TODAY

The United States has fallen to a “historic low” in the Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, annual press freedom tracker, continuing a decade-long decline, the organisation has said.

The report on Thursday recorded a global drop in press freedom indicators in 2025, with, for the first time, more than half of the world’s countries labelled as “difficult” or “very serious”.

While the US, during the first year of US President Donald Trump’s second term, remained in the “problematic” category, it dropped seven spaces from 57th in the world to 64th. Norway led the list, with Eritrea ranked lowest among 180 countries.

In a statement, Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF’s North America office, said the US was experiencing a “press freedom crisis”.

“Trump and his administration have carried out a coordinated war on press freedom since the day he took office, and we will live with the consequences for years to come,” he said in a statement.

“Our message is clear: Protect legal rights, ensure accountability for attacks on media professionals, and support independent media to restore American press freedom.”

The report pointed to both Trump administration policies and the wider consolidation of media companies in the US, which critics say opens the door to stifling certain points of view.

That has included Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount Global, which includes CBS News. Skydance is owned by David Ellison, whose father, Larry Ellison, is a confidant of Trump’s.

Paramount Skydance is also currently acquiring Warner Bros, which owns CNN.

All told, just six companies control most US media: Comcast, Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount Skydance, Sony, and Amazon.

While Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with journalists, press freedom observers say the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has accelerated pressure on media figures and journalists during the president’s second term.

In March, FCC chair Brendan Carr said he would revoke the licences of broadcasters that are “running hoaxes and news distortions”, and that do not “operate in the public interest” in their reporting on the US-Israel war with Iran. Trump said he was “thrilled” by Carr’s statements.

Carr has also threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters for their coverage of Trump’s immigration policies, which critics say can have a chilling effect on local news organisations.

The effort has extended to television talk show hosts, who have been threatened by the FCC over jokes.

Most recently, Carr announced an investigation into several ABC channels.

That came days after the network’s flagship late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, made a joke about the White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD).

Kimmel had quipped that First Lady Melania Trump had the “glow of an expectant widow” before the event.

Days later, a gunman attempted to storm the WHCD in Washington, DC, which Trump was attending for the first time. The Trumps later connected Kimmel’s joke to the attack, calling for Kimmel’s firing.

Kimmel has said the joke was about the 79-year-old president and the 56-year-old first lady’s “age difference” and not a call for violence.

Critics of the FCC’s move included Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who said he does “not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police”.

The White House has repeatedly called Trump the most “transparent” president in US history, pointing to his regular news conferences.

The visit of King Charles III to the United States comes at a time of visible tension between Washington and London. His meetings with Donald Trump and symbolic engagements linked to the anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence highlight Britain’s effort to preserve a relationship that has faced increasing political strain. Rather than seeking immediate policy breakthroughs, the visit underscores a broader diplomatic strategy focused on long term stability.

Worst tensions in decades
Relations between the US and the United Kingdom are being described by analysts as the most difficult since the Suez Crisis. Disagreements over global conflicts, defence commitments, and rhetoric from Washington have created friction not only with Britain but also with other European allies.

Political differences driving the strain
Tensions have been sharpened by clashes between President Trump and Keir Starmer, particularly over foreign policy decisions such as Britain’s stance on the Iran conflict. Criticism from Washington, alongside broader disagreements within alliances like NATO, has added to the sense of divergence.

Role of royal soft power
King Charles III’s visit is less about direct political negotiation and more about reinforcing deeper ties. Through speeches, public appearances, and outreach beyond government circles, the monarch is aiming to remind Americans of the longstanding cultural, security, and historical links between the two nations. His address to Congress and symbolic messaging emphasise shared values while subtly encouraging cooperation and openness.

Beyond politics to public diplomacy
The visit targets not just policymakers but the American public. By engaging across different states and institutions, the British monarchy is working to sustain goodwill that can outlast any single administration. This reflects a strategy of insulating the broader relationship from short term political tensions.

Questioning the special relationship
The idea of a “special relationship,” first popularised by Winston Churchill, is increasingly being reassessed. Some British officials argue the term feels outdated in a changing global order, where alliances are more transactional and expectations around defence and economic contributions are rising.

Analysis
The UK’s approach reveals a calculated reliance on continuity rather than confrontation. With limited leverage over US policy decisions, London is using soft power to maintain influence and access. The monarchy provides a unique diplomatic channel that operates above partisan politics, allowing Britain to keep communication lines open even during periods of disagreement.

However, this strategy has limits. Symbolism cannot fully offset structural tensions such as defence spending gaps, diverging foreign policy priorities, or shifting global power dynamics. While royal diplomacy can ease atmospherics, it cannot substitute for alignment at the governmental level.

In the longer term, the visit illustrates Britain’s recognition that its global role depends heavily on sustaining strong ties with Washington, even in less favourable political conditions. By playing a long game, the UK is attempting to ensure that current strains do not permanently weaken one of its most important strategic partnerships.

With information from Reuters.

The conflict involving Iran and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz have shaken global energy markets. Supply constraints and extreme volatility have driven oil prices sharply higher, exposing a growing structural divide in how major oil companies operate across the Atlantic.

European majors profit from trading strength
Companies such as BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies have benefited from strong oil trading performance. Their global trading networks allow them to move crude and refined products across regions, taking advantage of price differences created by supply disruptions.

These firms trade volumes far exceeding their own production, turning volatility into profit. In the current crisis, trading has significantly boosted earnings, offsetting weaker performance in other segments.

Volatility creates both gains and exposure
The sharp rise in Brent crude prices and market instability has created lucrative arbitrage opportunities. Companies have rerouted fuel shipments across longer and unusual routes to capture higher margins.

However, these strategies come with risks. Trading at such scale requires large amounts of capital, and holding cargoes for extended periods increases financial exposure if market conditions shift.

Trading as a shock absorber
For European majors, trading divisions have acted as a buffer during the crisis. Losses from disrupted production or regional exposure have been partially offset by gains in trading, highlighting the strategic importance of these operations in volatile markets.

US majors rely on production strength
In contrast, Exxon Mobil and Chevron focus primarily on large scale oil and gas production. Their output significantly exceeds that of European rivals, giving them a strong advantage when prices rise.

While they have more limited trading operations, their upstream strength allows them to generate substantial cash flow in high price environments without relying heavily on market arbitrage.

Structural differences in strategy
The divergence reflects long term strategic choices. European companies invested more heavily in renewables and diversified energy portfolios, which limited growth in their upstream production. US firms, by contrast, maintained a strong focus on expanding oil and gas output.

As a result, European majors depend more on trading to drive returns, while US majors depend on production scale.

Analysis
The Iran war has highlighted a clear split in the global energy industry between trading focused and production focused business models. European majors have shown that strong trading capabilities can generate significant profits during periods of disruption, effectively turning volatility into an advantage.

However, this model is inherently unpredictable. Trading gains depend on market conditions and may not be sustainable if volatility declines. In contrast, the US model offers more stable returns tied directly to production levels and commodity prices.

In the long term, this divide could shape investor perceptions and valuations. If European companies continue to rely heavily on trading while lagging in production, the gap between them and US rivals may widen. The industry is increasingly defined by a fundamental question: whether it is more profitable to move oil around the world or to produce it at scale.

With information from Reuters.

Driven by a race to get ahead of quickly evolving enemy capabilities, the U.S. Navy is now aiming to enter the next step of contracting for its 6th-generation crewed fighter – known as F/A-XX – by August. Despite intervention from Congress, the next-generation carrier-based fighter has remained in limbo since the Pentagon moved to effectively shelve the program last year.

That’s according to Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Daryl Caudle, who spoke with reporters Monday at the Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition near Washington, D.C. In response to a question from TWZ, Caudle acknowledged the uncertainty that has kept F/A-XX in a holding pattern, even as the Air Force’s future fighter, dubbed the F-47, has forged ahead. The current competitors for the F/A-XX are Boeing, which is also the F-47’s prime contractor, and Northrop Grumman.

“One of the challenges we’re seeing is, not only [are] our peer competitors improving their capability for anti-air, either air-to-air or surface-to-air, but the lower cost of entry of very capable weapons is also making more players on the field in which that level of stealth and technology is required,” Caudle, the Navy’s top officer, said. “So this is not about the need for a peer adversary. This is just having an aircraft that can operate with a level of uncertainty and with the acceptable level of risk.”

