News Desk

CHRISTIE Brinkley’s daughter, Sailor, has recreated her mother’s iconic photoshoot from over four decades ago in sexy new pics.

The 26-year-old couldn’t resist posing in shots reminiscent of her mom’s famous Sports Illustrated cover while vacationing in the Caribbean over the weekend.

Sailor posted numerous photos on Instagram of her donning a skimpy blue string bikini and her blonde locks flowing straight down during the tropical getaway.

One captured the fashion model holding her hair up, one leg lifted, with a breathtaking view of tall greenery and the ocean in the background.

Another pic showed her leaning her back against a tree, her tiny frame on display as she gazed into the camera.

Other photos further showed Sailor’s confidence in front of the camera as she cheekily looked over her shoulder while riding a bicycle on the sand in another sultry swimsuit, took selfies while admiring the sunset, and checked out her tan lines in the mirror after a day in the sun.

LEGS GO!

Christie Brinkley, 71, puts stunning figure on display in a blue swimsuit

Fans were immediately reminded of Christie‘s memorable SI photoshoot in February 1981, when she posed similarly in a Florida setting.

The mother-daughter pair looked nearly identical in their separate beach pics.

Sailor is the youngest of Christie’s three children and the only one she shares with her ex-husband, Peter Cook, whom she married from 1996 until 2008.

Christie is also a mother to Alexa Ray Joel, whom she shares with her first ex-husband, Billy Joel, and Jack Paris Cook, 30, with her ex-husband, Richard Taubman.

While Sailor appeared comfortable in her skin in her social media pics, she’s admitted that she’s struggled with body dysmorphia since a young age.

“I just have this awful feeling that if I’m not skinny, I’m not worth being celebrated and I’m not worth being praised,” Sailor confessed during a 2020 appearance on Good Morning America.

“I’ve been just been having these moments where I look in the mirror, and I’m just disgusted with myself,” she continued, explaining that the thoughts come on even after witnessing “the tiniest little things like a roll on my stomach, a little pooch on the bottom of my stomach.”

Sailor also said that her mother wasn’t aware of the gravity of her struggles, noting that she first developed an eating disorder at 15 years old.

“My mom didn’t fully know the pain that I was going through when I was at my worst,” she shared.

“I was looking up at all these major figures in modeling that are size double zero, and they’ve got these thin legs and these tiny waists.

“I was seeing them being so celebrated by everyone everywhere and being wanted by all the boys and all that greatness that comes around being this tiny supermodel. And I wanted that,” Sailor revealed.

Christie’s modeling career began in the late 1970s before reaching global fame.

The Uptown Girl author is still wowing fans with her ageless beauty, as she shared photos last week from her island vacation.

Just a few weeks earlier, Christie stunned again in a skintight dress while celebrating her daughter Alexa’s 40th birthday.

Chinese exports of rare earth magnets to Japan fell 8% in December from November, following a diplomatic spat that rattled markets and raised fears about supply security. The drop came just weeks before Beijing imposed a January ban on exports of dual-use items to Japan materials that can have both civilian and military applications. Although December shipments of 280 metric tons were still 31.4% higher than a year earlier, the monthly decline signaled growing political risk in a sector where China dominates global supply.

Why it matters:
Rare earth magnets are critical inputs for electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics, and defense technologies. Any disruption in supply has immediate implications for Japan’s advanced manufacturing sector and longer-term consequences for global clean energy and high-tech industries. The episode highlights how trade in strategic materials is increasingly shaped by geopolitics rather than pure market forces.

Drivers behind the decline:
The immediate trigger was worsening political relations after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated Japan would respond militarily if China attacked Taiwan—a comment that angered Beijing. The subsequent ban on dual-use exports deepened uncertainty. At the same time, the strong year-on-year rise in December shipments suggests Japanese firms were stockpiling magnets in anticipation of tougher restrictions, temporarily inflating demand before a likely January drop.

