fuel

Russia’s key Black Sea oil port of Tuapse has suspended all fuel exports after Ukrainian drones struck its infrastructure on November 2, igniting a fire and damaging loading facilities. The attack also forced the nearby Rosneft-operated refinery to halt crude processing, according to industry sources and LSEG ship tracking data.

Tuapse is one of Russia’s major export hubs for refined oil products, including naphtha, diesel, and fuel oil. The port plays a crucial role in supplying markets such as China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Turkey. The refinery, capable of processing around 240,000 barrels of oil per day, exports most of its production.

Why It Matters

The suspension underscores Ukraine’s ongoing campaign to weaken Russia’s wartime economy by targeting energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. These strikes not only disrupt export revenues but also stretch Russia’s military and logistical resources. For Moscow, losing Tuapse an export-oriented refinery on the Black Sea adds pressure to its already strained oil supply chain amid international sanctions and logistical bottlenecks.

The attack also signals Kyiv’s growing drone capabilities, with long-range operations increasingly aimed at strategic Russian energy sites. As the conflict nears its fourth year, energy infrastructure on both sides has become a critical front in the economic war underpinning the battlefield.

The regional administration in Tuapse confirmed the drone strike and subsequent fire but offered few details. State oil company Rosneft and Russia’s port agency did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

According to data reviewed by LSEG, three tankers were docked during the attack, loading naphtha, diesel, and fuel oil. All vessels were later moved offshore to anchor safely near the port. Before the incident, Tuapse had been expected to increase oil product exports in November.

Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for the specific attack but reiterated that its drone strikes aim to erode Russia’s capacity to finance its invasion through energy exports.

What’s Next

Repair timelines for the Tuapse refinery and port infrastructure remain unclear, but the temporary halt is expected to disrupt Russia’s short-term fuel exports and trading flows in the Black Sea region. The strike may prompt Moscow to bolster air defenses along its southern coast and diversify export routes to reduce vulnerability.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is expected to continue leveraging drone warfare to target high-value Russian infrastructure as part of its asymmetric strategy to offset Moscow’s battlefield advantages.

With information from an exclusive Reuters report.

A fuel blockade by al Qaeda-linked militants has severely impacted the capital of Mali, raising concerns that the jihadist group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), might attempt to impose its rule in the country. While analysts believe that JNIM currently lacks the resources to seize control of Bamako, they view the blockade as a strategy to weaken the government by cutting off fuel supplies, which has led to school closures and affected local businesses.

The blockade aims to pressure the military government, which took power in 2021 after promising to combat the Islamist threat. Analysts speculate that JNIM seeks to provoke another coup in Mali, potentially the third since 2020, which could destabilize the nation further and provide JNIM with more opportunities to gain power and resources. A recent report warned that the government’s stability is at high risk in the coming weeks due to the increasing pressure from JNIM.

JNIM announced the blockade was aimed at the ruling authorities, accusing them of oppressing citizens, particularly outside the capital. The group has been advancing from northern Mali into central areas and neighboring countries, increasing its attacks on military posts and acquiring more weapons. Recently, JNIM reportedly received a large ransom for hosting Emirati hostages and has begun extending its operations in southern Mali, intensifying its focus on Bamako.

The blockade is viewed as both an economic tactic and a means of instilling fear among Bamako’s leadership and its residents. Although there haven’t been significant protests despite the fuel crisis, tensions among military leaders and the arrest of several generals could threaten the current regime’s stability. Observers caution that the potential collapse of Mali’s government could have a domino effect on neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, where military-led governments are in place, thus destabilizing the Sahel region.

Malians have remained relatively quiet about the fuel shortage due to fear of government reprisals. One resident explained the struggles of finding fuel, while the military continues to deal with internal challenges. Analysts believe that the situation may make the current military leaders vulnerable to being ousted, given the growing pressures from both political factions and armed groups.

If JNIM were to gain control of Bamako, it could lead to significant restrictions on daily life, as seen in areas previously occupied by the group. Recent warnings from foreign embassies have urged citizens to leave Mali, yet there hasn’t been a significant exodus or an increase in flight bookings at this time. The future remains uncertain, with risks of JNIM attempting to advance into the city still possible, according to diplomats.

With information from Reuters

US Embassy urges citizens to leave Mali immediately on commercial flights as blockade makes daily life more dangerous.

Parts of Mali’s capital have been brought to a near standstill as a group affiliated with al-Qaeda imposes an economic siege on the country by blocking routes used by fuel tankers, in a bid to turn the screw on the military government.

As the Sahel country plunges deeper into crisis, the United States Embassy in Mali on Tuesday urged US citizens to “depart immediately” as the fuel blockade renders daily life increasingly dangerous.

Long queues have formed at petrol stations in the capital Bamako this week, with anger reaching the boiling point as the blockade bites harder. A lack of supplies has caused the price of fuel to shoot up 500 percent, from $25 to $130 per litre, according to Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque.

The Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) armed group, which imposed the blockade last month in retaliation for the military banning fuel sales in rural areas, appeared to be succeeding in turning public anger against the country’s rulers, Haque noted.

“It’s up to the government to play a full role and take action, to … uncover the real reason for this shortage,” Omar Sidibe, a driver in Bamako, told Al Jazeera.

Haque said the al-Qaeda fighters were burning fuel trucks as supplies ran out.

Schools and universities have also been shut for two weeks, and airlines are now cancelling flights from Bamako.

Meanwhile, the US Embassy has warned Americans to leave Mali immediately using commercial flights rather than travelling over land to neighbouring countries, owing to the risk of “terrorist attacks along national highways”.

It advised citizens who choose to remain in Mali to prepare contingency plans, including for sheltering in place for an extended period.

Yet, Haque said, the military rulers were insisting “everything is under control”.

The army first seized power in a 2020 coup, pledging to get a grip on a spiralling security crisis involving armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), but years later, the crisis has only escalated.

Tanks ’empty’

Amid tense scenes from a fuel pit stop in Senegal, which neighbours Mali, truck drivers ready to travel across the border did not want to speak to Al Jazeera on camera. Haque said some transport companies had been accused of paying al-Qaeda fighters to move their trucks.

“They’ve been waiting here not days, but months, their tanks empty. Ahead for them is a dangerous road or journey into al-Qaeda territory,” Haque said from Dakar.

Meanwhile, in Bamako, citizens are growing increasingly desperate. “Before, we could buy gas everywhere in cans. But now there’s no more,” gas reseller Bakary Coulibaly told Al Jazeera.

“We’re forced to come to gas stations, and even if we go there, it’s not certain that there will be gasoline available. Only a few stations have it.”

JNIM is one of several armed groups operating in the Sahel, a vast strip of semi-arid desert stretching from North to West Africa, where fighting is spreading rapidly, with large-scale attacks.

Under the military’s control, the country severed ties with its former coloniser, France, and thousands of French soldiers involved in the battle against the armed groups exited the country.

The fighting has resulted in thousands of deaths, while up to 350,000 people are currently displaced, according to Human Rights Watch.

On a hot October morning, fuel pumps at a dozen service stations in Bamako, the capital of Mali, sputtered to a stop. Drivers who had spent hours waiting in line left empty-handed. Motorbikes, taxis, and vans idled where they stood. Market stalls that depended on refrigeration closed early. Hospitals began counting fuel reserves. 

