News Desk

The Chinese trimaran craft is seen in what is the first widely circulated image of the vessel, but it leaves many questions unanswered. Not least, what is the actual purpose of this vessel? At the same time, details point to this craft being fully or nearly fully submersible, making it something of a hybrid design.

The photo, which began to circulate recently on social media and is republished at the top of this story, provides a profile view of the vessel in the water. While the date of the photo is unknown, the location is likely the Huangpu shipyard in Guangzhou province, where the vessel has reportedly been noted in satellite imagery over the last few months. Our previous understanding of the vessel’s appearance comes apparently exclusively from naval analyst H. I. Sutton, who looked at that imagery, in which the vessel was still covered with tarpaulins.

As had been apparent in the satellite imagery, the black-painted vessel incorporates features of both surface ships and submarines. The vessel’s slender shape had also previously been noted, pointing toward high efficiency. However, seen from this angle, the roughly 210-foot-long vessel doesn’t appear to have been necessarily tailored for high performance, at least not as an overarching priority.

At the same time, in this view, the vessel’s submarine-like attributes are perhaps even more pronounced.

These features may also include a propulsor at the rear, which would point to a pump-jet being fitted, a possible feature noted by Alex Luck, a journalist who closely follows the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Pump-jets offer an array of advantages over traditional propellers, above all the ability to reach higher speeds without noisy cavitation — this means they can transit long distances around much more stealthily.

More obvious in this view is the submarine-like sail, which is fitted with a snorkel or possibly an antenna mast.

What’s far from obvious, even now, is whether this vessel is crewed or uncrewed.

Should it fall into the uncrewed category, the trimaran craft may well be some kind of hybrid between an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) and an uncrewed underwater vessel (UUV), essentially a semi-submersible, something H. I. Sutton also posited.

In this new image, however, there are indications that the vessel might be able to operate fully or at least very nearly fully submerged. The overall design, as well as features like the depth marks on the sail and elsewhere on the hull, point to it being a hybrid submersible/surface craft, which would offer the benefits of stealth when submerged and relatively efficient travel while surfaced.

In terms of its purpose, one of the most persistent theories is that it’s an arsenal ship.

For some years now, there have been rumors that China is developing a vessel of this kind. The idea would be to have an uncrewed, hard-to-detect vessel that could emerge to launch its missiles (land attack and/or anti-ship) before disappearing below the waves.

Unofficial renderings showing a potential configuration for a Chinese semi-submersible arsenal ship, with a trimaran hull:

The future of naval warfare?

China’s proposed trimaran unmanned, semisubmersible arsenal ship.

These ships would be perfect to sneak up at an enemy port and unleash a swarm of missiles and drones as the opening salvo of war. pic.twitter.com/TbY8xju8GM

— Zhao DaShuai 东北进修🇨🇳 (@zhao_dashuai) November 2, 2025

A vessel of this sort could also provide additional magazine depth for more conventional surface combatants, which would likely also provide targeting solutions. In general, arsenal ships, with no crew or a minimal crew, are a concept that is currently gaining greater traction around the world.

So far, however, there is no firm evidence of a VLS on the deck of the trimaran, which would be required for an arsenal ship as outlined.

Another possibility, as put forward by H. I. Sutton, is that the vessel is intended as a ‘mothership’ for drones.

Rather than an arsenal ship packing cruise missiles, its internal space could be given over to aerial drones in an extension of the kind of concept that Ukraine has pioneered, on a much smaller physical scale, in its conflict with Russia. If it is a mothership for aerial drones, then vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) types would appear to be the most logical. There is no obvious ‘flight deck’ for conventional takeoff and landing drones, although another possibility could be some form of catapult or rail-type launch system. A Shahed-type long-range one-way attack drone, in particular, would lend itself to being launched from a rail using a rocket booster.

If I’m not mistaken, then UAVs have been spotted on the Shandong’s flight deck for the first time.

The one with the inverted V-tail looks to be the one shown in the third image even if I don’t know its type and/or designation … but the other one?? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/GPdnUEkiGk

— @Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) June 1, 2022

As an alternative to drones, it could be that the vessel is intended to carry soldiers. A semi-submersible or fully submersible craft would be especially useful for moving special forces around littoral zones or among islands and reefs. The U.S. Navy, notably, also has its own very low-profile special operations craft, the Sealion, or Combatant Craft Heavy (CCH). Other craft that are more exotic exist for the special operations role.

Less dramatically, the trimaran vessel may simply be a testbed for future technologies, perhaps exploring possible roles for semi- or fully submersible craft with the People’s Liberation Army. The PLAN certainly does have a history of building bespoke vessels ostensibly for research and development, test and evaluation, and training roles. 

For now, we simply don’t know what this black-painted trimaran is designed to do, nor any more details about its systems and crew (or lack thereof). However, with more imagery slowly coming to light, the vessel might not be so mysterious for much longer.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

It’s another bright, sunny and promising Thursday morning in Los Angeles in early October, but things are not going well for the morning team on the public radio station KCSN, known as the SoCal Sound.

Morning show hosts Nic Harcourt and Jet Raskin are seven days into the station’s eight-day “shortfall” fundraiser, named for the season and the funds the station is attempting to make up after its nearly $250,000 grant from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting was canceled after the organization was defunded by Congress in July.

This morning, Harcourt and Raskin are experiencing their own shortfall. They’re behind on their goal for the first two hours of the show, yet they are plowing ahead, pleading with their listeners to contribute to the cause, offering premiums such as concert tickets, vinyl records and a specially designed long-sleeve hoodie T-shirt with the words “Protect Public Radio” written on a graphic of an acoustic guitar held in a clenched fist.

After the impassioned plea comes more music. David Bowie’s “Nite Flights,” a Walker Brothers song featured on the late legend’s 1993 album “Black Tie White Noise,” blares from the speakers. It’s not the album version, but rather the “Mood Swings Remix” released in 2010. It’s followed by “Ico,” a new song from upstart Canadian indie act Jo Passed’s forthcoming album, that’s been designated as the show’s “Fresh Squeezed Track of the Day.” You’re not likely to hear the two songs back-to-back anywhere, especially on the radio, but that’s the appeal of the SoCal Sound. The station has a playlist, but it allows its DJs to add their own picks to the mix, making it a listening experience on the radio dial.

The on-air mic in the station at 88.5 FM SoCal Sound.

(Matt Blake)

A few hours later, Harcourt and Raskin are breathing easier as the pledges start to roll in and they’re nearly back on track. For Harcourt, the highs and lows of a fundraising campaign are nothing new. He estimates he’s done more than 60 of them if you combine his years at KCSN and KCRW, the city’s best-known public radio station which first introduced the British-born DJ to Los Angeles listeners in 1998.

“The old-school way of doing it was two fund drives a year, a spring and a fall, but in recent years, public radio stations have found that that’s not enough, so you’ll find mini drives and pop-up drives or day here or day there,” Harcourt said in a recent phone interview. (The station also receives support from a number of local sponsors and underwriters including My Valley Pass, the Pantages, the Hollywood Bowl and others.) Aside from the morning drive show, Harcourt is also heard weeknights from 6 to 7 p.m.

He got his start in radio at WDST, a small commercial station in Woodstock, N.Y., after a friend suggested he bring his knowledge and collection of records by artists from Australia, where he spent his mid-20s, to the station for a specialty show. Harcourt got the gig and eventually became the morning host and program director.

At KCRW, he became synonymous with breaking new artists as the station’s music director and host of “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” and those artists haven’t forgotten. At their gig this summer at the Hollywood Bowl, French band Air thanked Harcourt from the stage, years after he gave them their big break in America.

Raskin, his co-host since March 2020, is a relative newbie. An art history major at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, she switched her focus to broadcasting after an instructor said her dreams of becoming the head curator at the Getty Museum were unrealistic. She recalled listening to KCSN in her car, changed her major to broadcasting and transferred to California State University, Northridge, where the SoCal Sound has its studios. Initially, she was working in promotions until she was offered an overnight shift. “I was like, ‘Yes. You don’t have to ask me twice. Of course I want a shift,’” she recalled. That led to weekends and ultimately the morning show. When general manager Patrick Osburn suggested that Harcourt add a co-host, he requested Raksin. She also flies solo from 6 to 7 a.m. weekdays on “Jet Into Work.”

The station’s other regular staff is a mix of radio veterans, with most refugees from commercial radio who are thrilled to leave that world for a public radio station where they have more freedom. Music director and midday host Julie Slater’s resume includes a lengthy stint at WXRK (K-Rock) New York, where she followed Howard Stern. Program director Marc Kaczor, who got the nickname Mookie from late rock ’n’ roll madman Mojo Nixon when they both worked at XTRA (91X) San Diego, is on from 2 to 4 p.m.