Stakeholders:
Japan’s automakers, electronics manufacturers, and defense planners are directly exposed to supply risks. Chinese producers face the challenge of balancing geopolitical directives with commercial interests, particularly as exports to key markets soften. The United States is another major stakeholder: December shipments to the U.S. fell 3% month-on-month, and total 2025 exports dropped over 20%, underlining how Washington is also affected by China’s export controls.

Global context:
While exports to the U.S. partially recovered after President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump agreed to pause some controls, overall Chinese rare earth magnet exports declined 1.3% in 2025. This points to a broader trend of fragmentation in strategic supply chains, with China using its dominance in rare earths as leverage amid rising great-power competition.

What’s next:
Shipments to Japan are expected to fall further in January as the ban takes full effect. Japanese firms are likely to accelerate diversification efforts, including sourcing from alternative suppliers and investing in recycling and substitution technologies. In the medium term, continued tensions over Taiwan could make rare earth trade an even more politicized tool of statecraft.

Analysis:
This episode illustrates how economic interdependence no longer guarantees stability in East Asia. China’s control over rare earths gives it a powerful instrument of coercion, but repeated use risks pushing countries like Japan and the U.S. to reduce dependence over time. In the short run, Japan bears the adjustment costs through higher uncertainty and potential production bottlenecks. In the long run, however, China may weaken its own leverage as strategic competitors invest heavily in alternative supply chains. The rare earth market, once a niche industrial sector, has become a frontline of geopolitics.

With information from Reuters.

THIS isn’t war; it’s an all out nuclear one.

After 18 months of dignified silence, young Brooklyn Beckham has finally hurled his grenade.

And wow, did he hit his target.

Not since Coleen Rooney Tweeted with her famous ellipsis ……. It’s Rebekah Vardy, has my phone popped off the way it did after his story.

Make no mistake, though, this is MAD: mutually assured destruction. Some might say “mad” in the other sense of the word. 

Unequivocally there is no way back now.

I am told Brooklyn made this decision to launch his weapons-grade statement himself. 

He was under absolutely no coercive control from anyone. Indeed it is crystal clear he is utterly sick of the lazy misogynistic trope that has been used against his American wife. The notion he has no mind of his own, and does what his missus tells him.

He, of course, shared his plan with Nicola, who gave him over unwavering support. They are, after all, a team.

For 26 years Brooklyn has toed the Beckham party line, holding his silence and never once airing his family’s dirty laundry. 

Now, for whatever reason, he has decided this ends. Today.

He has, as his generation say, spoken his truth.

Of course no-one knows outside of the two families – the Beckhams and the Peltzs – what has really happened over the past year and a half.

And as the late Queen once said, recollections may vary.

Which is fitting because Brooklyn and Nicola’s situation is so incredibly similar to that of royal exiles, Meghan and Harry (about whom the Queen was referencing in her statement).

Brooklyn, by virtue of his surname, has grown up in the spotlight. 

And as Harry once said, he cannot help who he was born to. He never asked for fame, never asked to be part of this world.

Will Brooklyn now drop his family name? If it is such an albatross around his neck, perhaps he will.

Certainly, married to a billionairess, he doesn’t need their millions. His in-laws, after all, have billions.

However, Brooklyn must surely be aware that he has his platform – 16million followers on Instagram alone – thanks to his superstar parents. To suggest otherwise would be utterly disingenuous.

Brooklyn is genuinely a lovely boy by all accounts. Polite and down to earth. This just seems so extraordinarily out of character.

Clemmie Moodie

They have helped him financially in the past, and given him a leg-up when he’s needed it. 

But not any more.

Brooklyn is genuinely a lovely boy by all accounts. Polite and down to earth. This just seems so extraordinarily out of character. 

Friends tell me his incendiary six-part Instagram soliloquy has absolutely “floored” David and Victoria. 

They are, I’m told, “absolutely blindsided” by this truth bomb.

