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The mayor of Como has banned riding bicycles in certain areas of the historic Italian city after he was hit by an electric one.

Alessandro Rapinese said the ban was necessary to improve public safety. It means from September, cyclists will have to dismount through an area of around 30 streets.

He told Italian news agency Ansa: “People act based on their own experiences and I know what it’s like to be hit by one of these beasts.”

Several other local authorities around Europe, including in the UK, have restricted where and how e-bikes and other single-person vehicles can be used.

The measure put forward by Rapinese is part of a package of new traffic regulations, establishing a Limited Traffic Zone (ZTL) to manage tourist growth, and which impose stricter rules on cars and vans in the city centre.

Many of the roads covered by the ban are the widest in the old town and are popular with delivery drivers.

The measure applies to both electric and push bikes, as the Italian highway code does not distinguish between models.

Rapinese explained his decision in a video as part of a series of online videos he produces himself, known as RapiNews24.

He recounted an incident in which he had been leaving city hall in July and collided with an e-bike shortly after his administration had discussed traffic restrictions in the city centre.

The cyclist involved in the collision has not been identified.

“In this case, I didn’t even end up in the hospital,” Rapinese said. “I was hit by a bike. I gathered information, and that’s where the measure came from.”

Walmart sales are slumping as US consumer spending pulls back, with the economic impact of tariffs and the United States’ tensions with Iran weighing on consumers, the big-box retailer’s most recent earnings report shows.

US same-store sales rose 2.6 percent in the second quarter, according to the company’s earnings released on Thursday, falling short of the 3.8 percent forecast by analysts at LSEG. That marked the slowest quarterly increase in six years.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said heightened petrol prices are to blame for the slowdown in spending.

“When fuel prices increase and get above $4, perhaps there’s a psychological impact to that … consumers are making trade-offs,” CFO John David Rainey said on a call with analysts on Thursday.

Prices are continuing to jump. The average price for a gallon (3.78 litres) of petrol rose to $4.10 on Thursday, up from $4.07 a week ago, according to the American Automobile Association, which tracks daily petrol prices. By comparison, the average price was $2.98 when the US and Israel first struck Iran.

The big-box retailer also said it expected $2bn in incremental fuel-related costs above its original guidance.

Sales dropped in Walmart’s US pharmacy business and also dipped elsewhere. Overall, quarterly revenue rose 3.4 percent, the slowest pace since the first quarter of fiscal 2023.

Consumers are spending more in the checkout line — 1.1 percent higher than the previous quarter — but it is still well below the 3.1 percent jump this time last year.

That comes as consumer inflation ticked up last month by 0.1 percent from the month prior and 3.4 percent from this time last year, according to the US Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The price of fresh fruit jumped 2.2 percent from a month ago, butter by 0.8 percent, and fresh fish by 1 percent, according to the BLS report.

This as overall retail sales dipped in July, dropping 0.6 percent, marking the biggest decrease since May 2025, according to the US Commerce Department data released last week.

Walmart also announced price cuts on Wednesday on 11,000 items, to be fuelled in part by the $2.9bn in tariff refunds it has received – a one-time boon – and a strategy also being deployed by rivals including Target.

Walmart said, however, that price changes took effect in July, so the effects might be more apparent in the company’s next earnings report.

“You don’t necessarily expect to have that offsetting benefit to the lower prices in the immediate period,” Rainey said.

However, fewer consumers are venturing into brick-and-mortar stores, with foot traffic increasing by 1.5 percent for the quarter, a drop from 3 percent in the previous quarter. However, Walmart’s e-commerce sales are on the upswing, with sales jumping 24 percent in the US.

As a result, Walmart upgraded its forecast for net sales growth, from 3.5–4.5 percent to 4–5 percent.

But that is limited because in-store sales are still the company’s premier offering.

“The bread and butter of the company is still in-store and in-person shopping,” Melius Research analyst Jacob Aiken-Phillips told the Reuters News Agency.

Mixed big-box earnings

Other big-box retailers also reported earnings in the last couple of days, with a pullback in consumer spending being an undertone. TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, reported sales growth of 1 percent for the quarter, a slowdown from 6 percent the quarter before.

“Our fear is that it relates to lower ticket [less purchases per shopping trip] given wider signs of consumer weakness and price increases over the last year-and-a-half,” William Blair analyst Dylan Carden told Reuters.

That comes alongside earnings from Target, one of Walmart’s closest competitors. On Wednesday, the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based big-box retailer reported net sales jumping 5.3 percent for the quarter compared to this time last year, at $26.5bn.

That was driven by a 3.6 percent rise in in-store traffic. The company has also cut prices over the last year on more than 10,000 items and received a $1bn tariff refund.

On Wall Street, Walmart is taking a hit on the heels of its earnings report, with shares down by 9.6 percent since the market opened. Other big-box retailers are lower, but not showing nearly as stark a drop. TJX stock was down 1.7 percent, and Target was down by 0.1 percent.

On July 23, Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians that Raytheon wanted to help produce Patriot interceptors on Ukrainian-linked lines. Five days later, Lockheed Martin signed a second license, this one for the PAC-3 MSE — the hit-to-kill missile that has spent three years picking Russian ballistic warheads out of the sky over Kyiv. For a moment it looked like a watershed: the United States handing a country still absorbing nightly missile and drone barrages the blueprint to build its own air defense. Then, within days, the story came apart in public. US Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said Washington would not allow Ukraine to build PAC-3s at all. Donald Trump called the technology transfer “a hard thing to give away.” NATO’s own envoy said no agreement would close before winter. Something had clearly been decided. Nobody could agree on what.

The Patriot system is the closest thing the West has to a proven shield against ballistic missiles, and it is scarce almost everywhere it is needed. Roughly twenty countries now compete for a production line that turns out about 650 PAC-3 MSE interceptors a year worldwide — Lockheed Martin’s entire global output, shared among Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, Gulf states and the US Army’s own depleted stocks. Russia, meanwhile, has been firing 55 to 60 Iskander ballistic missiles a month at Ukraine alone, before counting the nightly Shahed drone waves that push crews to expend scarce interceptors on cheaper threats out of necessity. The Pentagon has spent much of the past two years quietly rationing Patriot allocations across allies, reportedly diverting orders meant for Taiwan and Ukraine to replenish American stockpiles. Against that backdrop, “Ukraine will build its own Patriots” is not primarily a sovereignty story. It is a story about whether the system that makes Patriots for everyone else can keep up at all.

What the deal actually requires

Start with what was actually signed, because the headlines overstate it. Raytheon’s license covers the PAC-2 GEM-T, an older blast-fragmentation interceptor effective against aircraft and cruise missiles. Lockheed Martin’s covers the PAC-3 MSE, the missile that actually stops Iskanders and Kinzhals. Neither license includes the radar, the fire-control system or the launchers; those still come from existing Patriot batteries. And neither company has committed to building these missiles on Ukrainian soil in the near term. Reporting from Reuters and Ukrainian officials both point to Germany, which already runs its own PAC-2 line, as the likely first production site, with capacity shifting to Ukraine only “after the war ends.” What was announced in July, in other words, is not a factory. It is paperwork that keeps a door open.

Even so, the paperwork matters, because of what it concedes. Every PAC-3 MSE round carries a 24-month production lead time for the missile itself and 30 months for its solid rocket motor. Boeing manufactures every active radar seeker that guides it from a single facility in Alabama, capped at 650 to 700 units a year — a bottleneck no amount of Ukrainian factory floor changes. Aerojet Rocketdyne is the sole source for the motor. These are not obstacles a co-production agreement dissolves; they are structural limits on how fast the United States can arm anyone, Ukraine included. A government does not open its most tightly export-controlled missile program to a country still under nightly bombardment unless it has concluded that the existing pipeline, working alone, cannot meet demand. That is the admission buried in the announcement: not that Ukraine’s industrial base is ready, but that Lockheed’s and Raytheon’s are strained, and Washington needs help from a country it would ordinarily be supplying, not licensing.

The contradictions among American officials sharpen the point rather than undermine it. Whitaker’s flat denial that Ukraine would ever build PAC-3s, arriving days after Zelensky announced the license, is not really about Ukraine’s trustworthiness. A Republican congressional official close to the process gave the more candid version: the manufacturers are less worried about Ukraine leaking American technology to Moscow than about Ukraine improving on it and producing it “at scale, faster and for much less money.” That fear has a track record behind it. Fire Point’s Flamingo cruise missile, built in Ukraine during the war, reportedly costs around $600,000 — roughly a sixth of a Tomahawk and a fraction of a $2 million PAC-3 ACE round — while Ukraine’s home-grown Freyja interceptor is priced at roughly a fifth of the Patriot missile it is meant to substitute for. A country that has spent three years learning to manufacture air defense under fire, at a fraction of Western unit costs, is not the industrial partner a legacy prime wants loose inside its own supply chain. The reluctance is commercial before it is strategic.

The strongest objection to this reading is that Kyiv already produces a large share of its own weapons, so extending that into Patriots is a natural next step rather than a crisis signal. Zelensky puts the domestically produced share of Ukraine’s frontline weapons at close to 60 percent, up from roughly 40 percent a year earlier — drones, the Bohdana howitzer, the Neptune and Flamingo missiles. That is true, and it matters. But those are systems Ukraine designed and built from scratch under wartime pressure, with no legacy export-control regime standing in the way. Patriot is different: it is Washington’s most sensitive interceptor program, run by companies that have spent decades keeping production onshore for precisely the security reasons Whitaker cited. Handing over any piece of it, even nominally, to a country under active bombardment breaks with everything the export-control system was built to prevent. That the United States is doing it anyway — however slowly, however contested internally — says less about confidence in Ukraine than about how thin the interceptor pipeline has become.

