espionage

Moscow is accused of running sabotage and espionage operations across Europe, targeting nations supporting Ukraine.

Authorities in Poland have arrested eight individuals across the country on suspicion of espionage and sabotage.

In a brief statement on social media, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that the case is developing and that “further operational activities are ongoing” without providing further details.

The detentions come amid accusations that Russia is operating a network of spies and saboteurs across Europe.

Referring to the prime minister’s post, the coordinator of Poland’s special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, said that the detained people are suspected of engaging in espionage and planning attacks.

They were arrested due to “conducting reconnaissance of military facilities and critical infrastructure, preparing resources for sabotage, and directly carrying out attacks”, he said.

While Warsaw has not directly linked the arrests, officials have said previously that Poland has been targeted with such attacks in a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to destabilise nations supporting Ukraine.

Several other European countries have also pointed the finger at Moscow as they have suffered similar attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Polish authorities have detained dozens of people over suspected sabotage and espionage over the past three years or so.

Moscow denies the accusations, insisting that they are the result of “Russophobia”.

In May last year, Polish authorities arrested three men for an arson attack. In September, Lithuanian prosecutors broke up a network that they said planned arson and explosive attacks in several European Union states.

The same month, Latvia’s security service announced the detention of a man suspected of passing military intelligence to Russia, and British police arrested three people suspected of running sabotage and espionage operations for Russia.

The United Kingdom has also repeatedly accused Russia of orchestrating sabotage and spy operations on its soil and beyond. The Kremlin has accused London of blaming Moscow for “anything bad that happens”.

Drones increasing concern

This autumn, drone incursions have added to the European security concerns, with Belgium, Denmark and Germany among several countries reporting sightings.

The incursions provoked airport closures in both Germany and Denmark.

“We are at the beginning of a hybrid war against Europe,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said. “I think we are going to see more of it … We see the pattern, and it does not look good,” she added.

Tusk pledged to urgently upgrade Poland’s air defences after NATO forces shot down several drones over his country last month.

The European Union, recognising the inefficiency of using multimillion-euro weapons to battle cheap drones, has reacted to the incursions with proposals to develop a “drone wall” on its eastern borders.

United Nations demands the release of its employees after Houthi forces raided a facility and detained staff in Sanaa.

Yemen’s Houthi authorities have detained about two dozen United Nations employees after raiding another UN-run facility in the capital Sanaa, the UN has confirmed.

Jean Alam, spokesperson for the UN’s resident coordinator in Yemen, said staff were detained inside the compound in the city’s Hada district on Sunday.

Those held include at least five Yemeni employees and 15 international personnel. A further 11 UN staff were briefly questioned and later released.

Alam said the UN is in direct contact with the Houthis and other relevant actors “to resolve this serious situation as swiftly as possible, end the detention of all personnel, and restore full control over its facilities in Sanaa”.

A separate UN official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Houthi forces confiscated all communication equipment inside the facility, including computers, phones and servers.

The staff reportedly belong to several UN agencies, among them the World Food Programme (WFP), the children’s agency UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The incident follows a sustained crackdown by the Houthis on the UN and other international aid organisations operating in territory under their control, including Sanaa, the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, and Saada province in the north.

According to UN figures, more than 50 staff members have now been detained.

Houthis claim UN staff are spying for Israel

The Houthis have repeatedly accused detained UN staff and employees of foreign NGOs and embassies of espionage on behalf of the United States and Israel, allegations that the UN has denied.

In reaction to previous detentions, the UN suspended operations in Saada earlier this year and relocated its top humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government.

In a statement on Saturday, UN Secretary-General spokesperson Stephane Dujarric warned: “We will continue to call for an end to the arbitrary detention of 53 of our colleagues.”

Dujarric was responding to a televised address by Houthi leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi, who claimed his group had dismantled “one of the most dangerous spy cells”, alleging it was “linked to humanitarian organisations such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF”. Dujarric said the accusations were “dangerous and unacceptable”.

Saturday’s raid comes amid a sharp escalation in detentions. Since August 31, 2025, alone, at least 21 UN personnel have been arrested, alongside 23 current and former employees of international NGOs, the UN said.

Ten years of conflict have left Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, facing what the UN describes as one of the gravest humanitarian crises globally, with millions reliant on aid for survival.

The judge ruled NSO caused ‘irreparable harm’ to Meta, but said an earlier award of $168m in damages was ‘excessive’.

A United States judge has granted an injunction barring Israeli spyware maker the NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users, saying the firm’s software causes “direct harm” but slashed an earlier damages award of $168m to just $4m.

In a ruling on Friday granting WhatsApp owner Meta an injunction to stop NSO’s spyware from being used in the messaging service, district judge Phyllis Hamilton said the Israeli firm’s “conduct causes irreparable harm”, adding that there was “no dispute that the conduct is ongoing”.

Hamilton said NSO’s conduct “serves to defeat” one of the key purposes of the service offered by WhatsApp: privacy.

“Part of what companies such as WhatsApp are ‘selling’ is informational privacy, and any unauthorised access is an interference with that sale,” she said.

In her ruling, Hamilton said that evidence at trial showed that NSO reverse-engineered WhatsApp code to stealthily install its spyware Pegasus on users’ phones, and repeatedly redesigned it to escape detection and bypass security fixes.

NSO was founded in 2010 and is based in the Israeli seaside tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.

Pegasus – a highly invasive software marketed as a tool for law enforcement to fight crime and terrorism – allows operators to remotely embed spyware in devices.

NSO says it only sells the spyware to vetted and legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But Meta, which owns WhatsApp, filed a lawsuit in California federal court in late 2019, accusing NSO of exploiting its encrypted messaging service to target journalists, lawyers and human rights activists with its spyware.

Independent experts have also said NSO’s software has been used by nation states, some with poor human rights records, to target critics.