Perhaps the station’s most well-known personality, Matt Pinfield is a former MTV VJ and one-time host of the popular alternative music show “120 Minutes.” He’s on from 4 to 6 p.m. and is happy to be back on the air. In January, he suffered a life-threatening stroke and caught MRSA pneumonia while recovering in the hospital.

SoCal Sound program director Marc Kaczor, left, and DJ/MTV legend Matt Pinfield.

(Photo from SoCal Sound)

“I’ve gotten a lot of my abilities back,” said Pinfield, who returned to the air in June. “Certainly, I’m a lot further along than they ever expected me to be. They told both my daughters that I was never going to walk or talk again and probably need 24-hour care.”

The station also has several specialty shows, including Byron the Curator’s “Bilingual Sounds,” heard weekdays from 9 to 11 p.m., “L.A. Buzz Bands” and “Rock ’n’ Roll Times,” heard Sunday and Wednesday nights, respectively, hosted by former L.A. Times columnist Kevin Bronson and longtime pop music critic Robert Hilburn. While the station has 12 paid employees, the weekend staff is largely made up of volunteers.

Broadcasting from the campus of CSUN, the station struck a deal in 2017 with KSBR at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, which shares the 88.5 frequency. The partnership allows it to be heard in Orange County as well as the San Fernando Valley. Still, there are parts of Los Angeles where it’s difficult to pick up the station on the radio, but it’s also available to stream on the web and various radio apps. It also has a partnership with fellow public radio station KPCC, the news/talk station known as LAist, where SoCal Sound DJs refer their listeners to for news.

Staffers at the SoCal Sound take great pains to point out that the station does not broadcast news but became collateral damage in the Trump administration’s apparent war on liberal-leaning NPR stations. “We don’t play news, but we got kind of caught up in all of that,” Raskin noted.

The SoCal Sound’s continuing struggle to survive comes at a time when all radio stations are struggling to retain their audiences amid competition for music streaming services, podcasts and social media apps like TikTok. “It’s a big media market and we’re trying to find our place within it with big behemoths and heritage brands,” said Kaczor. “We always lean into the localism and the grassroots of it all and now we’re leaning into that even more.”

Aside from offering listeners a place to hear a curated mix of new, local and older artists, Osburn, who became general manager of the station in 2019 after working in sales for several years at commercial stations in San Diego, points out the SoCal Sound plays a crucial role to a specific segment of the music industry.

L.A. band La Lom performs at SoCal Sound’s live performance studio.

(Photo from SoCal Sound)

“The labels and the music industry love this format, and they love this radio station because we’re Triple A and we’re in Los Angeles,” he explained. “The industry needs us to survive and be there to break new artists and to break new music by existing artists,” he added. “They really don’t want to see us go away.”

Paul Janeway, frontman of St. Paul & the Broken Bones, can testify to that. The veteran neo-soul band recently released their sixth studio album, a self-titled effort on their own independent label, Oasis Pizza. The lead single from the album, “Sushi and Coca-Cola” recently topped the station’s weekly playlist, which is a big boost for a band that enjoyed a next-big-thing buzz a decade ago when they played Coachella and appeared on most of the network late-night TV shows.

“For us, it’s been a long journey, but we’ve always kind of lived in that world of KCSN and the public radio sphere,” Janeway said. “We’re not Top 40 artists. It’s a platform and a place for us to live. We have no other place to go.”

As for the SoCal Sound, the station fell a bit short of its goal to cover the amount of the grant money that was rescinded, Kaczor said. “Although we didn’t hit our goal, we consider the last drive to be a success. We actually had fun doing it,” he added. “We’ll be doing our best to raise even more money moving forward. We may have to get creative with it.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said recent talks with United States negotiators over ending the war with Ukraine were “very useful”, while doubling down on the maximalist demands and territorial designs that are standing in the way of a solution.

In advance of a trip to New Delhi on Thursday, Putin told India Today TV that he planned to seize control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by force, confirming Kremlin reports that no consensus had been reached in the previous day’s talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

“It all boils down to this: either we will liberate these territories by force, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories and stop fighting there,” he said in comments from the interview that were carried by state news agency Tass on Thursday.

Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

His renewed determination to take the region appeared to pour cold water on US President Donald Trump’s earlier assertion that Witkoff and Kushner had thought the Russian leader wanted “to end the war”.

“Their impression was very strongly that he’d like to make a deal,” Trump said.

Putin’s comments came amid reports that special envoy Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner will meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday as a follow-up to the five hours of talks in Moscow on Tuesday.

Embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been bogged down by Russia’s advance and a domestic corruption scandal, maintains that he does not have the power to sign away Ukrainian territory and that Russia should, in any case, not be rewarded for its invasion. The Ukrainian constitution also forbids the ceding of territory.

28-point plan ‘still valid’

In discussions with the US over the outline of a possible peace deal to end the war, Russia has repeatedly said it wants control over the whole Donbas and that Washington should informally recognise Moscow’s control.

The Kremlin narrative appeared to have been in the ascendancy when Trump released his 28-point plan to end the war, which initially envisioned Ukraine ceding the entire Donbas, limiting the size of its military, and giving up on joining NATO.

But following intense criticism of what many saw as a Moscow wish list, Ukrainian negotiators pushed for revisions during talks in Geneva, Switzerland, paring back the original draft to 19 points.

It was unclear following the Moscow talks which version of the draft had been discussed. Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov had earlier said several documents were being discussed.

Paraphrasing Putin’s comments to India Today, Tass said the 28-point plan was “still valid and being discussed” and based on agreements reached during the Russia-US summit in Alaska in August.

“They just broke these 28 or 27 points into four packages. And they proposed discussing these four packages with us. But, in effect, they are the same [points],” Putin said, according to Tass.

Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said Moscow was unlikely to move on its “red lines”. “According to Putin, until Russia’s interests are respected, the country won’t sign any agreements, and will reach its goals on the battlefield,” she said.

Meanwhile, in Kyiv, senior correspondent Jonah Hull said there had been “a breakdown based on a clash of red lines that are, at this point, insurmountable”. He described the recent rounds of talks, which have seen the US moving between parties, as a sort of “round Robin of ‘It’s not us, it’s them’”.

“Here in Ukraine, the government does view this process as a valuable one,” he said. “They think it can lead to results if it’s allowed to run its course now that Ukraine’s interests have been heard and included, and as long as pressure is kept on Russia.”

Russian attacks continue

Russian attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine continued overnight into Thursday.

A ballistic missile struck Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday night, injuring six people, including a three-year-old girl, according to city administration head Oleksandr Vilkul.

Vilkul said the attack damaged more than 40 residential buildings, a school and domestic gas pipes in the city, Zelenskyy’s hometown.

A six-year-old girl died in Kherson, a southern port city, after Russian artillery shelling injured her the previous day.

Russia also struck Odesa with drones, injuring eight people, while civilian and energy infrastructure was damaged, said the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Kiper.

On Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of disrupting peace talks with attacks on oil tankers in the Black Sea and on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal in Novorossiysk.

Russia currently controls 19.2 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80 percent of Donetsk, about 75 percent of Kherson and Zaporizhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to the Reuters news agency.

Ukraine’s army chief said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops continued to hold the northern part of the key city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

About 5,000sq km (1,900sq miles) of Donetsk remains under Ukrainian control.

China has deployed a massive naval and coast guard presence across East Asian waters, with more than 100 ships at the peak of activity, according to multiple sources and intelligence reports reviewed by Reuters. This represents the largest maritime show of force by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to date, surpassing last year’s December deployment that prompted Taiwan to raise its alert level.

The deployments cover a vast area: from the southern Yellow Sea through the East China Sea and South China Sea, extending into the western Pacific. While China has not officially announced any large-scale exercises, the current surge in activity coincides with the traditionally busy season for military drills.

The move comes amid diplomatic tensions with Japan, after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned last month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could prompt a Japanese military response. Beijing was also reportedly displeased by Taiwan’s $40 billion defence budget increase, announced by President Lai Ching-te.

Military Dynamics: A Massive Show of Force

Security sources indicate that as of Thursday morning, over 90 Chinese vessels remain active, down slightly from the peak of more than 100 earlier in the week. Chinese warships, supported by aircraft, have conducted mock attacks and access-denial operations, aimed at testing regional responses and simulating control over contested waters.

According to Taiwan’s National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Ming-yen, China currently operates four naval formations in the western Pacific. While Taiwan maintains real-time monitoring, authorities assert there is no immediate threat to national security, and the country continues collaborating with international partners to deter unilateral actions.

Officials familiar with the deployment said Beijing’s massing goes “far beyond national defense needs”, suggesting a strategic signal to regional capitals rather than an imminent operational threat.

Regional Response: Watching, But Cautious

• Japan: The Self-Defense Forces noted that while China is bolstering naval capabilities, there has not been a “sharp” surge in activity since mid-November. Officials are closely observing the developments for signs of escalation.
• Taiwan: Maintaining vigilance, Taiwan tracks Chinese formations and emphasizes its preparedness to safeguard national security.
• Other regional countries: Following the deployment, regional militaries and intelligence services are monitoring developments, though they currently assess the risk as contained.