Three ways this goes

What happens next depends on which of the deal’s obstacles proves harder to move: engineering or politics.

Base case (our estimate: roughly 55 percent probability). The license survives, but production stays offshore. Germany’s existing PAC-2 line absorbs the first Ukrainian-linked output sometime in 2027; Lockheed and Raytheon leave the seeker and motor bottlenecks unresolved; and Zelensky’s own target of “production capability by the end of 2026” slips the way most Patriot-related deadlines have slipped since 2022. The deal functions mainly as a signal — to Moscow, to Congress, to the manufacturers themselves — that the West is willing to widen its supplier base, without actually widening it before the war’s most dangerous phase has passed.

Downside case. Export-control friction, not battlefield risk, kills momentum outright. Boeing declines to license seeker technology, Congress balks at formally notifying an ITAR transfer into an active conflict zone, and the agreement quietly becomes what several earlier Patriot-adjacent announcements already have: a signed memorandum with no factory behind it. Unable to close its ballistic-missile gap through licensed production, Ukraine leans harder into Flamingo and Freyja — cheap and available, but not full substitutes for hit-to-kill interception. Iskander and Kinzhal strikes on Ukrainian cities continue at close to current tempo through 2027.

Upside case. Ukraine’s wartime manufacturing culture forces the restructuring the primes have been resisting. Facing a credible cheaper competitor, Lockheed and Raytheon accelerate second-sourcing of seekers and motors — the actual chokepoints — to defend market share rather than out of goodwill toward Kyiv. Patriot output rises for every operator, not only Ukraine, and Kyiv becomes the proving ground for a lower-cost interceptor variant that outlives the war. This is the scenario in which an admission of scarcity turns into a fix for it — plausible, but it requires the manufacturers to treat competition, not politics, as the threat that finally moves them.

The takeaway

So: is licensing Patriot production to a country under bombardment an admission? Yes — but not the one the announcements were built to convey. It does not say Ukraine’s industrial base has arrived. It says the American one has not kept pace with a war of attrition it did not plan for, and that Washington is now willing to test its most sensitive export controls against the same scarcity that has Israel, Taiwan and its own Army competing for the same missiles.

Watch for: whether groundbreaking on a German or Polish production line actually begins before the end of 2026 — Zelensky’s own deadline for “technical capability.” If it hasn’t started by then, treat every subsequent announcement as the political theatre this one increasingly resembles: a scarcity confession dressed up as an industrial handshake.

A first group of deportees, out of an expected total of 1,200, has landed at the Roberts International Airport in Monrovia, Liberia, from the United States.

Thursday’s flight is part of an expanding trend of third-country deportations under the administration of US President Donald Trump, whereby foreign nationals are sent to countries that are not their own.

The inaugural flight carried 20 people, largely from Latin American countries like Venezuela and Cuba.

After landing, the group boarded a bus and was taken away by Liberian authorities without being allowed to speak to reporters.

The flight follows an agreement, announced on Tuesday, between the US and Liberia that will bring up to 1,200 deportees to the African country over the coming year.

Liberia is part of a growing list of countries striking agreements with the Trump administration.

Since taking office for a second term as US president in 2025, Trump has inked deals with at least 35 countries to accept third-country deportees, according to the nonprofit Human Rights First.

In exchange, some of those countries have received financial aid and trade deals. Senate Democrats in February estimated that at least $40m had been spent on such deals in the first year of Trump’s second term.

The US, for example, awarded Liberia $5m this year for “migration management activities”.

But in announcing the transfer deal earlier this week, Liberia’s Ministry of Information denied any reports that it agreed to the deportations for financial motives.

“The transfer of persons to Liberia is not a transaction with a quid pro quo,” the ministry said in a statement. “Liberia has not demanded or received any compensation or promise of reward in exchange for its consent to participate in the program.”

Liberia’s Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah also told the news agency Reuters that the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations refugee agency would help provide services for the deportees.

Those brought to Liberia will be allowed to apply for asylum and are “free to depart the country when they so desire”, according to Tuesday’s statement.

Liberia has said that the deportees are not “criminals and are not being prosecuted in any manner”.

“Liberia, the first black African independent nation on the African continent, has a long history of accepting people seeking refuge from political and other crises,” the ministry’s statement said.

“As a matter of fact, Liberia itself was founded as a refuge for freed slaves from the United States of America and other parts of the world.”

But critics have questioned whether smaller countries in Africa and elsewhere are being used as a “dumping ground” for US deportees, and whether the immigrants forcibly sent abroad will have adequate access to the resources they need.

Some have characterised such third-country deportations as excessively punitive, stranding migrants and asylum seekers in places where they sometimes cannot even speak the language.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has framed the third-party deportations as necessary for immigrants whose home countries will not accept them. It has also framed the removals as a form of deterrence.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo on Thursday estimated that, this year alone, roughly 2,300 Mexican citizens have been deported from the US to his country, as opposed to being sent directly to Mexico.

Media outlets, including CBS News, have reported that the manouevre is part of an effort to disincentivize Mexican nationals from returning to the US without legal immigration status.

Arevalo explained, however, that such deportees are swiftly sent back to Mexico. “They are arriving in planes of Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is process them as in transit, ‌in coordination with the Mexican immigration authorities,” he said.

Authorities were warned about dangers of hitting Mohammad Ghamira, who suffered from the rare medical condition haemophilia.

A Syrian police officer has been arrested and may be criminally prosecuted after an investigation found that he hit a detainee with a medical condition who died shortly after being released from custody.

Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday that Mohammad Ghamira, 29, died after being slapped by police investigator Ahmad Jawad, who has since been detained and referred to the public prosecutor.

Ghamira, who died on Sunday, suffered from haemophilia, a rare condition that prevents blood from clotting properly, making sufferers bleed more easily and for longer periods.

The father of two was a member of the White Helmets, the civil defence organisation made up of volunteers that operated in rebel-held areas in Syria. They went on search and rescue operations and provided medical care following government attacks.

The investigation found that Ghamira had told internal security personnel about his condition, while his wife twice informed authorities about the potential danger.

Ahmad Latouf, head of the investigation committee and assistant interior minister for police affairs, confirmed that Ghamira died after suffering a brain haemorrhage believed to have been caused by the slap.

Two other police officers are also being investigated but are not currently due to be prosecuted.

Ghamira’s death has provoked widespread anger among Syrians, reminding many of the gross human rights abuses that were systematic under former President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown by rebels in December 2024.

New leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised to usher in a new era, prioritising human rights and overseeing an inclusive government. However, human rights organisations have documented widespread abuses by government forces, particularly against minority groups.

Commenting on Ghamira’s death on Thursday, the Interior Ministry accused Jawad of violating ministerial instructions and the code of conduct, which strictly prohibit any form of humiliating or abusive treatment of detainees.

Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said in a statement that the investigation results showed the ministry’s “commitment to reaching the truth and holding accountable those proven to have overstepped”.

“We rose up against the former tyrant’s regime in rejection of injustice and impunity, and therefore, building a state of law begins with our ability to hold the wrongdoer accountable, to give restitution to the victim, and not to do injustice to anyone who has not been proven responsible” for wrongdoing, he said.

Reporting from Syria’s northwestern port city of Latakia, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett said the Syrian government has vowed to take further action.

“There will be surveillance put into police stations and better training provided to officers but they say all of this will take time,” Pett said.

“Part of the reason it has resonated so widely is because of who Mohammad was. He was a young man, 29 years old, and he had two children and was a volunteer with the White Helmets. They were basically seen as heroes. His father joined the revolution and so he’s a figure who many people here in his community and nationally respected,” she added.

“That’s part of why there’s been so much sadness and anger and it’s also [because of] the fact that Mohammad is not the first to be mistreated in detention by the new authorities. Syrian rights organisations have documented other cases of deaths in detention.”

Ghamira was arrested last week accused of theft. He was later released and died at a hospital in Latakia on Sunday.

During a forensic examination, medical experts found no visible signs of violence or severe force, as well as no skull fractures or traumatic wounds.

Fifteen years since the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya began, and with civil strife leading to the downfall of what was once one of Africa’s wealthiest countries, several actors are seeking to end the civil war and reunite the country.

Among them are the US, which has commercial interests in Libya’s oil fields. Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye are also pushing for a return to “One Libya”, after more than a decade of fighting between two rival authorities for control of the country.

Here’s what we know:

What happened 15 years ago?

The Libyan uprising erupted during the Arab Spring, when thousands of people in the port city of Benghazi took to the streets to protest against Gaddafi’s more than four decades of absolute power.

Violence against the demonstrations pushed the protesters into an armed rebellion against Gaddafi’s rule, with a civil war starting between the two sides.

A United Nations Security Council resolution authorised an international military intervention force – led by NATO members, the United States, United Kingdom and France – to enforce a no-fly zone and ensure the protection of civilians in Libya. This bombing campaign pushed back Gaddafi’s forces from Benghazi and aided the rebels in seizing territory.

Gaddafi was eventually captured and killed in October 2011, 42 years after he first seized power in a military coup that overthrew King Idris.

