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Abidjan, Ivory Coast – For decades, many of Ivory Coast’s biggest consumer markets were built around international companies with established brands, global supply chains and deep financial resources.

But a number of Ivorian businesses are now finding room to grow.

From petroleum distribution and digital banking to cosmetics manufacturing, these companies are entering sectors where foreign firms have long been dominant, building customer bases at home and looking beyond Ivory Coast’s borders.

Their rise does not signal the retreat of multinational companies, which remain major players across the economy. Instead, the experiences of Petro Ivoire, Djamo and Kaira Holding show how some domestic firms are competing by moving quickly, understanding their markets and investing in production.

Fuel challenge

When Petro Ivoire entered Ivory Coast’s petroleum sector in 1994, international oil companies controlled much of the market.

Today, the company says it is the country’s largest locally owned fuel distributor and ranks third overall behind TotalEnergies and Shell.

Sebastien Kadio-Morokro, Petro Ivoire’s chief executive, said the company’s founders believed a domestic business could compete by combining knowledge of the market with international standards.

“In the 1990s, the market was managed exclusively by multinationals,” Kadio-Morokro told Al Jazeera. “My late father’s idea was that, given the local expertise we had acquired in this industry, it was important to offer something authentic to the local market while strictly adhering to international standards.”

The company says it now holds about 15 percent of Ivory Coast’s fuel market. Kadio-Morokro said being locally owned allows the company to make decisions faster than larger international rivals.

“When a strategic decision needs to be made, we can convene our board immediately and move forward,” he said. “We don’t have to navigate a long chain of decision-making through headquarters overseas.”

That approach helped Petro Ivoire move into the butane gas market in 2007, a sector the company says it now leads. It is also investing in electric-vehicle charging infrastructure as Ivory Coast prepares for changes in transport and energy use.

For Kadio-Morokro, the company’s experience reflects a broader challenge facing African businesses: building confidence that companies created on the continent can compete at scale.

“Africans must trust their countries, themselves and their continent,” he said. “There is no reason why we cannot succeed at home.”

Digital banking

In West Africa’s financial sector, another company is challenging traditional ways of accessing banking services.

Djamo launched in Ivory Coast in 2020, offering accounts, savings and investment products through a mobile application. The company says it now serves more than two million customers and 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises.

For cofounder Hassan Bourgi, one of the biggest obstacles was convincing investors that francophone West Africa could produce a technology company capable of scaling.

“The biggest hurdle we encountered was that our region was completely off the radar for global venture capital investors,” Bourgi told Al Jazeera. “Historically, tech investment flowed almost exclusively into four main hubs: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt.”

Djamo sought to challenge that perception by showing investors that companies from francophone markets could grow beyond their borders.

“We showed investors that it was possible to build a large company here,” Bourgi said. “We highlighted the stability of our economy and the CFA franc, which created a strong environment for us to build and expand.”

The company focused heavily on younger consumers, designing a platform around the habits of a generation already familiar with digital services.

“Generation Z was the cornerstone upon which we built our product,” Bourgi said. “We wanted to provide an experience that matched what people encountered every day on international platforms.”

Scaling up

The growth of companies such as Petro Ivoire and Djamo comes as Ivory Coast seeks to strengthen its domestic private sector and help businesses move beyond the national market.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Ivory Coast’s employers’ association, CGECI, have launched programmes aimed at helping promising companies improve access to finance, strengthen management and prepare for regional expansion.

For many entrepreneurs, the challenge is not only building a successful business at home but creating companies large enough to compete across borders.

Few stories capture that journey more clearly than Kaira Holding.

From cot to cosmetics

In 2009, Fode Kaira Yatabare launched his cosmetics company from a two-room apartment in Abidjan.

The apartment served as both home and office. Each night, he slept on a folding military cot that had to be packed away each morning to make space for work.

Today, Kaira Holding exports beauty and personal care products to 32 countries across Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

“I belong to a new generation of African entrepreneurs who passionately believe in local manufacturing and value addition,” Yatabare told Al Jazeera.

“When we started, capital constraints were immense. We launched from a tiny two-room flat. We only managed to scrape together four million CFA francs [about $7,000] to start producing soap.”

The company has since invested in its own packaging, printing and manufacturing processes, reducing its dependence on imported inputs.

“Many people fail to realise that manufacturing costs in Africa can actually be lower than in China if you fully integrate your value chain,” Yatabare said. “This vertical integration has made us more competitive.”

Kaira Holding is now expanding its research capacity and preparing to enter new markets, including China.

The experiences of Petro Ivoire, Djamo and Kaira Holding do not represent the end of multinational influence in Ivory Coast. But they show how some African businesses are building an advantage by staying close to consumers, making decisions quickly and investing in their own capacity.

For Yatabare, that ambition reflects a changing mindset among entrepreneurs on the continent.

“Africa has changed,” he told Al Jazeera. “We are moving forward guided by a singular ambition: from Côte d’Ivoire to the world.”

Moment a projectile struck a border area between Kuwait and Iraq, sparking a fire and sending thick smoke into the sky. The scenes emerged after Kuwait said it intercepted 32 hostile drones since dawn as Iran announced strikes targeting US assets in the country.

Faced with the ubiquitous threat from small attack drones, military forces around the world are resorting to the use of large amounts of mesh netting for protection, something TWZ was among the first to highlight. Now it appears the U.S. Marine Corps may be employing this defensive measure as well.

After a recent logistics training exercise in South Korea, photographs were posted on the Pentagon’s image distribution site showing what appears to be anti-drone netting on a ship-to-shore floating platform used for moving cargo and troops. While it’s possible that it could be for some other purpose, the netting appears to be in line with other examples of drone defensive measures seen in Ukraine and many other places, including recent usage by Dutch forces. We’ve reached out to the Marines for more details.

The idea behind the netting, as we have reported in the past, is that drones will get caught up in the nylon or mesh metal nets and become disabled, or the nets will help keep the drones far enough from personnel before exploding to keep them from being killed. How protective the netting set up by the Marines would be against highly maneuverable first-person view (FPV) drones is questionable, given how open it is on both ends, though it could provide some protection from lighter munitions dropped by so-called bomber drones. Beyond that, the netting only covers one section of the floating platform, presumably where the cargo or a vehicle will go, leaving the rest of it, as well as the ship and its wheelhouse, fully exposed.

The images were taken during Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore 26 (CJLOTS 26) at Dogu Beach, Pohang, South Korea on July 9. The goal of CJLOTS 26 was to allow the Marines and partners from the Republic of Korea’s military to deliver supplies from a vessel stationed offshore without requiring existing infrastructure like a pier.

“The offload was a Maritime Prepositioning Force exercise where 3rd Marine Logistics Group (MLG) distributes equipment from a created port of entry and provides support to III Marine Expeditionary Force units training throughout South Korea, testing and validating 3rd MLG’s ability to conduct integrated logistics operations in complex environments,” the Marines noted. “CJLOTS 26 is a combined exercise designed to integrate U.S. and Republic of Korea lighterage and ship-to-shore connector capabilities, improve combined readiness, strengthen the Republic of Korea-U.S. alliance, and expand combined maritime sustainment capacity during logistics operations.”

The images show Republic of Korea service members aboard an Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS), “a sea state three (SS3) capable causeway system that resembles a floating pier comprised of interchangeable modules and is used to transfer cargo from Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships to shore areas where conventional port facilities are unavailable or inadequate,” according to the Navy.

The troops were conducting what is called a “beach stabbing,” where the module is attached to the beach so that vehicles and troops can come ashore.

You can see another example of the INLS system in the following photograph taken in 2022.

While the Marines don’t specifically mention drone defense in photos, U.S. Forces Korea/Combined Forces Command did explain it was part of a large-scale training exercise designed with the drone threat in mind.

“To enhance full-domain operational sustainment capabilities, the exercise integrated five types of ground, maritime and air sustainment assets,” according to U.S. Forces Korea/Combined Forces Command. “Reflecting evolving battlefield conditions, the training also strengthened protection measures for sustainment nodes against threats such as hostile drone attacks.”

There’s good reason for counter-drone efforts to be baked into logistics operations. The war in Ukraine has shown that drone attacks have made resupplying front line troops such a deadly endeavor that there is an increasing use of ground robots to carry out these missions.

Ukraine’s ‘Khartia’ brigade turns to land drones to survive the drone-saturated frontline

Any fight against China or North Korea would almost assuredly see large numbers of drones descending on U.S. and allied forces. Both countries have developed large arsenals of these weapons and the technology to use them at scale. North Korea, as we have reported in the past, has gotten assistance from Russia on drone technology as well as direct experiencing fighting Ukraine. The regime has invested significant resources into evolving its drone capabilities across all tiers.

Amphibious operations are especially vulnerable to short-range drone attacks. Approaching over the horizon in open water to a controlled beach means commanders can assume their assets will be attacked by FPV and other short-range drone types, and likely at scale.

The extent and effectiveness of netting that would be deployed as a passive defensive measure in future battles is an open question; however, U.S. military doctrine is starting to acknowledge the need. Newly released guidance from the Pentagon suggests using such systems as part of a layered defense against small drones.

“Two proven ways to disrupt drones are shaping their physical environment and interfering with their signals,” according to a new handbook published by the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401. “Obstacles such as fencing, netting, or over-head structures can alter flight paths, block common avenues of approach, and push drones into visible or unfavorable routes while also degrading control links, GPS (Global Positioning Systems), or navigation timing.”

