LONDON — Keir Starmer will strive for “maximum transparency” when releasing files on Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the U.S., a senior U.K. minister said Wednesday. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the prime minister wants to release as much information into the public domain about how Mandelson was appointed, his correspondence with ministers and his subsequent sacking last September over the former Labour peer’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “The prime minister’s going for maximum transparency here,” Streeting, a former friend of Mandelson, told Sky, though added the PM is “obviously drawing a line” by “not releasing information where it might compromise our national security and our security services, or where there may be information in there that might undermine international relations with other countries.” The opposition Conservatives have put forward a humble address — a parliamentary message to King Charles that was favored by Starmer during his time as leader of the opposition — calling for “all papers” relating to Mandelson’s appointment last year to be published. These include “due diligence which was passed to Number 10,” conflict of interest forms over his work in Russia and China, and correspondence (including electronic communications) between Mandelson, ministers and the PM’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney — who encouraged Starmer to send the then Labour peer to Washington. The government has published an amendment to the address accepting the Tories’ request, with the caveat that it will exclude “papers prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.” U.K. lawmakers will debate the substance of what should be released this afternoon. “What we’ve seen in recent days also is a prime minister acting rapidly to make sure that Peter Mandelson is stripped of all of the titles and privileges that were conferred on him through public service,” Streeting told the BBC, calling his behavior “so jaw-droppingly stupid and outrageous.” The Metropolitan Police confirmed Tuesday evening that Mandelson is under investigation for alleged misconduct in public office after it appeared he leaked sensitive government discussions at the height of the financial crisis to the late financier. Mandelson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation on Tuesday evening. He has previously said he was wrong to have continued his association with Epstein and apologized “unequivocally” to Epstein’s victims. And in a Times Newspaper interview that was conducted before the most recent batch of Epstein files were released, Mandelson attempted to explain his historic association with the disgraced financier. “I don’t know what his motives were — probably mixed — but he provided guidance to help me navigate out of the world of politics and into the world of commerce and finance,” Mandelson told the newspaper. Mandelson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation on Tuesday evening. Mandelson also resigned from the House of Lords and left Labour following the latest tranche of correspondence in the Epstein Files.

A group of researchers is suing Elon Musk’s X to gain access to data on Hungary’s upcoming elections to assess the risk of interference, they told POLITICO. Hungary is set to hold a highly contentious election in April as populist nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán faces the toughest challenge yet to his 16-year grip on power. The lawsuit by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) comes after the civil society group, in November, applied for access to X data to study risks to the Hungarian election, including from disinformation. After X rejected their request, the researchers took the case to the Berlin Regional Court, which said it is not competent to rule on the case. DRI — with the support of the Society for Civil Rights and law firm Hausfeld — is now appealing to a higher Berlin court, which has set a hearing date of Feb. 17. Sites including X are obliged to grant researchers access to data under the European Union’s regulatory framework for social media platforms, the Digital Services Act, to allow external scrutiny of how platforms handle major online risks, including election interference. The European Commission fined X €40 million for failing to provide data access in December, as part of a €120 million levy for non-compliance with transparency obligations. The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to X after the researchers went down a similar path last year to demand access to data related to the German elections in February 2025. A three-month legal drama, which saw a judge on the case dismissed after X successfully claimed they had a conflict of interest, ended with the court throwing out the case. The platform said that was a “comprehensive victory” because “X’s unwavering commitment to protecting user data and defending its fundamental right to due process has prevailed.” The researchers also claimed a win: The court threw the case out on the basis of a lack of urgency, as the elections were well in the past, said DRI. The groups say the ruling sets a legal precedent for civil society groups to take platforms to court where the researchers are located, rather than in the platforms’ legal jurisdictions (which, in X’s case, would be Ireland). X did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on Monday.

