The mother of a Palestine Action prisoner has said she was refused a mortgage due to “adverse media”, as more pro-Palestine voices in the United Kingdom are opening up about their experiences of “debanking”.
Emma Kamio, a small business owner in south Wales, was denied a remortgage with Lloyds on her commercial properties in April due to “adverse media.”
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The decision “devastated” her, she told Al Jazeera. “It has put me in a difficult position, one where I have relinquished my responsibilities [in the family business] and let my sister pick up the slack.”
Despite the setback, she said business was no longer central in her life.
“I’ve got one goal and that’s to get my girl out of prison,” she said.
Her daughter Leona “Ellie” Kamio has also been affected. In February 2025, while the 30-year-old nursery teacher was held on remand awaiting trial, Kamio was debanked by Lloyds Bank – meaning the financial institution suddenly closed her bank accounts without explanation.
George Galloway, the Scotland-born politician and broadcaster, said last week that Bank of Scotland, owned by the Lloyds Banking Group, closed his personal account without explanation or notice after 39 years.
“My parliamentary and old age pensions are paid into these accounts,” he wrote on X. “The mortgage on our family home is paid out of them. The mortgage is with them.”
In late June, when Lloyds debanked The Canary, the left-wing news outlet wrote that the bank “has not explained why it has taken this action … despite multiple communications from us”.
More recently, the Pakistani-British writer Tariq Ali on Wednesday said a bank, which he did not name, refused to receive a transfer from his account due to his “opinions”.
“My opinions can only mean those on one subject: Palestine,” he wrote on X.
In the case of Kamio, her account was closed before the UK proscribed Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation. It was also before she was convicted of criminal damage in connection with a raid on a factory operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024 – and sentenced as a “terrorist”. Four of six Palestine Action activists convicted of criminal damage, including Kamio, are seeking to appeal their unprecedented sentencing.
Their appeal submission argues that the judge was wrong in law to find that the non-terrorism offence of criminal damage in their case had a terror connection.
Since Palestine Action was outlawed, more than 2,700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act at rallies and demonstrations in support of the group.
At the time of publishing, Lloyds had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
“We have reached a point where debanking pro-Palestine voices has become systemic,” Anas Mustapha, at the campaign group Cage which advocates against legal abuses from UK counter-terrorism strategies, told Al Jazeera.
He said Cage was debanked more than a decade ago, “with no explanation ever given”.
“Since then we’ve watched the same pattern extend further, with activists being penalised for their politics, and now the families of people jailed for opposing a genocide.”
The issue last made the headlines in late 2023, when Muslims in the UK found a rare common link with Reform leader Nigel Farage.
Anas Altikriti, head of the London-based Cordoba Foundation think-tank, was among those affected by debanking, which he said was being used as a “tool of oppression.”
“This is happening on an industrial scale, to thousands upon thousands of people,” the British entrepreneur, who has also been debanked several times, told Al Jazeera on Friday.
More than 450,000 bank accounts were closed each year, according to The Telegraph.
Altikriti argued that the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, marked the beginning of the “commercialisation of the term terrorism”.
Twenty-five years on, the term “slides off the tongue so easily for any kind of adverse opinion,” he said. “The problem is that once that term is on record, it’s always on record. It’s fixed. It’s always there and it impacts your entire life.”
Altikriti was himself labelled a “terrorist” in a banking database following a claim from the United Arab Emirates that was never independently verified by UK authorities. The British citizen said the term has not made his country safer because it is being used “in order to satisfy certain political agendas”.
“If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” he added.
The US-China G-2 concept is both normatively exclusionary and strategically constraining. The inherent limits of a G-2 framework—hierarchy, power structure, and systematic constraints—make it a non-starter in a multipolar reality. Here, I completely agree; the concept of a G2 is unworkable and constitutes a strategic exclusion of many international actors in a multipolar world order characterized by a complex distribution of power and multiple centers of decision-making. The Structural and Political Constraints, represented in:
· Unacceptable Hierarchy: This framework attempts to impose a bipolarity that ignores the rise of major regional and international powers such as the European Union, India, and Russia.
· Lack of Methodological Flexibility: This framework fails to accommodate global issues that transcend borders and require broad collective cooperation, not just bilateral understandings.
· Conflicting Interests: The current strategic and geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing makes it impossible to manage the international system through joint governance. The structural conflict of interests between Washington and Beijing renders joint management of the international system impossible, amidst a fierce struggle for technological leadership, economic dominance, and the reshaping of national security rules. This manifests itself in:
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– First: The Roots of the Strategic Conflict
A) The Challenge to Hegemony: China seeks to reshape international rules and challenge absolute American supremacy.
B) The American Shift: Washington adopts a strategy of confrontation and containment to reduce Chinese influence and supply chains.
– Second: Arenas of International Conflict
A) Technology and Trade: The chip war, tariffs, and control over advanced technology.
B) Regional Sovereignty: The escalating competition in the South China Sea and the Taiwan issue.
Trump’s China policy has shifted from confrontation to accommodation. If we wonder how true that is, to claim that Donald Trump’s policy toward China has completely shifted from confrontation to accommodation is inaccurate. It is merely a superficial shift toward de-escalation and managing disputes through deals, while the underlying geopolitical and structural competition remains intense.
– Manifestations of De-escalation and Deals (Tactical Accommodation)
· Diplomatic Summits: A state visit to Beijing in mid-May 2026 and frequent summits with President Xi Jinping to reduce escalating tensions.
· Trade Settlements: Temporarily reducing some reciprocal tariffs and concluding major deals, such as Boeing aircraft orders and easing chip restrictions for major companies.
· Regional Crisis Management: Seeking cautious coordination or neutralizing China’s role in some global energy and shipping crises.
– Constants of Conflict and Confrontation (Ongoing Competition)
· Technological Restrictions and Economic Structure: The complex core of the conflict over intellectual property and control of advanced technology remains unresolved.
· Legal and Institutional Pressures: Reciprocal restrictions and legislation continue, with China activating its blocking statute to counter extraterritorial US sanctions.
· The Taiwan file and military strategy: Divergent major strategic interests and military deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region.
China wants to be seen on par with Washington. The Chinese gave Trump everything he wanted but nothing of substance. Taiwan was off the table at the Beijing May 2026 meet. Here, political assessments of the Beijing summit held in May 2016 vary. Some believe China successfully established itself as a rival to Washington, while others consider the results to have ranged from symbolic gains to continued ambiguity regarding issues such as Taiwan and trade deals. The summit’s dimensions and outstanding issues can be summarized as follows:
· International parity: Beijing sought to solidify its image as a major power capable of competing with and managing the power struggle with the United States.
· Taiwan’s position: Taiwan was naturally absent from the direct bilateral talks between the two leaders, amidst strong Chinese warnings to Washington about the dangers of arms sales to the island.
· Mutual gains: Opinions differed regarding the extent of concessions. Analysts believe the Trump administration did not secure any decisive, substantive commitments on certain regional issues in exchange for a temporary easing of trade tensions.
Beijing has sought to solidify its image as a major power capable of rivaling and managing the struggle for influence with the United States. It aims to establish itself as a major power on par with Washington through a variety of economic, technological, and military tools, skillfully managed through a policy of gradual retaliation and the management of international competition. This is achieved through:
– First: Economic and Technological Tools
Rare Earth Minerals: Controlling the production of raw materials vital to advanced technologies and imposing export restrictions on them.
Trade War: Reciprocal and gradual retaliation against US tariffs to mitigate the effects of economic pressure.
Supply Chains: Leveraging the Belt and Road Initiative to enhance global trade routes.
– Second: Geopolitical and Diplomatic Presence
Multipolarity: Supporting a new international order that limits unilateral US hegemony.
Partnerships and Alliances: Expanding diplomatic and economic influence in vital regions such as Africa and Latin America.
There were some raised questions related to whether US-China friendship is bad for India and whether their infighting is bad for India too. Here, I partially agree with this view, as the interaction between Washington and Beijing presents both gains and risks for India. The conflict grants New Delhi strategic room for maneuver and security alignment with the US, but sharp conflicts or a sudden rapprochement between the two giants could exert economic and political pressure on India’s interests.
– First: Risks of US-China Conflict and Friendship for India
· Bilateral Accords Between Washington and Beijing: If the two powers reach trade agreements or strategic stability without India’s involvement, it could diminish New Delhi’s importance as a crucial ally for containing China.
· Economic and Trade Pressure: Global conflicts, tensions, and reciprocal tariffs affect the stability of markets and supply chains upon which India depends.
· Regional Military Escalation: Direct conflict increases the likelihood of India’s regional involvement due to its direct border disputes with China.
– Second: Opportunities and Gains for India from Competition
· Strengthening Strategic Partnerships: US-China competition is driving Washington and Western countries to deepen military and technological cooperation with India to counterbalance Beijing’s influence.
· The strategy of multiple independence: India benefits from competition by implementing a policy of multiple alignment, protecting its decision-making independence without being completely dependent on any party.
The interaction between Washington and Beijing presents India with both opportunities and risks, most notably strategic room for maneuver, security cooperation with the US, and potential economic pressures. In terms of gains and risks, these can be assessed as follows:
– Strategic Gains
· Role for Maneuvering: New Delhi skillfully balances its relations between the two powers.
· Security Cooperation: Stronger cooperation with the US and the Quad countries to counter China’s influence.
· Economic Gains: Global companies are seeking to relocate their factories from China to India.
– Risks and Threats
· Military Escalation: A direct confrontation could force India to choose sides.
· Sudden Rapprochement: Any major deal between the US and China could marginalize India’s regional role.
· Economic Pressures: Markets and supply chains could be affected by any trade tensions between the two giants.
Beyond the US and China, India and others are building a G Minus Two for Indo-Pacific. Here, the fundamental error in the statement lies in describing India and other countries as building a G-2 alliance with the United States and China. The G-2 concept actually refers to a potential bipolar hegemony or joint management of the world solely by Washington and Beijing, while India and other regional powers are pursuing a strategy known as G-Minus Two to expand their options for independence. This can be understood through:
– Rejection of Bipolar Hegemony:
India adopts a policy of strategic independence and rejects any bipolar system or joint US-China hegemony that diminishes the role of emerging powers.
– The G-Minus Two Strategy:
New Delhi is working with partners such as Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australia, and Indonesia to build a network of flexible partnerships that balance influence and protect regional interests.
Here, the statement of Beyond US and China, India, and others building a G Minus Two for Indo-Pacific, accurately describes the shift of major regional powers like India towards building a network of independent strategic partnerships, moving away from the bipolar hegemony of the US and China. This is achieved through:
– Concepts of International Alliances
The G2 concept refers to a shared global management or potential bipolar hegemony confined exclusively to Washington and Beijing.
The G-Minus Two concept: expresses the middle power strategy of expanding its economic and defense cooperation with countries such as Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and South Korea to safeguard its strategic independence.
– Dimensions of the G-Minus Two strategy
Diversifying partnerships: avoiding the trap of bipolar polarization between the two superpowers.
