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Companies hail ‘historic partnership’ to bring ‘massive investment’ but details of agreement remain unclear

Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order paving the way for a Nippon Steel investment in US Steel, so long as the Japanese company complies with a “national security agreement” submitted by the federal government.

Trump’s order did not detail the terms of the national security agreement. But US Steel and Nippon Steel said in a joint statement that the agreement stipulates that approximately $11bn in new investments will be made by 2028 and includes giving the US government a “golden share” – essentially veto power to ensure the country’s national security interests are protected.

“We thank President Trump and his administration for their bold leadership and strong support for our historic partnership,” the two companies said. “This partnership will bring a massive investment that will support our communities and families for generations to come. We look forward to putting our commitments into action to make American steelmaking and manufacturing great again.”

The companies have completed a Department of Justice review and received all necessary regulatory approvals, the statement said.

“The partnership is expected to be finalized promptly,” the statement said.

The companies offered few details on how the golden share would work and what investments would be made.

Trump said Thursday that he would as president have “total control” of what US Steel did as part of the investment.

Trump said then that the deal would preserve “51% ownership by Americans”. The Japan-based steelmaker had been offering nearly $15bn to purchase the Pittsburgh-based US Steel in a merger that had been delayed on national security concerns starting during Joe Biden’s presidency. Trump opposed the purchase while campaigning for the White House, yet he expressed optimism in working out an arrangement once in office.

“We have a golden share, which I control,” said Trump, although it was unclear what he meant by suggesting that the federal government would determine what US Steel does as a company.

Trump added that he was “a little concerned” about what presidents other than him would do with their golden share, “but that gives you total control”.

Still, Nippon Steel has never said it was backing off its bid to buy and control US Steel as a wholly owned subsidiary.

The proposed merger had been under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, during the Trump and Biden administrations.

The order signed Friday by Trump said the CFIUS review provided “credible evidence” that Nippon Steel “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States”, but such risks might be “adequately mitigated” by approving the proposed national security agreement.

The order does not detail the perceived national security risk and only provides a timeline for the national security agreement. The White House declined to provide details on the terms of the agreement.

The order said the draft agreement was submitted to US Steel and Nippon Steel on Friday. The two companies must successfully execute the agreement as decided by the treasury department and other federal agencies that are part CFIUS by the closing date of the transaction.

Trump reserves the authority to issue further actions regarding the investment as part of the order he signed on Friday.

Cancer survivor David Serkin won draws in August, November and May, and another more than a decade ago

How do you say “lottery winner” in westernCanada? The answer is: David Serkin, the name of the cancer survivor from Alberta who won three separate lottery jackpots between August and May to accumulate about $2.5m in prize money.

According to officials, those lucky tickets marked the second, third and fourth times Serkin had won a lottery in his life, a feat that he had vanishingly small chances of pulling off and gained notice on corners of the internet dedicated to charming news stories.

“I know the odds are astronomical, [and] I don’t think it’ll happen again,” Serkin said in apress bulletinissued recently by the Western Canada Lottery Corporation (WCLC). “But I still like buying tickets.”

Serkin won draws of $500,000 on 20 August, $1m on 16 November and $1m on 3 May, the last of those coming from a ticket that he bought at a gasoline station in his home town of Lethbridge. To give an idea of the odds he faced, he had a 1 in about 33.3m chance of winning the first of those jackpots, the WCLC’s bulletin said.

The media outlet NOW Torontoaddedthat Serkin had won another $250,000 lottery jackpot more than a decade before his newer streak of good fortune.

At least part of his lottery success seems to involve consistently playing the odds. He told officials he has been playing the lottery since 1982 – but he maintained that is because he simply enjoys the ritual of buying his tickets and then checking them.

“You check your ticket and if you win – you’re happy,” Serkin said. “If you don’t, you can always try again.

“I’m a cancer survivor and I’m retired, so I am just grateful for all of it.”

Serkin said he bought his latest triumphant ticket on a whim while buying gasoline, figuring, “What do I have to lose?”

