His statement today read: “The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. Israel’s plans to expand the fighting and seize Gaza City have sparked international outcry as well as domestic opposition. View image in fullscreen A Palestinian girl waits at a community kitchen before donated food is distributed in Gaza City, earlier today. His statement today read: The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. About 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City – known as Gaza governorate.

Arsenal have been dealt a blow before the start of the new Women’s Super League season with Leah Williamson ruled out for several weeks after a procedure on a knee injury sustained in last month’s Euro 2025 final. The club had feared the defender could be out for months – thankfully for them that has not proved to be the case. Arsenal open their WSL season against London City Lionesses at the Emirates Stadium on 6 September. I’m hungry, I’m driven, I want to learn, I want to grow, and I want to win things, ultimately. Your journey goes different ways and then you come back home and it’s nice to be back here at this club.

Moscow has said it must be part of any international talks on Ukraine’s security, as Russia continues to stall on Donald Trump’s push for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday that Moscow must be included in any talks on Ukraine’s security guarantees, dismissing European diplomacy as “aggressive escalation” and a “clumsy effort to sway Trump”. “To discuss security guarantees seriously without Russia is a road to nowhere,” Lavrov said during a working visit to Jordan. Lavrov also said that China, Russia’s ally in the war, should be among Ukraine’s security guarantors – reviving a proposal first put forward by Russian negotiators during talks in Turkey in spring 2022. The Russian foreign minister also pointed to the April 2022 talks in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine as a model.

The Russian leadership continued to obfuscate on Wednesday, after European leaders and Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had agreed to a one-on-one meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to kickstart peace talks. Sergei Lavrov said Moscow did not reject any format for Ukraine peace talks but the Russian foreign minister appeared to apply the brakes, saying any leaders’ meeting “must be prepared with utmost thoroughness”. A war crimes warrant could oblige Hungarian authorities to arrest a visiting Putin, but Hungary is withdrawing from the international criminal court. The Austrian chancellor, Christian Stocker, said his country supported any initiative leading to a just and lasting peace protecting Ukrainian and European security. Putin opposes Ukraine joining Nato – Trump told Fox that “there’ll be some form of security.

Russia has said it views the deployment of troops from Nato countries to Ukraine as a red line in negotiations. European leaders held fresh talks on Tuesday after their White House meeting with Zelenskyy amid uncertainty over Putin’s readiness to meet the Ukrainian president. At the heart of Tuesday’s talks among European allies was the question of what security guarantees could be offered to Ukraine. Monday’s White House meeting shed little light on Putin’s territorial terms. “Putin, Zelenskyy and the European leaders were all relieved: they had avoided Trump taking unwelcome decisions.

The president [Putin] has said that repeatedly … Any contacts involving top leaders must be prepared with the utmost care. The White House declined to confirm this or other reports that Putin had suggested having the meeting in Moscow. “I hope President Putin is going to be good and if he’s not, that’s going to be a rough situation,” Trump said. “And I hope that Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy, will do what he has to do. The trilateral meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy, Putin ‘can bring breakthrough on path to peace,’ Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said.

Internet users heavily criticised the “slanted eye” gesture made by the Asian male model as racist. View image in fullscreen The Swatch advert. A Weibo user with more than 1 million followers accused the company of “racism against Chinese” and suggested it should be punished by regulators. “The brand’s image has collapsed. The Italian luxury fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana was criticised in 2018 after it posted promotional videos showing a Chinese model awkwardly using chopsticks to eat Italian food.

It is a nugget that epitomises his down-to-earth character, which radiates as he discusses his £35m move to Nottingham Forest this summer. Photograph: DeFodi Images/Getty ImagesThose who have shared his journey speak of an authentic, upbeat character who is almost always smiling. I know it’s an ambitious club, and I’m ambitious as well. He concedes he may need to adapt to the intensity of the Premier League but his English needs little work. “To bring European football to the City Ground will be something special … I’m proud to be part of this journey.”