Securing sea lanes and supply chains: building flexible regional blocs to enhance Asian stability.
When her home burned down in the Eaton fire, artist Susannah Mills felt lost and adrift — but never alone. Her home was part of an Altadena artists collective called JJU, or John Joyce University, named after a beloved carpenter who lived there for 26 years. And although the residents were forced to scatter in the wake of the January 2025 devastation, they remained in contact, looking for ways to support one another through what is still an ongoing process of recovery.
A few months after her loss, Mills was accepted into an artist residency at BKN, a retreat in the northern Stockholm Archipelago, where she expanded her watercolor practice from relatively small works to large scale, and explored installation. Like JJU, BKN prides itself on building community, and while there Mills began talking with BKN curator Anna Viola Hallberg about bringing other L.A. fire survivors to Sweden to experience the same sense of connection and relief Mills was feeling.
Hallberg had already been thinking along those lines and suggested they create another residency to do just that. In the fall of 2025, Mills and Hallberg, with the help of another L.A. artist, Rick Gradone, started an organization named Los Angeles Wildfire Survivors, or L.A.W.S., and raised the funds to send 13 Eaton and Malibu-based artists to BKN for two months.
The result was life-altering for the artists, most of whom were still working to rebuild from the devastating loss — and some of whom had been so occupied with the logistics of recovery that they had not been able to make time to work.
“It creates a network, and people who work together in the residency continue to help each other,” said Hallberg in a recent interview. “So there’s a really true new arts community that lingers beyond the residency.”
It soon became clear to the team behind L.A.W.S. that more needed to be done, and they solicited another round of applications for a residency, set to begin later this month at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state. Eight Eaton fire survivors have been selected in a competitive process, and plans are in the works to bring another cohort of artists to Sweden next Spring.
“We want to expand this outside of Los Angeles ultimately, because there are fires everywhere and there is climate disaster everywhere,” Mills said, explaining that the group’s mission is growing as changing weather patterns result in escalating cataclysm and displacement of artists globally.
“The media focuses on the disaster really fast, and they don’t understand just how long the recovery takes,” Gradone said in a recent interview. “So this puts some kind of resource in place where people can continue to to get help, especially artists who lose everything that they’ve made, lose their studio spaces and homes. That can’t be recovered in six months.”
L.A.W.S. operates as a not-for-profit and has applied for official nonprofit status, a process that can take some time in California. It is also actively looking for fiscal sponsorship. Up until now the group has relied on its personal connections to raise money to support its artist residencies. Mills’ partner, Brian Huskey, is a comedian and actor who has rallied celebrity friends to auction off small pieces of art on cards in support of L.A.W.S. But there is a need for more help as the group grows.
“Word has really caught on with people who want to have this experience, which I’m really happy about,” said Mills.
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing I could turn back time, Cher-like, to an era before the world fast-tracked climate change with its laissez faire approach to global warming. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Bruce Willis, left, talks with director M. Night Shyamalan on the set of the 2000 film “Unbreakable.”
(Frank Masi / Touchstone Pictures)
Unbreakable M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero thriller with a twist stars Bruce Willis, Charlayne Woodard, Robin Wright, Samuel L. Jackson and Spencer Treat Clark. 7 p.m. Vidiots, The Eagle, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org
SATURDAY
“the wheat leaping constantly from the shute,” Marley Freeman (2026). Oil, acrylic on linen, 58 by 54 inches.
(Marley Freeman / Parker Gallery)
Marley Freeman The artist’s new exhibition of paintings, “worthless serpentine,” takes its title from the writings of Joan Didion. Opening, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday, through Oct. 31. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
SUNDAY
Doyle Lane: Master Of Clay The first major museum retrospective of the Los Angeles ceramic artist features more than 100 works from the 1950s through the 1980s, from functional pottery to monumental murals, as well as archival documents. Through Feb 22. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
Marie Atoinette A 20th anniversary screening of the semibiographical period film with a postpunk- and new wave-fueled soundtrack with writer-director Sofia Coppola and star Kirsten Dunst in person. Coppola and photographer Andrew Durham will sign copies of their new book, “Making Marie Antoinette,” at the Academy Museum Store in a separately ticketed event prior the screening. 6:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
TUESDAY
Andrea Bocelli performs live in Vienna on Aug. 22.
(Thomas Kronsteiner / Getty Images)
Andrea Bocelli The Italian tenor arrives at the Hollywood Bowl for two nights on his Romanza 30th Anniversary World Tour. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
WEDNESDAY
Elliott Hundley “Book of Sand” is an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and tapestries focusing on the artist’s “own exuberant internal universe” created through compiling paint, paper cutouts, string, encaustic and other found materials. Artist led walk–through, 11 a.m.; opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Oct. 24. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com
The Peterson Show The world premiere of Janine Nabers’ play about a group of former child stars from a beloved TV show about a Black family come together after a scandal entangles their famous TV father. Directed by Michelle Bossy. Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, opens, 8 p.m. Saturday (sold out), runs through Oct. 26. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com
THURSDAY
The Case-Book of C. Auguste Dupin The world premiere of a new play adapted and directed by John Strysik, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 18. Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. theatre40.org
The Ford/Hill Project A Waterwell Production created by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel, this documentary theater piece is based on the verbatim Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court confirmation hearings, 30 years apart. The cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Betty Gabriel, Dulé Hill and Jerry O’Connell. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
The SoCal scene
A view of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles from a garden.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Hey, have you heard? The Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts will open Sept. 22 and began member previews late last week. Just kidding. Of course you have heard, because hot takes currently abound on the new $1-billion museum. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay, and Team Arts spent the week rolling out a spate of stories explaining how we got here, as well as what you can find in the shiny new 300,000-square-foot Ma Yansong-designed building.
Randolph Thompson, Desiree Mee Jung, Adam J. Smith, Nicole Javier and Julanne Chidi Hill in “Pericles” at Boston Court Pasadena.
(Brian Hashimoto)
Times theater critic Charles McNulty spent an evening at Boston Court Pasadena watching Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” which takes place at a disaster relief center, where anxious evacuees improvise a play to escape their fear of the storm they are fleeing. “It’s hard to allow yourself to fully believe in the incredible turn of events when the prevailing attitude is so emphatically tongue-in-cheek,” McNulty wrote of the West Coast premiere.
McNulty also had lunch in Manhattan with playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who has two plays running in L.A.: “Grangeville,” which McNulty calls “Los Angeles’ most acclaimed theatrical offering of the summer” and has been extended at Ruskin Group Theatre through Sept. 21; and “A Case for the Existence of God,” in a recently opened Rogue Machine production at the Matrix Theater’s Henry Murray Stage. “Drama in Hunter’s hands is built around an encounter. He doesn’t force his characters to jump through hoops,” writes McNulty in a profile. “He listens to them, as they navigate their complicated feelings, closely tracking the way their intersecting paths lead them toward incremental revelation.”
IAMA Theatre Company is set to launch its ninth annual New Works Festival, which will take place Sept. 14-28 at Atwater Village Theatre, and will feature staged readings of six new plays. Tickets are $18 for each reading and can be found at iamatheatre.com. This year’s festival includes “The Half-Sibling Play” by Agyeiwaa Asante; “All Remaining Assets” by Serena Berman; “The Starters” by Laura Winters; “Betta Mus Come” by Alicia Carroll; “Werewolves” by Liba Vaynberg; and “The Great Florida Python Challenge” by John Lavelle.
Additional tumult is coming for the Smithsonian Institution as secretary Lonnie Bunch announced he will step down from his leadership position. The news comes in the midst of President Trump’s pressure campaign on the organization and his administration’s attempts to alter what Smithsonian museums include in their exhibitions.
Donald Trump is set to arrive in Ireland on Saturday, but most Irish people aren’t happy about it.
A recent poll by the Sunday Independent and Ireland Thinks reported that 69 percent do not support the US president’s visit.
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“Thousands of us will march on Saturday because we refuse to normalise a man who has facilitated genocide,” Sean Radcliffe, an economics undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, told Al Jazeera.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin “should say it clearly, firmly, and publicly: the United States is facilitating genocide,” added Radcliffe, who is a leader of the student body’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign.
Sean Corcoran, an environmental artist based on the Copper Coast in Waterford, spent five hours with three others carving “No Kings” – a nod to anti-Trump protests under the same name in the US, along with “Gaza, Iran, Ice,” into the sand of Dublin Bay Beach.
“As an Irish artist and citizen, I believe it is important for me to use my voice to share my opinion about the Trump administration,” he told Al Jazeera. “Despite the diplomatic and security welcome that Mr Trump will receive when he lands in Ireland, the majority of Irish do not welcome him to Ireland.”
Many in Ireland are using Trump’s visit as a way to show their anger over US policies [Courtesy: Uplift]
Trump is expected to meet with several figures in Ireland’s leadership, including Martin and antiwar President Catherine Connolly, who has previously said the US is, along with France and England, a nation Ireland “certainly cannot trust”.
Protests are planned throughout Ireland, including in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance. Many are themed against Trump’s role in supporting Israel’s actions in Palestine.
Ireland, one of the West’s most vocal critics of Israel, was the first European Union country to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements.
Roughly 4,000 security personnel will be enlisted to protect the US leader from protests and other risks during his visit, including roughly 1,000 US Secret Service agents and “anti-drone weaponry”.
Following his visits with Ireland’s political elites and the US ambassador to Ireland, resulting in the temporary shutdown of Phoenix Park, one of Europe’s largest parks, he is expected to visit the Irish Open golf tournament in Doonbeg, where Trump owns a resort.
Connolly, whose role is largely ceremonial, has said that she is “not afraid to stand against the consensus”. She secured a landslide victory in October 2025.
During her campaign, Connolly said she would meet the US president in her official capacity, but added that “I doubt that [genocide] would be the discussion, I doubt that [Gaza] would be on the agenda”.
“People expect a slightly more activist president who might speak out,” Johan Dornschneider-Elkink, professor of Computational Political Science at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera. “The high level of consensus in the Irish population means that the president can also feel a bit comfortable pushing it a bit.”
Still, the limitations of Connolly’s role, and the economic obligations of the taoiseach are expected to overshadow the issue of Palestine during high-level conversations.
‘Ireland is very much aligned in spirit’
“I think [the protest] shows that Ireland is very much aligned in spirit and policy-wise with the Palestinian people; they very much identify with Palestine,” Stephanie Dornschneider-Elkink, associate professor of Political Science at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera.
“But there’s also only so much space to be critical. Ireland depends on the US, and there’s an economic relationship at stake.”
Johan added that the visit is more an opportunity for Irish people who want to make known their stance on both Palestine and the Trump administration.
“There’s an understanding that Trump is one president among many, and there will be another president. There’s a longer history of the Irish-US relationship which nobody wants to see damaged.”
Leader of the Opposition Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein, told journalists this week that she hoped Connolly would raise issues like “ongoing facilitation of a genocide in Gaza,” adding that the party will take part in Saturday’s protests.
