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In a wild — but friendly — exchange between US President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Trump said he didn’t “mind” Mamdani previously calling him a “fascist.” Trump, who once called Mamdani a “communist,” heaped praise on him at their Friday Oval Office meeting.

Nigeria’s Stolen Classrooms | RSS.com

On The Crisis Room, we’re following insecurity trends across Nigeria.

Between 2014 and 2025, at least 1,880 students have been abducted across Nigeria.

It’s a staggering number on its own, but it becomes even heavier when you realise these are children whose dreams, confidence, and sense of safety have been repeatedly disrupted.

And this tragic pattern continues. Just this Monday, Nov. 17, in Kebbi State, terrorists abducted at least 25 students of the Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga.

Today on The Crisis Room, we talk about the effect of this abduction on children.

Hosts: Salma

Guests: Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu and Professor Auwal Inuwa

Audio producer: Anthony Asemota

Executive producer: Ahmad Salkida

The U.S. Air Force says it estimates a fleet of Next Generation Airlift (NGAL) aircraft will be flying operational missions by the 2040-2041 timeframe. The service hopes to have its C-5M Galaxy and C-17A Globemaster III cargo planes replaced by NGAL types by the mid-2040s and mid-2070s, respectively. By 2075, the C-17, a type that has been under particular strain in recent years, will have been in service for 80 years, though the remaining individual aircraft will be younger than that.

Air Mobility Command (AMC) laid out its latest vision for its future airlift fleets in a strategy memo released earlier this week. The document reconfirms that the current plan is for a single NGAL aircraft to supplant the C-5M and C17A, which AMC had first disclosed publicly in September. At that time, the command had only said it was targeting the mid-2040s timeframe to begin making the transition to its new cargo planes. The Air Force had 222 C-17As and 52 C-5Ms in its inventory as of the start of Fiscal Year 2025.

“With an accelerated NGAL Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) in FY27 [Fiscal Year 2027] and an uninterrupted acquisition process with consistent funding, the first NGAL aircraft could be produced as early as FY38,” the Airlift Recapitalization Strategy document, dated November 18, 2025, explains. “It is estimated [that] the NGAL program will reach Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in FY41.”

U.S. government fiscal years run from October 1 of the year before through September 30 of the year in question. So, for example, Fiscal Year 2041 starts on October 1, 2040, and ends on September 30, 2041.

“One NGAL aircraft will replace one C-5M aircraft until the entire C-5M fleet is retired. Then, the C-17A fleet will be replaced by NGAL at a one-for-one swap,” the document adds. “Uninterrupted inter-theater airlift capacity is paramount for global operations during fleet recapitalization. Current recapitalization projections require C-5M viability until 2045 and C-17A viability through 2075.”

The Air Force’s C-5Ms were all upgraded from older B and C variants that began their service careers in the 1980s. C-17As first began entering operational service in 1995. Neither of these aircraft is still in production.

By 2045, the youngest C-5Ms will have been flying for some 56 years. As already mentioned, the Air Force is now set to keep flying C-17s for eight decades. The service took delivery of its last Globemaster III in 2013, which will be 62 years old in 2075.

It’s also important to point out here that a succession of major crises globally has led to persistently high demand for the C-17 fleet in recent years. The aircraft have played notably critical roles in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the delivery of military aid to Ukraine immediately before and since Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022, and various contingencies around the Middle East since 2023. This, in turn, has put immense strain on the aircraft, and their crews, and has created additional sustainment challenges. With all this in mind, how exactly the Air Force concluded it would be feasible to keep the C-17s flying through 2075 is unclear.

“To mitigate risks associated with acquisition delays, funding uncertainties, or technological challenges, the existing C-5M and C-17A fleets’ operational viability must be maintained until a fully capable replacement is fielded, which may require extending the service life and associated Military Type Certificate (MTC) of each platform,” the AMC airlift strategy document does note.

There have been growing discussions already about re-engining the C-17 fleet, which could help extend the operational life of those aircraft. New engines that offer greater fuel economy and/or higher reliability could give the aircraft a boost in performance, as well as reduce operating costs and sustainment demands.

“The C-17 and C-5 … served us well for decades, but they’re not going to fly forever, and so we’d like to recapitalize those on our timeline,” Air Force Gen. John Lamontagne, head of AMC, had told TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2025 Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in Spetember. “We’d like to have a plan in place so when the service life starts to erode on the C-17, whether it’s wings, engines, or more, we’ve got a competition already going.”