The Pentagon established JIATF 401 last August to coordinate counter-drone efforts across the department and help accelerate the fielding of new capabilities. The guidance in the handbook follows a call in February by the task force for the increased use of netting, cables, and other kinds of passive physical defenses to protect critical infrastructure. It is part of an evolving trend by the U.S. toward acceptance of these measures, something we discussed in great detail here. 

In addition, as we reported two years ago, U.S. Air Force officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia were looking at installing anti-drone nets to help protect F-22 Raptor stealth fighters on the flightline. That came nearly a year after the base was subjected to waves of still-mysterious drone incursions, which The War Zone was first to report. 

Still, despite JIATF 401’s suggestions about netting and the Air Force’s interest in installing it to protect prized aircraft, there is scant evidence of widespread use by the U.S. military, leaving it lagging as these measures proliferate around the globe.

As we noted earlier in this piece, TWZ has showcased examples of netting use beyond Ukraine. The most recent instances emerged in Lebanon, where Israeli troops began using netting to protect against increasing attacks from Hezbollah FPV drones. The netting was erected after Israeli military leaders were heavily criticized for not doing enough to protect their troops from drone attacks. In fact, some Israeli troops were so desperate to get netting they reached out to fisherman.

The following video shows one example of Israel’s use of anti-drone netting.

Elsewhere, we reported that Taiwan is using anti-drone netting to protect its air defense systems. There are also reports published in the Netherlands that Dutch troops trained using anti-drone “net tunnels” – similar to those used by Russia and Ukraine – during an exercise in Germany last month called “Fighter Lion.”

Whether the netting seen in the logistics training exercise in South Korea represents a trend, or a one-off experiment, is currently unknown. However, one thing is clear. Netting, while certainly no panacea, is increasingly viewed as a critical countermeasure for militaries across the globe.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The former CEO of Italy’s main highway operator has been given 12 years in prison over the collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa that killed 43 people in 2018. Families say the verdict against Giovanni Castellucci confirmed the disaster was preventable.

A devastating double earthquake hit Venezuela on June 24, leaving a trail of destruction and thousands dead. Dozens of buildings collapsed in coastal La Guaira State, the worst affected in the South American country.

The natural disaster followed two unnatural catastrophes: a decade-plus of US-led economic sanctions, and the January 3 US bombing attack and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.

But rather than sympathize with the beleaguered country, the Western media establishment seized the opportunity to continue demonizing the Bolivarian Revolution—while whitewashing Washington’s economic terrorism and its present efforts to tighten its semi-colonial stranglehold on the country (FAIR.org, 2/27/26).

An assault on public housing

The ground had barely stopped shaking when corporate media oligopolies took aim at one of the most visible pillars of Hugo Chávez’s legacy: Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission (GMVV).

A Washington Post headline (6/27/26) declared: “These Homes Rose out of Venezuela’s Socialist Revolution. Now They’re Rubble.”

An architect was quoted claiming that the damaged apartments had been “constructed hastily” to “meet a political deadline.” Though the Post claimed Chávez launched the housing program to secure votes for the 2012 election, the only beneficiary the paper could find received her home in 2014.

AFP (6/29/26) singled out damage to a GMVV complex—“once touted as part of former strongman leader Hugo Chavez’s flagship housing program”—arguing that it “symbolize[d] the country’s dire situation.” Dozens of buildings geared toward tourism, including hotels and high-rises built for short-term rentals, in this neighborhood of Catia La Mar, were also flattened by the devastating tremors, but AFP made no effort to provide that context.

The New York Times (7/5/26) likewise attempted to besmirch what is one of the most ambitious public housing projects worldwide by repeating the unfounded claim that homes were assigned as a “reward for loyalty to Mr. Chávez.” However, the paper of record at least admitted that “Misión Vivienda buildings are far from the only apartments to have fallen.”

The Wall Street Journal (6/28/26) could not hide its elitism in describing how Chávez “rushed to provide apartments to the poor” in a town “beloved by the rich,” with a golf course and a “marina for yachts.” It went further by promoting a social media hoax that styrofoam found in damaged buildings meant that the housing mission used absurdly unsuitable materials in its construction. In reality, expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam is widely used to lighten the load on structures and for thermal insulation, a key factor in such a hot climate.

Venezuelan officials have called for a review of the collapsed structures and building codes, though they have claimed that the public housing buildings fared better than their privately constructed neighbors.

There is little evidence to suggest that GMVV buildings suffered a worse fate than their private sector counterparts. According to the open-source tool Terremoto Venezuela, only 11 out of 258 buildings reported as collapsed (“daño total”) belong to the housing mission.

The definitive figures will need to be put in perspective to see whether affected buildings and non-complicity with existing codes were prevalent in the GMVV developments or the recent tourist-driven real estate boom in La Guaira. But the media establishment immediately jumped to its politically motivated verdict before any thorough investigation had been conducted.

Whitewashing sanctions

While multiple outlets stressed that it is necessary to scrutinize whether authorities enforced the appropriate regulations in what is known to be vulnerable terrain (France 24, 6/29/26; Reuters, 6/29/26), no evaluation of the Venezuelan state’s record is accurate if it ignores the wide-reaching sanctions regime imposed by Washington.

Yet many Western journalists completely overlooked sanctions in their coverage of the earthquakes and the Venezuelan state’s capacity to respond to a natural catastrophe.

Corporate outlets like the Financial Times (6/28/26) wasted no time in proclaiming that the “legacy of ‘Chavismo’ hinder[ed] Venezuela’s earthquake response,” while AP (7/3/26) decreed that the government’s response was “slow” and the BBC (6/29/26) claimed survivors were “left to fend for themselves.”

None saw fit to even mention that Venezuela has been under economic coercive measures for years. NBC (6/25/26) avoided the kneejerk verdicts and offered lots of testimony on the natural disaster, but when concluding that “Venezuela already faced economic challenges and poverty,” chose not to name sanctions as a key economic challenge and poverty factor.

In other reports, the whitewashing of sanctions was more subtle. The Guardian (7/3/26) attributed the government’s “sluggish response” to “years of corruption, economic mismanagement and investment in political repression and domestic security rather than emergency services and healthcare.” As almost an afterthought, it added that sanctions “have further enfeebled the Venezuelan state.” The Washington Post‘s anti-public housing article (6/27/26) called Venezuela’s economic collapse “the result of mismanagement by the socialist government exacerbated by US-imposed economic sanctions.”

The New York Times (7/4/26) wrote that “Venezuela’s fragile infrastructure—including rail, electricity and healthcare systems that have suffered from years of corruption and mismanagement.” In a later section it added, “Venezuela is reeling from years of economic turmoil and crippling US sanctions.”

Over the years, Western media have pulled all the stops to legitimize Washington’s hybrid war on Caracas and conceal the murderous impact of sanctions (FAIR.org, 6/4/21, 6/13/22). There is no shortage of documentation on how these coercive measures represented collective punishment (CEPR, 4/25/19). In an extensive 2021 report, UN rapporteur Alena Douhan thoroughly discussed the impact of sanctions on Venezuelan public services and infrastructure.

The current framing  of earthquake coverage aims to separate US sanctions as much as possible from their direct consequences. Rail, electricity and healthcare systems became much more “fragile” because sanctions blocked the Venezuelan government from servicing equipment and importing spare parts, not to mention brain drain resulting from mass migration of qualified personnel largely trained in public universities. Similarly, the “economic turmoil” is a result of US sanctions, not a parallel phenomenon.

Indeed, economist Francisco Rodríguez, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, dismisses arguments that the bulk of Venezuela’s economic decline preceded sanctions (CEPR, 5/19/26). Instead, the rate of GDP contraction nearly quadrupled following the US imposition of unilateral coercive measures in 2017.

And the need to conjure elaborate intermediation schemes in order to circumvent sanctions opened more avenues for corruption. To present the latter as an issue that uniquely and disproportionately plagues a government facing an economic blockade is disingenuous, to say the least.

Ignoring the semi-colonial straitjacket

In their recent coverage, most corporate media sources were quick to decree that the Venezuelan government’s response was “slow” (Financial Times, 6/27/26; Guardian, 6/29/26), “inadequate” (Reuters, 7/5/26), “faltering” (AP, 7/1/26) or “completely ineffective” (PBS, 7/2/26).

It is understandable that ordinary people would not sing the government’s praises after losing a relative or while looking for one trapped under rubble. But journalists have a responsibility to add context. In this case, a significant mitigating circumstance is that the tremors heavily hit the local authorities, which run civil protection and other services.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez stated that nearly all the directors from the La Guaira regional government were lost in the tragedy. Coupled with a collapse of communications, this added more hurdles for response efforts.

Another overlooked element is just how rare and deadly this double earthquake was. The New York Times was a notable exception, with a thorough piece (7/3/26) explaining how the disaster unfolded and why it caused so much destruction.

But the most relevant element to understand Venezuela’s present constraints is, once again, the role played by the US government. Just like with sanctions, corporate news outlets whitewashed Washington’s current semi-colonial impositions on the South American nation.

