
Iran's ‘propagandist-in-chief' to speak at Scottish mosque
Iran's 'propagandist-in-chief' is scheduled to give an address at a Scottish mosque, it has emerged, as the tensions between the Islamic Republic and Israel continue to escalate.
Seyed Hashem Moosavi, the UK representative of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is due to appear at the al-Mahdi Islamic Centre in Glasgow's southside on Friday.
The mosque has been linked to the regime in Tehran, including displaying the Iranian flag and images of its leaders: Ayatollah Khomeini, who proclaimed a death sentence on the British author Salman Rushdie, and his successor Khamenei, who praised Hamas 'resistance fighters' after the October 7 atrocities in Israel.
The Times previously revealed the mosque has received grants worth almost £400,000 from the Scottish government.
Moosavi is described on adverts for the Glasgow event as a special guest speaker. It has been organised to celebrate Eid al-Ghadir and Mubahala, two significant dates in the Shia Islamic calendar.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Live MPs to vote on legalising assisted dying
MPs will vote this afternoon on whether to legalise assisted dying in a potentially historic moment for the country. The House of Commons backed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in principle last November, by 330 votes to 275, a majority of 55. Dozens of hours of scrutiny have followed, with numerous amendments made, and MPs will now decide if they want to give the Bill its third reading - the final major hurdle all legislation must clear before it heads to the House of Lords for further consideration. If the Bill is voted through by MPs today it will almost certainly ensure assisted dying is introduced, with the upper House unlikely to stand in the way of a decision made by the democratically-elected chamber. But if the Bill is voted down, its passage through the Houses of Parliament will be over and the issue will likely be parked for a generation. Supporters of the Bill have argued dying people must be given the choice to end their lives but critics have warned proposed safeguards are not strong enough to protect the most vulnerable in society. The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. MPs have been given a free vote on the Bill which means they are able to decide based on their conscience rather than being instructed along party lines. The relatively narrow margin of victory at second reading in November means today's vote could be tight and all eyes will be on how many MPs could switch sides. For example, the Bill would be defeated if 28 MPs were to switch from voting yes to no, and if all other MPs voted the same way they did in November, including abstentions. Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who brought the legislation forward, said she was 'confident' the Commons will back her Bill, allowing it to continue its journey to the statute book. The issue has split the Cabinet. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, is expected to back the Bill but Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, will vote against it.


Spectator
35 minutes ago
- Spectator
Has Ursula von der Leyen seen the light on China?
Coming from an American politician, the accusations would have been unsurprising. Beijing is unwilling to 'live within the constraints of the rules-based international system' and its trade policy is one of 'distortion with intent'. It splashes subsidies with abandon, undercuts intellectual property protections, and as for China's membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), that was probably a mistake too. It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders' summit Yet this tirade came not from an acolyte of Donald Trump, but from Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission during this week's summit of G7 countries in Kananaskis, Alberta. 'Donald is right,' she said during a roundtable. Could there have been something in that Rocky Mountain water? Or was this all a devilish ploy to curry favour with Trump and thereby secure a favourable trade deal with the US? After all, it will not have gone unnoticed in Brussels that the US-UK trade pact contained security and other provisions clearly aimed at excluding China from sensitive supply chains and cutting edge tech. But it wasn't only her words. The EU has also scrapped a key economic meeting with Beijing, which was to have been held ahead of an EU-China leaders' summit in the Chinese capital next month, citing a lack of progress on numerous trade disputes. It recently restricted Chinese medical device manufacturers from access to the EU's vast public procurement market, launched an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese tires and wind turbines and refused Beijing's demands to remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The truth is that Brussels has lost patience with China, and the famous EU fudge is (at least for now) being jettisoned for a far more robust approach to what EU officials see as China's serial rule-breaking. Beijing's recent restrictions on the export of critical minerals, which threatened to bring the continent's motor industry to its knees, have been a painful reminder of the EU's dangerous dependencies and Beijing's willingness to weaponise its supply chains. The EU's trade investigations are being carried out under a new Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which unusually for the rather pedestrian EU bureaucracy is fast, focused and – so far – exceedingly effective. If a foreign-owned company bidding for a contract or involved in a takeover is suspected of unfair subsidies, the EU can demand detailed business information. Last year, the Dutch and Polish offices of Nuctech, a Chinese security equipment company, were raided by EU competition regulators, acting under the new powers. A Chinese railway equipment manufacturer pulled out of bidding for a large contract in Bulgaria, preferring not to hand over data that would almost certainly have revealed wads of subsidies. In spite of these growing tensions, Beijing believed it could use Trump's tariff war to prize away Brussels from Washington – a long-standing goal of Chinese policy. To this end, in late April it announced it was lifting sanctions it had imposed on members of the European Parliament in retaliation for EU sanctions on Chinese entities accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. President Xi Jinping also launched a charm offensive, calling for unity in the face of coercion and presenting himself as an upholder of free trade. This has backfired, being seen widely in Brussels as laughable hypocrisy. Looming large over EU relations with China is Beijing's support for Vladmir Putin, which is felt much more profoundly in European capitals than in Washington. But Brussels has also been willing to call out China on a range of security issues. These include the blacklisting of Huawei lobbyists earlier this year following allegations of bribery linked to the tech company's activities in Brussels. Germany has accused China of being behind a cyberattack on the federal cartography agency for espionage purposes, and the Belgian intelligence agencies have investigated Alibaba for 'possible spying and/or interference activities' at the cargo airport in Liège. It should not be forgotten that the term 'de-risking' in relation to China was first popularised by von der Leyen. She introduced it in a March 2023 speech to the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. She said it meant being clear-eyed about China's growing economic and security ambitions. 