World News
Ukraine’s newest weapon should terrify Russia’s flailing strategists
Crimea – totemic, strategically essential, Putin’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” – is starting to look unseaworthy.
There are four main arteries supplying it. To the east, the Kerch road and rail bridge and two ferries. To the north, partly in response to previous attacks, a rail route. There are normal roads there as well, but they are less useful for moving large stores from A to B. Crimp these arteries and, while you might not sink the carrier, you would render it without propulsion, weapons and food.
The symbolic Kerch Bridge has already been attacked twice, once by a truck full of explosives and once by Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs). Both resulted in damage and repair bills, but neither was decisive.
With President Biden lifting the restriction on the use of certain US supplied weapons in Russian occupied territory, the US Army’s Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) could now be used to hit the bridge, as well as existing stocks of Storm Shadow and other air-launched weapons. Getting the latter in position arguably requires greater air control than Ukraine has, but the number of tools Ukraine has for wrecking the bridge (and other arteries) for good is increasing.
Now we can add one more to that list: the Stalker 5.0 USV. The reports on this new weapon indicate that it is not dissimilar in terms of range (372 miles) and speed (c 40 knots) to the Magura V5, the USV that has driven Russia’s Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol. The payload (150 kg) is a little lighter than the Magura’s 200kg. But the most important difference is cost.
The Stalker costs in the region of £50,000; the Magura £210,000. For the same price, your total payload goes from 200kg to 600.
In a war of sustainability, cost is nearly as important as payload. Ukraine needs to be able to last the duration of the fight in reasonable fiscal and economic shape.
Without detailed plans of the bridge, no one can predict with certainty what payload would bring a span down and take it out for good. But a thousand kilograms of high explosives driven with precision would cause huge damage and, at that price, you might as well just keep going until you succeed.
Russia knows this is coming, and a protective necklace of barges is back in place. But this crude defence mechanism only needs to be breached once, and between the drones and ATACMs the pressure is already ratcheting up, with ferries struck, and the railway to the north exposed.
While railways are easier to repair than bridges. if you are accurate (and ATACMs are) and take out key nodes, the time and cost creep up. This isn’t about retaking Crimea per se, it’s about rendering it useless as an operational node.
Ukraine’s armed forces have already demonstrated that they can conduct simultaneous attacks from land and sea, as well possess an ability to strike this bridge. The Stalker USV now adds mass to this effort.
Extreme caution is required when extrapolating any sense of optimism in the maritime environment into the land battle. But choking out Crimea would be so embarrassing and costly that it has to be worth pursuing. Vladimir Putin knows this and is putting his forces into position to counter any such effort, diverting them from other efforts – with no guarantee of success.
Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer and frigate captain
World News
French right in commanding position as ‘fed up’ voters prepare to send Macron message in elections
FRANCE – Voting began on Sunday in the French parliamentary elections and the result could reflect an unprecedented move to the right in what could lead to the most conservative parliament since the country was liberated in WWII, experts say.
The reasons come down to unhappiness with immigration, a weak economy, a cost-of-living crisis and dissatisfaction with the current centrist government, especially among younger voters.
“Right now, France is seeing its biggest shift to the right,” Matthew Tyrmand, adviser to conservative political candidates and parties across Europe told Fox News Digital. “This is democracy at work—the people are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.”
RIVALS BLAST MACRON FOR FEARMONGERING AFTER FRENCH PRESIDENT WARNS ‘CIVIL WAR’ ON HORIZON
Tyrmand continued, “The people of France are fed up with their cloistered Parisian leadership living high on the EU hog while their cities burn, youth unemployment remains high, crime continues to rise, racially motivated attacks and violence on native French persists.”
It’s the same factors that led the right-leaning National Rally to win 31.4% of the votes, the largest share of any French party in the European Union elections earlier this month. That National Rally, which was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, has reinvented itself over the past few years under the leadership of Le Pen’s daughter Marine, and now aided by the 28-year-old president of the party, Jordan Bardella.
Unfettered immigration, which totaled more than 320,000 last year plus undocumented migrants, has many French voters worried. “It’s more to do with instability and violence than about immigrants taking away jobs from the French,” says Leo Barincou, a Paris-based senior economist for Oxford Economics. “You have crimes that made headlines that were immigrant-related; That’s what’s pushing the rejection of immigration.” Some of those events included terrorist attacks, murders and assaults. Another factor swaying voters against more immigration is the cost imposed on taxpayers for social benefits,” he told Fox News Digital.
