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Hundreds are missing and at least 22 people have died after torrential floods ⁠hit the Himalayan border areas of ⁠Nepal and in Tibet in China. An avalanche of ice and rock triggered massive flash floods causing widespread damage to villages and infrastructure. Officials said 384 tourists, including 291 from countries including India, the United States, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, were reported missing. If you’ve been affected by the flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border, we’d like to hear from you. Though we’d like to hear from you, your safety and security are most important. When recording or sharing your content with us, please put your welfare and the welfare of others first. Extreme weather events can be very unpredictable and carry very real risks.

‘A Bible-sized blind spot’: congressman sounds alarm on rising Christian nationalism

Crosses, shofars and “Appeal to Heaven” flags. Rioters praying with their hands aloft as police officers are brutalised. January 6 2021 is widely remembered as a deadly insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump; but for Congressman Jared Huffman, who was locked down alone in his office that day, something else stands out. It was a very Christian coup. “This Christian nationalist movement that I had seen growing so much stronger and more militant during my time in Congress erupted in plain view,” Huffman, 62, says by phone from his home in Marin county, California. “I truly believed January 6 would be the wake-up call our country needed to confront this movement to understand it and to hold it to account. “Unfortunately, the country went back to sleep and many of my own colleagues who the mob wanted to kill that day didn’t even seem to notice the religious elements of the group that was trying to kill them.” That is a big part of why Huffman is now deciding to sound an alarm of his own with a new book, No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism. Contending that the US has a “Bible-sized blind spot”, it argues that the theocratic insurgency has only grown more powerful after Trump’s return to power and is now the country’s most dangerous political movement – a greater threat to science, education and freedom than most people realise. No one is better qualified to make this case than Huffman, the only current member of Congress to admit he does not believe in God. He grew up in Independence, Missouri – the home of former president Harry Truman and historic headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now the Community of Christ), an offshoot of Mormonism. A devout Christian, Huffman was ordained into its priesthood. The first crack in his faith occurred during his sophomore year of college at UC Santa Barbara. The sudden death of his father triggered some questioning. “The bottom line is the supernatural tenets of my faith, the God belief, the notion of heaven and hell and miracles and so forth, no longer worked for me. That’s a hard thing when you lose your faith. “It took me years of reflecting and thinking about it to determine that the things I liked about my religious upbringing, the universal values that are very much part of the Christian gospel, are available in all sorts of faith perspectives, including non-belief. They’re things that good people often innately do and think.” Huffman settled on the label humanist. “The reason I prefer that to atheist is because atheist is a negative statement about what you don’t believe. That feels like it reduces me. Humanism is a much more affirmative expression of what you do believe, and humanists believe we have a duty to lead moral and ethical lives based on science and facts and reason. You choose to be a good person not because of some sky god or some inducement of an afterlife or fear of hell.” For decades, Huffman kept his secular worldview private. In 2013, on his first day in Congress, he stood sheepishly before House speaker John Boehner, who asked, “Alright, who’s going to hold the Bible?” for the swearing-in photo-op. Huffman’s devout mother was beaming in the background. Caught off guard, Huffman put his hand on a Bible, a moment that left him feeling “sullied and hypocritical”. The turning point came in 2017. Huffman’s mother had died, removing the fear of breaking her heart, and Trump had entered the White House, opening the floodgates of religious extremism. But when Huffman decided to go public as a non-believer, his wife, brother, senior staff and political advisers warned him it was “a terrible, career-wrecking idea”. He explains: “They were giving me good advice because the polling to this day shows that the worst label you could attach to a candidate for public office in the United States is ‘atheist’. I appreciated them trying to protect me, but I also knew that I felt increasingly uncomfortable hiding my moral framework and ducking these questions about religion. I felt increasingly drawn into the fight against all of these encroachments of religious extremism into our government. I was on a collision course with ‘coming out’, if you will, and I decided to do it against that advice.” Huffman received support from individuals including House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi, congressman Jamie Raskin, with whom he founded the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and House chaplain Father Pat Conroy, a guitar-playing priest who jammed with Huffman after hours. Conroy told Huffman that he wished more members of Congress would be honest about what they believed. Huffman says: “I’m very glad I did it, but have I encountered some harsh judgments and prejudices? Absolutely. I’ve been called every name in the book. I have Democratic colleagues who are devout Christians who seem to take some offence at my public existence as a non-believer. “They seem to feel that threatens or insults them as Christians, which is baffling, of course, because I don’t have a quarrel with Christianity or Christians, but it does speak to the privileged status of Christians not just within the Republican party, where Christian nationalism has become a defining feature, but even among my fellow Democrats.” He defines “Christian privilege” as a deeply ingrained cultural taboo that protects home-grown religious radicalism from the same state and media scrutiny instantly applied to minority or foreign faiths. That Christian privilege was manifested in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Huffman argues, when many fellow members of Congress did not even seem to notice the religious elements of the group trying to kill them. It was evident again, he asserts, in one of the most consequential political cover-ups in recent history: the deliberate erasure of Christian nationalism from the final report of the House January 6 select committee. As the committee raced toward its deadline at the end of 2022, its staff split into colour-coded drafting teams. The “Purple Team” was tasked with investigating rightwing radicalism, and they meticulously documented the role of charismatic evangelical