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Middle East crisis live: Iran agrees to destroy enriched uranium stockpile, memorandum read out by US officials says

According to the officials on the call, the text makes clear that access to Iran’s frozen funds is contingent on the regime actually implementing the agreement’s terms. “Such funds … shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran … upon the implementation of the MOU.” Officials on the call said Iran had pushed hard for the opposite: immediate access to its frozen assets the moment the MOU was signed.

Titan sub: design flaws and company groupthink central to catastrophe, report finds

Canadian safety officials have issued a damning report on the catastrophic final voyage of the Titan submersible, finding that the US company behind the expedition was overcome by “groupthink” and “confirmation bias” and failed to understand the profound risks confronting their largely untested craft. The 6.7 metre (22ft) carbon fibre submersible dipped below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in June 2023 en route to the wreckage of the Titanic ocean liner. But nearly two hours after it departed with five passengers, communications went dark. The disappearance prompted a frantic international search, with Canada and the US marshalling all available resources. OceanGate, the company behind the expedition, operated trips to the final resting place of the Titanic, which struck an iceberg in 1912 and sank, killing more than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew. Onboard the submersible were Hamish Harding, 58, a British explorer and pilot; Shahzada Dawood, 48 a British-Pakistani businessman; and his son Suleman, 19; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a deep diver, submersible pilot, former French navy commander and leading authority on the Titanic wreck site; and Stockton Rush, the founder of OceanGate. Within days, investigators found the wreck of the vessel nearly 400 miles (640km) off the coast of Newfoundland and concluded all passengers died instantly when the structure imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic. In its report released on Wednesday, Canada’s transportation and safety board (TSB) said that numerous failures in the submersible’s design and the broader company culture were central factors in the disaster. OceanGate positioned itself as ambitious undersea exploration company that had pioneered a carbon fibre submersible to venture deep below the surface. Inspectors said: “There was no precedent for diving a human-occupied carbon fibre submersible to the deep ocean, and the company acknowledged both internally and publicly that its operations involved risk.” The Washington state-based company built a pair of 1/3 scale models of the Titan to test how it responded to pressure. Six tests were done on these scale models. Both failed at depths above the resting place of the Titanic. The company changed the design and manufacturing to mitigate the “ply waviness” of the carbon fibre. Waviness can dramatically weaken the strength of the material. But unbeknown to the company, the Titan’s carbon fibre cylinder was accumulating damage each time it was exposed to extreme pressures on deep-ocean dives. “Normal engineering practice would be to expose full-scale models to a very significant number (hundreds, possibly thousands) of test cycles,” inspectors wrote. OceanGate did relatively little testing of the final craft. While it did conduct tests equivalent to the Titanic depth and deeper, there was no further analysis to understand if and when the hull might fail after repeated use. “The number of cycles at extreme pressure that the full-scale pressure hull could withstand was therefore unknown,” the report said. The report noted that different materials and shapes were used in conventional submersible design to increase safety when operating at immense depths. It called the design of the Titan “novel” and found “the construction and testing of the Titan did not follow standard engineering practices”. Inspectors were able to examine offcuts of the material used to construct the hull and found structural defects that would weaken the craft’s integrity. Inspectors also point to a number of instances in which the craft might have sustained damage, including when it collided with the port bow of the Titanic in 2022 and a loud bang when the Titan was surfacing from another dive days later. The craft was also left outside and exposed to the elements for nearly a year between 2022 and 2023. “Every time a structure is stressed, small damages may accumulate,” the report said. “The higher the imposed stress on the structure, the more quickly these damages will accumulate.” While the craft successfully completed 13 dives, the accrued weaknesses in the materials meant the 14th trip was fatal. While not all of the debris was recovered, investigators estimate the hull failure happened 5.397 seconds after the submersible crew sent a text message at a depth of more than 3,000 metres. The acoustic monitoring system used to alert crews of a looming structure failure “had not been tested to demonstrate that it would consistently provide enough advance warning” and when catastrophe struck “it did not function as intended during the occurrence”, according to the report. While the physical structure of the craft raised concerns with inspectors, they also found the company culture exhibited “closed-mindedness, pressures toward uniformity and overestimation of the group’s power”– traits that amplified the riskiness of the endeavour. “Over the course of OceanGate’s operating history … employees with expertise in specific areas left the company or were dismissed after raising safety-related concerns or expressing differing perspectives from the CEO,” the report found, adding that confirmation bias was “affecting OceanGate’s decisionmaking and risk management with respect to the structural integrity and lifespan of the Titan pressure hull”. In July 2023, Oceangate posted a one line statement on its website saying it had stopped “all exploration and commercial operations”. Inspectors found the world of submersibles was largely unregulated and conceded there were “no external checks on OceanGate’s risk assessment processes from the regulators” in any of the countries in which it operated, nor was there oversight from a classification society. Because there was limited information sharing between Transport Canada and other government departments, TC often lacked key information about the Titan. In one instance, the department of fisheries and oceans joined an OceanGate mission in 2021 and found the Titan had not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, was constructed from a material not widely used for submersibles that carry people and OceanGate was not carrying insurance. Transport Canada said that without a change to policy “there is a risk that vessels and crews will continue to operate without the minimum defences … leading to unsafe conditions and potentially fatal” accidents. Yoan Marier, the chair of the TSB, said: “We have been calling for stronger regulatory surveillance in the marine sector for years. Lives are at risk when safety gaps are left unaddressed.”

