news

The EU’s election observer said the vote met democratic standards despite fraud allegations.

Peru’s presidential election result will not be finalised until mid-May, with challenged ballots from last Sunday’s vote still being reviewed, says the electoral authority.

With 93 percent of ballots counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leads with 17 percent, according to officials.

Under Peru’s electoral system, the top two candidates advance to a second-round runoff. A close contest has emerged for second spot between left-wing candidate, Roberto Sanchez on 12 percent, and ultra-conservative Rafael Lopez Aliaga close behind on 11.9 percent.

The margin between the two widened slightly on Saturday to about 13,600 votes.

Yessica Clavijo, secretary general of the National Jury of Elections (JNE), said the delay was due to the review of more than 15,000 challenged ballots. About 30 percent concern the presidential race, the rest relate to legislative elections.

Lopez Aliaga, a former mayor of the capital Lima, has been the most vocal critic of the delay. He has alleged fraud without presenting evidence and called for the election to be annulled. He urged supporters of his Popular Renewal Party to protest on Sunday.

Sanchez also criticised the election process, telling reporters: “These serious organisational issues must be investigated and there must be appropriate sanctions”.

A record 35 candidates ran for president in Peru, a country that has faced years of political instability. Four of its last eight presidents have been impeached by Congress.

Voting was disrupted by delays in the delivery of election materials, forcing authorities to extend polling into Monday in parts of Lima.

Despite the setbacks, the European Union’s election observer mission said the vote met democratic standards. On Friday, prosecutors raided a warehouse belonging to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), the body responsible for organising the election. Four officials have been reported to the JNE over alleged offences linked to voting rights.

L3Harris is pushing its modular Wolf Pack family of “launched effects vehicles” for the U.S. Army, including to equip its H-60 Black Hawk series and AH-64 Apache helicopters, with an eye on the specific demands of a future conflict in the Pacific. The family of vehicles includes the Red Wolf, configured for long-range precision strikes against targets on land or at sea, and the Green Wolf fitted with an electronic warfare payload. Overall, these are part of a wider drive toward fielding modular, relatively cheap, and small systems that increasingly blur the line between uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, and cruise missiles, as well as decoys.

Readers can refer to our previous coverage of the Wolf Pack family, and it is also worth noting that the company is under contract with the U.S. Marine Corps to deliver the related PASM, the Precision Attack Strike Munition.

At the Army Aviation Association of America’s Army Aviation Warfighting Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, this week, TWZ caught up with Brad Reeves, the director of strategy and requirements for the Agile Development Group at L3Harris, to talk about the company’s vision for the Wolf family with the Army.

TWZ: What is the primary driver behind the Wolf family, and how is it relevant to the Army’s rotary-wing fleets?

Brad Reeves: The Department of War has a heavy emphasis on the Pacific and a conflict over there. Mass is an issue. We have a lot of exquisite weapons today, but the numbers are not maybe as high as we might hope for a conflict over there. So, they’re trying to solve that problem. Affordable mass has kind of become the buzzword, which basically means, “hey, how do we get capability that we can buy in quantity without breaking the bank?” And so, with that, the Department of War, actually Secretary Hegseth, issued a memo on April 30 of last year. And one of the things he called out specifically was launched effects, the urgency to get that fielded beginning this year. So, that’s a high-emphasis item for those guys.

Launched effects are really meant to be an affordable mass solution for the Army. But the real story behind this is what we call our Wolf Pack family of systems, and our offering and the capability it brings. And the story here is it’s very capable, but it’s what it does for the Army and for Army aviation. So it’s transforming Army aviation, and it’s addressing platforms that lack some relevancy today in the fight. Black Hawks, Apaches, etc, have a very short-range capability, relatively speaking, when you’re talking about the Pacific, and you have the tyranny of distance and anti-access/area-denial threats. It’s a much harder challenge than what we’ve dealt with in the decades since those aircraft were first invented.

Now we’re basically bringing relevancy to those platforms. We’re transforming from a weapons-effectiveness range and lethality range of single-digit kilometers, maybe up to a dozen kilometers, and we’re now extending that to hundreds of kilometers. We’re taking what before was a single-mission aircraft that’s supporting the Army; it’s doing close combat attack missions for Army soldiers on the ground, and is basically specific to that single service. And we’re now expanding that, and we’re giving that platform a joint or coalition viability in a Pacific flight. And so, the relevance now has increased. We’re taking what was before, a single-domain, fully land-based capability. We’re turning it into multi-domain, so now surface, meaning maritime, and land. And then we’re taking the target sets, which were traditionally tanks, maybe threats that we get from ground forces, etc. Again, we’re expanding that so it can be maritime threats and ground threats. It’s kind of a revolution in the way that the Army is going to fight and what they’re going to contribute to the joint coalition force. The Army desperately needs this capability.

TWZ: And what are the differences between the Wolf Pack family members?

Brad Reeves: Our launched effects offering, we call it the Wolf Pack family of systems. Today, we have two high-level mission capability variants. We have the Red Wolf, which is the kinetic variant, so a cruise missile. We have the Green Wolf, which has a purely (non-kinetic) electronic warfare payload. So now you’re also doing suppression of enemy air defenses. These types of missions, the DILR mission — detect, ID, locate, report — and/or electronic attack to suppress this threat.

Wolf Pack is designed to have multiple variants, so one aircraft, let’s say an Apache in this instance, you could launch multiple variants, Green and Red. You have a Green Wolf that goes out ahead and is searching and building the EMBM, the electromagnetic battle management. Through some software we call DISCO, which is AI-driven software, it’s building the landscape where the threats are, whether on the surface or on the land.

TWZ: How does PASM, the Precision Attack Strike Munition, differ from these?

Brad Reeves: It comes out of our Wolf Pack family. It’s a unique variant designed for the U.S. Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper, and we’re delivering early operational capability. They did a long-range precision fire, LRPF, last September, and that was somewhat of a graduation event. Now we’re basically starting to work with production at our plant in Virginia.

TWZ: So these are basically loitering munitions?

Brad Reeves: We don’t consider it a loitering munition, but technically, by definition, yes, what it’s doing is it’s flying a pattern. It’s very smart: it goes out, starts detecting threats, then it will set up a pattern to make sure that a) it’s survivable itself, so it doesn’t fly over a threat and get shot down. But b), it will maximize the search pattern, and then it will deconflict with the others in the pack, so that you can, if you have a large area, you can have one, one will say, “hey, I’m going to go do maybe a zigzag pattern over here looking for threats. You go do a zigzag pattern and then report those back.” Once they find the threats, they’ve got options. Either the aircraft can just avoid the threats because they know where they are, or if they need to go through them, then you can either use electronic attack to jam them, or you can send a signal to one of the kinetic variants. Then the kinetic variant does the destruction of enemy air defenses mission.

That’s kind of why we call it the Wolf Pack: working together collaboratively in a pack to perform a mission that’s assigned by the pilot, and they do that autonomously. They have been ground-launched. They have been air-launched from both manned and unmanned platforms, and they can be launched from rotary-wing or fixed-wing. Since we’re here with the Army, the target is Black Hawks and Apaches very specifically.

TWZ: Would you say that the Wolf Pack is oriented generally towards the SEAD/DEAD mission?

Brad Reeves: It is much broader. But certainly one of the main applications is SEAD/DEAD. With the EW variant, that’s really applicable when you’re doing SEAD/DEAD, or you’re just looking for platform survivability, meaning you’re going towards a mission, but you want to maybe send something out ahead. These fly at high subsonic speeds. They’re going out ahead when launched from a helicopter. They’re scouting out the area, giving them the picture, and allowing them to either avoid, suppress, or defeat threats that may be in their way.

TWZ: Presumably, the cost point of these means the numbers can be fairly scalable, depending on the requirement?

Brad Reeves: Absolutely, it depends on the mission set. One of the advantages is that, while it is an affordable mass munition, it also comes with significant capability. There are some, what I would call differentiators, that put this capability at the high end of the affordable mass, meaning it’s very inexpensive compared to traditional legacy weapons that the forces are using today. We usually say it’s about five times cheaper than what these aircraft would be using today. There are BAAs, broad area announcements, something the U.S. government will release to industry, asking for different capabilities. Right now, when they’re asking for this type of capability, they’re usually targeting somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000 for that market, per round, and we’re certainly in that sweet spot.

TWZ: Aside from the small turbine engine that they share, how modular are the Wolf Pack vehicles themselves?

Brad Reeves: Some people call it a truck, but for some reason, that offends me. But you’ve got the platform, and we’ve designed it modularly with what’s called WOSA, weapon open systems architecture. And so you can interchange the payload. You can take the platform, you can put a warhead in it, and it becomes kinetic. You can take the warhead out, you can put an EW payload in it. I’m oversimplifying a little bit because with the kinetic variant, there are sensors and other stuff. So you probably wouldn’t physically take a kinetic one and swap out the warhead for an EW payload.

