Southport attack
Girls who survived Southport attack meet again: ‘It was like having big sisters’
Josh Halliday
Fri 22 May 2026 07.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 12.54 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/22/girls-who-survived-southport-attack-meet-again

From the outside, the small gathering of young girls looked like an ordinary playdate. They chatted giddily, practised pilates and twirled around in their new outfits to the music of Harry Styles.

But on the sidelines, some of the parents were in tears. The last time these girls shared a room was on 29 July 2024. That day, they fled in fear as a hooded teenager turned a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport into one of the most horrific attacks on children in modern British history.

Three girls – Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine – were murdered and eight other children and two adults were stabbed repeatedly, some critically injured.

The idea that any of the surviving children would feel able to meet again seemed impossible until recently. Only now, nearly two years on, the parents of five of those girls are ready to speak.

Over nearly four hours of interviews, they told the Guardian of their daughters’ heroism that day, when girls of primary school age saved lives by shielding others from the attacker, and how they feel their courage risks being forgotten.

None of the families can be identified so their names have been changed in this article.

Daisy was seven when she and her best friend went to the Hart Space for what should have been a highlight of their summer. Many of the girls were making bracelets, minutes away from being picked up by their parents, when an older boy walked in carrying a 20cm knife. At first, some thought it was a prank.

She put her arms around the girls as he started to attack them. As they fled, some falling over, Daisy helped one girl down the stairs and shielded another by crouching over her as the attack continued.

CCTV footage showed Daisy staggering outside, only to be grabbed by the killer and dragged back inside. She was stabbed 33 times and lost her entire blood volume, leaving her in a coma for five days.

In the many stories of heroism that day, the bravery of those girls had been lost, said Daisy’s mother. “I felt so devastated for her, that we’re at home building up this recovery for her, saying: ‘You saved yourself,’ when the world has no idea what she’s done.”

When she woke from her coma, Daisy was reunited with Amber, eight, whom she had shielded and helped to escape. They had been placed on the same ward at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool and, one morning, her parents pulled back the curtain and “their faces lit up”.

“They were wearing the same Lilo & Stitch nightie,” said Daisy’s mother. “They didn’t know each other’s name at that point, they just knew they were together. They were really happy to see each other and they’ve formed a really special bond.”

Amber had been desperate to go to the Hart Space event with her 10-year-old sister, Bethany. It was fully booked within days of being advertised, with 26 children in the room that day. Bella, also 10, messaged her friends excitedly that morning.

Bella was one of the last to be attacked when Axel Rudakubana arrived at 11.45am. She was stabbed three times to the back with enough force to penetrate her chest wall, but still she managed to escape. She was minutes from death on the street when paramedics arrived from a Midlands air ambulance, which was only in the region by coincidence as it returned from an abandoned job elsewhere.

“She had finished bleeding out – she had no blood pressure or anything – and would have died on the scene [if it wasn’t for that],” said Bella’s mother, holding a stuffed toy air ambulance she now cherishes. The sheer luck of the Midlands crew flying nearby has made her believe in a “higher power”, she said. “You couldn’t have planned that divine timing.”

As the horror unfolded, Bethany shielded Amber from the blows, suffering several wounds herself. When the older sister woke up in hospital, her first thoughts were about Amber. “Is she OK?” she asked.

“[Bethany] saved her sister’s life that day,” said her mother. “The word ‘heroes’ is thrown about and people are heroes for what they did on that day. They saved themselves, they got themselves out of this building, they ran [and] they did their absolute best when many of them were critically injured.”

One of the first to escape that day was Charlotte, then nine. She was stabbed three times to the back as she ran, fracturing her shoulder blade and vertebrae. Despite her ordeal, she had “no self-pity” and wore her scars with “dignity and defiance”, her mother said, describing her as “immensely brave, extremely vulnerable and alone”.

“Our daughter made the split-second decision to get out of that building whilst suffering incomprehensible injuries,” she said. “She fled out of instinct – not direction or shielding. There is never a single story. Our daughter is our hero and her own hero.”

The days after the attack are a complete blur for many of the families. Many of them spent more than a week in hospital not knowing whether their girls would pull through or, if they did, what lasting damage had been done. Outside, rioters torched asylum hotels, police vans and libraries in a frenzy of race-fuelled violence across England .

Most of the families were in the dark about the riots and are wary of speaking about it now. However, Bella’s mother said how one of the police officers who helped their daughter was attacked the following night by rioters in Southport. “They still had our daughter’s blood on them and they were getting bricks thrown at them,” she said.

There is no magic formula to recovering from childhood trauma, let alone an experience so viscerally shocking. Many of the girls and their parents receive support from psychologists and counsellors but the memory of that day is raw and triggers are everywhere: a song on the radio, a man walking alone, even other children.

Amber is “constantly on alert of anyone, her trust is completely gone”, her mother said. After dropping Bethany at school one morning, they saw an old man walking his dog nearby as they drove away. Amber insisted her mother call the school to check Bethany was OK.

