US president Donald Trump responded to the reports coming out of Geneva overnight, posting on his Truth Social account: “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
When Operation Orión began in October 2002, Hermey Mejía thought the violence that had ravaged his corner of Medellín for decades would finally come to an end. The 22-year-old told his mother, Teresa Gómez, that he hoped Colombia’s armed forces would get rid of the urban guerrillas who ruled the streets of Comuna 13, then one of the most dangerous districts in the world. The area, of strategic importance for drugs and weapons trafficking, had long been trapped in a cycle of bloodshed: first under Pablo Escobar’s narcos, then, after their fall, leftwing militias. Instead, as the military sought to wrest back control, the streets became a battlefield once more. “Bullets, bullets, bullets, from above, in front of our homes, everywhere,” said Gómez. “They killed many people. Many more were taken. We all lived with fear.” The largest urban military assault in Colombia’s history was brutal. Helicopters fired on the streets from above; residents were dragged away in front of their families; women and girls were sexually abused; hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained, tortured or killed. At the time, the operation was hailed by figures such as then mayor Luis Pérez Gutiérrez and then president Álvaro Uribe as a victory against insurgents. But in the years since, Orión has also become a byword for the collusion between the army and rightwing paramilitaries, with testimonies revealing that the illegal groups entered alongside troops, kidnapping and killing suspected guerrilla collaborators. After the operations ended, the paramilitaries took control of the neighbourhood, ruling through fear, extortion and forced disappearances. “Hermey turned to me,” recalled Gómez. “He said, ‘Mum, these people are bad, these people are bad, we need to leave.’” Gómez told her son that they had nothing to hide. But then on 18 December 2002, Hermey, a computer engineering student and father-to-be, was forcibly disappeared. “He went out with his friend. He said he would be right back,” said Gómez. “But they took him.” For more than two decades Gómez and her family have fought for answers, searching the streets, filing complaints and petitioning the government. Years later, a former paramilitary confessed to participating in Hermey’s disappearance, admitting he had known at the time that the young man was innocent. But his body has never been found. Now Gómez hopes new excavations at a site known as La Escombrera will uncover his remains, and allow her family to finally lay him to rest. “Hermey is here,” said Gómez, looking down at the excavation site. “I can feel it.” La Escombrera, a former construction landfill, is one of the most notorious mass grave sites in urban Latin America. Armed groups have admitted to using it in the late 1990s and early 2000s to dispose of the people they abducted, tortured and killed, their bodies increasingly covered by an ever-growing pile of industrial waste. It is unknown how many are buried there, but estimates range from 400 to 600. “La Escombrera represents what violence and disappearance meant in Colombia during the conflict that took place over the last 60 years,” said Carlos Manuel Bacigalupo Salinas, a forensic anthropologist working at the site. “In this constant search for control, by the various armed agents, many people ended up disappearing.” Victims’ families and groups like the National Movement for Victims of State Crimes have long called for investigations into La Escombrera, but for years their requests went unanswered. “People said we were crazy, that we were lying,” said Luz Elena Galeano, 62, whose husband, Luis Javier Laverde Salazar, was disappeared in 2008. “It was known back in the 2000s that this was the spot where the bodies were taken, but nobody would look.” An earlier excavation in 2015 failed to uncover remains, shattering the families’ hopes. But now the search has been taken up by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a tribunal established after the 2016 peace deal to investigate and prosecute crimes that happened during Colombia’s armed conflict. Armed with satellite imagery, the testimony of former paramilitaries who have admitted to killing and burying people in La Escombrera, and investigations by the attorney general’s office, excavations are again under way. The task has been mammoth, said Salinas , describing it as one of the most significant forensic operations ever undertaken in Colombia – and possibly the world. About 56,000 cubic metres of rubble have been removed so far, with heavy machinery scraping only shallow layers under close supervision. Every load of earth is then sifted for human remains or traces of evidence. Those visiting Comuna 13 – now one of Colombia’s most popular tourist sites following a successful urban regeneration programme – can see the white forensic tents high on the hillside. In December 2024, the forensic team unearthed the first human skeletal remains, a significant breakthrough after more than two decades of searching. “At times we have our setbacks and moments of fragility due to sadness, but we continued our search, and finally we have had discoveries,” said Galeano, part of Women Walking for Truth, a group of 40 who take turns overseeing the excavation work. “We know we will continue finding bodies here. We will keep going, we will keep looking.” Seven bodies have been found so far, four of which have already been identified and given to their families, with three cases still pending identification. Work is now starting on an area where a former paramilitary leader said between 40 and 50 people were buried. More than 120,000 people were estimated to have gone missing in Colombia between 1985 and 2016, and the fate of most of them is still unknown. “We are doing everything possible and everything necessary,” said Salinas. Looking down over the hills where her son was taken, Gómez said: “People say I will never find him. But a mother never forgets, she never forgets.”
