‘It used to be lovely here.’

10:57, 08 Dec 2025Updated 10:57, 08 Dec 2025

‘People came to the area because they knew it was a place they could get work — I’m not sure that’s the case anymore,’ says Janet Pilkington(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)

Residents of a once-“rammed” town have expressed concerns about deteriorating living conditions, shop closures and dwindling employment opportunities as increasing numbers of residents relocate elsewhere. Stocksbridge, situated in north Sheffield, was once a thriving steelwork community. Samuel Fox established a wire works there in 1842.

Over 180 years on, Liberty Speciality Steel continues to operate a steel mill locally, but locals claim it no longer generates the commercial activity it once did, reports Yorkshire Live.

“When I was a child it was absolutely buzzing,” said one resident, who wished to remain anonymous. “We used to have buses coming in three times a day with workers from Barnsley, Penistone and other places. They were rammed.”

She claimed the town has been neglected in terms of investment recently, with retailers shutting down and commerce being drawn away.

“There were shops all down here,” she explained, gesturing towards the high street. “There were bakers, green grocers, butchers. Now it’s just a lot of takeaways. It’s sad to have seen it decline like that.”

She recalled how workers, including her husband, would previously receive their wages on Thursdays, before completing their weekly shopping on Fridays. A substantial portion of earnings was circulated within the local economy.

Stocksbridge is one of 25 areas in South Yorkshire that have witnessed a population decline over the past two decades. According to the 2021 census, the population has dipped by 3.8% over the last 20 years. In contrast, South Yorkshire’s overall population has grown by 9%. As of 2021, Stocksbridge was home to 7,263 residents, a decrease from nearly 7,500 in 2001.

The dwindling steel industry and the subsequent job losses have been frequently cited as significant factors contributing to the town’s shrinking population. Janet Pillkington, a lifelong resident of Stocksbridge, reminisces about the bustling steel works of her youth.

“You can sometimes hear the clink of metal,” she shared. “It’s a lovely sound as I remember it from my childhood, but you don’t hear it very often anymore.”

Eric and Jean Yeardley have lived in the Stocksbridge area for nearly 60 years and love it here(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)The Fox Valley Shopping Centre, a £50 million development that launched in 2018, is ‘always busy’(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)

However, there are people who still love living here.

“We like it here,” expressed Eric, 82, and Jean Yeardley, 78. The couple, who have resided in the Stocksbridge area for the majority of their 61-year marriage, cherish the local walking routes.

“There’s plenty of walks around here,” Eric noted. “Bolsterstone and the moors. It’s lovely.”

Jeansaid the town has been neglected in recent years and believes it requires rejuvenation.

“It’s never had the investment,” she stated. “There’s a lot of money that needs putting into it. It’s not been helped because it’s so old. They have not updated anything.”

Strolling down the high street reveals shuttered storefronts, an abundance of takeaways and some worn-out signage. Yet there’s also the Fox Valley Shopping Centre, a £50 million development that launched in 2018 and remains “always busy”, locals report.

A sense of community pride is something another resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, believes has disappeared.

“Everybody had pride outside their houses,” she explained. “People used to sweep and clean and be proud of it. But new people are coming in and they are turning it into an area that’s not well kept. They are throwing litter on the floor. They stand around shops, smoking. It used to be lovely here, but they do drag it down.”

Those relocating to Stocksbridge are also unlikely to be employed locally. Locals noted that many commute elsewhere for employment, with fewer people settling in Stocksbridge specifically for work opportunities in the town.

Janet explained: “My family came to work in the steel works. My friends dad came from Ireland to find work in the steel industry. He came to the area looking for Fox Valley Steelworks. People came to the area because they knew it was a place they could get work. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.”

Stocksbridge registers a deprivation score of 18.03 on the index of multiple deprivation. This figure sits considerably beneath both the national average of 21.81 and Sheffield’s rating of 27.57. The scoring system evaluates seven elements of deprivation, encompassing income, health and additional factors to produce an overall deprivation rating. Consequently, the locality is considered far more deprived than comparable areas within Sheffield or nationwide.

