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Ukraine war live: Russia says it has moved its nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles into Belarus

War analysts note no typical evidence of a Ukrainian strike into Russia regarding alleged Putin residence attack The Institute for the Study of War has also published some useful insights in assessing if the claimed attack on Putin’s residence actually happened. As we’ve been reporting, Moscow hasn’t shown a shred of evidence for the attack which supposedly involved 89 drones. “The circumstances of this alleged strike do not conform to the pattern of observed evidence when Ukrainian forces conduct strikes into Russia.” ISW analysts say, noting that confirmed Ukrainian strikes in Russia typically generate evidence observable in open sources. Evidence would normally be footage of air defence operations, explosions, fires, or smoke plumes near the target A Ukrainian attack often can also be picked up in statements from local Russian officials, typically downplaying successful strikes as “debris” from downed drones There are also usually reports in local media of fire or damage to the targets “ISW has not observed any such footage nor local or regional reporting about Ukrainian strikes near Putin’s residence to corroborate [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov’s claim,” the analysts say. They added that the detail about 89 drones being downed over Novgorod oblast was “inconsistent” with the Russian defence ministry’s own tally of 47 Ukrainian drones being downed by their defences on the night of 28 December. “The Kremlin has offered no evidence to support its claim that Ukrainian forces targeted Putin’s residence on December 29.”

UAE promises to withdraw forces from Yemen after bombing by Saudi Arabia

The United Arab Emirates has said it will withdraw its remaining forces in Yemen after Saudi Arabia bombed what it said was a shipment of weapons for separatists which had arrived from the UAE. The Emirati defence ministry announced the decision on Tuesday afternoon, citing “recent developments and their potential repercussions on the safety and effectiveness of counter-terrorism operations”, without saying when the withdrawal might happen. The statement came after a strike by Saudi Arabia on Yemen’s port city of Mukalla, targeting what it said was a weapons shipment from the UAE meant for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a Yemeni separatist force. The strike was understood to be a shot across the bow by Saudi Arabia after UAE-backed forces had made unprecedented territorial gains in Yemen in recent weeks, angering Riyadh. But an STC spokesperson dismissed calls for the group to withdraw, saying the separatists would hold their territory. “There is no thinking about withdrawal. It is unreasonable for the landowner to be asked to leave his own land. The situation requires staying and reinforcing,” Anwar Al-Tamimi told AFP. “We are in a defensive position, and any movement toward our forces will be responded to by our forces,” he added. The UAE had earlier said it was “surprised” by the Saudi strike, claiming that the shipment did not contain any weapons and was meant for UAE forces, rather than any Yemeni groups. The attack came amid tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, after the STC made significant territorial gains, stunning Riyadh. The two countries back different groups that are loosely aligned against the Iran-backed Houthis, which control the most populous parts of Yemen, but still compete among themselves within the territories they control. The UAE backs the STC and other militia groups, while Saudi Arabia backs the military wing of the internationally recognised government of Yemen, as well as the Hadhramout Tribal Alliance. In November the STC, a powerful group of tribes seeking to create an independent state in southern Yemen, took control of key areas in the south of the country. Some of the territorial gains came at the expense of Saudi-backed forces in the country and left UAE-supported groups in control of most of southern Yemen, including key port cities, oil facilities and islands. Saudi troops withdrew from its bases in Aden after STC forces seized the presidential palace there – a move that Saudi Arabia said was part of a “repositioning strategy”. The strikes are signs of Saudi displeasure at the UAE’s manoeuvres in Yemen and will ratchet up tension between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh as competition between the two heats up in the Red Sea area. Tuesday’s attack was followed by measures announced by the chair of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, a Saudi-aligned figure who chairs the internationally recognised government of Yemen. Al-Alimi ordered all UAE military forces to withdraw from Yemen within 24 hours, a 90-day state of emergency, and the blockade of all land and sea ports for 72 hours. Analysts describe the STC and other UAE-backed groups as the strongest factions militarily within the anti-Houthi coalition, so it remains to be seen how much support Saudi Arabia is willing to lend its allies in Yemen to fight the group. As many as 20,000 Saudi-backed forces have reportedly gathered on the border of Yemen. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the resumption of full-scale fighting in Yemen could destabilise the entire Red Sea area, and urged a de-escalation between all parties. The war in Yemen has killed an estimated 377,000 people, according to the UN, and nearly half of the population faces hunger due to the continuing civil war. A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced Tuesday’s strikes, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah, a port city on the UAE’s eastern coast. “The ships’ crew had the disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the STC forces,” it said. “Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla.” The STC’s AIC satellite news channel acknowledged the strikes, without providing details. The attack is likely to have targeted a ship identified by analysts as the Greenland, a roll-on, roll-off vessel flagged out of St Kitts. Tracking data showed the vessel had been in Fujairah on 22 December and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second vessel could not be immediately identified. Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and the founder of the Basha Report, a risk advisory firm, cited social media videos that purported to show new armoured vehicles rolling through Mukalla after the ship’s arrival. The ship’s owners, based in Dubai, could not be immediately reached. “I expect a calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed STC is likely to respond by consolidating control,” al-Basha said. “At the same time, the flow of weapons from the UAE to the STC is set to be curtailed following the port attack, particularly as Saudi Arabia controls the airspace.” Footage later aired by Saudi state television, which appeared to be filmed by a surveillance aircraft, purportedly showed the armoured vehicles moving through Mukalla to a staging area. The types of vehicles corresponded to the social media footage. Mukalla is in Yemen’s Hadhramaut governorate, which the STC had seized in recent days. The port city is 480km north-east of Aden, which has been the seat of power for anti-Houthi forces in Yemen after the rebels seized the capital, Sana’a, in 2014. The strike in Mukalla comes after Saudi Arabia targeted the council in airstrikes on Friday, which analysts described as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and leave the governorates of Hadhramaut and Mahra. Those aligned with the council have increasingly flown the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967 to 1990. Demonstrators have been rallying for days to support political forces calling for South Yemen to secede again from Yemen. The actions by the separatists have put pressure on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which maintain close relations and are members of the Opec oil cartel but also have competed for influence and international business in recent years. UAE support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan has reportedly angered Saudi Arabia, after the RSF committed mass atrocities in the Sudanese city of El Fasher. The two are also at odds over Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia where the UAE has a military base and airstrip. The UAE notably did not join Saudi Arabia and 20 other countries and Islamic organisations in issuing a statement condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland on Friday. The Associated Press contributed to this report