Macron hails US alignment with G7’s ‘shared commitment’ on Ukraine

Emmanuel Macron has said the whole of the G7, including the US, recognises “the territorial integrity of Ukraine” as he hailed a “re-synchronisation” of positions on the issue. The French president welcomed a “very deep change in the US approach”, saying Donald Trump and all the leaders present at the G7 summit at Évian-les-Bains understood that Vladimir Putin was not interested in peace. “President Trump, like all of us, simply acknowledged that there was no serious willingness on Russia’s part today to discuss peace,” he said. Macron repeatedly emphasised a “shared commitment to making progress on this issue”, which he described as “a very profound shift and remobilisation of the G7”. The annual G7 meeting brings together the leaders of the world’s biggest economies: the US, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada and Japan. Macron’s remarks were in sharp contrast to last year’s G7, when the chasm between Trump’s courtship of Putin and European support for Kyiv was so marked that the US president walked out early and there was no attempt to agree on a final statement. Trump also met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, twice on the margins of the summit. Zelenskyy updated Trump on the Ukrainian military’s progress, which apparently impressed the US leader. The summit’s joint communique vowed to increase sanctions on Russia, including in the energy field. Challenged on whether Trump could be trusted to follow through on a commitment to consider further sanctions against Russia, Macron said: “I have always trusted President Trump. When he has made commitments to us he has always done what he said he would do.” Macron’s belief that Trump was re-engaging with the Ukraine issue was echoed by Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, who said he believed Trump had shifted to “a more realistic understanding of how this war will develop”. He described this as a gamechanger. Diplomats at the summit said they had sensed that Trump’s relief at the apparently imminent end of the Iran war had brought him to the G7 summit in a far better mood than expected, and he showed a genuine willingness to engage on issues. At his closing press conference, Macron said Zelenskyy had proposed that Putin come to the G7 summit to discuss the impasse, but “nothing had come back from Russia”. The US and several European G7 countries also agreed to produce long-range missiles and air-defence systems under license in Ukraine. The move will not only fill a hole in European defences, but also give Ukraine’s increasingly efficient arms factories extra income. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said: “We are all currently producing too little, and this can be compensated for by granting licenses to companies that have these production capacities, including European and Ukrainian companies.” Trump has said he would look into US missiles being produced under licence, but there are bound to be issues involving commercial secrecy and patents.