Judge Hamilton said her broad injunction was appropriate given NSO’s “multiple design-arounds” to infect WhatsApp users – including missed phone calls and “zero-click” attacks – as well as the “covert nature” of the firm’s work more generally.

Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, said in a statement that the “ruling bans spyware maker NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again”.

“We applaud this decision that comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting members of civil society. It sets an important precedent that there are serious consequences to attacking an American company,” he said.

Meta had asked Hamilton to extend the injunction to its other products – including Facebook, Instagram and Threads – but the judge ruled there was no way for her to determine if similar harms were being done on the other platforms without more evidence.

Hamilton also ruled that an initial award of $168m against NSO for damages to Meta in May this year was excessive, determining that the court did not have “sufficient basis” to support the jury’s initial calculation.

“There have simply not yet been enough cases involving unlawful electronic surveillance in the smartphone era for the court to be able to conclude that defendants’ conduct was ‘particularly egregious’,” Hamilton wrote.

The judge ruled that the punitive damages ratio should therefore be “capped at 9/1”, reducing the initial sum by about $164m to just $4m.

Dutch humanitarian organisation INSO rejected the allegations and called for the release of its eight staff members.

Burkina Faso’s military government says it has arrested eight people working for a humanitarian organisation, accusing them of “spying and treason”, allegations the Dutch nonprofit “categorically” rejected.

Burkina Faso’s Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said the eight people arrested worked for the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), a Netherlands-based group specialising in humanitarian safety.

Those detained included a French man, a French-Senegalese woman, a Czech man, a Malian and four Burkinabe nationals, Sana said, alleging the staff members had continued working for the organisation after it was banned for three months, for allegedly “collecting sensitive data without authorisation”.

The security minister claimed some of INSO’s staff had “continued to clandestinely or covertly conduct activities such as information collection and meetings in person or online” following the ban, including its country director, who had also previously been arrested when the suspension came into effect at the end of July.

Sana said the INSO staff members had “collected and passed on sensitive security information that could be detrimental to national security and the interests of Burkina Faso, to foreign powers”.

The Hague-based humanitarian organisation issued a statement on Tuesday saying it “categorically” rejected the allegations about its activities in Burkina Faso.

“[We] remain committed to doing everything in our power to secure the safe release of all our colleagues,” INSO said in the statement.

INSO also said it collects information “exclusively for the purpose of keeping humanitarians safe,” and that the information it gathers “is not confidential and is largely already known to the public.”

Burkina Faso’s military government has turned away from the West and, in particular, its former colonial ruler, France, since seizing power in a September 2022 coup.

Together with neighbouring Mali and Niger, which are also ruled by military governments, it has also withdrawn from regional and international organisations in recent months, with the three countries forming their own bloc known as the Alliance of Sahel States.

The three West African countries have also wound back defence cooperation with Western powers, most notably their former colonial ruler, France, in favour of closer ties with Russia, including Niger nationalising a uranium mine operated by French nuclear firm Orano.

Within the three countries, the military governments are fighting armed groups linked to al-Qaeda that control territory and have staged attacks on army posts.

Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups have accused the fighters, the military and partner forces of Burkina Faso and Mali of possible atrocities.

Here are the key events from day 1,322 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 8, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces have captured almost 5,000 square kilometres (1,930sq miles) of Ukrainian territory so far this year, and Moscow retains the strategic initiative on the battlefield.
• Russian troops have captured the Ukrainian villages of Novovasylivka in the southeastern Zaporizhia region and Fedorivka in the eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said.
• Russian air defence units destroyed 184 Ukrainian drones in recent attacks, the RIA Novosti state-owned news agency reports.
• Russia’s air defence units also intercepted and destroyed a drone flying towards Moscow city, said Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of the Russian capital.

• Ukraine’s Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Russian air strikes have caused “significant” damage to Ukrainian gas production capacity due to the targeting of regional gas infrastructure and power transmission facilities in front-line regions.
• Hrynchuk said Ukraine wants to increase imports of natural gas by 30 percent after Russian attacks on its gas infrastructure, telling reporters she had discussed additional gas imports with Group of Seven (G7) member states.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of using oil tankers for intelligence gathering and sabotage operations, and he added that Ukraine was cooperating with its allies on the matter.
• Russia’s state nuclear energy company has claimed that a Ukrainian drone attempted to strike a nuclear plant in Russia’s Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, but the unmanned aerial vehicle crashed into a cooling tower and caused no damage at the site.

Military aid

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was waiting for clarity from the United States about the possible supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying such weapons could theoretically carry nuclear warheads and reiterated that Moscow would see the provision of such weapons as a serious escalation.
• The Kremlin also said it assumed for now that US President Donald Trump still sought a peace settlement in Ukraine.

Peace talks

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with President Putin and said diplomatic initiatives need to gain momentum to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Russia-Ukraine war, Erdogan’s office said.
• The statement cited Erdogan as saying Turkiye will continue to work for peace and said bilateral relations and regional and global issues were also discussed with Putin.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she believed Trump had come to the conclusion that Russia was not interested in a peace deal with Ukraine, and that the only way forward was to apply pressure, continue to support Ukraine, and impose sanctions on Russia.

Politics and diplomacy

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it is not in Poland’s interest to hand over a Ukrainian man wanted by Germany for suspected involvement in explosions which damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines three years ago.
• Tusk said the problem with Nord Stream 2 was not that it was blown up but that it was built. He added that Russia built the pipelines “against the vital interests not only of our countries, but of all of Europe”.
• A Polish court ruled on Monday that the Ukrainian diver wanted by Germany over his alleged involvement in the explosions, which damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline, must remain in custody for another 40 days, his lawyer said.
• European Union governments have agreed to impose limits on the travel of Russian diplomats within the bloc, the Financial Times reported.

Economy

• Ukraine’s foreign currency reserves totalled $46.5bn as of October 1, the National Bank of Ukraine reported on its website.

Platform to allow people to securely pass on information anywhere in the world, or offer their own services to MI6.

