WE might be heading into winter, but looking ahead to a summer getaway for 2026 doesn’t hurt.
One airline in particular is doing exactly that and has announced that it plans to add more flights from the UK to one very popular Turkish resort.
Sign up for the Travel newsletter
Thank you!
Antalya is known for its pretty beaches and year-round warm weatherCredit: AlamyCorendon Airlines is upping its flights to Antalya for next summerCredit: Alamy
Corendon Airlines has announced that it plans to extend lots of its summer services next year.
One of these routes from the UK heads to the Turkish resort of Antalya which is known for its family-friendly hotels and waterparks.
During the next summer season there will be daily flights to Antalya from Stansted Airport.
Matthew Carpenter, Corendon Airlines UK Country Manager said: “For 2026 we’re doubling down on the routes that have performed well for us – for example, we’ve had two flights a week to Antalya from Stansted and this will be increasing to five flights a week in the shoulder seasons and daily flights in peak season.”
Antalya sits on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and has been nicknamed as ‘paradise on Earth‘ thanks to its beautiful beaches, mountain scenery and great weather.
In the summer months, Antalya has average highs of 33C – and it still has daily highs of 23C in November this week.
Thanks to this, Antalya is incredibly popular with Brits, around 1.5 million British tourists visited Antalya between January and October 2024.
Most read in Beach holidays
To make it even better, the average flight time from the UK is around four and a half hours.
There are plenty of great beaches around the coast likeLara Beach, known for its fine sand and luxury resorts.
The Turkish resort is known for having plenty of family-friendly hotelsCredit: Alamy
Other popular beaches include Konyaaltı Beach, which has a long pebble and sand coastline.
Patara Beach is one of Turkey‘s longest beaches, and there’s also Kaputaş Beach which is small cove between the towns of Kaş and Kalkan.
Being such a family-friendly destination, there are plenty of huge hotels with on-site waterparks, kids clubs, activities, and beach access.
It’s found on a quiet sea valley, surrounded by mountains, crystal-clear waters and sandy beaches.
The village was called “one of Turkey‘s best-kept secrets” in an article in the Sunday Telegraph.
Despite not being far from Kemer and Antalya, only a few Brits seem to holiday in Cirali.
Because of its protected status as a nesting site for loggerhead turtles, the seaside village doesn’t have huge all-inclusive resorts or large hotel chains.
The beach, which is a mixture of shingle and sand, is its main attraction. While metal cages mark the turtle nests, there is still plenty of space for holidaymakers.
Other facilities at the beach include several restaurants that serve a range of grilled fish and rustic stews.
Away from the beach, other activities include yoga classes, cycling routes and walking routes.
President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae International Airport terminal, on Thursday, October 30, 2025, in Busan, South Korea. File Photo by Daniel Torok/The White House/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 9 (UPI) — China’s Commerce Ministry announced Sunday that it would suspend a ban on the export of some rare earth metals to the United States as trade tensions ease.
The affected metals include gallium and germanium, which are used to make advanced semiconductors for computing, as well as antimony, which is used to make explosives, and super-hard metals such as tungsten, which is used in armor-piercing ammunition. The fifth metal covered by the suspension of the ban is graphite.
China’s Commerce Ministry had announced the export ban in December 2024 ahead of the second administration of President Donald Trump, “in order to safeguard national security and interests and fulfill international obligations such as non-proliferation.”
It said in a statement Sunday that the ban on the five metals would be suspended until Nov. 27, 2026.
The move comes after Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last month ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The suspension is part of a broader economic deal struck during that meeting, which both governments described as a step toward stabilizing bilateral trade relations after several years of heightened tensions.
According to a White House fact sheet, China agreed to effectively eliminate its export controls on rare earth elements and other critical minerals, while issuing “general licenses” that allow shipments of gallium, germanium, antimony, tungsten and graphite to continue flowing to U.S. manufacturers and their suppliers.
The White House said the agreement would help ensure American companies have reliable access to essential materials used in advanced technologies, while Beijing would benefit from renewed purchases of agricultural goods and other exports.
The deal also included Chinese commitments to halt the export of fentanyl precursors, ease restrictions on U.S. semiconductor firms, and expand purchases of U.S. farm products.
China’s statement on Sunday did not reference the broader trade framework or the general licenses described by the White House. Instead, it said only that the suspension of the 2024 export ban would last for one year — marking a discrepancy in American and Chinese framing of the deal.
China controls the vast majority of the world’s supply of each of the five rare earth metals, and analysts have warned that prolonged export restrictions could disrupt global manufacturing tied to them.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
A special operations team is pinned down in a valley deep inside contested territory. Ammo is running low, and close air support is nonexistent. Extraction forces are still hours out. The operatives have kept the enemy at bay, but their ability to do so is dwindling with every round they fire. Their stocks of 40mm grenades have long been exhausted; now their rifles will soon run dry too. The sky cracks with a sonic boom, which echoes across the valley, and fighting pauses for a split second as fighters on both sides look up. Soon after, the shooting resumes, but out of the blinding sun comes a capsule stuffed with ammunition hanging on a parachute and flying right toward the special operations team.