The threat of violence may be one of the factors driving younger voters to demand deportation of some immigrants. There’s been enough passion around this topic to prompt some musicians to make a song distributed on social media sites that’s become popular among Gen-Z, people aged 11-26. Lyrics include “I won’t leave, Yes, you will leave. And sooner than you think.”
The economy under Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party hasn’t done well either. The cost-of-living crisis following the invasion of Ukraine sent inflation to 6.3% in February last year and subsequently fell to 2.1% recently. Youth unemployment remains at double-digit levels. Plus, the level of home building has trended lower over the last decade, making it more expensive for young people to rent. “If you have a cost-of-living crisis, whoever is in charge will bear the cost of that,” says Konstantinos Venetis, director of global macro at TS Lombard in London. “Inevitably, when you get complaints from voters, then whoever is waiting to come into power will have an advantage.”
However, Venetis notes that France’s economy is certainly no worse than other major European Union countries, such as Germany and Italy, and maybe even better than those. “This year is supposedly the year that the economy is going to bottom out,” he says, meaning that economic growth looks set to improve. He says that’s likely to be powered by more government spending, perhaps even at an EU level.
Still, many younger voters and those who live in rural areas voted heavily for National Rally in the EU election earlier this month, and there would seem to be little reason to expect a different result this time. “There were very few places where the far right wasn’t first,” Barincou said. The places that weren’t right-leaning included Paris, which fits with a long-standing narrative that people who work in professional jobs in large urban cities tend to take a progressive political stance, he says.
AT 28, JORDAN BARDELLA SHAKES UP FRENCH POLITICS: ‘PEOPLE ACROSS FRANCE HAVE WOKEN UP’
The likely passionate youth vote for National Rally may partly be driven by the youthful Bardella, who not only communicates his thoughts on TikTok but is also barely older than many in the Gen-Z cohort. “I am not too surprised he’s popular with younger voters,” says Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York told Fox News Digital. “I remember young people being excited about former president Barack Obama being one of the youngest U.S. presidents.”
A National Rally-led parliament, if it were to happen, would likely not lead to France leaving the EU or the single-currency Eurozone, Elias Haddad, a senior markets strategist at banking company Brown Brothers Harriman told Fox News Digital. “If the right wing come to power, the dynamics between France and EU will be a bit more complicated but not a threat to the monetary union,” he says.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen looks like she’s planning for a win, suggesting that Bardella, as Prime Minister, should be involved with decisions on military defense. While nominally the French president is the head of the armed forces, the constitution states, “The prime minister is responsible for national defense.”
The French parliamentary system requires up to two rounds of voting. If one party doesn’t get an overall majority in the first vote, then the top two parties will battle it out in a second poll. The latter would occur on July 7 if required. As of Friday, polls suggested that National Rally could get 37% of the vote.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
World News
India Wins T20 Cricket World Cup, Stamping Its Domination of the Sport
India won the men’s Cricket World Cup on Saturday, defeating South Africa to end a dry spell in tournament victories that had lasted over a decade, even as the nation was dominating the sport globally in other measures like talent, cash and influence.
The tournament was played across several Caribbean islands, with a few of the matches hosted in the United States, including at a pop-up stadium in New York. When the final, in Barbados, ended with India declared the champion, it was close to midnight back home, where joyful crowds poured into the streets across several cities.
“Maybe in a couple hours it will sink in, but it is a great feeling,” said Rohit Sharma, India’s captain, who took a tour of the stadium with his daughter propped on his shoulders to thank the crowd. “To cross the line — it feels great for everyone.”
It was a closely fought match, and a deeply emotional one for India, in part because many of its senior players, including Sharma, 37, were near the end of their careers. India last won the World Cup in T20, the shortest format of cricket, in 2007, when Sharma was just getting started. The top prize had also evaded Virat Kohli, 35, one of cricket’s most recognized icons. Rahul Dravid, India’s coach, had never won a World Cup during his long and illustrious career as a player.