Implications: Strategic Signaling in the Pacific

1. Regional deterrence: China’s large-scale naval movements appear intended to demonstrate power and test responses from Japan, Taiwan, and other regional actors.
2. Diplomatic leverage: By massing forces without formally naming drills, Beijing can pressure Tokyo and Taipei without overtly escalating conflict.
3. Risk management: While China asserts routine training, the unprecedented scale of deployment increases the risk of miscalculation, particularly if tensions with Taiwan or Japan intensify.
4. Capability demonstration: The PLA is enhancing its ability to operate in distant maritime and air spaces, signaling broader ambitions beyond its immediate periphery.

Personal Analysis: Beyond Routine Exercises

While some officials describe the deployment as “just routine exercises,” the timing, scale, and geographic spread suggest a clear strategic message: China is asserting maritime dominance while testing regional and international reactions.

Key takeaways:

• Beijing is signaling that Taiwan-related provocations or Japanese military commitments will be closely monitored and countered, at least in terms of presence.
• The lack of formal announcements or named drills reflects a deliberate ambiguity, providing China flexibility to scale activity up or down.
• The deployment underscores the growing complexity of East Asian security, where naval power and political signaling are increasingly intertwined.

In short, while no immediate conflict appears imminent, this is a significant escalation in maritime signaling, and regional actors will likely continue adapting their strategies to anticipate China’s next moves.

With information from Reuters.

Every year contestants from I’m A Celebrity find themselves in the spotlight for memorable moments on screen – but previous campmate Gillian McKeith has never been able to live down her jungle stint

This year’s I’m A Celeb has been full of laughs, arguments and jaw dropping moments from inside the camp. With tensions over cooking duties, secret snack eating emotional letters from home it’s been a whirlwind season with many viral and memorable moments on screen.

But one memorable moment that any I’m A Celebrity fan will remember is from a few years ago when fellow campmate Gillian McKeith famously fainted during a live Bushtucker trial.

McKeith, who is known for her TV show You Are What You Eat appeared in the jungle in 2010 and quickly became a fan favourite when it came to being nominated for bushtucker trials, with the public voting her for nearly every single task.

However she was most remembered for her nomination for the “Un-fair Ground” challenge when she visibly had enough of being nominated for the gruesome trials.

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She reluctantly walked over to Ant and Dec where they detailed the trial’s rules, and from there, became one of the most notable I’m A Celeb moments in history.

The TV personality collapsed on camera, and the show had to cut to a swift ad break while medic Bob issued first aid to her. When the show came back on, it was announced that she had been withdrawn on medical grounds and former Olympic gold medallist Linford Christie stepped in as her replacement.

McKeith has since addressed the moment, and debunked rumours that she did not pretended to faint to get out of doing the trial. Sending social media and fans into a frenzy, they believed it was a calculated move.

According to The Independent, she explained: “I have a history of fainting since childhood. The day before we did the live trial, I hadn’t had much to eat and I wasn’t feeling very well – which is the precursor to passing out.”

Going on to claim that she’d even fainted during a wedding, she continued: “They were about to say, ‘Do you take this man to be your husband?’ and I passed out. Sometimes you can stop yourself if you get close to the ground but the problem with the jungle is there were all these leeches and so there was no way I was going to throw myself on the ground.”

McKeith then said she hasn’t ever been able to live the moment down. She added: “I have never been able to forget about my fainting in the jungle!

“I have been reminded about I’m a Celebrity every single day since I came out by taxi drivers and people in the street! They all talk about it as if it were yesterday. They say I was entertaining. It might have been for them, but it certainly wasn’t for me!”

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Coupang Inc. faces the possibility of a record fine by the data protection regulator after the New York-listed e-commerce giant suffered a massive breach of customer information, according to industry sources Thursday.

The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has vowed stern action after Coupang said last week that the personal information of 33.7 million customers had been compromised, raising questions about the size of the fine the company could face.

Under the personal information protection law, companies that suffer personal information leaks can be fined up to 3 percent of their total sales, although sales from businesses unrelated to the violation can be excluded.

Based on Coupang’s sales last year of 41 trillion won (US$27.8 billion), the company could have a fine of up to 1.2 trillion won imposed.

In August, the privacy watchdog fined wireless carrier SK Telecom Co. a record 134.8 billion won over a data breach that affected 23 million users.

While it marked the highest-ever penalty levied by the regulator, it fell far short of the highest possible amount that could have been imposed of over 300 billion won.

“As there is room for discretion in granting leniency, (we) will make a strict judgment according to the seriousness of the matter,” PIPC Chairperson Song Kyung-hee told lawmakers about Coupang’s potential fine during a parliamentary national policy committee session Wednesday.

The regulator has maintained a stern stance on Coupang’s data breach, demanding the company to re-notify its users of the leak, taking issue with its earlier notification that appeared to downplay the incident as an “exposure” of personal data.

Meanwhile, Coupang’s breach has raised questions whether its Personal Information and Information Security Management System (ISMS-P) certification given by the privacy watchdog and the science ministry could be revoked.

Song told the committee it would look into whether Coupang’s practices met the certification’s standards, and revoke it if major violations are found. No company so far has had their ISMS-P certification canceled.

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The UN says the visit comes ‘at a crucial time for the region’, as it seeks to bolster ties with Syria.

A United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation has arrived in Syria for its first-ever trip to the country, reported state media, just days before the war-ravaged nation marks the first anniversary of the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

The UNSC delegation arrived via the Jdeidet Yabous border crossing between Lebanon and Syria and “is scheduled to meet a number of Syrian officials” and members of civil society, state news agency SANA reported on Thursday.

Shortly afterwards, the agency said the delegation was visiting the capital Damascus’s heavily damaged suburb of Jobar.

The diplomats will meet Syria’s new authorities, including President Ahmed al-Sharaa, before visiting neighbouring Lebanon on Friday and Saturday.

While the UN works to re-establish itself in Syria, the council recently lifted sanctions against al-Sharaa, a former rebel fighter whose forces led the lightning offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad last December.

The UN has urged an inclusive transition in the multiethnic country. With international legitimacy one of al-Sharaa’s main priorities, the government has been seeking to keep a lid on eruptions of sectarian violence.

Last month, the killing of a Bedouin couple just south of the country’s third largest city, Homs, threatened to spark sectarian clashes like the ones reported in coastal areas in March and again in Suwayda in July. However, security forces from the ministries of interior and defence deployed to the area and, in tandem with some tribal leaders, calmed the situation.

The nation ravaged by 14 years of ruinous civil war has also had to contend with more brazen, frequent and violent Israeli military incursions since it expanded its occupation of southern Syria over the past year, despite assertions by al-Sharaa’s government that it is not looking to engage in hostilities with Israel.

Most recently, an Israeli raid last week killed 13 people in the town of Beit Jinn, southwest of Damascus.

Israel seized territory in the Syrian Golan Heights following the 1967 war and has held it ever since. However, following the fall of al-Assad, Israel violated a 1974 agreement and again invaded its neighbour’s territory, occupying more land along the border as part of a “buffer zone”, including the strategically located Jabal al-Sheikh, a mountain that commands views over northern Israel and southern Syria.

Talks have been ongoing over a security agreement between Israel and Syria for months, but appear to have made little progress in recent weeks.

Slovenian UN ambassador Samuel Zbogar told a news conference on Monday, “The visit to Syria and Lebanon is the first official visit of the Security Council to the Middle East in six years, the first visit to Syria ever.”

Slovenia currently holds the UNSC’s rotating presidency.

The trip comes “at a crucial time for the region” and for both countries, Zbogar said, noting the new authorities’ efforts towards Syria’s transition as well as a year-old ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, “which we see daily that is being challenged”.

The visit is important in “expressing support and solidarity with both countries, and learning about the challenges, conveying the messages, also, on the path forward that the council would like to see in both countries”, he added.

He noted that “there’s still a bit of lack of trust in the UN-Syria relationship, which we try to breach with this visit”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said on Tuesday, “We very much hope that the visit will increase the dialogue between the United Nations and Syria.”

A PAIR of huge radio stars have quit their iconic breakfast show after five and a half years.

The fan-favourite duo broke the news to devastated listeners in an emotional on-air statement today.

Jordan Banjo, 32, and Perri Kiely, 29, have called time on their KISS Breakfast Show stint ahead of a busy year for their dance troupe, Diversity, next year.

On Thursday’s early-morning programme they made their big reveal and said: “We have some very big news… there’s no easy way to say this, we are moving on from KISS Breakfast.

“It’s been quite the journey for the last five and a half years and we’ve spent every single morning with you guys.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure, a privilege to wake up with you guys and have a laugh.

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“It’s been the most special years of our lives, genuinely, and we’ve enjoyed every single moment.