The party’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, trade, and defence, Donnchadh O Laoghaire TD, shared on his Instagram that he would join the protest in the Garden of Remembrance, asking others to join him “to stand up against genocide and against war”.
US President Donald Trump and Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin attend a St Patrick’s Day reception in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2026 [Kylie Cooper/Reuters]
The demonstration is organised by the Irish Neutrality League, in coalition with the Irish Anti-War Movement and social justice movement Tonn na Cle, and has received endorsements from the Social Democrats, Labour, People Before Profit-Solidarity, and the Green Party, in addition to Sinn Fein.
Student groups in Ireland have been among the loudest voices of pro-Palestine organising in the country, with Trinity College Dublin becoming the first university in the world to officially sever ties with Israel.
Radcliffe said there is no generational divide “of any significance” over the Israel-Palestine conflict in Ireland.
“Some of the best [pro-Palestine] activists I know in Ireland are pensioners,” he said.
Premier League club, Hull City, confirm car accident involving their player Sorba Thomas, but say no injury sustained.
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
Hull City winger Sorba Thomas escaped “completely unscathed” when he was involved in a crash near their training ground, his Premier League club said on Friday.
British media reported that his car ended up on its roof on Friday morning in the village of Cottingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Images of his upturned car with shattered glass on a narrow street went viral on social media.
“Hull City is relieved to confirm that Sorba Thomas is unharmed following a road traffic accident near to the club’s Cottingham training ground,” the club said in a statement.
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“The club is aware of images of Sorba’s car circulating on social media and can reassure supporters that he has sustained no injuries and emerged from his vehicle completely unscathed.”
Thomas, 27, joined newly-promoted Hull City from second-tier Championship club Stoke City on the transfer deadline day earlier this month.
The Wales international has made two appearances for Hull, who are third in the league standings after three games and visit Chelsea on Saturday.
“It felt like a movie” — that’s what we all said in the days and weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, when a Michael Bay action film slammed uncomfortably into real life. But with the perspective of 25 years, what’s lingered for the most part aren’t the most literal depictions of the day, but oblique dramas that capture something more subtle: the free-floating anxiety of a nightmare. In our list, you’ll find titles that confront Sept. 11 directly, but others that bring to mind a deeper, broader canon of trauma.
‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)
Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2001 movie “Donnie Darko.”
(NewMarket Films)
Going to the movies in the fall of 2001 was a solace and escape for many New Yorkers, though the films themselves often had an eerie, unplanned timeliness that made them resonate in an unshakable way. You could ache for the cozy city of the past in “The Royal Tenenbaums” or grapple with the schism of everything suddenly feeling different in “Mulholland Drive.” Or you could envelop yourself in Richard Kelly’s moody “Donnie Darko,” a teen drama touched by metaphysical doominess in which plane engines fall from the sky and death wears a rabbit costume. The movie has since become an unexplainable piece of comfort for a spooked generation. In its weather, its soundtrack and the haunted stare of Jake Gyllenhaal, it evokes the weeks after 9/11, even if it anticipated them. — Joshua Rothkopf
‘25th Hour’ (2002)
Edward Norton in the movie “25th Hour.”
(David Lee / Touchstone Pictures)
Only months after the attacks, Spike Lee took on 9/11 with a boldness that only 15 years of provocative filmmaking — and a lifetime of loving New York — could sharpen into an artist. This interpersonal drama, about the fallout of a drug dealer (Edward Norton) going to prison, was deep in development when real-life events altered its trajectory. Lee insisted on including the American flags dotting lawns, the general sense of unease and, in a somber touch, a credits sequence featuring the Tribute in Light. Overwhelmingly, one scene takes place in a Tribeca hi-rise with a view of ground zero, and even though the conversation itself concerns a friend in trouble, it quickly shifts onto metaphorical grounds of guilt, responsibility and rage. There still may not be a better 9/11 film than this one. — J. Rothkopf
‘Munich’ (2005)
A scene from the movie “Munich.”
(Karen Ballard / Universal Pictures)
On the surface, Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” released earlier in 2005, may seem like his more obviously 9/11-coded film (“Is it the terrorists?” Dakota Fanning’s character asks). But “Munich,” which followed six months later, goes straight to the questions of terrorism and endless cycles of retaliation that hung over the period. Eric Bana plays Avner, a Mossad operative sent to hunt down the Palestinians whom Israel holds responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. As the revenge killings mount, the mission begins to eat away at him — and Avner’s belief in closure is shaken. Spielberg makes the contemporary connections hard to ignore. In a final scene, set in mid-’70s New York, after Avner and his handler Ephraim, played by Geoffrey Rush, argue over what they have done, the camera pans across the Manhattan skyline southward, toward the Twin Towers, which Spielberg had digitally added to the shot. — Josh Rottenberg
‘United 93’ (2006)
A scene from the movie “United 93.”
(Jonathan Olley / Universal Pictures)
Five years after 9/11, it still wasn’t clear whether audiences were ready for a Hollywood movie that directly re-created the attacks. Director Paul Greengrass, then most recently of “The Bourne Supremacy,” took on the hijacked flight whose passengers fought back before it crashed in Pennsylvania. He used a largely unknown cast and shot with an almost documentary immediacy, cutting between the plane and air-traffic controllers trying to make sense of what was happening. There’s no movie star to take charge, and Greengrass doesn’t inflate the passengers into larger-than-life heroes. We simply watch as they piece together the situation from phone calls and scraps of information and realize what they have to do. We know from the beginning that none of them will survive. Watching them slowly come to that realization is what makes “United 93” so devastating. — J. Rottenberg
‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
Christian Bale in the movie “The Dark Knight.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
It was probably inevitable that the anxieties of the post-9/11 era would find their way into a Batman movie. In “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan fills Gotham with bombings, acts of mass surveillance and questions about how far is too far. Heath Ledger’s Joker is an enemy who doesn’t play by the rules, attacking the city with no clear political goal beyond creating panic and chaos. Christian Bale’s Batman, meanwhile, builds a Patriot Act-like system that turns every cellphone in Gotham into a tracking device and uses increasingly brutal methods to stop him. Nolan folds all of that into a hugely entertaining superhero movie without turning it into a lecture. — J. Rottenberg
‘Man on Wire’ (2008)
Philippe Petit, as seen in the documentary “Man on Wire.”
(Jean-Louis Blondeau / Polaris)
By the time James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary arrived in 2008, the Twin Towers had been gone for seven years. The film recounts French high-wire artist Philippe Petit’s astonishing 1974 stunt, in which he and a small band of co-conspirators secretly rigged a cable between the towers, allowing Petit to walk high above lower Manhattan. The movie never needs to mention 9/11 to feel devastating. We already know what became of those buildings. Watching Petit step onto the wire lets us see them differently, not as the site of catastrophe but as the setting for something beautiful and absurdly daring. A ghostly montage of the Twin Towers being constructed, set to composer Michael Nyman’s “Fish Beach,” brought New Yorkers to tears. For me, that feeling is also personal. I was living in New York on 9/11 and had been at an outdoor concert in the plaza beneath the towers just weeks before the attacks, so there was something especially moving about seeing them again as part of the city’s everyday life. — J. Rottenberg
‘The Hurt Locker’ (2009)
Anthony Mackie, left, and Jeremy Renner in the movie “The Hurt Locker.”
(Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment)
Has there ever been a better cinematic metaphor for the War on Terror than Jeremy Renner in a bomb suit, kneeling over a device in a Baghdad street while everyone around him scans the rooftops for danger? Kathryn Bigelow’s film narrows the Iraq War down to the nerve-shredding work of an explosives-disposal unit, with Renner’s Staff Sgt. William James almost eerily comfortable in situations that terrify everyone around him. The suspense often comes down to the simplest question: Is this thing going to blow up? Bigelow, the action expert behind “Point Break” and “Strange Days,” mostly leaves the larger politics offscreen and stays with the men doing the dangerous work, their detachment a survival tactic. Though initially little-seen, “The Hurt Locker” pulled off its own improbable feat, becoming, at the time, the lowest-grossing movie to ever win Oscar’s best picture — while Bigelow became the first woman ever to win best director. — J. Rottenberg
‘Margaret’ (2011)
Anna Paquin and Matt Damon in the movie “Margaret.”
(Myles Aronowitz / 20th Century Fox)
Kenneth Lonergan shot this seething, richly authentic New York City drama in 2005, when the rawness of post-9/11 NYC was already a part of everyday life. But the trauma feels ingrained in every frame, and there are shots of wary street life — an occasional flinch or look upward — that New Yorkers could watch and think: Yes, that’s what it felt like. The plot itself concerns a teenage girl, Lisa (Anna Paquin, never better), whose hyperdramatic tendencies are both recognizable and lovable. She is involved in a bus accident that results in a fatality and, with the crusading passion that so many people felt after 9/11, decides to get involved as a witness and truth-teller. The need to fix things — amid so much that was unfixable — is a marker of all the movies on this list. — J. Rothkopf
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012)
Jessica Chastain, center, in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”
(Jonathan Olley / Columbia Pictures)
Perhaps the most explicit film on our list, Kathryn Bigelow’s daring military procedural about the 2011 midnight raid that took out Osama bin Laden was a political hot potato in its moment. Now with distance, it impresses as a skilled piece of political moviemaking, one that captures the era’s sense of moral compromise and queasy vengeance. It contains scenes of torture and goes deeply into the CIA’s planning and execution of the operation — choices that remain provocative. But the movie’s most lingering piece of drama is a silent shot of one woman crying in a cargo plane: a high-level analyst played by Jessica Chastain, who has accomplished the unthinkable but doesn’t feel relief. The fight will not end. Only a filmmaker who had just won Oscars and made history would have been granted the artistic freedom to make this movie, arguably Bigelow’s finest. — J. Rothkopf
Gabriel Jesus claims he was forced to train alone before Barcelona move, but Arsenal ‘surprised’ by criticism.
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said he was “very surprised” by Gabriel Jesus’s claim that he was forced to train alone and was given no information prior to joining Barcelona.
Jesus ended his four-year spell with the Gunners in September and has since made it clear he felt disappointed with the way his exit was handled.
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The Brazilian striker said in an interview this week that “out of nowhere they put me to train apart from the group,” adding that “nobody told me nothing” before he signed for Barcelona.
Responding to Jesus’s criticism, Arteta insisted he had spoken to the former Manchester City star about the transfer and had parted on good terms.
“Very surprised, to be fair. Especially because with Gabi (Jesus) I had an individual talk in the dressing room,” he told reporters on Friday.
“I don’t know what words were said; it’s fine. The words that we used were all about gratitude.”
Arteta also came under fire from former Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who recently said he was “uncomfortable” with what he perceived to be a lack of dialogue between the club and Gabriel Martinelli, who moved to Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal on September 3.
But Arteta used the presence of Leandro Trossard, who was sold to Besiktas in July, to watch Arsenal’s victory over Chelsea last weekend as an example of the club’s bond with their former players.