How is Libya divided?

Following Gaddafi’s death, a power vacuum emerged, with multiple groups – and their allied militias – competing for power.

Control of the country is now split between two rival administrations: the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dheibah, and the eastern, Tobruk-based administration backed by Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA).

The GNU is recognised by the UN and other countries, and officially has authority in the capital and western Libya.

Under Gaddafi, Haftar was exiled in the US for two decades where he holds citizenship.

His forces control vast resource-rich lands in the east, including the strategic port city of Benghazi, reportedly with the backing of Russia.

The UN began formal mediation efforts in 2020 under the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). This roadmap advocates for a three-track strategy that includes unifying the two rival administrations, presidential and parliamentary elections, and hosting national dialogue meetings.

The US was a key mediator behind the scenes, and in May 2021, appointed Ambassador Richard Norlan as Special Envoy to Libya, to lead high-level talks between the two sides.

What is the US’s new plan?

Under Massad Boulous, US President Donald Trump’s African and Middle Eastern affairs adviser, and father-in-law to Tiffany Trump, Washington is intensifying efforts to reunite the country. But this can only be achieved if both sides agree to form a single government.

According to leaked details, Trump’s initiative centres on the promise that if the rival governments cooperate, the US would encourage American investment in Libya’s sizable oil fields. This comes as the Libyan Central Bank, which is attempting to finance both authorities, sounds the alarm over the dire economic situation.

While Tripoli has international legitimacy, Haftar’s forces control the oilfields and terminals.

The US is also proposing a power-sharing deal that would see Dheibah continue to lead the government while Haftar’s son and LNA army chief, 35-year-old Saddam Haftar, serves as president.

There are obvious opportunities for US energy companies and economic and political incentives for European countries in a unified and stable Libya.

They include stopping irregular migration from Libya and other North African countries to the EU.

Some criticise the US-led plan as lacking input from the Libyan people. The deal, some say, could entrench the power of political dynasties, which might be best for long-term stability in Libya.

What have the results been?

There are signs that Haftar’s camp, at least, is on board with the US plan. Saddam Haftar, whose father, Khalifa, was based in Virginia until 2011, reportedly met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in DC in July.

Experts attribute the ongoing mediation efforts to the unified national budget of 2026, signed in April – the first in more than a decade.

However, there are still no talks or signs of a unified government forming.

What is Turkiye’s role?

Turkiye, which earlier deployed troops to support the GNU, has also made efforts to mediate between the two sides and is pushing a ‘One Libya’ policy.

Last month, Foreign Affairs Minister, Hakan Fidan, met with Saddam Haftar in Ankara. Earlier this month, Fidan travelled to both Tripoli and Benghazi for high-level talks with Dheibah and Khalifa Haftar.

What has Egypt done?

The Egyptian government has traditionally cooperated with Haftar’s Tobruk government, which is just across the border.

On Wednesday, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met with Khalifa Haftar in Cairo and discussed unification talks.

Earlier this month, Dheibah visited Cairo, while Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad travelled to Tripoli.

What is Qatar’s stance?

Qatar has largely backed the UN mediation channels in Libya: the UNSMIL and the UN roadmap for peace.

While it has good relations with the GNU, Qatar seeks stabilisation efforts led by Libyan parties and elections.

In April, Qatar and other states welcomed the unified budget for 2026. A statement issued by Qatar, Egypt, France, Germany and several others called for all parties in Libya to follow the UN roadmap to “advance a Libyan-led political process leading to unified governance and national elections.”

Mérida, August 19, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced the creation of the National Training Program for Construction Workers.

According to official sources, the initiative seeks to professionalize workers in key trades, including plumbers, masons, electricians, blacksmiths, and carpenters, to integrate them into housing and infrastructure projects amid the country’s post-earthquake recovery efforts.

The project is being coordinated by several institutions, including the Education and Labor Ministries, the INCES vocational training institute, and the “Venezuela Rises” program created by the government in the wake of the June 24 double earthquake. The training initiative will begin in Caracas and nearby areas.

Rodríguez, in a meeting with the government team, said that the people interested in this program “can register through the Homeland system. Registration will begin on August 24.” She also said that the persons “can be nominated by municipal administrations or at INCES offices throughout the country.”

She added that the program is “open to individuals with prior experience, training, or knowledge in this area, as well as those who wish to learn the trade.”

In parallel, the Venezuelan executive delivered 48 new apartments on Monday in the Ciudad Tiuna housing complex in Caracas to families who lost their homes in the recent earthquake. 

According to official figures, the government has assigned 335 homes to affected families so far, with authorities estimating that around 25,000 new homes will be needed for those displaced by the natural disaster. 

“By December we will have completed some 4,000 homes to hand over to those who are in the temporary camps,” the acting president pledged during Monday’s event in Ciudad Tiuna, one of the largest housing complexes of Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission (GMVV). 

Furthermore, in Ciudad Caribia, another major GMVV development, authorities are advancing in the construction of 1,000 new transitional homes where displaced families will relocate to while permanent housing projects are finalized.

Alongside the housing initiatives, the Rodríguez administration is also boosting credit programs for reconstruction projects. On Saturday, the acting president announced loans to 157 condominium boards in several parts of Caracas.

The subsidized credit line, part of the “Venezuela Rises” Plan, is intended for structural repairs, common area maintenance, and public utility fixes. The Venezuelan government has likewise launched loan programs for housing purchases.

According to the latest official figures released, the total death toll from the June 24 earthquake currently stands at 6,438 people. Authorities are presently focused on rubble removal operations, as well as controlled demolitions of buildings with heavily compromised structures in La Guaira State, the hardest-hit area.

Venezuela’s seismology institute FUNVISIS has registered over 1,400 aftershocks since the June tremors. The latest one, on Tuesday, had a magnitude of 4.0 with an epicenter located 10 kilometers northwest of La Guaira. There were no reports of damage.

New popular consultation scheduled

Alongside the post-earthquake recovery initiatives, Acting President Rodríguez also announced a new National Popular Consultation scheduled for October 18, 2026. It had originally been slated for October 11.

A prior consultation set for July was postponed following the double earthquake. 

The National Popular Consultation sees communities organized in communal circuits vote directly on local infrastructure and social projects to be funded by the national government. In prior editions, each winning project received US $10,000 of funding. According to Venezuelan officials, the upcoming vote will also extend to condominium boards and neighborhood associations.

In a conference call with government officials and grassroots spokespeople, Rodríguez emphasized that the consultations reinforce “the path of participatory and protagonistic democracy.”

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the top United States diplomat in Islamabad on Wednesday, hours after US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor described Indian-administered Kashmir as “an important part of India” during his first visit to the territory.

Islamabad rejected the remark and reasserted Kashmir’s status as disputed territory.

The visit by Gor, who also serves as President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, was the first standalone trip by a serving US ambassador to Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019, and the first since India stripped the territory of its autonomy that year.

His remarks were made publicly, alongside Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, adding to Islamabad’s irritation.

The episode also comes at a delicate moment for Washington’s ties with both South Asian rivals, as Pakistan courts Trump’s administration more closely than it has in years, and as the US tries to balance that relationship against its strategic partnership with India.

So, what exactly did the US ambassador say, why has it caused such offence, and does it change anything? Al Jazeera explains.

What did the US ambassador say?

Sergio Gor, a 38-year-old former Trump aide who was confirmed as US ambassador to India in January, spent two days in Srinagar and Ladakh this week.

After meeting Abdullah in Srinagar, he told reporters he was thrilled to be visiting “an important part of India” for the first time.

He also said Washington was reconsidering its “do not travel” advisory, citing improved security under Abdullah’s administration.

The advisory at the moment places Jammu and Kashmir at a “Do Not Travel” level, citing terrorism and civil unrest, though it exempts the eastern territories of Ladakh and Leh.

Islamabad’s response came the same Wednesday evening. The Foreign Ministry summoned Charge d’Affaires Natalie Baker, who currently heads the US mission in the country.

The ministry lodged what it called a “strong demarche”, rejecting the “characterisation of Indian-administered Kashmir as a ‘part of India’” and reasserting it as an internationally recognised disputed territory awaiting final disposition under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The statement called Gor’s remarks factually incorrect and said they negated Washington’s longstanding position on the dispute.

It also thanked Trump for his offer – made after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire ending their four-day war last year – to help resolve the Kashmir question, urging Washington to keep its public language consistent with that position.

Why does Kashmir trigger such a reaction?

Kashmir is a Himalayan region claimed by both India and Pakistan since British colonial rule ended in August 1947.

India and Pakistan each administer part of the territory but claim it in full and have fought several wars over it.

A UN Security Council resolution passed in 1949 called for the territory’s final status to be decided by a plebiscite, which has never been held.

In June, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas signed a joint statement with Pakistan’s foreign minister in Islamabad that bracketed Kashmir alongside the war in Ukraine and called for its resolution “through dialogue and diplomacy”.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the reference, saying those with no standing in the matter should refrain from commenting on it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn similar protests from Delhi at least twice after voicing support for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir.

Trump himself triggered a dispute in 2019 when, during a meeting with then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, he claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally asked him to mediate on Kashmir. Modi’s government swiftly denied the account in parliament.

For Pakistan, US language on Kashmir’s disputed status is an important external validation of its effort to internationalise the issue.

