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The Trump administration is pushing an Israeli-crafted resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) this week aimed at eliminating the possibility of a State of Palestine. The resolution does three things. It establishes US political control over the Gaza Strip. It separates Gaza from the rest of Palestine. And it allows the US, and therefore Israel, to determine the timeline for Israel’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza, which would mean never.
This is imperialism masquerading as a peace process. In and of itself, it is no surprise. Israel runs US foreign policy in the Middle East. What is a surprise is that the US and Israel might just get away with this travesty unless the world speaks up with urgency and indignation.
The draft UNSC resolution would establish a US-UK-dominated Board of Peace, chaired by none other than President Donald Trump himself, and endowed with sweeping powers over Gaza’s governance, borders, reconstruction, and security. This resolution would sideline the State of Palestine and condition any transfer of authority to the Palestinians on the indulgence of the Board of Peace.
This would be an overt return to the British mandate of 100 years ago, with the only change being that the US would hold the mandate rather than the United Kingdom. If it were not so utterly tragic, it would be laughable. As Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Yes, the proposal is a farce, yet Israel’s genocide is not. It is a tragedy of the first order.
Incredibly, according to the draft resolution, the Board of Peace would be granted sovereign powers in Gaza. Palestinian sovereignty is left to the discretion of the board, which alone would decide when Palestinians are “ready” to govern themselves – perhaps in another 100 years? Even military security is subordinated to the board, and the envisioned forces would answer not to the UNSC or to the Palestinian people, but to the board’s “strategic guidance”.
The US-Israel resolution is being put forward precisely because the rest of the world – other than Israel and the US – has woken up to two facts. First, Israel is committing genocide, a reality witnessed every day in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where innocent Palestinians are murdered to the satisfaction of the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Second, Palestine is a state, albeit one whose sovereignty remains obstructed by the US, which uses its veto in the UNSC to block Palestine’s permanent UN membership. At the UN this past July and then again in September, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for Palestine’s statehood, a fact that put the Israel-US Zionist lobby into overdrive, resulting in the current draft resolution.
For Israel to accomplish its goal of Greater Israel, the US is pursuing a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, squeezing Arab and Islamic states with threats and inducements. When other countries resist the US-Israel demands, they are cut off from critical technologies, lose access to World Bank and IMF financing, and suffer Israeli bombing, even in countries with US military bases present. The US offers no real protection; rather, it orchestrates a protection racket, extracting concessions from countries wherever US leverage exists. This extortion will continue until the global community stands up to such tactics and insists upon genuine Palestinian sovereignty and US and Israeli adherence to international law.
Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli manoeuvres. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond. Israel and the US are currently at war, overtly or covertly, across the Horn of Africa (Libya, Sudan, Somalia), the eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Syria), the Gulf region (Yemen), and Western Asia (Iraq, Iran).
If the UNSC is to provide true security according to the UN Charter, it must not yield to US pressures and instead act decisively in line with international law. A resolution truly for peace should include four vital points. First, it should welcome the State of Palestine as a sovereign UN member state, with the US lifting its veto. Second, it should safeguard the territorial integrity of the State of Palestine and Israel, according to the 1967 borders. Third, it should establish a UNSC-mandated protection force drawn up from Muslim-majority states. Fourth, it should include the defunding and disarmament of all belligerent non-state entities, and it should ensure the mutual security of Israel and Palestine.
The two-state solution is about true peace, not about the politicide and genocide of Palestine, or the continued attacks by militants on Israel. It is time for both Palestinians and Israelis to be safe, and for the US and Israel to give up the cruel delusion of permanently ruling over the Palestinian people.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Jack Miller, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, discusses how the narratives from both major political parties are likely to shift following the end of the US government shutdown.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi says both fighters who carried out suicide attacks on Islamabad and South Waziristan were Afghan nationals.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said both suicide bombers involved in the two attacks in the country this week were Afghan nationals, as authorities announced having made several arrests.
Naqvi made the remarks in parliament on Thursday during a session carried live on television.
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On Wednesday, at least 12 people were killed and more than 30 were injured, several of them critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the Islamabad District Judicial Complex.
The Counter-Terrorism Department in Punjab province’s Rawalpindi said seven suspects were detained in connection with the Islamabad blast. The alleged perpetrators were apprehended from Rawalpindi’s Fauji Colony and Dhoke Kashmirian, the Dawn daily reported, while a raid was also conducted in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
Firefighter douses a vehicle after a blast outside a court building in Islamabad [Reuters]
The other suicide attack took place on Monday at a college in South Waziristan, KP.
Cadet College, which is near the Afghan border, came under attack when an explosive-laden vehicle rammed its main gate. Two attackers were killed at the main gate, while three others managed to enter, according to police.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been severely strained in recent years, with Islamabad accusing fighters sheltering across the border of staging attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul denies giving haven to armed groups to attack Pakistan.
Dozens of soldiers were killed in border clashes between the two countries last month, as well as several civilians.
On Tuesday, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan may launch strikes inside Afghanistan following the attacks this week, saying the country was “in a state of war”.
“Anyone who thinks that the Pakistan Army is fighting this war in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and the remote areas of Balochistan should take today’s suicide attack at the Islamabad district courts as a wake-up call,” he said.
Pakistan passes bill giving army chief immunity for life
In a separate development on Thursday, Pakistan’s parliament approved a sweeping constitutional amendment, granting lifetime immunity to the current army chief, boosting the military’s power, which was previously reserved only for the head of state, despite widespread criticism from opposition parties and critics.
The 27th amendment, passed by a two-thirds majority, also consolidates military power under a new chief of defence forces role and establishes a Federal Constitutional Court.
The changes grant army chief Asim Munir, recently promoted to field marshal after Pakistan’s clash with India in May, command over the army, air force and the navy.
Munir, like other top military brass, would enjoy lifelong protection.
Any officer promoted to field marshal, marshal of the air force, or admiral of the fleet will now retain rank and privileges for life, remain in uniform, and enjoy immunity from criminal proceedings.
The amendment also bars courts from questioning any constitutional change “on any ground whatsoever”.
Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls from senior ministers to sack whoever was behind briefings to the media that the PM is facing a leadership challenge.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Health Secretary Wes Streeting were both named as potential challengers in the anonymous briefings – now both are calling for whoever was behind them to be found and sacked.
It comes as Sir Keir apologised to Streeting for the episode, which the PM is said to be “incadescent” about.
It has intensified pressure on the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, whom some – including senior figures in government – hold ultimately responsible for the briefings, as well as the overall culture inside No 10.
Both Streeting and Miliband have stopped short of publicly criticising McSweeney, and on Wednesday Streeting made a point of praising his role in Labour’s general election victory.
Speaking to the BBC, Miliband said it’s been a “bad couple of days”, adding: “We’ve got to learn the lessons of this episode and say this is not where the focus should be.”
He said he was confident the prime minister would want to find who the anonymous briefer was and “get rid of them if he can find out”.
“He hates it when things get leaked, he hates it when cabinet colleagues get briefed against.
“People listening to this programme might think ‘if he hates it, why can’t he stop it’.
“The truth is, sometimes these things do happen. There are noises off and you can never quite know where they are coming from.”
Miliband’s name has been discussed by some Labour MPs as another possible challenger to the prime minister.
Asked if he would rule out returning as Labour leader, he replied: “Yes.”
He added: “I had the best inoculation technique against wanting to be leader of the Labour Party which is that I was leader of the Labour Party, between 2010 and 2015.
“I’ve got the T-shirt – that chapter’s closed.”
Sir Keir apologised to Streeting in a brief phone call on Wednesday evening, however supporters of the health secretary are said to be irritated that briefing against him has continued.
Those around the health secretary argue that “this kind of briefing culture followed Keir Starmer from opposition into government”.
