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‘Blatant disregard for rights’: concern grows over Gabon’s social media clampdown

When Gabon’s media regulator indefinitely suspended major social media platforms in February, citing security concerns during anti-government protests, it became the talk of town – literally. Within weeks of the announcement, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass the restrictions surged in the central African country. When gendarmerie began stopping young men at road checkpoints in the capital Libreville and other urban centres to confiscate mobile phones with VPNs installed or detain the owners, warnings spread by word of mouth. Activists and opposition members said their accounts were also suspended due to efforts of state officials. Social media had helped citizens convene and stay informed since December, when workers in the education and health sectors protested over pay and the cost of living crisis. The government cited misinformation, disinformation, pornographic content, and incitement to hatred as reasons for the shutdown. Rights groups have urged authorities to follow due process to prosecute any offenders, rather than collective punishment through unconstitutional restriction of freedom of expression. “This sustained intentional interference with access to essential digital communication platforms in Gabon is a blatant disregard for people’s fundamental rights, specifically the freedom of expression and the right to access information,” said Felicia Anthonio, campaign manager at the #KeepItOn coalition — a global alliance of hundreds of human rights groups. Nelly Ngabima, a controversial activist also known as Princesse de Souba, said she received threats from Gabonese government officials that they would make her “disappear from social networks”. Within a couple of months, her accounts with a combined following of over 300,000 across Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, had been suspended. “They create fake accounts and they put our identities on those accounts, then they report us for identity theft,” she said. “Today, Gabonese people even struggle to send a WhatsApp message because they are afraid. They do not even go out with their phones.” The restrictions were temporarily lifted in April. However, a new regulation passed in February mandates social media users to provide verified names, addresses and ID numbers. Social networks are at risk of 50m central African CFA franc (£66,000) fines and prison terms for non-compliance. The law is one of a number of far-reaching changes to codify a crackdown on dissent including a controversial new nationality code signed in February and published last month. The code has come under criticism from those who say it restricts the rights of naturalised citizens and makes it easier for the state to strip citizens of their nationality. “What is being said here and there, in my view and humble opinion, concerns not so much the substance of the debate as its form,” said government spokesperson Charles Edgard Mombo, suggesting that any criticism was merely because the code had gone into force before parliamentary ratification. He cited article 99 of Gabon’s constitution which mandates parliament to ratify ordinances signed by the president during times of urgency. Former prime minister and opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who filed a suit challenging the restrictions in a Libreville court, was arrested in April for alleged fraud and breach of trust in an old case from 2008. His supporters say the charges are trumped-up. Ngabima was a Gabonese intelligence operative between 2015 and 2019, whose roles included tapping phones and monitoring messages of politicians and the military until she left the country. Now based in France, she is warning that her experience provided her with an awareness of the regime’s capacity to surveil those considered dissidents. Gabon, a country with a huge youth population, is an oil-rich nation but a third of the population live in deep poverty, and nepotism and corruption are common. It also has a well-documented history of cracking down on dissent. The penultimate internet shutdown happened in August 2023, just before a disputed election that Ali Bongo won. The internet was restored four days later, after the military removed Bongo and put him under house arrest. After seizing power that same month to end 56 years of Bongo family rule, General Brice Oligui Nguema had presented himself as a different kind of leader. The 2025 presidential election, which he won with more than 90% of the vote, was notably more open to media scrutiny than previous elections under the Bongos, with foreign media allowed to film the ballot count. However, his critics say he has long been part of the inner caucus of power, as a Bongo relative and part of the security architecture, and is now using the same draconian copybook as his predecessors, especially their opaque management of the economy. “Today Gabonese people still die of hunger, have no jobs and struggle to get medical treatment … all that already existed during Ali Bongo’s time,” said Ngabima. “In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed. You cannot remove Mr Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behaviours and then arrive and reproduce the same. That is not possible.”