Israel reopened the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt on Sunday in a limited capacity after two years, allowing only foot traffic, as violence continued across the Gaza Strip. The move comes amid fresh bloodshed in the enclave, with Gaza’s civil defense agency reporting dozens killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday. The Israel Defense Forces said it was responding to ceasefire violations. Around 80,000 Palestinians who left Gaza during Israel’s war on the enclave are seeking to return through the crossing from Egypt, a Palestinian official told Al Jazeera. At the same time, Israel announced it was terminating the operations of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, accusing the group of failing to submit lists of its Palestinian staff — a requirement Israeli authorities say applies to all aid organizations in the territory. Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism alleged that two employees had ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, accusations the medical charity has strongly denied. The ministry said the group must halt its work and leave Gaza by Feb. 28. The tightly controlled reopening of Rafah — alongside the expulsion of a major humanitarian actor — is likely to intensify scrutiny of Israel’s handling of civilian access and aid as the conflict drags on.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled that trilateral talks with Russia and the United States — scheduled to take place on Sunday in Abu Dhabi — will be delayed to later this week, citing Washington’s focus on rising tensions with Iran. In his nightly video address Saturday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was still waiting for clarity from U.S. officials — who are mediating the negotiation process — on when and where the next round would take place. “We are in regular contact with the U.S. side and are waiting for them to provide specifics on further meetings,” Zelenskyy said. “We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them.” The three sides last convened a week ago, and the Ukrainian leader stressed that he remains “ready to work in all formats” to pursue a breakthrough toward ending the war. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff held what he described as “productive and constructive” discussions in Florida with Kremlin representative Kirill Dmitriev. Witkoff said the fate of Donbas remains a central sticking point, with Kyiv continuing to reject Moscow’s demands that it relinquish control of the territory.

Iran escalated its warning to Washington on Sunday, threatening a regional war if the United States launches military action. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that if U.S. forces attack Iran, the fallout would spread across the Middle East, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. “The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” the 86-year-old leader was quoted as saying. Tehran has separately warned that any American military action ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump would trigger retaliation against Israel and American forces stationed across the region. Trump said last week that Iran is “seriously talking” with Washington, hinting at ongoing diplomatic contacts even as tensions flare. Europe was also singled out when Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, declared on Saturday that Tehran now considers all EU militaries to be terrorist groups. The move came after the EU designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization over its violent suppression of nationwide protests.

Anxiety is mounting among officials from several Gulf nations that President Donald Trump may be inexorably driving the United States toward another attack against Iran, despite their ongoing efforts to counsel restraint. According to three people familiar with conversations between the administration and its Gulf allies, the White House is giving few assurances about heeding that counsel. And the three people believe Trump’s tough public rhetoric — not to mention his continued shifting of military resources toward the Gulf — are boxing him in to the point that some kind of strike on Iran may beinevitable. After the U.S. operation weeks ago to remove former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, “there is no doubt about the U.S. military’s capabilities,” said one of the people familiar, a senior Gulf official. Like others interviewed for this report, the official was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a fluid and highly sensitive geopolitical situation. What has been harder to assess, the senior Gulf official said, is whether Trump has settled on a clear objective for another assault on Iran — whether to pursue regime change in Tehran or simply to send a message — not to mention the tactics. Trump has repeatedly vaguely promised protestors in Iran that “help is on the way.” “It’s still unclear to us what both sides want, even after a lot of dialogue,” said the second person familiar, a senior Arab diplomat who’s been in contact with the administration. Five countries — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Turkiye — have been working together to stave off another flare-up or all-out war that could destabilize the Gulf region. Trump has long prioritized deepening business and diplomatic ties in a modernizing, more peaceful Middle East, an objective that at times has come into conflict with his approach to Iran, where he continues to hold out the threat of military force in his pursuit of a deal. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, went public this week with his promise to Iran’s president that Riyadh would not allow its airspace to be used for any attack on Iran. That followed a similar statement from the UAE. Through various channels, officials from those nations have urged Iran’s leaders to the negotiating table. But they privately acknowledge that a deal to further eradicate the country’s nuclear program, which was severely degraded in a U.S. bombing blitz last year at the end of a 12-day war with Israel, seems unlikely. On Friday while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump, who was warned Iran’s leaders both about restarting its nuclear program and any violence used to quell mass protests, again drew attention to the fact that a “large armada” of American warships was headed to the Gulf at his direction. He noted that this show of force is one that’s “even larger than in Venezuela.” That new naval deployment rivals that sent in the spring before the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is newly arrived in the region, alongside five guided missile destroyers and two smaller littoral combat ships which can be used to track missiles launched by Iran. While the U.S. and allies have significant air defenses in the region, some systems that were rushed there in the spring, like a Patriot battery normally stationed in South Korea, have returned home. While Trump pointed out the armada’s fire power, he expressed that his preference would be finding a diplomatic solution. “If we do make a deal, that’s good. If we don’t make a deal. We’ll see what happens,” he said, adding that Iran wants to make a deal.