He said his friends’ reacted by saying “not again?!” when he took them out for coffee and informed them he had hit the jackpot once more.

As Serkin put it, his wife was equally incredulous – and, if history was any indication, a memorable vacation was in store for her.

“I took my wife to Hawaii with the last win, and we had a great time,” Serkin said to officials. “Now, we’re going to Newfoundland.”

Students say rise in prices was trigger but underlying anger was communist government’s increasing reliance on USD

Having enduredelectricity blackouts, water shortages, transport failures and the spiralling cost of food,Cuba’s students appear to have finally lost patience with their government over a ferocious price hike for the country’s faltering internet.

Local chapters of Cuba’s Federation of University Students (FEU) have been calling for a slew of measures, including attendance strikes, explanations from ministers and even the resignation of their own organisation’s president.

Trouble began when Etecsa, Cuba’s state-owned communications monopoly, recently increased prices for its mobile data without giving notice. While it offered 6GB a month at a subsidised rate of 360 pesos (about $1 at black market rates), prices would rise to 3,360 pesos ($9) for the next 3GB.

There was immediate uproar across a country where monthly state wages start at 2,100 pesos ($5.70) and the internet has become the route by which much of the population hears news, buys necessities, runs small businesses and communicates with relatives abroad. The average Cuban uses 10GB a month, according to the government.

The students, some of whom called their protest “brave, revolutionary and respectful”, said that while the internet was the trigger, real anger is aimed at Cuba’s communist government’s increasing reliance on US dollars.

In recent months, state supermarkets have opened across Cuba that only accept hard currencies. Gasoline stations are switching away from the peso. There are rumours electricity is about to follow. Each of these measures comes with foreign packages that encourage Cubans to ask their relatives abroad to pay.

“The ultimate responsibility for the problem falls not on the managers and employees [of Etecsa] but on those who implemented a chaotic, if not non-existent, economic model,” read a statement from the telecommunications and electrical engineering department at CUJAE, one of Havana’s universities.

Tania Velázquez, Etecsa’s president, tried to explain on state television. “We find ourselves in an extremely critical situation due to the lack of foreign currency and the significant reduction in revenue in recent years,” she said.

But the student body of Havana University’s mathematics and computer sciences faculty (Matcom), swiftly expressed a widely held skepticism that any new money raised would lead to improvements.

It asked for a meeting with “those primarily responsible for the measures taken, where the context under which they were taken is clarified in details and transparency”. Meanwhile, it called for its students to stay away from classes.

The government blamed the six-decade old US embargo but, clearly concerned, responded. Miguel Diaz Canel, Cuba’s president, called the students “beloved”, organised meetings with them and suggested the error had been one of communication. A concession was offered: a second highly subsidised package for university students alone. This was met with scorn by the engineering students from CUJAE, who called it “an attempt to silence the student vanguard”.

The protests have left the government’s usual critics in Miami wrong-footed as well, as they do not conform to the left/right debate that rages across the Florida Straits. Many student bodies made it clear they felt Etecsa’s move does not conform to the principles of the Cuban revolution, quoting revolutionary heroes including Fidel Castro.

It reflects a growing sense on the island that the government is moving away from its socialist principles, while not liberalising the economy enough to allow people to earn the money now needed to live.

Founded in 1922, the FEU once fought against Cuba’s pre-revolutionary dictatorships, but has been quiet since.

Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami, said: “I don’t think there is any comparable pushback to a government measure on this scale since university autonomy ended as it existed prior to the revolution.”

But the measures do come at a tough time for final-year students, with only about two weeks of the semester to run, followed by important exams. On Monday, Matcom voted to return to classes, despite the new rates “not being validated by real and convincing data”.

Transgressions in Cuba, political or otherwise, can lead to lifelong consequences for students, losing not only the ability to graduate, but also to find jobs.

