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Cuba edges toward breakdown as power cuts and US meddling push society to brink

When Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days on Tuesday, a collective groan spreads across its cities and people wonder, again, whether the island’s antiquated electricity system may soon become unrecoverable. The 777-mile Caribbean island of 9.5 million people has been sweltering under a six-month-long oil blockade imposed by the United States, part of a pressure campaign to bring down its communist government. But the parlous state of Cuba’s infrastructure goes far further back. “The backbone of the system is still the big power plants,’ said Jorge Piñon, senior energy researcher at the University of Texas. “And they’re old, broken and tired.” With summer temperatures now in the mid-30s and humidity at 80%, tempers on the street have begun to break. For many, the nationwide collapses mesh seamlessly with already withering local blackouts. Where once salsa filled the streets, now the drumming of pots and pans has become the country’s soundtrack, cacerolazos that represent the shared misery of no sleep, ruined food and fading hopes of reprieve. Electricity returns only sporadically. “An hour isn’t enough time to run the pump to get water or to charge phones,” Alberto, a middle aged man, yelled through a cacophony of pans in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood last week. “People want the government to act right now.” The government, however, says it has few options: “We’ve said it before, there is a total absence of fuel,” said Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy. “And we do not have access to spare parts for our thermoelectric units.” Ever since 3 January, when the US military abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Donald Trump has promised Cuba will fall. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he told reporters at the White House in March. In its efforts to achieve this, Washington has used sanctions to destroy Cuba’s industries. Foreign companies doing business on the island, from hotel operators, airlines, miners and shipping companies, have been driven out (or in cases such as Canadian nickel miner Sherritt, have drawn up plans to stay in by selling its interests to Ray Washburne, a former advisor to Trump). “We have seven containers in Kingston and another 40 in China, but we have no idea when, or if, they will arrive,” said an electric car importer. In May, a court in Florida charged 95-year-old Raúl Castro with murder, 30 years after the shooting down of small planes out of Miami dropping leaflets on Havana, and opening the possibility of a Venezuela-style extraction. Even before the US cranked up the pressure, the Cuban state was weak, having fallen into the grip of hyperinflation during the pandemic. Now, services are faltering. For years one of the safest countries in Latin America, crime is blossoming: there are fights on the streets, cars and houses being broken into, and muggings with violence. Police, once ubiquitous, are hard to find, and victims complain they take hours to turn up. They’re still there though. Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based group, said that the number of political prisoners had risen to 1,306, with newcomers such as Héctor Ochoa Vergara “detained after taking part in a peaceful demonstration against blackouts and water shortages in Ciego de Ávila”. The Cuban government’s determination to appear united has recently appeared to be under strain. For months now, the US has been leaking its discussions on a possible deal over political and economic reforms, negotiations channeled through Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro. Last week, the 42-year-old Rodríguez Castro gave an interview to USA Today, inviting reporters to one of his grandfather’s old offices in Havana, then to Antojos, a smart city restaurant. He was wearing Hermes sneakers, a Rolex and carrying official documents in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. “It pains me that many people can’t live the way I do,” he told the reporters, adding that while he had no interest in politics, “if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it”. The resulting uproar took in musicians, academics, former diplomats, and just people on the street outraged by such a display from someone who is, in the words of respected academic Julio César Guanche, “without recognised institutional public functions”. Most telling though, was the anger of younger Cubans associated with the government. “To usurp the functions of government, to assume a public role for which no one elected you, to proclaim yourself spokesperson for measures or new directions for the country … would anyone else be allowed to do that?” wrote Michel Torres Corona, whose Con Filo programme on Cuban television was recently considered the epitome of state propaganda. Early in the crisis, the US made clear it had been looking for someone to be its “Delcy”, the equivalent of Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez, who took Maduro’s position as president of Venezuela and is now working hand in glove with Washington. But Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban American studies at the University of Miami, thinks Rodríguez Castro’s USA Today interview may signal a collapse in such negotiations, calling it instead “a cry for relevance”. “I think there’s an open question as to who exactly he speaks for, and whether the channel of communication with him is ongoing or not,” he said. Certainly, having gone into a lull during the World Cup, war drums are once again banging in the US, 90 miles to the north. In the unlikely surrounds of the Biltmore hotel in Coral Gables, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, stood next to an Iranian Shahed drone and attempted to link Cuba with Iran over (unconfirmed) reports that Cuba has purchased 300 attack drones. “I think it’s important to recognise that Iran has consistently been working with Cuba,” he said. In the White House, Trump followed up, saying: “We’re not going to allow that to happen.” Meanwhile Cuban government efforts to show willing by opening up the economy, announcing 176 as yet to be enacted measures expanding the private sector and inviting in investment, were dismissed by the US State Department as “superficial smoke signals”. The grid was reconnected at 7am on Wednesday, people cheering if their block received electricity. But everyone knows it is only temporary. Laura Garcia, an illustrator and single mother from Havana’s 10 de Octubre neighbourhood, said her neighbours now lived only in the present. “What I hear is a level of desperation that doesn’t allow the distance to discuss the future,” she said. She had just gone 72 hours without power, and when pushed for further comment, only muttered: “What has to fall doesn’t fall.”

