Israeli ambassador protests as Iranian president speaks – as it happened

The United Nations general assembly liveblog is now closed, but please see the following stories to stay on top of the day’s news:

Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”

The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative.

The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security.

Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart.

In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support.

Authoritarianism is on the march, inequalities are growing, and hate speech is on the rise.

What we need is determination and determination which is in the DNA of our United Nations, summoning gods with the first words of the charter.

We the peoples of the United Nations, determined, determined to end the scourge of war, determined to reaffirm faith in human rights, determined to uphold justice and respect international law and determined to promote social progress and better lives for all people.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: air defence is Ukraine’s ‘greatest need’, US secretary of defence says, as he calls for allies to ‘dig deep’

Lloyd Austin urges allies to donate whatever air defence munitions they can

In addition to the damage at warehouses in Lviv, Suspilne reports that a high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged.

Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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House Republicans cancel vote on short-term funding measure amid infighting – live

Kevin McCarthy fights rightwing of Republican party over spending deal; House oversight committee aims for first hearing next Thursday, report says

The House will not vote today on a measure to keep the government open past 30 September, amid a split between the chamber’s Republican leadership and a handful of far-right lawmakers that will cause a government shutdown if it is not resolved in 12 days, Punchbowl News reports:

Lawmakers had been scheduled to today vote to approve the rules of debate for the short-term funding measure, but it was unclear if it would have passed.

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Starmer wraps up foreign mini-tour with visit to Macron in Paris

Talks between Labour leader and French president at Élysée described as ‘warm and engaging’

Keir Starmer has completed his international mini-tour by meeting Emmanuel Macron in Paris for symbolically significant if low-key talks that skirted around specifics of Brexit or migration policy.

After discussions in The Hague with EU law enforcement officials, and weekend meetings with Justin Trudeau and others in Montreal, the Labour leader held 45 minutes of one-to-one talks with the French president at the Élysée Palace.

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Tributes paid to Germany’s ‘favourite Englishman’ Roger Whittaker

Baritone, who has died aged 87, cultivated loyal German fanbase by learning to sing translated lyrics phonetically

Tributes are being paid across Germany to the singer Roger Whittaker, described as the country’s favourite Briton who served his biggest and most loyal fanbase by singing in their tongue.

Whittaker, whose death at 87 was announced on Monday, admitted to never learning to speak the language, but became one of the most prolific recording artists in German by having his translated lyrics transcribed phonetically and taking lessons to sound as if he meant what he sang.

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Spain grants Basque, Catalan and Galician languages parliamentary status

MPs from far-right Vox stage walkout in protest at recognition of co-official languages

Spanish MPs have been able to address congress in Basque, Catalan and Galician for the first time after the country’s Socialist-led caretaker government agreed to smaller parties’ demands for the the three regional languages to be granted official parliamentary status.

The change – which is intended to help the chamber “progress along the path of linguistic plurality” – was requested by the Catalan pro-independence parties on whose support the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is relying to form a new government after July’s general election resulted in a hung parliament.

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Global heating made Greece and Libya floods more likely, study says

Report says climate change made rainfall heavier but human factors turned extreme weather into humanitarian disaster

Carbon pollution led to heavier rains and stronger floods in Greece and Libya this month but other human factors were responsible for “turning the extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster”, scientists have said.

Global heating made the levels of rainfall that devastated the Mediterranean in early September up to 50 times more likely in Libya and up to 10 times more likely in Greece, according to a study from World Weather Attribution that used established methods but had not yet been peer-reviewed.

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Biden wary of history repeating as he braves Republican criticism of Iran swap

The failure to free US hostages seized at the US embassy in Tehran over 40 years ago consigned one Democratic president to a single term

For all the widespread fear of a second Donald Trump presidency, the Biden White House could be forgiven for being more preoccupied by the spectre of Jimmy Carter and the baleful images of his last year in office.

Carter was the last Democratic president to serve only a first term, brought low by the searing drama of the Tehran embassy siege, when Iranian revolutionaries had overrun the US diplomatic compound and held 52 American personnel captive for more than a year, heaping international humiliation on a military superpower when the cold war was still at its height.

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Ukrainian market tragedy may have been caused by errant missile fired by Ukraine

Evidence collected by New York Times suggests Russia may not have been responsible for strike

A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported.

