The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court allegedly responded to a formal complaint of sexual misconduct by trying to persuade the alleged victim to deny the claims, the Guardian has been told.

Multiple ICC staff with knowledge of the allegations against Karim Khan said the prosecutor and another official close to him repeatedly urged the woman to disavow claims about his behaviour towards her.

The alleged attempts to deter the woman from formally pursuing the claims took place in phone calls and in person, and came after Khan learned court authorities had been made aware of allegations of misconduct, four sources said.

At the time, the chief prosecutor had been advised to avoid one-on-one contact with the alleged victim after an aborted internal inquiry into the matter.

Contacted by the Guardian for comment, Khan denied asking the woman to withdraw any allegations. His lawyers said: “Our client denies the whole of the allegations and we are most concerned the exposure of a confidential and closed internal matter is designed to undermine his high-profile ongoing work at a delicate time.”

After reports of alleged sexual misconduct began to circulate in the media in recent days, Khan denied the claims in a public statement that said he and the court had been “subject to a wide range of attacks and threats”. In anonymous briefings, court officials close to the prosecutor have suggested he may have been the target of a smear campaign.

“There is no truth to suggestions of such misconduct,” Khan’s statement said. “I have worked in diverse contexts for 30 years and there has never been such a complaint lodged against me by anyone.”

The woman at the heart of the allegations – who ICC colleagues describe as a well-regarded lawyer in her 30s who worked directly for Khan – has declined requests for comment.

But multiple sources familiar with the situation said she told colleagues she declined the alleged requests to disavow the claims. She believed the alleged approaches by Khan and another ICC official were part of an attempt to make her say that the claims against the prosecutor had been fabricated, the sources added.

According to a document seen by the Guardian, the accusations against Khan, 54, include unwanted sexual touching and “abuse” over an extended period. They include an alleged incident in which he is said to have “pressed his tongue” into the woman’s ear. Khan denies such allegations of misconduct.

Four ICC sources familiar with the allegations said they also include coercive sexual behaviour and abuse of authority.

The Guardian has interviewed 11 current and former ICC officials familiar with the case, as well as diplomatic sources and friends of the alleged victim. All declined to be identified because they were not authorised to discuss the allegations, or because they wanted to protect the woman.

Multiple sources said misreporting about the allegations and efforts to politicise the situation have been deeply distressing for the woman, who is said to have initially held back on pursuing a complaint against Khan over concerns about reprisals, and fears it could be exploited by Israel or opponents of the court.

Sources who know the alleged victim said she has been left traumatised by the situation and is “experiencing severe emotional distress”.

“She never wanted any of this,” one person close to her said. “But the complaint filed against her wishes, followed by Khan’s denials and attempts to suppress the allegations, have forced her into a very difficult position.”

The public emergence of the allegations comes at an intensely sensitive moment for the ICC, a court of last resort that prosecutes individuals accused of atrocities.

A panel of three ICC judges is weighing politically explosive requests by Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza.

The ICC, which is headquartered in The Hague, now faces an unprecedented crisis amid growing internal strife over the handling of the allegations and apparent attempts by the court’s opponents to weaponise them.

Critics of the court have seized upon the allegations, which Khan first learned about weeks before his decision in May to request arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders.

Khan has stopped short of explicitly accusing Israel of being behind the allegations, but in his statement denying misconduct he noted that he and the court have been the target of “a wide range of recent attacks and threats” in recent months.

The Guardian revealed earlier this year how Israel’s intelligence agencies ran a decade-long campaign against the ICC that included threats and attempts to smear senior staff. Against this backdrop, ICC officials close to Khan are strongly hinting the allegations may be part of a smear campaign by Israel.

However, in a months-long investigation into the allegations against Khan, the Guardian has found no evidence that Israel, or any other country, had any involvement in the underlying allegations – although there does appear to have been a subsequent effort by anonymous actors to brief journalists and post leaks online.

Online leaks

Last week, as leaks about Khan’s alleged conduct began to appear, press reports and social media posts minimised and misconstrued the allegations, according to sources familiar with the alleged victim’s accounts.

References to allegations contained within a report by a so-called “whistleblower”, they said, included inaccuracies. Several media organisations received, and then published, the same incomplete information.

The Guardian can reveal a more detailed picture of the allegations and of the complex sequence of events that ultimately led to aspects of the claims leaking online and into the pages of rightwing media outlets.

According to three sources familiar with the situation, the allegations of sexual misconduct relate to Khan’s behaviour towards the woman between a period of approximately April 2023 and April 2024.

“The allegations do not relate to a single or a couple of incidents, but misconduct taking place over a period of several months,” one ICC source said.

The alleged victim told colleagues that, after initial concerns about how Khan had sought to hold her hand while on a work trip in London, the prosecutor is alleged to have made repeated attempts to initiate unwanted sexual contact.