Since the January 3 attacks, the Trump administration has seized control of Venezuelan export revenues, particularly from oil sales (Venezuelanalysis, 2/20/26). Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the Venezuelan government would need to submit a “budget request” to access its own funds held by the US Treasury (Venezuelanalysis, 1/29/26). Neither US nor Venezuelan authorities have offered any transparent information on the amounts collected and disbursed, including Washington’s intermediation fees.

Trump is not known for precision in his statements, but he has not been shy in boasting that the cost of the January 3 military operation has been paid “many times over” from oil profits (New York Times, 6/29/26; Guardian, 6/28/26; Al Jazeera, 6/24/26). While there is no information to verify the claims, economist Francisco Rodríguez, analyzing Venezuelan Central Bank data, concluded that there is at least a significant delay in the US disbursement of Venezuelan funds back to the country (Banca y Negocios, 6/22/26). The suspicious lack of transparency has even drawn questions from traditional foreign policy paladins like the Council on Foreign Relations.

With few exceptions (Reuters, 7/1/26; AP, 7/3/26; New York Times, 7/6/26), this key, semi-colonial constraint on the Venezuelan state is completely overlooked. Even worse, some outlets mistakenly stated that the White House has “lifted” or  authorized “relaxation” of sanctions (PBS, 7/2/26; Financial Times, 6/27/26). Actually it has only issued licenses for select Western corporations, and with the condition that proceeds be deposited in the US Treasury account. Following the recent natural disaster, the Trump administration issued a four-month waiver allowing earthquake relief-related transactions, but left all restrictions and asset freezes in place (Venezuelanalysis, 6/26/26).

Another ominous development has been the US forces’ takeover of operations at the Simón Bolívar International Airport, the country’s main air hub, and the La Guaira port. Despite regular Southern Command press releases, and even photographic evidence, the media establishment has paid little attention to this serious (further) encroachment on Venezuelan sovereignty.

The outlook is bleak for Venezuela, with this tragedy likely to increase dependency and semi-colonial plundering. But there is room for hope. The limits of US power are being exposed all over the world, and resorting to more and more violence will not stem this inevitable decline. Peoples in the Global South, including in Venezuela, will eventually (re)take control of their destinies. But they know that the corporate press barons are no allies in this struggle.

Source: FAIR

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has accused some members of the Israeli government of attempting to influence American public opinion to undermine Washington’s agreement with Iran, highlighting growing public differences between the two allies over Middle East policy.

Speaking on a podcast with Joe Rogan released on Wednesday, Vance defended the U.S.-brokered deal that ended last month’s conflict with Iran, despite criticism from Israeli officials and some U.S. lawmakers who argue the agreement leaves Tehran’s missile and nuclear capabilities largely intact.

Vance accuses Israeli officials of influence campaign

Vance said he was certain that some figures within the Israeli government sought to steer U.S. policy toward continuing military operations against Iran.

“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign,” Vance said.

He added that although he maintains good relationships with some Israeli officials, others were trying to shape American public opinion.

“There are some people within their system that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely,” he said.

Defends Iran ceasefire agreement

Vance argued that the agreement reached last month was the right decision, despite criticism that it failed to place sufficient limits on Iran’s ballistic missile programme or provide a clear roadmap for dismantling its nuclear facilities.

The deal has also been criticised in Israel for restricting its military campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The vice president said attempts by foreign governments to influence U.S. policy are common and not unique to Israel.

“It doesn’t bother me that Israel tries to do this. It frankly doesn’t even bother me that Russia or some of these other countries do it,” Vance said.

“What does bother me is when those operations, those influence campaigns, actually affect American political judgment.”

Growing public differences with Israel

The remarks add to increasingly visible disagreements between the Trump administration and Israeli leaders over how to handle Iran.

In June, Vance sharply criticised Israeli opponents of the Iran agreement, arguing that President Donald Trump remained Israel’s strongest ally despite objections from some members of the Israeli government.

Israeli officials have argued that the agreement does not adequately address Iran’s nuclear ambitions or ballistic missile programme, concerns they say are widely shared across Israel’s political and security establishment.

Would US have entered the conflict?

Asked whether the United States would have become involved in the recent conflict with Iran without Israeli influence, Vance replied, “Yes, yes I do.”

He added that President Trump independently believes Iran should never obtain a nuclear weapon.

“I think the president, separate from any influence from Israel, believes very strongly, and again I agree with this, that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Why it matters

Vance’s comments expose unusually public tensions between senior U.S. and Israeli officials over the future of Middle East policy. They also underscore ongoing debate within Washington over the extent of foreign influence on U.S. decision-making and the long-term strategy toward Iran.

What to watch

The remarks are likely to draw scrutiny from both Israeli officials and members of the U.S. Congress as the Trump administration seeks to preserve the Iran agreement while managing its close security partnership with Israel. Further disagreements over Iran and regional military operations could test the traditionally strong U.S.-Israel alliance in the months ahead.

With information from Reuters.

Ukraine has appointed veteran energy executive Sergii Koretskyi as its new prime minister, marking a significant leadership change as the country continues to battle Russia’s invasion and prepares for another difficult winter.

Parliament approved the 48-year-old on Thursday as part of a wider government reshuffle announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Koretskyi becomes Ukraine’s third wartime prime minister and takes office at a time when Kyiv faces mounting military, economic and energy challenges.

A Political Outsider Takes Office

Unlike many of his predecessors, Koretskyi arrives in government without a political background. An engineer and economist by training, he has never held elected office or served in government and is not affiliated with any political party.

Analysts say that independence could work in his favour. Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta think tank, has described Koretskyi as an experienced manager whose political neutrality makes him well suited to lead a technocratic government focused on wartime priorities rather than party politics.

More Than Two Decades in Ukraine’s Energy Sector

Koretskyi is best known for his extensive career in Ukraine’s energy industry, where he has spent more than two decades working across oil production, refining, retail fuel operations, wholesale energy management and international financing.

Since May 2025, he has served as chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company that oversees much of the country’s natural gas production, imports and distribution. Before taking over Naftogaz, he led Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest oil producer and a subsidiary of the Naftogaz Group.

Earlier in his career, Koretskyi headed Western Oil Group, served as chief executive of the Continuum Group, and managed WOG, one of Ukraine’s largest fuel station networks. Outside the energy sector, he also founded a coffee chain business in his hometown of Lutsk in western Ukraine.

Winter Energy Security Will Be the First Test

His appointment comes as Ukraine’s energy sector remains under relentless pressure from Russian missile and drone strikes. Last winter, Russia launched its most extensive campaign against Ukraine’s power infrastructure since the war began, damaging power plants, substations and transmission networks across the country.

Preparing the energy system for another winter has become one of the government’s most urgent priorities. President Zelenskiy has said ensuring stable electricity and heating supplies while strengthening protection for critical infrastructure will be among the new government’s immediate tasks.

Leading Ukraine During Wartime

Koretskyi also takes office as Ukraine faces continued battlefield pressure despite making gains through long-range strikes against Russian energy facilities and military logistics. At the same time, Kyiv continues to rely heavily on international military and financial assistance while confronting shortages of air defence interceptors needed to counter Russian missile attacks.

His background suggests the government will place a strong emphasis on energy security, infrastructure resilience and economic management as the war enters another challenging phase.

Whether Koretskyi’s experience in managing some of Ukraine’s largest energy companies translates into effective wartime leadership will likely become one of the key tests for Zelenskiy’s newly reshuffled government in the months ahead. His ability to secure Ukraine’s energy network, maintain economic stability and coordinate with international partners will be closely watched as the country prepares for another winter under the shadow of war.

With information from Reuters.

Syrian authorities say they intercepted a shipment including missiles, rockets, and drones before it entered from Iraq.

Syria has seized a shipment of weapons, including missiles, at its border with Iraq, as authorities say they foiled an ⁠attempt to ⁠smuggle arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, something the group denies.

Syria’s General Authority of Ports and Customs said on Thursday that the weapons shipment – which included long-range missiles, rockets and drones – was concealed inside “one of the oil tanker-trucks ⁠headed to the city of Baniyas”.

It was discovered during routine inspection procedures at the al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq after customs officers subjected the vehicle to a thorough search, Syria’s state news agency reported.

“According to the ministry, preliminary investigations based on evidence collected at the scene indicated that the shipment was intended to transit Syrian territory before being delivered to the Hezbollah terrorist militia in Lebanon,” SANA wrote, citing sources from Syria’s Interior Ministry.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group denied having any activity in Syria, dismissing the accusations in a statement on Thursday as “fabricated narratives with no basis in fact, aimed at harming Hezbollah”.

Syrian authorities are known to be hostile towards the group, as it was an ally of former president Bashar al-Assad before he was ousted in 2024 by members of the current government.

Following the seizure, Iraq said it would form ‌a high-level committee to investigate what happened. The military’s Joint Operations Command said Baghdad would coordinate with Syrian authorities to establish the circumstances of the attempted smuggling, hold those responsible to account, and strengthen security along the shared border.

The Baniyas route, where the tanker was passing through, has been used frequently in recent months for fuel movements between ⁠Iraq and Syria, since the main route through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted by the Iran war.

“This seizure from Syria is part of a broader reshaping of the region that has occurred over the last couple of years, particularly the fall of the Assad regime in Syria,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from Lebanon.