A mother of a psychology student expressed her fears: “I support my daughter in whatever she decides,” she said. “But I feel her ambivalence and anguish. Her heart wants to be involved, but common sense tells her that she has to graduate.”

But another student, who asked to remain nameless, said a precedent has been set: “This has awakened something historic,” she said. “We have gained confidence and organisation for everything that troubles us in the future.”

Eileen Sosin contributed reporting

Sale covering 56,000 square miles set to go ahead despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups

The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.

Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.

The “doomsday auction”, as campaigners have called it, includes 47 blocks in the Amazon basin, in a sensitive area near the mouth of the river that fossil fuel companies consider apromising new oil frontier.

The auction is key to Brazil’s plans to become the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, an ambition supported by the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who argues that oil revenue will bring economic development and fund the energy transition.

But a wide range of groups, including environmentalists,federal prosecutorsand evenoil workers’ unions, are pushing for the bidding round to be called off, citing inadequate environmental assessment studies, the violation of Indigenous rights and the incompatibility of increased oil production with Brazil’s climate commitments.

The InternationalEnergyAgency says the development of new oil and gas fields is incompatible with global efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Brazil’sInstituto ClimaInfo has calculatedthat the burning of oil and gas from all 172 blocks on offer, should they move forward to production stage, could lead to the release of more than 11bn tonnes of CO2equivalent – similar to more than six years’ worth of emissions from the country’s polluting agribusiness sector, or 5% of the emissions humanity can still produce to keep global heating to within 1.5C.

The areas in the Amazon basin alone could release 4.7bn tonnes of CO2equivalent.

“This auction is posing really serious and grave threats for biodiversity, communities and climate,” said Nicole Figueiredo de Oliveira, the executive director of Instituto Internacional Arayara, a civil society organisation that has filed five lawsuits against next week’s auction.

Many of the oil exploration blocks on offer have outdated or near-expiry environmental assessment studies. Some overlap with Indigenous territories or conservation areas, including marine reserves around the island paradise of Fernando de Noronha. Arayara also argues that the ANP has failed to transparently assess the true scope of greenhouse gas emissions from exploration and possible future production of oil and gas in these areas.

The Amazon basin is at the centre of the debate surrounding the future of oil exploration in Brazil. The state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, has spent years trying to obtain an environmental licence to drill there, and Lula has put pressure on the environmental watchdog, Ibama, to deliver the permit.

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Areas that would be affected by offshore drilling and related activities onshore include sensitive coral reefs, and Indigenous communities who say they have not been properly consulted.

“We Indigenous people are being flattened by this process, we’re not being seen or heard,” said Edmilson Oliveira, a coordinator of a group of Indigenous leaders who publicly oppose exploration activities off Brazil’s northern coast.

Lucas Louback, a campaign and advocacy manager at Nossas, one of the organisations demanding the cancellation of the auction, said: “Thousands of people are already saying no to oil exploration in the Amazon basin and the Brazilian government needs to listen. Just a few months away from hostingCop30, continuing to bet on oil is a glaring contradiction.

“The Amazon is dangerously close to a tipping point, and clinging to this model pushes Brazil and the world closer to climate collapse.”

Exclusive: Lidiane Vieira Frazão, a black woman from Rio, was repeatedly denied appropriate treatment as President Bolsonaro downplayed the pandemic, lawsuit says

In the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lidiane Vieira Frazão, 35, was expecting her second child but, even at 40 weeks pregnant, she was unable to obtain a doctor’s note to start her maternity leave.

Her job as a funeral agent – at times handling the bodies of people who had died from the virus – was on the long list of “essential services” that could not be suspended during lockdown, according to a decree issued by Brazil’s then-president,Jair Bolsonaro.

Frazão was finally granted leave only days before giving birth, but she only received care at the second hospital she tried and, despite showing symptoms such as a runny nose and racing heart, her family say she was never tested for Covid-19.

The birth went well, but Frazão returned home still struggling to breathe. She sought help at another hospital, but was only given oxygen after waiting for 10 hours.