The alleged incidents are said to have escalated over time and occurred in his office at the ICC’s headquarters, in hotel rooms on overseas work trips, as well as at his home in The Hague.

Three sources said the woman reported to colleagues detailed descriptions of alleged unwanted sexual touching, including occasions when Khan would allegedly grope her and put his tongue in her ear.

According to an ICC document describing the allegations, she reported that she tried to make excuses to avoid being alone with Khan, but attempts to distance herself from him would lead to negative consequences in the workplace.

After returning from an overseas work trip with the prosecutor in April, the woman spoke in confidence to two close colleagues after they noticed she was upset and gave a detailed account of Khan’s alleged conduct.

The alleged victim told colleagues at the time that she was reluctant to pursue a formal complaint as she feared that doing so could have negative consequences for her, her family and the work of the international court.

Within days of confiding in the two colleagues, however, Khan and the ICC’s independent oversight mechanism (IOM), a watchdog that investigates alleged misconduct, had been made aware of the claims.

Khan was told one evening in early May that serious allegations would soon be shared with the IOM when a small group of staff from his office approached him, according to multiple people familiar with the events.

The meeting, which took place at Khan’s home in The Hague, occurred without the woman’s knowledge or consent. “The alleged victim was kept in the dark,” one source said.

Investigation

Three days after Khan was given advance warning of the allegations, IOM investigators hastily summoned the alleged victim to a hotel in The Hague, informing her they had received a report of alleged misconduct.

According to a record of the meeting, the woman told investigators she had been blind-sided by their approach and had serious concerns about their handling of the situation.

ICC sources said the alleged victim had previously expressed concerns about the competence of the IOM, a body that was not wholly trusted by female staff at the court.

Two days after meeting with the alleged victim, the IOM decided against opening a full investigation into the claims. The body recently said in its annual report the woman “declined to pursue a formal complaint” even after it was suggested an investigation could be “referred to an external entity”.

However, records relating to the investigation seen by the Guardian suggest the woman agreed to meet the IOM for a second time, shortly before investigators closed the matter. An external investigation was not offered at that stage, the records suggest.

In a recent statement about the IOM investigation, the court’s governing body said that, following a conversation with the alleged victim, “the IOM was not in a position to proceed with an investigation at that stage. Measures to safeguard everyone’s rights were recommended”.

Two sources said those recommendations, which were sent to Khan in writing, included that he minimise contact with the woman and avoid spending time with her alone, at night or while travelling on work trips.

However, after the alleged victim returned to work, the prosecutor discussed the situation with her in several in-person meetings and calls, sources said. Another official within his office also encouraged her to distance herself from the claims, telling her that Khan was “very scared” and “nervous” the allegations would eventually leak.

Between May and September, according to three sources, Khan and the other official close to him encouraged the alleged victim to write a letter disavowing the allegations against the prosecutor.

At one stage, the official is said to have told her that if she wrote such a letter it would normalise her working relationship with the prosecutor. He allegedly advised her to state in writing: “I have never said this. He never assaulted me”.

The official is understood to dispute the suggestion he discussed the matter with the alleged victim. Lawyers for Khan also denied the episode. “We confirm that neither our client, nor any person acting on his behalf, or who reports to him, asked for any such letter to be written, nor did they ask the person to withdraw any allegations,” they said.

“Our client has fully complied with internal processes and allowed these matters to be handled in an impartial manner by authorities independent of him.”

‘New theory’

Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which adopts a conservative and pro-Israel line, published a leak of information about the allegations based on the questionable “whistleblower” report that has been circulated to the media.

The newspaper speculated on what it called “a new theory”: that Khan sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu to divert attention from sexual misconduct allegations that threatened to precipitate his resignation.

One official with knowledge of the ICC’s Palestine investigation described that suggestion as “inaccurate”. Another well-placed source pointed out that the key decisions to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas figures had already been made by the time Khan was informed of the misconduct complaint.

By that stage, the source said, applications for the warrants were already in the process of being drafted.

Multiple current and former ICC officials expressed concerns that Israel and its allies would seek to exploit the controversy surrounding the embattled chief prosecutor, with little regard for due process for the woman at the centre of the situation.

Many staff within the court are understood to be supportive of Khan’s decision to request the arrest warrants and applauded him for asserting the independence of the court in the face of significant political pressure.

But many in the same workforce also have deep concerns about the accusations he is facing and the court’s handling of the situation. Last week, the ICC’s staff union called for a “prompt, independent investigation led by an external panel free from any potential conflict of interest”.

Khan has said he would be willing, if asked, to cooperate with a new inquiry.

In a statement, a spokesperson for his office added: “It is essential, in particular in the context in which the [prosecutor] is presently operating, that any reports of this nature are addressed in a formal independent process, protecting the rights of all persons.”