There are a declining number of advisers who were with Sir Keir in opposition and are still working for him now.
McSweeney is one of them, and the most senior. He has been approached for comment and not replied.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir had “lost control of his government… and lost the trust of the British people”.
She said McSweeney was responsible for the culture in No 10 and asked if the prime minister still had confidence in him.
Sir Keir replied: “Morgan McSweeney, my team and I are absolutely focused on delivering for the country.
“Let me be clear, of course, I’ve never authorised attacks on cabinet members, I appointed them to their post because they’re the best people to carry out their jobs.”
He added that “any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable” and specifically praised Streeting for doing a “great job”.
Speaking after PMQs, the prime minister’s press secretary told reporters the briefings against Streeting had come “from outside No 10” and that the prime minister had full confidence in McSweeney.
The spokesperson refused to say whether there was a leak inquiry, but did say leaks would be “dealt with”.
The echoes of gunfire still haunt Abdullahi Wakili. What he remembers most, however, is the silence that followed — the silence of neighbours fleeing through the night, of homes left smouldering, of fear settling over Lau like harmattan dust.
“We were always expecting a crisis at any moment. We could not sleep with both eyes closed,” the 60-year-old resident said.
Lau, a farming community in Taraba State, northeastern Nigeria, is home to the Yandang people who, for years, were caught in recurring clashes with nomadic herders. In July 2018, violence erupted again, claiming at least 73 lives on both sides. Dozens of houses were torched, farmlands were razed, and families were displaced from communities such as Katibu, Didango, Katara, Sabon Gida, Shomo Sarki, and Nanzo.
“It was the most devastating,” Abdullahi said.
The crisis destroyed livelihoods built over generations. The fertile lands that once yielded yams and rice, supported fishing, and provided pasture for cattle, became battlefields.
Abdullahi, a Yandang indigene married to a Fulani woman, said the two groups had coexisted peacefully for decades before destruction of farms, cattle rustling, and revenge attacks tore them apart. “We used to share everything,” he said. “But the crisis turned us into enemies overnight.”
For generations, Taraba’s plains were a meeting point between settled farmers and herders moving south from the Sahel in search of pasture. These groups lived in relative harmony, guided by informal agreements that allowed seasonal grazing after harvest and mutual access to water. But as population pressures, desertification, and the expansion of farms increased competition for land, old alliances frayed. By the 1990s, the breakdown of traditional mediation systems and the influx of small arms turned ordinary disputes into recurring cycles of revenge.
Political manipulation and the proliferation of small arms after decades of communal unrest in the region further deepened distrust. What were once local disputes over damaged crops or stolen cattle gradually escalated into organised violence involving armed individuals and retaliatory attacks.
By 2018, when violence returned to Lau, the conflict had become part of a larger regional crisis stretching across Adamawa, Benue, Plateau, and Nasarawa states.
When words replace weapons. Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
A turning point
Five years later, in 2023, Search for Common Ground (SCFG), a non-profit founded in 1982, launched the second phase of its Contributing to the Mitigation of Conflict over Natural Resources project (COMITAS II), in collaboration with the European Union.
Running from January 2023 to July 2024, the initiative targeted conflict-affected communities in Taraba and Adamawa states. Its aim was simple yet ambitious: to rebuild trust, promote dialogue, and empower communities to prevent disputes before they turned violent.
COMITAS II also reached Taraba’s Lau and Zing local government areas, another hotspot where farming communities along the international cattle route to Cameroon had experienced repeated clashes.
Through stakeholder meetings, training sessions on early warning and conflict sensitivity, and community-produced radio dramas and jingles, the project re-ignited conversations about peace. Over 60 media practitioners and advocates were trained across 32 communities in both states, resulting in the de-escalation of several potential violent incidents through verified reporting and community dialogue in the past year.
Wesley Daniel, a community leader who is part of the initiative, said the tensions and attacks have reduced. “We now have structures that encourage people to talk instead of fight,” he noted.
Before, even a rumour could spark bloodshed. But now, trained youths use social media, radio, and town-hall discussions to dispel misinformation before tensions escalate.
Berry Cletus, a COMITAS II Media Fellow in Lau, remembered one incident where a rumour spread that a cow belonging to a herder had been stolen. “Instead of waiting for violence, trained youths acted fast. They verified the information, shared the truth on local radio, and linked both communities for dialogue,” Berry told HumAngle.
To sustain this new culture of communication, SFCG established Community Security Architecture Dialogues (CSADs) at the local government level and Community Response Networks (CRNs) in villages. These structures identify warning signs early, mediate disputes, and link residents to security agencies.
Some of the CSADS in Taraba State. Photo: Shawanatu Ishaka/HumAngle
In Zing, a potentially violent eviction attempt by locals was averted after intervention by the CRN. “Our awareness campaigns are restoring trust,” said Kauna Mathias David, a CSAD member. “Before, truck drivers feared using our roads because of theft. Now they travel freely.”
Progress and its fragility
While peace is returning, it remains delicate. Decades of mistrust cannot vanish overnight. Violence still flares in other parts of Taraba and across the region.
Sustainability is also a concern. When the two-year COMITAS II project ended, communities like Lau and Zing struggled to keep peace activities running.
Poor transport and communication sometimes delay reports of early warning signs, weakening response efforts. And although the project was formally handed over to the Taraba State Government, only Karim Lamido Local Government has replicated its peace structure. “Other councils are yet to follow,” lamented Wesley.
Still, the lessons are taking root. In Lau and Zing, residents who spoke to HumAngle said farmers and herders are discovering that peace is not the absence of conflict—it is the presence of dialogue, trust, and shared responsibility.
Mamuda Umar, a local herder, said people have realised that violence solves nothing. “We now prefer dialogue,” he said. “It’s not always easy, but it brings lasting peace.”
Mamuda survived one of the clashes in 2018. Photo: Shawanatu Ishaka/HumAngle
He added that many herders have begun farming, and relations between the groups are improving. “Whenever misunderstandings arise, traditional leaders call meetings for both sides to talk. Each meeting brings a better understanding.”
Even intermarriages, once unthinkable, are gradually becoming accepted. “In the past, a farmer could never seek the hand of a herder’s daughter,” Mamuda recalled. “But things are changing now. We even give our daughters to them in marriage.”
For some Taraba communities, once defined by deadly farmer–herder clashes, this is more than a project—it is the slow rewriting of history, from a narrative of loss to one of coexistence and hope.
But peace here is not a finished story. It lives in the conversations held beneath mango trees, in the cautious laughter of children returning to rebuilt schools, and in the quiet courage of people like Abdullahi who still remember the silence after the gunfire — and choose, every day, to break it with dialogue instead.
This story was produced under the HumAngle Foundation’s Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism project, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Anduril has unveiled Omen, a new tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing drone with a hybrid-electric propulsion system. The design, which the company is now developing in cooperation with EDGE Group in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is intended to be modular and adaptable to a wide array of military and non-military missions. Omen is being presented as a particularly disruptive effort, with outsized range and capabilities for its size and weight, positioning it to compete against larger uncrewed and crewed aircraft.
The official announcement from Anduril about Omen and the new partnership with EDGE comes ahead of the biennial Dubai airshow, which opens next week. In addition to co-development, EDGE will also assist with the production, as well as sales and sustainment, of Omen drones in the UAE. Anduril says it already has a firm order for up to 50 of the uncrewed aircraft from a UAE-based customer, which it has so far declined to name. Pictures of a full-scale model the company has released, as seen clearly below, do depict an example bearing the insignia of the UAE’s Air Force. The plan is to produce batches of Omens at Anduril’s forthcoming Arsenal-1 factory in Ohio, as well.