Campaigner turned down MBE over ‘scapegoating’ of people with disabilities

The head of one of Scotland’s foremost disability rights charities says she turned down an MBE in the recent new year honours because the UK government was “fuelling hatred, blame and scapegoating of people with disabilities”. Tressa Burke, chief executive officer of the Glasgow Disability Alliance, had been recommended by the prime minister for the honour for her services to people with disabilities. Over two decades, Burke has grown the organisation from seed into a nationally recognised voice for disabled people in Scotland’s largest city, and supported more than 5,000 members through the pandemic. But in her letter declining the proposed award, seen by the Guardian, Burke told the Cabinet Office: “I feel that I cannot accept a personal honour because disabled people are being so dishonoured at this time. “In fact we are being demonised, dehumanised and scapegoated for political choices and policy failures by consecutive governments.” Burke, who emphasises she means no disrespect to colleagues in the voluntary sector who have accepted similar honours, explains that she received the letter of recommendation on the day of the UK budget, which introduced stricter assessments for personal independent payments, frozen or reduced universal credit health top-ups and cuts to the Motability scheme. “The budget was an opportunity to send out a signal not about how much disabled people cost but about how much disabled people are worth and are valued by society.” Instead, she says, it has “supercharged the inequalities and unfairness disabled people face”. “It is fuelling misinformation. It is fuelling hatred. It is fuelling blame and scapegoating. When the biggest problem we have is that taxation needs to be addressed and if we could all get behind that, including the most wealthy people, we would be able to offer the provision of a welfare state.” Burke also challenges the government’s “negative framing” of disability, which she says is happening at the same time as “growing attacks by the far right about whether or not [disabled] people have any entitlement to things and lots of misinformation”. While she argues that “Scotland is doing better than the UK for sure”, Burke says her members will be watching carefully for the practical implementation of the Scottish government’s new disability equality plan, as well as what manifesto commitments are made before May’s Holyrood elections. Burke, who will have been running the GDA for 20 years this coming May, said she also balked at “individualising” the achievements of her organisation. The organisation is built around the twin pillars of supporting people at an individual level and reducing their social isolation, then building confidence and their collective voice to influence policy and services. “Ultimately I am most proud of the people power of GDA – the board, the staff and the members – all disabled people working together to improve disabled people’s lives at the individual and collective level.” “The peer support that members give each other, the friendships that have sprung up, people have even got married … that’s just something to be proud of. The sense of community and belonging that GDA members have. It feels like being part of a family for thousands of people.”