On Friday, the Associated Press reported the woman at the centre of the allegations is now in touch with the assembly of states parties (ASP), the court’s governing body which has the ultimate say about Khan’s future. A diplomatic source said the ASP had yet to initiate a new investigation.

That investigation may be the next step in the process, resulting in Khan facing a second formal inquiry that would be expected to question the prosecutor and alleged victim about the allegations, and conduct other investigative work, prior to reaching any conclusion about Khan’s innocence or guilt.

In a statement issued last week, the ASP’s president, Päivi Kaukoranta, said “any reports of misconduct are taken very seriously”. She asked people to respect the integrity and confidentiality of internal processes, “including any further possible steps as necessary”.

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

The Post’s publisher Will Lewis, hired by Bezos in January, defended the paper’s owner by claiming the decision to spike the Harris endorsement was his. But that has done little to defuse criticism from within the newspaper’s ranks as well as the wave of subscription cancelations that has met the institution.

Eighteen opinion columnists at the Washington Post signed a dissenting column against the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake”. The paper has already made endorsements this election cycle, including in a US senate seat race in Maryland. The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton when Trump won the presidency in 2016. It endorsed Joe Biden when Trump lost in 2020, despite Trump’s pledges to retaliate against anyone who opposed him.

In their criticism of the Post’s decision on Friday, former and current employees cite the dangers to democracy posed by Trump, who has openly expressed his admiration for authoritarian rule amid his appeals for voters to return him to office.

The former Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story, called the decision “disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process”.

The former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a post on X, “This is cowardice with democracy as its casualty”.

The cartoon team at the paper published a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after its purchase by Bezos.

High-profile readers, including author bestselling author Stephen King as well as former congresswoman and vocal Trump critic Liz Cheney, announced the cancellation of their Washington Post subscriptions with many others in protest.

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

Bezos is the second wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk, who has become a prominent supporter of Trump’s campaign for a second presidency. He bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250m.

In 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, claiming during a podcast interview that he intended to devote more time to Blue Origin.

The New York Times reported Bezos had begun to get more involved in the paper in 2023 as it faced significant financial losses, a stream of employee departures and low morale.

His pick of Lewis as publisher in January seemingly did little to help morale at the paper. Employees and devotees of the paper were worried that Lewis was brought on to the Post despite allegations that he “fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” as a journalist in London, as the New York Times reported.

Nonetheless, in a memo to newsroom leaders in June 2024, Bezos wrote, “The journalistic standards and ethics at the Post will not change.”

In a shallow valley populated by reddening ancient oak trees, the River Avon snakes along quietly – the grind of Bristol unknowingly just metres away.

Despite the falling leaves and temperature, a group of women tentatively step into the 12.5C waters of the Conham River Park in the east of the city for a midday swim – a ritual they all insist is not just a hobby but a way of life.

Conham Bathing, an advocacy group made up of women in their 20s and 30s, has launched the Thriving Avon Charter in a move to raise the profile of rights for rivers.

The move is inspired by campaigners worldwide who have secured legal personhood or “rights of nature” for rivers such as the Whanganui in New Zealand, and in the UK with the Ouse in Lewes and the Dart in Dartmoor.

The group’s love for the river and fight for bathing water quality status has been captured in a feature-length documentary Rave On for the Avon, which after a preview run in the south-west may have a national cinema release mid-January.

As the film’s maker, Charlotte Sawyer, steps from the river after a swim in a brief rain shower, her teeth are chattering.

“I feel very alive,” she says. “You can go from screens to indoor heating, into cars and to traffic, here in Bristol its quite densely residential but in the river, you just feel like it’s real existence for your living.”

Sawyer says she used to be more of a fairweather swimmer but was converted after making the film and seeing the “manic look of elation” on the campaigners’ faces.

“When I started filming people trying to protect the river I thought I was filming people’s activities and their campaign work,” she says. “But in the end, what my film is about is people’s love of the river, how they feel loved back when they swim in it, walk next to it, engage with it, and how swimming in rivers is a way of life for all walks of life.”

Aggie Nyagari, 38, is a film-maker who worked with Sawyer on the film. She moved with her family across Bristol to be nearer to the park.

Coming originally from the warmer climes of Kenya, Nyagari says she was unsure at first about swimming in such cold water. But she overcame her concerns and started in the summer, allowing her to slowly acclimatise to the gradual temperature drop into the winter.

“It took us a year and a half to find the perfect location, we had to be within a 10-minute radius of the park so we could walk here,” she says. “In the end I got my dream and I swim here every morning.”

Since 2021 the group has been working to achieve designated bathing water status for the section of the Avon in the park. Part of the group’s advocacy includes them regularly testing the water and sending samples to Wessex Water.