At the same time, Liberty Speciality Steel, operating facilities in Stocksbridge, Rotherham and Wednesbury, entered government ownership earlier this year with its future remaining unclear. Officials are seeking a purchaser for the business, though a government-sanctioned liquidator acknowledged that without securing a buyer, closure of the sites would be inevitable. Industry minister Chris McDonald MP has expressed optimism that an agreement can be reached.

This sense of uncertainty, economic decline and neglect resulted in Stocksbridge and Don becoming Sheffield’s first ward to return a Reform councillor. John Booker secured victory in June’s by-election, narrowly defeating the Liberal Democrats. Labour, previously dominant in the ward, slipped to third place.

Upon taking office, Booker claimed his party had “galvanised public opinion”. He stated he “believes in common sense” and would offer an “alternative voice” within Sheffield City Council.

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Syrians are celebrating the anniversary of the overthrow of the al-Assad dynasty’s repressive 50-year rule.

The country heralded the end of Bashar al-Assad’s reign on Monday. However, Syria is left facing a significant challenge to heal following 14 years of civil war.

Al-Assad’s downfall came as a shock, even to the rebels who unseated him.

In late November 2024, groups in the country’s northwest – led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel group whose then leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is now the country’s interim president – launched an offensive on the city of Aleppo, aiming to recapture it from the al-Assad government’s forces.

They were startled when the Syrian army collapsed with little resistance, first in Aleppo, then in the key cities of Hama and Homs. That left the road to Damascus open.

Meanwhile, rebel groups in the south mobilised to mount their own push towards the capital.

The rebels seized Damascus on December 8, while al-Assad was whisked away by Russian forces. He remains in exile in Moscow.

However, his longtime ally did not intervene militarily to defend him. Instead, Moscow has established ties with Syria’s new rulers, while maintaining its military bases on the coast.

The Syrian war that erupted in 2011 killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions, driving about five million into neighbouring countries as refugees.

The United Nations refugee agency said on Monday that some 1.2 million refugees, along with 1.9 million internally displaced people, had returned home since al-Assad was toppled, but warned that a decline in global funding for UN programmes and aid agencies could deter others.

Still, Syria’s central bank governor said last week that the return of about 1.5 million refugees was helping to boost economic growth.

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According to media reports, OpenAI plans to unveil a new artificial-intelligence reasoning model this week that is reportedly surpassing Google’s latest, most advanced family of AI models, Gemini 3.

Online tech magazine The Decoder cites industry insiders who claim the launch is intended to counter Google’s recent advances in state-of-the-art reasoning, deep multimodal understanding of text, images and video, as well as Gemini 3’s powerful coding capabilities.

Google’s parent company Alphabet introduced Gemini 3 in November, boasting benchmark results that surpassed OpenAI’s flagship model ChatGPT in key categories.

Google’s Gemini 3 has reportedly pushed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to prioritize work on ChatGPT’s reasoningImage: Rodrigo Reyes Marin/ZUMA Press Wire/picture alliance

The outcome rattled OpenAI, which has been viewed as the industry front-runner since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022 transformed public awareness of generative AI and briefly left competitors scrambling.

Now, OpenAI’s lead is no longer assured.

A ‘code red’ moment for OpenAI

The reaction inside OpenAI has been urgent, with CEO Sam Altman reportedly declaring a “code red” in an internal message, instructing teams to focus on improving the quality of ChatGPT and delaying other products as a result, according to the memo cited by the US business newspaper The Wall Street Journal.

“We’ve reached a point where it’s not only about having the best model, but also about access to computing power and the ability to turn that technology into revenue,” Adrian Cox, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, told DW.

OpenAI gained an early edge thanks to a period in which its models outperformed any alternatives, he added, but competitors are quickly closing the gap — and many are backed by companies with enormous distribution networks and cloud infrastructure.

“Models like Gemini benefit from being tightly integrated into products that already reach huge online audiences, along with access to vast data-center capacity,” said Cox.

AI and its impact on the environment

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According to Altman, ChatGPT attracts more than 800 million weekly users. But Alphabet can deploy Gemini directly within Google Search, its most profitable product.

The Gemini app already reaches more than 650 million monthly users, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai wrote on Google’s blog, adding that more than 70% of its cloud customers are using AI tools.

“[Thirteen] million developers have built with our generative models, and that is just a snippet of the impact we’re seeing,” he wrote.

