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Tehran Eyes ‘Stronger Military Cooperation’ with Beijing, Moscow

Defense ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China take a photo on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings. (Reuters)
Defense ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China take a photo on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings. (Reuters)
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Tehran Eyes ‘Stronger Military Cooperation’ with Beijing, Moscow

Defense ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China take a photo on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings. (Reuters)
Defense ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China take a photo on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings. (Reuters)

The defense ministers of China and Iran have agreed on closer cooperation on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), being held in Kazakhstan.

Iran’s Defense Minister, Brig. Gen. Mohammed-Reza Ashtiani, said: “Improved cooperation and rapprochement on both sides is needed to resolve regional and international security problems.”

He spoke after talks with China’s Admiral Dong Jun in Astana, the Kazakh capital.

Tehran joined the SCO last year and later became part of BRICS with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

China is now Iran’s top oil buyer, and they signed a 25-year cooperation agreement in 2021.

Meanwhile, Russia expressed readiness to expand military and technical ties with Iran, with more communication between their military offices.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted by Russian media telling Ashtiani during a meeting on Friday that Moscow is prepared to expand military and technical cooperation with Iran.

The agency reported Shoigu as saying that communication between the military administrations of both countries has significantly increased recently.

Also, Moscow and Tehran signed a security deal after talks in St. Petersburg.

Russia’s increased activity in the region comes amidst rising tensions, including between Iran and the West, following recent strikes between Tehran and Tel Aviv.

The security deal strengthens the alliance between Russia and Iran, focusing on practical security cooperation.

In Tehran, Friday prayer leader Ahmad Khatami warned Israel of a “fresh slap,” with the Tasnim news agency quoting him as saying that Iran’s response to Israel would be punishing.

After recent attacks attributed to Israel in Iran, officials close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei emphasized that Iran could respond even more strongly if Israel continues its attacks.

On his part, Ashtiani described Iran’s response as a “limited warning.”

He stressed that Iran seeks to avoid escalating the conflict and doesn’t want war or increased tension in the region. Ashtiani warned that any reckless aggression from enemies will be met with a suitable and painful response.

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World

Nepal Flood Reconstruction Bill to be $4.78 Bn

A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
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Nepal Flood Reconstruction Bill to be $4.78 Bn

A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)

The reconstruction bill after deadly floods sparked by a glacial mountain collapse that hit Nepal last month would amount to $4.78 billion, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

"The total estimated requirement for reconstruction is approximately $4.78 billion," foreign ministry spokesman Lok Bahadur Chhetri told reporters.

Nepali rescuers clung to hopes of finding survivors trapped in hydropower tunnels on Wednesday.

The August 26 tsunami-like surge of water, mud and debris, which began on the China-Nepal border, has killed more than 1,410 people and left 5,651 missing.

"The rescue and search work in the tunnels at Trishuli 3A, 3B and Chilime hydropower projects is ongoing," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.

In Nepal, 1,367 bodies have been recovered and 5,132 people are missing, its disaster authority said on Wednesday.

In China, 43 people are dead and 519 are missing, according to state media.

Hundreds of foreigners are among the missing, as well as hundreds of hydropower workers.

World

China, Iran Among Countries That Have Used AI to Aid Spying, Anthropic Says

The Anthropic logo in this illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Reuters)
The Anthropic logo in this illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Reuters)
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China, Iran Among Countries That Have Used AI to Aid Spying, Anthropic Says

The Anthropic logo in this illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Reuters)
The Anthropic logo in this illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Reuters)

Anthropic said Thursday it shut down multiple cases of state-sponsored surveillance operations that used its artificial intelligence (AI) models, and warned that governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI to spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents.

The incidents were found and disrupted between January and July, and they originated in China, Iran and west Africa, Anthropic said in a report about misuse of its models.

These surveillance campaigns "targeted the same diaspora and dissident communities these regimes have historically targeted. These include pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, Tibetan and Falun Gong communities across Asia, and Iranian minority communities and opponents of the Iranian regime abroad," the report said.

