TODAY

Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – On February 28, Lama Abu Reida was just a few hours away from what she hoped would change the fate of her sick infant daughter, Alma.

The family had finally been informed that the baby girl – fewer than five months old and unable to breathe without an oxygen machine – was eligible for medical evacuation.

The small travelling bag was packed, the medical documents in order, and Abu Rheida ready to go. All that remained was to exit the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and from there head to Jordan, where Alma could undergo a surgery that was not available in the Gaza Strip.

But just one day before the scheduled March 1 trip, Israel shut Gaza’s crossings “until further notice”, citing security reasons. The decision coincided with the launch of a joint military attack alongside the United States on Iran – and shattered Abu Rheida’s hopes.

“They told me the crossing had been closed without any warning because of the war with Iran,” the mother says in a choked voice.

Alma, who suffers from a lung cyst, has been at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, for more than three months now, with her mother staying by her side day and night.

“She cannot do without oxygen at all,” Abu Rheida says. “Without it, she becomes extremely exhausted.”

‘I don’t know what might happen’

The Rafah crossing, Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world, was closed for long periods during Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Strip that began in October 2023.

On February 1, Israel announced a limited reopening as part of a trial phase following a “ceasefire” with the Palestinian group Hamas. This allowed some movement under the agreement’s arrangements, particularly for medical cases.

But only a few patients were able to travel, and thousands remained on waiting lists until the February 28 closure, which stopped the transfer of wounded patients abroad, as well as medical evacuations of patients like Alma.

Doctors had told her family the only option for Alma, who was previously admitted to intensive care three times within a month, was to have surgery abroad to remove the cyst from the lung. While not particularly risky, such an operation cannot be done inside Gaza due to limited medical resources.

“My daughter’s life depends on a single surgery, and afterwards she could live a completely normal life,” Abu Rheida says.

“If her travel is delayed any longer … I don’t know what might happen. Her condition is not reassuring,” she adds in despair.

On Sunday, Israeli authorities said ⁠the Rafah crossing will ⁠open again on Wednesday for ”limited movement of people” in both directions.

‘The closure killed my children’

The very thing Abu Rheida fears is something Hadeel Zorob has already endured.

Zorob’s six-year-old son, Sohaib, died on March 1, 2025, while her eight-year-old daughter, Lana, passed away on February 18 last month. The two children suffered from a rare genetic disease that causes gradual deterioration in the body’s functions.

They were both waiting for medical referrals to travel abroad for treatment – but that never happened.

“I watched my children die slowly in front of my eyes, one after the other, without being able to do anything,” says Zorob, 32, breaking down in tears.

Lana was only a few days away from travelling before she passed away.

“My daughter’s travel had been scheduled around the same period when the crossing was later closed, but she died before that,” Zorob says.

“When the news of the crossing closure came, my grief for my daughter returned all over again as I remembered the many children who will suffer the same fate.”

Zorob says her children were still able to move and play relatively normally in the early stages of their illness.

Before Israel’s war on Gaza, both children were receiving specialised hospital treatment, which helped stabilise their condition to some extent. But as the Israeli attacks intensified, their condition gradually worsened until it reached a life-threatening stage. The collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system left the family struggling to access the medications they relied on.

“We even tried to bring the medicine from the West Bank, and I asked the Red Cross and the World Health Organization, but nothing worked,” Zorob says.

During the war, she and her family had to leave their home and move into a tent in the al-Mawasi area. The new displacament conditions made caring for the children much harder.

“Both were bedridden … in diapers, and their blood sugar needed regular monitoring. We had to give fluids and watch their food … all this in a tent with no basic necessities.”

Zorob says she feels like “going crazy” when she thinks that her children might have survived and improved if they were able to get treatment abroad.

“The closure of the crossings killed my children!” she adds, her voice filled with anguish. “The world gives no value to our lives or to the lives of our children … this has become something normal.”

Zorob says she is trying to stay strong for her third child, four-year-old Layan, despite the persisting pain.

“All I want is that what happened to my children does not happen to any other mother … that the crossing be reopened and that children and patients be allowed to travel.”

‘Is that too much to ask?’

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 20,000 patients and wounded people are waiting to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Among them are about 4,000 cancer patients in need of specialised care unavailable in Gaza, and roughly 4,500 children.

The lists also include around 440 “life-saving” cases needing urgent intervention and nearly 6,000 wounded people who require continued hospital care outside of Gaza.

The Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights has called the Rafah crossing’s closure a form of collective punishment for civilians in Gaza, warning that it “sentences more patients to death” and deepens Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

For Amal al-Talouli, the closure of the Rafah crossing was another devastating blow in her battle with cancer.

The 43-year-old has been suffering from breast cancer for about five years. Although she underwent treatment before the war, the disease returned and spread to other parts of her body, including the spine.

“Praise be to God, we accept our fate,” the mother of two says. “Still, why should our suffering worsen because we are prevented from travelling and the crossings are closed?”

Al-Talouli is currently living with relatives after losing her home in the Beit Lahiya project area, in northern Gaza, during the war.

Displacement was not an easy choice due to her health condition, she says. The situation is compounded by a severe shortage of medications and specialised medical staff – a reality also experienced by other cancer patients in Gaza.

“There is a shortage of everything,” al-Talouli says. “I developed osteoporosis and eye fluid from chemotherapy. Chemo needs good nutrition, but malnutrition and famine made it much harder.”

Al-Talouli says the shutdown of the crossings made things worse.

“[It] affects us very, very much. No medicines are entering, and no essential treatments are coming in,” says al-Talouli, whose name was on a waiting list to travel outside of Gaza for treatment.

She stresses that cancer patients in Gaza urgently need support.

“Now I only want the crossing to reopen so I can have a chance to recover and continue my life with my children,” she says. “Is that too much to ask?”

As anticipated, it ended up being One Battle After Another’s night at the 98th annual Academy Awards, with the political thriller carting away six Oscars out of a total of 13 nominations.

But while Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnum opus continued its march towards award-season domination, there were moments of genuine surprise and subversion in Sunday’s ceremony.

Some of those moments had to do with the current political climate in the United States.

Host Conan O’Brien and his fellow presenters deftly avoided mentioning President Donald Trump by name, but their barbs took direct aim at his policies since returning to office.

Other surprises came from within the filmmaking community itself. For only the seventh time in Oscar history, a tie was announced: Two films had gotten an equal number of votes for Best Live Action Short.

As a result, both the surrealist thriller Two People Exchanging Saliva and the moody bar-room drama The Singers shared the Academy Award.

Here are six key takeaways from the night.

A two-horse race between Sinners and One Battle

The vampire film Sinners came into Sunday night’s ceremony with a record 16 Oscar nominations. But the big question of the night was: How many nods could it actually convert into wins?

Its biggest competition was, of course, Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which had the second highest tally of nominations.

Sinners director Ryan Coogler and Anderson were in direct competition in several top categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.

In both cases, Anderson came out ahead, though he acknowledged how fickle such awards can be.

“ I just want to say that, in 1975, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville and Barry Lyndon,” the four-time Best Director nominee said, listing films now considered to be Hollywood classics.

