Revealed: Peter Mandelson’s Russian Connections and Palantir Lobbying Links
The disgraced peer was appointed by Keir Starmer’s Government despite warnings about his role on the board of a Russian defence conglomerate linked to Moscow’s early-warning missile systems
eir Starmer approved the appointment of the disgraced peer Lord Mandelson to be the UK’s ambassador to the US, despite officials highlighting his financial links to a Russian defence technology company that produces radar and satellite communications for the country’s land-based missile early-warning system, new documents reveal
Mandelson’s appointment was “rushed” through, the documents reveal, despite a due diligence report by the Cabinet Office’s Proprietary and Ethics Team (PET) highlighting that he had served on the board of the Russian conglomerate Sistema.
The Russia connection was not the only warning put to senior figures in Number 10. The documents also raise questions about why Mandelson retained his shares in his lobbying outfit Global Counsel during his short term as Ambassador, despite officials insisting that he should divest them.
According to the PET report, Downing Street were warned that “the retained role and interest in Global Counsel would have to cease” if Mandelson was appointed as ambassador.
However, despite resigning as Director, the peer apparently retained significant shareholdings in Global Counsel at the same time as the company organised a meeting between the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and their client, Peter Thiel’s controversial data giant Palantir, in February 2025. Mandelson did not fully divest his shares until after resigning from the role.
The same due diligence pack, dated 11 December 2024, had flagged Lord Mandelson’s continuing shareholdings in technology companies and his paid roles across finance and investment, raising fresh questions about whether No 10 knowingly accepted a web of conflicts of interest at the heart of the UK’s most commercially and strategically sensitive diplomatic post.
The E-3 Sentry AWACS (airborne warning and control system) was more than a Boeing 707 converted into a flying radar station and command post. AWACS has become a meme, and its dome-shaped rotating antenna was the symbol of an eye in the sky that kept ceaseless vigil from 30,000 feet high.
Now, though, the AWACS may be going the way of the dodo, as the US military appears ready to discard big, expensive aerial early warning (AEW) aircraft in favor of a mixture of cheaper Cold War-era radar planes and cutting-edge space sensors. For the US military, this may just be a change in doctrine. For NATO, which has relied for years on the AWACS and planned to buy the now-cancelled E-7 Wedgetail, this could lead to a scramble to find a European-built replacement.
AEW aircraft have become the nerve centers for advanced air forces. The concept of flying radar stations dates back to the end of World War II, such as the US Navy’s Project Cadillac. An aerial platform offers longer range than ground-based radars, can detect low-flying aircraft, and enjoys the mobility to bring radar coverage to where it is needed.
By the 1960s, US Air Force EC-121 and carrier-based US Navy E-2 Hawkeyes (still in service today) were proving invaluable in the Vietnam War. Today, several nations have developed AEW aircraft, mostly derived from airliners, military cargo planes, or business-class jets. These include Russia’s A-50, China’s KJ-2000, Israel’s Oron and Sweden’s GlobalEye. Other nations — including Australia, India, Korea and Turkey — have rigged up their own AEW aircraft by mix-and-matching various aircraft with radars such as Israel’s Phalcon.
But the E-3 has special significance for NATO, both as an aircraft and a symbol of alliance unity. NATO currently operates 14 E-3s manned by multinational crews flying out of Geilenkirchen, Germany. In addition, France also has four E-3s, while Britain only recently retired its planes. It’s hard to imagine either
the US or NATO conducting any significant air campaign without these aircraft playing a key role as airborne sensors and command posts.
The E-3’s retirement was inevitable: the airframe and electronics are aging, maintenance is difficult, and spare parts are expensive and difficult to procure. It was also logical to assume that the E-3’s successor would be broadly similar to the original. AWACS 2.0 arrived in the form of the E-7, another converted Boeing 737 airliner, with a Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar that electronically aims multiple beams rather than the rotating antenna. Comparing the E-3 to an E-7 feels like comparing a 1970s TV set to a modern LED computer monitor.