The British embassy in Tel Aviv may have broken both UK sanctions law and UK government security policies by employing an Israeli citizen who owns a home in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestine, legal experts have said. The embassy’s deputy head of corporate services and HR, Gila Ben-Yakov Phillips, moved to Kerem Reim in 2022. She listed a house she bought there as her home address on financial documents at the time. She later shared posts about the community on social media, including advertising youth programmes and subsidised housing for childcare workers. The settlement, north of Ramallah, was built by Amana, a construction company hit with sanctions last year for supporting, promoting and inciting violence against Palestinians. “Amana has overseen the establishment of illegal outposts and provides funding and other economic resources for Israeli settlers involved in threatening and perpetrating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank,” the UK said at the time. Ben-Yakov Phillips bought the house from previous residents, not directly from Amana, and the purchase was made before sanctions against the company were imposed. But residents of Amana projects are charged a monthly fee by the company, itemised on a financial statement seen by the Guardian. “If you live there, you pay,” said Dror Etkes, the director of Kerem Navot, which researches settlements and land use in the West Bank. The size of any payment is not relevant when assessing a possible violation of UK law, said Sara Segneri, a specialist in sanctions law and partner at Confinium Strategies. “UK sanctions law does not have a de minimis exception. Any funds or economic resources would be considered a sanctions breach, no matter how small.” Ben-Yakov Phillips’s status as a property owner in Kerem Reim, revealed first by the National, should have raised serious questions for the UK embassy in Tel Aviv when the Amana sanctions were imposed, about security vetting and its own legal responsibilities under the law. Because she is not a British citizen, she is not directly subject to sanctions laws. But foreign citizens working at embassies abroad must comply with UK sanctions law to get security clearances. Candidates for an HR role that entails financial oversight and handling of sensitive personal data would usually require vetting. The British embassy in Peru is seeking applicants for a deputy head of corporate services position, the title Ben-Yakov Phillips uses on LinkedIn. The job ad notes that “the successful candidate will be subject to a security clearance”. The embassy itself may also be in breach of sanctions law if Ben-Yakov Phillips’s salary contributes to payment of Amana’s fees in Kerem Reim, Segneri said. “If I have a company and I am paying an employee knowing that that employee is then sending money to Vladimir Putin, that’s potentially a sanctions violation,” said Segneri. “If she is making payments to one of the settlements that is sanctioned then I think there could potentially be a violation [by the embassy]. “I hope the embassy has [investigated], or is in the process of investigating, the moneys that they’re paying to this employee and whether she has funds that are then going to the settlements. “It goes against the meaning and intent of the sanctions programmes if UK government employees around the world are allowed to disregard sanctions or potentially utilise their personal income from the UK government to pay sanctioned entities.” The UK government’s sanctions advice page notes: “Due diligence (research) includes not just checking the sanctions lists, but also examining an organisation’s ownership structure or an individual’s circle of contacts.” Kerem Reim was established as an outpost that violated both Israeli and international law. In 2017, it was authorised retroactively by the Israeli government, but remains illegal under international law. It is a selective community, where prospective residents have to be vetted by a committee for compatibility before they are allowed to move in. In the last election in 2022, more than 85% of voters from Kerem Reim backed the far-right party of Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is himself under UK sanctions. Regardless of her individual legal position, the embassy should have been alert to the reputational, legal and policy risks of giving a senior role to someone who chose to move to an Amana settlement. The settlement is built on land the international community expects to form part of a future Palestinian state, which the UK recognised this year. The international court of justice (ICJ) last year ruled that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was illegal, and ordered the country to end it as rapidly as possible. Prof Philippe Sands KC, a member of Palestine’s legal team for the case at the ICJ concerning Israel’s occupation and a professor of law at University College London, said: “I would have thought the government will have taken steps to ensure that neither it nor any of its employees is in violation of any UK sanctions or its obligations under international law. Otherwise it will be at risk of the charge that it is complicit in any violation of the law.” Palestinian citizens of Israel employed by the embassy would be unlikely to feel comfortable taking HR issues to a manager whose home was built by a company under UK sanctions for supporting violent extremism, and whose community overwhelmingly backs a politician sanctioned for violent extremism. The Guardian put a series of questions to the Foreign Office about a potential breach of sanctions, international law and its due diligence with respect to employee activities but it refused to comment. The Guardian also attempted to reach Ben-Yakov Phillips for comment.