“There is no best among them. There is just what the mood might be that day.”

In the categories for Best Supporting Actor and Best Film Editing, One Battle After Another also triumphed, as well as for the inaugural award for Best Casting.

But in a sign of how well matched their two films were, both Coogler and Anderson emerged from the night with writing Oscars.

Anderson picked up Best Adapted Screenplay award for his use of the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, while Coogler made off with the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Sinners, a work inspired by his uncle’s love of the blues.

Jordan dunks on Chalamet in Best Actor race

Sinners, which won four Academy Awards overall, earned some of the most emotional, nail-biting victories of the night.

In the Best Cinematography category, for instance, Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to top the field.

It was her first nomination and first win, with Arkapaw besting veteran cinematographers like Marty Supreme’s Darius Khondji and Frankenstein’s Dan Laustsen, both multiple nominees.

Another big win for Sinners came in the form of Michael B Jordan, the actor whom Coogler has cast in every film since his directorial breakout in 2013’s Fruitvale Station.

Jordan, 39, was in a tight race for Best Actor with another young performer, 30-year-old Timothee Chalamet of the 1950s ping-pong drama Marty Supreme.

But Chalamet’s aggressive campaigning may have ultimately sabotaged his prospects. Multiple cracks were taken throughout the night at Chalamet’s recent comments disparaging opera and ballet.

“Nobody cares anymore” about either art form, Chalamet said in an interview last month.

“We can change society through art, through creativity, through theatre and ballet and also cinema,” director Alexandre Singh said pointedly during his acceptance speech for Best Live Action Short.

O’Brien, meanwhile, acknowledged the backlash with a joke about heightened security at the night’s Oscar ceremony.

“I’m told there are concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities,” O’Brien said, before turning to Chalamet. “They’re just mad you left out jazz.”

A conga line of snubs

Given the dominant performances from Sinners and One Battle After Another, plenty of critically acclaimed films left empty-handed, or nearly so.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, as expected, earned three wins in technical categories, including Best Production Design, Best Costumes and Best Hairstyling and Makeup.

Netflix’s smash hit KPop Demon Hunters, meanwhile, also fulfilled expectations that it would dominate in its categories, Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

But then there were former frontrunners like Hamnet that failed to generate much traction, including for director Chloe Zhao, a past Oscar winner. Out of eight nominations total, it only came away with one win: a Best Actress trophy for Irish performer Jessie Buckley.

Marty Supreme and the Brazilian film The Secret Agent fared worse, however. Despite having nine nominations and being considered an early shoo-in for Best Actor, Marty Supreme scored no wins.

The Secret Agent, which swept the Best Actor and Best Director categories at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, also earned nothing at this year’s Oscars.

Same was true for the quirky kidnapping drama Bugonia, from Oscar darling Yorgos Lanthimos.

Fears about artificial intelligence

The ceremony, however, did occasionally veer away from the competition between the films to discuss issues facing the film industry and the country as a whole.

Among those was the creeping growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creative sector.

In the weeks leading up to the 98th Oscars, an AI-generated video clip had gone viral, appearing to show Hollywood icons Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in a rooftop brawl worthy of a James Bond movie.

The clip had been generated through AI software developed by the Chinese firm ByteDance, and Hollywood leaders quickly denounced it as a threat to their livelihood, not to mention a copyright infringement.

Those concerns reverberated on the Oscar stage on Sunday, with O’Brien and others addressing the growing use of AI.

“Tonight we are celebrating people, not AI, because animation – it’s more than a prompt,” actor Will Arnett said emphatically as he introduced the animation awards.

O’Brien, meanwhile, joked that, by next year, his hosting gig would be taken by “a Waymo in a tux”.

Trump skewered for threatening free speech

Another concern looming over the night’s Oscar ceremony came in the form of President Donald Trump, who has courted controversy by launching deadly military attacks in Venezuela and Iran, as well as leading a violent immigration crackdown in the US.

At no point was Trump mentioned by name. But his leadership was alluded to throughout the night.

O’Brien, the host, set the tone early on with his oblique jabs at the Republican president in his opening monologue.

“When I hosted last year, Los Angeles was on fire,” the two-time Oscar emcee said in remarks dripping with sarcasm. “But this year, everything’s going great.”

Fellow comedian Jimmy Kimmel was even more direct. Last September, his show was briefly suspended after Trump criticised the comedian.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump appointee, subsequently threatened the broadcasting license of the TV channel Kimmel performs on.

“There are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS,” Kimmel quipped, referring to another channel that cancelled a fellow late-night comedy show.

Several filmmakers honoured at the Oscars likewise waded into the controversies surrounding Trump.

Best Documentary Feature winner David Borenstein, for instance, implied a parallel between his film — an exploration of authoritarianism in Russia — and what is currently happening in the US.

“Mr Nobody against Putin is about how you lose your country,” Borenstein explained.

“What we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity: when we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything, when oligarchs take over the media.”

Political speeches avoid mention of Iran war

The Oscars come roughly seven months ahead of the pivotal midterm elections in the US, which could see Trump’s Republican Party lose its majorities in Congress.

But while several filmmakers did hint at their anti-Trump stances, few explicitly denounced his policies.

For example, Norway’s Joaquim Trier, the winner of the Best International Feature category, veiled his criticism in a James Baldwin quote about the duty to protect children.

“Let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously into account,” Trier said.

No artist during the night referenced the US and Israeli war against Iran either, though its effects were felt among the participants of this year’s Oscar crop.

Writer-director Jafar Panahi, whose work was up for two Oscars on Sunday, has already said he plans to return to his native Iran after the awards season concludes.

Meanwhile, Iranian politician Sara Shahverdi — the subject of a nominee in the Best Documentary Short category — was prevented from attending the Oscars at all due to Trump’s ban on visas for 39 countries.

Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees, star of the Oscar nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab, likewise told media outlets he could not be present at the ceremony due to the travel ban.

The most pointed acknowledgements of the US-led and US-backed conflicts in the world were brief. When Spanish actor Javier Barden took the Oscar stage to present an award, he offered up six words, “No to war, and free Palestine!”

Russian filmmaker Pavel Talankin, meanwhile, made a similar appeal to the audience. “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now,” he said.

But by and large, the Oscar winners and presenters kept their remarks vague, emphasising global unity over political criticism.

“If I can be serious for just a moment, everyone watching right now around the world is all too aware that these are very chaotic, frightening times,” O’Brien told the audience at the outset of the night.

“It is at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant. Check it out. Thirty-one countries across six continents are represented this evening, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages.”

Cinema, he and others argued, transcended borders. The talent on stage was not the US’s alone.

The 2026 Oscars featured surprise wins, emotional speeches and some comical moments as stars gathered for Hollywood’s biggest night.

The ceremony saw action thriller One Battle After Another win the most Oscars of the night with six wins, including best picture. But there were a number of historic moments – including Jessie Buckley becoming the first Irish star to win best actress.