The United Kingdom’s spy agency is set to launch a web portal on the dark web to recruit informants and receive secret information from agents in Russia and worldwide, Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said.

The Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, will officially announce the launch of the secure messaging platform called “Silent Courier” on Friday.

It is aimed at harnessing the anonymity of the dark web – the murky, hidden part of the internet often used by criminal actors – and allowing anyone, anywhere in the world, to securely contact the UK spy agency.

Users of the portal can securely pass on details about illicit activities anywhere in the world, or offer their own services, according to a Foreign Office statement.

Outgoing MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore – who is due to hand over to Blaise Metreweli later this month – will officially launch the web portal in Istanbul on Friday.

“Today we’re asking those with sensitive information on global instability, international terrorism or hostile state intelligence activity to contact MI6 securely online,” Moore is set to say when he formally announces the plans.

“Our virtual door is open to you,” he will add.

Instructions on how to use the portal will be publicly available on MI6’s verified YouTube channel.

Users have been encouraged to access it through VPNs and devices not linked to themselves.

MI6 was established in 1909 but was not officially acknowledged by the UK government until the 1990s.

The spy agency operates from the iconic SIS Building on the banks of the River Thames in London and only its head – known as “C” – is a publicly named member of the service.

In advance of the portal’s launch, new Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that “national security is the first duty of any government and the bedrock of the prime minister’s Plan for Change” – referring to a national revitalisation plan outlined by the premier and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer in December.

“As the world changes, and the threats we’re facing multiply, we must ensure the UK is always one step ahead of our adversaries,” Cooper said.

“Now we’re bolstering their efforts with cutting-edge tech so MI6 can recruit new spies for the UK – in Russia and around the world,” she added.

The US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took a similar approach in 2023, when it published videos on social media attempting to recruit potential Russian spies.

The trailer for the fifth season of Slow Horses has been released by Apple TV+ and sees the return of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb

The fifth season of Slow Horses is just around the bend, and Apple TV+ has just given us a sneak peek with the release of the trailer for the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama.

This six-episode series is based on London Rules, the subsequent novel in Mick Herron’s popular book series.

The trailer sees Sir Gary Oldman reprising his role as Jackson Lamb, the genius yet grumpy leader of the espionage team.

In this new instalment, eyebrows are raised when resident tech whizz Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) brings a stunning new girlfriend into the picture.

As a string of peculiar incidents unfold across the city, it’s up to the Slow Horses to connect the dots, reports the Express.

READ MORE: ‘Brutal’ Apple TV+ series leaves no stone unturned in ‘eye-opening’ historical dramaREAD MORE: ‘Explosive’ thriller from Slow Horses writer with A-list stars unveils first look

The trailer features Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) detailing how eleven individuals were fatally shot, an incident they suspect Ho might be involved in.

Jackson immediately doubts his new flame as it emerges that “sinister forces” are attempting to destabilise the nation.

With the clock ticking, the Slow Horses have just sixty minutes to prevent the perpetrators from executing their next violent act, potentially endangering over 5,000 lives.

To make matters worse, it seems the Slow Horses have been duped by one of their own following a suspected breach in their system.

Viewers have already rushed to the comments section to express their excitement about the captivating trailer, which features Emmy Award nominee Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Ruth Bradley, James Callis, Tom Brooke, and Academy Award nominee Jonathan Pryce.

One viewer gushed: “One of the best shows ever created,” whilst another enthused: “Oh that’s cheered me up.”

A third remarked: “I have to watch this,” and a fourth declared: “This show made me fall in love with the quality of Apple Tv. Never gonna leave Apple TV.”

The fifth series will also feature Ted Lasso star Nick Mohammed making a special guest appearance.

Reviewers praised it as “undoubtedly the best spy series on television,” describing it as a “truly epic espionage thriller” that is “utterly brilliant”.

Slow Horses launches in September with the opening episode, then continues with weekly instalments until October 29.

The sixth and seventh series of the darkly comic espionage drama have already been confirmed.

Slow Horses season 5 will debut on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, September 24.

Revolutionary guards say suspects apprehended in northeastern Iran as materials for making weapons are also seized.

Iran has arrested eight people suspected of attempting to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures during the country’s 12-day war with Israel and the United States to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC released a statement on Saturday alleging that the suspects had received specialised training from Mossad via online platforms.

It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.

The news comes as state media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the June conflict, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.

Following an Israeli military bombardment that began on June 13, killing top military officials and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians, Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities.

The US also carried out extensive strikes on Israel’s behalf on Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict, the worst blow to the Islamic republic since its 1980s war with Iraq.

During the 12-day war, Iranian security forces began a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints and “public reports”.

Iranian citizens were called upon to report on any individuals they thought were acting suspiciously during the war that ended in a US and Qatar-brokered ceasefire.

Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist who was killed in Israeli air strikes.

Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.

The Israel-US-Iran conflict has also led to an accelerated rate of deportations for Afghan refugees and migrants believed to be illegally in Iran, with aid agencies reporting that local authorities have also accused some Afghan nationals of spying for Israel.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones. [A total of] 261 suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorised filming were also arrested,” police spokesperson Saeed Montazerolmahdi said earlier this month.

Montazerolmahdi did not specify how many of those arrested had since been released.

He added that Iran’s police handled more than 5,700 cases of cybercrimes such as online fraud and unauthorised withdrawals during the war, which he said had turned “cyberspace into an important battlefront”.

Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday summoned a top United States diplomat in the country to discuss intelligence reports that US citizens have secretly tried to influence people in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump, to oppose Danish rule.

Here is what Denmark has accused the US of doing and why Trump has ambitions to acquire Greenland.

What has Denmark accused the US of?

Denmark summoned Mark Stroh, the US charge d’affaires in Denmark, after the Danish public broadcaster, DR, reported on Wednesday that at least three Americans with links to Trump had been carrying out covert operations that sought to encourage Greenland to break away from Denmark and instead join the US. DR cited unnamed sources.