In the Middle East one E3 was destroyed by an Iranian attack:
Images circulating online appear to show the destruction of a U.S. Air Force E-3G Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft following a reported Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
The aircraft, identified in open source reporting as belonging to the 552nd Air Control Wing, appears to have suffered severe damage concentrated around the rear fuselage, where the E-3’s radar dome and associated surveillance systems are housed. That section contains critical components of the aircraft’s AN/APY-2 radar, central to its airborne command and control role.
Full List of 10 US Nuclear Scientists Who Have Mysteriously Vanished or Died Since 2023 as White House Launches Probe
These disappearances from key security institutions and similar vanishings on foot suggest a disturbing pattern that cannot be ignored
By Jim Manzon Published 16 April 2026, 11:26 AM BST
The 10 Scientists Who Vanished or Died from 2023-2026: (Top L-R) Steven Garcia, William McCasland, Anthony Chavez, Melissa Casias, Monica Reza, (Bottom L-R) Nuno Loureiro, Carl Grillmair, Michael Hicks, Frank Maiwald, Jason Thomas.
The White House has confirmed it will look into a disturbing pattern of deaths and disappearances involving at least 10 American scientists linked to nuclear weapons, advanced space research, and classified government programmes since 2023.
🧠 Accidents? Really? How Many Coincidences Does It Take to Raise a National Alarm?
India, the land of zero, also seems to have a dangerously high number of “zero-witness” accidents when it comes to its top-tier scientists. Over 74 scientists—yes, seventy-four—from DRDO, ISRO, and BARC have allegedly died in unexplained circumstances over the past two decades. Car crashes. Drowning in bathtubs. Slipping off balconies. Hanging under mysterious mental health labels. Do you smell smoke? Because there’s definitely a fire somewhere. 🔥
How did Abdul Qadeer Khan contribute to Pakistan’s nuclear program?
Why was his work important for Pakistan?
Abdul Qadeer Khan (born April 1, 1936, Bhopal, India—died October 10, 2021, Islamabad, Pakistan) was a Pakistani engineer, a key figure in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program who was also involved for decades in a black market of nuclear technology and know-how whereby uranium-enrichment centrifuges, nuclear warhead designs, missiles, and expertise were sold or traded to Iran, North Korea, Libya, and possibly other countries.
In 1947, during Khan’s childhood, India achieved independence from Britain, and Muslim areas in the east and west were partitioned to form the state of Pakistan. Khan immigrated to West Pakistan in 1952, and in 1960 he graduated from the University of Karachi with a degree in metallurgy. Over the next decade he pursued graduate studies abroad, first in West Berlin and then in Delft, Netherlands, where in 1967 he received a master’s degree in metallurgy. In 1972 he earned a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Meanwhile, in 1964 he married Hendrina Reterink, a British national who had been born to Dutch expatriate parents in South Africa and raised in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) before moving to the Netherlands.
In the spring of 1972 Khan was hired by Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory, a subcontractor of the Dutch partner of URENCO. URENCO, a consortium of British, German, and Dutch companies, was established in 1971 to research and develop uranium enrichment through the use of ultracentrifuges, which are centrifuges that operate at extremely high speeds. Khan was granted a low-level security clearance, but, through lax oversight, he gained access to a full range of information on ultracentrifuge technology and visited the Dutch plant at Almelo many times. One of his jobs was to translate German documents on advanced centrifuges into Dutch.
Khan was heavily influenced by events back home, notably Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in a brief war with India in 1971, the subsequent loss of East Pakistan through the creation of a new independent country, Bangladesh, and India’s test of a nuclear explosive device in May 1974. On September 17, 1974, Khan wrote to Pakistan’s prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, offering his assistance in preparing an atomic bomb. In the letter he offered the opinion that the uranium route to the bomb, using centrifuges for enrichment, was better than the plutonium path (already under way in Pakistan), which relied on nuclear reactors and reprocessing.
