Local officials report ‘endless shelling’ of eastern town as president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Ukrainians troops are ‘holding our ground’

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 597 of the invasion

Russian forces have continued to pummel the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka from the ground and air on Friday, the fourth day of intense fighting in the biggest offensive by Russian forces in months, Reuters reports.

Ukraine said its forces were holding their ground but Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka’s military administration, said the town was under constant attack from air, artillery and large numbers of troops.

The battles have been going on for four days now. Fierce and really non-stop … They are firing from everything they have available.

It was a very hot night in Avdiivka. There were several airstrikes on the city itself … the attacks do not stop day or night.

Australia will find it almost impossible to tackle racism if the vote is no, yes campaign leader says

• Factchecking the seven biggest pieces of misinformation pushed by the no campaign
• Hundreds of organisations are backing a yes vote: here’s why
• What is the voice referendum? Your printout pocket guide for 14 October

Saturday’s referendum vote will be the only chance Australia will have to tackle racism and guarantee a better future for Aboriginal children, leading yes campaigner Noel Pearson has said.

In his final pitch to undecided voters, Pearson said the voice is the culmination of decades of struggle by leaders before him, adding he did not want to pass that burden to the next generation.

Australian National Imams Council said opposition leader’s comments were ‘designed to inflame tensions’

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Australia’s peak body representing Muslims has labelled comments by Peter Dutton over pro-Palestine protests “dangerous, divisive, misleading and grossly irresponsible”.

The Australian National Imams Council spokesperson, Bilal Rauf, also rejected the opposition leader’s “broad, sweeping” call for the visas of antisemitic protesters to be cancelled.

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Public broadcasters the ABC, SBS and NITV as well as Sky News will follow the count live, as commercial channels keep coverage to a minimum

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Voters keen to know the result of the referendum on Saturday night will find blanket coverage on the public broadcasters, ABC, SBS and NITV, as well as on Sky News Australia, but the commercial networks are keeping their reporting to a minimum.

The SBS and NITV presenters, Anton Enus and Natalie Ahmat, a Mudburra and Wagadagam woman, will kick off the four-hour simulcast at 6.30pm with news and live crosses to reporters on the ground.

Two other people critically injured and attacker arrested as president heads to scene of stabbing

A teacher has been killed and two other people critically injured in a stabbing at a school in Arras, northern France.

Europe 1 reported that the suspected attacker, who has been arrested, was on a watchlist of people known to be a security risk in connection with radical Islamism. Local media reported that he was a former pupil at the Gambetta-Carnot school. A police source told Agence France-Presse he was from Russia’s mainly Muslim southern Caucasus region of Chechnya.

In an exclusive interview, Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank, says the outlook is good for a continent with the workers of the future and the best investment opportunities

Africa holds the future workforce for the ageing economies of the west, according to one of the continent’s leading financial figures, who also said it was time to ditch the myths around corruption and risk.

In an exclusive interview before this weekend’s World Bank meetings in Morocco, Akinwumi Adesina said there was a resurgence of belief in Africa’s economic prospects and attacked negative stereotyping, adding that there was “every reason to be optimistic”.

Day commemorating 1986 People Power Revolution omitted from official list of holidays for 2024

The Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has dropped a public holiday marking the anniversary of a revolution that toppled his dictator father, further fuelling concerns his family is seeking to “whitewash” history.

Ferdinand Marcos Sr ruled the Philippines for more than two decades until he was ousted by the peaceful People Power Revolution of February 1986, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets. The Marcos family was forced to flee the country, and sought exile in Hawaii.

Move comes after assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe and growing criticism of fundraising activities

Japan’s government has asked a court to strip the Unification church of its status, amid growing criticism of the group’s fundraising activities after the assassination last year of the former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

If the Tokyo district court accepts the request, the church – whose members are colloquially known as Moonies– will be stripped of its status as a religious corporation and lose exemptions from corporate and property taxes, as well as a tax on income from monetary offerings.

Prosecutors allege Sharon Graham was ‘architect’ of plan to murder Bruce Saunders and get money from his insurance

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Weeks before Bruce Saunders’ body was put in a woodchipper, the butcher spoke about taking out a life insurance policy and marrying the woman now accused of his murder, a jury has heard.