AMC does also have plans now for other capability upgrades to its existing airlift fleets, especially the workhorse C-17s, to ensure their continued relevance, especially in future high-end fights. The Globemaster IIIs are already in the process of getting new beyond-line-of-sight communications suites, and new defensive systems could also be on the horizon.

Many questions about the successor NGAL aircraft still remain to be answered, as well, including whether or not the Air Force might require the design to incorporate stealthy features. Vertical takeoff and landing capabilities and other ways to reduce dependence on traditional runways, access to which is expected to be greatly limited in future major conflicts, might also be part of the equation. The Air Force has explored advanced airlift and aerial refueling tanker concepts that include these elements on multiple occasions in the past. TWZ has been calling attention to the growing need for more survivable cargo planes and tankers for years now.

“As far as what we want in the next[-generation airlift] platform, we want agility, we want speed, we want to be able to operate in a higher threat environment,” Gen. Lamontagne had said in September. This includes “countermeasures that are effective against those threats that are coming from increasingly longer ranges.”

On top of all this is the key equation of how the Air Force expects to replace the C-5M and C-17A with a single platform. The Galaxy and Globemaster III are very different size-wise, as well as in the kinds of missions they were designed to perform, as TWZ has highlighted in the past.

At least one company, Radia, is openly pitching a new airlifter to the Air Force that is bigger than the C-17 and the C-5. However, the Windrunner design is also still in a very aspirational phase of development, as you can read more about here.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing, among others, have also been publicly showing various concepts for advanced transports and tankers in recent years.

The Air Force has talked previously about the potential for NGAL to be a ‘system of systems’ rather than a single aircraft. Speaking in September, Gen. Lamontagne said it remained possible that multiple aircraft types could ultimately come under the NGAL umbrella, but raised concerns about whether his service “can afford, grandkids, kids, all of them.”

No matter what aircraft the Air Force ultimately acquires under NGAL, the service has now set a clear goal for them to begin entering operational service within the next 15 years or so.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Nigeria is in the news again due to recent attacks by armed groups, involving the kidnapping of many students from schools and an assault on a church service. These events have increased pressure on the Nigerian government, especially after U. S. President Donald Trump hinted at possible military action owing to the reported persecution of Christians in the country.

The attacks lack clear responsibility claims, but they resemble those by gangs seeking ransom. These armed groups, referred to as bandits, use intimidation and violence, abducting victims and escaping into forests. Recently, 25 students were taken from a Muslim girls’ school in Kebbi state, marking the first mass school kidnapping since a larger incident in March 2024. Additionally, another 64 individuals were kidnapped from Zamfara state, and two people were killed during an attack on a church in Kwara state, where 38 worshippers were also abducted with a ransom demand made. On Friday, more students were kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic school in Niger state, with reports indicating 52 students taken.

Experts believe these attacks are financially motivated, particularly targeting schools due to weak security. Kidnappers find it easier to demand ransoms from parents willing to pay to get their children back. The northwest of Nigeria is especially plagued by insecurity, with armed groups operating in remote areas. Meanwhile, in the northeast, extremist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP have caused significant humanitarian crises, resulting in over 2 million displaced persons and many deaths.

Tension in Nigeria also arises from ethnic and religious conflicts, especially in the central regions where the Christian and Muslim populations clash over various issues. Despite claims of specific persecution against Christians, some argue that the situation is more complex and that Muslims also suffer violence. The Nigerian government rejects assertions of complicity in religious violence by security forces.

The U. S. is considering actions to pressure Nigeria into better protecting religious freedoms. Nigeria’s military leads the counter-efforts against these armed groups, with traditional leaders also engaging in peace negotiations. However, attacks continue amid reports of increasing violence, with thousands of civilian deaths this year alone. President Tinubu has dispatched officials to oversee rescue efforts for kidnapped schoolgirls.

With information from Reuters

China on Friday took its feud with Tokyo over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Taikachi’s recent comments on Taiwan to the United Nations, as tensions between the East Asian neighbours deepened and ties plunged to their lowest since 2023.

“If Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression,” China’s permanent representative to the UN, Fu Cong, wrote in a letter on Friday to the global body’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, referring to the strait that separates mainland China from self-governing Taiwan, which Beijing insists belongs to China. Beijing has not ruled out the possibility of forcibly taking Taiwan.

The diplomatic spat began earlier in November when Taikachi, who took office only in October, made remarks about how Japan would respond to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. Those remarks angered Beijing, which has demanded retractions, although the Japanese PM has not made one.

However, the spat has now rapidly escalated into a trade war involving businesses on both sides, and has deepened security tensions over a contested territory that has long been a flashpoint for the two countries.

