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Tuesday briefing: How the UK’s military spending row exposes Starmer’s defence dilemma

Good morning. What conflict has raged longer than the hundred years war? The fight between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury over defence spending. I’d love to claim this as my own, but avoid patter theft this early in the day. So I’ll credit my colleague Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, who spoke to me ahead of this week’s G7 meeting, in France, where Keir Starmer arrived yesterday for what could be his final international summit. The prime minister can anticipate candid discussions about international partnerships in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, both of which may soon demand increased involvement from the British military. The political row over whether the UK government is spending enough to keep Britain safe and fulfil its international commitments broke into the public sphere with the resignation of defence minister John Healey last Thursday. It continues today as Al Carns, who resigned from his post as armed forced minister on the same day, tells the Guardian in an exclusive interview about “unbelievable” waste at the MoD, and suggests mismanaged programmes such as tanks investment should be scrapped in favour of new technology. The resignation of two highly respected ministers, only one of whom reportedly fancies a shot in Downing Street, further weakens the prime minister’s position ahead of Andy Burnham’s return to the Commons if he is victorious in this week’s Makerfield byelection. I spoke to Dan about how an argument about money exposes domestic and international uncertainties around Starmer’s leadership, Britain’s place in the world and the changing face of warfare. Five big stories Middle East | Donald Trump has declared that the strait of Hormuz will be “completely open” from Friday, as western leaders gathering at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains battled to prevent the fragile US deal with Iran from almost immediately unravelling. UK politics | Political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit referendum, when Jo Cox was murdered, says Kim Leadbeater, Cox’s sister who is now also a Labour MP. Crime | A schoolteacher described as a “serial manipulator and a serial liar” has been found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering a baby he and his partner had adopted. Environment | Half of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards threatening their health, education and survival, according to a Unicef report. US news | Eight people are presumed dead after a B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff on Monday morning at a US air force base in California’s Mojave Desert, officials said. In depth: Starmer’s defence-spending ‘rhetoric-to-reality gap’ There isn’t a lot of agreement about what Starmer has got right in government, but our lobby team will tell you that some MPs remain swayed by his record on the international stage. He got two things right, says Dan: support for Ukraine and keeping Britain largely out of the US-Israel war on Iran. “He’s also weathered the sheer difficulty of being a British Labour prime minister when a turbulent Republican in the White House is shifting position daily between being your friend and trying to destabilise you.” But where Starmer has failed to shift the dial is on the strategic problem of Britain’s place in the world during a volatile time. He spoke to this at the Munich Security Conference in February, suggesting that – as the Trump administration disengaged with former allies – it provided an opportunity for “radical renewal” and a more European Nato able to “stand on our own feet”. Taken together, these factors point to the need to progressively spend more on defence to meet Nato’s target – which Starmer has signed up to, of 3.5% of GDP by 2035. Instead, Dan explains, “we’ve got a modest step up to 2.6% by 2027 and then ‘a big blank’”. Here the essential criticism that Healey and others are making kicks in, says Dan, with “this rhetoric-to-reality gap”. *** A lack of narrative Healey resigned on a point of principle about long-term defence spending, but he also quit because the prime minister is weak, Dan says bluntly. Circumscribed by Rachel Reeves’s much maligned fiscal rules, the Treasury has limited room for manoeuvre beyond further reallocation of spending from other parts of government, and Starmer has scant goodwill among remaining ministers. The trouble, Dan reminds me, is that Starmer’s dilemma is not only about cash that may be spent on future projects, but it is also about honouring the international commitments Britain already has signed up to. If you’ll indulge me a tangent: spending is often presented as a zero-sum scenario between welfare and defence, and not only in the rightwing media. In April, Lord Robertson, who led the government’s Strategic Defence Review in 2025, said: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.” But as the Resolution Foundation’s Ruth Curtice said recently, the peace dividend – the uptick in available funding for other departments from the declining defence spend after the end of the cold war – has been spent on the entire welfare state, with the most dramatic increases in health spending, not just working-age social security. According to latest Ipsos polling, British voters are pretty evenly split on whether they favour an increase in defence spending or keeping it the same, although they are cautious about the tax-and-spend trade-offs. The case for increased defence