TWZ: When it comes to Green Wolf, which has no warhead, is this designed to be expendable or recoverable?

Brad Reeves: We have both. We have a recoverable variant. It depends on what the customer wants. In some instances, they want recoverability. And with recoverability, you lose a little bit of range. So in some instances, it’s going to be on a one-way mission; they just want maximum range. Basically, the parachute equipment we use to recover it takes up a little bit of space that otherwise would be fuel tank space.

TWZ: How do these vehicles navigate?

Brad Reeves: It has the standard inertial navigation and GPS. It has those capabilities inside of it, and then the seeker effectively is used purely for in-game targeting.

TWZ: To what degree would you be able to surge production to meet urgent demands?

Brad Reeves: We gave our manufacturing team the problem and said, “Hey, multiple customers are asking for as many as a thousand per year. We expect this to really blow up. How do we know how big a plant to build? How do we know what we can do?” And so they actually designed a modular, scalable production plan. In theory, you can scale up to as many as you want. But right now, what we’re doing is we’re scaling towards a thousand a year, which is the current path, and then if the demand signal spikes, we have the ability to scale above that.

The beauty of this vehicle is that there’s a lot as a significant amount of commonality, which does allow us to scale, and also gives us economies of scale, price, etc.

Meet the “Wolf Pack”

TWZ: Where are you now with testing?

Brad Reeves: We’ve flown over 50 times in test events with the military. So we’ve done multiple services. We’ve done formal testing with those services. It’s been launched twice off the AH-1Z. We’ve launched off fixed-wing UAS, but this gets a little sensitive with the customers, as to what those platforms are. And we’ve done ground launch.

TWZ: Do you have a pathway toward testing on the Black Hawk and Apache?

Brad Reeves: I am very passionate about making sure this gets fielded to U.S. Army soldiers, specifically the Apache and the Black Hawk. Right now, we’ve obviously got Epic Fury. But if something lights off in the Pacific, this just pales in comparison. If I were young enough to be flying in that fight, I would want more capability. And so I am a little bit of a zealot. The U.S. Army, I know, has to have this capability, and I believe they want it. It’s going to be a game-changer for them, and it’s going to be important to the joint force and coalition forces. It is a significant transformational capability.

Jamie Hunter contributed to this story.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Defence deal is latest example of deepening ties between Canberra and Tokyo amid shared concerns over China’s rise.

Australia and Japan have signed contracts for the first three of 11 warships set to be delivered to the Australian navy under a landmark $7bn defence deal, as the two close US allies in the Asia Pacific region deepen defence cooperation.

Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles and Japanese Defence Minister Koizumi Shinjiro made the announcement in Melbourne on Saturday at the signing ceremony for the Mogami-class warships.

The “Mogami Memorandum” pledges to deepen military ties, including through “closer industrial cooperation” in defence.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build three of the stealth frigates in southern Nagasaki Prefecture, while Australia’s Austal will build eight in Western Australia.

The first of the Japanese-built warships is scheduled to be delivered in 2029 and enter service in 2030.

“Our surface fleet is more important than at any time in decades,” Marles said in a statement.

“These general-purpose frigates will help secure our maritime trade routes and northern approaches as part of a larger and more lethal surface combatant fleet.”

Shinjiro said closer defence coordination was becoming more important as Australia and Japan faced an “increasingly severe security environment”.

Australia’s government last year announced that it had chosen Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build its fleet of next-generation warships, following a bidding war between the Tokyo-based firm and Germany’s Thyssenkrupp.

Australia has committed to a record $305bn in military spending over the next decade, as part of a widespread defence overhaul aimed at boosting the country’s naval power to levels not seen since World War II.

Under the plans, Canberra’s defence spending is set to rise to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 3033, from about 2 percent now.

Australia and Japan, two of the United States’ closest allies, have ramped up military cooperation in recent years amid shared concerns about shifts in the regional security environment, particularly China’s rising influence. Tokyo and Canberra are also members of the Quad security bloc led by the US.

The humans were left far behind as smartphone maker Honor’s humanoid robot shattered the men’s world record in China.

A humanoid robot competing against flesh-and-blood runners has broken the world record at a Beijing half-marathon, showcasing the rapid technological advancements achieved by Chinese makers.

Spectators lined the roads in Yizhuang in the capital’s south on Sunday to watch the machines and their human rivals race, each group in a separate lane to avoid accidents or collisions.

Some of the robots were highly agile, moving like famous runners such as Usain Bolt, while others had more basic capabilities.

The winning humanoid, equipped with an autonomous navigation system and running for Chinese smartphone maker Honor, completed the roughly 21km (13-mile) course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, at an average speed of about 25km/h (15.5mph), according to state broadcaster CCTV.

That was far faster than the top human in Sunday’s race, while also surpassing the current men’s world record of 57:20, held by Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo.

The result represented spectacular progress from last year, when robot-runners fell repeatedly, and the best took more than two hours and 40 minutes to finish.

The number of humanoid entries jumped from about 20 last year to more than 100, according to organisers, a sign of the sector’s growing popularity.

‘Pretty cool’

Han Chenyu, a 25-year-old student who watched the race from behind a safety barrier, barely had time to take out her phone and snap a picture of the leading robot as it whizzed past.

She told the AFP news agency she was enthusiastic about such leaps in technology and thought the event was “pretty cool”.

But, she added, “as someone who works for a living, I’m a little worried about it sometimes. I feel like technology is advancing so fast that it might start affecting people’s jobs”, particularly with artificial intelligence (AI) growing increasingly sophisticated.

Humanoid robots have become a common sight in China in recent years, in the media as well as in public spaces.

Xie Lei, 41, who watched Sunday’s race with his family, said robots could “become part of our daily lives” within several years, potentially used for “things like housework, elderly companionship or basic caregiving” or “dangerous jobs, even firefighting”.

The humanoid half-marathon aims to encourage innovation and popularise the technologies used in creating and operating such machines.

In a sign of the industry’s strength, investment in robotics and so-called embodied AI amounted to 73.5 billion yuan ($10.8bn) in China in 2025, according to a study by a government agency.

“For thousands of years, humans have been at the top on planet Earth. But now, look at robots. Just in terms of autonomous navigation, at least in this specific sport event, they’re already starting to surpass us,” Xie said.

“On one hand, it does make you feel a little bit sad for humanity. But at the same time, technology, especially in recent years, has given us so much imagination.”

Sabah fire displaces 445 people as relief efforts focus on safety and immediate aid for victims in affected areas.

Hundreds of people have been displaced after a fire destroyed about 200 homes in a coastal village in Malaysia’s Sabah state, the state news agency Bernama reported.

Authorities were notified of the fire in Sandakan district at ⁠about 1.32am on Sunday (17:32 GMT, Saturday), the district’s fire and rescue chief, Jimmy Lagung, was quoted as saying.

“Strong winds and the close proximity ‌of the houses caused the fire to spread rapidly, while low tide conditions also made it difficult to obtain an open water source,” Bernama quoted Lagung as saying.

The fire broke out in one of Sabah’s water villages, ⁠which feature wooden houses built on ⁠stilts and are home to some of the country’s poorest communities, including many stateless and indigenous groups.

About 445 people have ⁠been displaced so far, Bernama said, citing unofficial figures of people ⁠registered at a temporary relief ⁠centre in Sandakan.

Datuk Walter Kenson, head of the Sandakan District Disaster Management Committee, said examination of the village found the homes of the affected residents “are no longer safe to live in”.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the federal government was coordinating with Sabah authorities to provide basic assistance ‌and temporary relocation for those affected.

“The priority now is the safety of the victims and ‌immediate assistance ‌on the ground,” he said in a Facebook post.

Hundreds of far-right “Britain First” supporters marched in the streets of Manchester to celebrate Saint George, seemingly not realising the patron saint of England has a special connection to Palestine. Al Jazeera’s Nils Adler and Nida Ibrahim explain.

Argentine forward’s brace included the match winner against Colorado Rapids in front of over 75,000 fans in Denver.

Lionel Messi scored a brace and ‌German Berterame headed another as Inter Miami earned a ⁠3-2 win over ⁠the Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer (MLS) on Saturday in Denver.

Messi scored the go-ahead goal in the 79th minute. He started a run just inside midfield and went ⁠unchallenged until the box, where he blasted into the upper left corner for a 3-2 lead.

Rafael Navarro and Darren Yapi each scored for Colorado (4-4-0, 12 points) in front of 75,824 at Empower Field, the second-largest crowd in MLS history.

Miami (4-1-3, 15 points) took a 1-0 lead in the 18th minute after Colorado goalkeeper Zack Steffen’s pass was intercepted by Yannick Bright. Josh Atencio offered a hard challenge ‌and was shown a yellow card after video review.