Why is Trump risking midterm disaster by resuming an already unpopular war with Iran?

For half a century, Donald Trump has performed a public high-wire act based on high-stakes risks and shattering time-honored norms to get what he wants. The approach has paid off handsomely, helping him survive multiple bankruptcies to reach billionaire status and numerous legal and political scandals to be elected US president twice. Now a leader who once owned some of the world’s best-known casinos may be about to take the biggest gamble of his presidency by restarting a war with Iran less than a month after agreeing to a ceasefire that he hailed as necessary to stop an economic crisis on a par with the Great Depression. In the past week, Trump has ordered a resumption of strikes against Iranian military and infrastructure targets after concluding that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) he signed in the Palace of Versailles on 17 June was dead in the water. Iran has retaliated with drone and missile strikes against US allies in the Gulf. The MoU was the subject of biting criticism from the Republicans’ neoconservative wing, who denounced it as a capitulation to Iran. Less than four months before November’s midterm elections in which Democrats are seeking to recapture both houses of Congress, Trump appears to be flirting with electoral disaster in re-stoking a war that is already unpopular with voters – not least for its inflationary impact on fuel and living costs. “There’s basically no timeline in which this makes any sense for preserving [Republicans’] midterm performance,” said Curt Mills, executive editor of the American Conservative, a magazine promoting isolationist foreign policy goals favored by Trump’s “American first” supporters. “I think it’s a total loser. It’s evidence that Trump doesn’t really care about the midterms. He’s like Icarus with the sun with this stuff – it seems to be a personal vendetta with the Iranians.” Beyond the electoral impact, experts warn that escalation could lead inexorably to a land invasion of Iranian territory – a decision which could in turn bring on the sort of long-term “forever wars” he previously foreswore and condemned past presidents for. “My initial assessment was that this would just be another blip, some cyclical violence, and then we go back [to the ceasefire and negotiations],” said Nate Swanson, a former state department and White House adviser on Iran. “But the escalation has already exceeded what I thought was possible. “I see this as an effort to re-establish leverage and try to renegotiate the MoU, but it is highly risky with potentially devastating consequences – and, in my view, likely to be a failure.” At the heart of the renewed violence is control over the strait of Hormuz, a strategically-vital waterway which was a conduit for 20% of the world’s energy exports before the war started on 28 February and which has now emerged as Tehran’s biggest bargaining chip as it seeks to resist pressure to make concessions on issues such as its nuclear program and support for proxies such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group. The MoU was intended to pave the way for a 60-day ceasefire during which negotiations would take place on Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, Iran would reopen the strait – having closed it in response to the US and Israeli attacks, causing global oil prices to soar – in exchange for significant sanctions relief, including the right to sell its oil in international markets and the unfreezing of billions of dollars of assets. Problems emerged within days. Iran fired on commercial vessels belonging to neighboring Gulf kingdoms after they used, with US naval protection, a shipping lane close to the shores of neutral Oman rather than previously used routes off the Iranian coast, where Tehran’s officials could control passage and charge “service” fees that Washington DC and its allies say are tantamount to illegal tolls. Some analysts have blamed the flare-up on poor US negotiating, supposedly leading to misunderstandings and ambiguities in the MoU, which makes no mention of shipping lanes. But Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies argued that the MoU’s collapse was a consequence of US and Iranian miscalculation. “I don’t think there was a misunderstanding. I think this is exactly what Trump intended,” he said. He cited recent comments by JD Vance, the US vice-president, suggesting that the MoU was signed to give an opportunity to replenish strategic oil reserves, thereby weakening Iran’s negotiating hand while temporarily easing the pressure on fuel costs. “The MoU was mainly a breather for Trump to try to get what he wants, which is to get control of the strait or take it away from Iran,” Nasr said. “Trump is trying to take it away from them before he negotiates, so they are not in a position to resist his demands on the nuclear issue or anything else. “Iran also made a gamble that it could basically use the 60 days in order to get some economic relief by bringing imports into the country, while making its position stronger. The bottom line is that there may have been a miscalculation. But there is no misunderstanding. “Trump may have overestimated what he can do militarily, and again falls short [and decides] ‘I have to set up something else.’ The Iranians are also overestimating how much they can resist. This is something neither side knows.” The potential for miscalculation is heightened by the absence of Iran specialists in Trump’s administration. Swanson – who has said he was forced out of his state department post after a critical tweet from the rightwing influencer, Laura Loomer – blamed the deficiency on Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who he said had “physically removed” key personnel. “I’m struck by some of the leaks that have come out about decision-making in this war, where Rubio is reportedly skeptical about the regime change aims that the Israelis propose to Trump, but then says nothing,” said Swanson, now with the Atlantic Council. “He’s basically neutralized the [state] department, then stays quiet [but] privately tries to clear his name in the aftermath.” Instead of seasoned Iran specialists, Trump has relied on his tried-and-trusted negotiating team – namely Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and latterly, Vance, who opposed the initial decision to go to war and was a key figure in negotiating the MoU. “That is how he fundamentally misunderstood his adversary,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. “Expertise would have come handy for the president, to actually listen to folks who’ve watched this Iranian system, and would have told him ‘They’re not businessmen from New York. They’re made of a different type of DNA.’ “Trump now has an adversary that is willing to suffer a lot more than he thought. They are willing to risk on playing the strait of Hormuz card because it puts them in charge of so much of the global energy supply and turns some of the wealthiest countries in the Gulf into their hostages.” Iran’s readiness to gamble could drive Trump to further raise the stakes, making further escalation – including a ground invasion – more likely. Regime change – a goal explicitly sought at the start of the war with the assassination of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, in the first hours, followed by other key figures – seems off the table for now. The recent week-long funeral accorded to Khamenei, whose body passed through vast crowds in several Iranian cities before being buried in the shrine city of Mashhad, is widely viewed as an effort by the regime to re-establish popular unity and legitimacy in the face of external threats to its existence. With Iran willing to retaliate against US Gulf allies such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and even Oman – countries that the regime paints as “collaborators” with Washington – Vatanka warned of a possible five- or 10-year conflict. “You can imagine the United States bombarding Iran repeatedly over the course of many weeks and months,” he said. “But looking at the situation, now, I don’t know how Trump’s going to defeat the regime militarily, unless he wants to occupy the place.” One option short of that could be an invasion of Kharg Island, the hub of Iran’s crude oil export business. But such a move would be of limited usefulness, argued Joseph Votel, a retired US general and former head of US Central Command during Trump’s first presidency, who said an effective strategy must involve diplomacy, including reaching out to Nato allies whom the US president has repeatedly insulted. “It’s important that we focus on reducing the points of leverage that Iran has,” said Votel. Some of that can be done by offensive military operations. Others can be done by more defensive measures. “We’re seeing a sustained tit for tat over military operations. We strike, they strike. That leads me to conclude that this is going to take probably weeks to months. A lot of strategic patience is required – and there is a lot of risk involved.”

Burnham must shift UK mood on racism, chair of Operation Black Vote says

Andy Burnham has a historic opportunity to shift the national mood on racism, the chair of Operation Black Vote has said. In an interview marking the 30th anniversary of the influential nonpartisan civil rights organisation, David Weaver, the chair of Operation Black Vote (OBV), said Burnham must seize the chance to change a UK political culture where race and migration discourse is used to deflect from class inequalities and ineffective leadership. Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, will become prime minister on Monday, after being confirmed as the new Labour leader on Friday. His prospectus for power – including devolution, reindustrialisation, technical education and a more economically interventionist state – promises to address class and regional inequalities. Weaver said: “The conversations [Burnham] is having about class, inequality and listening to communities – they’re often not about race, but they’re beneficial. “Not simply because they have the potential to help Black communities, but because they have the potential to make white working-class communities more secure. What he does now is critical: a society can’t thrive if it’s divided.” Nonetheless, Weaver said Burnham could not ignore “the specificity of race” when ethnonationalist rhetoric, ethnic disparities and race riots meant Black and Asian Britons were discussing the prospect of having to leave the UK “at levels unseen since the 70s”. He urged Burnham to grant legal aid to Windrush scandal survivors and overhaul the underperforming compensation scheme by removing it from Home Office control and expediting payments. Weaver also called for Burnham to restore the Labour whip to the pioneering Black MP Diane Abbott, whose “appalling” treatment was consistently cited to OBV by Black voters. Weaver noted that Burnham was assuming office when pessimism among Black and Asian Britons about their future in the UK was at its lowest since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. He said: “We do have hope that there will be equity, but when you look at the things being said now, even in parliament, it makes what Enoch Powell said look like a nursery rhyme. “Black people are seeing their British identity questioned. They are confused, despondent and pessimistic about their future in this country and as a response to the normalisation of racism, they are speaking about ancestry, the diaspora, more than ever. “People will take trips, if they’re fortunate enough, to the Caribbean or Africa or India, Pakistan, and think – is there more hope for me here?” In March, Hope Not Hate research revealed 54% of members of Reform UK, who have led polls for a year, thought non-white British citizens born abroad should be forcibly removed or encouraged to leave; while one in five (22%) supported it for non-white citizens whose parents were born in the UK. In December the thinktank IPPR’s research revealed 71% of Reform voters thought British ancestry was a prerequisite for someone to be truly British; while more than a third said they would be prouder of Britain if there were fewer people from minority ethnic backgrounds in a decade’s time. The Conservative MP Katie Lam has said legal migrants should “go home”; while Rupert Lowe, the leader of the hard-right Restore Britain party, said “millions must go”. For Black Britons, the rhetoric is reminiscent of the postwar far right demanding “repatriation”. Weaver said the reality of the Windrush scandal – in which mainly Black Britons were stripped of citizenship rights over decades