Here’s what we know about the dispute:

What did Japan’s PM say about Taiwan?

While speaking to parliament on November 7, Taikachi, a longtime Taiwan supporter, said a Chinese naval blockade or other action against Taiwan could prompt a Japanese military response. The response was not typical, and Taikachi appeared to go several steps further than her predecessors, who had only in the past expressed concern about the Chinese threat to Taiwan, but had never mentioned a response.

“If it involves the use of warships and military actions, it could by all means become a survival-threatening situation,” Taikachi told parliament, responding to an opposition politician’s queries in her first parliamentary grilling.

That statement immediately raised protests from China’s foreign and defence ministries, which demanded retractions. China’s consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, a day after, criticised the comments and appeared to make threats in a now deleted post on X, saying: “We have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has been lunged at us without hesitation. Are you ready?”

That post by Xue also raised anger in Japan, and some officials began calling for the diplomat’s expulsion. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara protested to Beijing over Xue’s X message, saying it was “extremely inappropriate,” while urging China to explain. Japan’s Foreign Ministry also demanded the post be deleted. Chinese officials, meanwhile, defended the comments as coming from a personal standpoint.

On November 14, China’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador and warned of a “crushing defeat” if Japan interfered with Taiwan. The following day, Japan’s Foreign Ministry also summoned the Chinese ambassador to complain about the consul’s post.

Although Taikachi told parliament three days after her controversial statement that she would avoid talking about specific scenarios going forward, she has refused to retract her comments.

How have tensions increased since?

The matter has deteriorated into a trade war of sorts. On November 14, China issued a no-travel advisory for Japan, an apparent attempt to target the country’s tourism sector, which welcomed some 7.5 million Chinese tourists between January and September this year. On November 15, three Chinese airlines offered refunds or free changes for flights planned on Japan-bound routes.

The Chinese Education Ministry also took aim at Japan’s education sector, warning Chinese students there or those planning to study in Japan about recent crimes against Chinese. Both China and Japan have recorded attacks against each other’s nationals in recent months that have prompted fears of xenophobia, but it is unclear if the attacks are linked.

Tensions are also rising around territorial disputes. Last Sunday, the Chinese coastguard announced it was patrolling areas in the East China Sea, in the waters around a group of uninhabited islands that both countries claim. Japan calls the islands the Senkaku Islands, while Beijing calls them the Diaoyu Islands. Japan, in response, condemned the brief “violation” of Japanese territorial waters by a fleet of four Chinese coastguard ships.

Over the last week, Chinese authorities have suspended the screening of at least two Japanese films and banned Japanese seafood.

Then, on Thursday, China postponed a three-way meeting with culture ministers from Japan and South Korea that was scheduled to be held in late November.

‘Symbol of defiance’

On November 18, diplomats from both sides met in Beijing for talks where the grievances were aired.

Senior Chinese official Liu Jinsong chose to wear a five-buttoned collarless suit associated with the rebellion of Chinese students against Japanese imperialism in 1919.

Japanese media have called the choice of the suit a “symbol of defiance.” They also point to videos and images from the meeting showing Liu with his hands in his pockets after the talks, saying the gesture is typically viewed as disrespectful in formal settings.

The Beijing meeting did not appear to ease the tensions, and there seems to be no sign of the impasse breaking: Chinese representatives asked for a retraction, but Japanese diplomats said Taikachi’s remarks were in line with Japan’s stance.

What is the history of Sino-Japanese tensions?

It’s a long and – especially for China – painful story. Imperial Japan occupied significant portions of China after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), when it gained control of Taiwan and forcefully annexed Korea. In 1937, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Amid strong Chinese resistance, Japan occupied parts of eastern and southern China, where it created and controlled puppet governments. The Japanese Empire’s defeat in World War II in 1945 ended its expansion bid.

The Chinese Communist Party emerged victorious in 1949 in the civil war that followed with the Kuomintang, which, along with the leader Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan to set up a parallel government. But until 1972, Japan formally recognised Taiwan as “China”.

In 1972, it finally recognised the People’s Republic of China and agreed to the “one China principle”, in effect severing formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. However, Japan has maintained firm unofficial ties with Taiwan, including through trade.

Japan has also maintained a policy of so-called “strategic ambiguity” over how Tokyo would respond if China were to attack Taiwan — a policy of deliberate ambivalence, aimed at leaving Beijing and the rest of the world guessing over whether it would intervene militarily. The stance is similar to that of the United States, Taiwan’s most powerful ally.

How important is trade between China and Japan?