For India, meanwhile, any suggestion that Kashmir remains open to outside mediation cuts against the foundation of its position.

What has the US position been, historically?

The US has officially maintained that Kashmir is disputed and its status should be settled between India and Pakistan, taking into consideration the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

American officials have repeated some version of “our policy has not changed” across successive administrations, including in 2019, when a senior US diplomat told Congress that India’s move had not altered Washington’s view of the Line of Control as a “de facto” boundary.

Formally, Washington has avoided recognising sovereignty over the territory for either country.

A major turning point came in 1999, when President Bill Clinton told Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Pakistani forces would have to withdraw from Kargil in Indian-administered Kashmir, following the fighting there between the two countries in the region.

Analysts widely saw the episode as the beginning of Washington’s tilt towards Delhi.

But after the two countries’ most intense clash in decades last year, Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire and offered to “work with you both” on a Kashmir “solution”.

Pakistan welcomed the offer and nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. India rejected suggestions of US mediation, saying the ceasefire had been reached through direct military talks.

Jauhar Saleem, Pakistan’s former foreign secretary and president of the Islamabad-based Institute of Regional Studies, told Al Jazeera that Gor’s remark should not be mistaken for a change in US policy.

“US policy on a question as consequential as Jammu and Kashmir cannot be read from an off-the-cuff formulation during a visit by a US ambassador posted in India,” Saleem said. “Any change in policy would be reflected in Washington’s formal statements, State Department language and, in fact, should be at the level of the White House.”

He said such lapses were not new.

“Sometimes ambassadors fall prey to what we call ‘localitis’, and in an attempt to please their hosts can make comments entirely out of line with their country’s stated policy, creating unpleasant situations,” he said. “This is a classic example and has therefore evoked an expected strong demarche from Pakistan’s Foreign Office.”

Saleem said Trump’s repeated offers to mediate between Pakistan and India, “which was not appreciated in New Delhi”, showed that Washington’s position remained unsettled at the top rather than shifting towards India. “I would actually expect a clarification from Washington soon,” he added.

Will it affect Pakistan-US ties?

Saleem, who summoned a US ambassador in Islamabad during his tenure as foreign secretary in late 2022 over what he called “a very objectionable remark” by then-President Joe Biden, said a demarche was not primarily a tool to punish Washington. Biden had described Pakistan as “one of the most dangerous nations in the world”.

“A demarche is not just made to increase the cost of a policy; rather it is made to press a point and ask for an explanation,” the former ambassador told Al Jazeera. “The US response was constructive [then], and will be in this case as well, I believe.”

He said the Pakistan-US relationship was too broad-based for one ambassador’s remark to unsettle it, pointing to Pakistan’s role as a peacemaker between the US and Iran, economic cooperation, counterterrorism, regional security, Afghanistan, defence cooperation, “and of course Pakistan’s relationship with the Trump administration itself”.

Tariq Rashid Khan, a Pakistani former military general and diplomat, described the episode as “issue-specific boundary-setting”.

Islamabad’s protest, he told Al Jazeera, signals that a close strategic partnership with Washington “does not mean acceptance of any position on Kashmir contrary to Pakistan’s stated position”.

“Kashmir remains an unfinished agenda of the 1947 partition, which is why even one sentence can become strategically significant,” he said.

For Saleem, the significance lies less in Gor’s specific words than in what any drift in language could set in motion.

“Jammu and Kashmir is not just a territorial dispute; it is an issue of national identity, legitimacy and security for Pakistan,” he told Al Jazeera. “Neither Pakistan nor India can afford to let the international community’s vocabulary on Kashmir drift even slightly, because both sides believe that language today can become precedent tomorrow.”

Aizaz Chaudhry, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, told Al Jazeera he believed Gor’s remarks “might be his personal comments”, adding that the US position on the disputed territory is well known.

“Our demarche is only a reminder that the US envoy in Delhi must comply with the US position on the subject. The Kashmir dispute is a longstanding issue that must be resolved for the larger peace and stability of South Asia,” Chaudhry said.

History of the Buss family drama

Jerry Buss put together what was then thought to be a wild business deal to purchase the Lakers and related assets for $67.5 million in 1979.

Buss had a degree in chemistry, but his money came from real estate holdings and loans that moved between third parties to help him obtain the Lakers, Kings and the Forum from Jack Kent Cooke, who was going through a costly divorce.

Buss’ vision was to infuse Hollywood glamour into an NBA team few in Los Angeles seemed to care about, win championships and share that glory with his family.

Buss realized his Hollywood dream in more ways than he ever could have imagined, with his death in 2013 from complications from cancer touching off battles among his six children over control of the Lakers.

At least two siblings have tried to oust another from a leadership role. One sibling reportedly said two others never should have been born. And one sibling managed to fire the five others from jobs with the team.

The rifts mirror the HBO hit show “Succession.” Buss’ tenure and the family drama has been direct inspiration for two television shows and was chronicled in a docuseries the Lakers produced.

The latest daggers were delivered this week, with attorneys representing Buss’ daughter, Jeanie, admonishing her five siblings — Janie, Johnny, Jim, Joey and Jesse — for announcing the Buss Family Trust was selling its 17.8% ownership of the Lakers to new buyers Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner.

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Dodgers sweep the Rockies

From Maddie Lee: As Teoscar Hernández popped up from his slide across home plate, Mookie Betts retreated to first applauding.

While the long ball had been the key to the Dodgers’ earlier offensive success Wednesday, keeping it simple unlocked their 10th-inning push. And in the Dodgers’ 6-4 victory Wednesday, it was Betts’ third hit of the night, a low line drive through the middle of the infield, that widened the Dodgers’ lead to two runs.

“It was huge,” Betts said of completing the three-game sweep in Colorado. “Winning every ball game is important, especially now with the playoff race. Every game is important.”

The trip to hitter-friendly Mile High City, and a matchup against the last-place team in the NL West, came at the perfect time for the Dodgers, ending a collective slump. They’d just dropped three of four to the Brewers at Dodger Stadium, in what had already been a rough start to August.

“Obviously, we haven’t played our best baseball lately,” utility player Kiké Hernández said. “And as a good team, as a team that’s leading the division, … the teams at the bottom of the standings, you need to beat those guys.”

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels lose to Astros

Ethan Pecko struck out four in his major-league debut, five Houston relievers pitched shutout ball for five-plus innings and Christian Vázquez homered as the Astros beat the Angels 3-2 on Wednesday night.

Pecko, a 2023 sixth-round selection by Houston, was ranked ninth in the Astros’ system by MLB Pipeline. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up three hits, two runs and two walks in 3 2/3 innings. He was the 17th starter used by the Astros this season, tying a franchise record set in 1965.

Vázquez’s solo homer, his seventh of the year, put the Astros ahead in the third inning.

Denzer Guzman put the Angels ahead in the fourth with what initially appeared to be a three-run homer. But, the call was changed to a two-run double due to fan interference.

Walbert Ureña (8-9) worked five innings for the Angels, giving up three runs and three hits with seven strikeouts.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike to retire

From Marisa Ingemi: Nneka Ogwumike’s return to the Sparks this season, it turned out, was a goodbye tour.

The 15-year WNBA veteran announced on Wednesday morning that this would be her last WNBA season.

She made the announcement in an interview with Taylor Rooks at Boardroom Talks.

“I feel very fulfilled with the 15 years that I’ve been able to play and compete at such a high level and I am proud to say that I’m retiring from the WNBA,” Ogwumike said.

Drafted first overall in 2012, Ogwumike was the WNBA rookie of the year and went on to have one of the best careers in. league history. She was the league’s MVP in 2016, when she led the Sparks to their most recent WNBA title. She is also a four-time first-team All-Defensive player.

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Chargers-49ers: Five things to watch for

From Joaquin Ruiz: The Chargers had a pleasant start to preseason play with a 27-7 road win over the Houston Texans last week.

Now, after a physical joint practice with the 49ers on Tuesday in El Segundo, the Chargers will host San Francisco on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium.

Here are five things to watch for during the Chargers’ second preseason game.

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Galaxy defeat the Earthquake

Joseph Paintsil scored a short-handed goal in the 79th minute to lead the Galaxy to a 1-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday night.

Paintsil used assists from rookie defender Harbor Miller and Marco Reus to find the net for the fifth time this season. Miller’s helper was his second, while Reus collected his seventh.

The Galaxy (6-8-7) were forced to play a man down from the 45th minute on after midfielder Lucas Sanabria was tagged with a pair of yellow cards in the final nine minutes of the first half.

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Galaxy summary

MLS standings

LAFC falls to Colorado

Nico Hansen finished with one save and had his third consecutive shutout to help the Colorado Rapids beat LAFC 1-0 Wednesday night.

The Rapids (9-10-1) have won three consecutive games, all by shutout, and four of five since the World Cup break.

LAFC (10-7-4) is winless in three straight for the first time this season.

The Rapids took a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute on an own goal by Jeremy Ebobisse. Youssef Maziz played a free kick from the right side into the area that was redirected by Ebobisse off the back post and into the net.

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LAFC summary

MLS standings

This day in sports history

1921 — Molla Bjurstedt Mallory beats Mary Browne, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to win the U.S. women’s national tennis title at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia.

1931 — Helen Wills Moody beats Eileen Bennett Whitingstall 6-4, 6-1 to capture the women’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship.

1944 — Robert Hamilton upsets Byron Nelson in the final round 1-up to win the PGA Championship.

