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15 years after Fukushima, Japan prepares to restart the world’s biggest nuclear plant

The activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is reaching its peak: workers remove earth to expand the width of a main road, while lorries arrive at its heavily guarded entrance. A long perimeter fence is lined with countless coils of razor wire, and in a layby, a police patrol car monitors visitors to the beach – one of the few locations with a clear view of the reactors, framed by a snowy Mount Yoneyama. When all seven of its reactors are working, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa generates 8.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power millions of households. Occupying 4.2 sq km of land in Niigata prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, it is the biggest nuclear power plant in the world. Since 2012, however, the plant has not generated a single watt of electricity, after being shut down, along with dozens of other reactors, in the wake of the March 2011 triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl. Located about 220km (136 miles) north-west of Tokyo, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is run by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the same utility in charge of the Fukushima facility when a powerful tsunami crashed through its defences, triggering a power outage that sent three of its reactors into meltdown and forcing 160,000 people to evacuate. Weeks before the 15th anniversary of the accident, and the wider tsunami disaster that killed an estimated 20,000 people along Japan’s north-east coast, Tepco is set to defy local public opinion and restart one of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s seven reactors, possibly as soon as Tuesday. Restarting reactor No 6, which could boost the electricity supply to the Tokyo area by about 2%, will be a milestone in Japan’s slow return to nuclear energy, a strategy its government says will help the country reach its emissions targets and strengthen its energy security. But for many of the 420,000 people living within a 30km (19-mile) radius of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa who would have to evacuate in the event of a Fukushima-style incident, Tepco’s imminent return to nuclear power generation is fraught with danger. They include Ryusuke Yoshida, whose home is less than a mile and a half from the plant in the sleepy village of Kariwa. Asked what worries him most about the restart, the 76-year-old has a simple answer. “Everything,” he says, as waves crash on to the shore, the reactors looming in the background. “The evacuation plans are obviously ineffective,” adds Yoshida, a potter and member of an association of people living closest to the facility. “When it snows in winter the roads are blocked, and a lot of people who live here are old. What about them, and other people who can’t move freely? This is a human rights issue.” The utility company says it has learned the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and earlier this year pledged to invest 100 bn yen (£470m) into Niigata prefecture over the next 10 years in an attempt to win over residents. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, whose 6,000 staff have remained on duty throughout the long shutdown, has seawalls and watertight doors to provide stronger protection against a tsunami, while mobile diesel-powered generators and a large fleet of fire engines are ready to provide water to cool reactors in an emergency. Upgraded filtering systems have been installed to control the spread of radioactive materials. “The core of the nuclear power business is ensuring safety above all else, and the understanding of local residents is a prerequisite,” says Tatsuya Matoba, a Tepco spokesperson. That is the one hurdle residents say Tepco has failed to overcome after local authorities ignored calls for a prefectural referendum to determine the plant’s future. In the absence of a vote, anti-restart campaigners point to surveys showing clear opposition to putting the reactor back online. They include a prefectural government poll conducted late last year in which more than 60% of people living within 30km of the plant said they did not believe the conditions for restarting the facility had been met. “We take the results of the prefectural opinion survey very seriously,” Matoba adds. “Gaining understanding and trust from local residents is an ongoing process with no end point, that requires sincerity and continuous effort.” Kazuyuki Takemoto, a member of the Kariwa village council, says seismic activity in this region of north-west Japan means it is impossible to guarantee the plant’s safety. “But there has been no proper discussion of that,” says Takemoto, 76. “They say that safety improvements have been made since the Fukushima disaster, but I don’t think there is any valid reason to restart the reactor. It’s beyond my comprehension.” ‘The priority should be to protect people’s lives’ Just weeks before the planned restart, the nuclear industry attracted fresh criticism after it emerged that Chubu Electric Power, a utility in central Japan, had fabricated seismic risk data during a regulatory review, conducted before a possible restart, of two reactors at its idle Hamaoka plant. “When you look at what’s happened with Hamaoka, do you seriously think it’s possible to trust Japan’s nuclear industry?” Takemoto says. “It used to be said that nuclear power was necessary, safe and cheap … We now know that was an illusion.” Adding to local concerns are the presence of seismic faults in and around the site, which sustained damage during a 6.8-magnitude offshore earthquake in July 2007, including a fire that broke out in a transformer. Three reactors that were in operation at the time shut down automatically. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa restart is a gamble for Japan’s government, which has put an ambitious return to nuclear power generation at the centre of its new energy policy as it struggles to reach its emissions targets and bolster its energy security. Before the Fukushima disaster, 54 reactors were in operation, supplying about 30% of the country’s power. Now, of 33 operable reactors, just 14 are in service, while attempts to restart others have faced strong local opposition. Now, 15 years after the Fukushima meltdown, criticism of the country’s “nuclear village” of operators, regulators and politicians has shifted to this snowy coastal town. Pointing out one of the many security cameras near the plant, Yoshida says the restart has been forced on residents by the nuclear industry and its political allies. “The local authorities have folded in the face of immense pressure from the central government,” he says. “The priority of any government should be to protect people’s lives, but we feel like we have been deceived. Japan’s nuclear village is alive and well. You only have to look at what’s happening here to know that.”

