The world’s ice is disappearing — and with it, our planet’s memory of itself.  At a very southern ribbon-cutting ceremony on the Antarctic snowpack Wednesday, scientists stored long cores of ice taken from two dying Alpine glaciers inside a 30-meter tunnel — safe, for now, from both climate change and global geopolitical upheaval. Each ice sample contains tiny microbes and bubbles of air trapped in the ancient past. Future scientists, using techniques unknown today, might use the ice cores to unlock new information about virus evolution, or global weather patterns.  Extracting ice from glaciers around the world and carrying it to Antarctica involved complex scientific and diplomatic collaboration — exactly the type of work denigrated by the Trump Administration of the United States, said Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, a special envoy of France’s President Emmanuel Macron and ambassador to the Poles. Scientists are “threatened by those who doubt science and want to muzzle it. Climate change is not an hoax, as President Trump and others say. Not at all,” Poivre d’Arvor said during an online press conference Wednesday. Glaciers are retreating worldwide thanks to global warming. In some regions their information about the past will be lost forever in the coming decades, no matter what is done to curb the Earth’s temperature. “Our time machines are melting very quickly,” said Carlo Barbante, an Italian scientist who is the vice chair of the Ice Memory Foundation (IMF). The tunnel, known as the Ice Memory Sanctuary, is just under a kilometer from the French-Italian Concordia base in Antarctica. It rests on an ice sheet 3,200 meters thick and is a constant minus 52 degrees. Scientists said they believed the tunnel would stay structurally stable for more than 70 years before needing to be remade. As well as the two ice samples, which arrived by ship and plane this month, the scientists have collected cores from eight other glaciers from Svalbard to Kilimanjaro. These are currently in freezers awaiting transportation to Antarctica. Co-founder of the sanctuary Jérôme Chappellaz, a French sociologist, called for more such facilities to be opened across Antarctica, and said he expected China would soon create its own store for Tibetan ice. Poivre d’Arvor called for an international treaty that commits countries to donate ice to the Sanctuary and guarantee access for scientists. France and Italy have collaborated on building the sanctuary and provided resources to assist with the transportation of the samples. “This is not a short-term investment but a strategic choice grounded in scientific responsibility and international cooperation,” Gianluigi Consoli, an official from the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research. On the inside of the door that locks the ice away, someone had written in black marker “Quo Vadis?” Latin for “where are you going?” It’s a question that hangs over even the protected southern continent. Antarctica is governed by a 1959 treaty that suspended territorial claims and preserved the continent for the purposes of science and peace. With President Donald Trump’s grab for territory near the North Pole in Greenland, the internationalist ideals that have brought stability to the Antarctic for over half a century appear to no be longer shared by the U.S. But William Muntean, who was senior advisor for Antarctica at the State Department during Trump’s first term Trump and under President Joe Biden, said there had been “no sign” U.S. policy in Antarctica would change, nor did he expect it to. “The southern polar region is very different from the western hemisphere and from the Arctic,” Muntean said. The U.S. doesn’t claim sovereignty, military competition is negligible, nor are there commercially viable energy or mining projects at the South Pole. “Taking disruptive or significant actions in Antarctica would not advance any Trump administration priorities.” That said, he added, “you can never rule out a change.”

LONDON — Reza Pahlavi was in the United States as a student in 1979 when his father, the last shah of Iran, was toppled in a revolution. He has not set foot inside Iran since, though his monarchist supporters have never stopped believing that one day their “crown prince” will return.  As anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people, despite an internet blackout and an increasingly brutal crackdown, that day may just be nearing.   Pahlavi’s name is on the lips of many protesters, who chant that they want the “shah” back. Even his critics — and there are plenty who oppose a return of the monarchy — now concede that Pahlavi may prove to be the only figure with the profile required to oversee a transition.  The global implications of the end of the Islamic Republic and its replacement with a pro-Western democratic government would be profound, touching everything from the Gaza crisis to the wars in Ukraine and Yemen, to the oil market.  Over the course of three interviews in the past 12 months in London, Paris and online, Pahlavi told POLITICO how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be overthrown. He set out the steps needed to end half a century of religious dictatorship and outlined his own proposal to lead a transition to secular democracy. Nothing is guaranteed, and even Pahlavi’s team cannot be sure that this current wave of protests will take down the regime, never mind bring him to power. But if it does, the following is an account of Pahlavi’s roadmap for revolution and his blueprint for a democratic future.  POPULAR UPRISING  Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran, and in his interview with POLITICO last February he made it clear he wanted foreign powers to focus on supporting Iranians to move against their rulers rather than intervening militarily from the outside.  “People are already on the streets with no help. The economic situation is to a point where our currency devaluation, salaries can’t be paid, people can’t even afford a kilo of potatoes, never mind meat,” he said. “We need more and more sustained protests.” Over the past two weeks, the spiraling cost of living and economic mismanagement have indeed helped fuel the protest wave. The biggest rallies in years have filled the streets, despite attempts by the authorities to intimidate opponents through violence and by cutting off communications. Pahlavi has sought to encourage foreign financial support for workers who will disrupt the state by going on strike. He also called for more Starlink internet terminals to be shipped into Iran, in defiance of a ban, to make it harder for the regime to stop dissidents from communicating and coordinating their opposition. Amid the latest internet shutdowns, Starlink has provided the opposition movements with a vital lifeline. As the protests gathered pace last week, Pahlavi stepped up his own stream of social media posts and videos, which gain many millions of views, encouraging people onto the streets. He started by calling for demonstrations to begin at 8 p.m. local