Soon after, she fell into a coma. Twenty-two days after giving birth, she died.

Now, five years later, her family has filed what is believed to be the first legal action against the Brazilian state over a maternal death linked to Covid-19. Although all the hospitals named in the lawsuit are federally funded, the case is being brought against the municipal government of Rio, which is responsible for managing the facilities.

“One thing that stayed with me was a video, months after my sister’s death, showing the president [Bolsonaro]mocking people who were short of breath,” said Frazão’s sister, Érika, 37. “That really hurt because my sister arrived at the hospital exactly like that.”

Her family argues that Frazão – whose two sons are now 16 and five – died due to negligence, malpractice and mistreatment at the state-run hospitals where she sought care.

“She told me she was mistreated at the hospital”, said her mother, Eny, 69, who is raising her two grandsons along with the children’s father.

Eny still remembers how lovingly her daughter planned for the second pregnancy. “When she wasn’t working, she’d lie right here on this sofa, in this very spot, talking to him in her belly,” said her mother, sitting in the family home in a bucolic corner of Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone.

A group of lawyers, researchers and activists supporting the lawsuit argue that the case is emblematic of a series of problems that, at one point during the pandemic, made Brazil the world leader in maternal deaths,accounting for 80% of the total.

Often, the women struggled to get treatment, said anthropologistDébora Diniz, a professor at the University of Brasília and one of those behind the lawsuit. “They’d arrive at a maternity ward and the doctor would say, ‘You have Covid-19, go to a hospital.’ Then at the hospital, another doctor would say, ‘You’re pregnant, go to the maternity ward.’”

Diniz coordinates a group at the universitythat carried out aqualitative studyto understand why so many maternal deaths were occurring in Brazil. The reasons included delays in Covid-19 testing and a reluctance to admit patients, as happened with Frazão.

The researcher believes Frazão’s death was also the result of “denialism” by the then-president Bolsonaro, who activelyopposed vaccines, social distancingand lockdowns,while mocking victimsand promotingineffective treatments like hydroxychloroquine.

Diniz says that the Bolsonaro administration also failed to “establish specific policies” for pregnant women, who were already known to be more vulnerable. “It failed her and all the other women in the same situation,” said the anthropologist.

The lawsuit seeks compensation and a lifelong pension for her family, as well as formal recognition of the state’s responsibility for her death.

The researchers and lawyers commissioned a gynaecologist and obstetrician to conduct an expert review of what happened to her.

The list of alleged failings is extensive, and began as early as her prenatal care, when Frazão was reportedly never identified as having a high-risk pregnancy.

According to the victim’s family, there was also a racial element, as Frazão was a black woman.

“If my daughter were white, this wouldn’t have happened to her,” said her mother, Eny.

Immediately after giving birth, Frazão complained of shortness of breath, but doctors at the hospital reportedly dismissed it as “anxiety” and told her to see a psychiatrist.

“That’s racism,” said her sister Érika. “Black women are always treated as if we don’t feel pain or are seen as nervous or unstable.”

In the lawsuit, they argue that Frazão was also a victim of “obstetric racism” and the systemic mistreatment of Black women within Brazil’s public healthcare system.

During the pandemic, most of the maternal deaths were among black women; to this day, Afro-Brazilian women facetwice the risk of dyingduring pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum compared with white women.

“There are protocols, and doctors are trained to deal with everything that happened to her – but when the patient is a black woman, all of that is ignored,” said Mariane Marçal, assistant project coordinator atCriola, the other organisation supporting the case.

In 2011, Brazil became thefirst government to be condemnedby an international conventional body – the United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women – for a preventable maternal death.

Alyne Pimentel Teixeira, 28, who was also black, died six months into her pregnancy after seeking medical care and being sent home with only a prescription but no tests.

“If Brazil had fulfilled the obligations set out in that ruling, Frazão would not have died,” said Mônica Sacramento, programme coordinator at Criola.