spending is harder to make with a population who experience no direct threat while bombs continue to drop elsewhere. This is despite the general acceptance in military circles that Britain is already under threat on home soil, be that electoral interference from foreign agents, targeting of synagogues by Iranian state proxies. Only yesterday a handler with ties to Russia appeared to have directed arson attacks on property connected to Starmer. But the problem is that the prime minister had already – very publicly – argued for that increase, warning voters to beware “peddlers of easy answers” such as Reform UK and the Greens risking national security. A more effective narrative-builder than Starmer could have made the argument stick with voters – and his own cabinet. *** Rebalancing Europe and Nato Starmer’s words at Munich about rebalancing the relationship between Europe and the US is a thread likely to be picked up by Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who pledged en route to the G7 meeting that “the new world order will be built starting with Europe”. “Do not underestimate how many European countries, particularly smaller ones and those to the east, now look to Britain, as well as to France and Germany, and want leadership,” says Dan. While initially encouraged by Starmer’s rhetoric, Dan says some Baltic states most exposed to Russian aggression are now asking: “Is Britain for real?” As he puts it: “They want nothing more than Britons to be strong and engaged, but suspect we haven’t really got the capability we say we have.” Britain’s reliability in a moment of crisis was exposed at the start of the Iran conflict in March, when it took three weeks to deploy a warship from Portsmouth to bolster security at the British RAF base in Cyprus after a drone attack. *** Changing face of warfare There has been a “huge shift” in British military thinking, says Dan, even in the past year, as regards the type of future investment our armed forces need and one directly influenced by Ukraine’s success in transforming itself into a “drone superpower”. When the Guardian interviewed Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, just after his Downing Street meeting with Starmer, he was upbeat, saying the military situation was the most promising it had been for Kyiv for two and a half years. Having dramatically built up Ukraine’s drone capability – with the help of US technology – long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries, runways and military installations are now affecting the country’s economy and wartime logistics, and – in what Zelenskyy said was a very deliberate tactic – bringing the conflict home to ordinary Russians. Many military analysts argue that this techno-centric warfare is likely to become the model for 21st-century conflicts. But Dan offers a caution “against simplifications, that war is about one technology or another. Israel bombed Gaza quite effectively without drones; Iranian drones or missiles did not knock out US warships”. “Neither Russia or Ukraine has sufficient combat air power, or ability to mass force numbers – meaning that in Ukraine drones have become the weapon of choice,” he adds. “Drones are additive in a modern military, not a replacement for other weapons.” What else we’ve been reading Jonathan Jones has written this heartfelt piece about his email exchanges and intimate dinners with the late David Hockney when the artist returned to Yorkshire from LA. Sinéad Campbell, newsletters team I enjoyed this Science Weekly episode on the evidence for a social media ban for under-16s and how we make the online world a better place for all ages (clue: hold big tech to account). Libby Zoe Williams has a moving interview with the actor Laverne Cox about how her identity as a transgender woman has become a challenge to the politics around her. Sinéad World Cup 2026 On the pitch Spain 0-0 Cape Verde | No, that’s not a typo – the 64th-ranked World Cup debutants really did hold the perennial favourites to a no-score draw. “Wow, just wow”, Sid Lowe’s match report begins. Belgium 1-1 Egypt | Romelu Lukaku’s threat on the pitch drew two defenders on to his first run into the box, which resulted in an equalising own goal to salvage a point from a closely fought contest. Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay | Maximiliano Araújo scored a late equaliser in Miami as Uruguay battled back for a 1-1 draw against Saudi Arabia. Iran 2-2 New Zealand | Iran did not seem bogged down by political baggage as they let their football do the talking in an entertaining 2-2 draw against New Zealand. Off the pitch England | Reporting from the Three Lions camp in Kansas City, Jacob Steinberg reveals how Jordan Henderson’s changing room leadership could make the difference after the veteran midfielder was dropped from the Euro 2024 side. My World Cup | Live in an America, Canadian or Mexican host city? The Guardian community team want to hear from you on what the mood’s like in your city right now. Japan | For his newsletter (sign up here!), Jonathan Wilson writes on how Japan’s great result against the Netherlands is the clearest symbol yet that Asian teams are catching up to the titans of Europe and South America. Today’s fixtures • France v Senegal, 8pm BST on BBC • Iraq v Norway, 11pm BST on BBC • Argentina v Algeria, 2am BST on ITV • Austria v Jordan, 5am BST on ITV The front pages “Social media firms hit back as PM vows to ban under-16s”, is the Guardian’s front page today. The Times runs “Age checks on phones to access social media”, The Telegraph says “Starmer’s social media ban ‘a rush job’” and Metro has “PM: My ban will keep our kids safe”. The FT leads with “Arson attacks on Starmer properties were run by pro-Kremlin hacktivists”, on the same story the Independent runs “Arson attack on Starmer linked to Russia”, and the i Paper also says “Plot to burn down Starmer’s home linked to Russian mastermind”. The Mirror splashes “In their name” in memory of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess. And the Express says “Our hope has been restored” on the assisted dying bill. Today in Focus: The Latest Will US-Iran peace deal hold? The US and Iran have reached a tentative deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, but competing claims from Donald Trump and Tehran have left the details shrouded in uncertainty. Questions remain over the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to Julian Borger, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent – watch the episode on YouTube here. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Nick Dowling worked for decades in manufacturing and consultancy but when he saw a poster advertising voluntary work for the ambulance service, he signed up immediately. Soon after, the pandemic hit. Dowling’s work went online. “Suddenly, you’re just talking to a screen,” he says. “You’re getting nothing back from it … I got bored quickly.” Meanwhile, volunteering with the ambulance service became more vital, and it led to a change of heart about his career goals. Now, at 60, Dowling has undertaken an apprenticeship and hopes to qualify as a registered nursing associate. He’s never been one to stick to a career path. “I value learning,” he says. “And I think learning and change are synonymous.” 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

‘Beautiful moment’: fans of New Zealand and Iran draw on World Cup fervour together

On a cold winter afternoon in Wellington, dozens gathered at the Four Kings sports bar to watch New Zealand’s football team, the All Whites, take on Iran. The politics and hostilities surrounding Iran’s World Cup opener may have dominated attention in the lead up to the match, but in New Zealand, fans on both sides turned out for one reason: the love of the game. “It’s hugely significant,” said Andy Brown. “It’s all about football, it’s the World Cup and how good is it to see New Zealand there now? I saw them in 82 as a young’n and I can’t believe its happening again. New Zealand are the lowest ranked team in the competition, sitting at No 85 according to Fifa, compared to world No 21 Iran. It was an electrifying match – Iran and New Zealand slugged it out under the global spotlight, the match ending in a 2-2 draw that had supporters on both sides coiled with anticipation until the final moments. “I just want to see them do well,” said Iran supporter Arman who wished to give his first name only, adding his team had faced a huge amount of pressure. “I’m a huge football fan and I know its very polarised and there are emotions and strongly held opinions – I think its really unfortunate, the players and the team suffer a lot. They’re not the ones responsible for human rights abuses. “I don’t judge anyone over how they relate to it but I know that for me and others, [football] is something that is an escape and a beautiful moment.” For the first time in World Cup history, a host nation has received a country with which it is at war and the buildup to the match was mired in tension. Many Iranians and diaspora communities have described feeling torn over the team’s participation in the competition, due to the war with the US and Israel, and the perception the national team is connected to the regime. Some have described upset over Fifa’s rules barring political flags inside the stadium, which was upheld on Monday. In the US, Iranians turned out to protest against the match. In New Zealand, the response was more muted. “Given the diversity of views within the Iranian community, it is understandable that there has not been much organised activity,” said Aida Tavassoli, the co-founder of the Iranian Solidarity Network Aotearoa New Zealand. Some wished to support the players and distinguish them from the regime, while others boycotted the match in protest against the Islamic Republic, Tavassoli said. The political backdrop did not quell the enthusiasm at the Four Kings on Wednesday. The crowd erupted into cheers of joy and groans of despair as Iran and New Zealand traded goals in the first half. When early into the second half, Eli Just became the first New Zealand player to score twice in a World Cup match, the noise from the bar might have broken the sound barrier. The jubilant mood was quickly dashed when Mohammad Mohebis scored Iran’s second goal moments later. As the game drew to a close and a draw was confirmed, those in the bar clapped – the mood a mix of resignation and relief. In the minutes afterwards, an All Whites supporter approached Arman to shake his hand. “That was painful,” Arman told the Guardian. “I was going bald watching that. “We didn’t lead at all … we didn’t lose but I have high expectations and standards for the team. We should have won.” Stan, an All Whites supporter, was elated for his team. “It was an incredibly evenly matched game – both teams had a great attitude, were playing to win, taking chances – a great game of football.” Stan said he felt for the Iranians having to play “inside the belly of the beast”, surrounded by Americans and off the back of travel and visa issues, but it had levelled the playing field for the New Zealand side. “For a New Zealander – for us to play so well in a World Cup and come within a sniff of winning – was amazing.”