Greenland, which is situated between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, is the world’s largest island and is geographically part of North America.

The three American individuals, who DR reported were being closely watched by Danish authorities, were not named by the broadcaster. Their alleged activities include compiling lists of Greenlanders who support Trump and gathering information about tensions between Denmark and Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said: “Any interference in internal affairs in the kingdom of Denmark, and Greenlandic democracy, is unacceptable.”

“I note that the Americans have not clearly rejected the DR report today, and that is of course serious,” Fredriksen told Danish television.

Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Lokke Rasmussen also told AFP that he was aware of the “foreign actors” interested in Greenland’s position within Denmark.

Christine Nissen, chief analyst at Copenhagen-based think tank Europa, told Al Jazeera that Denmark’s summoning of a US diplomat was a “very rare” event.

“Summoning the US charge d’affaires for a formal protest is something Denmark only does in exceptional circumstances, and it signals just how seriously Copenhagen views the situation. It is clearly not routine diplomacy but a strong signal of protest,” said Nissen.

“Denmark has only done this once before in recent years – and notably over the same issue, when it summoned the US ambassador in response to a Wall Street Journal report suggesting that US intelligence agencies had been tasked with investigating Greenland’s independence movement and resource potential.”

In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence agencies had been instructed by several high-ranking intelligence officials under US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to collect information about Greenland’s independence movement and local views on the US gaining access to Greenland’s natural resources.

The WSJ, which quoted two unnamed sources familiar with the issue, reported that the intelligence agencies had been tasked specifically with identifying Greenlanders and people from Denmark who supported US objectives for Greenland.

In May, when this report was published, Fredriksen told The Associated Press that the report was “rumours”, adding: “You cannot spy against an ally.”

After that report was published, Gabbard’s office released a statement, saying: “The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicising and leaking classified information … Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

How has the US responded?

The US State Department released a statement confirming that the charge d’affaires and deputy chief of the US mission in Copenhagen, Mark Stroh, had met with officials from the Danish Foreign Ministry.

Stroh had “a productive conversation and reaffirmed the strong ties among the Government of Greenland, the United States, and Denmark”, the statement said. It added that the US respects “the right of the people of Greenland to determine their own future”.

However, the US State Department did not comment on the claims about the actions of US citizens. “The US government does not control or direct the actions of private citizens,” it stated.

What has Trump said about Greenland?

Greenland is home to about 56,000 people, most of whom are from the Indigenous Inuit community.

Since Trump’s first term, the US president has expressed an interest in Greenland’s accession to the US. Back then, Trump cancelled a trip to Copenhagen after Denmark refused to sell Greenland to the US.

During his second term as president, Trump has stepped up his interest in Greenland. In late December 2024, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity”.

In response to this, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a written statement: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

In January, ahead of his son Donald Trump Jr’s trip to Greenland, Trump again wrote on Truth Social: “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation.”

After this, Frederiksen said: “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.” Rasmussen emphasised that Greenland did not want to become a part of the US.

Trump once again raised his ambitions to acquire Greenland in March, ahead of US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the island. “We need Greenland. And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark,” Trump told reporters at the White House, adding that the US will go “as far as we have to go” to make it happen.

“I have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist,” Frederiksen told Danish media at the time.

While Vance was initially slated to visit multiple towns, he cut his itinerary short to one day after news of his visit was met with anger in Europe. He ended up visiting the US Pituffik military base, which Greenland hosts.

During his trip, Vance took aim at Denmark, saying: “You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security of this incredible, beautiful landmass.”

What is so important about Greenland?

Greenland is rich in minerals, including rare earth minerals essential for manufacturing batteries and high-tech products. A 2023 survey found that Greenland contains 25 out of 34 minerals designated as “critical raw materials” by the European Commission.

However, Greenland does not extract oil and gas since mining is opposed by the Indigenous communities there. The island’s economy relies primarily on its fishing industry.

The island is also strategically important to the US because it sits on the shortest route from North America to Europe, potentially providing the US with a strategic advantage in military operations and its ballistic missile early-warning system.

How have Denmark and Europe responded to Trump’s ambitions to acquire Greenland?

Officials from Denmark and Greenland have rebuked Trump and repeatedly stated that Greenland is “not for sale”.

In December, Denmark announced it would boost defence spending in Greenland by $1.5bn after Trump expressed his desire to take over the autonomous island.

European leaders have expressed solidarity with Denmark.

In January, after Trump refused to rule out military force to take Greenland, European leaders warned Trump against threatening “sovereign borders”.

“Borders must not be moved by force. This principle applies to every country, whether in the East or the West,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote in an X post. France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that Greenland was “European territory” and there was “no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be … attack its sovereign borders”.

Although Greenland is not a member of the European Union, it is included on the EU’s list of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs).

In June, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Greenland in a show of solidarity.

“It’s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,” Macron said during his visit.

Prior to his visit, Macron said during a United Nations Ocean Conference that Greenland and the deep seas were not “up for grabs”.

Are there other points of tension between the US and Denmark?

Tension between the US and Denmark emerged recently after the Trump administration stopped work on a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island in the US by Orsted, one of Denmark’s largest companies.

The Revolution Wind project was about 80 percent complete when it received the stop order on August 23. The stop order cited a need to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests” without providing further details. On Monday, Orsted shares plunged 17 percent, hitting an all-time low.

In January, research by polling agency YouGov, shared with British newspaper The Guardian, showed that 46 percent of people surveyed in Denmark saw the US as either a “fairly big threat” or a “very big threat” to Denmark.

The US and Denmark are both founding members of NATO, and Denmark fought alongside the US in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How does Greenland feel about the US and Denmark?

Greenland was ruled by Denmark from the early 1700s until 1979, when it became a self-governing territory. Since 2009, Greenland has had the legal right to declare independence if its people choose to do so through a referendum.