Good morning. This weekend, the Guardian launched the results of its year-long investigation into radical free birthing, and the US-based Free Birth Society (FBS). Our reporting reveals how influencers made millions by pushing “free births”, with no medical support, and how the society is now linked to the deaths of newborn babies around the world. FBS, a multimillion dollar business, promotes a version of free birth, otherwise known as unassisted birth, that is seen as extreme, even among advocates of the practice. Unlike home births, which have a midwife in attendance, free birth involves delivering without medical assistance. The FBS advises mothers to steer clear of doctors and midwives, is anti-ultrasound (which it falsely claims harms babies) and downplays serious medical conditions, the Guardian found. The investigation, told in a longform feature by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne – with a podcast series due out in December (subscribe at the Guardian Investigates feed to get it automatically when it launches) – takes a deep dive into how FBS, led by former doulas Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, came about and how it influences women via podcasts, social media and online schools. It reveals a disturbing pattern by which scores of mothers influenced by FBS experienced stillbirths, neonatal deaths or serious harm to babies or themselves. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Lucy about the women who lost their babies, how they were “radicalised” into choosing this birthing method and the figures behind FBS. First, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories Ukraine | European countries proposed a radical alternative Ukraine peace plan on Sunday that omits some of the pro-Russia points made in the original US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected. Politics | Rachel Reeves will launch a fresh crackdown on benefit fraud, alongside scrapping the two-child welfare limit and freezing rail fares, while putting forward a multibillion-pound tax-raising package. Media | The BBC is planning to overhaul the way it investigates editorial concerns, in a move that will dilute the influence of a Conservative figure accused of trying to sway its political impartiality. Skye Gyngell | Tributes have been paid to the pioneering chef and restaurant proprietor, who has died aged 62. Politics | David Cameron has disclosed he was treated for prostate cancer and has called for a targeted screening programme. In depth: ‘On the face of it, it seems like a positive social media account’ Most of the cases of harm in the Guardian’s investigation related to mothers in the US and Canada, but they also included births in Switzerland, France, South Africa, Thailand, India, Australia, the UK, Ireland and Israel. Many women join FBS via a private, paid-for online community called the Lighthouse. The organisation presents a sanitised version of free birth, never platforming guests who regret their decision and deleting negative comments online. “On the face of it, it seems like a positive social media account showing positive experiences of women during birth,” Lucy Osborne says. “It looks professional, trustworthy. When I was first pregnant, if I’d have come across that, I’d probably have watched these things and felt really inspired.” FBS, while telling women that birth isn’t difficult, do acknowledge some medical emergencies – although it claims they are extremely rare when women freebirth. But what Lucy and Sirin began to see, in FBS forums, was a disturbing pattern: so much of the information was “false and misleading”. While the prevalence of freebirthing is low, it appears to be increasing as women lose trust in professional maternity services and an increasingly medicalised approach to birth. It is especially acute in the US, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy countries in the world. *** How many women reported deaths or serious harm ? Lucy said it was “difficult” to quantify how many babies have died in FBS circles, and impossible to say conclusively whether negative birth outcomes would have been different if medical professionals had been present. However she and Sirin identified 48 late-term stillbirths or neonatal deaths, or other forms of serious harm, involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS – as students in their courses, for example, or members of the Lighthouse. Lucy and Sirin focused on a subset of 18 cases in which they were able to interview mothers, whose accounts were corroborated through friends, family and partners, and supported by journal entries, medical notes, video footage, message threads or legal documents. In all those cases, the evidence suggests FBS played a significant role in the mother’s decision-making, leading to potentially avoidable tragedies. “There’s this cycle,” says one ex-Lighthouse member, whose baby was stillborn in 2024. “Children die. It’s known in the community for a time, then new members come into the Lighthouse, and they’re forgotten.” *** How the investigation started Lucy describes seeing a video from an FBS forum, sent to them by a source of Sirin’s, of a baby in “extreme distress” after a long labour. Yet, no one in the forum was advising the mother to go to hospital. “There were really obvious signs of an emergency that any midwife or medical professional would have said urgently needed hospital care,” said Lucy. The woman eventually gave birth and shared a video of her baby, “really, really struggling to breathe”. However, no one in Lighthouse told her to go to hospital. “It was really sad and horrible to watch,” says