Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – JD Vance, US midterm elections 2026, Donald Trump, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Dallas, Texas, US politics, US news
Title – JD Vance pitches himself as Trump’s political heir on day two of Republican midterm convention | JD Vance | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/adam-gabbatt
Link – JD Vance pitches himself as Trump’s political heir on day two of Republican midterm convention | JD Vance | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T03:52:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/10/jd-vance-republican-midterm-convention

JD Vance made a clear pitch that he should be the heir to Donald Trump on Thursday night, closing out the Republicans ’ midterm convention with a blistering speech that featured exaggerated claims of success, criticism of Democrats as “lunatics” and an aggressive dismissal of a protester waving a Mexican flag.

Speaking in Dallas , the vice-president showed he could channel the basest instincts of his boss, filling his remarks with dog whistles and echoing Trump’s false claims that Democrats “cheered” the 7 October massacre of Israelis.

Vance had been met with chants of “JD, JD,” as he walked on to the stage: the liveliest response anyone besides Trump received across the two-day convention, with some shouting that he should be the nominee in 2028.

“We gotta take care of business this November, then we’ll worry about what comes next,” the vice-president responded with a smile.

Vance began the speech by running through a list of Republican grievances, channeling Trump’s pugnacious attitude toward immigration as he told the crowd that two years ago “we were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous”.

The Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd inside the arena liked that line, but the loudest cheer of the night came when Vance responded to a protester who briefly interrupted his speech. Vance claimed the protester was waving a Mexican flag, and adopted a fiery tone as he said: “Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there – I’ll buy you the plane ticket.”

The applause was rapturous.

The vice-president had to walk a tightrope coming into the speech, arguably the most important address of his short political career. He had to present his own case to the Republican base, without breaking too much from the notoriously sensitive Trump.

Vance praised Trump as “the toughest SOB in American politics”, and paused repeatedly as the crowd lavished him with cheers and applause.

He also invoked the recent birth of a fourth child, saying he had been looking at “the future of this country through the eyes of the future of my son” and “the birthright of this newest of Americans”.

Addressing Democratic “radicals”, whom he accused of wanting to destroy the nuclear American family, he boomed: “Stay the hell away from our kids.”

But it was also a speech aimed squarely at rallying the Maga faithful: attacking transgender rights, extolling the importance of American manufacturing and religious freedom, and accusing Democrats of “doubling down on the crazy”.

Vance showed a penchant, too, for Trump’s baseless statements, claiming that some Democrats in New York “cheered on” the slaughter of Jewish people on 7 October, and suggesting that a “new generation” of Democrats seek to defund the police and “abolish the border”.

“What is it that drives this new generation of radical Democrats? It’s not new policies. They’ll say the same stuff: defund the police, abolish the border, the green new scam. We’ve heard all this stuff before,” Vance said. He then tried out a new line: “I think that what’s new about them is what motivates them is a new type of hardcore hatred.”

Vance won applause, too, for his praise of Charlie Kirk, the far-right activist who was assassinated in Utah exactly one year ago. Addressing Kirk’s children, who were not in the arena, Vance said: “History will record that your father was a great man.

“Those of us who loved your dad, we know him as something even better than a great man – he was a good man,” he added of Kirk, a man who , among other things, endorsed Trump’s stolen-election lies and the racist great replacement theory.

One problem Vance could face should he run in 2028 is his attachment to the deeply unpopular Iran war, and foreign policy was conspicuous by its absence in his speech. Last week he rejected the use of the word “war”, but said he wouldn’t set “artificial lines” regarding an end to the conflict. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Trump’s advisers have raised the prospect that the war could drag on through the rest of his term.

Vance did not address the war directly. But in an oblique reference he invoked Kirk’s disdain for conflict.

“Charlie hated war,” Vance said, before pleading with undecided voters to not abandon the party over policy differences.

“What I’m asking you to do is do what Charlie did: do not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said. “Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.”

A poll found Vance was the favorite choice among likely Republican primary voters, with 43% saying they wanted him to be the nominee in 2028. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, got 21%; Donald Trump Jr was at 7%.

Vance will hope those numbers stick, but he wasn’t the only one auditioning in Dallas. Robert F Kennedy Jr , the health secretary who switched parties to support Trump in 2024, praised the president and attacked the Democratic party during a well-received speech earlier on Thursday, while Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, received a rousing response in his home state.

“They hate Christians, they hate Jews, they hate the ‌capitalism, they hate ⁠the constitution and they hate America,” Cruz said of Democrats, offering no evidence for his claims, but very much tapping into the theme of the two-day convention.

Rubio did not speak at the convention, instead taking part in a tour of South America. Both he and Cruz ran against Trump in 2016. During that contest, Trump dubbed Rubio “Little Marco” and suggested Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy.

