Allegations of rape, beatings and collusion by EU-funded security forces prompt shift in migration arrangements

The European Commission is fundamentally overhauling how it makes payments to Tunisia after a Guardian investigation exposed myriad abuses by EU-funded security forces, including widespread sexual violence against migrants.

Officials are drawing up “concrete” conditions to ensure that future European payments to Tunis can go ahead only if human rights have not been violated.

Reasonable grounds to believe crimes against humanity are being committed against women and girls in Afghanistan, application says

The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for the Taliban’s supreme leader and Afghanistan’s chief justice on the grounds that their persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity.

It marks the first time the prosecutor has built a case around systemic crimes against women and girls, legal experts say. It is also a rare moment of vindication for Afghan activists, who over the last three years have often felt abandoned by the international community even as Taliban oppression deepened.

Business leaders may thunder about job cuts, but their threats could backfire: union membership is only growing

What a perverse act of defiance – two fingers up to government policy by a major company. Bidfood is one of the largest food distributors in the UK, with 26 depots supplying about 40,000 institutions and food service companies, including Manchester United, Subway and Five Guys. What’s more, it supplies NHS trusts, the army, prisons and schools and the royal household . Yet it chooses this moment to derecognise trade unions, abandoning a longstanding recognition of the GMB and Unite. This reflects the rumbling resistance to the government’s flagship working rights legislation that is now going through parliament.

The unions say that tearing up the recognition agreement came out of the blue: there had been no dispute at the company. Now the unions fear the company is doing it because it plans a P&O-style fire-and-rehire of its food delivery workers, reducing the terms of their contracts to pre-empt something that will be effectively banned when the new employment rights laws come into force.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Downing Street says EU’s suggestion of UK joining agreement would not cross its ‘red lines’ for closer ties

Here is Downing Street news release on the government’s plans to limit the extent to which judicial review can be used to hold up infrastructure projects. The plans will cover England and Wales.

The RSPB , which describes itself as the UK’s largest nature conversation charity, has accused Labour of going back on its pre-election promises to protect nature. Beccy Speight, the RSPB chief executive, said:

The PM claims to ‘clear a path’ for building, but this move runs the risk of bulldozing through our chances for a future where nature, people, and the economy all thrive. We know people want bold action on the climate and nature crises, which was Labour’s election platform, and this rhetoric has them veering wildly off course.

We all know that nature underpins economic growth - that is why government and the environment sector has been actively working together, to try and unlock better outcomes for both planning and nature - yet this rhetoric flies in the face of that collaborative spirit.

If we want to grow the economy and fund vital public services, then we have to better balance environmental and community interests with the benefits of development, and do so in a clear and timely way. Reducing the scope for vexatious and unmerited legal challenges, whilst retaining a right to appeal, is a very positive step in achieving this.

UK’s top civil servant rejects Robert Jenrick’s demand to investigate Richard Hermer’s career as human rights barrister for Gerry Adams

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The cabinet secretary has dismissed Conservative demands for an investigation into whether the attorney general has advised the government on issues where he has conflicts of interest.

Chris Wormald, the UK’s most senior civil servant, wrote to Robert Jenrick on Thursday saying there was a “rigorous system” to prevent government law officers from advising on issues where they may be conflicted.

Labour should not dither – it is time for England to follow the example set by Scotland and Wales

Broadcasters have, understandably enough, been adding content warnings to reports about Sara Sharif, the 10-year-old girl who allegedly died at the hands of her father, stepmother and uncle, after two years of abuse.

“This article features details that some people might find distressing” is the BBC’s slightly strange way of putting it, as if significant numbers of people are undistressed by reading about the horrific injuries found, an Old Bailey jury has heard, on the child’s body. And also by the evidence, sickening in its implications, that neighbours heard disturbing noises but did not report them. And by another disquieting detail, from a phone call said by the prosecution to have been made to the emergency services by Sara’s father. “I legally punished her, and she died,’’ he is alleged to have said.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

Two hundred lawyers have come together to challenge a wave of discriminatory exclusions

When he started secondary school in Hackney, east London, at the age of 11, Sam* had high attainment levels and loved learning. At the end of the introductory week, he was given an award for being a “star”. Less than two weeks later, a courier delivered a letter to his home saying that he had been ­permanently excluded.

Government data released this summer showed there were a record 9,400 permanent exclusions in 2022-23 , up 45% from 6,500 in 2021-22. Sam, who lives on a council estate with his Cameroonian mother and has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism, is among the most likely ­children in the country to be thrown out of school.

Jails are squalid and the number of incarcerated people keeps rising. Investing in probation is part of the answer

Last month’s report on sentencing from a group of former heads of the judiciary ended with a stark warning that the country faces a future of “US-style mass incarceration” – overcrowded prisons, mounting costs and deepening social inequalities – “without urgent remedial action to address sentence inflation”.

The gap between the two countries remains large. The UK has the highest per-capita prison population in western Europe. But the 0.1% of the population that is incarcerated in England, Wales and Scotland is still only a seventh of the 0.7% imprisoned in the US (Northern Ireland’s rate is far lower). Still, with the prison population of England and Wales predicted to rise from 88,000 (in August) to 106,000 by 2028, the judges are right to sound the alarm.

Deborah Cullingford argued yorkshire terrier helped her deal with strain of her Leeds job and aftermath of cancer

A bailiff who took her miniature yorkshire terrier on debt collection jobs has lost her case for discrimination after being told she was not entitled to have an emotional support dog at work.

Bella would accompany Deborah Cullingford, a county court bailiff operating in the Leeds area, to help with the stress of the job and the aftermath of three bouts of cancer. When colleagues spotted Bella in Cullingford’s car, she was told by management that as Bella was not a guide dog, she could not continue to take her on jobs.