networks, particularly the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), in radicalising and mobilising the shock troops of the insurrection. Chairman Bennie Thompson told Huffman: “We asked the Purple Team to look into the role of religion in what happened, and they came back with a report that shows those people, rightwing Christian extremists, actually had a lot to do with it.” But then came a veto. Liz Cheney, the committee’s formidable vice-chair, demanded the entire section be excised. She argued that focusing on Christian nationalism would “distract” from Trump’s personal culpability and alienate conservative Christian voters. Cheney’s argument prevailed. Huffman says: “I give her huge credit for standing up to Trump at a time when almost no other Republicans would do it. That courage was very real, but she also did the country a huge disservice with her Christian privilege.” If the attackers had worn hijabs or carried Qurans, he contends, the select committee report would have dissected their religious connections with “surgical precision”. Against this backdrop, Huffman argues that modern Christian nationalism is not a monolith but a temporary coalition of three distinct, volatile and historically hostile religious subcultures, held together by the glue of Trump. The biggest and politically most potent is NAR, a decentralised network of self-declared “apostles” and “prophets” who reject traditional denominational authority in favour of direct revelation. NAR prophets such as Paula White-Cain and Lance Wallnau cast Trump as a modern King Cyrus – a flawed, pagan ruler anointed by God to save his chosen people – to provide a divine permission structure for millions of evangelicals to overlook Trump’s moral failings. On the Catholic flank are the “Rad Trads”, a small but highly influential subculture that resent the liberalising Vatican II reforms of the 1960s and believes that Catholic moral authority should govern the state. Sympathisers include vice-president JD Vance and political strategist Steve Bannon. Neo-nazi agitator Nick Fuentes openly calls for a “Catholic monarchy” to replace the US constitution. Perhaps the most sophisticated and economically formidable faction is the “Theobros”, a network of Protestant Reconstructionists led by Pastor Doug Wilson of Moscow, Idaho. Wilson advocates for “Mere Christendom”, a system where the Apostle’s Creed is codified into the US constitution, women and non-Christians are stripped of voting rights. The Theobros have forged a powerful “Theo-tech bromance” with Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel. The ultimate Theobro is Pete Hegseth, Trump’s self-styled “secretary of war”, whose body is adorned with Crusader tattoos – including “Deus vult” (God wills it) and the Jerusalem cross – and who hosts a workday “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service” in the Pentagon auditorium, broadcast live on internal networks. Huffman comments: “The nicest thing I can say about Pete Hegseth is to thank him for his lack of subtlety. He is so cartoonish in his Christian nationalism that he provides a great case study. “If anybody wants to know what Christian nationalism looks like in its most strident militant form, he embodies it literally in the tattoos on his own body but certainly in the rampant proselytising that he does and these overt power plays to institutionalise his version of Christianity in Pentagon prayer services once a month with radical hate preachers brought in as honoured guests.” Nowhere is the advance of Christian nationalism more striking than inside the Capitol itself, which Huffman describes as a “shadow theocracy”. Visitors on official tours see Statuary Hall and hear speeches on the separation of powers; they do not see the sprawling, tax-subsidised “ministry-industrial complex” operating under the dome. Pastors lurk like lobbyists in the Capitol hallways, Huffman writes. The most influential is Ralph Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries, which hosts weekly Bible studies for members of the House, Senate and White House cabinet. Drollinger, a 7’2” former basketball player, teaches a “free-market gospel” that frames environmentalism as a sin against God’s dominion mandate and instructs cabinet members on how to inject biblical literalism into federal policy. More than a hundred years have passed since Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was debated in the “Scopes monkey trial” in Dayton, Tennessee. But ideas long taken for granted are once again under attack. Huffman warns that Christian nationalism’s ultimate target is Enlightenment values that date back to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of the US in 1776. In a chapter entitled “The Dumbing of America”, he quotes Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” He also profiles Mary Miller of Illinois, who began her congressional career in 2021 by quoting Adolf Hitler to a Moms for America rally: “Hitler was right, whoever has the youth has the future.” In June last year, Miller had a moral panic when a Sikh cleric, Giani Surinder Singh, delivered a guest prayer in the House chamber. Assuming Singh was a Muslim, Miller tweeted: “America was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth ... May God have mercy!” On climate science, Miller is equally blunt, dismissing solar panels because God “controls the sun, and the sun controls the weather”. Huffman reflects: “This is potentially the unravelling of a 250-year truce between fundamentalist Christians and the Enlightenment. The stakes are much higher now than even in Jefferson’s time because then it was just about the form of government and individual liberty and protecting us against religious tyranny. But today, it’s about whether we cure the next disease or pandemic and whether we can survive the climate crisis. We look to these institutions of research and science and knowledge to allow us to keep living on this planet at a time when we’ve created some terrible threats to our own existence.” Huffman insists the fight is still winnable but will require a broad coalition that includes moderate Christians, non-Christians and secular Americans. “We need to reckon with our Christian privilege problem, our Bible-sized blind spot when it comes to just speaking without fear or favour about this movement that poses as Christian. We’ve got to get more comfortable working across different faith perspectives in a pro-democracy coalition.” But he also offers a warning from history: “I am thinking a lot these days about the final unraveling of the Weimar Republic in the early 1930s. From what I have read and studied about that, Hitler and his National Socialist party were a small minority that could easily have been stopped right up to the end had the centrist parties and the left been able to overcome their differences and work together. “They couldn’t do it, and so they left the lane wide open for Hitler to become chancellor, and the rest is a very grim part of our history. That’s absolutely how the United States could unravel and evolve into fascism – and Christo-fascism in our case.”