“I don’t know, it’s OK. Sometimes I understand that when you have to deliver bad news, or news that people don’t expect, somebody has to be the bad cop. If I have to be, I have to be and I understand,” he said, before the Premier League champions’ trip to Sunderland on Saturday.
“What is important is normally what happens three months or six months later. When Trossard comes, he’s in the dressing room with all of us, the atmosphere and the relationship you have.
“Thank God so far that with all the players that left, at some point the relationship has been really good. I hope this is the same case.”
Second day of strikes on fuel stations suggest a new campaign focused on civilian areas in the Ukrainian capital.
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
Russian drone attacks on two fuel stations in Kyiv have killed two people and injured others, as Moscow continues to target civilian areas.
They were struck early on Friday within ten minutes of each other in the capital’s Obolonskyi and Dniprovskyi districts, shortly after emergency sirens rang out, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement.
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Russia also targeted fuel stations in Kyiv on Thursday, suggesting a new campaign focused on civilian areas in the capital. Ukrainian authorities have warned people to avoid filling up when air raid sirens sound.
One person died at the scene of one of the attacks, Klitschko said, while the other died in hospital. Six people required hospital treatment.
While fuel stations near the eastern and southern battle lines have been hit regularly for months, authorities have long warned that the attacks could extend to the capital as an intimidation strategy.
Russia and Ukraine both deny targeting civilians as the conflict – started with Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 – has developed into a series of daily attacks with missiles and drones.
Other Russian drone strikes overnight hit near a shopping mall in Pavlohrad, leaving five dead and 67 injured, while a mother and son were injured in Zaporizhzhia when a drone hit an apartment building and a mall.
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, declared Friday a day of mourning.
On Thursday, he condemned Russia for attacking civilian areas in a bid to sow fear.
“Russia is systematically attacking places where it knows people will be spending their time going about their daily lives, seeking to maximise casualties, spread fear and put pressure on Ukrainian society,” he stated.
Ukraine unleashed its own large-scale drone attack through the night, with Russia’s Ministry of Defence reporting that its forces shot down 777 drones in 16 regions.
Two people were killed and three injured in Tula, to the south of Moscow, local authorities reported.
The biggest news to come out of two film festivals this week stemmed from documentaries about tech moguls gone bad.
When Alex Gibney’s film production “Musk” premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, it received a five-minute standing ovation, shouts of “thank you” from the audience and endless play across social media. The nearly four-hour production chronicles the rise of the world’s first trillionaire out of the dot-com boom, and lays bare the dangers that the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive now presents as a plutocrat with questionable judgment and unchecked power.
Closer to home, at the Telluride Film Festival, it was comedian Nathan Fielder (“The Rehearsal”) and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything” that made breaking news. Their film features unfettered access to former Theranos Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes in the weeks before she reported to federal prison to serve a sentence of 10 years and three months. She rode the early 2000s wave of venture-capitalism consumer-tech hype, defrauding investors and the public with a bogus new way to test blood. By 2014, she was the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.
A couple of decades ago, films about Musk and Holmes probably would have framed the pair as forward-thinking entrepreneurs and architects of a new era. Today, the pitchforks are out, and who else better represents the hubris and greed of late-stage capitalism?
There’s plenty of buzz around both films ahead of their October releases, yet the richest man in the world is helping promote the “Musk” doc by incessantly posting about Gibney and his “hit” piece.
Musk’s X posts have referred to the filmmaker as a “horrible human” and a “bitter old man” and declared, “Dogs— is worth more respect.” Always looking for a conspiracy to explain away the perfectly explainable, he wrote that the film was a “psy op.” He included in the post an image of Gibney as a puppet of the Democratic Party and George Soros. Musk also offered Trumpian prose: “Gutless Gibney’s fatal flaw of fabricating a false film.”
“Musk” is due for a theatrical release in the U.S. on Oct. 16 followed by a streaming launch on HBO Max.
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro is threatening a lawsuit. He sent a letter to the Gibney-led Jigsaw Productions accusing the filmmaker of misrepresenting facts about the mogul. Spiro says the filmmaker suggested that Musk used his Starlink satellites to bend the 2024 election in favor of his friend and ally Donald Trump.
“You are … on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest,” Spiro wrote. Spiro claimed he contacted the production “multiple times” and “requested an opportunity to present the facts in the normal fact-checking process that is the hallmark of ethical journalism. You have refused to engage.”
Gibney says Musk declined to be interviewed for the film. In his absence, the documentarian created a digital avatar of the Tesla CEO and used statements pulled from decades worth of the entrepreneur’s interviews and public appearances. The film chronicles his childhood in South Africa and his time in Silicon Valley, and suggests that Musk’s genius is not as an inventor but as an investor. His talent, the film contends, is stock-pumping.
“Musk” also reportedly explores how the trillionaire had access to sensitive techno-surveillance data when he ran the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Trump in 2025. Geoffrey Hinton , often referred to as the Godfather of AI, is interviewed in the film and explains why Musk’s potential access to the data is such a problem: “It’s fairly clear to me that Trump is hell-bent on corrupting the midterm elections,” Hinton says. “If you wanted to corrupt those midterm elections and you wanted to use AI, all you needed to do was get detailed information on U.S. citizens. And what DOGE did looked like just what you would do.”
Gibney in interviews about the film has warned that Musk’s widespread, unchecked power is “extremely dangerous to world democracy.”
“What I discovered was that the story of Musk was not [a] new tech story,” Gibney said in a news conference at the Venice Film Fest. “[It’s] really the story of an old wine in a new bottle. His story turns out to be the story of the confidence man, the stock pumper, his wealth and power comes from inflated stock, and so I had told that story before with Enron and with Elizabeth Holmes, and so it was a story that was oddly familiar to me.”
Gibney is renowned for taking on big money, corruption and anything else that reeks of injustice. He’s tackled Wall Street, big pharma, Scientology, Guantanamo, and even Theranos founder Holmes.
The new film about Holmes, “You Can See Everything,” offers a quirkier, up-close take on Holmes. Produced by A24 and set for an Oct. 16 theater release, it follows the disgraced CEO post-conviction, and she appears more than comfortable in front of the filmmakers and their cameras. Audiences at Telluride were surprised by the access she gave to the filmmakers, and that Holmes spoke openly about her plans to launch a biotech comeback and revive Theranos from her cell in a Texas prison camp.
Forget the celebrity glitz of high-profile film festivals. In these eat-the-rich times, it’s the dark side of wealth, fame and alleged genius that satiate audience appetites. Enter two new documentaries that feed the beast.
MOSCOW: Russia said on Friday it would aim its nuclear warheads at Lithuania if the Baltic state hosted any weapons from the nuclear arsenals of its NATO allies on its territory.
Lithuania is moving to lift a constitutional ban on having nuclear weapons stored in the country, part of an effort to boost its security posture amid Russia’s offensive on Ukraine.
The decision is currently working its way through parliament — where it needs a two-thirds majority to pass and has the support of the president and major parties — and could come into force this winter.
It would be “a very serious turn in terms of escalating tensions”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV when asked about the plan.
“If there are nuclear weapons on the territory that are aimed at us, accordingly, the territory of that country will fall into the crosshairs of our own nuclear weapons,” he said.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda had announced the plans in July, saying his country wanted to be an “integral part of this nuclear deterrence”.
“The Joint Forces have formed a command center south of the city of Mokha, following Houthi breakthroughs across various combat axes under heavy fire, in which the Houthis used various types of weapons,” Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), Lt. Gen. Tareq Saleh, said in his acknowledgment that his forces lost the port. The PLC was created in 2022 to represent the internationally recognized government of Yemen.
“The armed forces on the West Coast — the National Resistance, the Giants [Brigades], and the Homeland Shield — in addition to units of the Taiz axis west of the governorate, have paid a heavy price, martyrs and wounded, over the past days as they confronted the Houthi attack, which was planned by Iran, supported by it, and carried out with the participation of its various proxies/tools.”
“Thanks to God, our armed forces were able to repel an enemy combat formation a short time ago in the province of Taiz, forcing it to withdraw,” Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree proclaimed. “This was achieved by targeting it with a number of locally manufactured surface-to-air missiles.”
(Houthi Telegram channel)
Videos have emerged showing Houthi forces inside Mokha and its airport and a large amount of equipment being seized.
The people of the port city of Al-Mokha gave a warm reception to Yemeni armed forces fighters following the city’s strategic liberation. pic.twitter.com/0XDrveJPxU
⚡️BREAKING: The Houthis have announced a Cessation of Combat Operations along the Coast of Bab al-Mandab Strait following the Collapse of Pro-Saudi Forces
The Core Military of the Houthis has entered the City of Mokha
Even before the capture of Mokha, the rebel group held the BAM under threat with its array of drones and missiles, some of which it launched from deeper in Yemen. In fact, the group became the first to fire anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) at vessels during its campaign against Red Sea shipping.
Mokha, however, provides a potential new surveillance and launching point for the Houthis to deploy mines as well as aerial drones and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) they can use to attack shipping. As we have reported previously, the rebel group pioneered the operational use of some of these weapons.
The Houthis “are determined to control the ports in order to use booby-trapped boats from areas close to shipping lanes,” Col. Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a Yemeni army officer and military analyst, told Arab News last month as the rebels were pushing closer to the port.
In addition to Mokha, the Houthis also reportedly captured two important islands that could also add to its control over shipping through the strait. However, TWZ cannot independently confirm this.
There are claims that the Houthis seized Perim Island, which sits right in the middle of the BAM. In 2021, satellite images we obtained showed completion of a new, approximately 6,150-foot-long runway on the island as well as hangars and other facilities. The installation was supposedly meant primarily to support drone operations and was built by the United Arab Emirates.
This strategically located island sits in the narrowest part of the BAM, less than two miles west of Yemen and about 13 miles east of Djibouti, giving the Houthis a commanding presence at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Zuqar Island, which was also reportedly captured, sits in the middle of the Red Sea about 80 miles north of Perim Island. In the custody of the Yemeni government since 1998, it was being “used by government forces to track shipping traffic, monitor movements by Houthi rebels and stop weapons smuggling in the Red Sea,” according to The National.
Last year, images emerged of construction of a runway on the island.
A closer look at the new 2.1 km runway on Yemen’s 🇾🇪 Jabal Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea shows a small apron with one completed aircraft hangar and another likely under construction, plus a taxiway leading to two military emplacements, likely to shelter aircraft or UAVs. https://t.co/cnphe6yCeOpic.twitter.com/iOwr7C6I91
Zuqar Island sits about 7 km east of the northbound shipping lane in the Red Sea. Control over these two islands could allow the Houthis to mirror the pattern Iran established in the Strait of Hormuz by directing traffic to pass through a narrow passage between Qeshm and Larak islands.
The Iranian transit scheme for the Strait of Hormuz. (Iranian government)
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis grew out of a civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2014. It expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis and raged on until the parties reached a tenuous ceasefire in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis, and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. Tensions, however, reignited after that conflict ended when the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter. In addition to the aforementioned blockade, the Houthis began striking Saudi refineries.