Bhutto met Khan in December 1974 and encouraged him to do everything he could to help Pakistan attain the bomb. Over the next year Khan stole drawings of centrifuges and assembled a list of mainly European suppliers where parts could be procured. On December 15, 1975, he left the Netherlands for Pakistan, accompanied by his wife and two daughters and carrying his blueprint copies and suppliers list.
Khan initially worked with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), but differences arose with its head, Munir Ahmad Khan. In mid-1976, at Bhutto’s direction, Khan founded the Engineering Research Laboratory, or ERL, for the purpose of developing a uranium-enrichment capability. (In May 1981 the laboratory was renamed the Khan Research Laboratory, or KRL.) Khan’s base of operations was in Kahuta, 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Islamabad; there Khan developed prototype centrifuges based on German designs and used his suppliers list to import essential components from Swiss, Dutch, British, and German companies, among others.
In the early 1980s Pakistan acquired from China the blueprints of a nuclear weapon that used a uranium implosion design that the Chinese had successfully tested in 1966. It is generally believed that the Chinese tested a derivative design for the Pakistanis on May 26, 1990. Khan, having satisfied Pakistan’s needs for its own uranium weapon, began in the mid-1980s to create front companies in Dubayy, Malaysia, and elsewhere, and through these entities he covertly sold or traded centrifuges, components, designs, and expertise in an extensive black-market network. The customers included Iran, which went on to build a uranium-enrichment complex based on the Pakistani model. Khan visited North Korea at least 13 times and is suspected of having transferred enrichment technology to that country. (His laboratory also developed Pakistan’s Ghauri ballistic missile with help from the North Koreans.) Libya, supplied by Khan, embarked upon a nuclear weapons program until it was interrupted by the United States in 2003.
On January 31, 2004, Khan was arrested for transferring nuclear technology to other countries. On February 4 he read a statement on Pakistani television taking full responsibility for his operations and absolving the military and government of any involvement—a claim that many nuclear experts found difficult to believe. The next day he was pardoned by Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, but he was held under house arrest until 2009. Khan’s critics, particularly in the West, expressed dismay at such lenient treatment of a man whom one observer called “the greatest nuclear proliferator of all time.” For many Pakistanis, however, Khan remains a symbol of pride, a hero whose contribution strengthened Pakistan’s national security against India.
Israel’s nuclear bomb was developed by a team of scientists led by David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, and Ernst David Bergmann, with significant assistance from France. The project began in the late 1950s at the Dimona facility, where they secretly produced weapons-grade plutonium. Wikipedia Majalla
This was when Charles de Gaulle was President of France, 1959 to 1969.
Countries which possess their own nuclear weapon:
Search Assist
As of 2026, nine countries are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Russia and the United States hold the majority of the world’s nuclear stockpile, with over 90% of the total.
Franklin D. Roosevelt established a significant relationship with Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, during a historic meeting with King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy on February 14, 1945. This meeting laid the groundwork for long-term U.S.-Saudi relations, primarily focused on securing access to Saudi oil reserves. Sky HISTORY TV Channel Brookings
Since the build up of US troops to assure protection and create a safe place to trade (in US petrodollars) the Gulf States have become a hub of prosperity and had a bright, safe future to attract talent from around the world. Since the Israeli – US illegal war on Iran, the US presence on GCC territory has become a magnet for comprehensive and catastrophic attacks from asymmetric warfare the US had not expected.
It began (January 13, 2026) with the realisation by the Trump administration, that Americans would be in danger in Iran:
Trump orders Americans to evacuate Iran immediately as military chaos looms
The State Department has issued an urgent directive for all American citizens to leave Iran immediately, citing escalating protests and potential violence, as Trump threatens military action
The US Embassy in Iran has issued an urgent warning for all American citizens to leave the country immediately, as escalating protests threaten to turn violent, potentially resulting in arrests and injuries.
NPR has learned that hundreds of sailors were evacuated back to the United States from their base in Bahrain after the base was attacked by Iranian missiles and drones. In addition to the base in Bahrain, NPR has learned that there have been evacuations at other U.S. military bases in the region, though the exact details are unknown at this point.