All three major parties in Greenland support independence for the island, but have different ideas about the timeline for this and want Greenlanders to decide for themselves. Prime Minister Egede’s Inuit Ataqatigiit party supports independence but does not want to rush the process.

According to a poll conducted in January by pollster Verian, commissioned by the Danish newspaper Berlingske, 56 percent of Greenlanders would vote for independence if a referendum was held. Seventeen percent of Greenlanders responded saying they “don’t know” whether or not they would vote for Greenland to become an independent state.

Yet there is scant evidence that even those who want independence from Denmark want to join the US.

Meanwhile, tensions with Denmark exist, too.

The Danish government forcefully separated Inuit children from their families in 1951 and forced contraception upon 4,500 Inuit women – at least half of fertile Inuit females – during the 1960s and 1970s.

On Wednesday, Fredriksen apologised to the Inuit women who were forced to wear an intrauterine device (IUD) without their consent.

“We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: I am sorry,” she said in a statement.

Lee is accused of going online and offering to assist Russian authorities in exchange for Russian citizenship.

An active duty soldier has been charged with seeking to pass sensitive information about the United States Army’s main battle tank to the Russian government, the US Justice Department has announced.

The suspect, Taylor Adam Lee, has been charged with “attempted transmission of national defense information to a foreign adversary and attempted export of controlled technical data without a license”, the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lee, a 22-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas, has yet to enter a plea in the charges, filed at the US District Court for the Western District of Texas.

John A Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said Lee sought to “transmit sensitive national defense information to Russia” regarding the operation of the M1A2 Abrams – the main battle tank used by the US Army.

In June, Lee is said to have gone online and offered assistance to Russia in exchange for Russian citizenship. In the alleged messages, Lee, who holds a top-secret security clearance, allegedly “transmitted export-controlled technical information” about the M1A2’s operation and vulnerabilities.

“The USA is not happy with me for trying to expose their weaknesses,” Lee reportedly said. “At this point, I’d even volunteer to assist the Russian Federation when I’m there in any way,” he added.

Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, said Lee then shared a memory card containing documents and information about the tank and other US military operations during an in-person meeting in July with someone he believed to be a Russian intelligence officer.

“Today’s arrest is a message to anyone thinking about betraying the US – especially service members who have sworn to protect our homeland,” Rozhavsky said.

The documents contained technical data Lee was not authorised to provide, with some marked “Controlled Unclassified Information”, according to prosecutors.

“Throughout the meeting, Lee stated that the information on the SD card was sensitive and likely classified,” prosecutors said.

Lee is also alleged to have attempted to provide the Russian government with a piece of hardware from the M1A2 Abrams tank at a July 31 meeting at a storage unit in El Paso, Texas.

“After doing so, Lee sent a message to the individual he believed to be a representative of the Russian government stating, ‘Mission accomplished’,” according to prosecutors.

UK and 13 allies have accused Iran of plotting killings and kidnappings on Western soil.

The United Kingdom and 13 allied nations have publicly accused Iran’s intelligence services of orchestrating a wave of assassination attempts, abductions and intimidation campaigns against individuals residing in Europe and North America.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, governments including the United States, France, Germany and Canada denounced Tehran’s alleged extraterritorial operations as a flagrant breach of national sovereignty.

“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the group said.

The signatories – which also included Albania, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK – urged Iranian authorities to halt these activities, which they claimed were increasingly carried out in partnership with international criminal groups.

A UK parliamentary committee recently attributed at least 15 plots targeting individuals in the UK since 2022 to Iranian intelligence operatives.

British officials have responded with tighter measures. In March, the UK government said Iran would be required to register any political influence activity inside the country, citing “escalating aggression” from its intelligence services.

In May, UK police arrested seven Iranians over alleged threats to national security, which Iran’s  Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced as “suspicious and unwarranted”.

Similar concerns have emerged elsewhere in Europe. Dutch security services said Tehran was behind a foiled 2024 attempt to assassinate an Iranian dissident in the Netherlands – charges Iran denied.

Authorities arrested two suspects, one of whom is also linked to the shooting of Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a vocal supporter of the Iranian opposition.

Across the Atlantic, the US Department of Justice charged three European-based gang members and later a senior Iranian official with plotting to kill an Iranian-American journalist. Two were convicted earlier this year, while the third pleaded guilty. Prosecutors claimed the men acted at the behest of the Iranian state. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called such statements “baseless”.

The allegations come at a time of renewed tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Talks between Iran and Western powers remain frozen. Last week, Iranian officials held “frank” discussions in Istanbul with diplomats from the UK, Germany and France.

The meeting marked the first engagement since Israel’s mid-June air strikes on Iran, which triggered a 12-day flare-up involving US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

While Israel insists Iran is covertly pursuing nuclear weapons, a claim it has not substantiated, Tehran maintains its nuclear activities are for civilian use only.

US intelligence agencies, meanwhile, assessed in March that Iran was not actively developing a bomb, contradicting former President Donald Trump’s claim that it was “close” to doing so

Astellas Pharma employee sentenced to three and a half years in prison, Japan’s embassy in Beijing says.

A Japanese businessman has been sentenced to three and a half years in China for espionage, Japan’s embassy in Beijing has said.

The man, described by Japan’s Kyodo News Agency as an employee of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc. in his 60s, was first detained in March 2023 and placed under formal arrest in October.

“In light of the sentence, we have once again strongly urged the Chinese side for the early release of the Japanese national concerned in this case as well as others detained,” Tokyo’s embassy in Beijing said in a statement on Wednesday.

China should also “ensure their legitimate rights and humane treatment during detention” and “improve the transparency of the judicial process”, the embassy said.

Japanese ambassador Kenji Kanasugi called the verdict “extremely regrettable” in remarks to the media after the trial at Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court.

Tokyo has protested a series of detentions of its citizens in China.

At total of 17 Japanese, including the Astellas Pharma employee, have been detained since 2014, when China introduced a counterespionage law, according to Kyodo.