OpenAI still not carving a profit

While Google generates revenue across a wide portfolio of operations, OpenAI must monetize its AI models directly. It currently relies on premium ChatGPT subscriptions and enterprise licensing. Microsoft, a major shareholder, also pays to embed OpenAI technology into its products.

Even so, Altman has acknowledged the company is not yet profitable.

OpenAI does not disclose financials. But according to Cox, investors were told over the summer that 2030 could be the first profitable year for OpenAI.

HSBC analysts take a dimmer view, as the British financial newspaper, Financial Times, reported recently. The bank projects revenue could reach $213 billion (€182 biilion) by 2030 — but still this would likely result in a loss of more than $70 billion due to soaring infrastructure costs.

Massive AI investment needs

Training and running cutting-edge AI systems demand huge outlays for data-center capacity.

Google plans to invest up to $93 billion in AI this year alone, with “significant increases” earmarked for the years to come. The fourth-quarter revenue of its parent Alphabet exceeded $100 billion, fueled largely by advertising and growing cloud demand.

Google also has a hardware advantage, as its proprietary AI chips support model training inside company-owned data centers, thus avoiding purchases of more expensive semiconductors from AI-chip market leader Nvidia.

Facebook’s parent company Meta has reportedly expressed interest in using Google’s processors for its own AI infrastructure.

Given those strengths, Adrian Cox sees “a very high probability” Google will have the leading model at least into next year — not OpenAI. OpenAI’s priority, he says, is identifying a business model capable of funding a user base that could soon approach a billion people per week.

“It’s uncertain how that will work in practice. Subscription revenues alone may not be enough to cover costs,” he said, noting the company is exploring other revenue streams.

Competition widens beyond Big Tech

Meanwhile, the race for AI leadership is no longer limited to the two Silicon Valley contenders. “Competition has intensified significantly since 2022. We now see strong challengers for the best model like Anthropic alongside established companies like Google,” Cox said.

Open-source models from the US, China, and Europe — including from European startup Mistral — are also gaining traction. These systems are smaller and cheaper than OpenAI’s offerings, designed for targeted applications rather than broad capability.

“Customers today have a very wide range of options — from highly advanced models to lightweight, fast, cost-efficient open-source systems,” said Cox, and added that forthcoming ChatGPT-5 may be the most versatile model currently in development, but its complexity makes it “expensive to operate and less tailored to specific user groups.”

Additionally, China’s AI companies are also pushing forward. In September, search-engine provider Baidu unveiled its DeepSeek model, claiming performance on par with ChatGPT-5 and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro.

Can Europe keep up with the US, China in the high-tech race?

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Analysts say the country is once again leaning on aggressive pricing strategies to undermine competitors in foreign markets — a tactic previously used in solar, steel, and electric vehicles.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned in November that China is “only nanoseconds behind America in AI.”

Across the industry, Cox sees a diverging ecosystem forming as the market is splitting between “smaller, customizable open-source models that are cheap to run, and the large, sophisticated proprietary models.”

Yet, he doesn’t expect a winner-take-all outcome. “The more [artificial] intelligence becomes available, the more user applications will emerge.”

This article was originally written in German.

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NEED TO KNOW

• A ‘heroic’ father has died after the kayak he was traveling in with his 7-year-old son capsized
• The 54-year-old man attempted to keep his son afloat in the vessel and subsequently drowned
• The California Department of Parks and Recreation noted in their press release about the incident — which took place on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Lake Perris, California — that neither the father nor the son was wearing a life jacket despite there being one in the kayak

A man has died trying to keep his son afloat after their vessel capsized while kayaking at Lake Perris State Recreation Area.

On Sunday, Dec. 7, the California Department of Parks and Recreation revealed in a press release that the 54-year-old had died after helping to keep his 7-year-old son alive and afloat on Saturday.

“At approximately 4:13 p.m., California State Park peace officers at Lake Perris SRA responded to reports of screaming and persons in distress in the water near Moreno Beach,” the release read.

The kayak capsized after the pair had been kayaking offshore, according to officials.

Neither the father nor son was wearing a life jacket during the incident, but one was located on the vessel, per officials.

“State Park peace officers quickly arrived on scene via patrol vessel and immediately recovered the man, who was unconscious and partially submerged,” the department added.

Ambulance california.