On scraps of land and under constant threat, Gaza farmers struggle to survive

As Gaza’s population of 2.1 million has been hemmed into an ever smaller slice of the territory, farmers are using every last remaining patch of unspoiled earth, no matter how tiny, in their struggle to survive. With severe shortages of water, fertiliser and pesticide, and with more than 80% of greenhouses ruined, it has taken inventiveness and determination to clear land of debris and coax new seedlings into life. Moreover, venturing out into the open to tend to plants can be deadly. Saqer Abu Rabee’s eldest son and brother were killed while at work growing food for their communities on their small agricultural plots in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. His son Yousef was 24 when he was killed by a drone-fired missile in October 2024. Abu Rabee was working in the fields 10 metres from his son when it happened. “The missile was aimed directly at him and I have no doubt that he was the intended target,” Abu Rabee said. Yousef was well known locally as the driving force behind a collective first called We’ll Plant It and now simply Our Land, which brought together volunteers and encouraged farmers to go back to the land to restore agriculture in the area. “They decided to target him directly,” said Abu Rabee, who stressed his son had no political affiliations. “Before his death, we received daily threats from the Israeli army. They shelled our area every day three or four times while I was working alongside the labourers.” Abu Rabee’s brother Bilal was killed on 2 July after he went to retrieve some agricultural supplies from a destroyed building. His death came nine months into a partial ceasefire during which Israeli forces have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians. Abu Rabee is convinced farmers have become prime targets because of their role in sustaining Palestinian communities among Gaza’s ruins. The Israel Defense Forces deny targeting farmers or any civilians, saying they have only responded to imminent threats from Hamas since the October ceasefire. Despite the risks, Abu Rabee, 48, is still at work every day cultivating a 1.4-hectare (3.4-acre) plot in Beit Lahiya that was an orchard of orange trees before the war. He said the orchard was bulldozed by the Israeli army. “We cleared it and rehabilitated it using only basic tools, manual labour and tremendous human effort. It took a great deal of time and hard work before it was ready for cultivation again,” he said. Out of that scrap of land, Abu Rabee says his family have produced hundreds of thousands of aubergine, tomato and pepper seedlings. They raise cash by growing their own aubergines to sell to wholesale traders, while most of the seedlings are distributed to other farmers or to individual households to plant in patches of earth around their homes and tents. He says the supply has transformed the local food market. Aubergines now cost less than two shekels a kilogram, compared with 40 shekels a few months ago. Peppers and mulukhiyah, a dark green leafy vegetable, are now selling at a tenth of their market price earlier this year. “What has happened is that Beit Lahiya has regained a degree of self-sufficiency,” Abu Rabee said. “In my view, without Beit Lahiya, Gaza would face famine. Before the war, it was considered the food basket of Gaza Strip because of its fertile soil, fresh groundwater and light, productive land.” Increased aid and commercial deliveries under the ceasefire have brought Gaza back from the abyss of last year’s famine conditions, but according to UN agencies there are still 1.4 million people – 67% of Gaza’s population – facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse. Much of the commercial inflows of food are of poor nutritional quality. The director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Qu Dongyu, has said the limited recovery will remain fragile without domestic food production. “Food security in Gaza cannot recover unless local food production starts again and farmers, herders, fishers and other producers can rebuild their livelihoods,” Qu said in July. Based on satellite data, the FAO estimates that little more than a quarter of Gaza’s total prewar cropland, 4,100 hectares, remains accessible, and only about 3%, 450 hectares, is undamaged, free of debris and ready for immediate cultivation. Most of Gaza’s prewar farmland is under Israeli military occupation, and the proportion has grown as the army has pushed the “yellow line” steadily forward over the course of the ceasefire. Using specialised satellite imagery, the human rights advocacy group Forensic Architecture carried out a survey of flora across Gaza as a measurable proxy for cultivable land. It found that nearly 68% of the territory’s flora was on the Israeli side of the yellow line and another 5% was inside a buffer zone declared by the army, delineated on maps with an orange line, where it is extremely dangerous for Palestinians to venture. Bilal Abu Rabee, Saqer’s brother, was shot dead along with another man when they came within range of Israeli sniper positions. Their bodies were left out in the open for two days because it was too dangerous for their relatives to retrieve them. The family’s old farm is now under Israeli control, so after the ceasefire was declared they came to Beit Lahiya to try to start again from scratch on leased land. Since last October the army has pushed the yellow line forward, swallowing up nearby farms in west Beit Lahiya. “The expansion has had a devastating impact on the agricultural sector,” Abu Rabee said. “Fertile farmland that farmers had worked tirelessly to cultivate after spending everything they had or even borrowing money, simply it was seized just as it was ready for harvest, leaving them with nothing.” On the remaining land, the challenges appear endless. With hardly any livestock left, there is little homegrown dung-based fertiliser, so the family are improvising by piling decaying vegetation under tarpaulins. Meanwhile, they are battling nematodes and other soil infestations and a chronic lack of water, all the time under the constant, unpredictable threat of death. Abu Rabee said: “Stray bullets frequently reach this area and strike many places around us. Many people have also been wounded in the streets as a result of indiscriminate attacks. I fear for my own life simply because I’m a farmer.”

Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda

A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it. The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research. The New York media production company Piro Inc filed the site with the US justice department this month under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara), a 1938 law that requires anyone working for a foreign government to formally disclose it, as material it distributes for the Israeli government. The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports. Its own terms of use are governed by the laws of “the state in which the Institute is established”, which they decline to name. The existence of the site was first reported on 14 August. Since then the institute has added a page headed funding, which states: “An earlier version of this page said the Institute operated without external funding, and that was true when it was written.” The site is one part of a broader effort, financed by tens of millions of dollars from the Israeli government and routed through third parties including the European advertising group Havas Media, to prime chatbots to make Israel’s arguments for it. A contract between Havas and another American firm working on the campaign commits it to the “deployment of websites and content to deliver GPT framing results on GPT conversations”. The Guardian contacted Piro Inc, Havas Media and the Israeli government advertising agency LaPam for comment. Comment was also sought via a contact email address published on the Hanover Institute website. It comes at a point when Israel’s standing in US public opinion has collapsed, and when Israeli officials have begun briefing media outlets that money spent on so-called “Hasbara” efforts at public diplomacy overseas has been wasted. The site According to a Guardian analysis, between 6 and 14 August the Hanover Institute published 124 reports totaling more than 560,000 words, an average of about 4,500 words each. On 12 and 13 August alone it produced 73 reports, amounting to almost 354,000 words in two days. Nothing has been published since the first reports about the Hanover Institute. All but one of the 124 headlines on the website opens with a question resembling one that a user might type into a chatbot, including “Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism?”, “Did Israel Expel Palestinians From Their Land?”, “Is Israel Carrying Out a Genocide in Gaza?” The reports are presented in a quasi-academic manner and are punctiliously sourced, with citations including the World Bank, UN agencies, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Amnesty International and the text of the Genocide Convention. Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate at the Quincy Institute who has reported on the site, told the Guardian that his first impression was of something impressive. “It succeeds in masquerading as very academic – the website design, the logos, everything just looks good. But the more you read it, you’re able to realise that a lot of it makes no sense.” For example, the information the Hanover Institute site presents is persistently framed to blunt criticism of Israel. Where human rights organisations have concluded that Israel is committing genocide or apartheid, the reports reliably observe that no court has entered a verdict on the claim – a formulation that appears in 20 of the 124 reports according to the Guardian’s count. Casualty and aid figures are attributed to “a party to the events”, a caveat used in 55 reports and applied to Israel’s own counts as readily as to Palestinian ones. The reader is left with the impression that little about Gaza can be established. One study – a 2022 analysis of antisemitic comments on the Facebook pages of British, French and German media outlets – is cited 454 times across 88 of the 124 reports, including in pages on apparently unrelated topics including land registration in the occupied territories, Aipac’s influence on US media coverage, the Gaza death toll, the 1948 expulsions and the blockade of Gaza. Cleveland-Stout noted the cumulative effect of this inclusion. “Almost every article concludes with saying, well, just talking about this though could contribute to antisemitism,” he said. “And it’ll throw in the study about Facebook comments in Britain.” Building for the machines The Guardian’s analysis found that initially the site carried a kind of file that tells AI systems what a site contains and how to read it (an llms.txt file), but which did not describe the Hanover Institute at all. It was the standard file of Res, an “AI-native content platform that helps B2B [business-to-business] teams get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini”, which sells what the industry calls generative engine optimization. The Guardian archived the file on 13 August. It has since been replaced with a bespoke version written for machine readers, and Res is no longer named anywhere on the site. Res’s founder, Hai Tran, registered with the US justice department on 22 July as a subcontractor to Piro on the Israeli account, giving his position as “digital strategist”. Tran told Politico that his role was disclosed in that filing. The Guardian contacted Res for comment. Piro’s own website advertises a service it calls AI Story Optimization, under which it will “author content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility”, with the work shipping “on your site or on trusted third-party properties we build”. Cleveland-Stout said the more consequential target was not the possibility of users getting to the site with a live search, but the training data. “There’s kind of two ways to do it,” he said. The first is publishing sites and hoping chatbots cite them. The second, “the more concerning and potentially more effective thing”, is getting material into repositories such as Common Crawl that supply the underlying training data for commercial models. “When it regurgitates narratives the chatbot is trained on, it won’t even cite the sources,” he said. “You won’t be able to fact-check it.” The older network has already made that journey. The seven sites run by Clock Tower X – the firm run by former Trump campaign manager and digital director Brad Parscale – appeared 294 times in Common Crawl’s July index, the repository that supplies training data to commercial AI developers. The Hanover Institute does not appear yet, its reports having gone up after that crawl closed. It is at the start of the same pipeline. Every page of the Hanover site carries a foreign-agent disclosure at its foot. Cleveland-Stout put that to Perplexity, which he said told him that users could visit the website and judge its trustworthiness for themselves. “But how many people are doing that?” he said. The Guardian’s tests of chatbots at the time of reporting showed that scrutiny of the Hanover Institute’s output had already made a mark on chatbot content, however. Asked for new research published by the Hanover Institute, ChatGPT’s webchatbot offered links to four reports, but also warned that the institute was subject to “significant controversy over who funds it and why it exists”, offering a gloss of and links to Quincy Institute’s reporting. The chain Piro is contracted for $1m across two work orders according to Fara filings, but this sum is dwarfed by the spending on the wider campaign it belongs to. Both Piro and Clock Tower X are subcontractors to Havas Media Germany GmbH, a Frankfurt company held through Havas’s Spanish arm and ultimately by the Amsterdam-listed Havas NV. Havas is named as the intermediary in the US foreign-agent registrations of five American firms: Clock Tower X, Piro, Targeted Communications Global, Bridges Partners and Davis Media NY. Justice department filings record it paying Clock Tower X $15m in six installments between 24 October 2025 and 3 March 2026, and Targeted Communications Global $9,892,335 between October and December 2025. Seven days after the first of those payments, on 31 October 2025, Havas’s own US subsidiary terminated its registration as an agent of the Israeli government, according to filings. While it held that registration it was obliged to itemise what it received: its filing for the six months before 31 October 2023 records $2,951,745 from its German sister company on the Israeli account. Once the German entity began paying American contractors directly, Havas ceased to disclose anything, because a foreign principal has no filing obligation. In effect, this meant that the broader campaign would not be immediately visible in the public record, only the piecemeal filings of individual contractors. In Israel, procurement records show the government advertising agency LaPam awarding Havas entities contracts without competitive tender: $39m (€33.5m), $29m (€25m) and $17.5m (€15m) across 2019, and $58.3m (€50m) in March 2023 for the planning and purchase of media abroad. That contract expired on 15 March 2024. A search of LaPam’s published record to 5 August 2026, and of the tender register, found no further award to Havas – none covering the period in which Havas was paying $24.9m to American firms. The money was not wholly confined to efforts to seed chatbots. Targeted Communications Global’s filings disclose a social media campaign called Freedom Not Terror, whose 30-second video, posted as unlisted on YouTube in October 2025, has been viewed 28.1m times. Its TikTok account has 425 followers. The campaign site carries the line “Paid for by LAPAM”. It has published nothing since December 2025. The Guardian contacted Targeted Communications Global for comment. The refuge of all failures In Israel, officials have aired doubts about the campaign to sway US public opinion by gaming AI, and about public diplomacy in general. In July, Israeli officials briefed Ynet that it had failed, one saying the government “paid a lot of money, but the situation only got worse”. A former senior figure in Israel’s public diplomacy apparatus told the same paper it was “a terrible hoax on the scale of Pollard” – a reference to Jonathan Pollard, the American analyst jailed for spying for Israel in 1987, an incident that marked a low point in the country’s relationship with Washington. Speaking to Kan about Parscale, another official said: “He was supposed to improve the situation. We paid him a lot of money. But what did he do with it?” The foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, had allocated $181.6m (₪545m) to international public diplomacy on taking office, then a further $666.3m (₪2bn) for 2026 and 2027. The YNet reporting said budget control had passed to the ministry’s director general, Eden Bartel, and to Eran Shayovitch, an external adviser brought in by the minister. Shayovitch is named on Piro’s foreign-agent filing as one of two Israeli officials with whom the firm engages. US public opinion polling reveals the source of these frustrations. Gallup found in February that Americans sympathised more with Palestinians than with Israelis for the first time, with 36% siding with Israel. Pew recorded 60% of Americans holding an unfavourable view of Israel in April, up nearly 20 points since 2022, with the sharpest movement among the young. An AP-NORC survey published on 7 July found 31% of Americans say Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute genocide, rising to 52% of Democrats, and 58% of Democrats saying the US is too supportive of Israel, against 45% in January 2024. Cleveland-Stout doubted that any public diplomacy could overcome the opposition to Israeli policy. “There is a lack of reflection on the fact that the policies themselves are the ones that are leading to a lot of Americans questioning their support for Israel,” he said. “They view what is a political problem as a marketing one.” He cited the late Israeli politician Yossi Sarid, who a year before his death in 2015 joked in an interview that “Hasbara is always the refuge of all failures. Everything is going great – only the hasbara is garbage. If only the hasbara was ok, then everyone would realize the ideal situation.” Whether the campaign works on its own terms is a separate question from whether it works for Israel, though. “Parscale is having success in influencing chatbots, and the Hanover Institute is and will continue to have success at influencing the responses that chatbots give,” Cleveland-Stout said. “But they’re not changing the polls, which is what Israel actually cares about.” His wider concern was what the experiment demonstrates. “Whether it’s foreign governments, whether it’s companies, whether it’s even just a guy who owns an ice cream shop – LLM grooming, poisoning, whatever you want to call it, is part of the new reality that we live in.” Although neither responded to the Guardian, the Israeli foreign ministry has said the state does not conduct “influence operations” in the United States, and that it is “scrupulously careful to implement the provisions of American law”, and Piro’s co-founder Daniel Rosenberg has said the firm was retained “to put accurate, sourced facts into the public record and to counter misinformation about Israel with verifiable information”.