The Houthis already control the port of Hodeidah, about 100 miles to the north. Capturing Mokha and the two islands extends their reach even closer to the BAM.
“On average, 273 ships sailed through the chokepoint each week between 27 July and 23 August,” the organization reported. “The naval ban on Saudi Arabia came into effect on 20 July, and the weekly average in the run up date was 319. Still, traffic remains above volumes seen before the crisis in the Middle East Gulf that led to a flurry of activity in the Red Sea as Saudi oil was redirected to Yanbu.”
Saudi Arabia has increasingly sent oil to its port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. (Photo by Yasin Demirci/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu
The biggest impact of the blockade, Lloyd’s List Intelligence notes, is that it is driving up the cost to deliver oil by forcing traffic north through the Suez Canal, “extending voyage times and tying up capacity. In the Middle East, rising use of Hormuz shuttle tankers and multiple STS transfers is creating delays and increasing vessel utilization. Combined, these rising inefficiencies have led to the third VLCC spot-rate spike since the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East Gulf.”
The Houthi strikes on Saudi’s oil infrastructure, including a Houthi missile and drone attack against the Saudi Aramco refinery at Jazan on the Red Sea earlier this week, add a further dilemma for Riyadh, making it harder to get its product to points of shipment.
Video of of the aftermath of those strikes, which you can see below, emerged on social media.
All this is raising the specter of the U.S. having to get as involved as it did during the previous Houthi campaign against shipping that ended last September, which could pull resources away from Iranian-focused operations, if supporting such an operation is even possible at all at this point. The Navy, and other key elements of the U.S. military, is overstretched and worn down by continuous deployments for many months leading up to Venezuela and then Iran, and now six months after Operation Epic Fury.
U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf are under increasing pressure as tensions with Iran continue to simmer. On Tuesday, several U.S. Air Force jets were damaged in an Iranian missile barrage on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, according to CBS News. An A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jet lost a wing and about eight F-15E Strike Eagle multi-role fighters were slightly damaged and returned to service, the network noted.
There is also a report that Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain” where the U.S. military has a number of key facilities, including the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The country has been the subject of frequent Iranian barrages since the U.S. and Israel first attacked on Feb. 28.
Cao’s assessment matches what we have seen and heard prior to his comments and raises anew the question of whether the U.S. will return to Bahrain and other bases in the region heavily attacked by Iran.
In an exclusive interview, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told me that Iranian forces “blew the hell out of Bahrain.”
While open-source analyses have long indicated that the U.S. Fifth Fleet Headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain sustained extensive damage in the early…
“At least three times in the past week, Iranian forces have launched missiles at American warships, including an aircraft carrier, taking direct aim at the U.S. Navy in a way it hasn’t done since the start of the war,” the newspaper noted. “The attempted strikes on warships have led to much closer calls than previous attempts, with Iran using maneuverable warheads, people familiar with the attacks said.”
Amid this activity, traffic through the Strait remains suppressed.
“Vessel transits via the Strait of Hormuz fell on Wednesday to seven from 12 the previous day, preliminary ship-tracking data showed on Thursday, with levels also below the 10-day average of 14,” Reuters reported. “Out of these seven ships, four vessels exited and three entered, according to the data.”
However, an exact figure is hard to come by. Some vessels could be sailing through the waterway with their transponders turned off and would not be counted toward the totals, the outlet added.
Vessels transit the Hormuz Strait off the coast of Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas on September 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) ATTA KENARE
As it is, oil prices are skyrocketing. As of noon Thursday, the per barrel price of Brent Crude exceeded $107, the highest price since July when it fell to just over $77 per barrel, according to OilPrice.com.
It will take some time before we get a better picture of how the Houthi seizure of the port of Mokha, and possibly Perim and Zuqar islands, will affect the global economy due to rising oil prices, either through reduced supply, increased cost of delivery or some combination of the two. With no end in sight to the U.S. conflict with Iran that helped to drive these actions, the Yemeni rebel group has incentives to inflict economic pain wherever it can.
ITV is set to broadcast a 24-hour live stream from the Big Brother house ahead of the new series
Big Brother is returning to our screens in just a few days(Image: Vianney Le Caer/Shutterstock for Big Brother)
Big Brother fans have been begging ITV to resurrect the show’s beloved round-the-clock live stream.
It appears show bosses have finally listened, but there’s a brutal catch that has left viewers fuming. Rather than giving fans unfiltered access to watch the Housemates in their new home, ITV is handing the keys over to content creator crew The Bov Boys.
The social media influencers will occupy the property for a full 24 hours before this year’s contestants walk through the door. The broadcaster confirmed the twist on Thursday (September 10), revealing that the Manchester lads will move in on Saturday (September 12) as producers apply the finishing touches ahead of Sunday’s official series launch.
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The stream will run continuously on Twitch and YouTube, giving viewers a preview of the brand-new house. The official synopsis promises plenty of entertainment, teasing: “Viewers can watch the takeover unfold live for the full 24 hours, with the action streaming continuously across Twitch and YouTube.
“From the moment they arrive until they’re finally sent packing, viewers will have an exclusive, around-the-clock look at all the drama, antics and action inside the House.”
ITV viewers will no doubt recognise The Bov Boys member Angry Ginge, real name Morgan Burtwistle, following his triumphant appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! just last year. The rest of the crew consists of Tays, Jakey Davies, Heinz Baines and Chazza.
However, Heinz Baines will not be taking part in the stream due to a “family commitment,” reports OK! The popular social media group won’t be the only influencers getting a sneak peek at the iconic house, they have also extended invitations to fellow creators Adeola Patronne, Mariam Musa, Shauna Games, Scouse Mali and Pieface.
The announcement has been greeted with some excitement, with one Instagram fan gushing: “This feels like Christmas came early,” and a second agreeing: “THIS IS INCREDIBLE! “Let’s go lads this is huge”
Someone else raved: “OMG my 2 favourites together can’t wait BIG BROTHER BOV HOUSE.” However, other viewers have labelled the twist a “slap in the face”, given that fans have been pleading with producers to bring back the show’s much-loved 24-hour live stream feeds of the actual Housemates.
A furious fan posted: “Load of c**p. You can’t give us live feed for the main series but will stream the dry run,” with a second adding: “Sorry but are you actually trying to annoy your fans @bbuk?! You’ll do a 24/7 live stream for a bunch of randoms testing the house, but won’t do any live stream at all for the actual show?!”
Yet another viewer critiqued: “I find it really wild that the Big Brother producers promote a pre-series live stream with content creators going in, but can’t invest in a consistent series long live stream. It’s really sad. #BBUK.”
Big Brother x Bov Boys 24-Hour Takeover will be a live co-stream on The Bov Boys’ individual Twitch accounts, plus a live stream on BBUK and ITV YouTube accounts from Saturday 12th September at 12pm.
The series launches on Sunday (September 13) at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.
“Communists.” “Islamists.” Republican speakers portrayed Democrats as a threat to America on night two of their midterm convention in Dallas. Al Jazeera’s Emma Withrow reports on how they’re turning questions of national identity and events in the Middle East into campaign ammunition.
Work at a specialized underground weapons test site in New Mexico, contracted earlier this year, was linked to planning for a potential new operation targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, according to a report from CNN. The U.S. military has notably left Iran’s hardest-to-reach site under Pickaxe Mountain untouched so far, but President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials have been openly talking about striking it.
On February 27, the day before U.S. and Israeli forces launched their initial wave of strikes on Iran, the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) quietly announced it had awarded a sole-source deal to Pate Construction Co., Inc., for new construction at the so-called Alternate Seismic Hardrock in Situ Test (ALT-SHIST) site. The work was needed to support an upcoming classified live-fire test. ALT-SHIST is situated within the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), a sprawling U.S. Army-managed complex in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert basin. DTRA is a relatively small and obscure organization that plays a leading role in U.S. military efforts to develop new and improved ways to respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threats.
WSMR and DTRA have come up in discussions about strikes on Iran in the past. The U.S. military’s heaviest conventional air-dropped weapon, the 30,000-pound-class GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bomb, has been extensively tested at multiple sites there in the past. DTRA was also directly involved in its initial development. MOPs made their combat debut during U.S. strikes last year on underground Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz as part of Operation Midnight Hammer. The possibility has been raised that a different site within WSMR may have been used to test the plan of attack against Fordow, which involved two ventilation shafts being hit with six GBU-57/Bs each. The bombs were dropped in rapid succession, with each one burrowing deeper and deeper into the facility below. WSMR also happens to contain the site of the first atomic bomb test in 1945.
A map showing the general location of White Sands Missile Range, with an inset giving a better sense of how expansive it is. Holloman Air Force Base, which juts into the southern end of the range complex, is also highlighted. Google Maps
“The plans for the test [at ALT-SHIST] were connected to the Iran war,” CNN said in its story, published yesterday, citing unnamed sources “familiar with the matter.” Beyond that, the planned testing was tied to a “need to develop a way to target Iran’s deepest-buried underground facilities and, likely, simulate U.S. strikes against specific nuclear facilities.”
CNN said it was unable to independently verify whether or not the test in question had occurred.
A formal justification for the sole-source contract to Pate Construction that DTRA released in February did not mention Iran or elaborate on the need for the new testing at ALT-SHIST, but stressed there was an urgent requirement critical to U.S. national security.
“The services required are the immediate and mission-critical enabling services for a ‘real-world’ national security ordinance [sic; ordnance] test. This is not routine construction; it is the highly specialized remediation and operational preparation of a unique, subterranean test facility at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR),” according to the justification document, which DTRA officials had approved on February 24. “The work is a critical path dependency for a live-fire test designed to validate classified capabilities against rapidly emerging threats.”
“As the incumbent contractor for over a decade, Pate Construction Co., Inc. possesses unparalleled and non-transferable tacit knowledge of this specific subterranean test facility. This is a unique Government structure with complex geological and security considerations, and Pate Construction Co., Inc.’s direct, hands-on experience is a tangible asset that no other source possesses,” the document adds. “Pate Construction Co., Inc. is the only contractor that currently maintains a fully mobilized presence at WSMR with the specific heavy equipment and security-cleared operators required.”
CNN‘s piece says apparent work at ALT-SHIST was visible in satellite imagery of the site between mid-February and mid-March, but the outlet said it was unable to confirm whether or not this was related to the contract with Pate Construction.
We reviewed satellite imagery showing work at a remote DTRA/STRATCOM test site that coincided with this contracting action, but we couldn’t confirm its purpose.
The Pentagon didn’t respond to our questions regarding the test, and we couldn’t independently confirm it occurred. pic.twitter.com/k8zyvqWy56
ALT-SHIST is an active test site, and any work observed there earlier this year could well have been linked to other projects. For instance, additional publicly available DTRA contracting documents offer details about planned work on a specific part of the ALT-SHIST site, called Tunnel 7, tracing back to last year, as part of a project nicknamed Millstone Willemite 6 (MW-6).