Rio’s city government said the events took place under the previous mayor, that “the teams involved have since been changed,” and that it would cooperate with the judiciary to “help clarify the case.”

Frazão’s eldest sister, Mônika Frazão, 54, hopes the case will bring about change in Brazil.

“We want the state to acknowledge that it failed us, that it failed her and her children … It might be wishful thinking, but we hope this means others won’t have to go through the same pain we did,” she said.

Accord comes as Mark Carney seeks shift in Ottawa’s relationship with New Delhi after long diplomatic spat

CanadaandIndiaplan to share intelligence in an effort to combat the rising threat of international crime and extremism, according to a new report from Bloomberg, days before a meeting between the two countries’ leaders.

Canadian officials declined to comment on the report, which, if confirmed, would represent a dramatic shift in relations between the two countries which for nearly two years have been locked in a bitter diplomatic spat after Canada’s federal police agency concluded that Indiaplanned and ordered the murder a prominent Sikh activist on Canadian soil.

Under the intelligence-sharing deal, which is expected to be announced during the G7 summit inCanadalater this week, police from both countries will increase cooperation on transnational crime, terrorism and extremist activities. Canada has reportedly pushed for more work on investigations into extrajudicial killings.

Earlier this month, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was forced to defend his decision to invite the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to the G7 summit in Alberta after Canada’s federal police said the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar wasorchestrated by the “highest levels” of the Indian government.

Carney said there was a “legal process that is literally under way and quite advanced inCanada”, following questions over his decision to invite Modi. Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijjar’s murder.

Carney also cited India’s status as the “fifth largest economy in the world, the most populous country in the world and central to supply chains”. But the decision did not sit well with lawmakers from British Columbia. A member of Carney’s Liberal caucus, Sukh Dhaliwal, met with the prime minister earlier this the week to express concern over the invitation.

“We as Canadians take pride to be a champion on human rights. We are the country of law and justice,” Dhaliwal, who represents the electoral district where Nijjar was killed, told the Canadian Press. “When it comes to protecting fundamental rights and serving justice for the victim, it is non-negotiable.”

Dhaliwal said that the prime minister was “alarmed about the issue” and would be “very strong in dealing” with the issue when speaking to his Indian counterpart.

Ever since former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused India of orchestrating the high-profile assassination of Nijjar, Ottawa and New Delhi have been locked in a worsening feud over the issue.

India temporarily stopped issuing in visas in Canada and, soon after, Canada expelled six senior diplomats, including the high commissioner, Sanjay Verma. India retaliated by ordering the expulsion of six high-ranking Canadian diplomats, including the acting high commissioner.

“The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada,” Trudeau told a public inquiry into foreign interference, adding that Canada had not wanted to “blow up” its valuable relationship with India. But he said afterNijjarwas killed, “we had clear and certainly now ever clearer indications that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty”.

The Bloomberg report, which underscores Carney’s attempts to mend relations with powerful nations, follows revelations that a suspected Indian government agent was surveilling former New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh as part of its network of coercion and intimidation.

According to Global News, the person, with suspected ties to both the Indian government andthe Lawrence Bishnoi gang implicated in Nijjar’s death, knew Singh’s daily routines, travel plans and family. When the RCMP realized there was a credible thread to this life, they placed the federal party leader under police protection.

“India targeted a Canadian politician on Canadian soil. That’s absolutely unprecedented. As far as we’re concerned, that’s an act of war,” Balpreet Singh, a spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization, said after of the Global News report. “If Jagmeet Singh isn’t safe … what does it mean for the rest of us?”

Florence in Italy could hit 39C as hot weather sweeps continent, while parts of South Africa brace for snow

The severe thunderstorms that have been lashing parts ofEuropeover recent days are expected to give way to high temperatures this week. Several regions could climb to 10C (50F) above seasonal norms, with Italy braced for the full force of the heat. Florence in Tuscany is forecast to soar to a sweltering 39C on Thursday and across the weekend.