Vance, by contrast, has never publicly attracted Trump’s ire, and he will want to keep it that way as he seeks to take on leadership of the party in two years’ time. That was probably the thinking as the vice-president ended his speech, shouting over jubilant applause that Trump was the “greatest president” before relinquishing the stage for his boss to bring the convention to a close.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – US Open Tennis 2026, Coco Gauff, Tennis, Sport, US Open tennis, US sports
Title – Elena Rybakina rallies to beat Coco Gauff and book US Open final with Aryna Sabalenka | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tumaini-carayol
Link – Elena Rybakina rallies to beat Coco Gauff and book US Open final with Aryna Sabalenka | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T03:28:03.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/11/elena-rybakina-beats-coco-gauff-us-open-womens-semi-final

One set may have already passed in her first US Open semi-final, but Elena Rybakina still had not arrived inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. While an inspired Coco Gauff blew through the first stanza covering every inch of the acrylic surface as their 22,000-strong audience screamed for the Kazakhstani’s blood, Rybakina was wild and erratic from the baseline and her peerless serve was nowhere to be seen.

Nobody reaches the summit of professional without being able to problem-solve through difficult days on court though, and Rybakina gave a brilliant showcase of the underrated toughness at the heart of her success as she coolly recovered from a set down to overpower Gauff and seal her spot in her first US Open final with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win.

Six matches into her latest grand slam odyssey, Rybakina has not played her best tennis at any point in the tournament but her continued success here underlines her mental growth. This is Rybakina’s fourth career grand slam final and since her maiden victory at Wimbledon in 2022, her subsequent three major finals have all come on hard courts. Having waited four years to win her second grand slam, she has given herself a shot at winning two major titles in the same year.

In many ways, this was already one of the most important and successful tournaments of Rybakina’s career. She arrived in New York with a golden opportunity to unlock one of the great achievements in this sport by becoming world No 1. Despite a scary Achilles injury in the build up to the tournament and a dire record at the US Open, she kept on moving forward.

In the aftermath of that massive success, which she sealed with a tense quarter-final win over Zheng Qinwen, Rybakina made it clear that she was far from satisfied and the job was not even half-finished. She was here for nothing less than the title. Now she will contend for it in a final that will mark the rekindling of the rivalry that has defined the season, facing the departing No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a rematch of the Australian Open final won by Rybakina.

For Gauff, her growth over the past year has been defined by the dramatic improvement she has made to her serve, the shot that reduced her to tears on this court last year. This was the least of her issues here. Gauff was let down by her forehand, which produced 15 unforced errors and simply did not hold up under relentless pressure from one of the biggest shotmakers of the game.

This was a historic evening, the first time in 51 years that all four top seeds reached the semi-finals of the US Open women’s singles draw and the first occurrence in women’s singles at any major event since Wimbledon in 2009. It is a reflection of the strength of the group at the top of the women’s game, though, that this lineup was not at all surprising. By now, most of the top players have played each other countless times, but Rybakina and Gauff, the second and fourth seeds, have largely avoided each other in their careers. Their meeting last month in the Canadian Open, which Rybakina also won in three sets from a set down, was just the second time they have played each other.

After so many great serving days over the past few months, Gauff had arrived in the semi-finals with some doubts to quell after struggling with the shot in her dramatic comeback win over Mirra Andreeva, where she saved two match points but served 12 double faults. None of those first serve issues were present in the first set, where she served brilliantly in key moments while drawing countless errors from Rybakina with her defence to take the lead.

Rybakina has not played particularly well during this tournament, but she has managed every difficult situation well. Her response came immediately. Rybakina began the second set looking to open up the court against Gauff’s defence by hitting with greater width, uncorking a series of brilliant angled backhands. As she slowly began to find her range off the ground, she rushed to a 4-1 lead in the set. This was a scratchy set from both sides of the net but it was defined by Gauff’s desperate struggles with her hitchy forehand. Down 4-5, she produced her worst service game of the match, spraying three forehand errors and a double fault to give up the set.

The rise of Rybakina has been dictated by one of the most destructive weapons in the sport over the past few years: her serve. It finally came alive in the final set in the form of two thunderous aces to close out a service hold for 2-1. With her serve finally singing, allowing her to march through service games in the final set, the pressure was on Gauff to keep up. By the time she faced two break points at 2-3, Gauff was barely hanging on. Although she fought brilliantly to secure a hold, finding a couple of big serves for 3-3, she relinquished her serve at 3-4. Rybakina stepped up to the baseline to serve out the match.

As ever, Gauff fought desperately until the end and she made a spectacular last stand, breaking back for 4-5 after lasering a supreme backhand passing shot at 3-5, 30-30. But as she has done so many times this year, Rybakina quickly shook off her disappointment and forced herself inside the baseline again. She reached her first US Open final the hard way, immediately responding with a spectacular return game to snatch victory and move into a final between the two world No 1s.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – South Korea, Asia Pacific, Stalking
Title – ‘We can’t stop for a second’: the centre tracking South Korea’s stalkers in real time | South Korea | The Guardian
Author – Raphael Rashid
Link – ‘We can’t stop for a second’: the centre tracking South Korea’s stalkers in real time | South Korea | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T02:51:05.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/sep/11/app-tracks-south-korea-stalkers-in-real-time

On a large screen in a control centre in eastern Seoul, a dot representing a man closes in on a woman. The dot changes direction, and the distance reading between them falls from 845 metres to 792.

On the woman’s phone, the same map is loading. A probation officer rings her: the stalker is approaching, don’t panic, officers have been dispatched. The man is a stand-in and the scenario is staged, but the system is real.

