health ministry says 11,078 people have been killed

It’s approaching mid-morning in Gaza now. The Guardian and other outlets have been reporting that the White House announced Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. However, there is yet to be a clear sign that this is taking place. Here are some scenes from the strip yesterday.

Here is our latest full report on recent developments in the Israel-Hamas war. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he isn’t seeking to govern Gaza, after earlier saying Israel may be responsible for its security indefinitely. It also includes reports of attacks on three hospitals in the territory, including the main Al Shifa hospital.

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Species of mammal named after David Attenborough believed extinct rediscovered

Long-beaked echidna with spines of a hedgehog and snout of an anteater photographed on last day of expedition

Scientists have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole, in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was photographed for the first timesince 1961 by a trail camera on the last day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists in June and July.

Having descended from the mountains at the end of the trip, biologist James Kempton found the images of the small creature walking through the forest undergrowth on the last memory card retrieved from more than 80 remote cameras.

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Full prisons and false charges: Bangladesh opposition faces pre-election crackdown

Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party are seeking a fourth consecutive term and are accused of harassing the rival BNP party

In Bangladesh, there is no more room left in the prisons. In the last two weeks alone, almost 10,000 opposition leaders, supporters and activists have been arrested after protests broke out against the ruling government, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

Thousands of other political prisoners have already been inside these cells for months, many facing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminal charges. Rajshahi central jailhas a capacity of about 4,000 prisoners. It now holds more than 13,600.

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Robert De Niro’s production company ordered to pay $1.3m to ex-assistant

Canal Productions liable in gender discrimination suit filed by Graham Chase Robinson, while De Niro found not personally liable

Robert De Niro’s production company was found liable on Thursday by a jury for gender discrimination and retaliation, and ordered to pay $1.3m to the Hollywood star’s former assistant.

The 80-year-old actor and director was not found personally liable by the jury in New York after a two-week trial.

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Justin Trudeau condemns shots fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal

Canadian prime minister says ‘attacking each other is not who we are’ after clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups

Justin Trudeau has condemned recent violence in Canada after shots were fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal and clashes broke out between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students at a university in the city.

Police on Thursday said they were investigating overnight shootings at two Jewish schools in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood after staff reported finding bullet holes in the front doors of the schools.

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US Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024

Controversial West Virginia Democrat, 76, has for years held outsized degree of power within party

West Virginia’s controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead “fight to unite the middle”.

The 76-year-old senator, who for years has held an outsized degree of power within the Democratic party and often defied its leadership, appeared in July at an event held by a political group exploring a third-party presidential bid.

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Canada: murder charge for ex-boyfriend of woman abducted by fake police

Case of Elnaz Hajtamiri, taken from Ontario home by three men with police equipment in January 2022, had stumped investigators

The ex-boyfriend of a Canadian woman who was abducted by fake police officers has been charged with first-degree murder, marking the latest twist in a high-profile kidnapping case that had appeared to stump investigators for nearly two years.

Elnaz Hajtamiri was dragged from a property in an Ontario beach community on 12 January 2022 by three men with police equipment who forced their way into the home and hauled her barefoot through the snow to a waiting vehicle.

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