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In your briefing today:

• The first hostages have been released as part of the Israel - Hamas ceasefire

• What we learned over the weekend: More astonishing claims from a Scots quango, Davos in crisis, Prince’s lies, a spy blame game and winemakers in crisis

• Scotland put in a dire performance against Belarus, coming away with a win, but little credit

📣 Hamas has released seven hostages to the Red Cross this morning, the first to be released as part of the ceasefire agreement signed late last week after two years of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Further people are due to be released later this morning: Hamas had earlier released a list of the 20 living hostages it will hand over. Israel will also release hundreds of Palestianian prisoners. (BBC Live coverage) (Guardian live blog) (AP updates)

A hastily convened “Summit for Peace” has been called for today in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh: Donald Trump will co-chair the event, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will attend, along with leaders from Turkey, Jordan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Nations and the European Union. (AP)

📣 First Minister John Swinney delivers his keynote conference speech today: he’ll use it to insist that only independence can save Scotland from Westminster’s “race to the right”. Swinney wants to win an outright majority of MSPs at next year’s Holyrood elections - an outcome he says would force a second independence referendum. (Daily Record)

• SNP members backed John Swinney’s strategy that a majority election win was the only route to another referendum on independence. (Guardian)

• Nicola Sturgeon says Swinney is right to “set the bar high” for next year’s election (Scotsman)

• The brevity of an SNP conference tribute to Alex Salmond has been criticised by the former First Minister’s niece. (Herald)

• The SNP has launched an initiative to bring more women into politics, in honour of former minister Christina McKelvie, who died earlier this year. (STV)

📣 Two inmates were arrested after paedophile rock star Ian Watkins was brutally murdered in prison on Saturday morning. Watkins was serving 35 years for a string of horrific crimes against children, and had only narrowly survived previous attempts on his life since being jailed 13 years ago. (The Sun)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 A mother has hit out at the “lenient” sentence handed down to the man who abused her young daughter: Liam Moir was jailed for only 18 months after a five-month campaign of attacks. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 Scotland’s wildlife laws are being “systematically weakened” by loopholes, delays and poor enforcement, according to campaigners. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 The Scottish Police Federation says a massive number of health calls are “crippling” the ability of the force to police the country. The Federation claims that officers are now the “default security guards” at A&E units, and hte effort is taking between 40% and 60% of their effort. (STV)

📣 Rescue teams are searching for a German walker missing on the Isle of Skye. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has unveiled his latest attempt at a government, just two days after being reappointed. His new cabinet features both politicians and civil servants, and comes after his first lineup provoked a firestorm of criticism, and his resignation. (Politico)

📣 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to avoid “directionless tinkering and half-baked fixes” by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which has also warned that some tax rises could be “especially economically harmful”. (BBC)

• Reeves could impose a surprise “one-off” tax on wealth in her budget (Mail)

📣 Scientists say the earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions, with coral reefs now facing a long-term decline. The development threatens the livlihoods of hundreds of millions of people. (Guardian)

SPORT

⚽️ After Scotland’s second goal last night against Belarus, midfielder Billy Gilmour was spotted mouthing “thank f**k for that”. The midfielder spoke for a nation. Dangerous talk of Scotland breezing past Belarus had already given more seasoned members of the Tartan Army the jitters. Sure enough, writes Alan Pattullo, “almost unbelievably, or maybe only too believably” Scotland were flirting with the possibility of a first defeat at home to a team ranked 100 in the world, or lower. (The Scotsman (BBC)

• Scotland “blagged” a playoff spot - and are now set for a “Hampden shootout for the ages” (Daily Record)

⚽️ Rangers continue their search for a new head coach after the embarassment of former manager Steven Gerrard very publically deciding the time “wasn’t right” for him to return to Ibrox. “Maybe the time has now come for Rangers to accept that when Steven Gerrard says 'it's not you, it's me' what he actually means is the complete opposite,” he writes. (BBC)

• Danny Rohl, the 36-year-old former manager of Sheffield Wednesday, is now frontrunner for the Ibrox hotseat. (Daily Record)

📣 Former England centre Luther Burrell has said that talking about racism in rugby union brought his career to an early end. "I have absolutely had to retire because of what went on," he said. (BBC)

IDEAS
Five things we learned over the weekend: More astonishing claims from Scots quango, Davos in crisis, Prince’s lies, a spy blame game and wine crisis

🗣️ There were yet more allegations of poor behaviour at Historic Environment Scotland. The worst of it: a senior leader at the quango allegedly “twerked” in front of Hollywood actor Martin Compston at an event in Edinburgh castle in 2023. The star was left “uncomfortable” at the woman’s behaviour, according to Catriona Stewart’s exclusive report.

The same manager is also said to have upset Rod Stewart’s wife, Penny Lancaster, by posing for a photograph with Ms Lancaster and referring to them both as “dumb blondes together”.

The newspaper also reports a director at the heritage body arranged for a boozy Christmas “working lunch” at the Castle, and successfully pressed the caterers to get it free. And it says senior management created a new pay band to give themselves a hike in pay “of between 19 and 21.5 per cent”.

The quango received almost £70 million in public cash last year - around half its funding - but faces a £3 million budget shortfall. (Scotland on Sunday)

🗣️Is the World Economic Forum - known simply as “Davos” to most of us - in terminal decline? A report in the Financial Times has been the talk of the steamie among a certain class of globetrotting senior executive (and the people who work for them).

It says that the world’s most influential talking shop for business titans and political heavyweights is “unravelling”, partly because of internal wrangling, partly because of the changing world.

“It is confronting multiple headwinds: the retreat of globalisation, widespread distrust of elites, and the abrupt transition from Klaus Schwab’s leadership,” author James Breiding tells the FT. “The next meeting isn’t just important — it may be make-or-break.” (FT £)

But over on LinkedIn, Adrian Monck - who, as the Forum’s managing director did much to open the secretive organisation up - says it’s not over yet.

“When insider arguments play out on front pages, it’s uncomfortable – but rarely fatal to an organisation with strong staff, deep reserves, and decades of relationship capital,” he writes.

“The Forum will survive – it has the resources to persist and prosper for decades. The real question is whether it remains genuinely useful as the global context shifts.” (LinkedIn)

🗣️“We’ll play some more soon,” Prince Andrew assured disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to an email seen by the Mail on Sunday. It was the tabloid story of the weekend: excerpts from an email sent only a day after that infamous picture of the Prince with his arm around his alleged teenage victim was published, offering evidence he’d maintained contact with Epstein weeks after he later claimed he’d cut him off. (Mail on Sunday)

🗣️ The blame game continued over the collapse of a case against two men accused of spying for China. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public proesecutions, had said in a letter to parliament last week that the trial collapsed because crucial testimony - confirming China as a national security threat - could not be obtained from the UK government.

But the Observer also reports that prosecutors were also struggling to prove that the information passed to China was sufficiently senstive to trigger the Official Secrets Act. One defence witness told the newspaper that the information passed on could have been gleaned “from a subscription to Private Eye” or other media. (The Observer)

🗣️California’s wine industry is in crisis. Unsold inventory, too few drinkers, Trump’s tariffs and “unusually good weather” leading to an oversupply of grapes: all of it adds up a crisis which may see vines ripped up and replaced. That will follow a trend that’s been seen across the world: the total surface area of the world covered by vineyards has fallen for at least the last four years. (🎁 Wall Street Journal - gift link)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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