Bahrain is the home of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, making it a central hub for providing maritime security in the Middle East region, including protecting commercial shipping. The country is an island in the Persian Gulf that sits roughly 124 nautical miles away from the coast of Iran, which makes Bahrain well within range of Iranian drone and missile strikes.
Around 8,000 people were stationed at the base in Bahrain before the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28.
On the opening day of the war, the base, known as Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain, was struck multiple times. Posts on social media showed a ballistic missile and Iraniandrones slamming into the base. Satellite imagery from the company Planet shows that at least seven buildings in and around the base were struck between Feb. 28 and March 6.
And the consequences of this disastrous illegal war has put the global economy into a spiral from which it will be hard to recover:
Economic shock from Iran war risks driving up global debt levels, says IMF
Conflict is pushing up price of energy and food, fuelling higher borrowing costs and hitting growth, report says
The Iran war risks triggering a rise in global debt levels, forcing governments to choose between cushioning a cost of living shock and maintaining sound public finances, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
Against a volatile backdrop of the Middle East conflict, the Washington-based fund said the war could add to the already strained position of government finances throughout the world.
In its half-yearly fiscal monitor, the IMF said global debt levels were on track to increase because the war was pushing up the price of energy and food, fuelling higher government borrowing costs, and hitting economic growth.
After a rise in gross government debt levels to almost 94% of GDP last year, it warned this figure was on track to reach 100% by 2029, a level previously reached only in the aftermath of the second world war.
“The outbreak of war in the Middle East has added a new source of fiscal pressure to an already strained global landscape,” it said in the report.
“The conflict has material global reach, disrupting energy supplies, tightening financial conditions, and forcing governments to choose between shielding their populations from price spikes and preserving fiscal space.”
Global energy prices have surged since the first US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on 28 February, risking a renewed inflation shock that has fuelled a sell-off in global debt markets – driving up borrowing costs for governments worldwide.
The IMF said on Tuesday that a further escalation of the conflict could trigger a global recession that would affect the UK more than any other G7 nation.
As finance ministers from around the world gather in Washington for the fund’s spring meetings, including the UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the IMF said any energy support schemes to shield the impact for households and businesses should be targeted and temporary.
Highlighting the risk to public finances worldwide after a succession of economic shocks had driven global debt levels higher in the past two decades, it said: “Support should be targeted and temporary, focusing on those most exposed and least able to absorb price increases.”
It also warned countries with precarious public finances against using further borrowing to cushion the blow. “A better approach is to reallocate spending within the same limits and prioritise crisis-related spending (which could be more politically feasible).
How big oil is cashing in on Iran war – The Latest
“The alternative is to lock in higher debt and higher interest costs, which will eventually force tougher choices – or worse, destabilise government debt markets and worsen conditions today.”
Warning that governments adding to borrowing could risk losing confidence in financial markets, the fund highlighted the fallout in the UK from Liz Truss’s 2022 mini budget.
“Episodes of market repricing in Japan, the US, and parts of Europe reflect heightened sensitivity to fiscal slippages and weak medium-term frameworks,” the IMF said.
“Although none have matched the scale of the United Kingdom’s 2022 episode, the message is clear: higher debt, fiscal uncertainty, and delayed consolidation now translate more rapidly into higher borrowing costs.
Qatar hosts one fourth of US military in GCC, and Wajee Lion suggests they will likely not be hosting them for much longer.
Source: See Wajee Lion, a human rights activist, Substack.
He has also written about the Kafala system in the Middle East which often results in abuses of human rights, it being a form of modern day slavery.
Those trapped in the Kafala system are unable to be rescued by their families. Some have already been killed or injured in drone attacks:
The kafala system is a sponsorship system in the Middle East that ties the residency and employment status of migrant workers to a specific employer, giving the employer significant control over the worker’s ability to change jobs or leave the country. This system has been criticized for facilitating exploitation and abuse of migrant workers. Wikipedia walkfree.org
The title of this blog is the first line of the UK footballer fans chant when the visiting top team favoured to win – is losing.
