news

A large-scale settler attack targeted the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya and Jalud, with properties set on fire and live ammunition reportedly fired toward homes.

Andy Burnham has said he will review an early prisoner release policy, due to come into force this autumn, following anger that two killers of PC Andrew Harper could be freed early.

From September, thousands of offenders in England and Wales will be eligible to be released earlier under the Sentencing Act. Tens of thousands of inmates have been let out of prison to create more space in jails since 2024.

Burnham said: “I can’t say that I can change the policy completely, but I will look at it in detail before we go further forward.”

He acknowledged that there was “pressure on prisons places” and that a failure to invest in the prison system in the past had created “an unacceptable situation”.

His comments come after the mother of police officer Andrew Harper said the potential early release of two of her son’s killers felt like an “insult”.

Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers were sentenced to 13 years in custody for manslaughter but could be released early under the new Sentencing Act.

Henry Long was jailed for 16 years for PC Harper’s manslaughter but would not be eligible.

The overcrowding of the prison estate has been a problem for several years and successive governments have released prisoners early in a bid to free up space.

The Sentencing Act, which was passed by Sir Keir Starmer’s government earlier this year, was designed to ease pressure on prisons, and will see some offenders spend less time in prison before release.

Burnham said: “I want to assure myself that everything has been looked at before this policy proceeds, and I can give that assurance that every single part of this I will look into with the justice secretary.”

Concerning the case of PC Harper, he said: “I feel for the family it’s an appalling crime that was committed.”

He said the “main perpetrator” of his death would not be eligible for early release.

Labaran Kaduna says his son, Desire, was unlucky in life. Two months after Desire’s white wedding in Rigange, a small Bachama community in the Lamurde local government area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, his newly built house was burnt to the ground when the Tshobo and Bachama tribes first clashed in July, 2025. A year later, Desire himself was killed in the same conflict that remains unresolved. 

Desire had provided HumAngle with materials and information about the conflict last year, in an effort to bring awareness to the violence, as though he knew that it would one day claim his life too.

Labaran speaks about his late son with a sad smile on his face and pride etched in his voice: “He was a university graduate. Since he was yet to secure a white-collar job, he joined me in farming and soon had his own large farm.”

Desire was 36 years old.

“He had a bad leg which made it difficult for him to walk very fast or run, so when our community was attacked that night, people fled and left him behind,” said Labaran. 

HumAngle gathered that a group of armed men stormed the Rigange community on the night of June 27 and opened fire on people. Labaran believes the men were members of an armed militia and that several of them had been storming the area to wreak havoc since the communal crisis began. That night, many fled, leaving Desire limping behind. 

“His brother survived the attack, so he ran home to inform us. When we reached the spot, we realised that he had been shot dead, and after shooting him, they took all his belongings, like his phone and wallet. They even took his shoes,” the grieving father said. 

A lot can happen in a year 

Desire is one of the many who have lost their lives in the Lamurde communal clash. HumAngle has been unable to obtain the total number of casualties, as efforts to reach Suleiman Nguroje, the Adamawa State Police Public Relations Officer, have failed. He has neither responded to phone calls nor replied to text messages sent to his phone.

In 2025, HumAngle extensively documented the violent land dispute that shattered daily life in Lamurde. The clash, which began in July 2025, forced many locals to flee the area, while those who remained lamented being trapped in their communities, unable to move freely. Access to healthcare and other social services became difficult, especially for Tshobo communities, which had long depended on clinics in Lamurde town, a Bachama stronghold. The most affected communities remain Rigange, Waduku, Wammi, Sabon Layi, and Sikori. A total of 53 houses were destroyed that year while 170 homes were partially damaged.  Despite several peace talks and reconciliation efforts by the government and stakeholders, both tribes continue to clash. 

“Desire was kind and hardworking. He had two little children. Last year, he married their mother in church, but unfortunately, he was not lucky to see them grow,” Labaran said. 

Rosaline Danladi, a Tshobo woman from Anguwan Baki, one of the affected communities in Lamurde, bears the scars of the year-long conflict. Her husband, Danladi, was killed when the tribes clashed in December 2025. Danladi was a farmer who left behind his wife and seven children. 

“We were in the room that night when we heard gunshots, so my husband stepped out while I ran with the children in another direction. We waited for his return, but he never came back,” Rosaline recalled.

Danladi’s remains were later found, and he was buried. Rosaline explained that she has been struggling to keep up with her children’s needs months after his demise because she was a full-time housewife who had always relied on her husband. 

“I am just managing to take care of the children. Two were in a boarding school in Numan while the smaller ones were in a private school here, but they have all recently dropped out,” she said. 

Rosaline said 2025 had been an unfortunate year for her and many in the Lamurde area. Sadly, the conflict has persisted into 2026, and new waves continue to rise. 

Speaking to HumAngle, Jonah John, a security analyst in Adamawa, stressed that the impact of the crisis can not be overemphasised. Apart from deaths, property losses, and displacement, he noted that the closure of the famous Tingo market in the region has affected businesses, leading to a hike in the cost of foodstuffs across Adamawa. 

Fallen classrooms

When both tribes started clashing in June 2025, schools, clinics, and other social services closed temporarily across the affected Lamurde communities. Even though clinics and administrative activities have now resumed, children in communities such as Tingno and Rigange remain out of school. 

HumAngle spoke to Celestine Bafyau, the principal of the Government Day Secondary School in Rigange. He said the school serves almost 300 students from both Bachama and Tshobo communities. 

“We have students from Bashaka, Lamurde, and other Rigange areas,” he stated.

The school was burnt down during the July 2025 clash and has remained deserted to date. To ensure the children don’t miss out on learning, Celestine said, teachers utilised the nearby primary school, but with many students displaced and others who had completely fled town, it became hard to keep up.

According to the principal, students from JSS 3 and SS3 are currently using the primary school block to write their final examinations, and, due to the large number, some are writing theirs under a nearby tree. At the same time, those in JSS1, JSS2, SS1, and SS2 remain out of school. 

“I have taken pictures of the school attached to a report and submitted it to the education board in Yola because we need help,” he stated. 

Celestine noted that teachers are eager to resume teaching.  “Honestly, my staff are ready, and they are disturbed. We do go to school sometimes to check it, but most of the students have relocated to other communities. If there’s peace, we will call them so we can teach them,” he said. 

When the crisis began in July, several people were killed, and many were displaced. In December, another bout of violence erupted between the two tribes and eight people were killed in Lamurde town. Despite three peace deals, a fresh wave of terror occurred in January when three women in the area were attacked and killed on their farm. On June 27, the attack that claimed Desire’s life happened. 

According to the security analyst, Lamurde’s security architecture is very weak. 

“The deployment of the security forces should be treated with a great sense of importance, looking at the fact that it’s the sole responsibility of the government to safeguard and to protect the lives and property of its citizens, but the government has failed totally. That is the only reason why things keep repeating themselves over and over again,” he stressed.  

Locals told HumAngle that security officers deployed to the area had since withdrawn. Youths and local vigilante groups now take turns to patrol the area. 

Both parties have accused each other of using armed militias to fight. Jonah, the security analyst, explained that both parties illegally acquired rifles and other unlicensed weapons to intimidate each other. 

“If they cannot stand the pressure or tension on the other hand, they will have to employ the service of militia,” he warned.

The cause of the Lamurde clash has been linked to land ownership, with both tribes claiming possession of the same land. HumAngle gathered that both parties were instructed by the state government and members of the peace committee to forfeit the land. Yet, the clashes continued. 

There are claims across social media that the land both parties have been clashing over contains mineral resources. While some claim it is gold, others call it ‘mineral’. HumAngle learned that it is clay-like in nature.  

“They brought it home as a sample for me to see. So, it’s like clay. Even if I see it, I can just pass. I wouldn’t even know that it’s important or something. So, they say the men have been packing them in large quantities. And then, actually, Tshobo has never been benefiting from it at all,” Hyginus Mangu, the Tshobo community leader, told HumAngle. 

The controversial mine 

Hyginus said the mine in question lies far away from the town and is in no way affiliated with the land in dispute.  “For me, personally, I don’t know where the spot is, but I do know that there are some people who used to do some mining there, and the people are not Tshobo people. I don’t know how they get to that area to mine,” the Tshobo community leader said. 

He added that the miners were from Gombe State and had been mining in the area before the crisis began.

Jacob Bawa, the Youth leader of Rigange, a Bachama community in Lamurde, corroborated Hyginus’s claim. According to him, the mine is far away from the main town and is not affiliated with the disputed land. Jacob also claimed that locals from the Bachama community do not benefit from the mine. 

Jacob maintained that he had never been to the mine, as it was only recently publicly discovered, even though it had been operating illegally for years. 

HumAngle could not access the mine or obtain pictures of the mineral, as access is highly restricted.  