And in a shock win amid tough competition from Leonardo di Caprio and Timothée Chalamet, Michael B Jordan took home the best actor prize – the sixth black actor to win in the Academy’s nearly 100-year history.

Follow the BBC’s ongoing coverage of the Oscars here.

Footage shows a fire burning near Dubai International Airport after a drone ignited a fuel tank, according to authorities in the UAE. Flights have been suspended. Civil defence crews say the blaze is under control.

Footage shows huge plumes of smoke from a heavy strike in the Iranian city of Hamadan, as the US-Israeli war against Iran enters its third week.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel seem close to ending their attacks on Iran as the war stretches into its 16th day. U.S. President Donald Trump says he is not yet prepared to make a deal with Tehran while Israeli officials say there are still “thousands of targets” to be hit.

In an interview with NBC News Saturday night, Trump said he wants Tehran to offer a better “deal” before he would agree to ending hostilities.

“Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet,” the president told the network in a 30-minute phone call. He added that the terms offered would have to be “very solid.”

The U.S. leader, however, declined to say what conditions he is seeking.

“I don’t want to say that to you,” Trump stated, while acknowledging that Iran would have to completely abandon any nuclear ambitions as part of any agreement.

Alireza Enayati says relations with Saudi Arabia are ‘progressing naturally’ and he’s in direct contact with Saudi officials.

Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia denied Tehran is responsible for attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, saying if it was behind the strikes, it would have announced it.

Alireza Enayati did not suggest who carried out the attacks, but added Iran is only attacking United States and Israeli military targets and interests during the ongoing war, Reuters news agency quoted him as saying on Sunday.

After the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran at the end of February, Tehran retaliated against US and Israeli military assets, including in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Last week, the Ras Tanura oil refinery was forced to stop operations after debris from a drone caused a small fire. Attempted attacks were also reported on the Shaybah oilfield in the desert near the border with the UAE.

So far, Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry has not blamed anyone for the attacks.

Enayati said he’s in direct contact with Saudi officials, explaining that relations are “progressing naturally” in many areas.

Talks included Saudi Arabia’s publicly stated position that its land, sea, and air would not be used to target Iran. He didn’t elaborate.

Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic relations in 2023, in a deal brokered by China, that saw the two sides, which backed rival groups across the region, agree on a new chapter in bilateral relations.

‘Reliance on external powers’

Enayati reiterated to the Gulf states that the war “has been imposed on us and the region” following coordinated US and Israeli attacks.

Asked about the attacks on Gulf nations, Enayati replied: “We are neighbours, and we cannot do without each other; we will need a serious review.”

“What the region has witnessed over the past five decades is the result of an exclusionary approach and an excessive reliance on external powers,” he said, calling for deeper ties between the Gulf Cooperation Council’s six members along with Iraq and Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also denied his country is targeting civilian or residential areas in the Middle East, and said Tehran is ready to form a committee with its neighbours to investigate the responsibility for such strikes.

So far, the UAE, which normalised relations with Israel in 2020, has faced the brunt of Iran’s attacks, with US bases and oil refineries heavily targeted.

While all countries targeted have strongly condemned Iran’s missile and drone strikes, regional sources say there remains growing frustration at the United States for dragging them into a war they did not sign up for but are now paying the heaviest price for, Reuters reported.

Enayati said to resolve the conflict, the US and Israel need to stop their attacks, and international security guarantees to prevent future “aggression” must be given.

Paul Musgrave, associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said the administration of US President Donald Trump has lost much of its leverage in the region, and the US engaged in the wrong conflict at the wrong moment, without proper planning.

Iran’s strategy, meanwhile, now seems to be “not who has a bigger bomb or bigger munitions, but who has the highest threshold for pain”, Musgrave told Al Jazeera.

The U.S. Navy Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are configured for minesweeping duties, have appeared in port in Malaysia. Both of these ships were last known to be forward-deployed in the Middle East, having arrived in Bahrain in the past year or so to take the place of a group of now-decommissioned Avenger class mine hunters. Now, as Iranian attacks on commercial ships have caused a virtual halt to maritime traffic through the highly strategic Strait of Hormuz, these ships have emerged thousands of miles away. The extent to which Iran has seeded naval mines in the Strait already is unclear, but this remains a huge threat to the future security of the waterway and will have to be taken into account in any future effort to reopen this critical waterway.

A spotter in Malaysia posted pictures of the USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are said to have been taken today at the North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) in the Port of Penang. Mike Yeo, an Australia-based defense and aviation reporter, was among the first to call attention to the particular significance of the images. TWZ has reached out for more information.

USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara are among a select number of Independence class LCSs fitted with a mine countermeasures mission package, or “module.” In its current form, the package includes towed mine-hunting sonar for the ships, Common Unmanned Surface Vehicles (CUSV) with mine-sweeping gear, and mine detection and neutralization systems carried by embarked MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters. We will come back to this configuration later on.

CUSV®

Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) Video

When it comes to why the ships are now in Malaysia, TWZ also reached out to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which directed us to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. We were then directed by Fifth Fleet back to CENTCOM. CENTCOM is the top U.S. military command for operations in the Middle East. Fifth Fleet is the Navy’s numbered fleet in the Middle East, with its commander dual-hatted as head of Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). Fifth Fleet and NAVCENT are headquartered in Manama, Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf.

We have reached out to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), as well.

Pictures available through the U.S. military’s Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) show USS Tulsa was in port in Bahrain at least as of February 9. Separate images also show USS Santa Barbara operating in the Persian Gulf on January 30. The current disposition of a third Independence class LCS, the USS Canberra, which had also been forward-deployed in the Middle East at least as of January, is unknown. Whether any other mine countermeasures ships may not be headed to the Middle East is also not known.

A review of satellite imagery in Planet Labs’ commercial archive shows no evidence of any U.S. warships being in port in Mamana since February 23. The United States and Israel launched their joint operation against Iran on February 28.

Moving U.S. warships out of port in Bahrain ahead of the current conflict was a prudent security measure. The Gulf state is well within range of Iranian missiles and long-range kamikaze drones, and U.S. military facilities in Manama did subsequently come under attack. The U.S. military’s own strikes on Iranian naval vessels in port have underscored the vulnerability of ships sitting pierside.

Why the decision was made to then send the USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara thousands of miles to the east is unknown. A host of factors may have come into play, including the availability of suitable friendly ports and diplomatic considerations.

Regardless, at least two-thirds of the warships intended to be available for tasking for mine countermeasures missions in the Middle East are presently in a completely different part of the world. As noted, USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara, and USS Canberra, were forward-deployed to the region in the first place explicitly to fill gaps left by the decommissioning of four Avenger class mine hunters last year. The former USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry left the region for good aboard a heavy lift ship in January. There are only four Avenger class ships left in active Navy service, all of which are forward-deployed in Japan, and are also slated to be decommissioned in the coming years.

How many of the Navy’s Independence class LCSs, in total, have been configured for the mine-clearing mission to date is unknown. In addition to USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara, and the USS Canberra, the USS Kansas City was at least being fitted out with this mission module as of last year.