time, then urged protesters to start earlier and occupy city centers for longer. His supporters say these appeals are helping steer the protest movement. Reza Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran. | Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA The security forces have brutally crushed many of these gatherings. The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights group puts the number of dead at 648, while estimating that more than 10,000 people have been arrested. It’s almost impossible to know how widely Pahlavi’s message is permeating nationwide, but footage inside Iran suggests the exiled prince’s words are gaining some traction with demonstrators, with increasing images of the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag appearing at protests, and crowds chanting “javid shah” — the eternal shah. DEFECTORS Understandably, given his family history, Pahlavi has made a study of revolutions and draws on the collapse of the Soviet Union to understand how the Islamic Republic can be overthrown. In Romania and Czechoslovakia, he said, what was required to end Communism was ultimately “maximum defections” among people inside the ruling elites, military and security services who did not want to “go down with the sinking ship.”  “I don’t think there will ever be a successful civil disobedience movement without the tacit collaboration or non-intervention of the military,” he said during an interview last February.  There are multiple layers to Iran’s machinery of repression, including the hated Basij militia, but the most powerful and feared part of its security apparatus is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Pahlavi argued that top IRGC commanders who are “lining their pockets” — and would remain loyal to Khamenei — did not represent the bulk of the organization’s operatives, many of whom “can’t pay rent and have to take a second job at the end of their shift.”  “They’re ultimately at some point contemplating their children are in the streets protesting … and resisting the regime. And it’s their children they’re called on to shoot. How long is that tenable?” Pahlavi’s offer to those defecting is that they will be granted an amnesty once the regime has fallen. He argues that most of the people currently working in the government and military will need to remain in their roles to provide stability once Khamenei has been thrown out, in order to avoid hollowing out the administration and creating a vacuum — as happened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  Only the hardline officials at the top of the regime in Tehran should expect to face punishment.  In June, Pahlavi announced he and his team were setting up a secure portal for defectors to register their support for overthrowing the regime, offering an amnesty to those who sign up and help support a popular uprising. By July, he told POLITICO, 50,000 apparent regime defectors had used the system.  His team are now wary of making claims regarding the total number of defectors, beyond saying “tens of thousands” have registered. These have to be verified, and any regime trolls or spies rooted out. But Pahlavi’s allies say a large number of new defectors made contact via the portal as the protests gathered pace in recent days.  REGIME CHANGE In his conversations with POLITICO last year, Pahlavi insisted he didn’t want the United States or Israel to get involved directly and drive out the supreme leader and his lieutenants. He always said the regime would be destroyed by a combination of fracturing from within and pressure from popular unrest.  He’s also been critical of the reluctance of European governments to challenge the regime and of their preference to continue diplomatic efforts, which he has described as appeasement. European powers, especially France, Germany and the U.K., have historically had a significant role in managing the West’s relations with Iran, notably in designing the 2015 nuclear deal that sought to limit Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.  But Pahlavi’s allies want more support and vocal condemnation from Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. He ordered American military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, as part of Israel’s 12-day war, action that many analysts and Pahlavi’s team agree leaves the clerical elite and its vast security apparatus weaker than ever.  U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. | Pool photo by Bonnie Cash via EPA Pahlavi remains in close contact with members of the Trump administration, as well as other governments including in Germany, France and the U.K. He has met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio several times and said he regards him as “the most astute and understanding” holder of that office when it comes to Iran since the 1979 revolution.  In recent days Trump has escalated his threats to intervene, including potentially through more military action if Iran’s rulers continue their crackdown and kill large numbers of protesters.  On the weekend Pahlavi urged Trump to follow through. “Mr President,” he posted on X Sunday. “Your words of solidarity have given Iranians the strength to fight for freedom,” he said. “Help them liberate themselves and Make Iran Great Again!” THE CARETAKER KING  In June Pahlavi announced he was ready to replace Khamenei’s administration to lead the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.   “Once the regime collapses, we have to have a transitional government as quickly as possible,” he told POLITICO last year. He proposed that a constitutional conference should be held among Iranian representatives to devise a new settlement, to be ratified by the people in a referendum.  The day after that referendum is held, he told POLITICO in February, “that’s the end of my mission in life.”  Asked if he wanted to see a monarchy restored, he said in June: “Democratic options should be on the table. I’m not going to be the one to decide that. My role however is to make sure that no voice is left behind. That all opinions should have the chance to argue their case — it doesn’t matter if they are republicans or monarchists, it doesn’t matter if they’re on the left of center or the right.”  One option he hasn’t apparently excluded might be to restore a permanent monarchy, with a democratically elected government serving in his name.  Pahlavi says he has three clear principles for establishing a new democracy: protecting Iran’s territorial integrity; a secular democratic system that separates religion from the government; and “every principle of human rights incorporated into our laws.” He confirmed to POLITICO that this would include equality and protection against discrimination for all citizens, regardless of their sexual or religious orientation.  COME-BACK CAPITALISM  Over the past year, Pahlavi has been touring Western capitals meeting politicians as well as senior business figures and investors from the world of banking and finance. Iran is a major OPEC oil producer and has the second biggest reserves of natural gas in the world, “which could supply Europe for a long time to come,” he said.  “Iran is the most untapped reserve for foreign investment,” Pahlavi said in February. “If Silicon Valley was to commit for a $100 billion investment, you could imagine what sort of impact that could have. The sky is the limit.”  What he wants to bring about, he says, is a “democratic culture” — even more than any specific laws that stipulate forms of democratic government. He pointed to Iran’s past under the Pahlavi monarchy, saying his grandfather remains a respected figure as a modernizer.  “If it becomes an issue of the family, my grandfather today is the most revered political figure in the architect of modern Iran,” he said in February. “Every chant of the streets of ‘god bless his soul.’ These are the actual slogans people chant on the street as they enter or exit a soccer stadium. Why? Because the intent was patriotic, helping Iran come out of the dark ages. There was no aspect of secular modern institutions from a postal system to a modern army to education which was in the hands of the clerics.”   Pahlavi’s father, the shah, brought in an era of industrialization and economic improvement alongside greater freedom for women, he said. “This is where the Gen Z of Iran is,” he said. “Regardless of whether I play a direct role or not, Iranians are coming out of the tunnel.”  Conversely, many Iranians still associate his father’s regime with out-of-touch elites and the notorious Savak secret police, whose brutality helped fuel the 1979 revolution. NOT SO FAST  Nobody can be sure what happens next in Iran. It may still come down to Trump and perhaps Israel.  Anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people. | Neil Hall/EPA Plenty of experts don’t believe the regime is finished, though it is clearly weakened. Even if the protests do result in change, many say it seems more likely that the regime will use a mixture of fear tactics and adaptation to protect itself rather than collapse or be toppled completely.  While reports suggest young people have led the protests and appear to have grown in confidence, recent days have seen a more ferocious regime response, with accounts of hospitals being overwhelmed with shooting victims. The demonstrations could still be snuffed out by a regime with a capacity for violence.  The Iranian opposition remains hugely fragmented, with many leading activists in prison. The substantial diaspora has struggled to find a unity of voice, though Pahlavi tried last year to bring more people on board with his own movement.  Sanam Vakil, an Iran specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iran should do better than reviving a “failed” monarchy. She added she was unsure how wide Pahlavi’s support really was inside the country. Independent, reliable polling is hard to find and memories of the darker side of the shah’s era run deep. But the exiled prince’s advantage now may be that there is no better option to oversee the collapse of the clerics and map out what comes next. “Pahlavi has name recognition and there is no other clear individual to turn to,” Vakil said. “People are willing to listen to his comments calling on them to go out in the streets.”

Britain and France conducted a joint strike late Saturday against an underground arms cache in Syria used by Islamic State (IS), the U.K. defense ministry said. Royal Air Force Typhoon jets were joined by French aircraft in the strike near the city of Palmyra in central Syria, the ministry said in a statement. “Careful intelligence analysis identified an underground facility, in the mountains some miles north of the ancient site of Palmyra,” the ministry said. The analysis led officials to believe the facility was storing arms and explosives, according to the statement. “Our aircraft used Paveway IV guided bombs to target a number of access tunnels down to the facility,” the ministry said. The aircraft “completed successful strikes,” it said.

Thousands rallied in the Albanian capital of Tirana on Monday as the opposition demanded Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation over corruption charges against his deputy, Belinda Balluku, whose parliamentary immunity has so far blocked her arrest. The political crisis in the Balkan nation has been building for weeks since anti-corruption prosecutors accused Balluku of interfering in major state contracts. It reached its tipping point Monday night after Molotov cocktails were hurled at Rama’s office. Four protesters were arrested during clashes and seven more put under investigation. Two police officers were injured, and one protester accidentally set himself on fire, local media reported. The protest, organized by veteran opposition leader Sali Berisha and his Democratic Party, followed scenes of chaos in Albania’s parliament last week, when police intervened after lawmakers brawled and set off flares inside the chamber. “We do not condone any form of violence — especially violence exercised by those in power. There is no more blatant form of violence than the extortion and systematic looting carried out by Edi Rama and his ministers against the Albanian people,” Berisha told POLITICO Tuesday via his spokesperson, saying the protests were intended to “stop this violence.” Prosecutors and opposition lawmakers are pushing to lift Balluku’s immunity so that anti-corruption prosecutors can arrest and try her. Rama and his ruling Socialist Party have so far stalled the vote, saying they will wait for a Constitutional Court ruling that is expected in January. Balluku is accused, along with several other officials and private companies, of manipulating public tenders to favor specific companies on major infrastructure projects, including Tirana’s Greater Ring Road and the Llogara Tunnel. She has called the allegations against her “insinuations,” “half-truths” and “lies,” and agreed to cooperate with the judicial process fully. Balluku is also minister of infrastructure, overseeing some of the country’s largest public projects. Rama has also defended Balluku amid the corruption charges, accusing the anti-corruption agency, known as SPAK, of normalizing pre-trial arrests, saying they amount to “arrests without trial” and fall short of European democratic standards. The prime minister told POLITICO in an interview Wednesday that it was “normal” for SPAK to make errors as it is a “newborn institution with a newborn independent power” that has made “plenty of mistakes.” When asked for a statement Tuesday about the protests’ violent turn, Rama refused to comment. He said he did not want to impugn his political opponents, “because in the end they are not enemies to be exposed to the world, but just desperate fellow Albanians, to be confronted and dealt with within the bounds of our own domestic political life.” Berisha hit back, accusing Rama of stealing elections and telling him it was time to go. “He has no legitimacy to remain in government for even one more day,” Berisha told POLITICO. Rama was reelected in May for a fourth term.