This is in line with arguments Caudle made in favor of moving ahead of F/A-XX in January, where he cited growing threats posed by smaller nation-state adversaries, including Iran, as well as non-state actors.

Today, Caudle again emphasized that he nevertheless had been “very vocal” on the need for a carrier-based next-generation fighter, and had expressed “many times” to Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg that the service had to secure the aircraft. It’s important, Caudle said, for both the future carrier air wing and collaboration and planning with the MQ-25 Stingray, the Boeing-made carrier refueling drone set to reach initial operational capability later this year.

“It ties to our MQ-25 for stealth refueling. It ties to our reach. It ties to the work we’re doing for making the carrier air wing something that remains very effective into the future based on the range in which you can operate safely,” Caudle said. “So the need’s clearly there.”

MQ-25A Stingray first taxi test

While it was recently reported that the Navy, bolstered by funding from Congress for the new F/A-XX, planned to award a contract for the program by year end, Caudle said August was now the likely timeframe.

As noted, the Pentagon had moved to essentially shelve F/A-XX in its Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, with the Navy only requesting a relatively meager $74 million for the program. U.S. officials said at the time this decision had been driven largely by concerns about the ability of the U.S. industrial base to support work on two sixth-generation fighters, the other being the F-47, simultaneously.

Congress subsequently interceded, appropriating $1.69 billion for F/A-XX through a combination of regular spending bills and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. From a budgetary perspective, the Navy’s next-generation fighter program remains well behind the F-47, which has already received billions in funding and could be in line to get approximately $5 billion more in Fiscal Year 2027. The Navy only appears to be requesting an additional $140 million for its new carrier-based combat jet in the $1.5 trillion proposed defense budget for the next fiscal cycle.

“We’ve got a lot of airframes out there. We’ve got an F-35 program. We’ve got a F-47 program. You know, we’re still building the [F/A-18 Super Hornet] … there’s a lot of airplanes being built,” Adm. Caudle said today. “The Air Force has got a lot of demand on the system. The Navy’s got a lot of demand … One of the contractors who would make this plane for us is in a place where they really can’t deliver in the timeframe we need it. So there was, you know, a check twice, cut once, kind of mentality here on this decision. And now there, I think we’re all on the same page on the reason why the hard look needed to be done. I’m good with it.”

As noted, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are in competition to produce the F/A-XX, a program that first took shape as a Navy request for information in 2012. An earlier down-select reportedly eliminated Lockheed Martin in March 2025. Last August, Northrop Grumman released a rendering of its concept for the aircraft, showing a streamlined nose and landing gear on the front of a carrier with the tagline, “Project Power Anywhere.” Boeing’s concept, released the same month, drew visual comparisons to its F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter for the Air Force.

Citing classification, Adm. Caudle said today he couldn’t provide any information on design or payload details that give the Navy confidence in pursuing F/A-XX despite the adversary threats he mentioned. However, he suggested speed was increasingly essential to having a chance at maintaining overmatch.

“We monitor very closely, red-team that very hard, and assess that threat with a predicted trajectory of whether or not the existing designs we’ve seen will still overmatch that,” he said. “So I think we’re okay there, but we do know that our existing airframes could become vulnerable to some of those threats by the time [it’s fielded] … because it takes time to deliver that, that our existing airframes could be vulnerable to some of those threats, and we want to make sure the air wing of the future can still participate.”

Despite Caudle’s comments today, it should be remembered that this is not the first time that major progress on the Navy’s next-gen fighter has supposedly been imminent. Last October, Reuters reported the program had been greenlighted by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, with a contract expected to follow in short order. 

Aside from funding moves from Congress to ensure the survival of the F/A-XX program, no public steps have been taken to advance the program since.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

The U.S. Marine Corps wants to field its first conventional takeoff and landing Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones in 2029, and is also looking at the possibility of fielding similar drones with short takeoff and landing capabilities. The news comes soon after the service outlined its plans for Kratos’ XQ-58 Valkyrie, and potentially other CCAs, to be paired with its F-35s as a “bridge” to an entire family of next-generation air combat capabilities, which could include a sixth-generation crewed fighter. You can read more about the implications of that in our previous coverage.

Updates on the latest developments within the Marine Corps’ CCA program were provided by Col. Scott Shadforth, a program manager for the Expeditionary and Maritime Aviation Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT), at the annual Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C., at which TWZ is in attendance.

The Corps’ CCA efforts currently fall under a program called Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Uncrewed Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR). The MAGTF is the primary organizing concept around which the service deploys air and ground forces.

Shadforth defines the CCA program as “how the Marine Corps is going after increasing the lethality of existing and future tactical aircraft in a high-threat environment.”

The MUX TACAIR effort emerged out of a previous effort that the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab sponsored as part of a Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). This earlier program was known as the Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer — Portfolio (PAACK-P).

The Marine Corps is kicking off its CCA efforts with a landing gear-equipped version of the XQ-58. In contrast, the previous PAACK-P program involved the rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO) variant of the XQ-58. Meanwhile, the MQ-58 designation refers to Marine-specific variants of Kratos’ Valkyrie now in development, although it remains unclear how official this is. 

As Shadforth explained, under MUX TACAIR, the Marine Corps is attempting to answer the question: “How do we take that essential [XQ-58] airframe itself and turn it into a conventional takeoff and landing [CTOL] platform so that it’s reusable at a higher rate?”

The OSD effort involved four flights of the XQ-58, culminating in the fall of 2024. At the beginning of this month, the Marine Corps completed a risk-reduction flight involving XQ-58 payloads and integration at China Lake.

Up to this point, the tests have all involved RATO variants of the XQ-58, but the Marines are targeting a first flight using conventional takeoff and landing sometime in the mid- to late summer of this year.

Shadforth confirmed that the “ultimate goal” for the MQ-58 effort is to get its hands on “deliverable prototypes” in the summer of 2029. In an ideal case, he added, these would be delivered to VMX-1 in Yuma, “so the Marine Corps can actually get their hands on the aircraft and fly the aircraft in a tactical environment and develop the CONOPS for how they’re actually going to employ those.”

VMX-1, or Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One, has multiple aircraft types in its inventory and is responsible for tests and evaluations of all types of Marine aircraft and associated systems, while assisting in the creation of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). You can read more about its work here.

MUX TACAIR doesn’t start and end with the MQ-58, however.

Shadforth said that the Marine Corps is currently exploring further MUX TACAIR options with “several vendors,” including General Atomics and Anduril. Meanwhile, the branch is also working with Northrop Grumman as part of the MQ-58 effort.

As to how the CTOL MQ-58 will be best integrated with the fleet of Marine Corps F-35Bs, which feature short takeoff and landing (STOVL) at the heart of their capabilities, this is something the service is still weighing up.

According to Shadforth, the Marine Corps “is always going to be interested” in finding ways for fixed-wing aircraft to operate from shorter runways, suggesting that a STOVL-type CCA could well be part of its future plans. Of course, a return to the RATO-capable MQ-58 could be one way of achieving this.

For now, the Marine CCA effort is squarely focused on the CTOL variant of the Valkyrie, but Shadforth said that it’s also looking toward the future, including “other vendor offerings, whether they exist in reality or not, that remove the need for landing gear.” CCAs that offer either runway independence or that are able to operate from shorter or improvised airstrips represent a capability “the Marine Corps will be interested in exploring,” Shadforth added. One obvious candidate here would be the X-BAT, the jet-powered autonomous stealth ‘fighter’ drone designed to take off vertically and land the same way, tail first, after completing its mission. 

At this point, it should be recalled that Kratos said earlier this year that the CTOL version of the Valkyrie being developed for the Marines will still be able to make rocket-assisted takeoffs from static launchers. This means the drone will retain a valuable degree of runway independence, though it will have to touch down on a runway at the end of its sortie.

Before that, Kratos also unveiled a special launch trolley that allows variants of the XQ-58 without landing gear to take off from traditional runways, though not land back on them, as seen in the video below.

Kratos Valkyrie Trolley Launch System

An aircraft with some kind of STOVL capabilities “just kind of opens up the world to us, where we don’t need 7,000-, 8,000-, 9,000-, or 10,000-foot paved runways. Those are always capabilities that we’re interested in,” Shadforth said.

Overall, this is a somewhat surprising route, considering that the XQ-58 in its basic form is already runway independent. This would suggest the Marines, in the future, are looking specifically for something that combines STOVL performance with faster sortie rates. After all, the XQ-58 also requires some infrastructure for that and requires a reset time. A STOVL or VTOL type of CCA would also be able to deploy and operate alongside the F-35B more seamlessly.