and deported, largely to the Caribbean and Africa – heightened fears. He said: “If we don’t take the clues from Windrush, incorporate that into our thinking about what is being said about remigration, and not see the links, then that’s our failing – and a political failing, morally and ethically.” But he added that “leaving Britain in the thousands is not the answer” and that “Black people must reserve the right to live and be born in the UK with equity”, just as white Britons felt comfortable migrating worldwide. Since 1996, OBV has supported and mentored thousands of people into public life – MPs, councillors, school governors, magistrates and NHS board members – helping make the UK a global leader in diversity in political representation, as well as encouraging people to use their vote. In recent years, OBV has increasingly focused on localism, including community organising and citizen assemblies. Roundtable events, lecture series and alumni reunions are planned for the 30th anniversary year. Weaver said OBV had been developing coalition-building strategies to “form allegiances” with white working-class communities who were also fighting for representation and decision-making power, and wanted to have “big conversations” across divides, including with rightwing activists. He said it would be irresponsible for OBV not to engage with Reform when it had an “electoral mandate”. Weaver said: “When we’re not in the room, white working-class people aren’t in the room either – and they’re being stigmatised too. How do we have big conversations about what we do have in common?” He continued: “But for politicians, talking about race has become a way of avoiding issues relating to class, and talking about class has become a way of avoiding issues relating to race. “In an ideal world, we won’t be talking about race for ever – we’ll have a society based on humanity.”

US launches seventh night of Iran strikes as Hormuz conflict escalates

The US military said it had launched a seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran on Friday night as fighting escalated over the strait of Hormuz. US Central Command, in a post on X, said the strikes, which began at 7pm GMT, were designed to “continue degrading Iranian military capabilities”. Iranian media reported explosions heard or strikes carried out in the cities of Sirik, Ahvaz and Yazd. And late on Friday night Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers had hit mines in Hormuz and exploded. The US military said that claim was false. The conflict continued on Saturday, with the IRCC saying it targeted ⁠a ⁠site where US combat aircraft ⁠were gathered at Sheikh Isa ⁠air base and ‌an ‌intelligence datacentre ‌in Bahrain known as Batelco, according to Iran’s state media. The ‌IRGC reportedly also targeted a US naval fuel-support pier at al-⁠Ahmadi port and a US signals and communications centre ‌in Kuwait, while ⁠Kuwait temporarily suspended ‌operations at ‌its international airport because of Iranian missile and ‌drone attacks. Earlier on Friday US airstrikes hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state TV reported. The bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. Further US airstrikes brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman that the US military claimed the IRGC used to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US also targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their use of electricity and air conditioning after the power grid came under strain due to US strikes on energy facilities. The ministry said areas in the south were experiencing “extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure” as temperatures soared. Strikes on civilian infrastructure not being used for military purposes could constitute a war crime, human rights experts have said. Renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning, said a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, Hossein Kermanpour. The attacks appeared to be the follow-through of Donald Trump’s promise to expand strikes against Iran, including the targeting of infrastructure and power plants. The US president reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The current round of fighting has entered its seventh day and further undermined the interim deal between Iran and the US, which was meant to keep the strait open and give room for negotiations to lead to a permanent truce. Iran has shut the strait and the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and ships on Wednesday. After the US strikes on Friday, the IRGC threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued. “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay,” the IRGC said in a statement. The Iranian military responded to US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Qatar, one of the mediators between the US and Iran, had been mostly spared from Iranian retaliation in the recent rounds of violence. Qatari authorities said falling debris wounded a child as air defences intercepted missiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iranian strikes hit a power and desalination plant, damaging the water facility. The country relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water. Officials said they were working to assess the damage and get the plant running again. The renewed fighting has focused on the strait of Hormuz, which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply before the war. Though the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran last month said the strait should be open to traffic, both sides interpreted the deal differently. Washington and Tehran advanced competing plans for ships to transit the strait, with Iran attacking some ships that took the US route. Shipping in the waterway has been drastically reduced over the last few days as violence escalated, though most ships that continued to transit used the Iranian route. Iran’s ⁠Tasnim news agency had earlier cited ⁠an informed ⁠source as saying that ⁠a Thai-flagged ship was targeted in ⁠the strait ‌of ‌Hormuz on Friday ‌after it allegedly ignored warnings and attempted to ‌pass without permission from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy. Iranian state media also said the US struck an oil tanker that was empty and docked at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal on the strait. US forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. US Central Command also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade. Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence. And that was before the recent rise in tit-for-tat attacks. Given the risks, some oil shippers are sailing through the strait with their location devices turned off but many are just staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday. A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait. On Thursday Pakistan’s foreign ministry said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the escalating conflict and interruption of trade, Trump said the war was going well for the US. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said in an address to the American public. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Israeli ministers announce plans for new illegal settlements in Gaza and West Bank