LONDON — Far-right British activist Tommy Robinson has been cleared of a terror offense after he was tried for refusing to give police access to his phone during a border stop at the Channel Tunnel. During the two-day trial, Robinson — who has become a key figure on the far-right of British politics — said in a video posted on X that the platform’s owner Elon Musk had “picked up the legal bill” for what he branded “absolute state persecution.” Robinson thanked Musk outside the court after being acquitted. “Why did it take an American businessman to fight for our justice here,” he told a crowd of supporters. Musk’s team have not confirmed this claim, but the X owner addressed a British rally organized by Robinson in September. “You either fight back or you die,” Musk told the crowd. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that officers demanded Robinson, whose real name is Stephen-Yaxley Lennon, share the pin to his phone under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act during a stop in July 2024. Robinson is said to have told officers that there was “journalistic material” on his device and refused. The Terrorism Act gives officers the power to stop someone passing through a U.K. port to assess “whether they may be involved or concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” This developing story is being updated.

Virgin is one step closer to launching cross-Channel rail services after Britain’s rail regulator approved its application to share Eurostar’s depot.  The multinational confirmed in March it was interested in launching Virgin Trains as a rival service to Eurostar by 2030. The Office of Rail and Road said Thursday that Virgin will be allowed to use the Temple Mills Depot in east London, a requirement for a train operator running cross-Channel services.   The depot is the only maintenance and storage facility that is accessible from the high-speed railway linking London to the Channel Tunnel, and is able to house the larger trains used for continental travel. The ORR decision thus makes Virgin’s ambition more attainable — though the company still needs to secure a “commercial agreement” with Eurostar to use the facility, the office warned.  Virgin founder and billionaire magnate Richard Branson hailed the ruling as a victory for consumers. “It’s time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route,” he said in a statement.   The ORR concurred, saying in a statement that the decision “unlocks plans for around £700mn of investment in new services and the creation of 400 new jobs, in a win for passengers, customer choice, and economic growth.”  The ORR added it had rejected similar applications from train operators Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia, with Virgin making the strongest case. “Virgin Trains’ plans were more financially and operationally robust than those of other applicants, and it provided clear evidence of investor backing,” the regulator said.   Eurostar has held a monopoly on cross-Channel travel since the tunnel opened in 1994. The operator wants to expand its fleet, announcing this month it had signed a €2 billion deal for at least 30 more double-decker trains.  However, the ORR said earlier this year that the Temple Mills Depot has room for either more Eurostar trains or another operator — but not both, teeing up a possible fight between the rivals.  A spokesperson for Eurostar said it was assessing the regulator’s decision and “considering our next steps to ensure we can continue to grow,” according to the BBC. Eurostar did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

Israel said it launched airstrikes and artillery fire at targets in southern Gaza on Sunday, trading blame with Hamas and dimming hopes that a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump can lead to a lasting peace. “Earlier today, terrorists fired an anti-tank missile and gunfire toward IDF troops operating to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the Rafah area, in southern Gaza, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement,” the Israel Defense Forces said. “In response, the IDF has begun striking in the area to eliminate the threat and dismantle tunnel shafts and military structures used for terrorist activity,” it said. According to media reports, Hamas said it was “unaware” of any clashes in Rafah and that it “remains committed to the ceasefire agreement.” It also accused Israel of “violating the deal and fabricating pretexts to justify its crimes.” The Israeli far right in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government coalition is using the moment to call for a full resumption of the war. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israel to renew its military operations in the Gaza Strip “in full force” following the IDF reports, writes Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The far-right minister said Saturday that he had given Netanyahu a deadline to dismantle Hamas and enact the death penalty for terrorists, threatening that if his conditions were not met, his far-right Otzma Yehudit party would quit the government, writes another Israeli daily, the Times of Israel. Also on Saturday, the U.S. State Department said in a statement that it has “credible reports” that Hamas could violate the ceasefire with an attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. If the attack takes place, it “would constitute a direct and grave violation” of the agreement forged by Trump to end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas, the statement said. According to Bloomberg, an Israeli official said there are tentative plans for U.S. Vice President JD Vance to accompany White House mediator Steve Witkoff to the Middle East in the coming week, a signal of American seriousness about shoring up the deal. The U.S embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment, it said.