Lucy. Shortly afterwards, the baby died. Coming across the video was a “turning point”, Lucy says, that drove them to ramp up the investigation. *** Who is behind Free Birthing Society? Saldaya, who founded the FBS, presides over a movement that has told women it was returning something sacred that was stolen from them. “We are truly disrupting the conditioning of over a hundred years of obstetric violence,” Saldaya declared, describing herself, in a promotional YouTube video, as a “pioneer of the birth liberation movement”. Insiders told the Guardian that initially, Saldaya had a “very genuine” concern and compassion for women. As a former doula, she was traumatised by some of the things she saw happening in hospitals, including births that she perceived as assaults, and too many C-sections. But she was also clearly interested in making money, said Lucy, and as FBS became more successful, Saldaya “became more dogmatic” and more interested in saying what would grow the business, insiders told them. Saldaya and Norris-Clarke have described medical attempts at newborn resuscitation as a form of “sabotage”, and exploit fears that doctors and midwives will sexually assault women in hospitals. According to experts, they also made false or dangerous claims about haemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, retained placenta and infant resuscitation. They promised their followers they, too, could experience euphoric unassisted birth, if they dropped their reliance on a medical establishment that often gets it wrong on women’s health. Freebirth was not just safe, but safer than one relying on medical support, they argued. But at key moments, such as when Lorren Holliday became the first-known FBS-linked mother to lose a baby in 2018, when Saldaya may have reflected on what had occurred, insiders told Sirin and Lucy, she “doubled down” and “became more extreme”. Norris-Clark and Saldaya were sometimes careful to caveat their advice, stressing they were not qualified medical professionals. They acknowledged there could be life-threatening scenarios, though presented them as very rare, and said it was a woman’s choice how to have her baby and whether to transfer to hospital. After publication of Sirin and Lucy’s investigation this weekend, Saldaya posted a statement on Instagram criticising “propaganda on mainstream news”. “This is what it means to be a disruptor,” she said. “They will try to discredit you. They will lie about you. They will attempt to silence what they don’t understand.” *** How are women ‘radicalised’? “One source said that most people find FBS because they are scared” said Lucy. All most women know about birth is that it is “horribly painful”. “People tell you to read positive birth stories, or positive videos.” And this is where FBS steps in. Via its podcast, it shares video after video, of women having these “really amazing births that are spiritual, orgasmic, pain free” drawing people in. But in other FBS podcasts, doctors are vilified as “rapists” and any experience of medical care during birth are denigrated, Lucy said. Other FBS podcasts with “experts” lull women into a “false sense of security about how safe free birth is”. Women are then often encouraged to take costly FBS courses, starting with their Complete Guide to Freebirth at $399, which contains “dangerous” information, falsely claiming many common birth complications are nothing to worry about and hardly ever happen in freebirth. “And so a lot of women are listening to that before they give birth” Lucy said. They feel “completely safe” and don’t have any backup plans, because within FBS women are taught to “not even contemplate hospital” if you are truly focused on freebirth. One of the key mantras of FBS, said Lucy, is “radical responsibility”, a “very clever tool” which means that if anything goes wrong, women have this “burden on them, that its their fault”. • To hear The Birth Keepers podcast subscribe to the Guardian Investigates feed, and you will receive it automatically when it launches in December. And in the meantime, you can enjoy the fantastic investigation into Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman – a renowned climate sceptic, “Trumpette” and litigant – even against her own children … What else we’ve been reading Zoe Williams’ interview with the outgoing CEO of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, is a must read today – sketching out the rough few weeks he just had with Labour’s new plans for migrants; and why he thinks things could still get better. Poppy Noor, newsletters team As Cop30 wrapped up in Brazil, the Guardian’s Jon Watts is a must-read on the five factors that hindered real progress at the climate conference (including, of course, the looming spectre of Donald Trump). Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team I enjoyed Polly Hudson’s column this weekend, on her trials and tribulations trying to be the hostess with, as she calls it the “leastess” – and why sometimes it’s OK to just give up. Poppy Charli xcx is on Substack now, and it seems her writing talent translates from songs to essays. In this effortless piece, the singer ruminates on the pros and cons of stardom, and the expectation of celebs to be role models. “I don’t care if they tell the truth or lie or play a character or adopt a persona or fabricate entire scenarios and worlds,” she writes. “To me that’s the point, that’s the drama, that’s the fun, that’s the FANTASY”. Charlie Liz Johnson Artur relives how she photographed the “heady nights and glistening bodies” of London’s cult queer club PDA in this celebratory piece. Karen Sport Football | Arsenal thumped