On June 30, Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Fintiri banned illegal mining in Lamurde Local Government Area following speculations that the mining was fueling the crisis between the two tribes. Security agencies were directed to ensure strict compliance. The Governor assured locals of securing sustainable peace and addressing the root causes of the Lamurde conflict. 

Jonah, the security analyst, emphasised that allegations that the mine is driving the recurring conflict in Lamurde should be taken seriously by the government and other relevant stakeholders. Although most miners come from Gombe State to extract the minerals, Jonah believes the illegal miners engage Lamurde residents as labourers, who end up clashing over land and resources. He called on locals to shun violence and desist from being used as puppets by the miners who are taking advantage of their home. 

Even though access to farmlands and clinics has improved for the Tshobo people, Hyginus said they still don’t have access to administrative and business services in Lamurde town due to fear of being attacked. 

In Rigange, Jacob Bawa, the youth leader, says life is hard for Bachama locals who stayed behind because they have nowhere else to go. “We are suffering because most of the people have run to neighbouring communities like Numan and Yola. Also, we don’t have mosquito nets or tents because most of the houses here were burnt down,” he said. 

HumAngle gathered that the Lamurde main route is partly closed, and travellers can barely access the area. 

According to Jonah, the use of social media by both parties to spread hate speech and misinformation also re-fuels the crisis. 

“So if the government can put an order, just like the federal government did, any hate speech from each other should equally be dealt with,” he said. 

What lies ahead?

The security analyst calls on the government and stakeholders to secure the people of Lamurde. He also advised the locals to embrace peace and live together as they’ve always done, especially with intermarriages that have occurred between them for centuries. 

“All those people that are hiring all these militias or whatever, please, they should stop that. At the end of every crisis, only the women and the children suffer the most. So honestly, they should look at the future of their children, the future of their local government and the future of their tribes,” he said. 

While Rosaline and Desire’s father continue to bear the burden of grief, they are uncertain of what lies ahead for other grieving families and displaced locals of Lamurde. Rosaline says she’s struggling to get by each day and is doing her best to make sure her children are provided for.  However, she fears another night might come when the clashes will recur as the matter remains unsettled and with her husband gone, she’s not sure if she could cope with another attack.

Labaran (Desire’s father) has a large family. With four wives, 16 children and many grandchildren, he said the family had never been apart. They lived together in their large family home in Rigange. Now, he says, his family is scattered because some of his daughters-in-law had gone to their families for safety. While some of his sons remain in Rigange, guarding what’s left of their household, Labaran has moved with the others to Numan local government, where they are currently staying with a relative. 

“My children built a big apartment, and it was all burnt to the ground. My son-in-law then built a new house for me, and it was burned too. Approximately 13 houses were burnt in my extended family,” the man said. 

But none of those losses, he said, can be compared to the loss of his son, Desire. 

“Just peace. I want peace. We are in a difficult situation at the moment,” he said.

Austrian politicians hope the change will prevent neo-Nazis from visiting the building as a place of pilgrimage.

The building in which Adolf Hitler was born near the Austrian border with Germany has been converted into a police station.

The Austrian government opened the new police station in the town of Braunau am Inn on Wednesday in the hope that the change will prevent neo-Nazis from visiting the building as a place of pilgrimage.

The government bought the terraced house in 2017, and the plans to remodel it were announced in 2019. The renovation cost about 20 million euros ($22.8m).

Officers from the district and local police will be based in the building.

In a ceremony to mark the opening, Johannes Waidbacher, mayor of the town, said he hoped the transformation would show that the local community is “confronting its history, that it is assuming responsibility”.

“I believe that the opening of the police station today brings clarity to the discussion, perhaps also a bit of calm for the people of Braunau,” Waidbacher said in a ceremony also attended by Interior Minister Gerhard Karner.

About 100 people watched an orchestra play in the house’s courtyard, including some 30 officers in uniform, though few locals made the trip, the AFP news agency reported.

The head of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior’s ‌history department, Stephan Mlczoch, told reporters on a tour of the building: “The aim was to prevent any association with Adolf Hitler, so as to strip it of that mystique.”

That mystique was encouraged by the Nazis’ cult of personality around Hitler, under whose rule the “Fuehrer birth house” was an art museum.

Hitler was born there on April 20, 1889; his family moved out a few weeks later. Passers-by often stop to take pictures, but their views on Hitler are usually not known. Local officials said there are now only “isolated incidents” involving visitors, fewer than before.

However, critics have said changing the building’s function will not erase its history and association with the Nazi leader.

“The world won’t forget where the worst mass murderer in history was born. Wikipedia won’t change its entries,” said Robert Eiter of the Mauthausen Committee and the Network Against Racism and Right-Wing Extremism. He added that there will be no reduction in the number of neo-Nazis making “the pilgrimage to Braunau”.

When asked about the public response to the project, Mayor Waidbacher told the Reuters news agency, “I think on the whole ⁠the people of Braunau have accepted it and can live with it.”

Meanwhile, some residents are unhappy about the building’s new purpose. “I would have preferred ‌if ‌they had done something else, but it is what it is,” said Irene, 74, adding that she would have wanted the charity to stay there.

Waidbacher was on a commission ⁠that recommended the building be used for either a charitable or official administrative purpose. In the end, having a charity based there would have made it too accessible to the public, he said. Waidbacher had said an argument against the charity was that it would have been too accessible to the public.

There is a rock on the building’s pavement from the Mauthausen concentration camp with the inscription “Never again fascism”. The rock remains in place, and a sign that reads “Police” has recently been added.

A modelling scout linked to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home.

Daniel Siad, 69, was discovered on Monday in Colombes, a north-west suburb of Paris, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed to the BBC.

“An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery,” the office said, adding that an autopsy will be carried out.

Siad’s name appeared thousands of times in the Epstein files released by the US government. He had previously denied any knowledge of the threat that Epstein posed.

Epstein victim Anya – not her real name – previously told the BBC Siad had introduced her to Epstein.

Ahead of a BBC investigation published on 18 July, Siad’s lawyer had said he was not available for comment, but he had previously denied knowing that Epstein posed a threat.

Mérida, July 21, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration has vowed to play an active role in upcoming negotiations between the Venezuelan government and a US-backed opposition faction.

The government-aligned National Assembly and a group of opposition lawmakers from the 2015–2020 legislature recently announced a joint working agenda scheduled to begin August 1, with explicit support from the US State Department.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the initiative during a press briefing on July 19, calling it “a very powerful offer.” 

“We’ll see where it goes, but we think that that agreement was broadly met in Venezuela as very good news, and obviously something we’re going to be very engaged in,” he told reporters.

Rubio emphasized that the upcoming talks are “a forum to begin the transition process, which is what the people of Venezuela need”. In the same way, the State Department, via a July 16 official statement, had pledged to back efforts “toward a peaceful and democratic electoral transition.”

Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Rubio and other Trump officials have insisted on a “three-phase plan” that ends with a political transition.

The latest dialogue initiative emerged following a June 18 meeting between National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez and Dinorah Figuera, who leads an opposition-majority legislature whose term ran from 2015-2020.

The defunct parliament retained US recognition as the Caribbean nation’s legitimate authority after the conclusion of its term in 2021, and has retained control over Venezuelan state assets frozen abroad.

According to statements from both sides, the working agenda prioritizes strengthening democratic institutions, reforming the electoral system, and restoring guarantees for political participation.

Figuera welcomed Rubio’s latest comments and argued that “active participation” from the Trump administration will be “essential to generate concrete progress.”

“We will invite all democratic sectors to participate and bring proposals toward a peaceful and democratic electoral transition,” she wrote on X. For their part, government officials, including Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, have not offered further comment on the talks since last week’s announcement.

In recent days, Figuera addressed criticism of her role in the negotiations, rejecting accusations that she was acting outside the opposition’s institutional framework.

The former lawmaker has faced scrutiny from other opposition sectors, particularly following her June 18 return to Caracas with US backing. Her meetings with Rodríguez and subsequent travel to Washington occurred weeks after far-right leader María Corina Machado had announced at a Panama gathering her intention to head negotiations with the government over future electoral processes.

On July 16, Machado met with high-ranking opposition figures from the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) coalition to assess the new dialogue initiative. The meeting was reported as a venue to “gather information” regarding the announced negotiations and “define a public position.” However, neither Machado nor the PUD have taken a stance on the upcoming talks.

Rubio’s influence over Venezuela was highlighted in a recent New York Times article that detailed the Trump administration’s involvement in the country’s day-to-day affairs. The report highlighted that US officials have sought to engage with institutional actors they consider manageable, including the 2015 National Assembly faction, as part of a strategy to reduce volatility in bilateral relations.

However, according to the Times, the approach has generated tensions within the opposition camp given the recent protagonism assumed by far-right Machado.

Caracas and Washington fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement following the January 3 attacks, with embassies reopening in both capitals. The Trump administration has seized control of Venezuelan oil export revenues and exerted influence over recent pro-business energy and mining reforms.