For a family who, as Brooklyn points out, been at such odds to control their narrative, their very lucrative brand, this is unbelievably out of their hands.

His siblings, too, are devastated to have lost a once loving and loyal brother. 

Over the next few weeks, newspapers, social media and the world of showbiz will be poring over this statement, dissecting it word by word.

I hope all parties concerned can somehow navigate a way through this, and that everyone is getting the support.

Clemmie Moodie

Yet in all this, it’s important we don’t lose sight of the fact these are real human beings with real feelings. Everyone is hurting. No-one wanted this.

For Brooklyn to have gone this far, he must be desperate. Certainly he sounds like a man in pain.

Victoria told me in our interview two months ago that she had therapy; She believes in mental health, and this will hurt her. 

Her beloved eldest son’s words are deeply personal, and she must be hurt, embarrassed and very, very confused.

I hope all parties concerned can somehow navigate a way through this, and that everyone is getting the support – both personal and professional – they may need.

Will the Beckhams do what Brooklyn alleges they have refused to do, and contact him away from prying eyes? (Something David and Victoria folly refute). 

No-one, except them, can possibly know. 

But one thing is for sure – Brooklyn isn’t staying silent any more. 

For most of his adult life, Rafiul Alam did not believe that voting was worth the walk to the polling station. He is 27, grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood of Dhaka, and became eligible to vote nearly a decade ago. He never did – not in Bangladesh’s national elections in 2018, nor in the 2024 vote.

“My vote had no real value,” he said.

Like many Bangladeshis in his age group, Alam’s political consciousness formed under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s long period of government, when opposition parties and election watchdogs repeatedly questioned the credibility of polls.

Over time, he said, disengagement with politics became normal, even rational, for a generation. “You grow up knowing elections exist, but believing they actually don’t have the power to decide anything. So you put your energy elsewhere… studies, work, even trying to leave the country,” he said.

This calculation began to shift for him in July 2024, when student protests over a government job reservation system favouring certain groups spiralled into a nationwide uprising. Alam joined marches in Dhaka’s Mirpur area and helped coordinate logistics for protests, as Hasina’s security forces launched a brutal crackdown.

The United Nations Human Rights Office later estimated that up to 1,400 people – most of them young – may have been killed before Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024, ending nearly 15 years in power.

When Hasina left, Alam said the moment felt like something that had appeared permanent had broken. “For the first time, it felt like ordinary people could push for a change,” he said. “Once you experience that, you feel responsible for what comes next.”

Bangladesh is now heading for a national election on February 12, the first since the uprising. European Union observers have described the upcoming vote as the “biggest democratic process in 2026, anywhere”. And Alam plans to vote for the first time.

“I’m thrilled to exercise my lost right as a citizen,” he said.

He is not alone. Bangladesh has about 127 million registered voters, nearly 56 million of them between the ages of 18 and 37, according to the Election Commission. They constitute about 44 percent of the electorate, and are a demographic widely seen as the driving force behind Hasina’s downfall.

“Practically speaking, anyone who turned 18 after the 2008 parliamentary election has never had the chance to vote in a competitive poll,” said Humayun Kabir, director general of the Election Commission’s national identity registration wing.

“That means people who have been unable to vote for the last 17 years are now in their mid-30s… and especially eager to cast their ballots.”

This eagerness comes after three post-2008 elections that “were not considered credible”, Ivars Ijabs, the EU’s chief observer, said.

The 2014 polls saw a mass opposition boycott, and dozens of seats where Hasina’s Awami League party faced no contest. The 2018 vote, though contested, became widely known as the “night’s vote”, after allegations that ballot boxes had been filled before polling day.

The 2024 election, meanwhile, again went ahead amid a major boycott by opposition parties, with critics arguing that conditions for a “fair contest did not exist”.

A pivotal electorate

Fragmented by class, geography, religion and experience, Bangladesh’s young voters are united less by ideology than by a shared suspicion of institutions, which, for most of their adult lives, have failed to represent them, say analysts.