In August 2024, the group recorded the worst water quality testing results for two consecutive weeks since the group began sampling. The bacterial levels were found to be between six and 20 times higher than the benchmark for what would be considered “poor” water quality under the Environment Agency’s inland bathing water guidelines.

The water quality does not deter the Conham Bathing swimmers from entering the river but the majority say they keep their head above the water.

The founder of the group, Becca Blease, 35, a research impact specialist who lives in Horfield, said a significant focus of the campaign was about keeping people informed, emphasising that the ban on swimming in the river is ineffective and largely not enforced.

“There’s a huge community who adore this river,” says Blease. “They love to swim here. So a lot of it has just been about making sure that they are informed, because we don’t think that the current prohibitive approach works, because people will still swim.

“It’s a really natural thing on a hot day to just want to jump in and cool off. And outdoor swimming is only going to get more popular, I think. And so simply to ban it doesn’t work. People will still go in.”

A Wessex Water spokesperson said: “We support the greater use of rivers for recreation and have worked with the Conham Bathing group and others to provide data on water quality, helping people make an informed choice.

“Lowland rivers will always have bacteria in them from numerous sources. Specifically on the Bristol Avon, Environment Agency data indicates that storm overflows contribute to just 3% of the reasons that the catchment doesn’t achieve good ecological status – well below urban runoff (31%) and agriculture (25%).

“That said, we agree that storm overflows are outdated and we’re spending £3m every month to progressively improve them. This includes a recent project just upstream of Conham River Park in Hanham, where we’ve installed a below-ground storage tank to hold rainwater during heavy downpours.

“More widely, we believe rain should be valued as a resource and used and returned to the environment close to where it falls. Alongside our ongoing work, this requires the political understanding and will to bring forward policies that that promote best practice in rainwater management at source.”

The Thriving Avon Charter can be signed here.

They are some of the most evocative historic artefacts that fate ever consigned to the bottom of the sea. Now, coal from the Titanic, a piece of rope from the Mary Rose and musket flints from the shipwreck that inspired William Wordsworth to write one of his greatest works are to be sold at a very rare auction.

The artefacts are among the 8,000 objects salvaged from 150 wrecks that will go under the hammer for the first time next month.

The entire collection of the Shipwreck Treasure Museum in Charlestown, near St Austell, Cornwall, is up for sale after the tourist attraction, which is owned by the family of Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project, was put on the market for £1.95m earlier this year but failed to attract a buyer.

“I can’t imagine there’s a more important collection of maritime archeology worldwide,” said David Lay of Lay’s Auctioneers, which is selling the lots. “There are many wonderful, rare discoveries.”

Founded in 1976 by Richard Larn, a former navy diver and historic shipwreck expert, the museum’s extraordinary collection is being broken up into 1,254 lots and includes rare items from wrecks that are now legally protected historic sites or designated war graves.

This includes 46g of coal, recovered in 1994, which was onboard the Titanic to fuel the steamship’s doomed voyage to New York in 1912.

While a gold pocket watch recovered from the body of the Titanic’s wealthiest passenger, John Jacob Astor, sold for a record-breaking £1.2m earlier this year, the lumps of coal have been valued at £400 to £600. Lay is hoping the auction will attract fans of the Titanic from around the world.

Another collector’s item in the sale is a piece of rope recovered from Henry VIII’s Tudor flagship, the Mary Rose. Estimated to fetch £5,000 to £10,000, it was given to Larn after he reportedly helped the Mary Rose Trust to dislodge the ship from the depths of the Solent using underwater explosives.

“Virtually nothing that comes from the Mary Rose ever comes on to the market,” said Lay. “It’s just so unusual.”

Musket flints recovered from the Earl of Abergavenny will also go under the hammer, centuries after news of the shipwreck devastated Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy.

The death of their brother, John, who was captain of the ship when it sank in Weymouth Bay in 1805, moved Wordsworth to write several laments, including Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.

“A deep distress hath humanised my soul,” Wordsworth writes in the 1806 poem, an autobiographical masterpiece about the transformative power of empathy, suffering and grief. “Not for a moment could I now behold a smiling sea.”

Jeff Cowton, the principal curator at Wordsworth Grasmere, thinks the Romantic poet crossed an emotional threshold when he heard his brother had drowned, and is trying to convey that in the poem. “He realises in the poem that he can never go back now he’s experienced what it is to be human in all its grief as well as its joys,” said Cowton.

John had planned to support his brother and sister financially after making his fortune onboard the trade ship, which was bound for China. “Because that money didn’t come in, it meant Wordsworth was very reliant on selling poetry,” said Cowton. This soon became a financial struggle, and in 1813, at the age of 43, he was compelled to curtail his poetry and take a civil service job as a distributor of stamps.