“We’re going to get some lie ins back which is going to be a little bit weird to adjust too, but we do get to focus on all the other things that we get to do.”

They then revealed the real reason for their show exit and added: “We’re about to go on our biggest Diversity tour yet and 2026 is going to be really busy.

“We’re really excited about all those projects but we are really, really sad to be leaving.”

Radio bosses promise news on the “next chapter” for the show “will be announced very soon.”

Meanwhile, Paul Gerrard, Content Director at KISS and Hits Radio, said: “Huge thanks to Jordan and Perri who have brought all the crazy energy, vibes, and creativity to KISS Breakfast on their time on the show – making mornings worth waking up for!

“There’s no doubt that the KISS studios are going to miss having them around but we’re wishing them both all the best for everything they’re getting up to next.”

FINDING FAME

Jordan and Perri first found fame after their dance troupe Diversity won the third series of Britain’s Got Talent in 2009.

Jordan previously said that that he wasn’t looking to become a celebrity, and just wanted to be known for his talents as a dancer.

Speaking in 2014, he told press: “We’ve never been the kind of people who go out to clubs to try and get photographed by the paparazzi or be the centre of attention.”

Timeline of BGT Winners

Britain’s Got Talent has been thrilling fans since it burst onto the scene in 2007.

Here we take a look at all the BGT winners – from the first ever one to the most recent:

2007: Paul Potts – The first ever winner of BGT was opera singer Paul Potts. He saw off competition from Connie Talbot, The Bar Wizards, Bessie Cursors, Damon Scott and Kombat Breakers to win.

2008: George Sampson – In series two of Britain’s Got Talent a young George Sampson wowed judges and viewers with his impressive dance moves.

2009: Diversity – Dance troupe Diversity scooped the BGT crown and beat of competition from singer Susan Boyle, who was strongly tipped to win the show.

2010 – Spellbound: Gymnastic troupe Spellbound really impressed judge Simon Cowell with their stunning routines and incredible stunts in 2010. At the time, the music mogul said: “I can only say on live television that was one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen.”

2011 – Jai McDowall: Viewers were stunned when Jai McDowall won the show in 2011, as young singer Ronan Parke was the favourite to win the series.

2012 – Ashleigh and Pudsy: Ashleigh Butler and her adorable pooch Pudsey stole hearts when they performed in series six of the talent show.

2013 – Attraction: Hungarian shadow artist group Attraction won the seventh series of Britain’s Got Talent. The squad had taken part in the German version of BGT in 2012, however, they had only placed seventh.

2014 – Collabro: Classical music band Collabro faced tough competition in the 2014 final as all the finalist were singers, but they went on to scoop the crown.

2015 – Jules O’Dwyer & Matisse: Dog lovers everywhere could’t get enough of Jules O’Dwyer and pet pup Matisse. The impressive duo even performed on a tightrope to secure their win.

2016 – Richard Jones: Army man Richard Jones became the first magician in the show’s history to win Britain’s Got Talent.

2017 – Tokio Myers: Pianist Tokio Myers impressed the judges with his blend of classical and electronic music.

2018 – Lost Voice Guy: Stand-up comedian Lost Voice Guy, who performs with a speech synthesiser, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was six months old. However, he defied the odds and is a BGT champ.

2019 – Colin Thackery: Veteran army officer Colin Thackery warmed the nations hearts with his singing voice. He was crowned winner of BGT after singing Michael Ball’s Love Changes Everything.

2020 – Jon Courtenay: Singer and pianist Jon Courtenay was Ant and Dec’s Golden Buzzer act. After he won the £250,000 prize he said: “”Just amazing, I can’t believe it.”

2022 – Axel Blake: Comedian Axel Blake scooped the crown after the show was off air for two years during Covid.

2023 – Viggo Venn: Known for his high-vis jackets, comedian Viggo Venn was victorious in 2023.

2024 – Sydnie Christmas: The reigning champ is singer Sydnie Christmas.

As well as performing at the Royal Variety Show several times, the dance troupe have gone on to tour the UK multiples times, carried the London 2012 Olympic Games torch and even released their own fitness DVD.

Jordan then starred in I’m A Celebrity in 2016, but was fourth to be booted out.

The star also appeared as a host on The Greatest Dancer alongside Alesha Dixon in 2019.

Meanwhile, Perri now looks completely different from his time on BGT, and recently showed off his six pack.

For decades, Africa was defined by aid, debt and development debates.
Today, the continent’s critical minerals, rising consumer markets and young workforce are turning it into one of the world’s most strategic economic battlegrounds.
China, the United States and Europe are all vying for influence there – from infrastructure to clean energy and digital networks.
But across the continent, the focus has shifted – leaders want partnerships that deliver real industry, real jobs and real value for African people.
So as global rivals step up their game, can Africa finally choose partners on its own terms?

Israel says the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt will open in the coming days, but only for Palestinians leaving Gaza. The UN is urging a full reopening of Rafah, and Egypt says it will only cooperate if movement is allowed both in and out.

Ah, the western. That great American canvas, upon which many sorts of motion pictures have been projected, stretching back to the very beginning of the medium: adventure, romance, comedic, serious, simplistic, artistic, racist, revisionist, historical, metaphorical, low-budget, big-budget, dark, light, set in a wild landscape or on the edge of it, where the deer and the antelope play, etc., etc.

In 1939, the year John Ford made “Stagecoach,” elevating John Wayne to stardom, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were also busy. (If Wikipedia is to be trusted, something like 120 westerns were released that year.) Roy and Gene would also have television careers when the tube came knocking, birthing a wealth of westerns — “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Rifleman,” “The Virginian,” “Maverick,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” I could go on from here to Missouri. This year we’ve had “American Primeval” and “Ransom Canyon,” the ongoing brilliance of “Dark Winds” and the continuing adventures of Taylor Sheridan.

With so many movies and television series working that vein over more than a century, it’s no surprise that the same material turns up again and again. “The Abandons,” a new western premiering Thursday on Netflix, is thick with old plot points and character types. (Seven episodes out of 10 were available to review.) Admittedly, creator Kurt Sutter has given the tropes a bit of a spin, making two women — played by Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey — adversarial matriarchal leads, but the nuts and bolts come right off the shelf.

We are in the town of Angel’s Ridge in Washington Territory in the year 1854. Constance Van Ness (Anderson) and Fiona Nolan (Headey) are widows — but not “widder women” — each in charge of her business, turf and adult children. Constance is upper-class, cold, refined, ambitious and the owner of a silver mine. Her brood consists of Willem (Toby Hemingway), the problem child; Garret (Lucas Till), the younger but more capable son (he wears a suit), trouble in his own way; and Trisha (Aisling Franciosi), a fair flower who will nonetheless curse like a sailor at times. She plays Schubert on the piano, a character detail that feels tacked on, but at least it is a character detail.

Fiona is her almost mathematically conceived opposite, an earthy rancher with four adopted grown children; there’s a horrible dead husband in her backstory. Elias (Nick Robinson) and Dahlia (Diana Silvers) are brother and sister, whose late father left the money for the land upon which Fiona has built their ranch. (Guided and gifted, in her mind, by God.) With them are Albert (Lamar Johnson) and Lilla Belle (Natalia del Riego), “two angels alone and hurting” Fiona met along the way. They are “five abandoned souls, now kin,” and so call their ranch the Abandons.

Michael Greyeyes as Jack Cree, Gillian Anderson as Constance Van Ness, and Michiel Huisman as Roache in “The Abandons.”

(Michelle Faye / Netflix)

Production is down at the mine, which Constance fears will make “my primary associate, the esteemed Mr. Vanderbilt,” as in Cornelius, withdraw his investment, which in turn will make Angel’s Ridge slide “back into the mud” and won’t do Constance any good either. (The town, as even the sheriff describes it, belongs to her.) And so she lusts after a suspected vein of silver running under Jasper Hollow, occupied by Fiona’s ranch and three other families, none of whom are in a rush to leave, despite A) her offers of money and B) acts of sabotage to force them to go. They debate whether to “go to the law” or handle her themselves, and because they are democrats, vote on it.

The collision of wealthy, often industrial interests with humble workers on the land has been the basis of many a Western; we are meant, as feeling humans, to side with the farmers and the ranchers against the mine owners as custodians rather than despoilers of the Earth. That Willem calls Isaac the blacksmith “a dirty little Jew” doesn’t speak well for the Van Nesses, either, but we’ll see much worse from him before the opening episode is out — and then we won’t see him.

On the other hand, Fiona is more than a little crazy and Constance, in her icy way, can seem almost reasonable. At times it seems that the two, as mothers, might be about to make some interesting connection, even common cause, but they are driven apart by mutual antipathy and the fact that each will be guilty of some awful stuff against the other.

“Our struggle, Fiona,” says Constance, “is a matter concerning property, not children.”

“All matters concern my children,” replies Fiona.