Messi took the resulting penalty and rolled his shot straight down the middle as Miami took a 1-0 lead.

Colorado had a solid look at the goal when midfielder Wayne Frederick attempted a one-touch lob. Miami goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair was out of position and well beyond the penalty arc after heading away a loose ball, but Frederick’s attempt sailed ⁠over the open net.

In the fifth minute of first-half stoppage ⁠time, Miami extended their lead to 2-0, connecting on a series of passes deep in their attacking third. Messi got the run of play started with a tight touch pass to Rodrigo De ⁠Paul.

De Paul sent Mateo Silvetti on a run to the boundary line. His inward-spinning cross floated to the front of ⁠goal, where Berterame rose above the Colorado defence and ⁠tucked a header under the bar.

Navarro’s goal cut Miami’s lead to 2-1. He started a run in midfield and used a step-over move to get an open shot a few steps into the ‌box that tucked inside the left post past a diving St. Clair in the 58th minute.

In the 62nd minute, second-half substitute Yapi settled on a direct pass from Lucas ‌Herrington ‌and sizzled a shot past St. Clair for the equaliser.

Miami closed the win playing a man down as Yannick Bright was sent off with a red card in the 87th minute.

A huge fire tore through the floating village of Kampung Bahagia in Sabah, Malaysia, destroying more than 200 homes and leaving over 400 people displaced. The blaze spread quickly overnight because of strong winds and tightly packed wooden houses.

Bulgarians vote to elect a new parliament, after mass protests brought down the previous Conservative-led government in December.

Bulgarians have started voting in the eighth parliamentary election in five years after mass protests brought down the previous Conservative-led government in December.

Polling stations opened at 7am local time (0400 GMT) and are due to close at 1700 GMT, according to AFP journalists.

Sunday’s vote is significant as it could bring to power a left-leaning, pro-Russian former president Rumen Radev – just days after voters in Hungary rejected the authoritarian policies and global far-right movement of Viktor Orban, who cultivated close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The December protests drew hundreds of thousands of mainly young people to the streets. The protesters called for an independent judiciary to tackle widespread corruption.

Radev, a former air force general, has said he wants to rid the country of its “oligarchic governance model” and backed anti-corruption protests late last year that brought down the conservative-backed government.

He has advocated for renewing ties with Russia and criticised sending military aid to Ukraine. He resigned from the mainly ceremonial presidency in January to launch his bid to lead the government as prime minister.

He leads the newly formed centre-left grouping, Progressive Bulgaria. Opinion polls before Sunday’s vote suggested it could gain 35 percent of votes.

Since 2021, the nation of 6.5 million has struggled with fragmented parliaments that produced weak governments. None managed to survive more than a year before being brought down by street protests or backroom deals in parliament.

Mukalla, Yemen – The Yemeni government’s measures to curb the devaluation of the Yemeni riyal have finally borne fruit, but they have created another problem: A severe liquidity crunch.

The government’s central bank, based in the southern city of Aden, has shut down unauthorised exchange firms it says were involved in currency speculation, centralised internal remittances under a controlled system, and formed a committee to oversee imports and provide traders with hard currency.

These measures have helped curb the riyal’s freefall, from about 2,900 to the United States dollar months ago to about 1,500 today, a move that was initially welcomed. But the gains have been short-lived, as public frustration has grown over a worsening shortage of cash in riyals.

People across government-controlled cities such as Aden, Taiz, Mukalla and others have said they are facing an unprecedented shortage of Yemeni riyals in the market. Many, particularly those holding US dollars or Saudi riyals, said local banks and exchange firms are refusing to convert foreign currency, or are limiting daily exchanges to as little as 50 Saudi riyals per person, citing a shortage of local cash.

This has left many Yemenis unable to access cash or use their savings in hard currency at a time of mounting economic pressure, paralysing businesses and giving rise to a black market where traders exchange foreign currency at more unfavourable rates to the customer.

Businesses grind to a halt

Mohammed Omer, who runs a small grocery shop in Mukalla, said he has spent hours crisscrossing the city’s exchange firms trying to convert a few hundred Saudi riyals he received from customers. “I’ve gone from one exchange to another, and they refuse to exchange more than 50 riyals,” said Omer, a man in his early 50s with a salt-and-pepper goatee. “It’s a waste of time and effort – I’ve had to close my shop.”

Yemen has endured an economic meltdown for more than a decade, stemming from a war between the Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Houthis that has killed thousands and displaced millions.

Alongside the fighting on the battlefield, the warring sides have targeted each other’s main sources of revenue, leaving both the Houthis and the government strapped for cash, struggling to pay public-sector salaries and fund basic services in areas under their control.

At a board meeting in March, the Central Bank in Aden said it was aware of the cash shortage and had approved several unspecified “short- and long-term” measures to address the problem, noting that it is pursuing “conservative precautionary policies” to stabilise the riyal and curb inflationary pressures.

Government employees have also complained that the cash-strapped Yemeni government is paying salaries in low-denomination banknotes – mainly 100 riyals – forcing them to carry their wages in bags.

Munif Ali, a government employee in Lahj, took to Facebook to express his frustration, posting a video of himself sitting beside large, tightly packed bundles of 100- and 200-riyal notes that he said he received from the central bank. Munif, like many Yemenis on social media, said traders are refusing to accept large quantities of low-value notes. “Merchants are refusing to recognise this,” Munif said, referring to the stacks of 100- and 200-riyal notes in front of him. “Legal action should be taken against them.”

People who have kept their savings in Saudi riyals, the de facto currency in parts of Yemen, as well as Yemeni expatriates who send remittances in hard currency to their families, and soldiers paid in Saudi riyals, are among those most affected by the cash shortage.

Finding workarounds

To cope with cash shortages and the refusal of exchange firms to convert hard currency, Yemenis have adopted a range of workarounds. Some rely on trusted shopkeepers who allow delayed payments, while others exchange foreign currency at local groceries or supermarkets, often at lower, unfavourable rates. Banks and exchange firms have also introduced online money transfers, which have helped ease the crisis for some.

In rural areas, where internet access is limited and exchange shops are scarce, the problem is even more acute.

Saleh Omer, a resident of the Dawan district in Hadramout, told Al Jazeera that he received a remittance of 1,300 Saudi riyals sent from Saudi Arabia. But the exchange firm that handed him the money refused to convert it into Yemeni riyals, citing a lack of cash, and advised him to try nearby shops.

With the official exchange rate at about 410 riyals to the Saudi riyal, a shopkeeper agreed – after repeated appeals – to exchange only 500 riyals, and at a lower rate of 400. “I nearly begged the shopkeeper to exchange 500 riyals,” Saleh said. To convert the remaining 800 riyals, he added, he would have to return another day and go from one shop to another. “We are suffering greatly just to convert Saudi riyals into Yemeni riyals.”

Connections matter

Well-connected individuals are often better positioned than others to navigate the cash shortage, with some relying on personal contacts at banks and exchange firms to access cash. Khaled Omer, who runs a travel agency in Mukalla, said most of his business transactions are conducted in Saudi riyals or US dollars. But when he needs Yemeni riyals to pay employees or cover utilities, he turns to a trusted contact at a local exchange firm. “We work with a money exchange trader when we need riyals to pay salaries or meet basic expenses,” Khaled told Al Jazeera. “Exchange companies say they are facing a liquidity crunch.”

On social media, Yemenis say some patients have been denied medication as health facilities refuse to accept payment in Saudi riyals, while exchange firms decline to convert the currency into Yemeni riyals.

In Taiz, Hesham al-Samaan said a local hospital refused to accept Saudi riyals from a relative of a patient, forcing him to roam the city in search of someone to exchange the money to pay for treatment. “Is there any justice for the people, oh government? Will anyone hold accountable those who refuse to exchange currency and exploit people’s needs?” al-Samaan wrote in a Facebook post that drew dozens of comments from others reporting similar experiences, including being denied medical services because they did not have local currency.

For traders who import goods from Saudi Arabia, the cash crisis has become something of a blessing in disguise, as Saudi riyals are increasingly available at discounted rates. A clothing trader in Mukalla told Al Jazeera that he accepts payments in both Yemeni riyals and Saudi riyals, partly to attract customers and partly to secure the foreign currency he needs for his business. “As a businessman who sells goods in Yemeni riyals, I benefit from the cash shortage,” he said on condition of anonymity. “Exchange companies that need local currency I hold sell me Saudi riyals at lower rates.”

Real win the final of Spain’s premier annual knockout football competition with a dramatic penalty shootout in Seville.

Real Sociedad beat Atletico Madrid 4-3 on ⁠penalties to win the Copa ⁠del Rey on Saturday following a 2-2 draw after extra time, with goalkeeper Unai Marrero saving two spot kicks in the shootout to help his side win the trophy for the fourth time.