The musket flints would have been used to create a spark to light gunpowder and were found on the wreck in “incredible” condition. “They look new,” said Lay, who has valued the flint at £100 to £200.

Other artefacts on sale include a large piece of ornately carved wood, valued at £20,000 to £30,000, from the stern of HMS Eagle, part of the British fleet which took Gibraltar in 1704. HMS Eagle was shipwrecked off the Isles of Scilly in 1707 after returning from battle, and its entire crew of 800 was lost. The government introduced the Longtitude Act as a result of the disaster, offering a £20,000 reward to inventors of a reliable method for measuring longitude at sea.

It was revealed in the Observer last year that, well into his 70s, Wordsworth was still deeply affected by the tragedy of his brother’s death on the Earl of Abergavenny.

In a letter from 1848, he appears to be seeking solace by collecting wooden boxes and walking sticks made from timbers salvaged from other shipwrecks.

Chef Tom Kerridge is teaming up with charities to demand delivery of a promised £15m fund to divert fresh but unused food from farms to food banks and soup kitchens across the country.

Repeated promises have been made by former ministers to fund the food waste reduction scheme, which effectively compensates farmers for harvesting, storing and packaging the food that would otherwise head into landfill or animal feed.

The pledge was first made by Michael Gove as environment secretary in 2018 and later reannounced by Rishi Sunak earlier this year, but the funds have never arrived. Kerridge is now speaking out, along with thousands of local charities who have signed an open letter to chancellor Rachel Reeves, asking for the scheme to be backed in this week’s budget.

The Michelin-starred chef, who grew up on a Gloucester council estate, cooking for his brother while his mother, Jackie, did two jobs, said the programme would reduce waste and provide much-needed food for those who are struggling.

“These charities are the beating heart of their communities, and they need more food to help support people in need,” he said. “The government needs to intervene and ensure that the staggering levels of good-to-eat surplus food is turned into meals for struggling families, rather than letting this food go to waste.”

Farmers are known to be keen to redistribute food where they can, but charities say the fund is needed to help cover their costs, as providing goods for redistribution is more expensive than dumping it or using it as feed or fuel. In the letter to Reeves, the charities say that food redirected by the scheme could provide up to 67m meals and be redistributed to thousands of community groups.

FareShare, one of the largest food redistribution organisations, is heavily involved. It provides surplus food to after-school and breakfast clubs, homelessness shelters and older people’s lunch clubs.

“The food redistribution sector helps transform surplus food into stronger communities,” said Kris Gibbon-Walsh, chief executive of FareShare. “These local charities turn food that would otherwise go to waste into meals, providing a gateway to other essential services that support people in need. This fund is an incredible opportunity to rescue millions of tonnes of fresh produce from our farms, and help tackle the environmental problem of food waste for social good.”

“Despite the announcement in February, the fund is in limbo while we wait for the Treasury to commit to this funding. But the frontline charities we support cannot afford to wait. The prime minister has said he wants to build a ‘society of service’, and Defra wants to prioritise a zero-waste economy – this fund is a great first step. We are ready to work with the government alongside the food redistribution sector to make these ambitions a reality.”

Charlotte Hill, who runs The Felix Project multibank in London, said it was “a scandal” that fresh British food was going to waste, despite the large number of families suffering from food insecurity. “The Felix Project recently found that 56% of working London families are having to turn to a food bank to help feed their children.” she said. “

These places are struggling with the huge demand for support and urgently need more food. This funding has the potential to unlock huge supplies of healthy and nutritious produce. It could result in millions of meals going to those who need it.”

Government sources said that ministers were committed to reducing waste and were working to drive down surplus food. The government wants to halve food waste by 2030. However, it has warned that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had to play its part in closing a £22bn black hole in the public finances this year and that “difficult decisions” lay ahead.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said: “The amount of food we waste is a stain on our country. We are working with business to drive down food waste and make sure food is put on the plates of those in greatest need. This includes supporting surplus food to be redistributed to charities and others that can use it and on programmes to help citizens reduce their food waste. We are grateful to food producers, charities and retailers in the sector for their work in tackling this problem.”

Hundreds of health workers have called on the General Medical Council to stop suspending doctors imprisoned for peaceful climate activism ahead of a trial which could see the first jailing of a working GP for a non-violent climate protest in the UK.

Two retired GPs have been suspended by GMC-convened tribunals this year after receiving short sentences for non-violent offences during Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain protests in 2021 and 2022. The medical regulator did not express concerns about the doctors’ clinical capabilities but said their actions undermined public confidence in the profession.

Their treatment angered many medics, with the British Medical Association describing one suspension as “malicious” and claiming the GMC had created a “dangerous precedent”.