‘It’s toxic’: Romania reeling over claims of high-level justice system corruption

The courtroom was silent but tense, the whir of camera lenses the only sound as dozens of journalists fixed their eyes on the bench. An extraordinary press conference had been called after the airing of a documentary late last year that claimed the top of Romania’s justice system was riddled with corruption. Seated at the bench at the Bucharest court of appeal was its president, Liana Arsenie, flanked by her two vice-presidents. Behind them, in support, stood about 30 judges. Then, Raluca Moroșanu, also a judge at the court, entered the room and asked to speak before the press conference began. “We are simply terrorised,” she said in a steady voice, breaking ranks with the leadership sitting beside her. “I can’t describe the atmosphere here, how toxic and tense it has become.” Her declaration made, she swept out of the court in her robes, to a smattering of applause in the room and the stony expressions of her fellow judges. Moroșanu’s intervention was made in support of a colleague who had been targeted after appearing in the documentary by Romanian outlet Recorder, which alleged that a network of senior magistrates and politicians had “captured” Romania’s justice system. “Everything he said is true and if anyone contradicts him, it is a lie,” she said in her address. Last month her colleague was referred for disciplinary proceedings over statements made in the documentary. The film used rare prosecutors’ and judges’ testimonies to claim that the network used administrative manoeuvres to delay convictions in high-level corruption cases until they reached the statute of limitations. The fallout was immediate: thousands of Romanians took to the streets and nearly 900 judges and prosecutors signed an open letter warning of “profound and systemic dysfunctions”. But six months on, meaningful reform has yet to materialise, and the allegations keep mounting. Last month, the investigative outlets Rise Project and PressOne alleged that Lia Savonea – now head of the supreme court – had acquitted a convicted gangster of a seven-year robbery sentence while co-owning land with his uncle during her time as head of the Bucharest court of appeal 12 years ago, an alleged potential conflict of interest she did not declare. She has denied the allegations, saying they were part of an “obvious defamation campaign” against her “based on forced associations and speculation regarding people and situations that have no real connection”. The allegations had been “subjected to verification”, she said, with no wrongdoing found. Earlier this month, the Romanian president, Nicușor Dan, deepened public disillusionment in the justice system by approving a controversial series of prosecutor appointments over objections from the judicial regulator and civil society. Among those named was Marius Voineag, a former head of the national anti-corruption directorate – a figure Dan had criticised on the campaign trail and whom prosecutors in the Recorder documentary accused of intervening in sensitive investigations. Voineag denied wrongdoing and declined to comment. The crisis is unfolding against an already volatile backdrop. In 2024, Romania’s constitutional court annulled a presidential election over alleged Russian interference, a decision that deepened public mistrust in the country’s institutions. The cumulative toll is visible in the polls. A survey this year found that seven in 10 Romanians do not trust the justice system and more than half believe the law is not applied equally. For Moroșanu, none of this is surprising. In an interview with the Guardian, she was frank about the scale of the crisis as she sees it. “We are now in the worst moment the Romanian justice system has been in my 26-year career,” she said. “The majority of magistrates are fair, competent and hardworking; what we see is not generalised corruption, but corruption at the top of the system.” Moroșanu has been working as a judge for more than a quarter of a century and has spent 19 years at the Bucharest court of appeal, one of the country’s most important courts, which handles many final decisions in high-level corruption cases. In recent years, a series of major corruption trials involving politicians and businessmen have collapsed after reaching the statute of limitations due to repeated delays in judicial proceedings and despite extensive evidence, including wiretaps of suspects appearing to admit wrongdoing. “The justice system is in a deep crisis caused by the formation of groups within high-level courts, which have taken over administrative management power,” said Laura Ștefan, an anti-corruption expert with the Romanian think tank Expert Forum. Andreea Pocotilă, one of the authors of the documentary, claimed that cases were repeatedly reassigned to new judging panels by court leadership just before rulings, forcing proceedings to restart and evidence to be reheard until they became time-barred. Members of the superior council of magistrates, the guardian of judicial independence that supervises judicial careers, have been accused of being complicit. “Who is