A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, in one of the highest civilian death tolls from a single incident in recent months.

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Azerbaijan launches ‘anti-terrorist’ campaign in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region

Bombardment of blockaded region could reopen 2020 war in which land was taken from Armenian population

Azerbaijan has said it has launched an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as bombing raids were reported in the regional capital of Stepanakert and at other Armenian positions.

The bombardment of the blockaded region, which local Armenians call Artsakh, could reopen a bloody 2020 war in which Azerbaijan retook land from a local Armenian population amid widespread accusations of war crimes.

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Eastern Libya orders journalists out of flood-hit Derna after protests

Media crackdown follows reports that police officers had detained and questioned Libyan reporters

Libya’s eastern government has ordered journalists to leave Derna after angry protests against the authorities a week after a flood killed thousands of residents.

Hundreds of people gathered on Monday outside Sahaba mosque in the city, chanting slogans. Some sat on its gold-domed roof. Later in the evening, a crowd set fire to the house of the man who was Derna’s mayor at the time of the disaster, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi.

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Climate action must respond to extreme weather driving health crisis, says WHO

Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are urgent but people care more about the floods, wildfires and droughts that are here now, New York summit hears

Floods, wildfires, drought and the onslaught of extreme weather are driving a global health crisis that must be put at the centre of climate action, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis; it drives extreme weather and is taking lives around the world,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, said. “Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are, of course, crucial issues, but for most people they are distant threats in both time and place. The threats of our changing climate are right here and right now.”

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Tigray atrocities continuing almost a year after ceasefire, UN experts warn

Ethiopian government is failing to protect its citizens from ‘grave’ human rights abuses, amid rising violence and hate speech – report

Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.

The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.

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Where is Li Shangfu? China’s missing defence minister highlights Xi’s total grip on power

China’s latest missing minister underscores the move to centralised rule, and how questioning Xi’s judgement has become increasingly dangerous

Three weeks after he was last seen in public, there is still no official confirmation about what has happened to Gen Li Shangfu, China’s defence minister and the latest senior official to be seemingly swept up in China’s political purges.

Last week, Reuters reported that Li, along with eight other senior officials, was under investigation for the corrupt procurement of military equipment relating to his time at the helm of the equipment division of the Central Military Commission, the military’s ruling body, between September 2017 and October 2022. US intelligence has also made similar conclusions.

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European governments shrinking railways in favour of road-building, report finds

Rail networks in most countries have been starved of funding while motorways lengthen, study shows

European governments have “systematically” shrunk their railways and starved them of funding while pouring money into expanding their road network, a report has found.

The length of motorways in Europe grew 60% between 1995 and 2020 while railways shrank 6.5%, according to research from the German thinktanks Wuppertal Institute and T3 Transportation. For every €1 governments spent building railways, they spent €1.6 building roads.

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Western leaders defend slow progress to end global inequality as UN summit starts

Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals

Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.

At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.

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Freed American decries Iran’s ‘vile path to profit’ of holding foreigners hostage

Siamak Namazi was held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for nearly eight years before the $6bn prisoner swap on Monday

An American citizen freed in a complex exchange deal after being imprisoned for nearly eight years in Iran has urged the Biden administration to launch a “gamechanging global endeavour” to end the Islamic regime’s longstanding practice of holding foreign nationals hostage.

Siamak Namazi, 51, was one of five US citizens released on Monday under the terms of an agreement that saw five Iranians facing charges in the United States granted clemency and Iran being given access to $6bn of previously frozen oil revenues.

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Five Americans head home in $6bn US-Iran prisoner swap deal

Joe Biden announces return of detainees as US in turn frees five Iranians under controversial agreement

The US and Iran have freed five detainees each in a controversial prisoner swap involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money.

In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans – some held for nearly a decade – were taken from hotels in Tehran to a plane that flew to Qatar, before heading back to Washington.

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Danish artist who submitted empty frames as artwork told to repay funding

Jens Haaning must return about 532,000 krone loaned by Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, court says

A Danish artist who pocketed large sums of money lent to him by a museum – and submitted empty frames as his artwork – has been ordered by a court to repay the funds.

Jens Haaning, a conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned in 2021 by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, northern Denmark, to recreate two earlier works that used scores of banknotes to represent average incomes.

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