Ukraine war briefing: Russian attacks kill two as Ukrainian strikes trigger blackouts in occupied south

Moscow kept up its hammering of Ukraine’s energy grid in attacks that killed at least two people overnight to Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials. At least six people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the emergency service said. Russia also targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region, it said. A fire broke out and was promptly extinguished. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that repairing the country’s energy system remained challenging “but we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible”. The Ukrainian president said two people were killed in overnight attacks across the country that struck Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa and included more than 200 drones. The military said 30 strikes had been recorded across 15 locations. One person was killed in the second-largest city of Kharkiv, said mayor Ihor Terekhov. Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy networks in Russia-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there. More than 200,000 households in the occupied part of southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, the Kremlin-installed local governor said. Nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut because of damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes, Yevgeny Balitsky said on Telegram. Ukrainian crews have started repair works on the backup power line connecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the power grid, under a ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based UN organisation said on X post on Sunday. The fate of the plant – occupied by Russia and the largest in Europe – is a central issue in ongoing US-brokered peace talks. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has said a US invasion of Greenland would make Russian president Vladimir Putin “the happiest man on Earth” in a newspaper interview. Sanchez said any military action by the US against Denmark’s Arctic territory would damage Nato and legitimise the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. “If we focus on Greenland, I have to say that a US invasion of that territory would make Vladimir Putin the happiest man in the world. Why? Because it would legitimise his attempted invasion of Ukraine,” Sanchez said in an interview in La Vanguardia newspaper published on Sunday. “If the United States were to use force, it would be the death knell for Nato. Putin would be doubly happy.“ Ukraine’s top negotiator said talks with US officials on ending the war with Russia would continue at the World Economic Forum opening this week in the Swiss resort of Davos. Rustem Umerov, writing on Telegram, said on Sunday that two days of talks in Florida with a US team including envoy Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had focused on security guarantees and a postwar recovery plan for Ukraine.