'It also means taking a critical look at our own resilience and dependencies,' she said. 'De-risking' was soon adopted in other Western capitals, replacing the more clunky 'decoupling'. De-risking sounded more nuanced – a more orderly form of decoupling. It was vague, slightly murky, and open to interpretation. But therein lay its strength. It could be dialled up or down according to the circumstances, a flexible tool, with which few could disagree. It seemed like plain common-sense, which is probably why it so irked Beijing. 'It is just another word game. It will not change the 'ostrich mentality' of some countries to escape from the real world,' snarled the Global Times, a state-owned tabloid, at the time. When von der Leyen travelled to Beijing with French President Emmanuel Macron a week after her speech, Macron was given the red carpet treatment while the EC president was largely cold-shouldered in what was interpreted as a calculated snub. During this week's G7 meeting, von der Leyen said: 'We strongly feel that the biggest challenges are not the trade between G7 partners. Rather, the sources of the biggest collective problem we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001'. China's membership of the WTO is widely seen as a high point of western delusion about China. Beijing promised to improve the rule of law, to protect intellectual property rights, cut import tariffs, give greater access to its market, liberalise controls on its exchange rate, scrap trade barriers and much more. Few of these ever happened, or where one barrier was removed, another was erected. China has clung to the privileges of a 'developing' country. It has never provided a level playing field for foreign companies but was able to flood the world with its own cheap exports, while western companies flocked to outsource production and supply chains to Chinese factories, hollowing out manufacturing throughout the West. This led inextricably to the dependencies the West is decades later trying to unwind and has fuelled populist anger in developed economies. It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders' summit, tentatively set for late next month to mark 50 years of bilateral relations. Few will be in celebratory mood, and Xi will probably concentrate on individual European leaders, believing he has greater influence with them than with the European Commission president. His main miscalculation has been to believe he can leverage the distrust of Trump to China's advantage, because while it is true that Trump is haemorrhaging trust, the grim truth for Xi is that Beijing never enjoyed much trust in the first place.


Scotsman
35 minutes ago
- Scotsman
AI spending vows should be good for business
The government knows AI can have a positive effect on public services and the economy, says Mark Ferguson Mark Ferguson looks at the impact of Chancellor Rachel Reeves' recent handouts on innovative tech companies Sign up to our Scotsman Money newsletter, covering all you need to know to help manage your money. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The importance being placed on AI and other technologies as drivers of UK economic growth is evident from funding commitments outlined in the Government's annual Spending Review. The pledges made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have implications for organisations that both develop and deploy AI solutions, for how UK-based technology companies and universities might innovate, and for the way public sector bodies will operate in future. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The review envisages more than £2 billion of public funds being used to implement the AI opportunities action plan that the government endorsed earlier this year. This, it said, will mean 'a twentyfold expansion' of the capacity of the UK's AI Research Resource, which was established under the previous government to provide so-called 'super-computer' support for AI research. The housing area for Edinburgh University's planned Exascale supercomputer Up to £500 million will also be used on the creation of a new UK Sovereign AI Unit to help 'support the emergence of national AI champions' in tandem with the British Business Bank, which itself is to get almost £3 billion in increased funding 'to support companies to start, scale and grow in the UK'. Another major technology-related funding commitment set out in the spending review is the up to £750 million pledged for a new supercomputer at Edinburgh University - described by the government as an asset that 'will give scientists in all UK universities access to computational power that can be found in only a handful of other nations'. In her announcement, Reeves further pledged £240 million for the AI Security Institute and at least £1 billion to support the scaling up of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency - which provides R&D funding for technological and scientific breakthroughs - as part of a wider £22 billion R&D funding commitment. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Another £1.9 billion was pledged for digital infrastructure, to ensure wider access to and speedier broadband connectivity, as part of wider infrastructure investment commitments. Further funding has also been pledged to support the use of AI in government as part of a broad efficiency drive. The UK's ability to produce its own AI infrastructure, data, and skilled workforce is important for the public sector for enabling focused research on the UK's most critical priorities like healthcare and defence, and for supporting academics and start-ups with affordable resources to train AI models. It should also allow access to AI compute at times of disruption. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is arguably the biggest winner among government departments from the chancellor's spending review, with an average annual growth of 7.4% in day-to-day spending over the next five years, which outstrips every other departmental rise comfortably. The government has spoken favourably since Day One about the positive impact that AI can have on public services and the economy, and based on the Spending Review pledges, it is putting its money where its mouth is. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Many of the details announced make good on the commitments made as part of the government's response to the AI opportunities action plan in January, when it committed to accepting all 50 recommendations in the plan. For businesses attention will now turn to the publication of the government's industrial strategy, which is expected to be published shortly, for further details on how digital and technologies can contribute as one of the eight growth-driving sectors.