Sweden votes to back laws reinforcing its immigration crackdown

Sweden’s parliament has voted to escalate the country’s crackdown on immigrant rights, backing laws that allow authorities to revoke residency permits based on a vague criteria of bad behaviour and obliging most public sector workers to report anyone suspected of being undocumented. The new legislation comes ahead of parliamentary elections in September, pitting the centre-right government, which currently depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern, against a far right that has said its intent is to create one of Europe’s most hostile environments for non-Europeans. Late on Monday, parliamentarians voted to pass the so-called “good behaviour” law, which would cover pending and future residents but also be applied retroactively to many of the country’s current residents. “Anyone ‌who doesn’t make the effort to do the right thing shouldn’t be able to count on staying,” Sweden’s minister of migration, Johan Forssell, said in March when he proposed the bill. While the law does not specify the types of behaviour that would be deemed unacceptable, the government has previously mentioned examples such as unpaid debts, failing to pay taxes, criminality, and links to extremist organisations. The task of reviewing permits would fall to the Swedish migration agency, and any decisions can be appealed against. The law has been fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups, who have described the criteria as arbitrary. “This would lead to the risk of residence permits being denied or revoked based on behaviour that was neither illegal nor punishable for Swedish citizens,” Amnesty International noted recently. The Stockholm-based group Civil Rights Defenders said the legislation “undermines the rule of law”. In a statement it added: “The good behaviour law leaves people in uncertainty about what actions or expressions can be used against them.” The country’s parliament also voted to narrowly back a contentious, so-called “snitch law” that will require many public sector workers to report anyone they believe is undocumented. Critics of the new law, which passed with 174 votes in favour and 172 against, have long warned that it will negatively impact migrants’ physical and mental health while also significantly increasing the risk of racial profiling. “It is a cruel, ineffective policy and opens up the Pandora’s box of snitching – a trademark of authoritarian states,” said Jacob Lind, a postdoctoral researcher in international migration at Malmö University, in a statement. “Today’s vote will have devastating consequences for undocumented migrants who will be further pushed into the margins of society as their access to rights is restricted.” After widespread criticism, teachers, doctors and social workers have been exempted from reporting obligations. Employees of tax authorities and employment and social insurance agencies, however, are among those who would have to notify police when they have reasons to believe they have been in contact with people who do not have residency papers. Louise Bonneau of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, described it as a “serious setback for human rights” in the country. “The so-called exemptions for healthcare, schools and social services don’t offer sufficient protection: in practice, information will flow between service providers, agencies, and immigration authorities,” she said, meaning some would probably avoid contact with healthcare professionals altogether. Her view is backed by Swedish researchers who, following interviews with public servants, warned that the law would, in effect, turn public employees into border police. They cited the example of a mother who delivers a child with the help of a midwife; while the midwife is exempt from reporting, they would need to register the baby with tax authorities, who could then report the family to police. The Swedish government has long defended the measures, arguing that they are needed to ensure that those who are not legally allowed to stay in Sweden can be sent to their home countries. The new reporting requirements have few equivalents across Europe; Finland has long been considering whether to expand such obligations, while in Germany, social welfare offices have for two decades wrestled with reporting requirements. In 2012, the UK’s Theresa May introduced the “hostile environment” policies that sought to limit access to work, benefits, bank accounts, driving licences and other essential services for those who could not prove they had the legal right to live in Britain. It later emerged that many who were in the UK legally were unable to prove their status and that the Home Office was frequently misclassifying legal residents as immigration offenders, leading the National Audit Office to conclude in 2018 that hostile environment policies did not provide value for money for taxpayers. On Monday, the European Public Services Union pushed back against the idea that workers would be forced to act as informants, with Jan Willem Goudriaan of the union saying that now was not the time for a “new witch hunt”. Instead, he called for governments to be reminded that “public services would cease functioning without migrant workers in Sweden and many EU member states.” The new law would fuel a climate of “suspicion, fear and racism,” he added, while also threatening people’s fundamental right to asylum. “It merely legitimises the far-right, who are all too happy to see their wildest dreams of mass surveillance, detention, and deportation come true at the expense of public service ethics.”