The US has also undertaken a significant military deployment in the country following the June 24 double earthquake, with US forces running logistical operations out of the Simón Bolívar International Airport and La Guaira port.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

The 41-year-old, who played in six FIFA World Cups, announces he will retire from both club and country.

Guillermo Ochoa, widely considered among the greatest Mexican goalkeepers in history, has announced his retirement from professional football, bringing an end to a distinguished 22-year professional career.

Ochoa, who turned 41 last week, had previously stated that the 2026 FIFA World Cup would be his last tournament although speculation had swirled about whether he might sign with a new club to extend his playing days.

He put those rumours to rest on Tuesday.

“I gave it my all; I left everything on the field for my clubs and the national team, and today I hang up my gloves,” Ochoa posted on social media. “Being a goalkeeper means knowing you might wait 90 minutes for a single moment when everything depends on you. And when that moment arrives, you cannot hesitate.”

Ochoa was on Mexico’s roster for six World Cups – a number shared only by icons Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. He served as Mexico’s starting goalkeeper in three of them: Brazil 2014, Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022.

Ochoa made his top-flight debut with Mexico City’s Club America in February 2004. He spent his first seven seasons there before transferring to French club Ajaccio in 2011, becoming the first Mexico-born goalkeeper to play in Europe. His European career also included stints with Malaga, Granada, Standard Liege, Salernitana, AVS Futebol and AEL Limassol, punctuated by a three-year return to Club America from 2019 to 2022.

“I never imagined how far a dream could take me. Today, I can only look back with pride and say: Thank you,” Ochoa wrote. “I take with me the affection of millions and the peace of mind that comes with knowing I gave everything for Mexico.”

Although he served primarily as a backup to Raul Rangel in the recent World Cup in North America, manager Javier Aguirre brought Ochoa on for the final 13 minutes against Czechia in Mexico’s last group-stage match. After the final whistle, an emotional Ochoa kissed the goalposts at Azteca Stadium – the venue where his career began – before kneeling to accept an embrace from his teammates. Long after the stands had cleared, Ochoa walked out to the centre circle one last time to take in his final farewell.

At the club level, Ochoa captured a league title with Club America during the 2005 Clausura tournament and won the Belgian Cup with Standard Liege. On the international stage, he led Mexico to six CONCACAF Gold Cup titles and earned a bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The 23-year-old Rogers, established as one of the Premier League’s top attacking talents, has signed a contract with the London team until 2033.

The England World Cup forward Morgan Rogers has completed his British transfer record move from Aston Villa to Premier League rivals Chelsea.

No fee was officially disclosed, but media reports on Tuesday said it is worth 117 million pounds ($156.5m), which surpasses England teammate Elliot Anderson’s 116 million pounds ($155m) switch from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City earlier this month.

The all-time record Premier League transfer is still Sweden striker Alexander Isak’s 125 million pounds ($167m) move from Newcastle to Liverpool last year.

The 23-year-old Rogers, established as one of the Premier League’s top attacking talents, has signed a contract with the London team until 2033.

“I’m so excited,” he told the club’s website. “For me, Chelsea are the biggest club in London and a club I’ve always admired since I was a kid.

“I’m really excited about the project with the new manager, the players we’ve got and where the club is heading. That’s why I’m here, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Rogers is the third major off-season signing by new Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso, following wing backs Marco Palestra and Geovany Quenda.

Rogers was part of the England team that finished third, beating France, at the World Cup last week. They had lost to Argentina 2-1 in their semifinal.

He scored 21 goals in 85 Premier League appearances for Villa, and last season helped guide the club to a top-four finish and to the Europa League title.

Rogers joined Villa from Middlesbrough in February 2024 for a reported fee of 8 million pounds (about $10.5m).

He made his England debut in November 2024 and has now won 22 caps for his country.

Chelsea’s previous record signing was Ecuador midfielder Moises Caicedo, who joined from Brighton & Hove Albion for 115 million pounds (about $150m) in 2023.

Chelsea, who finished 10th in the Premier League last season, begin their ‌league campaign away to Fulham on August 24.

US Secretary of State says Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz sets ‘dangerous precedent’, as attacks continue.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio says his country is willing to negotiate an end to the war on Iran but accuses Tehran of not being “serious” about talks.

“The United States remains open and willing to engage in positive and constructive negotiations and discussions, provided that the commitments made are honoured,” Rubio said about Iran at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Manila on Wednesday.

“The problem we’re having right now is that they’re not serious about talks. If they’re serious, we’re serious. If they’re not, then we will do what’s necessary to protect our interests and also the interests of our allies,” he added in the Philippine capital.

This comes as the US launched attacks against Iran for an eleventh consecutive night, with explosions heard in several parts of the country.

As the war continues to disrupt two of the world’s most important routes for the transport of energy, Rubio stressed that he was against Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.

“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll, and if you don’t pay them blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent, which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,” he said.

“At its core, it’s very simple. Iran demands the right, which they do not have under any existing legal mechanism, to control the transit of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.

“There is a fundamental principle about freedom of navigation that is threatened,” he added. “That cannot be allowed to happen.”

Rubio also discussed the US’s relationship with ASEAN member states, saying it is a matter of national interest for Washington and that the security and prosperity of the US and Southeast Asia are closely interconnected.

“I believe very much that the future and the story of the 21st century will be written in this region and by how events unfold here,” he said.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump renewed his threats to, again, attack Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz “pretty soon”. Iran promised it would retaliate.

Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya military command said in a statement on Tuesday that it would “consider it as an expansion of war in the region” if such an attack were carried out. The statement said it could lead to strikes on “all the interests of America, its allies and supporters”.

Fifty people have been killed and 500 wounded in the recent US attacks on Iran, a health ministry official said.

A spacecraft equipped with two robotic arms, developed by Northrop Grumman, is set to be launched today. The company plans to establish an entire fleet of these Mission Robotic Vehicles (MRVs), ostensibly to offer a commercial service to refuel and repair satellites in orbit. However, the question has been raised about whether the MRV could also be used to attack enemy assets in space. The U.S. Space Force has said publicly that it is pursuing offensive space-based capabilities, primarily to help protect friendly satellites from growing threats.

Whether the MRV, or a derivative thereof, could be employed in an offensive role explicitly came up during a quarterly Northrop Grumman earnings call this morning. The company does not appear to have ruled out the possibility.

“As part of our satellite servicing portfolio, we’ve developed the first commercial robotic spacecraft capable of repairing, relocating, and servicing satellites in geosynchronous orbit via two robotic arms,” Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden had highlighted in her introductory remarks at the start of the call. “It can also install life extension jetpacks onto other satellites for government or commercial customers, prolonging their useful life for up to eight years.”

Next Generation of Satellite Servicing Products: Mission Robotic Vehicle and Mission Extension Pods

“The spacecraft is known as the Mission Robotic Vehicle, or MRV, and our first MRV is scheduled to launch later today, weather permitting,” she added.

“You probably can’t provide quantitative terms here, but just from a qualitative perspective, what’s the potential market for an offensive version of that spacecraft that could be used to disable adversary satellites?” Scott Mikus, Director for Aerospace, Defense and Space Research at Melius Research, asked later on during the call.

“So I appreciate the question. I will leave it up to the U.S. government to decide how that capability might fulfill mission objectives that they have in that regard,” CEO Warden said in response. “But certainly, it’s our objective to offer our clients options for technology deployment, and for them to determine policy for when and how they might deploy that technology.”

To take a step back, if all goes to plan, a SpaceX Falcon 9 space launch rocket carrying the MRV will blast off from Cape Canaveral sometime in a four-hour window starting at 5:15 PM ET today. The rocket will also carry three Mission Extension Pods (MEPs), which are the “life extension jetpacks” that Warden mentioned.

As noted, the MRV has two robotic arms that allow it to place the MEPs onto other satellites in orbit, as well as perform other tasks. The arms are part of what is formally called the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) payload. The RSGS system was developed through a program led by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in cooperation with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). It is worth noting here that RSGS is the product of U.S. government work in this vein stretching back decades. There have also been other similar developments elsewhere globally, including in China and Russia, as we will come back to later on.

Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) Concept Video

The MRV’s upcoming mission will include rendezvousing with satellites belonging to Australian firm Optus and SES in Luxembourg and attaching MEPs to them, according to a report from Spaceflight Now. Both of these companies are commercial telecommunications providers.

Northrop Grumman’s fact sheet on the MRV says the spacecraft is capable of performing an array of on-orbit inspection and servicing missions beyond refueling via the MEPs. The robotic vehicle can also be used to ‘tow’ satellites from one position to another and help clear debris. All of this requires the ability to maneuver very closely with other target objects in space. This, in turn, brings us to the question of the MRV potentially offering an offensive anti-satellite capability.

For years, TWZ has highlighted how robotic arms on spacecraft are an inherently dual-use capability that could be used to launch attacks in space. In general, arms like this could be used to damage or destroy key systems on adversary satellites, such as optics or solar panels, or to just pull them out of orbit. In the latter case, the target could be towed into a degrading orbit where, if control could not be reestablished, it would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed.