Russia still importing Michelin aviation tyres despite sanctions, records suggest

Russia has continued to use intermediary companies, including one apparently based in the UK, to import aviation tyres made by the French firm Michelin despite attempts to stop the trade, customs records suggest. Despite sanctions on the sale of civilian and aviation tyres to Russia, which is critically dependent on foreign suppliers, an analysis of records indicates that a significant number are continuing to get through. The Guardian reported in September 2024 that shipments of Michelin tyres worth $28m had been received in 2023 despite the company having ceased all exports to Russia since March 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. New data suggests that sales have continued, although in reduced numbers, despite Michelin’s rolling attempts to cut off the trade by adapting their systems for monitoring the diversion of their products. Between October 2024, after the publication of the Guardian’s report, and March 2025, Russia received 2,687 Michelin tyres worth more than $7m (£5.2m), records analysed by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine indicate. Analysis of the full year of 2024, suggests that sales were facilitated by intermediaries, none of which are clients of Michelin. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Michelin, which has closed all its commercial and industrial activities in Russia. Deliveries appear to have been sent by companies based in Turkey, Spain, Saudi Arabia, India and one apparently British firm named as General Trade Solutions (UK). There is no firm registered with the UK’s Companies House of that name. The largest Russian importer in 2024 of Michelin tyres, Melaris LLC, was a supplier of the Russian military- industrial complex. A spokesperson for Michelin said the company was “committed to scrupulously complying with applicable economic and financial sanctions concerning Russia” and had “established dedicated internal processes and organisation to ensure this compliance”. The company said that none of the Michelin tyres seemingly exported to Russia were for military use and that it had recently strengthened its compliance programme by “implementing enhanced controls in addition to existing measures to further mitigate diversion risk”. The spokesperson added: “The adaptation of our compliance programme to diversion risk has significantly reduced instances of circumventions, as indicated by your recent figures. “However, we remain vigilant regarding the quality of the data provided by such reports, as there is no guarantee that the tyres mentioned are indeed Michelin Group products notably due to risk of counterfeiting and false declaration. “Furthermore, it is important to note that the aviation tyre industry is unique, with standard compatibility of an aviation tyre across all copies of the same aircraft model and a complex commercial chain involving several distributors and resellers.” Roman Steblivskyi, a policy expert with the Economic Security Council of Ukraine, said: “Russian aviation – civilian and military alike – remains dependent on western aviation tyres due to their superior quality. Therefore, Michelin should take a more proactive approach in preventing the illicit re-export of its products to Russia through third countries. “Michelin’s duty of care frameworks refer to tracking the origins of specific minerals under the ‘human rights’ section; however, they do not address monitoring or preventing the supply of Michelin products to authoritarian states such as Russia. “This gap raises questions about whether the company’s due-diligence standards are aligned with the current geopolitical environment and the risks associated with sanctions evasion.” France’s duty of care (vigilance) law requires large French companies to create and publish a plan to identify, prevent, and mitigate risks to human rights, health, safety, and the environment across their own operations, subsidiaries, and supply chains. A Michelin spokesperson said export control and sanctions risks were not something that French legislation required them to address but that “even if not explicitly mentioned in our latest duty of care plan, Michelin Group has implemented and consistently reviewed and strengthened its export control and sanctions compliance policy, adapting its measures and controls to address diversion risks”.