He Yongqian, a spokesperson for China’s commerce ministry, said at a regular news conference this week that trade relations between the two countries had been “severely damaged” by PM Takaichi’s comments.

China is Japan’s second-largest export market after the US, with Tokyo selling mainly industrial equipment, semiconductors and automobiles to Beijing. In 2024, China bought about $125bn worth of Japanese goods, according to the United Nations’ Comtrade database. South Korea, Japan’s third-largest export market, bought goods worth $46bn in 2024.

China is also a major buyer of Japan’s sea cucumbers and its top scallop buyer. Japanese firms, particularly seafood exporters, are worried about the effects of the spat on their businesses, according to reporting by Reuters.

Beijing is not as reliant on Japan’s economy, but Tokyo is China’s third-largest trading partner. China mainly exports electrical equipment, machinery, apparel and vehicles to Japan. Tokyo bought $152bn worth of goods from China in 2024, according to financial data website Trading Economics.

It’s not the first time Beijing has retaliated with trade. In 2023, China imposed a ban on all Japanese food imports after Tokyo released radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific. Beijing was against the move, although the UN atomic energy agency had deemed the discharge safe. That ban was lifted just on November 7, the same day Taikachi made the controversial comments.

In 2010, China also halted the exports of rare earth minerals to Japan for seven weeks after a Chinese fishing captain was detained near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Abuse survivors urge accountability and support ahead of the much-anticipated release of the files related to the late sex offender in the United States.

A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse have said that they have been receiving death threats, which they expect to escalate, as the date nears for the release of files concerning the deceased convicted paedophile financier.

In a statement titled “What we’re bracing for” and made public on Thursday, Epstein’s survivors have demanded accountability and legal support to face their abusers and get justice.

“Many of us have already received death threats and other threats of harm. We are bracing for these to escalate,” they said.

“We ask every federal and state law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over these threats to investigate them and protect us.”

They also warned that there have been attempts to blame the victims for their own or each other’s abuse.

Some of the survivors have increased the pace of their campaigning efforts recently to pressure the United States administration to release the Justice Department’s files on the late sex offender, speaking publicly about their stories.

The furore has dominated the national agenda in the US with President Donald Trump backpedalling on his opposition against the Justice Department releasing the files with a sudden about-face last week.

Trump signed a bill on Wednesday requiring the Justice Department to release all of the files related to the disgraced financier.

That was one day after the legislation was unanimously approved in the US Senate.

After he signed the move into law, the department has 30 days to make them public.

‘Continue fighting’

The development follows weeks of intense political fighting about how far to go in disclosing records tied to Epstein.

The release could identify some of the most high-profile figures in politics, entertainment and business.

“Years ago, Epstein got away with abusing us by portraying us as flawed and bad girls,” said the statement by the survivors, demanding full disclosure of the files.

“We cannot let his enablers use this tactic to escape accountability now,” added the appeal, signed by 18 named survivors and 10 Jane Does.

“We ask our champions in Congress and in the public to continue fighting to make sure all materials are released, not selected ones.”

For one survivor, Marina Lacerda, the upcoming publication of the files represents more than an opportunity for justice.

Lacerda says she was just 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York mansion, but she struggles to recall much of what happened because it is such a dark period in her life. Now, she’s hoping that the files will reveal more about the trauma that distorted so much of her adolescence.

“I feel that the government and the FBI knows more than I do, and that scares me, because it’s my life, it’s my past,” she told The Associated Press news agency.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. He pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring a minor for prostitution.

Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein survivor whose painful story has been one of the most high-profile cases, had reportedly faced a campaign of intimidation and threats before she died by suicide in April.

Giuffre had accused Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced and expelled former United Kingdom royal Prince Andrew, of sexual abuse.

A series of artillery, air attacks hit near Rafah, Khan Younis in the south, and Deir el-Balah in the centre, as well as Gaza City.

Huzaifa Abubakar has spent years leading community dialogues on food security and malnutrition, working to support families whose lives have been shaped by conflict and neglect in northeastern Nigeria. Yet, despite his experience, he often felt unprepared for what awaited him in the field.

As Team Lead of the Scaling Up Nutrition Youth Network Nigeria in Borno State, Huzaifa said he regularly engages with individuals who have experienced deep trauma. But he lacked guidance on how to safely navigate conflict-affected areas or engage survivors in ways that honoured their experiences.

That changed after he spent three days at the capacity-building workshop for the inaugural cohort of the Strengthening Community Journalism and Human Rights Advocacy (SCOJA) Fellowship by HumAngle Foundation in Maiduguri, Borno State. 