Since late June, a stalking survivor in South Korea can open an app and watch a tagged perpetrator move in real time once they come within a 2km radius. If they come within a kilometre, an alert is passed to police and probation authorities, who call the victim. Previously, survivors received only a text message stating a distance, with no indication of location. About 400 people are now enrolled in the new scheme.

“Waiting with no idea what’s happening is deeply distressing,” says Yoon Hyun-bong, who directs the control centre. “A distance alone doesn’t tell you which direction he’s coming from, but seeing it on a map, you know where to hide.”

Stalking cases are on the rise in South Korea. Reports have tripled in the four years since a dedicated stalking law was introduced in 2021, reaching 44,687 in 2025. Around 80% of stalking victims are women . In South Korea, police can apply to the courts to make a suspected stalker wear an ankle tag that tracks them.

The introduction of the app follows a string of stalking killings that shocked the country. In March, prosecutors allege a man wearing an ankle tag blocked his former partner’s car as she left work in Namyangju, north-east of Seoul, broke the window with a drill and stabbed her. A court had already barred him from approaching her after she reported him for stalking. He is on trial for murder, which he denies, claiming diminished responsibility.

The justice ministry, which runs the tagging system, could see where he was at all times, but the police handling her stalking case did not know he was being tracked.

19,000 alerts a day

Two control centres, in Seoul and Daejeon, handle around 19,000 alerts a day between them, covering the more than 5,000 people who are under electronic monitoring for offences ranging from sexual violence to murder. Most are filtered out by staff at the centres but about 300 a day are serious enough to send out a probation officer.

In Seoul, probation officers sit calmly at three banks of screens showing a live list of danger and caution alerts, and beside each, the subject’s description and even the battery level of their tag.

Each officer handles more than 20 monitored people, a figure the ministry says it is trying to halve as the numbers grow.

“We’d have liked to suspend monitoring while you were here, but we can’t stop for a minute, not for a second,” an official says.

Opinions about the new app, which is still in its early days and on a limited scale, are mixed. Anna*, a woman who fled a violent former partner, says knowing where he was would have made a difference. She spent two weeks moving between state-run shelters for survivors of domestic violence before being given a panic-button watch which alerts police and sends officers her location. The app was not available at the time for her, but she says she would have welcomed it.

“Even with the watch on, it still never gave me the peace of mind, because I didn’t know where he was at any time,” she said. “What if I took it off for a shower, and that just happened to be the time he broke into my house?”

Sujeong Kim, the director of the women’s human rights counselling centre at the Korea Women’s Hotline says knowing a perpetrator’s whereabouts can be more helpful than not knowing. But she questions whether giving survivors that information also risks shifting responsibility for their safety on to them.

“If the authorities did their job properly, who would want to check it themselves?” she says, adding that victims may end up checking wherever they go to see whether the perpetrator has entered the radius, adding to the psychological burden of living with the threat and feeling they must be ready to flee.

Then there is the issue of tagging. The app works only if a court has ordered tagging, and in stalking cases that is rarely sought. Police apprehended 29,404 people on stalking charges across 2024 and 2025. Over the same period they made 1,187 applications to tag suspects, of which courts only granted 427. Whether the new app changes how often tagging is sought or granted is not yet clear.

South Korea’s police agency said they apply for a tag where there is a risk of reoffending, and that in practice they escalate measures to separate a perpetrator from a victim in stages, according to the risk and the seriousness of the case.

Kang Shin-won, who heads the justice ministry’s electronic monitoring division, says the tag serves as a minimum safety measure, because not every suspect can realistically be removed from society.

Yoon Hyun-bong, who directs the Seoul centre, says that having something concrete to watch is less distressing than waiting blind, and an improvement on the distance figure that was previously given via text.

For Kim, none of this addresses the wider issue.

“The cause of this problem, and the reason it doesn’t get solved, is gender discrimination”, she says. “Treating it as unimportant, as a private matter, as something the victim can sort out on her own, that all comes from gender discrimination, too.”

*Name has been changed.

In the UK, the National Stalking Helpline is on 0808 802 0300 or email via their inquiry form . In the US, resources are available at stalkingawareness.org .

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – US Open Tennis 2026, Aryna Sabalenka, Sport, Tennis, US Open tennis, US sports
Title – Aryna Sabalenka on brink of US Open trifecta after blitzing Jessica Pegula | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bryan-armen-graham
Link – Aryna Sabalenka on brink of US Open trifecta after blitzing Jessica Pegula | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T02:49:11.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/10/aryna-sabalenka-jessica-pegula-us-open-semi-final-tennis

Aryna Sabalenka’s grip on the US Open showed no sign of weakening on Thursday night as the two-time defending champion swept past Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2 to move one win from a third straight title.

The top-seeded Belarusian star finished with 29 winners to Pegula’s 12, her relentless aggression turning what had been a 50-50 fight deep into the opening set into a one-sided affair that marked her 19th consecutive victory at Flushing Meadows.

“I don’t know who pissed her off today,” the third-seeded Pegula said. “Hopefully it wasn’t me totally, but might have been. I don’t know. She played insane. She played a super-high level. Honestly, I don’t really know if there was much I could do today.”

Sabalenka was inclined to agree. “I felt like whatever decision I would make, it is the right decision,” she said. “So I would definitely say that against Jess probably today, compared to the last matches we played, it was definitely the better level from me.”