Tariffs on Nato allies are wrong, Starmer tells Trump in Greenland crisis call

Keir Starmer has told Donald Trump he is wrong to threaten tariffs against Nato allies to try to secure Greenland, as part of a flurry of diplomatic calls intended to tackle the crisis. The UK prime minister spoke to the US president on Sunday, as well as to Mette Frederiksen, the Danish PM, whose country’s territory includes Greenland; Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission; and Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general. “In all his calls, the prime minister reiterated his position on Greenland. He said that security in the high north is a priority for all Nato allies in order to protect Euro-Atlantic interests,” a Downing Street summary of the calls said. “He also said that applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of Nato allies is wrong.” The firm stance could place Starmer on a collision course with the US after Trump said he would place sanctions on eight European nations, including the UK, that have deployed troops to Greenland in response to US threats over its future. A joint statement by the affected countries on Sunday said Trump’s threats “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral”. On Monday, Starmer will use an emergency Downing Street statement to reiterate the UK’s disappointment at the threat of US tariffs. Calling off a planned event outside London focused on the cost of living, the prime minister was instead due to fully line the UK up with European opposition to Trump’s plan, which has caused shock waves throughout the EU and Nato. At a Downing Street press conference on Monday morning, Starmer will echo the sentiment with robust language of his own. But he is not expected to push for reciprocal tariffs or other retaliatory measures. Starmer is also expected to stress the importance of UK ties with allies like the US, with officials hoping his unexpectedly good relationship with Trump thus far, which has seen the UK evade some earlier US tariffs, could help instigate a climbdown by the White House. Every major UK party has condemned Trump’s threat to apply 10% tariffs from 1 February on the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland, rising to 25% on 1 June if a deal to buy Greenland has not been reached. This includes Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is most closely aligned with the US president. But Starmer will face pressure to push back harder against Trump, in an acceptance that a normal relationship with his administration is effectively impossible. The Liberal Democrats are pushing for an emergency Commons debate and for the scrapping of a pharmaceuticals deal with Washington, while some Labour MPs want a more overtly Europe-leaning stance. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, who was the government minister tasked with media interviews on Sunday, refused to be drawn on the prospect of responses like retaliatory tariffs, saying that rather than “shout and yell”, the aim was to have serious but private talks with the US administration. But she said there would be no climbdown on the central point: “Our position on Greenland is non-negotiable. We’ve made that very clear and we’ll continue to make that clear. President Trump’s position on Greenland is different. Notwithstanding that, it is in our collective interest to work together and not to start a war of words.” Asked to confirm that the UK would never accept the US idea of annexation, Nandy told Sky News: “Yes, of course. The prime minister was very clear that we believe that this decision on tariffs is completely wrong. The future of Greenland is for the people of Greenland and the people of the kingdom of Denmark to determine and for them alone. “We’ve been consistent about that. That is a view that we’ve expressed to our friends and allies in the American administration.” Starmer has consistently sought to engage with and, if needed, openly court and flatter Trump, most notably in early 2025 when he used a visit to the White House to offer the US president an unprecedented second state visit to the UK. He has subsequently met Trump at several global summits and fielded numerous calls from him, some seemingly made on the spur of the moment by the US president. Trump regularly says he likes Starmer, an affection the prime minister privately admits he cannot fully explain. UK officials insist this has brought benefits, in terms of trade arrangements with the US and also in allowing Starmer to act as a bridge between Washington and other Nato members over Ukraine and the importance of US support and security guarantees against Russia. But there has been an awareness that the capricious US leader could blow up relations at any point.

EU considers retaliatory measures over Trump Greenland tariff ‘blackmail’