supposed to protect us from the guardian, though?” said Andrea Chiș, a former member of the council and a retired judge. In a statement, the council rejected the allegations, saying Romania’s judiciary had been subjected to “an unprecedented assault” aimed at destroying its reputation through false accusations of systemic corruption. An internal inspection had confirmed none of the claims in the Recorder documentary, it added. Chiş argued in a 2023 study that justice reforms concentrated power in the hands of court leadership by expanding their authority and weakening oversight, creating a pyramidal power structure. Despite criticism, the reforms led the EU to lift its rule-of-law monitoring mechanism. “It was a mistake to lift the mechanism,” said Chiș. “It was not good for our justice system and it took away the pressure from those in power.” Successive reforms have left no effective mechanism to prosecute corrupt magistrates, observers say, with accountability efforts yielding barely any convictions in the past years.“It’s a tacit agreement between politicians and senior magistrates to block accountability for corruption within the justice system, while politicians, in turn, are granted impunity,” said Ștefan. As president of the supreme court and former head of the council of magistrates, Savonea has been accused of being a prominent part of this alleged power structure. In a statement, Savonea said the allegations were “part of an orchestrated campaign of defamation and reputational harm, through serious distortion of factual realities and the association of narratives lacking any evidence”. She added: “I also emphasise that there is no finding or imputation regarding any interference in the administration of justice on my part. “In reality, these accusations do not rest on mere assertions – they rely on speculative interpretations that end up challenging the very institutional architecture of the judicial system. This architecture, however, has been built in accordance with the most rigorous European standards, including with regard to competition procedures and mechanisms for filling public positions, grounded in criteria of legality, transparency and meritocracy.” Arsenie, head of the court of appeal, has also rejected the allegations. She has accused the journalists behind the documentary of “instigation against the constitutional order” – one of the most serious offences in the Romanian criminal code, roughly equivalent to sedition. She declined a Guardian interview request. The anger has spilled into the streets. Raluca Kișescu, a marketing consultant who joined the protests last year, believes trust is eroding beyond repair. “A democracy without justice is a story with a tragic ending,” she said. “It feels like we’re mice in electric shock experiments: we get used to each shock from a new Recorder documentary, we comment on it with our friends and then it passes.” Since speaking out, Moroșanu said she had been recused from two cases after fellow judges argued her public criticism of Arsenie showed a lack of empathy. Still, she does not regret speaking out. “There’s still a chance that things might change if something happens this year,” she said, “but if nothing changes now, things will never change.”

Public health at risk across Asia as price of gas for cooking soars

In the ramshackle lanes of a south Delhi slum, Afshana Khatoon crouched wearily on her haunches and began lighting a small pile of firewood. She had only just returned from six hours spent trudging through the urban forests and dry parks of India’s capital looking for kindling to turn into a makeshift stove. As the unforgiving summer heat soared above 40C, she had walked for miles, piling the sticks and fallen branches into a bundle on her head while sweat ran down her face. Just a few weeks ago, the 35-year-old had been preparing meals for her four children on a small gas stove with little fuss. But as the crisis in the Middle East has choked India’s vital supplies of imported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) – used by more than 60% of the country’s population for cooking – refills have been scarce and prices have risen far beyond what is widely affordable. Khatoon, like growing numbers of people in India and more widely across Asia, has been forced to cook with crude, dirty fuels such as firewood and coal in order to survive. “It already feels like hell,” she said, as she bustled about, filling a pot with water. “I’m not eating properly, and I have to work much more than before. My whole day now is about collecting firewood and cooking.” The return to fuels such as firewood and coal is not only deepening the economic strain of the war on ordinary civilians in countries across Asia, but raising concerns about public health, air pollution and the fragility of the energy transition. India imports about 60% of its LPG needs, of which about 90% usually comes through the strait of Hormuz, the critical shipping route still blockaded amid the ongoing conflict between Iran and the US. Official data shows India’s LPG consumption fell by 2.2m tonnes in April, the sharpest decline in years. As the war