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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech during a visit to the Manufacturing Futures Lab at UCL in London, on Jan. 13, 2025, as he prepares to launch a plan to harness AI to spur growth and efficiency in the country.
British PM wants sovereign AI
On Monday, the British government announced the AI Opportunities Action Plan, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s economic and technological development plan for artificial intelligence. Starmer’s goals include building a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, building data centers nationwide, and exploring renewable energy sources — including nuclear energy — to power the data centers.
Last year, Starmer canceled $1.7 billion of spending commitments meant for computing infrastructure as part of a broader set of budget cuts — nixing the promises made under the prior administration of Rishi Sunak. Starmer is now trying to leave his own mark with a play for “sovereign AI” in the country. “Today’s plan mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation – revolutionizing our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets,” the government wrote in a press release.
As part of the initiative, three companies — Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl — committed $17 billion to build data centers, a plan the government says will create 13,250 jobs across the UK and increase compute capacity twentyfold by 2030. The ultimate goal: Starmer’s government wants to make the UK “irresistible” to AI firms.
Cars lie partially submerged after floods in Utiel, Spain, on Oct. 30, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Spain’s deadly floods, UK’s giant tax hike, Allegations of Israel misusing US arms, Scary candy bar prices
40 billion: UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Wednesday announced a whopper of a tax increase: £40 billion (US$52 billion). This is the biggest British tax hike since 1993, and wealthy Brits and business owners will bear the brunt. But Reeves also boosted the health care budget for day-to-day operations of the NHS by £22.6 billion and slotted £5 billion for house building.
500: Are US-supplied weapons being used in Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza? The White House has 500 reports from government, aid organizations, nonprofits, media, and other eyewitnesses alleging this. Still, the State Department hasn’t taken action on any single case, and more than two-thirds of them remain unresolved, according to a Washington Post report.
45: Americans looking to dole out tasty chocolate treats to costumed kiddies tonight likely had a scare before Halloween — at the checkout. The price of chocolate and confectionary products with cocoa jumped 45% between January and September, according to the producer price index. So those Snickers, KitKats, and M&Ms won’t need to be decorated in spookily decorated foil to cause plenty of fright.
Requisitioned Cabs used at the Battle of the Marne, 1914
Now + Then: The Miracle on the Marne
NOW: Ukraine and Russia are locked in a bloody, frustrating trench war, stalemated for years after the attempt to blitz through to Kyiv during Russia’s initial invasion was thrown back by the sacrifice of thousands of Ukrainian troops.
THEN: On this day 110 years ago, French and British forces along the Marne River were suffering through arguably the most important battle of World War I – an early clash that saved Paris and broke the German war plan but also ushered in the horrors of trench warfare.
The Great Retreat: The war began with disaster for the Anglo-French Entente. The aggressive French pre-war plan to strike into the heavily fortified German positions along their frontier had shattered against the macabre realities of industrialized warfare. Nearly 330,000 French soldiers were killed or wounded between Aug. 6 and Sept. 5 as the Germans rebuffed the strike and swept across Belgium and Luxembourg (the infamous Schlieffen Plan). They bottled up the tiny Belgian army before slamming into the small British Expeditionary Force at Mons, who fought hard but were forced to retreat because the French collapse left their flank unguarded.
The 1st and 2nd German armies then marched headlong toward Paris, and the French government departed for Bordeaux, expecting a prolonged siege. But the ferocity of the German advance concealed serious vulnerabilities: they were outpacing their supplies and their lines of communication were breaking just as generals were shifting plans on the ground. So severe was the dysfunction that Germany's top general, the infamously neurotic Helmuth von Moltke, issued no orders to the fighting armies during the six days of battle that began on Sept. 6.
Keep calm and fight on: Meanwhile, French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre’s oft-noted cool head saved the day. He rapidly saw the futility of the pre-war plans and regrouped, pulling units from the east to defend the capital and relying on the extensive French train network. He appointed an old mentor, Gen. Joseph Gallieni, military governor of Paris, and Gallieni spotted a crucial mistake on the German side.