“But do our children need such concern or do we slyly foster it clinging to our motherly purpose?” Well, that is the question, and you do wonder why these kids don’t just light out for Portland. (Constance, whom one would not exactly call maternal, believes her motherly purpose is superior to Fiona’s, “it being one of blood”; Fiona responds, “Love is not shared through blood.”)

There’s a “Romeo and Juliet” subplot as well, involving Elias and Trisha, and though Sutter may not have had Shakespeare specifically on his mind, given that his “Sons of Anarchy” contained a whole lot of “Hamlet,” it seems not unlikely. Other plots involve bandits, guns and an Indigenous tribe, the Cayuse, about to sign a treaty and a rebel faction out to scotch it.

In spite of supercharged performances by the two leads, there’s something pasteboard about the characters, drawn in thick outlines but not really colored in; that the actors are saddled with old-timey dialogue makes them less rather than more real. (As is often the case, minor players make a more lifelike impression, including Michael Greyeyes and Michiel Huisman, who do work, cleaner and dirtier, for Constance, and Ryan Hurst as one of the Jasper Hollow inhabitants, a quiet man with a past and a way with guns, another popular western type.)

The series is busy, certainly, and frequently violent, with a few impressive set pieces, but majestic Canadian scenery aside, “The Abandons” feels artificial, schematic. (Good characters get to make pure, naked love; bad ones have pervy sex — implied, not shown.) Any random three minutes of “Deadwood” or even a still photo of Wayne seem more genuinely expressive of its times, however historically accurate or fanciful they may be. In spite of a nicely conceived main street and a decent complement of extras, Angel’s Ridge itself never comes alive. (Patton Oswalt appears briefly as the mayor, his only real job to provide a body for expository dialogue to stream across.) The silver mining at the bottom of all this business isn’t portrayed at all, nor are any practical matters of running a ranch; everyone’s too busy fussing and feuding, I suppose. Cornelius Vanderbilt, glimpsed briefly on his way to visit Constance, disappears, presumably to resurface in the concluding three episodes; and by “concluding” I mean whatever brings us to the cliffhanger I assume is coming.

Beyond the hope of seeing horrible people punished and not-horrible people flourish, which I am always down for, did I care much about the fate of Jasper Hollow or Constance’s silver mine? I can’t say that I did.

Dec. 4 (UPI) — The body of a Thai agricultural worker held hostage in Gaza for nearly 800 days has been returned to Israel, the Israeli government said Thursday.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a statement that the family of Sudthisak Rinthalak, 42, had been informed of the return of his remains.

Rinthalak, who has been an agricultural worker in Israel since 2017, was killed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

He was killed in the siege of Kibbutz Be’eri and his body was taken back into the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The Israeli military said he was taken from the kibbutz’s orchards.

On Wednesday, Israeli officials said that they received from the Red Cross a coffin containing the remains of a hostage located during searches in the northern Gaza Strip, and that the remains would undergo examination to identify the identity of the remains.

The Israeli military determined on May 16, 2024, that Rinthalak had been killed.

Rinthalak’s family has been informed that the procedures for returning him for burial in Thailand will be carried out in coordination with the Thai Embassy in Israel.

“The government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Rinthalak family, the Thai people and all of fallen hostages’ families,” the office of the prime minister said.

The Thai Embassy confirmed in a statement that it has been informed of the development.

“The Thai government will cooperate with the Israeli government to arrange for the dignified repatriation of Mr. Sudthisak’s remains to Thailand at the earliest opportunity,” it said.

With the return of Rinthalak’s remains, only one of the 251 hostages Hamas kidnapped remains in Gaza.

Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, 24, was taken on Oct. 7, 2023, from Alumim, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

The final remaining hostages, dead and alive, have been returned to Israel as part of a fragile cease-fire agreement reached between Hamas and Israel in October.

Israel said it is “determined, committed and working tirelessly” to secure the return of Gvili.

“The Hamas terrorist organization is required to uphold its commitments to the mediators and return the fallen hostages as part of the implementation of the agreement,” the prime minister’s office said. “We will not compromise on this and will spare no effort until we bring him back home to Israel.”

North Tapanuli, North Sumatra – Sri Yuni Pardede, 20, was with her family at home when a thunderous crash jolted them awake at 2:30am (09:30 GMT). “My mother-in-law said it was just thunder. I said, ‘No, the house is shaking.’ Not long after, boulders came crashing down,” she recalled.

“My younger sibling was staying over. When the landslide happened, I kicked him to wake him up. If we had all been sleeping, we would have died in that house.” Grabbing her daughter, Eleanor, Sri fled to the nearby church. From the hilltop, they watched in horror as another landslide completely destroyed their home.

For a week now, the family has taken refuge at the church alongside hundreds of other displaced victims. The cyclone-triggered floods and landslides have killed at least 770 people, according to government data, with 463 people still missing.

“Praise God, we were all saved. Our belongings can be replaced, what matters is that the children and everyone else survived,” she said. The trauma, however, lingers. “Whenever I hear a sound, like a door opening or closing, I get scared. Any loud noise shocks me. On our first day at the church, I heard the noise of a helicopter. I screamed; ‘We’re going to die!’ I nearly fainted because I thought it was another landslide.”

Sri hopes for government assistance with relocation. “We cannot return there. We don’t want to live there any more. We are too traumatised,” she explained.

BBC Breakfast aired an emotional interview as Kevin Sinfield met the family of Kyle Sieniawski, 14, who died last week

BBC Breakfast interviewed the family of 14-year-old Kyle Sieniawski, who passed away last week following his motor neurone disease (MND) diagnosis earlier this year.

Former rugby league legend Kevin Sinfield has been undertaking a gruelling challenge dubbed 7 in 7: Together, completing seven ultramarathons across seven consecutive days.

The ex- Leeds Rhinos star, 45, launched the challenge to generate funds and spotlight motor neurone disease (MND) in memory of his dear friend and former teammate Rob Burrow.

During the third day of Kevin’s 7 in 7: Together challenge in South Wales, he met Kyle’s family – the 14-year-old who tragically passed away last week after receiving his MND diagnosis this year.

Kyle received his MND diagnosis in January aged just 13, after experiencing mobility loss in his arm, making him the youngest person in the UK to be diagnosed with the condition, reports the Express.

During a heartfelt video interview on BBC Breakfast, Kyle’s parents and sibling sought to meet Kevin to champion awareness, describing witnessing their son’s battle as “horrific” and “horrendous”.

Meeting with the family, Kevin declared the day was devoted to Kyle, prompting the youngster’s father to say through tears: “He was a brilliant kid. He was unbelievable”.

Kevin tenderly responded: “It’s raw for so many people and I hope you feel that the community’s there for you because it is, we’re going to make sure of that, Kyle is always remembered.”

Kyle’s mum then said: “We don’t want any other families to come next we’d rather they can cure it. Treat it.”

In a touching moment, Kevin told the family: “Thank you for coming down, we’ll run a bit faster and a little bit harder this leg. Alright?” This was before his third ultramarathon in Swansea, which he dedicated to Kyle.

Kyle’s family, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, confirmed his passing on Friday with a heartfelt tribute, describing him as a “beautiful boy” who made them smile “a million times and more”.

“We’re absolutely heartbroken to announce that our little superhero has very sadly lost his battle with MND,” they shared.

“Kyle fought with everything he had but in the end it all became too much for him and he very sadly passed away yesterday evening.”

The family further added: “We’ll miss you so very much buddy and we love you more than words could ever possibly say.

“We can already picture you up there challenging your two nans and grandad to a game of Connect 4, and that you’re making them smile, just like you made us smile a million times and more.”

BBC Breakfast continues at 6am on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Dec. 4 (UPI) — The Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen have released 11 crew members of the Eternity C shipping vessel, according to Oman, which said the released individuals were now in Muscat.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry announced the development Wednesday.

The Filipino and Indian crewmen were transported from Sana’a to the Omani capital of Muscat aboard a Royal Omani Air Force aircraft, it said. The foreign nationals will soon be returned to their home countries, the ministry added.

Eternity C, a Liberia-flagged bulk carrier, was attacked by the Houthi militants as it was attempting to cross the Red Sea in July.

The ship was sunk and its crew captured.

The Philippines’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday that it had been informed by Omani authorities that nine Filipino sailors of the Eternity C would be released after being held hostage for months.

“The Philippine Embassy in Muscat and the Migrant Workers Office-Muscat will make arrangements for the safe and immediate return of the Filipinos to the Philippines,” it said in a statement. “The Philippines expresses its sincerest appreciation to the Sultanate of Oman.”

The vessel was attacked amid the Houthis’ military blockade of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, launched November 2023, shortly after the war between Hamas and Israel began, stating it was in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Eternity C was initially struck by five rocket-propelled grenades on July 7, and was surrounded by smaller Houthi boats.

According to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, the vessel was under continuous attack on July 8. Overnight, search-and-rescue operations were launched, saving five crew members.