Cecilia Giménez, famed for ‘Monkey Christ’ mural mishap, dies at 94

Cecilia Giménez, the woman who achieved unwanted international fame for her botched “Monkey Christ” restoration of a 19th-century mural in Borja, north-east Spain, has died aged 94. In 2012, Giménez, an amateur artist, decided to restore Ecce Homo, a mural by a local artist, Elías García Martínez, that hung in the Santuario de Misericordia church in Borja. However, her talent as an artist was not equal to her good intentions and she produced what was described as the worst restoration in history. Amid the storm of mockery and bad publicity over what became known as the Monkey Christ, Giménez took to her bed with an attack of anxiety, losing 17kg (37lb) in the process. However, she soon found that notoriety had an upside as people began bidding to buy her own art, which she sold on eBay, and she later donated the proceeds to a Catholic charity. The botched restoration became first an internet sensation and then a tourist attraction and the church began charging for admission. Ryanair laid on special flights to Zaragoza, the nearest airport, and today thousands of people continue to visit the village to see her work. Not only has the picture’s fame provided jobs for the sanctuary-museum’s two caretakers, but the €600,000 it has brought to the village helps fund places at Borja’s care home for elderly people. In 2023, Behold the Man (English for Ecce Homo), an opera based on the story written by Andrew Flack, a US public relations expert, with music composed by Paul Fowler had its world premiere at Opera Las Vegas. Giménez was not well enough to attend but her niece was there on opening night to represent the family. Eduardo Arilla, the mayor of Borja, said in his tribute to Giménez that she had lived a hard life. She was widowed while still young with two disabled children, one of whom died of muscular dystrophy. Arilla said the greatest homage that could be paid to anyone was what they had done with their life, emphasising the benefits she had brought to Borja. He said the Ecce Homo centre would be named after her, and perhaps a street or a square. The local church said in a statement: “Cecilia was a devoted mother and a fighter, a strong woman, but above all we should talk about her generosity which has won her the whole world’s affection.”

Israeli president’s office denies Trump’s claim Netanyahu pardon is ‘on its way’

The office of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has denied a claim by Donald Trump that Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges, would soon receive a pardon. Speaking shortly before his meeting in Florida with the Israeli prime minister on Monday night, Trump said he had been told by Herzog that a pardon was “on its way”. “How can you not?” Trump said. “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?” Trump added that he “spoke to [Herzog] and he tells me it’s on its way. You can’t do better than that, right?” Netanyahu, Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime, denies bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges brought in 2019. His supporters have dismissed his trials as politically motivated. The 76-year-old could be sent to prison if convicted, and a lengthy ban on holding public office would be part of any sentence. Given Netanyahu’s age, this would end his political career, Israeli analysts say. Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of a pardon for Netanyahu, in social media posts and during a speech to Israel’s national assembly in October. A month later, the US president wrote a formal letter to Herzog urging him to grant clemency and describing the case as “political, unjustified prosecution”. Asked on Monday about Trump’s remarks, Herzog’s office said the Israeli president had not had any conversations with Trump since receiving the letter in November. “There has not been a conversation between President Herzog and President Trump since the pardon request was submitted,” Herzog’s office said in a statement issued a few minutes after Trump’s comments. Responding to that earlier request, Herzog’s office said the Israeli president appreciated Trump’s “unwavering support of Israel, his immense contribution to the return of the hostages, the transformation of the Middle East and Gaza and the safeguarding of Israel’s security” but stressed that “anyone seeking a pardon must submit a request in accordance with the established procedures”. Many in Israel were outraged by Trump’s intervention, saying it infringed national sovereignty. Herzog’s office said the Israeli president had spoken to a representative for Trump then and it was explained that any decision would be made in accordance with established procedures. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is reported to have met Herzog earlier this year to discuss cancelling Netanyahu’s trial. Herzog delivered a lengthy lecture explaining why this was not in his power, a Jerusalem Post columnist reported. “The cases are proceeding at an infuriatingly slow pace but they are closing in on the defendant. Therefore, a pardon is required. Actually, not a pardon. For a pardon, you have to admit and step down. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the trial must be cancelled. At any cost,” Ben Caspit wrote. Netanyahu himself submitted a formal pardon request to Herzog on 30 November, arguing that frequent court hearings impaired his ability to govern and that clemency served the national interest by acting to “lower the flames and promote broad reconciliation”. The request by the six-time prime minister drew fierce criticism from opponents, who said pardoning him mid-trial would be a total breach of the rule of law. Experts say that although presidential powers of pardon can be exercised with some flexibility, they are intended to be used after conviction of an individual and there is no precedent for cancelling an ongoing trial, as Netanyahu and Trump are demanding. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 (£198,000) worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours. He is also accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.