CHIATURA, Georgia — Giorgi Neparidze, a middle-aged man from near the town of Chiatura in western Georgia, still has marks on his lips from where he sewed his mouth shut during a hunger strike last year. He says Georgian Manganese, a mining company with close links to the government, has wrought environmental devastation around his home and has ignored the rights of its workers. He is seeking compensation.  Europe, which imports Georgia’s manganese, is partly to blame for the black rivers and collapsing houses in Chiatura district, Neparidze says. The former miner-turned-environmental and civil rights activist claims that in one village, Shukruti, toxic dust from the pits is making people unwell. Filthy black water, laced with heavy metals, periodically spurts out of pumps there. Houses are collapsing as the tunnels underneath them cave in.  Manganese, a black metal traditionally used to reinforce steel, is crucial for Europe’s green energy transition as it is used in both wind turbines and electric car batteries. The metal is also vital for military gear like armor and guns. In 2022, the European Union bought 20,000 metric tons of manganese alloys from Georgia — almost 3 percent of its total supply. A year later the bloc added manganese to its list of critical minerals. But Chiaturans say their lives are being ruined so that Western Europeans can breathe cleaner air. “We are sacrificed so that others can have better lives,” Neparidze says. “There are only 40,000 people in Chiatura. They might feel ill or live in bad conditions but they are sacrificed so that millions of Europeans can have a cleaner environment.” Neparidze says cancer rates in the region are unusually high. Doctors at a hospital in Chiatura back up the observation, but no official study has linked the illnesses to the mines. An aerial view of Chiatura with the polluted Kvirila River running through the town | Olivia Acland Hope that things will improve appears dim. European companies often don’t know where their manganese is sourced from. As ANEV, Italy’s wind energy association, confirms: “There is no specific obligation to trace all metals used in steel production.”  Last year the EU enacted a law that was meant to change that. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive obliges companies to run closer checks on their supply chains and clamp down on any human rights violations, poor working conditions and environmental damage.  But barely a year after it took effect, the European Commission proposed a major weakening of the law in a move to reduce red tape for the bloc’s sluggish industry. EU member countries, motivated by this deregulation agenda, are now pushing for even deeper cuts, while French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz want to get rid of the law altogether.  Meanwhile, Europe’s appetite for mined raw materials like manganese, lithium, rare earths, copper and nickel is expected to skyrocket to meet the needs of the clean energy transition and rearmament. Many of these resources are in poorly regulated and often politically repressive jurisdictions, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Indonesia and Georgia. Weakening the EU supply chain law will have consequences for communities like Neparidze’s. “Only an empty shell of the directive remains,” says Anna Cavazzini, a member of the European Parliament’s Green Party, adding that the legislature caved to pressure from businesses seeking to reduce their costs. “Now is not the time to abandon the defense of human rights and give corporations a free hand,” she says.  A resident of Chiatura standing on a collapsed house following a mining-related landslide in Itkhvisi village. | Olivia Acland As Georgia’s government pivots toward Russia and stifles dissent, life is becoming increasingly dangerous for activists in Chiatura. On April 29, four activists including Neparidze were arrested for allegedly assaulting a mine executive. A statement put out by Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, says that Tengiz Koberidze, manager of the Shukruti mine, was “verbally abused and pelted with stones.” Supporters call it a staged provocation in which Koberidze tried to incite violence, and say it’s part of a broader campaign to silence resistance. If convicted they face up to six years behind bars. Koberidze did not respond to requests for comment. Chiatura residents are protesting over two overlapping issues. On one side, miners are demanding safer working conditions underground, where tunnel collapses have long been a risk, along with higher wages and paid sick leave. When the mine was temporarily shut in October 2024, they were promised 60 percent of their salaries, but many say those payments never materialized. Workers are also raising concerns about mining pollution in the region. “The company doesn’t raise wages, doesn’t improve safety, and continues to destroy the natural environment. Its profits come not just from extracting resources, but from exploiting both workers and the land,” says one miner, David Chinchaladze. Georgian Manganese did not respond to interview requests or written questions. Officials at Georgia’s Ministry of Mines and the government’s Environment Protection and Natural Resources Department did not respond to requests for comment. A collapsing building in Shukruti. | Olivia Acland.  The second group of protesters comes from the village of Shukruti, which sits directly above the mining tunnels. Their homes are cracking and sinking into the ground. In 2020, Georgian Manganese pledged to pay between 700,000 and 1 million Georgian lari ($252,000 to $360,000) annually in damages — a sum that was meant to be distributed among residents. But while the company insists the money has been paid, locals — backed by watchdog NGO Social Justice — say otherwise. According to them, fewer than 5 percent of Shukruti’s residents have received any compensation.  Their protest has intensified in the last year, with workers now blocking the roads and Shukruti residents barring entry to the mines. But the risks are intensifying too. Since suspending EU accession talks last year amid deteriorating relations with the bloc, Georgia’s ruling party has shuttered independent media, arrested protestors and amplified propaganda. The country’s democracy is “backsliding,” says Irakli Kavtaradze, head of the foreign department of the largest opposition political party, United National Movement. Their tactics “sound like they come from a playbook that is written in the Kremlin,” he adds. ‘KREMLIN PLAYBOOK’ In the capital Tbilisi, around 200 kilometers east of Chiatura, protesters have taken to the streets every night since April 2, 2024 when the government unveiled a Kremlin-style “foreign agents” law aimed at muzzling civil society.  Many demonstrators wear sunglasses, scarfs and masks to shield their identities from street cameras, wary of state retaliation.  A scene from the 336th day of protests in Tbilisi in April 2025. | Olivia Acland. Their protests swelled in October last year after the government announced it would suspend talks to join the EU. For Georgians, the stakes are high: Russia already occupies 20 percent of the country after its 2008 invasion, and people fear that a more profound drift from the EU could open the door to further aggression. When POLITICO visited in April, a crowd strode down Rustaveli Avenue, the city’s main artery. Some carried EU flags while others passed around a loudspeaker, taking it in turns to voice defiant chants. “Fire to the oligarchy!” one young woman yelled, the crowd echoing her call. “Power lies in unity with the EU!” another shouted. They also called out support for protestors in Chiatura, whose fight has become something of a cause célèbre across the country: “Solidarity to Chiatura! Natural resources belong to the people!”  The fight in Chiatura is a microcosm of the country’s broader struggle: The activists are not just taking on a mining company but a corporate giant backed by oligarchs and the ruling elites.  