Last week, an open ­letter objecting to the GMC’s hardline approach and signed by 464 GPs, hospital doctors, consultants and nurses, as well as public figures including Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, was delivered to the regulator’s London offices. The letter claims healthcare professionals have “turned to civil disobedience as a way to effect change” because “billions of lives are being put at risk by rising global temperatures”. It calls on the GMC to reverse the suspensions and “show its support for those who have sacrificed their freedom in calling for the deep, rapid and ­sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which … are humanity’s last hope”.

Next week, Patrick Hart, a Bristol GP, is due to go on trial for ­criminal damage. He is accused of ­damaging fuel pump displays at an M25 service station during a protest in August 2022. If convicted and jailed, he would be the first working doctor in the UK imprisoned for a non-violent offence during a peaceful climate protest.

Hart will also face a GMC-convened tribunal next year, where he could be suspended or stuck off. The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, has raised his plight with the UK government.

In an exchange published last week, Forst demands the UK government investigate the alleged penalising, persecution or harassment of Hart for peaceful civil ­disobedience, which has been used by women’s rights, anti-apartheid, anti-poll tax, LGBTQ+ and black civil rights activists. He says the GMC appears to be “subjecting Dr Hart to double punishment for his peaceful climate activism”.

In her response, Mary Creagh, the minister for nature, refused to investigate the UN’s concerns. She stated there was “no right to civil disobedience”, adding that UK laws allow for “legitimate environmental protest and public engagement”. So far only retired GPs have had their medical licence taken away by tribunals. Diana Warner, a GP for 35 years around Bristol, had her licence removed for three months in August.

She had been jailed for six weeks for twice breaching private anti-­protest injunctions banning people from blocking traffic on the M25 in 2021 and 2022.

The GMC’s barrister argued her actions could “properly be described as deplorable … and she had brought the medical profession into disrepute”.

Sarah Benn, a retired Birmingham GP, had her licence suspended for five months in April. She was jailed for 32 days for breaching another private injunction by protesting on a grass verge and sitting on a private road at Kingsbury oil terminal in 2022. Benn is appealing against her suspension with BMA support.

The GMC said if a doctor receives a custodial sentence after a criminal conviction, it must refer the case to a medical practitioners ­tribunal. “This is required in law and we can’t exercise any discretion over this,” said a spokesperson.

Doctors had the right to express their personal opinions on issues including ­climate change, the GMC said.

“However when doctors’ ­protesting results in law-breaking, they must understand that it is their actions in breaking the law, rather than their motivations, that will be under ­scrutiny,” the spokesperson said.

“Patients and the public have a high degree of trust in doctors, that trust can be put at risk when doctors fail to comply with the law.”

I had already been nude for a solid seven minutes when renowned artist Spencer Tunick yelled into a megaphone: “Nobody should be naked yet – there’s still 45 minutes until sunrise!”

The thousands of other naked people milling around came to a halt. We glanced at each other with confused eyes. Did he just say we shouldn’t be naked?

A few keen beans had jumped the gun, and a few more had followed suit. Some people reunited with their clothes, but for me, there was no going back.

So at 4am on Sunday, I found myself sitting in a gutter near Brisbane’s Story Bridge, soaked from the rain, completely starkers. The weirdest thing is that it didn’t feel weird at all.

I had a lot of expectations going into RISING TIDE – the latest work by Tunick, a New York-based photographer who documents the live nude figure in public – and none of them were good. I have spent a lifetime wishing there was less of me and am yet to untangle my self-worth from my appearance; the unhinged diet culture of the 90s has a lot to answer for.

My biggest fear about joining in Tunick’s shoot was that someone I know would see me. Or, more accurately, that they wouldn’t like what they saw.

So I was braced to feel self-conscious, exposed, and ashamed. I mostly signed up because I was curious about the logistics of staging such a mammoth event. But there is safety in numbers, and I felt strangely at home surrounded by 5,500 bodies – a record-breaking turnout for Tunick in Australia.

“When there’s nowhere to hide, there’s nothing to hide,” drag artist Zach told me. “All your insecurities go away.”

RISING TIDE is a sequel to TIDE, a work Tunick shot in Brisbane in 2023 as part of Melt festival, which celebrates the queer community and our allies. As we gathered in the dark across the entire length of the Story Bridge, Tunick told the crowd our “living sculpture” was a vote for diversity, equity and inclusion. It felt especially timely the morning after Queensland elected a Liberal-National Party government.

The artist relayed directions over a loudspeaker. No smiling. We faced him, then faced away. Put our arms up toward the sky, then back down. Then we lay on our backs, and rolled to one side. The road was hard and wet. Hearing others shiver, I felt grateful for the soft folds insulating my body.