What appeared to Mali residents as an everyday shortage was, in fact, the result of a deliberate, sustained campaign by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM, an Al-Qaeda affiliate operating in the Sahel, to choke the flow of fuel into the country. The group has moved beyond hit-and-run attacks to economic warfare, burning tankers, ambushing convoys, and enforcing a de facto embargo on fuel imports.

Videos shared online after the Oct. 21 attack showed dozens of burning tankers in Zégoua, near the border with Côte d’Ivoire. JNIM later released a propaganda message claiming responsibility for ambushing 37 vehicles that day.

The first publicly reported attacks began in early September, when the group blocked routes to Kayes and Nioro du Sahel in western Mali, bordering Mauritania and Senegal. That same day, Sept. 3, JNIM reportedly abducted six fuel tanker drivers from Senegal.

Despite an increased military presence, the jihadists struck again on Sept. 13 and 14, torching over 40 tankers under military escort while transporting from Senegal to Mali along the Diédiéni–Kolokani corridor. 

The consequences have rippled far beyond queues at fuel stations. There is currently a sharp inflation that has affected commercial activities. Mines operations have also slowed, and there is a steady erosion of the state’s control over basic life. Across the country, schools have also been closed, further disrupting daily life and cutting several young people off from education.

The residents of Mali expressed their grievances, urging the military junta led by Assimi Goita to step up the fight and counter the group’s atrocities.

JNIM has also sought to control the narrative. In a video released in early September, a spokesperson justified the blockade as retaliation against what he called “the bandit government’s persecution of the population” and “the closure of gas stations”.

This rhetoric points to a deeper cause. Mali’s government recently banned the sale of fuel outside official stations, a measure meant to disrupt the jihadists’ supply chains. 

Blockades and ambushes 

Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa, and it imports most of its fuel by road from Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Convoys, sometimes more than 100 tankers, travel through routes to Bamako, and that includes passing through jihadist-controlled areas. 

JNIM have staged checkpoints on key routes where they conduct their attacks by igniting the lead vehicles to create conflagrations. They have destroyed dozens of tankers, with a single ambush in mid-September affecting at least 40 tankers. Videos circulated online showed burning wrecks and stranded drivers. 

The attacks are designed to make transport by road both physically dangerous and economically untenable. As a result, many private companies have stopped sending fuel tankers; others now insist on military escorts, which often become targets in themselves, and neighbouring countries hesitate to transit fuel through overtly dangerous routes. 

Analysts note that by choking off fuel transport, JNIM aims to undermine public confidence in the junta’s competence, stir unrest, and increase its leverage in negotiating local control, taxation, or governance arrangements in contested areas. The approach aligns with Al-Qaeda’s long-standing strategy of exploiting social grievances and state fragility to entrench influence.

The group’s broader objective is to pressure Mali’s military government, which seized power in a coup five years ago, while expanding its own authority through informal taxation and control of smuggling routes. JNIM now holds sway over vast areas of Mali, particularly across the tri-border zone with Burkina Faso and Niger.

The economic shock 

Since the start of the attacks, Bamako and other urban centres have seen fuel queues stretch for hours and a surge in black-market operations, the very activity the government intended to stamp out in its recent ban.

One video posted on X on Oct. 23 captured the desperation: a long procession of cars trailing a fuel tanker to a station, hoping to secure a few litres.

The shortages have cascaded through every layer of the economy. Power supply has been hit as electricity utilities begin implementing emergency plans amid dwindling diesel reserves. For households dependent on private generators, costs have spiked overnight.

The price of goods transported by road has risen sharply in markets across Mali. Small traders who buy fresh produce daily for resale in Bamako say profits have evaporated. For ordinary families, higher transport costs translate directly into more expensive food.

Reports from the weeks following the convoy attacks documented widespread closures of petrol stations and soaring costs of travel and delivery. The military halted certain deliveries to mines over security concerns, and some tankers destined for large gold operations were stopped to avoid creating easy targets. 

For a country already weakened by years of conflict, coups, and economic instability, the fuel blockade has become a multiplier of hardship, a crisis that compounds every existing vulnerability.

Losing the grip 

At first glance, the scarcity hurts everyone, and JNIM gains leverage. 

By controlling or denying access to commodities, the group converts scarcity into political capital. In areas under its influence, it already collects taxes, fines, and “security levies” from traders. Smugglers who can move fuel through alternative routes find new profit, often paying bribes or cutting deals with armed groups to secure passage. 

Meanwhile, formal businesses tied to regulated supply chains and formal employment lose trust and capacity. Local elites who depend on state contracts feel the pinch. The junta, unable to guarantee basic services, faces a mounting legitimacy crisis. Analysts warn that such conditions hollow out institutions and entrench shadow economies, allowing parallel systems of governance to take root.

The government’s response has been uneven; part denial, part damage control. Initially, officials blamed the shortages on heavy rains delaying tanker arrivals. But when JNIM released its propaganda videos claiming responsibility, public outrage forced an acknowledgement of the crisis.

“The sellers should make things easy for the population; the hydrocarbon sellers should not raise the prices at this time of crisis,” said one resident in Bamako, interviewed by DW Africa, voicing his frustration over the difficulties of getting the fuel. 

The armed forces have since launched airstrikes, escorted convoys, and convened emergency committees to protect fuel shipments. Yet these measures have proven costly and largely ineffective.

Transitional Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maïga, who convened an interministerial crisis management committee, announced further steps, including price controls, new regional depots, and increased convoy protection, but they have done little to stem the attacks. Some local reports suggest negotiations or attempts at local truces in areas where the terrorists have influence, but negotiations are politically sensitive for a government that prizes a posture of strength.  

Complicating the situation further is the evolving role of foreign paramilitaries. The Wagner Group’s replacement by the so-called Africa Corps has yet to yield stability, and persistent accusations of human rights abuses risk undermining their counterterrorism efforts.

The longer the blockade continues, the sharper the choices before Mali’s leaders: concede territory and influence to armed groups, or escalate military operations that risk civilian casualties and further infrastructure damage. Either way, the cost of control grows heavier with each passing week.

U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that contaminated fuel may have been a factor in the U.S. Navy’s loss of an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and an F/A-18F Super Hornet in the South China Sea on Sunday. In a very strange chain of events, the two aircraft, both assigned to the supercarrier USS Nimitz, went down within 30 minutes of each other while on separate missions. The crews of the Seahawk and the Super Hornet were both safely retrieved.

“They’re gonna let me know pretty soon,” Trump told reporters while flying aboard Air Force One on Monday. “I think they should be able to find out. It could be bad fuel. I mean, it’s possible it’s bad fuel. Very unusual that that would happen.”

Asked whether he thought “foul play” led to the crashes, Trump said “I don’t think so,” and reiterated his contaminated fuel theory. 

“We don’t believe it was anything nefarious,” a U.S. Navy official told The War Zone.

U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLEET), which oversees naval operations in the South China Sea region, declined to comment on Trump’s statements about the crashes and referred us to the White House. We have yet to receive a response and will update this story with any pertinent information provided.

The first of the two mishaps occurred about 2:45 PM local time, according to PACFLEET.

That’s when the Seahawk, assigned to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73 (HSM-73), “went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from” the Nimitz, a PACFLEET release stated. “Search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 safely recovered all three crew members.”

A half hour later, an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter assigned to the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron 22 (VFA-22) “also went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from Nimitz,” PACFLEET announced. “Both crew members successfully ejected and were also safely recovered by search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11. All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition. The cause of both incidents is currently under investigation.”

