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The closure of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last independent newspapers is a chilling reminder that authoritarian governments have always understood the danger posed by journalists who refuse to toe the official line.
There are few more revealing characteristics of an authoritarian regime than its determination to silence independent journalism. Governments confident in their legitimacy do not need to fear awkward questions, investigative reporting or newspapers which challenge the official narrative. Those which seek to control every aspect of public life, however, understand that an independent press represents a threat to their authority.
The announcement that Russia’s celebrated independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, is to cease operations is therefore about considerably more than the disappearance of another media organisation. It represents another deeply disturbing milestone in President Vladimir Putin’s systematic dismantling of what remains of independent public life in Russia.
For more than three decades, Novaya Gazeta stood as one of the most important remaining symbols of independent Russian journalism. Established in 1993, with financial support from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, it emerged during a brief period of optimism following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Its journalists investigated corruption, exposed abuses of power, documented human rights violations and challenged the increasingly authoritarian direction of Russian politics. It was never an entirely comfortable publication for the Kremlin. That, of course, was precisely its purpose.
Now, editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov, a beacon of independent journalism in a country where professional courage increasingly carries extraordinary personal risks, has announced that the newspaper can no longer continue.
The editorial team has attributed its demise to sustained pressure from Russian authorities and security services. Sokolov has said that on November 9 the newspaper will switch off its servers, leave its historic premises and bring its operations to an end.
The timing and manner of the closure are particularly significant. This was not simply a newspaper struggling commercially or losing its readership. According to the newspaper, its ability to function had been progressively dismantled: its media registration was revoked, its websites blocked, its printing facilities taken away, its financial support disrupted and its journalists subjected to searches, detention and criminal investigations.
In September, the entire editorial team was designated as foreign agents. In October, Sokolov’s home was searched and he was questioned by investigators. Journalist Oleg Roldugin had already been arrested and placed under house arrest. The newspaper was also ordered to vacate its historic Moscow headquarters.
One does not have to agree with every editorial position taken by Novaya Gazeta to recognise the significance of what has happened. Indeed, that is the very essence of press freedom: journalists must be free to investigate, question and criticise without first obtaining the approval of those they are investigating.
Sergei Sokolov deserves particular recognition. In an increasingly hostile environment, he continued to lead a newsroom whose journalists understood that reporting the truth was not merely a professional obligation but a responsibility to Russian society. His determination to keep the publication operating, even after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, deserves admiration.
He inherited a formidable legacy. Former editor Dmitry Muratov, who shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his defence of freedom of expression, had helped establish the newspaper’s reputation as a fearless investigative publication. Six of its journalists and contributors were murdered, including the internationally renowned investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, whose reporting exposed alleged abuses committed during Russia’s wars in Chechnya.
Their deaths remain a terrible indictment of the dangers confronting journalists who challenge powerful interests in Russia. Sokolov’s decision to keep working despite intimidation and the threat of prosecution is a reminder that journalism is sometimes an act of extraordinary personal courage.
Yet the significance of this closure extends far beyond one newspaper and its employees. It illustrates a familiar pattern in authoritarian politics: first discredit independent journalists, then restrict their funding, impose increasingly punitive regulations, criminalise inconvenient reporting and ultimately remove the institutions themselves.
The terminology is often carefully chosen. Journalists become foreign agents. Investigations become threats to national security. Criticism becomes disinformation. Opposition to government policy is portrayed as disloyalty to the nation. It is an approach familiar from the darkest chapters of European history.
An authoritarian regime’s fear of the truth
Putin’s Russia is hardly alone in understanding the political usefulness of controlling information. Throughout history, authoritarian governments have sought to monopolise the means by which citizens receive information.
The Soviet Union perfected the practice through censorship, state-controlled newspapers and the persecution of journalists who refused to conform. Independent thought was treated as a political offence, while propaganda was presented as patriotism.
There is an uncomfortable historical irony in the fact that Novaya Gazeta emerged from the relative openness of the post-Soviet period, only to be extinguished under a Russian president who has increasingly embraced the methods of the political system that preceded it.
The newspaper’s closure is also part of a much wider campaign. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, independent Russian journalists have faced increasingly restrictive censorship legislation, prosecutions and intimidation. Many have fled abroad. Others have been imprisoned or forced into silence.
The Kremlin has not simply sought to influence the national conversation. It has sought to determine which conversations Russians are permitted to have.