The Omen drone. Anduril TREVOR DALTON
Omen has been in development since 2019, and there has been significant flight testing involving subscale demonstrators already. Anduril founder Palmer Luckey alluded to this in a post on X last month, which followed Shield AI’s unveiling of its jet-powered, tail-sitting vertical takeoff and landing X-BAT drone, which you can learn much more about in detail in this previous TWZ feature interview. Anduril also directly teased today’s announcements in social media posts yesterday.
X-BAT looks super cool, but Anduril’s unannounced runway-independent, AI-piloted aircraft with even longer range flew its first VTOL flight in January of 2020. The airframe is currently sitting in the Anduril HQ showroom.
“So this has been one of Palmer’s personal projects that we’ve been working on for quite a while, which is why we’ve stayed on it,” Dr. Shane Arnott, a Senior Vice President at Anduril who is currently the lead for what the company calls Manuever Dominance, told TWZ and other outlets during a press briefing yesterday. “So having the support of the founder goes a long way.”
In terms of its core design, Omen is a twin-rotor aircraft that takes off from and lands in a tail-sitting position, where it stands about 10 feet tall. It features relatively long and slender main wings, mounted toward the rear of the fuselage, together with canard foreplanes on either side of the nose. It also has a twin-boom tail configuration extending from the rear of the nacelles on each wing.
Beyond it being hybrid-electric in nature, Anduril has disclosed few details so far about Omen’s propulsion system.
“Candidly, we hit a wall when it came to propulsion technologies,” Arnott noted when talking about prior flight testing of subscale demonstrators. “So we’ve been working very diligently over the last five years, looking at new technologies, and in particular series hybrid tech, and working with the likes of Archer.”
Archer Aviation is an independent company focused, at least publicly, on the development of crewed hybrid-electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Anduril and Archater announced a partnership in December 2024 to work on a design aimed primarily at meeting the requirements of an unspecified U.S. military program. Arnott said Omen is separate from this effort, but some of the technology is being leveraged, especially when it comes to motors. He also described the core elements of the hybrid-electric technologies used in Omen as “internal Anduril magic.”
“We’ve now flown a propulsion demonstrator, which we’re now going to evolve into a new product with EDGE,” he added.
Anduril has yet to provide any hard dimensional or weight specifications for Omen, but says it is in the Group 3 category. The U.S. military defines Group 3 drones as ones that weigh between 55 and 1,320 pounds, can fly up to altitudes between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and have top speeds of between 100 and 250 knots.
“It is a heavy Group 3, so we are at the upper end of Group 3,” Arnott said. “As many of you would know, Group 3 tends to be dominated by folks who are at the lower weight category … and it’s been a bit of a race to the bottom, to be honest, in that space.”
Arnott further described Omen’s payload capacity as being “three to five times” what most Group 3 drones currently on the market can carry, which he also said was generally in the 25-to-50-pound range.
Omen’s exact range and other performance characteristics are also unknown. Arnott said range-wise, the drone would be able to fly three to four times as far as typical Group 3 designs on the market now.
“What I will say is it is Indo-Pacific relevant ranges,” he added. “We are specifically designing for that particular customer in mind, … where there’s a lot of water, not too much land, [the] need the ability to self-deploy, etc.”
As is typically the case with members of Anduril’s uncrewed systems portfolios, Omen will make use of the company’s Lattice proprietary artificial intelligence-enabled autonomy software package. With Lattice, “multiple [Omen] aircraft will coordinate flight paths, share sensor data, and adapt behavior in real time, enabling new missions that bring the capabilities of much larger systems to smaller, more expeditionary units,” according to the company’s press release.
“One of the reasons why people keep chasing this particular capability is there’s the promise of being truly runway independent and expeditionary in your capability,” Arnott explained. “So, as we know, in the future fight, and also in disaster response, there’s not going to be a lot of runways available. So, being able to take off and recover anywhere, but still have the performance of an aircraft, is very desirable.”
Arnott said that Omen is also designed to have a “low logistics” footprint to further enable its use during expeditionary and distributed operations from far-flung operating locations. “Its lightweight, foldable frame will allow a two-person team to transport, assemble, and launch the aircraft in minutes without specialized infrastructure,” Anduril’s press release adds.
Arnott made clear that Anduril sees Omen’s particular combination of features and capabilities, together with its underlying highly modular open-architecture design, as giving it outsized potential compared to even significantly larger crewed aircraft.
“So we can start doing things that would normally take a Group 5 [drone] or potentially a small business jet, because we can carry multiple sensors, be it SAR [synthetic aperture radar], EO [electro-optical, various electronic sensors,” he said. “So we can go after missions like maritime patrol, etc.”
Group 5 is the highest tier the U.S. military has for drones, covering designs with maximum takeoff weights over 1,320 pounds and typical operating altitudes above 18,000 feet, and that can fly at any speed. The parameters for Group 4 are identical, except when it comes to operating altitude, which is set at no more than 18,000 feet.
The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, seen here during a test of its potential utility in supporting anti-submarine warfare operations, is a Group 5 drone. General Atomics
Multi-payload capability, which is not found on drones at the lower end of the Group 3 category, “makes for a very interesting set of missions,” according to Arnott. “When you’ve got multi-sensors to do correlation, etc, using technologies like Lattice. We can then specifically get into things that would normally be small business jets, be it special mission aircraft, be it maritime patrol. So we’re really looking after, going after that particular space.
Beyond various types of sensors, potential payloads might also include munitions. Anduril’s press release mentions other military mission sets ranging from “logistics resupply to air defense sensing and communications relay,” as well as non-military ones, particularly in the context of a disaster relief scenario.
“So, similar to the problem that we see in the future fight, where runways are likely to be cut or denied, similar kind of problems exist when you have a disaster, whether it’s a tsunami, or a cyclone, or wildfire, or anything like that,” Arnott explained. “Your normal infrastructure tends to be lost as a result of this.”
Omen could help with search and rescue or the delivery of aid, as well act “as a cell phone tower that can fly. So Omen, being a series hybrid, actually has a lot of excess power, so it’s kind of a technical item that can support electronic payloads that need a lot of power to drive them,” he continued. “You can get that in the air, and people’s mobile phones can still work, communications can be restored, and therefore, response can be coordinated. So we are actually very optimistic for capabilities like that for this system.”
It is worth noting here that this vignette speaks to the potential value of Omen as a signal relay node in a military context, as well.
Another view of the Omen drone. Anduril TREVOR DALTON
“The vehicle system itself is a dual-use system, so there’s nothing inherently military about it,” Arnott added, highlighting how that will help with sales to non-military customers. It is “the missionization of it will be subject to the standard export controls of the United States government and also the UAE.”
Omen design is also intended to allow military or non-military personnel to readily “snap in, snap off various payloads,” even under field conditions, according to Arnott.
More broadly speaking, “we have very specifically gone at the upper edge of Group 3 … where we believe that there’s a bit of a blank spot in the market,” he said. At the same time, “we believe we’re onto something, and we believe this is less about disrupting Group 3. This is more about disrupting current maritime patrol, special mission aircraft, much bigger systems. That’s what we’re going after here.”
On top of that, “there’s a lot of wreckage on the road to the creation of tail sitters,” Arnott asserted. “A lot of people have had a shot at doing that. Not a ton of people have succeeded in doing it.”
What sets Omen apart is “really the propulsion tech. So, being able to get it off the ground and then still be able to get into a regime that is efficient for forward flight has been the problem,” according to Arnott. “Typically, you’ll have to pick where your engine is happy from an energy output standpoint. So, helicopters optimize for that vertical flight, which is kind of why they’re horrible at forward flight or very limited in their capability.”
“So having that magical kind of in between [capability], and the hybrid-electric kind of helps there,” he continued. “So you’ve got the ability of having the traditional power plant, as well as then the electric, the battery system, to deal with the lift part of it, and to then get you into cruise.”