The U.S. military itself has repeatedly pointed to adversary satellites with robotic arms as one of many potential threats to its own space-based capabilities.

“We’re basically responding to a warfighting domain where our adversaries have already put interceptors in space, and we want to make sure that we rebalance that in terms of deterrence,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top officer, said at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) annual Warfare Symposium in February. Saltzman was responding to a direct question from our Howard Altman.

“Interceptors by definition refer to a handful of well-acknowledged capabilities that other countries have, like ground and air-launched anti-satellite missiles or capabilities like the SJ-21 [the Chinese Shi Jian 21 satellite], which has a grappling arm,” a Space Force spokesperson also told TWZ at that time when asked for clarification about the “interceptors in space” Saltzman had mentioned.

Long March-3B launches Shijian-21

‘Inspector satellites’ that could have dual-use purposes have been a hot topic of discussion for years now, with Russian developments drawing particular attention. A ‘killer satellite’ with close maneuvering capability could employ a variety of means beyond robotic arms to try to disable, damage, or even destroy a target in space. This could include electronic warfare jammers, directed energy weapons, chemical sprays, and small projectiles. The space-based inspector could itself be used as a kinetic kill vehicle and deliberately smashed into the target.

Close inspection of other satellites in space also provides opportunities to gather intelligence about their capabilities and monitor their activities. U.S. satellites, as well as those belonging to Russia and other countries, have been observed doing just this over the years. Some commercial satellite imagery firms are even now offering space-based situational awareness as a service.

As underscored by DARPA and NRL’s work on RSGS payload, the U.S. military already has a clear interest in the MRV spacecraft’s core capabilities. On-orbit refueling, in particular, is seen as offering vital freedom of maneuver to help safeguard friendly satellites from attack. Right now, ‘running and hiding’ is the most immediate option available for responding to threats, but doing so requires satellites to burn precision fuel, eating into their operational lifespan.

The Space Force also has an entire unit dedicated to a still-evolving “orbital warfare” mission set that has defensive and offensive elements.

“Protecting and defending satellites can’t simply be done by protect and defend. You can’t run away from a bully forever. Sometimes you got to turn around and punch,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command (CFC), said at another roundtable at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February. “So protect and defend, although necessary, is insufficient to deliver space control. We also need, as part of our joint force, the ability to attack.”

Gagnon cited China’s massively expanding space-based capabilities as a key driver behind this viewpoint. He’s also mentioned plans for Space Delta 9, the formation tasked with orbital warfare, to begin exploring new offensive and defensive tactics using an experimental satellite.

“This prototype will be operated by my Orbital Warfare Delta. This is the only Orbital Warfare Delta in the United States government. Their job will be working on their maneuvers, which is one of the seven joint functions of warfighting, so that they can deliver offensive and defensive capabilities that are precise and not imprecise,” he explained. “They’re going to work on driving that spacecraft in a way that we couldn’t drive spacecraft before.”

The scale and scope of demands to protect U.S. satellites in orbit is only set to grow significantly in the coming years, fueled further now by the Golden Dome initiative. Golden Dome is a multi-faceted effort aimed at delivering a hugely expanded national missile defense architecture. A core element of the plan as it stands now is space-based anti-missile interceptors, which will be supported by large, distributed sensor and communications satellite constellations. In a report released in May, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessed that 7,800 interceptors in orbit could be needed to make the concept work.

As already noted, the U.S. military has a clear interest in the on-orbit refueling and servicing capabilities that Northrop Grumman’s MRV spacecraft is designed to provide now. This could also be key to protecting and sustaining elements of Golden Dome, as well as other critical new space-based sensor and other satellite constellations.

The scheduled launch of the first MRV spacecraft today is a very important milestone all around, and one that might open the door to a very different kind of ‘armed’ space-based capability.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administered Kashmir: The traffic crawled beneath densely strung election bunting.

Overhead hung the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PMLN) green tigers. Further down, Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) red and black flags bearing the party’s arrow encircled the clock tower at Lal Chowk, a square near Muzaffarabad’s main market, built to honour the original Lal Chowk across the Line of Control in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Srinagar.

Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, does not look like a city in the grip of a crisis. It looks like a city preparing for an election.

Both are true.

Since early June, the territory has witnessed weeks of protests and sit-ins that have killed dozens. The protests are tied to elections for the region’s provincial legislature that were scheduled for July 27, but that on Monday were divided into voting now to be held on three separate days. Voting in the region’s Mirpur division will continue as planned on July 27. Elections in Poonch division, which has been the hotbed of protests, will now be held on August 10.

Voting in Muzaffarabad and for 12 other seats reserved for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir who now live elsewhere in Pakistan will be held on August 2, the region’s Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retired) Ghulam Mustafa Mughal told Al Jazeera, citing security concerns arising from the unrest as the reason for the changed schedule.

It is those reserved seats for refugees that are at the heart of the agitation, with protesters demanding that they be scrapped, arguing that only those living in Pakistan-administered Kashmir should now be eligible to contest in elections to the regional legislature.

And it is in the backdrop of those tensions that the region is now readying to vote.

“I have never joined them, I never participated in their protest,” a 60-year-old driver, bespectacled and bearded, said of the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC), commonly known as JAAC, the movement whose protests have dominated the politics of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, particularly Poonch division, in recent months.

“But my only reason to support them is that all the people in this movement are poor people, my sympathies are with them. They are the ones fighting and demanding for my rights,” the driver, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera, as he finished his lunch at a roadside hotel in Muzaffarabad on July 20.

When it came to the election, however, he was unequivocal: he would not vote.

“We should be part of the democratic process, but the person you want to vote for isn’t allowed on the ballot,” he said, referring to the JAAC, which was banned in June. “A vote is a responsibility, and it should only be given to those who deserve it. Right now the candidates on offer are all corrupt, and I will not be giving my vote.”

An election amid unrest

The Kashmir region, a scenic but disputed Himalayan territory, has been at the centre of multiple wars between Pakistan and India since both gained independence from British rule in 1947.

While both countries claim the region in full, they administer separate parts of it.

Home to more than four million people, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, locally known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), has a semi-autonomous government with its own president, prime minister and Supreme Court.

The election was always going to be shaped by the latest crisis, JAAC’s fifth major mobilisation since the movement was founded in September 2023.

But Mughal, AJK’s chief election commissioner, said Poonch was the only division where, he said, “we have a bit of security-related concern”.

He is not the only official insisting the electoral process remains on track.

In Muzaffarabad, Deputy Commissioner Munir Qureshi pointed to bustling markets, heavy traffic and an active campaign trail as evidence that daily life continues largely uninterrupted.

“It is not our job to tell people to go and vote,” he said. “If they decide, for whatever reason, not to show up, it is their democratic right.”

The city, he added, has five constituencies and 890 polling stations, with additional security personnel requested ahead of polling day.

What neither official addressed directly, however, is the absent party hanging over the election.

The banned JAAC is absent from the ballot in any form. Some of its members who attempted to contest as independents had their nomination papers rejected.

The movement’s sit-ins have entered their second month across Rawalakot, Sudhnoti and other parts of Poonch division, closer to the Indian border, while its leadership has openly urged the public to boycott the vote.

How the region votes – or not – will tell whether the election carries legitimacy in the eyes of the people of AJK.

A movement outside the ballot box

The protests that have shaped this election began more than two years ago over prices.

JAAC was formed in 2023 around 10 demands, including subsidised wheat, cheaper electricity, and a government commitment to curb the perks and pensions enjoyed by AJK officials and elected representatives.

The Pakistani government intervened in May 2024, agreeing to provide subsidies, while a charter of demands signed by the AJK government in October that year was intended to resolve most of the movement’s concerns.

By this June, however, JAAC’s focus had shifted to the 12 assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees settled in Pakistan, which it wants abolished.

The group argues the seats give outsiders influence over AJK’s governance and budget, while residents themselves have no say over who occupies them.

On June 5, the AJK government declared JAAC a proscribed organisation under anti-terrorism legislation ahead of a planned June 9 protest, just weeks before the election.

Within days, police had arrested dozens of JAAC members and supporters, including the movement’s leader and public face, Shaukat Nawaz Mir.

What followed was the deadliest period of unrest AJK has witnessed in years.

The death toll remains disputed by JAAC and the authorities, but even conservative estimates place it at nearly 30 people since early June, including protesters and law enforcement personnel.

Access to Pakistan-administered Kashmir was also restricted, with entry into Poonch division almost entirely blocked for weeks, disrupting supplies of flour and other essential goods to a region dependent on routes from Muzaffarabad and Mirpur.

Banks remained closed for two weeks, leaving residents without access to cash. Mobile and fibre internet services have also remained suspended across almost the entire territory, with exceptions only for banks and a handful of government offices, including district administrations and the Election Commission.

And the Election Commission itself has become an institution whose role faces questions from the JAAC.