A government which controls the media can attempt to control the historical record, the public understanding of military failures, the exposure of corruption and, ultimately, the political choices available to its citizens. Without independent reporting, the public is left increasingly dependent upon information supplied by the very institutions whose actions require scrutiny.
Europe’s responsibility
There should be no complacency in European capitals about what this means.
Freedom of expression is not an optional extra in a democratic society. Nor is it a privilege which governments can withdraw when reporting becomes politically inconvenient.
The European Union has repeatedly condemned Russia’s persecution of independent journalists. In 2022, the then EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell specifically highlighted the intimidation which had forced Novaya Gazeta to suspend its activities. The European Court of Human Rights also ruled against Russia in cases involving restrictions on the newspaper and other journalists.
Those commitments must now translate into practical support for independent Russian journalism operating in exile and for those journalists who continue to take extraordinary risks inside Russia. The continued existence of Novaya Gazeta Europe, established by journalists who left Russia following the invasion, is encouraging. But it cannot replace the work of an independent newsroom reporting from Moscow itself.
Europe must also remember that defending press freedom means defending the principle universally, including when journalists publish opinions with which European governments or their supporters strongly disagree.
The newspaper may disappear. Its legacy will not.
There is something particularly tragic about the departure of Novaya Gazeta. Its journalists continued working long after many would reasonably have concluded that the personal and professional risks had become intolerable.
Sergei Sokolov deserves to be remembered among those journalists who refused to surrender their professional principles when confronted by an increasingly powerful and intolerant state. His newspaper’s closure should not be interpreted as a victory for the Kremlin. It is, rather, an admission of how profoundly threatened an authoritarian government can feel by the simple act of independent reporting.
Putin may be able to close the offices, disable the servers and remove the newspaper’s name from Russia’s media landscape. He cannot, however, erase the investigations, the testimony, the historical record or the courage of those who produced them. The six journalists who lost their lives because of their work deserve to be remembered. So do those who remain in prison, those forced into exile and those who continue to report despite intimidation.
A government that fears its journalists has something to hide. A government that silences them has something to fear. The disappearance of Novaya Gazeta is not merely a Russian tragedy. It is a warning to every democracy that takes freedom of expression for granted.
And it is a reminder that when independent journalism dies, democracy is invariably among its victims.
“We no longer want to work for war nor to pay for it,” José Nivoi of the Autonomous Collective of Port Workers (Coordinamento Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali, CALP) in Genoa said as actions kicked off. “Because the conditions we’re experiencing in Italy today, they’re the same conditions being experienced on five different continents.”
Ports must serve life, not destruction
The port workers’ actions are grounded in the Istanbul Declaration adopted earlier this year, which analyzes the impact of the growing arms transports on work in harbors worldwide. In the declaration and the interventions that followed, dockworkers outlined how this trend comes hand in hand with the erosion of working conditions, including the contractualization of work and aggressive austerity cuts.
Friday’s actions are supported by roughly 25 unions from Australia to the United States and Uruguay, and from India to Mexico. A notable cluster of ports is located across the Mediterranean, where the first day of action – held in February this year – was launched.
The dockworkers’ union ENEDEP led the strike call in Greece, receiving support from education workers and school children. Source: PAME International/Flickr
Over the past months, dockworkers from Italy, the Basque Country, Turkey, Greece, and Morocco were joined by others. The expanded list added organizations from Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
“Our message is clear: dockworkers don’t work for war,” the Moroccan Democratic Labor Organization (Organisation Démocratique du Travail, ODT) from Tangiers port said at a press conference in late October. “Ports must serve life, transporting food and medicines that sustain our communities. They must be places of cooperation between peoples, never instruments of destruction.”
No harbor for genocide
A notable emphasis throughout the day is dockworkers’ solidarity with Palestine, including expressions of support from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the Global Sumud Flotilla. “With over 90% of Israeli imports arriving by sea, ports around the world are the chokepoint of Israel’s apartheid economy,” BDS and other organizations wrote on social media. “On October 30, dockworkers will show that, together, we can break the chain supplying Israel’s genocide, apartheid and occupation.”
While the role of Mediterranean ports in fueling the genocide in Gaza has been more publicly exposed, the role of harbors in other regions remains perhaps less visible. That is precisely why the participation of dockworkers from Asia in the second international day of action is so significant.