The two sisters, now 10 and 12, refuse to shower alone because they don’t want to be by themselves. For their mother, this presents another trigger: “I have to sit on the toilet [while they shower] and I see their scars all the time. As a parent it’s traumatising because it’s a constant reminder of what they have and still are going through.”

The parents worry that as their girls become teenagers they will be more conscious about their scars. When Bella, now 12, started secondary school last year, her parents told her not to tell other children she was caught up in the attack. “Don’t make that who you are,” they told her. She has to wear pressure garments 23 hours a day and sleeps in a splint to help her scars heal.

On her first day at the new school, an older boy had found out and asked her: “Why aren’t you dead?”

“She was sobbing on her first day of school,” said Bella’s mother. Before the attack she threw herself into hobbies, such as drama. Now she won’t go: “She doesn’t like being with other kids she doesn’t know.” At Christmas, they took her to a pantomime where children were invited to go on stage. She refused, telling her father: “The last time I went out with a load of kids I got stabbed.”

Many of the parents have become friends, sharing these difficult conversations together.

Daisy, now nine, is still processing her memories of that day and the weeks before it. She had forgotten about a trip to London a month earlier to see her idol Swift in concert, and shopping with her friends the day before. Earlier this month, she recalled for the first time a particularly harrowing scene from the attack – the moment she was dragged back in the building.

“When it first happened we were like: ‘OK, imagine your brain is a bookshelf. What happened to you has basically tipped all of your books on the floor and all the books are memories, they will be jumbled up now,’” her mother said.

They told her that some of the books might be scary and she could put them back on the shelf in her own time. “For a little while now, she’s been saying: ‘There’s two books on the floor and they’re really scary and I don’t want to pick them up.’

“And so we’ve said: ‘OK, we’re just going to tuck them under the bookshelf for now.’ Last week, she decided that was the time to tell us about one of the books and it was her experience of being taken back in. So she’s still processing moments of that day that she hasn’t verbalised before, and we’re nearly two years on.”

Many of the parents have had difficulty accessing their own psychological support. Some have post-traumatic stress disorder, suffering flashbacks and night terrors, having rushed into the building searching for their children and later finding them gravely injured nearby.

Yet many were only entitled to 12 sessions with a counsellor provided by the charity Victim Support, rather than a specialist psychiatrist. Daisy’s parents said they were effectively forced to “ration” this support, saving some counselling sessions for the criminal trial and public inquiry, rather than access it immediately.

Daisy’s father was refused more than 12 sessions because there was no funding for it. “Our experience has been more frustrating than we would have liked,” said Daisy’s mother. “It’s hard to have to justify why you’re traumatised [and] really quickly we realised the basic counselling offer was not fit for purpose for what we had gone through.”

The Southport inquiry was devastating in its findings about the missed opportunities to prevent the attack. Many of the parents knew about the systemic failings – multiple authorities passing the buck for nearly five years – but it was the errors of individuals, particularly the killer’s parents and some officials, they found most shocking. Bella’s father said “there’s got to be accountability” on the part of the attacker’s parents: “If I had a dog and it killed a kid, who’s getting done for it?”

Merseyside police had investigated whether the parents could be held criminally responsible for their teenage son’s actions, given they knew he posed a risk to others and had amassed weapons in their home. However, there is no duty on parents under UK law to warn or report criminality, so detectives felt they were unable to prosecute.

“Clearly there were masses of opportunities for them to stop their own child,” said Charlotte’s father. “I can understand the conflict in their own mind about doing that but at the same time there were plenty of opportunities.”

In the Easter holidays, six of the girls met again for the first time. The playdate was made as relaxed and fun as possible and they did pilates, shared cupcakes and wore yoga outfits specially made for those who wanted to hide their scars.

As they watched, some of the parents were in tears. “I’m happy, I’m relieved, it’s OK to see me cry,” Daisy’s mother said, as her daughter comforted her that day.

Afterwards, the families went for pizza because the girls did not want to leave one another. Daisy told her mother: “It was like having big sisters”. They plan to meet up again – this time with 17 of the girls – at the end of May.

When they got home, Bella told her parents it was the “happiest she’d been in a long time”. The girls had not spoken about what happened, she said: “We all just knew.”

Nigel Farage
Healey asks Farage if any of £5m gift may have come from Russia-linked profits
Peter Walker
Fri 22 May 2026 12.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 14.53 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/22/john-healey-asks-nigel-farage-if-any-of-gift-may-have-come-from-russia-linked-profits

The defence secretary, John Healey, has urged Nigel Farage to provide transparency about the £5m gift he received from a billionaire businessman, in particular over whether any of the sum could have been linked to Russia-connected profits.

In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Healey also asked him to address the possibility that the war against Iran might boost the revenues of AML Global, an aviation fuel company owned by Christopher Harborne, who gave Farage the £5m in 2024. Farage initially supported the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

The letter, seen by the Guardian, asked Farage to confirm that none of the sum was “derived from transactions with Russian state-linked energy companies”, and to give assurances that AML Global had complied fully with all sanctions on Russian energy since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In a statement to the Guardian, AML Global said it had complied fully with all UK and international sanctions, and screened any business partners to ensure the same.