While the particular circumstances of the recent mishaps in the South China Sea remain under investigation, fuel contaminated with water and/or other foreign substances, or that otherwise falls below specifications, can present serious problems for aircraft, including causing engines to fail in flight. Checking fuel quality is a common part of an investigation following any aviation mishap, military or civilian.

In addition, carrier-based aviation operations present unique conditions when it comes to the transfer of fuel, both into storage tanks on the ship to begin with, which can occur while the carrier is underway at sea, as well as in port, and then into aircraft. Personnel aboard all Navy carriers perform regular fuel quality checks at multiple steps in the fuel distribution process.

Trump’s comments about the mishaps came as the President is traveling throughout Asia. He is scheduled to have a meeting on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss trade issues.

Nimitz, the Navy’s oldest carrier, is on its final cruise before its planned decommissioning next year. The flattop is currently in the process of returning to its home port in Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State after having been deployed to the Middle East for most of the summer, primarily as part of the U.S. response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial shipping.

Also known by its hull number CVN-68, the Nimitz, which was first commissioned into service in 1975, is the lead ship in its class. The vessel’s design built on the Navy’s prior experience with its pioneering nuclear-powered supercarrier, the one-of-a-kind USS Enterprise (CVN-65), which served from 1961 to 2012.

The Navy began preparing for the Nimitz’s demise in 2023, which you can read more about here. The Newport News Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries has received multiple contracts already to begin laying the groundwork for removing the nuclear fuel from the carrier’s reactors and other aspects of the disposal process.

Whether contaminated fuel turns out to be a factor in, or even the root cause of the Seahawk and Super Hornet going down in the South China Sea, remains to be seen. U.S. military aviation accidents typically take weeks if not months to complete.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Military government orders two-week closure for schools and universities as blockade on fuel imports declared by JNIM causes further disruptions.

Mali’s military government has announced schools and universities nationwide will be closed for two weeks, as the landlocked country continues to suffer from the effects of a crippling blockade on fuel imports imposed by an armed group in September.

Education Minister Amadou Sy Savane said on Sunday the suspension until November 9 was “due to disruptions in fuel supplies that are affecting the movement of school staff”.

He added authorities were “doing everything possible” to restore normal fuel supplies before schools resume classes on November 10.

In a separate statement, the Interministerial Committee for Crisis and Disaster Management said restrictions will be placed on fuel supplies until “further notice”, with priority given at dedicated stations to “emergency, assistance, and public transport vehicles”.

It comes nearly two months after the Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) armed group, one of the several operating in the Sahel, declared a blockade on fuel imported from neighbouring countries.

Since then, the al-Qaeda affiliate has been targeting fuel tankers coming mainly from Senegal and the Ivory Coast, through which most imported goods transit.

JNIM initially said the blockade was a retaliatory measure against the Malian authorities’ ban on selling fuel outside stations in rural areas, where fuel is transported in jerry cans to be sold later. Malian authorities said the measure was intended to cut off JNIM’s supply lines.

Endless queues

The blockade has squeezed Mali’s fragile economy, affecting the price of commodities and transport in a country that relies on fuel imports for domestic needs.

Its effects have also spread to the capital, Bamako, where endless queues have stretched in front of gas stations.

Mali, along with neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, has for more than a decade battled armed groups, including some linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as local rebels.

Following military coups in all three countries in recent years, the new ruling authorities have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance, which is seen as having made little difference.

Analysts say the blockade is a significant setback for Mali’s military government, which defended its forceful takeover of power in 2020 as a necessary step to end long-running security crises.

The aircraft was forced to make an emergency landingafter issuing a ‘fuel Mayday’ as it travelled to Prestwick Airport in Glasgow from the Italian city of Pisa

A Ryanair flight was forced to make a dramatic emergency landing after coming within six minutes of “running out of fuel”. An investigation has been launched into the incident involving a Malta Air flight, operating on behalf of Ryanair.

The plane was en route from Pisa, Italy, to Prestwick Airport in Glasgow on October 3 when it issued a “fuel Mayday”.

The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Manchester after the cockpit crew issued a 7700 squawk code – the universal signal for a general emergency. Before this, the plane made several unsuccessful attempts to land at both Prestwick and Edinburgh airports.

Nearly two hours later, it safely touched down in Manchester. Upon landing, the plane had only 220kg of fuel left – enough for just five or six minutes of flying.

Passenger Alexander Marchi revealed that the chaos began even before they took off from Pisa, as protestors managed to storm the tarmac amid a strike.

A passenger told the Ayr Advertiser: “After leaving late from Pisa because of a general strike and protesters invading the tarmac at the airport we were worried that we wouldn’t get to Prestwick before the storm hit.

“Everything was fine until we started our descent. The plane was circling a few times before trying the first time but pulling up almost immediately.”

More than 40,000 people tracked the plane as it failed to land at Prestwick before attempting to touch down in Edinburgh, again without success. The flight eventually landed in Manchester, with passengers on board eventually reaching South Ayrshire via bus 10 hours late.

Upon landing, the aircraft had just 220kg of fuel remaining in its tank – sufficient for merely five or six minutes of flight time, according to reports.

Passenger Alexander Marchi revealed the mayhem began before they’d even departed from Pisa, as demonstrators managed to breach the runway during industrial action.

He told Ayr Advertiser: “After leaving late from Pisa because of a general strike and protesters invading the tarmac at the airport we were worried that we wouldn’t get to Prestwick before the storm hit.

“We were told we would try one more time or we’d have to go to Manchester. The second time it was a very bumpy ride and we almost reached the tarmac, but at the last minute we pulled up very sharply.

“We realised how bad things had been after seeing the images after finally landing at Manchester with almost no fuel. There was a lot of relief.

“People were wanting to get off and definitely were not up for flying any time soon. “

A Ryanair spokesman said: “Ryanair reported this to the relevant authorities on Friday (Oct 3). As this is now subject of an ongoing investigation, which we are cooperating fully with, we are unable to comment.”

THIS is the moment a Ukraine naval drone strikes one of Vladimir Putin’s key fuel sites sparking chaos in Russia.

The Salavat factory was hit for the second time in less than a week amid Volodymyr Zelensky’s soaring campaign against Russian oil.

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Footage shows thick black smoke billowing out of the facility as an inferno rages on the ground.

A second explosion, meanwhile, is seen pounding the building.

Locals reported hearing a “loud noise” before flames ravaged the surrounding area.

The Salavat refinery, considered a linchpin in Russia’s oil industry, was last hit on September 18 – causing a “massive explosion”, according to local media.

It’s just one of a number of facilities Ukraine has targeted in recent weeks as it steps up its campaign on Russian energy infrastructure.

The strikes have sparked chaos in Moscow with petrol stations reportedly not able to stockpile fuel.

Widely used petrol – such as Ai 92 and Ai 95 – are often unavailable, according to reports.

One employee at a petrol station in the western Belgorod suggested the oil crisis had reached a tipping point, with stations forced to close “because there was no gasoline”.

She told Reuters: “The station in the neighbouring village also closed, and others simply ran out of gasoline.”

Moscow has been forced to ban fuel exports for six months, sacrificing vital revenue just to stop unrest at home.

Military intelligence expert Philip Ingram MBE previously explained how “Putin’s greatest fear” is “the Russian people rising up.”

Before the invasion, energy exports made up around 40 per cent of the Kremlin’s budget.

Even under sanctions, oil and gas still bring in 30 per cent of Russia’s income.