“In the last year, India’s major ports have been conduits from Indian public and private sector companies exporting to Israel’s Elbit Systems factories in Yokneam and Ramat Hasharon,” BDS and others wrote. “These factories manufacture artillery, munitions and ammunitions that has been documented to have been used in the genocide in Gaza.”
“We firmly believe that support for Palestine should be channeled through our states, because today Israel enjoys a level of international impunity that allows it to carry out a genocide,” Nivoi said on Friday. “Therefore, we emphasize today that people must mobilize – not only in response to the rising cost of living, but above all to definitively liberate Palestine from Zionism.”
Dockworkers’ action converges into general strike in Italy
Italy and Genoa in particular have been a key node for building trade union solidarity with Palestine since 2023. Conscious of the links between growing militarization, imperialist drives around the world, and hardening austerity in Italy, CALP and the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) also called for a convergence of local movements – leading to a new general strike.
According to early estimates, approximately 2 million people in Italy responded to this call, including many students and young people. Over the past weeks, as students in several European countries took to the streets, youth groups across Italy have also been demonstrating against cuts to essential services.
On Friday, these groups promptly responded to the general strike call. “The student-worker alliance is growing ever stronger: across the country, students and young people are mobilizing – through occupations, encampments, assemblies, and demonstrations – against the government, while also promoting the upcoming general strike,” Marta Collot from the left party Potere al Popolo emphasized ahead of the day of action.
“Labor can stop war”
While witnessing the continuity of dockworkers’ actions in one part of the world brings much inspiration, trade unionists involved in preparing the day also emphasized the significance of the initiative expanding. Not all organizations were in a position to launch a strike, but they still recognized the importance of sending an anti-militarist message from their docks.
In a comment for BreakThrough News, trade unionists from the Port of Vukovar, Croatia – mapped alongside unions taking part in the day of action – stressed the importance of dockworkers’ anti-war campaigning. Their point was concrete: wars fought elsewhere reshape livelihoods, shipping routes, and working conditions at home.
Dockworkers in Koper, Slovenia, were among those joining the dockworkers’ second international day of action. Source: SŽPD/Facebook
Yet the struggle is not only for dockworkers to fight, European trade unionists insist. As USB’s Francesco Staccioli pointed out in late October, the struggle against war remains a wider struggle for workers’ rights and social justice. Because of this, he emphasized, October 30 should be taken as a starting point to widen the scope of action further.
“Labor can stop war. It can stop the genocide of the Palestinian people. It can stop imperialist aggression,” he said.
A Associação de Futebol de Vila Real (AFVR) leva esta noite a votação uma alteração aos estatutos e regulamento eleitoral. O ponto que mais divide os clubes é o desaparecimento do limite de três mandatos consecutivos, mas a proposta (de 76 para 82 artigos) altera também outras normas pouco debatidas.
O que muda
Os estatutos em vigor (art. 23.º/3) proíbem mais de três mandatos seguidos no mesmo órgão. Na proposta, o art. 37.º fixa o mandato em quatro anos e não reproduz esse limite. Não há regra transitória sobre mandatos já cumpridos: o art. 82.º limita-se a garantir que os mandatos em curso não são prejudicados. Na prática, quem já cumpriu três mandatos seguidos pode voltar a candidatar-se.
A proposta impede ainda quem renunciar de concorrer, a qualquer órgão, nas eleições imediatamente seguintes (art. 37.º/2). Os estatutos atuais já excluem quem tenha cessado funções antes do termo do mandato (art. 16.º/1-g), regra que em termos gerais abrange a renúncia. A proposta torna-a mais específica.
O que existe nos estatutos atuais
Remunerações O art. 20.º/2 atual já permite remunerar os titulares dos órgãos, apenas através de programas financiados por entidades externas, mediante proposta e aprovação da Direção por maioria simples. A proposta (art. 23.º/5) mantém a possibilidade, refere agora também a FIFA e fala apenas em aprovação da Direção. Prevê ainda despesas de deslocação, estadia e senhas de presença (art. 23.º/4).
Regimentos O art. 15.º/5 atual já sujeita o regimento de cada órgão à aprovação da Direção, solução semelhante à dos Estatutos da FPF. Mantém-se a pergunta sobre como conciliar a independência dos órgãos jurisdicionais (Conselho de Justiça e Conselho de Disciplina), prevista nos estatutos, com regimentos aprovados pela Direção.
Outras alterações
A destituição de titulares passa a exigir 3/4 dos delegados presentes, e não 3/4 do total.