“I am now equipped to interact with vulnerable people and survivors ethically and sensibly,” he said. “The session on trauma-sensitive reporting stood out for me; still, the whole training was an eye-opener.”

Huzaifa is one of 90 community journalists and local advocacy actors selected for the SCOJA Fellowship, held with support from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Nigeria. The fellows are drawn from nine states across three regions — North West (Kaduna and Kano), North Central (Benue, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa), and North East (Borno, Adamawa, Yobe).

The six-month fellowship aims to equip participants with skills and knowledge that will improve how they engage, document, and support grassroots issues and initiatives. 

Abdussamad Ahmad, HumAngle’s Security and Policy Analyst, who has coordinated the workshops in the North East and North Central, reminded fellows that their work places them at the earliest point of contact with communities. 

“You remain society’s first responders; your proximity to ordinary people gives you both responsibility and a rare advantage, the ability to shape public understanding with clarity, empathy, and discipline,” he said.

He urged them to cultivate habits of verification, ethical judgment, and emotional awareness, especially when engaging people coping with displacement, loss, or trauma.

The training also featured role-playing exercises and report-writing activities, giving participants space to practise trauma-sensitive engagement, field reporting, and ethical storytelling in realistic scenarios. These hands-on sessions helped fellows translate the concepts learned into practical skills they can immediately apply in their work.

“It was an engaging and insightful session, and I admire how he shared his experiences for us to learn from,” said Mohammed Alamin from Borno Radio Television (BRTV), referring to a session on digital and field safety, which was facilitated by Abdulkareem Haruna, HumAngle’s former Editor for the Lake Chad. 

Abbas Usman, a reporter for PharmaSahel, a local platform reporting on health issues in Borno, said he now feels better prepared to identify and report misinformation, malinformation, disinformation, and fake news. 

Another SCOJA Fellow, Nathaniel Ishaya, a radio producer and presenter from SMK Radio in Maiduguri, added, “The HumAngle training is an eye-opener; it teaches us about many things we are only now discovering in journalism. Although I studied journalism, this is the first time I got this firsthand.”

The recently concluded workshops, held between Nov. 10 – 19 in Jos (Plateau State), Kaduna, and Maiduguri (Borno State), mark the first phase of the programme. The next stage will involve fieldwork, during which fellows are expected to implement community projects, document local issues, and work with their organisations to pursue practical solutions rooted in human dignity and accountability. They will also share their learnings with colleagues to broaden the fellowship’s impact.

During this period, HumAngle will continue to support the fellows with resources and mentorship to strengthen their work at the grassroots level.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is racing to contain the fallout from a high-level corruption scandal that could undermine his authority, just as his country’s soldiers and civilians face potentially their toughest winter of the war with Russia.

A week after anti-corruption investigators said they had smashed an alleged $100 million (€86 million) kickback scheme centered on state nuclear power firm Energoatom, the furor is still swirling around Zelenskiy—even as Ukraine’s troops are under severe pressure on the battlefield with Russia, and its ailing energy grid suffers nightly attacks.

Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk have resigned over the scandal, but more damaging for the Ukrainian president is what appears to be significant involvement of businessman Timur Mindich, a protégé of Zelenskiy and co-owner of the media company that Zelenskiy founded before entering politics in 2019. Apparently having been tipped off, Mindich reportedly fled Ukraine shortly before last Monday’s raids and arrests.

The Ukrainian parliament has also voted to dismiss Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, marking the second high-level ouster in a single day as the government struggles to contain a growing corruption scandal linked to a close ally of Vladimir Zelenskyy.

It is reported by the Kiev Post that Zelenskiy could fire his influential chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, this week. A full-scale “riot” has unfolded within parliament over the vast corruption scandal that allegedly links Yermak with the multimillion-dollar kickback scheme in the country’s energy sector. The scandal has also reminded Ukrainians of how the president curbed the independence of the nation’s top EU-initiated anti-corruption agencies in July—before being forced to backtrack by street protests and international criticism—in what critics called a brazen attempt to shield associates from scrutiny.

It threatens to become the biggest political crisis of the war for Zelenskiy and comes at a time when Ukrainian troops are under severe pressure from Russia in parts of four regions—Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk.

Bags of cash and a golden toilet

The West’s “dis-ease” with Ukraine and its president is no longer speculation. It’s happening in plain sight, slowly but ineluctably. The Financial Times, hardly a Kremlin mouthpiece, has published a piece titled “Bags of cash and a gold toilet: the corruption crisis engulfing Zelenskiy’s government.” Its reporters now openly state that Ukrainian elites expect even more explosive revelations from NABU investigations. And once outlets like FT put something like this in print, it usually means the groundwork has been laid behind the scenes.