The EU was weighing up retaliatory tariffs on American goods and even deploying its most serious economic sanctions against the US as European leaders lined up to criticise Donald Trump’s threat to levy new taxes on imports from eight nations who oppose his attempt to annex Greenland – which one minister called “blackmail”. “Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the leaders of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland said in a joint statement. “We are committed to upholding our sovereignty.” The EU’s top diplomats met for crisis talks on Sunday and discussed reviving a plan to levy tariffs on €93bn of US goods, which was suspended after last summer’s trade deal with Trump. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, called on fellow leaders to activate the EU’s powerful anti-coercion instrument – commonly known as the “big bazooka” – if Trump went ahead with his tariff threats, French media reported, citing his team. After the talks broke up, the head of the European Council António Costa announced an emergency EU summit, which is likely to take place on Thursday. The EU, he said, showed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion”. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Trump’s tariffs would be a mistake, and the Dutch foreign minister, David van Weel, described the US president’s threats to allies as “blackmail”, as reaction from European leaders continued to pile up. The anti-coercion law, which has so far never been used, enables the EU to impose punitive economic measures on a country seeking to force a policy change. According to diplomatic sources, the EU was also considering reactivating a package of counter-tariffs against €93bn US goods, which were drawn up in response to Trump’s previous economic threats but suspended after the two sides struck a trade deal last summer. The measures would impose duties on US cars, industrial goods, food and drink. The ambassadors of the EU’s 27 member states were meeting on Sunday in an emergency session after Trump threatened tariffs on the six EU nations plus the UK and Norway. But the EU remains far from agreement on retaliatory measures against Trump. “At present, there is no question of deploying the ACI [anti-coercion instrument] or any other trade instrument against the US,” an EU diplomat said. The €93bn counter-tariffs are suspended until 6 February and several sources stressed the desire for dialogue with the US. A second EU diplomat said the situation was seen as very serious: “There was a clear and broad understanding that Europe and the EU cannot start reneging on key principles in the international order, such as territorial integrity.” In a joint statement, those countries said their Danish-led military exercise Arctic Endurance was in a commitment to strengthening security “as a shared transatlantic interest” and “poses no threat to anyone”. Trump had accused the countries, which have all deployed troops to Greenland in the last week, of playing “a very dangerous game” and said they would be subject to 10% tariffs from 1 February, increasing to 25% from 1 June. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump said the tariffs would be levied “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland”, a largely autonomous territory that is part of Denmark. The threats to Greenland have cast a long shadow over Nato and thrown into doubt the EU-US trade deal that the bloc signed with Trump last August. The leader of the European parliament’s largest group, the centre-right European People’s party, Manfred Weber, tweeted on Saturday that “approval is not possible at this stage”, a conclusion Socialist and Green MEPs had already reached. Ratification of the deal, which would reduce EU tariffs on some US goods to zero, had been expected by February. Macron said on Saturday that Europe would not change course in its opposition to a US takeover of Greenland, declaring: “No intimidation or threat will influence us – neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations.” In a joint statement, the EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa said tariffs would “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral”. The pair, who had been in Paraguay signing a trade deal with four South American countries in the Mercosur bloc, are understood to have been blindsided by Trump’s latest threats. Meloni, one Trump’s strongest EU allies, told journalists in Seoul that she had spoken to him “and told him what I think”, describing the proposed sanctions as a “mistake”. The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, who bonded with Trump over their shared love of golf, said European countries stood united in support of Denmark and Greenland. “Tariffs would undermine the transatlantic relationship and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” he wrote on X. Germany’s deputy chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, said his country would always extend a hand to the US in the search for common solutions, but “we will not be blackmailed, and there will be a European response”. A spokesperson for the Bundeswehr said on Sunday the reconnaissance mission to Greenland had been completed as planned, after the German newspaper Bild reported that German troops were flying home. Speaking for the British government, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said Trump’s decision on tariffs was “completely wrong” but she declined to say if the UK would retaliate with its own countermeasures. Spain’s leader, Pedro Sánchez, said a US invasion of Greenland would make Vladimir Putin “the happiest man on Earth” by legitimising the Russian president’s attempted invasion of Ukraine and sounding the “death knell for Nato”. Sánchez’s interview to La Vanguardia, published on Sunday but apparently conducted before Trump’s latest threat, reflects the broad European support for the Danish territory. After the Trump broadside, the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, tweeted: “China and Russia must be having a field day.” She went on: “If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside Nato. Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity.” Kallas warned against the dispute “distract[ing] us from the our core task of helping to end Russia’s war against Ukraine”. Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was in Washington last week for talks about Greenland, said Trump’s announcement came as a surprise, after the “constructive” talks held with the vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. “The purpose of the increased military presence in Greenland, to which the president refers, is to enhance security in the Arctic,” Rasmussen wrote. Trump’s latest threat underscores allies’ seemingly impossible job to appease Trump without ceding Greenland to the US. Trump criticised the motives of countries that deployed troops to Greenland in the name of enhanced security while also mocking Denmark for not doing enough to defend the territory. “China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it. They currently have two dogsleds as protection, one added recently,” he wrote. Denmark announced last week that it was increasing its military presence on the island, while troops from the seven other countries targeted with tariffs went to Greenland on a short scoping mission designed in part to show the US that European Nato members were serious about Arctic security. The threats represent an “existential crisis” for Nato, said one former official at the transatlantic alliance. Robert Pszczel, now a senior fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, wrote on X: “Pretending that we are not dealing with an existential crisis for Nato is no longer possible nor desirable. “Threats made by the current US administration towards allies of the [US] and the use of economic blackmail are direct violations of article one and two of the North Atlantic Treaty,” he wrote, referencing parts of the agreement on peaceful settlement of disputes among allies and promoting “peaceful and friendly international relations”. The head of the European parliament’s trade committee, Bernd Lange, said the EU needed to activate its anti-coercion instrument, a law that allows wide-ranging economic sanctions in response to hostile actions from another state. The anti-coercion instrument, originally conceived in response to China, allows the EU to take wide-ranging punitive measures against a country seeking to use economic coercion, such as tariffs or investment restrictions. Lange, a German Social Democrat, said Trump was using trade as an instrument of political coercion, adding: “The EU cannot simply move on to business as usual.”