Goodbye to the Soviet Union – archive, 1991

Deputies stunned by plan for a la carte USSR By Jonathan Steele in Moscow 3 September 1991 The USSR’s supreme legislative body voted overwhelmingly yesterday to bury the existing union of 15 Soviet republics, allow the Baltic republics and any others that wish it to go free, and prepare for an economic confederation in its place. In a move which is no less dramatic than the suspension of the Soviet Communist party 10 days ago, the Congress of People’s Deputies adopted a new structure of power which gives radically new rights to the republics. They acted after hearing a report on the crisis meeting held in the Kremlin yesterday between President Gorbachev and the representatives of 11 republics. The Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, read the report, which stunned deputies. It turned the present system of Soviet power upside down by proposing three new bodies in place of the present parliament and union government. There would be a state council, consisting of President Gorbachev and the leaders of the other republics which sign the union treaty, to handle foreign and domestic policy. An inter-republican economic council would manage the economy and bring in reforms. In place of the parliament would be a kind of senate consisting of 20 representatives from each republic. Republics would be offered a Soviet Union a la carte. Each could join a political union by signing a union treaty, but would be free to decide later on full or associate membership. Alternatively, it could go free, in which case the congress would be asked to support its application for membership of the United Nations. All 15 republics, even if they opted for independence, would be eligible to join an economic union aimed at maintaining a ‘single free economic space’. They would also be invited to sign an agreement on ‘collective security’ with the aim of maintaining a single army and a single ‘military-strategic space’. Continue reading. Editorial: Mikhail signs, but Boris calls the shots 3 September 1991 The Soviet map was transformed yesterday with such devastating effect that it can never be undone. The hand which holds the pen may be that of the Soviet President. But Mr Gorbachev was being firmly guided from behind, by a coalition of interested republics among whom the Russian President Boris Yeltsin wields the most effective grip. George Bush’s heavily trailed announcement that he would recognise the three Baltic states has by contrast lost all power to amaze. The new proposal grants by implication the right for any republic to secede. It appears to be an entirely facultative exercise in which only those republics ‘which wish to’ will sign the Union Treaty. This has been changed from previous drafts out of all recognition. It is up to each signing republic to decide for itself the form of participation in the Union. In theory the Baltic states too could sign, while deciding on a ‘form’ which was effectively non-participatory. Politically the new proposal is a brilliant sleight of hand for the newly reconstituted Gorbachev-Yeltsin alliance. Mr Gorbachev salvages a Union cleansed from everything which made it objectionable. He survives as a useful lightning conductor at home and abroad, patronised in both senses of the word. Continue reading. Soviets tuck in a la carte 6 September 1991 After three days of intense argument, the Soviet Union’s Congress of People’s Deputies approved President Mikhail Gorbachev’s plan to replace the centralised Soviet Union with a loose confederation of sovereign states. The a la carte plan envisages a multi-tier structure which will allow republics to decide the extent of their relations with central government while retaining the armed forces under a single military command. The confederation plan was drafted in overnight negotiations on Monday between President Gorbachev and the representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Byelorussia and six other republics. The Baltic states and Moldova refused to take part in the discussions, while Georgia attended with observer status. The confederation plan caused great suspicion and disagreement in the Congress, with representatives of several republics and nationalities objecting to aspects of the proposals and many deputies opposing their own reduced role. After warnings from President Gorbachev that a decision had to be made quickly, the Congress passed a law suspending parts of the Soviet constitution and substituting a three-part interim government structure: a parliament, a State Council made up of President Gorbachev and the leaders of participating republics, and an Inter-Republican Economic Committee. Prospects of independence for the Baltic states increased rapidly during the week when the United States announced its recognition. The three states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – applied for membership of the United Nations. Meanwhile Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Russians in Moldova – which declared its independence last month – set up a separate republic of the Dniester. Serbian rebels and Yugoslav government troops captured most of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, in which many Serbs live. The Slavonian capital, Osijek, was the centre of heavy fighting in which at least 16 people were killed. Seven more deaths were reported from Pretinje, south of Zagreb. Road and rail links between Croatia and Serbia were completely severed.