“You are seeing others get into this space and start working it. You know, one way to solve it is kind of like what the Shield [AI] guys have done with X-BAT, or they’re planning to do with it, which is a ridiculous amount of thrust, we’ll see there, with the F-15/F-16 engines,” he also noted. “In the Group 3 category, it’s much more tricky [sic] to kind of get that balance right, which is kind of why we’ve been chasing this for better part of five, five to six years.”
X-BAT, which is a much larger design overall and intended for very different mission sets, is not without risks. Shield AI has significant hurdles to clear to make that drone a reality, something it has itself acknowledged. At the same time, Anduril has also laid out extremely ambitious goals for Omen and the market space that it expects the drone to be a contender in.
Sikorsky also recently unveiled a new family of tail-sitting twin-rotor vertical takeoff and landing drones called Nomad, the smallest of which is also in the Group 3 category, as seen in the composite rendering below. The tactical vertical takeoff and landing drone space is heating up, in general, with a growing number of tilt-rotors and other types of designs, as well.
Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin
“This is an architecture that we’ve been we’ve been working on for some time. I won’t say that we’re announcing a family, but it’s certainly a it is a scalable architecture,” Arnott said in response to a direct question from this author about whether there might be plans already for further scaled-up derivatives of Omen. “Today we’re we’re announcing this one configuration.”
In Anduril’s case, Arnott pointed to the order from the UAE-based customer as evidence that Omen “isn’t just another prototype, as the vast majority of the industry has done in this particular class. We will actually create a full production system, we will actually take this into service, and we’ll be fully missionized.”
That being said, Anduril has not disclosed a firm timeline for the first flight of a production representative Omen or a projected unit price. The company has described the current joint development effort with EDGE as being on a three-year timeline that extends into 2028, after which series production of fully missionized examples is expected to begin.
“When it’s ready, it’ll be ready,” according to Arnott.
Anduril’s press notes that the company has already invested $850 million in relevant “mission autonomy technology and Group 3 VTOL development,” and that EDGE is now providing another $200 million to continue work on the drone. EDGE has already been investing heavily in its own expanding portfolio of uncrewed aircraft designs. The company is also involved in the development and production of a wide range of other weapon systems, as well as other defense and security products.
The EDGE-Anduril Production Alliance is also expected to extend well beyond Omen to cooperation on other systems. The joint venture also notably represents Anduril’s first true joint venture outside of the United States. The company has a presence in the United Kingdom and Australia, but those are wholly-owned subsidiaries. Anduril is separately building a 50,000-square-foot engineering center in the UAE that it will manage by itself.
Beyond the order from the customer in the UAE, “there has [sic] been U.S. government customers tracking [Omen] … certainly there have been a number of close customers that we’ve kept in the loop,” Arnott noted. “We tend to keep it reasonably tight when we’re doing development, and then go more broadly once we’re confident and have conviction that we have [the] line of sight to a product that we do now.”
Anduril has already promised more information about Omen to come at the Dubai Airshow next week, and we will follow up when we learn more.
China’s major stock indexes rose on Thursday, buoyed by strong gains in the new energy sector, as investors positioned ahead of a fresh batch of economic data due Friday.
At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) gained 0.4% to 4,017.94, while the blue-chip CSI300 (.CSI300) advanced 1%, recovering earlier losses.
Sector Highlights
New energy stocks led the rally. The CSI New Energy Vehicle Index (.CSI399976) surged 6.9% to a three-year high, and the CSI New Energy Index (.CSI399808) climbed 5.5%, marking its strongest session in two weeks.
Key players posted sharp gains:
CATL (300750.SZ) jumped 8.2%, nearing record highs last seen in October.
Tianqi Lithium (002466.SZ) rose 9.9%.
The rally followed comments from a senior Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official, who said Beijing would soon unveil a comprehensive plan to boost the new energy battery industry and its supporting infrastructure.
Investor Moves
Zhikai Chen, head of Asian equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said domestic institutional investors may be shifting portfolios as their November fiscal year-end approaches.
Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence (.CSI930713) and semiconductor (.CSI931865) sectors edged higher, gaining 0.5% and 0.9%, respectively, after recent declines.
“There’s been a move toward booking strong year-to-date returns and rotating into dividend-paying sectors,” Chen noted, adding that the trend could continue into December.
Hong Kong Markets and Outlook
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index (.HSI) slipped 0.6% to 26,766.71, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (.HSCE) also fell 0.6%, following Wednesday’s one-month high.
Investors now await October credit data along with retail sales, industrial output, and fixed-asset investment figures due Friday, which are expected to provide clearer signals on China’s economic recovery and potential policy adjustments.
Jannik Sinner extends his unbeaten indoor hardcourt record to 28 matches with straight sets win over Alexander Zverev.
Published On 13 Nov 202513 Nov 2025
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Defending champion Jannik Sinner reached the semifinals of the ATP Finals with a 6-4 6-3 win over two-time winner Alexander Zverev on Wednesday, with Ben Shelton eliminated after losing earlier to Felix Auger-Aliassime in the same group.
Italy’s Sinner extended his indoor hardcourt winning streak to 28 matches, but victory over his German rival was not as comfortable as the scoreline suggests, with the world No 2 under pressure early in both sets.
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“A very, very competitive match, a very close match,” Sinner said. “I felt like I was serving very well in important moments. I tried to play the best tennis possible when it mattered, which fortunately went my way.”
The pair, the only two previous ATP Finals champions in this year’s competition in Italy, had both won their opening Bjorn Borg Group matches.
Sinner returns the ball to Germany’s Alexander Zverev during their match in Turin [Antonio Calanni/AP]
Zverev fails to capitalise on break opportunities
On Wednesday, Sinner faced seven break points compared with Zverev’s four but pulled out aces and delightful drop shots when it counted.
Sinner made a slow start, facing two break points in the opening game, but found four aces at vital points to hold after nine minutes. He let slip two break points at 5-4 up before racing to the net to outwit Zverev and take the first set.
Sinner came back from 0-40 to hold his first service game of the second set, and Zverev forced another break point when the Italian next served, but the champion’s composure never wavered and he broke to lead 4-2, a sliced drop shot the winning point.
Zverev responded by taking a 30-40 lead in the following game, but Sinner held firm. At one stage, a whipped backhand down the line had the German shaking his head in disbelief, and he fell to his third loss to Sinner in 17 days, while the Turin crowd rose to acclaim the Italian.
Sinner must retain his title undefeated to have any chance of ending the year as world number one, while Carlos Alcaraz needs one more match win to stay top of the rankings.
Alcaraz, with two wins from two, faces Lorenzo Musetti on Thursday, with Taylor Fritz meeting Alex de Minaur in the other match of the tournament’s second Jimmy Connors Group.
Sinner, left, with Zverev after winning his group stage match [Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters]
Auger-Aliassime earns first win
Canada’s Auger-Aliassime, who lost his opener against Sinner, came from a set down to beat Shelton 4-6 7-6(7) 7-5, to leave the American without a win after his defeat against Zverev.
Shelton powered through the opening set, but Auger-Aliassime forced a decider with a tiebreak victory in the second and broke serve to convert a third match point in the final set.
The American lost his cool when failing to serve out for the first set, launching his racket in frustration when Auger-Aliassime made it 5-4, but Shelton broke again.
In the second set tiebreak, where Shelton fell and hurt his knee, Auger-Aliassime took a 3-0 lead. Shelton managed to save three set points before a double fault ended his valiant effort.
The Canadian held break points at 2-1 up in the final set but had to wait until the final game, where Shelton was guilty of gifting match points, and Auger-Aliassime did not refuse.
Auger-Aliassime will face Zverev on Friday, with a semifinal place on the line.
Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime returns the ball to United States’ Ben Shelton during their ATP World Tour Finals match [Antonio Calanni/AP]
China’s AI models are quickly gaining traction in Silicon Valley, becoming integral to the operations of American companies and earning the praise of a growing list of tech leaders.
Their rapid ascent has highlighted the competitive edge that Chinese developers such as Alibaba, Z.ai, Moonshot, and MiniMax have been able to gain by offering so-called “open” language models at much lower costs than their rivals in the United States.
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The trend has also cast a critical glare on the US’s efforts to stunt China’s tech sector with export controls on advanced chips, which have not stopped Chinese developers from approaching the capabilities of Silicon Valley’s tech giants.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky generated headlines in October when he revealed that the short-term rental platform had opted for Alibaba’s Qwen over OpenAI’s ChatGPT, praising the Chinese model as “fast and cheap”.
Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya revealed the same month that his company had migrated much of its work to Moonshot’s Kimi K2 as it was “way more performant” and “a ton cheaper” than models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Programmers on social media also recently highlighted evidence that two popular US-developed coding assistants, Composer and Windsurf, were built on Chinese models.
The assistants’ developers, Cursor and Cognition AI, have not publicly confirmed their use of Chinese technology and did not respond to requests for comment, though Z.ai has said the speculation aligns with its “internal findings.”
AI letters are shown on a laptop screen next to the logo of the Deepseek AI application in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on April 1, 2025 [Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP]
Nathan Lambert, a machine learning researcher who founded the Atom Project, an initiative to promote open models in the US, said such public examples were the “tip of the iceberg”.
“Chinese open models have become a de facto standard among startups in the US,” Lambert told Al Jazeera.
“I’ve personally heard of many other high-profile cases, where the most valued and hyped American AI startups are starting training models on the likes of Qwen, Kimi, GLM or DeepSeek,” Lambert said, adding that many US firms have been reluctant to publicly disclose their use of Chinese technology.
While it is not possible to precisely quantify the usage of different AI models, industry data points to the rising popularity of Chinese offerings.
Chinese AI tools, including MiniMax’s M2, Z.ai’s GLM 4.6 and DeepSeek’s V3.2, took up seven spots among the 20 models with the most usage last week, according to data from OpenRouter, a platform that connects developers with AI models.
Among the top 10 models used for programming, four were developed by Chinese firms, according to OpenRouter.
In the open model space, China’s clear lead is evident, with cumulative downloads surpassing 540 million as of October, according to an Atom Project analysis of data from hosting platform Hugging Face.
Rui Ma, the founder of Tech Buzz China, said Chinese models are particularly attractive to fledgling startups, while “high-resource organisations” have gravitated towards premium US models.
“These are typically cost-conscious early-stage companies that experiment widely, and many of them will not survive,” Ma told Al Jazeera.
Unlike leading US platforms such as ChatGPT, China’s open-weight large language models make their trained parameters – called weights – publicly available.
While open-weight models do not generate licensing or subscription fees, running them at enterprise scale requires large amounts of computing power, which creators can offer to users at a cost.
Developers such as Beijing-based Z.ai and Hangzhou-based DeepSeek have reported using older-generation chips that are not subject to US export controls, in relatively small quantities, dramatically reducing training and hardware costs compared with their Silicon Valley rivals.
“The success of these Chinese models demonstrates the failure of export controls to limit China,” Toby Walsh, an expert in AI at the University of New South Wales, told Al Jazeera.
“Indeed, they’ve actually encouraged Chinese companies to be more resourceful and build better models that are smaller and are trained on and run on older generation hardware. Necessity is the mother of invention.”
With lower input costs, Chinese firms have been able to offer their services far more cheaply than their US peers.
In an analysis published by AllianceBernstein in February, DeepSeek’s pricing for its models at the time was estimated to be up to 40 times cheaper than OpenAI’s, for instance.
The logo of Chinese technology firm Alibaba is seen at its office in Beijing, China [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]
“I do think China’s AI progress has been underestimated, partly because the signal is fragmented,” Greg Slabaugh, a professor who studies AI at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera.
“Much of the uptake of Chinese models is in China. China’s scale in AI publications and patents has long been visible; the emergence of open-weight models simply makes that capability more globally consumable.”
Some industry analysts have likened China’s approach to AI to the strategy undertaken by Chinese firms in other industries, such as solar panels, that flooded markets with cheap goods.
“This is the solar panel playbook running on software,” Poe Zhao, a Beijing-based tech analyst, wrote last week in his Substack newsletter, Hello China Tech.
But while Chinese AI models have made inroads with their low cost, US tech giants are in a strong position to dominate the high-end market and highly regulated sectors where considerations such as national security are paramount, according to analysts.
Ma, the Tech Buzz China founder, said the development of AI could end up following a similar trajectory to the Android and iPhone platforms, the former of which has about three times as many users worldwide.
“Over the longer term – likely faster than what we saw in the mobile era – it’s entirely possible that AI adoption might follow similar economic dynamics. There are simply more users in the world who prioritise affordability than those who choose premium options,” Ma said.
“But that doesn’t mean the greatest margins or market capitalisation will exist at the low end; value may still concentrate where differentiation, performance and trust command a premium.”
“In Fortune 500 and regulated sectors, widespread adoption is probably not imminent,” said Slabaugh, the Queen Mary University of London professor, referring to the uptake of Chinese models.
“If there is a ‘rude awakening’, it may come on the pricing and flexibility front rather than from a sudden displacement of US models.”
Dua Lipa was among the artists calling on the government to curb the resale of tickets at vastly inflated prices
Pop stars including Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, Radiohead and The Cure have called on Sir Keir Starmer to honour his election promise to protect fans from online ticket touts.
More than 40 musicians have signed a letter urging the UK prime minister to “stop touts from fleecing fans” and cap the price that can be charged when tickets are resold.
The government launched a public consultation on the issue in January after complaints from fans, saying it would tackle touts who “are systematically buying up tickets on the primary market and reselling them to fans at often hugely inflated prices”.
But seven months after the consultation closed, there has been no indication of when legislation might be introduced.
‘Ripped off’
New research from Which? magazine found that some tickets to see Oasis at Wembley Stadium this summer were listed for as much as £4,442.
According to analysis by the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), tickets sold on the resale market are typically marked up by more than 50%.
In January, the government said it was considering a price cap of up to 30%.
Dan Smith from indie-pop group Bastille said “it seems crazy” that fans aren’t protected from price hikes, when countries like Ireland and Australia have introduced caps on ticket resales.
“It’s not surprising that the idea of a price cap has such widespread support from bands and artists,” he said.
“With the support of the government we can all move to a situation where people no longer get ripped off by touts and genuine fans can easily resell unwanted tickets for their original price.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Culture said: “This government is fully committed to clamping down on touts and is going further to put fans back at the heart of live events.
“We have carefully considered evidence provided in response to our consultation earlier this year and will set out our plans shortly.”
The government’s consultation also proposed limiting the number of tickets that resellers can offer.
In the letter, artists including PJ Harvey, Mark Knopfler, Amy MacDonald, Iron Maiden and Nick Cave joined consumer organisations in urging the government to respond to the consultation “as soon as possible, and commit to include legislation on a price cap in the next King’s Speech”.
They said the move would “restore faith in the ticketing system” and “help democratise public access to the arts”.
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Coldplay played a record-breaking 10 nights at Wembley Stadium this summer – but many fans paid over the odds to see the show
The letter comes as Which? found prolific sellers in Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, Spain and the US hoovering up tickets for popular US events before relisting them at inflated prices on sites like StubHub and Viagogo.
The findings echoed a BBC investigation this summer, which discovered teams of overseas workers bulk-buying tickets for concerts in the UK to resell for profit.
The watchdog found it was often difficult for fans to establish the seller’s identity or to contact them – despite the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) securing a court order in 2018 requiring Viagogo to reveal the identity of traders.