“As far as how CCA is envisioned integrating with existing STOVL-type platforms, the Marine Corps is kind of on the front end right now of getting CCA out to the operational forces. A lot of that’s going to come through experimentation and evaluation. As we target the 2029 timeframe to get prototypes out to VMX-1, part of their mission set is going to be: now we’ve physically got these things, how are we actually going to employ them with the various tactical aircraft we have available?” he continued.

As well as the STOVL F-35Bs, these tactical aircraft include CTOL/carrier-capable F-35Cs and potentially legacy F/A-18 Hornets, as well as other Joint Force capabilities.

Shadforth continued: “Those are issues that are going to have to be explored and experimented with for how we’re going to see how those CCAs are going to operate. The point being there’s no set solution at the moment.”

In terms of missions, the Marine Corps is initially focusing MUX TACAIR on an “electronic warfare type platform,” Shadforth said. “Those are the payloads we’re interested in looking at at the moment.”

XQ-58A Valkyrie Demonstrator Inaugural Flight

But Shadforth confirmed that other efforts with different vendors are exploring how to use the space within the Valkyrie air vehicle to see what other payloads and capabilities are available to the Marine Corps. Not only usefulness but timeliness are important factors here, Shadforth added.

Kratos is known to be working on a miniature cruise missile called Ragnarok, which the XQ-58 can carry in its internal bay and externally under its wings, and you can read more about it here. Renderings have also shown Valkyries with AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) under their wings. The drone can carry Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) internally, and has demonstrated drone launch — launched effects are therefore almost certain to be included for the electronic warfare mission.

Within all this, it is important to remember that, at this point, the Marine CCA effort is still very much in the prototyping phase, led by the MQ-58. As Shadforth noted, the service has “not entered into a specific acquisition-type construct yet,” beyond developing these prototypes. Nevertheless, with a timeline now in place to get the first MQ-58s to Yuma, and with conventional takeoff and landing trials expected in the next few months, MUX TACAIR reflects the overall acceleration of the Corps’ CCA program.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

In international politics, the platforms a country sits on often matter as much as what it says. For decades, Somalia was largely the subject of global security discussions, rarely a decisive participant in them. Today, that reality is changing in ways that carry symbolic weight and practical consequences.

Somalia’s recent election to the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC), alongside its membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), marks a turning point in its diplomatic trajectory. For quite some time, Somalia was merely being discussed in the world’s most influential security forums. It is now shaping the agenda on the table.

This shift reflects more than a procedural achievement. It signals the maturity of Somalia’s diplomatic and security institutions, and the steady rebuilding of its international credibility after decades of conflict and state fragility.

For much of the past three decades, decisions affecting Somalia’s security were often made in rooms where Somali voices were either absent or marginal. External actors debated intervention strategies, sanctions regimes, peacekeeping mandates, and humanitarian responses, while Somalia struggled with internal instability.

This membership in the UNSC and AU PSC changes that dynamic fundamentally. These bodies are not symbolic; they make binding decisions, adopt resolutions, authorise peacekeeping operations, and shape international legal frameworks. For Somalia, this may seem something simple, but its impact is profound. Somalia is now part of the process that determines policies affecting its own security and development.

That participation strengthens state-building in several ways. It reinforces institutional capacity within Somalia’s foreign policy apparatus, promotes transparency and accountability through engagement with multilateral norms, and aligns Somalia more closely with international legal and diplomatic standards.

Somalia is transitioning from being a recipient of international decisions to becoming a contributor to them. Somalia’s role on these councils also carries representational significance beyond its own borders.

As a member of the UNSC and AU PSC, Somalia now occupies a rare diplomatic position. It simultaneously represents the interests of the African continent, the Arab and Muslim world, and the least developed countries (LDCs). The concerns of these categories of states have often been overshadowed by the priorities of more powerful nations. Somalia now stands for them.

Somalia’s own first experience in rebuilding institutions after conflict, managing complex security transitions, and balancing sovereignty with international cooperation enables it to advocate not only for itself, but also for broader principles: Inclusive peace processes, sustainable development approaches to security, and equitable participation in global decision-making.

Peace in the world, peace at home

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s 2022 political manifesto, “Somalia at peace with itself, and at peace with the world”, is increasingly reflected in these recent memberships. This vision is proving effective, as Somalia’s participation in global peace decision-making demonstrates a growing alignment between its external engagements and internal stabilisation efforts.

The seats at the UNSC and AU PSC will directly reinforce Somalia’s state-building process. Active involvement in shaping international peace also reflects and supports the way peace and security agendas are being handled domestically.

A defining moment in 2026

The year 2026 represents a rare convergence of opportunity. Somalia’s simultaneous presence at the AU PSC and UNSC provides a diplomatic platform unmatched in its recent history. This dual role should enable it to act as a bridge between regional and global security frameworks. It can ensure that Somalia’s security priorities are reflected in the AU decision, and forwardly, that African priorities are reflected in global resolutions. It can also translate international commitments into regional actions that qualify for alignment with local contexts.

This not only affects diplomacy and policy discussions but offers an opportunity to advocate for real change that directly affects the daily lives of Somalis. Such issues may include counterterrorism, stabilisation support, humanitarian access, development financing, climate security, and mechanisms for inclusive politics. By shaping the content and direction of relevant resolutions, Somalia can help align international commitments more closely with national priorities.

A future shaped by participation

With greater influence comes greater responsibility. Membership in these councils demands consistency and adherence to international norms. Somalia is now ready to navigate these complex diplomatic landscapes, balancing national interests with collective global security obligations. And it is now capable of maintaining credibility through constructive engagement, principled positions, and reliable partnerships.

With Somalia now seemingly committed to momentum on these fronts, its growing international stance will become self-reinforcing. Each diplomatic success will strengthen national institutions, which in turn will enhance future influence.

Somalia’s presence at the highest levels of global and regional security governance marks a significant milestone in its long journey towards recovery and stability. It reflects years of diplomatic effort, institutional rebuilding, and gradual restoration of international trust. It also signals a future in which Somalia is increasingly defined not by crisis, but by stability.

For a country that once stood on the margins of global decision-making, this transformation is both historic and hopeful. It signals a shift from isolation to engagement, from being acted upon to helping shape outcomes.

For young Somali generations who grew up hearing that Somalia could not advance, these diplomatic achievements offer a different narrative. They inspire pride, restore confidence, and help rebuild trust in the nation’s future.

That challenge lies ahead. But after a period of turmoil, Somalia is well positioned to meet it, not as a passive observer, but as an active shaper of its own destiny. This is also part of the broader Somalia policy on defence diplomacy, founded on global collaboration and mutual interdependency.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Freedom of the press around the world has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, according to the leading Paris-based press freedom NGO, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders.

Every year, RSF publishes a World Press Freedom Index used to compare the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and media outlets in 180 countries. Its ranking uses a five-point scale to assess a country’s level of press freedom, ranging from “very serious” to “good”.

For the first time since RSF started producing the index in 2002, more than half of the world’s countries fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom – “a clear sign that journalism is increasingly criminalised worldwide”.

Only seven mostly Nordic countries are ranked with “good” press freedom, with Norway, the Netherlands and Estonia in the top three. France ranks 25th with a “satisfactory” score, while the United States ranks 64th with a “problematic” score, falling seven places since President Donald Trump took office.

RSF reports that Trump “has turned his repeated attacks on the press and journalists into a systematic policy”, citing the detention of Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, who was later deported, while he was documenting a protest against immigration raids, as well as the suspension of several notable public media institutions.

In Latin America, RSF highlighted the dramatic fall of Javier Milei’s Argentina (98th, -11) and of El Salvador (143rd), which has dropped 105 places since 2014 following the launch of a war against the Maras criminal gangs.

The press freedom NGO said that “Eastern Europe and the Middle East are the two most dangerous regions for journalists in the world, as they have been for 25 years”, notably putting Russia (172nd) and Iran (177th) in the bottom 10.

It added that wars and restrictions on access to information are some of the driving factors for the decline in press freedom. It cited Israel’s attacks on journalists in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon as an example of this, ranking Israel 116th.

“Since October 2023, more than 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, including at least 70 who were slain while carrying out their work,” it said.

Broadly speaking, RSF reported that “the criminalisation of journalism, which is rooted in circumventing press law and misusing emergency legislation and common law, is proving to be a global phenomenon”.