There were only a handful of empty seats inside an electric Arthur Ashe Stadium for the opening leg of a women’s semi-final twin bill that marked the first time the top four women’s seeds had reached the last four at the US Open since 1975 – and the first time it had happened at any grand slam since Wimbledon in 2009.

Sabalenka, dressed in all black like the final boss she has become in New York, wasted no time trading hellfire with her American foe. They were level through eight games after only 25 minutes, with the average rally lasting just two and a half shots. Pegula stood up impressively to Sabalenka’s weight of shot, while the champion’s concussive power was offset by just enough errors to keep the opening set on a knife-edge.

Pegula took her first chance at 4-all. A Sabalenka double fault at deuce handed the American her first break point of the night and briefly brought the crowd of more than 20,000 fans to full throat. But Sabalenka saved it immediately with a blistering forehand winner, followed with a winning forehand volley and escaped with the hold.

“Even the break point, I hit a good return, and she just rips a forehand cross,” Pegula said. “It was rough today. I did my best. I thought I didn’t play bad.”

Then, in the blink of an eye, the set was over. With Pegula serving at 5-6, Sabalenka abruptly found another gear, ripping a backhand winner after an eight-shot exchange, drawing an error after another eight-shot rally and crushing a forehand winner off a second serve to reach 0-40. Pegula saved the first set point but not the second, and a set that had been dead even moments earlier belonged to Sabalenka after 43 minutes.

Sabalenka, going about her work like she had a cab waiting out front, carried her brisk pace into the second. Pegula held for 1-all, but two games later Sabalenka began attacking her opponent’s second serve, eventually breaking on her fourth opportunity with another forehand winner. She consolidated for 4-1 and never let up, breaking Pegula again in the final game to complete a victory that over 1hr 20min had gone from tightly wound to emphatic. Sabalenka never dropped serve all night and faced only one break point.

“I tried to stick around to see if the level would go off,” said Pegula, who won only five of 19 points on her second serve, which effectively made the difference. “But it seemed like it just got better as the match went on.”

For the third straight September, Pegula had arrived deep into the second week in New York only to find the same obstacle in her path. And for the third straight year, Sabalenka found a way through. Their emerging US Open rivalry launched with Sabalenka’s 7-5, 7-5 victory in the 2024 final. Twelve months later Pegula pushed her considerably harder, taking the opening set before Sabalenka recovered for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 semi-final victory on her way to successfully defending her crown.

Thursday’s proceedings were considerably more straightforward, extending Sabalenka’s remarkable command of the hard courts in New York.

Sabalenka said the memory of losing to Pegula on grass in Berlin this summer had sharpened her concentration. “It really make me feel like I have little chances today in a way, but also, I knew that I have to be focused from the beginning until the end,” she said. “I think that really helped me to be that focused and to perform at that level.”

The 28-year-old is now one step away from becoming the third woman to win three straight US Open titles after Chris Evert and Serena Williams. She has reached the final on each of her past four appearances here, a run that began with her defeat by Coco Gauff in the 2023 championship match.

There has been little evidence of vulnerability during this fortnight. Sabalenka swept through Camila Osorio, Polina Iatcenko, Kamilla Rakhimova and Taylor Townsend without dropping a set before surviving her first serious examination against Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova in Tuesday’s quarter-final, coming through 7-6, 3-6, 7-6 after 2hr 22min.

Sabalenka will face Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final, with considerably more than another trophy at stake. Rybakina’s run to the semi-finals has already guaranteed that Sabalenka’s 99-week stay at world No 1 will end when the rankings are updated on Monday.

Asked how she felt about potentially winning the tournament while nevertheless surrendering the top ranking, Sabalenka’s initial response was to the point: “I don’t care.” She then added: “Not much I could do about that, but I can only focus on myself and just stay in the moment and trying to do my best right now.”

The ranking may be gone. The US Open title, for at least one more match, remains hers to defend.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Ukraine, Russia, Europe, Nato, World news
Title – Ukraine war briefing: Nato ‘foils Russian undersea cable sabotage drill’ | Ukraine | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/warrenmurray
Link – Ukraine war briefing: Nato ‘foils Russian undersea cable sabotage drill’ | Ukraine | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T02:31:50.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/11/ukraine-war-briefing-nato-foils-russian-undersea-cable-sabotage-drill

Nato forces chased away Russian ships in Arctic waters that were training to attack undersea cables with a secret sabotage weapon deployed by submersible craft , Reuters has reported, citing western officials. Reuters said its sources declined to detail how the technology works. The confrontation took place near the remote Svalbard archipelago . British and Norwegian officials took their findings to Moscow to show they were aware of the new technology. CIA director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow in August was partly to warn ‌Russia against escalating sabotage operations in Europe, Reuters said, citing two people familiar with the matter. The US has not publicly explained Ratcliffe’s trip.

The Norwegian defence minister, Tore Sandvik, told Reuters: “Through our joint operation, we sent a clear message to Russia that they cannot operate covertly … It is in no one’s interest to escalate tensions in the High ‌North.” Britain’s defence ministry pointed to previous statements about attempted covert activities in and near Norwegian and British waters by Russia’s “deep-sea research directorate”, known by the acronym GUGI, which is under international sanctions. The White House did not respond to a comment request, Reuters said, while the CIA declined to comment.