The Independence class LCS is a far more advanced ship than the Avenger class mine hunter, and does offer new standoff mine countermeasures capabilities, including aforementioned CUSV drone boats and helicopter-borne systems. Still, questions continue to be raised about whether metal-hulled LCSs with mine countermeasures packages are adequate replacements for ships purpose-built for this mission. As TWZ previously wrote back in January:

The [Avenger class] ships themselves have fiberglass-coated wooden hulls to reduce their own vulnerability, particularly to mines that detect targets by their magnetic signature.

The Navy has long intended to replace the Avenger class ships with LCSs configured for the mine countermeasures duties. However, delays with the LCS mine countermeasures and other mission packages, or “modules,” as well as other persistent issues with both subclasses of those ships, repeatedly delayed those plans. The LCS program had also originally envisioned it being possible to readily reconfigure the ships for different mission sets by swapping out modules. However, the Navy is now deploying LCSs in largely fixed configurations.

…

Questions and criticism about the suitability of metal-hulled LCSs to take on the mine countermeasures mission have come up in the past. Both subclasses of LCS are also much larger than the Avenger class design, which could impose limits on how close they can get to mined or potentially mined areas. LCSs are better able to defend themselves against other threats than the Avengers, but they still have relatively limited firepower, which has been a separate source of criticism for years now. There would still be a significant need for tertiary support to protect LCSs during mine-clearing operations, which are slow and complex, and carry significant risks, even in benign environments.

In May 2025, a top U.S. Navy mine warfare officer gave an unclassified briefing detailing significant ongoing issues with the LCS mine countermeasures, according to a story published just this past week by Hunterbrook Media. Copies of the briefing slides that the outlet published say that employing the CUSV requires hours of prep time, and that the drone boat’s sonar sometimes has trouble spotting threats, but that the operators may have no indication of this until data is assessed after a mission. Visual confirmation of mines using the AN/AQS-20 mine-hunting system has also proven challenging “even [in] the relatively benign turbidity of SoCal [Southern California] waters,” another slide explains. The briefing also highlighted a number of potential “single-point failures” both in terms of mine countermeasures systems included in the module, and the equipment required to deploy and recover them.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, one of the briefing slides noted that “LCS was designed as a multi-mission platform” and “all of these other missions reduce time for the ship and Minemen to gain proficiency in MCM [mine countermeasures].” To reiterate, the Avenger class ships were purpose-built for this mission set and had crews trained to match. Mine-clearing operations are slow and complex, and carry significant risks, even when carried out by experienced personnel in benign environments.

In the context of the current conflict, there have been reports in the past week or so saying Iran has at least attempted to lay mines in and around the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military also says it has been actively targeting mine-laying assets. At the same time, Iran has laid mines in and around the Persian Gulf in the past, and this remains a real point of concern. Iranian anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, kamikaze drones, and uncrewed explosive-laden boats further complicate the threat picture for commercial vessels and any warships attempting to help clear the way.

Ukraine’s leader previously said advisers were sent to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to help thwart Iranian drone attacks.

Ukraine wants money and technology as payback after sending specialists to the Middle East to help down Iranian drones during the ongoing Israel-United States war with Iran.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday that three teams were sent to the region to undertake expert assessments and demonstrate how drone defences work as countries in the Middle East continue to be targeted by Iran over hosting US military bases.

“This is not about being involved in operations. We are not at war with Iran,” Zelenskyy said.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s leader announced military teams were sent to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and a US military base in Jordan.

But he explained that more long-term drone deals could be negotiated with Gulf countries, and what Kyiv gets in return for its assistance still needs to be established.

“For us today, both the technology and the funding are important,” Zelenskyy said.

Throughout the four-year Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow has widely used Iranian Shahed-136 “suicide” drones, giving Kyiv expertise in knowing how to down the unmanned aerial vehicles through cheap drone interceptors, electronic jamming tools, and anti-aircraft weaponry.

However, US President Donald Trump has said he does not need Ukraine’s help in taking down Iranian drones attacking American targets.

‘Rules must be tightened’

Zelenskyy said he doesn’t know why Washington hasn’t signed a drone agreement with Kyiv, which it has pushed for months.

“I wanted to sign a deal worth about $35bn–50bn,” he said.

Still, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues with no end in sight, Zelenskyy raised concerns that the ongoing war in the Middle East will impact Kyiv’s supplies of air defence missiles.

“We would very much not like the United States to step away from the issue of Ukraine because of the Middle East,” he told reporters.

But as interest has grown for Ukrainian drone interceptors in light of the war, Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s rules to buy the drones must be tightened, with foreign countries and firms being unable to bypass the government and talk directly to manufacturers.

“Unfortunately, representatives of certain governments or companies want to bypass the Ukrainian state to purchase specific equipment,” Zelensky told reporters.

“Even in some free countries, we do not initially receive contracts from the private sector. A contract comes to me through the political channel. Only then does the private sector start negotiating with us.”

United States President Donald Trump has called for a naval coalition to deploy warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of world oil shipments transit, as oil markets reel from supply disruptions caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran.

What is essentially the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran in response to the attacks by the US and Israel has sent oil prices soaring to more than $100 per barrel.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has promised to keep the maritime artery closed while another top official in Tehran warned that oil prices could shoot up beyond $200 per barrel.

Trump said he hoped a naval coalition could secure the vital waterway, which connects the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Iran has struck more than a dozen ships trying to sail through the narrow waterway since the hostilities started two weeks ago.

But will Trump’s solution work?

What has Trump said?

The US president has been facing domestic pressure over starting the war alongside Israel with no endgame or off-ramps in sight.

“On the strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN,” US Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote in a post on X. “I can’t go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it [to] say, right now, they don’t know how to get it safely back open.”

After threatening to bomb Iran more, Trump called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom to send warships to secure the strait.

Trump claimed “100% of Iran’s military capability” had already been destroyed but added that Tehran could still “send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway”.

“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”

Not long after, Trump returned to the keyboard, extending the invitation to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait” to send warships, adding that the US would provide “a lot” of support to those who participated.

What has Iran said?

Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, said in a statement that claims by the US about destroying Iran’s navy or providing safe escort for oil tankers were false.

“The Strait of Hormuz has not been militarily blocked and is merely under control,” he said in a statement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later doubled down on this, saying the strait remained open to international shipping except for vessels belonging to the US and its allies.

“The Strait of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies. Others are free to pass,” Araghchi said.

Khamenei – son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli strikes – suggested in his first statement since taking power that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed to provide leverage for Iran during the conflict.

What are the challenges in the Strait of Hormuz?

The strait, which is just 21 nautical miles (39km) wide at its narrowest point, is the only maritime passage into the Arabian Gulf (known as the Persian Gulf in Iran). Shipping lanes in the waterway are even narrower and more vulnerable to attacks.

It separates Iran on one side from Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the other.

In brief, there is no way in or out by sea when the Strait of Hormuz is closed.

Alexandru Hudisteanu, a maritime security expert who served 13 years in the Romanian navy, told Al Jazeera that in the type of coalition that Trump is hinting at, “interoperability is the biggest hurdle.”