Reform UK and Farage were contacted for comment.

The Guardian revealed last month that shortly before the 2024 general election, Farage was given £5m by Harborne , a British-Thai dual citizen based in Thailand.

Farage did not disclose the money at the time, and it only emerged when the Guardian reported it.

He has argued that because it was an unconditional gift, and received before he announced he would run for parliament, there was no need to declare it once he did become an MP.

However, after a complaint from the Conservatives, Farage faces a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog, Daniel Greenberg, into whether he should have done.

In the letter, Healey noted that AML Global supplies jet fuel through a network of “main and regional oil companies” covering more than 1,200 locations worldwide, including central Asia, the Gulf and eastern Europe.

Healey asked Farage to confirm that none of the profits which helped finance the £5m gift came from transactions with Russian state-linked energy companies, that AML Global had fully complied with all Russia sanctions, and that “no fuel sourced from Russian-controlled refineries has passed through its supply chain”.

The letter went on: “If you cannot answer either question with confidence, will you commit to a fully independent audit of AML Global’s supply chain and publish the results?”

Citing previous comments by Farage about Russia – for example, that Nato “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by expanding eastwards – Healey said this wider situation “places Reform UK under a Russian cloud that only transparency can lift”.

On Iran, the letter asked Farage to say whether he was aware of a potential benefit to Harborne’s company from rising aviation fuel prices when he made supportive comments about the attack on Iran, which led to Iran blockading the strait of Hormuz.

Healey added: “The public is entitled to ask whether your financial interests were impacting on your political positioning and your initial support for throwing the UK armed forces headlong into a war in the Middle East without a plan.”

Healey wrote: “I’m not asking you to return the money. I’m asking you to open the books. If the answers are as clean as you would no doubt claim, that transparency will cost you nothing. If they are not, the public has every right to know.”

He added: “I want to be clear: the purpose of this letter is not to make allegations, but to ask questions that the public interest requires you to answer.”

A spokesperson for AML Global said the company was “committed to operating in full compliance with US, UK, EU and UN sanctions programmes and with any additional restrictions required by our business and banking partners.

“We screen all new counter-parties against a database of US (OFAC), UK (OFSI), EU and UN security council sanctions. Counter-parties include suppliers, customers and banks. We also re-screen existing counter-parties on a regular basis.”

Aid
The dinosaurs of international aid must adapt or die – their expensive era is over
Halima Begum
Fri 22 May 2026 10.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 12.37 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/may/22/aid-international-charity-frontline-adapt

A s the UK government-sponsored Global Partnerships conference convened in London this week, against a backdrop of high living costs, reduced aid budgets and oil tankers stranded in the strait of Hormuz, it is increasingly clear that the aid sector is nearing breaking point.

The international charity network that props up the broken aid system is both under strain and part of the problem – unable to adapt to the times and increasingly unfit for purpose.

For years, large international charities have championed localisation of aid, expressing their collective commitment to transformation and decolonisation. But they have not achieved it.

Despite being some of the strongest voices calling for change, internally they remain structurally resistant to evolution. Not necessarily from bad intent, but because large institutions are designed to sustain themselves.

Power, funding and decision-making remain concentrated in the hands of staff and boards far removed from the grassroots. This creates a fundamental contradiction. The very organisations advocating for change are often the least able to deliver, and logical questions arise that the sector is simply not prepared to answer.

For instance, is it morally right that a large charity based in the UK spends £120m a year on fundraising primarily on the business of generating and supporting jobs in the UK, instead of giving to organisations working in Sudan, Bangladesh and Myanmar that are under national leadership to resolve their own development challenges?

The public expect that their donations go directly to needs at the grassroots level or on the frontline. I spoke about this issue on a panel last year with other international NGO leaders at a humanitarian leadership conference in Doha.

Despite visible commitments to equitable partnerships, I discussed the fact that international structures remain so bureaucratically layered – from head offices to regional hubs – that they often unintentionally drown out local voices. I am in favour of drastically reducing large infrastructure and allowing national civil society, particularly feminist and grassroots organisations, to shape the agenda.

Large international charities and agencies should step back, redirect unrestricted funds, and let civil society lead. Current efforts to transform big international organisations from within aren’t going to work.

As resources shrink, more is absorbed by the overcrowded intermediary system formed by leading international charities, and less support reaches frontline communities. If we are serious about shifting power, we must stop defaulting to structures intent on hoarding it.

Not all these organisations should continue to play the same role they do today. Some may transition, merge, shrink or step aside. Others could demonstrate real change and remain relevant. But the system cannot be preserved in its current form.

What I believe is needed is not just better aid charities, but a new model of giving, one that channels resources directly to local and national actors, builds trust and solidarity rather than control-heavy compliance and redefines accountability around communities, not intermediaries.

Our big aid charities need to learn to let go and accept that those closest to a problem are often best placed to act towards effective resolution.