Israel’s defence and finance ministers announced plans for three illegal settlements in Gaza and more than $400m (£300m) in funding to expand construction in the occupied West Bank, as Israel’s military commander for the region celebrated violent outposts as his “security partners”. With national elections scheduled for 27 October, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is racing to expand control of land in occupied Palestine and drive out Palestinians before its mandate expires. The defence minister, Israel Katz, said he intended to set up three “Nahal” outposts in northern Gaza, a type of military community that for decades has paved the way for Israeli civilian settlements. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced 1.3bn shekels (£318m) in funding for dozens of new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The cabinet allocated the money last month but kept the decision secret because of expected US opposition, Israeli media reported. Maj Gen Avi Bluth, who commands Israeli forces in the West Bank, told residents of extremist outposts that he “appreciates their work” and considered them to be partners in security with the military. Bluth, who grew up in a West Bank settlement himself, spoke on Wednesday at a meeting of the euphemistically named Farms Association, which represents settlements that are illegal even under Israeli law. These play a key role in campaigns of terror that have driven Palestinians from their homes and lands across the occupied West Bank. Dozens from Israel’s political and military elite, including two former prime ministers and former heads of all its security services, have threatened legal action against their government over support for Jewish terrorism in the West Bank. “Settler violence is state violence,” the UN human rights office for Palestine said in a new report published this week that detailed how Israel used settlers to lead annexation efforts, while systematic impunity for perpetrators ensured violence could grow unchecked. Hagit Ofran, from the Israeli activist group Peace Now, said bulldozers were working on at least seven settlements that would be populated before polling day. “The government is on a reckless pre-election sprint to raid the public purse in order to create facts on the ground,” Ofran said. Katz outlined his settlement plans for Gaza during a visit to Israeli-controlled parts of the territory. He has also pushed for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the large-scale migration of Palestinians. “I intend to establish three Nahal outposts, which is also a military entity, in those places that were [Israeli settlements] in northern Gaza,” he told Channel 14 TV. Nahal outposts were not intended for military use in the long term, said Dror Etkes, the founder of the advocacy group Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel’s land grab in the occupied West Bank. “The military is only the first phase, which aims to prepare it for future settlement,” he said. “All together, dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank were established in this way.” Nahal settlements were first established in border regions in the 1950s, including surrounding the Gaza Strip, Etkes said. From 1967, the same system was used in the occupied West Bank, initially along the Jordan valley and then spreading to other areas. Smotrich also said last month that plans for three settlements in Gaza were complete and work could begin as soon as Netanyahu gave a green light. The prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Katz’s plans. Katz also told Channel 14 that he “felt good” seeing the wasteland of rubble that had replaced Palestinian homes and communities in most of Israeli-occupied Gaza. Israel now controls 65% of Gaza, Israel’s deputy chief of staff, Maj Gen Tamir Yadai, told Katz in an on-camera briefing. This is far beyond the 53% agreed under the ceasefire brokered last year by the US president, Donald Trump. About 2 million Palestinians who survived Israel’s war of annihilation are crowded into the remaining third of Gaza’s territory. “I don’t know how to describe this, other than victory, when you control 65% of the territory, when you have killed over 70,000 terrorists here,” Yadai said. His figures appeared to label 21,000 Palestinian children killed by Israeli attacks as “terrorists”, including more than 1,000 babies who never reached their first birthday. Israel’s military has recognised that a database of Gaza’s war dead compiled by Palestinian health authorities is broadly accurate. It contains more than 73,000 people listed by name, with their Israeli-issued ID number. More than 21,000 were children; more than 10,000 were women under 60 years old, and more than 5,000 were elderly people. Asked whether Yadai’s data counted women, children and elderly people as “terrorists”, the Israeli military declined to comment directly. A spokesperson said the military was still assessing casualty numbers in Gaza, and despite Yadai’s comments to Katz, had not briefed civilian officials on this issue. “The IDF is currently conducting a staff assessment regarding the breakdown and categorisation of its casualties. The process has not yet been completed and has not been presented to the political echelon,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment on Bluth’s backing for settler militants and said decisions on settlements were a political issue.