Saunders was hit on the head with an iron bar after sunset on 12 November 2017 and his body fed into an industrial woodchipper to make it look like an accident, a Brisbane court has been told.

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Police were called to the museum in the inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst shortly before midday after alleged antisemitic display

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Three men have been charged after they allegedly performed a Nazi salute outside Sydney’s Jewish Museum on Friday.

Police were called to the Darlinghurst museum shortly before noon, where they proceeded to arrest the men. They were taken to Kings Cross police station and later charged with behaving in offensive manner near a public place and knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol without excuse, NSW police said in a statement on Friday evening.

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Supporter Prof Megan Davis also expresses dismay at ‘extraordinary’ attacks from critics on eve of historic vote

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The Uluru statement architect Prof Megan Davis has declared she still believes “love conquers all”, leading a chorus of yes campaigners who say they are remaining optimistic and not focusing on the polls on the eve of the Indigenous voice referendum.

Six years after the statement was issued to the Australian people, Davis defended the integrity of the Uluru dialogue processes that were the basis for the voice and have been heavily criticised by opponents during the campaign.

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Fans seen singing the Cranberries’ hit in stadiums but some Irish republicans are unhappy at revival

Thirty years after a lethal IRA bomb inspired its stark, chilling lyrics, the Cranberries’ song Zombie has experienced an unlikely rebirth as a Rugby World Cup anthem.

Ireland fans have belted out its chorus in stadiums across France and hope to do so again on Saturday after a quarter-final tie against New Zealand at the Stade de France in Paris.

Nutritious lunches should be seen as an effective way to address obesity, chronic illness and poverty, says coalition

• Pizza, plum cake and pickled red onion: how school lunches look across Europe

Children across Europe must receive at least one nutritious school meal a day if governments want to tackle rising obesity rates, prevent chronic illnesses and reduce social inequalities, according to a coalition of experts.

Nearly a third of primary school-age children in Europe are either overweight or obese, while almost a quarter of children in the EU are at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Russia and Ukraine fighting fierce battles around eastern town of Avdiivka; Finland says ‘state actor’ may be behind damage to gas pipeline

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Russian and Ukrainian forces fought fierce battles around the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after Moscow launched one of its biggest military offensives in months this week. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground on the third day of battle, but municipal officials said the Russian attacks were relentless.

Finland said it could not exclude the possibility that a “state actor” was behind damage to a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, amid what its national security intelligence service called “significantly deteriorated” relations with Russia. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday the US would support Finland and Estonia as they probed the damage to the Balticconnector pipeline and parallel Estlink telecommunications cable between the two countries.

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for recognising regional organisations from four territories annexed from Ukraine. Russia’s National Olympic Committee denounced the decision, calling it counterproductive and politically motivated.

Ukraine claims it has thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian saboteur group to cross its north-eastern border in the Sumy region, Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the armed forces of Ukraine, said on Thursday. “The saboteurs tried to cross the state border of Ukraine and intended to move further towards one of the civilian critical infrastructure facilities,” he wrote on Telegram. The eight-member group was repelled by Ukrainian fire, he said.

Russia expects its military and defence cooperation with Kyrgyzstan to expand, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said during a visit to a Russian airbase near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in his first trip outside Russia since the international criminal court issued a warrant for his arrest over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the possible poisoning of an exiled Russian journalist who staged a high-profile protest against the war in Ukraine. Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a placard reading “Stop the war” on Russian television last year, became unwell after opening the door to her apartment in Paris and finding a powdered substance, AFP reported.

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on Thursday recognised the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin a “genocide”. The text on the 1932-33 “Holodomor” was voted through almost unanimously with 73 votes in favour and one against at the meeting in Strasbourg, which followed a similar resolution approved by the European Parliament in December.

Romanian authorities said Thursday they had found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border withUkraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine on to a Nato member country.

US military officials displayed what they said were pieces of Iranian drones recovered in Ukraine to UN member states on Thursday – evidence, according to the Pentagon, of growing ties between Iran and Russia. Tehran has denied western accusations that it is supplying Russia with large quantities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), some armed, to use in its invasion of Ukraine.