Which? also found evidence of speculative selling – when tickets are listed on secondary sites even though the seller has not bought them yet.
Which? consumer law expert Lisa Webb said the joint statement issued on Thursday “makes clear that artists, fan organisations and consumers reject the broken ticketing market that has allowed touts to thrive for too long”.
Resale sites like Viagogo and Stubhub claim a price cap could push customers towards unregulated sites and social media – putting them at increased risk of fraud.
In football’s Premier League, where resales are forbidden because the sport must abide by stricter laws than music events in order to maintain segregation in stadiums, the BBC recently uncovered a black market for match tickets, with some exchanging hands for tens of thousands of pounds.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
As Ukrainian forces struggle to hold onto the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, they are facing increasing pressure about 55 miles to the southwest in the Zaporizhzhia region. The Ukrainian Southern Command on Wednesday said its forces pulled out of the small hamlet of Rivnopillia, the latest in a string of withdrawals in the area since Tuesday. The retreat puts Russian troops a little more than 50 miles east of Zaporizhia, one of Ukraine’s biggest cities with a population of more than 700,000.
The two fronts, in adjacent regions, are related, given Russia’s overwhelming advantage in troop strength and Ukraine’s more limited ability to generate forces to defend both areas. As a result, there are serious questions about how much longer Ukraine can hold onto Pokrovsk and the strategic impact of its potential fall. So we reached out to one battlefield commander with troops in Pokrovsk who offered us some insights about the front-line situation. He spoke to us on the condition of anonymity to talk about operational details.
Ukrainian forces just withdrew from Rivnopillia in Zaporizhzhia oblast, about 55 miles southwest of where Ukraine is struggling to hold onto the Donestk city of Pokrovsk. (Google Earth)
“If Russia manages to advance deeper into Pokrovsk, it would be one of the most serious challenges for Ukraine in recent months,” the commander explained. “Pokrovsk is not just another city. It’s a logistical and strategic hub that connects multiple directions across the Donetsk front. Losing it would mean breaking one of the last strong defense lines before Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, the industrial heart of this part of Ukraine.”
Losing Pokrovsk would also have a cascading effect on the Zaporizhia front and elsewhere.
“For the enemy, Pokrovsk is a gate,” he added. “Once they control it, they can project artillery farther west and threaten supply lines feeding the entire eastern group of Ukrainian forces. For us, it would mean longer supply routes, higher risk for convoys, and pressure on our reserves.”
Meanwhile, “simultaneous pressure on adjacent sectors [like Zaporizhzhia] forces Ukraine to keep reserves thin and limits the ability to plug gaps quickly.”
Ukrainian police & volunteers evacuated 22 residents, mostly elderly civilians, from the frontline town of Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region, as Russian troops advanced under heavy fog & drone threats, intensifying battles along the southern front#Zaporizhzhia#Huliaipole… pic.twitter.com/D2mzKpxHfU
Russia, which has been trying to capture Pokrovsk for more than a year, is paying a heavy price for its advances, the commander stated.
“Around Pokrovsk, the Russians are taking enormous losses,” he posited. “They’re throwing wave after wave of troops into the fight — mostly poorly trained men, often with no proper coordination or cover. Every assault costs them dozens, sometimes hundreds of lives.”
“You can feel it on the ground,” he continued. “The smell of burned vehicles, the sound of their medevacs running nonstop. It’s not a battlefield anymore; it’s a graveyard for their infantry. They’re losing entire assault groups just to take a few hundred meters, and they have to start over the next day.”
Russian forces launched a limited breakthrough toward Pokrovsk using light vehicles. Some reached the city, but most were destroyed. On Nov 11 alone, Ukrainian forces eliminated 10 vehicles. Fighting continues inside Pokrovsk as Ukrainian units strike enemy fire positions.
🇺🇦 🇷🇺 Under the cover of fog, the Russian transport-military column (cars and motorcycles on the roadside) that entered Pokrovsk was almost completely destroyed thanks to Ukrainian drones.
For a long time, Ukraine held an advantage in defending Pokrovsk. The city has high-rises, industrial buildings and underground passageways that made it difficult to attack and allowed Ukrainian troops freedom of movement. However, as more Russian troops pour into the city, they gained the upper hand.
“Russian units are fighting for high-rises and interior city blocks, which increases cost per meter held and reduces freedom of movement for defenders,” the commander noted. “Attacks from multiple axes (especially the west toward Myrnohrad, about a mile to the east), create the risk of semi-encirclement, and strain supply lines. Russia is massing forces and sustainment here — meaning Ukraine’s defense must absorb a high tempo of small assaults.”
Intense battles are raging in the high-rise buildings of Pokrovsk. (Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images) Libkos
Ukrainian logistic lifelines “are under fire from Russian drones and mining, complicating resupply and reinforcement.”
The weather is making matters worse, impeding drone operations and making it harder to pinpoint the location of Russian troops.
“Urban fog, poor visibility, and dense architecture favor attacker surprise and make defensive coordination harder,” the commander noted.
To hold onto Pokrovsk, “Ukraine must deny Russian resupply, prevent consolidation in high-rise anchors, keep constant counter-mobility (mines, obstacles), and rapidly move reserves into threatened zones,” according to the source.
Soldiers of the 425th Separate Assault Regiment “SKALA” are conducting clearing operations against Russian positions in the northern part of Pokrovsk. pic.twitter.com/unzsjG1HUO
Keeping the city in Ukrainian hands “is extremely challenging,” the source pointed out, “because of high-intensity urban combat within city limits, multi-directional Russian pressure (including attempts to envelop the city from the west), superior Russian troop and ammunition throughput on this sector, disrupted Ukrainian logistics under constant UAV surveillance, and worsening weather/visibility conditions that favor small-group assaults and reduce maneuver space.”
This is Pokrovsk. A city scarred by war. Ruins where life once thrived.
As dire as the waning defense of Pokrovsk is for Ukraine, a Russian takeover there will not necessarily result in easy future advances, the commander claimed.
“Let me be clear,” he proclaimed. “This won’t be an easy victory for them. They are paying for every street with heavy casualties. Our soldiers are fighting block by block, building by building. Even if they take ground, it doesn’t mean they hold it – we bleed them every day. Pokrovsk may become another Bakhmut for them, a victory that costs them too much to be worth it.”
“In short, yes, it’s dangerous strategically,” the commander postulated. “But if they break through, they’ll find not open space, but more resistance waiting for them.”
These days, when politicians toss around the word “peace” like it’s going out of style, its real meaning has gotten pretty murky. Sometimes, peace isn’t about freeing people—it’s more like slapping a new kind of control on societies that are already hurting. Take the latest U.S. draft resolution to send an international stabilization force into Gaza, which they pitched to the UN Security Council. It sounds all nice with talk of stability, rebuilding, and keeping civilians safe, but if you dig a little deeper, you see the sneaky play of power and the drive to stay in charge. After all these years of fighting, blockades, and total destruction, the same folks who helped cause the mess are now stepping up like they’re the heroes here to fix it and watch over the peace. So, the big question pops up: Can a peace that’s forced by those in power really count as peace, or is it just a fancy label for keeping things the way they’ve always been—a calm on the outside, but underneath, it’s all about hanging onto inequality and the rules of who dominates whom?
The U.S. draft seems like it’s trying to fill the security hole after a ceasefire and deal with the broken-down government setups in Gaza. But right from the start, in its opening parts, it’s obvious that the whole thing leans more on outside management of the crisis than on actual justice or letting Palestinians decide their own fate. Suggesting a two-year “International Stabilization Force” basically sets up something that feels a lot like an occupation, where the key choices get yanked away from the people on the ground. This kind of top-down approach, what experts in international relations call “peace from above,” has bombed time and again because it doesn’t build up the local ability to bounce back—instead, it locks in a reliance on foreign powers for politics and security.