Georgian Manganese’s parent company, Georgian American Alloys, is registered in Luxembourg and counts Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky as a shareholder. He is in custody in Kyiv over allegations that he hired a gang to kill a lawyer who threatened his business interests in 2003. Kolomoisky has also been sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in siphoning billions out of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank.  Giorgi Kapanadze — a businessman closely connected with the ruling Georgian Dream party of Bidzina Ivanishvili — is listed as general manager of Georgian American Alloys.  Until recently, Kapanadze owned Rustavi TV, a channel notorious for airing pro-government propaganda. The European Parliament has called on the EU to hit Kapanadze with sanctions, accusing him of propping up the country’s repressive regime. Kolomoisky and Kapanadze did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment. The government swooped in to help Georgian Manganese in 2016 when a Georgian court fined it $82 million for environmental destruction in the region. The state placed it under “special management” and wrote off the fine. A new government-appointed manager was tasked, on paper, with cleaning up the mess. He was supposed to oversee a cleanup of the rivers that flow past the mines, among other promises. Manganese mining pit in Chiatura region, Georgia. | Olivia Acland But POLITICO’s own tests based on four samples taken in April 2025 from the Kvirila River, which runs through Chiatura, as well as its tributary, the Bogiristiskali, which were examined in a U.K. licensed laboratory, show the manganese levels in both rivers are over 10 times the legal limit. Iron levels are also higher than legally permitted. Locals use the polluted water to irrigate their crops. Fishermen are also pulling in increasingly empty nets as the heavy metals kill off aquatic life, according to local testimonies. The water from the Kvirila River flows out into the Black Sea, home to endangered dolphins, sturgeons, turtles and sharks.  A 2022 analysis by the Georgian NGO Green Policy found even worse results, with manganese in the Kvirila River averaging 42 times the legal limit. The group also detected excessive levels of iron and lead. Chronic manganese exposure can lead to irreversible neurological damage — a Parkinson’s-like condition known as manganism — as well as liver, kidney and reproductive harm. Lead and iron are linked to organ failure, cancer and cardiovascular disease. On Georgian Manganese’s website, the company concedes that “pollution of the Kvirila River” is one of the region’s “ecological challenges,” attributing it to runoff from manganese processing. It claims to have installed German-standard purification filters and claims that “neither polluted nor purified water” currently enters the river. Protesters like Neparidze aren’t convinced. They claim the filtration system is turned on only when inspectors arrive and that for the rest of the time, untreated wastewater is dumped straight into the rivers. BLOCKING EXPORTS Their protests having reaped few results, Chiaturans are taking increasingly extreme measures to make their voices heard.  Gocha Kupatadze, a retired 67-year-old miner, spends his nights in a tarpaulin shelter beside an underground mine, where he complains that rats crawl over him. “This black gold became the black plague for us,” he says. “We have no choice but to protest.” Kupatadze’s job is to ensure that manganese does not leave the mine. Alongside other protesters he has padlocked the gate to the generator that powers the mine’s ventilation system, making it impossible for anyone to work there. Kupatadze says he is only resorting to such drastic measures because conditions in his village, Shukruti, have become unlivable. His family home, built in 1958, is now crumbling, with cracks in the walls as the ground beneath it collapses from years of mining. The vines that once sustained his family’s wine-making traditions have long since withered and died. Gocha Kupatadze, an activist sleeping in a tarpaulin tent outside a mine. | Olivia Acland. For over a year, protesters across the region have intermittently blocked mine entrances as well as main roads, determined to stop the valuable ore from leaving Chiatura. In some ways it has worked: Seven months ago, Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, announced it would pause production.  “Due to the financial crisis that arose from the radical protests by the people of Shukruti village, the production process in Chiatura has been completely halted,” it read. Yet to the people of Chiatura, this feels more like a punishment than a triumph.  Manganese has been extracted from the area since 1879 and many residents rely on the mines for their livelihoods. The region bears all the hallmarks of a mining town that thrived during the Soviet Union when conditions in the mines were much better, according to residents. Today, rusted cable cars sway above concrete buildings that house washing stations and aging machinery.   While locals had sought compensation for the damage to their homes, they now just find themselves out of work.  Soviet-era buildings and mining infrastructure around Chiatura. | Olivia Acland.  Making matters worse, Georgian Manganese, licensed to mine 16,430 hectares until 2046, is now sourcing much of its ore from open pits instead of underground mines. These are more dangerous to the communities around them: Machines rip open the hillsides to expose shallow craters, while families living next to the pits say toxic dust drifts off them into their gardens and houses.  MORE PITS The village of Zodi is perched on a plateau surrounded by gently undulating hills, 10 kilometers from Chiatura. Many of its residents rely on farming, and cows roam across its open fields. “It is a beautiful village with a unique microclimate which is great for wine-making,” says Kote Abdushelishvili, a 36-year-old filmmaker from Zodi.  Mining officials say the village sits on manganese reserves. In 2023, caterpillar trucks rolled into Zodi and began ripping up the earth. Villagers, including Abdushelishvili, chased them out. “We stopped them,” he says, “We said if you want to go on, you will have to kill us first.” A padlocked gate to the mine’s ventilation system. | Olivia Acland Abdushelishvili later went to Georgian Manganese’s Chiatura office to demand a meeting with the state-appointed special manager. When he was turned away, he shouted up to the window: “You can attack us, you can kill us, we will not stop.” Two days later, as Abdushelishvili strolled through a quiet neighborhood in Tbilisi, masked men jumped out of a car, slammed him to the pavement and beat him up. Despite the fierce resistance in Chiatura, Georgian Manganese continues to send its metal to European markets. In the first two months of 2025, the EU imported 6,000 metric tons of manganese from Georgia. With the bloc facing mounting pressures — from the climate crisis to new defense demands — its hunger for manganese is set to grow. As the EU weakens its corporate accountability demands and Georgia drifts further into authoritarianism, the voices of Chiatura’s people are growing even fainter.  “We are not asking for something unreasonable,” says activist Tengiz Gvelesiani, who was recently detained in Chiatura along with Neparidze, “We are asking for healthy lives, a good working environment and fresh air.” Georgian Manganese did not respond to requests for comment. This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

A section of the Brussels metro was shut down Thursday afternoon after a corpse was discovered in a tunnel, according to the city’s transport operator STIB.   “A dead body was found between Porte de Hal and Hôtel des Monnaies a bit earlier than 1 p.m.,” STIB spokesperson Laurent Vermeersch said. He said that service was suspended on the 2 and 6 lines between the Trone and Gare du Midi stations, but the rest of the metro line remained operational. “The justice department and police are currently investigating in the tunnel to understand what happened. As long as the investigation is ongoing the metro will be suspended,” Vermeersch added.