Tottenham 4-1, thanks to an Eberechi Eze hat-trick, to go six points clear at the top of the table. Elsewhere, Leeds lost at home 2-1 to Aston Villa. Rugby | England survived a late scare to hold on and beat Argentina 27-23, their 11th successive win securing a clean sweep in the Autumn internationals. Formula One | McLaren apologised to their drivers after a breach of Formula One regulations led to the disqualification of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the two leading title contenders, from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and put the F1 drivers’ championship within the grasp of the reigning champion, Max Verstappen. The front pages “BBC to overhaul standards panel as fallout from bias row continues,” is lead story at the Guardian. The i paper says “Reeves to unveil £600m raid on foreign student university fees” and the Telegraph runs with “Reeves’ £15bn welfare giveaway”. “Reeves to hit 100,000 homes with surcharge” is top story at the Times, while the Mirror has “Help us, Chancellor”, splashing on its pre-budget poll. The FT says “Trump rails at Kyiv and Europe amid doubts over US stance on peace plan” and the Mail has “Cameron reveals he had prostate cancer”. “Shirley – I nearly died on Strictly” – is the Sun on the TV show’s head judge, Shirley Ballas. Today in Focus ‘Enshittification’: how we got the internet no one asked for Do you ever get the feeling that the internet isn’t what it used to be? Well, tech critic Corey Doctorow thinks you’re right. He lays out his three-step theory, explaining why sites from Amazon to Google to Instagram seem to offer a worsening experience … and what can be done to stop it. Nosheen Iqbal reports. Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett’s cartoons, the best Saturday magazine content and an exclusive look behind the scenes The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Entering her 30s, Emily Bratt began to notice a problem: her life “was rapidly diverging from that of my nearest and dearest.” As friends paired off, had children or moved away, relationships changed and even faded way. But she discovered a bright side too – making new friends as an adult was much easier than we’re led to believe. “The stats may suggest that it’s harder to make friends as you age. But what they also do is instil in us defeatist beliefs about our agency in the world,” she writes in this piece. “Age doesn’t stop you from making friends – fear, anxiety and sadness do. I believe that once you dedicate time to moving through difficult emotions, you will tend to find that there are swathes of fantastic people out there ready to be your pal.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
New Zealand aims to eradicate feral cats by 2050, the country’s conservation minister has announced, in plans that a decade ago generated a fierce backlash from environmentalists. The conservation minister, Tama Potaka, announced the addition of feral cats to the world-leading Predator-Free 2050 strategy on Friday, the first time a predator has been added to the list since its inception in 2016. Feral cats are already caught and killed in some areas, but predators on the list are subject to coordinated targeting, with large-scale eradication programs and research. More detailed plans will be released in March 2026. More than 2.5 million feral cats roam in New Zealand’s bush and on offshore islands, where they can grow up to a metre long, including their tail, and weigh up to 7kg. They have destroyed native wildlife, including by hunting the Pukunui, or Southern dotterel, on Rakiura Stewart Island to the brink of extinction, and killing bats near Mount Ruapehu. Potaka told Radio New Zealand the “stone-cold killers” would join mammals such as ferrets, stoats, weasels, rats and possums. “In order to boost biodiversity, to boost heritage landscape and to boost the type of place we want to see, we’ve got to get rid of some of these killers.” The inclusion of feral cats comes after years of campaigning, and has faced significant public opposition in the past. When environmentalist Gareth Morgan launched his “Cats to Go” campaign in 2013, it was met with horror. A competition encouraging children to shoot feral cats saw pushback from animal rights groups. The department of conservation told the Guardian that feedback on its draft strategy was overwhelmingly in support of cat control, with 90% in favour of including feral cats on the list or better management of cats. Domestic cats, which are not included in the strategy, are also considered a serious threat to biodiversity. Their impact has provoked fierce debate in the cat-loving nation, which has one of the highest rates of household cats in the world and patchy rules around ownership. The National Cat Management Group, which includes the Predator Free Trust and animal rights groups such as the SPCA, advocates keeping cats indoors using the slogan “Every cat in a lap”. SPCA scientific officer Christine Sumner said it understood the concerns with feral cats harming wildlife, and that it expected to see more funding and research put towards humane ways to control them. “We’re talking about removing them from an environment, and this is currently done by lethal means, which we’re not happy with. That’s the biggest challenge.” Both organisations are calling on the government to adopt national cat management legislation that includes mandatory microchipping and desexing of domestic cats – the next frontier in bird protection. “It was a glaring omission not to include feral cats to begin with,” Morgan said. “Now we need policy changes if we are going to make this work in reality.”