has dragged on, cooking gas prices in informal markets have surged. In Khatoon’s dimly lit shanty, her 5kg gas canister sat empty and forlorn in the corner. She said LPG had become prohibitively expensive for her family, rising to more than four times what she used to pay. “My husband earns 400 to 500 rupees a day. We can’t spend 1,000 rupees just on gas for a week,” she said. While the Indian government insists there is no shortage, in a speech this week the prime minister, Narendra Modi, called on people to adopt austerity measures including limiting their use of fuel and petrol. According to the defence minister, India has petroleum gas reserves to last just 45 days. Once Khatoon’s fire stove is lit, thick smoke rises from the flames. It stings the eyes and throat but she has no option but to breathe it in as she cooks. She put her head in her hands, admitting she felt utterly exhausted. “We just want to cook as quickly as possible,” she said. The return to biomass is raising alarms about air quality in cities across the region. Solid fuels such as wood and charcoal come with a range of health and environmental risks. They emit a dangerous set of pollutants that have been linked to respiratory problems, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer, strokes and heart disease. The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization. Women and children, widely responsible for household chores such as cooking or collecting firewood, are the most vulnerable. Delhi already ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, and years of policy have focused on promoting cleaner fuels such as LPG and compressed natural gas to reduce emissions. Environmental activists fear years of progress toward widespread use of cleaner fuels is being reversed as the war in the Middle East drags on. With shortages deepening, authorities in Delhi have temporarily relaxed restrictions on the use of coal and firewood. “When prices rise, it’s the poorest who are forced to switch back to biomass,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist and the founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation. “Biomass burning is a major source of fine particulate pollution. In dense urban areas, the impact is even more severe because of how closely people live and how poorly ventilated these spaces are.” Over the past decade, the Indian government has distributed more than 100m subsidised cooking gas canisters. But the current crisis is exposing a deeper fault line: access did not guarantee affordability, with families now forced to choose between food and fuel. For many families, the gas cylinder has become, Singh said, “a symbol of a transition they can no longer afford to sustain”. Thousands of miles away in the Philippines – where 90% of the country’s LPG needs are dependent on supplies flowing through the strait of Hormuz – a similar crisis has been playing out. In a dingy alleyway in the capital, Manila, Josephine Songalia sat quietly by a charcoal-lit stove, fanning it until a flame appeared. A few months ago, she would have turned a knob to light the LPG powering her stove. But gas has become an unaffordable luxury for cooking here too. Prices for a small tank of LPG have tripled to about Php600 (about $9.80 or £7.20). Charcoal, though far dirtier and more polluting, costs Songalia just Php10, allowing her to still cook rice and boil water. At dinnertime she tells her children to keep a distance, fearful they will breathe in the toxic fumes. “I worry the smoke could harm my lungs and make me sick, but I push those thoughts aside because I have to do this so my kids can eat,” says Songalia, 25, who lives with her husband and three children in Aroma, Tondo, one of Manila’s poorest neighbourhoods. Compounding the crisis, the cost of food in the Philippines has also increased because of the ripple effects of the war, meaning that her family has no choice but to skip meals. “In the morning, my kids say: ‘Mama, we’re hungry.’ I tell them we don’t have food – just drink coffee,” she said. Consumption of LPG in the Philippines has dropped 30% compared with the same period last year, as people have switched to charcoal owing to cost pressures. In a bid to ease the growing financial burden, the government has suspended the excise tax on LPG and paraffin for three months. “At stake right now is the health of families … air pollution indoors will be proliferating,” said Mylene G Cayetano, a professor of environmental science and meteorology at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. Cayetano said production of cheap charcoal was a “very dirty process”. The practice, mostly carried out in seaside or riverside areas, fills the air with ash and smoke and causes environmental devastation. Back in the Delhi slum, as evening fell and the firewood stoves began to be lit to cook dinner, Shanti, 75, struggled for breath. She has been diagnosed with a chronic lung condition but has been forced to cook on firewood again for the past two months. “A doctor told me to stay away from smoke,” she said, coughing. “But what choice do I have? My health is getting worse but I need to eat.”