Starbucks Korea to temporarily shut all stores for history lesson after bungled coffee promotion

Starbucks Korea will simultaneously close all its stores for a mandatory history lesson, after a disastrous promotion that evoked memories of a pro-democracy massacre sparked public and political backlash. More than 2,000 stores will temporarily close at 3pm on 22 June, the company said, so staff can watch recorded lectures on modern Korean history and engage in “social sensitivity” training. The half-day closures will cost Starbucks an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in lost sales, according to data firm IGAWorks. The measures follow a public relations crisis triggered when Starbucks Korea ran a discount promotion for its “Tank” tumbler series on 18 May, the anniversary of a 1980 massacre in Gwangju. The promotion led to store boycotts, customers smashing Starbucks mug and tumblers and government ministries cutting ties with the chain. Chung Yong-jin, the billionaire chair of Shinsegae Group, which operates Starbucks Korea under licence from its US parent company, will take the same training on 24 June alongside other executives. The curriculum covers major events in contemporary Korean history and how companies should account for historical and social sensitivities in their marketing decisions. Shinsegae said the shutdown was intended to demonstrate the seriousness with which it viewed the incident and to prevent a repeat of similar controversies. The only exclusion to the shuttering will be a handful of outlets at airports, a company spokesperson said. Payment volumes, which plunged 26% in the week after the controversy, have shown signs of partial recovery, rising 12.8% in the first week of June, according to market data, but they remain about 25% below pre-controversy levels. The Gwangju massacre is a painful memory for many. Over 10 violent days, paratroopers crushed pro-democracy protests against military strongman Chun Doo-hwan. Victims’ groups say hundreds were killed. Starbucks branded the date of its promotion “Tank Day”. It also featured the slogan “thwack on the desk”, evoking a notorious police explanation for the 1987 torture death of student activist Park Jong-chul. Authorities falsely claimed he had died after an officer “hit the desk with a thwack” during questioning. Marketers chose the “thwack” slogan after consulting an AI tool for suggestions, Shinsegae Group said. It turned out some managers who approved the campaign never opened the email attachments showing the marketing material. The company pulled the campaign within hours, but the fallout was swift and the chief executive was sacked the same day. Starbucks said it was “deeply sorry for an unacceptable marketing incident” and that it “should never have happened”. Chung issued a written apology, and also apologised in a televised press conference where he bowed three times. Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters sent a written apology directly to the May 18 Foundation, one of the main bodies representing Gwangju victims, after the foundation wrote to the company demanding a formal response. An internal investigation found no evidence of deliberate intent, though a police investigation is ongoing. Chung and the former chief executive have been registered as criminal suspects by Seoul police. Attitudes towards the Gwangju Uprising remain one of the deepest fault lines in South Korean society. Far-right groups have kept alive a decades-old, discredited state narrative that the Gwangju protesters were North Korean sympathisers, a claim the supreme court ruled false and defamatory earlier this year.

‘Then the firing started’: the Soweto uprising remembered 50 years on

The day of 16 June 1976 began peacefully in Soweto. Student leaders at high schools across the sprawling Johannesburg township, to which the apartheid regime had exiled hundreds of thousands of black South Africans, took charge of the morning assemblies. They led their fellow students into the streets and began to march toward Orlando stadium. The students were protesting against the government’s imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Their teachers barely spoke the white minority language and the students did not want to learn the oppressor’s language. They were tired of the intentionally substandard Bantu education, tired of being second-class citizens. By the end of the day, dozens would be dead. The mood of the young protesters started off joyous, people who marched that winter day remembered. They sang struggle anthems, including Senzeni Na?, which asks in Xhosa: “What have we done [to deserve this]?” “Our worst-case scenario, of course, was that they were going to throw cans and cans of teargas at us,” said Sibongile Mkhabela, then an 18-year-old pupil at Naledi high school and one of the march organisers. As the children moved east, more schools joined. By the time the first group reached Orlando West, where Nelson Mandela had lived before he was imprisoned on Robben Island, the students numbered in their thousands. They faced a wall of police. The police had a loudhailer, said Oupa Moloto, then a 19-year-old pupil at Morris Isaacson high school. But none of the students could hear what was being said. Accounts of what happened next differ. Some say a white police officer threw a teargas canister into the crowd. Moloto remembered police dogs being released to attack marchers. “Now, women students were panicking and then we