Another big problem is how this force is set up to be more about taking charge than just keeping an eye on things. Regular UN peacekeeping gigs are all about staying neutral and observing, but this U.S. version gives the green light to use force to “get the job done.” That change in wording—from peacekeeping to straight-up enforcement—shows how Washington wants to bend international groups to fit its own foreign policy goals. When a force like that can throw its weight around with coercion, it stops being about mediating and starts turning into
actual governing, making peace more about who has the muscle than about talking things out.
The third sticking point is around political legitimacy and who gets to represent folks. Sure, the draft throws in mentions of a “transitional authority” or “peace council” to run Gaza for a bit, but it doesn’t lay out any real democratic way to pick who’s on it. In reality, this group would just be the paperwork side for the international troops, and at most, it’d represent Palestinians in name only. Looking at it through the lens of international law, this setup is dicey because it could stomp all over the idea of people ruling themselves, swapping it out for some kind of condescending oversight—kind of like what happened with those international setups in Kosovo and Bosnia after their wars.
On the economic side, the rebuilding plan tucked into this thing doesn’t have much of a focus on fairness. The resolution hammers home how urgent it is to rebuild, but the ways to hand out the money and resources stay firmly in the grip of international committees that are tied financially and politically to Western governments. Instead of giving power back to Palestinian communities, this could just repeat the old “strings-attached aid” routine, where fixing things up becomes a way to pull political strings. In that setup, help with the economy isn’t really about growing or developing—it’s more like a tool for keeping society in line, turning the whole recovery process into something that controls people rather than mending what’s broken.
Politically speaking, sidelining the nearby countries is another major flaw. Arab nations, who are right there geographically and share a lot culturally with the Gaza situation, only get a nod as backup players. This built-in shutout creates a bigger divide between what’s actually happening on the ground and where the decisions are being made, which hurts both how legitimate the mission looks and how well it might work. We’ve seen from history that when international efforts don’t have buy-in from the region, they usually flop because they miss the local nuances and push cookie-cutter policies instead of real back-and-forth conversations.
From a humanitarian angle, the draft has drawn a ton of heat. Groups that watch out for human rights are sounding alarms that putting a force with wide military reach into such a shaky spot could ramp up the chances of abuses against regular people. The plan doesn’t spell out any solid way for independent checks or holding folks accountable if things go wrong. We’ve got examples from past UN operations in Africa and the Balkans showing that without those protections, you can end up with some serious ethical and human disasters. So, ironically, a plan that’s supposed to shield civilians might wind up putting them in more danger.
In terms of how it’s worded, the U.S. draft keeps pushing this old-school idea of “security as something good for the whole world,” where the big powers paint themselves as the keepers of order and peace. In this way of talking, peace isn’t born from fair deals—it’s the result of managing everything from the top and wiping out any say from the locals. The draft’s full of gentle phrases like “stability,” “reconstruction,” and “humanitarian aid,” but they hide a whole web of uneven relationships and power structures. Even though it’s smoothed out for diplomacy, the text is a classic case of what critical thinkers in international relations dub “interventionist neoliberalism”: keeping domination going while pretending it’s all about a stable global setup.
On a symbolic level, the draft says a lot too. By floating this plan, the United States is trying to come off as the fair broker for peace, despite everyone knowing its track record of backing the occupation and keeping inequalities alive in Palestinian areas. This split personality chips away at the plan’s credibility right from the heart. When the folks writing the resolution are also key players in the conflict, any talk of being neutral just doesn’t hold water. A peace that comes from that kind of mess isn’t built on trust—it’s hanging on a shaky power balance that’s way too fragile to last.
We shouldn’t just see the recent U.S. draft resolution on Gaza as some routine diplomatic paper. It points to a bigger pattern in world politics: using peace as a way to control things. On the face of it, it stresses security, rebuilding, and keeping things steady, but underneath, it’s based on this unequal split between the “bosses” and the “ones being bossed.” Rather than handing back control to the people in Gaza, it keeps them stuck in the loop of outsiders calling the shots and trades away their local say-so for the sake of some international system. From that angle, the peace they’re proposing isn’t stopping the violence—it’s just reshaping it.
The way the plan structures politics and security is more about enforcing rules and holding things in than about delivering justice or letting people stand on their own. No real ways to check accountability, wiping out Palestinian input, the heavy-handed military vibe in the writing, and leaning so much on institutions run by the West—all of that screams that this resolution isn’t fixing anything; it’s adding to the mess. Even if it dials down the fighting for a while, it could spawn a fresh kind of reliance that links Gaza’s comeback to giving in politically.
In our world right now, you can’t have lasting peace without justice at its core. When you ditch justice for meddling politics, peace turns into just a break before the next round of fighting. What Gaza really needs isn’t some bossy international force—it’s a real promise to respect their right to decide their own path. Any idea that skips over that basic truth, no matter how nicely it’s dressed up in caring words, is bound to keep the violence spinning. The U.S. draft, with its fake peaceful front, definitely walks right into that pitfall: a peace lurking in the shadow of power, not shining with justice.
The head of the UN migration agency says more than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan because of the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The agency says humanitarian operations in North Darfur are on the brink of collapse.
Oanaminthe, Haiti – It’s a Monday afternoon at the Foi et Joie school in rural northeast Haiti, and the grounds are a swirl of khaki and blue uniforms, as hundreds of children run around after lunch.
In front of the headmaster’s office, a tall man in a baseball cap stands in the shade of a mango tree.
Antoine Nelson, 43, is the father of five children in the school. He’s also one of the small-scale farmers growing the beans, plantains, okra, papaya and other produce served for lunch here, and he has arrived to help deliver food.
“I sell what the school serves,” Nelson explained. “It’s an advantage for me as a parent.”
Nelson is among the more than 32,000 farmers across Haiti whose produce goes to the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, for distribution to local schools.
Together, the farmers feed an estimated 600,000 students each day.
Their work is part of a shift in how the World Food Programme operates in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.
Rather than solely importing food to crisis-ravaged regions, the UN organisation has also worked to increase its collaborations with local farmers around the world.
But in Haiti, this change has been particularly swift. Over the last decade, the World Food Programme went from sourcing no school meals from within Haiti to procuring approximately 72 percent locally. It aims to reach 100 percent by 2030.
The organisation’s local procurement of emergency food aid also increased significantly during the same period.
This year, however, has brought new hurdles. In the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has slashed funding for the World Food Programme.
The agency announced in October it faces a financial shortfall of $44m in Haiti alone over the next six months.
And the need for assistance continues to grow. Gang violence has shuttered public services, choked off roadways, and displaced more than a million people.
A record 5.7 million Haitians are facing “acute levels of hunger” as of October — more than the World Food Programme is able to reach.
“Needs continue to outpace resources,” Wanja Kaaria, the programme’s director in Haiti, said in a recent statement. “We simply don’t have the resources to meet all the growing needs.”
But for Nelson, outreach efforts like the school lunch programme have been a lifeline.
Before his involvement, he remembers days when he could not afford to feed his children breakfast or give them lunch money for school.
“They wouldn’t take in what the teacher was saying because they were hungry,” he said. “But now, when the school gives food, they retain whatever the teacher says. It helps the children advance in school.”
Now, experts warn some food assistance programmes could disappear if funding continues to dwindle — potentially turning back the clock on efforts to empower Haitian farmers.
With no clear majority, formation of next government will require intensive deal-making among strongest blocs.
A coalition led by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has emerged as winner in Iraq’s parliamentary election, according to electoral authorities.
The Independent High Electoral Commission said on Wednesday that al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Change coalition received 1.3 million votes in Tuesday’s election, about 370,000 more than the next closest competitor.