Western alliance hangs in balance as Europe stiffens itself against Trump’s threats

Greenland, with a population of fewer than 57,000, might not seem to be the territory on which the future of the relationship between Europe and the US, the viability of Nato as the world’s most successful defence alliance, or even the fractured relations between the UK and Europe would be determined. But battlefields are sometimes the product of chance, rather than choice. It now feels as if Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on eight fellow Nato states for sending troops last week to support Greenland’s sovereignty may be one of those clarifying moments in which Europe had no option. Successive European leaders condemned Trump’s blackmail and intimidation on Sunday and they sounded as if they meant it. The chair of the Danish parliament’s defence committee, Rasmus Jarlov, can hardly claim to speak for Europe, but he captured a mood in saying: “Every insult, threat, tariff and lie that we receive strengthens our resolve. The answer from Denmark and Greenland is final: We will never hand over Greenland.” He added: “We pray that our true allies will stand with us because we are going to need it.” So far there is every sign that all eight countries targeted by Trump will spring to Denmark’s defence. Even leaders of other European countries close to Trump such as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called his decision a mistake. In their joint statement the eight made no threat of reprisals such as imposing counter-tariffs on the US, but they warned his move risked a dangerous downward spiral and that a trade war would be a matter of time. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is exploring the activation of the EU’s anti-coercion instrument in his discussions with fellow European leaders, the Élysée briefed. France will also raise the question of the validity of the EU-US tariff agreement concluded in 2025. Keir Starmer, his fate increasingly tied with Europe, has not yet said if the UK will retaliate, but the benefits of Brexit are rapidly evaporating. His trade agreement with the US, announced with fanfare last year, has not yet been signed. The indefinite postponement risks weakening his position in the Labour party. He has rebuffed those who argue for the UK to join the EU customs union, by saying it would be impossible as it would undermine the UK trade deal with the US. With no trade deal, and an extra 10% blanket tariffs on UK imports, that argument looks threadbare. Moreover in the wider – and perennial – Churchillian choice for the UK between the values of the open sea, represented by the US, and those of Europe, the case for the open sea has been dealt yet another blow. When Bronwen Maddox, the director of Chatham House, the voice of the UK foreign policy elite, declared last week that the western alliance was over, one can be sure similar views are being expressed privately in the UK Foreign Office. For those such as the national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, who have made it an article of faith that the UK relationship is based on public quiescence and private influence, these are trying times. Yet for months European leaders, especially Starmer’s entourage, hoped Trump’s threat to invade Greenland was either an outlandish fantasy, to be deposited in his locker of empty threats, or else could be assuaged by a compromise such as giving the US military greater access, and more bases, as permissible under existing defence agreements such as the 1951 Greenland defence agreement. Denmark’s political leadership went to the White House last week with a version of this offer, but got nowhere. Trump, it seems, is not interested in sovereign US bases on Greenland. He wants ownership. Since nothing any longer is preposterous, the risk of a military confrontation between Europe and the US is not minuscule. “If the United States decides to militarily attack another Nato country, then everything would stop,” argued Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, on 5 January. “That includes Nato and therefore post-second world war security.” The former UK permanent secretary Simon McDonald, speaking on the BBC’s Broadcasting House radio show, agreed. “There’s no way back, when one ally turns against another militarily, that’s the end of the alliance. The people who most obviously benefit from that are Presidents Putin and Xi.” Closing US access to its Nato bases in Europe becomes the end point. Yet since the US pursuit of Greenland is based on the need to monitor and counter Russian and Chinese threats in the Arctic, the loss of cooperation from Scandinavia, Iceland and the UK would ultimately not serve the US national interest, a point the US military would doubtless make to its commander in chief. That is not to say there are no quixotic voices. McDonald said the 1917 purchase of the Danish West Indies, now the US Virgin Islands, might be a precedent. “Buying territory is a standard diplomatic procedure, and it feels to me as if that is the way forward.” But his is a lonely voice, partly because it sets a disastrous precedent. In Trump’s mind, everything, including Greenland and a seat on his version of the UN security council the “board of peace”, should be for sale. Not only is might right, but wealth, regardless of how it is acquired, equals legitimacy. For Europe, forged by a different set of values, that would be the equivalent to signing its own death warrant.