“That’s the ability of cruises to work together or with different units and different doctrine when basic communication would be an issue,” he said.

Then, there is the geography of the Strait of Hormuz: “a very unforgiving environment to sail with this type of wartime threats”, Hudisteanu said. “Especially difficult under missile threats and these asymmetric potential mines or unmanned systems that could damage or destroy ships.”

Providing escorts to ships would be a costly option, and it would pose risks to participating foreign warships from possible Iranian attacks, which would likely further drag more countries into the ongoing war.

From Iran’s point of view, “the fact that the shoreline is so close and the actual maritime passage is highly congested and confined is an advantage by default,” Hudisteanu added. Geographically, Iran keeps it as a gauntlet, with no way out for the ships unless Tehran allows it.

Another major challenge for any naval coalition trying to secure the passage would be the timeline of any operation.
”The security of the strait could be achieved. It’s just a matter of how much time you need and how many assets you need,” the analyst said. Rushing through it “could have negative implications for the security of the mission and the region”.

How have countries responded?

No country has so far publicly agreed to Trump’s call to send warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz.

London said it is “intensively looking” at what it can do to help reopen the maritime passage. British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “We are intensively looking with our allies at what can be done because it’s so important that we get the strait reopened.”

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said Beijing is calling for hostilities to stop and “all parties have the responsibility to ensure stable and unimpeded energy supply.”

Japan said the threshold is “extremely high” to send its warships on such a mission. “Legally speaking, we do not rule out the possibility, but given the current situation in which this conflict is ongoing, I believe this is something that must be considered with great caution,” said Takayuki Kobayashi, policy chief of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

France also confirmed that it will not send ships. The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday: “Posture has not changed: defensive it is,” in reference to President Emanuel Macron’s assertion that France will not join the war against Iran.

South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its oil from the Gulf, said it was “closely monitoring” Trump’s statements and “comprehensively considering and exploring various measures … to ensure the safety of energy transport routes”.

Are countries negotiating with Iran?

Some countries have been negotiating with Iran to secure passage for their petroleum shipments.

Two Indian-flagged tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have sailed through the Strait of Hormuz. New Delhi depends on this passage for 80 percent of its LPG imports.

The war on Iran has caused a critical shortage of cooking gas for India’s 333 million households. New Delhi has long had ties with Iran, but the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not condemned the killing of Ali Khamenei. It has condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, where millions of Indian citizens work and send $51bn in remittances home every year.

Iran’s ambassador to India, Mohammad ⁠Fathali, said Tehran had allowed some Indian vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in a rare exception to the blockade but did not confirm the number of vessels.

A Turkish-owned vessel was similarly granted permission last week after Ankara negotiated passage directly with Tehran. Fourteen more Turkish vessels are awaiting clearance.

France and Italy also reportedly opened talks with Iranian officials to negotiate a deal to allow their vessels through the strait, but there has been no official confirmation yet.

“Iran is affecting maritime supply,” Hudisteanu said. “It’s affecting the maritime security of the region and the entire ecosystem and bringing the entire world to the table as the global price for oil and gas increases.”

Bruno Fernandes reaches 100 assists in all competitions after setting up two goals in crucial 3-1 win over Villa.

Manchester United bolstered their bid to qualify for the Champions League with a vital 3-1 win against top-four rivals Aston Villa.

Michael Carrick’s side took the lead through Casemiro’s second-half opener at Old Trafford on Sunday before Ross Barkley hauled Villa level.

United finished strongly with Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko scoring in the closing stages to seal Carrick’s seventh win in nine games since taking over as interim boss.

Sitting third in the Premier League, United are three points clear of fourth-placed Villa in the race to reach the Champions League via a top-four finish.

United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe this week praised Carrick’s “excellent” work but stopped short of committing to the former Old Trafford star on a long-term basis.

However, Carrick is making a strong case to earn the job on a permanent basis after stabilising United after Ruben Amorim’s sacking.

United’s latest victory came after an 11-day break since the first defeat of his reign at Newcastle, and Carrick celebrated with a jig of delight on the touchline after Sesko wrapped up the points.

Spluttering Villa have lost their last three league games and have just one win in seven top-flight matches, leaving them three points above fifth-placed Chelsea with eight games left in the battle for European places.

After a lethargic first half, United finally prised open the Villa defence in the 53rd minute.

Bryan Mbeumo’s stinging strike was palmed away by Emiliano Martinez, earning a corner that brought the opener.

Bruno Fernandes curled a corner to the near post, and Casemiro made a perfectly timed run to glance a header past Martinez.

With Casemiro likely to leave when his contract expires at the end of the season, United fans serenaded the Brazilian midfielder with chants of “one more year”.

United lost focus and surrendered the lead in the 64th minute.

In his first Premier League start for 14 months, Barkley slammed a superb strike past Senne Lammens from 11 metres (12 yards) after United failed to clear the danger.

But Cunha netted in the 71st minute to ensure Carrick’s men did not pay for their stumble.

Bursting onto Fernandes’s sublime pass into the Villa area, the Brazilian forward slotted a fine finish into the far corner.

It was Fernandes’s 16th Premier League assist this term, moving the United captain past David Beckham’s previous club record of 15 in 1999-2000.

He has 100 assists for United in all competitions since signing from Sporting Lisbon in 2020.

Sesko came off the bench to prove a point to Carrick after being dropped, and the Slovenian striker fired home with a deflected effort in the 81st minute.

Fernandes said he was delighted to provide two assists for his teammates to move past Beckham’s record.

“I’m more proud and pleased because I did it serving my teammates. Giving joy to others is also very good,” he said.

“When you play in the position I play, I’m very happy I can help them to score and be happy in that moment. It’s a huge achievement for me, but the main achievement would be in the top spot at the end of the season.”

Elsewhere, Nottingham Forest climbed out of the relegation zone after a 0-0 draw against Fulham at the City Ground.

Still waiting for their first win under Vitor Pereira, fourth-bottom Forest, who have had four managers this term, are above third-bottom West Ham on goal difference.

Ten-man Leeds held on for a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace despite Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s missed penalty and a red card for Gabriel Gudmundsson.

Later on Sunday, troubled Tottenham head to Liverpool with only goal difference keeping them outside the relegation zone.

Hundreds of tankers sit idle on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz as Iran has effectively closed the waterway, pushing oil prices above $100 – the highest since 2022, after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Oil tanker traffic in the strait, through which one-fifth of global oil passes, has plunged after Israel and the United States launched attacks on Tehran on February 28. Asian countries, including India, China and Japan, as well as some European countries, source large portions of their energy needs from the Gulf. A disruption in supply will rattle the global economy.

With an aim to cushion from the shock, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has decided to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves, the largest coordinated drawdown in the agency’s history. But it has failed to push the prices down.

The agency had released about 182 million barrels after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to stablise the oil prices.

According to the agency, oil shipments through the strategic waterway have fallen to less than 10 percent of pre-war levels, threatening one of the most critical arteries in the global energy system.

