Trump relaxes US sanctions on Syria
The order, released by the White House, said that Syria had been 'transformed' since the fall of Assad, including through 'positive actions taken by the new Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa'.
The orders still maintain sanctions on members of the former government, including Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia late last year.
Israel keen to normalise ties
Israel said earlier on Monday that it was interested in normalising ties with Syria as well as Lebanon in an expansion of the 'Abraham Accords', which would transform the Middle East.
Trump administration officials argued that lifting the sanctions on Syria would better integrate the country into the region.
Despite the new Syrian leader's claims to be progressive, the country has seen a series of serious attacks on minorities since the fall of Assad, a largely secular leader from the Alawite minority.
At least 25 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a suspected Islamist attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus on June 22.
Until Mr Trump's surprise announcement of sanctions relief during a trip to Saudi Arabia, the United States had insisted on progress first in key areas including protection of minorities.
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Telegraph
19 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The world's nuclear chief wants the UN's top job. Iran wants him dead
In the days after Israel's war on Iran and the US air strikes on three nuclear sites, the Islamic Republic's most hard-line newspaper called for the trial and execution of the man they held responsible for the conflict. But it was not Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump in the crosshairs of Kayhan, which is said to be supervised by the regime. Instead, it was Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, whose alarming report on Iran's nuclear expansion on May 31 lit the touchpaper that exploded into 12 days of war. Many, including Mr Grossi himself, have said he has his sights set on becoming the next secretary-general of the United Nations. But he risks becoming more famous as the man caught in the crossfire between Mr Trump, Mr Netanyahu and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's smear campaign against Mr Grossi includes accusing him of being an Israeli spy. Kayhan said: 'It should therefore be officially announced that he will be tried and executed upon arrival in Iran for spying for the Mossad and participating in the murder of the oppressed people of our country.' Mr Grossi is being set up to take the blame if Iran pulls out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and accelerates efforts to get nuclear weapons. Such a move risks plunging the region into an apocalyptic conflict. It is an invidious position for any diplomat to find themselves in, particularly one with his eye on the top job in New York. The 64-year-old polyglot said his 'work' with the UN agency's nuclear inspectors is his campaign to succeed Antonio Guterres in 2027. That lofty ambition now hangs in the balance as delicately as peace in the Middle East. Who is Grossi? Born to an Italian immigrant family in Buenos Aires, Mr Grossi dedicated his professional life to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. In 2019, he became the first Latin American to head the Vienna-headquartered IAEA. When Russia occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after invading Ukraine in 2022, there were fears of another Chernobyl. Mr Grossi, a well-dressed former Argentine ambassador to Austria, took control. William Alberque, of the Pacific Forum think tank and a former director of Nato's Arms Control Centre, said: 'He personally went to the plant when it was under fire and put his life on the line to say we've got to protect this facility. 'Grossi found a way to get involved without having to take either side in a way that even the Russians had to support.' The self-confessed workaholic has now made five trips to the plant, which, thanks to his diplomatic efforts with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, has been monitored by the IAEA ever since. A well-dressed family man who limits his taste for Malbec to the weekends, he is armed with an enviable contact book of world leaders. The Telegraph understands that Grossi has impressed EU leaders with his performance on the Iran file, particularly Germany. German officials with close knowledge of the IAEA said Grossi had done an 'excellent' job, singling out his efforts to verify Iran's nuclear safeguards. They also praised his 'tireless' work ethic. There was speculation Mr Trump, and even Putin, could back him as UN boss. Mr Grossi recently confessed his ambition to run for the role. 'Absent from resolution' He told the FT: 'The UN is in a very bad place at the moment. The original idea is valid, but it has become big and bureaucratised and absent from the resolution of major international crises. It doesn't need to be like that.' All five permanent Security Council members must back a candidate before they can be approved by the General Assembly for a five-year term. But Russia and China, two permanent members of the Council with France, Britain and the US, are allies of Iran, which is determined to prevent Mr Grossi from getting the job. Mr Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, which offered sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear restrictions, a year before Mr Grossi became IAEA boss. Tehran accelerated its uranium enrichment and limited IAEA access to its nuclear programme. Relations were strained. They broke down after an IAEA report said Iran had a 400kg stock of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, a short step from the 90 per cent level needed for a nuclear bomb.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