Saudi Arabia’s $925bn (£682bn) sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which invests a chunk of the kingdom’s oil riches, on Wednesday confirmed that it was now time to stop spending big and start spending smarter.
Speculation quickly began to circulate that the PIF would call time on its $5bn loss-making investment in the rebel LIV Golf league, a flagship of Saudi Arabia’s high-flying sports diplomacy.
“LIV is a test case,” says Daniel Brett, of the research firm Global SWF. “It fits in quite neatly with the broader PIF story, which is: more discipline, more scrutiny and tougher choices.”
Mohammed bin Salman faces a much tougher road to emulate and surpass Dubai as the region’s magnet for investors Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images
The PIF’s shift to thrift will ripple through global markets, where the fund has bought into everything from hotels and airports to banks, tech companies and football teams
LIV Golf just the start. Saudis abandon sportswashing after huge losses
Giles Turner
Apr 17, 2026
London | Saudi Arabia’s potential reversal on its costly golfing venture is part of a wider pullback on sports investing as it looks to prioritise returns rather than cultural influence.
LIV Golf, the upstart league that challenged the supremacy of the PGA Tour, has cost the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) more than $US5 billion ($7
I used to be on the CISA mailing list due to my interest in protecting small businesses in the UK back in the 1990s. Their global support has been immensely useful, but if this bill is passed that aspect of global education will cease.
With cyber threats increasing dangerously, the Trump administration proposes to cut the budget of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) by $707 million for the fiscal year 2027.
The administration said it plans to restore CISA to its core mission of protecting federal networks and enhancing the cyber security and resilience of critical infrastructure.
The proposed budget cuts followed remarks by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, accusing the agency of straying from its core mission of “what it was created to do: hunt and harden systems.”
However, critics say the budget cuts would have significant national security implications at a critical moment when the country faces increased nation-state cyber threats.
Trump claims CISA budget cuts would reduce weaponization, waste, and redundancy
Defending the proposal, the administration argued that the operating budget cuts would reduce weaponization and waste by eliminating duplication of similar programs already existing at the federal and state levels.
Additionally, the administration stated that some of CISA’s programs had diverted from the agency’s core mission of protecting critical infrastructure, resulting in poor management and inefficiency. It claimed that some were “more focused on censorship than on protecting the Nation’s critical systems,” while others were actively engaged in self-promotion.
“CISA was more focused on censorship than on protecting the Nation’s critical systems, and put them at risk due to poor management and inefficiency, as well as a focus on self-promotion,” the budget proposal reads.
Trump had accused the agency of working with tech companies to “target free speech” through censorship, undermining Americans’ First Amendment rights.
CISA programs affected by the Trump admin’s CISA operating budget cuts
The proposed operating budget cuts would eliminate offices involved in international affairs, stakeholder engagement, council management, and combating misinformation.
“Budget eliminates programs focused on so-called misinformation and propaganda, as well as external engagement offices such as council management, stakeholder engagement, and international affairs,” the White House wrote.
It would also affect school safety programs already undertaken by state and federal governments to reduce redundancy.
Additionally, CISA’s threat hunting, capacity building, and vulnerability management division would lose $15.2 million in federal funding. Similarly, the agency’s regional operations, which help local governments in hardening their defenses, would lose $42 million and 71 field advisors.
The Stakeholder Engagement Division, council management teams, and international affairs team, which closely works with global partners, would also shut down completely. The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, which analyzes cross-sector risks, also stands to lose $18.5 million.
Similarly, the Partners’ Cyber Defense Education and Training (CDET) program would lose $45 million. The CyberSentry program and Cyber Analytic and Data System programs also stand to lose 75% and 55% of federal funding, respectively.
If passed, the proposed cuts would reduce CISA’s operating budget to $2 billion. In 2025, CISA had an operating budget of $2.4 billion. In the same year, President Trump proposed cutting $491 million from CISA’s election security program, which lawmakers reduced to $135 million after a heated political debate in Congress.
