Exclusive: Sasan Ghandehari’s partnership with religious foundation raises questions about past dealings with republic criticised by Nigel Farage Nigel Farage’s newest billionaire donor was in business with a powerful Iranian religious foundation under the authority of the country’s supreme leader, raising questions about his past dealings with the hardline republic. Hossein Ghandehari, also called Sasan, was little known in the UK until he pledged to give millions to Reform UK this summer and donated £50,000 to Farage to cover the cost of two passes for the Davos World Economic Forum. Continue reading...
Revealed: billionaire Reform donor was in business with foundation linked to Iranian regime

Original reporting
The Guardian: read the full reportRelated stories

Energy secretary appears to U-turn on opposition to tougher migration rules
Miatta Fahnbulleh says reference to ‘awkward’ interview was meant to be lighthearted and self-deprecating The energy secretary has been forced to clarify she backs Shabana Mahmood’s migration policy, after earlier joking that she had not been able to “lie” about supporting a key element of the changes. Miatta Fahnbulleh made the original remarks to a journalists’ event in Westminster, referring to an “awkward” Sky News interview in which she repeatedly refused to say she was in favour of plans to make foreign workers wait 15 years to get permanent residency. Continue reading...

Fahnbulleh says she backs home secretary on migration after comments to journalists
Energy secretary says she "didn't get it right" over comments she made about a TV interview.

Prepare for supply chain disruption from cyber or climate emergencies, Streeting warns
The defence secretary says the UK needs to be ready for scenarios including impact to essential supply chains.

The Guardian view on AI safety: the push for global regulation must advance | Editorial
The current US administration is an obstacle, but public demand for protection will ultimately prevail Organisations around the world scrambled on Thursday to fix critical flaws in PHP, the software that powers much of the web. The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to take control of affected servers. Some websites were taken offline as a precaution while fixes were installed. The paradox is that while AI helped researchers uncover the flaw, it also threatens to accelerate the ability to exploit it. Amazon said that it had detected an attempt before the public disclosure of the PHP flaws. What the episode highlights is AI’s central role in security – and not always for the right reasons. OpenAI’s models have also been responsible for two alarming hacks this year – a security breach of an Australian health department website and a raid by a swarm of AI bots on Hugging Face, an AI serv

The Guardian view on England's north-south divide: Burnham must deliver more than devolution | Editorial
The prime minister promises to repair decades of regional damage. His government must redistribute wealth to close deadly inequalities Andy Burnham’s call to abandon “ 40 years of neoliberalism ” rests partly on the damage that he says it has done to northern England. A new study – published in the Lancet this week – adds weight to his argument. It found that for adults aged 25 to 49, death rates in the north were 13% higher than in the south in 1981. By 2024, that gap had more than tripled to 42%. What happened in the four decades that left younger adults in northern England with so much worse chances of survival? The answer lies in the lives and jobs that people have, and the homes they can afford, as well as the state of the public services, like the NHS, that they rely on. Deindustrialisation stripped secure employment from many communities in the north of England – as it did in Scot

Andy Burnham vows UK will hit net zero target despite Jackdaw gasfield approval
Prime minister pledges his government’s commitment to address climate crisis saying ‘our determination is unwavering’ Andy Burnham: We will make the net-zero transition work for Britain Andy Burnham has said he will not “abandon the responsibility” of fighting the climate crisis after the government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, saying he would not approve any new North Sea licences and that he would keep Britain on course for the net zero 2050 target. The comments are the prime minister’s most forthright yet on net zero, after many MPs have privately cast doubt on the authenticity of his commitment to tackling the climate crisis. Continue reading...