Ukraine war briefing: Deadly Russian bombing spree marks end of ceasefire

Russian forces launched attacks in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Tuesday, killing at least six people, regional officials said, after the expiry of a ceasefire. Ukrainian officials said Russia launched more than 200 drones overnight, putting an end to hopes that the three-day ceasefire that ended on Monday would be extended. A drone attack on an apartment building in the president’s home town, the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killed two and injured four, including the dead couple’s nine-month-old granddaughter whose leg was severed, said the regional governor and local military administration head. North-east of Kryvyi Rih, an aerial bomb strike killed four and injured three, said officials. “After the end of the partial three-day ceasefire, Russia continues to kill and maim Ukrainians and pressure on it must therefore in no way be weakened,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president. Zelenskyy said drones were intercepted over several regions but reported damage to energy facilities, apartment buildings, a kindergarten and a civilian locomotive. In Kyiv, debris from a downed drone fell on the roof of a 16-storey residential building in the northern Obolon district, sparking a fire, said the mayor, Vitali Klitschko. Two people were hurt in the central Cherkasy region, and damage was also recorded in the Zhytomyr region, farther west, and in the Chernihiv region on the Russian border. Two people were injured in strikes on the south-eastern city of Dnipro and the southern city of Kherson. Russian drones also hit energy infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region, causing blackouts in the region, said Vitaliy Kim, the regional governor. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces struck gas facilities in Russia’s central Orenburg region more than 1,500 km (900 miles) from Ukraine’s borders. “Overall, Ukraine’s current position on the frontline, in our long-range [strikes] and in our joint results with our partners are at their highest level in years. We must maintain this level and continue to achieve results,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation. Zelenskyy said Kyiv was working with its allies in Europe to develop technologies to defend against ballistic missiles, adding that 13 countries and Nato representatives had participated in talks on the issue on Tuesday. Signs that Vladimir Putin’s position is weakening could open a window to ending the war in Ukraine, the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on Tuesday. Putin over the weekend suggested that the war in Ukraine was “heading to an end” after more than four years of bloodshed. “What his statement really shows is that he’s not in a strong position,” Kallas said after a meeting with EU defence ministers. “So I think there’s an opportunity for ending this war.”

Cost of US war on Iran mounting – as it happened

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WHO head tells countries to prepare for more hantavirus cases

The head of the World Health Organization has told countries to prepare for more hantavirus cases as authorities in Paris said a French woman who contracted the virus onboard the MV Hondius had the most severe form of the disease and had been put on a ventilator. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Spain for the “compassion and solidarity” it had shown by taking in the stricken cruise ship and urged authorities to follow the WHO’s advice and recommendations, which include a 42-day quarantine and constant monitoring of high-risk contacts. “At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak, but of course the situation could change and, given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” he told a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday. The MV Hondius, which was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde, found itself at the centre of the outbreak after three passengers – a Dutch couple and a German national – died from the virus. Although usually spread by wild rodents, hantavirus can be transmitted person-to-person in rare cases of close contact. The WHO has so far confirmed nine cases of the Andes variant of the virus, among them a French woman and a US national who tested positive after being evacuated from the ship. Health officials in Paris said late on Tuesday that the French patient had been moved to intensive care with “the most severe form of cardiopulmonary presentation”. Dr Xavier Lescure told reporters the 65-year old had pre-existing conditions, but gave no further details. “She is on an artificial lung and a blood bypass to allow her, we hope, to get through this stage,” he said. The Spanish health ministry said that one of the 14 Spaniards evacuated from the ship and put in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid had tested positive for hantavirus and was showing symptoms. “The patient who tested provisionally positive yesterday has been confirmed positive for hantavirus,” it said in a statement. “The patient presented with a low-grade fever and mild respiratory symptoms yesterday, but is currently stable