Israel faces a narrowing window for war with Iran as U.S. naval forces and refuelling tankers reposition across the Middle East. With the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group on station and regional skies soon to close with winter weather, pressure is building on Tel Aviv to decide whether to strike now or stand down until spring.
NEW DELHI — The four-day war began before breakfast. On a pale May morning, Indian Air Force fighters rose from bases in Punjab and Jammu; across the line, Pakistani pilots climbed to meet them. By nightfall, both capitals were tallying victories and denying losses. It was not a battle of aerobatics so much as a […]
On a late summer day in Murmansk, the Russian nuclear icebreaker Arktika noses out of its berth, a slab of steel and reactors bound for the Northern Sea Route. Far to the east, Chinese tankers are steaming south from Siberian LNG terminals, their cargoes bound for ports in Zhejiang and Guangdong. And in Washington, Pentagon […]
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has asked China to postpone joint naval exercises with Russia until after November’s Group of 20 summit, an unusual step by a government that has long defended its military partnerships with both countries. The request, relayed through diplomatic channels in recent days, underscores Pretoria’s determination to keep the summit free of […]
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social account on Wednesday as China staged a vast military spectacle in Beijing, accusing President Xi Jinping — flanked by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un — of “conspiring against the United States.” The remarks landed as world leaders and delegations took their places on Tiananmen Square for […]
Defence / Israel / Middle East
By Jaffa Levy in London and Abu Rashid in Sana’a Last week — Thursday, August 28, 2025 — an airstrike hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, killing Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and several cabinet colleagues. SANAA, Yemen — By dawn the posters had already gone up: the prime minister’s face reproduced in grainy monochrome, a strip […]
By Jaffa Levy August 30, 2025 Europe finds itself at a crossroads. As the war in Ukraine grinds on into its fourth year, Western capitals are under pressure to sustain the flow of weapons while grappling with rising debt, fragile economies, and restive populations. The United States, long the primary source of military aid, has […]
By Jaffa Levy — London They came first in small boats. Julius Caesar, peering across the narrow water, lashed together a flotilla of timbered hulls and tested the Channel twice, in 55 and 54 BC. The crossings were tenuous, the landings hard, but the sea itself—the short, churning strait—was the measure of Britain’s peril and […]