took stones to retaliate,” he said. “And then the firing started.” Moloto thought it was fireworks at first. Then he saw that a boy next to him had been shot: “I was surprised when I saw this bleeding, that these guys are really shooting.” He did not know what happened to the boy in the pandemonium that followed. “Helicopters were hovering over, shooting teargas from up in the sky. Students were panicking, running in different directions,” Moloto said. Among the first to die were 15-year-old Hastings Ndlovu and 12-year-old Hector Pieterson. The photograph taken by the local journalist Sam Nzima of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying Hector’s limp, bloodied body, Hector’s sister Antoinette running beside them, face twisted in anguish, became the day’s defining image. The number of people killed that day, which became known as the Soweto uprising, has never been definitively confirmed. The official figure was 23, but some estimates put the death toll at more than 200, according to South African History Online, a respected resource. The unrest spread to other townships. Government institutions were looted and burned. The police continued to fire. A regime report in 1980 concluded that 575 people died in the months after the start of the uprising. “By the end of 1976, the entire apartheid system was on trial,” said Mkhabela, who now runs an NGO. The uprising created a new generation of anti-apartheid activists, reviving a struggle that had faltered after Mandela and other African National Congress leaders were given life sentences in 1964. Thousands of students fled South Africa to join uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC in exile. *** Initially, Kingsley Mamabolo planned to stay in Soweto and fight. “People would accuse us of being communist, but you didn’t need people to show you what was happening on the ground,” said Mamabolo, then a 20-year-old final-year student at Naledi high school. In early August, police broke up a demonstration in central Johannesburg and several of his friends were arrested. Some got word out of prison that police were hunting him too and he decided he had to flee. “I thought I was brave, but the coward in me said: ‘I don’t want to be dying in prison’ … There were lots of rumours and stories going about, of people who didn’t make it after they had been tortured in prison,” said Mamabolo. So began 18 years in exile, in which he represented the ANC in Cuba, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. While Mamabolo was motivated by the cause, it was also the life of a refugee. He was not paid a salary, surviving on food rations from the party and donated secondhand clothes. Mamabolo, now South Africa’s high commissioner to the UK, said he still felt guilty about not giving his three children born in exile a stable upbringing. “I’m constantly apologising for the life I gave them,” he said. “It wasn’t of my making or their making. I think they understand.” Mkhabela was arrested at the August 1976 demonstration and put in solitary confinement for four months. Her cell was cavernous and freezing and the Afrikaner guards would beat her at any time of night. “When they hit you, you felt like a rag doll, when you are thrown from one corner of the room to the next,” she said. Mkhabela continued her activism on her release and was arrested again nine months later. She spent a year in prison waiting for her 11-month trial, the only woman alongside 10 men. She was one of five convicted and spent another two years behind bars, much of it in isolation. Decades later, Mkhabela’s experiences were turned into a play by her daughter Ntsako. It helped Mkhabela to realise that her poor memory was probably a result of what she went through. “One of the things that hurt me most in prison was remembering … I had to train myself to forget what it feels like to love and be loved … but in the process the mind forgets a lot of other things that you shouldn’t forget,” she said. Moloto did not make it out of South Africa. About a year after the uprising, he was caught trying to cross into Eswatini and spent more than three years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. Guards would force him to stay awake for up to 10 days and mock him when he became disoriented. “The way those guys were so brutal, at one stage it clicked in my mind … how did it come that God should create people like this?” Moloto said, sitting with his daughter Mpho in an office at the June 16 Memorial Acre in Soweto. After being released, he was kidnapped and tortured by security forces, who accused him of arms dealing. “I had to withdraw from being active … Even when you sit with your old comrades, you become paranoid, you are afraid,” he said. Moloto excused himself from the interview. “He’s always seeing danger,” his daughter said. “The paranoia, the nightmares, the physical remnants of what happened to him. He has severe asthma now. You know, I think that’s why he wanted to go out.” Mpho, 45, is now the primary carer for her father, after his wife of 43 years, Susan Jenny Moloto, died last year. “When Mama was there, she would wake him up and calm him down and ground him and bring him back to reality,” she said. “I’ve now had to step into that role.” Moloto’s post-traumatic stress disorder means that 16 June 1976 is ever-present for the family, even 50 years later. “It’s not just a chapter in the history books,” Mpho said. “In our lives … for me, it’s still a living, a breathing reality.”

Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s allies push for peace at G7 summit in France

World leaders were lining up in support of Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the G7 summit began in France. Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, vowed to “choke off” Russian revenue with further sanctions, writes Alexandra Topping, and to provide hundreds of millions of pounds worth of energy support for Ukraine including enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants. Summit host Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said as he prepared to meet with Donald Trump that he wanted the US to say “we are with you, we will continue to support Ukraine, and we will increase the pressure on Russia to achieve a meaningful negotiation … The right negotiation is one in which Ukraine and Russia are at the table, but with Europeans and Americans present as well.” Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, expressed hope that “for the first time, a window can open for diplomacy” on ending the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. He added that he wanted to discuss this further with Trump. The US president, who arrived for the summit on Monday, said: “We had a very good conversation yesterday with President Zelenskyy and President Putin, and I think maybe we can do something there. I really do. I think they’re both open to it.” A drone set fire to ⁠an oil depot in the Poltavskaya area of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, authorities said ⁠on Tuesday morning. The regional officials said they ‌closed a local road leading to the bridge across the Kerch strait linking Crimea to the Krasnodar region. On Monday, Ukraine hit two bridges connecting the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region with Crimea. In the Krasnodar region itself, a popular ‌summer tourist destination, disruptions to fuel supplies have triggered panic-buying, the regional governor said last week. A Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber plane ⁠of the type used to attack Ukraine crashed on Monday in Siberia’s Irkutsk region during a training flight, the Russian defence ⁠ministry said. The ⁠aircraft’s four-person crew ejected safely, the ministry said. The bombers are used to fire cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said two Russian drones “deliberately” targeted Kyiv’s monastery quarter in a mass overnight barrage that set the Unesco-listed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra site ablaze and killed 11 across the country. ⁠Amid a chorus of international condemnation, Zelenskyy described the cathedral attack as “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date” and urged G7 leaders meeting in France on Monday to take “decisive and substantive” action against Moscow. “More pressure on the aggressor and more support for Ukraine’s air defence, especially anti-ballistic capabilities,” the Ukrainian president said. Russia denied targeting the cathedral and claimed it had been hit with a US-made Patriot air-defence missile. But contradicting the Russian claim, Peter Beaumont writes that outside the Perchersk-Lavra complex on Monday morning a group of state security officers stood over the remains of two Shahed-Geran type drones – as built in Iran and Russia, and used ubiquitously by Moscow’s forces. Amid Monday’s heavy Russian air raids on Ukraine, a drone struck ⁠the zoo in Kharkiv, killing 10 rabbits while injuring and distressing other animals including an elephant, prosecutors said. The drone hit an area ⁠described as a vivarium in which hundreds of ‌rabbits, guinea pigs, ‌rats and mice were housed, the prosecutors said. The elephant’s adjacent enclosure was damaged. Russia is reportedly being forced to allow the sale of substandard fuel as Ukrainian attacks on oil pipelines, refineries, transport and storage squeeze supplies. The emergency measure were reported by the Russian newspaper Kommersant, which cited a source. Kommersant said refineries were being allowed to sell gasoline and diesel domestically with, for example, levels of sulphur about 15 times the maximum permitted in Europe, China, and India. The concessions also allow a higher share of aromatic hydrocarbons, which are ‌toxic compounds linked to health issues. On Monday, authorities in the Udmurtia region east of Moscow said temporary limits would be in force on gasoline at stations operated by Tatneft from 12 June, Reuters reported, after Tatneft’s major refinery had to completely shut down production because of drone strikes. As long ‌lines of cars queued on Monday in Sevastopol city, Crimea, driver Alyona, who gave only her first name, said: “How can it be solved, how? Only if the special military operation ends.” A Ukrainian drone ⁠strike ⁠killed three farm machine ⁠workers in the ⁠Russian border ‌region ‌of Bryansk, the ‌region’s acting governor said on ‌Monday. Yegor Kovalchuk said the three ⁠were killed while working in a field in ‌Pochepsky district near the border. There was no independent confirmation. Ukraine denies targeting civilians. Ukraine was due on Monday to officially begin European Union membership negotiations, launching a process that will require its government to commit to years of political reforms even as it continues to fight a Russian invasion. Ukrainian deputy prime minister Taras Kachka was to attend a conference in Luxembourg to open the talks, and called it a “Rubicon” moment. “All Ukrainian society believes that joining the European Union is our dream.” Moldova was also due to officially launch its membership talks.