When she selected her wardrobe for this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa, Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, took extra care to choose something that – in her words – would “give her the upper hand” in negotiations. But she never got the opportunity to test the theory in what would have been her most pressing engagement – talks with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, aimed at easing a deepening diplomatic row between the north-east Asian neighbours. Instead, they kept their distance during a group photoshoot on Saturday – setting a frosty tone that would continue for the rest of the summit, despite speculation that a brief handshake and exchange of courtesies was a possibility. Two weeks after Takaichi angered Beijing by suggesting Japanese military intervention would be justified in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the two sides appear as far apart as ever. Speaking to reporters at the end of the summit on Sunday, Takaichi – a conservative with hawkish views on China – said the door to dialogue remained open. She repeated the cordial language that had emerged from her meeting with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, at the Apec summit in South Korea less than a month ago, calling for a return to “mutual understanding and cooperation”. She did not, though, agree to Beijing’s main condition for an end to the row – a retraction of her assertion this month that Japan would be entitled to engage in “collective self-defence” if an emergency in the Taiwan Strait created a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. While Japan’s government insists its longstanding policy on Taiwan remains unchanged, the response from Beijing has ignited talk that relations between China and Japan could be destined for a repeat of their angry dispute over the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in 2012. China has warned its citizens not to travel to Japan, citing unspecified safety concerns, and reimposed a ban on Japanese seafood first introduced in response to the release of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2023. Authorities also postponed the release of Japanese films and cancelled concerts by the country’s musicians. Tokyo, meanwhile, has advised Japanese nationals living in China to take extra safety precautions. Given the scale of their economic ties, the measures are comparatively minor, but they could also be the harbinger of more serious retaliation, including restrictions on exports of rare earth metals and intensified maritime activity around the Senkakus, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China. With no sign that Takaichi is about to withdraw her remarks, Chinese officials have sharpened their rhetoric. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, described her remarks on Taiwan as “shocking”, adding that Japan had crossed a “red line” on the fate of the self-governing island, a democracy that Beijing says is an “inalienable part” of Chinese territory that will one day be annexed to the mainland, by force if necessary. China has also taken the dispute to the UN, accusing Japan of threatening “an armed intervention” over Taiwan – located just 110km from Japan’s westernmost island – and vowing to defend itself. Beijing’s ambassador to the UN, Fu Cong, accused Takaichi of committing “a grave violation of international law” and diplomatic norms. In a letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, he wrote: “If Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression. “China will resolutely exercise its right of self-defence under the UN Charter and international law and firmly defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Takaichi, whose encouraging diplomatic debut in South Korea last month has quickly been forgotten, faced questions about her judgment from opposition MPs, but her intransigence over Taiwan is doing her little harm with the public. In a Kyodo news agency poll taken a week after the war of words began, her administration received an approval rating of 69.9%, up 5.5 percentage points from the previous poll. Tellingly, almost 49% supported Japan’s right to engage in collective self-defence in the event of a Taiwan crisis, compared with 44.2% against.