IEA members collectively hold about 1.25 billion barrels in government-controlled emergency reserves, alongside roughly 600 million barrels in industry stocks tied to government obligations.

A large number in a massive market

The figure may appear vast, but it shrinks quickly against the scale of global energy demand.

“This feels like a small bandage on a large wound,” energy strategist Naif Aldandeni said, describing the world’s largest coordinated emergency oil release as governments scramble to steady markets shaken by war.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates world consumption of petroleum and other liquids will average 105.17 million barrels per day in 2026. At that rate, 400 million barrels would theoretically cover just four days of global consumption.

Even when compared with normal traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – around 20 million barrels per day – the released oil equals only about 20 days of typical flows.

Aldandeni told Al Jazeera that emergency reserves can calm panic in markets but cannot replace the lost function of a disrupted shipping corridor.

“The release may soften the shock and calm nerves temporarily,” he said, “but it will remain limited as long as the fundamental problem — the freedom of supply and tanker movement through Hormuz – remains unresolved.”

Oil prices reflect those anxieties. Brent crude ended trading on Friday at $103.14 per barrel, after surging to nearly $120 earlier as fears of disrupted production and shipping intensified.

Geopolitical risk premium

Oil expert Nabil al-Marsoumi said the price surge cannot be explained by supply fundamentals alone.

“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz added roughly $40 per barrel as a geopolitical risk premium above what market fundamentals would normally dictate,” he told Al Jazeera.

From that perspective, releasing strategic reserves serves primarily as a temporary tool to dampen that premium rather than fundamentally rebalance the market.

Prices above $100 per barrel are uncomfortable for major consuming economies already struggling to curb inflation and protect economic growth.

Recent EIA projections suggest global demand has not yet declined significantly because of the war, remaining close to 105 million barrels per day. The market pressure, therefore, stems less from falling consumption and more from fears of supply shortages and delays in deliveries to refineries and consumers.

Threats to oil infrastructure

The latest escalation could deepen those fears.

United States President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US Central Command (CENTCOM) had “executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island”.

He added that “for reasons of decency” he had “chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island”, but warned Washington could reconsider that restraint if Iran continues to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

CENTCOM confirmed the operation, stating US forces had struck “more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure”.

Iranian officials have meanwhile warned they would target energy facilities linked to the US across the region if Iranian oil infrastructure comes under direct attack.

Kharg Island is not simply a military location. It serves as the primary export terminal for Iranian crude, making it a critical node in the country’s oil supply network.

If attacks move from obstructing shipping to targeting export infrastructure itself, the crisis could shift from a chokepoint disruption scenario to one involving direct losses of production and export capacity.

In such circumstances, the oil released from emergency reserves would act only as a temporary bridge rather than a lasting solution to lost supply.

Major oil companies such as QatarEnergy, the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Bahrain state oil company Bapco have shut production and declared force majeure, while Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, and UAE state oil company ADNOC have shut down their refineries.

Limits of emergency reserves

Even under a less severe scenario – where maritime disruption persists but infrastructure remains intact — the ability of strategic reserves to stabilise markets remains constrained by logistics.

The US Department of Energy said the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 415.4 million barrels as of 18 February 2026. Its maximum drawdown capacity is 4.4 million barrels per day, and oil requires about 13 days to reach US markets after a presidential release order.

That means even the world’s largest emergency stockpile cannot flood the market with crude immediately. The release must move through pipelines, shipping networks and refining capacity before reaching consumers.

Aldandeni said the current intervention would likely produce only a temporary stabilising effect, while al-Marsoumi warned that prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz – or the spread of threats to other chokepoints such as the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea could quickly send prices further higher.

The fixture, part of the Qatar Football Festival, has been cancelled amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.

The ‘Finalissima’ match between Spain ‌and Argentina that was scheduled to be held in Qatar later this month has ⁠been cancelled due ⁠to the conflict in the Middle East, UEFA said in a statement.

“It is a source of great disappointment to UEFA and the organisers that circumstances and timing have denied the teams of the chance to compete for this prestigious prize in Qatar,” UEFA said in a statement on Sunday.

The US-Israeli strikes on Iran have affected countries throughout the Gulf, disrupting travel ⁠in some of the world’s busiest transit hubs and forcing several sporting events to be cancelled due to safety concerns.

The contest between European champions Spain and Copa America winners Argentina was ⁠scheduled for March 27 at Doha’s Lusail Stadium, where fans would have had the opportunity to watch Lionel Messi go head-to-head with Lamine Yamal.

UEFA said they held discussions with the organising authorities in Qatar and concluded that the match could not take place due to the “current political situation” in the ‌region.

The Spain vs Argentina game was part of the Qatar Football Festival, as promoted by local organisers.

The five-day festival also included Egypt vs Saudi Arabia and Qatar vs Serbia on March 26; Egypt vs Spain and Saudi Arabia vs Serbia on March 30 and Qatar vs Argentina on March 31.

Serbia will now play Spain away instead.

“Serbia will face the current European champions, Spain, on away turf on March 27, and four ⁠days later they will host the Saudi Arabian national team,” the ⁠Football Association of Serbia said in a statement.

UEFA said they explored other feasible alternatives to play the Finalissima but they proved to be ‘unacceptable’ to the Argentinian Football Association (AFA).

UEFA first offered to stage the match ⁠at the Santiago Bernabeu with a 50:50 split of supporters in the stadium.

A second option was to stage the Finalissima over two legs – ⁠at the Bernabeu on March 27 and the second leg ⁠in Buenos Aires during an international window before the next Euros and Copa America.

However, the AFA rejected both options. UEFA said Argentina made a counter offer to play the game after the World Cup but Spain had no available dates.

“Ultimately, ‌UEFA sought a commitment from Argentina that, if a neutral venue in Europe could be found, the game could go ahead on 27 March… or on the alternative date of 30 ‌March. ‌This proposal was also rejected,” UEFA added.

The 2022 edition of the Finalissima was held at Wembley Stadium in London where Argentina beat Italy 3-0.

Japanese football legend says his opinion prompts a US company to cancel an advertising campaign before the FIFA World Cup.

Former Japanese footballer Keisuke Honda says he has lost an advertising deal in the United States after voicing support for the Iranian national team’s participation in the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

Without naming the sponsor, Honda revealed on Saturday that an advertisement from a US-based company had been “put on hold” after he posted on X that he wants Iran to compete in the tournament cohosted by the US, Mexico and Canada.

“I know it’s a very sensitive thing, but I personally want them to participate in the World Cup,” the 39-year-old wrote in a tweet on Thursday, a day after Iran’s sports minister said the country cannot take part in the World Cup after the US and Israel launched a war on it and killed its supreme leader.

Honda, who represented Japan from 2008 to 2018 and scored 38 international goals for his country, posted a follow-up tweet in which he indicated that the advertisement, which had been expected to be finalised in time for the World Cup, had been shelved due to his earlier post.

“Apparently, this statement caused a US company to cancel an advertisement that was about to be finalised to coincide with the World Cup,” he wrote.

“We don’t want anything to do with companies that ignore the essence of things and make decisions based on rotten thinking.”