Among those, five are still in China, according to the news agency.

The FBI has accused the pair of working on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security to gather naval intelligence.

The United States Department of Justice has charged two Chinese citizens for spying and trying to recruit from within the country’s military ranks.

According to Tuesday’s statement, Yuance Chen, 38, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, are accused of working on behalf of China’s foreign intelligence arm, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

The pair allegedly carried out a range of “clandestine intelligence taskings”, including facilitating payments in exchange for national security information, gathering intelligence on Navy bases and attempting to recruit MSS assets.

“This case underscores the Chinese government’s sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

According to an affidavit from the FBI, Lai was part of an MSS network “who could travel more easily” between China and the US “to facilitate clandestine operations”.

Starting around 2021, he began developing Chen, who is a legal permanent resident, into his asset.

After ascertaining that Chen knew people in the US military, Lai urged him to travel abroad to discuss his connections in person, even offering to pay for the tickets, according to the affidavit.

The men reportedly met with MSS agents, and in 2022, they left a backpack with $10,000 in cash in a California locker as payment to other individuals for intelligence gathering.

In the years that followed, the affidavit says that Chen collected information about the Navy and sent it to Lai, while also discussing recruitment efforts directly with the MSS.

Some of that information included personal details from Navy employees. In one case, Chen travelled to San Diego, California, to meet with a Navy hire and tour the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier.

Photos included in the affidavit show a visitor’s badge as well as Chen posing with the employee and their child on top of the aircraft carrier’s deck.

The FBI says that such interactions are part of China’s campaign to extend its military’s reach.

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] government seeks blue-water naval capabilities as part of their effort to modernize their navy and establish hegemony in the South China Sea,” the affidavit reads.

“Blue-water capabilities” generally refer to long-distance maritime efforts, as opposed to operations based closer to domestic shores.

“As such, the PRC government tasks and deploys the MSS to surreptitiously target the US Navy and collect intelligence,” the affidavit continues.

Both men were charged under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA, which requires that those working on behalf of another country register with the US government.

In recent years, the US government has ramped up its use of the law in its effort to combat alleged Chinese espionage activity.

Beijing typically denies such claims and has accused the US of discriminatory tactics.

“These charges reflect the breadth of the efforts by our foreign adversaries to target the United States,” US Attorney Craig H Missakian said in the Justice Department statement.

“We will continue to undertake counterespionage investigations and prosecutions, no matter how complex and sensitive, to disrupt attempts to weaken our national security.”

Iran’s embassy in Berlin swiftly rejects allegation after man is arrested in neighbouring Denmark.

A Danish man has been arrested on suspicion of spying in Germany on behalf of Iran, an allegation swiftly denied by the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

German prosecutors on Tuesday said the man, identified only as Ali S under German privacy law, was suspected of conducting the surveillance “in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.

It added that the individual was suspected of receiving the espionage orders from “an Iranian intelligence service”.

German and Danish authorities said the man had been arrested in Denmark but would be extradited to Germany.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin decried what it called “unfounded and dangerous accusations”.

“Previous discussions with relevant German authorities have already highlighted that certain third parties are attempting to divert public perceptions from the actual events through artificial staging,” the embassy said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said Iran’s ambassador had been summoned after the arrest.

“If this suspicion were confirmed, it would be an outrageous incident that would once again demonstrate that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world,” Wadephul said during a visit to Odesa, Ukraine, shortly after visiting a synagogue there.

Alleged spying

According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the suspect took photos of at least three buildings in Berlin in June.

They included the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society, which has lobbied the European Union to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “terrorist” organisation, and a building where the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, was said to occasionally stay.

Der Spiegel reported that investigators believe the suspect was working on behalf of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC.

He was arrested in the Danish city of Aarhus by local police last week and was awaiting extradition to Germany.

During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country was preparing “in case Iran targets Israeli or Jewish institutions”.

He did not provide further details at the time.

Berlin has been a key ally of Israel and vocally supported the attacks on Iran, which began with surprise strikes on June 13.

Approached by Britain’s MI6 while reporting on Nigeria’s Biafra War, he mined his experiences for literary inspiration.

Best-selling British novelist Frederick Forsyth, author of about 20 spy thrillers, has died at the age of 86.

Forsyth, who was a reporter and informant for Britain’s MI6 spy agency before turning his hand to writing blockbuster novels like The Day of the Jackal, died on Monday at his home in the village of Jordans in Buckinghamshire, said Jonathan Lloyd, his agent.

“We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers,” Lloyd said of the author, who started writing novels to clear his debts in his early 30s, going on to sell more than 75 million books.

“There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank,” he said in his 2015 autobiography, The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.

The gamble paid off after he penned The Day of the Jackal – his story of a fictional assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists – in just 35 days.

The novel met immediate success when it came out in 1971. It was later turned into a film and led to Venezuelan revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez being nicknamed Carlos the Jackal.

Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers, including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His 18th novel, The Fox, was published in 2018.

Forsyth trained as an air force pilot, but his linguistic talents – he spoke French, German, Spanish and Russian – led him to the Reuters news agency in 1961 with postings in Paris and East Berlin during the Cold War.

He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation’s failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government’s postcolonial views on Africa.

His autobiography revealed how he became a spy, the author recounting that he was approached by “Ronnie” from MI6 in 1968, who wanted “an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave” in Nigeria, where civil war had broken out the year before.

In 1973, Forsyth was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany, driving his Triumph convertible to Dresden to receive a package from a Russian colonel in the toilets of the Albertinum museum.

The writer said he was never paid by MI6 but in return received help with his book research and submitted draft pages to ensure he was not divulging sensitive information.

In his later years, Forsyth turned his attention to politics, delivering withering, right-wing takes on the modern world in columns for the anti-European Union Daily Express.

Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. He lost a fortune in an investment scam in the 1980s and had to write more novels to support himself.

He had two sons, Stuart and Shane, with his first wife.

The men were charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service, police said.