He showed how Ukraine has zeroed in on this “river of oil money” with pinpoint strikes hundreds of miles inside Russian territory.

Long-range drones have torched colossal refineries, exploded pumping stations and set storage tanks ablaze – systematically dismantling Moscow’s refining capacity.

The campaign has shattered Russia’s aura of invulnerability, exposed its sprawling oil empire as a fatal weakness, and brought the war crashing into the lives of ordinary Russians.

And as Ingram puts it: “It proves that in modern warfare, the most effective battle plans aren’t always about brute force on the tactical frontline, but about finding your enemy’s single point of failure – and striking it again and again with unrelenting precision.”

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It comes as Donald Trump announced in his keynote speech at the UN General Assembly that Ukraine could win back “every inch” of its territory with Russia.

In a major pivot from his previous stance on the three-and-a-half-year conflict, Trump also dismissed Russia’s military strength and mocked its inability to beat Ukraine in just a few days.

Posting on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said Ukraine “may be able to take back their country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that”.

Trump’s Vlad-bashing follows months of growing frustration at Putin’s refusal to end the offensive in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov hit back at Trump’s insults, particularly those levelled at the Russian economy.

“The phrase ‘paper tiger’ was used in relation to our economy,” he said.

“Russia is more associated with a bear. And paper bears don’t exist.

“Russia is a real bear.”

Peskov did, however, admit that the Russian economy had faced “tensions”.

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Ukraine has worsened fuel shortages across Russia in the past week as it has continued to hit Russia’s refineries and energy infrastructure with long-range drones while Poland has called for more oil sanctions in the wake of Russia’s first drone attack on NATO soil.

In the meantime, Russia’s creeping advance resulted in the capture of three villages over the past week, and perhaps for the first time, Ukraine’s command reacted by dismissing the retreating officers.

Russian forces took the villages of Sosnovka and Novonikolayevka in Dnipropetrovsk and Olhivske/Olgovskoye in Zaporizhia.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on Monday fired the two officers in charge of the 17th and 20th army corps, which are based in the two respective regions.

Since 2024, Ukraine has fought through slow, tactical retreats designed to cede limited ground for disproportionately high Russian casualties.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, has estimated that in May, June, July and August, Russia took 1,910sq km (737.5sq miles) of Ukrainian territory at a cost of 130,000 casualties, averaging 68 casualties per square kilometre.

Syrskyi’s dismissals could indicate a tougher approach towards land losses going forward.

Russian forces were suffering “significant losses” in Kupiansk and Dobropillia, two of the hottest points along the front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Ukrainian defenders were advancing towards the Russian border in Sumy in northern Ukraine, he said.

Ukraine’s strategy – not purely defensive

Ukraine has launched a two-pronged strategy this year to choke off fuel supplies to the Russian economy and military and to kill Russian revenues from energy exports.

“The most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the Ukrainian people on Sunday.

“Russia’s war is essentially a function of oil, of gas, of all its other energy resources,” he said.

That day, Ukraine crippled Russia’s second largest refinery when its drones struck a processing unit accounting for 40 percent of the plant’s capacity.

Russian authorities said they shot down 361 drones, suggesting there were many other targets as well.

Industry sources told the Reuters news agency that the Kirishinefteorgsintez refinery, located in the northwestern town of Kirishi, would boost production at other units. Even so, the refinery could operate only at three-quarters of its capacity.

Last year, it produced 7.1 million tonnes of diesel and 6.1 million tonnes of fuel oil for ships.

Two days after the Kirishi strike, Ukraine’s military reported it also struck the Saratov refinery, which supplies the Russian military.

There is mounting evidence that the first prong of Ukraine’s strategy is working.

Russian state newspaper Izvestiya reported last week that fuel shortages had spread to 10 Russian republics and regions, including the central regions of Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov and Rostov as well as occupied Crimea.

Izvestiya’s report was based on interviews with the Russian Independent Fuel Union, an association of petrol station owners, which said many petrol stations had not received deliveries for several weeks and had been forced to shut down.

Regional governors have also recently confirmed fuel shortages.

Ukraine has struck at least 10 major Russian refineries this year, and the commander of its Unmanned Systems Forces estimated Russia has lost one-fifth of its refining capacity.

“The Russian war machine will only stop when it runs out of fuel,” Zelenskyy told the annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting in Kyiv on Friday. “And Putin will begin to stop it himself when he himself truly feels that the resources for war are running out.”

Fewer exports

The second prong of Ukraine’s strategy, choking off Russia’s cashflow from oil and fuel exports, has also been highly successful.

On Friday, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s largest oil offloading terminal at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, according to sources at Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).

The strike caused a fire at the pumping station and a ship moored next to it, forcing the terminal to suspend shipments, Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported.

Ukraine also struck pumping stations along the Transneft Baltic Pipeline System-2, which supplies crude oil to offloading terminals in the port of Ust-Luga, also in the Leningrad region.

“Oil and gas revenues have accounted for between a third and half of Russia’s total federal budget proceeds over the past decade, making the sector the single most important source of financing for the government,” Reuters said.

Russia has banned all exports of refined petroleum products since February and sought to increase exports of crude oil instead.

But even that goal may not be possible.

Russia’s biggest pipeline operator, Transneft, has reportedly told upstream oil producers they may have to cut their output because Ukrainian strikes have degraded its ability to store and carry oil to refineries and export terminals, according to three industry sources who spoke to Reuters.

Transneft dismissed the report as “fake news”.

EU seeks to end all imports

Poland called for a complete ban of Russian oil imports to the European Union after 19 Russian drones entered its airspace on September 10.

Most of the EU has banned Russian oil imports, but Hungary and Slovakia have an exemption until the end of 2027 because they said it’s cheaper for them to import oil via pipeline from Russia than to receive it through other EU countries.

That may change, the European Commission chief said on Tuesday. “The Commission will soon present its 19th package of sanctions, targeting crypto, banks, and energy,” President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media. “The Commission will propose speeding up the phase-out of Russian fossil imports.”

Ongoing sales of Russian energy to Europe have been a topic of concern.

Official EU imports of Russian oil have dropped by an estimated 90 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to estimates from the EU’s statistical service.

However, the EU never actually banned Russian gas, and the London-based think tank Ember has estimated it paid Russia $23.6bn for gas last year – almost $5bn more than it paid in military aid to Ukraine.

“I urge all partners to stop looking for excuses not to impose particular sanctions,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not want peace, he must be forced into it.”

Long Beach resident Ashley Likins was pages away from finishing “Onyx Storm,” the third installment in Rebecca Yarros’ fantasy book series, when a long-haired black kitten hopped into her lap.

Given the foster name Soup Enhancements, the cat was one of the rescues boarding at Cool Cat Collective, a cat-themed boutique at the eastern end of Long Beach’s Fourth Street Corridor. The store, which offers all manner of cat-themed merchandise from kitty treats to cat-printed coasters, doubles as a shelter for cats rescued by TippedEars, a local trap-neuter-return, or TNR, nonprofit.

These resident kittens at Cool Cat Collective spend most of their time in a luxury “catio” in the back corner of the boutique, but twice a month, they are released to roam about during after-hours fundraising events. A popular silent reading party, co-hosted by reading club LB Bookworms, mimics a cat cafe, and according to the book club’s founder, Martha Esquivias, the event has sold out nearly every month since its debut last November.