Rather than encircling Paris from the west, which might have prevented French forces from checking them in time, the Germans moved to positions to the northeast along the Marne. On Sept. 6, the French 5th army, which had been in retreat, turned and counterattacked across the river east of Paris, reinforced by the fresh 9th Army. Simultaneously, Gallieni’s newly formed 6th Army struck from Paris itself, even using Parisian taxicabs to ferry some 3,000 men to the front in the earliest known use of automobiles in warfare.
Mind the gap: Attacked on two sides, the German commanders scrambled to respond. The 1st and 2nd Armies gradually began pulling apart, allowing a 30-mile wide gap to form between their forces — a gap into which the British Expeditionary Force began pouring its battalions. By Sept. 9, German Gen. Karl von Bülow realized he was no longer in a position to end the war by taking Paris — and so ordered a retreat north to the Aisne River.
Dig in: At the Aisne, the Germans put to use one tiny advantage that would come to define the whole war: spades to dig trenches. German soldiers carried them; British and French troops did not. But by Sept. 17, the Entente were digging their own trenches, and over the course of the next month, the network would grow to stretch from the Swiss Alps to the Flemish coast.
Over 4.5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives on the Western Front during the course of the next four years, and we live with the consequences — from the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel to European unity and American hegemony — to this day.Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer walk outside a polling station during the general election in London, Britain, on July 4, 2024.
Brits say bye-bye to Tory rule
British voters put a new spin on the Fourth of July today, freeing themselves from 14 years of Conservative rule. Labour won in a historic landslide, making party chief Keir Starmer the United Kingdom’s new prime minister.
In May, following news that inflation had slowed to 2.3%, then-PM Rishi Sunak called for a July election even though he could have waited until the end of the year. He tried to capitalize on the good inflation news and has spent the last six weeks campaigning up and down the country in a bid to win support.
But polls have consistently favored Labour by a wide margin. In the end, Labour secured 412 seats to the Conservatives’ 120. On Friday, King Charles invited Starmer to form a new UK government.
What will change? Domestically, Starmer has pledged to lead a “pro-business and pro-worker” government while facing “hard choices” for public spending. The party plans to work on “wealth creation” and, among other goals, aims to create a new publicly owned clean power company. In terms of foreign policy, Starmer is pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine, like Sunak, but he will take a different approach to the European Union to rebuild trust in the post-Brexit era.
Will the UK rejoin the EU? Not so fast. Starmer says he has no plans for a “Breturn” and does not believe the country will rejoin in his lifetime. That said he’s still looking to reset ties with the EU. According to Ian Bremmer, Starmer has developed a strong rapport with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and intends to expand Britain’s foreign policy cooperation. “He plans to propose a wide-ranging UK-EU security pact as well as bilateral defense agreements with Germany and France,” Bremmer wrote for GZERO.
“Longer term, he wants to return to something akin to a customs union in all but name.”
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 23, 2021: Demonstrators march through central London in solidarity with Julian Assange ahead of next week's US extradition appeal hearing at the High Court on October 23, 2021 in London, England.
Assange’s last stand?
Assange was indicted in the US in 2018 on 18 charges for the publication of classified documents through Wikileaks, an activist organization he founded in 2006. Assange claims he acted as a journalist exposing US military wrongdoing, while prosecutors counter that he conspired to hack a Pentagon computer and endangered intelligence sources.
Since then, the native Australian has been in “one form of detention or another,” according to his wife Stella Assange, including Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. If he loses his bid to avoid extradition, Assange’s legal team may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. US President Joe Biden is also reportedly considering an Australian request to drop the case.
Scene of the terrorist knife attack near the Bir Hakeim bridge and Quai de Grenelle, where one German tourist was killed, and two others were injured in Paris late Saturday.