This is not about abandoning partnership, it is about redesigning it. If we continue to invest in maintaining the existing system, we will reproduce its limitations. If we are willing to invest in something different, we have a chance to shift power in more than name. The question is no longer whether change is needed, it is whether we are prepared to let go of the structures that prevent it. If international NGOs, official donors and philanthropic actors are serious about shifting power, the test should be simple: where does the money go?

Let’s follow the money. Can organisations show that at least 90% of their funding is flowing directly to locally led organisations – with real decision-making force behind local leaders? If organisations cannot show this, then they are propping up a system that benefits the elites, not the grassroots.

This is not about punishing, it’s about letting go of expensive dinosaurs. The volume of commentary from NGO leaders defending their continued centrality to a last-century aid model is remarkable.

Much of it feels less like thoughtful reflection than self-preservation masquerading as strategic insight. At a time of shrinking aid, maintaining large international headquarters, layered management structures and expensive overheads is hard to defend when a diminishing share of funds reaches frontline communities.

Those that can meet this bar – by shifting funding, devolving authority and rethinking their role – should be supported. Those that cannot, mustnot be the default channel for resources. In a constrained funding environment, we cannot afford to support both transformation and inertia. If we are serious about locally led development, then investment should follow those who are already practising it – not those still “aidsplaining” why it is difficult.

Halima Begum is a charity executive who has been chief executive of Oxfam, Action Aid and the Runnymede Trust

Sacha Baron Cohen
Ladies First review – Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike come last in one-joke Netflix comedy
Benjamin Lee
Fri 22 May 2026 09.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 09.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/may/22/ladies-first-review-netflix-sacha-baron-cohen-rosamund-pike

I n its attempt to become a one-stop shop for just about every form of nostalgia possible, Netflix has now decided to revive the dreadful British comedy of the 2000s. Films such as Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Three and Out, Fat Slags and Lesbian Vampire Killers saw creatives boldly stand up to Hollywood and declare that whatever they could do, the UK film industry could do it 10 times worse.

The all-deciding algorithm has somehow deemed it necessary for a return to that cursed era with the release of Ladies First, a broad and chintzy new comedy that would have felt old hat even back then. It’s an excruciatingly unfunny high-concept thought experiment, imagining a world with flipped gender politics, that’s far too happy with itself and what it’s allegedly achieving to be passed off as just some charming throwback. Like the other misfires it recalls, it’s also a criminal waste of talent, a murderer’s row of actors who hopefully got paid handsomely for the embarrassment of this whiffing up their IMDb pages.

Chief among them is Rosamund Pike, an actor who gave one of the most scarily indelible performances of the 2010s in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, deserving of far, far better than this. She’s at least well-cast, something that can’t be said for her co-star Sacha Baron Cohen , a jarringly odd fit as Damien Sachs, a suave but sexist man about town who learns the error of his ways (for all of his many, many faults, Mel Gibson was perfectly cast as the similar lead of this film’s infinitely superior forefather What Women Want). He doesn’t have the initial swagger or then the softening charm, a flat, confused and deeply uncomfortable performance bringing a bad film down even further.

The film’s magical conceit sees Damien bump his head and wake up in a world reversed, women now on top and men struggling to keep up. Paul Smith is now Pauline, Harry Potter now Harriet, bras are for balls, Five Guys is Five Gals and Damien is now a sexually harassed and entirely underestimated smaller cog at the advertising agency where he was once a top dog. Pike’s put upon single mother Alex has also gone from patronised to powerful as she swans her way to the very top of the corporate ladder (Pike is wasted but at least convincing as a ruthless exec). With help from Richard E Grant’s magical pigeon-strewn hobo, some humility and a penile implant, Damien has to take her on without the system on his side.

It sits alongside other fantastical “what if?” comedies such as the Amy Schumer vehicle I Feel Pretty , last year’s Good Fortune and the intermittently funny rom-com spoof Isn’t It Romantic , a film that shares a co-writer with Ladies First, Katie Silberman of Don’t Worry Darling. Too often these comic fantasies are ideas that might sound snappy in a pitch meeting but collapse when awkwardly dragged onto the screen with a one-joke premise stretched beyond its limits and inconsistent world-building that feels scrappy at best. Even at a barely there 84-minute length, Ladies First is the very worst example of this in recent memory, taking an undeniable real world issue ( women are still undervalued and underpaid in the workplace ) and hammering home the same point ad nauseam without anything smart or sharp to add. Sexism is real and misogyny persists but by painting such a cartoonishly broad-strokes picture of both the sexes and the office (the workplace intrigue feels ripped from an 80s kids movie), it becomes a smugly repetitive and utterly useless waste of everyone’s time. With every pained joke (what if people said fatherfucker instead of motherfucker, what if it was drama king instead of drama queen etc), you can almost feel the film’s three writers and Wicked Little Letters director Thea Sharrock proudly looking over to see if we’re laughing, ready to explain the film’s very basic idea of humour if we’re not. The script is more intent on clumsily pointing things out (yes straight men do that, you’re right) than actually having anything funny to say about it.