and shows no evident clinical deterioration.” Tedros, who was speaking alongside Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said more cases were likely to appear because of the degree of interaction between the passengers onboard the ship before the alarm was raised and the first case confirmed in a passenger on 2 May. “We would expect more cases because, as you may remember, the index case – the first case in the ship – was on 6 April … [and] there was a lot of interaction, actually, with the passengers. And as you know, the incubation period is also six to eight weeks. “So because of the interaction while they were still in the ship – especially before they started taking some infectious prevention measures – because of the interaction, we would expect more cases because of some of what happened during the travel.” Tedros said individual countries were now responsible for their citizens after the evacuation, adding: “I hope they will take care of the patients and the passengers, helping them and also protecting their citizens as well. That’s what we expect.” The UK Health Security Agency said 10 people from remote South Atlantic islands connected to the cruise ship outbreak of hantavirus are to be brought to the UK in case they develop the illness. The group, from the UK overseas territories of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha islands, are being “brought to the UK to complete their self-isolation as a precautionary measure” after being in contact with those affected, officials said. It is currently unclear whether the group includes British nationals. It comes as 20 British nationals from the MV Hondius, together with a German who is a UK resident, and a Japanese passenger, who have been isolating at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral prepare to leave the facility. The WHO chief also paid tribute to the Spanish government and the people of Spain for responding to the plight of those onboard the ship after authorities in Cape Verde refused it permission to dock. More than 120 passengers and crew members were evacuated from Tenerife in a carefully coordinated operation on Sunday and Monday. “I’d like to thank Spain and, especially, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, for the outstanding leadership and coordination,” he said. “I know this is a model – and I hope other countries also learn from this – not just the obligation part but the compassion and solidarity that Spain has shown.” In a “divided and divisive world”, he added, “kindness and taking care of each other” were important. Sánchez echoed the sentiment, saying: “This world doesn’t need more selfishness, nor more fear. What it needs is countries that show solidarity and want to move forward.” The prime minister also offered his condolences once again to the family of a Guardia Civil officer who died of a heart attack while taking part in the evacuation on Sunday. Despite objections from the regional government of the Canary Islands, Spain’s central government allowed the MV Hondius to anchor in port in Tenerife – and then, briefly, to dock – as it oversaw the evacuation operation. France’s health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said on Tuesday that while it wasn’t currently clear whether the hantavirus strain involved in the outbreak may have mutated, officials were “rather reassured”. Rist told the National Assembly: “There are things … we do not know about this virus. We do not yet have the complete sequencing of the virus, which allows us to say with certainty today, even if we are rather reassured to date … that this virus has not yet mutated.” The final planes carrying passengers and crew left the Canary Islands on Monday night and arrived in the Netherlands early on Tuesday. Dutch authorities said all 26 passengers onboard the first evacuation flight had tested negative for the virus. Two more repatriation flights landed later in the Netherlands, carrying 28 more evacuees who will also undergo quarantine. A Dutch hospital quarantined a dozen members of staff on Tuesday after urine and blood from a patient with hantavirus were handled without using the necessary protocols. The 12 people would be quarantined for six weeks, a spokesperson for the Radboudumc hospital in Nijmegen said, adding that the infection risk was very low and patient care continued uninterrupted. The MV Hondius, which refuelled and restocked in Tenerife, is now sailing back to port in Rotterdam with a crew of 25 as well as a doctor and nurse. Reuters contributed to this report

UAE’s secret attack on Iran risks drawing Gulf states into the war