“This task requires the construction contractor to repair and address the damage to Tunnel 7 caused by prior incidents, in accordance with government-provided designs, specifications, and other contract documents,” according to one contracting document dated September 15, 2025. “The contractor will also be responsible for providing support during testing activities, as well as safing after each test and general support between tests. All tunnel construction must be completed by 15 June 2027.”
“The contractor shall repair a D-shape tunnel and overburden using the D-shape of 20 feet depth and width, inside the tunnel. The contractor shall remove and repair any damage to the ribs, crown, and invert to Tunnel 7,” that same document continues. “After the repair of Tunnel 7, the contractor shall provide general construction support to instrument the tunnel in preparation for testing and then safe the tunnel for re-entry post-testing.”
The schedule for the MW-6-related work indicates that it is separate from what Pate Construction was hired to do at the site back in February.
A view out into a mountainous part of the White Sands Missile Range complex. USACE
ALT-SHIST, which was first established in 1995, is also not the only site DTRA makes use of within WSMR. As its name indicates, it is an alternate to the original SHIST site, use of which began in 1993.
“There was a small addition made to the SHIST site, but that area has been heavily used since 2007,” according to an environmental impact study the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completed in 2015. “The granite bedrock at these sites has been fractured and damaged by extensive testing. There are no existing granite areas adjacent to those sites where similar testing can be performed.”
A map showing the relative locations of SHIST and ALT-SHIST, as well as other test sites, at the northern end of the WSMR complex. USACE
USACE conducted that study in support of the establishment of a new test site at WSMR, simply called the Granite Test Site, to succeed the original SHIST. The Granite Test Site is now in use. There are many more sites within the range complex designed to simulate underground and otherwise hardened targets. This is also just one aspect of the wide array of testing that occurs on a daily basis at WSMR.
However, the presence of large areas of undisturbed granite is a key factor here, as that is particularly relevant for testing weapons designed to penetrate into extremely deeply buried facilities. CNN‘s piece yesterday noted that Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site is built underneath a granite mountain.
“The mountain in White Sands, they specifically picked mountainous areas that were solid rock, and they used state-of-the-art tunneling technology to make the kind of cavities in the mountain that you would put this kind of [Iranian nuclear] facility in,” Gary Stradling, a retired scientist who previously worked for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), told TWZ in an interview last year. “I think that there is a lot of work that DOD has done in these kinds of facilities that is highly classified, and I couldn’t talk to you about it. This is very sophisticated work. It is not casual, and it’s not speculative. These are real experts who are doing the work. Careful, technical, quantitative work to be able to deliver this kind of war-fighting capability to the services.”
TWZ spoke to Stradling, who did work tied to earth-penetrating munitions at various points during his lengthy career, in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer.
Me, standing at the edge of a MOP crater on a mountain top at White Sands Test Range, where detailed studies of massive earth penetrators were studied for effectiveness against deeply buried targets by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) —formerly Defense Nuclear Agency.… pic.twitter.com/JYq1V2xO6q
The U.S. military notably did not strike Pickaxe Mountain, which is situated immediately to the southwest of Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, during Operation Midnight Hammer. The site also went untouched by Israel during last year’s 12 Day War. American and Israeli forces did not target it during major combat operations earlier this year, either. All of this underscores the targeting challenge the site presents, even for strikes using MOPs, which TWZ explored in detail earlier this year and that has continued to make it a point of particular discussion.
CNN‘s report yesterday was primarily focused on a new assessment of ongoing construction at Pickaxe Mountain from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, D.C.
Satellite “images reveal more road activity at Pickaxe Mountain in 2026 than at any point in the site’s history,” according to a report CSIS published yesterday. “There is a clear surge in construction activity in 2026 that corresponds to the raising and hardening of the portal accesses, paving of the internal road network, reinforcement around access areas, and the flattening and removal of excavation spoil.”
“This assessment can neither refute nor substantiate the Israeli intelligence claim that Iran moved centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain,” CSIS’s report also noted. “The continuous construction, the absence of an increased internal security posture, and the lack of observed nonconstruction vehicles and equipment suggest the underground facility is not yet capable of enrichment work, if that is the intended purpose. Further analysis of daily activity would be needed to establish the site’s pattern of life beyond its current construction footprint.”
This is in line with TWZ‘s own previous reporting on Pickaxe Mountain back in July, when there were already signs of growing activity following the establishment of a shaky ceasefire between the United States and Iran the preceding month. As we wrote at that time:
“As with the strikes on Fordow, multiple bombs could be dropped on the same impact point to try to penetrate further down into Pickaxe Mountain. Whether there might be similar ventilation shafts or other weak points that could be exploited at Pickaxe Mountain is unknown. …”
A graphic with details about the employment of MOPs on strikes at Fordow during Operation Midnight Hammer. DOD
“A strike ‘right in the front door’ on the tunnel entrances at Pickaxe Mountain would be another option to at least hamper access to the facility inside for a time. This could be combined with strikes aimed at sections of the tunnel networks that run deeper inside the facility, but that are still close enough to the surface to be reachable by available conventional munitions. For instance, MOPs may not be able to hit the main cavern areas, but they could possibly hit certain tunnels that might lead to them.”
“Even a combined strike on entrances and shallow tunnels at Pickaxe Mountain could still present certain challenges. Firm intelligence on exactly where the tunnels snake under the mountain could be limited, making it difficult to select the best impact points. This is exactly why the U.S. military has been investing heavily in advanced, void-sensing fuzes for MOP and other bunker buster bombs for decades now. These fuzes detect when a munition has penetrated into a sufficiently large space, such as a room or tunnel in an underground facility, to help maximize damage. Fuzes that can effectively ‘count’ floors also help to ensure the munition has burrowed sufficiently deep before detonating.”
…
“…the U.S. military could conduct follow-on strikes on the entry points at Pickaxe Mountain to disrupt any attempt to regain access, as well.”
“Destroying Pickaxe Mountain will be a scientific and targeting challenge,” CSIS also noted in its report yesterday. “It is an underground fortress buttressed by granite. It is one of the only facilities in Iran’s nuclear program that the United States has not yet struck. Structurally degrading Pickaxe Mountain requires more than just kinetic force – it takes actionable high-confidence intelligence and sophisticated mathematical modeling.”
With all this in mind, it is not at all hard to imagine how new testing at ALT-SHIST, as well as other sites, would be essential for exploring additional options for striking Pickaxe Mountain and/or other deeply-buried targets in Iran using MOPs and/or other munitions.
A US Air Force B-2 bomber drops a GBU-57/B MOP during a test. USAF
It’s also worth noting here that GBU-57/Bs are understood to be in relatively short supply, though it is unknown how many of them are currently in inventory. Furthermore, the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bombers are currently the only aircraft certified to employ the huge MOPs operationally. There was a report in 2024 that prime contractor Boeing was working to expand its capacity to produce these bombs. A MOP successor, the GBU-76/B Next Generation Penetrator (NGP), is in development now, but prototyping work is expected to run through the end of Fiscal Year 2028.
President Donald Trump certainly has raised the prospect of a strike on Pickaxe Mountain publicly on several occasions since July. He has also repeatedly said that the site is being persistently surveilled, particularly from space.
“There’s another place called Pickaxe Mountain, another nice place. We may have to give them a shot there, too, because someone said there was a little movement at the site,” Trump said yesterday during a speech at a convention the Republican Party is hosting in Dallas, Texas, ahead of this year’s midterm elections. “We don’t need much. We see everything, you know, because of Space Force.”
“We may hit Pickaxe [Mountain] very soon,” the President also said while speaking to reporters at the White House last Friday.
Trump on Pickaxe Mountain: We may have to give them a shot there too. We see everything. We can the see tag on their coat. “Muhammad Al-Fayed” It’s never Muhammad Jones. pic.twitter.com/UQm939OruL
Whether growing activity at Pickaxe Mountain finally prompts a U.S. strike at the site, either alone or as part of a larger operation, remains to be seen. If and when such a mission is launched, past and future testing at sites like ALT-SHIST in New Mexico will all but certainly have played an important part.
Today marks 25 years since the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City
11:51, 11 Sep 2026Updated 11:51, 11 Sep 2026
Janice struggled to hold back tears as she recalled what happened on 9/11(Image: BBC)
A woman who was inside one of the Twin Towers during 9/11 said she can still hear the “screams”.
On Tuesday, 11 September 2001, hijackers seized US passenger jets and crashed them into two New York skyscrapers, killing thousands of people. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, with the second strike 17 minutes after the first.
During a pre-recorded segment on BBC Breakfast, Janice Brooks shared her account of a day that she will always remember.
“I moved to New York on the 23rd of August 2001. I arrived in New York with the dog under one arm, a suitcase under the other, ready to begin the biggest adventure of my life,” Janice began in the interview.
Janice had only been in New York for a couple of weeks before the attack. She was working for a company called Euro Brokers, with offices on the 84th floor.
Recounting her steps on that day, Janice continued, “I left home at about probably 7.30am. Was at my desk by 7:45 at the latest. There was a bit of a bang, and I saw kind of like paper and dust swirling in the air. Suddenly, a man’s voice, top of his lungs, ‘Everybody out!’”
Janice didn’t know it, but a plane had just flown into the tower next to her. New York was under attack. As people looked on in horror, Janice was making her way down the steps. She’d reached the 70th floor when the second plane hit.
“I took two steps into the staircase, and there was this almighty thud,” she said. “The lights flickered on and off. Part of the ceiling came down. I was covered with dust and dirt. A couple of the girls at the front fell down to the floor. I was kind of like jostled against the wall.
“Then suddenly there was a scream-a woman screaming, one of those horror-filled screams that kind of lives in my head. ‘I can’t see! I can’t see!’ And all her eyes were covered with blood.
“She had long dark hair, and once she shook her head, glass covered everyone. Looked down at my shirt, and I had blood all over it. And I remember just standing there and pulling my shirt, looking at my shirt, and I’ve got blood on my shirt, and I started to cry.
“One of the brokers came running up, he took me by the shoulders and said, ‘It’s not your blood. We have to keep going. We have to get out of here’. I don’t even know your name. His name was Bob.”
As she finally reached the ground floor, Janice saw for the first time what had happened to the Twin Towers. “I looked up at the buildings, and where our floor should have been, there’s a big gaping hole, and I can see bits of building falling down,” Janice shared as she began to choke back tears.
“I can see flames. I can hear this awful bang-bang sound and this awful kind of twacking sound. And I just sat down and cried. Janice battled through the crowds and made it back to her apartment. She was in shock, completely traumatised.
After a little while, there was a huge bang. The whole building had collapsed. Janice added, “There was this billowing cloud going around my windows. One by one, the windows were blacked out until I was in the apartment. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.”
Janice eventually battled her way out of her apartment and, with help from strangers’ kindness, took the subway to a friend’s house.