Help has arrived… From orbit.
The above is a scene that sounds like it’s ripped right out of a Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare video game, but one company is working to make it a reality.
California-based space startup Inversion has unveiled its design for a fully reusable, lifting-body spacecraft named Arc. The spacecraft is intended to deliver critical cargo from space to any point on Earth within an hour, landing on water, snow or soil with a precision of around 50 feet, the company says. The concept, aimed squarely at the defense sector, reflects longstanding U.S. military interest in using space-based systems to rapidly move cargo around the globe to meet commanders’ urgent needs.
Arc is a new kind of spacecraft.
Not quite a capsule, not quite a spaceplane. It’s based off of a lifting body design – ideal for its mission to deliver cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in under an hour. pic.twitter.com/KHD6v5Kcs4
The mission concept involves the Arc spacecraft being launched into low Earth orbit atop a rocket. Arc then remains in orbit until its cargo is required to be delivered. At that point, the spacecraft uses a deorbit engine to re-enter the atmosphere, moving at very high speed. Arc uses small thrusters and large trailing-edge maneuvering flaps to adjust its position and speed during its fiery reentry, through the atmosphere, until it approaches the ‘drop zone.’
Once it has reached a lower altitude, Arc slows down and lands using its actively controlled parachute system. This is also able to fine-tune the spacecraft’s path back to Earth. The parachute ensures a soft landing, meaning that Arc can then be reused. The entire mission is uncrewed, with the Arc being commanded by autonomous control systems.
Arc depicted reentering the atmosphere. (Inversion)
Interestingly, Inversion’s plan to field a spacecraft that’s able to put a cargo at any place on Earth within an hour has parallels with an ambition laid out by U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), back in 2020. TRANSCOM provides transportation services and solutions to all branches of the armed forces, as well as various other defense and governmental organizations.
Concept artwork shows the Arc spacecraft in orbit. Inversion
Speaking back then, U.S. Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, TRANSCOM’s commander, said: “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour. Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo… There is a lot of potential here…”
At that point, TRANSCOM had begun a partnership with both SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to pursue space-based rapid delivery concepts. SpaceX has since been working with the Air Force and Space Force on the ‘Rocket Cargo’ program, which seeks to quickly deliver cargo anywhere on Earth that can support a vertical landing.
Part of the Arc vehicle’s thermal protection system. Inversion
It should be noted, however, that the sizes of payloads that Arc will be able to deliver are much smaller than those outlined by Lyons. The spacecraft itself will measure only around eight feet by four feet.
The C-17 has a maximum payload of around 82 tons, although normal payloads are around 60 tons or less. Arc is reportedly planned to have a cargo of just 500 pounds. Still, small cargoes often require very big logistics. As we have noted in a prior piece:
“Even the Navy has said in the past that when ships encounter problems as a result of logistics-related issues that leave them partially mission capable or non-mission capable, 90 percent of the time this can be resolved by the delivery of a component weighing 50 pounds or less.“
Nevertheless, Inversion clearly sees a niche for the very high-speed delivery of what it describes as “mission-enabling cargo.”
A test of the parachute-recovery system for Arc. Inversion
Inversion doesn’t provide any specific examples of the kinds of cargoes that might be delivered by Arc, beyond “equipment, food, or other mission cargo.” Conceivably, key cargo could comprise time-sensitive equipment and ammunition needed at forward operating locations. Since these spacecraft would be pre-launched, they would likely be filled with a range of generic cargoes that are generally time-sensitive. Then, they would be deorbited on demand.
Today, other small autonomous resupply systems have been used in combat, like the paragliding Snow Goose, and others are in development or limited use now. But these systems fly exclusively within the atmosphere and are much slower, more vulnerable, and require regional basing or an aerial delivery platform to launch them from relatively nearby.
Snow Goose resupply vehicle in use in Iraq. (DoD)
Bearing in mind the considerable cost of a space launch, these cargoes would presumably only be delivered in the most critical scenarios, the kinds where only a high-cost rapid transport would suffice.
Arc depicted in orbit. (Inversion) Inversion
Such a capability would appear to have particular relevance in the context of future contingencies in the Indo-Pacific theater. With a growing expectation that this region will see a future high-end conflict involving the U.S. military, the ability to call upon space-based systems, like Arc, to quickly bring critical supplies to the area could be of high value — provided, once again, that the technology can be mastered.
Since Arc is reusable, that would go some way to making it more cost-efficient, when the vehicle can be recovered. Inversion also proposes putting several Arc vehicles into orbit at the same time (it’s unclear if these would be transported by the same or different rockets). The result has been described as something like a series of “constellations” with a variety of contingency cargoes that could be tailored to different customers and operational theaters.