LONDON — Sporting a bow tie under the gold filigree ceiling of London’s 18th century Mansion House, Britain’s Jonathan Reynolds was in a good mood. Britain and India had sealed a (highly controversial) trade deal the previous day, and a pact with the U.S. seemed near. “This is not an easy time to be a trade minister,” the business and trade secretary told a banquet of ambassadors and business elite Wednesday night. “Weeks happen in hours.” He did not realize how right he was. At almost the exact minute Reynolds began his speech at 9:24 p.m., Keir Starmer took a surprise call from Donald Trump. The U.S. president had interrupted the second half of a football match between the prime minister’s team Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, which he was watching on TV in his Downing Street flat. Trump made an “11th-hour intervention … demanding even more out of this deal than any of us expected,” U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson revealed Thursday in the Oval Office, where Trump gripped his hand. Trump asked Starmer to cut U.K. tariffs on American ethanol and pork, said three people familiar with the details. Like other officials quoted in this piece, they spoke on condition of anonymity. Yet after another call to Reynolds from his negotiating team — which he took while still in a Mansion House drawing room — the deal was sealed. Britain agreed to Trump’s demand on ethanol, but not on pork. The two leaders appeared on split-screen speakerphone calls Thursday to announce the U.S.’s first bilateral carve-out deal from sweeping tariffs that Trump announced on Apr. 2. The made-for-TV pact was announced with Trumpian bombast on the 80th anniversary of VE Day, prompting Starmer to redraw his carefully-laid schedule and visit a Jaguar Land Rover plant. So last-minute was the trip that Downing Street accidentally invited journalists to the wrong car factory. The deal will cut tariffs from 27.5 to 10 percent for 100,000 U.S.-bound British cars per year and slash 25 percent tariffs on British steel and aluminum to zero, while allowing 13,000 tons of U.S. beef to enter the U.K. tariff-free. White House demands for Britain to water down a digital services tax on technology giants came to nothing — for now, at least. (Work will soon begin on a further technology partnership). Never mind that the terms are still worse than those Britain enjoyed before Trump’s “Liberation Day,” or that the president — hit by a domestic backlash to his tariffs — was under pressure to announce a deal, any deal. Nor that questions are yet to be answered, and that opposition MPs are already demanding a full vote on the deal. It left Starmer jubilant. The prime minister said it proved “performative politics” were not the answer, while allies hailed victory for his “warm relations, cool heads” strategy — a months-long buttering-up of the president that began in earnest when Starmer handed Trump an invitation to a state visit in the Oval Office in February. Nine years ago, Barack Obama said Brexit would put Britain at the “back of the queue” for a U.S. trade deal. On Thursday Britain was at the front of that queue — although notably not for a full free trade agreement — and Trump said it had “Brexit in particular” to thank. “Normally after Arsenal lose you don’t see him grinning the next morning,” one No. 10 official said of Starmer Thursday. “But he was definitely grinning this morning.” WEEKS IN THE NEGOTIATING TUNNEL While the details went down to the wire, most of the deal was finalized on the U.K. side this week by three organizations: Downing Street, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the British Embassy in Washington. The softly-softly push came from across the government, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who made her case to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Apr. 25. But the DBT and embassy led the show, in weeks of talks where — at times — only about half a dozen people were fully in the loop. Industry figures suspected something was afoot on Apr. 30, when senior figures — including Bryant Trick, assistant U.S. trade representative, and Graham Floater, the DBT’s director for U.S. trade — failed to show at a dialogue for the two nations’ small and medium-sized businesses in Charlotte, North Carolina. Officially the reason was a transport hiccup, but one person with knowledge of the meeting said: “I thought it was one of the signs that significant progress was being made. It really, really tightened up over the last couple of weeks.” Several people said a key figure in sealing the deal was civil servant Amanda Brooks, the DBT director general for trade negotiations. She was visibly buzzing in a red dress at Wednesday’s Mansion House gala — speaking in excited but hushed tones to the business elite — after working on the deals with India and the U.S. at the same time. “She is the engine room of DBT’s trade negotiations,” said one industry figure. A second added: “Amanda is a very cool operator. She of course was having to multitask to get the India agreement over the line as well.” Another figure at the center of negotiations was Varun Chandra, the former boss of the secretive advisory firm Hakluyt who is now Starmer’s business adviser in No. 10. Chandra was in regular contact with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, as was Reynolds. The Guardian reported that Chandra was in the U.S. to seal the deal this week. Mandelson — who flanked Trump in the Oval Office Thursday along with Mungo Woodifield, the British Embassy’s minister counsellor for trade — was also at the center of talks. The smooth-talking operator from the days of Tony Blair’s government asked business groups in private what he could offer the U.S., and used his lavish residence to full effect, hosting three parties in four days over the White House correspondents’ weekend. Something, somewhere must have worked. When the USTR’s team spoke to British industry groups