Deb Escobar reads a book as foster kitten Poolboy creeps around her during a silent reading night at Cool Cat Collective.

It was during the silent reading event in early August that Likins sat, second-guessing the decision she’d made a few days prior to adopt Soup Enhancements. She adored the cat; still, she worried she’d been impulsive and wasn’t truly ready for the responsibility of pet ownership.

But as she watched the kitten nod off in her lap, she glimpsed the future in which the pair would do this routine a thousand times over with Likins devouring a book and the cat sleeping soundly below.

“I’m not just in a kitten craze,” Likins recalled thinking to herself. “This is my cat.”

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It’s that kind of moment Jena Carr, 39, had dreamed of when she and her husband, Matt, 40, opened Cool Cat Collective last year.

Former Washington, D.C., restaurateurs, the Carrs moved to Long Beach in 2022 to be closer to Jena Carr’s family. Once they settled in, Carr threw herself into kitten rescue, a longtime interest. She started as a foster owner and kitten rescue volunteer before assisting TippedEars with its work tracking and capturing cats in Compton.

“Once you start realizing the extent of the cat overpopulation problem, you quickly realize that we can’t foster or adopt our way out of it,” Carr said, calling TNR “the solution that gets to the root of the problem.”

One day during peak kitten season, Carr was out with TippedEars co-founder Renae Woith when she was struck by the number of sick and injured cats on the streets and the challenges of understaffed rescues working to home them.

“It kind of got her wheels working, like, ‘What can I do as a business?’” Woith said.

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1. Foster kittens Bisque, Poolboy and Chauffeur play together during a silent reading night. 2. Foster kitten Sesame walks around a display in the store.

Almost a year later, Cool Cat Collective was born.

It was still warm outside on an early September evening as the last of the daytime visitors left the cat boutique. Once they were gone, Carr made her final touches for the night’s silent reading party: laying cushions in store corners and scattering toy mice across the floor.

In the catio, Poolboy, a domestic shorthair, licked a Churu treat from a visiting reader’s hand. When he and his siblings — all named after blue-collar jobs — arrived in late July, they were timid. But at this silent reading party, they bounded about the room, crawling on attendees’ laps between wrestling matches.

“It makes me so happy when the shy ones become social,” Carr said.

A sign hanging outside the catio tallied good news: 93 adoptions since July 2024. TippedEars co-founder Vita Manzoli said that’s about double the numbers the rescue used to see before the boutique opened.

TippedEars’ partnership with Cool Cat Collective has been a boon for the nonprofit, which receives 100% of the proceeds from the cat boutique’s “First Thursday” silent reading parties and “Third Thursday” doodle nights, which both cost $15 to attend. But it’s not only the financial support that has made a difference for TippedEars cats.

“We’ve gotten volunteers from them — donors, adopters, obviously, but the byproduct of that is really just educating people about the cat overpopulation crisis, what TNR is and how they can help,” Woith said.

Placing rescues at Cool Cat Collective, where they are comfortable and their personalities are on full display, has also allowed TippedEars to give them a better chance at being adopted.

“The cat they may not have looked twice at online, they now are the one [adopters are] taking home, because they actually got to meet them,” Woith said.

“This is a beautiful marrying of my interests,” silent reading party attendee Regan Rudman said of the event. “It also provides a great third space that we’re really missing nowadays.”

Carr has a spreadsheet of potential resident kittens always on her mind, so she’s eager to facilitate adoptions. But everyone is welcome at Cool Cat Collective, whether they’re looking to adopt or not.

“You don’t even have to be shopping,” Carr said. “That was part of our goal: to create a space with a really low barrier to access for people who are cat-curious or just need a little moment of cat joy in their day.”

Regan Rudman, a recent Long Beach transplant, can’t have a cat of her own for health reasons. Still, she visits Cool Cat Collective every month. She tried for three months to snag a ticket to the store’s silent reading night before she secured a spot for the September event.

“Getting to actually interact with cats in an environment that they feel comfortable in just makes my heart so happy,” Rudman said.

Rudman, who works at a publishing company, made an effort to focus on her book during the silent reading hour, but she also hoped her ruffled leg warmers would entice a curious kitten to come over.

“I think everyone is a little distracted by the cats,” said silent reading party attendee Mathilde Hernandez, who befriended foster cat Gumball.

Other attendees, lounging on cushions throughout the boutique, gazed down at their e-readers but peeked as cats bounced around like pinballs in their periphery.

Poolboy and sibling Chauffer, who would find their forever home together that weekend, were particularly rowdy. On the other hand, Bisque — from a litter Carr called “the Soups” — hid in a cardboard house for an hour before she finally stretched a paw out, like a jazz hand through the “front door.”

“There’s always some antic happening,” Carr said. “People are reading, but they also have one eye on the cats as they’re reading. I’d be curious asking people, like, how far into their book they actually get.”

Attendee Lien Nguyen, whose love for the kittens overrode her cat allergy, admitted she’d drop her book the second a cat came into her vicinity. But no matter how hard they tried, scarcely an attendee could successfully attract a kitten. The cats chose their company, not the other way around.

“Part of our goal was to create a space with a really low barrier to access for people who are cat-curious or, you know, just need a little moment of cat joy in their day,” said Jena Carr, co-founder of Cool Cat Collective.

“It was like rejection therapy whenever they went away,” Nguyen said.

That’s why Likins was so touched when Soup Enhancements found her at the August silent reading party. She nearly burst into tears, she said.

Later that evening, she was moved even more when her boyfriend, Max Mineer, bonded with his feline soulmate, Handyman. Happily, Handyman happened to be the only cat Soup Enhancements tolerated.

Now, the two cats live together in Likins and Mineer’s Long Beach apartment. They sleep together, clean each other and, despite being from different litters, generally behave like siblings.

The day Likins brought the cats home, staffers at Cool Cat Collective and TippedEars gave her every resource imaginable, including a 20% off coupon for Chewy products and scratch post recommendations. And there was an easy out: If anything went wrong, the couple could bring the cats back, no questions asked.

“It really made me trust them more to know that they were thinking to the future about these cats,” Likins said. “It wasn’t just a process of making sure that a cat got a home. It was making sure that a cat got a life.”

The deluge of conspiracy theories began almost the moment authorities revealed the text messages allegedly sent by the suspected assassin of right-wing American activist Charlie Kirk.

After prosecutors in the US state of Utah published alleged text exchanges between 22-year-old Tyler Robinson and his romantic partner on Tuesday, countless social media users, including numerous prominent influencers, cast doubt on their authenticity.

Some outright claimed that the texts, in which Robinson appears to confess to killing Kirk, had been fabricated by authorities.

Many of the posts suggested that the language and tone of the exchanges did not match someone of Robinson’s age, and the account of the shooting was too forthcoming and detailed to be believable.

Notably, at a time of extreme political polarisation in the US, the conspiracy theorising united figures on the left and right.

Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator and podcast host with millions of followers on X and YouTube, suggested the exchanges had been scripted to absolve Robinson’s transgender partner of any involvement in the shooting.

“This feels like a strategy they cooked up from watching too much TV,” Walsh said on X.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said that the partner, described as a “male transitioning to female”, had no advance knowledge of the crime and has been cooperating fully with authorities.

Steven Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former adviser, said on his podcast that he was “not buying” the texts, describing them as “too stilted, too much like a script”.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Majid Padellan, a progressive influencer who goes by Brooklyn Dad Defiant on social media, said he did not believe for “one second” that the texts had been written by Robinson.