It reported that more than 60 percent of countries – 110 out of 180 – have criminalised media workers in various ways, notably citing India (157th), Egypt (169th), Georgia (135th), Turkiye (163rd) and Hong Kong (140th) as prime examples of state-imposed crackdowns.

“Although attacks on the right to information are more diverse and sophisticated, their perpetrators are now operating in plain sight,” Anne Bocande, RSF’s Editorial Director said.

She cited “authoritarian states, complicit or incompetent political powers, predatory economic actors and under-regulated online platforms” as the main causes “for the global decline in press freedom”.

Bocande called on democratic governments and citizens to do more to end this global criminalisation of journalists, particularly through “firm guarantees and meaningful sanctions”.

“Current protection mechanisms are not strong enough; international law is being undermined and impunity is rife,” she said. “Inaction is a form of endorsement,” while concluding that “the spread of authoritarianism isn’t inevitable”.

UN experts said Wednesday that reconstruction in the Gaza Strip cannot succeed without ending Israel’s occupation and ensuring rebuilding efforts are rooted in human rights and Palestinian self-determination, Anadolu reports.

“The occupation must end, and the dispossession and discrimination against Palestinians must stop if rebuilding is to have any real chance of success,” the experts said in a statement.

Citing the Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, they said more than 371,000 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, 1.9 million people displaced, and over 60% of the population remains homeless, with reconstruction needs estimated at more than $71 billion.

“The data confirms a pattern of structural discrimination that reconstruction efforts must urgently correct rather than reproduce,” they said, warning that women, persons with disabilities and older people face disproportionate hardship.

The experts said reconstruction must be inclusive, participatory, transparent and accountable, with Palestinians shaping decisions in line with their right to self-determination under international law.

READ: Former US official accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza, says Washington is complicit

They raised questions about governance of the process, saying the assessment does not address who would oversee reconstruction or whether the proposed “Board of Peace” by US President Donald Trump is consistent with international law.

The experts are also concerned that the assessment does not sufficiently embed human rights principles, warning that an emphasis on financial needs and infrastructure could reduce housing to mere shelter provision rather than ensuring dignity, security and long-term sustainability.

They said reconstruction could become “a race for profits” without safeguards protecting vulnerable groups.

“Reconstruction is not only about rebuilding structures – it is about restoring rights, dignity and equality,” they said.

They urged states and donors to place human rights at the center of Gaza’s reconstruction, warning failure to do so “risks entrenching injustice and prolonging the suffering of Palestinians for generations.”

READ: Israeli court extends detention of Gaza hospital director Abu Safiya ‘without charges’

Deliveries of the CH-53K King Stallion to the U.S. Marine Corps are starting to ramp up, with the planned 16-aircraft annual milestone now expected for Fiscal Year 2029. The Marine Corps also says that, for the future, they are open to developing a mine countermeasures version, something that would be able to replace the current MH-53E.

Updates on the latest developments within the Marine Corps’ CH-53K program were today provided by Col. Kate Fleeger, a program manager for the H-53 Helicopters Program, at the annual Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C., at which TWZ is in attendance.

Fleeger confirmed that, while the legacy CH-53E and MH-53E are “both still healthy and viable” and critical components of the Marine Corps fleet, the focus is now very much on the CH-53K as the future of heavy lift.

Currently, four Marine Corps squadrons have CH-53Ks as part of their stable, and Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 (HMH-461), which was the first fleet squadron, is fully outfitted with Kilos.

“We also have our training squadron, HMHT-302, which has received multiple CH-53Ks and will continue to be a dual type/model series training squadron throughout the transition from the Echo to the Kilo,” Fleeger explained. “We also have the CH-53K in our developmental test squadron, HX-21 at Patuxent River, and with our operational test squadron, VMX-1, in Yuma, Arizona.”

With the CH-53K “rocking and rolling across the board,” the 25th example off the Sikorsky production line in Stratford, Connecticut, was delivered earlier this week. Fleeger said that the service expects to add another eight aircraft for the rest of the year. This is part of a total Marine Corps program of record of 200 aircraft, a figure that has not changed. On top of this figure, Israel has procured 12 CH-53Ks, and Fleeger confirmed that the country is “in conversations” about the potential for additional aircraft.

As part of ongoing training work, HMH-461 has been putting the CH-53K through its paces “in every clime and place in CONUS,” Fleeger said. This has included taking the aircraft on detachments at the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) school in Yuma, and in exercises out of Twentynine Palms, California.

Fleeger said she is “extremely happy with how the aircraft is performing” with the operational fleet.

Meanwhile, the CH-53K is also still being tested, with the two units covering operational and developmental tests. “We are continuing to expand the envelope of the baseline aircraft that’s been delivered to the fleet, whether it’s expansion of the envelope with the existing equipment, or whether it’s modifications that allow for additional capability moving forward, and ultimately providing those modifications to fleet aircraft,” Fleeger explained.

Part of the recent mission expansion saw one CH-53K lifted by another example of the same type, to broaden options for the Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel, or TRAP mission. The aircraft that was lifted had its gear boxes and engines removed, but this is common practice, Fleeger said. The purpose of the test was not only to set up and document the flight characteristics, but also the rigging procedures. In the test, the aircraft that provided the sling load weighed about 28,000 pounds, which is well below the 36,000 pounds maximum external load for the CH-53K.

“When you talk to the pilots that lift something like that, even something that heavy, there’s very little ‘feel’ in the cockpit that you have a significant load underneath,” she added.

One of the other elements of additional testing has involved aviation ground fuel delivery. This involved a CH-53K landing with fuel and then providing this fuel to a V-22 tiltrotor that landed next to it.

At the same time, the transition to the CH-53K has involved training pilots with four Containerized Flight Training Devices (CFTD) now delivered. “They are state-of-the-art, fully immersive environments that have some of the highest fidelity visual databases and digital acuity that you’ll see in flight simulation today,” Fleeger said.

“The pilots have every opportunity to see exactly what’s going to happen in the aircraft before they even get in the aircraft. The idea here is the first time a pilot sits in that cockpit on the flight line is kind of a non-event, because he’s basically seen everything he needs to see along the way.”

These new CFTDs consist of a mobile box with the “guts of the simulator inside.” As Fleeger explained, “Gone are the days of the big dome, fully motion-based simulators that we’ve had previously. The motion platform is no longer a big portion of what provides the training fidelity. The majority of that fidelity actually comes from the visual systems, the realism of the visual system, and the haptic cueing to the pilots.

Another training aid is the Advanced Aviation Training Device, or AATD, new for the H-53 community, but loosely based on some of the early developmental training systems that arrived with the V-22, with its interactive cockpit learning environment.

“This is a lower fidelity,” Fleeger said, “There’s just screens, computer monitors, if you will, that show the pilot the outside visuals. But the pilot also has a see-through virtual-reality goggle set that he puts on. It’s absolutely amazing technology that really allows you, with very little additional cost, to be able to get that immersive and simulated environment.”

The AATD is designed primarily as a familiarization training device or for refresher-level training. “You got a few minutes, you go spend some time in here,” Fleeger explained. “You brush up on some stuff. It can also be used for some of the more advanced activities, like tactics, techniques, and procedures development. You can get in there and try some things out before you get to the aircraft and do it in the real world.”

The AATD has been so successful at its current location in New River, close to the training squadron, that the Marines expect to expand throughout the rest of the fleet as it works through the CH-53K transition.

Concurrently, Fleeger says the service has been “very forward-leaning with our Marines in the maintenance shed and making sure that they have the training tools that they need in order to prepare for a state-of-the-art, very data-intensive, data-rich aircraft.”

Maintenance of the fleet benefits from a fully condition-based maintenance model, at least for some of the CH-53K’s components.

“We can look at the vibratory signatures, the temperature signatures on gearboxes, for example, and we can understand when that gearbox might be approaching the end of its life.” The result is that the fleet is increasingly able to manage the maintenance rather than having the maintenance manage them. They can decide when they want to change that gearbox, for example, depending on operational commitments, the amount of flight time they may have planned, the criticality of that flight time, the availability of spares, and so on.

All of this training, including shipboard evolutions, is building up toward the first operational deployment, with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, in Fiscal Year 2027. Last month, the CH-53K fleet hit 10,000 fleet flight hours, a big milestone considering there are currently only 25 aircraft in the fleet.