While the administration plans to save $707 million in the overall reduced CISA’s operating budget, the proposal would cut $386 million in direct funding and eliminate 867 roles, reducing the total number of employees to 2,865.
After Trump took office in 2025, approximately 1,000 CISA employees or about one-third of its workforce, left the agency. Reasons for leaving ranged from policy changes, reassignments, layoffs, or Trump’s voluntary buyouts, which offered financial incentives such as continued pay or early retirement benefits.
Key beneficiaries of Trump’s proposed cuts to CISA’s operating budget
While the Stakeholder Engagement Division, which supports 8 of the 16 critical infrastructure, would cease to exist altogether, it would move to another division and receive a $6.6 million boost. Similarly, the Sector Risk Management Agencies would receive 8 additional roles.
The proposed budget also adds 53 new Cybersecurity State Coordinators roles, with three designated for Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
I am reproducing this ‘lonely Ukraine’ message where their endless subjection to Russian aggression has gone out of the headlines, much to the pleasure of Putin.
Requests to store distillate fuel in tanks with a railroad connection soared to 250,000 barrels in March, up from 30,000 barrels in February and none in January, according to The Tank Tiger, a terminal storage clearinghouse. And as of last week, there have already been requests for 125,000 barrels worth of storage in April.
All of those requests occurred on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, the key export hubs for the fuel.
Meanwhile, stocks of the fuel are falling, and near their lowest since last July on the Gulf Coast. That could mean Midwest refiners may see an opportunity to profit by exporting diesel overseas. To do that, they need to send their fuel to the coasts. While those shipping routes are possible by pipeline to the East Coast, it could be economically viable to send the fuel by railcar for export, said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.
And while pipelines connect the Midwest and the Gulf Coast, it’s not possible to send physical product all the way to the coast from the Midwest on a pipeline — meaning a railcar or a barge become the only viable options to send fuel for export in that direction, Lipow said.
Nationally, 9,112 railcars worth of petroleum products were delivered to terminals in March, up nearly 10% from March 2025, according to The Tank Tiger’s data.
“Exports from the coast can be attractive for Midwest refiners, particularly for diesel, when shortages overseas strengthen export economics and justify moving barrels toward coastal outlets,” said Steven Barsamian, chief operating officer at The Tank Tiger.
Diesel is vital to the world economy because it powers essential freight, construction and agriculture sectors. The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, the more intense the competition for oil and products is likely to become.
Trump is encouraging further depletion of US diesel:
Trump signals tankers headed to US to load up ‘sweetest’ oil: ‘We are waiting for you’
Story by Sophie Brams
• 6d
The Hill
‘We’re ready to go,’ Trump warns if Iran peace talks falter | NewsNation
President Trump said Saturday morning that “massive numbers” of empty tankers are headed to the U.S. to stock up on oil and gas, as Iran continues to restrict movement in the Strait of Hormuz.
Wall Street has been whipsawed for more than a week by President Trump’s every word about tariffs. Now he’s facing accusations of using his power to deliberately manipulate the markets.
The scrutiny started with a tale of two social media posts. On Wednesday, shortly after the U.S. stock market opened, Trump posted on his Truth Social network in all caps: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”
Less than four hours after his post, Trump said on Truth Social that he would pause the harshest of his tariffs on most countries.
Stocks immediately skyrocketed in relief, with the Dow closing up almost 3,000 points — meaning that any investors who had followed Trump’s advice in the morning and bought into the stock market right away would have made quite a bit of money by the end of the day.
Prior to his post, share prices had been plummeting for days, as fears mounted about the economic damage Trump’s new trade policies could cause. Powerful investors and billionaire business leaders had increasingly gone public airing their worries about the new tariffs and the resulting financial panic.
By Wednesday afternoon, Trump seemed to hear them when he hit pause.
Meloni, Starmer, Macron currently polling ‘under water’. It is hard to know if such polls are truly accurate or politically biased.
YouGov is a example of a polling company which was founded by right wing members of the Conservative Party.
Here is an opinion on Reddit:
Is YouGov Impartial?
