Cop27 president bemoans slow negotiations saying some countries failing to address urgency of climate crisis – as it happened

Egypt foreign minister Sameh Shoukry says delegates are shying away from taking ‘difficult political decisions’. This live blog is closed

As global politicians face difficult discussions on the draft over the coming hours, public opinion appears to be supportive of the idea that richer countries should pay loss and damage finances for climate action in poor countries.

Damian Carrington, our environment editor writes: A significant majority of people in the UK think the country has a responsibility to pay for climate action in poorer and vulnerable countries, an opinion poll conducted for the Guardian shows.

No details of a fund on loss and damage financing for poorer countries

“Welcomes” the fact that parties agreed for the first time to include “matters related to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage” on the summit agenda.

No call for a phase down on all fossil fuels

Stresses the importance of exerting all efforts to meet Paris Agreement goal of holding global average temperature to well below 2C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C

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Republicans gain narrow majority to control House – live

Last week’s elections produced winners, losers and candidates like Kari Lake.

The Associated Press has already called the Arizona governor’s race for Democrat Katie Hobbs, but her Republican challenger Lake is refusing to concede. She said as much in a video released to supporters today:

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Russia-Ukraine war: Kremlin says ‘difficult to imagine’ public negotiations with Kyiv; new Russian missile strikes across Ukraine – live

Kremlin spokesperson claims ‘Ukrainians do not want any negotiations’; Kyiv and Dnipro air defence systems work to shoot down incoming rockets

Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov has said that the Black Sea grain initiative will be prolonged for 120 days.

Writing in a tweet, he said the deal was agreed between UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres and Ukraine’s president, Volodimir Zelenskiy.

He added that Ukraine had officially appealed to extend the initiative, which was agreed in July and enables Russian and Ukrainian wheat and fertilisers to be exported through the Black Sea, for one year and to include the Mykolaiv port.

His remarks could not immediately be confirmed independently.

The July deal has helped stave off a global food crisis by allowing exports through ports that had been blockaded by Russia.

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Herschel Walker says in rambling speech he wants to be ‘werewolf, not vampire’

Republican Senate candidate for Georgia rehashes plot of late-night movie and considers merits of both creatures

In a campaign speech on Wednesday, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Georgia, Herschel Walker, told supporters: “I don’t want to be a vampire any more. I want to be a werewolf.”

The remark was the latest controversial or outright bizarre intervention from the former football star who like other candidates endorsed by Donald Trump struggled to overcome his Democratic opponent in the midterm elections.

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Iran protests: family of boy, 9, killed in night of violence blame attack on security forces

Kian Pirfalak was one of several people killed on Wednesday as anger over Mahsa Amini transforms into wider protest against the regime

The family of a nine-year-old boy killed on Wednesday evening by assailants on motorbikes during some of the worst violence in Iran in two months of protests have accused security forces of carrying out the attack.

Kian Pirfalak was one of seven people, including a woman and a 13-year-old child, killed by gunmen in the western city of Izeh.

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International troops quit Mali as violence and Moscow’s influence grow

Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgency

Thousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.

On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned.

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Three men found guilty of murdering 298 people in shooting down of MH17

Court says Russia had overall control of the separatist forces in eastern Ukraine at the time when the plane was shot down

A Dutch court has found three men guilty of the murder of 298 people onboard flight MH17, which was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile when it was flying over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The court handed down sentences of life imprisonment to the Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy and a Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko, after finding them guilty of bringing down the plane and the murder of everyone onboard. They were ordered to pay “more than €16m” in compensation to the victims. The three men remain at large and it remains unclear if they will ever serve their sentences.

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Two hunters accused of manslaughter go on trial in south-west France

Culture and safety of hunting widely seen to be on trial too after Morgan Keane, 25, died while cutting wood on his land

Two hunters accused of the manslaughter of a young man mistaken for a boar have gone on trial in the French town of Cahors in a case that also puts the wider culture and safety of French hunting in the dock.

Morgan Keane, 25, died after he was hit in the chest while cutting wood on his own land near Calvignac in the Lot, south-west France, in December 2020. The hunter who fired the fatal shot, Julien Féral, 35, said he mistook Keane for a wild boar.

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Firefighter arrested in Germany over refugee shelter arson attack

Authorities believe the fire was part of a series of 19 arson attempts, and was not politically motivated

A fire that tore through a shelter for Ukrainian refugees in north-east Germany last month was started by one of the firefighters who later helped to extinguish it, according to prosecutors in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, who have arrested the 32-year-old man.

A swastika daubed on a Red Cross sign outside the repurposed thatched-roof hotel in the town of Groß Strömkendorf two days before the fire had led some to speculate about a political motive behind the arson attack, which caused millions of euros worth of damage. None of the shelter’s 17 inhabitants were harmed.

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French hunter who killed man after ‘mistaking him for boar’ goes on trial

Calls for crackdown on hunt safety during trial of Julien Féral, who shot dead man outside home near Toulouse

A hunter who shot dead an Anglo-French man after allegedly mistaking him for a wild boar has gone on trial accused of manslaughter.

Morgan Keane, 25, was hit in the chest as he was cutting wood outside his home in a village north of Toulouse, in south-west France, two years ago.

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Myanmar frees former UK ambassador amid mass prisoner release

State media says foreign nationals and 712 ‘political prisoners’ among 5,774 to be freed in so-called amnesty

Almost 6,000 people will be released from prison in Myanmar, including the Australian academic Prof Sean Turnell, Britain’s former ambassador Vicky Bowman and the Japanese film-maker Toru Kubota, junta-controlled media has said.