In one case, Iranian actors developed a way to identify people through their social media accounts; in another, a contractor working for Malian national security authorities used Claude "to design the underlying software that enabled the intelligence gathering."

"AI is now being used in place of an engineering workforce," the report said.

Anthropic also disrupted efforts by users to design weapons, conduct questionable biological research, and create dating scams.

The San Francisco-based AI lab also accused Chinese developers of deceptively using Claude to produce responses to user queries while simultaneously "distilling" that data to improve their own models.

Distilling is an industry term that refers to a process where one AI model is used to train another one.

Chinese developers have previously been accused of using that technique without permission, essentially stealing resources from American labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

Now Anthropic alleges that China's Moonshot and DeepSeek have also secretly used Claude to generate answers given to its users.

"In one instance, over a ten-day period, Moonshot relayed almost 300,000 customer requests to Anthropic" through a "network of 5,380 fraudulent accounts, most of which appeared to be located in Singapore and Japan," the report said.

Some of that data contained sensitive user information, potentially in violation of privacy agreements.

"We do not know if Moonshot notified their customers that their requests were being rerouted to Anthropic and exposed to a third party," the report said.

DeepSeek used similar techniques.

When it comes to the research Anthropic detected and blocked that was related to biological weapons, the intent of the actors was less clear-cut and the AI lab did not identify them.

"The individuals implicated in these case studies are working scientists. We do not assert that they intended harm, and identifying them or their labs could expose them to harm," the report said.

The scientific research in those cases involved work around the mosquito-born chikungunya virus, a "highly-pathogenic" strain of the bird flu, a family of viruses that include smallpox and mpox, venoms and other toxins.

World

Iran is Reportedly Producing Ballistic Missiles Again in Underground Facilities

FILE PHOTO: A man walks next to a symbolic mockup of an Iranian missile and an Iranian flag at Imam Hussein Square in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A man walks next to a symbolic mockup of an Iranian missile and an Iranian flag at Imam Hussein Square in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Iran is Reportedly Producing Ballistic Missiles Again in Underground Facilities

FILE PHOTO: A man walks next to a symbolic mockup of an Iranian missile and an Iranian flag at Imam Hussein Square in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A man walks next to a symbolic mockup of an Iranian missile and an Iranian flag at Imam Hussein Square in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran has resumed its production of ballistic missiles using stockpiled components and working in underground facilities, officials from the US and Middle East familiar with the matter said.

Despite heavy attacks on its missile sites and industrial facilities during the initial phase of the war, Iran has been busy assembling liquid-propellant missiles, which have to be fueled just before launch, as well as solid-propellant missiles, which can be stored ready to fire, some of the officials told The Wall Street Journal.

Intelligence points to activity at several underground sites, including the Khojir missile facility in southeastern Iran, those officials said. Iran is also attempting to build new underground assembly points to avoid getting struck again, the daily quoted them as saying.

 

A banner with a picture of US President Donald Trump next to an Iranian missile system at Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

So far, Iran is mainly assembling the new missiles from existing components in more limited quantities than before the war, the US and regional officials said. The US and Israel damaged a number of industrial facilities needed to produce missile components and missiles themselves, and the naval blockade has complicated imports of parts and ingredients for solid fuel.

The renewed production underscores the difficulty of fully dismantling Tehran’s missile program, a goal of the war the US and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

“When there are no bombings of the facilities, you can replace damaged infrastructure, and you can buy new components from other countries and store them in the facilities,” said Tal Inbar, a senior analyst at the US-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “You have to be extremely naive to think that Iran is not rebuilding its missile-production capabilities.”

A White House official didn’t directly address the question of whether Tehran had resumed production of ballistic missiles but said that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been obliterated and its military forces severely degraded. “Iran is weaker now than ever before, and President Trump will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” the official said.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said the US had “destroyed up to 90% of Iran’s drone, ballistic missile, and naval industrial base” and “significantly degraded” Iran’s ability to launch missiles and drones.