Trump tells G7 summit he hopes Europe ‘finds its way’ on immigration and energy – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! US president Donald Trump said he hoped “something will happen” in peace talks with Russia and Ukraine, as he praised “productive” talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in France and Vladimir Putin over the phone (18:34). His comments come at the end of a two-day G7 summit in France, with Emmanuel Macron (17:03, 17:07), Germany’s Friedrich Merz (13:32) and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni (16:34, 16:36) praising progress on getting the US closer to Europe’s position on supporting Ukraine. Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte earlier said that the idea of potential talks with Russia was “clearly debated among allies” (11:44). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

‘Very naive’: French left up in arms as Macron hosts Trump at Versailles

The US president, Donald Trump, will be the guest of honour at a sumptuous dinner at the Palace of Versailles, as the French left criticises Emmanuel Macron for going too far in attempts to flatter him. “Versailles is not gold leaf, Versailles is the real deal,” said Trump of the opulent 2,300-room palace which was once home to France’s Sun King, Louis XIV. “I’m a fan of beautiful places.” Macron’s office said the dinner on Wednesday night would mark the 250th anniversary of the independence of the US, in which France had played an important role by supporting the American revolution. The Palace of Versailles was chosen as a venue because it is “a historic symbol of Franco-American friendship”, an Élysée official said. The French president, under pressure to show he was not fawning over Trump, said it was not a “gala dinner” but instead simply a moment to mark France’s role in American independence. Macron said: “I’m pragmatic. It’s by firm and respectful discussion that one gets results.” The dinner at France’s most spectacular palace – the seat of the French monarchy and a symbol of the French Revolution of 1789 – was seen by French politicians as a way to dangle a carrot for Trump to stay the full length of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains and not leave early as he did last year in Canada. “I’m the boss,” said Trump to fellow G7 leaders, including Macron, as the final day of the summit began. Before dinner on Wednesday, Trump will be shown around the palace’s temporary exhibition on the history of French-US relations. He will also tour the Hall of Mirrors, the famed 17th-century gallery built under Louis XIV to project the power and majesty of the French monarchy. Trump has made several negative comments about Macron over the past year, including: “Emmanuel, nice guy but he doesn’t get it right too often.” Before the G7 summit began, Trump said the US would “have no choice” but to apply 100% tariffs on French wine unless Paris scrapped a digital services tax on technology firms. Macron responded that he would stay firm on the issue. Earlier this year, Trump put on an accent and mocked the French president and his wife during a private lunch in Washington. Trump said Macron’s wife “treats him extremely badly”, an apparent reference to a May 2025 video that appeared to show Brigitte Macron pushing her husband’s face as they prepared to disembark from a plane on an official visit to Vietnam. Macron said the comments were “neither elegant nor up to standard”. Fabien Roussel, the head of the French Communist party, said Macron was being “very naive” and “obsequious” in inviting Trump to Versailles after the US president’s hostility towards him and France. “He’s rolling out the red carpet while we’re being fleeced,” Roussel said. Mathilde Panot, the head of the parliamentary group of the leftwing party La France Insoumise, said: “The flattery is not working.” Panot added that Trump had “insulted France and Europe multiple times”. Éric Coquerel, an MP for LFI, said there was too much “grovelling” to a US that was increasingly “aggressive and very imperialist”. Nathalie Loiseau, a centre-right European parliament member who served as Europe minister during Macron’s first term, told France Inter radio that the “flattery” approach to Trump didn’t necessarily work. “He’s not someone who is easy, it’s true. But I’m not sure the more you bow to him, the more he respects you.” But Alice Rufo, a junior defence minister, said this moment of “courtesy” towards Trump at Versailles did not prevent France speaking “frankly and clearly”. Macron has often used the Palace of Versailles as a backdrop for international diplomacy, including hosting Vladimir Putin there in 2017, and staging a state dinner for King Charles in 2023.