That Western Europe and the United States are still approving new aid says little about confidence in Kiev. But it speaks volumes about bureaucratic inertia and the reluctance of those who profit from this war to let the tap close suddenly. Even so, you can now hear cautious whispers in Brussels asking whether it makes sense to send billions to a government whose officials seem determined to conjure up a scheme to steal the money before it arrives. These are not new revelations; rather, the surprise is that anyone actually pretends to be surprised.

The truth is easy to discern: the West knew exactly who it was dealing with from the inception. Nobody in Brussels, London, or Washington was under any delusion that Ukraine was somehow to be confused with, say, Switzerland. They knowingly entered into a political partnership with what is, and has long been, one of the most corrupt and internally unstable political systems in Europe. To pretend otherwise is to feign ignorance—pure theater.

For more than thirty years, Ukrainian statehood has rested on the same shaky foundations: competing clans, oligarchic rule, privatized security services, and a political class willing to plunder their own population. Changing leadership never went so far as to alter the underlying structure; it never happened because each leader owed his position to the same network of cash, patronage, and power.

Consider Leonid Kravchuk: under his auspices, Ukraine began its slow “Banderization,” while state assets were siphoned away and local power brokers entrenched themselves. Leonid Kuchma then perfected this system. Under his presidency, Ukraine saw questionable arms deals, the murders of journalists and opposition figures, and audiotapes revealing orders to eliminate critics. Economic sectors with predictable profits were carved up among regional clans who ruled their fiefdoms in exchange for loyalty. And a steady stream of kickbacks to Kiev.

Viktor Yushchenko’s years brought more of the same: corruption schemes around energy, political assassinations, and the continued exploitation of ordinary Ukrainians. Viktor Yanukovych and Petro Poroshenko added their own layers to this hierarchy of detritus. Zelenskiy inherited it but then accelerated it, surrounding himself with loyalists whose main qualification was their willingness to feed at the same trough as previous leaders and look the other way.

Resistance to federalism

All of these leaders shared one common denominator: resisting federalization. Ukraine is a country with a large landmass; yet, it operates through a centralized, unitary form of governance in which a legislative body or a single individual is given supreme authority and thus ultimate power over regional and local needs of the country. There are distinct disadvantages inherent in such a structure:

·        It tends to subordinate local and regional needs to that of those in power.

·        It can encourage an abuse of power, which is one reason why the United States and a dozen other nations created a federated state instead. Instead of having one form of centralized power, there is a system of checks and balances designed to provide more equality and give greater voice to those being governed.

· Greater opportunities for manipulation exist. Those in power can pursue more wealth or governing opportunities for themselves, because few ways exist to stop such activity.

·        The governing structure will protect the central body first.

·        Sub-national regions are not allowed to decide their own laws, rights, and freedoms; there is no sharing of power.

·        The few control the many. If there is a shift in policy that takes rights away from select groups or individuals, there is little, if anything, the general population can do to stop it.

·        The central authority can artificially shape the discussions of society; it can decide that their political opponents are a threat, then pass laws that allow them to be silenced or imprisoned for what they have allegedly done.

The current scandal in Ukraine is testament to the issues noted above relating to its form of governance.

A federal Ukraine would devolve power and financial control to the regions, and that is the nightmare scenario for Kiev’s elites. It would loosen their grip on revenue streams, limit their political leverage, and allow regional identities to express themselves without fear of punishment from the center. So instead of reform, those with power offered forced Ukrainization and nationalist slogans about one people, one language, and one state. It was a political survival strategy, not a nation-building project.

This is why changing presidents will solve nothing. Remove Zelenskyy, and you likely get another figure produced by the same system. Perhaps Zaluzhnyi, perhaps a recycled face from a previous era. The choreography will be identical; only the masks of the actors will change. The deeper problem is the structure of Ukrainian statehood itself. As long as Ukraine remains in its current unitary form of central authority, it will continue producing conflict, corruption, and internal instability. War is not an aberration in such a system. It is an outcome.

If the elites refuse to reform and the population has no means to compel them, then the discussion must move beyond personalities. The uncomfortable truth is that the only lasting solution may be to abandon the current model of Ukrainian statehood altogether. No cosmetic change will save a system, the very design of which fosters autocracy and corruption.

Texas redrew its voting map as part of US President Donald Trump’s plan to win extra Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

The United States Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found the Texas 2026 congressional redistricting plan likely discriminates on the basis of race.

