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Iran threats in UK ‘significantly increased’: Intel watchdog

A UK parliamentary committee on Thursday blamed Iran for at least 15 attempts to kill or kidnap British-based individuals since 2022, saying the threat from Iran had “significantly increased”.London’s response has been too focused on “crisis management”, said parliament’s intelligence and security committee, with concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme dominating their attention too much.Tehran swiftly issued a “categorical rejection of the unfounded, politically motivated and hostile allegations”.The committee’s claims were “baseless, irresponsible, and reflective of a broader pattern of distortion intended to malign Iran’s legitimate regional and national interests”, said its London embassy.The report comes after growing alarm in Britain at alleged Iranian targeting of dissidents, media organisations and journalists in the UK, including accusations of physical attacks. Iran in March became the first country to be placed on an enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which aims to boost Britain’s national security against covert foreign influences.It requires all persons working inside the country for Iran, its intelligence services or the Revolutionary Guard to register on a new list or face jail.”Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals, and UK interests,” Kevan Jones, chairman of the watchdog committee, said in the report’s conclusions.”Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength.”Jones said it bolstered this through proxy groups, “including criminal networks, militant and terrorist organisations, and private cyber actors” to allow for deniability.- ‘Willing and able’ -His committee’s report said that while Iran’s UK activity “appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China”, it “should not be underestimated”.The physical threat posed had “significantly increased” in pace and volume, and was “focused acutely on dissidents and other opponents of the regime” as well as Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK, it said.”The Iranian Intelligence Services have shown that they are willing and able — often through third-party agents — to attempt assassination within the UK, and kidnap from the UK,” the report said.”There have been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK-based individuals since the beginning of 2022.”Similarly, security minister Dan Jarvis said in March Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service had tallied 20 Iran-backed plots “presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents”.The watchdog committee took evidence for two years from August 2021 for its report, a period which saw Tehran implicated in a plot to kill two London-based Iran International television anchors.In March last year one of the Persian-language outlet’s journalists was stabbed outside his London home. Two Romanian men have been charged in relation to the attack and face extradition to the UK to stand trial. The counter-terrorism unit of London’s Metropolitan Police led the investigation. Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK has said that the Tehran authorities “deny any link” to the incident.

Ten rescued, more missing after deadly Huthi ship sinking

Ten people have been rescued after Yemen’s Huthis sank a cargo ship, an EU naval force said Thursday, with three killed and 12 missing in one of the rebel group’s deadliest Red Sea attacks.Three Filipino crew and a Greek member of the Eternity C ship’s onboard security team were plucked from the sea overnight, “bringing the total number of those rescued to 10”, the European Union’s Operation Aspides force posted on X.On Wednesday, the Iran-backed Huthis said they had “rescued” an unspecified number of the Eternity C’s crew and taken them to a safe location. The US embassy for Yemen accused the rebels of kidnapping the survivors.The deadly attack was the second such assault on a commercial vessel in recent days, marking a serious escalation in a key waterway and threatening a May truce with the United States meant to safeguard freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.The Huthis also released a propaganda video showing the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier being attacked and sunk — the second sinking of a cargo ship in quick succession, after they scuttled the Magic Seas on Sunday.A total of 25 people were onboard the Liberian-flagged Eternity C, according to Aspides, the EU’s naval task force patrolling the Red Sea.On Tuesday, the force told AFP that three people were killed and at least two wounded, including a Russian electrician who lost a leg, in the Huthi attack.The two consecutive incidents broke a months-long lull in Huthi ship attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which began after the start of the Gaza war.The attacks, which the Huthis say are against Israel-linked shipping and in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, have forced many companies to avoid a route that normally carries about 12 percent of global trade.- ‘Grave concern’ -The Huthis, who control large swathes of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, had paused their shipping attacks this year after a Gaza ceasefire started in January.Huthi-held areas of Yemen also came under weeks of heavy attack by the United States military until a ceasefire in May. However, the rebels told AFP at the time that they would continue to attack “Israeli” ships.The Magic Seas and Eternity C were probably attacked “due to prior Israeli port calls or ownership/ship manager affiliations”, according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre, run by Western navies.The United Nations envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, expressed “grave concern” over the latest attacks that resulted in “civilian loss of life and casualties as well as the potential for environmental damage”. While the Magic Seas crew was rescued by an Emirati ship, the attack on the Eternity C is the most deadly since three were killed in a missile attack on the True Confidence merchant vessel in March last year.Other Huthi attacks include the storming and hijacking of the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier, in November 2023, and the sinking of the Rubymar carrying 21,000 tonnes of fertiliser in February 2024.

US funding cuts could reverse decades of gains in AIDS fight: UN

The halt to US foreign aid is a “ticking time bomb” that could reverse decades of hard-fought gains in the fight against AIDS, the United Nations warned Thursday.Around 31.6 million people were on antiretroviral drugs in 2024 and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses had more than halved since 2010 to 630,000 that year, the UNAIDS agency said in a new report.But now infections were likely to shoot up as funding cuts have shuttered prevention and treatment programmes, it said.The United States has been the world’s biggest donor of humanitarian assistance but President Donald Trump’s abrupt slashing of international aid in February sent the global humanitarian community scrambling to keep life-saving operations afloat.”We are proud of the achievements, but worried about this sudden disruption reversing the gains we have made,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told AFP ahead of the report’s launch in Johannesburg.The agency in April warned that a permanent discontinuation of PEPFAR, the massive US effort to fight HIV/AIDS, would lead to more than six million new infections and an additional 4.2 million AIDS-related deaths in the next four years.This would bring the pandemic back to levels not seen since the early 2000s.”This is not just a funding gap – it’s a ticking time bomb” whose effects are already felt worldwide, Byanyima said in a press release.Over 60 percent of all women-led HIV organisations surveyed by UNAIDS had lost funding or had to suspend services, the report said.In a striking example, the number of people receiving pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs to prevent transmission in Nigeria fell by over 85 percent in the first few months of 2025.The “story of how the world has come together” to fight HIV/AIDS is “one of the most important stories of progress in global health,” Byanyima told AFP.”But that great story has been disrupted massively” by Trump’s “unprecedented” and “cruel” move, she said.”Priorities can shift, but you do not take away life-saving support from people just like that,” she said. – Key medical research affected -Crucial medical research on prevention and treatment have also shut down, including many in South Africa which has one of the highest HIV rates in the world and has become a leader in global research.”Developing countries themselves contribute very much towards the research on HIV and AIDS, and that research serves the whole world,” Byaniyma said.In 25 out of 60 low- and middle-income countries surveyed by UNAIDS, governments had found ways to compensate part of the funding shortfall with domestic resources.”We have to move towards nationally-owned and financed responses,” Byaniyma said, calling for debt relief and the reform of international financial institutions to “free up the fiscal space for developing countries to pay for their own response”.Still, the global HIV response built from grassroots activism was “resilient by its very nature”, she told AFP.”We moved from people dying every single day to now a point where it is really like a chronic illness,” she said.”There is no question that the investment has been worth it, and continues to be worth it. It saves lives.”