I’ll resume bombing if Iran acts up, Trump warns after criticism of deal

Donald Trump has responded to criticism of his ceasefire deal with Iran, warning at the G7 summit that he was prepared to go back to dropping bombs and insisting the deal did not require the US to pay even 10 cents to Iran. At the same time, he has backed a G7 leaders’ joint statement that welcomes the deal but says a follow-on agreement is necessary to rein in Iran’s ballistic missile programme, an issue not directly addressed in the memorandum of understanding that is due to be signed on Friday by Iran and the US. The G7 statement says future negotiations with Iran would benefit from the involvement of a wider group of regional and international actors including the UN nuclear weapons agency, the IAEA. Trump is under attack, including from some of his domestic supporters, for conducting a war against Iran that has ended in a negotiated deal that has met hardly any of its original objectives. At a side meeting at the French-hosted G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains on Wednesday, he promised that if Iran misbehaved he would “go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head”. He angrily rejected suggestions that the US would be contributing to a $300bn (£224bn) investment fund for Iran but did not deny its existence, instead saying payouts by Gulf states were likely to be conditional on Iran’s good behaviour. “Anyone who wants to can invest. What do you expect me to say, no one is allowed to invest? But we’re not investing; we’re not putting up even 10 cents,” he said. “If they [others] want to, they can make this investment. What should I say, no one can ever invest in this country?” He added: “I don’t think the Gulf countries will do this for a while, until they see Iran’s behaviour; this is a matter of behaviour.” Praising the deal he had struck and claiming no previous US president had been as tough on Iran as him, he said: “There is nothing as smart as the market and the market loves it.” Trump said: “The alternative would be a worldwide depression”, arguing that if he had not struck a deal, “the strait [of Hormuz] would never have been opened. They don’t like floating billion-dollar ships up and down the strait when their rockets are flying overhead and there are mines all over the place.” He claimed the price of oil per barrel had fallen to $72 – Brent crude dipped below $80 on Tuesday – and would soon fall below the level it had been at before the war. The G7 proposal for further talks involving European leaders about Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for proxy forces is bound to be rejected by Iran. Tehran has been negotiating exclusively with the US and regards Europe as largely irrelevant. Iran is also likely to reject France and Britain’s plan for a taskforce to escort ships through the strait of Hormuz, a proposal endorsed in the G7 leaders’ statement. On Ukraine, the G7 leaders hailed the battlefield momentum and called for fresh pressure against Russia through sanctions and additional arms deliveries to Kyiv. The G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains, chaired by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, brings together the world’s most powerful economies: the US, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada and Japan. The joint G7 statement issued on Wednesday morning suggests Trump unusually has been willing to go some way to accommodating concerns of other leaders on issues on which he has been acting unilaterally, particularly in the cases of Iran and Ukraine. The leaders said: “We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures, as President Trump has delivered a deal that we support in reopening the strait of Hormuz.” The deal reopens the strait and reiterates Iran’s opposition to possessing nuclear weapons but postpones talks on how to dilute or destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Trump has said he was open to the stockpile being diluted inside Iran under the supervision of the IAEA. The memorandum agrees to immediately lift US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and a series of related industries, and to create a $300bn reconstruction fund. The G7 leaders said the agreement, due to be signed on Friday in Switzerland, provided “an historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon and tackling the threats related to its regional and ballistic activities. We support and are ready to contribute to its implementation.” Reaffirming the right of transit passage without restrictions or tolls as a bedrock of international trade, the leaders said: “The multinational, independent and defensive initiative led by France and the UK can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic in the strait of Hormuz.” The G7 leaders stated they “strongly support a robust and comprehensive diplomatic follow-on agreement to the memorandum of understanding secured by President Trump that can bring peace and security for all in the region”, implying that the memorandum of understanding was considered too narrow. Europe has been excluded from the talks the US has conducted with Iran since Trump became president, with some claiming the stretched and relatively small US negotiating team has lacked the expertise to match the Iranian side. The G7 statement also calls for further economic pressure on Russia, the first time Trump has put his name to a joint G7 statement on the subject – a decision hailed by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, as a gamechanger revealing a new realism by Trump on Ukraine. To accelerate new momentum in Ukraine, the G7 agreed “to increase the delivery of air defence capacities, additional systems and interceptors, and long-range capabilities. We are also ready to consider extending to Ukraine the benefit of licences to allow for an increase in Ukraine’s military production.” Promising to help Ukraine get through next winter, the statement commits to increasing the pressure on the Russian war economy by strengthening sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors.