LONDON — Donald Trump’s appointment of his former boss on “The Apprentice” as his special envoy to Britain made for a headline-grabbing pick during his presidential transition. But Mark Burnett has made a quiet exit from the diplomatic world.  The British-born Falklands veteran turned Hollywood producer left the role liaising between D.C. and London “around August,” his publicist in the entertainment world, Lina Catalfamo Plath, confirmed to POLITICO, noting it was the end of his term. But Burnett’s departure from the diplomatic service hadn’t been publicized and he was still listed as special envoy on Buckingham Palace’s attendance list at the state banquet for the Trumps in Windsor on Sept. 17.  Billionaire investment banker and Republican donor Warren Stephens arrived in London as U.S. ambassador in May, and has been actively involved in pushing Trump’s policy objectives. “I don’t think there was room for both him and the ambassador,” one person who worked with Burnett in the diplomatic arena and granted anonymity to discuss the issue said this week. The White House and the U.S. embassy in London are yet to respond to requests for comment. There had long been concerns there would be “conflict and confusion” in having the two separate but hard to distinguish roles, as covered in a POLITICO profile of Burnett published in March. “He speaks to the president a lot — they’re personal friends,” said one U.S. government official at the time, who was granted anonymity to discuss the nature of the special envoy’s role. “He will tell you that Trump used to work for him for 15 years,” the official added with a laugh. As a producer in the largely MAGA-antithetical television industry, Burnett’s public relationship with Trump wasn’t always easy. Burnett faced heat over the existence of tapes of the Republican saying a deeply offensive racial epithet. The producer even distanced himself from the then-presidential candidate in 2016 after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked. While special envoy, Burnett was credited with helping present the British case to Trump over the Chagos deal with Mauritius, which has again come under pressure after Trump recently turned against it. But his most showbiz moment in the role was when during a Downing Street meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer not long after Trump’s inauguration he was able to get the president on the phone for an impromptu chat. Two weeks later, the PM got his White House meeting with Trump, and Burnett was there too.

When pro-European liberal Rob Jetten defeated the far right to win the Dutch election three months ago, he gave beleaguered centrists across the region cause to hope.  Now, with a coalition deal finally agreed, his incoming government intends to do the same for NATO and the battered transatlantic alliance on which it depends.  That is the pledge from Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel, who told POLITICO in an interview what the world should expect from the new administration in The Hague, which must oversee one of Europe’s fastest growing militaries, and is a significant NATO contributor within the EU.  “You will have a government that will look at the world as it is and not as it wishes it to be,” Van Weel said this week. “Therefore you will see a government that will still consider NATO to be the cornerstone of our collective security.” But the EU itself will also need to be “stronger” on its own, both economically and in military terms, he said. Van Weel was speaking after a bruising three weeks in which Donald Trump has rocked the foundations of the transatlantic alliance. European leaders are brainstorming ideas for how to survive in a world without American protection — or even friendship.  The damage Trump’s Greenland demands have done to transatlantic trust is real: “I think that is undeniable,” he said. “Let’s hope we don’t see Greenland back on the menu.” Van Weel also regards Trump’s demands for Greenland as a damaging distraction from the urgent task of negotiating peace in Ukraine. “I really regret that this has taken up so much time and effort of so many people in these times when the whole world seems to be on fire,” he said. And, he added: “There’s many other areas around the world that we need to work together in order to achieve something. So whether or not there is trust, I think that is something we need to work on, but we need each other.” NATO OR NOT? The Netherlands, a country of only 18 million people, has pledged to meet the new NATO target to spend 5 percent of GDP on national security. It currently spends around $28 billion a year on defense. That’s a larger sum than all the European Union’s NATO members apart from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, all of which have populations at least twice the size of the Netherlands’. The previous Dutch government aimed to increase the size of the armed forces from 70,000 personnel to 100,000 by 2030, and perhaps 200,000 in future. Earlier in his career, Van Weel worked with Mark Rutte during the latter’s time as prime minister. Rutte now finds himself in a fight to preserve the transatlantic security alliance as secretary-general of NATO. Rutte caused uproar on Jan. 26 when he warned EU politicians they were “dreaming” if they believed Europe could defend itself without American help. Some of his critics think he is the delusional one if he believes Trump can be relied on. Van Weel thinks both sides have a point. “One, at the moment, yes, we rely heavily on the U.S.. Two, we have to decrease that … And three, that’s also in the interest of a more even and balanced transatlantic bond,” he said. European governments must be prepared to take drastic decisions to boost the region’s defenses, he believes. For example, he is not against the idea of creating a new European Security Council, which would include non-EU countries such as the U.K. “The EU was built from a premise of economic cooperation in order to prevent war and therefore never had a security-oriented structure or aim,” Van Weel said. “The world has changed. The EU needs to play a role in the security realm and therefore you might need to look at structures that we don’t have at the moment.” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was “a major wake-up call,” as is the “changing geopolitical situation in general.” He added: “Even if you don’t want to do it [increase defense spending] for NATO, even if you don’t want to do it to please the U.S., you should do it for your own interests. And that’s why I am happy that our own coalition will indeed ensure that we reach the targets for defense spending.”  Van Weel said he hopes that a peace deal for Ukraine is “close,” adding that he was hearing “promising things” from the Ukrainian side about progress. But the big problem is Vladimir Putin, he said, and this is where Trump can help. “We do need the U.S. president to put pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table to finish this conflict,” he said. “It really is time for peace.” 