Trump’s tariff threat over Greenland risks ‘dangerous downward spiral’, warn Nato members – Europe live

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said Sunday he spoke with US president Donald Trump “regarding the security situation in Greenland and the Arctic” after the American leader’s tariff threats against Nato allies. “We will continue working on this, and I look forward to seeing him in Davos later this week,” Rutte said on X, without sharing details of the conversation.

Oxfam trustee quits board over ‘cruel’ treatment of ex-boss

An Oxfam trustee has resigned from the charity’s board over claims of governance failures and “cruel and inhumane” treatment of the organisation’s former boss. Dr Balwant Singh said he had “lost confidence in the board’s governance, integrity, transparency and accountability” a month after Halima Begum was forced out as chief executive. “These failures are now sufficiently serious and systemic to warrant external regulatory intervention,” Singh said. Begum left the organisation in December amid concerns about her leadership – with an apparent split emerging among members of the charity’s board of trustees. In a resignation statement published by the Observer, Singh, a trustee of Oxfam since November 2022, said: “I feel morally obliged to resign from the Oxfam GB board and my last act before I leave is to apologise to [Begum] for the cruel and inhumane way she has been treated. We should have been better than this. “These governance failings indicated the systemic problems faced by Oxfam GB. The Charity Commission must now remove [this board] and launch an independent investigation into governance failures.” Oxfam announced on 9 January that it would commission an independent review of its board processes after Begum’s departure. It came after media revelations of infighting among the senior leadership at Oxfam, one of the country’s biggest charities. Oxfam’s chair, Charles Gurassa, who is also chair of Guardian Media Group, stood down in November. Begum had filed a grievance claim against him before his departure, a complaint that he told the board was “inaccurate, with mischaracterisations and innuendo”, the Observer reported. In its announcement, Oxfam said the employment investigation firm Howlett Brown had been appointed to examine continuing concerns about the leadership of Begum, who was appointed as chief executive in late 2023. After the leadership review, the board made the unanimous decision in December that trust and confidence in her had been lost, the charity said. Oxfam said the independent review would assess whether the board and trustees acted in line with their duties and policies after the departure of Begum and, if relevant, before that. After Begum’s departure was first reported in the Times, Singh said the statement made on behalf of the board had not been shared with him and did not “reflect my views as a trustee”. He condemned the “brutal” briefing against Begum and said the findings of the leadership investigation were not shared with her and she was not given a right of reply. A lawyer representing Begum said last month that she had been subjected to “a victimising witch-hunt”. After a request for comment, Oxfam referred the Guardian to its statement on 9 January. It said: “As this review is independent, Oxfam is unable to comment further at this stage, to ensure the scope, process, and outcome are not affected.”