Construction equipment multinationals may be aiding Israeli war crimes, experts say

Human rights experts have alleged that six multinational construction equipment conglomerates may be aiding and abetting war crimes by supplying excavators and bulldozers to Israel, after photos and videos showed the Israeli military using their equipment to demolish villages in south Lebanon. The Guardian geolocated and verified images showing the Israeli military using excavators made by six companies – Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, Doosan, Hitachi and Komatsu – to destroy homes, public utilities, shops and other structures across southern Lebanon. Israel has levelled entire villages inside the “yellow line”, a 608 sq km area occupied by Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border. At least 46 villages in south Lebanon have suffered heavy damage, most of it caused by demolitions carried out after the 17 April Lebanon-Israel ceasefire, according to a satellite analysis by Bellingcat. The Israeli military said it was destroying Hezbollah infrastructure, with Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, calling for “all homes in Lebanese villages near the border” to be destroyed to “remove threats”. However, Human Rights Watch has said that Israel’s wide-scale destruction of villages could amount to wanton destruction – a war crime. Displaced residents have watched from afar as videos show craters and vast fields of rubble where their family homes once stood. Much of that destruction is being carried out by excavators and bulldozers produced and sold to Israel by foreign companies. Two pictures taken by the Associated Press on 12 and 15 April in the Lebanese border town of Mays al-Jabal show excavators from all six companies among flattened houses, as well as Hyundai, Caterpillar and Komatsu excavators actively destroying homes. Videos from the Lebanese border towns of Naqoura and Debel in April also showed the Israeli military using foreign-produced excavators to destroy homes and other infrastructure. Surveillance footage captured the Israeli military using a Volvo excavator to destroy solar panels and water infrastructure in Debel, a key source of electricity and water for the residents of the besieged town. The Israeli military, commenting on the incident in Debel, said the actions seen in the video were “not in line with the IDF’s values”, and that the incident was under investigation. Human rights experts said that supplying the construction equipment that enables the Israeli military to destroy homes and villages in south Lebanon could make these companies complicit in any war crimes and potentially lead to their executives facing legal consequences. Foreign companies should stop supplying heavy construction equipment to Israel until they are assured that it will not be used in war crimes, the experts said. “Businesses carrying out activities that contribute to serious international law violations in Lebanon, such as the extensive destruction of civilian property, may expose themselves, or their individual directors and managers, to the risk of prosecution for complicity in war crimes,” said Mark Dummett, the deputy programme director and head of business, security and human rights at Amnesty International. Dummett added that Israel’s “longer track record” of using military and civilian excavators to carry out demolitions in the West Bank, often in violation of international law, should have already raised concerns among companies continuing to supply equipment to Israel. He said: “Any basic corporate human rights due diligence process would have flagged the risks of the company contributing to these abuses and should have triggered robust measures to ensure that their machinery and equipment were not involved in abuses.” For decades, the Israeli military has used foreign-produced excavators to demolish the homes of Palestinians, often in circumstances that could amount to forced displacement and war crimes. Most recently, Caterpillar has come under scrutiny after the majority of US Democratic senators voted in April to block a $295m sale of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to Israel. Caterpillar’s D9 armoured bulldozer has become notorious for its use by the Israeli military to demolish homes and for crushing the nonviolent US activist Rachel Corrie to death in 2003 in Gaza. Four of the six companies identified in Lebanon – excluding Hitachi and Komatsu – were named in a report by the UN special rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, as companies that profit from Israel’s displacement of Palestinians. Evidence of their products being used to commit widely documented abuses has seemingly not given some of these companies pause. Instead, companies such as Caterpillar have signed new multimillion dollar deals to supply the Israeli military with equipment. Now, excavators from Caterpillar and other multinationals are being used to systematically destroy dozens of villages in south Lebanon, after decades of similar destruction in Palestine. Much of this destruction has been carried out by the placing of charges, as in the case of the town of Qantara, where the Israeli military used 450 tonnes of explosives to level structures there. But the Israeli military has also used excavators to destroy border villages, relying on civilian contractors who bring in their construction equipment to assist with the demolitions. According to Haaretz, some contractors are paid based on the number of buildings they destroy. The construction equipment is supplied directly to the Israeli military and to local partners in Israel, where they are sold commercially to civilian construction firms. Because the Israeli military outsources its demolition work to civilian contractors, it means that any excavator or bulldozer exported to Israel – even if not sent to the military directly – could be used to destroy homes in Lebanon or Gaza. In the past, construction companies supplying heavy equipment to Israel have said they are not responsible for and cannot control how their products are used once they are sold. Volvo, Komatsu, Hitachi and HD Construction Equipment – which operates the Hyundai brand – said they had internal policies to ensure that human rights were respected, including in their contracts with dealers who sell their equipment. Volvo, Hitachi and Komatsu said they had limited ability to control what customers did with their products once they were sold to dealers, while HD Construction Equipment said the equipment bearing the Hyundai logo pictured in Lebanon was not sold by them and was “entirely unrelated”. Caterpillar did not reply to a request for a comment and Doosan is no longer being produced. However, business and human rights experts have said that pleading ignorance does not hold much weight given the abundance of evidence that their products are being used in human rights abuses. Alreem Kamal, an international lawyer who works on corporate accountability in the Middle East, said: “The documented use of similar equipment in contexts such as Gaza means that companies cannot plausibly claim that they were unaware of the risks. “The harm is foreseeable, and they bear a responsibility to take appropriate measures accordingly. Failure to do so may expose these companies to legal, reputational and financial consequences.” The UN has set out guidelines for corporations under the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. Under the UN principles, companies have a responsibility to avoid causing or contributing to human rights violations, and to mitigate human rights abuses directly linked to their products. The guidelines are nonbinding, but Sweden, Japan, and South Korea – where Volvo, Komatsu, Hitachi, Doosan and Hyundai are headquartered – have developed national action plans to implement the UN principles. The US, where Caterpillar is based, does not have an action plan. There is a legal precedent of executives and corporations being held accountable for selling products used in human rights violations, starting with the Nuremberg trials. Thirteen directors of IG Farben, a German chemical conglomerate, were charged for selling to the Nazis Zyklon B, the gas used to murder Jewish people and others during the Holocaust. In recent years, national courts are increasingly holding companies and their executives accountable for complicity in crimes committed abroad in conflict settings. French courts convicted the French cement company Lafarge and four former executives in April 2026 for financing terrorism for their role in paying armed groups in Syria, including Islamic State. In Sweden, a court case is continuing against two former executives of the Swedish oil company Lundin Energy, now Orrön Energy, who are accused of complicity in war crimes in what is now South Sudan. Both former executives deny the allegations. Kamal said: “The broader trend is clear: scrutiny of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes is growing and the impunity that has long protected them is steadily eroding.”

