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Five-year-old boy dies after getting caught in ski travelator

A five-year-old boy in Japan has died while on a ski holiday with his family after his arm caught on a travelator.

On Sunday morning Hinata Goto was about to step off the travelator at a Hokkaido resort’s ski slopes when he fell down and his right arm became trapped in the machinery, Japanese media reported citing police.

The travelator was equipped with a safety mechanism, but it failed to activate. The machine only halted when the boy’s mother hit the emergency stop button.

Rescue workers spent 40 minutes dismantling part of the travelator to free the boy, who by then had fallen unconscious. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Staff at the Asarigawa Onsen Ski Resort in Otaru said that the travelator’s safety mechanism, which was designed to immediately halt operations if it detected that an object was trapped in the machinery, had worked earlier in the day.

Police are investigating the incident to assess whether there was any professional negligence, such as in the manufacturing and maintenance of the travelator.

Installed about six years ago, the travelator is about 30m (98 ft) long and 60cm (24 in) wide, with no hand rails. It connects the resort’s car park to the ski slopes.

Japanese media quoted other visitors saying that they have stumbled while using the same travelator.

“Even as an adult, there are times when I think, ‘It’s a little scary’,” a regular customer told Asahi Shimbun.

A representative of Asarigawa Onsen Ski Resort apologised for the incident and said they will take action to prevent a recurrence.

Hokkaido is known to be the ski capital of Japan and welcomes millions of visitors every year, with the bulk of them staying during the winter months for ski holidays.

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12/29/2025
Home secretary urged to strip activist of British citizenship

Alex Kleidermanand

Harry Sekulich

MOHAMED EL-RAAI/AFP via Getty Images

British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has apologised for several of his old tweets that have resurfaced, as calls grow for him to be deported from the UK days after he arrived following his release from an Egyptian jail.

Tory and Reform UK leaders say the home secretary should consider whether Abd El Fattah, a dual national, can be removed after social media messages showed him calling for Zionists and police to be killed.

The Times reports some senior Labour MPs are also calling for his citizenship to be removed.

After reviewing the historic posts, Abd El Fattah said: “I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.”

He added: “I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship.”

Abd El Fattah said he took allegations of antisemitism “very seriously” while arguing some of the posts had been “completely twisted out of their meaning”.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for saying he was “delighted” by Abd El Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Friday, three months after he was freed from prison in Egypt, but it is understood he was unaware of the historical messages.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage both said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood should look at whether Abd El Fattah’s citizenship could be revoked to enable his swift removal from the UK.

Farage said in a letter to Mahmood: “It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr el-Fattah should not be allowed into the UK.”

The Foreign Office said it had been “a long-standing priority under successive governments” to work for Abd El Fattah’s release and see him reunited with his family in the UK, but condemned his posts as “abhorrent”.

The 44-year-old was convicted in 2021 of “spreading fake news” in Egypt for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country following a trial that human rights groups said was grossly unfair.

He was granted citizenship in December 2021 through his London-born mother – when the Conservatives were in power and Dame Priti Patel was home secretary.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp – who was immigration minister under Patel – told the BBC he did not know of these details in 2021. He added he was now clear in his mind that “this man should have his citizenship revoked”.

“There is no excuse for what he wrote,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

PA Media

In one resurfaced tweet, from 2012, Abd El Fattah appears to say: “I am a racist, I don’t like white people”. In another, he says he considers “killing any colonialists and specially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them”.

He is also accused of saying police do not have rights and “we should kill them all”.

“There is no excuse for that kind of language,” Philp said on Monday. “People who express that kind of hatred, that kind of anti-white racism, that kind of extremism who seek to incite violence, have no place in the United Kingdom.”

Appearing on the same programme, Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, accused Philp of “throwing ideas around that were just not based in law”.

“The bottom and top of it is that he [Abd El Fattah] is a British citizen,” she told Today.

“He was entitled to British citizenship, he claimed it so he is a British citizen. The British government has been doing their utmost to get him back into the country and out of jail.”

The UK has responsibilities under international law to avoid leaving people stateless and British citizenship can only be stripped from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.

Badenoch said Abd El Fattah’s reported comments were “disgusting and abhorrent” and anti-British, adding that citizenship decisions “must take account of social media activity, public statements, and patterns of belief”.

She said: “It is one thing to work for someone’s release from prison if they’ve been treated unfairly as previous governments did. It is quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero.”

She added that Abd El Fattah “should have received a free and fair trial in Egypt”, but “there ends my sympathy”.

In his letter to the home secretary, Farage said it was “astonishing” that neither MPs from Labour, the Conservatives or other parties carried out “basic due diligence” on Abd El Fattah while they campaigned for his release.

He said Starmer showed an “extraordinary error of judgement” when he posted on X welcoming Abd El Fattah’s return.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the case was of “profound concern”.

Adrian Cohen, the board’s senior vice-president, said: “His previous extremist and violent rhetoric aimed at ‘Zionists’ and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the wider public.

“The cross-party campaign for such a person, and the warm welcome issued by the government, demonstrate a broken system with an astonishing lack of due diligence by the authorities.”