‘Data is control’: what we learned from a year investigating the Israeli military’s ties to big tech

In January this year, Harry Davies and Yuval Abraham first reported that Microsoft had deepened its ties to Israel alongside other major tech firms. Since then, the Guardian has published an award-winning series of investigations – in partnership with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call – that has revealed a symbiotic relationship between Silicon Valley and the Israeli military. One investigation exposed an Israeli mass surveillance program scooping up virtually all Palestinian phone calls and storing them on Microsoft’s cloud services – setting off an inquiry that ultimately prompted the company to cut off Israel’s access to some of its technology. Another story revealed that the Israeli military created a ChatGPT-like tool to analyze data collected through the surveillance of Palestinians. Yet another revealed that Google and Amazon had agreed to extraordinary terms to clinch a lucrative contract with Israel. I asked Davies and Abraham to discuss what they learned this year – about the role of these technologies in Israel’s assault on Gaza, whether these business ties are sustainable, and what the revelations tell us about how the wars of the future will be fought. How did Israel’s relationships with these companies change after October 7? Yuval Abraham: The Israeli military had been fetishizing artificial intelligence and big data for many years – a trend that is very much connected to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, because the occupation generates a lot of data. What changed after October 7 was the scope. The military was looking to bomb hundreds of targets every day in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people were recruited into reserve duty. That meant a huge spike in usage of technological systems. That’s where the big tech companies stepped in. Harry Davies: There was a huge surge in demand – not just for the storage capacities of the tech companies, but also for the products that they offer to analyze the information used to prosecute a war. What’s valuable for the military is the way in which these services are able to provide what’s known as “blob storage”, which allows them to store and process infinite amounts of raw intelligence information. What has made Israel such an appealing market for these companies? Yuval Abraham: As we reported, the Israeli army has been collecting Palestinian phone calls for a long time. But when you want to collect the phone calls of an entire population every day, and you want to retain those phone calls for long periods of time, you need a lot of storage room and processing power. If you remember the [Edward] Snowden revelations, many of them had to do with metadata, which doesn’t weigh a lot. But the Israeli military also wanted to store mass audio files, images or videos – and for that it felt it needed the assistance of companies like Microsoft. In the West Bank, sources have told us this information has been used to find dirt on people to blackmail them. In the Gaza Strip, we know that this massive trove of intercepted phone calls was also used in airstrikes that killed civilians. So data is power and data is control. And these American cloud providers allow the Israeli military to store a lot of data and to sift through it very effectively. That has direct consequences for people on the ground. Harry Davies: Yossi Sariel, the former head of [Israel’s elite spy agency] Unit 8200, wrote a book under a pseudonym that we revealed to have been published by him. In that book, he articulated what at the time was a bold and radical vision – as Yuval described, this fetishization of Silicon Valley technology. He recognized the possibilities that the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft could afford the Israeli military. Two years before October 7, he said that militaries and governments needed to forge relationships with these companies that are similar to the relationships they have with companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. So he was already thinking about these companies as instrumental to war and surveillance in the way that a defense contractor provides components for fighter jets or manufactures bombs and missiles. Some of our reporting has looked at how elements of his vision have come true and have been put into effect, both before October 7 and afterwards, in both the West Bank and Gaza. We know AI is central to Israel’s military operations – its army has developed its own AI capabilities, as you revealed, Yuval, and has also purchased AI tools for use from Microsoft. Why is AI so central to Israel’s broader war aims? Yuval Abraham: What AI did was allow Israel to achieve the effective results of carpet bombing without losing the legitimacy of a data-driven assault with targets and objectives. In Gaza, one way in which the Israeli military used AI was to give a score to almost every person in Gaza who has a phone number, determining how likely it was that person was a member of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. This score was based on a machine-learning algorithm [developed by Israel] called Lavender. It was trained on