At first I tried not to look at other people’s bodies, but eventually I let myself see them. Stocky bodies. Sagging bodies. Tattooed bodies. Transitioning bodies. Scarred bodies. Bony bodies. Pregnant bodies. Chiselled bodies. Bodies needing assistance from a wheelchair, a walker, a pair of crutches. Taking in this ordinary and extraordinary landscape was an act of radical self-love. It made me feel less alone.

The crowd chatted and cheered between poses. A man named Chris told me he wanted to build up the confidence to enjoy nude beaches. Reeta hoped the experience would symbolise a turning point after a difficult year. Mark joked that Brisbanites just want any excuse to walk on a closed public roadway. “It’s our culture,” he said. He’s right – 50,000 people turned out for a public walk through the newly built Clem Jones tunnel back in 2010.

After an hour, we dressed again then headed to the next location, Howard Smith Wharves. We undressed for a second time, and took up new positions along the Riverwalk that snakes along the water.

The Riverwalk felt like a Broadway stage compared to the closed-off bridge. Tourists on a passing CityCat waved and took videos. Residents of the multi-million-dollar properties overlooking the water stood on their balconies, bemused. For one man, it was a rude awakening. “What a nightmare view,” he complained. His nightmare was just beginning: our next position was a child’s pose, our bare bums shining up at him.

It was liberating, fun, and also monotonous at times. There were tedious stretches of waiting around, first in the rain and later in the blazing sun. I walked a good six kilometres across the morning, much of it a slow shuffle. I’d wanted to feel anonymous, but I felt jealous of people with friends at their side. But in the end, the only truly horrifying part of the experience was setting my alarm for 1.45am.

I was moved by tiny moments that illuminated how much we share in common: hundreds of people collectively saying “bless you” when someone sneezed; a chorus of “aww” as a golden retriever came to see what all the fuss was about; laughter as we realised nobody knew which way to turn when Tunick told us to look south. (“Face the river!” he eventually clarified.)

As we walked back along the Riverwalk, a man watching from his balcony called out. He had stripped naked in solidarity. I have never heard a crowd cheer louder in my life.

Australia has rejected far-right provocateur Candace Owens’ visa application ahead of a planned national speaking tour, with the immigration minister, Tony Burke, saying she had the “capacity to incite discord”.

The US conservative influencer and podcast host, who has advanced conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric including minimising Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps, will be blocked from coming to Australia after the federal government voiced alarm about her record.

“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [notorious Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Burke said on Sunday.

“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

Owens had scheduled a five-date speaking tour of Australia in November, with events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Tickets ranged from $95 for general admission to $295 for a VIP meet and greet and $1,500 for a private dinner with the conservative media personality.

She has courted controversy with incendiary claims about Jewish, transgender and Muslim people. In July, she appeared to cast doubt on well-documented Nazi medical experiments on prisoners, calling such accounts “completely absurd” and “bizarre propaganda”.

The US Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat antisemitism, has accused Owens of coming to “embrace and promote antisemitic tropes and anti-Israel rhetoric”, noting comments where she called Judaism a “pedophile-centric religion”. LGBTQ+ advocacy organisation Glaad has pointed to allegedly anti-trans comments from Owens, including calling the trans equality movement “evil” and “satanic”. She has also claimed “white supremacy and white nationalism is not a problem that is harming Black America”.

Owens’ Australian tour had been opposed by some local Jewish groups while the opposition home affairs spokesman, James Paterson, called her “a dangerous antisemite and a conspiracy theorist” during a Sky News interview.

Burke told Nine newspapers in August that he had asked his department for a brief on her visit and consulted the federal antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal.

Nine first reported on Sunday that Owens would not be allowed to enter Australia. Burke’s office confirmed her visa had been denied.

Guardian Australia contacted Owens’ management and the local tour promoters, Rocksman, for comment. Neither responded immediately to requests and Owens has not addressed the visa news on her social media accounts.

“Candace Owens Live! Australian and New Zealand Tour event will appeal to audiences seeking alternative viewpoints and in-depth discussions on pressing political and social topics. Owens’ provocative approach often sparks debate, making the event a must-see for those who enjoy candid conversations about controversial issues,” the tour website states.

The Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive, Alon Cassuto, welcomed the news Owens had been denied entry to Australia.

“Bigotry and antisemitism are unacceptable in any form, regardless of whether they originate from the far left or right,” he said on Sunday.

“For the sake of our nation’s social cohesion, there is no place in Australia for Candace Owens.”

During the pandemic, Owens suggested the US military invade Australia to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime” while drawing comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and the Taliban.

Michelle Obama laced into Donald Trump in a searing speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and having an “amoral character” while challenging hesitant Americans to choose Kamala Harris for US president.

“By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” the former first lady told a rapt audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?”

With the race virtually deadlocked, Obama said she was in the Midwestern battleground heeding her own advice to “do something” to support Harris bid to be the country’s first female president. In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn,” Obama said. “Preach!” a woman shouted.