It’s a remake of a French comedy (red flag) also owned by Netflix which feels about as inventive a justification for being as the streamer also launching Love is Blind in a different country, reusing IP just because. For some masochists, there might be some bizarro appeal to watching, say, Kathryn Hunter drunkenly doing the splits for a jeering nightclub audience or Emily Mortimer farting up a storm or Fiona Shaw orgasming to death while Baron Cohen dances in assless chaps, promising to pump her “full of lead” but for a film so unashamedly silly, it’s also incredibly, tiresomely un-fun and, by the end, laughably earnest, as if we should all be learning a very important lesson. I did learn a lesson here, but it was less about male chauvinism ( bad , in case you didn’t know) and more about the heinous state of comedy films in 2026. No wonder everyone’s so nostalgic.

Ladies First is out now on Netflix

Cannes film festival
The Black Ball review – the complicated secrets of gay sexuality in Spain are brilliantly told
Peter Bradshaw
Thu 21 May 2026 20.35 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/21/the-black-ball-review-the-complicated-secrets-of-gay-sexuality-in-spain-are-brilliantly-told

T he Black Ball is a narrative triptych about the lives of three different Spanish men at various times: a meditation derived from Lorca about the secret history of gay men’s sexuality, which has been erased, excluded or denied – sexuality transfigured into a mysterious, restorative poetry of the soul. In Lorca’s words, “only mystery keeps us alive” and in fact the small regret I have about this superlatively acted and beautifully shot film is that once the connection between the three narrative strands is explained, some of the mystery and poetry is lost.

In 1932, Carlos (Milo Quifes) is a young man of a good family in Granada, who applies for membership of the elite “Casino” club but is turned down on the grounds of his rumoured homosexuality, blackballed in an oppressively elaborate ceremony presided over by politicians and clergymen, in which the white and black balls are solemnly rolled down a special chute. In 1939, Sebastián (played by the actor and musician Álvaro Lafuente Calvo) finds himself chaotically enlisted into the pro-Franco nationalist army during the civil war and falls in love with the wounded Republican prisoner-of-war that he is supposed to be guarding. This is Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau), an actor and footballer with Atlético Madrid, an impossibly handsome, captivatingly vulnerable man whose bandages ooze blood like the tears of a miraculous statue.

And in 2017, Alberto (Carlos González) is a student and failed playwright doing postgraduate research into queer identities and transgressive themes in the popular music of the 1920s; he receives a strange bequest from his late grandfather which worsens his relationship with his depressed and rage-filled mother Teresa (played by Almodóvar regular Lola Dueñas). Over lunch with him she argues, drinks heavily and does a line of cocaine. Perhaps inevitably, it is in our banal contemporary world that the gay man is not exquisitely beautiful. (Pedro Almódovar is a producer on the movie and is slyly referenced in one scene.)

The Black Ball begins with a bravura sequence in the 1939 strand: a remote village is preparing to salute Mussolini’s fascist forces with banners and a band and Sebastián, almost childlike in his ignorance of politics, is really interested only in playing his trumpet. But the Italians accidentally attack the poor pro-nationalist villagers — who will perhaps have therefore learned a lesson about the callous stupidity of fascism — and Sebastián finds himself scrambling through the rubble of the bombed-out church and climbing across its smashed statue of Saint Sebastian, that time-honoured symbol of ambiguous male sensuality, actually using the arrows in his stone flesh as handholds, an oddly witty symbolism. Effectively press-ganged into the Francoist troops, Sebastián finds himself going with them to see a raunchy nightclub show given by the Madrid singer Nené — a wonderful cameo from Penélope Cruz.

In 1932, Carlos goes into a state of defiant shock after being turned down, drifting through bars in a kind of alcoholic haze, unsure whether to deny the charge, as his father tells him, or to defiantly tell them that it is true. Meanwhile, in 2017, Alberto’s distraught mother has brutal things to tell him about how his fascist grandfather would have despised him for being gay, and we can see how an unnamed trauma has actually been inherited by Teresa.

The Black Ball is handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed, bringing the puzzle pieces together in the edit and contriving an elegant, poignant cameo for Lorca himself, a kind of incidental choric figure who seems to intuit all the future triumphs and disasters of love and war. It is a rich and rewarding movie.

The Black Ball screened at the Cannes film festival

Russia
‘We will not survive’: jailing of Daria Egereva highlights plight of Russia’s Indigenous people
Damien Gayle
Fri 22 May 2026 15.00 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 15.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/jailing-daria-egereva-plight-russia-indigenous-people

T he operation began at 9am Moscow time, but took place across all of Russia’s 11 time zones. Almost simultaneously, agents of the federal security service (FSB) raided the homes and workplaces of 17 Indigenous rights activists.

Officers carried out searches, confiscated laptops and phones, and arrested and interrogated activists about participation in international forums. Most were let go; many have since left the country. Others remain in Russia, but will no longer speak up.