in March, the U.S. appeared to have three priorities, said the first industry figure quoted above — the digital services tax, carve-outs from the U.K.’s 20 percent Value Added Tax rate, and some agreement on agricultural exports. Britain offered nothing on the first two in the deal, although agrifood became “probably the top” U.S. ask in the last month, the second industry figure said. U.S. officials also began by saying the “U.K. has a trade deficit with the U.S. and it needs to be rectified. The language softened on that point, where it became more ‘we’re equals and there’s not so much of a problem to be dealt with,’” the industry figure said. “That change in messaging is probably a reflection that the U.K. team were doing a really good job on working on the White House and trying to put the U.K. in a better light.” But Britain cannot solely thank itself. Trump was also suffering a domestic backlash to his wave of tariffs, putting him under pressure to telegraph some movement on trade talks amid fears that empty ports on the country’s West Coast will soon translate to reduced supply and higher prices on shelves. The shift in U.S. position was partly due to “pressure Trump was feeling on some of the economic issues,” conceded the first industry figure quoted above. The president has also been eager to telegraph strength and notch a win before he departs next week for the Middle East, in what was supposed to be the first foreign trip of his second term before Pope Francis’ funeral was scheduled late last month.  THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP Nonetheless Britain still managed to insert itself — rather than another ally — at the moment the president needed that deal. Starmer spent their Feb. 27 meeting in the Oval Office careful to lavish praise on Trump, and after their White House meeting the president returned the favor. “You are a very tough negotiator,” Trump told him. It is the same tactic Starmer has employed on the Russia-Ukraine war, where he picked up the phone to Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after their clash in the Oval Office, instead of condemning the scene online. Critics and opposition MPs say this is a sign of weakness, and that the PM should be more robust in public with the president, like Canada’s new PM Mark Carney. Starmer’s backers insist it has paid off, with Ukraine and the U.S. reaching a minerals deal, though a Ukraine-Russia peace deal still looks some way off. All this is while Starmer struggles with tanking poll ratings and the rapid rise of Nigel Farage’s right-wing party Reform UK. The second industry figure above said: “Generally I think the government are playing a blinder internationally at the moment. Domestic, a bit more difficult.” Officials insisted Britain was clear on its red lines in private — namely that American food imported into the U.K. would have to meet British rules, and that it needed help for Britain’s stricken car sector and steel industry. One MP who spoke to car industry executives in recent weeks warned the 25 percent tariffs were “existential.” Officials were also on alert not to water down rules on pharmaceutical products coming into the U.K. Mandelson told POLITICO: “I am very happy with the outcome. We have secured all our main asks and the agreement will now open the door to a deeper long-term U.K.-U.S. technology partnership.” NOW FOR THE DETAILS For all the jubilation, the deal still has a long time to potentially unravel. Starmer tacitly accepted that tariffs on U.K. exports to the U.S. were still higher than in the Biden era. “The question you should be asking is, is it better than where we were yesterday?” he told a reporter. Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said: “We cut our tariffs — America tripled theirs … we’ve just been shafted!” Starmer’s rural MPs, still smarting from the blowback over cuts to inheritance tax relief for farmers, had been on high alert as news leaked of agri concessions, but helpful statements from the National Farmers Union following the announcement calmed nerves. “The NFU is content with this deal, hormone beef and chlorinated chicken are still banned and SPS standards upheld. So that makes my worries melt away,” one MP said. The NFU did, however, raise concerns about the decision to slash tariffs on U.S. exports of ethanol. And U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal would “exponentially increase our beef exports,” despite U.K. officials insisting standards would be upheld. The details will be studied closely. Many other questions will only be answered later, after Trump accepted the final details are only being “written up in the coming weeks.”  MPs will not get a vote on the whole deal, even though some individual measures will be voted on as a part of the current U.K. process to ratify trade agreements. The Liberal Democrats have already demanded a full vote, while Conservative MP John Whittingdale said: “Parliament should not just debate but vote on a U.S. trade agreement. Not least as I will want to be sure that we are not surrendering vital measures such as IP protection, the Digital Markets Act and the Online Safety Act in order to get a deal.” Reynolds insisted Thursday that Britain’s legislation on digital services taxes and online safety had not been touched. But it was not immediately clear that they would remain untouched in future talks on tech co-operation.  “Everything’s on the table,” said one U.K. official, asked about the digital services tax. “If it’s something fantastically attractive … if the sum that goes into the deal outweighs what goes with the digital services tax, then let’s do it.” Mandelson said in the Oval Office that Thursday’s deal will be “the end just at the beginning.”  He may be right in more ways than one. Starmer for now is savoring a hard-won victory, but on the Trump rollercoaster, there will be many more ups and downs to come. Annabelle Dickson and Noah Keate contributed reporting.