Iran is taking its first faltering steps to boost its dismal soft power abilities, spotting a slim opening to improve regional relations after Donald Trump’s June bombing campaign and Israel’s attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar unsettled Gulf states. The tentative foreign policy tweaks are born in part of necessity: much of Iran’s network of regional military alliances has been dismantled in recent years. But there is also a feeling in Tehran that Trump’s trampling over international law gives it an opportunity to forge less disruptive alliances with Arab neighbours. In mid-November an Iranian thinktank linked to the foreign ministry convened a forum in Tehran titled “International law under assault”. International academics and senior Iranian diplomats discussed how the US – not Iran – was now the rogue state destroying the rules-based order. At a recent briefing in the Iranian capital, the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “The solid foundations of international law have been subjected to unprecedented attacks by powers that were expected to be its permanent defenders and custodians.” ‘Massive shift in thinking in Gulf’ The lack of condemnation by Europe of the unilateral US strikes on Iran in June, which killed more than 1,000 Iranians, still astonishes Iranian officialdom. Trump’s recent confession that he was fully involved in planning the operation, while pretending to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear programme, has intensified that anger. Iranian diplomats recall preparing for a sixth round of talks with the UN, only to be woken at 3am by news of bombs falling – followed hours later by denials from the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, that he knew anything about the assault. Iran is now not only nursing this grievance but trying to use it to reposition itself in the region, holding out the hand of friendship to states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar. “Iran considers the security of the countries in the region as its own security and wants ‘lasting trust’ to be the basis and axis of the new space in this region,” Araghchi said. Trita Parsi, of the Quincy Institute in the US, believes Iran can find an attentive audience. “After the Israeli attack on Qatar in September, there is a massive shift in the thinking in the Gulf Cooperation Council as a whole,” Parsi said. “For so many years they viewed Iran as the main threat. Their investment in weaponry … was all geared to protecting them against Iran. Now many are seeing that on the one hand Iran has been weakened, but also Iran does not have the same hostility in their perception, whereas Israel is completely unconstrained.” Some Iranian officials proudly cite a speech by Oman’s foreign minister, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, at a recent foreign policy forum in Bahrain in which he bluntly said: “Israel, not Iran, is the prime resource of insecurity in the region.” Speaking at the Tehran forum, Prof Mohammad Marandi from Tehran University argued that the world order was undergoing fundamental change. As a result of US economic decline, he said “American exceptionalism does not have the same hold it had on the US public”. Simultaneously, images from Gaza were changing how Americans and Europeans were viewing Israel. “It is completely unimaginable,” he said of the shift. Marandi said Iran should use the moment to build alliances. “At a time the mood in the world is changing so substantially, clearly there are opportunities for relationships between countries in the region to improve,” he said. “Of course, because of the history and the nature of some of the states in the region, these exchanges are still going to be difficult, but this is the best opportunity right now.” Nuclear dilemma For all the talk of a possible new era in how Iran presents itself to the region, there is no sense that it is abandoning hard power or its sovereign right to enrich uranium. Many officials privately say they fear they are between the wars. They say they must prepare for another US assault before Trump leaves the White House. That means re-equipping air defences, trying to buy Russian Sukhoi jets, expanding stocks of longer range ballistic missiles and, for now, keeping its rubble-strewn nuclear facilities away from UN nuclear inspectors. Araghchi said he faces daily questions from the public about lifting the fatwa on possessing a nuclear bomb. One of the nuclear scientists killed by the US in June, Fereydoon Abbasi, was an advocate of nuclear-tipped drones, seen as a possible way of bypassing the fatwa on weapons of mass destruction. Foad Izadi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran and a conservative, explained the dilemma. “There is a lot of pressure on the current government from the reformists to negotiate more but there is a pressure from the other side – the principalists – saying Iran cannot afford to be surprised again,” he said. “So the foreign minister is caught in the middle. He has to be cautious because the June attacks happened on his watch, and people are asking ‘why did he not see that this was a deception operation?’ He is under pressure because there was no statement by him saying he was suspicious.” Izadi said he was convinced that the US would return, pushed by Israel. “I don’t think they are done,” he said. “They think Iran is weak and I don’t think they have any ethical standards … The goal of Israel is to turn Iran into another Syria or Libya.” Saeed Khatibzadeh, a deputy foreign minister, said: “If a negotiation takes place, it will certainly be an armed negotiation.” He described the current period as “a battle of repair and recovery that will decide the future” between Israel and Iran. Like many, he fears negotiations with the US could be another trap. Izadi claimed, less convincingly, that Iran was experiencing a new form of domestic social cohesion. “Trump is threatening to attack Iran every other day, but what he is doing is teaching the new generation of young Iranians to become as anti-American as their parents were, and that is not an easy task,” he said. But Izadi himself admits the unity created by the June attacks is wearing off, as Iranians are reminded of grinding economic problems, including inflation, which is now at 50%. Moreover, the nationalist awakening has not led to a relaxation of the state’s iron grip on society. In a recent speech, the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami criticised the government’s inability to release political prisoners or lift internet restrictions. “The summoning, recalling, and even trial of many politicians, media figures, intellectuals, and even reputable and tested figures has increased,” he said. On 30 October the UN’s independent international fact-finding mission on Iran found that the June strikes followed a domestic crackdown that “has further constricted civic space, undermined due process, and eroded respect for the right to life”. By mid-August the security forces had arrested about 21,000 people. Executions reached their highest recorded level since 2015. Even leftwing translators were being rounded up. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a reformist political prisoner, wrote recently from Evin prison that Iran remains trapped in a kind of purgatory, waiting for change, but not knowing what the outcome will be. Developments at another event in Tehran demonstrated the likely limitations of any foray into soft power, as well as laying bare the country’s deep divisions. A design week was underway at 64 venues across the city under the slogan “Dynamic Heritage and Sustainable Future”, showcasing set design, fashion, furniture and street sculpture. The event presented an image of Iran totally at odds with its depiction in western media. But it was shut down on the grounds of “safety hazards” caused by a large number of electrical installations and a high density of visitors. In reality, there had been a backlash after videos on social media showed many women at the exhibition not wearing the hijab. In its culture and diplomacy, the faint outlines of a different Iran freed from its largely self-imposed isolation can be seen, but such are the entrenched forces of conservatism and its faith in hard power, that any new Iran will face a momentous battle to be born.