“I didn’t know him personally, but I know that no 22 year old writes text messages like this,” Padellan said on X.

“This feels like that Steve Buscemi skateboard meme ‘How do you do, fellow kids?”’

Liberal commentator Joanne Carducci, who posts under the moniker JoJoFromJerz, noted that the official narrative around the assassination had prompted rare agreement across the ideological divide.

“No one is buying these text messages. No one on the left or the right,” Carducci said on X.

“We cannot agree on a damn thing anymore. But we agree on this. If that doesn’t speak volumes, nothing does.”

The Utah County Attorney did not respond to a request for comment about the claims online.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have become a routine feature of the reaction to high-profile acts of violence in the US in the polarised and trigger-happy landscape of social media and online forums.

After a gunman shot dead a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in June, right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that the shooting had been perpetrated by a left-wing extremist or carried out on behalf of the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz.

The alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, espoused staunchly conservative views on issues including abortion and LGBTQ rights.

The 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas; the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida; and the 2017 Las Vegas shooting all spawned right-wing conspiracy theories, including the claim that the attacks had been staged to give the US government a pretext to curtail gun rights.

While many conspiracy theories have been driven by a particular ideological faction, Kirk’s assassination is the latest event to fuel unfounded claims with “cross-ideological appeal”, said Eric Oliver, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies conspiracy theories.

Claims about Robinson fit the mould of theories about the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the pharmaceutical industry, which also cut across partisan and ideological lines, Oliver said.

“People are also really emotionally charged by this, both on the left and the right, and will often gravitate to stories that rationalise their fear, rage, or feelings of powerlessness,” Oliver told Al Jazeera.

The “extraordinary circumstances” of Kirk’s murder, including a relative lack of information about Robinson, had also left a vacuum that was being filled by people “already suspicious of anything either the government does or this administration does”, Oliver added.

The transcripts of Robinson’s alleged texts released by prosecutors provided some of the clearest indications yet of a possible motive for assassinating Kirk, who was lauded by conservatives but seen as an inflammatory figure on the left for his right-wing stances on immigration, abortion and transgender rights, among other issues.

Robinson allegedly told his partner that he had “had enough” of Kirk’s “hatred” and “some hate can’t be negotiated out”.

Authorities previously announced that they recovered bullet casings inscribed with a number of politically-charged and internet subculture-influenced messages, including “Hey fascist! Catch!”

Prosecutors, who allege Kirk was targeted over his “political expression”, have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and six other charges.

That the released details of Robinson’s alleged communication with his partner after Kirk’s assassination have only further fuelled conspiracies is not surprising, suggest experts.

“Many people have a worldview in which conspiracies are going on all the time and explain our social and political circumstances – those people believe lots and lots of conspiracy theories and exist on both the right and left,” said Joseph Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, whose research focuses on conspiracy theories.

And though conspiracy theorising has become rampant on social media, the platforms themselves are not the problem, Uscinski said.

“People have worldviews; some of those worldviews make conspiracy theories easy to believe, whether those people are on social media or not,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Conspiracy theories existed long before social media and may have been more prominent then. We have to remember that people seek out content on social media that they like; they are not necessarily persuaded by social media content as much as they are attracted to content that tells them what they already believe.”

THE EXACT amount of money each pensioner will get as their Winter Fuel Payment this year has been confirmed by the Department for Work and Pensions.

More than nine million people are set to receive the payment later this year.

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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed eligible people born before September 22, 1959 will automatically receive the funds.

It comes after the previous £300 payment was axed for millions of pensioners last winter and only those on certain benefits qualified.

The move triggered a massive backlash for Labour as some 10 million pensioners lost their winter fuel allowance in the benefit cut.

It saved the Treasury just £1.4 billion but caused a massive public outcry – and the government was forced to perform a half baked U-turn.

The PM cracked under pressure after a voter backlash.

It’s now been revealed that this year’s payment will be between £100 and £300, to help cover the cost of higher heating bills this winter.

The money will become available to most eligible pensioners in November or December.

The amount is determined by both age and household circumstances of a claimant over the qualifying period, which is the week of September 15 to 21.

Where you were born is also a contributing factor.

Letters can be expected for those who qualify for it in England and Wales in October or November.

The letter will provide details on how much money you will be offered, as well as which bank account the payment will go into – which is usually the same as where you receive State Pensions or other benefits.

DWP guidance states: “You’ll get a letter in October or November telling you how much Winter Fuel Payment you’ll get, if you’re eligible.

“If you do not get a letter but think you’re eligible, check if you need to make a claim.”

People in Scotland will not get Winter Fuel Payment as the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment has replaced it.

This scheme follows similar eligibility criteria as outlined by the DWP, but will be issued automatically by Social Security Scotland from the end of November.

The GOV.UK website provides further guidance on the scheme and how to be a claim.

It also warns people to be wary about scammers who may send out trick messages that provide a link to click on and make a claim.

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These are not official DWP messages and should be deleted.

So those eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment are people living in England and Wales born before September 22, 1959.

You will not be eligible if:

• you live outside England and Wales
• you were in hospital getting free treatment for the whole of the week of September 15-21, 2025 and the year before
• you need permission to enter the UK and granted leave says you cannot claim public funds
• you were in prison for the whole of the week of September 15-21

It is possible for people living in a care home to get the Winter Fuel Payment.

However, there are two factors that if combined mean you will not be eligible.

This is if you are on Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Alloance (JSA) or income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), whilst having lived in a care home during since June 23, 2025 or earlier.

If you live alone, or none of the people you live with are eligible for Winter Fuel Payment:

• you will get £200, if you were born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• you will get £300, if you were born before September 22, 1945

If you live with someone else who is eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment:

• £100 if you and the person you live with were both born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• £100 if you were born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959 but the person you live with was born before September 22, 1945
• £200 if you were born before September 22, 1945 but the person you live with was born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• £150 if you and the person you live with were born before September 22, 1945

Your payment will also be different if you are receiving other benefits payments.

• £200 if you were born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• £300 if you were born before September 22, 1945

If you and a partner jointly claim any benefits, one of you will get a Winter Fuel Payment of:

• £200 if both of you were born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• £300 if one or both of you were born before September 22, 1945

The money will be paid into the bank account where benefits are usually paid into.

Care home residents that are eligible will get:

• £100 if you were born between September 22, 1945 and September 21, 1959
• £150 if you were born before September 22, 1945

Those with an income of more than £35,000 will have all of their Winter Fuel Payments returned by the HMRC, either through PAYE or submitting a Self Assessment tax return.

The DWP has said: “If you do not get a letter or the money has not been paid into your account by 28 January 2026, contact the Winter Fuel Payment Centre.”

It is also possible to opt out of the Winter Fuel Payment, either by completing an opt out form by September 14, or calling the helpline before 6pm on September 12.

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The cancellation is Trump’s latest move against renewable energy, which the US president has dismissed a ‘scam’.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has moved to cancel $679m in federal funding for offshore wind projects, in its latest salvo against renewable energy.

The move on Friday is set to affect 12 offshore projects, including a $427m project in California, as Trump pushes to deregulate and re-prioritise fossil fuels.

In a statement, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the funding was a waste of money “that could otherwise go towards revitalising America’s maritime industry”.

“Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritising real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little,” he said.

The funding had been awarded under the administration of former President Joe Biden as part of a wider pivot towards green energy.