Sri Lanka sees ‘alarming’ rise in cybercrime as scam networks relocate from south-east Asia

Experts have warned that Sri Lanka is emerging as a hub for transnational cybercrime, after a crackdown in south-east Asia pushed Chinese-run criminal networks to relocate their vast scam operations. Sri Lankan police spokesperson Fredrick Wootler said the country was witnessing an “alarming increase of cybercrimes” perpetrated by people entering the country as tourists, and then illegally setting up scam operations targeting people across the world. Authorities in Sri Lanka have carried out more than a dozen raids on alleged scam operations in the country since the beginning of the year, arresting and deporting almost 700 foreigners accused of involvement. On Thursday, the Sri Lankan police carried out its latest raid in the capital Colombo where they detained 18 Chinese citizens and one from Laos. The Guardian visited the site of the raid, and found that the scammers had left behind dozens of fake documents, from a falsified legal certification, fake US treasury documents and fake company registration, stating their company was worth $10bn. An officer from the crime investigation bureau who carried out the raid, and wished to remain anonymous, said they had also discovered 62 passports, mostly for Chinese nationals. “They had phones, laptops, pen drives, RAMs, a processor, a stamp to forge documents, and so many forged documents. One certificate, which we found was also forged to show that they were a business registered in the US, was framed and hung on the wall,” he said. Superintendent of police, Kamal Ariyawansa confirmed it was a Chinese crime syndicate behind the operation, which was attempting to scam American victims into investing in a fake US company. The majority of those arrested and deported for involvement in scams this year have been Chinese citizens, but people from Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia and Myanmar have also been detained in raids. The police said all those arrested had come to Sri Lanka on tourist visas. The transnational scam industry that flourished in south-east Asia over the past decade has become of the largest organised-crime enterprises in the world. It is mostly run by Chinese gangs and staffed by hundreds of thousands of workers, many trafficked or coerced into the job. From vast fortified compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar, large scale fraud factories orchestrate operations that run from romance scams and crypto fraud, to online gambling and money laundering on a global scale. The United States estimates Americans lost $10bn to south-east Asian scam centres in 2024. Yet as political pressure has grown on host countries in south-east Asia, scam compounds have faced a significant crackdown from authorities, pushing the Chinese operatives and crime syndicates to find new locations to set up operations. According to experts, Sri Lanka has emerged as a favoured new destination, due to the ease in getting tourist visas and the newly introduced “digital nomad” visas. There is also limited regulation on sim cards and internet connections, as well as a wide availability of offices and hotels to rent for a low price. There is already a significant Chinese presence in Sri Lankan infrastructure and business, and Chinese visitors are not seen as uncommon. Sri Lanka has also relaxed rules around online gambling and gaming, and its mechanisms to go after cybercrime are seen as limited. The current modus operandi is mostly to deport foreigners found carrying out cybercrimes, rather than prosecuting them. Mark Bo, cybercrime researcher and author of Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds, said he had noticed a shift in operations towards Sri Lanka starting two years ago, as it began to be mentioned in posts on the messaging app Telegram, as well as in recruitment drives. “After the crackdown really ramped up in Cambodia, I saw a lot more posts on Telegram channels of people saying they were moving to Sri Lanka,” said Bo. “There’s clearly been some kind of transplanting of the exact same set-up there. It shows the challenge of controlling the industry because one of its defining characteristics is how mobile and how adaptable it can be.” The operations have been accelerating beyond the control of the authorities. Businessmen in Colombo complained that the rents for office spaces had more than doubled in some complexes, due to the surge in demand and high prices paid by groups coming in from China. Rather than setting up visible compounds, police found these operations tried to avoid detection by working in small groups of five people, which rotate around different hotels, apartments and offices every three months. The officer said the operations they had busted recently were clearly backed by huge sums of money, with eight floors of an apartment building rented out in one incident. The Chinese embassy in Colombo has publicly acknowledged the involvement of its citizens in telephone fraud gangs, which they said had moved to Sri Lanka after the crackdown in southeast Asia. “Cases like these pose immense harm, and the Chinese embassy provides full support to Sri Lankan law enforcement agencies in resolutely cracking down on suspects,” they said.