Four crew members were killed in the attack.

Household energy bills will rise to help fund a £28bn investment in the UK’s energy network.

Most of the funding in energy regulator Ofgem’s five-year plan will go towards maintaining gas networks, but £10.3bn will be used to strengthen the electricity transmission network.

Households will see an additional £108 added to energy bills by 2031 under the plan.

But Ofgem said that what people would end up paying for energy will only rise by £30 a year, as the investment will help lower the reliance on imported gas and make wholesale energy cheaper.

Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said the investment “will keep Britain’s energy network among the safest, most secure and resilient in the world”.

“The investment will support the transition to new forms of energy and support new industrial customers to help drive economic growth and insulate us from volatile gas prices,” he said.

Speaking ahead of Ofgem’s announcement, Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power told the BBC’s Today programme the investment would also remove constraints in the system, which means the company would not need to be paid to turn off its wind turbines.

“This will be the biggest wave of investment in our electricity infrastructure since it was built by our grandfathers back in the 1950s and it will give us a system that is fit for purpose for the country for the 21st century,” he said.

The five-year plan covers maintenance and expansion of the network and the move away from a reliance on volatile international gas prices.

Ofgem has described this as a defining moment for Britain’s energy system – striking a balance between investing for the future and how much that costs billpayers.

Companies that run energy networks – including power lines and cables – are separate from suppliers. They have monopolies in different parts of the country.

This plan sets the framework for how they deliver a safe and secure supply, and the cost controls they face for five years, from next year.

It also comes after a government pledge in the Budget to remove certain costs, the equivalent to about £150 from a typical annual bill.

A NEPO baby actor attended a glitzy red carpet event alongside his A-lister mum, but can you guess who she is?

The world-famous actress attended the London premiere of Christmas drama Goodbye June on Wednesday night, and with good reason.

Her son, 21, wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Netflix release, which is essentially a family-made project as it was directed by his Oscar-winning mum.

The actor posed for cameras as he attended the film‘s world launch at The Curzon in Mayfair, central London – joined by his superstar mum – who made her directorial debut in the film.

The budding star, who also has a very famous dad, was born in New York back in 2003 to celeb British parents, and was raised between the States and the UK.

His mum and dad, who got married the same year, before they split in 2011, after eight years together.

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The actor has since returned to the UK, after permanently relocating with his mum and half-sister to avoid paps in New York – with the family residing in West Wittering, Sussex.

He followed in his mum’s footsteps by pursing a career in acting, and made his on-screen debut in Oscar-winning British war drama 1917 back in 2019, which was directed by his dad.

He then went on to appear in Channel 4‘s female-led drama series I Am Ruth back in 2022, and picked up a role in biographical war drama Lee in 2023.

His first lead role also came in 2023, as he played George Bobbin in the coming-of-age rom-com musical Bonus Track.

And now, he’s sharing a significant career milestone with his mum, as the pair worked on a new project together.

Joe Anders is the son of Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes, who were once a film industry power couple.

But award-winning actress Kate, 50, claimed her credits on the film from behind the camera for once, rather than in front of it.

She attended the red carpet of Netflix’s Goodbye June with her son Joe, as it marked her first ever time in the directors chair.

It was also a significant step-up in Joe’s career, as the actor wrote the screenplay for the film.

He may have also picked up some skills from his filmmaker dad Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar on his directorial debut for 1999 blockbuster American Beauty.

Joe opted for a classic black two-piece suit look with a white shirt, while Kate kept it simple with a floor-length black shoulder-less dress.

They appeared together on the carpet ahead of the movie’s release next Friday.

The film is described as a family drama centred on “fractured siblings who must come together under sudden and trying circumstances”.

The film’s star-studded cast includes Andrea Riseborough, Toni Collette and Timothy Spall, who also appeared on the red carpet. 

The festive drama will be released on Friday, December 12 on Netflix, just in time for the Christmas holidays.

Just over half of citizens across nine European countries believe there is a high risk of a conflict, French poll finds.

A majority of citizens in Germany, France, the Netherlands and several other European Union member states believe there is a high chance of Russia going to war with their country, a survey has found.

Across nine European countries surveyed, just over half of respondents said the risk of war was “high” or “very high”, the survey by French pollster Cluster17 showed on Thursday.

Poland, which shares a border with Russia and was formerly a part of the Soviet Union, showed by far the most anxiety about war, with 77 percent of respondents seeing a high risk of conflict, according to the survey.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, 59 percent of respondents saw a high risk of war, with roughly half of Germans, French and Spanish saying the same.

Italians were the least likely to see a risk of war, at 34 percent of respondents, followed by Portuguese and Croatians.

Meanwhile, just under half of Europeans surveyed said they viewed United States President Donald Trump as an “enemy of Europe,” up four points from September.

The poll was published in the Paris-based foreign affairs journal Le Grand Continent.

Europe’s security environment has been a pressing concern for its leaders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

France announced last week that it would reintroduce military service, which was abolished in 1996, from next year on a voluntary basis, following similar moves by Belgium and the Netherlands.

French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly cast the move as a response to Russian aggression, warning that Moscow would seek to exploit any “signal of weakness”.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Europe that Moscow was “ready” for war as he lashed out at proposed changes to a Trump-backed plan to end the war in Ukraine.

“We are not going to fight Europe, I have said this a hundred times. But if Europe suddenly wants to fight and starts, we are ready right now,” Putin told reporters ahead of talks with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Our Joseph Trevithick spent the day with Northrop Grumman and its subsidiary Scaled Composites at Mojave Air And Space Port to get the first look at the company’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) demonstrator, dubbed Project Talon.

The company says Talon has been in the works for 15 months and they are targeting another nine months till its first flight. The aircraft was designed based on lessons learned from Increment One of the USAF’s CCA program, which Northrop Grumman lost to General Atomics and Anduril. Both of those aircraft, the YFQ-42 and YFQ-44 are now flying, with the service’s Increment Two of the program fast approaching on the horizon.

Northrop Grumman says Talon is “cheaper and better” and “significantly different” than what it offered for Increment One. The firm’s Increment One design was on the higher performance and capability end of the spectrum, but also at a higher cost than Talon. The goal with Project Talon was to make something with as close to similar performance as possible, but at a lower cost. The resulting design is superior in some aspects, according to Northrop Grumman. Still, this new aircraft isn’t necessarily targeted at Increment Two, with company officials saying there is already high interest from the services and foreign buyers in Talon.

While not fully missionized in its current form, Talon can be adapted to a range of roles, based on customer requirements. The program’s engineering is split 50/50 between Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites. The company’s Prism autonomy package — which works as the brain and command and control capability for the aircraft — is already flying on the firm’s Beacon demonstrator. Talon also leveraged the latest in digital design tools that Northrop Grumman has in their quiver to achieve rapid development and maximized capabilities.

The arrival of this design comes not long after Lockheed Martin unveiled its Vectis drone, that can be used in the CCA role. Other competitors are also very active in the space, including Boeing already flying its MQ-28 for instance, as well as General Atomics and Anduril which are already producing aircraft under Increment One of the CCA initiative.

Many more details to come, we will be updating this post shortly, but as of now, Northrop Grumman has firmly thrown its hat in the CCA ring in a very public manner with Talon.

UPDATE: Design and Features

What we are seeing in the image released and from seeing the aircraft in person is that it takes on a relatively familiar form, featuring a lambda wing, v-tail, dorsal trapezoid-shaped inlet, and shovel-shaped nose. It also has a chine-line edge that runs across the nose. Sawtooth-edged and trapezoidal panels are seen around the aircraft. It has a round, semi-recessed exhaust for its single turbofan engine located between the tails. The drone is clearly optimized with low-observable (stealthy) characteristics especially from the critical forward aspect.

The bottom isn’t flat and has a large sawtooth edged panel, which could be a weapons bay (likely the case) but that was not officially confirmed by the company. The drone has three air data probes jutting out of its shovel nose, which is relatively common for this kind of configuration at this point in its development. Three small domed antennas dot the aircraft’s forward upper fuselage and another atop the intake, as well what appear to be four canted vertical aerials. Widely spaced single-tire main gear under the wing that retracts inward is also seen. A small aperture below the nose is also present, which could feature a camera for flight testing and general navigational use.

The general resemblance to General Atomics’ YFQ-42 is undeniable, although there are major differences in the details and especially in the wing design. In fact, the aircraft looks more like the company’s XQ-67 demonstrator, which helped inform the YFQ-42, than anything else. It’s also worth noting that the FAA’s registration for the aircraft, which carries the n-number N444LX, shows it as Model 444, which follows historically with designation naming of Scaled Composites aircraft.

UPDATE: Additional Details

Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites are not yet providing detailed specifications about the Project Talon design. However, it has been disclosed that the drone has a lower detailed part count and an approximately 50 percent reduction in total parts, overall, compared to Northrop Grumman’s Increment One CCA design. It is also approximately 1,000 pounds lighter and 30 percent faster to produce, in part due to its fully composite material structure.