Sociedad last won the Cup in 2021, when the ⁠delayed 2020 final was also played at the La Cartuja stadium in Seville, but there were no supporters present due to the COVID pandemic.

This time, the Basque side’s fans were behind the goal to witness Marrero save Atletico’s first two penalties from Alexander Sorloth and Julian Alvarez.

Atletico keeper Juan Musso then ⁠stopped Orri Oskarsson’s kick, but Pablo Marin kept his nerve to net the winning penalty.

“I tried to clear my mind. Calm and serene,” Marin told RTVE. “Real is my life. I’ve lived here since I was a child. This is the greatest thing I could ever dream of – winning a title with the team of my life.”

The last time the two sides met in the final was 1987, when it also finished 2-2 with Sociedad coming out on top on penalties, ‌and they repeated the job to deny Atletico, who were looking for their first Copa del Rey win since 2013.

Ander Barrenetxea had given Sociedad the lead after 14 seconds, but Ademola Lookman levelled in the 19th minute. Mikel Oyarzabal then put the Basque side back in front with a penalty on the stroke of halftime.

Alvarez drew Atletico level, with seven minutes remaining, to force the extra period in a dramatic final.

Diego Simeone’s Atletico were fresh from reaching the Champions League semifinals, but Sociedad, managed by American Pellegrino Matarazzo, triumphed despite twice losing the lead.

Fast start

Sociedad stunned Atletico from the start. After a punt downfield from Marrero, Goncalo Guedes crossed into the box, and Barrenetxea rose above his marker to send a ⁠looping header beyond Musso.

Atletico levelled with Lookman collecting a pass from Antoine Griezmann and sending a precise low strike ⁠through the legs of a defender and into the far bottom corner.

Some Sociedad fans were celebrating, as they thought their side had retaken the lead when Guedes’s deflected shot flew into the side netting, but when Musso later fouled Guedes, captain Oyarzabal converted the penalty in first-half added time.

“I’ve never walked on water, but it must feel something like this,” said ⁠Oyarzabal, who scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot when his side won their last Copa.

Late drama

Sociedad looked like hanging on until Alvarez struck an unstoppable shot from just inside the area, letting Thiago ⁠Almada’s pass through his legs before turning to send the ball into the top corner.

In the ⁠opening period of extra time, Musso pulled off a double-save from Luka Sucic and Oskarsson, with Alvarez hitting the upright at the other end, as both sides created chances before running out of steam, and penalties beckoned.

Marrero danced across his line as the Atletico players lined up their penalties, and his mind games paid off.

“I knew that if it went to penalties, I had ‌a lot of confidence in myself,” he said.

“The team and the fans did, too. I still can’t believe it.”

Matarazzo has worked a remarkable turnaround at Sociedad since taking over in December, with the club hovering above the relegation zone but now seventh in the standings and, even more importantly, with ‌a ‌trophy to show for their work.

Simeone’s Atletico have one final chance of silverware, with a last-four meeting against Arsenal in the Champions League.

“We have a beautiful challenge ahead of us. We want the Champions League, and we’ll do everything possible to win it,” Atletico captain Koke said. “But tonight is a sad night.”

Despite missing leading scorers Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, the LA Lakers and LeBron James defeat Houston in opener.

Luke Kennard scored a career playoff-high 27 points, LeBron James had 19 points and 13 assists, and the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers capitalised on Kevin Durant’s injury absence for a 107-98 victory over the Houston Rockets in the opener of their first-round playoff series on Saturday night.

Deandre Ayton had 19 points and 11 rebounds for the fourth-seeded Lakers, who pulled off an impressive win without their top two scorers.

Both teams played the opener without their most important player. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have been out indefinitely with injuries since April 2, while Durant was a late scratch with a bruised right knee.

Los Angeles thrived by hitting 60.6 percent of its shots while holding the Rockets to 37.6 percent shooting with pesky defence.

Alperen Sengun scored 19 points, and Jabari Smith Jr had 16 points and 12 rebounds for the fifth-seeded Rockets, who finished one game behind Los Angeles in the regular season. Amen Thompson added 17 points, but Houston’s young core got off to an inconsistent start after becoming the firm favourite in this series due to the Lakers’ injury woes.

Game 2 is on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

Kennard rallies Lakers in second half

The Lakers acquired Kennard from Atlanta in early February, and the NBA’s most accurate 3-point shooter became a key reserve before he seized a major role over the past two weeks in the absence of Los Angeles’s starting backcourt. He hit four 3-pointers in Game 1, while making nine of his first 12 shots.

Durant must wait at least one more game to make his Rockets playoff debut after banging knees with a teammate in practice on Wednesday. Reed Sheppard took his spot in the starting lineup and hit five 3-pointers while scoring 17 points, but the Rockets struggled for consistent half-court offence in Durant’s absence despite grabbing 21 offensive rebounds.

The Lakers took the lead for good on their first bucket of the second half, and they pushed their advantage to 16 points in the fourth quarter. Kennard scored 16 points after halftime, while the 41-year-old James began his 19th NBA postseason with an inspired, eight-assist first quarter, followed by several gritty baskets down the stretch.

Los Angeles also got a boost from veteran guard Marcus Smart, who had 15 points and eight assists with four 3-pointers in his Lakers playoff debut. Smart said before the series that success would come down to “willpower”, and the Lakers clearly had more for starters.

Bronny James began the second quarter playing alongside his famous father in the first significant playoff minutes of the 21-year-old’s career.

IRGC says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US stops blockading Iranian ports.

The U.S. Air Force has concluded what it describes as a “critical exercise” with Anduril’s YFQ-44 Fury ‘fighter drone’ prototype, flown out of the base that is the heart of flight testing, the legendary Edwards Air Force Base, California. The drills involved the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit and were intended to demonstrate how CCAs can be deployed and sustained in a contested environment. For the exercise, the YFQ-44A flew from Edwards back to Anduril’s Southern California test site.

As well as the Experimental Operations Unit (EOU), which falls under Air Combat Command (ACC), the exercise involved personnel from Air Force Materiel Command’s (AFMC) 412th Test Wing. This wing is headquartered at Edwards Air Force Base, and the squadrons attached to it are responsible for flight testing of virtually all the aircraft in the Air Force’s inventory.

Multiple sorties were flown — we have asked Air Combat Command for more details on exactly how many and their scope. The exercise took place last week, according to Anduril’s vice president of autonomous airpower, Mark Shushnar.

The YFQ-44 is one of two designs now being developed as part of the first phase, or Increment 1, of the Air Force’s CCA program. The other is General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Dark Merlin. We have reached out to Edwards to see whether the YFQ-42 was originally expected to take part in the exercise before its recent takeoff accident.

Imagery published by the Air Force shows a YFQ-44A carrying inert AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) on pylons under the wings, something that we first saw earlier this year, during captive-carry evaluations, as you can read about here. It should be noted that the Fury, at least as it exists now, does not have an internal munitions bay.

The primary function of the exercise was to explore the practicalities of what the Air Force calls the Warfighting Acquisition System. This framework is intended to speed the delivery of CCAs to operational units by enabling operators to get their hands on the drones earlier in the program. In this way, they can refine tactics and procedures before deliveries to the front line.

ACC has stressed in the past how it wants CCAs to operate seamlessly within the existing command structures and legal frameworks that govern all Air Force weapons systems.

“This experimental operations event was executed by EOU members from start to finish. Every sortie generated and flown was done with a warfighter, not an engineer or test pilot, kicking the tires and controlling the prototypes,” explained Lt. Col. Matthew Jensen, EOU commander. “We are learning by doing, at a speed and risk tolerance accepted by the USAF’s most senior leaders, to ensure CCA is ready to operate and win in the most demanding combat environments.”

Above all, the sorties stressed operational and logistical procedures for using CCAs in a contested environment. The issue of logistics is a critical one, including how CCAs will get to the area of operations and how they will be maintained in the field.

According to Shushnar, Anduril’s Menace-T command, control, communications, and compute (C4) solution was used as the main ground element for YFQ-44A flight operations during the exercise. “EOU operators used Menace-T’s ruggedized laptop to upload mission plans, initiate autonomous taxi and takeoff, task the aircraft while in flight, and manage post-flight data ingestion and checks,” he explained. “That enabled the EOU to conduct operations out of a simulated forward operating base, successfully launching, recovering, and turning YFQ-44A without the infrastructure of a large, established base.”

This is entirely in line with the Air Force’s drive toward short-notice and otherwise irregular deployments, often to remote, austere, or otherwise non-traditional locales. Agile Combat Employment (ACE) is the term the service currently uses to describe a set of concepts for distributed and disaggregated operations.