1960 — Holland’s Hairos II, driven by Willem Geersen, wins the second International Trot at Roosevelt Raceway before a record crowd of 54,861.

1995 — Monica Seles completes a remarkable first week back in tournament tennis, routing Amanda Coetzer 6-0, 6-1 to capture the Canadian Open. Her 74 games sets a tournament record for the fewest played by a champion.

1999 — Seventh Athletics World Championships open at Seville, Spain.

2000 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship in a playoff over Bob May, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. He’s the first player to repeat as PGA champion since Denny Shute in 1937.

2003 — The U.S. wins the women’s overall team gold medal at the gymnastics world championships. It is the first gold for the Americans — men or women — at the biggest international event outside the Olympics.

2004 — Michael Phelps matches Mark Spitz’s record of four individual gold medals in Olympic swimming by winning the 100-meter butterfly. He edges teammate Ian Crocker to win his fifth gold medal. Shortly after winning his seventh medal of these Olympics, Phelps gives up his spot in the medley relay to Crocker.

2006 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship for a five-shot victory over Shaun Micheel and his 12th career major. He becomes the first player to win the PGA twice on the same course, having done so at Medinah in 1999.

2008 — Usain Bolt of Jamaica breaks the 200-meter world record, winning in 19.30 seconds at the Beijing Games. He is the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 at an Olympics.

2012 — Augusta National invites former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first female members since the club was founded in 1932.

2016 — Allyson Felix and LaShawn Merritt anchor the 4×400 relay teams, and the U.S. exits the final night of action at Olympic Stadium with 31 medals — its most in a non-boycotted Olympics since 1956. The U.S. women’s basketball team beats Spain 101-72 for a sixth straight title.

2018 — Alabama becomes the second team to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll for three straight seasons. The preseason AP poll started in 1950 and since then only Oklahoma from 1985-87 had started No. 1 in three straight years.

2023 — FIFA Women’s World Cup Final, Stadium Australia, Sydney: Spanish captain Olga Carmona scores the only goal of the game as La Furia Roja score a 1-0 win over England.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1912 — Walter Johnson won his American League-record 15th straight game, downing Cleveland 4-2 in the opener of a doubleheader. Washington’s Carl Cashion pitched a six-inning no-hitter to give the Senators a 2-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians in the second game, which was called to allow Cleveland to catch a train to Boston.

1938 — New York’s Lou Gehrig hit his 23rd and the final grand slam of his career and drove in six runs to lead the Yankees to an 11-3 win over the Philadelphia Athletics.

1945 — Tommy Brown, 17 years, 8 months, 14 days, of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the youngest major league player to hit a home run when he connected in Ebbets Field against Preacher Roe of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

1957 — Bob Keegan of the Chicago White Sox pitched a 6-0 no-hit victory over the Washington Senators in the second game of a doubleheader.

1958 — Detroit’s Jim Bunning pitched a no-hitter to lead the Tigers to a 3-0 win over the Boston Red Sox in the opening game of a doubleheader at Fenway Park.

1961 — The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Braves 7-4 in the second game of a doubleheader to end a 23-game losing streak, a modern record.

1965 — Milwaukee’s Eddie Mathews hit his 28th home run, and the Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3. With the homer, the duo of Mathews and Hank Aaron passed the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig total of 772 home runs to become the top home-run tandem in major league history.

1974 — Nolan Ryan of the Angels struck out 19 Tigers in a 1-0, 11-inning loss to Detroit. It was the third time this season that Ryan struck out 19 batters in a game.

1980 — Pittsburgh’s Omar Moreno stole his 70th base of the season in a 5-1 loss to Houston, to become the first player this century with three consecutive 70-steal seasons. The fleet outfielder swiped 71 in 1978, 77 in 1979.

1989 — New York’s Howard Johnson hit his 30th home run of the season in the Mets’ 5-4 loss to the Dodgers and joined Bobby Bonds and Willie Mays as the only players to achieve 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in two different seasons.

1995 — Jose Mesa of the Cleveland Indians picked up his 37th save in 37 opportunities to set a major league record, and the Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers 8-5.

2005 — The Kansas City Royals ended baseball’s longest losing streak in 17 years, defeating the Oakland Athletics 2-1 to end a club-record 19-game skid.

2014 — The San Francisco Giants became the first team since 1986 to win a protest. Rain caused a delay during an Aug. 19 game after the grounds crew couldn’t put the tarp down quickly, and the umpires deemed the field unplayable. The Cubs were declared the winners by a 2-0 score after 4 1/2 innings. MLB ruled to resume the rain-shortened game with the Cubs batting in the bottom of the fifth.

2019 — By defeating the Blue Jays, 16-3, Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers notches win No. 166 to pass Sandy Koufax for most by a left-hander in franchise history.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

The foreign minister says in an interview that Turkish military officials had visited the airbase as part of training.

Syria has no plans to establish a Turkish military presence at the Abu al-Duhur airbase attacked by Israel earlier this week, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has said.

Al-Shaibani said in an interview with the US news outlet Axios on Wednesday that while Turkish military officials had visited the site as part of training and broader military cooperation, he denied any Turkish military build-up, explaining that the facility was largely empty.

“There was no intention to establish a Turkish base there, nor to establish a permanent Turkish military presence or deploy Turkish forces at the site,” al-Shaibani said, adding that he had made this clear to Israel.

On Tuesday, Israel carried out eight air strikes on the runway and storage facilities at the Abu al-Duhur base near Aleppo, state media reported, in what appeared to be Israel’s first attack on Syrian government assets since March.

No casualties were reported from the attack, which drew international condemnation.

Al-Shaibani said Israel had no legitimate justification for attacking the facility.

He said that while Syria remained open to negotiations with Israel on de-escalation, any future deal must address the security concerns of both countries, reiterating that Israeli military operations would increase regional instability.

The strikes came amid worsening security tensions between Israel and Turkiye over Syria, where both countries’ militaries are active.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel warned Syria ahead of the strike not to allow a Turkish presence at the base.

“Our message was very clear. Don’t. I guess they didn’t quite understand the message,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was “dragging Turkiye into dangerous adventures in Syria”.

“Israel will not allow any entity to threaten its security,” he said.

“It is preferable for Erdogan to continue delivering empty, delusional speeches against Israel in the Turkish parliament rather than testing Israel’s resolve to defend itself,” Katz added.

Turkiye has rejected what it called “untenable allegations” by Israel over its military position in Syria.

The Turkish defence ministry said on Thursday that Ankara would continue supporting Syria’s efforts to develop its own military capacity and infrastructure.

It said there was no military delegation at the air base hit by Israel before or during the attacks, calling for the international community to take more concrete and effective measures against Israel’s actions, which it said threatened regional peace and stability.

Turkiye, a NATO member, has emerged as one of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s main allies and has accused Israel of trying to destabilise Syria and undermine its new administration.

It has also repeatedly called for international pressure and measures on Israel to respect Syria’s territorial integrity.

Last year, Turkiye and Israel established a line of communication to avoid any incidents in Syria.

Since Myanmar’s civil war escalated following a coup in 2021 more than 150,000 Rohingya have been purged from their homes and forced to seek asylum across Asia.

Most flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, where a million other members of this persecuted minority barely survive in some of the largest resettlement camps on Earth, following a brutal military crackdown in 2017.

Caught in the crossfire between the ruling military government and rebel fighters in Myanmar, some Rohingya refugees claim members of their families have been forcibly conscripted, subjected to targeted attacks and even massacred.

These atrocities are occurring in their homeland, Rakhine State, a secretive, inaccessible corner of the country largely controlled by a local armed group called the Arakan Army.

Rohingya witnesses allege that the violence and oppression they face now from the Arakan Army, Myanmar’s most powerful rebel group, is just as brutal as ethnic cleansing by the military in 2017 that first drew global attention to their plight.

Both the military and Arakan Army deny the allegations and blame each other

Working with human rights investigators from Myanmar Witness and Rohingya citizen journalists, Al Jazeera examines what has happened to this Muslim minority during the Arakan Army’s takeover of Rakhine.

This documentary also exposes how the rebel group is connected to the human trafficking of Rohingya refugees out of Myanmar, including young children and women who are subjected to sexual violence and brutality.

The Arakan Army declined to address the allegations raised in this film.  However, its leaders have previously denied accusations of targeted attacks on civilians, including two mass killings of Rohingya villagers in Rakhine. In a written statement to Al Jazeera, Myanmar’s military alleges that the Arakan Army is inciting hatred against Rohingya Muslims and has “reportedly committed acts of genocide” against them since taking control of much of the state.

With growing violence and a transnational crisis on their doorstep, Bangladesh wants to send all the refugees back to the war-torn country through a repatriation scheme.

But increased activity by Rohingya armed groups aligned with the military government is making that harder. Rohingya rebels active in the conflict reject those allegations.  When questioned about their conduct by Al Jazeera, one armed group called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) denied burning civilian homes, participating in activities that cause harm to Rohingya villagers and encouraging refugees to fight against the Arakan Army.

Using leaked documents, covertly filmed footage and exclusive interviews, Al Jazeera investigates the driving forces behind this largely forgotten humanitarian emergency.

This story is part of Myanmar Exposed, a series of reports by Al Jazeera Investigates which uncover the hidden truths of an ongoing crisis caused by the 2021 coup and civil conflict.