“It used to be a very popular land route for Iran to traffic weapons and cash to its partner here in Lebanon, Hezbollah. They went from Iran, across Iraq, through Syria, and then here into Lebanon.”

“Under the Assad regime they [Iran] had very little trouble with that, but since the new [Syrian] President Ahmed al-Sharaa took power, he has been cracking down on that crossroad of smuggling,” Pett added.

A source at Syria’s Interior Ministry told SANA that “protecting Syria’s borders and safeguarding its national sovereignty remained a top priority, adding that it would not allow Syrian territory to be used as a transit route or launch point for arms smuggling or other activities that threaten the security of Syria or neighbouring countries”.

US President Donald ⁠Trump had spoken to Syria’s al-Sharaa about disarming Hezbollah, which is fighting Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon. But Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office said al-Sharaa had assured him that Syria would not ‌take sides in Lebanon’s internal affairs, including fighting Hezbollah.

Iraqi authorities say they seized the equivalent of $19 million in cash and several kilograms of gold jewelry hidden in secret hideouts linked to an ex-deputy oil minister.

Uganda ⁠discharges last-remaining patient, as WHO says Ebola has ‘expanded faster than any previous outbreak’ in DRC.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Ebola is spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo more quickly than in any previous outbreak.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in the DRC in 2018-2020 “took more than 10 months to reach 2,000 confirmed cases”. But this time more than 2,000 cases were confirmed in only two months, including 796 deaths.

“It is now the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record,” Tedros said. “In the past month, it has expanded faster than any previous outbreak.”

The DRC reported 62 new cases on Thursday, increasing its total number of confirmed infections to 2,073, though the ⁠⁠WHO has said the ⁠⁠true tally could be at least double that.

The DRC’s 17th Ebola outbreak was declared on May 15 after several deaths in Ituri, the mineral-rich northeastern province patrolled by several armed groups.

Cases of Ebola, which spreads through close contact and infected bodily fluids, have so far been found in five DRC provinces and neighbouring Uganda, though the vast majority are in Ituri.

The WHO chief highlighted that over 80 percent of new cases were being detected “outside known contact lists, showing that transmission chains are still being missed”.

He added that 377 people have recovered from Ebola in the DRC, “showing that with early diagnosis and safe care, this disease can be survived and stopped”.

To compound problems in Ituri, healthcare workers began a strike and blocked the entrance to Bunia General Hospital on Wednesday. Staff said they had not received any compensation for their work since the outbreak began, despite working under extremely difficult conditions.

In Uganda, things were looking up as its last remaining Ebola patient was discharged on Thursday, starting a 42-day countdown after which it can ⁠⁠be declared Ebola-free, said the East African nation’s health ministry.

Uganda had 20 cases of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola since mid-May. Fifteen were people infected in the DRC who then travelled to Uganda.

Unlike the surging number of infections in DRC, Uganda has not reported a new case since June 22 .

“Today, Uganda has discharged the last Ebola patient, a Congolese national who has successfully recovered and [is] ⁠⁠ready to be with his family,” Uganda’s health ministry posted on X.

“Uganda starts ‌‌counting down. If 42 days pass without a single new case, WHO guidelines stipulate ‌‌that we will be declared Ebola-free.”

The ban comes after 1,100 responses to a consultation which strongly supported introducing an age restriction on the drinks, external.

The new rules will come in via secondary legislation using powers from the Food Safety Act 1990.

Too much caffeine can cause a rapid heart rate, abnormal heart rhythms and seizures.

Although rare, there have been some deaths linked to excess caffeine.

The sugary versions of the drinks can also contribute to obesity and damage teeth, according to The Association of UK Dieticians.

Currently any drink, other than tea or coffee, with over 150mg requires a label warning of its high caffeine content that says it is not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women.

For most adults, up to 400mg of caffeine a day, or about four cups of instant coffee or five cups of tea, is safe.

Katharine Jenner, Executive Director of the Obesity Health Alliance, praised the policy and said restricting the sales of the drinks to children “at a vital time in their life is just common-sense”.

The British Soft Drinks Association said the ban was “unnecessary”.

A spokesperson said: “Since 2010, our members have committed not to market or promote the sale of energy drinks to under-16s, and all high-caffeine beverages carry a ‘not recommended for children’ label.”

The previous Conservative government had planned to introduce the ban, but scrapped the move in 2022, and said consumption should be a personal choice.

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are also considering a ban.

The U.S. Navy is envisioning a future force of carrier-based uncrewed aircraft capable of attacking enemy forces at least 1,000 nautical miles away from the ship. They would also have to be able to do this without needing to refuel in mid-air, though tankers could further extend their reach. This, along with other details, offers the first real sense of the combat drone capabilities the Navy wants to add to its future carrier air wings.

The range target was included in a very broad request for information (RFI) contracting notice regarding a future Air Wing of the Future (AWOTF) “family of systems,” which Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) put out this week. NAVAIR is looking for prospective drone designs that could perform any combination of eight distinct missions. These are surface warfare; strike warfare; anti-submarine warfare; air warfare; electronic warfare; intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISR&T); mobility; and logistics. A breakdown of how these missions are defined, in general terms, in the RFI is provided below.

It should be noted here that the Navy says the family of AWOTF platforms already includes the MQ-25A Stingray tanker drone, which will have a secondary surveillance and reconnaissance role, as well as future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). The Navy is still very early on in the process of defining what it wants its CCA drones to be able to do, even just initially. As TWZ has noted in the past, the MQ-25’s core design and baseline performance, specifically its extreme endurance and low-signature design, also leave open the possibility that it could be adapted to strike, advanced ISR, and other missions in the future.

“For missions involving attacking the enemy, the system must be capable of delivering effects a minimum of 1,000 NM [nautical miles; approximately 1,151 miles statute miles or 1,900 kilometers] from the CVN without refueling,” the RFI NAVAIR issued yesterday says.

The drones must be “fully compatible with both Nimitz class and Ford class CVN launch and recovery systems,” per the RFI. “The system must demonstrate increased combat effectiveness over current 4th generation platforms at a given spot factor.”

Spot factor here is the amount of physical space the platform occupies, which is a very important consideration for carrier-based aircraft, where room on the flight deck and below is at a premium. Though the focus is on prospective carrier-based designs, the RFI also highlights the Navy’s interest in vertical takeoff and landing capable drones that could operate from destroyers or other vessels. This is something the service has openly discussed in the past and that we will come back to later on.

The Navy also wants any potential designs to be “capable of integration into existing U.S. Navy Unmanned Carrier Aviation (UCA) control systems.” Furthermore, the service is asking prospective vendors to explain how their concepts “address flight autonomy (e.g., carrier pattern, taxiing) and mission autonomy (e.g., dynamic tasking / retasking, threat evasion, automated aerial refueling) maturity,” and whether “their solution is single-role, multi-role, or a modular/variant-based approach.”

The video below from Collins Aerospace offers a notional look at what crewed-uncrewed teaming involving carrier and land-based CCA-type drones might look like in the future.

Collaborative Mission Autonomy

The range requirement is particularly interesting. As adversary anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) bubbles continue to expand in scale and scope, carriers and their air wings will be pushed further and further away from target areas. Having aircraft, crewed and uncrewed, that can cover those extended distances will be vital. Having CCA-type drones, in particular, with ranges similar to or greater than that of the crewed fighters they are expected to be paired with, is also key to enabling that particular concept of operations.

Not necessarily needing tanker support to complete those missions will also be a boon. Aerial refueling capacity is always in high demand during sustained conflicts, as underscored by the recent fighting with Iran, and that need will be further magnified in a future high-end fight against a near-peer opponent like China. Those same tankers would, by extension, also be top targets for enemy forces.

The new uncrewed carrier-based aircraft RFI from NAVAIR outlines exactly this reality:

“Aligned with the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) issued by the Department of War, and the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO) Fighting Instructions, the Navy is seeking capability improvements to expedite transition from a 4th-generation-centric Carrier Air Wing (CVW) to a 5th/6th-generation manned-unmanned AWoTF. This transition supports the Golden Fleet initiative and the Navy Warfighting Concept, which is a proactive approach leveraging global maritime maneuver to gain sea control, impose sea denial, and project power independently. Unmanned systems are critical to increasing Carrier Strike Group (CSG) strike capacity, extending CVW operational reach, and introducing advanced methods for executing Naval Aviation missions in a Highly Contested Environment (HCE). The objective is to evaluate the feasibility of fielding platforms with extended range and payload capacity, while minimizing deck footprint and integrating with established CVN infrastructure.”

Currently, the tactical core of the Navy’s carrier air wings remains the fourth-generation F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter, along with its EA-18G Growler electronic warfare cousin. Fifth-generation F-35C Joint Strike Fighters are starting to be increasingly in the rotation. The service is also still planning to acquire a new sixth-generation combat jet, currently referred to as F/A-XX, and is hoping to settle on a design in the coming months.

A 1,000 nautical mile range target is in line, at least in broad strokes, with what the Navy is looking for in terms of combat radius for F/A-XX. The service has said in the past that the sixth-generation jets will offer a 25 percent increase in range over the existing tactical combat jets. This would be roughly 837.5 nautical miles (just over 1,551 kilometers) based on the stated combat radius of the F-35C (670 nautical miles, or close to 1,241 kilometers). The F-35C has the longest reach, with a relevant payload, of any tactical jet in the Navy’s current inventory. The service has also previously expressed interest in finding new ways to extend the unrefueled range of its F/A-18E/Fs and EA-18Gs.