Among the cancellations was funding for The Humboldt Bay project, which was meant to be the first offshore wind terminal on the Pacific coast.

A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has emerged as a leading state opponent to Trump, criticised the action as an example of the administration “assaulting clean energy and infrastructure projects – hurting business and killing jobs in rural areas, and ceding our economic future to China”.

The cuts include a $47m grant for an offshore wind logistics and manufacturing hub near the Port of Baltimore in Maryland, as well as $48m awarded in 2022 for an offshore wind terminal project near New York’s Staten Island.

Also cut was $33m for a port project in Salem, Massachusetts, to redevelop a vacant industrial facility for offshore wind projects.

In a statement, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said cancelling the Salem grant will cost 800 construction workers their jobs.

“The real waste here is the Trump administration cancelling tens of millions of dollars for a project that is already under way to increase our energy supply,” she said.

The latest trimming comes after the Trump administration abruptly halted construction of a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Department of the Interior said the move was necessary to address national security concerns, without providing further details.

In early August, the Interior Department also cancelled a major wind farm in Idaho, which had been approved in the final days of Biden’s presidency.

Multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy and Commerce, said they are reviewing offshore wind farms approved by the Biden administration along the Atlantic coast.

Trump has regularly lashed out at green energy, and particularly wind power, calling it an ugly and expensive form of energy that “smart” countries do not use.

Yet, foreign allies and rivals alike have increasingly embraced renewable energy in an effort to slow the ravages of climate change. China, for instance, has invested heavily in solar and wind energy and has become a leading source for wind turbine parts.

Critics have said Trump’s approach will set the US back behind its competitors.

Last week, as US electricity prices rose at more than twice the rate of inflation, Trump falsely blamed renewable power for the skyrocketing prices, calling the industry a “scam”.

On Tuesday, he pledged not to move forward with any wind power projects.

“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up unless there’s a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

The addition of girls flag football is helping fuel rising participation in high school sports nationally, with a record 8,260,891 boys and girls having participated in the last school year, according to the annual survey from the National Federation of State High School Assns. released on Monday.

There were 68,847 girls playing flag football, a 60% increase from the previous year.

Girls sports led the increases, including wrestling rising 15%.

Football remains the most popular boys sports at 1,001,039. Track and field tops girls sports at 513,808.

Girls flag football has been rising in popularity in Southern California. In the Los Angeles City Section, there are now more flag football teams (91) than 11-man football teams (71).

Police say four people were killed and 500 others arrested at protests in the capital, Luanda.

At least four people were killed and hundreds were arrested during a protest against a fuel price hike in Angola’s capital, police said.

The protests erupted on Monday in response to the government’s decision earlier this month to raise the price of diesel by 30 percent, which led to large hikes in fares by minibus taxis, an important method of transport for many Angolans.

Gunfire could be heard in central Luanda’s Cazenga area, where people were seen taking food and other items from shops.

Social media images showed clashes in the Rocha Pinto suburb near the airport, as well as in the Prenda area.

Police said in a statement on Tuesday that hundreds of arrests were made in connection with rioting, vandalism and looting of shops. Cars and buses were damaged and roads were blocked.

Transport in Luanda remained suspended and shops closed on Tuesday.

The government’s decision to raise heavily subsidised fuel prices from 300 to 400 kwanzas ($0.33 to $0.44) per litre has caused anger in Angola, one of Africa’s top oil producers, where many people live in poverty.

Minibus taxi associations, which in turn hiked their fares by up to 50 percent, launched a three-day strike to protest the move beginning on Monday.

“We are tired … they must announce something for things to change … for us to live in better conditions,” a protester told Angola’s TV Nzinga.

“Why do you make us suffer like this? How will we feed our children? The prices have to go down,” a woman said, addressing President Joao Lourenco.

Deputy Commissioner Mateus Rodrigues told reporters in a briefing about Monday’s violence that the police “currently report four deaths”. He did not specify how they occurred.

Police arrested 400 people overnight for suspected involvement in the unrest after arresting 100 on Monday, Rodrigues said. About 45 shops were vandalised, while 25 private vehicles and 20 public buses were damaged, he added. Banks were also targeted.

Protests have been taking place since the announcement of the diesel price hike on July 1.

Human Rights Watch said police had used excessive force in a July 12 protest, including firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

Angola has been gradually cutting fuel subsidies since 2023, when protests over a petrol price hike also turned deadly.

Manila, Philippines – When former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March, Sheerah Escuerdo spoke to a local television station, welcoming the politician’s detention on charges of murder linked to his war on drugs.

Escuerdo, who lost her 18-year-old brother, Ephraim, to Duterte’s war, clutched a portrait of her sibling during the interview with News 5 Everywhere as she demanded justice for his killing.

Days later, she was shocked to find an AI-generated video of her slain brother circulating on Facebook, in which he said he was alive and accused his sister of lying.

“I’m alive, not dead. Are they paying you to do this?” the computer-generated image of Ephraim said.

The video, posted online by a pro-Duterte influencer with 11,000 followers, immediately drew thousands of views on Facebook.

One of the comments read, “Fake drug war victims”.

It was Escudero and her brother’s image from her News 5 Everywhere interview that the influencer had used to falsify their family’s tragedy. The video has since been reposted countless times, spreading to other social media platforms and resulting in Duterte supporters hounding Escuerdo daily.

“I wake up to hundreds of notifications and hate messages,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The worst thing is reading comments of people who believe this is real!” she added.

The same kind of harassment has been levelled at other vocal drug war victims, especially those under the group Rise Up, who actively campaigned for the ICC’s intervention.

Duterte’s arrest in March came amid a bitter power struggle between the ex-leader and his former ally, the incumbent president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Their alliance collapsed last year due to disagreements over policy, including Marcos Jr’s courting of the United States. The president’s supporters are now leading an effort to impeach Duterte’s daughter, Sara, from her post as the country’s vice president.

As tensions have escalated, supporters of Duterte and Marcos Jr have stepped up digital smear campaigns, using disinformation. Apart from fake accounts and doctored images, the disinformation mix has noticeably included AI-generated content.

Both the Marcos Jr and Duterte clans have been known to deploy disinformation tactics. Marcos Jr won the election in 2022 following a disinformation campaign that sought to whitewash his father Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal rule during the 70s and 80s.

But fact-checkers and experts say the recent uptick in posts peddling false narratives can be attributed more to the Duterte camp.

Disinformation nation

Victims of the drug war, their families, supporters and even their lawyers say incessant online disinformation has targeted them.

In a statement, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), which represents Rise Up, a group of drug war victims, said the “online hate” was being “directed at widows, mothers, and daughters of drug war victims, attempting to intimidate them into silence”.

Both NUPL and Rise Up have now formally requested the government to investigate the increasing online harassment.

The campaign by Duterte’s supporters aims to discredit the ICC, demonise their detractors and paint their family as persecuted victims leading to and after the May 2025 mid-term polls, according to Danilo Arao, mass media expert and convener of election watchdog Kontra-Daya.

“The Duterte camp aims to deodorize the image of both patriarch and daughter. They will resort to disinformation to get what they want, even if it means twisting certain data,” Arao told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to posts circulating online that the ICC consented to grant Duterte’s request for an interim release, which in reality was denied.

The surge in disinformation has caused worry among Filipinos.

A report released in June by Reuters Digital News found that a record number of Filipinos – nearly 7 out of 10 – were more concerned with disinformation than ever before.