Penny Collins/NurPhoto via AP

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They went on to say that the child “was in distress but conscious and holding his father, helping to keep himself above water.”

“Investigators noted that the father heroically kept his son afloat throughout the ordeal, supporting him until rescue personnel arrived,” the department continued.

Authorities said the father and son were pulled from the lake before CPR was performed on the man.

“I would say it was … at least 45 minutes that CPR was going on,” witness Michelle Juarez told OnScene.TV, per Los Angeles Times. “We could hear from the boat [someone] saying, ‘Take the child to the ambulance.’ … Something tragic definitely happened.”

Lake Perris State Recreation Area in Spring, Riverside, California.

Alamy

The father and son were both taken to Riverside University Health System, “where the father was pronounced dead,” the department said. “The 7-year-old was being evaluated at the hospital.”

The department expressed their “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones affected by this tragedy.”

The California State Parks law enforcement and the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office are reportedly investigating the incident.

“State Parks urges all visitors to wear a properly fitted, U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket at all times while recreating near or on the water,” the department urged in its release. “California law requires children 12 and under to wear a life jacket on a moving recreational vessel of any length. For safety tips when recreating in the outdoors, visit parks.ca.gov/SafetyTips.”

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By ADAM POGRUND, TRAINEE REPORTER

Published: 05:15 EST, 8 December 2025 | Updated: 05:20 EST, 8 December 2025

A Norwegian shopping centre has been placed on lockdown after reports of a shooting.

Police said they had received reports of a shooting at Storo Storsente in Oslo and the suspected shooting has been apprehended. 

Emergency services are searching the premises for potential victims and others involved, the police said in a statement.

Footage shows panicked shoppers fleeing from the centre after shots were reportedly fired. 

This is a breaking news story. More to follow. 

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‘Shooting’ at Norwegian shopping centre: Police apprehend suspect as search underway for possible victims

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Business Secretary Peter Kyle urged the House of Lords to stop holding up the Employment Rights Bill, which is currently going through ‘ping-pong’ in Parliament

Business Secretary Peter Kyle claimed the bill drags workers rights into the 21st century(Image: PA Wire)

Peers should now get behind Labour’s massive overhaul of workers’ rights that drags Britain into the 21st century, Peter Kyle has demanded.

The Business Secretary urged the House of Lords to stop holding up the Employment Rights Bill, which is currently going through ‘ping-pong’ in Parliament. Today the landmark legislation promised in Labour’s election winning manifesto will return to the Commons to consider peer’s amendments.

It comes after the government infuriated many of its own MPs after watering down its commitment to provide day one protections from unfair dismissal in an attempt to end the gridlock at Westminster. Ministers were worried that if the legislation failed to make it onto the statute books before Christmas then new rights promised for April would be delayed.

READ MORE: Angela Rayner leads push to speed up workers’ rights bill after Government U-turnREAD MORE: Minister defends watering down Angela Rayner’s flagship Bill amid backlashAngela Rayner has dropped opposition to the compromises(Image: PA)

Speaking to The Mirror, Mr Kyle said: “This will be a landmark law which drags Britain’s outdated workplace rights into the 21st Century and gives every worker the protections they deserve. It brings sick pay and paternity leave from the first day you start a job, guarantees bereavement leave, bans NDAs used to silence people, and ends fire-and-rehire and exploitative zero-hours contracts.

“We believe that everyone deserves dignity and respect at work but Nigel Farage and Reform have said they would repeal this law and allow workers to be exploited. I refuse to let that happen. That’s why I’m calling on the House of Lords to back this bill and give workers the security they’re owed.”

Ministers had feared a rebellion, led by Angela Rayner, who originally spearheaded the legislation as Deputy PM. The ex-Cabinet minister was planning to lay an amendment so the new qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims comes into force next year – rather than in 2027. But the plan was pulled last week after she reached a compromise with Mr Kyle.

Ms Rayner has been working with former Employment Minister Justin Madders and other MPs to shore up the bill amid anger over stalling by Tory and Lib Dem peers. Mr Madders said: “I think we would all rather be in a place where we are sticking to the letter of what’s in the manifesto, but I understand why we have not been able to do that.

“We’ve got to be clear that we can’t keep coming back and picking holes in the manifesto every time the Lords or some other lobby group decides they don’t like bits of it”.