Six months later, one remains in jail. Daria Egereva, one of Russia’s foremost Indigenous rights activists, is accused of membership of a terror group. No trial date has been set. Her supporters say the charges are fabricated and she has been targeted for speaking out.

Egereva was not just any activist. A member of the Selkup indigenous group, from western Siberia, she was a “bright star” of Russia’s indigenous rights movement. As a member of the UN’s Indigenous Peoples’ Coordinating Body, she had international status. Weeks before her arrest, she had played a key role at Cop30 in Brazil as co-chair of the Indigenous People’s Forum on Climate Change.

Her jailing has shone a spotlight on the plight of Russia’s Indigenous people, threatened by authoritarianism, extractivism and climate breakdown.

“They are really seeing the worst effects of climate change,” said Alicia Moncada, director of global advocacy at Cultural Survival, which campaigns for Indigenous rights. “They are on the frontline of the frontline – that’s why [Egereva’s] advocacy was super important.”

The polar north is heating faster than any other part of the planet. In recent decades, temperatures in Arctic regions have risen three to four times faster than the global average. Communities based on permafrost are seeing their world collapse around them.

“The elders are saying that nature has stopped trusting us,” said one exiled Indigenous leader, who requested that his name be withheld. “The traditional ways of predicting nature are not working any more.”

Many settlements sit next to the banks of rivers and lakes. Due to the melting permafrost, those banks are beginning to crumble. “There is a real threat of destruction for a lot of those villages,” said the leader, who spoke through an interpreter. And the melting ice has brought a new source of tension: newly accessible critical mineral resources.

“All these resources of the Russian Federation, a majority of them are located under the lands of Indigenous people: gold, diamonds, oil, gas, coal,” the leader said. “For some people it is a treasure, but for us it is a curse.

“Because the companies are coming to our land for those resources and they are pushing us out. Even if they don’t push us out, the environmental situation in those places will become so bad that we are unable to hunt or fish.

“One of the elders said that we can adapt to anything, but we will not be able to survive without our land.”

Although Indigenous groups maintained their identities, by the end of the Soviet era they lacked independent organisation and relied on the state. Egereva had been part of a new generation of leaders who had encouraged community self-empowerment.

But this assertiveness brought them into conflict with the authorities. Even before the war in Ukraine, the Russian state claimed that its enemies were exploiting environmental and indigenous issues. Now, with the war a pretext for a crackdown on civil society, Indigenous people are among those at the sharp end.

To date, 830 organisations and 20,813 individuals have been put on the “list of terrorists and extremists”, according to the UN. Among them was Aborigen Forum, a network of Indigenous defenders designated an “extremist organisation” in July 2024.

Russian authorities have based their charges against Egereva and her co-defendant, Natalia Leongardt, a civil rights activist, on their involvement with Aborigen. Authorities claim it is part of an anti-state “post-Russia free nations forum”.

In a bail hearing on 29 April, Egereva and Leongardt denied being part of any anti-state conspiracy. “I am not familiar with and do not know this organisation,” Egereva told the court . “What we are being accused of is completely untrue … I ask to be allowed to return home and embrace my children.”

The court refused to grant them bail, remanding them in custody until at least mid-June. The following day, Russia celebrated a new federal holiday: the “Day of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples”.

The Russian embassy told the Guardian: “The investigation concerning Daria Egereva is an internal Russian legal matter, conducted in full accordance with Russian law. As proceedings are ongoing, we are not in a position to comment on the specifics of the case.

“Russia firmly rejects any allegations of violations of Indigenous people’s rights. Unlike a number of western states – including Britain in its former colonies – Russia has no history of forced assimilation of Indigenous communities. Russian law affords Indigenous peoples special legal protections, guaranteeing their collective and individual rights, cultural identity, and linguistic heritage under the constitution and in line with international norms.

“Russia is actively engaged in the international climate agenda, taking account of both the challenges and the economic opportunities emerging in its northern regions – including expanded access to the northern sea route and mineral resources in permafrost zones. All such projects are carried out with the aim of supporting regional development, creating jobs and attracting investment, including for the benefit of Indigenous communities in these areas.”

Gender
Single-sex toilets must exclude transgender people, says EHRC
Libby Brooks
Thu 21 May 2026 20.33 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 06.29 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/single-sex-toilets-exclude-transgender-people-england-wales-scotland-code-of-practice

Single-sex toilets and changing rooms in England, Wales and Scotland must exclude transgender men and women, according to a new code of practice from the equalities watchdog.

But the long-awaited guidance also says that businesses and service providers have to offer practical alternatives such as gender-neutral toilets for people who do not wish to use services for their biological sex.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) document sets out how public bodies, businesses and other service providers should respond in practical terms to April 2025’s landmark supreme court ruling that sex in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex.

The guidance will be seen as an incremental victory for gender-critical campaigners, who have long argued that trans women specifically should be excluded from women-only services. But critics fear it will consolidate a chilling effect as trans people avoid public places altogether.

Trans advocacy groups had hoped that amendments made to the code by the EHRC in April, after feedback from the government, as well as consultation responses and extra legal advice, might result in a less blanket exclusion.