The order signed on Friday by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito will remain in place at least for the next few days while the court considers whether to allow the new map, which is favourable to Republicans, to be used in the US midterm elections next year.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the ruling, which had granted an “administrative stay” and temporarily stopped the lower court’s “injunction against Texas’s map”.

“Radical left-wing activists are abusing the judicial system to derail the Republican agenda and steal the US House for Democrats. I am fighting to stop this blatant attempt to upend our political system,” Paxton said in an earlier post on social media.

Texas redrew its congressional map in August as part of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives in next year’s mid-term elections, touching off a nationwide redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats.

The new redistricting map for Texas was engineered to give Republicans five additional House seats, but a panel of federal judges in El Paso ruled 2-1 on Tuesday, saying that the civil rights groups that challenged the map on behalf of Black and Hispanic voters were likely to win their case.

The redrawn map was likely racially discriminatory in violation of US constitutional protections, the court found.

Nonprofit news outlet The Texas Tribune said the state is now back to using, temporarily, its 2025 congressional map for voting as the Supreme Court has not yet decided what map Texas should ultimately use, and the “legality of the map” will play out in court over the coming weeks and months.

Texas was the first state to meet Trump’s demands on redistricting. Missouri and North Carolina followed Texas with new redistricting maps that would add an additional Republican seat each.

To counter those moves, California voters approved a ballot initiative to give Democrats an additional five seats there.

Redrawn voter maps are now facing court challenges in California, Missouri and North Carolina.

Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, and ceding control of either the House or Senate to the Democrats in the November 2026 midterm elections would imperil Trump’s legislative agenda in the second half of his latest term in office.

There have been legal fights at the Supreme Court for decades over the practice known as gerrymandering – the redrawing of electoral district boundaries to marginalise a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others.

The court issued its most important ruling to date on the matter in 2019, declaring that gerrymandering for partisan reasons – to boost the electoral chances of one’s own party and weaken one’s political opponent – could not be challenged in federal courts.

But gerrymandering driven primarily by race remains unlawful under the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law and 15th Amendment prohibition on racial discrimination in voting.

COP30 negotiations drag on in Brazil amid divisions over draft proposal that does not include fossil fuel phase-out.

United Nations climate talks in Brazil have gone past their scheduled deadline as countries remain deeply divided over a proposed deal that contains no reference to phasing out fossil fuels.

Negotiators remained in closed-door meetings on Friday evening at the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem as they sought to bridge differences and deliver an agreement that includes concrete action to stem the climate crisis.

A draft proposal made public earlier in the day has drawn concern from climate activists and other experts because it did not contain any mention of fossil fuels – the main driver of climate change.

“This cannot be an agenda that divides us,” COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago told delegates in a public plenary session before releasing them for further negotiations. “We must reach an agreement between us.”

The rift over the future of oil, gas and coal has underscored the difficulties of landing a consensus agreement at the annual UN conference, which serves as a test of global resolve to avert the worst impacts of global warming.

“Many countries, especially oil-producing countries or countries that depend on fossil fuels … have stated that they do not want this mentioned in a final agreement,” Al Jazeera’s Monica Yanakiew reported from Rio de Janeiro on Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, dozens of other countries have said they would not support any agreement that did not lay out a roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels, Yanakiew noted.

“So this is a big divisive point,” she said, adding that another major issue at the climate conference has been financing the transition away from fossil fuels.

Developing countries – many of which are more susceptible to the effects of climate change, including more extreme weather events – have said they want richer nations to shoulder more of the financial burden of tackling the crisis.

“So there is a lot being discussed … and negotiators say that this might likely continue throughout the weekend,” Yanakiew said.

The deadlock comes as the UN Environment Programme warned ahead of COP30 that the world would “very likely” exceed the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7-degree Fahrenheit) warming limit – an internationally agreed-upon target set under the Paris Agreement – within the next decade.

Amnesty International also said in a recent report that the expansion of fossil fuel projects threatens at least two billion people – about one-quarter of the world’s population.

In a statement on Friday, Nafkote Dabi, the climate policy lead at Oxfam International, said it was “unacceptable” for any final agreement to exclude a plan to phase out fossil fuels.

“A roadmap is essential, and it must be just, equitable, and backed by real support for the Global South,” Dabi said.

“Developed countries who grew wealthy on their fossil fuel-based economies must phase out first and fastest, while financing low‑carbon pathways for the Global South.”