The owner of YouGov is Stephan Shakespeare. He co-founded the market research and opinion poll company in 2000 with Nadhim Zahawi, current Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry. Zahawi left the business specifically to stand for election as a Conservative candidate in 2010. Shakespeare was a failed Conservative candidate in 1997 for MP of Colchester.
Shakespeare was appointed by the Conservative government as Chairman of the Data Strategy Board (DSB). This is an advisory body which was set up to ‘maximise value of data for users across the UK’. He was also announced in 2012 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Cabinet Office ministers as leader of an Independent Review of Public Sector Information. He has also been a member of the Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board and shows on the most recent board minutes from 2015.
He was former owner of the centre-right political blog, ConservativeHome, now owned for Lord Ashcroft. He was also involved in other right-wing projects and web-sites including 18 Doughty Street, an online broadcast critiquing left-leaning commentary and opinion pieces.
YouGov has now expanded its involvement into market research businesses in the Middle East, the United States, Germany, Scandinavia, France, and Asia.
YouGov brands itself as ‘What the world thinks’, but is it only selectively representing public opinion when its origins lie clearly on the right wing of politics?
Concerns are mounting over food shortages aboard US warships deployed to the Middle East, with reports from service members on the USS Tripoli and USS Abraham Lincoln describing limited and poor-quality meals.
USS Abraham Lincoln
Dan F., whose daughter is a Marine aboard the USS Tripoli, told USA Today he was alarmed after seeing a photo of her meal. “A lunch tray, two-thirds empty, carried one small scoop of shredded meat and a single folded tortilla,” he said. Another image from the USS Abraham Lincoln showed “a small handful of boiled carrots, a dry meat patty and a gray slab of processed meat.”
Family members say service members are rationing food. Dan’s daughter told him fresh produce was unavailable and that supplies were running low. “We have the strongest military in the world. You shouldn’t be running out of food,” he said. “The one thing we had over our adversaries [was] we fed our people.”
A sailor aboard the Tripoli echoed those concerns, saying crew members “eat when they can” and divide food evenly. “Supplies are going to get really low… morale is going to be at an all-time low,” he wrote in a message to family.
Efforts by families to send food and essentials have been complicated by a suspension of military mail. The US Postal Service halted deliveries to 27 military ZIP codes in the region due to “airspace closures and other logistical impacts from the ongoing conflict,” according to Army spokesperson Maj. Travis Shaw. The suspension remains “in effect until further notice.”
Packages already sent, including those filled with snacks, hygiene products, and essentials, are now stuck in transit. “No military mailings are being returned to the sender… they are held until they can be delivered,” USPS spokesperson David Coleman said.
Communities across the US have rallied to send care packages, but many have not reached their destinations. “The food is tasteless and there’s not nearly enough and they’re hungry all the time,” said Karen Erskine-Valentine, a West Virginia pastor supporting deployed sailors. “That kind of breaks your heart.”
With no clear timeline for restoring mail service and warships remaining at sea for extended deployments, families say uncertainty is growing, both about supplies and the well-being of their loved ones.
Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from US News and around the World.
Over 70% of GCC food imports typically arrive via the Strait of Hormuz, which is a crucial maritime chokepoint for shipping. The ongoing conflict in the region has significantly disrupted this route, forcing GCC countries to activate emergency protocols and reroute logistics. agroberichtenbuitenland.nl
Thousands of US troops are stationed in the GCC. Maersk is assisting GCC since March 26th using land bridges:
Danish container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), opens new tab is using a “land-bridge” system via ports in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Salalah and Sohar in Oman and Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates, to funnel in cargo before moving it by land to destinations across the Gulf region.
Charles van der Steene, Dubai-based regional managing director for the Middle East, said Maersk was ramping up the network and coordinating with Gulf governments, which have introduced faster procedures to speed deliveries.
While it is prioritising critical goods, namely food and medicines, there is still capacity to spare on these alternative routes, he added.
Cargo volumes into the port in Jeddah have jumped 40% since the conflict began, van der Steene said.
borderslynn 
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