In the same month, Duterte-allied senator, Ronald Dela Rosa, shared an AI-generated video on his official Facebook page. The video, which showed a young man criticising the “selective justice” targeting Sara Duterte, was posted on June 14, garnering at least 8.6 million views before it was taken down.

The vice president defended the video, saying there’s “no problem sharing an AI video supporting me as long as it’s not for profit”.

Arao, the mass media expert, countered, saying the politician is trying to normalise disinformation, and that she “badly needs media literacy”.

Tsek.ph, the Philippines’ pioneer fact-checking coalition, noted that fact checks on posts about Duterte’s ICC arrest over a six-week-period account for almost a quarter of the 127 news articles curated by the group.

The figure surpasses the two dozen pieces of news related to Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

On Sara Duterte’s deepfake defence, Tsek.ph coordinator Professor Rachel Khan told Al Jazeera that “for the educated, it reinforces their already tainted image of disregarding truth. But for followers, it could reinforce the dictum that ‘perception is truth.’”

In reality, the popularity of the Duterte family has waned significantly.

Opinion and approval surveys conducted in March indicate that at least 51 percent of the public want Rodrigo Duterte to be tried for his alleged crimes. Likewise, polls in June found that at least 66 percent of people want Sara Duterte to confront allegations of corruption against her through an impeachment process.

AI growth

The government of last year launched a task force to mitigate disinformation and the use of AI. However, spikes in disinformation were already noticeable in December as the Marcos-Duterte rivalry heated up.

Tsek.ph tracked the increasing use of AI in disinformation before the mid-term elections held in May this year. It found that from February to May, out of 35 unique altered claims, nearly a third “likely involved deepfake technology to impersonate public figures or distort reality”.

“This is a problem of human behaviour, not AI. It’s a disinformation influence operations problem, exacerbated by the unethical usage of AI tools,” Carljoe Javier, executive director of Data and AI Ethics PH, told Al Jazeera.

All mainstream political forces in the Philippines have, to some extent, deployed AI technologies to boost their agendas. The latest OpenAI Safety Report revealed that Comm&Sense, a Manila-based tech firm, used AI for a campaign using thousands of pro‑Marcos Jr and anti‑Duterte comments across Facebook and TikTok.

Besides generating content, the firm also used AI to analyse political trends and even draft public relations strategies.

The report said Comm&Sense manufactured TikTok channels to post identical videos with variant captions while handling shell accounts to post comments and boost engagement.

The use of AI to outline plans, not just create content, marks a shift away from the Marcos Jr administration employing troll armies as he did in his 2022 campaign.

“If you have the resources and the bully pulpit of the government, you can afford to keep on swatting the Dutertes and their partisans for whatever statements they have made against the Marcos government,” said Joel Ariate Jr, a researcher tracking political developments at the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

“If you put AI in the hands of an already good public relations or marketing team, the capacity for disinformation is amplified by so much. They can have one message and instantly generate 20 different versions of it,” explained Javier.

The Philippines has several pieces of legislation in congress concerning the responsible use of AI. For a healthy policy approach, Javier believes that technical and ethical experts would be crucial.

He said he hoped the country’s leaders can take important steps, but said he has doubts about their appetite for ethical AI legislation.

“Is there enough push for legislators to advance a policy given that they may be benefitting from the current state of political operations?” he asked.

India’s aviation agency tells airlines to investigate fuel switch locks on several Boeing models, including 787s and 737s.

India has ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models following last month’s deadly Air India crash.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Monday said it asked the airlines to investigate fuel switch locks on several Boeing models, including 787s and 737s.

The precautionary moves by India and several other countries came despite the plane maker and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) telling airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets were safe.

The locks have come under scrutiny following the June 12 crash of an Air India jet, which killed some 260 people – the worst such disaster on Indian soil.

A preliminary report on the crash by Indian authorities did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the disaster, but indicated that one pilot asked the other why he cut off fuel, and the second pilot responded that he had not.

The report noted a 2018 advisory from the FAA, which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.

In recent days, the Air India Group started checking the locking mechanism on the fuel switches of its 787 and 737 fleets and has discovered no problems yet, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

About half the group’s 787s have been inspected and nearly all its 737s, the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity since the source was not authorised to speak to the media. Inspections were set to be completed in the next day or two.

Precautionary checks

The Air India crash preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the FAA’s suggested inspections, as the FAA’s 2018 advisory was not a mandate.

But it also said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.

In an internal memo on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out.

Some airlines around the world have been checking relevant switches since the 2018 advisory, including Australia’s Qantas Airways and Japan’s ANA.

Others said they had been making additional or new checks since the release of the preliminary report into the Air India crash.

Singapore Airlines said on Tuesday that precautionary checks on the fuel switches of its 787 fleet, including planes used by its low-cost subsidiary Scoot, confirmed all were functioning properly.

Flag carrier Korean Air Lines also said on Tuesday it had proactively begun inspecting fuel control switches and would implement any additional requirements the Ministry of Transport may have.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was headed to London from Ahmedabad in western India when it crashed, killing all but one of the people on board as well as 19 people on the ground.

July 11 (UPI) — The fuel switches to both engines on the Air India Flight 171 moved to the “cutoff” position immediately before the crash that killed 260 after taking off on June 12.

The two switches that control the fuel supply to the two jet engines on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were switched to the off position as the aircraft took off, a preliminary report released by investigators on Friday, The Seattle Times reported.

The engines shut off within a second of one another, which caused the aircraft to crash just a mile away from the Ahmedabad, India, airport, India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said in the preliminary report.

The crash killed 241 passengers and crew, plus 19 others on the ground, but one person survived the disastrous crash.

“Air India stands in solidarity with the families and those affected by the AI 171 accident,” the company said in a statement. “We continue to mourn the loss and are fully committed to providing support during this difficult time.”

Airline officials are working with investigators and other authorities to determine the exact cause of the crash, according to the unattributed statement.

The investigation into its cause has focused on the two fuel-control switches that are located in the aircraft’s cockpit, which investigators said were changed from the “run” position to “cutoff,” according to CNN.

“In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other, ‘Why did he cut off'” the fuel supply to the engines, the report says. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”

The aircraft had attained a speed of 180 knots, or about 207 mph, when first one and then the other switches were changed to the cutoff position about a second apart, which caused the aircraft to lose its lift and crash, investigators said.

The switches were returned to the “run” position, but it was too late, and one of the pilots called out, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” the report says.

The flight was bound for London’s Gatwick Airport but was airborne for only 32 seconds and crashed just a mile from the airport.

The flight’s captain was a 56-year-old male with more than 15,000 hours of flight experience, and the flight’s first officer was a 32-year-old male with more than 3,400 hours of flight experience.

The captain and first officer tested negative for intoxicating substances before the flight, the aircraft was in good condition and its weight was within acceptable limits, according to the preliminary report.

The flight took off at 1:30 p.m. local time and was scheduled to land in London about five hours later.

Crash victims include 169 from India, 53 from the United Kingdom, seven from Portugal and one from Canada.

The lone survivor is from the United Kingdom and escaped through an opening in the fuselage.

The aircraft was built at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., facility, recorded its first flight in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in 2014.

The 787 Dreamliner is Boeing’s smallest wide-body commercial aircraft and holds up to 242 passengers and crew.

The preliminary report was released 30 days after the crash in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s guidelines, which requires receipt of such reports within 30 days of a fatal crash.

Investigators from the United States and the United Kingdom are assisting the investigation.