The risk of some Gulf states becoming embroiled in a direct war with Iran has risen after it was reported the United Arab Emirates had secretly launched a major attack on Iran during the conflict. In addition, Kuwait has said that at least four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been captured trying to carry out “terrorist attacks” on the Kuwaiti-owned Bubiyan Island, the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal chain. The UAE assault on Iran, which was undertaken as retaliation for Iranian attacks on its facilities, included a strike on Iran’s Lazan Island just before the 7 April ceasefire was announced, the Wall Street Journal reported. The news is likely to make the UAE an even clearer target for Iran if the ceasefire is abandoned and the US and Iran restart the conflict. Donald Trump said on Monday the ceasefire was hanging by a thread due to Iran’s failure to make the concessions he is seeking over its nuclear programme. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said the cost of the war with Iran had risen to nearly $29bn – about $4bn higher than the previous Pentagon estimate given two weeks ago. In the earlier fighting that began on 28 February the UAE had been selected as a target for missile and drone strikes by Iran. It was disproportionately attacked partly due to the severe diplomatic hostility to Iran expressed by its rulers. The Wall Street Journal report gave details of how that diplomatic hostility extended to military hostility, pointing to images that allegedly showed French Mirage fighter jets and Chinese Wing Long drones (both used by the UAE) operating in Iran. The UAE had hinted around that time that it wanted to mount reprisal operations, and not just defend its oil and port installations. Iran at the time also accused the UAE and Kuwait of being involved in the attacks. The UAE has still so far failed to persuade Qatar or Saudi Arabia to do more to counter Iranian attacks or the blockade in the strait of Hormuz that Tehran views as a necessary retaliation to the US attacks. Iran’s intelligence assessment has always been that some Gulf states had allowed their airspace or US bases to be used by American forces to attack Iran. Europeans, including UK air forces, have also protected Gulf states, but that has largely been sold to domestic audiences as a necessary step to protect neutral Gulf allies that wanted to stay out of the conflict. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said Israel had sent Iron Dome batteries and personnel to improve UAE defences. The divisions within Gulf states – notably between Saudi Arabia and the UAE – have in private been focused on whether Arab anger at Iran’s attacks should extend to military reprisals, or whether that will produce a level of Iranian hostility that might threaten the delicate diplomatic relationships between the Gulf states. Explaining the Saudi position Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US, insisted in an Arab News article this week that Saudi restraint had been wise. He wrote “if the Israeli plan succeeded in igniting war between us and Iran, the region would be transformed into a state of devastation and destruction, and Israel would succeed in imposing its will on the region, remaining the sole actor in our surroundings”. If Saudi Arabia entered an all-out war today, oil facilities on the eastern coast would be destroyed, desalination plants would be struck, the hajj would be catastrophically affected, and Vision 2030 projects would grind to a halt, it was suggested. Kuwaiti press published the names of four IRGC commanders that had tried to infiltrate Bubiyan Island on a fishing boat in an incident earlier this month. Iranian media has not reported the episode yet, but the UAE issued a statement expressing solidarity with Kuwait in trying to fend off IRGC “hostile and terrorist acts”. The Iranian ambassador to Kuwait was summoned by the foreign ministry to hear Kuwait’s anger at an attack on its armed forces. Some of the Kuwaiti reporting highlighted a Chinese rather than US presence on the island. The UAE anger towards Iran partly reflects longstanding ideological differences, including the UAE’s willingness to sign the Abraham Accords normalising relations with Israel, but also a belief that the Emirates had been unjustly singled out for disruption by Iran due to those links with Israel. The disruption to the UAE it was confirmed includes the near two-year closure of the UAE’s biggest gas plant due to Iranian attacks last month. The owner, Adnoc Gas, said the plant would not be fully repaired until next year. The aim is to restore the complex’s processing capacity to 80% by the end of 2026, with full capacity achieved in 2027, the company said on Tuesday. But the UAE stance has also served to build new diplomatic allliances in the Middle East. Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, hailed the quartet of nations that were avoiding conflict with Iran. “All the circumstances in the region are leading to an alliance that brings together Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.” The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, expressing one of the quartet’s most fundamental beliefs, warning against “Israeli expansionism”, which “remains the number one challenge to stability, security in our region”. He added: “What the Gulf is going through should not lead to losing focus on Gaza. “Expansionism in Gaza, Beirut, the West Bank and Syria has cost many lives and forced many more to flee home. Regional countries and the international community should be more sensitive about this issue,” he said. Iran held talks with Oman on Tuesday about its plans to reorganise the administration of shipping passing through the strait of Hormuz, including by charging for services to shipping companies.