Here are the key events from day 1,367 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, November 22:

Fighting

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said approximately 5,000 Ukrainian troops are trapped by Russian forces on the eastern bank of the Oskil River, in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian military.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops captured the settlements of Yampil, Stavky, Novoselivka and Maslyakivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as the village of Radisne in neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said 33 Ukrainian drones were intercepted and destroyed over five Russian regions, as well as Crimea and the Black Sea, overnight.
• At least eight Russian airports were forced to suspend operations during the nighttime attack, according to Russia’s aviation watchdog.
• Ukraine said its forces were holding defensive lines in the northern part of the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk and were blocking attempts by Russian troops to advance further.
• Moscow’s forces have fought towards Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian military, for months to try to capture the town, which Russian media has dubbed the “gateway” to Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.

Peace plan

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has until this coming Thursday to approve a United States-backed peace plan with Russia, President Donald Trump has said.
• Speaking in the Oval Office after a meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Friday, Trump said: “We have a way of getting peace, or we think we have a way of getting to peace. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] is going to have to approve it.”
• President Zelenskyy pledged to work fast and constructively with Washington on the peace plan, but said he would not betray his country’s national interest.
• In a video statement, Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to remain united in what he described as one of the most difficult moments in their country’s history, adding that he expected more political pressure over the next week.
• Zelenskyy also said after an hour-long phone call with US Vice President JD Vance that Ukraine would work with Washington, and Europe at an advisory level, towards a peace plan.
• Zelenskyy said he then spoke with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte about the “available diplomatic options” to end his country’s war with Russia, including the “plan proposed by the American side”.

• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had still not officially received any peace plan from the US, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told senior officials at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council that the US proposal could be the basis for a resolution of the conflict, but if Kyiv turned down the plan, then Russian forces would advance further.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine must ensure Kyiv’s future security, following a phone call between Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Zelenskyy.
• Starmer’s office said the leaders “underlined their support for President Trump’s drive for peace and agreed that any solution must fully involve Ukraine, preserve its sovereignty, and ensure its future security”.
• The European Union and Ukraine want peace, but they will not give in to aggression from Russia, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said.
• “This is a very dangerous moment for all,” Kallas said. “We all want this war to end, but how it ends matters. Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded; ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide.”

Sanctions

• The US has issued a Russia-related general licence allowing certain transactions with the Paks II civil nuclear power plant project in Hungary, according to the Department of the Treasury.
• The licence allows transactions linked to the nuclear power plant project involving some Russian banks, including Gazprombank, VTB Bank and the Russian central bank.
• Finnish fuel station chain Teboil, which is owned by Russia’s Lukoil, has filed for corporate restructuring, news agency STT reported, becoming the first international business owned by the major Russian oil firm to say it would close down as a result of the sanctions imposed by the US on Lukoil last month.
• Lithuanian state-owned railway group LTG said it will halt shipments of oil cargoes by Lukoil to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad due to the US sanctions.
• Located on the Baltic Sea coast, Kaliningrad receives many of its supplies from Russia via rail transit through NATO member state Lithuania, but can also get direct shipments from its own country via the coast.

Corruption

• Ukraine’s government plans to appoint a new supervisory board at Energoatom, the state nuclear company at the heart of a corruption scandal, by the end of this year, Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev said.
• Ukraine has been rocked by a scandal over an alleged $100m kickback scheme involving senior officials in the energy sector and a former business associate of Zelenskyy.

Economy

• Ukraine will sharply increase gas imports via the southern Trans-Balkan route linking it with Greece as it battles to replace supplies lost due to Russian attacks, import data from transit operators showed.
• Russian drone and missile attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure have deprived Kyiv of at least half of its own gas production in recent months, forcing it to import an additional four billion cubic metres of gas over the winter heating season to make up the difference.

Regional security

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said sabotage acts inspired and organised by Russia are aimed at destabilising and weakening Poland and bear the hallmarks of “state terrorism”.
• Last weekend, an explosion damaged railway tracks on the Warsaw-Lublin route, which connects the Polish capital with the Ukrainian border, something Tusk described as an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.
• Nathan Gill, a British former member of the European Parliament and ex-leader of the populist Reform UK in Wales, has been jailed for more than 10 years after admitting taking about 40,000 British pounds ($52,344) in bribes to make pro-Russian speeches and statements.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

The caption to this week’s top shot reads:

Needs no caption.

Also, a reminder:

Prime Directives!

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

The Bunker is open!

US President Donald Trump said on social media that six Democratic lawmakers — all veterans and service members — should be arrested and put to ‘death’ for a video they published urging armed forces members to disobey ‘illegal orders’ from the administration.