A proposta de destituição passa a poder partir de 25% dos delegados (eram 20%).
Basta o pedido de 10% dos delegados para rever regulamentos da Direção (eram 50%).
O parecer prévio para alterar estatutos deixa de estar previsto.
No regulamento eleitoral, os delegados eleitos passam de 6 para 8.
O voto passa a ser só pessoal, sem credencial.
A Comissão Eleitoral deixa de ter quórum e regra de impedimentos.
A posição da AFVR
O presidente, António Marques, remeteu esclarecimentos para um comunicado publicado nas redes sociais. A direção fala numa “campanha difamatória, falsa e que põe em causa o bom nome desta instituição” e diz que a proposta, quanto ao limite de mandatos, “visa única e exclusivamente garantir a conformidade legal da instituição” com o acórdão de uniformização de jurisprudência n.º 2/2022 do Supremo Tribunal Administrativo (STA). Diz ter o parecer positivo do Conselho de Justiça.
Segundo a AFVR, a medida “corrige uma imposição legal errónea”, porque a limitação anterior “baseava-se numa interpretação extensiva da lei que o STA declarou ser juridicamente incorreta e violadora da Constituição”. Acrescenta que devolve aos clubes “total liberdade e soberania” e que “não visa beneficiar nenhuma estrutura atual”.
O que dizem os documentos
O acórdão (Pleno do STA, 26 de maio de 2022, publicado no Diário da República a 30 de junho) fixou que o limite do art. 50.º/2 do Regime Jurídico das Federações Desportivas não se aplica às associações territoriais de clubes. O fundamento é sobretudo a letra da lei: o n.º 1 do artigo refere expressamente essas associações e o n.º 2 refere apenas as federações. O tribunal considera “inviável” a leitura contrária. A Constituição surge como argumento adicional, não como declaração de inconstitucionalidade.
O alcance do acórdão. Afasta a obrigação legal, mas não impede que os estatutos de uma associação prevejam um limite. Retirá-lo é uma opção da assembleia-geral. A FPF mantém o limite de três mandatos para os seus próprios órgãos (Estatutos da FPF, art. 36.º/2).
O parecer do Conselho de Justiça é de 19 de outubro, favorável por unanimidade às duas propostas, com três assinaturas. Não tem fundamentação e não refere o acórdão nem o limite de mandatos. Os estatutos atuais (art. 41.º/2) exigem parecer prévio dos órgãos competentes para discutir alterações estatutárias.
Os clubes
A VTM contactou vários presidentes de clubes associados da AFVR, que se mostraram muito reticentes sobre o momento da reunião e sobre a revisão dos atuais estatutos. A maioria está contra, outros ainda não decidiram o sentido de voto e outros querem ser esclarecidos sobre o que está em causa.
Bruno Gonçalves, presidente do Abambres SC, foi claro sobre este assunto, ao afirmar que “não é o timing indicado para se fazer uma alteração de estatutos, poderia ter sido feito como no ano passado, em que a própria associação alterou alguns regulamentos disciplinares”.
Para este presidente, o ideal “seria formar uma equipa de trabalho, agora marcar uma assembleia-geral de um dia para o outro sem uma discussão prévia não é benéfico para ninguém”.
O presidente do Abambres SC vai marcar presença, mas referiu que “não irei votar a favor, pois queremos ouvir as pessoas, pelo que estamos com algumas dúvidas entre o voto contra e a abstenção”.
Márcio Rodrigues, presidente do Vilar de Perdizes, não pode marcar presença na assembleia-geral pelos compromissos que tem com o clube, mas mostrou-se contra a alteração. “À sexta-feira não tenho hipótese, porque tenho de preparar as equipas para jogar no fim de semana”, referiu, adiantando que “está contra” esta alteração dos estatutos.
Nuno Matos, presidente do FC Santa Marta, disse que os clubes passam por “imensas dificuldades e o importante é repensar o nosso futebol distrital”. Sobre a proposta, refere que “está contra”.
O presidente do SC Vila Pouca de Aguiar, Hugo Pinto, revela que ainda “vai ouvir a direção do clube antes de tomar uma decisão, mas considera que alterar a limitação dos mandatos é o que mais nos preocupa”.
Hugo Letra, presidente do SC Vila Real, revelou que ainda não analisou aquilo que está em causa, pelo que não pode emitir nenhuma opinião.