Russian ship that sank near Spain may have been carrying nuclear reactors to North Korea

A Russian cargo ship that suffered a series of mysterious explosions before eventually sinking off the south-east coast of Spain 17 months ago may have been carrying nuclear submarine reactors destined for North Korea, according to reports. The Ursa Major, a 142-metre-long, Russian-flagged ship owned by the state-linked Oboronlogistics company, was purportedly sailing from St Petersburg to Vladivostok in the far east of Russia when it sank 62 nautical miles off the coast of Murcia a little before midnight on 23 December 2024. Eleven hours earlier, Spain’s maritime rescue and security service, Sasemar, had dispatched a helicopter, a fast rescue boat, and a tugboat to the Ursa Major, which put out a distress call at 12.53pm. Other vessels in the area noted that the Russian vessel, which had slowed dramatically over the previous 24 hours, was listing badly and saw its crew abandoning ship. The crew members told rescuers that there had been three explosions in the ship’s engine room. Spanish attempts to assist the Ursa Major were curtailed at 8.07pm that evening when a Russian warship arrived, took over operations and ordered the two Sasemar boats to withdraw to a distance of two nautical miles. According to a Spanish government document that was released three months ago in response to parliamentary questions over the incident, the Russian warship then launched flares over the Ursa Major. A report in the Murcia newspaper La Verdad said the flares could have been deployed to blind the infrared channels of the intelligence satellites that were monitoring the incident. A CNN investigation into the sinking of the vessel noted that “four similar seismic signatures … the pattern of which resembled underwater mines or overground quarry blasts” were heard just after the flares were fired. By 11.20pm, the Ursa Major had sunk and now lies at a depth of 2,500 metres. Two crew members are thought to have died in the initial explosions, while 14 were rescued. Although the vessel was officially transporting “non-dangerous merchandise” – including 129 shipping containers, two cranes, and two large maintenance hole covers – its route and sinking raised the suspicions of the Spanish authorities. Under questioning, the captain of the Ursa Major eventually told Spanish investigators that the “manhole covers” onboard his ship were “nuclear reactor components similar to those used by submarines”, but that no nuclear fuel was being transported. Investigators had also noticed two huge blue containers – each estimated to weigh about 65 tonnes – on the stern of the ship in satellite photographs. “These would therefore be two loads almost impossible to transport along the winding roads of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan between the two cities served by the Ursa Major,” said the report in La Verdad. “That mysterious undeclared cargo would certainly justify a voyage of more than 15,000km by sea between St Petersburg and Vladivostok.” A source familiar with the investigation told CNN that the Russian captain believed he would be diverted to the North Korean port of Rason to deliver the two reactors. While the incident remains a mystery, CNN suggested the sinking of the Ursa Major “may mark a rare and high-stakes intervention by a western military to prevent Russia from sending an upgrade in nuclear technology to a key ally, North Korea”. The network noted that the Russian ship set sail just two months after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had sent troops to assist with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. CNN and La Verdad reported that a 50cm by 50cm hole found in the vessel’s hull – with the damaged metal facing inwards – could have been made by a super-fast weapon known as a supercavitating torpedo. “Only the United States, a few Nato allies, Russia and Iran are believed to have this kind of high-speed torpedo, which fires air ahead of the weapon to reduce the drag of the water,” said CNN. “The source familiar with the [Spanish] investigation said it concluded the use of such a device would fit with the size of the hole in the Ursa Major’s hull, and that it could have made a noiseless impact resulting in the sudden slowing of the boat on 22 December.” CNN said there had been a “flurry of recent military activity” around the ship’s remains, with US nuclear “sniffer” aircraft overflying the scene twice in the past year, and a Russian spy ship setting off four further explosions in the wreckage a week after it sank. A report by Oboronlogistics claimed that the Ursa Major fell prey to what it termed “a targeted terrorist attack”. Spain’s interior, foreign and defence ministries have been contacted for comment.