One specific detail that was shared is that the Project Talon drone’s landing gear comes from an existing aircraft design, but Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites declined to say which one. This is a relatively common way to help keep costs and design time low. Scaled Composites does pride itself on designing the landing gear for many of its aircraft in-house.

“There’s not a full ‘digital twin‘ for the aircraft, but digital tools have been used extremely extensively,” Greg Morris, President of Scaled Composites, also noted.

“It’s an optimization question, leveraging each aspect of the process in order to enable you to go as fast as possible,” he added. “Digital environments are amazing for some things. Testing in the physical world is amazing at other things. Marrying the two together gets you the benefits of both.

The Project Talon name is in part a callback to Northrop’s T-38 Talon jet trainer, which was also designed with high performance (and high maneuverability), as well as affordability, in mind.

“And it’s got a cool sound to it, too,” Tom Jones, President of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems sector, said during today’s event.

Jones confirmed that Project Talon was originally named Project Lotus, but the reason for the name change has not yet been disclosed. Aviation Week first reported on the existence of Project Lotus in October after the drone was spotted out in the open at Mojave.

“All I can say about what could have happened is we would have had a better offering. I can’t say whether we would have been in or out, right,” Jones said when asked about whether the Project Talon design would have fared better in the Increment One CCA competition. 

“I think the debate has been ongoing, [and] continues to rage, on affordability versus performance,” he added at the event in Mojave. “This was an experiment on a new methodology for designing aircraft faster that would enable us to scale manufacturing faster, which we believe is going to be a key requirement.”

“The whole concept behind Collaborative Combat Aircraft, it’s all about affordable mass, which means you need to keep the cost down,” the President of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems sector also noted. ”I think the other thing is, because you would use affordable mass ostensibly in war of attrition, you’re going to lose these, so not only do you want it to be affordable, you want to be able to replenish that mass at rate.”

“We need to be able to ramp up manufacturing quickly,” he continued. “This [Project Talon] was built to be produced quickly, not just to be affordable.”

Jones also stressed that he sees Project Talon’s “experiment in new methodology” as one that could have broader impacts across Northrop Grumman.

“The outcome was an aircraft,” he said. “But the outcome we were shooting for was the process. How do we design and build things that perform at a high level, but that we can build quickly and that we can do affordably.”

“I think what we learned is we took a high-side compliant engineering organization and taught them a different way of thinking about innovation. Innovation is not always about the subsystem that performs the highest. Sometimes it is. We’re extremely good at that,” he added. “Sometimes it’s not. In those cases, we’re still extremely good at making something very complex.”

In Mojave today, Northrop Grumman representatives highlighted how much the company spends on internal research and development and other capital investments, which is said to be roughly 40 percent higher than “peer” competitors based on publicly available financial data. As an example, Northrop Grumman has put roughly $1 billion into independent research and development (IRAD) in the past year or so.

“So this [Project Talon] was really about kind of broadening that paradigm to what it means to be a high performing engineering, aviation development, and manufacturing organization – to encompass all aspects of it,” Jones said. “There’s different approaches for different requirements. And I’m really happy with results that we got.”

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

Claude, a rare albino alligator whose ghostly white scales and statue-like stillness earned him a cult-like following around the world, died Tuesday, according to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He was 30.

The cause was end-stage liver cancer, Bart Shepherd, director of the museum’s Steinhart Aquarium, said in an interview Wednesday night.

A connoisseur of fish heads (preferably trout) and just-unfrozen rats dubbed “ratsicles,” Claude had been closely monitored in recent weeks because of a waning appetite. He was moved out of his publicly viewable swamp habitat to be treated for a suspected infection and had seemed to be responding well to antibiotics before he was found dead early Tuesday morning, Shepherd said.

A necropsy was conducted at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on Tuesday, revealing that “almost the entire liver” was overtaken with cancerous tumors, Shepherd said.

Hatched at a Louisiana alligator farm on Sept. 15, 1995, Claude rose to fame in San Francisco, where he spent the last 17 years living in a swamp habitat at the Academy of Sciences aquarium in Golden Gate Park.

Claude became an unofficial mascot for the City by the Bay, where he appeared on billboards and advertisements at bus and light-rail stations. He was the subject of two children’s books. And his every move was tracked by a recently launched 24/7 livestream called Claude Cam, underwritten by San Francisco-based tech company Anthropic, which developed an artificial intelligence chatbot called, you guessed it, Claude.

In a post on X, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called the gator the museum’s “cold-blooded icon” and wrote that “San Francisco is heartbroken by the loss of Claude — our city’s distinguished albino alligator who was taken from us in his prime at just 30.”

Museum staffers dubbed Claude their “iconic swamp king.” And thousands turned out for his 30th birthday bash in September, during which he was presented a “cake” made of fish and ice and a proclamation from Mayor Daniel Lurie, declaring Sept. 15 to be “Claude the Alligator Hatch Day.”

“Claude represented that core San Francisco value of seeing the beauty & value in everyone, including those who are a bit different from the norm. Rest in peace, buddy,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) tweeted Tuesday.

Measuring 10 feet long and weighing 300 pounds, Claude was one of fewer than 200 alligators in the world with albinism, a genetic mutation that causes an inability to produce melanin, making his translucent skin appear white.

The condition resulted in poor eyesight, which, along with his inability to camouflage himself, made him vulnerable to predators in the wild, according to the museum. American alligators without albinism can live about 50 years in their natural habitats, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, but they can live up to 70 in captivity.

As a “banana-sized” baby, Claude was moved from the Louisiana alligator farm where he hatched to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida, where he lived in an enclosure alone for 13 years.

In 2008, Claude was loaded into a wooden crate and trucked across the country to San Francisco.

He made the four-day trip — albeit in a separate crate — with Bonnie, a female alligator with typical pigmentation. Biologists hoped they would get along and placed them in the museum’s swamp exhibit together.

But Bonnie did not like Claude, whose limited vision caused him to bump into his surroundings — and into her. She bit his right front pinkie toe, which became infected and had to be surgically removed.

Bonnie was sent back to Florida. Claude’s toe remains in the museum’s veterinary hospital in a jar.

He lived peacefully with three female alligator snapping turtles named Donatello, Raphael and Morla, each of whom was believed to be at least 50 years old.

Claude’s enclosure had no doors for human access. Biologists had to use a ladder to climb down into the space for his weekly feedings.

Claude once swallowed a child’s ballet slipper that fell into his enclosure — he was placed under anesthesia to have it removed — but spent much of his time in the near-total stillness typical of an ambush predator.

“He didn’t move much. That was the joke with Claude — if you see him move, it’s an amazing day,” said Emma Bland Smith, who wrote a nonfiction children’s book about him called “Claude: The True Story of a White Alligator.”

Smith, who interviewed biologists who cared for Claude, said children are enthralled by the gator’s “rags to riches” story.

“Claude had been through a lot in his life,” Smith said. “We tend to anthropomorphize animals, but there is just something about Claude that is so appealing and charming. Claude was able to find a place for himself in the world even though he was different from others.”

Smith said she had done a reading at the museum about two weeks before Claude’s death and, as she did during frequent visits, peered down at him, smiled, and said, “Hey, Claude.”

“He doesn’t do anything,” she said, “but you feel this connection with him.”

The California Academy of Sciences said it will host a public memorial for Claude “in the near future.”

Shepherd said Claude’s care team at the museum has been heartened by an enormous outpouring of support — text messages, emails and voicemails from around the world; flowers placed outside the facility; even an edible fruit arrangement for staffers.

“It’s nice to see people care about the folks that care about these animals,” he said. “It’s also been a reminder to me about … the reach that even one animal can have. It really was global.”

Dec. 4 (UPI) — A Gallup poll published Wednesday shows that majorities of both political parties in the United States think that inflammatory criticism and cruel political rhetoric have gone too far.

Although Americans on each side of the political divide tend to believe the opposite party has gone more overboard, there is broad agreement that political rhetoric is out of hand and that political violence is being driven by growing hostility.

“Larger majorities of Americans than in the past believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties and their supporters have gone too far in using inflammatory language to criticize their opponents,” Jeffrey Jones of Gallup wrote in an analysis of the poll.

When asked if the Republican Party and Republicans have gone too far, 69% of Gallup respondents said yes, a 16-percentage-point increase from 2011, while 60% said that Democrats and their supporters have done so, a nine percentage-point-increase.

Additionally, Gallup reports that members of both parties are now “nearly unanimous” in believing the other party has gone too far with it’s rhetoric — 94% of Democrats say Republicans have gone too far, with 93% of Republicans saying the same about Democrats.

Conversely, “partisans are disinclined to believe their own part has gone too far with it’s rhetoric and are no more likely now than in 2011 to hold this view,” Gallup found.

The poll was conducted between Oct. 1 and 16, a few weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University in September.