The UN human rights council on Thursday extended the mandate of its rapporteur on rights violations in Russia by a year, in a second diplomatic defeat for Moscow in three days. The UN’s top rights body adopted a resolution brought by several European countries to prolong Bulgarian human rights expert Mariana Katzarova for another year by 18 votes to seven.

Journalist Khaybar Akifi was severely wounded in a drone attack that also killed his four-year-old daughter and his wife’s parents in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, several media officials said. The head of state television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, said Akifi was in a coma.

Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon clash in heated final debate ahead of 14 October vote as left-leaning government trails right bloc in polls

The leaders of New Zealand’s two major political parties have made a last ditch effort to sway votes in their favour on the final day of campaigning before the country’s general election.

The leaders clashed in their most heated debate yet – the last of the campaign, which aired on TVNZ on Thursday night. In his final message, Labour’s Chris Hipkins warned the public that a vote for the opposition would bake in poverty and see action on climate change go backwards.

• Claims that coach ‘asked for sexual favours’ at tournament
• Zifa says safeguarding officer investigating in South Africa

The Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) has confirmed it is investigating a member of its senior women’s coaching team over allegations of sexual misconduct against female colleagues.

The Guardian understands the allegations relate to a series of incidents said to have taken place during the current Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) women’s championship in South Africa. They include claims that the coach made inappropriate invitations to his room and “asked for sexual favours” – allegations first made in an article by the London-based journalist Melody Gwenyambira this week.

Investigation raises questions about transparency and governance of $1bn citizenship by investment scheme

• Revealed: thousands who bought ‘golden passports’ through Dominica’s $1bn scheme
• Luxury rooms and a swim-up bar: hotel with funding from Dominica’s golden passport scheme

The Caribbean island of Dominica may have sold thousands more “golden passports” than its government has publicly disclosed, according to analysis that raises questions about the transparency and governance of its $1bn (£822m) citizenship by investment scheme.

An investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has conducted the first detailed examination of the identities and numbers of individuals who paid for Dominican citizenship.

Cases are rising in many parts of the country and critics are blaming chronic water shortages and poor sanitation systems

The Zimbabwean government has banned large gatherings in parts of the country and increased surveillance at ports of entry in an effort to contain a rise in cholera cases.

With 100 suspected deaths, most of them in September, and nearly 5,000 possible cases of the water-borne disease in more than 41 districts, including Harare, authorities fear a repeat of the 2008 epidemic where 4,000 people died.

After breakdancing debuted at the games in China, members of the Thai national team say they needed support for hair treatment

A member of Thailand’s national breakdancing team has spoken about one of the lesser known challenges of the sport – hair loss.

At the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, where breaking – known in the media as breakdancing – debuted this year, Thailand’s national team was asked about the kinds of support performers need. They said there was a lack of facilities for training in Thailand, meaning people have to practise in parks or shopping malls.

Monarch’s recognition will come as country prepares to celebrate 60 years of independence from Britain

King Charles will acknowledge the “painful aspects” of Britain’s past actions in Kenya during a state visit later this month.

The visit follows an invitation from the country’s president, William Ruto, whose country will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence from Britain on 12 December. The two countries have enjoyed a close relationship in recent years despite the violent colonial legacy of an uprising in the early 1950s, which led to a period known as “the emergency”, which ran from 1952 until 1960.

One wild-born owl remains in British Columbia, where logging concerns have destroyed the species’s old-growth forest home

• Related: ‘All I see are ghosts’: fear and fury as the last spotted owl in Canada fights for survival

Canadian cabinet ministers have rejected a plea by the country’s environment minister to save an endangered owl, casting doubt on the species’ survival in the coming years.

The Wilderness Committee environmental advocacy group announced on Wednesday that federal ministers had rejected a request for an emergency order to protect the northern spotted owl – a request submitted by environment minister Steven Guilbeault.

Brazil president calls for humanitarian aid to protect Israeli and Palestinian citizens, while Latin Americans also taken hostage

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for an end to “the insanity of war” as it emerged that more than a dozen Latin Americans were killed during Hamas’s assault, with citizens of Brazil and Argentina taken captive in the Gaza Strip.