British police say they have charged three Iranians with suspected espionage for Iran’s intelligence services from August 2024 to February 2025.

The police said in a statement on Saturday that the three men were charged with offences under the National Security Act following a major counterterrorism investigation.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, were accused of conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024, and February 16, 2025, the police said, adding that the foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran.

The three men are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Saturday.

Commander Dominic Murphy, from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said the men were arrested two weeks ago. “These are extremely serious charges under the National Security Act, which have come about following what has been a very complex and fast-moving investigation,” he said.

Sepahvand was also charged with carrying out surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research, intending to commit serious violence against someone in the United Kingdom, police and prosecutors said, while Manesh and Noori were also charged with engaging in surveillance and reconnaissance, with the intention that serious violence against someone in the UK would be carried out by others.

A fourth Iranian national, 31, who was also arrested and detained as part of the investigation, was released with no further action on Thursday.

The arrests took place on the same day that five other Iranians were detained by police as part of a separate counterterrorism probe, in what the UK’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called some of the biggest investigations of their kind in recent years.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had previously said he was “disturbed” to learn that Iranian citizens had been arrested by the British authorities.

The UK has placed Iran on the highest tier of its Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), which aims to boost the UK’s national security against covert foreign influences.

The measures, due to come into place later this year, will mean that all people working inside the UK for Iran, its intelligence services or the Revolutionary Guard would have to register or face jail.

Hungary, whose government maintains support of Russian narratives over war in Ukraine, is accused of seeking defence data.

Ukraine has detained two people who it accuses of spying for Hungarian military intelligence.

The SBU security service claimed in a statement on Friday that the former members of the Ukrainian military were recruited by Hungary to conduct “espionage activities to the detriment of our state”. Relations between Kyiv and Budapest have long been strained, but the antipathy has grown amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian intelligence agency said that the pair had been recruited by a handler in Hungarian military intelligence to gather information about defence systems in the country’s west, host to a significant Hungarian diaspora.

There was no immediate response from the Hungarian government.

The SBU said the two suspects, a 40-year-old man and a woman, had been placed in custody and given notice that they were under suspicion of committing treason. They both now face up to life in prison, it added.

The pair was allegedly given cash and special equipment for secret communication and tasked with passing on details about air defence batteries and other military capabilities in the western Zakarpattia region bordering Hungary.

The SBU alleged the man had tried to recruit at least two people as informants.

It added that this was the first time in the history of Ukraine that a Hungarian spy network had been found to be working against Kyiv’s interests.

Throughout the Ukraine war, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has delayed Western military aid to Kyiv and maintained warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, at odds with his European Union peers.

Orban has used staunch nationalism to build his political base at home, in particular stressing grievances over the territories lost to neighbouring states – including Ukraine – under the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I.

Budapest has berated Kyiv for years, claiming discriminatory actions against the  150,000 or so ethnic Hungarians, most of whom live in the Zakarpattia region.

The SBU noted that the suspected agents had also been tasked with studying “the socio-political views of local residents, in particular, scenarios of their behaviour if Hungarian troops entered the region”.

Social media campaign depicts fictional scenes of officials becoming disillusioned with ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The CIA has launched a Chinese-language social media campaign calling on government officials in China to switch sides and leak secrets to the United States.

The two videos released on Thursday depict fictional scenes involving Chinese officials who approach the top intelligence agency after becoming disillusioned with the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP).

In one of the videos, an actor depicting a senior CCP member describes the fear he feels for his family as he witnesses officials around him being purged like “worn-out shoes”.

“This man, who has diligently worked his way to the top throughout his life, now profoundly realises that no matter how high his status is, it is insufficient to protect his family in these turbulent and unsettling times,” reads a Chinese-language description of the video on YouTube.

“He yearns to take control of his destiny and find a path to safeguard his family and the achievements he has built through years of hard work. Aware that everything he possesses could vanish in an instant, he is driven to make a difficult but crucial decision to safely reach out to the CIA.”

The videos, which were released on platforms including Facebook, Telegram, Instagram and X, contain instructions on “safely” and “securely” contacting the CIA, including by using the dark web browser Tor.

“One of the primary roles of the CIA is to collect intelligence for the president and for our policymakers,” CIA director John Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox News.

“One of the ways we do that is by recruiting assets that can help us steal secrets.”

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Desmond Shum, a Chinese property tycoon-turned-dissident who lives in the United Kingdom, described the CIA campaign as the most “aggressive public move” by the agency against China in living memory.

“This kind of public outreach is exactly the sort of provocation that enrages the CCP – and Xi Jinping personally,” Shum said on X, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“His obsession with lifelong rule stems from a singular goal: to secure the Party’s unshakable control over China.”

Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan has faith in the support of the United States, a top Taiwanese official has said, despite widespread concern on the island that US President Donald Trump could use the East Asian democracy as a bargaining chip in its dealings with China.

“Taiwan and the US have a very strong and solid relationship, and Taiwan has cross-party support from the US Congress,” Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera.

Unlike the US and China, “the US and Taiwan have unprecedentedly close relations,” said Chiu, whose cabinet-level portfolio covers Taiwan’s relations with mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Still, Chiu said it was still too early to fully assess the impact of the second Trump administration.

“The Taiwan government will continue to observe the Trump administration since it has been less than three months,” he said through an interpreter.

“Taiwan’s government has a very consistent position of protecting our sovereignty, our freedom and democracy.”

Trump made headlines in Taiwan in 2016 when he accepted a congratulatory phone call from then-Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, overturning a longstanding convention that US and Taiwanese presidents do not communicate directly.

Ties between the US and Taiwan continued to deepen throughout Trump’s first term and under former US President Joe Biden, with numerous delegations of Democratic and Republican lawmakers visiting the island in recent years.

Since returning to the White House, however, Trump has a launched a series of broadsides at the island, although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio remains a firm Taiwan supporter.