Gallup said it used questions similar to what it asked in a poll 14 years ago, after former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot during a 2011 political event.

Another question on factors that may cause political violence found that 71% of Americans blame the spread of extremist viewpoints online, 64% attribute “a great deal” of blame to politicians and political commentators and 52% look to failures by the mental health system.

Just under half of Americans, 45%, said easy access to guns is to blame, and less than a third blamed drug use, security in public buildings or violence in entertainment for the seeming uptick in political violence.

Overall, Gallup notes that in 2011 slim majorities of either party thought that the parties had been going too far in how they criticize each other.

“The beliefs are more common now,” Jones wrote. “Americans view inflammatory rhetoric, along with the spread of extremist views on the Internet, as the two factors most to blame for political violence in the country.”

“While partisans are reluctant to blame their own side for going too far with the tone of their political rhetoric, they are generally in agreement on the major factors contributing to political violence in the United States.”

“Our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty, rich and rare. Advance Australia fair.” Australia’s national anthem spells it plainly. The southern land is a trove of critical minerals. In October, US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met in Washington to sign the critical minerals framework agreement, one that shifts the scales against the Chinese critical mineral hegemony.

Introduction

The US$8.5 billion deal strengthens rare earth supply chains outside China, a strategic move for US stakeholders in the South Pacific. Following the deal, Trump assured the US commitment to the AUKUS (Australian, UK, US) security agreement, which Trump claims is “full steam ahead.” US investment in Australian mineral processing facilities is the first in almost a decade, signifying US counterefforts against Chinese rare earth monopolization and confirming Australia’s vital role in the global mineral supply chain.

Investment, Extraction, and Refinement of Australian Minerals

In October, the tightening of mineral export and refinement deals between the US and Southeast Asia was expedited more than ever, leaving Australia, a crucial trading ally to the United States and China, amidst a rare minerals trade war. Effective Immediately after the agreement, $1 billion in US financing will be funneled to Australian and US joint projects in rare earth mining and refinement processes. This comes after the $2 billion copper refinery commitment of Japan to the US and a $117 million AUD commitment to the Malaysian rare earth agreement. With recent Trump Administration deals in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, US efforts to diversify access to critical minerals are clear, with critical negotiations surging to secure a diverse critical mineral network.

Chinese mineral leverage by Xi Jinping has caused a chokehold on global critical mineral supplies, promoting US diversification to remediate vulnerable supply chains. However, critical mineral refinement has not been wholly embraced by other countries in the industry, suggesting the need for refinement capabilities under US-Australian cooperation. China controls 80% of rare earth mineral processing, which will require significant capital investment and environmental regulation. Australia has long been increasing its refinement capabilities but lags in contention with Chinese capabilities.

The influence Beijing wields cannot be disregarded and signals that any trade deals regarding the extraction or refinement of critical minerals in Southeast Asia will trigger backlash against the Chinese stranglehold. Historically, US mineral diversification has become complex when geopolitical tensions with Beijing escalated. In 2023, Chinese export restrictions on gallium and germanium in response to US semiconductor export controls exposed the dependency of Western critical mineral access on China. In August of this year, a US contractor-bound Australian shipment of antimony was barred from leaving the Chinese Ningbo port due to the Beijing-Washington trade war resulting in a ban on Chinese antimony exports to the US. Gallium is a critical mineral used in semiconductors; likewise is antimony, which Australia holds large untapped reserves of in Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia. 

Expanding the US-Australian partnership advances mineral potential for industrial and economic development in Australia. In the deal’s framework, Australia is to reduce long-term dependency on Chinese critical minerals and strengthen its bilateral base with America. With the creation of an alternate supply chain, the US can circumvent Chinese market control of minerals and semiconductors. Reducing Chinese refinement interdependence could be the signal for Western allies and mineral-rich nations to bolster sustainable supply chains and independent mining and refinement capacities. In the new minerals deal, the US will separately invest in a 100-tonne-per-year gallium refinery in Western Australia, with $2.2 billion in financing for critical mineral projects by the Export-Import Bank.

 In response to US-Australian investment, China calls for supply chain stability. Beijing has expanded its rare earth export and curbed automotive supply chain issues, while the US-Australia mineral deal intends to break Chinese dominance in semiconductor dominance. Growing uncertainty in the semiconductor supply chain heightens contentions over EV and smartphone critical technology, urging Beijing to defend its market position. Spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guo Jiakun told reporters at NBC that resource-rich nations should “play a proactive role in safeguarding security and stability of the industrial supply chains.” The comment strongly alludes to Chinese interests in preserving its role in the global critical minerals market. This comes after early October, when China expanded its rare earth controls to prevent a claimed “misuse” of critical minerals in defense and sensitive sectors, such as the use of semiconductors in missiles and fighter jets.

From Bathroom Tiles to Ballistic Missiles

Recent realignment on US resource security and technological cooperation repositions allied defense control and dominance in critical mineral refinement and extraction. With the US spearheading the critical minerals endorsement of Australia in reducing Chinese dominance, the momentum closely follows the G7’s 5-point plan on ensuring critical minerals security. As a key Pacific ally, Australia is integral for its compatible political system and rich mineral supply, being among the global leaders in producing cobalt, manganese, zircon, tantalum, and roughly half of global lithium supplies.

With the AUKUS deal, rare earth mineral refinement and US-Australian control will streamline the process of developing coalition weapons platforms, such as AUKUS pillar 1 Virginia-class nuclear submarines, which will replace the aging Australian fleet. The deal is a critical injection and viable investment of US subsidies due to the failing execution of the “Made in Australia” policy, which has inadequately performed in elevating Australian mineral refinement capacities. Increased visibility of the use of Australian critical minerals by China for weapons development led to the exclusion of China from critical minerals projects in the deal. Cooperation with Beijing is currently faulty, as the refinement and export of rare earth minerals such as gallium to US reserves has been disconnected.

The list of “critical” minerals is ever-changing, running some 50 elements. In the Australian Outback exist vast untapped reserves of cobalt, vanadium, and tungsten. Zirconium is traditionally used in bathroom tiles and toilet bowls but is also used in hypersonic missiles due to its withstanding high temperatures. Chinese companies are the largest shareholders in Australian mineral exports of zirconium, providing a vulnerable cornerstone of Chinese interest in the resource. Zirconium processing is potentially being re-exported to Russia for development in Russian military weaponry, as Chinese to Russian exports surged 300% since 2022. In addition, under the Chinese military fusion doctrine, commercial and tech company development is under the jurisdiction of the Chinese military. This draws tensions with Australian officials and export controls, as zirconium is also used in nuclear power capabilities, such as zirconium sponge in fuel rods. China, however, has less than 1% of the world’s zirconium supply, leaving it vulnerable to export controls in Australian-US agreements. Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd suggested that the US and Australian definition of “critical minerals” for policy reasons should be narrowed to the potential for weapons integration, acting as defense assets to feed weapons systems and technology.

In the consumer market, the US auto industry indicates the supply chain has difficulties in the Electric Vehicle (EV) transition acceleration process. EV batteries are vital for the Biden-era environmental goals of Ford, GM, and European auto companies, but decades of Chinese-dependent supply chains could have lasting economic impacts that could devastate the EV market. Beijing’s understanding of its position has been used as leverage for more cooperative trade agreements between the US and the West, as they call for cooperation while accelerating mineral processing infrastructure.

For reciprocity of the deal in both the US and Australia, US mineral access and refinement must ensure mutual benefit through security investments to uphold Australian sovereignty. Outside of China, the second largest critical minerals refinery is the Australian company Lynas Rare Earths, which relies on Malaysia for refining capabilities. Australian mineral refinement companies like Lynas require US support to remain in contention with Chinese markets, which suggests a need for US foreign policy backing to ensure a strategic advantage remains. This is contrary to US-owned mining company MP Materials, which is backed by Pentagon security and price guarantees. Widely disregarded before the deal, Western industrial policies backing mineral processing suggest that a streamlined US-Australian supply chain could not survive without immense government backing.

If the erosion of Australian mineral companies grows, allied manufacturing and refinement may diminish in critical regions. Australia, on the terms of the agreement, committed $100 million of equity investment to the Arafura Nolans mineral refinement project in the Northern Territory, boring and supplying 5% of global critical minerals such as phosphate, uranium, and thorium, all used in leading weapons technologies. The strengthening of the Indo-Pacific relationship in mineral control provides a framework for resilient allied supply chains against volatile and changing Chinese markets. Extending to South Korea, Japan, and India alliances, the coalition empowers future rare earth sustainability.

 Australian Critical Minerals has dealt the cards to Canberra. New, valuable, and more negotiable than ever. New partnerships, like the US-Australian minerals deal, extend US national interests in controlling mineral sourcing, mining, and refinement against Chinese markets. To secure Pacific supply chains, US backing must be formidable, as Australia is not to sell to its largest market, China.