At this stage, there are 12 aircraft sitting on the production line in Stratford, in various phases of completion.

“The fact that there are 12 aircraft is a big improvement as we move forward in the ramp-up through low-rate initial production,” Fleeger explained.

Once Sikorsky hits the milestone of 16 production aircraft per year, this will trigger the start of the Marine Corps CH-53K transition from East Coast to West Coast, and thus across the entire heavy-lift fleet.

Fleeger said that the line will be “getting up there” toward full-rate production at the end of Fiscal Year 2028, with the milestone to be achieved in FY29.

“The East Coast squadrons will complete transition, and then the transition plan will move out to the West Coast, and we will start transitioning the West Coast squadrons there as well,” Fleeger added. The CH-53E is slated to be retired in 2032.

As for the Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon, it is slated to be withdrawn in 2027. Exactly what will happen with its primary airborne mine countermeasures mission, a general capability set that is increasingly in the spotlight, is unclear. Currently, the Navy is beefing its MH-60 Seahawk mine countermeasures capabilities to help offset the loss. Still, the unique heavy countermeasures sled-towing capability that will be gone when the MH-53E leaves the inventory is likely to be felt, as will the heaviest vertical lift capability organic to the U.S. Navy.

According to Fleeger, “there have not yet been conversations about the Navy procuring the CH-53K or producing a minesweeping variant.” However, she added that “we are certainly open to that in the future, should that need arise.”

Whether or not the CH-53K eventually adopts another new mission, the type is clearly keeping busy for the time being, as the Marine Corps looks forward to taking it on its first operational deployment next year.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Fifty-nine years of membership, ended with a statement on a Tuesday and an effective date of Friday. The United Arab Emirates announced it will exit OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1, citing national interests, its evolving energy profile, and a long-term strategic vision that no longer aligns with the organization’s direction. The Energy Minister did not consult Saudi Arabia before making the announcement. He did not raise the issue with any other member country. He simply said the time had come. 

The timing tells the whole story. OPEC was preparing to meet in Vienna on Wednesday when the news landed. The Iran war had already wiped out 7.88 million barrels per day of OPEC’s production in March alone, resulting in the biggest supply collapse for the producers’ group in recent decades, surpassing even the 2020 Covid shock and the 1970s oil crisis. The UAE had been absorbing Iranian drone and missile attacks for weeks. The Strait of Hormuz, through which the UAE ships its own oil, has been functionally closed or severely restricted since early March. And sitting across the OPEC table was Iran, the country that had been targeting UAE infrastructure repeatedly, and Russia, which had been a steadfast partner to Iran throughout the conflict.

Walking out was not an impulsive decision. It was the logical conclusion of a calculation that had been building for years.

Why Abu Dhabi Was Already Done With OPEC 

The UAE’s frustration with OPEC production quotas is not new. The quotas have capped UAE output at around 3.2 million barrels per day, while the country has the ambition and the capacity to produce closer to 5 million barrels per day by 2027, suggesting production could almost double without OPEC’s constraints. For a country that has invested heavily in expanding ADNOC’s capacity and has the infrastructure to back it up, being told by a cartel committee how much it can produce has become an increasingly poor trade. 

The UAE’s sovereign wealth fund is so large that its economy is now more significantly tied to global economic growth than to the global price of oil. That shift in economic identity matters enormously for understanding why OPEC membership has become structurally uncomfortable. OPEC exists to keep oil prices elevated through production discipline. The UAE increasingly benefits from a growing global economy that demands more energy, more investment, and more trade, all of which are better served by producing at full capacity and building relationships with the countries that need what Abu Dhabi has to sell. 

An energy industry source familiar with the decision said the UAE felt it was “the right time to leave” and that “this decision is good for consumers and good for the world,” adding that the UAE would gradually increase production to supply global markets once freedom of navigation is restored in the Strait of Hormuz. The framing is deliberate. The UAE is not positioning itself as a cartel defector but as a responsible producer responding to a global energy emergency, which is a considerably more defensible diplomatic position. 

The Saudi Rupture Running Underneath It All

The official UAE statement was carefully worded, full of appreciation for “brothers and friends within the group” and “the highest respect for the Saudis for leading OPEC.” None of that diplomatic courtesy changes the underlying reality, which is that the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been on a collision course for some time and the OPEC exit is the most visible expression of that tension yet.

The two countries had joined a coalition to fight the Houthis in Yemen in 2015, but that coalition broke down into open recriminations in late December when Saudi Arabia bombed what it described as a weapons shipment bound for UAE-backed Yemeni separatists. That incident was the visible rupture of a relationship that had been quietly fraying for years over economic competition, differing visions for regional leadership, and diverging approaches to normalization, China, and the post-war order. Within OPEC, the two countries have clashed repeatedly over quota allocations, with the UAE consistently arguing it deserves a larger share based on its expanded capacity. 

The OPEC exit does not resolve any of those tensions. It sidesteps them entirely, which is probably the more elegant solution. By leaving, the UAE removes itself from a framework where Saudi Arabia holds dominant influence and gains the freedom to pursue its own production and partnership strategy without needing Riyadh’s agreement. That is a significant shift in the regional power dynamic, and it happened without a single confrontational statement.

What Remains of OPEC Now 

The UAE’s exit could prompt other members to follow suit, with analysts pointing to Kazakhstan as another significant producer that wants to grow beyond its current quota constraints. “If there is a time to leave, now is the time,” one Dubai-based energy consultant told CNN. 

The cartel’s power has always rested on a specific mechanism: spare production capacity held back from the market to stabilize prices. That spare capacity is concentrated almost entirely in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, with the other nine member countries possessing little to none. Removing the UAE from that equation means OPEC’s effective spare capacity narrows considerably, and the burden of price stabilization falls almost entirely on Riyadh and Kuwait City. Saudi Arabia will hold an even greater share of the cartel’s remaining leverage, but leverage over a smaller and weaker institution is not the same as leverage over a healthy one.

OPEC has lost members before, but the UAE is a much larger producer than previous departures, and its absence may over time pose an existential risk to the cartel’s sustainability. The organization that has shaped global energy politics since 1960 is now facing its most significant structural test, and it is doing so while simultaneously dealing with a historic supply shock from the Iran war, a closed strait, and a global economy pricing in the possibility that the disruption is not temporary. 

The Geopolitical Implications

Freed from production quotas, the UAE’s most immediate strategic move is likely to deepen its relationship with the countries that need its oil most urgently, and China sits at the top of that list. More production could help the UAE improve ties with oil-importing partners such as China, and given the economic damage caused by the Iran war, the prospect of maximizing energy revenues now is undoubtedly attractive to Abu Dhabi. 

The UAE-US relationship also stands to benefit. With the UAE free to leverage its spare capacity in pursuit of its own strategic interests, the move will likely strengthen the UAE-US relationship, particularly in relation to managing the strategic petroleum reserve and responding to the ongoing Hormuz supply shock. Trump has been publicly critical of OPEC for years, accusing the cartel of exploiting American military protection to keep prices artificially high. An OPEC that is smaller and weaker, with a major member now operating independently and aligned with US interests, is a more congenial arrangement from Washington’s perspective. 

For the global energy market, the picture is more complicated. Once the Strait reopens fully and UAE production ramps up without quota constraints, additional supply should exert downward pressure on prices that have been elevated since February. Whether that actually happens depends on a sequence of events, including a durable Iran settlement and the restoration of free navigation through Hormuz, that are still very much in progress.

Our Take: A Geopolitical Move Dressed as an Energy Decision 

The UAE’s OPEC exit is not primarily an energy story. It is a geopolitical statement about where Abu Dhabi sees itself in the emerging regional order, and the answer is: outside the frameworks that no longer serve its interests, and free to build the bilateral relationships that do. The exit from OPEC follows the same strategic logic as the Abraham Accords, the Huawei contracts, the US base agreement, and the China infrastructure ties. The UAE has been running a multi-alignment strategy for years, positioning itself as indispensable to every major power simultaneously, and OPEC membership was becoming a constraint on that strategy rather than an asset.

What happens to OPEC matters for energy markets in the short term. What the UAE’s departure signals about the fracturing of Gulf institutional solidarity matters considerably more for the regional order that everyone in the Middle East is trying to rebuild in the aftermath of a war that nobody fully planned for and nobody has yet fully ended.