Four workers in Japan have died after being struck by a train at Shin-Kanuma Station, north of Tokyo, authorities say.

The collision happened around 10:46 local time (01:46 GMT) while the workers were spraying herbicide, said the Tobu Railway, the operator of the line.

When emergency services arrived at the scene three workers were trapped under the train, while one was on the platform, police said.

Train service has been suspended on the Tobu Nikko Line due to the accident, according to Tobu Railway.

A passenger on the train told Japanese public broadcaster NHK that they heard a “strange noise” before the train made an emergency stop.

He said passengers were stuck on the train for a while as staff announced that they were investigating the noise.

Fatal train accidents are rare in Japan, which relies on a sprawling railway network.

The train involved in Thursday’s incident was a limited express train, according to NHK. These are the second-fastest trains in Japan, after the Shinkansen or bullet train.

Usually, there would be an employee stationed nearby to warn workers on the tracks of approaching trains – but it was unclear what the situation was like on Thursday morning when the accident happened, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

“The usual lookout system was operating as normal – when a train approaches, a lookout waves a flag and, once the driver acknowledges it, sounds the horn,” a representative from Tobu Railway told the BBC.

“We are currently investigating why the accident occurred despite this.”

The Iran war has pushed the global energy system into a deeper crisis, with the disruption increasingly shifting from crude oil supplies to the refined fuels that power transportation, industry and economies worldwide.

While global oil markets have adapted relatively well to the loss of a significant share of Middle Eastern crude production, the refining industry has had far fewer options to compensate.

That imbalance is already visible in fuel prices.

Brent crude is around $90 a barrel, roughly 25% above its level when the conflict began on February 28 but well below its wartime peak of $118.

Refined fuel prices, however, have remained much higher. European diesel prices have risen more than 70% since the start of the war, while U.S. gasoline prices have increased around 60%.

The growing divergence suggests that the biggest energy shock may no longer be coming from crude oil itself, but from the world’s ability to turn crude into usable fuel.

Why Are Fuel Prices Rising Faster Than Oil?

The key problem is declining refinery capacity.

The International Energy Agency estimates that more than 20% of the Middle East’s 9.6 million barrels per day of refining capacity was knocked out during the conflict.

At the same time, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has restricted fuel exports and disrupted the movement of Gulf crude.

The result has been a chain reaction.

Refineries, particularly in Asia, have had to reduce operations because of difficulties obtaining crude, while damaged Middle Eastern facilities have struggled to return to normal production.

This has created a shortage of diesel, gasoline and other refined products even as crude oil prices have retreated from their wartime highs.

How Has Russia Made the Fuel Crisis Worse?

The Middle East is not the only source of disruption.

Months of Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have also reduced global refining capacity.

Russian refinery throughput has fallen by nearly 30% in recent months to below 4 million barrels per day.

The decline has forced Moscow to restrict diesel exports, removing another major source of refined fuel from international markets.

The combination of Middle Eastern refinery damage and reduced Russian output has left the global market with fewer alternatives.

That is particularly important for diesel, which is essential for freight transportation, agriculture, construction and industrial activity.

Why Are Diesel Refining Margins Surging?

The shortage is reflected in refining margins.

European diesel refining margins have more than tripled since February, rising above $75 a barrel.

U.S. diesel margins have increased more than 140%, reaching a record $100 earlier this week.

These figures demonstrate how severe the shortage has become.

Refineries capable of producing diesel and other fuels are commanding exceptionally high margins because demand remains strong while available capacity is shrinking.

The problem is that simply increasing refining margins does not immediately create new refining capacity.

Building or repairing refineries can take months or years, particularly when specialised equipment is required.

Have Global Fuel Inventories Been Depleted?

Yes, and that could become one of the biggest problems in the months ahead.

Fuel stockpiles provided an important buffer when the conflict began.

That buffer is now largely gone.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, global oil inventories fell at a rate of around 3.5 million barrels per day between March and July.

Stocks are expected to continue declining through the end of the year.

U.S. diesel inventories are already at their lowest seasonal level in three decades, while gasoline stocks are at their weakest seasonal level since 2012.

This leaves the market increasingly exposed to any additional disruption.

Is There a Global Fuel Production Shortfall?

The data suggests there is.

Global refinery runs during the second quarter were 5.1 million barrels per day lower than a year earlier, according to the IEA.

High fuel prices have reduced consumption, with demand for refined products falling by around 4 million barrels per day.

But that reduction has not been sufficient.

The result was still a shortfall of more than 1 million barrels per day.

The imbalance could become even worse during the third quarter.

Refinery runs are expected to remain 4.1 million barrels per day below last year’s level, while demand is projected to fall by only 2.4 million barrels per day.

In other words, fuel supply is declining faster than demand.

Would Reopening the Strait of Hormuz Solve the Crisis?

Not necessarily.

A diplomatic breakthrough between Washington and Tehran that permanently reopened the Strait of Hormuz could send crude prices sharply lower.

But cheaper crude would not automatically translate into cheaper gasoline and diesel.

The reason is that the refining infrastructure itself has been damaged.

More than 20 Gulf refineries suffered damage during the war, and many require extensive repairs.

Crucial equipment such as compressors, heat exchangers and specialised catalysts can take significant time to obtain.

Lead times for some of these components were already stretched before the conflict.

Consequently, even if crude shipments resume quickly, refinery capacity could remain constrained for much longer.

Why Is China Important to the Energy Crisis?

China’s response could have a major impact on global fuel markets.

China is the world’s second-largest refining centre and sharply reduced refinery processing rates and fuel exports during the conflict.

If Beijing keeps exports limited, the international market will lose another potential source of refined products.

Conversely, an increase in Chinese refinery utilisation and exports could provide some relief.

But China must also balance domestic fuel demand, inventory requirements and its own energy security.

That makes its decisions particularly important for Asia and the wider global market.

Could the Energy Crisis Fuel Global Inflation?

The answer could be yes.

The immediate impact of higher fuel prices is already appearing in inflation data.

U.S. consumer prices rose 3.4% year-on-year in July, with energy costs increasing 14.7% and gasoline prices rising 24.6%.

Euro zone inflation accelerated to 2.9%, driven partly by a 10% increase in energy costs.

Japan’s producer price index rose 7.2% in July.

These figures raise concerns that the energy shock could spread beyond fuel markets.

Higher transportation costs increase the cost of moving goods, while expensive diesel raises costs for agriculture, manufacturing and logistics.

If those increases persist, businesses may eventually pass them on to consumers.

Why Could the Energy Crisis Last for Years?

The central problem is that refining capacity cannot be restored as quickly as crude production.

Oil wells can continue producing once transportation routes reopen.

Refineries, however, require complex infrastructure, specialised machinery, skilled workers and maintenance.

If damaged facilities need major reconstruction, restoring capacity could take years.

At the same time, depleted fuel inventories will eventually need to be rebuilt.

That means refiners could face sustained pressure to process more crude even after the immediate crisis ends.

The result could be a prolonged period of elevated refining margins and fuel prices.

What Does This Mean for Europe and Asia?

Europe and Asia could face particularly severe pressure.

Both regions rely heavily on imported energy and have already experienced increases in refined fuel and liquefied natural gas prices.

For European economies, expensive diesel could increase transportation and industrial costs.

For Asian economies, disruptions to Gulf crude supplies and reduced Chinese fuel exports could create additional pressure.

The combination of higher fuel and LNG prices could therefore create a broader energy inflation shock rather than an isolated oil-market disruption.

Could Consumers Eventually Reduce Demand?

Demand destruction remains one of the few mechanisms capable of restoring balance.

If fuel prices remain extremely high, consumers may drive less and businesses may reduce transportation and energy consumption.

Companies may also delay investment and cut production.

That could eventually reduce demand enough to ease pressure on the refining system.

But demand destruction carries an economic cost.

A reduction in fuel consumption caused by efficiency improvements is very different from a decline caused by households and businesses being unable to afford energy.

The latter can slow economic growth while inflation remains elevated.

Analysis: Why the Refining Crisis May Matter More Than the Oil Shock

The most important lesson from the Iran war energy crisis is that the global energy system is not simply dependent on how much oil exists, but on whether the world can refine and transport that oil into usable fuel.

The crude market has shown considerable resilience.

Refined fuel markets have not.

That distinction could determine how long the current energy shock lasts.

Even if diplomacy reopens the Strait of Hormuz and crude prices fall, damaged refineries, depleted inventories and reduced Russian exports will continue to constrain fuel supplies.

This creates a particularly difficult situation for central banks.

If energy prices rise temporarily, policymakers can theoretically look through the shock. But if fuel shortages persist for months or years, higher transportation and production costs can become embedded across the economy.

That would make the assumption of a short-lived inflation shock increasingly difficult to defend.

The depletion of global inventories is perhaps the biggest warning sign.

Stockpiles normally provide a cushion against geopolitical disruptions. That cushion has now been significantly weakened.

As a result, another major refinery outage, shipping disruption or escalation in the Middle East could produce a much larger price response than it would have before the war.

The world therefore faces a dangerous mismatch: crude supplies may recover faster than the infrastructure needed to turn them into fuel.

That is why the energy crisis could outlast the war itself.

The Iran conflict may have started as a crude oil shock, but its most consequential economic legacy could be a prolonged global shortage of refined fuels, keeping inflation and energy costs elevated long after the fighting ends.

With information from Reuters.