“There is a significant age gap between pre–Hasina regime voters and new voters,” said Fahmidul Haq, a writer and faculty member at Bard College in New York and a former professor at the University of Dhaka. “Because of the nature of elections under the Hasina administration, we do not know the actual level of public acceptance of the political parties.”

As a result, he said, the current cohort of first-time voters will play a decisive role in shaping the future direction of politics in Bangladesh. Haq described the upcoming election as a psychological release valve after years of repression, during which young people “could not hold their representatives accountable; rather, those representatives appeared to them as oppressors”.

Many young people still do not trust the existing system, Haq argued, and some remain sceptical of the democratic transition itself.

Umama Fatema, a Dhaka University student who emerged as a prominent leader during the 2024 protests, said the uprising generated powerful expectations among young people: promises of “no corruption, no manipulation, equality of opportunity and political reform”.

But translating these aspirations into institutions has proven far more difficult. As the transition unfolded, Fatema said the reform process, led by the interim administration of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, alongside manoeuvring by political parties – including those born out of 2024’s protests – became increasingly complex.

“Very few people and their aspirations have been meaningfully involved and incorporated,” she said.

A fraught alliance

With the Awami League barred from political activity by the interim Yunus government, the election has turned into a battle between two rival coalitions: one led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and the other by Jamaat-e-Islami.

For many young protesters, this outcome cuts against the spirit of 2024.

Pantho Saha, a 22-year-old student from the Cumilla district in the country’s southeast, said many with whom he protested in 2024 had hoped the leaders who emerged from the uprising would break what he described as the “same old dynastic” patterns.

That expectation began to fracture, he said, when the National Citizen Party (NCP), a youth-led formation born out of the protest movement, moved towards an electoral alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami. A far-right Islamist party, the Jamaat’s opposition to Bangladesh’s independence during the 1971 war has long limited its mainstream appeal.

“Historically, those who rule us come to power with big promises,” Saha said. “But after a few years, power blinds them, and the same abuses repeat.”

The NCP, he said, initially felt different. “We thought of the NCP as a beacon of light. But seeing it align with a party that carries so much historical baggage made many of us lose hope.”

Fatema, who led the protests alongside several figures who later founded the NCP, said the party’s alignment with the Jamaat risks shrinking the significance of the July 2024 uprising. “Over time, it could seriously damage how this uprising is remembered in history,” he warned.

The NCP positioned itself at its launch as a generational alternative to Bangladesh’s traditional parties, promising what it called a “new political settlement” rooted in the 2024 July movement. But as talks advanced over the electoral alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, the party saw a wave of resignations, including from several senior figures and women leaders who had been expected to contest parliamentary seats. Many of them have since announced independent bids, saying the party was “drifting from its founding commitments”.

Nahid Islam, the NCP’s chief, has defended the alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, describing it as a “strategic electoral arrangement aimed at greater unity”, rather than an ideological alignment.

Between hope and politics

Even so, the February 12 ballot carries particular weight for many younger Bangladeshis who helped drive last year’s uprising.

Moumita Akter, 24, a master’s student at Chittagong University who took part in the anti-Hasina protests, described the vote as “the first step to restore at least the most basic democratic practices”.

“I don’t expect miracles from a single vote. But I want to see whether the system can at least function properly. That alone would be a major change,” she said.

For others, like Sakibur Rahman, 23, a voter from the eastern Brahmanbaria district who studies philosophy at the University of Dhaka, the appeal of democracy remains conditional.

“You can talk about democracy all day, but if people don’t feel safe, can’t speak freely and can’t earn a living, democracy feels abstract, he told Al Jazeera.

Rahman said he would support whichever party could credibly guarantee public safety, freedom of expression, religious freedom, and minorities living without fear.

For many women voters, the calculation is sharper still. Women make up nearly half of Bangladesh’s electorate, but young women say questions of dignity and everyday security will shape their ballot.