The guidance does suggest it is feasible for clubs and associations to remain trans inclusive, by making themselves open to several protected characteristics at once, for example women or men and trans people.

But in healthcare, where mixed-sex accommodation is not available, trans patients must be accommodated on the single-sex ward that accords with their biological sex. But the code also states it would not be proportionate to exclude a trans man from obstetrics and gynaecology outpatient services based on the objections of female patients.

The government’s own equality impact assessment that accompanies the updated code acknowledges that the likely impact on transgender people is “negative”, but highlights mitigating factors like the ability of services to create “third-space” provision.

The guidance is clear that if a service provider admits a trans person to a service that aligns to their lived gender, that service can no longer be described as single sex and the provider is “very likely” to be at risk of legal challenge.

The chair of the EHRC, Mary-Ann Stephenson, said: “The supreme court was very clear … if you are providing separate toilets for women and men, that has to be on the basis of biological sex.”

Stephenson suggested that people had “got caught up in a hyperfocus on: which toilets can trans women use?”

She said: “It would take a lot of the heat out and we might be able to provide some solutions if we could take a bigger step back and say: ‘Lots of us have different needs in terms of accessing toilets.’”

She called for a “wider conversation about how we make that work in practice”, referring to services supporting women who are escaping violence, where a provider will often provide a variety of accommodation including communal space and self-contained accommodation, which it might offer to women who have teenage sons, for example, or to trans women.

While campaign groups continued to digest the 340-page document on Thursday evening, early responses reflected continued divisions over how to interpret the supreme court ruling.

The Trans+ Solidarity Alliance director, Alexandra Parmar-Yee, said the guidance was “a section 28 moment for this Labour government” and “worryingly similar to a US bathroom ban condemned by the UK Foreign Office in 2016”.

“The law here is a mess, and clearly many businesses will just go gender neutral to avoid the headache, but the government risks pushing trans people yet further out of public life.”

For Women Scotland, the gender-critical campaign group that brought the original case to the supreme court and has heavily criticised the length of time taken by the UK government to review the code described this as “a significant milestone in ensuring women’s rights are upheld and protected across the UK”.

Co-founder Susan Smith said: “Hopefully, this will put an end to the unjustified excuses and delays in implementing the supreme court ruling. There is now no reason for public bodies and organisations to evade their responsibilities to women.”

The updated code of practice for service providers, associations and those delivering public functions – which remains in draft form – was laid before parliament by the equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson , on Thursday afternoon. MPs now have 40 days to consider the document before the minister issues a final order and it comes into force across England, Scotland and Wales.

In a written statement, Phillipson said the draft code’s content on sex and gender reassignment had “changed substantially” in light of the supreme court’s judgment and thanked the commission for its work ensuring the document was “accessible and provides a wide range of examples for duty bearers”.

Many businesses have raised concerns that the required changes could undermine inclusion, and be unworkable, for example, in hospitality, where venues differ drastically in terms of size, space and age of buildings.

The code gives the example of renovation to a shopping centre. The management recognises that providing only male and female toilets would disadvantage trans users and could cause safety risks and distress if they were required to use toilets designated for those of the same biological sex. “The service provider therefore decides to also provide toilets in individual lockable rooms with hand basins, which can be used by people of either sex.”

This cost would be borne by the business itself. When the Equality Act 2010 was passed, the impact assessment estimated costs in the first year alone could amount to more than £300m.

Another example concerns a community advice centre with single-sex toilets extending the use of its accessible toilets to trans people. The code advises the group to monitor whether this arrangement has any negative impact on both trans and disabled people. Disabled rights campaigners have previously told the Guardian they were watching “in horror” as the trans community faces similar toilet segregation and exclusion from public spaces that they do.

The guidance states that while it is unlikely to be “practical or appropriate” to question an individual using single-sex facilities, such as toilets, about their sex, it may be legitimate if concerns are raised about that person’s “physical appearance, behaviour or concerns raised by other service users”.

Doja Cat
Doja Cat review – pop superstar or true freak? US iconoclast plays the tension to perfection
Claire Biddles
Fri 22 May 2026 12.12 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 14.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/22/doja-cat-review-ovo-hydro-glasgow-uk-tour

S ince her breakout almost a decade ago, singer and rapper Doja Cat has been musically restless: bouncing between the pop-rap of her first album Amala to her darker, toothier 2023 release Scarlet; collaborating with SZA then heel-turning to cover Hole. On last year’s fifth album Vie she negotiated the tension between the pop persona she once denounced as a “cash grab” and her true freak artistic self – a tension she plays to perfection during tonight’s show.