Four-time F1 World Drivers’ Champion’s new deal puts to rest rumours that he would exit the team at the end of 2028 season.

Multiple Formula One world champion Max Verstappen has signed a new contract with Red Bull Racing until the end of 2030, the team announced, ending speculation over his future in the sport.

“Four more years of full send. We are delighted to announce that Max has signed a contract extension with the team until the end of 2030,” Red Bull said on X on Thursday.

The news came with preparations in full swing for Verstappen’s home race this Sunday, the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, and will delight his thousands of orange-clad fans.

Verstappen is one of the most successful Formula One drivers of all time, dominating the sport with four consecutive world championships from 2021.

But results have been harder to come by this season, with the 28-year-old failing to see a chequered flag in the first half of the year and sitting sixth in the drivers’ championship.

“This commitment is about more than continuing an already extraordinary alliance,” the team said in its statement.

“It is a powerful statement of mutual trust and ambition – and a shared decision to shape the future together.”

The uncompetitive nature of the Red Bull car this year has led many to speculate that the mercurial Dutchman could switch to another team or even leave Formula One entirely.

But Verstappen said he was keen to get the team back to winning ways.

“We have the best people and I’m excited to keep working together with everyone to get back to the top again,” he was quoted as saying.

Dutch courage needed this weekend

The news adds even more spice to the last-ever edition of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

Verstappen was unbeatable on his home track, winning the first three editions since it was reintroduced to the circuit in 2021.

But he has since been chasing McLaren in his own back yard, with Papaya drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri claiming the last two races.

Verstappen is expected to don a special helmet for the occasion, inspired by the famous blue Delft pottery.

The promoters decided not to continue racing at Zandvoort, partly due to uncertainty over Verstappen’s future given his importance for the popularity of the event.

“I have always said it: The team is like a second family for me and I feel very at home,” said Verstappen.

“I came to the team hoping to be able to win races. What we went on to achieve together has been simply lovely,” added Verstappen, using his trademark phrase.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Bangladesh is holding its first contested presidential election in 35 years, with the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) candidate Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir pitted against former army officer Oli Ahmad, the nominee of the Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party opposition alliance.

A total of 349 members of parliament are eligible to vote in the parliamentary chamber between 08:00 GMT and 11:00 GMT on Thursday, with the result expected hours later, according to Bangladesh’s Election Commission.

The election was triggered by the resignation last month of Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed in 2023 as a nominee of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) party. He quit halfway through his five-year term after serving through Hasina’s removal in August 2024, the Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration, and the BNP’s return to power in February.

Thursday’s vote will be the first contested presidential election since October 1991, when BNP candidate Abdur Rahman Biswas defeated AL nominee Badrul Haider Chowdhury by 172 votes to 92. Every presidential election since was uncontested.

The outcome, however, is widely seen as a foregone conclusion.

Of the 349 lawmakers eligible to vote, 247 belong to the BNP and 90 to the Jamaat-led opposition alliance, giving Alamgir a decisive numerical advantage.

Still, the vote carries symbolic significance for a country reshaping its institutions two years after the 2024 uprising that ended Hasina’s iron-fisted 15-year rule.

Who are the candidates?

Alamgir, 78, is one of the BNP’s most prominent leaders. He became the acting secretary-general in 2011 and was formally appointed to the post in 2016, emerging as one of the party’s principal public faces during its long years in opposition under Hasina.

After the BNP swept this year’s election, Alamgir became minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives.

At a BNP parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday, he thanked Prime Minister Tarique Rahman for nominating him and pledged not to compromise on Bangladesh’s independence and sovereignty. Rahman in turn urged BNP lawmakers to vote for Alamgir.

Alamgir’s opponent, retired Colonel Ahmad, 85, is a decorated veteran of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and a six-time member of parliament.

Once a close associate of former President Ziaur Rahman, the father of current Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, Ahmad joined the BNP in 1980 after leaving the army the year before. He served as communications minister under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and founded the LDP in 2006.

Ahmad’s nomination is politically striking: his main backer, the Jamaat, had opposed Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 and sided with Pakistan during the war, while Ahmad fought in the Liberation War.

Despite Ahmad’s slim chances of winning, the opposition alliance has hailed him as an experienced and broadly acceptable candidate, ensuring that the presidency will be decided through a vote and not remain uncontested.

Among Bangladeshis, views are divided over the two men’s political records.

For Anwarul Islam, a former Bangladesh Bank official, Alamgir stands out for his personal integrity.

“I visited Mirza Fakhrul’s constituency. People, irrespective of race or religion, have enormous affection for him,” Islam told Al Jazeera. “His integrity is rare among Bangladeshi politicians.”

Abdul Baten, a manager at a construction site in the capital Dhaka, said he preferred Ahmad.

“I would definitely prefer Oli because he is a seasoned politician,” Baten said. “His opponent, Fakhrul, and the BNP did not keep their promises on state reforms.”

Historic, but how important?

Bangladesh’s constitution makes the president the head of state, but grants the office little independent executive authority. Article 48(3) requires the president to act on the prime minister’s advice, except in appointing the prime minister and the chief justice.

Ali Riaz, a political scientist who served as co-chair of the National Consensus Commission on state reforms under the Yunus-led interim government, said the return of a contested election was welcome, but its practical significance should not be overstated.

“It’s good to see that someone who has been at the forefront of the democratic movement and fought against a fascist regime will be occupying the office of the president,” Riaz told Al Jazeera.

“However, the presidential election has very little significance due to the limited powers of the president.”

Riaz said the July National Charter on key reforms agreed by political parties after the 2024 uprising, and ratified through a referendum in this year’s election, proposed that the president be elected by members of both houses of parliament. The plan for an upper chamber of parliament, with significant powers over key constitutional and statutory bodies to balance power, has still not been implemented.

Riaz also questioned the significance of an open vote in which the governing party already has the numbers to win. “The election is more of a ritual than substantive in terms of governance and politics,” he said.

Questions over the process

For the families of more than 1,400 people killed by the security forces during the 2024 uprising, Shahabuddin’s departure and the election of a new president are overdue.

“It should have happened much earlier, but it is still good to see it happening now,” Sanjida Khan Deepti, mother of 17-year-old Shahriar Khan Anas who was killed during the uprising, told Al Jazeera.

But Deepti questioned whether MPs should be bound by their party’s choice.

“If an MP cannot vote for the person they believe is best for the country, then what is the point of holding a vote?” she said. “Our children gave their lives for democracy.”

The election has revived debates over whether Article 70 of the constitution – which can cost lawmakers their parliamentary seats for voting against their party – should apply to a presidential election.

For all its constitutional limitations and predictable arithmetic, Thursday’s vote will mark a rare moment in Bangladesh’s politics: for the first time in more than three decades, lawmakers will have two names on the ballot for the country’s next head of state.

A U.S. Air Force’s new EA-37B Compass Call electronic warfare jet made an appearance near the Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave on Tuesday. The flight was part of a large presence of U.S. and NATO reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft and Polish ground forces arrayed near the strategic Baltic Sea salient bordering Poland and Lithuania. This took place place against the backdrop of growing concerns about increasing Russian aggression in the region – including a growing fears of a potential limited action against a NATO member and concerning Russian naval operations in the Baltic Sea. However, NATO is downplaying the aerial mission as routine and not a reaction to any particular event.

“On 18 August 2026, NATO deployed a specialized reconnaissance and electronic warfare flight package over the Baltic Sea near the Kaliningrad Oblast,” a Polish military official told TWZ on Wednesday. “This operation involved the deployment of a rare US EA-37B ‘Compass Call II’ electronic warfare aircraft, relocated from Greece to Powidz in Poland, which operated alongside an E-3 AWACS and an ARTEMIS II surveillance plane.”

The Polish military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, declined to offer further information about the role of the Polish ground forces, how many there were, or how they were equipped.

A NATO official on Wednesday clarified to us that the activity, which is ongoing, is allied in nature and controlled by the U.S., not NATO. We have reached out to U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE) for additional details.

After open-source flight trackers noticed the increased air activity near Kaliningrad on Tuesday, we reached out to NATO spokesman Col. Marty O’Donnell for comment.

“NATO is a defensive Alliance and Allies are constantly honing their defensive abilities,” he explained. “The Allied activity today in the Baltic region involving U.S. and Norwegian fighter aircraft, Polish ground forces, a NATO E-3A Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS), and more, which is being overseen by the U.S., is one example of this approach.”

NATO aircraft operating near Kaliningrad is not a unique circumstance. The enclave – separated from Russia and ensconced between two NATO nations and the Baltic Sea – is a key Russian military outpost, hosting an array of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles, several squadrons of tactical jets and thousands of troops.It has also been a notorious hub of disruptive Russian electronic warfare activity itself.

However, having an EA-37B operating over the area is of note. This was reportedly the first time one of these highly specialized jets appeared near the enclave. Online flight trackers showed it flying orbits in Polish airspace near Kaliningrad for nearly two hours on Tuesday.

A heavily modified Gulfstream G550 business jet, the aircraft leverages the Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW) configuration developed first for the Israel Defense Forces. The jet packs powerful active electronically scanned arrays is designed to provide critical stand-off jamming support, including against enemy radars and communications systems. The EA-37B also has a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) function given its ability to spot, track, and geolocate various types of emitters.