In addition, the U.S. Air Force has previously said the combat radius of its new sixth-generation F-47 fighter and its initial fleet of CCA drones will be “1,000+” and “700+” nautical miles, respectively. As TWZ has noted in the past, the estimated combat radii of both the F-47 and F/A-XX are significant, but also notably not as drastic an increase as many had been expecting or may think is necessary given the aforementioned evolution of the threat ecosystem.

As an aside, it is interesting to remember that the Navy’s abortive Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program had been aiming for a platform with a combat radius of up to 2,000 nautical miles when operating in the strike role. There was also a requirement to be able to fly surveillance and reconnaissance orbits in areas 1,200 nautical miles from the deck of a carrier. UCLASS payload requirements fluctuated, but a pair of X-47B stealthy demonstrator drones tested during the program were designed to carry two 2,000-pound-class munitions internally.

UCLASS showed much promise, and the X-47Bs achieved many firsts for carrier-based drones. Despite this, UCLASS was transformed into the radically different Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program in the mid-2010s, which then led to the MQ-25. This was a shift that seemed abrupt to many and was done for reasons that are still not entirely clear, as TWZ has previously explored in detail in a seminal feature readers can find here.

Northrop Grumman’s X47-B Completes 1st Carrier Catapult Launch

Northrop Grumman X-47B | First to Complete Autonomous Aerial Refueling

As mentioned, the Navy is still refining the requirements for its planned carrier-based CCA drones. Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman are all on contract now to develop conceptual designs. So far, what we have seen are designs intended to operate from carriers in a broadly traditional manner using existing catapults and/or arresting gear. General Atomics has publicly put forward a carrier-based member of its highly modular Gambit family of drones, which are based around the common chassis concept that you can read more about here. Boeing has also previously shown a rendering of a carrier-based version of its MQ-28 Ghost Bat, a drone developed by the company’s Australian subsidiary. The Navy has also expressed specific interest in Ghost Bat.

It is also worth pointing out that the NAVAIR RFI uses the term “combat radius” but also frames the requirement around “delivering effects” out to the desired range without the need for refueling. This might leave the door open to concepts that use stand-off munitions and/or other capabilities to extend the functional reach of the drone, even if its actual combat radius is under 1,000 nautical miles.

As mentioned earlier, the RFI also discusses VTOL drone operations for vessels other than carriers. Concepts of operations that involve launches from carriers (or other ships) and recovery at tertiary points at sea (or on land) could also have impacts on the range equation. Depending on their design and performance, drones could be launched from forward locations and then recover aboard carriers further to the rear, too.

Shield AI has notably talked about exactly this kind of flexibility as being a key benefit of its still-in-development X-BAT stealthy jet-powered combat drone. X-BAT is designed to take off and land vertically using nothing more than a trailer-based launch and recovery system. Shield AI is aiming for a maximum range of 2,000 nautical miles for the drone, which you can learn about in far more detail here

X-BAT: Earth Is Our Runway

The Navy, in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has explored other relevant ship-based uncrewed VTOL concepts in the past, as well.

AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY)

There are also drone designs that can be launched and/or recovered in very different ways. The U.S. Marine Corps’ first CCA-type drone will be a version of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie that can operate from traditional runways, as well as make rocket-assisted takeoffs using static launchers. Earlier Valkyrie variants can also be launched using the latter method, and are recovered via parachute. The new MQ-58s for the Marines will still need to touch down on a runway at the end of a sortie, but this mix of capabilities still offers significant additional operational flexibility.

Beyond exploring specific design concepts and capability mixes, NAVAIR’s RFI makes clear that the Navy is very much still refining its overall vision for what the uncrewed complement of future carrier air wings will look like. Senior service officials have said in the past that the goal is for the total makeup of carrier air wings to eventually be 60 percent or more uncrewed.

At the same time, the Navy has acknowledged that it has been moving more slowly than the Air Force and Marines with its plans to develop and field a carrier-based CCA fleet. The NAVAIR RFI also points to efforts now to expand that work, but it remains unclear when operational CCAs, or any other future uncrewed members of the AWOTF, will appear on the decks of U.S. carriers. The Navy has consistently said that it is focused first on fielding the much-delayed MQ-25, which will then help serve as a ‘pathfinder’ for other drones. The service is now targeting next year to finally reach initial operational capability with the Stingray, something that was originally scheduled to happen in 2024.

What we do know now is that the Navy also sees a combat radius of at least 1,000 nautical miles as a key threshold requirement for uncrewed tactical elements of its future carrier air wings.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

In all, 32 defendants convicted and 25 acquitted or cleared by statute ‌of limitations over 2018 Morandi bridge disaster.

A court has sentenced the former CEO of Italy’s main highway operator ⁠to 12 years in prison over the collapse of the Morandi road bridge in the port city of Genoa.

Judges delivered their verdict on Thursday in Genoa in the first trial over the collapse of the bridge, which killed 43 people when it fell apart on August 14, 2018. It is considered one of the country’s worst infrastructure disasters.

Atlantia CEO Giovanni Castellucci ⁠was found guilty of vehicular homicide and negligence related to the Morandi bridge’s collapse.

The bridge was operated by Atlantia’s motorway unit, Autostrade per l’Italia, which has come under severe scrutiny in this affair.

Castellucci is already in prison, serving a six-year sentence over another fatal incident in 2013 on a viaduct in southern Italy, and was not in court to hear the verdict.

Also convicted on Thursday were Autostrade’s former head of maintenance, Michele Donferri Mitelli, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison and the former CEO of the SPEA engineering company, Antonino Galata, who received five years and six months.

In all, 32 people were convicted and handed sentences ranging from one year and 11 months to 12 years. Others were either found not guilty, or lesser charges had expired under the statute of limitations.

Relatives of the victims, meanwhile, packed the court to hear the outcome of a case that has become a symbol of Italy’s decaying infrastructure and slow justice system. The verdict came after four years of trial hearings for 57 defendants, including company executives, engineers and transport ministry officials, on charges of manslaughter, endangering transport safety and falsifying official documents.

The 1,182-metre (1,293-yard) bridge, which had been dubbed Italy’s “Brooklyn Bridge”, was designed by the architect Riccardo Morandi and inaugurated in 1967.

By the turn of the century, experts continued to warn that the structure was deteriorating, yet critical repairs were never carried out.

Prosecutor Walter Cotugno dubbed the bridge “a ticking time bomb” at the verdict.

The collapse of the then-51-year-old bridge triggered years of investigations into the maintenance of its decrepit infrastructure. A 50-metre (160-foot) high section of the bridge collapsed with as many as 35 vehicles on it, which fell onto warehouses and a riverbed below.

“I ⁠wish to apologise to the victims’ families, to the people of Genoa, and to all Italians for the suffering caused by the tragic Morandi disaster, fully aware that our gesture can never erase their pain,” Autostrade CEO Arrigo Giana wrote in an apology statement on Wednesday.

Prosecutors argue that years of ‌inadequate maintenance, ignored warning signs and delayed safety work contributed to the collapse, alleging that vital work was postponed, while profits continued to be generated and distributed.

The defence’s main argument was that the bridge had a hidden construction defect, namely corrosion of its cables, that caused its collapse, not a lack of maintenance.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Wednesday unleashed a new wave of strikes on Iranian targets. The attacks, on Iran’s Greater Tunb Island, came as the newly restored blockade on Iranian ports entered its first full day and the command began ordering ships headed to Iran to turn around. Meanwhile, Iran claims it damaged several U.S. military facilities in new rounds of missile and drone attacks in the region.

“CENTCOM launched precision munitions against coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island during the 90-minute wave,” the command stated on X. “The strikes further degraded Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” The island, located at the western mouth of the Strait, sits about 30 miles south of the Iranian coast and about 50 miles northwest of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which also lays claim to it, along with the Abu Musa and Lesser Tunb islands that Iran seized in 1971.

Greater Tunb Island was a frequent target during Operation Epic Fury. A little more than two miles across at its widest point, it hosts a “vast network of underground bunkers,” created by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center think tank. “These underground facilities are believed to be storing anti-ship missiles and other weapons threatening freedom of navigation and commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.”

In a subsequent X post, CENTCOM stated that since “restarting the naval blockade against Iranian ports 17 hours ago, U.S. forces have redirected 2 commercial vessels attempting to run the blockade. The U.S. military remains vigilant and prepared to ensure full compliance.”

In its announcement on Tuesday that the blockade had been reimposed, CENTCOM stated that there are “currently more than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East. American forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.”

Control over the Strait has been at the center of most of the flare-ups of violence that have taken place after a shaky ceasefire was agreed to by the U.S. and Iran on April 8. They’ve often involved Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait followed by U.S. kinetic responses. However, these kinetic encounters have been intensifying over the past five days, leading President Donald Trump to order the resumption of the naval blockade on Iranian ports. It went into effect at 11:30 PM local time on Tuesday.

As we have frequently noted, the blockade was lifted on June 17 when the U.S. and Iran signed a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU provided a 60-day extension of the ceasefire to iron out an agreement to end fighting throughout the region, including Lebanon, prevent Iran from seeking nuclear weapons, end U.S. sanctions and resume the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, among other points.