After a prelude where Doja hovers above the stage in Klaus Nomi-esque shoulder pads and a 20-metre long train – perhaps elaborate trolling aimed at fans who complained about her lack of outfit changes earlier in the tour – she arrives fully formed as a purple-clad bandleader for a run of 80s inflected tracks from Vie and 2021’s Planet Her. Fronting a 10-person band, she’s an immediately commanding presence, wearing pasties, a high-waisted bodysuit, tights and gloves, her zebra print microphone matching her heels. She has the look of a scene-kid Prince, the blond of recent shows swapped for an acid green wig. Appropriately, the synergy between her and her band is reminiscent of Purple Rain, or a glam-rock Stop Making Sense. She moves seamlessly between modes and poses, from slow jam Make It Up – more muscular live than on record – to the swagger of Ain’t Shit and Paint the Town Red.

Doja breaks away from her band for a darker, rockier section, largely devoted to songs from Scarlet. For WYM Freestyle, Wet Vagina and a metal version of Tia Tamera she performs an acrobatic floor show; tongue out, grinding against the mic stand, her tights ripped in the back. Whipping the mic cord around her neck during Demons, she’s messy but doesn’t miss a note – truly the woman whose Celebrity Skin cover was co-signed by Courtney Love. By the end of the set she’s somehow merged the two modes: both unhinged iconoclast and slick bandleader, a twerking contradiction, a true star. Some lesser popstars need to rely on novelty and costume changes to keep their show interesting, but it’s enough for Doja Cat to naturally move between all her strange, authentic selves.

Doja Cat plays Co-Op Live, Manchester, 23 May; then tours UK until 29 May

Nato
Trump pledges an additional 5,000 troops for Poland in apparent u-turn
Jakub Krupa
Fri 22 May 2026 03.08 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/trump-5000-troops-poland-military-support

Donald Trump has announced he will deploy an “additional” 5,000 US troops to Poland , just days after the Pentagon controversially halted a long-planned deployment of forces to the country – the largest on Nato’s eastern flank.

“Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” Trump said on Truth Social.

It was not immediately clear whether the deployment would be rotational or permanent, or if there was any link to Trump’s previous decision to pull 5,000 troops out from Germany . There are about 10,000 US troops in Poland.

The announcement seems to mark a rare U-turn after the Pentagon said earlier this week it would delay a rotation of 4,000 US troops from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division to Poland as part of a broader review of the US force posture in Europe.

Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, defended the decision as recently as Wednesday, telling a Polish reporter that the US wanted Europe to take more responsibility for its defence and security, adding “Poland is capable of defending itself with a lot of support from the United States.” He criticised the media for “overreacting” over what he said was “a very minor thing” and “a standard delay.”

But the original decision – which appeared to catch Warsaw by surprise – prompted anxious reactions from top Polish leaders worried about the assertive Russian stance in the region amid continuing war in Ukraine, and drew criticism in the US Congress.

The announcement comes just hours before the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio , is due to take part in a Nato ministerial meeting in Sweden after weeks of tense relations between the US administration and its European allies caused by their refusal to get involved in the Iran war.

Before leaving for the meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Sweden, Rubio on Thursday said Trump was “very disappointed” in alliance members who had not allowed the US to use bases on their territory for the war, singling out Spain in particular .

“You have countries like Spain denying us the use of these bases – well then why are you in Nato ? That’s a very fair question,” Rubio told reporters in Miami. “In fairness, other countries in Nato have been very helpful. But we need to discuss that.“

Trump has fiercely criticised Nato members for not doing more to help the US-Israeli military campaign. He has said he is considering withdrawing from the alliance and questioned whether Washington was bound to honour its mutual defence pact.

Nato officials have stressed the US did not ask the 32-member alliance to take part in the Iran war, but many members have honoured commitments to allow US forces to use their airspace and bases on their territory.

European concerns about Trump’s attitude toward Nato were also exacerbated this year by Trump’s push to acquire Greenland , a territory of fellow Nato member Denmark.

Over the years, Poland has sought to position itself as a top US ally in Europe, with its troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the country leading defence spending charts among Nato’s European members.

Announcing the additional troops, Trump pointedly praised his relationship with Poland’s conservative president, Karol Nawrocki, who unexpectedly won the last year’s presidential election after being hosted by Trump at the White House in the final weeks of the campaign. The pair has had a close relationship ever since, with Trump regularly referencing the importance of his endorsement for Nawrocki’s election.

Despite the announcement being made late in the evening in Europe, the Polish president immediately thanked Trump “for his friendship towards Poland … the practical dimension of which we see very clearly today.”

“I stand and will continue to stand guard over the Polish-American alliance – a vital pillar of security for every Polish home and for all of Europe,” Nawrocki said.

Poland’s defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz also said Trump’s decision “confirms the Polish-American relations are very strong, and that Poland is a model and ironclad ally.”

Earlier this week, Kosiniak-Kamysz sought urgent talks with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth to get clarity on the original decision, telling reporters that he hoped “all misunderstandings, or media noise, will be explained in the coming days.”

With Reuters

Ireland
Hundreds protest over Ireland’s ‘George Floyd moment’ after death of Congolese-born man – video

Fri 22 May 2026 14.55 CESTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2026 15.02 CEST
News
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2026/may/22/hundreds-protest-over-irelands-george-floyd-moment-after-death-of-congolese-born-man-video