Germany, France andBelgiumwill also face hot weather from Wednesday, with widespread highs at least 9C above the June average. Many other parts of Europe are forecast to experience temperatures 5-7C above normal. This is the result of a high-pressure system creating a heat dome over the region, whereby sinking air compresses and warms as it descends, trapping heat near the surface.

Meanwhile,South Africais in the grip of a powerful storm system that has triggered alerts for severe weather nationwide. Over the weekend, Western Cape and Northern Cape bore the brunt of the system. As the week progresses, the storm is likely to intensify and move eastwards, bringing extreme weather to central and eastern regions.

The conditions are driving a significant drop in temperature, with daytime highs in some areas plummeting to more than 7C below the seasonal average. Gusty winds are making it feel even more frigid.

Heavy rain has also been hammering Eastern Cape, with coastal areas expected to be hit by more than 100mm on Monday, potentially causing floods. Strong winds sweeping across the region are expected to strengthen to about 60mph (100km/h) on Monday, exacerbating the impact of the storm. Snowfall is also expected, with significant accumulations likely to cause widespread travel disruption and infrastructure challenges.

The intense weather is the result of a strong cut-off low system, which occurs when a low-pressure area becomes detached from the main jet stream. This allows cold, dry air to descend from higher altitudes and combine with moisture at the surface to produce the volatile mix of rain, wind and snow that has been battering swaths of the country.

South African authorities are urging residents to stay alert, limit travel and monitor official weather updates over the coming days.

Who is Alaa Abd el-Fattah and why are British diplomats trying to obtain his release? Patrick Wintour reports

Laila Soueif, 69, has been on hunger strike in London for more than 250 days in an effort to secure the release of her son, the activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, from jail inEgypt. As diplomatic pressure mounts, she is now in a critical condition.

Alaa’s sisterMona Seifdescribes toMichael Safithe toll that imprisonment has taken on her brother, her mother’s determination to do whatever she can to secure his release, and the difficulty of coming to terms with her mother’s decision to risk her life.

The Guardian’s diplomatic editor,Patrick Wintour, describes meeting Soueif and says she and her British-Egyptian family have a long history of activism. This includes a reported past incident between her husband, Ahmed Seif, and the Egyptian president,Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, that many believe may be influencing Alaa’s potentially indefinite detention.

The two discuss the attempts made by different British governments to secure her son’s release, the Foreign Office’s strategic considerations, and possible diplomatic options.

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As Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s mother remains on hunger strike, supporters say activist’s continued detention is campaign of vengeance by Egypt’s president

Family, friends and supporters of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have spoken about the conditions of his long imprisonment as his mother,Laila Soueif, remains in a London hospital in declining health on a hunger strike to secure his release.

Amid a mounting campaign to put pressure on British ministers to intervene more forcefully on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, supporters say his continued detention is part of a campaign of vengeance motivated by the personal animus of the Egyptian president,Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, towards him.

The activist, who came to prominence during Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square protests, has been jailed twice, the second time months after his release from prison in 2019, and continues to be imprisoned despite completing his five-year sentence last autumn.

Abd el-Fattah’s first period in prison – from 2015 to 2019 – and part of his second was spent in the Tora maximum-security prison, a place designed to hold violent jihadists, but since 2022 he has been held in Wadi al-Natrun in Beheira province in the Nile delta.

With the harshest conditions in Tora – where Abd el-Fattah was beaten – his regime was also designed deliberately to isolate and demoralise him, say supporters, depriving him for three years of books and limiting his contact with other prisoners.

Between September 2019 to May 2022 he was held in a small, poorly ventilated cell, denied a bed and mattress as well as reading materials and exercise. “The idea was to crush his spirit,” says Mona Seif, his sister, who has visited her brother in jail. “I think after so many trials and attempts to break him, the regime has realised that the way crush to him is to isolate him from the world and render him mute. That’s been the tactic since his second period in jail beginning in 2019.”

What has become clear to Seif, and others campaigning to release him, is that the treatment of her brother is being driven by a very personal animosity directed at Abd el-Fattah and his family by Egypt’s president.