Sardar Amanullah, a JAAC member from Sudhnoti district in Poonch division, more than 155km (96 miles) south of Muzaffarabad, said he had submitted nomination papers as an independent candidate, only for them to be rejected.

“I don’t think these are free and fair elections,” he said. “When you cannot let people’s representation out there, the government keeps finding ways to reject our papers,” he told Al Jazeera.

Chief Election Commissioner Mughal offered a different account.

“There were only two or three people who submitted their nomination papers, who claim to be affiliated with JAAC, and their papers were rejected by the returning officer since their names were mentioned in FIRs and the Fourth Schedule,” he said, referring to police reports and Pakistan’s anti-terrorism watchlist.

Abid Shaheen, a JAAC core committee member from Bagh district, was more blunt. With the group now proscribed, he described the vote as “a selection, not an election”.

A dozen seats, one dispute

Of the AJK Legislative Assembly’s 45 general seats, 12 are reserved for Kashmiri refugees who settled in Pakistan after 1947: six linked to Jammu and six to the Kashmir Valley.

The arrangement dates back to legislation introduced in the 1960s and was later entrenched in AJK’s 1974 Interim Constitution.

In June, the AJK Supreme Court, ruling on a presidential reference, held that the seats could only be abolished through a formal constitutional amendment passed by the assembly, not through public protest.

AJK’s electorate has grown from just over 3.2 million in 2021 to more than 3.8 million this year, according to Election Commission figures.

Within that, the 12 refugee constituencies alone have expanded from about 405,000 voters to nearly 439,000. JAAC argues that the increase has further amplified the influence of seats that were never intended to carry such political weight.

Since AJK adopted its current parliamentary system in 1975, all 10 general elections have produced governments aligned with the party in power in Islamabad.

Zulfiqar Ali, a Muzaffarabad-based political analyst, argued that the seats themselves have rarely determined who governs AJK.

“Across all the governments AJK has had, these 12 seats have played no significant role in actually making or breaking a government,” he said. “That role has always belonged to native AJK politicians, or whichever party holds federal power in Islamabad.”

Islamabad, meanwhile, has shown little interest in rethinking the refugee seats.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the National Assembly last month that abolishing the seats under pressure from street protests would amount to “sabotaging the electoral process”.

The campaign that resumed late

For the parties actually on the ballot, the crisis all but wiped out campaigning in June.

“Frankly speaking, the campaigning was dead due to the protests all June,” said Iftikhar Gillani, a PMLN candidate contesting from Muzaffarabad.

“The campaign only picked up in the last few days,” Gillani told Al Jazeera after meeting supporters at a polling station on July 20, where government officials were casting advance ballots.

Dressed in a white shalwar kameez and repeatedly wiping his face with a tissue on a severely humid Monday afternoon, Gillani argued that many Kashmiris distinguish between supporting JAAC and participating in the election, even if some committed supporters may stay away from the polls.

“People here are cognisant of the importance of the election and understand that they don’t have to mix their support for JAAC with their responsibility to participate in the polls,” he said. “But there is obviously no denying that there is a chunk of the population which fully believes in JAAC, and they might not cast their votes.”

A 28-year-old PMLN activist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said the internet shutdown had forced campaign workers to abandon social media in favour of door-to-door canvassing and loudspeakers mounted on vehicles to publicise the party’s manifesto.

But, he added, the election had also exposed social divisions unlike any he had witnessed before, fuelled by the JAAC-led protests.

“Families are divided over this,” he said. “Those who don’t support JAAC are being called supporters of our oppressors.”

The PPP, which currently governs Pakistan-administered Kashmir, has maintained the more visible street presence.

Its flags dominate Lal Chowk, and a Saturday night corner meeting near the square drew a crowd of supporters waving the party’s arrow banner close to midnight.

But Sardar Mukhtar, a PPP candidate in Muzaffarabad, acknowledged the changed mood.

“The campaign environment is not like previously. I personally feel that turnout might not be as strong as in the past,” he told Al Jazeera from his camp office, where party workers crowded in to catch a glimpse of the candidate.

The party’s clearest position has come from its chairman.

In a letter to JAAC’s negotiating committee last week, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari proposed establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to “examine the present situation, establish the relevant facts, consider the grievances and positions of all sides”.

He also urged JAAC to suspend its protest once such a commission was agreed, while calling on the state to halt further action pending its findings.

Bilawal is scheduled to address a public rally in Muzaffarabad on July 24.

AJK’s Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, the PPP’s most senior leader in the territory, has been more measured on the campaign trail, telling reporters after the revised election schedule was announced only that “the current environment is not suitable for the state” and that “problems can only be solved through dialogue”.

In the region’s legislature, he has previously said that the JAAC bears “the primary responsibility for this situation,” while conceding that “we have not absolved ourselves of responsibility as a government”.

What the election can’t fix

For Ali, the Muzaffarabad-based political analyst, the real issue lies not in the vote itself but in everything that has unfolded over the past few years.

He pointed to commitments the government made to JAAC in October 2024 that remain unfulfilled, including promises to devolve development budgets to local councillors and eliminate the perks and privileges enjoyed by politicians.

“However, people will vote,” he told Al Jazeera. “Because the entire system is designed in a certain way, tying government jobs and small favours to elected representatives. So turnout will be fine, but it will not resolve people’s fury and anger.”

Ershad Mahmud, a Canada-based researcher and author of Poonch: Identity, Politics and Resistance, sees the problem differently, arguing that the election is diminished by who is missing from the ballot.

“PTI did win last time, and they have significant following, as well as JAAC,” he said, referring to Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which ruled Pakistan from 2018 to 2022 before being ousted through a vote of no confidence.

PTI also formed the AJK government after the 2021 election, but since 2023 the territory has had four prime ministers.

Mahmud argued that with two major democratic forces absent from the contest, many voters will stay away as well.

“I don’t think this election will be seen as legitimate. The distance from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad is more than 120km [75 miles]. But the mental distance is now 1,000km [621 miles],” he told Al Jazeera.

An uncertain verdict

However, not everyone has reached the same conclusion.

Muhammad Ramzan, a property dealer from Mirpur division in the south of the territory, supported JAAC when its demands centred on subsidised wheat and lower electricity prices.

His support cooled once the movement shifted its focus to abolishing the 12 refugee seats, a campaign he considers disconnected from the concerns of residents and his own livelihood.

“Even I am curious,” he said. “Earlier they asked for roads or electricity or school, but now that they have changed their focus to 12 seats, I am flabbergasted why would they do that.”

He intends to vote, although he expects turnout to fall, with much of the boycott driven by younger voters aged between 18 and 35 who remain committed to JAAC.

“There are a lot of people like me,” he said, describing his gradual drift away from the movement.

But he remains doubtful that the election will resolve the crisis.

“I fear that things will go bad,” he said quietly.

Chaibasa, India – As the world celebrates Spain winning its second FIFA World Cup and the “GOATS” of football who headlined the month-long tournament, a remote Indian village has also joined in – albeit with an indigenous touch.

To coincide with the FIFA event, residents of Tirilbasa village in Chaibasa, a tribal-dominated district in eastern India’s Jharkhand state, organised a football tournament from July 14 to July 17, featuring teams from 64 nearby villages.

But the star attraction at the Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament (“rangila” means “colourful” in Hindi), besides relatively handsome prize money, was a herd of goats to be handed as trophies to the best-performing teams.

The finals were played on Friday, with NCS Maudi beating Kumbaram 1-0, a dramatic prediction of what happened between Spain and Argentina two days later in New York.

NCS Maudi carried home prize money of 15,000 rupees ($156) and three male goats (locally known as “khassi” for their castration at a young age). Runners-up Kumbaram won 12,000 rupees ($125) and two khassis, while Kobra FC Nimdhi and Galubasa FC, the third and fourth rankers, won 9,000 rupees ($93) and one khassi each. There are also cash prizes for the man of the match, man of the series and the best goalkeeper, but they don’t get any khassi.

NCS Maudi’s captain Sachin Devam, whose team arrived on two-wheelers to play the game, told Al Jazeera he would have to arrange for an autorickshaw to carry the goats home, 10km (6 miles) away.

“It’s the first win for our team, and we are going to celebrate it with everyone in the village,” he said with a beaming smile. “It’s going to be a khassi picnic.”

‘Khassi important part of our culture’

This year was the fifth edition of the Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament.

The organisers say they follow the FIFA rulebook and invite popular commentators and referees certified by the state football association to ensure compliance with the guidelines and “avoid fights as players can get aggressive on the field”.

But the rest of the setup is markedly different from the conventional game. Rather, it is adapted to the ancient tribal traditions of the Ho community, which is native to the Chaibasa region.

The Ho people, numbering a little more than a million across India, genetically belong to the Austroasiatic group and identify themselves as tribal (“aadivasi” in Hindi) people inhabiting the forests. The word “ho” in their language means “human” or “people” of the Kolhan region in Jharkhand, one of India’s poorest states despite being home to some of India’s biggest coal and mineral mines.