While conceding some of his comments were “shocking and hurtful”, Abd El Fattah contends some of the old messages were misinterpreted.

“For example, a tweet being shared to allege homophobia on my part was actually ridiculing homophobia,” he said in a statement.

“I have paid a steep price for my public support for LGBTQ+ rights in Egypt and the world.”

A writer, intellectual and software developer, Abd El Fattah rose to prominence during an uprising in 2011 that forced the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign.

He has spent more than a decade of his life behind bars and his release in September after a presidential pardon followed a long campaign by his family and lobbying by the British government.

In 2014, Abd El Fattah was nominated for a European human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but this was withdrawn over tweets about Israel he posted in 2012.

He said those comments had been part of a “private conversation” that took place during an Israeli offensive in Gaza and had been taken out of context.

After being removed from a travel ban list imposed by Egyptian authorities that kept him in the country for three months after his release from jail, Abd El Fattah has now been reunited with his 14-year-old son, who lives in Brighton.

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12/29/2025
Trump to meet Netanyahu in Florida as focus turns to Middle East

US President Donald Trump will turn his focus to the Middle East on Monday, as he hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida for talks that are expected to cover Gaza and a range of other pressing issues.

Any decisions made could have a potentially momentous impact on questions that determine the future of the region.

The US has been Israel’s strongest military and political backer throughout two years of war in Gaza and many are now looking to the meeting as a test of the leaders’ relationship and how aligned they are on key topics.

It will be their sixth meeting since Trump’s return to office 11 months ago.

Among the expected points of discussion is the future of relations with Syria’s new government, Iranian rearmament, and Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon.

Perhaps most critically, they will discuss progress of the Gaza ceasefire deal, where Israel’s government has taken several positions diverging from those of the US government.

The talks will take place as storms continue to lash Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians remain living in basic tents that offer little protection from the cold and flooding.

On Monday, the death of a two-month-old baby due to the severe cold was reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total killed by the wintry weather since 10 December to three, while another 17 people have been killed by damaged buildings collapsing in the storms.

The UN and numerous aid agencies have accused Israel of not meeting its ceasefire obligations by continuing to restrict full access to basic supplies and equipment. Israel has said it is meeting its obligations in facilitating an increase in aid deliveries.

The Trump administration wants to see the ceasefire progress to its second phase in January, whereby a Palestinian technocratic government would be established alongside the deployment of an international security force, Hamas would disarm, Israeli troops would withdraw, and the reconstruction of the devastated territory would begin.

Critics have suggested that Netanyahu may instead seek to delay the progress of the ceasefire, saying he does not want to engage seriously with questions of a political future for Palestinians and will instead push for Hamas to fully disarm before Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza. Hamas officials have repeatedly said that its full disarmament should take place alongside progress towards an independent Palestinian state.

The 20-point peace plan promoted by Trump and signed by both Israel and Hamas recognises Palestinian aspirations to a sovereign state, however Netanyahu and his ministers have consistently rejected Palestinian statehood since the ceasefire came into effect in October.

Last week, Defence Minister Israel Katz said his country would build settlements in Gaza and would “never fully withdraw” from the territory even if Hamas disarms, despite this being a key tenet of the ceasefire deal.

Breaking out of the current impasse is seen as crucial by many in the region as near-daily deadly attacks by the Israeli military continue to take place in Gaza despite the declared ceasefire.

In the 80 days since it came into effect, at least 414 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in the territory, according to its health ministry.

The Israeli military, which controls more than half of Gaza, has said it has only opened fire in response to ceasefire violations.

Three Israeli soldiers have been killed in attacks that the military has blamed on Hamas over the same period.

Israel also continues to wait for Hamas to return of the body of Ran Gvili, the last remaining dead hostage in Gaza. All living and decease hostages taken during the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, which sparked the war, should have been returned three days after the ceasefire came into effect.

Trump’s intervention and US mediation could be brought upon the fraught and unresolved sticking points, pushing Netanyahu to take a softer line on certain positions.

For instance, the Israeli government has opposed Turkey taking part in the International Stabilisation Force to be deployed in Gaza. However, few other countries have been willing to take part.

Netanyahu is also expected to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is seen as supportive of the positions of the Israeli government.

Last week, Israeli media reported that there may be an attempt by the prime minister to rediscuss Israel annexing the occupied West Bank – something President Trump has spoken against.

Israeli ministers have recently described their expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a de facto annexation of the territory aimed at burying the possibility of an independent Palestinian state.

Both the settlements and annexation are illegal under international law.

It is also expected that Netanyahu may use his meeting with Trump on Monday to seek US permission for further military strikes on Iran.

The Israeli government is said to believe Iran is rearming its missile capabilities after their 12-day war this summer, which saw Iran’s nuclear facilities bombed by both Israeli and US fighter jets.

The Iranian president said this weekend that said his country was in “all-out war” with Israel, the US and Europe. “They don’t want our country to remain stable,” Masoud Pezeshkian said.

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12/29/2025