While the warfighters of the EOU were at Edwards to carry out the practical aspects of CCA employment, exploring tactics, techniques, and procedures, the 412th Test Wing, meanwhile, was on hand to gather data from the test events.

“By uniting the distinct test authorities of AFMC and the operational authorities of ACC, officials were able to fast-track the event, enabling groundbreaking, hands-on experimentation by operators at a uniquely early stage of development,” the Air Force explained in a media release.

“The collaboration we saw in this exercise is the cornerstone of our acquisition transformation. By embedding the operators from the EOU with our acquisition professionals, we create a tight feedback loop that lets us trade operational risk with acquisition risk in real-time,” said Col. Timothy Helfrich, portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft. “This isn’t just a test; it’s a demonstration of how we are adopting a more agile process. An 85 percent solution in the hands of a warfighter today is infinitely better than a 100 percent solution that never arrives.”

The CCA program is viewed as a pathfinder for the Warfighting Acquisition System, and success with this could lead to the same approach being employed to get other systems into operational service much more quickly than in the past.

The Air Force has not yet determined whether it will procure one or both Increment 1 CCA designs at scale. Whichever option it selects is expected to become its first operational “fighter drones,” built to carry live munitions into combat alongside crewed aircraft.

CCAs will also extend the sensor coverage of the crewed fighters they accompany. More broadly, the Air Force views them as a way to add vital combat mass and unlock new tactical options, particularly in high-end conflicts against adversaries like China. Back in late 2024, Brig. Gen. Douglas “Beaker” Wickert, commander of the 412th Test Wing, told TWZ that, “[the-then Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall] “has been very clear that we are out of time, that our Air Force has never been older or smaller than it is right now, and that the People’s Liberation Army has been specifically designed to defeat us.”

“The investments we’re making right now in modernization and testing for the USAF are designed for success and aimed at changing Chairman Xi’s calculus about pushing back aggressively against the international rules-based order. What we are doing here and across USAF flight-testing is extremely consequential.”

Since then, Wickert has moved on to become Director of Air, Space and Cyberspace Operations at AFMC, but the test wing’s remit remains the same. Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has doubled down on its rapid expansion, including many of its own CCA programs.

If all goes to plan, the completion of this recent exercise at Edwards could well be a key milestone in fielding a combat-ready force of CCAs and go some way toward realizing the Air Force’s ambition for a new capability that should extend the reach and the survivability of its crewed aircraft.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Multiple ballistic missiles fired from eastern Sinpo area in seventh such test this year.

North Korea has launched multiple ballistic missiles towards the sea off its eastern coast, according to South Korea and Japan.

The incident on Sunday marked North Korea’s seventh ⁠ballistic missile launch this year and its fourth in April.

The missiles were fired near the city of Sinpo on North Korea’s east coast at about 6:10am on Sunday (21:10 GMT, Saturday), South Korea’s military said in a statement. It added that South Korea had bolstered its surveillance posture and was closely exchanging information with the United States and Japan.

Japan’s ⁠government posted on social media that the ballistic missiles were believed to have fallen near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. No incursion into Japan’s exclusive economic zone was confirmed.

South Korea’s presidential office said it has held an emergency security meeting, according to media reports.

Such tests violate United Nations Security Council resolutions against North Korea’s missile programme. The diplomatically isolated country rejects the UN ban and says it infringes on its sovereign right to self-defence.

The launches come as China and the US prepare for a summit in mid-May, ⁠in which Chinese President ⁠Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, are expected to discuss North Korea.

North Korea has made “very serious” advances in its ability to turn out nuclear weapons, with the probable addition of a new uranium enrichment facility, ‌International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday.

Late last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country’s status as a nuclear-armed ‌state ‌was irreversible and that expanding a “self-defensive nuclear deterrent” was essential to national security.

U.S. Army officials say the modular design of the service’s new MV-75A Cheyenne II tiltrotor will make it easier to reconfigure baseline versions for the medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) mission. This also means that the aircraft can be readily restored to a configuration optimized for the air assaults. The Army currently operates HH-60 Black Hawk MEDEVAC helicopters purpose-built for this role. The service says the Cheyenne II will give commanders in the field important new flexibility, as well as help streamline the acquisition and fielding of the tiltrotors.

Army officials have touted the MV-75’s modularity in the context of the MEDEVAC role, also commonly referred to as the “dustoff” mission, on several occasions this week at the Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) 2026 Warfighting Summit. TWZ has been in attendance at the conference, which wraps up today.

The Army plans to supplant a significant portion of its existing H-60 Black Hawk helicopters with MV-75s in the coming years. A subset of the service’s current Black Hawk fleet consists of the aforementioned HH-60 variants outfitted for the MEDEVAC role. Standard UH-60 transports can also be used to retrieve casualties, but are not equipped with the same array of specialized features found on the “dustoff” variants, which you can read more about here.

There are also plans for a special operations-specific configuration of the Cheyenne II, which TWZ has already explored separately.

The “MV-75, as I mentioned, that’s our signature system. Unmatched range. Unmatched speed. Unmatched mission flexibility,” Army Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, the Program Acquisition Executive for Maneuver Air, told attendees at AAAA on Wednesday. “We’re going to build a modular aircraft that we can use for multiple purposes. So it’s going to have a capability that we can put a MEDEVAC ‘plug’ into it, and generate medical capability for the warfighter.”

With MV-75, “we’re no longer going to have a purpose-built [MEDEVAC] variant. It’s going to be what we like to call a configuration. No longer is ‘tail number 25’ coming off the product line going to be the special operations variant, or the medical evacuation variant,” Army Maj. Thomas Barth further explained during a panel discussion at AAAA yesterday. “You can input what that is via the A kit, and then a B kit – for MEDEVAC, that being the patient handling system, the sensor, and the hoist.”

Barth is leading the integration of MEDEVAC capabilities onto the Cheyenne II and has personal experience as a “dustoff” helicopter pilot.

It should be noted that Army officials separately said at AAAA this week that they expect all MV-75s to be equipped with a hoist.

At the panel discussion, Barth did not elaborate on the “sensor” that will be included in the MEDEVAC configuration. However, existing Army HH-60s do have a sensor turret under their noses that contains electro-optical and infrared video cameras. This is something not found on the service’s standard UH-60s. Bell, the MV-75’s prime contractor, also released a computer-generated video this week, seen below, which depicts a MEDEVAC version of the Cheyenne II with a sensor turret under the nose. Depictions, at least so far, of the baseline MV-75 configuration do not include this sensor turret.

Meet the Cheyenne II

“Being able to have that capability from the beginning of the platform is going to be great. And I really look at modularity from a tactical perspective for MEDEVAC,” Barth added. “Let’s say I have to provide MEDEVAC, and I have an aircraft or a patient handling system that goes down, but I have an aircraft that has a perfectly good patient handling system in it, but that aircraft’s in maintenance. I can now modularly reconfigure my fleet internally to be able to meet the needs of the commander.”

The MV-75 will also offer a massive leap in capability over existing HH-60s, just on account of its increased speed and range. Those attributes have always been among the most attractive elements of the aircraft, and especially so for the MEDEVAC mission. The time it takes to get casualties, especially ones with very serious injuries, to higher levels of care can easily mean the difference between life and death. Medical professionals regularly use the term “golden hour,” which refers to the first 60 minutes after a serious injury occurs, where the chances of saving that person’s life or otherwise preventing serious permanent damage are highest.

Army officials see the added operational flexibility that the Cheyenne II offers going beyond just the MEDEVAC mission.

“Providing flexibility for the warfighter, and really for the commander, is the most important to us. So the aircraft is modular from birth,” Army Col. Jeffrey Poquette, who is managing the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program under which the MV-75 is being developed, also said, while speaking alongside Barth at AAAA. “The commander can maybe take a day to say we need more MEDEVAC aircraft, or we need more assault aircraft.”

“We’re going to let our land component commanders tell us how much of that [MEDEVAC capacity] they need so they’ve got options,” Maj. Gen. Gill had also said on Wednesday. “Maybe in a defense [sic], they want to maximize MEDEVAC capability, put all the plugs in, go heavy MEDEVAC. If not, if they can strip that out, [and] we’ve got more assault capability. So we’re pretty excited about that.”

All of this does raise personnel, training, and force structure questions, especially when it comes to the MEDEVAC role. The Army currently assigns HH-60s to dedicated air ambulance units. “Dustoff” crews specifically train for this mission set and have developed a relevant institutional knowledge base in the process. The Army has already been exploring how MEDEVAC tactics, techniques, and procedures will adapt to its new tiltrotors using surrogate test articles on the ground.

With the MV-75, “we’re delivering a platform that – it’s an a la carte menu of sorts, and there’s certainly some limitations there,” Army Col. Jacob Whiteside, who was also on the panel alongside Poquette and Barth, said yesterday. “That’s the conversation that we use freely and regularly to make sure that we deliver this flexibility to the warfighter, and that’s our job is to consistently advocate for that.”