Labour MP for York Central Rachael Maskell warned further changes risked damaging trust in politics. She said: “The biggest issue we’re facing at the moment is trust in politics. We made a serious commitment to workers that their employment would not be able to unfairly dismiss them. It felt like from that negotiation, one point left in the bill, the unions came away with nothing.

“The government didn’t try to reach in and find a remedy to retain that trust with workers, and there is where I find it an extraordinary negotiation, if it was a negotiation at all. Ultimately it is about the terms and conditions for workers, and workers don’t believe that this is good enough, and that’s why the empty hand outcome is a massive disappointment.”

Other MPs aimed their fury at the peers who had delayed the bill with “shenanigans”. Labour Nadia Whittome MP said: “I’m furious that the Lords, who are not elected, have forced the watering down of day-one rights against unfair dismissal that formed part of our manifesto. Instead of rolling over, the government should be vigorously pushing back.”

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A prominent Sudanese doctor’s group has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raping at least 19 women as they fled the city of el-Fasher in Darfur.

The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Sunday that it documented the rapes among women who had fled to the town of al-Dabba in the neighbouring Northern State.

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Two of the women were pregnant, the group said.

“The Sudan Doctors Network strongly condemns the gang rape being perpetrated by the RSF against women escaping the horrors of El-Fasher, affirming that it constitutes a direct targeting of women in a blatant violation of all international laws that criminalise the use of women’s bodies as a weapon of oppression,” the group wrote on X.

Sudan Doctors Network: We have documented 19 cases of rape committed by the Rapid Support Forces, including two pregnant women, at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba

The Sudan Doctors Network team at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba has documented the rape of 19 women while they were fleeing from… pic.twitter.com/u5qWp4bdSD

— Sudan Doctors Network – شبكة أطباء السودان (@SDN154) December 7, 2025

Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, according to the United Nations. It has also left some 30 million in need of humanitarian aid.

The RSF took the city of el-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, in October after an 18-month campaign of siege and starvation. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.

Survivors who fled the city in the subsequent days recounted mass killings, rape, pillaging and other atrocities, prompting an international outcry.

Amnesty International has accused the RSF of “war crimes”, while the UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into the abuses in el-Fasher. Officials who visited Darfur and spoke to survivors described the region as an “absolute horror show” and a “crime scene”.

Widespread sexual assault

Mohammed Elsheikh, a spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that he was “100 percent sure” that sexual violence committed by RSF fighters is far more widespread than reported.

“Because most of the communities look at it as a stigma, most of the raped women tend not to disclose this information,” he said.

Elsheikh said the network had also documented 23 cases of rape among women who fled el-Fasher for the nearby town of Tawila.

“Unfortunately, the age of these raped victims varies from 15 years to 23 years old,” he said.

In its statement, the Sudan Doctors Network urged the international community to take urgent action to protect Sudanese women and girls.

It also called for “serious pressure on RSF leaders to immediately stop these assaults, respect international humanitarian law, and secure safe corridors for women and children”.

The latest accusations came amid a growing outcry over another RSF attack on a pre-school in the state of South Kordofan that local officials said killed at least 116 people. Some 46 of the victims were children, according to the officials.

On Sunday, Justice Minister Abdullah Dirife said Khartoum was willing to pursue political talks aimed at ending the conflict, but insisted that any settlement must “ensure there is no presence for ‘terrorist’ militias in both the political and military arenas”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, he said the rebels “need to agree to give their weapons in specific areas and leave all these cities, and the police should take over”.

Dirife also called for putting a stop to the “transfer of weapons and the infiltration of mercenaries into Sudan” and claimed that fighters and arms were entering from regions including South America, Chad and the UAE.

The RSF currently holds all five states of Darfur, while the Sudanese army retains control of most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.

Dirife also accused the RSF of repeatedly breaking past commitments to adhere to regional and global mediation initiatives.

“The last initiative we signed was the Jeddah Declaration. However, this militia didn’t commit to what we agreed on,” he said in Doha.

The Jeddah Declaration – brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in May 2023 – was meant to protect civilians and lay the groundwork for humanitarian access. Several ceasefires followed, but both sides were accused of violating them, prompting the mediators to suspend talks.