“It seems very personal,” says Seif. “Since 2019 the unofficial messages we have been getting from different Egyptian institutions is that our file is with Sisi.”

Abd el-Fattah was a familiar and always approachable figure in Tahrir Square during the 2011 mass protests that led to the fall of the government of Hosni Mubarak. Articulate, passionate and thoughtful, his great skill was seen in bringing different groups together.

Sentenced to jail for organising a political protest without permission in 2015, Abd el-Fattah was briefly released in March 2019 but was rearrested months later and charged with spreading “fake news undermining national security” for a retweet.

One person with a personal insight into what Abd el-Fattah has been through is the activist and poet Ahmed Douma, who was imprisoned during his first spell in jail in Tora, where for 10 months the two men were in separate, solitary cells facing each other, until the authorities decided their proximity was a problem.

Unlike Abd el-Fattah, Douma was pardoned and released by Sisi in 2023. January 2011 – when 18 days of mass protests led to the resignation of the then president, Hosni Mubarak – “was, still is, and will forever remain a personal enemy to Sisi. And Alaa was one of the symbols of that period,” Douma told the Guardian.

“At the same time, he’s an activist who has audience and influence – a thinker with his own philosophy and interest in how political movements develop, how people move, how they understand things.

“And of course, he also became a symbol of the stupidity of the authorities.

“The truth is that even one hour in prison inevitably leaves an impact, and it’s not trivial,” adds Douma, who spent more than 10 years in prison. “There’s depression from what happened in prison, whether things that happened to you directly or which you witnessed. Torture, assault and so on.

“It’s not just the impact on the body, but on the mind. At some point, you realise that you’ve been in solitary confinement for days, months, days or years, with no communication. I haven’t even begun the journey of recovery from the effects of those 10 years.”

Aida Seif El-Dawla, a psychiatrist, human rights defender and co-founder of El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, says: “Look, in Egypt, detention is a psychological torture. I don’t know what those people are punished for except that they expressed an opinion. And to put people in prison because they expressed an opinion, that’s not a legal punishment. But apparently, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi thinks otherwise.

“This is the punishment of the saddest father who tortures his children for non-obedience.”

What is clear is that the Egyptian authorities regard Abd el-Fattah’s detention as open ended, holding him beyond his originally scheduled release date and also holding another potential prosecution over him.

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Mahmoud Shalaby, a researcher at Amnesty International who deals with Egypt, says: “The whole thing is about making an example of him. He’s already been brutally punished. He has spent almost 10 years in prison solely for practising his human rights. Alaa’s case is extremely extraordinary, especially as Egypt has a history of releasing dual nationals who are arbitrarily detained.

“I think the fear is that if he was released, he would go abroad and criticise the government from there. But that’s not a reason to keep him arbitrarily in prison.”

His lawyer, Khaled Ali, says: “Alaa should have been released on 28 September last year.” Instead, the courts have declined to include his period of pretrial detention, prior to ratification of the sentence, meaning he will not be released until 2027 – if then.

Ali says: “He was sentenced to five years in prison and he has been detained since 28 September 2019. His sentence should have ended on 28 September 2024.”

After a hunger strike in 2022, Abd el-Fattah has been allowed access to books and now a television in Wadi al-Natrun, from where he is able to write and receive letters from his family.

“Alaa and my mum are both big science fiction fans and so he reads a massive amount,” says Seif. “Science fiction, graphic novels and anything to do with science. Now he is allowed a television, he follows tournaments. He’ll treat a tournament as a whole project. If Wimbledon is on, he will follow for the day.

“But because of the way the prison was constructed, the exercise area is a big hole with concrete walls and no ceiling. He hasn’t walked in sun for over five years.”

The family are able to monitor his mood via his response to the cats that have sought shelter in the prison and whom he has adopted. “If his mood is good he shares lots of pictures of the cats.” His mood in recent months as his release date has come and gone has not been good.