The British man Joshua Cammidge, arrested as an alleged Russian agent, was part of a plot to sabotage a drone factory in England, prosecutors said on Thursday in a London court. Cammidge, 31, is charged with engaging in conduct to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out activities in violation of the National Security Act. He did not enter a plea and was returned to custody until due in court again on 25 September. Cammidge was in contact with a suspected representative of the GRU Volunteer Corps , a group controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the prosecution told Westminster magistrates court. Cammidge allegedly provided information on four drone manufacturing sites in his home town of Swindon.

A Ukrainian missile strike caused damage in the south ⁠of the ​Russian city of Volgograd, officials said on Friday. The Volgograd oil refinery ⁠run by Lukoil , one of ​Russia’s ​biggest by ​processing capacity, is ​located ‌in the ​southern ​part of the city. A ⁠Ukrainian drone attack ⁠caused ⁠a fire at ​a warehouse of Russian e-commerce ⁠company ​Ozon ‌in ‌the city of ‌Saratov, the company said on Friday.

Russian airstrikes injured eight and caused a ⁠fire in a ⁠nine-storey apartment ​building in Kyiv on Friday morning , city authorities said.

Poland and Ukraine stopped⁠ a threat to one of their border crossings and expect they will ⁠be further targeted, Donald Tusk said on Thursday, as ⁠Russia ​attacks wartime routes between Ukraine and its neighbouring allies. “Last night, thanks to cooperation between ​our services and their Ukrainian ‌counterparts, a direct ‌threat to one of the border crossings was averted,” the Polish prime minister said, adding that he had received “a fairly ⁠precise report directly from the CIA regarding possible events ​in the coming months”. Poland also suspended flights at its Lublin and ⁠Rzeszów ​airports on Thursday while its air ‌force conducted ​what were described as preventive operations related to ⁠Russian missile ​attacks on ​Ukraine. On Wednesday, drones hit a border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova in the southern region of ⁠Odesa, killing two people . “We expect similar actions targeting border crossings with Ukraine in other countries, including Poland,” Tusk said. Russia did ‌not immediately comment.

A Russian strike on a shopping centre in Pavlohrad, central Ukraine, killed at least five people , authorities said on Thursday . Another 76 people were injured including children, and other parts of the city were also attacked. The city lies on a supply route for the Ukrainian ⁠military connecting central Ukraine to eastern frontlines.

Two people were killed by a Russian attack in Dnipro on the ‌US-owned Bunge sunflower oil factory , one of Ukraine’s five largest food plants with a processing capacity of 1,600 tonnes of oilseeds per day. Another five people were injured. “This is no coincidence, but ​part of Moscow’s systematic terror campaign against American businesses and economic interests,” said the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha. Before Russia started the war, Ukraine was the world’s largest exporter of sunflower ‌oil. Russia has carried out attacks on oilseed refineries and vegetable oil terminals while claiming to be targeting military ports and shipping.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russian forces struck the eastern Donetsk region and the Kharkiv ⁠region in the north-east. In the north-eastern city of Sumy, officials ​said a jet-powered drone tore into a shopping centre – a ​day after two people were killed and 20 wounded in a similar attack there. Russian officials said Ukrainian drone attacks ​on the border region of Belgorod killed ‌two people and injured ​seven. Two Azerbaijani tugboat ⁠crew members ⁠were killed ​and two others ⁠injured in a Russian ​attack ‌on ‌civilian shipping ‌in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry ‌said.

Canada offered support on Thursday to boost Ukraine’s air defences and help replenish its drone stocks , as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by Zelenskyy. The support includes C$350m (US$253m) provided through a programme known as Jumpstart run in conjunction with the US. Carney said Ottawa was also offering C$450m in loan guarantees to enhance the Ukrainian energy supply; meanwhile Canada was racing to increase its drone arsenal, from which 30% of Canadian production would go to Ukraine.

Russia is illegally trafficking foreigners to fight in Ukraine who quickly become “cannon fodder” , Amnesty International said on Thursday, citing interviews with prisoners of war deceived into signing Russian military contracts. Among the victims were citizens of Brazil, Colombia, Sri Lanka and South Africa lured to Russia through fake job advertisements. “Then it’s coercion. Their passports are taken away. They are made to sign documents they don’t understand,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general. “They are given training they don’t understand [and used as] cannon fodder.”

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Brics, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, India, Russia, Iran, China, Ukraine
Title – Putin arrives in India for Brics summit set to be dominated by Iran and Ukraine wars | Brics | The Guardian
Author – Agence France-Presse
Link – Putin arrives in India for Brics summit set to be dominated by Iran and Ukraine wars | Brics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-11T00:56:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/11/putin-india-visit-brics-summit

Vladimir Putin has arrived in India’s capital of Delhi ahead of an 11-member Brics summit set to be dominated by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as economic challenges.

The Russian president and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, were due to hold talks with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi , while Chinese leader Xi Jinping was also expected to attend the two-day meeting.

Putin arrived at Palam air force Station in Delhi, where he was greeted by India’s minister of state for external affairs, Kirti Vardhan Singh, according to footage broadcast by Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency.

The summit will mark Xi’s first visit to India since 2019 and is seen as the biggest step yet in a cautious thaw between the rival neighbours, six years after a deadly military clash along their disputed Himalayan border.