The BBC claims impartiality over Gaza but there is a conflict of interest at its heart
The BBC struggles to get anything right about Gaza. Last week, it decided not to broadcast a searing documentary about Palestinian doctors under attack, citing vague concerns about ' a perception of partiality '. This week, it's the coverage of Glastonbury and why no one was alert enough to press the mute button on a rap-punk duo called Bob Vylan. Though it has garnered less outrage the former smacks of either editorial naivety or institutional cowardice.. But, fortunately, the top brass at Channel 4 appear to have more backbone and the film, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, will be shown tonight. People can judge for themselves. It seems to me to be exactly the sort of documentary which the BBC should broadcast. The film graphically shows the horrors of working in Gaza hospitals these past 21 months in an unflinching and quietly devastating light. It documents a litany of death, violence, cruelty, suffering and inhumanity. There are allegations of the targeting, abduction, torture and effective murder of doctors and nurses, along with denials by the Israeli army [the IDF] that they have been involved in any such things. No Western media organisation has been allowed free access to Gaza, which makes it doubly complicated to tell the whole truth about what has been happening in a war in which 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced, at least 56,156 Palestinians have been killed and 132,239 have been injured. And, yes, these are Gaza Ministry of Health figures, and the Ministry of Health is controlled by Hamas. But that's all we have. There is quite a collective of organisations and individuals who monitor the media round the clock for any whisper of anti-Israeli 'bias'. And we can confidently expect the Gaza medics film to be attacked within hours of broadcast. I would expect there to be criticism of the social media feed of the highly-experienced freelance reporter, Ramita Navai, who has described Israel as a 'rogue state that's committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians'. I would not be surprised if a diligent researcher finds that one or more of the medics who appear in the programme has a second cousin once removed in Hamas. Or personnel who even belonged to Hamas. My own judgement is that, if they do emerge, such claims should not discredit or undermine the overall impact or importance of the documentary. This film was, I'm told, cleared by the compliance squad at the BBC. The corporation has not advanced any credible reason why it was subsequently suppressed beyond its statement around 'a perception of partiality'. If the documentary leads to heated debate about the issues, and whether they have been fairly represented, that's well and good. That is partly the role of public service broadcasting. But these are not the only mistakes the BBC has made over Gaza. A previous, unrelated, BBC documentary was withdrawn when it was revealed that a boy narrator was related to a middle-ranking Hamas official. BBC chair Samir Shah told MPs it was a 'dagger to the heart' of the BBC's claims to trust. The BBC Board promptly announced an inquiry. That was on 27 February, and we're now in July. It's evidently what Sherlock Holmes would call a three-pipe problem. Holmes would have quickly divined why it was such a ticklish matter: because it could end up calling into question the judgment of the ultimate editor-in-chief of the BBC, the director general, Tim Davie. The Telegraph has reported that Deborah Turness, the BBC's chief executive of news and current affairs, watched the documentary before it was broadcast, but failed to question it. Heads must roll? But this is where the curious governance arrangements of the BBC kick in. And where we are forced to confront other 'perceptions of partiality.' The BBC has a board of directors, but most of them have no experience in journalism or broadcasting. The crucial BBC committee is the five-strong editorial guidelines and standards committee. Shah leads it and it includes both Davie and Turness. So if these particular heads are to roll, some turkeys are going to have to vote for Christmas. The only other person with editorial experience on this committee has, until recently, been Sir Robbie Gibb [the fifth member was former Tate boss Nicholas Serota and, since 3 April, Dame Caroline Thompson]. Forgive the recap, but you may remember Sir Robbie as the former No 10 spin doctor imposed on the BBC by Boris Johnson's government and then re-appointed last year by Rishi Sunak. He has described himself as a 'proper Thatcherite Conservative'. His career has zigzagged between right-wing politics and journalism. There is not even a perception of impartiality about his political beliefs. But when it comes to his judgments on the Middle East it is even more complicated. You may recall the curious episode which resulted in Sir Robbie becoming the apparent sole owner of The Jewish Chronicle (The JC). In April 2020 he led a consortium to rescue the title from bankruptcy – while refusing to reveal who actually put the money up. He appointed Jake Wallis Simons as editor. And it was Wallis Simons who ran a vigorous campaign for a parliamentary inquiry into the BBC's coverage of Jews and Israel. He was not a fan. The Gibbs/JWS era at the JC was not a happy one, with the press regulator twice forced to consider an investigation into standards; with five leading columnists quitting and with a fellow member of his own original consortium saying that the editor was 'behaving like a political activist, not a journalist…. it does a disservice to the Jewish community because it consolidates this idea that the Jewish community abroad is in some way sort of complicit by their silence with the excesses of the IDF.' Gibb resigned as a director just before the editorial calamity which saw The JC publish a fabricated