a dataset of known Hamas members. AI allowed the Israeli military to generate and bomb tens of thousands of military targets, on a scale that without AI would not have been humanly possible. Many of the targets were not Hamas members, according to sources. And Israel for the most part bombed these people not while they were engaged in military activity, but when they stepped inside their families’ homes. These AI systems had an error rate that the Israeli military knew about. But to me, the key thing about AI is not the mistakes that it makes. It’s the scale of destruction that it allows militaries to unleash, and it’s a discourse of legitimacy that it enables – a discourse of targets and collateral damage. AI also seems to me to incentivize mass surveillance, right? Because it allows for the analysis of ever-growing reams of information. Harry Davies: Signals intelligence agencies have long collected more information than they could humanly process. That served as a kind of restraint on their ability to conduct mass surveillance. I think we’re now seeing a shift where AI allows an intelligence agency like Unit 8200 to make sense of things that previously it struggled to make sense of. Microsoft explicitly credited your reporting for changing its policies. Are you seeing any other signs of shifts within the tech industry? Harry Davies: I think we’re seeing a lot of discomfort and dissent within these companies at both a junior and to some extent senior level. Many employees have been disturbed to find what the products and services that they’re working around the clock to build and market are actually contributing to. There have been protest groups which have emerged from current and former employees within these companies. That’s true across Silicon Valley. I think that played some role in the decision that Microsoft made as a result of our reporting. They were facing a lot of pressure internally. Yuval Abraham: And there’s also a legal question for these companies: if the ICJ [international court of justice] ends up ruling that Israel has committed a genocide, then a follow-up question will be: who contributed to that genocide? Which companies helped maintain it and sustain it? For some people in these companies who are thinking ahead, that could also be a cause for concern. It sounds like you think shifts in public support for Israel could actually affect these business relationships. Yuval Abraham: Israel has developed a reliance on these companies for its Nimbus project, which is a huge contract signed between Israel and Google and Amazon back in 2021. It is moving the data of many of its government ministries, along with troves of information from the Ministry of Defense, onto these companies’ cloud servers. These are US companies. They’re taking a certain gamble here that the US will stay loyal to Israel and won’t block, limit or sanction them. Microsoft only blocked access to technology that was specifically enabling the mass surveillance of Palestinian phone calls – there are still many relationships between Microsoft and the Israeli military. But Microsoft’s action made many people in the Israeli system nervous. It was the first time we know of that a big tech company withdrew services from the Israeli military. It made some people ask whether Israel is making a mistake by giving these foreign companies so much leverage. That question is folded within a larger question of what the US will do, what will happen in 2028 if there’s a more progressive administration in the White House, at a time when so many Americans believe that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza. What’s your focus going to be in 2026? Yuval Abraham: I think we only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. Harry Davies: We’re both very conscious that, although we have spent a lot of time working on this, we still just have glimpses inside the system. We’re continuing to build a fuller picture of how this technology was and continues to be used in Gaza and in the West Bank as well. There’s good reason to continue paying attention. Militaries pay attention to what other militaries are doing. There is great interest among other western militaries in how Israel prosecuted this war, in how it integrated these kind of technologies. And there are other militaries whose combat systems and processes are already deeply integrated with Silicon Valley tech. Take the American military, for example. Look at what’s happening right now in the Caribbean. Are those operations somehow free of the involvement or reliance on systems and services provided by these companies? I suspect not. We don’t know for sure, but the Pentagon and the US military have very big contracts with all of these companies to provide cloud services. Post-Gaza, we have to look at these relationships and ask: what is the involvement of these companies and their technology in military decisions, in military operations and in warfare more broadly? Yuval Abraham: Much of our reporting is based on whistleblowers, on individuals who are in proximity to power or hold positions of power. Harry Davies: Our confidential sources have remained confidential and we are always interested in hearing from new people. Our door is always open.