“We hear promises of women’s rights, but the lived reality is far from ideal. That will shape how many of my female friends will vote,” Akter, the master’s student, said.

Yet the political field they are being asked to choose from remains overwhelmingly male. Election Commission data shows that only 109 of the 2,568 candidates contesting the election, or about 4.24 percent, are women.

Fatema said the political space for women has narrowed rather than expanded since the uprising. “After August 5, women who speak about their agency, their contributions, and their right to representation have been suppressed in many ways,” she said.

“Harassment, from online abuse to sexual threats, has become routine in political spaces.” These pressures are pushing women out of visible political roles, just as the country enters a critical political transition, she added.

Mubashar Hasan, a political observer and adjunct researcher at Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative, said the disconnect between women’s prominence in protest movements and their marginalisation in formal politics raises doubts about the depth of reform.

“No structural change is possible without women’s political representation, and participation at the highest levels… both in parliament and in policymaking,” he said. “Without that, promises of any new political order remain incomplete.”

Fahmidul Haq of Bard College said political parties would have to approach young voters differently than in the past, by addressing “their traumas, desires, and demands sincerely”, and by campaigning with honesty and transparency.

“Young people are deeply sceptical of absurd promises,” he said, adding that those may in fact alienate them.

Still, something fundamental has changed. For Alam, the first-time voter from Dhaka’s Mirpur, July 2024 permanently altered how his generation relates to power.

“We now dare to question everyone,” he said. “Whoever comes to power, that habit won’t disappear.”

Gaza – When Steve Witkoff announced “phase two” of the ceasefire, it sounded like the update everyone has been desperate for here in Gaza. Something in the way he said it – phase two – really made it sound like things might finally be turning the corner.

In less than 24 hours, another announcement followed. The White House named the members of a new “Board of Peace”, tasked with overseeing a technocratic committee that would manage the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza. The committee will be led by Dr Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian official, who is presented as part of a forward-looking plan for reconstruction and stability.

On paper, it appears to be a movement. Like structure. Like planning for a future beyond war.

But on the ground in Gaza, there isn’t a sense of confidence. There is doubt – and a lot of it.

Many Palestinians here struggle to understand how a board meant to rebuild Gaza can include people who have openly supported Israel, especially when the destruction is still everywhere you look, and no one has been held accountable.

Buildings are still in ruins. Families are still grieving. Entire neighbourhoods are gone. Against that backdrop, talk of governance and reconstruction feels disconnected from reality.

For families who have lost their homes, their loved ones, and their sense of safety, the contradiction is hard to ignore. It’s difficult to be asked to trust a future designed by people who seem untouched by the present pain and untouched by responsibility for it.

For those whose daily life is characterised by the constant buzz of drones and sudden Israeli air attacks, nothing’s really shifted.

Parents still think hard about where their kids will sleep tonight. Aid workers still map their routes, not by where help is most needed, but by which roads might actually get them through alive. Families still hush up at night, straining to hear if the quiet will hold or if the fighting will break out again.

All these official statements? They feel miles away from what’s actually happening. Phase two might exist in some news release, but for most people, life still feels stuck right where it started.

You don’t feel a ceasefire in speeches or headlines. You feel it in what’s missing, the sudden silence, the easing in your chest, the nights that don’t end with a jolt. That’s what people are waiting for. Not the label, not the milestone. Just the change itself.

After months of loss and exhaustion, it’s normal to want to believe things really are getting better. Diplomats cling to the idea of progress. Governments need to say momentum’s building. But the people actually living this? They just want something steady. They want to know tomorrow won’t be worse than today, that they can wake up and not flinch.

But right now, that feeling isn’t there. Promises are uneven, timelines keep slipping, and too many commitments just fade into the background. For people living through it, this doesn’t feel like peace on the move; it feels like everything’s hanging by a thread, ready to snap at any minute. Just calling it “phase two” doesn’t make it feel any safer.