A decade after the UK stumbled into a hasty referendum that polarised the nation and unleashed chaos, a warning comes from across the Irish Sea: it could happen again. The government and voters sleepwalked into Brexit and the same may happen with a referendum on a united Ireland, triggering convulsions for which no one is ready. That is the message from two leading journalists from both sides of the Irish border who have teamed up to analyse the pros and cons of Northern Ireland leaving the UK to form a new state with the Republic of Ireland. Fintan O’Toole, the author and Irish Times columnist, and Sam McBride, the Northern Ireland editor of the Belfast Telegraph, have concluded that the political establishments in Ireland and Britain are woefully unprepared for a potentially fraught and seismic referendum. “The lesson of Brexit hasn’t been learned, which is that stuff can come out of the blue and can gather momentum very quickly,” O’Toole said this week. “I would suggest that the political architecture of our archipelago remains very unstable.” The pair have analysed the political, economic and cultural rationales for any constitutional change in a book, For and Against a United Ireland, published by the Dublin-based Royal Irish Academy and the University of Notre Dame under their project Analysing and Researching Ireland, North and South (Arins). They hope to stir debate on the issue with a roadshow of speaking events that will bring them to Westminster early next month on the eve of the centenary of a Boundary Commission that cemented Ireland’s partition. “What haunts everybody, or should haunt everybody, is the Brexit referendum of 2016,” said O’Toole. “We do not want a referendum on a thumbs up-thumbs down, vague proposition whose consequences have not been spelled out because then you find yourself with an extraordinarily divided society where people who have lost are not reconciled to losing and the people who have won don’t know quite what it is that they have won.” Under the Good Friday agreement, the Northern Ireland secretary of state should call a referendum on Irish unification if it appears likely that a majority would vote in favour. Sinn Féin and other nationalists say that moment is looming, and a non-profit called Ireland’s Future has rallied support, but both governments and unionists play down the prospect, leaving it unclear when or if there will be a referendum. Political rhetoric for and against unification has obscured the lack of serious debate, said McBride. “People tend to be for or against the idea but the actual thinking which might go beyond that to make it possible hasn’t for the most part happened. A lot has gone on in academia but very few politicians or activists want to engage even with the basics. For instance, what sort of state would you want? Unitary? Federal?” In the book, neither author endorses unification or the status quo. Each writes two essays that strive for impartiality in laying out the case for a united Ireland and the case against, marshalling economic and social statistics, historical precedents and constitutional models. Arguments range over flags and symbols, taxes, health services, pensions, national debt responsibilities and the risk of loyalist violence. The goal is to inform and provoke discussion. “There’s huge interest in the subject but there hasn’t quite been a debate,” said O’Toole. “Debate implies an acceptance of the idea that there might be good arguments on both sides.” A referendum in Northern Ireland would also trigger one in the republic, where voters say they favour unification but reject paying higher taxes or adopting a new flag to reflect unionists’ British identity. “The Irish government does need to work out what the offer from Irish nationalism is beyond just saying: ‘We want a united Ireland and we love you’,” said O’Toole. McBride believes a referendum in his lifetime is likely and that it could happen abruptly. “You could have just a mad or a bad or a feckless secretary of state who says: ‘Let’s just do this and get it out of the way.’” Both nationalists and unionists have credible, legitimate arguments, he said. “Somebody will win here and somebody will ultimately lose but each side has got something to learn from the other’s arguments.” Westminster needed to join the debate, said O’Toole. “This is about your state. It’s a British question as much as it is an Irish question.”