As people around the world mark the 25th anniversary of the attack, Janice emotionally said, ” All those years have passed, and their faces start to blur in my memory. So I do my best to hold on to them, because 2,753 people were killed in the attack on the Twin Towers.”
RIYADH: Trade can grind to a halt before ports close or shipping lanes are blocked. Disruption can begin elsewhere, when cargo or vessels become too costly or difficult to insure, or when markets are unable to provide adequate coverage for war-related risks.
Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical risks in the region and their spillover into maritime traffic, insurance and reinsurance markets, Saudi Arabia is moving to establish a national framework to help keep trade flowing even in a highly volatile maritime environment.
In response, the Cabinet approved the establishment of the “Saudi War Risks Insurance Pool for Cargo and Vessels,” a step aimed at building domestic insurance capacity to address risks that could drive up transportation and trade costs or constrain global insurers’ ability to provide coverage.
The initiative is also intended to help ensure the continuity of goods flows and support businesses involved in transportation and logistics.
The move is particularly significant for Saudi Arabia as it expands its role as a trade and logistics hub. The competitiveness of ports and distribution centers depends not only on cargo-handling speed and transport costs, but also on companies’ ability to price and manage risks when geopolitical conditions change abruptly.
Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said after the Cabinet approved the mechanism that the Saudi marine insurance pool was a specialized national mechanism designed to support the continuity of trade and supply chains through a public-private partnership.
He said the pool would directly enhance the technical preparedness of the domestic insurance market and expand its capacity to provide the necessary coverage under rules and frameworks set by the Insurance Authority.
He added that the initiative would strengthen the resilience of the national economy and help safeguard its stability amid regional and international crises and challenges.
Industry specialists who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said the pool’s economic value would be most evident during crises, when insurance premiums surge or insurers and reinsurers tighten their acceptance of risks associated with particular regions.
They said a stable insurance safety net could give transport companies, importers and exporters greater room to plan and continue operating.
A stable insurance environment
Logistics specialist Nashmi Al-Harbi said rising shipping risks in the Red Sea and the Gulf had prompted some insurers to tighten their conditions for covering vessels linked to the region.
That makes the establishment of the Saudi pool particularly timely for domestic transport and logistics companies, he said, as it would help reduce one of the main sources of uncertainty affecting international shipping contracts.
Al-Harbi told Asharq Al-Awsat that international companies doing business with Saudi Arabia, or whose cargo passes through its ports, would also benefit from greater clarity and stability in the insurance environment.
He said the pool’s scope would not be limited to vessels based in the kingdom but would extend to activities and companies with Saudi interests, subject to approved eligibility and coverage requirements.
Al-Harbi said providing stable war-risk coverage would make Saudi Arabia more attractive as a regional hub for storage, distribution and re-exporting.
Logistics companies do not consider only port, transport and cargo-handling costs when selecting destinations, he said. They also take into account the costs of risks to goods and vessels throughout their journeys.
The cost of risk
Supply chain and logistics expert Khalid Al-Ghamdi said the importance of the Saudi war-risk insurance pool went beyond providing coverage for vessels and cargo.
It also addressed a deeper challenge facing businesses: the difficulty of predicting risk costs when geopolitical conditions change suddenly.
Al-Ghamdi said a national war-risk safety net would give Saudi logistics companies greater stability when planning voyages, signing contracts and setting prices.
Companies managing thousands of containers need to know more than the cost of fuel, transport and cargo handling, he said.
They also need greater certainty about insurance costs so that insurance risks do not suddenly become a heavy financial burden or an obstacle to keeping voyages in operation.
The decision sends a message to international logistics companies that Saudi Arabia is continuing to build a business environment capable of operating even when shipping is disrupted, he said.
That could become an additional factor in decisions by global companies when choosing ports and distribution and re-export centers.
Al-Ghamdi added that the selection of a logistics hub was based not only on location and transport costs, but also on its ability to absorb shocks and manage risks associated with trade flows.
Strengthening that capacity could improve supply-chain resilience, bolster international companies’ confidence and create opportunities for more effective risk-management partnerships, he said.
Insurance pool arrangements
The initiative establishes a national insurance mechanism bringing together the public and private sectors under the supervision of the Insurance Authority.
It is intended to strengthen the domestic insurance market’s ability to handle war risks associated with maritime transport and mitigate the effects of volatility and rising reinsurance costs in global markets.
The initiative also aims to enhance Saudi Arabia’s competitiveness as a logistics hub at a time when more flexible tools are needed to manage the risks facing trade and transport.
As part of its implementation, the Saudi Reinsurance Company, known as Saudi Re, said that the Insurance Authority had selected it to lead and structure the pool’s arrangements, with participation from insurers operating in the domestic market.
Saudi Re will manage the pool’s technical operations and reinsurance arrangements. Beneficiaries will be able to obtain coverage through participating insurers under approved terms and conditions.
Initiative’s objectives
The Insurance Authority has identified four main objectives for the pool: enhancing the insurance market’s preparedness and capacity to absorb marine insurance risks; supporting the continuity of trade and supply chains; limiting the effects of sharp volatility and higher reinsurance costs in global markets; and strengthening Saudi Arabia’s competitiveness as a major logistics hub.
The pool will cover cargo transported by land, sea and air, as well as marine hull insurance against covered damage and risks.
It will also cover charterers’ liability and provide protection and indemnity coverage, offering broader protection to parties involved in transport and trade.
Eligible beneficiaries include exporters and importers; vessel owners and operators; shipping, freight and maritime transport companies; businesses involved in cargo movements, logistics and supply chains; and Saudi insurers participating in the pool.
International models
Saudi Arabia is not alone in adopting such a mechanism. Other countries have established national pools to address rising war risks and difficulties in obtaining coverage from traditional insurance markets.
India offers a recent example. This year, it launched a marine insurance pool with a total capacity of $1.5 billion, including a $1.4 billion sovereign guarantee, to cover war risks affecting vessels and cargo linked to Indian interests.
India’s experience demonstrated the scale of demand for such coverage. The scheme issued more than 1,600 policies within weeks of beginning operations, while war-risk insurance premiums fell by about 35% to 40% from the peaks recorded during the escalation of regional tensions.
The trend reflects a shift in how countries manage maritime war risks — from relying entirely on global insurance and reinsurance markets to developing domestic capacity that can help keep trade moving when coverage becomes more expensive or private insurers’ appetite for risk declines.
In a historic move last week, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to encourage the use of new world maps which more accurately depict continents with their true sizes.
The move followed months of lobbying by the African Union, which itself adopted a new map earlier in February. A total of 164 countries voted in favour while six abstained.
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The United States was the only member to oppose it. US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said before the vote that the resolution was “the reason this institution is losing its credibility”.
“Instead of focusing on genuine problems … this body is debating map projects from the 16th century,” she said.
But since the resolution was approved, at least three other countries have voiced concerns about the changes: India, Ukraine and Japan.
None are explicitly opposed to adopting a new projection. However, they are raising concerns about how certain disputed territories should be depicted.
Here’s what we know:
Why is there a new world map?
The UN endorsed a resolution promoting the Equal Earth projection of the world map, rather than the Mercator projection, which is currently widely used.
The resolution does not ban Mercator or impose a particular replacement – it merely encourages nations to adopt the Equal Earth version, which was created by three researchers in 2018.
The Mercator projection, which was produced by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 when the West was busy “conquering” new territories, attempts to show a three-dimensional globe on a two-dimensional surface. That is why countries closer to the poles appear much larger than countries at the equator.
For decades, map experts have pointed out that Mercator’s projection disproportionately shrinks the true size of the African continent and that of other developing regions, while making Europe and the US seem much larger by comparison.
For example, Greenland is shown as roughly the same size as Africa, but, in reality, it could fit into the continent 14 times over. Europe, which is portrayed as bigger than South America, is actually half its size.
Advocates from African countries pointed out that the map is problematic because of the size issues. Importantly, they argued, it reinforces negative perceptions of Africa.
Several cartographers have attempted to develop equal area maps. However, African activists specifically pushed for the Equal Earth projection map, which significantly expands Africa and shrinks Europe and the US.
Experts say while maps are inherently inaccurate because of the constraints of depicting a spherical world on a flat plane, the Equal Earth projection is as close as it gets.
Why is Ukraine worried about the new map?
Ukraine was one of six countries which abstained from the vote at the UNGA, along with Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia and Lithuania, who voted in solidarity with Ukraine.
Kyiv has complained that the Equal Earth projection depicts the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in a distinctly lighter shade than mainland Ukraine.
Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea in February 2014, a move the UN has denounced.
Although the peninsula is also shaded differently from mainland Russia on the new map, its yellowish tint appears closer to the Russian shade than Ukraine’s.
“Ukraine does not in principle oppose the core issue addressed in this draft resolution,” Andrii Melnyk, the country’s permanent representative to the UN, said in an address to the assembly.
Melnyk said Kyiv had asked for corrections before the vote but had not received positive responses. The new map, he said, could be tantamount to opening a Pandora’s box, enabling the “abuse and distortion” of the world map.
“It would be a truly fatal mistake for all of us, and for this General Assembly, to seek to correct a historical injustice in the geographical depiction of countries and continents by simultaneously allowing a deeply troubling interpretation of the text of this draft resolution,” he added.
What is Japan demanding?
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Tokyo, which voted in favour of the new map, said it had also asked for corrections to the Equal Earth projection because the map uses the same colours and shades for Russian territory as it does for the disputed Kuril Islands.
Russia and Japan have long fought over control of the four islands, known in Russia as the Southern Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories. In 1945, during World War II, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed the islands as part of a pact with Western Allies that stipulated the Soviets would take the disputed territory. The islands’ Japanese inhabitants were removed.
Subsequently, Japan and the US have claimed that the islands were not part of the original pact. The islands, however, remain under Russian administration.
In August this year, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin paid his first-ever visit to the islands, drawing condemnation from Japan. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the visit “absolutely unacceptable”, saying it “offends the sentiments of the Japanese people”.
This week, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said the Japanese embassy in the US has asked Equal Earth’s creators to change the map.
“Displays that contradict the Japanese government’s position are seen [on the map],” Kihara said at a news conference. “We need to prevent incorrect perceptions regarding our country’s territories and geographical names from spreading.”
Why is India uneasy about the map?
India also voted in favour of the Equal Earth projection, but on Sunday, the Ministry of External Affairs published a caveat regarding depictions of the disputed border territory of Kashmir.
Following the Indian partition of 1947, both Pakistan and India lay claim to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, which had been controlled by the British through indirect rule. The region has subsequently been a flashpoint for tensions between the two rivals and has led to several wars.
Parts of Kashmir are administered by Pakistan, while other parts are administered by India. China, which also disputes some Kashmir territory with India, administers its northeastern portion.
In his statement, spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal noted that the UN vote was in favour of encouraging the use of equal area projections and that it had not made the use of any one map mandatory.
“India’s sovereign territory, including the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, must be depicted in accordance with India’s official map,” he said. “Any inaccurate or misleading depiction is unacceptable.”
