Neonicotinoids kill bees and destroy the environment. A truly green government would find a better solution to the problem of aphid-borne disease

Near the end of 2022, the secretary of state for the environment, Thérèse Coffey, committed the UK to halving the impact of damaging pesticides on the nation’s wildlife and flora by the year 2030. It is a laudable aspiration. Biodiversity in Britain, as across the planet, is in peril as the climate heats up, pollution causes increasing harm to the landscape and alien species spread over the countryside. Considerable care will be needed if we are to protect nature, which is vital to our health, wellbeing and survival, from continued degradation. Limiting the ecological injury of pesticides is an encouraging move.

Unfortunately, Coffey’s words have not been matched by action. Incredibly, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has decided to waive restrictions on the use of a class of highly dangerous powerful toxins and permit their release on crops. Neonicotinoids have been described as the Novichok of bees: a single teaspoon is sufficient to kill more than a billion, say scientists.

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Pope Francis criticises anti-homosexuality, says ‘being homosexual is no… youtu.be/iUdznQFlc7I via @YouTube

Ukraine’s military said on Sunday its forces repelled an attack in the area of Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region, while Russia’s Wagner private military group said it took control of the village.

“Units of Ukraine’s Defence Forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of … Blahodatne … in the Donetsk region,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily morning report, referring to fighting on Saturday.

It added that its forces repelled Russian attacks in the areas of 13 other settlements in the Donetsk region.

The Wagner Group, designated by the United States as transnational criminal organisation, said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday that its units had taken control of Blahodatne.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.

With fighting heating up in the Donetsk region, the exact line of contact has been unclear, especially around the town Bakhmut, were some of the heaviest fighting of the war has been taking place in recent weeks. The Wagner Group has made premature success claims before.

Ukraine has said that the Russian offensive on Bakhmut has not culminated, but the situation along the front line there has been growingly difficult. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that it was acute.

Four civilians were killed, one in Bakhmut, and 17 wounded in Russian attacks on the region on Saturday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine has won promises of Western battle tanks and is seeking fighter jets to push back against Russian and pro-Moscow forces, which are slowly advancing along part of the front line.

On Saturday, Zelenskiy’s top aide said that expedited talks were under way between Ukraine and its allies about its requests for long-range missiles to prevent Russia from destroying Ukrainian cities.

Abused, kidnapped and lost – the government should hang its head in shame over its lack of care towards vulnerable minors

• Read more: child migrants racially abused and threatened with violence at Home Office hotel

Unaccompanied children fleeing war, torture and chaos are surely one of the most vulnerable demographics in the world. Yet an Observer investigation has exposed how once these children reach the UK they can be treated with an appalling lack of care, to the extent that large numbers are being kidnapped in plain sight by criminal gangs. Today, we publish allegations by a whistleblower that the staff in one hotel accommodating some of these already traumatised children have subjected them to repeated emotional abuse.

Peter Kyle, the Labour MP for Hove, has met some of the children being housed in a hotel in his constituency. He has described their vulnerability: one 15-year-old from Iran who had lost both of his parents travelled to the UK with a friend but was separated from him because he tested positive for Covid and was so anxious “his face was pinched and his legs were buckling”. The majority of unaccompanied children arriving in Britain come from countries with terrible records of conflict and human rights abuses: Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Many will be in immediate danger from the criminal gangs to whom they owe money for smuggling them into the country.

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Normal Russian troops are possible changing depleted mercenary forces from the Wagner Group to intensify the assault on Bakhmut.

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Israeli officers on Sunday sealed off the Jerusalem family home of a Palestinian gunman who killed seven people outside a synagogue on the outskirts of the city, police said, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “a swift response”.

Seven people including a 14-year-old were shot dead on Friday in the attack on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which drew wide international condemnation and heightened fears of already spiralling violence escalating further.

It was the worst such Palestinian attack on Israelis in the Jerusalem area since 2008 and followed a fatal Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city Jenin on Thursday, the deadliest there in years.

The shooting presents a challenge to Netanyahu, who returned to power in December at the head of a hard-right nationalist government, promising to improve personal safety for Israelis after a spate of lethal Palestinian street attacks last year.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it was sending additional troops into the West Bank, which has seen months of worsening clashes that culminated in 2022 with the highest death toll, including militants and civilians, in more than a decade.

Still, there was no sign Israel was preparing for a large-scale military response to the shooting. With U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visiting this week, Israeli and Palestinian leaders were expected to try to contain violence.

After convening his security cabinet for a late night meeting on Saturday, Netanyahu said the government would pursue sanctions against families of assailants and that he would present steps this week to “strengthen settlements”.

Sworn in a month ago, Netanyahu’s government – the most right-wing in Israel’s history – has prioritised settlement building on lands the Palestinians seek for a state, though it has not yet taken major steps on the ground in that direction.

Most world powers consider as illegal Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land it captured in the 1967 war.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not remarked on Friday’s attack and on Saturday blamed Israel for the spiralling violence. The gunman had apparently acted alone and was shot dead by officers as he tried to flee the scene, police said.

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A man in Peru’s capital Lima died on Saturday and others were hospitalized as nationwide clashes between protesters and police continued in the eighth week of the South American country’s political crisis.

The death of Victor Santisteban Yacsavilca, 55, brings to 58 the nationwide toll in the protests that began in early December after the impeachment and arrest of President Pedro Castillo.

Initially focused in Peru’s rural, mountainous south, protests have gained steam in the capital in recent weeks. Saturday’s protests were mostly in Lima and the southern Cusco region, Peru’s ombudsman said in a statement.

Santisteban had suffered a severe head injury, the national health insurance agency said in a statement.

Some protests escalated as demonstrators armed with rocks and makeshift shields clashed with police, who deployed gas and rubber bullets.

Peru’s ombudsman condemned reports of attacks against journalists covering the protests.

President Dina Boluarte expressed regret early on Saturday after Congress refused to speed up the timeline for a presidential election amid the unrest, her office said.

Lawmakers had given an initial green light to moving elections from 2026 to 2024, but on Friday voted down proposals hold the election this year.

Boluarte has repeatedly backed moving up elections as she struggles to quell the protests calling for her resignation.

A motion to move elections up to April 2024 passed one vote and has a final vote in February. Congress will continue debate on Monday.

On Friday Boluarte said an election could happen this year.

“We urge lawmakers to put down their partisan and group interests and put the interest of Peru first. Our citizens promptly await a clear response that will pave a way out of the political crisis and build social peace,” Boluarte’s office said on Twitter.

Boluarte, who took office after Castillo’s removal, has maintained she will stay on as president until elections are held.

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At least 24 people died in northern Peru after a bus carrying 60 passengers plunged off a cliff in early on Saturday, police told local media.

Peru’s transportation supervisory agency (SUTRAN) confirmed the crash in a statement, without providing a number of fatalities or injuries.

The tragedy, involving a bus for the company Q’Orianka Tours Aguila Dorada, occurred in the district of El Alto in the far north of Peru, SUTRAN said.

SUTRAN said early investigations showed the bus appeared to have an up-to-date safety inspection and accident insurance.

Road accidents are relatively common in Peru, with many drivers operating vehicles on precarious roads and without proper training. In 2021, 29 people died when a bus plunged off a highway in the Andes mountains.

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