The Austroasiatic tribes such as Santhals, Ho and Munda organise their traditional, religious and sporting activities like a close-knit community. Football events are an opportunity to invite fellow tribal kin to celebrate their bond.

For the Ho people, no celebration is complete without the khassi. The animals are used for ceremonial sacrifices during religious events and rituals, and their meat is shared among the community members.

“Khassis are part of the prize as they are an important part of our culture. Their meat is tasty, and everyone loves good mutton. Most teams slaughter the goats, but some also keep them as livestock and trophy prize,” Manish Kudada, an 18-year-old player and one of the organisers of the tournament from Tirilbasa, told Al Jazeera.

Kudada has preserved the black khassi he won in another football tournament in February, but his friends joke that the goat is being fattened up for a feast. The khassi goats are prized for their meat quality. In Chaibasa, the goats can be spotted everywhere, especially during the weekly Tuesday markets, where a baby goat costs up to 8,000 rupees ($83).

“Without khassi, our celebrations are half-hearted. At weddings, even if the hosts serve double the amount of chicken and no khassi meat, it will upset the villagers,” Raj Keshri, goalkeeper for the Tirilbasa team and one of the organisers of the tournament, told Al Jazeera.

“We therefore decided to offer cash and goats as the prize. Players get to keep their money, but with the khassis, they also get to celebrate the victory with the entire village.”

The Ho practice what they call the Munda-Manki governance system, under which the hereditary head of a village upholds all social, legal and customary rights of the people. Their tribal codes and customs take precedence over the Indian government’s panchayat (village administration) and police systems.

The Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament is conducted at the “ek munda” (“ek” means “one” in Hindi) level, which means that a team’s members must belong to the same village. Instead of 11 players, each team has nine, of which at least six must belong to the same village to qualify for the tournament. Organisers say the rule is strictly followed to reinforce a sense of unity among the players.

The rules of the game have also been modified. There is no offside, and players are free to score from anywhere on the field.

“This kind of match setup provides an opportunity for players like us from small villages who never get a chance to qualify in open tournaments which are dominated by seasoned players,” Sudarshan Tiu, who plays for Galubasa FC, told Al Jazeera.

Suvir Kumar Tanti, the commentator for the tournament, travels widely across the Kolhan region during the monsoon football season, when most male members return home for cultivation and agricultural festivals.

At the finals at Tirilbasa on Friday, his high-pitched, lyrical play-by-play commentary boomed through the loudspeaker, helping the spectators keep track of the fast-paced action on the football field.

“The Rangila Star tournament reflects the culture of the Ho community. And khassi goats as prizes make it even more unique. Very few tournaments in the region follow this and prefer to conduct events in a professional manner, with trophies and medals as rewards,” he told Al Jazeera.

The tournament offers entertainment for the villagers, who pour in and out of the grounds through the day, squatting by the sides of the field or finding a place on the trees.

Nearby, food stalls sell fried dough balls, potato chops, yellow peas, and hooch. Men sit in circles, taking a break in between the matches to drink “madia”, a fermented rice beer that locals say helps them stay cool in the hot and humid weather.

In the evenings after the matches, men also play a rooster-catching game, which spectators can bet their money on.

Keshri, goalkeeper for the Tirilbasa team, explains the spirit behind the tournament’s eccentric name: Rangila Star Tirilbasa.

“The name was chosen because it embodies the identity of our village. ‘Rangila’ [colourful] signifies our enthusiasm to do something unique while ‘Star’ represents talent. Through our football tournament, we hope Tirilbasa will become the ground for local talent.”

The tribal-dominated state of Jharkhand has been a sports powerhouse for decades. It has produced globally-awarded field hockey players and athletes, the most famous being India’s former cricket captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The state government helps local football and hockey clubs like Rangila Star with financial grants, resulting in the rise of some of football’s next generation of players. Many such clubs, including Rangila, also hold tournaments for female teams.

But until over a decade ago, Chaibasa was not on the sporting map.

Located among remote forests and hills, the district was cut off from mainland India due to the Maoist insurgency – a tribal-led armed revolt against the Indian state over large-scale felling of forests and selling of lands to private corporates for mining and related activities.

The government regained control of Chaibasa from Maoists only in 2011. Still, until last year, private vehicles avoided taking roads crossing the district at night. Commercial buses operated from 4am to 4pm, and the region remained on the government’s list of “sensitive areas”.

In March this year, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah declared the end of the armed Maoist rebellion after a series of top commanders were killed or arrested by the security forces in Jharkhand and the surrounding states, mainly Chhattisgarh.

As violence ebbed, Chaibasa turned into a busy town. Shops selling pizza, burgers and laptops, alongside offices and warehouses of mining companies extracting coal and iron ore, have come up. Christian missionary schools and colleges are dotted across the region, providing educational opportunities to tribal people.

Sporting activities are also thriving, with Chaibasa fast emerging as a football hot spot, producing players like female midfielder and forward Malati Munda.

Munda, who found national fame through local tournaments, ended up playing in league matches in Kolkata, the capital of neighbouring West Bengal state, where football is extremely popular.

“I had no coach to guide me or provide training. No one had even heard about me. After coming to Chaibasa town for higher studies, I met several brothers and sisters who taught me and improved my game,” Munda told Al Jazeera.

The weekly local tournaments gave Munda experience and skills to improve her game. They also brought rewards. “I have played at several such games where we won cash, and yes, khassi as well,” she said with a laugh.

Munda currently plays for the Home Guard paramilitary in Jharkhand’s capital city of Ranchi – a route many players from poorer families take to secure a government job in India.

Harish Hembram from Chaibasa began his career as a football content creator by covering local matches and uploading their videos on social media. His YouTube channel today has more than 211,000 subscribers, and livestreams key matches across Jharkhand.

“Football has always been popular in the villages, and many like me would attend matches at different venues. I started uploading the videos for fun for those fans who couldn’t attend. But soon the videos clocked high viewership, and I started my YouTube channel. Now organisers call me to cover their tournaments,” he told Al Jazeera.

Hembram said he earns about 20,000 rupees ($208) a month through his YouTube channel alone. He has moved to Ranchi, where he has also opened a sports shop selling football, jerseys, shoes and other accessories. Many players from Chaibasa visit his shop.

The grassroots football culture in Chaibasa defies the stereotype that India is not a football country.

Sandeep Menon, author of Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People’s Football in India, says he has discovered and documented a football subculture across the country. He said while India does not figure prominently on the global football map, the love for the sport in the country is “unparalleled”.

“At the grassroots level, football is played with great interest across the country. And everyone has their own version of the game, to make it palatable and adaptable depending upon the availability of space, local geographical surroundings, weather and social conditions,” Menon told Al Jazeera.

Menon said hyper-local village tournaments like the Rangila Star Tirilbasa attract young players and provide them an opportunity for overnight fame. “There is a high emotional investment in playing for a village and representing it,” he said. “For some players, football becomes their identity and pride.”

The price of resale housing in Spain ended the second quarter of 2026 with a year-on-year increase of 17.2%, according to the Fotocasa Real Estate Index.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Between April and June, prices also rose by 4%, bringing the average to €3,133 per square metre in June. Spain’s resale home prices have hit new record highs in four of the first six months of the year and are now at their highest level in the past 21 years.

Fotocasa’s head of research and spokesperson, María Matos, attributes this trend to a sharp imbalance between strong demand and limited supply. She explains that the shortage of available properties, financing conditions and demographic pressure in the main markets are driving prices up and making it more difficult to access housing.

According to Matos, “the result is ever faster price growth that makes it harder to access housing and widens the affordability gap for a large proportion of households.”

Fotocasa’s data is in line with the trend shown by statistics from the National Statistics Institute (INE), although the two use different methodologies.

While the property portal analyses the asking prices of advertised listings, the INE measures the prices of homes that are ultimately sold. According to the institute, the overall price of housing rose by 12.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, while second-hand homes became 13.5% more expensive.

Murcia leads the increases

Prices rose during the second quarter in 16 autonomous communities.

The Region of Murcia recorded the largest rise, at 8.6%, followed by Cantabria (6.3%), the Valencian Community (5.9%), Castile and León (5.6%) and La Rioja (5.1%). The Canary Islands was the only region where prices fell, with a drop of 0.7%.

On an annual basis, Murcia once again came out on top with an increase of 28%, ahead of Cantabria (20%), the Valencian Community (19.8%), Asturias (17%) and Andalusia (16.9%).

The report also highlights that “June 2026 ended with 14 autonomous communities posting double-digit year-on-year increases, compared with 11 in 2025, six in 2024 and seven in 2023”.

The Balearic Islands and Madrid remain the most expensive regions to buy a resale home, at €5,441 and €5,410 per square metre respectively.

They are followed by the Basque Country (€3,925), Catalonia (€3,418) and the Canary Islands (€3,374). At the opposite end of the scale are Extremadura (€1,352), Castile-La Mancha (€1,407) and Castile and León (€1,816).