Iran’s place at the 48-team tournament is in doubt even after they qualified because of the US-Israeli attacks that began on February 28, following which Tehran responded by launching waves of missiles and drones at Israel, several military bases in the Middle East where US forces operate and infrastructure in the region.

The 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup will be held in the three host nations from June 11 to July 19, and all of Iran’s group games have been scheduled at venues on the US West Coast.

The former Samurai Blue represented his country at the 2010, 2014 and 2018 World Cups and is among the top 10 most capped players and top five goal scorers for the Asian giants.

Honda was named the most valuable player in Japan’s title-winning run at the Asian Cup in 2011. After representing 11 clubs across five continents, the attacking midfielder hung up his boots in 2024 and switched to coaching.

The golden-haired player enjoys a hero-like status in his home country and is one of Japan’s most recognised international footballers.

He expressed his opinion on Team Melli’s participation amid heightened tensions between the host nation US and Iran.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that it would not be appropriate for Iran to participate in the World Cup.

“The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety,” Trump wrote in a social media post without elaborating.

The Instagram account for the Iranian national team quickly responded to Trump’s remarks, questioning whether the US president should be commenting on team participation.

“The World Cup is a historic and international event, and its governing body is FIFA – not any individual country,” it wrote.

The account also criticised Trump for failing to provide adequate security for Iran’s national football players.

“Certainly, no one can exclude Iran’s national team from the World Cup,” the message continued. “The only country that could be excluded is one that merely carries the title of ‘host’ yet lacks the ability to provide security for the teams participating in this global event.”

Trump later posted another message on his social media platform to emphasise that the event would be safe for players and spectators from around the world.

Fine margins are often the difference between a title-winning side and one still building towards it.

Thomas Ramos’ last-gasp penalty to win the championship for France came after a handful of moments England will replay in their minds for a while.

Henry Pollock did brilliantly to steal the ball late on but, instead of taking contact and securing it, he tried to move it and possession was lost.

Ollie Chessum might also look back and think he could have edged a little closer to the posts to make the kick easier for Fin Smith, who himself will be frustrated at leaving points out there.

Those are the moments you write down and burn into your memory, because when they come around again – and they always do in Test rugby – you want the instinct to be automatic.

The best teams make winning those moments a habit.

Just look at South Africa at the 2023 World Cup – three knockout wins by a single point.

That is not luck. That is a team that understand exactly how to manage pressure.

England had been through a sticky spell and this performance gives them something real to build on heading into the summer.

When this squad meet up again for the tour to South Africa, there should be a real sense of belief.

They have shown they can challenge the very best teams in the world. Now it is about learning how to close out those pressure moments when they come.

Another area that will need attention is opposition analysis.

France exposed England a couple of times in the first half with tries straight from set-piece starter plays.

At this level, that is inexcusable. Louis Bielle-Biarrey chasing on to kicks through is something France have done all championship.

Those details matter. Fix them, combine that with the intensity England showed in Paris, and suddenly you have a team not just competing with the best, but capable of beating the best.

The 98th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, will celebrate some of the top films released in 2025 on Sunday.

The ceremony will take place in Los Angeles with actors, directors and filmmakers from around the world competing for Hollywood’s most prestigious prizes.

But this year’s ceremony comes at a time of global tension, with the ongoing war in Iran serving as a sombre backdrop to Hollywood’s annual celebration.

“My job is always to try to walk a very thin line between entertaining people and also acknowledging some of the realities,” host Conan O’Brien said during a Wednesday news conference with the Oscars creative team.

Here is what we know about the upcoming ceremony:

Where will the Oscars be held?

The 98th Academy Awards will take place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles on March 15.

The ceremony will start at 4pm West Coast time in the United States (23:00 GMT), with official red carpet coverage beginning at 3:30pm (22:30 GMT).

Where can I watch the ceremony?

The 2026 Oscars will be broadcast in the US on the TV channel ABC. Viewers with a cable subscription can also watch online by signing in through the ABC app or ABC.com.

The ceremony will also be streamed live on the video platform Hulu.

Those without traditional cable can access the broadcast through live TV streaming services that carry ABC, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.

But the Oscars’ ties with ABC may soon be at an end. Last year, the Academy announced that, beginning in 2029, the Oscars will sever its decades-long relationship with ABC and stream exclusively on YouTube.

The shift to an online-only platform is a big shake-up for the Academy Awards, ending a tradition more than half a century old.

ABC began broadcasting the Oscars in 1976, and before that, it aired on a rival channel, NBC, starting in 1953.

Who is hosting the Academy Awards?

O’Brien is hosting the 98th Academy Awards, marking his second consecutive year emceeing the ceremony.

“This year, I know where the doughnuts are. I know my way around a little bit, and so, I think that’s going to be fun,” Conan said.

In remarks this week, the comedian explained he believes the key to success on the Oscar stage is having a good time and staying in the moment.

He added that he and his writing team are still refining the material ahead of the show, to keep it as current as possible.

“What’s happening in the world will be reflected in the show,” he said.

How can I watch the red carpet?

The Oscars red carpet is broadcast several hours before the ceremony, as filmmakers and other celebrities arrive for the ceremony.

The red carpet has long served as a stage for Hollywood’s best fashions, and actors often pause for interviews with social media and television hosts to discuss the awards and what they’re wearing.

Several shows will broadcast from the red carpet:

• The official Oscars red carpet (“On the Red Carpet at the Oscars”): 20:30 GMT, hosted by Tamron Hall and Jesse Palmer
  • Streaming services: Viewers without cable can watch through platforms that carry ABC, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, fuboTV and Sling TV.
• E! Live from the Red Carpet: 21:00 GMT
  • Streaming services: The E! network will carry the live coverage, as will the streaming platform Peacock and live TV service providers like Roku, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and more.

British comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg also returns for the third year as the official Oscars social media correspondent.

Who is presenting?

As is tradition, last year’s acting winners will return to present awards at the ceremony. They include Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Mikey Madison (Anora) and Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez).

They will be joined by a wide range of actors and filmmakers presenting throughout the night, including Javier Bardem, Chris Evans, Chase Infiniti, Demi Moore, Kumail Nanjiani, Maya Rudolph, Will Arnett, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Robert Downey Jr, Anne Hathaway, Paul Mescal, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose Byrne, Nicole Kidman, Jimmy Kimmel, Delroy Lindo, Ewan McGregor, Wagner Moura, Pedro Pascal, Bill Pullman, Lewis Pullman, Channing Tatum and Sigourney Weaver.

Who is performing at the Oscars?

This year’s show will feature two musical performances tied to the Best Original Song nominees.

Rei Ami, EJAE and Audrey Nuna are set to perform the hit single Golden from the animated film KPop Demon Hunters, and actor Miles Caton will reprise the song he sang in the movie Sinners, called I Lied to You, alongside songwriter Raphael Saadiq.

Like the film itself, the Sinners musical performance at the Oscars will serve as a tribute to Black artistry across generations and genres.