Ties between the nuclear-armed Asian giants have been warming again recently , with flights, visas and high-level contacts gradually being restored.

However, deep mistrust remains, with their contested frontier, a widening trade deficit and strategic rivalry still complicating ties.

On Friday posters of a beaming Modi lined streets in Delhi, along with heavy deployments of security forces across the capital and widespread traffic restrictions in central districts. Delhi police have urged people to be patient and cooperative.

Brics was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by western powers.

It has since expanded and now includes Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three countries with sharply differing positions on the war launched by the US and Israel in February.

“The Gulf conflict is going to be the central fault line this time during the Brics summit,” said Harsh V Pant of India’s Observer Research Foundation. “What was seen until last year as an achievement – the expansion of Brics – today looks like a big constraint on Brics”.

It will be Pezeshkian’s first visit to India as Iranian president, and will put the Middle East conflict firmly on the agenda.

“The war in Iran will provide a stern test of the [expanded] group’s cohesion,” said Shilan Shah of Capital Economics, noting the failure of the Brics foreign ministers to agree on a joint statement when they met in Delhi in May.

India maintains cordial relations with Iran and Israel, but is also careful to strike a delicate balance in its ties with Washington.

India has navigated the energy crisis caused by the Iran war in part by turning to Russia, one of its most important strategic partners and its most controversial fuel supplier in recent years as the war against Ukraine drags on.

Putin last visited India in December 2025 but he also met Modi in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, this month.

India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, visited Kyiv this month, when the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was “grateful to India for its commitment to ending this unjust war”.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Fiction, Books, Culture
Title – Taipei Story by Rebecca F Kuang review – the torture and hilarity of learning Chinese | Fiction | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kit-fan
Link – Taipei Story by Rebecca F Kuang review – the torture and hilarity of learning Chinese | Fiction | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-10T23:24:43.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/11/taipei-story-by-rebecca-f-kuang-review-the-torture-and-hilarity-of-learning-chinese

W hat is Taiwan? A former Japanese colony? A centre of the semiconductor industry? A democracy overseen by American imperialism? China’s next military target? An island of Austronesian Indigenous tribes? Is Taipei a cultural emblem of Taiwan, or just another booming global capital out of touch with the rest of the country? What stories will Lily Chen, an American Chinese student at Yale and Rebecca F Kuang’s funny and deadpan protagonist in Taipei Story, discover in this melting pot while spending 10 weeks learning Mandarin?

A prolific maverick with rare satirical wit, Kuang has built a career debunking authoritative institutions. Babel (2022) highlights the prejudices of the British empire through a fantastical Oxford translation institute; Yellowface (2023) transplants a heist thriller into the dark heart of American publishing; Katabasis (2025), a journey into the underworld, gives the academic inferno at Cambridge a new lease of death. Centring on a tough Mandarin language school, Taipei Story explores the torture, hilarity and pretension of learning a second language, but here Kuang also offers a heartfelt journey of self-discovery and family wounds.

Lily sets a clear boundary early on: “I wanted to become Chinese here, on my own terms.” Her classmates soon spot that “Lily is very insecure about her Chineseness”. Kuang renders the toxic dynamics and loneliness of foreign students with tact and heart. But what takes the novel beyond the usual campus relationship drama is Kuang’s meticulous, closeup account of Lily’s determination to learn Mandarin. Lily investigates sentence structures, teases out complex clauses, and gradually holds in her head “longer thought patterns in more nuanced logical relation to one another”. She memorises idioms and appreciates the looser Chinese grammar, compared with Latin and Romance languages. Through short, well-paced, diary-like episodes, where Chinese words appear alongside their English counterparts, Kuang recreates the uncanny process of language acquisition, as if the reader is learning Mandarin side by side with Lily, sharing her joy and frustration.

In her Author’s Note, Kuang says the novel is “about getting things wrong … mistranslation, miscommunication, and misunderstanding”. Where Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation has Bill Murray sharing his loneliness with Scarlett Johansson, Taipei Story creates an unlikely romantic comedy about falling in and out of love with a language. The novel sparkles with poker-faced humour about language learning. When Lily thinks she’s improving, her teacher retorts: “you have always sounded like an idiot. It is considerable progress that you can now hear it.” After completing the course, her teacher asks if Lily feels like a different person when speaking Chinese. Lily straightforwardly replies: “I feel younger, and more naive.”

Lily is a captivating character; she mocks herself when she feels taken in, as though authenticity derives from the art of counterfeiting. To master Mandarin, she dutifully immerses herself in Taiwanese culture, visiting night markets, eating local food and living in a grotty private apartment rather than university accommodation. In her mission of “trying to blend in”, she discovers the composite layers of Taiwan’s history, sees the ghosts of China, Japan and America everywhere, and finds “no framework for making sense of” anything. Kuang captures this sensory overload throughout, interweaving the complex politics of food, customs, architecture. This leads to Lily’s realisation that “Taiwan had only ever been passed from occupier to occupier – indeed, to Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, the Han Chinese themselves were occupiers. So who was I to say any occupier was better than the last?”