Trump should defy Netanyahu over nuclear talks with Iran, says its foreign minister

Donald Trump should defy Benjamin Netanyahu and realise renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme are a better bet and more likely to succeed owing to stronger support in the region for a successful outcome, the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Araghchi, says in a Guardian article. He also suggests Trump’s Republican base want a deal and not further unnecessary wars. Araghchi was writing a day after Netanyahu held talks with Trump in the US in which Israel’s calls to consider fresh attacks on Iran were discussed alongside the Gaza peace plan. Netanyahu claims Iran may be seeking to rebuild its nuclear programme after joint Israeli-US assaults on Iran in June severely damaged its key nuclear sites. Netanyahu has also been expressing growing concern about the risk to Israel posed by the neighbouring country’s missile programme. He will be emboldened by reports of protests running into a third day in the Tehran bazaar over its depreciating currency and rising inflation. On Monday, speaking alongside Netanyahu in Florida, Trump said: “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because, if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.” But Araghchi makes a direct appeal to Trump to set aside Israeli warnings and realise a narrow window has opened to restart negotiations with Iran. It is one of his most direct appeals to Washington to restart talks and include Iran in a recalibrated Middle East. He writes: “The US administration now faces a dilemma: it can continue writing blank cheques for Israel with American taxpayer dollars and credibility, or be part of a tectonic change for the better.” He insists Iran remains open to negotiation so long as a capitulation is not required and says an unnecessary crisis can be avoided through talks. He reveals without naming any specific country that he “has been made aware that there is an unprecedented willingness amongst mutual friends of Iran and the US to facilitate dialogue and underwrite the full and verifiable implementation of any negotiated outcome”. His remarks suggest Gulf states may be willing to provide guarantees about any future nuclear programme, but Araghchi gives no hint that Iran is prepared to back down over its insistence on its right to enrich uranium domestically for civilian use, the issue that dogged US-Iran negotiations. He argues all signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty have a right to access all aspects of a peaceful nuclear programme. Araghchi says any future talks could take place in a more propitious context since the assaults on Iran in June had changed diplomatic alliances across the Middle East, showing that Iran has the strategic depth to resist Israel, while in the US hostility towards Israeli brinkmanship is growing. He writes: “The shifts in our region can enable implementation of understandings in a whole new way. For those willing to go where no one has gone before, there is a brief window of opportunity. Fortune favours the brave and it takes a lot more guts to break an evil cycle than to simply perpetuate it. He added “a rising number of Americans realise that Israel is not an ally but a liability”, adding Trump’s Arab allies have come to view Israel’s recklessness as “a threat to us all”. Despite the heavy economic pressure on Iran, revealed by its plunging currency and budget deficit, Iran’s leaders believe they emerged psychologically stronger from the June war than expected. Those in Israel and Washington that think Iran is weaker than Araghchi claims will point to a continued crackdown on dissent, sporadic protests, spiralling executions and an inability to break out of the cage of US economic sanctions. But Araghchi claims Israel has repeatedly misled Washington “into believing that Iran was nearing collapse, that the 2015 nuclear deal was a lifeline for us, and that abandoning the accord would compel us to quickly concede”. Those myths encouraged Washington to abandon a functional diplomatic framework in favour of “maximum pressure” that produced only “maximum resistance”.