Whiteside is currently the Director for Transformation and the Lessons Learned Manager at the Transformation and Integration Directorate within the Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence.

As Maj. Barth noted when talking about the A and B kits for the MV-75, the Army also sees the focus on modularity as offering advantages just for acquiring the aircraft in the first place by helping streamline the production line.

“Frankly, this is going to be a very expensive airplane that we’re going to buy, so we can’t have single-purpose aircraft,” Maj. Gen Gill had also said during his talk at AAAA. “So we’re thinking about how we incorporate modularity.”

Gill pointed out at that time that those discussions around modularity are already extending to other capabilities for the MV-75, including aerial refueling. That, in turn, might lead the service to acquire its own fleet of uncrewed tankers, as TWZ has previously reported.

The current estimated unit cost of the MV-75A in any configuration is unclear. We do know that Bell’s winning bid in the FLRAA competition was priced out at just over $8 billion, in total. This was roughly twice the price point for the competing bid from a team made up of Sikorsky and Boeing, which had submitted an advanced compound helicopter design, as you can read more about here.

There are questions now about the Army’s planned schedule for fielding the MV-75, as well as when the first flight of the aircraft will occur. The service has walked back from pronouncements made as recently as January that it would start delivering Cheyenne IIs to operational units next year. Those statements had reflected a larger effort to accelerate the program dramatically.

“It’s going to happen when it’s going to happen. So we are moving as fast as we can,” Army Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, the Program Acquisition Executive for Maneuver Air, had said. “If I was king, and I had all the money in the world and all the engineers, and there were no limits, we probably would be able to do it in a matter of months.”

Regardless of when the first operational aircraft arrive, the Army’s clear goal is to leverage the aircraft’s modular design to begin integrating the MEDEVAC capability into the fleet in short order thereafter.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The smartest thing Trump can do for the United States is to adopt a “cake-sharing” strategy to cope with the arrival of a multipolar era. He wants to ensure that America still gets the largest slice of the cake, with its power base rooted in traditional energy—oil and natural gas.

This aligns well with “Cold War thinking.” From the perspective of oil reserves, the United States plus its friendly Gulf states accounts for about 55%–60% of the global total. If Venezuela—now under U.S. control—is added, the share rises to 72%–77%.

Spreading out the energy map, according to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Greenland holds approximately 39 billion barrels of oil equivalent (combining East and West Greenland). Cuba has 4–5 billion barrels.

Nigeria, a major oil-producing country in Africa, has 37 billion barrels of oil reserves. The Trump administration has threatened military action against it under the pretext of “persecuting Christians.”

Iran’s oil reserves stand at 2,086 billion barrels, accounting for 13.3% of the global total.

The regions Trump has singled out—Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, and Nigeria—clearly show that he is deciding how to “share the cake” with China and Russia based on the traditional energy map.

Although reserves and actual output are two different things, for Trump this is irrelevant. What he puts on the negotiating table is merely a piece of paper for “bidding”—he doesn’t need to worry about minor details.

On the other side of the negotiating table, China’s chips are new energy and critical minerals. In the area of critical minerals, Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, and Nigeria all possess rich potential, and all have varying degrees of investment and cooperation ties with China.

One reason Trump scorns “new energy” may be that, within his limited term, competing with China in the new energy field is simply impossible. In the traditional energy domain, however, the United States holds a significant advantage.

Successfully pocketing Venezuela has encouraged Trump to take risks in Iran. Originally, Trump wanted to approach Beijing for a major deal from the position of a traditional energy hegemon, but Iran’s fierce resistance has dampened his ambitions. The United States has been outmaneuvered by Iran, and Trump has postponed his visit to China.

Iranian President Pezeshkian publicly stated: “China is now also seen by the United States as its main enemy; we are just next in line. They want to take us down first, then deal with China.” Behind this statement lies the landscape of U.S.-China competition over energy and critical minerals.

It cannot be said that Trump is unrealistic—this “cake-sharing” strategy has its own rationality. Nor can it be said that Trump has overestimated America’s military strength, because he knows very well that the United States cannot even handle the Houthis, let alone Iran. One can only say that the success of the “decapitation operation” in Venezuela has inflated his sense of luck, and Israel has exploited this psychology to successfully lure Trump into risking involvement in Iran.

The United States and Israel jointly eliminated the appeasement faction in Tehran and greatly underestimated Iran’s counterattack capability. They wanted to control oil but ended up being controlled by Iran on oil export routes. This is a complete strategic failure, and its medium- to long-term damage to the United States far exceeds the energy sector.

We don’t even need to discuss the rise and fall of petrodollars versus petroyuan—just look at the new energy sector. This round of energy crisis has greatly heightened the global urgency for new energy development, and the countries and regions most urgently in need are precisely America’s allies worldwide, including the Gulf states.

America’s allies are mostly developed countries. They have long recognized that China is a superpower in new energy. Before the Iran war, the broader Western camp was developing new energy while trying to reduce dependence on Iran. Now, however, the sense of urgency has pushed these countries to rely even more deeply on China.

These countries and regions include France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, as well as India, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. They are either industrially advanced or rapidly industrializing countries that heavily depend on stable energy supplies.

In the core area of the Iran war—the Gulf states—are also actively accelerating the development of new energy industries, with the solar industry as the key focus. China is the only source capable of providing cheap, high-quality equipment and products. After the war ends, Iran may also exchange oil for the components needed for new energy development with China, achieving economic diversification like the Gulf states and reducing reliance on oil exports.

China’s solar equipment originally suffered from overcapacity; now it stands to gain relief.

What revolves around the core issues of new energy is nothing more than industrial supply chains and critical minerals. In this regard, mainland China’s industrial strength needs no emphasis. In critical minerals, the Democratic Republic of the Congo—China’s deep cooperation partner—will see half of its cobalt mines belong to Chinese enterprises. Given that Congo holds the world’s largest cobalt reserves, China will possess an indisputable “cobalt dominance.” Cobalt is a key mineral for lithium-ion batteries.

In addition, graphite and tantalum are also dominated by China. Tantalum is a critical metal for capacitors, which are essential for stabilizing wind and solar power generation. Graphite is the anode material for lithium-ion batteries and an indispensable mineral for renewable energy storage systems and solar panel production.

Currently, renewable energy plus nuclear power accounts for 40% of global electricity generation, while fossil fuels still account for 60%. However, when looking at the global share of “capacity” (installed capacity) for renewable energy plus nuclear, it has already reached about 55%. Among this, renewable energy accounts for 49.4% and nuclear for about 5%.

“Capacity” refers to installed capacity—in plain terms, the theoretical maximum power generation. The actual global generation share of renewable energy is about 32%. The gap between theoretical and actual values exists because renewable energy generation is less stable than fossil fuels. Adding nuclear’s actual generation share (about 8%), the actual generation share of so-called low-carbon energy reaches 40% globally.

There is no doubt that the oil crisis will inevitably trigger a “green energy surge.” Looking ahead five years, the actual generation share of green energy will exceed 50%. Assuming nuclear can grow to 10% of actual generation and renewables grow by 8%, China’s additional revenue from the global renewable energy business in the next five years could reach the level of hundreds of billions of dollars.

From this perspective, China—which strongly supported green energy development from the very beginning of the climate agenda—did so not so much for carbon reduction as for industrial preparation in the name of energy security. Expanding the global new energy business is merely an added value.

Of course, the key technologies for manufacturing new energy equipment may be even more important than critical minerals. Last November, China imposed export controls on certain lithium batteries, key cathode and anode materials, and their manufacturing equipment and technologies. Given that China controls about 96% of global anode material production capacity and 85% of cathode material capacity, the impact of these export controls is enormous.

On April 15, according to Reuters, China has held preliminary consultations with solar panel production equipment suppliers and is considering restricting exports of the most advanced technologies and equipment to the United States. If true, Beijing is raising the stakes in new energy, waiting for Trump to come to the negotiating table in May.

Admittedly, Trump has no intention of developing new energy. However, considering that the Democrats may return to the White House in three years, Beijing is now blocking America’s path to new energy development, essentially laying the groundwork for U.S.-China competition three years from now.

If Trump’s energy strategy map on the table also included a new energy layer, he should realize that the setback in the Iran war has allowed the new energy domain to encroach upon the traditional energy domain, enabling China to expand its energy power without firing a single shot. As for critical minerals, the United States has made no outstanding progress—at least nothing sufficient for Trump to boast about.

Now, the “cake” being pushed in front of Xi Jinping is getting bigger and bigger. On the surface, Beijing has gained it effortlessly, but today’s harvest is mainly due to strategic 布局 made one step ahead. These layouts are often “low-profit” but highly effective investments, and new energy is merely one of them.