Hard Numbers: Deadly terror attack in Paris, troubled South China Sea waters, migrants in English Channel, COP28 methane plans, twins for 70-year-old mom
3: A 26-year-old French national who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State attacked three people near the Eiffel Tower in Paris late Saturday, killing a German tourist and leaving two others, including a British man, wounded. President Emmanuel Macron called the incident "a terrorist attack."
135: More than 135 Chinese vessels “swarmed” the Julian Felipe reef off the coast of the Philippines in the South China Sea on Sunday. China and the Philippines have been involved in an increasing number of such incidents, as China aggressively asserts its claim to the sea under its so-called nine-dash line.
190: French authorities rescued 190 migrants off the coast of Calais in northern France over the weekend. The migrants were trying to cross the English Channel on dinghies to reach Britain, but authorities did not specify from which country the migrants had originally come.
30: At this week’s COP28 meeting in the UAE, the Biden administration unveiled final rules aimed at reducing the US oil and gas industry’s release of methane to help in the fight against climate change. Nations attending the summit had to detail how they will cut methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.
70:A 70-year-old Ugandan woman has become the oldest woman in Africa to give birth. Safina Namukwaya delivered a boy and a girl on Wednesday by cesarean section after conceiving through IVF. Born at 34 weeks' gestation, the babies are healthy and weigh 2 kilograms each. They were Namukwaya’s second delivery in three years, following the birth of a girl in 2020.Former PM David Cameron has been appointed foreign secretary by PM Rishi Sunak.
David Cameron returns to British government
A familiar face has returned to Britain’s government. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reshuffled his cabinet on Monday, pushing Home Secretary Suella Braverman out and installing James Cleverly in her place. Cleverly, who had been serving as foreign secretary, is being replaced by none other than former Prime Minister David Cameron.
The surprise move comes just days after Braverman wrote an op-ed for The Times, in which she said the police “play favorites” and described rallies in support of Gaza as “pro-Palestinian mobs.” The column caused a backlash among Conservatives.
Cameron has not been in Parliament since standing down in 2016, but he has been granted a seat in the House of Lords, which allows him to take up the new position — one he says he “gladly accepted.”
Sunak is clearly trying to stabilize his government ahead of the next general election, due by January 2025, and we’ll be watching to see whether Cameron’s appointment helps the Conservatives, currently down in the polls, woo voters.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to members of staff during a visit to a regional hospital.
Sunak's three strikes
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has had a tough week. First, one of his MPs, Boris Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries, resigned, accusing Sunak of “betraying” conservatism, and saying “History will not judge you kindly.” Second, Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg sanctioned Sunak for failing to report his wife Akshata Murty’s holdings in a childcare company, Koru Kids, one of six agencies chosen to benefit from a new government program. Sunak had not disclosed Murty’s interest and sent a letter apologizing “for these inadvertent errors” while agreeing to rectify them.
Third, his wife’s holdings again made the headlines – but on a much larger scale. At issue is Murty’s 0.93% holding in Infosys, an Indian IT services and consultancy company co-founded by her father, Narayana Murty, in 1981, that’s valued at about £50 billion ($63b). Murty’s stake is worth £481 million ($605m), which the Sunday Times estimated to have constituted the bulk of the family’s wealth in 2023.
The conflict? Infosys stands to benefit from a proposed trade deal between India and the UK, which Sunak is set to discuss at a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi at the upcoming G20 meeting in New Delhi. India wants more visas for tech workers, which would also help Infosys hire more contract employees, something the company is keen to do.
This win-win situation raised eyebrows in parliament, with opposition politicians calling for Sunak to be more transparent about just how the deal would benefit his family and with one expert suggesting he should recuse himself from the negotiations. Meanwhile, the British Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office warned a parliamentary trade committee that it should postpone its trip to India until next year, and said it will not be able to set up meetings for MPs with Indian officials and business people.
With the deal considered a crucial show of economic strength post-Brexit, and a general election to be held no later than January 25, 2025, the controversy could not come at a worse time for the UK and for Sunak. Last month, his Conservatives lost two seats in byelections that they were expected to win – and polls indicate that they face an uphill battle to stay in power after the next election.