The UN has meanwhile formally declared famine in el-Fasher and Kaduguli in South Kordofan and warned of the risk of a hunger crisis in 20 additional areas across the Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions.

The World Food Programme’s Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the agency was providing aid to five million people, including two million in areas that are difficult to reach, but warned that assistance has fallen far short of needs.

“World attention needs to be on Sudan now, and diplomatic efforts need to be stepped up in order to prevent the same disaster we saw in el-Fasher,” he said.

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Morning opening: London talks

Jakub Krupa

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to meet UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz for talks in London about the war in Ukraine.

The meeting comes after three days of discussions between US and Ukrainian representatives in Florida without an apparent breakthrough amid an intensified push from Washington to end the war but with major territorial concessions from Kyiv.

Donald Trump once again sought to put pressure on Zelenskyy, suggesting publicly that the Ukrainian president “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace plan. “I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” the US president claimed to reporters on Sunday night. (Somewhat sidestepping the public rejection of the plan by Russia.)

The leaders are expected around early lunchtime and will talk behind the closed doors to plan the next steps.

I will cover the meeting here, bringing you all the latest pictures and lines on what’s going on at Downing Street.

Zelenskyy is later expected to visit Brussels and Rome. On Sunday Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni spoke with Zelenskyy by phone and reaffirmed Italy’s solidarity after what she called a fresh wave of “indiscriminate” Russian strikes on civilian targets, her office said.

Separately, I will also keep an eye on the EU’s reactions to Elon Musk and senior US officials’s comments about the bloc over the weekend. The billionaire was particularly active on the back of a €120m fine against his social media platform X, repeatedly calling for the EU to be abolished.

And, finally, EU ministers are meeting in Brussels to sign off plans on migration and asylum laws.

I will bring you all the key updates throughout the day.

It’s Monday, 8 December 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.

Good morning.

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Seven EU countries back reparations loan for Ukraine as ‘politically realistic solution’

Jennifer Rankin

in Brussels

The leaders of seven EU countries have said a reparations loan for Ukraine based on Russian frozen assets is the most “politically realistic solution” to meet Kyiv’s urgent funding needs.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives for an EU Summit at the European Council building in Brussels earlier this year. Photograph: Omar Havana/AP

The prime ministers of Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, said they strongly supported the European commission’s proposal for a reparations loan funded by the cash balances from the immobilised Russian assets in the EU.

The declaration of support was made in a letter to the European Council president, António Costa, and commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, ahead of an EU summit next week, when Ukraine’s financing needs will be top of the agenda.

The reparations loan is “the most financially feasible and politically realistic solution [and] it addresses the fundamental principle of Ukraine’s right to compensation for damages caused by the aggression” states the letter.

Last week German chancellor Friedrich Merz, who also backs the idea, flew to Brussels in an effort to persuade Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, to drop his opposition. No dramatic changes in position had been expected from the dinner meeting, also attended by von der Leyen. Most of the frozen assets in the EU are hosted in Belgium, which argues the plan is too risky and would complicate efforts to end the war.

The leaders who signed the letter disagree with the analysis that the loan would impede peace efforts: they argue that reaching a decision on the reparations loan at next week’s summit would put Ukraine “in a stronger position to defend itself and a better position to negotiate a just and lasting peace”.

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Morning opening: London talks

Jakub Krupa

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to meet UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz for talks in London about the war in Ukraine.

The meeting comes after three days of discussions between US and Ukrainian representatives in Florida without an apparent breakthrough amid an intensified push from Washington to end the war but with major territorial concessions from Kyiv.

Donald Trump once again sought to put pressure on Zelenskyy, suggesting publicly that the Ukrainian president “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace plan. “I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” the US president claimed to reporters on Sunday night. (Somewhat sidestepping the public rejection of the plan by Russia.)

The leaders are expected around early lunchtime and will talk behind the closed doors to plan the next steps.

I will cover the meeting here, bringing you all the latest pictures and lines on what’s going on at Downing Street.

Zelenskyy is later expected to visit Brussels and Rome. On Sunday Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni spoke with Zelenskyy by phone and reaffirmed Italy’s solidarity after what she called a fresh wave of “indiscriminate” Russian strikes on civilian targets, her office said.