Iran, as we noted earlier in this story, said it carried out a number of retaliatory strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan as it has over the past five days. All three nations host an array of U.S. military facilities.

The Iranian Army’s public relations office said it “launched a seventh wave of drone strikes on U.S. bases in the region on Wednesday, targeting F-18 facilities and support infrastructure at al-Azraq in Jordan,” Iran’s official Mehr news outlet stated on Wednesday. The strikes “were part of ‘Operation Thunderbolt’ and followed six earlier waves of drone attacks on U.S. positions since the American violation of the ceasefire and the start of ‘brutal attacks’ on Iranian territory.”

TWZ cannot independently confirm Iran’s claims and CENTCOM declined comment.

“Jordan’s military intercepted three Iranian missiles,” The New York Times reported, citing a statement carried by the official Petra news agency. “The Kuwait Army said earlier that its air defenses were intercepting hostile targets, while Bahrain’s interior ministry said warning sirens had been activated. None of the countries have reported damage or casualties from strikes on Wednesday.”

However, images and videos have emerged online purporting to show damage at several installations in the wake of Iranian attacks over the past several days.

The following post on X uses satellite imagery from Iranian state media to claim damage to an anti-drone radar system at Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan; however, its low resolution makes it hard to confirm that claim.

Harry Kane was in the form of his life in the Bundesliga last season, scoring 61 goals in all competitions.

But time is against the Bayern Munich striker, who turns 33 on 28 July.

The captain, who scored six goals at the World Cup, said after the loss to Argentina that it was “too early” to talk about playing at the finals in 2030.

Kane will, though, surely be around for Euro 2028. Lifting a trophy on home soil could yet be the end of his international career.

So who starts up front should not be a problem, barring injury.

Tuchel’s key task is to work out a Plan B, or find an able understudy should Kane not be available.

Phil Foden was given a chance in a false nine role against Uruguay in March, but he underperformed to such an extent that he missed out on the World Cup.

Tuchel took two other central strikers, Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney. Yet they were limited to one minor substitute appearance each.

Watkins, the top-scoring English striker in the Premier League last season with 16 goals, played just six minutes when he replaced Kane against Panama.

Kane played every other minute save for stoppage time against Mexico, when Morgan Rogers replaced him.

Toney, who like Watkins is 30, was only granted the final throes of stoppage time against Argentina.

It suggests an over-reliance on Kane, and alternatives must be found to ease his workload as he approaches the age of 35.

Dominic Solanke (28) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (29) are the only other strikers to be used by England in the last 12 months.

Watkins, Leeds’ Calvert-Lewin (14) and the 35-year-old Brighton attacker Danny Welbeck (13) were the only English strikers to hit double figures in the Premier League last season.

Age is not on the side of any of these players, and it is unclear where the new blood is coming from.

It was hoped that Eddie Nketiah, the England Under-21 all-time record goalscorer, would be the next prolific striker to come through the youth levels.

But the former Arsenal player has scored just five Premier League goals in two seasons at Crystal Palace.

Perhaps Liam Delap, still only 23, who scored 12 Premier League goals for Ipswich Town in 2024-25, will finally find his feet at Chelsea – or at a new club.

This may be a problem for another manager beyond Euro 2028, as Tuchel may feel that he has got Kane and that will do him.

It was a Capitol Hill mystery. For nearly a month, United States Senator Mitch McConnell was not seen or heard from in public.

Little was known about the 84-year-old’s condition, other than that he was hospitalised on June 14. Conspiracy theories began to bubble online. One prominent right-wing influencer, Laura Loomer, even spread rumours that the Republican leader was brain-dead.

But after weeks of silence, McConnell confirmed on Sunday that he was on the mend after suffering a fall.

Still, the Kentucky Republican has increasingly appeared frail on Capitol Hill, freezing in front of cameras and walking unsteadily when not in a wheelchair.

Members of Congress are typically on the older side. The average age for a US senator is around 65.

McConnell’s poor health — and the sudden passing of his Senate colleague Lindsey Graham, 71, on Sunday — have reignited the question: What would happen if McConnell were unable to serve the remainder of his term?

The answer is the subject of intense scrutiny, as Republicans seek to preserve their majority in the Senate.

Who is Mitch McConnell?

A seven-term senator from Kentucky, McConnell is the longest-serving party leader in the history of the Senate.

He first entered the Senate in 1985, and in 2007, he became the head of the Republican Party in the chamber, a position he held until 2025.

He continues to serve as a senator, though he is not seeking re-election in November’s midterm elections. His term ends in January.

What is wrong with McConnell’s health?

On Sunday, McConnell said in a statement that a fall on June 14 rendered him “briefly unconscious” and landed him in the hospital. The senator also said he had dealt with a mild case of pneumonia.

But McConnell has long struggled with health and mobility challenges. As a toddler, he survived a severe bout of polio, though it left one of his legs partially paralysed.

McConnell indicated his condition was improving, but that he would not return to the Senate yet.

“With signs of continued progress, I’ve been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center where I’ll keep regaining my strength,” he wrote.

His statement was accompanied by a smiling photo of the senator in a hospital bed, with what appeared to be a copy of Sunday’s Washington Post newspaper.

Has McConnell been hospitalised before?

This is not the first time the senior senator’s health has been a source of concern in recent years.

As recently as February, the veteran lawmaker was hospitalised for flu-like symptoms.

Also, in 2019, McConnell tripped and fell in his Louisville home, fracturing his shoulder.

According to reporting from the Louisville Courier Journal, he also collapsed three times in 2023, suffering a concussion and a broken rib that ultimately led to him using a wheelchair.

It was during that period that McConnell had several instances where he inexplicably appeared to freeze while speaking in public, prompting questions about his fitness to serve.

Why does his presence in the Senate matter?

Republicans have a controlling majority in the Senate — but only by a few seats.

With McConnell absent, the number of Republicans available to vote shrinks from 53 to 52 in the 100-seat Senate.

That could influence the outcome of divisive bills, when every Republican vote matters.

McConnell’s absence has already helped Democrats pass a resolution against President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, with four Republicans crossing party lines to vote for it.

McConnell also sits on the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee, which helps decide discretionary government spending.

The US government has a looming funding deadline on September 30, and McConnell’s continued hospitalisation could muddle efforts to pass funding measures.

What does McConnell’s absence reveal about Republican Party unity?

The Republican majority in the Senate has weakened over time, according to Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.

Moderates like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — alongside wild cards like Rand Paul — have shown willingness in the past to join with Democrats during critical votes.

But that small proportion of “swing” Republicans has grown during the midterm primary season.

A number of lame-duck Republicans have lost their re-election bids to party rivals, backed by President Trump. That makes them more willing to buck their party leadership from time to time.

“McConnell’s absence could become inconvenient depending on what sort of policy battles we see in coming months,” said Voss.

What has been the reaction to McConnell’s absence?

News of McConnell’s hospitalisation sent alarm rippling through the US political sphere.

Republican leaders attempted to reassure the public that the senator would soon return to his post. But as the weeks stretched on, questions about McConnell’s condition mounted.

Ultimately, on July 8, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear sent a letter to McConnell’s office, requesting an update on the senator’s health status.

Beshear has since called McConnell’s written statement on Sunday a “step in the right direction”, but he continues to push for more transparency, suggesting the Republican senator release a video update instead.

Some critics have called on McConnell to step down altogether, questioning his fitness for office. They include Democrat Charles Booker, who is running to succeed McConnell in the midterm elections.

Tres Watson, a Republican strategist and host of the Kentucky Politics Weekly podcast, sees no reason to doubt McConnell’s ability to serve, despite the recent health scares.

“I’ve been around the senator several times in the last year. His brain is functioning fine, his wit is there, his intellect is there, but the body is failing him, and he made the understandable decision not to run for another term,” Watson said.

What happens if Mitch McConnell is unable to serve the rest of his term?

If McConnell were to vacate his senate seat before his term ends, it may be tempting for Democrats to think Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, could appoint someone from his own party.

That’s not the case, however, because of a recent change in state law. Kentucky is now one of four US states where the governor does not have authority to fill Senate vacancies.

In 2024, Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a law requiring Senate vacancies to be filled by a special election, which must be called by the governor.

But experts say holding a special election this year would be fraught with challenges, one of which is timing.

The new law says the governor must give 63 days’ notice before the special election. Senate hopefuls would have to file their candidacy no later than 56 days prior to the vote.

Even if McConnell’s Senate seat were vacated immediately, the earliest a special election could occur is September.

But experts say that cobbling together a special election would not make sense, since November’s midterm elections are barely three and a half months away. McConnell’s Senate seat is up for grabs in that race.

“Setting up the process would take time, so we wouldn’t get a senator in office very quickly, even if this process kicked off soon,” said Voss, the political science professor. “The probability that we’d get a replacement ahead of time is pretty low.”

Watson, the Republican strategist, agrees. He questions the efficiency of rushing to hold a special election, when the midterms are on November 3.

“We’re getting pretty close to Election Day,” Watson said. “They’re not going to put the commonwealth through the expense of having another special election just so someone could be a US senator for effectively one month.”

Could there be challenges to filling McConnell’s seat?

Yes, a significant challenge could be litigation. Kentucky’s 2024 law is largely untested, and it would almost certainly attract legal challenges.