At least 14 newborn babies die in fire at Pakistan hospital’s maternity ward

At least 14 newborn babies have died in a fire that broke out in the maternity ward at one of Pakistan’s most prominent state hospitals. The blaze began in the early hours of Wednesday and engulfed the ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the biggest state hospital in Islamabad. A statement by the hospital administration confirmed that 14 newborn babies in the intensive care unit (ICU) died in the fire. Dr Aneeza Jalil, a hospital spokesperson, told the Dawn newspaper that 15 babies were on the ward at the time and that one baby was saved by a doctor. Women who had just given birth had to run down several flights of stairs and climb out of windows and down ladders to escape. The health minister, Mustafa Kamal, said many of the babies were in incubators or on oxygen, and that the oxygen canisters made the fire worse. Investigators said the fire was started by a faulty air conditioning unit, which exploded inside the nursery where newborn infants under intensive care were sleeping. Among the witnesses was Sardar Atti ur Rehman, 38, whose wife had given birth to a girl at the hospital the previous day. He had been sleeping at the hospital and rushed into the maternity ward as the fire was spreading, desperately looking for his wife and child. He described scenes of panic as thick smoke filled the ward. “I could not see my family including my newborn baby in the room but kept searching,” he said. “My heart was heavy.” He later discovered they had both escaped the fire alive. He said he saw a woman laid out on a stretcher and helped to drag her out of the ward, but other women refused to leave as they cried out for their babies. “I saw a mother who was crying and screaming for her child who was admitted inside the ICU,” he said. “I tried to enter the ICU but failed as the smoke was too thick. I could not see anything and I was facing issues to breathe. I begged her that you need to save yourself and we will look for the child later.” Rehman said there were few staff on the ward at the time of the fire and that the families were left to fend for themselves. One father at the scene, whose newborn son was among the dead, claimed that there had been a lock on the door of the nursery and that no staff had been present to unlock it. The windows of the nursery were smashed by rescuers as they tried to reach the babies. Sohail Ashraf, the Islamabad chief commissioner, said the emergency call was made just before 7am and rescue and police teams quickly reached the scene. The hospital administration said: “The fire was immediately brought under control and the children were immediately shifted to the intensive care unit.” Alamzaib Khan, 26, was also among those who tried to run into the ward as it burned. His wife had given birth to a baby girl two days ago and she was still in the hospital recovering from a C-section, while his baby had already been taken home. “I was sleeping on the pavement when I heard people screaming and wailing,” he said. “I ran towards the ICU and children’s ward and I saw my wife while climbing down a ladder.” After checking on his wife, he tried to help with the rescue of others. “The moment I approached the children’s ward, I couldn’t see anything because the smoke was so thick,” he said. “I tried to go inside but it was not possible.” “People were crying, screaming and asking for help. Women from the operation room had to run for their lives,” he said. “Women were in pain themselves but crying and begging everyone to help them to rescue their children. It’s hard to describe this terrible moment.” The prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, directed authorities to conduct an immediate investigation into the incident, which was one of the deadliest hospital fires in years. “Such a situation involving children is irreparable,” Sharif said. “Those responsible should be identified, and the strictest action should be taken.” Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, expressed condolences to the families of the newborn babies. In a statement, he said the loss of lives was heartbreaking. Fires in large buildings such as factories and shopping centres are frequent in Pakistan, often due to poor safety laws and lax enforcement of building codes.

Wednesday briefing: How Canada has turned a trade dispute into a defence of its sovereignty

Good morning. When the Guardian asked Canadian readers whether they planned to boycott US products after dramatic escalations in the ongoing DC/Ottawa trade war, we received more than 2,000 responses within 12 hours. This inundation is perhaps evidence of the existential crisis many Canadians feel they now face, something often lost in the granular reporting of trade negotiations: this is about so much more than the price of lumber. Assailed by a US president who has repeatedly expressed a desire to consume Canada into a supersized 51st state, the country has felt perpetually on the brink of war – albeit an economic one – since Donald Trump’s early second-term tariff salvo in February 2025. This culminated in Canada’s finance minister announcing tit-for-tat tariffs on key American industries yesterday, further incensing the US president. Canadian PM Mark Carney has emerged as a leader whose refusal to be dominated by Trump is underpinned by an ambition to reorder global politics. For today’s First Edition, I spoke to the Guardian’s Canada correspondent Leyland Cecco about trade narratives, Carney’s grand plan and the price of fruit in his local grocery store. But first, the headlines. Five big stories US news | Dolly Parton, one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music who was also much cherished for her philanthropy, has died aged 80. UK news | UK citizens will be told to stock up on tinned food and take steps to ensure they are prepared for national emergencies as part of a new government campaign to improve the nation’s resilience. UK politics | Andy Burnham will face an immediate test of his backing for electoral reform in his first week in parliament as prime minister, with almost 100 Labour MPs supporting a bid for a new national commission. Ukraine | A man from South Yorkshire is believed to be the first British citizen to die fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine. Climate crisis | The carbon emissions from just two planned datacentres in England will exceed all of the fossil fuel company ExxonMobil’s UK emissions, analysis has revealed. In depth: ‘If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu’ The United States and Canada have enjoyed one of the strongest bilateral relationships in recent history. They share the longest unprotected border in the world, along with deep trading, security and cultural ties. But the second Trump presidency has brought about a fundamental breach in the shared values and understanding that once united the two nations. Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada, as he yearns to access its critical minerals. Carney, a former Governor of the Bank of England, was sworn in as prime minister last year in the midst of Trump’s tariff wars, having never held elected public office before. He has since become the first western leader to openly acknowledge the hazard Trump poses to the global order. In a high-profile January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he urged “middle powers” like Canada to “act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Tariffs appear to have become a proxy for this political rupture. The ongoing US/Canada trade war began in February 2025, when Trump then (briefly) imposed tariffs of 25% on almost all imports from Canada and Mexico. Canada retaliated in kind, and the bitter dispute had just been rumbling on. Against this backdrop, Leyland tells me, reporters like him are “trying to figure out the magnitude of what’s happened.” *** What’s the latest? Last Tuesday, in a late night Truth Social post (is there any other kind?) Trump declared a “DEAL” with Canada was in its final stages. Trump delayed for three days the swingeing import taxes he was threatening to impose, which would have affected everything from anoraks to Christmas ornaments. The White House said in July that these 50% tariffs were in retaliation for “discriminatory treatment” by Canada. Still with me? On Friday, Canadian officials agreed a deal was still close, yet 24 hours later the whole thing fell apart. Canada walked out of negotiations hours before the 50% tariffs on roughly $20bn (£14.6bn) of Canadian goods kicked in on Saturday, with Carney accusing the US of using “economic integration as a weapon”. Yesterday, Canada pledged to roll out “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs on hundreds of US goods next month, prompting Trump to denounce the nation as “difficult and unreasonable”. Precisely how this all unravelled depends on whose narrative you follow. Carney’s position was that the US was breaching a red line on French language protection. Currently, Canadian rules require companies operating in Quebec, its predominantly Francophone province, to provide French-language goods and services to help protect its cultural identity. These stipulations have frustrated US negotiators. There’s also a counter narrative, that Canada’s negotiators were conceding so much – for example, accepting tariffs on the auto sector, steel and aluminium – that a number of senior Canadian politicians had urged Carney to harden his resolve. Meanwhile, US officials accused Canada of collapsing the deal by seeking additional last minute concessions. In the concurrent war of communications, Carney emerges the winner, says Leyland, “because he can defend the decision to walk way to Canadians”, while the US is hampered both by Trump’s ego and top officials pushing their own agendas. *** How Carney won this round Polling over the weekend found strong majority support for Carney’s stance in every Canadian province, and a mood of steadfast defiance can be read across Canada’s media. “The coming period will be hard and the damage may be awful but no one should ignore what is at stake. A free Canada is worth the sacrifice,” declared an editorial in the Globe and Mail. “What we see now is near uniform support for the prime minister ,” says Leyland, “and immense feelings of national unity”. This even extends to successionist Quebec, where support for independence from the rest of Canada is at its lowest level in decades. Carney – who has consolidated support for his previously ailing Liberals – is enjoying “a key political win” Leyland says, defending totemic language rights that are seen as integral to Canada’s cultural fabric. But his refusal to bow to US demands is part of a broader strategy. “What we’re seeing right now is the logical extension of that [Davos] speech, which was a warning and also laying the groundwork for how Canada would conduct itself”. For now, Carney is strengthening trade ties with China and the EU, to the chagrin of US negotiators. “The message is that Canada has long enjoyed a very beneficial relationship with the US and that’s over,” says Leyland. “Now we will walk away from the table if there is any erosion of our sovereignty.” Compare this Canadian unity with the domestic reaction south of the border: with the midterms looming, Trump is reportedly heading for a tariff-shaped clash with Senate Republicans. As venerable economist Paul Krugman pointed out yesterday: “The US is far more dependent on Canadian goods than most Americans realise.” *** The mood in Canada “There’s an asymmetric aim in this war,” says Leyland, “which is that Canada is fighting for its sovereignty, its national identity.” The US, meanwhile, is just “fighting for cheaper goods”. This perhaps explains why boycotting US goods has such visceral and consistent support among Canadians. A grassroots boycott has emerged as a consumer-driven response to the tariff war, with supermarket scanning apps like Maple Scan springing up to help users buy Canadian. Leyland is a parent of two young kids who like to eat berries – now he analyses every package in the grocery aisle to work out where they were grown. “I remember there was a period when US berries were on the steepest discount because they just weren’t selling.” And the decline of cross-border tourism has had a fairly devastating effect on American businesses. After Canadian visitor numbers fell by 26% in 2025, New York state launched a “NY loves Canada” promotional campaign this month to woo back its northern neighbours. “Every Canadian knows that this is not a fight that they want to be in”, says Leyland “but right now they believe it’s a fight worth having”. Weekend polling revealed a public who feel “frustrated”, “angry” and “exhausted” after 18 months of tariff turmoil. But, like their premier, they have no intention of backing down. Have your say We’d like to hear your thoughts about the newsletter – what you enjoy, what we could do better, subjects you’d like to read more of – so we’ve created a short survey. It should take around five minutes to fill out, and your feedback will help us shape First Edition for the future. Take the survey here What else we’ve been enjoying Richard Sprenger’s On The Ground film about the explosion in popularity of the once-humble sardine is an interesting look at what the viral food trend means for supply chains, sustainability, and the communities built on their catches. Sam Coare, newsletters team This gripping investigation from Oliver Bullough reveals how organised crime has been using high street Post Offices to launder money in plain sight Libby Remember to bookmark this look at Rotterdam’s ROCKS!, the latest architectural befuddlement from MVRDV, so you can one day compare computer-rendered fantasy with head-scratching reality. Sam I was cheered to read this round-up of our most hopeful environmental coverage, as part of the Guardian’s annual climate support campaign. Libby I spent yesterday sending round the news of this Venetian island going up for sale to everyone in my phone book, in the vain hope of somehow crowdfunding the ultimate timeshare. Lesson: I need friends with deeper pockets. Sam Sport Football | Celtic threw away a four-goal lead in Austria as they missed out on the Champions League for the second year running. NFL | At least one in four former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 was found to have had chronic ⁠traumatic encephalopathy, according to a recent study. Rugby league | Sir Billy Boston, the Wigan Warriors legend who last year became the first rugby league player to be awarded a knighthood, has died at the age of 92. The front pages “Back review on electoral reform, MPs tell Burnham”, is the Guardian’s front page today. The Times says “‘Boycott’ fears over Burnham’s Israel plan”, the Mail writes “Burnham warned of impending Russia UK ‘attack’”, and the Express has “Britain must prepare for Putin’s threat”. The Telegraph splashes “Birminghan set to be first 20mph city”, the i Paper has “Future of UK state pension triple lock in doubt – with older population growing faster than workers”, and Metro writes “Switching to vapes better than puffing”. The FT says “Beijing threatens to strike back if US sanctions on Iran hit China’s interests”. On Dolly Parton, the Sun and the Mirror both write “We will always love you, Dolly”, The Latest ‘Economic D-day’: How desperate is Trump to end Iran war? The White House has threatened sanctions on any country that trades with Iran in another bid to economically isolate the country, as US military efforts falter. Launching what he called Operation Economic Outcast, the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, compared it with D-day. China, Iran’s biggest trading partner, has already signalled that it will not cooperate with Trump’s attack on the Iranian economy. Lucy Hough speaks to Julian Borger, senior international correspondent. Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Poland’s rural folk music has a turbulent history. Once a mainstay of celebrations and rituals, passed down by ear, its continuity across the country’s regions was disrupted by war and migration, before the communist era brought a different, state-sanctioned version of folklore. But now, the music of the oberek, a traditional dance in which couples whirl around the dancefloor, is being reconfigured by a new generation of artists: the band Tercet Imperial weave traditional melodies and lyrics into contemporary production, replacing violins with synthesisers. Nowadays, traditional music is increasingly “treated as part of our own heritage and the forgotten history of the majority of society,” says Tercet Imperial’s drummer Gary Gwadera. “It has become a response to the need for a sense of community.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Man on trial for Daphne Caruana Galizia murder claims he was framed

A businessman on trial for the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has spoken about the charges for the first time in court since his arrest seven years ago, telling the jury he was framed by police and had nothing to do with the killing. During four days of questioning by defence and the prosecution lawyers, Yorgen Fenech, 44, accused the most senior adviser to Malta’s prime minister of giving the go-ahead for the murder. Fenech’s defence lawyers have repeatedly sought to identify Keith Schembri, Malta’s most powerful unelected official in the years leading up to the killing in October 2017, as the mastermind and instigator. Fenech repeated those claims as he began giving testimony on Friday after unexpectedly waiving his right under Maltese law to refuse to give evidence at his own trial. Fenech claimed that Schembri, who was chief of staff to the then prime minister Joseph Muscat, repeatedly leaked sensitive details to him, including advance warnings of raids and arrests. During a court session on Saturday, the judge asked Fenech: “Do you know who the real mastermind is?” Fenech replied: “Keith Schembri.” Police have told the jury that Schembri was never a suspect. He was called as a witness during the trial and has denied any involvement in the murder. The prosecution’s case rests on the testimony of the self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma, a taxi driver who alleges Fenech gave him €150,000 (£128,000) to hire the three men convicted of planting the fatal car bomb. In his testimony, Fenech spoke of his drug addiction and his close ties to senior police leaders and politicians, including WhatsApp messages he shared with Schembri and Muscat. He began his testimony by describing a close friendship with Schembri. He said they had played football as children and reconnected as adults. Fenech said he had come to rely on Schembri, a successful businessman with interests in printing and packaging, and spoke to him most days. Fenech claimed the idea of killing Caruana Galizia was raised during a barbecue at his family ranch. She had written about Schembri having a brain tumour before he had told his family about his condition. “Keith was very emotional,” Fenech said. “He felt very strongly about it. We had to tell him to calm down … It wasn’t the first time he spoke about it, he was almost fixated with Daphne … He kept a file with all her articles.” Fenech claimed Theuma, who also attended the barbecue, wound Schembri up further, saying of Caruana Galizia: “She’ll reap what she sows.” “Then I was in the kitchen and Melvin came up to me and said ‘we can easily get rid of her’,” Fenech said. “It seemed a bit over the top, so I played it down and offered him a drink. I went outside for a smoke and Melvin and Keith continued chatting.” Fenech claimed Theuma raised the subject again two weeks later. “Melvin was driving me to the airport. As soon as I got into the car, he told me that he had spoken to some people who told him there was already an active plan to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia. “He said: ‘I’ve spoken to them, they’re already working on it and want €120,000.’ I was shocked, I told him I’d get back to him. At first I wasn’t going to tell Keith, but it kept playing in my mind and then I decided to tell him. He said ‘go ahead, go ahead, go ahead’. “For Keith it was pure revenge, because he’d say she crossed a line by writing about personal matters.” Fenech’s testimony painted a picture of a fixer gone rogue, with Theuma pressing ahead on his own initiative. After the murder, Fenech claimed, Schembri began using him to relay messages to Theuma. One message was intended to warn the hitmen of their impending arrest. “When I told Melvin, he brushed it off at first,” Fenech said. “He said it was normal for police to arrest people and then release them without charges 48 hours later. I relayed that back to Keith. He told me that the police had proof – a bomb code and some proof of phones being used. That one of the killers had topped up the bomb phone’s credit. “I went back to Melvin and told him that, and that the arrest date was set for 4 December.” Two brothers, George and Alfred Degiorgio, and their associate Vincent Muscat were arrested on 4 December 2017. They have all been convicted of the murder, with Muscat confessing his involvement in return for a shorter sentence. Fenech claimed Schembri also warned him of Theuma’s arrest in 2019. Under questioning by the prosecution, Fenech also said Schembri had shared a screenshot of a confidential report by Europol, which was helping the Maltese police, listing potential suspects. The prosecution has relied in part on a series of recordings made by Theuma of his conversations with Fenech after the killing, in which they discussed the crime and leaks about the police inquiry. Fenech said those recordings had been used to extract money from him. He claimed: “Melvin used recorded calls as blackmail … Keith got to know and panicked.” He said he had handed over €400,000 to Theuma to pass on to the Degiorgio brothers to help pay their legal costs. He claimed the stress had destroyed his family life and his relationship with his wife. “It drove me to drug addiction,” he said. “I spent my life being against drugs, seeing my brother abusing drugs. And I ended up taking drugs myself.” He claimed investigators had helped to cover up Schembri’s role. “I felt betrayed,” Fenech said. “You combined Melvin Theuma’s lie and a cover-up of Keith Schembri to frame me.” Challenging Fenech’s version of events, the prosecution lawyer Godwin Cini asked: “Would I be correct in saying you were the one with the power, not Melvin Theuma?” The judge, Edwina Grima, later asked: “Why did Melvin Theuma feel he had power?” Fenech replied: “He knows who the real mastermind is.” The judge then asked Fenech if he knew who the real mastermind was. He replied: “Keith Schembri.” Asked how he knew, he said: “I knew because Melvin Theuma would mention it and Keith Schembri intimated it.” Ending his cross-examination, Cini said to Fenech: “Who are you trying to fool? Your fingerprints are all over this.” Fenech is pleading not guilty to complicity in Caruana Galizia’s murder. The trial continues. Transcript and translation by Amphora Media