Attempts by successive British governments and EU officials – among others – to intervene behind the scenes have been a failure as Egypt has faced no consequences for its human rights abuses. Lacking interlocutors with influence within Sisi’s immediate circle, Abd el-Fattah’s case is stuck, even as his mother’s health inLondonhas dangerously worsened.

One person who has been involved in advocacy for Abd el-Fattah says: “The policy of private engagement has been going on for over 10 years. You only see movement on human rights issues in Egypt where there is the threat of action.”

Seif says: “They just want his absolute surrender and Alaa completely broken and mimicking the regime’s narrative. Even the slightest indication of independence they see as defiance. The whole thing is a senseless act of pure vengeance that leaves us to keep guessing, what is it for, and when will be enough.”

Ahmed Douma adds: “If I could send him a message and tell him anything, I would tell him that we are with him. And that his freedom and Laila’s life are our personal battle.”

Olorato Mongale, allegedly killed by man she went on date with, is latest victim of violence against women

A wave of anger and frustration has grippedSouth Africaafter the murder of 30-year-old Olorato Mongale, allegedly by a man she went on a date with. It is the latest in a series of high-profile cases of violence against women and children in the country.

Friends of Mongale, a former journalist who had been studying for a master’s degree in ICT policy, raised the alarm when she stopped checking in with them while on a date in Johannesburg on 25 May. Her body was found that day.

The main suspect, Philangenkosi Makhanya, was killed in a shootout with police five days later, while another suspect, Bongani Mthimkhulu, remains on the run. South African police said more than 20 women had come forward to claim the two men had kidnapped and robbed them after masquerading as suitors at malls across SouthAfrica, in what police called a “romance dating scam”.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, according to available data. In the year to 31 March 2024, more than 27,600 people were murdered, 5,578 of them women and 1,656 children, according to South African policedata.

Globally, in 2023, approximately 1.3 women per 100,000 were killed by an intimate partner or relative,according tothe United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) found that during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemicthe rate was 5.5.

Cameron Kasambala, the community manager at the advocacy groupWomenFor Change, said: “Women die no matter what they do. They’ve been stabbed while they sleep, shot in broad daylight and had their houses burned down by former partners.”

She pointed to the violent repression of South Africa’s black majority by the white minority during apartheid, which ended more than three decades ago. “Men compensate by becoming hypermasculine, by being violent and aggressive … It’s rooted in our violent history and exacerbated by poverty and substance abuse,” said Kasambala.

Other high-profile cases have included Racquel “Kelly” Smithselling her six-year-old daughter Joshlin, and that of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a student whose rape and murder in 2019 sparked huge protests. However, activists emphasise that thousands more go unnoticed every year.

In April, Women For Change handed over apetitionwith 150,000 signatures demanding that the government declare “gender-based violence and femicide” (GBVF) to be a national disaster. Kasambala said: “This stance will then filter down to the police, the courts and hospitals.”

Sindisiwe Chikunga, the minister for women, youth and persons with disabilities, replied in aletter: “The government remains fully committed to a whole-of-society, multi-sectoral response to the GBVF crisis.” She did not mention the national disaster demand.

Naeemah Abrahams, who leads the SAMRC’s femicide research, said: “When we try and solve it, it’s not going to be just the law. We’ve got great laws.”

Social norms around men being financial providers fuel violence, Abrahams said, with many believing, “if women step out of these societal expectations, she should be corrected for it”.

Mongale’s loved ones were incredibly proud of her achievements, said Criselda Kananda, the best friend of Mongale’s mother, Keabetswe. These included teaching English in South Korea and buying a flat in her home city of Bloemfontein.

Kananda said: “Olorato was such a bubbly ball of energy, who just lit up any space that she entered, who never took no for an answer.”

On Monday, Mongale’s mother went to her only child’s apartment for the first time since her death and found baking ingredients ready to make a cake. Kananda said: “We really are struggling … It’s things like these that are now painting a reality that she is no more.”