And then there’s that quieter hurt that comes from hope getting stretched too thin. When official words don’t match real life, people learn to lower their expectations. Hope turns into something fragile – something you hold close but don’t trust too much, because getting let down again just stings. Announcing progress before anyone can feel it doesn’t build trust. It erodes it.

This isn’t about throwing out diplomacy. It’s just about honesty. If “phase two” is going to mean anything, people need to feel it in their daily lives: Fewer funerals, hospitals that actually work, roads that don’t feel like traps, days where fear isn’t always there.

Real peace grows in those small, ordinary moments, walking down the street without bracing yourself, sleeping through the night without planning how to run if things go wrong.

Until those moments show up, “phase two” is mostly just a symbol. And symbols, no matter how hopeful, can’t keep anyone safe. Only real change does that.

For people living day to day, peace isn’t about the next announcement. It starts when they can get through a night and believe the ceasefire will still hold in the morning.

Netflix’s miniseries includes never-before-seen footage and recordings of the stars opening up about some of their lowest points.

Fans of Take That are gearing up for the release of Netflix’s upcoming documentary series, named after the band, which tells the unbelievable story of one of the world’s most successful boy bands.

The three-part series goes behind the scenes with Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, Jason Orange, and Robbie Williams as they open up about the highs and lows of global fame.

After stealing the hearts of millions of fans, the band’s first split in February 1996 had devastating impacts of some of the band members.

Now-retired singer Jason Orange stayed with the band until their separation in 1996, when he went on to pursue a short career in acting, starring in the crime drama series Killer Net.

However, he soon decided acting was not for him, and would go on to reunite with the band in 2005 and perform as part of The Circus tour.

The documentary includes footage from the our, which shows Jason addressing screaming fans as he stood proudly on stage.

However, earlier footage of the star in his youth suggested he may not have been as content as he seemed.

In a voiceover, he can be heard admitting: “When I was in Take That the first time around, I was the dancer of the band and I accepted it at the time.

“I was told not to bother singing, ever. I suppose I couldn’t tell people how I really feel and I can’t even tell you what I went through to get there. So this time, singing, it’s such a pleasure for me to do it.”

Proud of their friend, his fellow stars said: “Jay has the most beautiful voice, his tone and the way he sings is so beautiful. He never over-sings, he’s a very gentle singer.”

In 2014, Orange announced his official retirement from the band and the music industry, saying in a statement: “I want to start by saying how proud I am of what we have achieved together over the years.

“I have spent some of the best years of my life with Take That and I’d like to thank everyone who has been a part of my journey, including my band mates, who I feel are like brothers to me.

“Most especially my gratitude goes to all of the good and kind, beautiful and ever-loyal fans of the band, without whom none of this could have been possible. Thank-you.”

The star said he was “proud” of what the band had achieved since forming in 1990, adding: “At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That.

“At the start of this year and with my full knowledge and blessing the guys began writing new material. There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this.

“I know how much Mark, Gary and Howard enjoy writing and making music, and they know that they have my full support and encouragement to continue on with what is to be another chapter for the band.”

Take That airs on Netflix on January 27

Kim condemns ‘incompetent’ party members for delays in government projects in advance of key ruling party meeting.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired a senior official tasked with economic policy and condemned “incompetent” party members, according to state media, in a rare public rebuke of officials in the secretive state.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that Kim had dismissed Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho during the inauguration ceremony of the first stage of a modernisation project at the Ryongsong Machine Complex.

The North Korean leader fired Yang “on the spot”, KCNA said, adding that Kim considered the vice premier as “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties”.

“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat – an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” Kim was quoted in the news report as saying. “After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat,” he added.

Yang, a former machinery industry minister promoted to vice premier in charge of the machinery sector, is also an alternate member of the party’s leadership council, according to South Korea’s state news agency Yonhap.

Yang’s replacement has not been announced.