China remains a mighty spectre in the novel. Following a bereavement in the Mainland, the book takes a poignant turn when Lily uncovers a family secret that unsettles her assumptions about grief, her grandfather and her mother. Kuang handles this shift with curiosity and empathy, tracing Lily’s investigation in heartbreaking dialogues between mother and daughter. Through this rupture, the novel connects the political history of successive authoritarian governments with a personal story of survival and reinvention. Despite the shock at its heart, the novel sustains its tone of pragmatic equanimity, as when Lily realises: “My grief was not that special … Ask around and every first-, second-, even third-generation Asian American had a sob story somewhere in the family tree.” This tough scepticism towards self and identity drives Taipei Story, as it propels Yellowface and Kuang’s other books too.

Towards the end, recognising America’s weakened influence in the Asia-Pacific, Lily ponders: “What if China invaded Taiwan and it wasn’t free any more?” She imagines missiles “flying at any moment”. She also reflects on how languages “map space differently on to time. In English … the future lay before you. In Chinese, the future lay behind.” Taipei Story is a timely, deeply moving novel that helps us weigh a troubled past against a conflicted present.

Kit Fan’s latest novel is Goodbye Chinatown (World Editions). Taipei Story by Rebecca F Kuang is published by Borough (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

Keyword – Technology
Trefwoorden – AI (artificial intelligence), Anthropic, Technology, US news
Title – More Anthropic researchers warn of AI’s perils but Musk dismisses ‘psyop’ | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/johana-bhuiyan
Link – More Anthropic researchers warn of AI’s perils but Musk dismisses ‘psyop’ | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-10T21:51:26.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/10/anthropic-researchers-warn-ai-musk

A day after a former researcher at Anthropic made an apocalyptic declaration about artificial intelligence, more researchers and staff members at the AI startup publicly agreed with him and posted their own dire warnings.

In response, Elon Musk and other conservative figures on X, formerly Twitter, called the chorus of concerns a “setup” and a “psyop”.

The Anthropic insiders fear the technology they are building could become so advanced and dangerous as to cause human extinction within the decade, and they assert many of their colleagues feel the same but haven’t said so publicly.

These researchers and staff are posting in response to a now-viral thread from Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who said on Wednesday he was resigning from the company because neither Anthropic nor its competitor OpenAI, also his former employer, were building AI models responsibly and are “gambling with our lives”.

Anna Wang, who works on Artificial General Intelligence Safety at Anthropic and previously worked at Google’s DeepMind, said Thursday that many people at Anthropic want to slow down development to come up with a plan to mitigate the risks that could come with these AI models.

“There is not yet a viable scientific plan to solve risks from recursively self-improving AI,” Wang wrote on X.

Drake Thomas, another Anthropic employee, said that he respected Coxon’s choice to abstain from building these models if he worries they could pose planet-scale risks.

“Things are moving way too fast, we don’t have anywhere near the degree of assurance we’ll want for ASI [artificial superintelligence],” Thomas said.

Musk took a more adversarial stance. “Seems like a setup,” he wrote .

Coxon replied to the world’s richest man with a selfie, writing, “I’m real and these are my real beliefs. You could ask your xAI researchers about me if you hadn’t fired them.”

In a statement to the Guardian, an Anthropic spokesperson defended the company’s strategy. “We have always been transparent that AI will bring both enormous benefits and unprecedented risks. To address these risks, we continue to build models with some of the strongest safeguards in the industry,” the statement said.

Musk and others with a more positive view of AI have started to spread theories that Coxon’s post and the resulting fallout are part of a “psyop” to negatively influence the public’s feelings about AI.

“I think the groundwork for this psy op (for lack of a better term) has been prepared for a long time,” Musk posted on X. “This was just the match that lit the fire.”

Musk was responding to a post by Parker Thayer, a researcher at conservative thinktank Capital Research, in which he floated a theory with little evidence that Coxon’s post was the start of a “VERY sophisticated and well-funded PR operation to get support for Democrats to regulate AI into oblivion”. Other notable figures took notice.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire CEO of the hedge fund Pershing Square, also quoted Thayer’s post, simply saying “Interesting.”

Other Anthropic employees had posted their agreement with Coxon shortly after he declared his resignation on Wednesday.

“AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes),” wrote Samuel Marks, who works on safety research at Anthropic. “This could happen in the next few years. In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.”

Evan Hubinger, who describes himself as a lead in the company’s alignment division, which works on ensuring Anthropic’s AI models function in line with human goals, said Coxon was “correct” and that the industry was falling behind in attempts to deal with the apocalyptic potential.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Hubinger wrote . “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.

It’s not exactly clear how Coxon and others expect AI models to usher in the demise of humanity. Some experts doubt that the technology will become so intelligent as to cause the apocalypse. Gary Marcus, a scientist and leading voice in AI, said that it’s time to boycott AI, but because it’s already causing harm.

More than extinction, Marcus said he worried about the “risk of catastrophe” from “from AI-generated pathogens, from wars started or escalated by AI-generated disinformation, from hacks that destroy critical infrastructure, and so on. Nothing I have seen gives any indication that any of that is under control”.