‘We are preserving a tradition’: how Ghana’s sensationalist film posters became collectible art

Sitting on his porch in Teshie near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and dabbed it carefully on to his canvas – a flour sack – adding blood to a knife being wielded by a man. Higher on the canvas, he had started on an outline of a skull. Heavy J was creating a poster, but not as you might have expected for a horror film. Instead, it was for the animated fairytale The Little Mermaid. The man with the knife wasn’t a killer but the film’s kind-hearted prince, Eric. The skull was also unrelated to the story. “We add more to make people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu. Hand-painted film posters by local artists were a hallmark of Ghanaian film culture from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, used to advertise screenings for neighbourhood venues known as video clubs after organisers realised that the original posters were not attracting audiences. Plot lines were regarded as little more than jump-off points for humorous and surreal flights of fancy. Artists working for different video clubs competed to make the best “forgery”, as they described their interpretations. The practice began to wane around the turn of the century as more Ghanaians gained access to electricity and their own TV sets and video players. Many video clubs went out of business and painters pivoted to create other work. But by then the posters had attained global interest, popularised in books and foreign exhibitions, and old and rare paintings became prized collectibles. There was a lull in interest in newly painted posters in the early part of the 21st century, but demand has risen, driven by online marketing and a receptive customer base of film lovers in the west. Deadly Prey Gallery has been working with artists to preserve the culture of making hand-painted film posters, while helping meet the increased demand. Named after an action film, the business was co-founded in 2012 by Robert Kofi, a Ghanaian who, as a child, used to work as a “hype man” for video centres in his home town of Winneba. He later started collecting and selling posters, then set up the business with Brian Chankin, then a video rental store owner in Chicago, after selling him some works. Deadly Prey Gallery works with 15 artists, including Heavy J, who has been painting posters for four decades, connecting them to online customers and shipping the artwork on completion. Most orders come from the US, Kofi said. Old action, science fiction and horror films have the highest demand. Popular titles include The Exorcist and the Star Wars and Terminator franchises. And prices for commissioned pieces start at $600 (£450). Kofi, who is based in Accra, is part manager and part editor. He identifies the artists most suited for each work, shares his vision of the posters with them and makes regular visits to their workspaces to review works in progress. In a studio in Ashaiman, 11 miles from Heavy J’s house, another artist called Stoger was working on two commissions: one for the horror film Poltergeist, and another for the 1997 experimental drama Gummo, which contained multiple acts of violence against cats and a scene in which a character eats spaghetti in a bath tub. The poster showed three cats and a man in a bath with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. In his feedback that day, Kofi, speaking in Ga, a primary language of Ghana, told Stoger two of the cats were not aggressive enough and the food was too clean. “I want uglier cat scenes,” he later explained. “The spaghetti has to be dirtier.” Stoger, born Benjamin Amartey, was a sculptor before developing an interest in films and becoming a poster painter in 1992. “I use my imagination to make scenes that will attract people so that they’ll love the poster,” he said. The emphasis on exaggeration comes from an African tradition of “visualising the invisible”, said Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, the director of the Centre of African Popular Culture at Ashesi University and a poster collector himself. “The posters’ audiences have not seen the film, so it’s impossible for them to know [whether they are accurate]. Therefore, the artists tap into what they call imaginative painting,” he said. “They will highlight these things and in doing so they incorporate things that are not in there. There is a kind of sensationalism to it.” The reinterpretations at times resulted in threats, insults and even physical attacks from viewers who felt duped. Kofi laughed when he recalled an incident in the 1990s when people beat him up after they watched the action film Double Impact and realised it did not have a scene showing Jean-Claude Van Damme carrying out a beheading, as was illustrated on the poster. At the Centre for National Culture in Accra, dozens of colourful posters from Deadly Prey Gallery are pinned on wooden walls. They include Jennifer Lopez launching an arrow at a snake in Anaconda, and a mouse coming out of Jamie Lee Curtis’ mouth in Halloween. “We are preserving a tradition,” Kofi said of the poster-painting craft. “We are preserving a history.”