Provinces, provincial capitals and major cities

Forty-six provinces recorded quarterly increases, with León (10.7%), Palencia (10.2%) and Murcia (8.6%) seeing the sharpest rises, while Cuenca, Huelva, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Ávila were the only ones where prices fell.

The Balearic Islands remains the most expensive province to buy a resale home, at €5,441 per square metre, followed by Madrid (€5,410), Guipúzcoa (€4,695) and Málaga (€4,690). Jaén continues to be the most affordable, at €1,112 per square metre.

Among provincial capitals, León recorded the largest quarterly increase, while Donostia-San Sebastián maintains the highest average price in Spain, at €7,158 per square metre, ahead of Madrid (€6,630), Barcelona (€5,368), Palma (€5,275), Málaga (€4,320) and Bilbao (€4,157).

At municipal level, Santa Eulària des Riu in Ibiza tops the national ranking with €8,491 per square metre, followed by Sant Antoni de Portmany (€8,284) and Eivissa (€7,441). In Madrid, the Salamanca district reaches €10,786 per square metre, while Sarrià-Sant Gervasi leads the way in Barcelona at €7,540 per square metre.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani releases a video statement calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face trial for war crimes, citing the ICC’s arrest warrant. But, after days of speculation, Mamdani says New York does not have the power to arrest Netanyahu.

Proposed rules would have US regulator block the entry of swarm-capable drones, mainly from China.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to prohibit imports of advanced drones, mainly from China, citing mounting national security concerns over military-grade technology.

Under the proposed rules announced on Tuesday, the US regulator will block the entry of drones equipped with swarming capabilities and infrared sensors for high-resolution thermal imaging.

Meanwhile, exemptions for components produced outside China, introduced in December, have been extended until January 2028, suggesting a focus on isolating Chinese manufacturers, such as DJI and Autel Robotics.

The move comes days after US President Donald Trump accused China of interfering in the 2020 US elections. It signals a hardening of Washington’s stance against foreign-made surveillance technology, while attempting to mitigate immediate supply chain shocks for domestic users.

FCC officials said the measures were necessary to “secure the drone supply chain” and prevent sensitive data from being accessed by foreign states.

In 2022, the FCC banned telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from prominent Chinese brands, including Huawei and ZTE, citing an “unacceptable risk to national security”.

US security officials have warned that equipment from Chinese brands such as Huawei could be used to interfere with fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks and collect sensitive information.

One of the largest manufacturers of telecommunications equipment in the world, Huawei has had an embattled relationship with the US and its allies, facing some of the heaviest sanctions ever placed on a single company in the US.

In 2019, Trump signed into law the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, which established criteria to identify communications services Washington deemed could pose a risk to national security.

The FCC’s latest move reflects a bipartisan consensus in Washington to treat foreign drone technology as an “unacceptable risk” to national infrastructure.

As the U.S. continues to expend offensive and defensive munitions in the fight against Iran, the Pentagon’s top leaders are testifying before the Senate today about how to pay for the war, including to replace $21 billion in strike weapons and air defense interceptors already used. The appearance of War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine comes as resumed hostilities have entered an 11th day and President Donald Trump renewed threats to attack Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain facility.

Hegseth and Caine are appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee to explain why the extra money is needed. It is included in a nearly $90 billion supplemental budget request made by the White House last month. Of that, the administration is seeking $67.1 billion to address “operational costs incurred by the Department of War (DoW) during OEF [Operation Epic Fury], including funding for military personnel and readiness expenses, operational costs to rebuild stocks expended by DOW, classified programs, and other key expenses,” the White House stated. 

As we noted earlier, the largest line item in the request is $21 billion for the munitions fired off during the conflict. We have frequently highlighted concerns over U.S. stocks of high-end offensive missiles and bombs and air defense interceptors and the difficulty in replacing them.

An official told The Washington Post that “the expansion of U.S. operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions and constraints on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area because of battle damage.

Meanwhile, the money being used to fund the conflict is having a cascading downstream effect on the U.S. military.

“The funding crunch is already leading the Pentagon to limit training and maintenance that help maintain military readiness,” The Washington Post reported, citing four current and former officials. 

ChatGPT maker says an autonomous agent escaped a controlled test and accessed AI firm Hugging Face’s servers.

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has said that two of its most advanced artificial intelligence models broke out of a controlled test and hacked another AI company.

OpenAI said on Tuesday that the “unprecedented cyber incident” took place during an internal exercise meant to test its models’ cyber capabilities.

Instead, an autonomous agent powered by the AI models – the newly released GPT 5.6 Sol and an unreleased “even more capable” model – escaped the test environment and reached the open internet. It then used stolen login details and found a previously unknown security flaw to access Hugging Face servers, the company said.

OpenAI claims that the hack represented the agent going to “extreme lengths” to retrieve information that would help satisfy the testing goals.

Hugging Face cofounder Clement Delangue said the company had suspected that a frontier lab was behind the attack, and that he believed there was no malicious intent on OpenAI’s part.

“It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!” he wrote, adding that it “might be the first incident of its kind”.

Greg Casar, a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas, called the incident “alarming”.

“AI is developing extremely fast with no real regulations to keep us safe,” he said, calling for mandatory independent safety testing, mandatory disclosure of security incidents, and international cooperation.

The disclosure comes weeks after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a framework to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems before their public release.

Experts have repeatedly sounded the alarm over AI-enabled cyberattacks and models slipping beyond human control. Last month, AI developer Anthropic urged the industry to pause development of its most powerful systems.

Bamako, Mali – The ambush that killed at least 50 Malian soldiers and struck a joint convoy of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Russia’s Africa Corps near the northern town of Anefis on July 18 was more than another battlefield setback.

It underscored how Mali’s armed groups are becoming increasingly coordinated, exposing the limits of the military government’s security strategy, despite growing Russian military support.

The Malian military confirmed the assault and said it had launched counter-operations, while Africa Corps later released footage it said showed drone strikes targeting fighters involved in the ambush.

The attack is the latest in a series of coordinated operations across northern Mali since April, raising questions about why armed groups are increasingly cooperating, whether Bamako’s security strategy is working, whether Russia’s military role has – and has not – changed, and what the conflict could mean for the wider Sahel.

Why are separatist and Islamic armed groups fighting together?

The July 18 ambush was jointly claimed by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a coalition of predominantly Tuareg separatist groups, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Sahel.

Until recently, such cooperation would have seemed unlikely as they have different longterm political aims. The FLA seeks greater autonomy or independence for northern Mali, while JNIM aims to establish governance based on its interpretation of Islamic law across the region.

For Héni Nsaibia, a senior West Africa analyst at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitor, the answer lies in a shared battlefield enemy rather than a shared ideology.

“The Tuareg-led separatists and JNIM are currently fighting together because they share a common enemy in the Malian armed forces and their Russian partners from the Africa Corps,” Nsaibia told Al Jazeera.

“In doing so, they act as force multipliers for one another, allowing them to pool resources and mutualise their efforts to confront their adversaries more effectively. These groups also share kinship ties despite their ideological differences and regard one another as sons of the land, defending their ancestral territory against invading forces.”

For Mali’s military, that cooperation makes attacks harder to anticipate and more difficult to repel, allowing armed groups to combine local knowledge, manpower and operational experience while pursuing separate objectives.

The military government’s decision to abandon the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement, request the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), and deepen military cooperation with Russia reshaped the conflict. The collapse of the peace framework removed one of the few mechanisms managing relations between Bamako and northern armed groups, while the military’s increasingly confrontational approach encouraged former rivals to coordinate against a common adversary.

The shift became increasingly visible during coordinated attacks launched across several parts of the country in April, stretching Malian and Russian forces across multiple fronts. More recently, fighting around Anefis has shown that the alliance is capable not only of launching simultaneous operations but also of sustaining pressure on strategically important military positions.

With negotiations abandoned and military confrontation becoming the dominant strategy, armed groups that once competed with one another have found greater incentives to cooperate on the battlefield.

Has Russia changed the course of Mali’s war?

Since replacing the Wagner Group as Moscow’s principal military presence in Mali, Africa Corps has become an increasingly important partner for the Malian army.

Its personnel have provided combat support alongside Malian forces, while Russian drones and aircraft have expanded the military’s surveillance and strike capabilities. Those capabilities have strengthened the army’s ability to respond to attacks and defend key positions.

“Russia has helped strengthen Mali’s military, which was at risk of being overrun, and has given it more support on the battlefield,” Nimi Princewill, a regional analyst specialising in West Africa and the Sahel, told Al Jazeera.

“But this attack, as well as the earlier seizure of Kidal, suggests the Kremlin’s military support has not changed the overall picture. The conflict remains deeply rooted, with geographical and ideological dimensions that are proving difficult for the junta to tackle.” The army seized Kidal, a key town in the country’s north that the Tuareg rebels held for nearly a decade, in November 2023, but Tuareg and allied fighters retook the town in April this year.