Milan tram drivers accused of sharing CCTV images of female passengers’ thighs and breasts

A group of tram drivers in Milan have been suspended from their jobs amid an investigation into a WhatsApp group in which they allegedly exchanged sexist and vulgar comments about images of female passengers. Milan prosecutors placed at least one employee of ATM, the city’s public transport firm, under investigation on Tuesday for allegedly accessing an IT system without authorisation and for hacking a CCTV system to obtain images of female passengers. Searches of the homes of five other male employees and the confiscation of their mobile phones and other devices have been ordered, according to reports in the Italian press. The drivers allegedly commented on photos taken from CCTV that homed in on the legs, faces, breasts and thighs of female passengers. The allegations emerged after a woman travelling on the number 15 tram on Saturday noticed an off-duty driver, still wearing his uniform and sitting in front of her, viewing a WhatsApp group chat on his phone allegedly containing such images along with sexist comments and jokes about the women’s bodies. Realising the images had come from CCTV, which is installed on every tram in Milan for safety purposes, she took a photo of the chat on the off-duty driver’s screen and sent it to a high-profile feminist activist who reported it to ATM. ATM, which is conducting an internal inquiry, said in a statement: “ATM has acted promptly and with the utmost attention to fully clarify the episode, verify the proper use of company tools, protect customers and the thousands of employees who work correctly every day in service of the city.” It is unclear whether the images came from the CCTV system on just one tram or several, or if they were shared beyond the group chat. Marco Maria Donzelli, the president in Lombardy for Codacons, the Italian consumer watchdog that filed a formal complaint with Milan prosecutors, said: “This is a very serious incident that requires clarity, because if the facts that have emerged are confirmed, we would be faced with serious offences punishable by our criminal code, which would also pave the way for civil claims for compensation by the victims.” The leaders of various transport unions said in a joint statement that “respect for human dignity and gender equality are essential values”. The issue of online misogyny is prevalent in Italy. There was outrage last summer after a pornographic website featuring doctored images of prominent women, including the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, came to light. Meloni criticised the circulation of AI-generated deepfake images of her in May, including one depicting her in lingerie.