Ukraine war briefing: Protests of Fedorov’s dismissal continue as Zelenskyy tries to repair rift with Poland

For a second day, thousands of Ukrainians have taken to the streets to protest against the sudden removal of popular and innovative defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who has clashed with the more conventional military chief of staff, Oleksandr Syrskyi. Several thousand people gathered outside ⁠the presidential office after Fedorov was not reappointed in the surprise government reshuffle. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has defended his decision, saying he was forced “to choose between sides [when honestly] what I want most is unity”. The move, which comes just as Kyiv appeared to be gaining some advantages in its war with Russia, has exposed a troubling flaw in the president’s leadership, and startled senior European officials. As Guardian senior international correspondent Peter Beaumont writes, the move is shocking because Fedorov had successfully leveraged drone and missile technology. “With hindsight, the conflict between the two men and their ideas about how to fight the war was inevitable: between an older – and old-school general – micromanaging a bruising war of attrition against a more numerous foe, and Fedorov, with his tech-driven, more improvisational approach that appeared in recent months to be showing dividends.” Meanwhile, Zelenskyy on Friday took steps to repair a rift with key ally Poland over his decision ⁠in May to name a Ukrainian army unit in honour of second world war fighters who killed Poles. Zelenskyy pledged to expand investigations into those killings by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a pro-independence armed group, and open intelligence files. Zelenskyy ⁠told a meeting of senior officials that improved ties were critical in view of Poland’s help to Ukraine against Russia. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that Poland was “ready for a serious and friendly dialogue on the issues that unite us and those that divide us”. A Ukrainian drone attack on a logistics centre in the town of Kotovsk in western Russia killed seven people and wounded 24, while more than 370 drones were launched towards Moscow overnight. Governor of the Tambov region, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Saturday the workers were killed when enemy UAVs hit a Wildberries logistics centre. In Moscow, the mass drone attack was mostly neutralised by air defence forces, the Russian capital’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on Saturday, with 64 enemy UAVs destroyed on approach to Moscow. In Russia, authorities cracked down on dissent, detaining a blogger who criticised President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, and fining ⁠an anti-war politician, a warning to Kremlin critics that Putin would brook no opposition ahead of September’s parliamentary election. The president and the dominant United Russia party are under pressure because of a slowing economy and fuel shortages triggered by Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries. The blogger, Ilya Remeslo, was detained on Friday on suspicion ⁠of spreading false information about the Russian army, the TASS state news agency reported. RIA news agency quoted Remeslo’s lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, as saying the blogger denied the charges. Separately, Boris Nadezhdin, a politician who attempted to run against Putin in the 2024 presidential election on an anti-war ticket, was fined 1,000 roubles ($13) for displaying “extremist ‌symbols”. The case was among a series of steps against Nadezhdin that could signal more serious consequences if he continues to criticise the government. Russia continued its attacks in the Black Sea, hitting two Ukrainian port cities on Friday that killed three people, Ukrainian ⁠officials said. Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s maritime export arteries during the war, but the strikes have intensified in past weeks and focused on deepwater ports that handle grain and other cargo. A Russian drone attack on port infrastructure at the southern city of Mykolaiv damaged three civilian foreign-flagged vessels, ⁠regional prosecutors said. One of the strikes, early on Friday, killed two Ukrainians on board a foreign vessel, they said. Another man was killed in a Russian attack on ⁠Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest seaport, local officials said. Odesa Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said a later Russian strike hit a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel in one of the ‌Odesa region ports, damaging the ‌vessel, triggering a fire and injuring four of its 17 crew members. The strikes have led to a partial halt in grain shipments and an almost complete suspension of grain purchases at port terminals, traders and analysts say.