French energy giant TotalEnergies announced Thursday that it is restarting its natural gas project in Mozambique, after a massacre at the site led to the company being accused of complicity in war crimes in November. “I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project … The force majeure is over,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said at a relaunch ceremony attended by Mozambican President Daniel Chapo. The project, billed as Africa’s largest liquefied natural gas development, was suspended in 2021 in the wake of a deadly insurgent attack. A 2024 POLITICO investigation revealed that Mozambican soldiers based inside TotalEnergies’ concession just south of the Tanzanian border, subsequently brutalized, starved, suffocated, executed or disappeared around 200 men in its gatehouse from June to September 2021. In December 2025, the British and Dutch governments withdrew some $2.2 billion in support for the project, with the Dutch releasing a report that corroborated many elements of the POLITICO investigation.  TotalEnergies has denied the allegations, saying its own “extensive research” into the allegations has “not identified any information nor evidence that would corroborate the allegations of severe abuses and torture.” The Mozambican government has also rejected claims that its forces committed war crimes. The revelations nonetheless prompted scrutiny from French lawmakers and criticism of TotalEnergies’ security arrangements in conflict zones. The Mozambique site has been plagued by an Islamist insurgency. “Companies and their executives are not neutral actors when they operate in conflict zones,” said Clara Gonzales of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. “If they enable or fuel crimes, they might be complicit and should be held accountable.” Speaking Thursday in Mozambique, Pouyanné said activity would now accelerate. “You will see a massive ramp-up in activity in coming months … a first offshore vessel has already been mobilized,” he said. According to a statement by the company, construction has resumed both onshore and offshore at the site, with around 4,000 workers currently mobilized. The project is roughly 40 percent complete, with the first LNG production expected in 2029. TotalEnergies holds a 26.5 percent stake in the Mozambique LNG consortium. A relaunch clears the way for billions of dollars in gas exports.

The territorial destiny of Donetsk is the key issue preventing the conclusion of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday. “The one remaining item … is the territorial claim on Donetsk. There is active work going to try to see if both sides’ views on this can be reconciled,” Rubio told a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting. “It’s still a bridge we haven’t crossed. It’s still a gap, but at least we’ve been able to narrow down the issue set to one central one, and it will probably be a very difficult one.” Ukraine’s Donbas, which consists of the coal-rich Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of the country, has since 2014 been the site of an armed conflict between the Ukrainian military and Russia-backed separatists. According to open-source maps of the conflict, Russian forces now control about 80 percent of the Donbas region. Annexing the Donbas has been one of the maximalist war goals of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in December said Russia will seize it “one way or another” if Ukraine doesn’t give it up voluntarily. Ceding Donbas was also one of the points in a 28-point plan circulated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s team, which drew criticism from Ukrainian and European officials as heavily skewed in Russia’s favor. An updated proposal watered down some of the more pro-Russian aspects of the initial plan. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly vowed that Ukraine will not give up Donbas as part of any ceasefire deal, as that would give Putin a springboard for a future invasion.