In an uncertain world, those who provide “certainty” win. Therefore, the winner of the Iran war is China—even if Beijing is extremely reluctant to admit it.

WASHINGTON — Amid the din of battle over the federal budget, President Clinton summoned Democratic congressional leaders to the White House last week and gave them an unexpectedly upbeat message: With a little discipline and a little luck, they might win this fight yet.

“The Republicans are very disciplined and very good,” Clinton warned his war council around the Cabinet Room’s long mahogany table, according to people who were present. “But we’re making headway.”

Congress’ drive to cut the budget this spring was launched by triumphant GOP leaders, confident that they had a mandate from voters to slash government programs and shrink the federal budget deficit to zero.

But after three months of rhetorical battle, Clinton believes that he has begun to turn the Republicans’ issue around–into a major political opportunity for himself.

The budget battle is “the centerpiece” of Clinton’s work this year, said White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta. “It will determine a lot about the priorities of the country; it will determine a lot about our economy in the future; it will determine a lot about the role of government.”

It will also determine a lot about how voters view Clinton as the election year of 1996 approaches. “It . . . will better define who the President of the United States is, and I think that’s helpful,” Panetta said in an interview.

Transforming budget-cutting from a liability into an asset would be a startling turnaround for a President whom Republicans succeeded in painting as a “tax-and-spend Democrat” only last year. But public opinion polls read raptly by White House aides suggest that the voters are moving Clinton’s way: An ABC News-Washington Post poll last week found that while respondents by a wide margin once trusted Congress over Clinton to deal with the deficit, the President has nearly closed the gap.

Clinton’s biting attacks on GOP plans to shrink Medicare, education and veterans programs have helped lift his approval rating in the poll to 51%, its highest level in a year.

White House strategists said they were not worried that the House Republicans passed their GOP budget plan last week, as was long expected. More important, they said, was that Clinton apparently succeeded with his threat to veto a GOP spending-cut bill, since the GOP leadership acknowledged that they probably wouldn’t have the votes to override a veto. It showed that the President can still make himself relevant.

Clinton is betting that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other GOP leaders overestimated the public’s desire for cutting government–especially once the public realizes that the savings would come not only from unpopular programs, such as welfare and foreign aid, but also from middle-class benefits.

Political strategists note that Clinton’s argument may attract some swing voters–especially white women older than 35, one of the President’s critical demographic targets. Making up more than one-fourth of the electorate, they largely voted for Clinton in 1992, abandoned the Democrats in 1994–and could be key to his prospects in 1996.

At the same time, Clinton and his aides believe that they must eventually seek a budget compromise with the Republicans–if only to avoid the charge that the President has become irrelevant to the process of shrinking the government, a goal most voters still want.

“Preserver of the Big Government status quo is not a place you can end up in a fight this big,” one presidential adviser said.

So Clinton, Panetta and other aides have devised a two-part strategy to try to stop the GOP juggernaut and turn the budget battle to their advantage.

The first phase has been to shift the topic away from the deficit, force the public to confront the kind of cuts the Republicans want and paint the GOP as heartless vandals who would loot Medicare and student loans to give tax cuts to the wealthy.

“Less government? That’s not the issue. The issue is: Do you want your kids to go to college?” Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said.

If that tactic works, and Republicans retreat from their proposed spending and tax cuts, then the Administration wants to sit down and try to negotiate a compromise, a budget “that might be nobody’s first choice but that is really quite a good budget,” said Alice Rivlin, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

But Clinton doesn’t want to begin those negotiations until “his leverage is at a peak,” Panetta said, meaning the President wants to continue whipping up public opposition to GOP budget cuts and threatening to veto a budget he doesn’t like, at least for a while.

“The Republicans are beginning the budget triage, amputations and decapitations, and for the moment the Democrats are happy to sit in the surgical theater and watch the blood flow,” said Ross K. Baker, an expert on Congress at Rutgers University.

Already, however, Panetta and other Administration officials have begun sending signals to Capitol Hill about the kind of deal Clinton might eventually want to make.

“Yes, we want additional deficit reduction,” Panetta said. “But in order to engage, the Republicans have to back off these huge tax cuts, they have to recognize that any Medicare or Medicaid savings have to be done in the context of [health care] reform, and they have to be willing to protect education as a key investment.” Almost everything else is “on the table,” he said.

One key concession the White House has quietly offered: Clinton is willing to drop most or all of his proposed $500-per-child tax credit–the core of his long-promised “middle-class tax cut”–if Congress agrees to make college tuition tax-deductible.

Those early signals suggest to some members of Congress, including some worried liberal Democrats, that Clinton may be willing to give up quite a lot–except for his major concerns on Medicare, Medicaid and education–for the chance to claim a victory.

When bargaining can begin in earnest depends mostly on the GOP’s tolerance for pain. Aides say Clinton will stay on the attack for at least three weeks as Republicans pass their budget resolutions and begin making decisions on the discretionary portion of the budget.

But White House officials hope that the solid Republican line will begin to fracture as members of Congress read the mood of their constituents. Some in Congress predict a turning point could come as early as the Memorial Day recess, which begins Saturday, but others warn that it might be September before negotiations start.

The White House strategy is not assured of success, of course. At least three problems loom:

First, Clinton has succeeded only partially in changing the focus of the debate from deficits to middle-class benefits. By a wide margin, the public still says it wants a balanced federal budget, with no deficit. The President’s dirty little secret is that he doesn’t think a balanced budget can be achieved in the foreseeable future at reasonable cost.

In fact, the public is inconsistent on these issues. Large majorities say they want to balance the budget, but equally large majorities say they are opposed to significant cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, student loans and other education programs.

Second, Democrats aren’t entirely unified behind Clinton’s strategy, which is why the President spent much of his meeting in the Cabinet Room last week appealing for more discipline.

Some strains were already evident in the closed-door session, participants said. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) urged Clinton to give the Republicans no quarter, but Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said: “It’s not enough to complain; we need to say where we go from here.”

Third, and most important, the Republicans may not cooperate. “Democrats have no standing to say anything about what we are doing in the House and the Senate,” House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) said last week. Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) often disagree with each other, but they agree on one point: They don’t want Clinton to win credit for their hard work in fashioning a leaner federal budget. So they may be tempted to pass a budget bill of their own design and dare Clinton to veto it this fall.

That would lead to a messy confrontation that could require the federal government to halt routine operations until a solution is found.

“I don’t think anyone comes out a winner” in an impasse like that, Panetta said. “I don’t think the President wins; I don’t think Republicans or Democrats win.”

Army officials have shared new details about plans to launch extremely long-range drones from the service’s forthcoming ME-11B High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) surveillance and reconnaissance planes. With ranges of around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) or more, the uncrewed aerial systems will help keep the Bombardier Global 6500 bizjet-based ME-11Bs as far away from enemy air defenses as possible. In this way, the Army expects to gain a penetrating aerial intelligence-gathering capability without the need for a very stealthy or otherwise highly exquisite and costly aircraft.

“There will be nothing in the world that we can’t touch with a combined range of HADES and what we can launch off of this thing,” Andrew Evans, Director of Strategy and Transformation with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, or G-2, told TWZ and other outlets today. “I don’t think anybody’s safe in the future from a sensing perspective.”

Evans comments came at a roundtable with several Army officials about HADES on the sidelines of the Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) 2026 Warfighting Summit.

To take a step back quickly, the Army selected the Bombardier Global 6500-based bid from the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) as the winner of the HADES competition in 2024. Flight testing of the first ME-11B prototype is now slated to kick off this summer. The service is expecting to take formal delivery of that aircraft from SNC before the end of the year. Two other prototypes are currently in various stages of conversion.

Each HADES aircraft will have a built-in suite of sensors, as well as a robust array of communications systems to pass the data it collects along to other nodes in near-real-time. The Army says it is following an incremental approach to integrating systems with the initial trio of prototypes. The service is also using a modular open-systems approach to make it easier to add new and improved capabilities down the line.

Details about what sensors the baseline HADES configuration will have are limited, but we do know it will include a version of the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System-2B (ASARS-2B), something TWZ was first to report back in 2024. ASARS-2B was originally developed for the U.S. Air Force’s U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes, and it features synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging and ground moving target indicator (GMTI) modes, as you can read more about here.

For more than a year now, the Army has also been talking about launching very long-range so-called “launched effects” from the HADES aircraft. This term is a catch-all used to describe drones configured designed to perform a wide variety of missions that can be deployed from aircraft (fixed wing and rotary; crewed and uncrewed) in flight, as well as platforms on the ground or at sea. The process of converting Global 6500s into ME-11Bs includes integrating four underwing pylons, which the aircraft will be able to use to launch drones and carry podded sensor systems.