Greenpeace climbers attached a new work, titled Butchered, by the renowned artist Anish Kapoor on to a Shell platform in the North Sea – the world’s first artwork to be installed on an active offshore gas site. After securing a 12-metre x 8-metre canvas to the structure, the activists hoisted a high-pressure hose 16 metres above sea level. They then pumped 1,000 litres of blood-red liquid that seeped into the fabric, creating a vast crimson stain. The work is a stark visualisation of the wound inflicted on humanity and the Earth by the fossil fuel industry, and aims to represent the collective grief and pain over what has been lost, as well as a call for reparation

All the more surprising, then, that she overlooks some of the more promising steps towards nuclear disarmament. In particular, momentum is building behind the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which came into force in 2021 and is now supported by nearly half the countries in the world. Recent polling from More in Common suggests that young people believe nuclear conflict is the greatest threat to Britain. After all, Vladimir Putin could launch a nuclear attack on Ukraine, which has no nuclear umbrella. Nuclear weapons kill people and may destroy the planet – they do not end war.

That glass was shattered last week when Donald Trump announced 39% tariffs on Swiss exports. If Trump maintains the tariffs, sales to the US “will be effectively annihilated”, said Switzerland’s industry lobbying group. The rightwing Swiss business minister, Guy Parmelin, announced a furlough programme to shield the economy from “mass layoffs”. Trump’s tariff shock has provoked a major identity crisis in a country that has grown rich on exports, and done so in splendid isolation from world politics. Trump’s golf-cart style of governing ought to see him fit right in to the Swiss country club.

The price of gold futures have soared to a record high after it emerged that the US would put tariffs on imports of 1kg bars in a further trade blow to Switzerland, which dominates the world’s refining industry. It later emerged that US customs had decided that certain imports of gold bars that had been in a tariff-exempt category should also be covered by the 39% rate. It said the imposition of tariffs on gold cast products “makes it economically unviable to export them to the US”. after newsletter promotionWith about 70% of the world market, Switzerland dominates the trade of turning gold from mines and other sources into gold bars. According to reports, gold bars were in such demand in the US in May after Trump’s announcement of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs the previous month that Costco capped how many gold bars could be bought in a day.

From 1d ago 13.18 BST Putin says he could meet Zelenskyy under 'certain conditions' that are 'far' from being met And just like that, Interfax is reporting the latest comments from Russian president Vladimir Putin, quoted as saying that “on the whole” he has nothing against meeting Zelenskyy. He added, however, that “certain conditions should be created” for such a meeting, and the current situation was “far” from satisfactory, Reuters reported. He also said, just as expected, that the United Arab Emirates could host his meeting with Trump, potentially as early as next week (11:48). Mind you: he made these comments just after meeting with sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE. Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for direct discussions with Putin, with either Trump or the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as a mediator.

More than 200 industry lobbyists are attending the UN’s meeting to hammer out a global plastics treaty, raising fears that moves to prevent runaway plastic production may be undermined. “Fossil fuel companies are central to plastic production, as over 99% of plastics are derived from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels,” said Ximena Banegas, Ciel’s global plastics and petrochemicals campaigner. The numbers of lobbyists attending the talks has been rising steadily since the process started in 2022, alongside deepening rifts between nations. Photograph: James Wakibia/SOPA Images/ShutterstockOn the one hand is a cohort of more than 100 nations that say they want an ambitious treaty including, among other things, global targets to reduce plastic production. Ciel’s analysis shows several lobbyists appear on government delegations from where they can actively sculpt the treaty text.

Yet global production of plastics is on course to triple to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060, after increasing by more than 200 times over the past 75 years. This gloomy backdrop should inject a sense of urgency into UN-convened talks in Switzerland this week, aimed at agreeing a binding global plastics treaty. There are already signs that in Geneva the US plans to align itself with fellow fossil-fuel producers in resisting any attempt to agree to a reduction in virgin plastic production. But plastic production also contributes more than 3% of annual global greenhouse emissions. A cap on global production is desperately needed, though achieving that in Geneva looks like a tall order.