U2 will be honored as the 2027 MusiCares Persons of the Year, the Recording Academy announced Thursday, half a century after the four members of the Irish rock band met as high school students in Dublin in 1976.
The award, which recognizes an act’s philanthropy and cultural impact and comes with an all-star tribute concert typically held two nights before the annual Grammy Awards, will be presented to the group’s Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Feb. 5.
In a statement, MusiCares Executive Director Theresa Wolters hailed the band’s work on issues “spanning global health, disaster response, addiction recovery, mental health and access to music education” and said that what “resonates so strongly” with the Recording Academy’s charitable arm is the members’ “belief that success in music comes with an opportunity to care for the people around you.”
Added Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s CEO: “Not only has their music defined generations, but they’ve been equally exemplary in their dedication to humanitarian work and using their platform for good.”
The statement quoted the members of U2 as saying they’re “huge fans of MusiCares and the lifelines they provide across the incredible pool of talent that is the music industry. We’ve been recording and touring for 50 years because of that pool, from producers and engineers to carpenters and riggers.” The band said they are “very excited to be in the front row of our first ever U2 gig,” adding, “We know we’re gonna be outplayed.”
In late January, Mariah Carey received the MusiCares award at a gala that featured performances by Foo Fighters, Jennifer Hudson, Teddy Swims, Busta Rhymes, Laufey, Jon Batiste and Charlie Puth. Previous honorees include Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand; Bono was previously named Person of the Year on his own in 2003.
U2’s recognition comes in the wake of a much-discussed residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, where the band looked back at its 1991 album “Achtung Baby” in a high-tech multimedia presentation. In July, the group released “Street of Dreams,” the lead single from a studio album due out later this year.
The “best of the best” in athletics are preparing to compete in the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship that gets under way in Budapest this weekend.
The three-day competition will see 26 Olympic champions from Paris, 26 world champions from Tokyo last year, and this season’s top athletes battle it out to be crowned the best in track and field.
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Many return to the stomping ground in the Hungarian capital after successes at the 2023 World Championships, while others have racked up global titles after breakout performances throughout the year.
Here’s Al Jazeera’s all-to-know guide to the meet:
Who, what, where and when at the Ultimate Championship?
The Ultimate Championship is an invite-only competition featuring the Olympic gold medallist, World Championship gold medallist, Diamond League winners, and the best performers of 2026 based on the World Rankings qualification system.
It runs from September 11-13 in Budapest and will become a biennial feature in World Athletics’ calendar. The sport’s global governing body chose 2026 to launch the event in between the World Championships, and, in Olympic years, use it to round out a highly competitive season.
Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt, an ambassador for the event, said it was “great to see track and field going in a different direction”.
“It’s going to be great to see the best of the best,” the eight-time Olympic gold medallist said at a news conference on Thursday before the event.
“This was one of my greatest things. I’ve always lived to compete against the best and I would thrive in this moment.”
The former sprinter Usain Bolt, now 40, still holds the world record in the men’s 100m and 200m [Bernadett Szabo/Reuters]
What is the Ultimate Championship prize pot?
The $10m prize pot will see winners of each event bag a record $150,000.
That’s more than double the $70,000 given at last year’s World Championships in Tokyo, and three times what was awarded by World Athletics to Olympic champions in Paris. Second place takes home $75,000, third place $40,000, all the way to $2,000 for 16th-place finishers.
Relay teams will split $80,000 among themselves, followed by $40,000 and $24,000 for second and third place, respectively.
The Ultimate Champion also walks away with global “bragging rights”, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said before the event as he explained its significance to the sport.
What’s new at the Ultimate Championship?
For one, there are no medals. It’s part of World Athletics’ “reimagining of awards” that replaces the traditional accolade with a customised trophy for the Ultimate Champions based on individual tokens.
All events will be direct semifinals or finals rather than starting off as heats. Athletes competing in the men’s and women’s 200m will select their preferred semifinal heat and lane based on their seed order.
A tie for first place in a vertical jump will be decided by a jump-off rather than be shared, while athletes in throwing events will have four attempts down from the typical six, that too in the 8:8:6:4 model.
The mixed 4×100-metre relay will feature in Budapest after its debut at the World Relays earlier this year, with each quartet competing in national kits.
Why is Ultimate Championship getting criticism from a few athletes?
A number of events have been excluded from the Ultimate Championship, including shot put, triple jump, women’s hammer throw, and discus throw, as well as long-distance track events like 3,000-metre steeplechase and 10,000-metre.
World Athletics said its decision was based on viewership and priority for faster-paced events.
Olympic discus champion Matthew Denny and former world champion and two-time triple jump champion Pedro Pichardo were among the athletes who lamented the decision on social media.
Denny, current world number two, explained that the prize money “can change a career and a life” and implored World Athletics to reconsider its stance on public interest driven by its own statistics.
“Innovation should not come at the expense of opportunity.”
World record watch
These athletes are already the creme de la creme in their field and are most likely to set a world record, based on this year’s performance:
Men’s Pole Vault: None other than Sweden’s Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis, who has broken the world record 15 times and most recently this March.
Men’s 800m: World lead Emanuel Wanyonyi has repeatedly threatened fellow Kenyan David Rudisha’s 1:40.91 set at the London 2012 Olympics.
Women’s 800m: Audrey Werro is fresh off her 1:53.70 set on home soil at the Zurich Diamond League in August. The Swiss’s time is third all-time and dangerously close to the 1:53.28 set by Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.
Men’s 400m hurdles: Brazil’s Alison dos Santos recently smashed the record in Zurich, five years after Norway’s Karsten Warholm clocked 45.94 at the Tokyo Olympics.
Women’s 100m hurdles: Zurich magic extended to the women’s 100m hurdles as USA’s Masai Russell stormed to a 12.09 to cap off 12 straight wins this season.
DUBAI: Aez Alkhatir (KSA) will make his debut for new owners this Friday when facing 14 rivals in the SR150,000 ($40,000) JCSA Sprint Cup at King Khalid Racecourse in Taif.
Formerly owned by Qemat Twaiq Stable, the gelding remains in the care of Homoud Alshamari.
But will now sport the colors of the White Stable of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz & Sons in the 1,200-meter feature when he aims to follow up last month’s Alhada Cup success under Fahad Alfouraidi.
Runner-up in the Sarawat Cup on The Saudi Cup weekend, Aez Alkhatir will take on the Red Stable Prince Faisal bin Khaled bin Abdulaziz’s Aba Almae’aly (KSA) who was eighth in the Sarawat Cup and reappeared to win a conditions race on Aug. 28.
Intriguingly both the White and Red Stable runners have a very similar form line, with both starting in the Sarawat Cup.
And both beat the filly Ana Aljonubiyah (KSA) on their most recent starts, with Aez Alkhatir leaving her a length behind in third, and she was just a quarter-of-a-length second to Aba Almae’aly.
Red Stable additionally rely on December’s Riyadh winner Thamer Almoghtarah (KSA), while also set to play a leading role is Adel Alfouraidi’s mount Alklothani (KSA) who was fourth in the Sarawat Cup and reappeared last month to land the JCSA Sprint Cup Prep.
Friday’s other main event is an Arabian Horses Open worth SR120,000 and features Ershan (FR) who has twice been runner-up this season including last time out when second in the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Cup Prep.
He locks horns with King Khalid Racecourse Championship Prep runner-up Angad Al-Khalediah (KSA) who has worked his way back into form in three Taif outings this campaign having been highly tried last term including when down the field in the Group One Obaiyah Arabian Classic.
Saturday’s feature event is a SR120,000 Open in which the Red Stable and owner Sheikh Abdullah Homoud Almalek Alsabah account for seven of the 19 runners.
The latter’s main hope would appear to be Muhammad Aldaham’s mount Ajwadi (GB).
The racer is top rated and looking for a hat trick of wins after signing off last season in Riyadh with success in the North America Cup, and reappearing in Taif to land a conditions race by nearly fourth lengths, with stablemate and the reopposing Moswaat (GB) in third.
Amichi (IRE) split that pair on Aug.
15 in second for the Red Stable and he will start again along with fellow Red Sable runners William Tell (FR) and Wuqood (GB) who finished in fifth and sixth respectively behind Ajwadi.
Riyadh Angel (IRE) completes the Red Stable quartet while Taif University Cup fifth Allah Maae (KSA) is the sole White Stable representative under Rayan Altoairsh.
OASIS have launched a countdown to a major announcement with a drone display above their beloved Manchester City’s home ground.
Over the past few weeks, Liam, 53 and Noel Gallagher, 59, have dropped a string of cryptic clues about their next world tour, and last night they continued to hype up the buzz.
Rockers Noel and Liam Gallagher have teased a major Oasis announcementCredit: GettyThe band put on a drone light show over the Man City stadiumCredit: PA
Oasis reformed two years ago, after the long-feuding brothers caused the band to split-up in 2009.
CORON, Philippines: Firefighters entered a charred ferry in Philippine waters on Friday after a fire two nights earlier left five people dead and 84 missing and produced heat and smoke that prevented search and rescue efforts onboard.
Images released by the coast guard around midday showed three smaller boats near the MV June Aster, which appeared to have stopped emitting smoke as personnel walked on the outer portion of the ship.
Coast guard communications officer Joy Dianne Gumatay said Friday they had not received updates from the firefighting team about what was found inside, including whether there were additional fatalities.
The ferry sailed from the capital, Manila, on Wednesday evening and was around 7.4 kilometers off the village of Turda near its destination of Coron in Palawan province when the fire was reported.
Rescuers struggled to get inside the burning, smoking vessel Thursday to search for passengers who may been trapped. The efforts were halted overnight.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
The coast guard and other vessels have rescued 43 people, some plucked from the dark waters as the ferry burned.
“The fire quickly spread. That’s when I dropped to the ground and my back was burned,” survivor Arnulfo Nokki Villanueva said in a video broadcast by News5, adding that he jumped from a window. “I wanted to get a life jacket but failed to get one because people were stepping on me. People were in panic.”
The coast guard, other government agencies, private volunteers and fishermen searched the nearby waters and coastal patrols checked for people who may have drifted to shore but no new survivors or fatalities were found.
According to the manifest, 134 people were onboard, 117 of them passengers and 17 crew. The 53-meter (174-foot) vessel had a capacity to carry 306 passengers and 27 crew.
Two passengers listed in the manifest reported to authorities that they failed to board, bringing the number of missing to 84, the coast guard said.
Two of the survivors were tourists from Chile, according to Rachel Conserman, a staffer of the ship’s owner Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc. They are recovering from injuries in a hospital in Coron, she said, adding that there no other foreigners known to have been on the ship.
The shipping company said in a statement it was assisting those who were on board and their families while coordinating with the coast guard and maritime officials to locate the missing passengers and determine the cause.
Coron is a popular tourist destination known for clear blue waters, limestone cliffs and rock formations.
Ferries are frequently used for transport in the Philippine archipelago. Sea accidents are not uncommon due to storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.
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