The deeper story is what the UAE’s exit reveals about the post-war Middle East taking shape right now. The institutions that governed the region’s energy politics, security arrangements, and diplomatic alignments for decades were built in a different world, one where the Cold War defined choices, where oil producers had unified interests, and where the US sat at the center of every meaningful regional framework. That world is gone. What the Iran war accelerated, and what the UAE’s OPEC exit makes structurally visible, is that the Gulf’s most capable states are no longer willing to subordinate their individual strategic interests to collective frameworks that were designed for a regional order that no longer exists. 

Abu Dhabi did not leave OPEC because of a quota dispute. It left because it has decided that in the world emerging from this war, the countries that move fastest, align most flexibly, and free themselves from inherited institutional constraints are the ones that will define what comes next. Whether that calculation proves correct depends on what the Islamabad talks produce, how quickly the Strait reopens, and whether the ceasefire holds long enough for the region to build something more durable than a pause. But the signal Abu Dhabi sent on Tuesday was unmistakable, and every government in the region heard it.

Caracas, April 29, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government signed new energy agreements with energy conglomerates British Petroleum (BP) and Eni in separate ceremonies at Miraflores Presidential Palace.

On Wednesday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop the Cocuina-Manakin field, an offshore natural gas project shared between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago.

“The return of BP [to Venezuela] is a ⁠clear sign of the future we want to chart for Venezuela and for ​international energy relations,” she said during a live broadcast. “May we have cooperation grounded in a win-win approach and ​shared benefits.”

BP was represented by its Trinidad and Tobago director David Campbell. The Cocuina-Manakin field holds an estimated 1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas, split 34-66 between Caracas and Port of Spain.

Following Wednesday’s agreement, the London-based multinational will additionally explore opportunities in the 7.3 Tcf Loran field, which is also part of a cross-border reserve shared with Trinidad. Both Cocuina and Loran are part of Venezuela’s Deltana Platform, a largely unexplored gas deposit on the country’s eastern maritime border.

Venezuela had suspended all energy projects involving Trinidad and Tobago over its neighbor’s support for the US military escalation in the Caribbean. Following January 3, the acting Rodríguez administration reengaged with Port of Spain, while extending overtures to BP and Shell in an effort to reopen the projects.

The BP agreement came on the heels of another high-profile ceremony at Miraflores on Tuesday that saw Rodríguez extend a “special welcome” to Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi and other executives. In what she called a “milestone in the relations” between Venezuela and the Italian corporation, Rodríguez announced that Eni is planning “one of the largest investments” in the Venezuelan oil sector. 

The contract establishes conditions to relaunch the exploration of the 425 square-kilometer Junín-5 block of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. The Junín-5 is estimated to contain 35 billion barrels of extra-heavy oil in place, though only a fraction will be recoverable.

For his part, Descalzi indicated that the signed deal created conditions to “accelerate development” of Junín-5 activities and that the company would finalize its investment plan by the end of the year.

The Junín-5 block was assigned in the late 2000s to Petrojunín, a joint venture where Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and Eni held 60 and 40 percent of shares, respectively. Crude extraction began in 2013 but did not hit the established targets, hovering around 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the 2010s.

The BP and Eni agreements were crafted under Venezuela’s recently overhauled Hydrocarbon Law, which introduces a series of pro-business incentives while curtailing state control over the energy sector.

Under the new law, minority partners can directly manage oilfield operations and sales, whereas in the prior framework that was PDVSA’s exclusive prerogative. Additionally, private companies can have royalties, income tax, and other fiscal contributions slashed at the government’s discretion as well as bring eventual disputes to international arbitration bodies.

In March, Eni, alongside Spain’s Repsol, inked a contract to further development of the Cardón IV offshore natural gas project. The European companies each own 50 percent stakes in the venture and recently announced plans to increase output by roughly 10 percent in the short term.

Eni, which has around 30 percent of its shares owned by the Italian state, is also a minority stakeholder in Petrosucre, a joint venture that operates the Corocoro offshore oilfield. In 2025, the ventures with Eni participation produced an average of 64,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Alongside BP, Eni, and Repsol, Chevron and Shell have likewise struck new deals in recent weeks under the favorable conditions of the hydrocarbon reform. Chevron increased its stake in the Petroindependencia joint venture, while its Petropiar project with PDVSA was assigned a new drilling block in the Orinoco Belt. For its part, Shell will take over light and medium crude projects in Eastern Venezuela and several offshore natural gas initiatives. The company had also expressed interest in the Loran field.

The acting Rodríguez administration has actively courted foreign investment into the South American country’s energy and mining sectors, with leaders openly acknowledging the incorporation of “suggestions” and “recommendations” from Western conglomerates into the recent reform.

Alongside multiple delegations of corporate executives, Rodríguez has also hosted Trump officials, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, ahead of the recent hydrocarbon and mining reforms.

Last week, newly appointed US Chargé d’Affaires John Barrett stated that Washington’s goal is to “place the private sector at the center of Venezuela’s transformation” during a meeting with the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VENAMCHAM).

Since the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has issued multiple licenses to facilitate the return of Western conglomerates to the Venezuelan energy and mining sectors.

The licenses mandate that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be made into accounts run by the US Treasury. Caracas and Washington recently announced the hiring of external auditors to oversee the flow of the US-controlled Venezuelan resources.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

Note: The report was amended on Wednesday night to incorporate the BP agreement.

Hundreds of Iranians have rallied in Tehran to demand an end to US threats and the ongoing blockade of Iranian ports. The blockade is causing Iran’s already devalued currency to sink further.

Over the course of a nearly two-month old war with Israel, Hezbollah has been increasing its use of fiber-optic controlled first-person view (FPV) drones against Israeli troops and vehicles, something we were among the first to note. Now, it appears that Israel is resorting to the use of anti-drone netting on its vehicles to help protect them from the one-way attack drones. These attacks are occurring even amid an ongoing, though extremely fragile, ceasefire.

A video emerged Wednesday on social media showing an Israeli vehicle festooned with the netting, draped like a soccer goal from metal arms extending out and above. The idea, as we have reported in the past, is that drones will get caught up in the nylon or mesh metal nets and become disabled, or the nets will help keep the drones far enough from the occupants before exploding to keep them from being killed. The latter is a far more limited scenario and depends on the vehicle type and the warhead on the drone. Based on the video we are seeing, the level of protection netting can provide passengers in the open-top Israeli vehicle if a trapped drone’s warhead were to detonate is likely very little.

The video began to circulate amid growing controversy in Israel over what is perceived as the IDF’s inability to counter the Hezbollah FPV drone threat. The frustration reached a new level over the weekend, after an Israeli soldier was killed and six were wounded by a Hezbollah drone. A followup attack was launched while the IDF was medevacing the wounded, narrowly missing the helicopter.

You can see the drone narrowly miss the helicopter in the following video. 

“The attack laid bare a growing vulnerability: the Israel Defense Forces’ lack of preparedness for first-person view (FPV) drones in Lebanon, which have been an increasingly prominent weapon in Hezbollah’s arsenal during the current fighting,” the Times of Israel reported on Monday. “The Israel Defense Forces has reported dozens of drone-related injuries in recent weeks, though most were minor. Sunday’s attack marked the first fatal FPV drone strike on Israeli forces.”

“Yet the emergence of fiber optic-guided drones should not have come as a surprise,” the paper highlighted. The reason is what we noted in our previous story about this issue. The militant Lebanese group has used FPV drones against Israel since 2024 and they have been widely used by both sides in the Ukraine war for several years, as well as in other conflicts zones around the globe.

These strikes have become more prevalent the deeper Israel went into southern Lebanon. Videos of these recent attacks have been showing up on social media.

Hezbollah conducted more fiber-optic FPV strikes on Israeli vehicles in Lebanon, including two ‘Merkava’ Mk.4 tanks, a D9 Caterpillar armored bulldozer, and what appears to be a rare ‘Namer’ heavy IFV equipped with a turret mounting a 30 mm Bushmaster Mk 2 cannon.
1/ https://t.co/ms2nagNHrD pic.twitter.com/WDs6M3SpwW

— Roy🇨🇦 (@GrandpaRoy2) April 5, 2026

Moreover, Israeli Merkava tanks began sporting metal additions on top of vehicles meant to deflect top-down attacks from drones during the conflict in Gaza two years ago, which you can read more about here. Some of those tanks that have come under attack recently have been observed with them as well. So Israel has been working to deal with the evolving FPV drone threat, on some level, for some time and it is not alone in struggling with it. Most militaries in the world face the possibility of this same vexing threat with no clear blanket countermeasure to deal with it.