At the roundtable today, Evans, the Director of Strategy and Transformation, offered a detailed explanation of how the Army arrived at this plan and what it expects to gain from the blend of capabilities in response to a question from our Jamie Hunter.

“So, someone’s going to eventually ask about survivability. It’s going to tie it all together in here,” Evan said. “We did the research. I’ll save you time on doing the research.”

“In 70 or 80 years, there would be 0.1% of the time when you wouldn’t be able to fly ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions] because you would be afraid of the threat, potentially, or the threat would be too high to fly,” he added. “That means that 99.9% of the time of a life of the system, it is a useful system for deterrence, for building pattern of life, target development, and so on and so forth. So we’re building a system that can be used for 99.9% of the useful life of the system.”

“So we’re, I think, wise in the approach, saying, all right, if there’s still that 0.1% of the time where you need to be resilient enough to survive in a situation, how do you do that? Well, how do you combine the best of both? Because there’s no one perfect solution, right?” he continued. “What’s really, really good for conflict is not very good for the 99% of the time you need it for campaigning [routine operations], and vice versa. So what we’ve determined strategically is that there’s a way to combine both of these things.”

This is where Evans says the air-launched drone capability comes in.

“We can have a useful asset for campaigning 99.9% of the time, but we can pair with it launch effects [for] when we aren’t going to put that capital system in harm’s way,” he said. “We’ve already engineered hard points into HADES to be able to receive these launch effects in the future. So once we mature the capabilities and determine which way forward we want – what type of launch effects, what type of performance we need out of these things – and we marry those two things up, now we have the best of both. We have something that’s supremely capable in campaigning and probably the best joint asset in the world at being able to do penetrative launch effects. And now you have a bit of a utopia.”

Furthermore, “we believe that in the role of HADES, there’s also an opportunity to be a bit of a quarterback of an ecosystem of sorts. So you can imagine how that might look,” Evans also noted. “That isn’t going to quarterback everybody’s assets, but the ones that have the most strategic importance and match that type of mission profile. There’s certainly a space for it to do that.”

In terms of the range of drones launched from HADES, the Army has put forward the 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) figure in the past. Speaking today, Evans alluded to even greater potential reach.

There are questions about the scale and scope of coverage that a single ME-11B will be able to achieve using “launched effects” type drones designed to be lower cost, and that will likely have a limited sensor payload. The concepts of operations the Army is putting forward for HADES point to a need for expendable designs, as well. These are drones that, in turn, are most effective when employed in large networked swarms to cover broad areas cooperatively. The ME-11B, at least as it is being presented now with its four underwing pylons, does not seem set to carry very large numbers of uncrewed aerial systems.

“This is important breakthrough technology. so I’m not going to reveal too much about what we’re discovering in this space,” Evans said. “But know that it’s going to change the game. It takes us from a sensing platform to a sensing and platform, and the ‘and,’ I’ll just let you use your imagination.”

Evans’ deliberately vague comments here might point to a broader airborne drone controller role in HADES future. ME-11B crews could potentially oversee larger and more capable drones, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) types now in development. CCAs or other heavier types would be able to carry bigger sensor suites and otherwise bring additional capabilities to the table, including the ability to provide close-in defense for HADES itself during missions.

Survivability has certainly been a hot topic of discussion around HADES since the Army first announced its intention to acquire a new fleet of business jet-based ISR aircraft. The service had highlighted growing concerns about the vulnerability of its now-retired fleets of turboprop ISR planes, which had provided key intelligence-gathering capacity globally for decades, tracing back to the Cold War. TWZ and others have repeatedly noted that these concerns are very real, especially in the context of a future high-end fight in the Pacific against China, but also apply to non-stealthy jets like the Global 6500.

For routine operations, the ME-11B does a major leap in capability over the turboprop ISR aircraft the Army previously operated, both in terms of its mission systems and its general performance. HADES can fly higher, faster, and farther, and do so while carrying a bigger sensor payload. Higher altitudes also offer greater fields of view for the aircraft’s sensors. The improved performance also translates to being able to get to and from operating areas more rapidly and the ability to remain on station longer. The underwing pylons will offer additional flexibility beyond the drone launch capability.

“The deployability of this platform, being able to fly 6,000 miles at 0.87 Mach, and go globally without the world will require the ability to rapidly change sensors,” Army Col. Joe Minor, the Capability Program Executive for Aviation within the office of the Program Acquisition Executive for Maneuver Air, also said at today’s roundtable at the AAAA conference. “With those hard points and cleared envelopes for pods, it gives us that ability to rapidly configure and update even more quickly than we could internally or within the canoe [fairing under the fuselage]. So those hard points being built in from the beginning is part of that [sic] building the right platform and air vehicle from the start, with the ability to integrate and evolve very quickly as you move forward.”

Using the Global 6500 as the underlying aircraft offers maintenance and other logistical benefits. This is an in-production aircraft with a significant global user base. This includes the U.S. Air Force, which operates a fleet of E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) aircraft based on this platform.

The Army says it has already been seeing an important boost in ISR capability with contractor-owned and operated ISR-configured business jets, including Global 6500-based types. The service has been utilizing those aircraft for eight years now as a transitional ‘bridge’ force to lead into the fielding of HADES.

Many of “our previous platforms were centered around the COIN [counterinsurgency] fight,” Army Col. Matt McGraw, head of the 116th Military Intelligence Brigade, the Army’s main aerial ISR unit, who was also at the roundtable today, said. “If you’re flying a platform operating full motion video [cameras], you’re tracking maybe one or two targets at most. A platform today, on these bridge aircraft with MTI and SAR, you’re tracking a couple 100 targets at the same time.”

There do continue to be significant questions about the true extent of what the Army’s ME-11Bs will be able to offer, in any context, given the expected size of the fleet. The Army currently plans to buy just six production HADES jets on top of the three prototypes. The service previously operated dozens of turboprop ISR aircraft.

“We work for the United States Army, on behalf of the United States Army. And so if the Army’s given direction to cap a fleet size based on budget pressure, and of the other things that we have to balance as an army – like, if the Army only built ISR [aircraft], we build 1,000 of these things,” Evans said at the roundtable today. “But we don’t. We build a lot of things. And ISR is an enabler to [the] ground lethality that we deliver.”

“The Army’s got a tremendous amount of budget pressure. The Army has a top line that’s not keeping pace with inflation,” he added. “And so until our top line increases to support the world’s premier land force, then we’re going to be capped inside programs like HADES.”

As it stands now, the Army certainly looks to be hoping that even the small fleet of HADES will be able to punch well above its weight, thanks in no small part to the ability to launch very long-range drones from relative safety deep in hostile territory.

Jamie Hunter contributed to this story.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Manchester United strengthen grip on third spot in Premier League with 1-0 win that leaves Chelsea relying on favours.

Manchester United took a giant step towards ending a two-year exile from the Champions League as Matheus Cunha scored the only goal in a 1-0 win against Chelsea.

United’s victory on Saturday opens up a 10-point gap between the Red Devils in third place and sixth-placed Chelsea, with only 15 points left to play for this season.

The top five in the Premier League will qualify for the Champions League next season.

But a fourth consecutive league defeat leaves Chelsea’s chances of being back among Europe’s elite next season in tatters. It also piles pressure on manager Liam Rosenior, only three months into his reign.

Chelsea once again bemoaned the lack of a clinical striker as they failed to break down a makeshift United defence ravaged by injury and suspension.

United manager Michael Carrick was forced to name a backline featuring three full-backs and 19-year-old Ayden Heaven. But they held out to boost the former England midfielder’s case to get the job at Old Trafford beyond the end of this season.

Chelsea were missing their top scorer, Joao Pedro, through injury, and one-time United target Liam Delap failed to take his chance to shine up front.

Rosenior recalled Enzo Fernandez after the Argentinian was given a two-game suspension by the Blues for suggesting he would be open to a summer move to Real Madrid.

Fernandez started with a point to prove and came agonisingly close to the opener when he curled inches wide.

United looked rusty in a 2-1 defeat to Leeds on Monday, their first action for three and a half weeks.

But Carrick’s men repaired the damage done to their chances of returning to the Champions League next season.

Cunha provided a precise finish to open the scoring two minutes before the break from Bruno Fernandes’s 18th Premier League assist of the season.

Chelsea improved after the break but failed to prevent another damaging defeat, leaving Rosenior’s role in doubt heading into next season.

Delap crashed a header against the woodwork, and Noussair Mazraoui turned a dangerous cross onto his own bar, under pressure from Wesley Fofana.

Moises Caicedo, fresh from signing a new seven-year contract, also came close to rescuing a point for the hosts.

But the final whistle was met by a chorus of boos at full-time, with the Club World Cup winners looking resigned to Europa League football at best next term.