story. Israel newspapers suggested they had been placed in the European media to support Benjamin's Netanyahu's negotiating position over Gaza. There is an ongoing inquiry into the matter: the Israeli security service, Shin Bet arrested Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, who had previously worked for the far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The long-standing JC columnist, Jonathan Freedland, said, 'The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but it is only the latest. Too often, The JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgments political rather than journalistic.' Wallis Simons parted company with The JC soon afterwards. So, yes, Sir Robbie Gibb – who presided over much of this – has been, until recently, the only external figure with journalistic experience to sit on the crucial BBC editorial committee. The minutes for two meetings this year show the committee has discussed BBC coverage of the Middle East. In January the committee discussed the timing, scope and methodology for a review of the BBC's coverage. In March they discussed it as an 'emerging editorial risk.' For an organisation obsessed with 'perceptions of partiality', it seems odd, on the face of it, to have had the very partial Sir Robbie Gibb in such a role. That perception has certainly alarmed more than 400 media figures who have urged the BBC board to remove Gibb. They include no fewer than 111 BBC journalists. So I contacted the BBC to ask if he had, in fact, recused himself from any discussions about the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict. The answer came back: No, he hadn't. I asked a further question: did Sir Robbie have any conversations about the Doctors Under Attack documentary, including with the director general or chair? The response was somewhat cryptic: 'I can confirm that [Sir Robbie] had no formal role in any of the discussions or decisions about whether the BBC should run the film – I'm afraid I have no way of knowing whether BBC board members have had discussions about various live issues affecting the BBC but as I've said before, the decisions about the film were taken by BBC News.' It is reasonable to assume, I think, that Sir Robbie may have had informal discussions. All this makes one wonder about the judgement of the newish chair, Samir Shah. He came into the job knowing about Gibb's journalistic track record, along with his obsessive desire to keep secret who is bankrolling The JC. A strong chair, interested in trust and impartiality, would surely have asked him to step out of the room when the BBC's coverage of the Middle East came up. But, no. So this is where we seem to be. The BBC junked a film because of 'perceptions of partiality'. But the key decisions – including the futures of Davie and Turness – are strongly influenced by Sir Robbie Gibb, who has shown no evidence of impartiality when it comes to the Middle East. It sounds like a two-tier system to me. Meanwhile, our attention is absorbed by the far less salient question of whether some hapless producer failed to press the mute button for Bob Vylan. I think it's called deadcatting.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The BBC's ‘ultimate humiliation' on Gaza
Tonight, Channel 4 will broadcast a hard-hitting documentary about Gaza. The hour-long film, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, examines allegations that the Israeli military has breached international law by deliberately targeting hospitals during the conflict that started on October 7, 2023. It features interviews with medics working in the besieged territory and is billed as a 'forensic investigation'. None of which sounds particularly unusual: Channel 4 has always aired long-form factual programming about difficult subjects and has won a clutch of awards for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. This documentary is almost unique, however, as it was originally commissioned by and made for the BBC, whose bosses then dropped it amid the fallout of another Gaza film that was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas official. Months of delays and recrimination ensued, with the independent producers behind Doctors Under Attack sparking a public war of words with the BBC. The situation is practically unheard of, and threatens to heap further embarrassment on BBC bosses after their botched handling of events at Glastonbury last weekend, as well as further dividing an already-fractured newsroom about how to cover the Middle East. Doctors Under Attack was meant to be broadcast at the start of the year, according to insiders, but was superseded by Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. The latter was broadcast in February but was pulled from the BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards, after it emerged that its 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture. The Telegraph has previously reported that Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, saw the film before it aired but did not raise concerns about it. BBC chairman Samir Shah said the film's failings were a 'dagger to the heart' of the Corporation's claims to be trustworthy and impartial. Peter Johnston, the BBC's director of editorial complaints, was tasked with establishing what went wrong and making recommendations for future programmes. Despite the promise that Johnston, who is paid £200,000 each year, would 'rapidly address the complaints that have been made', his report has yet to see the light of day more than four months on. The feet-dragging caused frustration for those working at Basement Films, the independent production company behind the Doctors Under Attack documentary. Sources say that BBC bosses maintained for weeks that they had not delayed broadcast of the film because of the scandal sparked by its predecessor, which was made by a different production company, then changed