On Thursday, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV said that the foreign nationals, as well as a Burmese-American citizen, had been released and deported in a so-called amnesty timed to coincide with Myanmar National Day.

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Russia launches another wave of missile strikes across Ukraine

Attack is the sixth since early October and authorities in Kyiv said energy infrastructure was again being targeted

Russia has unleashed another wave of rocket, drone and missile strikes across Ukraine in its sixth mass attack since early October.

Ukraine’s authorities said the attack, like the previous five, was aimed at destroying the country’s energy system.

Strikes on critical infrastructure in Odesa and Dnipro were confirmed by the presidential administration and the regional heads on Thursday morning. Three people were reportedly injured in Odesa region its authorities said, while a another 14 people were injured, including a teenager, in the strike on Dnipro city, according to its mayor, Borys Filatov. The Dnipro regional administration reported that five people were injured.

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North Korea launches ballistic missile, threatens ‘fiercer’ military response

The latest missile test comes on the back of expanded military exercises between the US and South Korea

North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile Thursday toward its eastern waters, South Korea’s military said, hours after the North threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the US bolstering its security commitment to its allies South Korea and Japan.

South Korea’s military detected the launch from the North’s eastern coastal Wonsan area at 10:48am local time, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said South Korea has boosted its surveillance of North Korea while maintaining a military readiness and a close coordination with the United States.

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Devastating floods in Nigeria were 80 times more likely because of climate crisis

Stark findings add pressure on Cop27 negotiators to deliver meaningful funding to vulnerable countries

The heavy rain behind recent devastating flooding in Nigeria, Niger and Chad was made about 80 times more likely by the climate crisis, a study has found.

The finding is the latest stark example of the severe impacts that global heating is already wreaking on communities, even with just a 1C rise in global temperature to date. It adds pressure on the world’s nations at the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt to deliver meaningful action on protecting and compensating affected countries.

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Lula vows to undo environmental degradation and halt deforestation

President-elect says he will work to save Amazon rainforest and key ecosystems in rousing Cop27 speech

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the world that “Brazil is back” at Cop27, vowing to begin undoing the environmental destruction seen under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and work towards zero deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

Followed by a carnival atmosphere wherever he went on Wednesday, Lula told the climate summit that his administration would go further than ever before on the environment by cracking down on illegal gold mining, logging and agricultural expansion, and restoring climate-critical ecosystems.

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Film depicting transgender love affair to be screened in Pakistan

Cannes Jury prize-winning Joyland had previously been banned following objections by Islamist hardliners

A Pakistani film portraying romance between a married man and a transgender woman was cleared for domestic screenings on Wednesday, officials said, reversing a government ban forced by Islamist pressure.

Lauded by critics, awarded the jury prize at Cannes and nominated as Pakistan’s entry for next year’s Academy Awards, Joyland was set to open in cinemas across the country this Friday.

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Iranian police open fire at Tehran metro station and beat women on train

Video footage shows people running for exits and police with batons beating women in metro carriages

Iranian security forces have opened fire on people at a metro station in Tehran and beaten women who were not wearing mandatory hair coverings as protests over the death of Mahsa Amini entered a third month.

Footage shared on social media showed passengers running towards exits, with many falling and being trampled, after police opened fire on a crowded platform. Police were also filmed through train windows marching through carriages and beating women with batons.

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Xi Jinping’s cordial tone at G20 does not herald softer foreign policy

Apparent rapprochement with western leaders does not mean China is about to ditch its ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomacy

Fresh from consolidating power with a third term at home, Xi Jinping struck a largely cordial tone at the G20 summit in Indonesia, but don’t expect a change in China’s often aggressive “wolf-warrior” diplomacy.

While laying down a hard line on Taiwan, the Chinese president’s three-hour meeting with Joe Biden was described by the US president as “candid and clear” on subjects ranging from Taiwan to trade. After China accused the US of breaching the “One China” policy in its pledge to protect Taiwan, Biden reassured Xi that the US remained committed to the policy and “a new cold war” could be avoided.

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Arrest of mafia drug-trafficker on Europol’s most wanted list shrouded in mystery

Bruno Carbone, right-hand man of mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale, was arrested at Rome airport amid claims he was extradited from Syria

The arrest of an Italian drug trafficker who was on Europol’s most wanted list is shrouded in mystery amid reports that he was captured and extradited from Syria.

Bruno Carbone, who had been on the run since 2003, was the right-hand man of Raffaele Imperiale, a drug broker for the Naples’ Camorra mafia who was arrested in Dubai in August 2021.

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Lula says ‘Brazil is back’ as he vows to reverse Amazon deforestation – as it happened

Brazil’s president elect beat Jair Bolsonaro, under whose watch deforestation had rocketed, in last month’s election

This liveblog is now closed

A long-mooted deposit return scheme in the UK will not be in place for a further two years, the UK environment secretary said on Wednesday, writes Fiona Harvey, Guardian environment correspondent.

“It will be another couple of years at least,” Thérèse Coffey told journalists at Cop27. “Scotland has not started theirs yet. We are getting on with our environmental targets and a business plan and Elms. We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the 25 year environment plan.”

Let’s talk to the secretary-general of the UN for the next op to be done in Brazil, in the Amazon. I think it is important that the people who defend the Amazon know the region and the concrete reality.

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