‘A revolutionary act to watch it’: the film India’s censors do not want you to see

For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has wanted to tell above all. Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was murdered in the process, is a national hero. By 2022, Trehan’s movie about Khalra and the crimes of Punjab police was completed under the title Ghallughara – a reference to a historical massacre of Sikhs – but the film would never reach Indian cinemas. For more than three years, India’s film censorship board, which must approve all cinematic releases, blocked the film from release. When it was finally launched straight to a streaming platform last week, under a new title, Satluj, it was taken down within 48 hours and banned on government orders as a threat to national security. Trehan describes the ordeal of trying to get Satluj released as “dystopian” and decries “undemocratic censorship” and alleged political interference under the Narendra Modi government re-shaping India’s film industries. He claims Indian cinema has been widely co-opted as a propaganda arm for the government’s rightwing, religious nationalist agenda, where there is “only room for one kind of story to be told”, particularly in mainstream Hindi films. “It is clear to me that there is no creative freedom in India today,” says Trehan. “When you see the level of censorship happening, films getting blocked by the film board and banned from release, it makes you question: does democracy exist in this country any more?” Even today, discussions of Punjab’s separatist movement – which raged in the 1980s and 1990s, fighting for an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan, before it was crushed by the state – remain highly sensitive for the Modi government. A ministry of information committee backed the ban on Satluj on the grounds that it lacked “balance” and had “whitewashed” the acts of Punjabi separatist militants, with the potential to incite national security issues. “Show Muslims in a bad light and your film will get a standing ovation in the parliament,” says Trehan. “But if you dare to try and tell an uncomfortable part of our history, suddenly you are a criminal and a threat to national security.” Trehan is not the first Indian film-maker to fall foul of India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in recent years. The body is legally mandated to be independent, but it has faced growing accusations by those in the industry of pushing an agenda aligned with the Hindu nationalist politics of the Modi government. The CBFC has not responded to the allegation and was not available for comment. “From what I’ve experienced, the film board is hand in glove with the government,” says Trehan. “They are being used as a backdoor entry to control the narrative of the film industry.” Film-makers have complained of an opaque process in which films that make any reference to government oppression, certain religions, police brutality or caste violence are blocked by censors or face demands to make impossible cuts. Film-makers have even been told to cut images of meat in films, to avoid offending Hindus. There is no official figure for the number of films that have languished due to censor demands. One recent example was Santosh, which debuted at Cannes to acclaim but was blocked by the CBFC for its negative portrayal of police. Writers and directors privately acknowledge that self-censorship has become a norm in the industry in order to ensure their movies get a cinema release, and not lose huge sums in profits. Meanwhile, Bollywood films with an alleged pro-government slant such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story, which some have accused of telling a highly distorted version of historical events – and of fuelling Islamophobia and Hindu-Muslim division – have sailed past the board and been backed with government tax breaks and promotion. Anna MM Vetticad, an Indian film journalist who has written about censorship, said that the treatment of Satluj encapsulated what many film-makers now have to endure. She described a culture where film-makers were reprimanded by the censor board for realistic portrayals of social oppression or for simply “showing India in a bad light”. “The goal is to create an atmosphere of fear and encourage self-censorship among those who have not boarded the rightwing bandwagon,” says Vetticad. “The effect on Indian cinema is potentially devastating.” Trehan says few in the industry are willing to be as vocal as him, fearing retribution. “I know many other film-makers who have faced similar issues but we lack unity as an industry. Most people are too worried about speaking out, especially because there is often a lot of money and careers at stake. If you criticise, suddenly a police case could be filed against you.” In total, CBFC demanded 127 cuts to Trehan’s film, some of which appeared impossible for him to execute. As well as changing the name, the censors wanted the removal of all mention of Punjab police, the killings, government, the crematoriums where the bodies were illegally burned, the name of a former prime minister, the dates the events took place, images of the Indian flag and any scenes that showed the police in a “bad light”. They even requested the removal of Khalra’s name and a scene showing his murder inside a police station – an incident of historical record. Trehan was particularly concerned by an insistence that he change the name of Trilokpuri – a real area in Delhi where Sikhs were massacred in the 1980s – to the invented name of “Khanpuri”, which is a name associated with Muslims. “This incident had nothing to do with Muslims, so why change to this name?” says Trehan. “You could clearly see them trying to insert their Hindu-Muslim political agenda into each and every film.” The censors also questioned whether the film was really based on true events, prompting Trehan to hand them a file of more than 1,800 pages of research, including witness statements and court testimony. Trehan says that “afterwards one of the people on the board said to me: ‘To my surprise, it’s a true story. But Mr Trehan, I want to ask you one thing. Who speaks the truth so loudly in today’s time?’” As Trehan continued to be stonewalled by the CBFC, he eventually opted for a digital-only release earlier this month which does not require censor approval. He never thought the government would go as far as immediately banning the film, describing the effect as “chilling”. He says that far from provoking a “law and order situation” in Punjab, Satluj has in fact brought communities in the state together. Since it was banned, guerilla screenings have been held across Punjab and surrounding states in village squares, gurdwaras, schools, community halls and fields, sometimes with thousands turning out. “It’s become a revolutionary act to watch it,” says Trehan. At an event this month in remembrance of Khalra’s 1995 disappearance, people gathered on the banks of the Sutlej River in Punjab – where police are believed to have dumped his body and many others – and families of victims protested against the banning of the film. Ranjit Singh, 38, was three years old when his father was tortured to death by police. “This film is, for me, an archive of him – of the injustices he bore on his body,” says Singh. “It may be the only archive that all this happened. I cried for days after watching it.” Anuj Behal contributed reporting from Punjab