Iran warns attack on Khamenei would be declaration of war

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned on Sunday that any attack on the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be a declaration of war. In an apparent response to speculation that Donald Trump is considering an attempt to assassinate or remove Khamenei, Pezeshkian said in a post on X: “An attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.” The Iranian president also blamed the US for the protests that have rocked Iran over the last two weeks and led to thousands of deaths among demonstrators. “If there are hardship and constraints in the lives of the dear people of Iran, one of the main causes is the longstanding hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the US government and its allies,” Pezeshkian said. Trump, in an interview with Politico on Saturday, called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign, calling him “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people”. The latest wave of unrest in Iran began on 28 December when widespread anger over soaring inflation, a collapsing currency and economic hardship spilled out of Tehran and into cities across the country, rapidly transforming demonstrations over living costs into broad anti-government protests demanding regime change. As the movement grew, Iranian authorities responded on 8 January with a near total shutdown of internet and phone services, cutting off most global connectivity in an effort to suppress communication, obscure the scale of the unrest and stifle independent reporting, leaving many Iranians isolated from the outside world. Last Tuesday, Trump urged Iranians to keep protesting and to “take over your institutions”, telling them “help is on its way”, as reports grew that a strike on Iran was imminent. On Wednesday the US came close to launching military strikes on Iran but ultimately pulled back as Trump opted to pause amid mounting regional and diplomatic pressure. The US news website Axios reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had warned Trump that Israel was not prepared for Iranian retaliation and questioned the effectiveness of a US strike. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had also urged restraint, according to Axios, citing the risks to regional stability. “It was really close,” a US official told Axios, adding that the order to strike never came. In a social media post on Friday, Trump thanked Tehran’s leaders, claiming they had called off scheduled executions of 800 people, including that of Erfan Soltani, 26, the first Iranian protester sentenced to death since the unrest began. Soltani, a clothing shop employee, was arrested in Karaj, a city north-west of Tehran, after participating in protests and was due to be executed on Wednesday, according to rights groups. Since his arrest, his family had received little news about his condition besides a brief, scheduled visit before his expected execution. Over the weekend, Soltani’s family were able to visit him and establish that he was alive. “I am relieved to know my cousin Erfan is alive,” said Soltani’s cousin Somayeh, who lives in Germany. “However, I am worried because I received news that he has been tortured under custody and hasn’t received medical attention yet. “I appeal to the international community to please bring attention to his detention conditions. I also appeal to European politicians to please sponsor his case to demand medical assistance for Erfan. I am also deeply worried for the thousands of other protesters in custody.” At least 5,000 people have been killed in protests in Iran, including about 500 security personnel, an Iranian official in the region said on Sunday, citing verified figures and accusing “terrorists and armed rioters” of killing “innocent Iranians”. During a speech on Thursday, Khamenei acknowledged for the first time that thousands of people had been killed, “some in an inhuman, savage manner”. He blamed the US for the death toll, railing against Trump, whom he called a “criminal” for his support of the demonstrations, and calling for strict punishment of the protesters. On Sunday, monitors said some internet access had been restored in Iran. “Traffic data indicates a significant return to some online services including Google, suggesting that heavily filtered access has been enabled, corroborating user reports of partial restoration,” Netblocks said in a social media post. An Iranian official who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue told Reuters some of the heaviest clashes and highest number of deaths had been in the Iranian Kurdish areas in the country’s north-west. Kurdish separatists have been active there and flare-ups have been among the most violent in recent periods of unrest. The Human Rights Activists news agency said 24,348 protesters had been arrested in the crackdown. No protests have been reported for days in Iran, where the streets have returned to an uneasy calm. Instead, some Iranians chanted anti-Khamenei slogans from the windows of their homes on Saturday night, the chants reverberating around neighbourhoods in Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, witnesses said. AFP, Reuters and AP contributed to this report.