The removal comes as North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party gears up for its Ninth Party Congress, which is expected to convene soon to set out major policy goals for the country.

During the visit to the industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim also blasted officials whom he blamed for delays in the modernisation project.

“Owing to the irresponsible, rude and incompetent economic guidance officials, the first-stage modernisation project of the Ryongsong Machine Complex encountered difficulties,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

He also slammed party members who, for “too long”, had “been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness”.

Kim warned that current economic policymakers could “hardly guide the work of readjusting the country’s industry as a whole and upgrading it technologically”.

The public admonition of officials, which Yonhap described as “rare”, appeared aimed at tightening discipline among officials in advance of the Party Congress.

Last week, Yonhap reported that North Korea had replaced its top military officials in charge of guarding Kim, amid what it called “assassination concerns”.

According to the report, the chiefs of three major North Korean units, the Guard Office of the ruling party, the Guard Department of the State Affairs Commission and the Bodyguard Command, were all replaced.

While rare, the public dismissals mirror past cases, such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.

The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials”, Yang told the AFP news agency.

A new long-range anti-ship cruise missile in development in Japan can be seen executing a series of barrel rolls in an official video clip. The spiraling trajectory is intended to make the weapon, currently referred to as the “island defense missile” or simply the “New SSM,” harder to intercept in the terminal phase of flight. Work on the New SSM has been proceeding since 2023 amid growing concerns about regional threats, especially from China. The missile could be the first of a modular family of advanced cruise missiles.

Footage of a New SSM performing the rolling manoeuvres during a test is included in a video montage recently released online by the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA). The footage was first shown publicly to attendees at ATLA’s annual Defense Technology Symposium last year, but it has not been widely available until now. Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) is the prime contractor.

The demonstration of the New SSM’s barrel roll capability can be seen in the video starting at around 0:49 in the runtime.

P-31-1_島嶼防衛用新対艦誘導弾の要素技術の研究

In its current form, the subsonic New SSM is powered by a single XKJ301-1 turbofan engine based on KHI’s KJ300 design, which was developed for use on cruise missiles, as well as uncrewed aerial vehicles. The KJ300 is a two-spool type designed to offer significant fuel economy and, by extension, greater range. To date, Japanese authorities do not appear to have confirmed the maximum range they are targeting for this weapon, but have said it will exceed that of the Type 12 anti-ship cruise missile.

The baseline Type 12 has a maximum range of around 124 miles (200 kilometers), while an improved version was reportedly subsequently developed with roughly twice the reach. A further upgraded Type 12 that can hit targets between 560 and 620 miles (900 and 1,000 kilometers) away is also now in development. The assumption then is that the New SSM will have an even longer maximum range.

The New SSM has pop-out main wings, each made up of three separate sections that lock into place after deploying. It also has two vertical stabilizers and a pair of horizontal stabilizers, all fixed in place at the tail end of the missile. The missile is intended to be fired from launchers on the ground and on ships, and to be air-launched from tactical jets like the F-2 and larger types like the P-1 maritime patrol plane. A rocket booster provides initial thrust before falling away, after which the XKJ301-1 turbofan kicks in.

The weapon has a number of stealthy features, including a pronounced chine line that extends along either side behind the beak-like nose, as well as panels with serrated and otherwise heavily angled edges. The intake for the XKJ301-1 has an S-shaped design, as well, another common feature on stealth missiles and aircraft.

The shaping of the nose also has to do with the missile’s expected guidance package. From what Japanese authorities have explained so far, the New SSM will use a GPS-assisted inertial guidance system (INS) navigation to get to a designated target. A dual-mode seeker, with imaging infrared (IIR) and radio frequency (RF) homing modes, then takes over for the terminal phase of flight. Pairing these two seeker capabilities together offers significant benefits for increasing the probability of a hit while also reducing vulnerability to jamming and other countermeasures. It would also help make the weapon more effective in the complex littoral environments where they are likely to be employed. This guidance combination is also just one of a number of potential modular nose sections that could be fitted to the missile, which we will come back to later on.