tack and said it could not be aired while Johnston's report was outstanding. They feel that Corporation executives 'lied repeatedly' about the delays in releasing Doctors Under Attack and that the atmosphere had become 'absolutely toxic'. The delays led to the doctors who had been interviewed threatening to withdraw their consent for their footage to be used, as they could not understand why it had not been shown. During this period of limbo, more medics were killed in strikes on Gaza hospitals. Those involved with the film also say that the BBC found no editorial issues with Doctors Under Attack and were confident that it would comply with broadcasting regulations, but that bosses were now paranoid about any coverage of Gaza. BBC insiders counter this and say that the film had not been subject to its pre-broadcast sign-off processes. 'Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.' Basement Films founder Ben de Pear, who is a former editor of Channel 4 News, lashed out publicly during a panel discussion at an industry conference on June 19. 'All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists, they were taken by Tim Davie. He is just a PR person,' he said on stage. 'Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.' Davie has not got a background in journalism or programme-making and is nicknamed by some in Broadcasting House 'Lord Pepsi' for his background in cola adverts. De Pear went on to say that the BBC is 'failing as an institution' and 'needs new management'. 'The BBC has utterly failed,' he added. 'The best journalists in the world are working inside the BBC and they are being stymied and silenced.' A BBC spokesperson said in response that it 'totally reject[ed] this characterisation of our coverage'. On the same day that de Pear let his frustration spill into the open, Ramita Navai, the film's presenter, appeared as a guest on Radio 4's Today programme on the previous day and discussed the ongoing conflict in Gaza. 'The world has been watching as Israel has become a rogue state that is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians,' she told presenter Amol Rajan. The following day, June 20, the BBC formally dropped the film, saying that 'broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality' and, despite negotiations with Basement about using some footage in its news bulletins, they had 'reached the end of the road'. BBC insiders claimed that it was no coincidence that the final decision to drop Doctors Under Attack came after the outbursts from Navai and De Pear. Channel 4 saw the opportunity to swoop. 'Having the chance to pick up an important bit of accountability journalism seemed worth a look,' as one insider puts it. It has been subjected to 'rigorous' fact-checking and it is understood that the broadcaster has not asked for any 'substantive edits' to be made. Those at Channel 4 find the BBC's unwillingness to air Doctors Under Attack puzzling, especially as news executives did not appear to have any issues with its content. 'We've got to keep making decisions on journalistic grounds,' says a source. 'The moment you start making decisions that are not purely journalistic, it's problematic.' Another source says: 'We cannot not report on what is happening in Gaza at such a pivotal time.' Channel 4 bosses are braced for questions about Navai's personal statements about Israel after the film has been broadcast, but are confident that it complies with the impartiality requirements that regulators enforce. 'I'm sure there will be questions raised about Ramita, and my response to any of those is, 'Watch the film',' says a source. 'If you can find anything in that film is partial or inaccurate, that's a fair criticism. But trying to discredit the people associated with it is a diversionary approach.' It is understood that the BBC has paid Basement Films for its work on the commissioned documentary, while Channel 4 has paid to air it; nobody involved in making or broadcasting Doctors Under Fire would confirm how much it cost, however. 'No-one is making any money out of it,' according to one Channel 4 source. Meanwhile, morale in the BBC newsroom is reportedly at a low ebb. More than 100 BBC staffers have (anonymously) signed a letter to Corporation bosses in which they claim that it has become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government and express 'concerns over opaque editorial decisions and censorship… on the reporting of Israel/Palestine'. The fact that the BBC dropped a film that will now be broadcast on Channel 4 was the spark for the letter being publicly released. 'This appears to be a political decision and is not reflective of the journalism in the film,' it reads. 'This illustrates precisely what many of us have experienced first hand: an organisation that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.' The letter continues: 'All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC.' Dorothy Byrne, a former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, says that the broadcast of Doctors Under Attack on the commercial station would be 'the ultimate humiliation' for the BBC. 'I assume that the first film has made them lose their bottle and confidence,' she says. 'The BBC is now in the ridiculous situation over Gaza that it has broadcast a film that it shouldn't have broadcast in that form... and not broadcasting a film that it should have because another public service broadcaster, bound by the same regulations, has made the decision to broadcast it,' Byrne tells me. 'How do they always get themselves in a mess? They are like the Laurel and Hardy of broadcasting: something always seems to go wrong,' Byrne says of the BBC. 'And yet you've got brilliant people like Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet. I really feel for the brilliant journalists who work for the BBC, who must feel embarrassed and humiliated when these things happen.'