The Air Force is planning to procure 10 of these jets to replace the aging and ever smaller fleet of turboprop EC-130H Compass Call planes, of which only four remain. The 43rd Electronic Combat Squadron flew the first training sortie for the EA-37B on May 2, 2025, and flew its first combat missions during the Operation Epic Fury war against Iran.

The Compass Call is one of, if not the world’s most power airborne EW platform and blinding and deafening Russian forces in the enclave would be critical to minimizing any military impact that capabilities based there could have in a contingency.

As we noted earlier in this story, though NATO is downplaying the activity, it comes amid growing concerns about Russian actions in the region and against the backdrop of the still raging war in Ukraine.

Earlier this week, the Russian frigate Admiral Kasatonov escorted the Russian Floating Storage/Production ship Portovyy through the Baltics, according to The Telegraph. It was the second such transit of a Russian warship in the region in recent weeks and part of Moscow’s increasing efforts to protect its energy shipments in the wake of seizures of its shadow fleet vessels by European authorities, the independent Russian The Insider news outlet noted.

All the Ukrainian-born PoWs we interviewed came from areas occupied since 2014 and almost all joined the Russian army voluntarily.

But one man from Donetsk region told us he had been forced to fight.

His eyes darted around as he talked, unsure who he could trust.

One official tally, citing “intelligence”, suggests more than 50,000 Ukrainians have been conscripted against their will in occupied areas. Others put the figure far higher.

This man told us that when the Russians invaded, his family had stayed, not through any political or national allegiance but because Donetsk was their home.

Now, his only ambition was to get back to his wife and children, then avoid being returned to the front. “I’m just going to hide,” he confided.

Beneath the hospital windows and newly whitewashed walls there are rows of strawberries and cucumbers planted by the prisoners.

Further on, the stench of varnish from an outhouse is overpowering.

An official lifts a gold-coloured plastic handle from a bag near the door. “Guess what this is for?” he challenges us, grinning.

Inside, I do a double-take: the men working inside are hammering together wooden coffins. I am told the last contract the prison got was for garden sheds. This one feels macabre.

Across the courtyard in another workshop a handful of PoWs are making artificial Christmas trees, gaudy baubles strung from their machines. Like the coffin-makers, they tell me they use their wages to buy extra food and cigarettes.

Sergei was born in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk but says he is Russian like his parents, who moved to the Donbas when both countries were part of the Soviet Union.

He joined the Russian army a decade ago “to defend my homeland”, but claims he will retire when he gets back, not return to the front. “I’ve done my bit.”

Most will have no choice.

Stacking plastic branches next to Sergei is a drug dealer who signed up, like many, “exclusively” to avoid a long jail term.

“For me, 15 years in prison was too much,” Konstantin explains. “I know it probably doesn’t excuse me, but it’s a fact. I’m 44 now, I would be 60. So no.”

But Vshniki, or convict-soldiers, have to survive to the end of the war to be released and in the assault troops the odds are not good.

Three convicted murderers told us they had thought they could walk free after fighting for a year, only to have their contacts renewed automatically.

Earlier today, Chinese firm LandSpace achieved the country’s first successful recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster on land. This follows China’s first-ever recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster last month, which state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) conducted at sea using a specially configured ship. Reusable boosters can lower costs and increase the tempo of launches dramatically, which would be extremely beneficial for China’s already massively expanding military and national security space enterprise. It could also go a long way to closing the gap on commercial launch costs with the U.S.

“On August 19, 2026, at 07:35 (UTC+8), the ZhuQue-3 (ZQ-3) Y2 reusable launch vehicle lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone. Approximately 137 seconds after lift-off, the first and second stages separated. The second stage continued its flight and successfully delivered the Honghu 03 satellite, independently developed by Hongqing Technology, into its designated orbit,” according to a post from LandSpace’s official account on X. “At approximately 07:41, the first stage performed a successful soft touchdown at the LandSpace Landing Site#1 in Minqin County, Gansu Province, following the planned trajectory – marking the full success of the flight test mission.”

ZhuQue-3 first landing

“This mission marks China’s first-ever successful recovery attempt of the first stage of an orbital-class launch vehicle using landing legs, and China’s first successful booster recovery on land,” the company wrote in another post on X. “It is a pivotal flight test for ZhuQue-3 as it transitions from the technological demonstration and verification phase toward the engineering application phase of reusability. This mission further verified the design correctness and reliability of the ZhuQue-3 reusable launch vehicle system, validated its first-stage recovery capability and engineering maturity.”

This is only the second-ever launch involving the two-stage ZQ-3. The first launch came last December, and the upper stage successfully reached low Earth orbit (LEO). However, the attempted recovery of the first stage booster failed and it exploded on the pad. “Abnormal combustion occurred during the process, preventing a soft landing on the recovery site,” according to a machine translation of a subsequent report from Chinese state-run media outlet Xinhua.

A complete ZQ-3 space launch rocket is around 216.5 feet (66 meters) long and close to 15 feet in diameter (4.5 meters). It can reportedly loft up to 14.2 metric tons of payload into LEO.

The design of the reusable ZQ-3 booster, including its fold-out landing legs at the base and stabilizing fins at the top, is very reminiscent of U.S. firm SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The ZQ-3 and Falcon 9 (229.6 feet/70 meters tall, 12 feet/3.7 meters diameter) are also similar in overall size, but the latter has a higher stated payload rating (maximum 22.8 metric tons to LEO). SpaceX pioneered reusable space-launch booster technology. The company is currently the top space launch provider globally, by far, with the U.S. government, and more specifically the U.S. military, being its chief customer.

LandSpace has not shied away from comparisons to the Falcon 9, and has reportedly said the primarily stainless steel construction of the ZQ-3 makes it cheaper to produce than its American competitor. It is also worth noting here that other companies in the United States, like Blue Origin, and elsewhere globally are pressing to enter the market place, as well.

The ZQ-3 also notably uses liquid methane as its main propellant. “A methane-liquid oxygen propellant mix offers advantages in performance and reduces issues of soot formation and coking for purposes of reusability,” according to a 2023 story from SpaceNews.

LandSpace has already claimed the title as the first anywhere in the world to get a liquid methane-fueled rocket into space and then into orbit with its earlier two-stage Zhuque-2 (ZQ-2) design. To date, the company has conducted eight ZQ-2 launches, six of which have been successful. The company’s original design was the three-stage ZQ-1, which it attempted to launch just once, without success, in 2018.

LandSpace’s official launch video of Zhuque-2 Y2 methane rocket

As noted, LandSpace’s achievement today follows CASC’s successful recovery of the reusable booster from a two-stage Long March 10B space launch rocket in July. The state-run aerospace firm used a net-like device installed on a ship to ‘catch’ the booster as it returned to Earth. This method of recovery means that the Long March 10B booster does not have, or necessarily need, landing legs, though it does have fins for stabilization at the top.

Long March-10B first landing

The Long March 10B is part of a family of space launch rockets with multiple stage and booster configurations. The first-ever launch of a Long March 10-series rocket, a 10A variant, only came in February. In that instance, the booster did return to Earth vertically, but set down in the sea rather than being recovered. CASC is also currently developing reusable versions of its Long March 12 design.

Long March-10 launch and landing

LandSpace’s ostensible focus is on commercial launch opportunities. CASC’s Long March 10 family is generally discussed in the context of China’s nominally civilian space program, including flights to the Tiangong space station and plans for a crewed mission to the lunar surface.

At the same time, it is hard not to see this continued push toward new reusable space launch capabilities having huge impacts on Chinese military and other national security activities outside the Earth’s atmosphere. A mature, reliable reusable space launch capability would drastically accelerate China’s access to space across the board while also lowering costs. This is especially vital for the deployment of new large distributed constellations.

This would also increase China’s ability to compete on price in the commercial space launch market globally. As noted, the United States currently enjoys a decided competitive advantage in this arena worldwide, thanks largely to SpaceX and its reusable launch options. The benefits of securing a greater share of this market could easily feed back into Chinese national security applications by helping further spread cost burdens and fueling accelerating development of this class of space launch systems.

In the meantime, the Chinese government has already been expanding its space-based intelligence gathering and other capabilities at a breakneck pace using non-reusable launch options.

“I think the ongoing greatest challenge is just the speed at which China is moving to rapidly improve their space capabilities and the breadth that that potentially poses,” U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, said at the annual Space & Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium last week, at which TWZ was in attendance. “China is moving breathtakingly fast.”

Whiting was responding to a question about what he felt were the greatest challenges facing his command over the next year to 18 months.

What “[China’s] President Xi [Jinping] has decided to do is build the second-best remote sensing architecture in the world from outer space, and that’s now what they have,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command (CFC), also told TWZ and others at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) Warfare Symposium in February. “So when 2013 started, and he came to power, he had less than 100 satellites that were the total of what China had in outer space. They have about 1,900 today.”

“Over 500 of those satellites are remote sensing satellites, which are purposely designed and networked to track mobile forces such as U.S. carriers, destroyers, and cruisers in the Pacific, as well as aircraft that deploy around the Pacific. Those have been built with a purpose. The purpose is to cue their long-range fire weapons,” he added.

The U.S. military is now openly calling for new anti-satellite weapons to challenge China’s growing presence in orbit, further underscoring the scale of these developments.

With the new milestones just in the past two months, Chinese aerospace firms now look to be moving very fast in the realm of reusable space launch boosters, which only further fuel its many ambitions in orbit and beyond.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com