By Wednesday morning, Latin American government and media reports had confirmed the deaths of seven Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Peruvians, one Colombian and one Paraguayan. At least 15 Argentinians, three Peruvians, two Mexicans and one Brazilian remain missing.

‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while US claims are processed, set to be revived

The Mexican supreme court is poised to give new life to a controversial US-Mexico border policy at a time when both countries are looking for ways to slow the flow of migrants heading north.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, is a Trump-era policy that forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait out their legal proceedings in Mexico for months or even years. The government of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador accepted the arrangement and allowed thousands of asylum seekers to be sent back to the country from the US.

People are ahead of governments, says David Cooper, who blames backtracking on parties seeking ‘wedge issues’ for electoral gain

Government backtracking on environmental promises is being driven by politicians and vested interests, not the public, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, as he called for greater support for those experiencing short-term costs from green policies.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), told the Guardian he believed the public mood was not moving against greater environmental protections, and that vested interests opposed to action on the climate crisis and nature loss were trying to frustrate progress.

Women’s rights campaigners denounce ‘hugely regressive’ proposals from political and religious leaders to decriminalise practice

Political and religious leaders in the Gambia are threatening to introduce a bill to decriminalise female genital mutilation, eight years after the practice was outlawed.

Members of the country’s national assembly have backed a proposal for the 2015 law to be scrapped while the Supreme Islamic Council has issued a fatwa condemning anyone who denounces the practice and calling for the government to reconsider the legislation.

Kyoto to sell its obsolete manhole covers in a bid to cash in on the public’s fascination with the decorated pieces

They are heavy disks of cast iron that separate us from our subterranean sewage, but in Japan, they are also highly coveted works of art, symbols of regional pride, and now, sources of revenue.

Local authorities are cashing in on the public’s fascination with the country’s decorated manhole covers, with Kyoto now joining a list of locations that are putting obsolete lids up for sale.

• Former Afghan spymaster, convicted millionaire and former Libyan colonel among those who became Dominican citizens
• Sales of passports soared after the Caribbean state was granted visa-free travel to the EU in 2015
• Luxury rooms and a swim-up bar: hotel with funding from Dominica’s golden passport scheme

The Caribbean state of Dominica has sold citizenship to thousands of individuals including a former Afghan spymaster, a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud and a former Libyan colonel under Muammar Gaddafi, the first detailed examination of the country’s controversial “golden passports” scheme has found.

The findings are from Dominica: Passports of the Caribbean, an investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Former prime minister appealed to voters in Facebook video after being noticeably absent in lead up to 14 October election

• Read all our coverage of the New Zealand 2023 election

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s former prime-minister, has made an eleventh-hour appearance to throw her support behind the party she once led, just days out from the country’s general election.

Ardern, who was elected in 2017 on a wave of ‘Jacindamania’ and enjoyed extraordinary popularity for much of her leadership, led the governing party for nearly six years up until her shock resignation in January 2023. But the former leader has been noticeably absent in the lead up to the 14 October election.

In today’s newsletter: A complicated legal battle over whether the UK government plan to send thousands of migrants to Rwanda could cause a fundamental shift in how asylum seekers are treated

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Good morning. Five supreme court judges are this week deciding whether the UK government plan to deport tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda should go ahead.

The decision of the UK’s highest court will be life-changing for more than 24,000 asylum seekers issued with letters warning them that they are being considered for forcible removal. It will also either make home secretary Suella Braverman’s “dream” come true or poleaxe a key part of Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats”.

Israel | The leaders of the UK, US, France, Germany and Italy have released a joint statement expressing “steadfast and united support” for the state of Israel and “unequivocal condemnation” of Hamas. Earlier, Israel declared a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off water, food and power supplies.

Environment | The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.

Transport | A list of transport projects to be funded using HS2 money, which included schemes that had already been built or were swiftly deleted, was intended only to be “illustrative”, the prime minister has said.

Labour | A new Labour government would give all towns and cities in England new powers and funding to boost local economies, Keir Starmer will announce, in the biggest expansion of devolution since Labour was last in power.

Scotland | A hoard of coins linked to a Highland chief – which may have been stashed away as he tried in vain to escape the Glen Coe massacre– has been discovered underneath a fireplace.