“I think there’s a decent chance the issue could end up in the courts,” said Joshua Douglas, a University of Kentucky law professor who teaches election law.

Douglas believes there may be a contradiction between the new law and parts of the Kentucky Constitution.

“The 17th Amendment says the legislature may authorise the governor to appoint a temporary replacement, Section 152 of the Kentucky Constitution says the governor appoints one, and the Kentucky legislature now says there must be a special election after the new law,” Douglas said.

Voss explained that the legal challenges could delay any special election to fill McConnell’s seat.

“This is the sort of thing that lawyers know how to tie up in litigation,” Voss said. “There would be people involved who know how to slow walk the process.”

Why can’t the governor pick McConnell’s replacement?

The 2024 law stripped the governor’s authority to select a temporary replacement for a US Senate seat.

Governor Beshear vetoed the bill, but the state legislature, which has a Republican supermajority, overrode his opposition.

The measure is part of a broader strategy of Republican lawmakers to shift powers away from the governor since Beshear’s election in 2019.

“We’ve seen an overall attempt by the Kentucky General Assembly to shift power from the executive to the legislative branch,” Voss said.

But the 2024 law was not the legislature’s first attempt at limiting the governor’s ability to fill Senate vacancies.

Initially, in 2021, Republican lawmakers passed a bill that required the governor to choose a temporary replacement from a list of three provided by the executive committee of the former senator’s party. After filling the vacancy, a special election would be held.

According to Watson, Republicans passed a new version because they were concerned about legal challenges to the 2021 law.

Republicans in the state argue that the 2024 update is more democratic and aligns with the process for filling other vacancies.

Beshear is the only Democrat to hold a statewide office in Kentucky. The state has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1992.

Who is running to replace McConnell in the midterms?

In the general election, Democrat Charles Booker, a former state legislator, is running against Republican Representative Andy Barr to succeed McConnell.

Khartoum, Sudan – A senior Sudanese minister says more than three years of a devastating war in the country have “profoundly reshaped” its demographic makeup.

Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Mutasim Ahmed Saleh told Al Jazeera Arabic that his ministry was working with several partners to strengthen population policies and link them to social protection programmes.

Sudan has been embroiled in a brutal civil war between its army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary since April 2023. The war is estimated to have killed about 200,000 people and displaced more than 11 million, creating what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The war has also affected Sudan’s demographics.

Before the war, the North African country’s population was expected to exceed 64 million by 2035, according to official data. In 2020, the population stood at about 44.4 million, with forecasts of a growth rate of about 2.39 percent – one of the highest rates globally.

The war has not only displaced millions of people internally in South Darfur, North Darfur and Central Darfur states, it has also forced tens of thousands of others to seek asylum in neighbouring countries, including Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.

Saleh said the most significant demographic changes caused by the war included a general increase in poverty levels, a large segment of citizens losing their income, the deterioration of basic services in a number of areas, and a decline in the labour market and human capital.

To mark World Population Day on July 11, the minister said his government would work for the people – “the focus and ultimate aim of the state’s attention” – and strengthen social protection programmes.

Saleh said his ministry, through the National Population Council and with other state partners, would strengthen Sudan’s population policies and link them to social protection, the voluntary return of refugees, the reintegration of displaced people, and human resource development to contribute to rebuilding the country’s human capital as the “cornerstone of national recovery and sustainable development”.

He said that investing in people was “the real investment in Sudan’s future”.

“The more we succeed in restoring population stability and empowering citizens economically and socially, the closer we come to building a more stable, just and prosperous homeland,” Saleh said.

Population imbalance

Experts say Sudan is distinct in its demographic structure – it has a large youth population, with about 70 percent of the population under the age of 30, according to data from the last census conducted in 2008.

They say that its large youth population gives Sudan a demographic dividend that could drive economic development. But Saleh’s ministry said young people have faced challenges such as limited access to education, scarce job opportunities and widespread poverty, even before the conflict turned them into one of the worst-affected groups.

Khalid Saad, director of the Sudanese Center for Development Communication, told Al Jazeera that Sudan’s population crisis did not begin with the war.

Despite the country’s vast territory and abundant natural resources, it has suffered for decades from a clear imbalance in population distribution, he said.

“The war came to deepen this imbalance, redraw the demographic map through displacement and asylum, empty some areas of their populations, burden other cities with numbers beyond their capacity to absorb, while large numbers of people have returned to areas retaken by government forces,” he said.

Saad said the likely return of people does not mean the end of the demographic crisis, because returnees often go back to areas that have lost a large part of their economic infrastructure.

“The challenge therefore remains in rebuilding an environment that ensures their stability and prevents renewed displacement,” he said.

The war, Saad added, raises questions that still require precise answers: the actual scale of human losses; how the war has affected mortality rates; how it has changed patterns of marriage and childbearing; the impact of displacement and migration on birth rates and age structure; and how the emigration of skilled professionals will affect the size of the workforce in coming years.

Answers to these questions form the basis for any economic or social planning in the post-war phase, he said.

Data released by the National Population Council also points to a demographic imbalance.

Sudan’s urban population rose to about 17.9 million in 2020, with Khartoum alone accounting for about 42 percent of the country’s urban population, indicating a pattern of internal migration driven by uneven development.

The International Organization for Migration said that about 4.1 million people have returned to their areas of origin across Sudan. The vast majority — more than 80 percent — returned from within Sudan to nine states, led by Khartoum, Gezira and Sennar.

According to the organisation, the number of internally displaced people has fallen by 23 percent compared with the highest level recorded in January 2025, when the number of people displaced within Sudan stood at nearly 12 million.

Sudan has entered its fourth year of conflict amid a complex political and military landscape, with little hope of a resolution. Infrastructure has collapsed, and essential services remain disrupted.

Meanwhile, local and international warnings are mounting over a worsening humanitarian crisis, driven by shortages of food and medicines, and the difficulty of delivering aid to affected or besieged areas.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting more than 65 countries for a conference focused on political violence from the far left, a designation that a number of critics say is being used to target legitimate opposition.

The “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism”, taking place on Thursday, brings together government representatives from around the world to coordinate on what the US Department of State calls a “renewed threat”  that has “remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus”.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Reuters news agency that “the far-left terrorism designations could be used to target lawful protest activity and political opponents rather than genuine security threats.”

Here’s what’s driving the summit and who’s attending:

What is this summit about?

The Trump administration’s 2026 counterterrorism strategy identifies three primary threats: “Islamist terrorism”, “narco-terrorism”, and “violent left-wing extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists”.

The strategy states that the third category of left-wing “extremists” has been traditionally ignored, and notes that Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025 was executed “by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies”.

The counterterrorism strategy omits right-wing extremism and white supremacist groups, despite growing instances of violence that some of these outfits have been accused of – including several of those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2020, in an attempt to overturn the US presidential election that Donald Trump lost.

Thomas Renard, director of The Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, said the summit reflects a fundamental shift in how the US sees the threat.

“What we are seeing now in the United States is that counterterrorism has been completely politicised, instrumentalised,” he told Al Jazeera. “For instance, the threat from far-right terrorism, which was for decades considered as the primary domestic threat, has now completely disappeared from the US counterterrorism strategy.”

Who has been invited?

Invites went to more than 70 countries as the State Department wrote on social media that countries had shown “overwhelming interest”. It is reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will be present alongside representatives from multiple countries. The stated aim is to “expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms”.

The summit follows a series of smaller meetings held earlier this year, including one in The Hague with law enforcement officials.

Renard says many European nations are expressing their unease with this ministerial meeting by sending relatively junior ministers.

“They are not particularly convinced that this is a topic that justifies this type of gathering, but at the same time, they don’t want to antagonise the United States either. And therefore, this is the compromise they found,” he said.

In November, 2025, the US designated four European groups as terrorist organisations: The German Antifa Ost, the Italian Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), the Greek Armed Proletarian Justice and the Greek Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.

What is “far-left terrorism”?

The term is usually used by governments to describe movements accused of violence and driven by left-wing ideologies, including Marxism, socialism, or anarchism. Such movements usually describe themselves as anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Latin America saw several left-wing armed movements during the Cold War, a number of which carried out sustained campaigns of political violence, such as Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) in El Salvador and the Tupamaros in Uruguay. Throughout the 20th century, Washington repeatedly backed hardline right-wing regimes that opposed left-wing movements across Latin America.

India has been dealing with the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist movement that started in the 1960s and claims to fight for the rural population. The group is seen as one of India’s most serious internal security threats. At its peak, about the year 2000, thousands of people were killed due to the conflict with the Naxalite rebellion.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Marxist groups like the Red Army Faction in West Germany were behind several assassinations, abductions and bombings that they argued were aimed at weakening the capitalist state.

By contrast, the Antifa movement, which the Trump administration has consistently tried to portray as a major violent threat, is a loose, decentralised collection of socialist-leaning individuals opposed to far-right extremism, white supremacy and authoritarianism. Several individuals described by prosecutors as Antifa members have been indicted on accusations of violence in US courts, especially in states like Texas that are ruled by Trump’s Republican Party, since he returned to power. In June, eight such individuals were sentenced to several years in prison: Benjamin Hanil Song, convicted of the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Far-right political violence and terrorism in the US

But the same Trump administration has pardoned all those charged with violence during the January 6, 2023 insurrection, including individuals accused of beating police officers.