All three men ended the night on a happy note, with Sharma and Kohli announcing their retirement from the fast-paced short form of the game. Dravid, who finished his stint as India’s coach, is normally a quiet, stoic presence. But after the win, he was screaming and celebrating.
India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, and prime minister, Narendra Modi, both congratulated the team. “In the field, you won the World Cup. But in India’s villages, streets, and communities, you won the hearts of our compatriots,” Mr. Modi said in a video message.
Cricket, followed by hundreds of millions of people, is a crucial part of India’s global brand — perhaps even more important than the country’s film industry. The governing body of cricket in India has at times been accused of using its outsize economic heft to dictate terms around global cricket events, reflecting its status as the richest contributor and a destination for the world’s best players.
The start of the Indian Premier League in 2007 transformed a sport that was once seen as slow and short of cash. In just 17 years, the league’s brand value has surpassed $10 billion, making it among the richest sports leagues in the world. Players routinely earn contracts worth over $1 million for a season that lasts about eight weeks, with some of the highest-paid bagging close to $3 million.
Last year, India launched the I.P.L.’s sister league, the Women’s Premier League, with $500 million — an investment similar to the one that started the men’s league — and is already expanding opportunity for women in India and for talent from around the world. The league’s wealth has meant more investment at the grass roots to develop more players. Female players long in the shadow of the men’s game are now finding brand endorsements, more TV viewers and thousands showing up for their matches at stadiums.
And the foreign players in both the leagues — all with large followings at home — are a public relations boost for India as they travel around to play, using social media to post admiration for the culture of a vastly diverse country.
In India, a cricket-crazy nation that closely follows the players’ every move on and off the field, many of this generation of stars have been role models that could help the country move the needle on social issues, particularly about a public life that remains male-dominated.
Sharma, the captain, who is married to a sports management professional, and Kohli, who is married to an actor, often speak of the role of their partners in their careers. Sharma’s wife, Ritika Sajdeh, and their daughter are often at his side during tours, while Kohli is frequently seen video-calling his family from the stadium after matches.
“Our daughter’s biggest concern was if all the players had someone to hug them after she saw them crying on TV,” Anushka Sharma, Kohli’s wife, posted on social media after the win.
Jasprit Bumrah, who was named the World Cup’s most valuable player, found himself doing his post-award interview with his wife, the broadcaster Sanjana Ganesan. This was a working couple on tour. Behind them amid the celebrations was their 10-month-old baby being looked after in a stroller.
“Thank you so much for talking to us, Jasprit, and all the best for—” Ms. Ganesan began as she wrapped up the interview. But her husband went in for a hug before she finished speaking and then ran back to join his teammates in celebrating.
World News
Euro 2024: Spain v Georgia – Nico Williams’ remarkable journey to the top
Despite their new found security, life was far from easy for the Williams family. They moved 150 kilometres south east to Pamplona.
Nicholas Williams Arthuer was born there on July 12, 2002, but unable to find enough work to keep his family, Felix moved to London doing whatever he could to send money home.
He cleared tables in a food hall in a Chelsea shopping centre and worked as a security guard, even on the turnstiles at Chelsea FC.
He was away for 10 years – he is back in Bilbao now – during which time Inaki became like a father to Nico, while their mother worked up to three jobs at a time in her efforts to provide for her family.
When they go for lunch at their mum’s, she reminds them to clear the table, wash the dishes, and tells them off if they step out of line. The education from their parents is constant.
Inaki, who decided to play for Ghana as a homage to them, would watch over Nico all the way.
From picking him up from school and giving him a ‘bocadillo’ (sandwich) when they come out of class, to later instructing him in the behaviour that he needed to follow if he wanted to make it as an elite athlete.
“For me he is a reference, he is everything for me,” said Nico. “He has helped my parents and me so that we can eat, so that I could go to class, so that I could get dressed.
“He corrects me, he advises me, he has always done it actually, but we get along very well. He is my brother, but he also acts as a father a little.”
On 28 April 2021, the brothers were brought on as second-half substitutes in Athletic’s 2-2 draw at home against Real Valladolid to become the first siblings to play for the club together since 1986.
After the final, they immediately went to visit their mum, who was unable to watch the match as fans were banned from the stadium because of the Covid pandemic.
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