The same day, Anthropic released a report documenting how the company dismantled an operation attempting to build a biological weapon using its AI models.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Chelsea, Business, Football, Sport
Title – Clearlake Capital close on buying out Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Mark Walter | Chelsea | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthughes,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jacob-steinberg
Link – Clearlake Capital close on buying out Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Mark Walter | Chelsea | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-10T20:49:39.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/10/clearlake-capital-closing-buying-out-chelsea-co-owners-todd-boehly-mark-walter-5bn

Chelsea’s majority owners, Clearlake Capital, are closing in on an agreement to buy out co-owners Todd Boehly and Mark Walter in a deal that would see the pair make a profit on their investment and value the club at around £5bn.

On-off discussions between the two ownership groups over a potential sale have been taking place for the last two years, but intensified last month as a result of Mark Walter seeking to raise funds to pay off insurers following a US federal investigation over alleged tax fraud.

Walter, Boehly and Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss all own 12.8% of Chelsea following their joint £2.5bn purchase of the club with Clearlake from Roman Abramovich four years ago, in a deal in which the new owners commit to spending a further £1.75bn on the club.

Under the terms of their ownership agreement, none of Chelsea’s shareholders can sell to a third party without the consent of their partners giving Clearlake, whose investment is managed by Behdad Eghbali and José E Feliciano, an exclusive option to purchase Boehly and Walter’s stakes.

In a statement issued to Bloomberg a spokesperson for Walter confirmed that he is seeking a sale with an agreement close. Boehly is also expected to sell as he is a long-time investment partner of Walters. Wyss’s position is unconfirmed.

“This potential transaction values Mark Walter’s stake in Chelsea Football Club at a premium to his initial investment and is another successful sports investment for him,” a spokesperson for Walter said.

“After this exit, Mr Walter intends to make future sports-related investments. “Walter did not initiate the proposed transaction to sell his interest, which has been in the works for quite some time.”

As 61.5% shareholders, Clearlake already had day-to-day operational control at Chelsea managed by Eghbali, and were due to make their own appointment as chairman to replace Boehly next year, but taking complete control will ease internal tensions at the club and should smooth decision making.

The most immediate impact of the impending ownership change is likely to be felt in Chelsea’s plans for a new stadium, as Eghbali has clashed with Boehly over whether the club should seek to redevelop Stamford Bridge or seek an alternative site elsewhere.

Walter is being investigated by the US Department of Justice over $21bn in loans which it has been alleged were not disclosed to state insurance regulators, and led to the sudden sale of assets to pay down some of the loans.

The American insurance and sports investor last month sold his 85% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh ⁠Kushner and Bob Iger in a deal that valued the NBA franchise at around £9bn.

Walter’s holding company, TWG Global, subsequently issued a statement saying that the company “is not looking to sell its sports assets at ‘fire sale’ prices”.

Representatives for Boehly and Clearlake declined to comment.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Canada, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, World news, Mark Carney, Americas
Title – Canada offers air defense support for Ukraine as Zelenskyy visits | Canada | The Guardian
Author – Agence France-Presse
Link – Canada offers air defense support for Ukraine as Zelenskyy visits | Canada | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-10T20:35:06.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/10/zelenskyy-canada-visit

Canada offered support on Thursday to boost Ukraine’s air defenses and help replenish its drone stocks, as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy .

Mark Carney hosted the president of Ukraine in Calgary in the western province of Alberta, where the Canadian prime minister grew up among a large community of people with Ukrainian heritage.

“Canada will always be with you,” Carney assured Zelenskyy.

The leaders signed an agreement to work toward a “hundred-year partnership”.

That deal, to be negotiated over the coming months, aims to codify cooperation in a range of areas, including defense, critical minerals and energy.

“Our two nations have been connected since 1893,” Carney said, referring to a wave of Ukrainians who migrated to the new Canadian nation.

In Alberta, there are an estimated 350,000 Canadians of Ukrainian descent.

“Ukrainians helped build Canada and Canadians will help rebuild Ukraine ,” Carney said.

The support announced on Thursday includes C$350m (US$253m) provided through the United States’ Joint Ukraine Multinational Program – Services, Training and Articles Rapid Timeline (Jumpstart) program.

Zelenskyy has emphasized the need for increased air defense as Russia ramps up ballistic missile attacks.

Carney said Canada was also offering C$450m in loan guarantees to enhance the Ukrainian energy supply.

The funds will help repair damaged infrastructure, increase storage capacity and improve power supply to hospitals.

Carney said the goal of the energy support was “to help Ukrainians get through the winter”, a difficult period when the country endures rolling blackouts amid often frigid temperatures.

Canada is moving aggressively to increase its own drone stocks, Carney said, announcing a deal that will see 30% of new Canadian production head to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy told reporters that “these drones will go to Ukraine immediately to [the] battlefield, immediately to our people, our soldiers … to save our children, our families first of all.”

Asked about potential negotiations to ease the fighting, Zelenskyy said he did not anticipate any substantive talks during Russia’s ongoing election period.

But he said he planned to meet Donald Trump in New York City in late September, probably on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, with Washington bidding to revive long-stalled talks to end the war.

“But at the end of September, we will have an opportunity to meet, I think, with the American team in New York,” Zelenskyy said.

“And I think that … I can be more open after the New York meeting with President Trump.”

After the Calgary meeting, Zelenskyy was headed to Banff, a stunning Canadian national park, where he will address a cabinet retreat for Carney’s liberal government.

He then heads to Canada’s largest city, Toronto, and North Bay in northern Ontario.