Israeli military officials acknowledge that the IDF still lacks an effective counter to fiber-optic-guided drones, the Times of Israel noted, for reasons we have frequently reported. Fiber optic cables mitigate the effect of electronic warfare efforts to jam radio signals as well as some of the limitations imposed by geographical features that can impede the line-of-sight radio connection between drone and operator.

“The IDF initially assessed that Hezbollah’s fiber optic drones could only operate over a few kilometers,” the outlet stated. “Later, the military discovered launches occurring from distances of up to 15 kilometers (nine miles).”

“The gap was underscored on April 11, when the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development issued a public call for solutions to the threat — nearly two years after such systems first surfaced in Ukraine, and weeks into the current conflict with Hezbollah,” according to the Times of Israel. “The Defense Ministry is seeking additional capabilities to address this threat. The purpose of this request is to identify innovative and mature technologies.”

⚡️🇮🇱🇱🇧Times of Israel: Sunday’s Hezbollah drone attack in Taybeh, which killed Sgt. Idan Fooks and wounded six others, has exposed the IDF’s lack of preparedness for first‑person view (FPV) drones, particularly those guided by fibre‑optic cables which are immune to electronic…

— War Monitor (@monitor11616) April 28, 2026

It’s unclear how widespread the use of netting is currently by the IDF in southern Lebanon.

“The issue of drones carrying fiber-optic cables is currently a threat without a clear solution,” a high-ranking IDF official, who just returned from Lebanon, told us. “What’s been shown in the video seems more like an experimental concept rather than something that is already operational in the field.”

“In practice, forces are using various improvised solutions—fishing nets, camouflage nets, even soccer nets, along with drills involving small-arms fire at drones,” he added. “However, I personally haven’t seen the specific net system mentioned being used on the ground yet.”

The official said someone from the IDF’s ground forces research and development team told him that the conclusion in the military is that “this solution is highly problematic. It allows the lower parts of the vehicle to remain exposed, areas that the net doesn’t cover. The likely next step for the adversary would be to detonate the drone at a distance from the net, causing shrapnel to disperse toward the forces.”

In a post on X Tuesday, Israeli military journalist Doron Kadosh said the issue of how to deal with Hezbollah FPV drones “took up significant volume in [Monday]’s discussion at the IDF’s senior command forum at Ramat David. The commander of the 282nd Artillery Brigade, which is currently fighting in Lebanon, Col. G., told the commanders: ‘The drone threat is a significant operational challenge that we’re dealing with. We need to think about how to organize better against this threat.’”

IDF combat unit commanders fighting in Lebanon “now express great frustration with the drone threat and the few tools the IDF has to counter them,” Kadosh added. “‘There’s not much you can do about it,’ says a commander currently fighting in Lebanon. The briefing the forces receive boils down to— ‘Stay alert, and if you spot a drone—shoot at it.’”

Some IDF units “have already begun developing independent responses to the threat—for example, nets deployed over positions, houses, and windows—so that the drone gets caught in the net and doesn’t hit its target,” Kadosh continued. “This is an improvised response; we’ve started deploying it with some of the forces, but it’s far from sufficient,” an officer currently fighting in Lebanon told the reporter. This would follow exactly what we saw in Ukraine, as both sides looked to improvised forms of protection from incoming drones, leading to rapid experimentation and many dead ends.

הבוקר אצל @efitriger:

איום רחפני הנפץ שמאתגר את כוחות צה״ל בדרום לבנון בשורת התקפות יומיומיות של חזבאללה:

הסוגיה תפסה נפח משמעותי גם בדיון פורום הפיקוד הבכיר של צה״ל אתמול ברמת דוד. מפקד חטיבת התותחנים 282 שנלחמת כעת בלבנון, אל״ם ע׳, אמר למפקדים: ״איום הרחפנים הוא אתגר מבצעי… pic.twitter.com/jiSGrSEBGH

— דורון קדוש | Doron Kadosh (@Doron_Kadosh) April 28, 2026

Despite the limitations, this netting has become fairly common in Ukraine, with both sides using netting over vehicles, buildings and miles and miles of roadway to provide safer corridors of travel.

About anti-FPV road net tunnels:

“Thousands of kilometers of equipped anti-drone corridors block the main logistical routes all the way to the forward positions
The goal is to ensure security up to a depth of 100 km from the contact line.”
6/ https://t.co/Avipifv6Fr pic.twitter.com/ES7gq20lln

— Roy🇨🇦 (@GrandpaRoy2) April 29, 2026

As we noted in our last piece on the growing FPV threat to Israeli forces, active protection systems (APS) on armored vehicles are being adapted to provide hard-kill counter-drone protection. These systems use sensors to detect incoming rocket-propelled grenades, missiles, and other projectiles, and fire projectiles to hit them before they strike the vehicle. Israel is a major pioneer in the APS space, with systems being deployed for decades, but just how soon it can upgrade existing systems, such as Iron Fist, for this application isn’t clear. Also, this doesn’t help many lighter vehicles that do not have APS capabilities. Still, it is one bright spot of hope of creating a defense against fiber optic FPVs, at least for lower volume attacks, although these are also very costly systems.

Iron Fist APS | Active Protection System for Armored Vehicles

Regardless, we are likely to see more Israeli vehicles equipped with nets and other forms of passive protection in the coming days, and likely more advanced countermeasures if the war grinds on for a prolonged period.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Chile’s military police force has cracked down on student protesters after hundreds demonstrated against the government’s proposals to limit access to free higher education. The proposal includes cutting a government scholarship programme and increasing student loans, as part of wider austerity measures.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in the statement: “As the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa cartel, and other drug trafficking organisations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll”.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took office last year amid a flurry of aggressive actions by his country’s southern neighbour. A recently sworn-in United States president, Donald Trump, slapped tariffs on Canadian exports and threatened to make the US neighbour the 51st state.

The actions were particularly damning as Canada had deep trade and security ties with the US, not only sending nearly 80 percent of its exports to that market, but also often following lockstep on geopolitical policy and strategic moves.

All that was thrown aside when Trump took office, and Canada, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was one of the first countries he slapped with tariffs.

After a year of dealing with a mercurial and unpredictable US president, experts applaud Carney as “standing strong and resolute”, not just in the face of Trump’s threats, but also against internal critics.

“The most notable aspect of the last year was both a bullet dodged and a savvy bit of statecraft to avoid a rush to do a deal on trade and invest with the US the way many other countries did,” said Brett House, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

“Commitments from this president are absolutely worthless, and the biggest accomplishment of the first year has been standing strong and resolute in the face of internal critics,” House told Al Jazeera.

Indeed, Carney has used Trump’s attacks on allies and others to refocus Canada’s foreign policy and place in the world.

With the US no longer the anchor of a rules-based order, and with there now being a “deep rupture” caused by changes in Washington, “Carney has aimed to build at home and diversify abroad, as Ottawa’s dependence and long ties have now become a source of weakness,” said Vina Nadjibulla, the vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

“And he’s doing this at a speed, scale and ambition that we haven’t seen in recent years” in Ottawa, Nadjibulla said.

‘Rupture’ in global order

Some of that stance was evident in January, when Carney, in a speech in Davos, said there was a “rupture” in the global rules-based order and that Middle Powers like Canada and others had to rise strategically to address geopolitical tensions.

But it was visible in his actions even before Davos, when he had reached out to countries that had historically been important trade partners but where relations had been frozen due to political tensions under his predecessor, Trudeau.

For instance, Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 meeting in Canada to initiate a reset of ties with New Delhi that had been in a deep freeze since Trudeau alleged in 2023 that India was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist activist on Canadian soil.

Carney also recalibrated Canada’s relations with China, which had been tense since Canadian authorities arrested a key official of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei as she was transitioning through the Vancouver international airport in December 2018. China retaliated against the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, which was carried out at the request of US authorities, by detaining two Canadians.

Carney has also deepened relations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others, making sure to align on security and economic issues, and has drawn Canada closer to Europe, Nadjibulla pointed out.

Domestic push

In the lead-up to elections last year, Carney “positioned himself as a centrist, a moderate, and went to great lengths to distance himself from the image of Justin Trudeau,” said Sanjay Jeram, the chair of the political science department at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada.