The event in Kalamazoo, which Obama referred to as “Kamala-zoo”, was her first appearance on the campaign trail since her rousing speech at the Democratic national convention in August. Obama said voters shouldn’t choose Harris because she’s a woman but “because Kamala Harris is a grown-up – and Lord knows we need a grown-up in the White House”.

When Obama finished, Beyoncé’s Freedom thundered from the loudspeakers and Harris emerged on stage. The predominantly female audience erupted as the women embraced.

With 10 days left, Harris delivered her closing argument: she pledged to be a president who listened to the American people, unlike her opponent, whom she accused of “looking in the mirror all the time”.

“Just imagine the Oval Office in three months,” she said. “It is either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies’ list – or me working for you, checking off my to-do list.”

Before the event, Harris visited a local doctor’s office in nearby Portage, where she spoke to healthcare providers and medical students about the impact of abortion restrictions. Harris has made protecting “reproductive freedom” and what remains of abortion access a major theme of her campaign, using it to draw a sharp contrast with Trump, who has claimed credit for his role in overturning Roe v Wade but insisted he would allow a nationwide ban as president.

In Kalamazoo, both Harris and Obama argued that Trump had no credibility on the matter. But Obama went further, describing the full spectrum of women’s reproductive health – from period cramps to pregnancy to menopause. She lamented the lack of research on women’s health and the racial disparities in treatment. Directing her comments to the “men who love us”, Obama asked them to consider the harm that is done when a government “keeps revoking the basic care from its women”.

“I am asking y’all, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” Obama said, her voice swelling with emotion. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.”

Abortion bans, she argued, affected men as well. If something happened during a pregnancy or a delivery and the doctor was prevented from providing care, “you will be the one praying that it’s not too late. You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something, and then there is the tragic but very real possibility that in the worst-case scenario, you just might be the one holding flowers at the funeral,” she said.

Obama’s appeal reflected the gaping gender divide between the candidates, with women powering Harris and men turning to Trump. She acknowledged the challenges facing the country, and conceded that progress could be too slow, but she argued that sitting out or voting third-party was not the answer.

“There is too much we stand to lose if we get this one wrong,” she said.

While Barack Obama is known as his party’s great orator, Michelle Obama remains one of its most popular albeit reluctant speakers. Having once encouraged Democrats to “go high” when they “go low”, Obama on Saturday made no effort to conceal her disdain for the man who led a years-long campaign questioning her husband’s birthplace.

“In any other profession or arena, Trump’s criminal track record and amoral character would be embarrassing, shameful and disqualifying,” she said.

The Harris campaign deployed Obama – along with Barack Obama and other leading figures and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen – in hopes that their star power might deliver an 11th-hour jolt to a presidential contest that has otherwise remained static.

Both Harris and Trump were in Michigan on Saturday, chasing the state’s 15 electoral votes. After Pennsylvania, where Harris will campaign on Sunday, Michigan is perhaps the next most critical state on the Democrat’s path to the White House.

Trump won the state in 2016, when he tore down the trio of “blue wall” battlegrounds. But four years later, Michigan delivered Biden his biggest swing state victory and then Democrats swept the state in the 2022 congressional midterms, after the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade.

Polls show a dead heat. Trump has sought to exacerbate Democratic divisions over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, elevating the issue in Michigan, where scores of Muslim and Arab American voters have said they cannot support Harris. On Saturday, Trump was joined on stage in Novi, Michigan, by Bill Bazzi, the current and first Muslim mayor of Dearborn Heights.

“I have never seen the devastation that we’re seeing right now,” Bazzi said. “When President Trump was president, there was no wars.”

The Harris campaign has conducted several outreach attempts to the Arab community, but tensions remain high with little time for a course change and the risk of escalation following Israel’s pre-dawn strikes on Iran. At the event, Harris was interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester. “We have to end that war,” she responded, as the crowd drowned out the demonstration with “Kamala” chants.

Democrats are focused on juicing turnout in Detroit – which Trump insulted (again) at his Novi event on Saturday – while aggressively courting women, independents and anti-Trump Republicans in the suburbs. Her campaign recently earned the support of Fred Upton, the state’s long-serving Republican representative who left office in 2022. Upton told the Detroit Free Press that he had never supported a Democrat for president but this year cast an absentee ballot for Harris: “He’s just totally unhinged. We don’t need this chaos.”

Speaking before Harris, Michigan senator Gary Peters compared the presidential campaign to the highest-stakes job interview. Extending the metaphor, he suggested that they check Trump’s references. The senator quoted Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff John Kelly, who recently said on the record that his former boss fit the definition of a fascist.

“Would you hire that guy?” Peters asked. “No!” the crowd thundered back.