The structure of the Arc spacecraft makes extensive use of composite materials. Inversion
Another advantage compared to other space-based cargo-delivery concepts is the fact that Arc uses a parachute landing system.
Arc can, in theory, deliver cargo to any place on the planet, including remote regions, disaster zones, or hard-to-access theaters of war. Other orbital delivery concepts, such as suborbital VTOL rockets, have needed at least some kind of infrastructure to support the cargo-recovery part of the mission, but Arc should do away with that requirement, at least for small cargoes.
U.S. Air Force concept artwork shows how a cargo rocket might be used to enable rapid delivery of aircraft-size payloads for agile global logistics — in this example, for urgent humanitarian assistance and disaster response. U.S. Air Force illustration/Randy Palmer
Last month, Inversion conducted precision drop-testing to prove the actively controlled parachute system that ensures that Arc will be able to put its cargoes where they are needed.
The company now says it wants to conduct a first mission with Arc as early as next year, which seems highly ambitious.
On the other hand, the startup does have some valuable experience from its Ray spacecraft, Inversion’s first, which was launched in January of this year as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission. This test mission helped prove technologies, including solar panels, propulsion, and separation systems, which will be incorporated into Arc.
Another view of the parachute recovery system that Arc will use to return to Earth. Inversion
For the time being, Inversion is focused solely on Arc’s military potential, although there would clearly be specific commercial applications as well. There is also the question of the possibility of adapting Arc as a reusable and recoverable satellite or even orbital supply vehicle. Meanwhile, the company has spoken confidently of producing hundreds of examples of the spacecraft every year.
Before that happens, and presuming military customers are forthcoming, Inversion will need to prove that its concept of space-based cargo deliveries can be cost-effective. There will also be various other regulatory issues to overcome, bearing in mind that this is an altogether new kind of transportation system.
Concept artwork shows the Arc spacecraft below its parachute. Inversion
Despite multiple dead ends and abortive programs, the idea of using some kind of space-based solution for rapid transport across the globe is one that won’t go away. Potentially, with its much smaller cargo loads, reusable spacecraft, and parachute-landing system, Inversion’s de-orbit on-demand cargo concept could be the one that finally breaks the mold.
WASHINGTON — President Trump will host leaders of five Central Asian countries at the White House on Thursday as he intensifies his hunt for rare earth metals needed for high-tech devices, including smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter jets.
Trump and the officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are holding an evening summit and dinner on the heels of Trump managing at least a temporary thaw with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on differences between the United States and China over the export of rare earth elements, a key point of friction in their trade negotiations.
Early last month, Beijing expanded export restrictions over vital rare earth elements and magnets before announcing, after Trump-Xi talks in South Korea last week, that China would delay its new restrictions by one year.
Washington is now looking for new ways to circumvent China on critical minerals. China accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s rare earth mining and controls roughly 90% of global rare earths processing.
Central Asia holds deep reserves of rare earth minerals and produces roughly half the world’s uranium, which is critical to nuclear power production. But the region badly needs investment to further develop the resources.
Central Asia’s critical mineral exports have long tilted toward China and Russia. Kazakhstan, for example, in 2023 sent $3.07 billion in critical minerals to China and $1.8 billion to Russia compared with $544 million to the U.S., according to country-level trade data compiled by the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online data platform.
A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday to repeal Soviet-era trade restrictions that some lawmakers say are holding back American investment in the Central Asian nations, which became independent with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
“Today, it’s not too late to deepen our cooperation and ensure that these countries can decide their own destinies, as a volatile Russia and an increasingly aggressive China pursue their own national interests around the globe at the cost to their neighbors,” said Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a sponsor of the legislation. “The United States offers Central Asian nations the real opportunity to work with a willing partner, while lifting up each others’ economies.”
The grouping of countries, referred to as the “C5+1,” has largely focused on regional security, particularly in light of the two-decade U.S. military presence and then withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan, China’s treatment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and attempts by Russia to reassert power in the region.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the Central Asian leaders at the State Department on Wednesday to mark the 10-year anniversary of the C5+1 and to plug the potential for expanding the countries economic ties to the U.S.
“We oftentimes spend so much time focused on crisis and problems – and they deserve attention – that sometimes we don’t spend enough time focused on exciting new opportunities,” Rubio said. “And that’s what exists here now: an exciting new opportunity in which the national interests of our respective countries are aligned.”
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and the U.S. ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, who also serves as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to South and Central Asia, recently visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to prepare for the summit.
Administration officials say deepening the U.S. relationship with the countries is a priority, a point they have made clear to the Central Asian officials.
The president’s “commitment to this region is that you have a direct line to the White House, and that you will get the attention that this area very much deserves,” Gor told the Central Asian officials Wednesday.
In 2023, Democratic President Joe Biden met with the five leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. That was the only other time that a sitting president has taken part in a C5+1 summit.
Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
