Shifting the UK’s AI Focus: Labour’s Ambitious AI Action Plan

The Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal could provide an opportunity for wider de-escalation in the Middle East, particularly if Iran uses the opportunity to bring the temperature down, a senior fellow at UK-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says. Iran – which backs Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen – has long engaged in a shadow war with Israel. Last year, Israel and Iran traded direct attacks for the first time. “The ceasefire opens the possibility for Iran, having already lost significant strategic and hard power in the region, to reconsider its transnational proxy policy and deescalate with Israel,” said Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at RUSI.

Only 5 per cent of Serious Fraud Office investigations come from whistleblowers; in contrast, in 2022, 86 per cent of penalties imposed by one US enforcement agency originated from whistleblowers. Nick Ephgrave, the director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), has attributed this difference to the financial incentives available in the US. Without any incentive to blow the whistle in the UK, hundreds of whistleblowers go abroad, meaning that “we don’t deliver the same level of money back to the UK Treasury to fund the things we all care about … the health service, fixing potholes in the road, defence”... Ephgrave made his observations at the launch of a research paper last month from the Royal United Services Institute that considered whistleblower reward programmes in the US and Canada and evaluated them against historic concerns about such schemes. Ephgrave described the research as presenting an “unanswerable case” for reform.

Macron has over the years pushed for more transparency regarding France's past with Algeria while also saying that Algeria's "politico-military system" had rewritten the history of its colonisation by France based on "a hatred of France". Jalel Harchaoui, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the countries were locked in an escalating standoff. "Many politicians in Paris say they want to force Algeria to soften its position, but Algiers has every intention to stand firm. Algeria feels all the more emboldened by the fact that France is far less important to its economy than a few years ago," he said.