Separately, I will also keep an eye on the EU’s reactions to Elon Musk and senior US officials’s comments about the bloc over the weekend. The billionaire was particularly active on the back of a €120m fine against his social media platform X, repeatedly calling for the EU to be abolished.

And, finally, EU ministers are meeting in Brussels to sign off plans on migration and asylum laws.

I will bring you all the key updates throughout the day.

It’s Monday, 8 December 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.

Good morning.

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About 100 children who were abducted from a Catholic school in central Nigeria last month have been freed, authorities say.

Niger state’s police chief, Adamu Abdullahi Elleman, and Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, who is in charge of the school as the local leader of the Catholic community, both told the BBC that they had received confirmation of the students’ release.

They said the government’s Office of the National Security Adviser had informed them that the children would be reunited with their parents from Monday.

More than 250 students and 12 staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri, the latest in a wave of mass abductions which has sent shockwaves through the nation.

Details about the release of the 100 schoolchildren remain unclear, including whether it was secured through negotiation or by force, and whether any ransoms were paid.

The governor of neighbouring Nasarawa state, Abdullahi Sule, told local media that the federal government had played a key role in securing their release, adding that the behind-the-scenes efforts could not be disclosed for security reasons.

Last week, National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu visited Papiri and met a delegation led by Bishop Yohanna, assuring them the children would soon be rescued and reunited with their families.

Schools and places of worship have increasingly been targeted in the latest wave of attacks in north and central Nigeria.

The attack on St Mary’s, on 21 November, was preceded by mass kidnappings just days earlier: on 18 November, two people were killed and 38 abducted in an attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara state, and a day before that, two were killed and 25 Muslim students abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School in Kebbi state.

All those taken in the Kwara and Kebbi attacks have since been freed.

Last week gunmen abducted at least 20 people in two separate attacks – at a newly established church in central Kogi state, where a pastor, his wife and some worshipers were taken, and in the mostly Muslim northern Sokoto state, where a bride and her bridesmaids were among those kidnapped.

It is not clear who is behind these kidnappings – most analysts believe they are carried out by criminal gangs seeking ransom payments. However, a presidential spokesman earlier told the BBC that the government believes they are the work of jihadist groups.

The paying of ransoms has been made illegal in Nigeria in an attempt to cut the supply of funds to the kidnap gangs but it is widely believed that in many cases money is still handed over.

Nigeria’s security crisis attracted the international spotlight last month after US President Donald Trump threatened to send over troops if the government “continues to allow the killing of Christians”.

Nigerian officials and analysts say that members of all faiths are victims of the violence and kidnappings and say it is not true that Christians are being targeted.

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The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday it was downsizing its annual aid appeal, seeking $23 billion (€19.7 billion) for 2026. 

The appeal comes after the aid and development sector took a major hit as the US sharply cut funds, while aid workers have come increasingly under attack in conflicts. 

The figure is needed to save 87 million lives, UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher told reporters.

“We drive the ambulance toward the fire on your behalf. But we’re also now being asked to put the fire out. And there’s not enough water in the tank. And we’re being shot at.” 

Why did the UN cut its aid appeal?

The United Nations will ask member states top open their government coffers over the next 87 days: one day for each million people who need assistanceImage: Denis Balibouse/REUTERS

A year ago, the UN sought $47 billion but received only $12 billion, “the lowest in a decade,” said Fletcher.  

Now, the UN aims to follow a plan that “sets out where we need to focus our collective energy first. It is, therefore, based on excruciating life and death choices,” Fletcher said.

The UN ultimately hopes to raise $33 billion to help 135 million people in 2026, but is aware it might fall short as countries move to cut development aid to increase defense budgets.

Fletcher said extremist politicians were also misleading people into thinking that their taxes were largely funding aid, a claim far from the reality.

“I know budgets are tight right now, families everywhere are under strain, but the world spent $2.7 trillion on defense last year, on guns and arms. I’m asking for just over 1% of that,” he added.

Where does the money go?

The new appeal is “laser-focused on saving lives where the shocks hit hardest: wars, climate disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, crop failures,” Fletcher said.

OCHA identified the top three areas where aid is desperately needed in 2026: 

Ukraine, Haiti and Myanmar were also high on the list. 

Survivors of Sudan war recount harrowing scenes of terror

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Edited by: Louis Oelofse

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