“He hasn’t shown much interest in discussing things outside the economy, international relations and trade, and even when asked, has avoided those questions and steered the conversation back to what he believes is his true purpose. Or that could be his political strategy, or a bit of both.”

Under that pragmatist persona, “Carney takes the world and the economy as it is, rather than what we hope it to be”, which allows him to be judged on pragmatist metrics, Jeram said, referring to criticisms that Carney is overlooking concerns related to political interference or human rights in his dealings with foreign partners.

“Canadians have bought that [stance] so far,” Jeram added.

Indeed, Carney’s approval ratings are up. According to a March Ipsos poll for Global News, 58 percent of Canadians approve of him, up 10 percent from a year before, while 33 percent do not.

While there has also been significant movement on paper to remove federal barriers to facilitate business and trade within the country, there have also been concerns about certain policy pushes. A major projects bill, for instance, is meant to fast-track big infrastructure projects, but critics are concerned that it undermines the importance of consultation, especially with the Indigenous communities whose land these projects could go through.

“Carney recognises we need more of infrastructure to be able to diversify trade,” the Asia Pacific Foundation’s Nadjibulla said.

As he settles into his second year, Carney’s main challenge will be to see if he can deliver on his first-year announcements.

One of his biggest challenges this year will be a successful conclusion of the review of the trade pact between the US, Canada and Mexico, known as the USMCA, which starts on July 1 and which has helped shield Canadian exports from US tariffs.

The “US has signalled that a successful review could hinge on Canada lining its external tariffs in line with US tariffs, but that’s at cross purposes with Canada’s efforts”, said the University of Toronto’s House, especially as Canada has lined up deals with China on electric cars and agriculture.

Nadjibulla added that “2026 will be harder, because it will be about implementation and delivery, especially against the US-Canada dynamics.”

After watching Manchester City slip to a 3-2 defeat by Brighton on Saturday, Arsenal fans started to believe they had a chance.

And Slegers’ team made sure to capitalise on the opportunity with seven unanswered goals against Leicester, improving their goal difference to 33 – six behind City.

Leah Williamson’s glancing header – the Gunners’ seventh against Leicester – also took their tally to 103 goals under Slegers. No WSL team has scored more since she was appointed – initially as interim boss – in October 2024.

“Clean sheet, seven goals scored, different scorers – it was a great night for us,” Slegers said to Sky Sports.

“You saw so many players playing the Arsenal way, we played attractive football and we were very brave in everything we did.”

What will also boost Arsenal’s belief is their squad’s strength in depth.

With the second leg of their Women’s Champions League semi-final against Lyon awaiting on Saturday, Slegers rested Williamson, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Mariona Caldentey, Caitlin Foord and Alessia Russo against the Foxes.

Their replacements did the job.

On her 100th WSL appearance, Maanum scored the opening goal and assisted two more, while Smilla Holmberg bagged her first two goals in an Arsenal shirt.

Stina Blackstenius has often had to play second fiddle to Russo, but the Swede, who scored the winning goal in last season’s Champions League final, showed her quality with two goals in the space of nine minutes.

“Everyone knows their role and brings their strengths. There are such high levels of communication and trust within the team, on the pitch, off the pitch,” Slegers added.

The U.S. Marine Corps is exploring the possibility of fielding a theater ballistic missile defense capability. A key driver in this discussion is the U.S. Army’s capacity to provide protection against ballistic threats in future conflicts, or lack thereof, something TWZ has highlighted repeatedly in the past. The latest conflict with Iran has underscored the serious threats that ballistic missiles pose even to high-end integrated air and missile defense networks, which would be magnified further in a fight against a near-peer adversary like China.

“We’re exploring theater ballistic missile defense. So we’re doing some studies, we’re running some simulations, to see if that’s a requirement for the service in the future,” Marine Lt. Col. Robert Barclay said during a panel discussion yesterday at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition, at which TWZ has been in attendance.

Barclay is currently the Marine Air Command and Control Systems (MACCS) Integration Branch Head within the Aviation Combat Element Division of the service’s Combat Development and Integration office. His portfolio includes service-wide air and missile defense requirements.

“We know our old sensor used to be able to do it, but it wasn’t really a requirement,” Barclay added. “What we need to determine is, is [defending against] a theater ballistic [missile] like an SRBM [short-range ballistic missile] or MRBM [medium-range ballistic missile], a requirement for the Marine Corps to do? I would argue that it probably is.”

“At the end of the day, I don’t think the Army’s going to have enough capacity with us where we’re operating to actually adjudicate on that threat,” he continued. “So, I think we need to take a hard look at that, and that’s what our intent [is] to do over the next year.”

To take a step back quickly, the Marine Corps’ main general-purpose ground-based anti-air weapon today is the Stinger short-range heat-seeking surface-to-air missile. The service currently fields Stinger in a man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) configuration using shoulder-fired launchers, as well as integrated on the Humvee-based Avenger air defense vehicles. Stinger offers a point defense capability against fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, drones, and certain types of cruise missiles.

The Marines also hope to reach initial operational capability this year with a new Medium-Range Intercept Capability (MRIC), which is a service-specific variation of the Israeli Iron Dome system. MRIC uses a U.S.-made version of Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor, called SkyHunter, and a trailer-based road-mobile launcher. Each launcher can accommodate up to 20 interceptors, which come preloaded in individual canisters, at a time. The system uses offboard sensors to spot and track targets and cue missiles to intercept them. The Corps’ existing AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radars (G/ATOR) have been presented as the primary sensor for MRIC.

“The primary target set for MRIC is cruise missiles and your higher-end Group 5-type of [anti-]air application, as well as rotary wing, fixed-wing type of aspects,” Marine Col. Andrew Konicki, the service’s Program Manager for Ground Based Air Defense and another panelist at Modern Day Marine yesterday, explained. MRIC “can go after Group 3, because it’s probably a mismatch in terms of ammunition versus what it’s going after. So it’s primarily focused on that growing threat, or that higher-end threat, so to speak, as part of that integrated air missile defense application and layer defense piece.”

Groups 3 and 5 here refer to different categories of uncrewed aerial systems. The U.S. military defines Group 5 as consisting of drones with maximum weights greater than 1,320 pounds, and that can fly above 18,000 feet. The MQ-9 Reaper is a commonly used example of a Group 5 uncrewed aircraft. Drones that fall under Group 3 have maximum weights anywhere between 56 and 1,320 pounds, can operate at altitudes between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and reach top speeds of up to 250 knots. Group 3 is very broad, but notably includes Iran’s now-infamous Shahed 136 long-range kamikaze drone, and the growing number of variants and derivatives thereof.

Lt. Col. Robert Barclay’s mention of an unspecified previous Marine ballistic missile defense capability seems most likely to be a reference to the HAWK medium-range surface-to-air missile system. The service retired HAWK in the 1990s, but versions of the system remain in use elsewhere worldwide, including in Ukraine. HAWK has used an evolving mixture of radars for target acquisition and engagement since the system was first introduced in the 1950s, as you can read more about here. Improved HAWK interceptors have also been developed, including variants explicitly intended to offer a rudimentary anti-ballistic missile capability.

The video below shows HAWK systems in service in Ukraine.

Американський ЗРК HAWK (Яструб) захищає небо України!

Barclay did not elaborate on what level of ballistic missile defense capability the Marine Corps might look to pursue in the future. In the past year or so, there have been reports of Israel using Iron Dome against incoming Iranian ballistic missiles in the terminal phase. However, the system’s effectiveness against ballistic missiles of any kind, which it was never designed to intercept, and whether the Marines might be able to employ MRIC in this role, is unclear.

Today, the main tool for providing ground-based theater ballistic missile defense across all of America’s armed forces is the Army’s Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. The Army also operates the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which offers a higher-end ballistic missile defense capability over Patriot. Both Patriot and THAAD are only capable of intercepting incoming ballistic threats during their final terminal phase.

The PATRIOT Missile in Action

At the same time, as TWZ has highlighted several times in recent years, the Army’s Patriot force is heavily strained due to constant demands that it is simply not adequately resourced to meet. The THAAD force is even smaller and is in equally heavy demand.

The latest conflict with Iran has reignited discussions about the Army’s worryingly limited capacity to meet operational needs for ballistic missile defense, as well as protection against other aerial threats. Between February and April, Iranian forces launched repeated missile and drone attacks on key bases across the Middle East. They were successful in many instances in targeting high-value military assets, including aircraft parked on the ground and air and missile defense radars.