Rather than transforming the conflict, Moscow’s military backing appears to have strengthened the army’s battlefield capabilities without addressing the political, governance and security conditions that continue to fuel the violence.

Recent operations reinforce that assessment. Convoys travelling through northern Mali continue to face frequent ambushes, particularly along routes linking Gao, Anefis and other military positions, exposing the continued vulnerability of military supply lines despite increased Russian support.

The shift away from Western security partners also changed the type of assistance available. While Africa Corps has strengthened Mali’s combat capabilities, the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) ended an international presence that provided logistics, monitoring and intelligence support across much of northern Mali.

The result is a military that has become more effective in direct combat but continues to struggle to secure vast, remote territory against increasingly adaptable armed groups.

Has Bamako’s strategy paid off?

The limitations of Bamako’s security strategy raise broader questions about whether it is translating battlefield gains into lasting security.

Since seizing power in 2020, Mali’s military government has centred its strategy on military force, ending longstanding cooperation with Western partners while strengthening defence ties with Russia.

But the repeated ambushes around Anefis and along northern supply routes suggest the measurable gains of this approach on the battlefield have yet to translate into lasting strategic control.

More fundamentally, the growing cooperation between armed groups with different objectives suggests that Bamako’s strategy has not prevented them from adapting and reshaping the conflict.

What could this mean for the wider Sahel?

The implications of the Anefis ambush extend well beyond Mali.

JNIM, the al-Qaeda affiliate, already operates across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, while fighting continues to spread across the central Sahel.

The evolving battlefield also presents a challenge for the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), whose members all face persistent armed violence despite expanding military cooperation. The alliance was created to strengthen collective security, but increasingly coordinated attacks suggest that cooperation among governments is being matched by equally adaptable cooperation among armed groups.

At the same time, Mali’s withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has reduced opportunities for regional coordination with neighbouring countries confronting many of the same security threats.

If the FLA-JNIM partnership proves durable, it could encourage similar tactical cooperation elsewhere in the Sahel, further complicating efforts to contain armed groups whose operations already span national borders.

“The AES was supposed to mean that our security was finally our own business. But when Mali bleeds, Niger bleeds with it, because the armed groups attacking those convoys do not recognise the Alliance of Sahel States any more than they recognised ECOWAS. We traded one set of partners we did not trust for another, and the war is still coming south,” a Niger-based security expert, who requested anonymity because he feared potential repercussions, told Al Jazeera.

Whether the tactical partnership between the FLA and JNIM proves durable remains uncertain. But the Anefis ambush suggests that as Mali’s security strategy shifts, armed groups are adapting in response, with consequences that could extend far beyond Mali’s borders.

A former Biden official tells Al Jazeera that Lebanon’s pilot zones will only create an environment for Hezbollah to continue its armed resistance. Former State Department official, Jennifer Gavito, says she has a difficult time imagining Israel fully withdrawing from Lebanon.

Liverpool boss Andoni Iraola wants midfielder Alexis Mac Allister and goalkeeper Alisson to remain at the club.

Argentina international Mac Allister has two years left on the five-year contract he signed at Liverpool when he joined the Reds in 2023.

The 27-year-old has yet to begin talks over a new deal, which has prompted speculation he could leave Anfield this summer.

However, Iraola told a news conference in Chicago at the beginning of Liverpool‘s pre-season tour of the United States that he wants to hang on to the player.

“I think Alexis has been one of the best players at the club for the last few years, and he has had a very good World Cup, so it is normal that other clubs want our best players,” Iraola said.

“It always happens in other markets. But I want to keep my good players. I’m looking forward more to signing new players rather than losing the ones we have here.”

Alisson has a year left on his contract at Anfield and has been linked with a move to Juventus, but Iraola is keen to bank on the 33-year-old Brazilian’s experience in the forthcoming season.

“I’m very happy with the situation we have right now in the goalkeeping area,” explained the Reds boss.

“Alisson is someone also in a changing room that has lost some references in terms of experience, I think he’s someone that definitely will help us in this process of adaptation of the new signings, of the new players, the young players.

“We need the references like Virgil [van Dijk], like Alisson, like Joe Gomez, players that have been here for a long time.”

Iraola acknowledged he has one eye on bringing in defensive reinforcements during the summer transfer window, particularly at right-back given Conor Bradley is “months” away from playing.

The Northern Ireland international sustained a knee injury in January and will not be available for the start of the season.

“At the end, if you have a fully fit, healthy Conor Bradley, we are very happy, ready to go and we would not be asking ourselves these questions,” explained the Spaniard.

“I think it’s a situation that is tricky, because we trust Conor in the long term, we know we want him to be our right-back but right now he is still, I would say, a little bit far from returning.

“So, with the centre-back, with the right-back situation, in terms of defensive depth, we are, I think, very thin right now so I think it’s a solution that we are trying to find, yes.”

Caracas, July 20, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – A US federal judge has issued a default ruling against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and several current and former state officials. US $314 million in damages was awarded to three US citizens who spent time imprisoned in Venezuela.

Venezuelan authorities have yet to comment on the case. Legal proceedings against Acting President Delcy Rodríguez continue. However, on Monday, the Trump administration sent a letter to the court arguing that, as a sitting head of state recognized by Washington, Rodríguez should be “entitled to immunity.”

Judge Darrin P. Gayles from the District Court for the Southern District of Florida published the verdict on July 14. US nationals Jerrel Kenemore, Jason Saad, and Edgar José Marval brought a civil lawsuit in August 2025 under Florida’s Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) and the federal RICO statute against organized crime. 

The three US citizens were released from Venezuela in December 2023 as part of a prisoner swap agreement with the Biden administration that saw former Venezuelan government envoy Alex Saab returned to the South American country.

The plaintiffs sought damages after claiming to have suffered “physical and psychological torture” while imprisoned in Venezuela and to have been used as part of “hostage diplomacy” to secure Saab’s release. The judge claimed that Maduro and other officials were a “criminal enterprise” that acted against US interests.

“The Maduro Criminal Enterprise committed myriad predicate offenses through its drug trafficking and kidnapping actions in and against the United States and its citizens,” he wrote in the verdict. The court estimated compensation for “kidnapping and torture” and “solatium, pain and suffering” under ATA that totaled $312.5 million and added $1.5 million in RICO damages.

Gayles entered the default ruling against Maduro after he failed to enter a defense or plea before the court. The court clerk entered similar defaults against Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, former Defense and current Agriculture Minister Vladimir Padrino López, former Interior Minister Néstor Reverol, former Attorney General Tarek William Saab, former Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno, and former Industry Minister Alex Saab.

Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were kidnapped by US forces on January 3 and are facing charges including “narcoterrorism” and drug trafficking conspiracy. Both have pleaded not guilty, with the next hearing scheduled for July 22.

The Florida judge also included the so-called Cartel de los Soles, an alleged drug trafficking outfit run by high-ranking Venezuelan officials, as a defaulting defendant. Crime researchers have cast doubt on the existence of the cartel, while the US Justice Department dropped all references to it in the formal indictment against Maduro and Flores.

Similarly, Gayles claimed that “for at least twenty years, Maduro intentionally inundated the United States with tons of cocaine.” However, US officials have never presented evidence tying Maduro to narcotics activities, while reports from the DEA have consistently found that a very small percentage of US-bound drugs flow through Venezuela.

The US Justice Department has since 2020 introduced $25 million and $15 million bounties, respectively, for the arrest of Cabello and Padrino in connection with alleged “narcoterrorism.”

According to the Associated Press, Saab’s legal representatives declined to comment on the case. The acting Rodríguez government turned over the Colombian-born businessman, who served as industry minister after his 2023 release, to US authorities in May. He is being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami while facing trial on renewed money laundering charges.

In contrast to Maduro, Cabello, and others, Acting President Rodríguez responded to the lawsuit in April, with lawyers contending that, as Venezuelan head of state, she should be immune from civil action. Rodríguez received the backing of the Trump administration via a July 20 letter “suggesting” to the court that the acting president should enjoy immunity,

“The United States respectfully submits to the Court that President Delcy Rodríguez is immune in this action and all claims against her should be dismissed without prejudice,” the letter concluded. The US State Department also intervened in June, requesting that the Justice Department communicate Rodríguez’s immunity to the Florida district court in order to secure a “prompt dismissal of the proceedings.”

Rodríguez’s brother, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, filed a similar motion to set aside the lawsuit via a different legal team. The plaintiffs opposed the moves in another motion at the end of April.

The civil lawsuit likewise targeted state-owned companies Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) and Corporación Venezolana de Petróleo (CVP). The two firms have claimed immunity from civil litigation under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The plaintiffs have not disclosed any strategy to collect the awarded damages. None of the defaulting defendants has any publicly known assets under US jurisdiction.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

[Updated on July 21 to include the Trump administration and State Department letters to the court endorsing immunity for Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.]