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Speaking after the initial results were announced, al-Sudani hailed the voter turnout of 56 percent, saying it was “clear evidence of another success” that reflected the “restoration of confidence in the political system”.
However, while al-Sudani, who first came to power in 2022, had cast himself as a leader who could turn around Iraq’s fortunes after decades of instability, the poll was marked by disillusionment among weary voters who saw it as a vehicle for established parties to divide Iraq’s oil wealth.
Turnout was lower in areas like Baghdad and Najaf after populist Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist Movement, called on his vast numbers of supporters to boycott the “flawed election”.
As expected, Shia candidates won seats in Shia-majority provinces, while Sunni candidates secured victories in Sunni-majority provinces and Kurdish candidates prevailed in Kurdish-majority provinces.
But there were some surprises, notably in Nineveh, a predominantly Sunni Arab province, where the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) secured the highest number of seats.
Meanwhile, in Diyala province, which has a significant Kurdish minority, no Kurdish candidates won seats for the first time since 2005.
No party can form a government on its own in Iraq’s 329-member legislature, so parties build alliances with other groups to become an administration, a fraught process that often takes many months.
Back in 2021, al-Sadr secured the largest bloc before withdrawing from parliament following a dispute with Shia parties that refused to support his bid to form a government.
“None of the political factions or movements over the past 20 years have been able to gain a total majority … that allows one bloc to choose a prime minister, so at the end, this is going to lead to rounds of negotiations and bargaining among political factions,” said Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Baghdad.
The poll marked the sixth election held in Iraq since a United States-led invasion in 2003 toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein and unleashed a sectarian civil war, the emergence of the ISIL (ISIS) group and the general collapse of infrastructure in the country.
The next premier must answer to Iraqis seeking jobs and improved education and health systems in a country plagued by corruption and mismanagement.
He will also have to maintain the delicate balance between Iraq’s allies, Iran and the US, a task made all the more delicate by recent seismic changes in the Middle East.
Paris St-Germain’s Olga Carmona fires home an “extraordinary” equaliser for her side in their Women’s Champions League match against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Scores of locals were uprooted from their households following clashes between the Wazalendo militia and the Twirwaneho group in several villages of the Fizi and Mwenga territories in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Fizi Civil Society, a coalition of human rights organisations in the DRC, on Wednesday, November 12, reported that the displaced individuals mainly come from the villages of Tuwetuwe, Kitasha, Ngezi, Bilalo-Mbili, and Point Zero.
The group noted that these areas have been the hardest hit by the ongoing fighting, which has worsened the humanitarian crisis in the region. Many fled between November 4 and 7, 2025. At least 552 households, comprising approximately 3,452 people, have been forced to leave their villages, according to Fizi Civil Society.
“These clashes have today brought about negative consequences on the material and humanitarian lives of the population, such as the massive displacement of the population, theft of cattle, burning and destruction of houses of the population,” said Alimasi Jacques, the leader of the Fizi Civil Society. “The village of Ngezi has been completely devastated by the belligerents. The health centre in the village of Tuwetuwe, in the Itombwe health zone within the Mikenge health area, was completely dispossessed of its important materials, including drugs and beds.”
While the Twirwaneho, a deadly militia group linked to M23 rebels, claims to be defending its community in South Kivu, the Wazalendo group, a government-backed coalition of local militias, opposes them. Their clashes, rooted in ethnic and political tensions, have displaced thousands and worsened insecurity in eastern DRC.
Since November 4, 2025, fighting in the region has intensified, with armed groups escalating assaults against one another. The civil society group said it has called for a ceasefire and the establishment of a humanitarian corridor.
“It is a pressing necessity and indispensable for saving human lives and upholding human rights and international humanitarian law. The parties concerned in the armed conflict in the region have a big role to play in facilitating this procedure so that humanitarian organisations can access all these zones conveniently,” Alimasi said.
Many displaced persons were found in and around the villages of Bikyaka Forest, Anunga River Forest, as well as in Kanguli, Bilende, Mulima, Abala, and other villages in Point Zero and Itombwe. Local officials said displaced persons are currently being sheltered by families, in schools, and in churches across Busumba, Mpati, Rugogwe, Kalengera, and Kibarizo. These civilians face extremely difficult conditions, having fled with only what they could carry.
The village of Kivuye, located in the Bashali area of Masisi territory in North Kivu, has been completely deserted. One section of the village is under rebel control, while the other is held by Wazalendo forces. Since Thursday, clashes between M23/AFC rebels and Wazalendo militias have paralysed socio-economic activities, forcing villagers to abandon their homes.
The Fizi Civil Society had previously highlighted a troubling humanitarian situation, including malnutrition among pregnant women and children, alongside widespread violence and human rights abuses, all of which continue to affect civilians.
Romania aims to strengthen ties with Black Sea allies to protect its energy projects and become the European Union’s largest gas producer by 2027, according to a draft national defense strategy released on Wednesday. The strategy highlights the concern over Russian threats, especially with incidents of drones violating Romanian airspace and floating mines affecting vital trade routes in the Black Sea. This sea is essential for transporting grain and oil and involves Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia.
The offshore gas project Neptun Deep, co-owned by OMV Petrom and Romgaz, is expected to begin operations in 2027. The national defense strategy for 2025-2030 emphasizes stronger cooperation with Turkey and Bulgaria to safeguard important energy and telecommunications infrastructure. It warns that Russia’s military actions and the militarization of Crimea pose a threat to the region’s security.
The draft strategy, open for public debate for two weeks before parliamentary approval, underscores the significance of Romania’s partnership with the United States. It also discusses addressing risks such as cyber attacks, corruption, and institutional weaknesses, and notes that delays in the EU integration of Moldova and Ukraine may increase security threats for Romania.
The carmaker first announced the plan for battery production in 2021.
Published On 12 Nov 202512 Nov 2025
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Toyota Motor Corporation has begun production at its $13.9bn North Carolina battery plant as it ramps up hybrid production and confirms plans to invest $10bn over five years in United States manufacturing.
The Tokyo, Japan-based carmaker announced the developments on Wednesday.
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It first introduced the plan in December 2021 to produce batteries for its hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). Batteries from the plant are set to power hybrid versions of the Camry, Corolla Cross, RAV4, and a yet-to-be-announced, all-electric, three-row-battery vehicle. The plant is producing hybrid batteries for factories in Kentucky and a Mazda and Toyota joint venture in Alabama.
“Over the next five years, we are planning an additional investment of $10bn in the US to further grow our manufacturing capabilities, bringing our total investment in this country to over $60bn,” said Ted Ogawa, president of Toyota Motor North America.
Toyota’s 11th US factory, on a 1,850-acre (749-hectare) site, will be able to produce 30 gigawatt-hours of energy annually at full capacity and house 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrids and full EVs. It will eventually employ 5,000 workers.
Last month in Japan, US President Donald Trump said Toyota planned a $10bn investment in the United States.
“Go out and buy a Toyota,” said Trump, who has been critical of Japanese and other auto imports and has imposed hefty tariffs on imported vehicles.
Toyota has been one of the slowest carmakers to move to full EVs, but has rapidly moved to convert its best-selling vehicles to hybrids.
“We know there is no single path to progress”, Ogawa said on Wednesday.
“That’s why we remain committed to our multi-pathway approach, offering fuel-efficient gas engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electronics and fuel cell electronics.”
Other car companies like Volkswagen have said they will add more hybrids as the Trump administration has rescinded EV tax credits and eliminated penalties that incentivised EV sales.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the event that the administration plans to soon propose to ease fuel economy standards, saying prior rules were too aggressive.
Duffy in January signed an order to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rescind fuel economy standards issued under former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for the 2022-2031 model years that had aimed to drastically reduce fuel use for cars and trucks.
Toyota’s stock is up by about 0.4 percent in midday trading in New York.