This week’s summit also specifically focuses on far-left political violence but does not include the threat from far-right ideology and terrorism, similar to the counterterrorism strategy.

This, even though the Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people and wounded nearly 700 in the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the US, was carried out by the right-wing hardliner Timothy McVeigh.

The Cato Institute, a US think tank in Washington, DC, stated in February that of politically motivated terrorism on US soil between 1975 and 2025, excluding the Oklahoma bombing and 9/11, “right-wing terrorists account for 45 percent of people murdered, Islamists are responsible for 32 percent, left-wing terrorists are responsible for 16 percent.”

Renard says the summit creates the very problem it claims to solve: “The United States, with this summit and with its strategy, is creating, actually, a blind spot about far-right terrorist threats, as that threat is strongly anchored and rooted in the United States.”

In Venezuela, the focus has shifted from rescue to rebuilding three weeks after devastating earthquakes killed at least 4,829 people. But for many affected communities, uncertainty remains over how and when the government’s reconstruction plan will take shape.

Mykhailo Fedorov has been credited with reforming defence procurement and tackling corruption.

Hundreds of people have gathered near the Ivan Franko National Theatre in central Kyiv to protest against the dismissal of Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, calling on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to reverse the decision.

According to local media reports, protests also took place in several other cities on Thursday, including Lviv, Odesa and Dnipro, while in Kyiv, protesters chanted “Shame!” and carried placards reading “The Russians are celebrating”.

The theatre is close to the presidential office, the site of last July’s so-called “cardboard protest”, when public pressure prompted Zelenskyy to reverse a widely criticised measure that stripped Ukraine’s anticorruption agencies of their independence.

The demonstrations came as Ukraine’s parliament prepared to vote on a new wartime government on Thursday following Fedorov’s departure as defence minister. The wider overhaul also saw Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko leave office.

The move forms part of Zelenskyy’s second cabinet reshuffle in a year. Lawmakers expect Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko to replace Fedorov as defence minister. Parliament is also expected to approve the appointment of energy executive Serhii Koretskyi as prime minister, along with new defence and foreign ministers.

Writing on X, Fedorov said it had been “a great honour to serve the Ukrainian people” as the minister of defence, before outlining what he described as the ministry’s key achievements during his tenure, including disabling “Starlink access for Russian forces” and launching programmes to expand Ukraine’s domestic drone production amid the ongoing war with Moscow.

The 35-year-old technology specialist, who previously served as Ukraine’s first minister for digital transformation, has been credited with streamlining bureaucracy and introducing a more data-driven approach to the war against Russia.

Supporters say his efforts to reform defence procurement and tackle corruption won him enemies within parts of the political and military establishment. However, critics say he failed to deliver quickly enough on promises to overhaul military recruitment.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he wanted the Ministry of Defence and military leadership to work with greater unity, appearing to acknowledge reports of tensions between Fedorov and other officials.

Lautaro Martinez scored a 92nd-minute winner as Lionel Messi inspired World Cup holders Argentina to a stunning 2-1 comeback victory over England, setting up a final against European champions Spain.

England had been on course to reach their first World Cup final since 1966 after Anthony Gordon fired them ahead 10 minutes into the second half of Wednesday’s semifinal, played in front of 68,239 fans in Atlanta.

The fierce rivalry between these nations has produced several memorable contests on the World Cup stage over the years, and this encounter will be remembered in Argentina as the stuff of legend after the South Americans denied England with two late goals.

Messi set up Enzo Fernandez to drill in an 85th-minute equaliser and then, with extra time looming, crossed for substitute Lautaro Martinez to head in the winner in the second minute of stoppage time.

No team has retained the World Cup since Brazil in 1962, and now Messi will become only the second player, after Brazilian great Cafu, to appear in three World Cup finals.

The final will be played at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday, as the first 48-team World Cup culminates in a showdown between the reigning champions of Europe and South America.

The United Kingdom’s surprising decision to buy a dozen conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A fighters has taken another turn. According to a U.K. Royal Air Force official, “We did not buy those aircraft for their dual [nuclear] capability, we bought them for our conversion unit. At the same time, we stated we would get back into the [nuclear] role supporting NATO. The two are separate functions.”

The official, Air Vice-Marshal Jim Beck, the Royal Air Force’s Director Capability and Programs, was speaking today at the Global Air & Space Chiefs’ Conference in London. Their words were reported by Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at Janes.

As you can read about here, the United Kingdom announced in June last year that it would buy 12 F-35As alongside the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B models it already uses.

At that point, the U.K. Ministry of Defense specifically highlighted the F-35A’s ability to join the NATO nuclear mission, which would see the jets armed with U.S.-owned B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs. The F-35B, with its smaller weapons bays, is not able to carry these weapons.

B61-12 test drop by an F-35A

“The U.K. will purchase 12 new F-35A fighter jets and join NATO’s dual-capable aircraft nuclear mission in a major boost for national security,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced. The ministry described this as the “biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation, complementing the U.K.’s existing sea-borne deterrent.”

Earlier in June 2025, the Strategic Defense Review, published by the U.K. Ministry of Defense, had suggested that the future Lightning Force could comprise a mix of F-35As and F-35Bs.

At the same time, however, the Royal Air Force had noted that the F-35As would be assigned to a training unit and would primarily be used in that role.

As the F-35A is cheaper to operate, it is considered a better option to use for training sorties, including keeping pilots current on the F-35B. The ministry said buying the 12 jets will bring a savings of 25 percent per aircraft over the F-35B.

“Day-to-day, the F-35As will be used in a training role on 207 Squadron, the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU),” the Royal Air Force said. “As the F-35A carries more fuel than the F-35B variant, it can stay airborne for longer, extending the available training time in each sortie for student pilots. As F-35As also require fewer maintenance hours, there will be increased aircraft availability on the OCU. These factors combined will improve pilot training and reduce the amount of time for pilots to reach the frontline squadrons.”

The tradeoff is that the F-35A can’t be used to train for STOVL missions, but this part of the F-35B profile can be trained in the simulator, while an F-35A training unit frees up more F-35Bs to deploy aboard the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers.

Now, the words of the Royal Air Force official today cast doubt on whether the F-35As will actually take on the nuclear strike role, something that was specifically highlighted in the U.K. Defense Investment Plan published last month.

As well as today’s underscoring of the priority of the training mission, it should be noted that the new F-35As will be based at RAF Marham, in eastern England, and it’s unclear whether the airfield retains the underground weapons vaults for nuclear bombs. Some reports suggest the vaults that existed there in the Cold War have been dismantled or even filled in completely. In the past, we speculated that the jets might have to make use of nearby RAF Lakenheath, where there is evidence that the United States has brought nuclear bombs back to the United Kingdom, for its own use.

At the same time, as we have explained in the past, while the nuclear-sharing program provides access to U.S.-owned weapons, it still requires the United States and NATO to approve their use.

U.K.-operated nuclear-capable F-35As would not offer the same sovereign capability as the Royal Navy’s ballistic missile submarines, around which the British nuclear deterrent is based.

Then there is the issue of how much training, and other resources, would have to be assigned to the nuclear mission to ensure that it could actually be executed. Certainly, this would be nothing like the Cold War era, when a handful of jets stood fully armed, round the clock, on each assigned RAF base, with their crews waiting for the alert to sound.

The reality would likely involve the unit switching to focusing on the nuclear mission in times of crisis. This raises a question about how long this would take, and to what degree it would provide a real deterrent, bearing in mind the need to spin it up to be combat-ready.

These are all questions we have asked before in relation to the U.K. F-35A’s proposed nuclear role.

Now, the Royal Air Force itself is dialing back expectations in this regard.

Ultimately, the best chance of the Royal Air Force having a meaningful dual-role nuclear mission would be to buy more F-35As. As it stands, the 12 F-35As are part of the core buy, not additional to it.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense has long said that it still expects to procure 138 F-35s over the lifetime of the program. So far, 48 F-35Bs have been delivered, and the government is committed to buying 15 more F-35Bs and the 12 F-35As for delivery by 2033.

The lack of numbers has seen the United Kingdom rely on U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs to make up the required aircraft numbers during carrier cruises.

The F-35A argument would become much more compelling, and more cost-effective, if it were to be bought in larger numbers.

The F-35A is more capable in general, with superior range and payload, and it can maneuver at 9G, while the F-35B is cleared for 7.5G.

One unresolved issue as far as the British are concerned is the F-35A’s refueling receptacle, which is incompatible with their fleet of Voyager tankers. Modifications could provide the British F-35A with a probe, but would likely only make sense on the back of a bigger buy.

While many senior Royal Air Force officers might favor getting more F-35As, the jet is now also competing with the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP), at the center of which is the Tempest crewed stealth fighter, as well as emerging drone programs.

In the meantime, the British are struggling to find money for more basic elements of the F-35B, which still critically lacks a standoff strike capability. A report late last year found that a history of “cost-cutting” throughout the U.K. F-35 program “has caused significant problems in its use,” which have affected the jet’s “capability, availability to fly, and value for money.”

The U.K. Ministry of Defense also needs to spend more than $83 billion over the next four years to fund its  nuclear-powered submarine programs, which include a true sovereign  nuclear capability of the kind that the F-35A is unable to provide.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com