The US president has varyingly accused Taiwan of stealing the US chip industry, argued that Taipei should pay for its own defence, and threatened top Taiwanese chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) with a “100 percent tax” if it does not expand US-based manufacturing.

Trump also hit Taiwan with a 32 percent “reciprocal” tariff – which has been paused until July – and expanded existing steel and aluminium tariffs on its exports, among other initiatives.

Like most countries, the US does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.

But Washington is committed to supporting the island’s defence under a 1979 law, though the legislation does not specify an obligation to directly intervene in a conflict.

While Taipei is taking a wait-and-see approach, Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and politics have raised concern among many Taiwanese that he could abandon Taiwan to win concessions in trade talks with China.

In a survey published by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation in March, just 39.2 percent of respondents said they believe the US would send troops to defend Taiwan, down from an all-time high of 65 percent in 2021.

Despite these fears, Chiu said he believes that Washington would never accept an “unreasonable request” from Beijing to alter the terms of its relationship with Taiwan.

China has pledged to “reunify” Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary, although the ruling Communist Party has never directly controlled the island.

Chiu said Taiwan has much to offer the US, from its strategic position within Washington’s first island chain defence strategy aimed at checking Chinese expansion in the Pacific, to its position as the world’s foremost chipmaker.

“We think that we can demonstrate to the US people and to the US people that Taiwan is a very good partner, and we are irreplaceable,” Chiu said.

Chiu’s cabinet-level portfolio oversees the planning and implementation of Taiwan’s cross-strait policy, although Beijing has been officially incommunicado with Taipei since the Democratic Progressive Party took power in 2016.

Beijing considers the DPP “separatists” and has ramped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on the island over the past nine years.

‘United front’ tactics

Chiu said that Taiwan’s government continues to try to communicate with Beijing through official channels, as well as liaising through intermediaries from the business world, nonprofit sector and academia.

Chiu, however, criticised China’s communications with the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), which he characterised as part of Beijing’s divide and rule and “United Front” tactics employed against Taiwan.

The term “United Front” refers to both an official department of the Chinese Communist Party and  activities carried out by party members to promote the CCP agenda – including convincing Taiwan’s 23.4 million citizens that unification with China is both inevitable and desirable, despite polling showing most Taiwanese favour the status quo of de facto independence.

“We are constantly facing United Front tactics, infiltration and division in Taiwanese society. They are everywhere,” Chiu said.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau prosecuted 64 people for espionage in 2024 – primarily active members of the military and veterans – up from 48 in 2023 and 10 in 2022.

Other threats are more immediately obvious, Chiu said, such as the escalation of Chinese military exercises and manoeuvres near Taiwan over the past five years.

China launched more than 5,000 military flights in the direction of Taiwan in 2024 alone, Chiu said, including about 3,000 that crossed the “median line” of the Taiwan Strait – an unofficial border dividing the strategic waterway between China and Taiwan.

Beijing also sent more than 2,500 warships in the direction of Taiwan, with some entering its contiguous waters, he said, referring to the zone that is adjacent to the territorial sea and extends a maximum of 24 nautical miles (44km) from shore.

Chiu said he was most concerned about the leadership style of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi, who is serving an unprecedented third term after eliminating term limits in 2018, is sometimes seen as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.

“The Xi regime is a new type of authoritarianism. He has been inciting a fanatic nationalism, and that’s why we are seeing military hegemony and wolf warrior diplomacy,” Chiu said.

“Mainland China right now is not a very rational decision-making party, and this nationalism poses a great threat to its neighbouring countries,” Chiu said.

“If you ask me what concerns me the most, I would say that it’s the essence of the Xi regime,” he said.

Mohsen Langarneshin was convicted of aiding Mossad operations for two years, including the killing of an IRGC colonel.

Iran has executed a “senior spy” on charges of cooperating with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, its judiciary says.

Mohsen Langarneshin, who was hanged on Wednesday morning, provided Mossad with extensive “logistical, technical and operational support” for two years, starting in 2020, the judiciary said via its official news agency, Mizan.

One of the key accusations against Langarneshin was his involvement in the May 2022 killing of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) colonel, Sayyad Khodai, who was shot dead by two motorcyclists on his way home in Tehran. According to The New York Times, Israel informed the United States that it was responsible for the killing.

Mizan reported that Langarneshin bought a motorcycle to track Khodai’s movements, relayed the information to Mossad and was present during the killing. Additionally, he was accused of supporting an attack on an industrial site in Isfahan, affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics.

Iran cited “extensive intelligence and technical evidence” linking Langarneshin to these operations, and said he “fully confessed” to his involvement.

Reactions

However, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the head of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) monitor, said Langarneshin was sentenced after an unfair trial and a confession was obtained by torture.

“The Iranian authorities’ execution machine is accelerating every day, taking the lives of more people,” he told the AFP news agency, describing the executions as “extrajudicial killings”.

The US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, which had campaigned over his case, said Langarneshin had been convicted after his July 2023 arrest at a Revolutionary Court presided over by judge Abolghasem Salavati, sanctioned by the US and EU and notorious for his handing out of death sentences.

“He denied all charges, stating that his confessions were extracted under torture,” the group said.

The Iran-born British actor and activist Nazanin Boniadi wrote on X: “The bloodthirsty Islamic Republic has executed yet another innocent.”

Previous executions

Caught in a decades-long shadow war with Israel, Iran has executed numerous individuals over their alleged links to Mossad, particularly those accused of sabotage and assassination efforts aimed at undermining its nuclear programme.

In December 2023, three men and a woman were executed for their alleged links to Mossad.

Langarneshin’s execution comes amid renewed US-Iran nuclear talks, which Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused Israel of attempting to derail. A fourth round of Oman-mediated negotiations between Washington and Tehran is scheduled for Saturday in Rome, according to Tehran.

Araghchi described the last round of indirect talks, held on April 26 in Muscat, as “extremely serious”, but he remained “extremely cautious” about their potential success.