As such, it will include an array of artists, from ballerina Misty Copeland to rocker Brittany Howard to blues and jazz musicians like Eric Gales, Bobby Rush and Alice Smith, among others.

What movies have the most nominations?

Sinners is the most-nominated film in Academy Award history with 16 nominations.

That tally broke the previous record of 14 nominations, which was held by three films: All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016).

Ryan Coogler’s feature mixes supernatural horror, romance and blues culture. Set in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi, the story centres on a community opening a juke joint that soon finds itself under siege by vampires.

“I wrote this script for my uncle who passed away 11 years ago,” Ryan Coogler said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I got to imagine that he’s listening to some blues music right now to celebrate.”

One Battle After Another follows with 13 nods at this year’s Oscars, while Frankenstein, Marty Supreme and Sentimental Value each secured nine nominations.

The Academy also continued its tilt towards international films with this year’s lineup of nominees. Every major acting category, for instance, included at least one international nominee.

Is there any Arab representation at this year’s Oscars?

Arab cinema had a strong presence during the awards season. Several films from the region were shortlisted for Best International Feature Film, including:

• The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)
• Palestine 36 (Palestine)
• All That’s Left of You (Jordan)
• The President’s Cake (Iraq)

One of them, The Voice of Hind Rajab, ultimately secured an Oscar nomination, marking a significant moment for Arab cinema.

What is the Voice of Hind Rajab?

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a 2025 docudrama directed by Kaouther Ben Hania.

It dramatises the final hours in the life of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024. But the film weaves in real-life recordings of Rajab’s desperate phone calls to emergency personnel from the Red Crescent group.

“The arrival of Hind Rajab’s voice to these platforms — and its ability to break through the indifference that exists there — is in itself something extremely valuable,” Gaza-based filmmaker Mohammed al-Sawwaf told Al Jazeera’s journalist Maram Humaid.

To al-Sawwaf, the film’s Oscar nomination means that Rajab’s death is no longer a passing news item or a single tally in a growing death toll. It is a cultural event, a memorial that forces viewers to confront the horrors facing Gaza’s young children.

“A story of a human being from Gaza has been presented as the story of a person with a life and meaning, rather than the image of a Palestinian appearing as a number on news screens,” he said.

“Palestinians have tried for many years to tell their stories and to be visible, but they were often met with rejection, doubt, or barriers placed in front of them.”

Al-Sawwaf believes Hind Rajab’s story can help illuminate the humanitarian crisis facing thousands of other Palestinians suffering in Gaza.

“A story like Hind Rajab’s represents a symbol of thousands of other stories,” he said. “There are thousands of women and men who had full lives, details, and dreams that are no less human than hers.”

Why was an Iranian film submitted by France?

It Was Just an Accident, directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, is also among the nominees on Sunday night, competing in two categories: Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay.

Though It Was Just an Accident was a co-production from several countries, France ultimately submitted the film as its entry in the Best International Feature competition.

Panahi’s work is often critical of the Iranian government, and in the past, he faced prison time and a ban on his filmmaking as a result. It was not considered as Iran’s entry.

France instead has championed the film as evidence that the country is a safe haven for “singular and courageous cinema”.

But Panahi said his thoughts remain focused on those back home in Iran.

“I am constantly thinking about them,” he told Bloomberg from New York, four days after the US and Israel launched their offensive against Iran.

Panahi shot the film clandestinely in Iran without government approval.

What are the best picture nominees?

Ten films are in competition in the Best Picture category:

• • Bugonia: A science-fiction story about two men who kidnap a powerful executive, believing she is an alien threatening Earth.
  • F1: A sports drama starring Brad Pitt as a veteran Formula One driver who returns to racing to mentor a promising young teammate.
  • Frankenstein: Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, following scientist Victor Frankenstein and the tragic creature he brings to life.
  • Hamnet: A historical drama focusing on the grief of Agnes and William Shakespeare following the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet.
  • Marty Supreme: A sports drama starring Timothee Chalamet as an ambitious table tennis player determined to prove he is the greatest at his sport.
  • One Battle After Another: A dark action-comedy directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, following a father and daughter on the run from a racist military leader intent on tracking them down.
  • The Secret Agent: A political thriller about a widowed college professor on the run from a vengeful government minister during Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1970s.
  • Sentimental Value: A drama exploring grief, memory and complicated relationships in a family of artists in modern-day Oslo.
  • Sinners: A supernatural thriller about twin brothers who return to their hometown to found a juke joint, only to be confronted by past relationships, racism and a gang of vampires.

Who are the nominees for the Best Director category?

• Chloe Zhao for Hamnet
• Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme
• Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another
• Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
• Ryan Coogler for Sinners

Who are the nominees for best actor?

• Timothee Chalamet for Marty Supreme
• Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another
• Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
• Michael B Jordan for Sinners
• Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent

Who are the nominees for Best Actress?

• Jessie Buckley for Hamnet
• Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue
• Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value
• Emma Stone for Bugonia

What are the biggest surprises and snubs?

This year’s nominations included several unexpected picks and notable omissions.

Among the biggest surprises was Delroy Lindo’s first-ever Oscar nomination for his supporting role in Sinners, a recognition many felt was long overdue.

“The best part of this process has been that people are so genuinely happy for me,” Lindo, 73, told The New York Times.

“It’s not an ego thing. It’s nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with affirmation.”

Another unexpected nod came in the Best Picture category for the racing drama F1, an action-packed summer blockbuster.

In an interview with the racing tournament Formula 1, director Joseph Kosinski explained that the team created an entirely new filming system to capture the kind of visuals he had imagined.

“We had to develop a new camera system, taking everything we learned on Top Gun: Maverick and pushing it much further,” Kosinski said.

Actress Kate Hudson was also a surprise in the highly competitive Best Actress category, earning her first Oscar nod in 25 years for the musical drama Song Sung Blue.

She said the film offered a rare opportunity to portray a mature female character with depth and ambition. Her role is based on the real-life story of Claire Sardina, who performed as part of a Neil Diamond cover band.

“I got to play the comedy, some sense of humour. I got to play the love story, the desire. I got to play being a mother, and then I got to go into a place of where my life force is taken out of me,” Hudson said in an interview with NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Among the most notable snubs was the sequel Wicked: For Good, which received no nominations amid mixed reviews. The first Wicked film earned a whopping 10 nominations last year, winning two Oscars, for Best Costumes and Best Production Design.

Actor Paul Mescal also missed out on a nomination for his performance as William Shakespeare in Hamnet, while director Guillermo del Toro was overlooked in the Best Director category for Frankenstein.

Other notable omissions included Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia).

What are the predictions for the winners?

For months, One Battle After Another was considered the clear favourite for Best Picture and Best Director. But in the final stretch of the awards season, the competition has tightened, with Sinners gaining momentum.

Jessie Buckley is widely expected to win Best Actress for Hamnet. Michael B Jordan, meanwhile, is predicted to win Best Actor for Sinners, overtaking stiff competition from Timothee Chalamet, star of the film Marty Supreme.

In the supporting actor categories, Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) is considered a strong contender for Best Supporting Actress, and Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) is favoured for Best Supporting Actor.