ATLA in Japan has previously said that the New SSM will be capable of some degree of maneuvering on route to target to reduce the chance of interception at extended ranges and otherwise create complications for defenders. Then there is the aforementioned terminal phase barrel rolling, which is primarily said to be focused on evading fire from gun-based shipboard close-in defense systems like China’s 30mm Gatling cannon-equipped Type 730. Official Japanese government graphics have depicted the New SSM spiraling past what looks intended to represent a Type 730, as seen in the social media post below.

An improved version of the Type 730, the Type 1130, with 11 barrels instead of seven, is also now in service in China, and that country has at least experimented with even larger designs in the same vein. Similar close-in weapon systems are found on warships in service with many other naval arms globally, including Russia, the United States, and Japan itself, to name just a few.

It is unclear whether there is any hard data yet on the effectiveness of the New SSM’s particular maneuvering capability. The idea of giving an anti-ship cruise missile a very high degree of terminal maneuverability to improve its survivability is not new. As a comparative example, the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), developed by Norway’s Kongsberg and increasingly popular globally, is also designed to perform high-G evasive maneuvers in the terminal phase of an engagement. However, it flies in a more U-shaped pattern rather than a full spiral, at least based on publicly available information.

The final configuration of the New SSM might also incorporate electronic support measures systems or other self-protection capabilities.

ATLA has also openly talked about using the New SSM as the basis for a variety of other capabilities leveraging modular nose sections. This could include land-attack variants capable of engaging fixed or mobile targets, as well as ones intended to perform non-kinetic tasks. As seen in the slide below, variations on the design could act as dedicated decoys or loitering surveillance assets with the added ability to immediately prosecute strikes on targets they find. This modularity would also make it easier to add new warheads, seeker systems, and other functionality to the design down the line. In many ways, the New SSM blurs the line between a traditional cruise missile and a drone, indicative of broader trends globally that TWZ regularly highlights.

A ‘platform’ like this with a range well in excess of 620 miles, and that can be launched from the ground, sea, or land, would open the door to a host of operational possibilities for Japan. That range could also translate to significant loitering endurance, as well. Ships, aircraft, and launchers on the ground could be positioned closer to a target area before launch, extending the system’s functional reach or ability to loiter in a particular part of the battlespace.

Just in its anti-ship form, the New SSM could give Japan a valuable new way to strike ships from multiple vectors simultaneously and do so with increased survivability. As the term “island defense missile” underscores, the weapon’s development also comes at a time when Japanese authorities see increasing maritime (and other) threats to both the country’s home island and outlying territories from long-time regional adversary North Korea, as well as Russia and China. The New SSM is one of several long-range strike capabilities, also including new hypersonic missiles, that Japan has been developing in response to this evolving security environment. In line with this, Japan’s forthcoming cruiser-sized Aegis System Equipped Vessels (ASEV) have been steadily evolving beyond floating ballistic missile defense platforms to more multi-purpose maritime strike and land-attack-capable assets.

With all this in mind, the current government in Japan has taken a particularly open and hard-line stance on responding to any potential future Chinese intervention against Taiwan. This, in turn, has prompted significant shows of force from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that have clearly been meant to send signals to Tokyo, as well as Taipei. The Japanese island of Yonaguni, which lies just 70 miles or so from the northern shores of Taiwan, has become a central point of discussion. Even just with a range of 620 miles, New SSMs based there would be able to reach targets in certain parts of mainland China, as well as out in the waters surrounding Taiwan and beyond. The Japan Self-Defense Forces have already been moving to bolster air defenses on Yonaguni.

When it comes to the New SSM, specifically, Japanese authorities have previously pointed to 2027 as the target timeframe to begin mass production and deployment of the missiles. As the video montage from ATLA shows, flight-testing of the barrel-rolling weapons is very much underway.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com