Como se vota
Segundo os estatutos em vigor (art. 41.º/5), a aprovação exige o voto favorável de três quartos dos delegados presentes. Lido à letra, as abstenções contam como votos não favoráveis, pelo que pouco mais de 25% dos presentes bastam para bloquear a proposta. A discussão só pode ter lugar em assembleia especialmente convocada para o efeito (art. 41.º/2), com 8 dias de antecedência mínima (art. 42.º/3).
Palestinian voter turnout gave Arab parties a potentially decisive role in Israel’s parliament, but leading Jewish opposition figures remained reluctant to work with them.
While celebrating recent political prisoner releases, author Nicole Bibbins Sedaca argues that the United States must use sanctions and diplomatic pressure to challenge the systemic use of imprisonment by autocratic regimes.
While celebrating recent political prisoner releases, author Nicole Bibbins Sedaca argues that the United States must use sanctions and diplomatic pressure to challenge the systemic use of imprisonment by autocratic regimes.
Israel’s election reveals that the country’s broad foreign-policy direction is unlikely to change, prompting a reassessment of the increasingly disadvantageous U.S.-Israel relationship.
In total, AIPAC or its super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent on 333 of the 473 seats up for election this year, in some cases through indirect funding. A new project by The Intercept reveals the hundreds of candidates still taking the pro-Israel lobby’s cash, and how AIPAC is obscuring its spending.
“Their goal is to put us out on the street,” says a 92-year-old woman threatened by eviction from the home she has been living for over 60 years, following an auction. Local media call her “the Greek Maricarmen” in remembrance of the was the 87-year-old pensioner from Madrid, Spain, whose forced eviction became a national […]
The evacuation of civilians from Russian-occupied Oleshky offers a rare humanitarian breakthrough in a war that has produced precious few. Yet behind the diplomatic congratulations and carefully managed publicity lies a striking contradiction: Moscow is receiving international recognition for helping rescue people whose suffering is inseparable from its own occupation. For Vladimir Putin, it is an opportunity to appear conciliatory without changing his military objectives. For Donald Trump, it is a diplomatic achievement conveniently timed ahead of the American congressional elections.
In Oleshky, the humanitarian convoys have finally arrived. So have the television cameras. After more than four years of Russian occupation, hunger and isolation, the surviving inhabitants of this devastated Ukrainian town have suddenly found themselves at the centre of international diplomacy.
Their predicament has acquired a political significance extending far beyond the immediate question of how to get food into Oleshky and its people out.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, is coordinating the operation. Twenty-five buses, capable of transporting 750 passengers, together with ambulances for vulnerable residents, have been prepared.
The temporary ceasefire, which began on 27 October, is scheduled to expire on 1 November.
The number of evacuees remains uncertain. Ukraine’s prime minister withdrew an earlier estimate, explaining that the figures were changing and that premature disclosures could compromise the mission.
For civilians who have endured years of occupation, the operation offers something considerably more valuable than diplomatic recognition: a chance to survive.
For the governments involved, however, the calculations are rather different.
It was an unusual intervention by an American First Lady, and one that Ukrainian officials have publicly welcomed.
But the limited scope of the arrangement deserves attention.
Moscow has agreed to suspend hostilities temporarily, permit humanitarian deliveries and facilitate civilian evacuations. It has not agreed to withdraw its forces, reconsider its territorial demands or substantially alter its conduct of the wider war.
The political return, meanwhile, could be considerable.
Russia can demonstrate cooperation with Washington. The Trump administration can point to a negotiated outcome. The First Lady receives international recognition for a humanitarian initiative.
All this comes just days before the American congressional elections on 3 November, offering the White House a visible diplomatic success without requiring the Kremlin to sacrifice anything strategically important.
Whether the operation will actually deliver Republican votes is another matter. There is no evidence that it will materially influence electoral preferences.
But the publicity value is unmistakable.
For Putin, the arrangement offers something perhaps more useful than an electoral favour to Trump: an opportunity to cultivate the image of a reasonable negotiating partner while preserving Russia’s freedom of military action.
The occupying power as humanitarian benefactor
There is a deeper irony in Russia’s new role as a partner in Oleshky’s rescue.
Before the invasion, approximately 24,000 people lived in the town. Today, an estimated 1,700–2,000 remain.
The survivors have endured Russian occupation since 2022, widespread destruction, restrictions on movement and severe shortages of basic necessities. The catastrophic flooding following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023 compounded their predicament.
Yet Moscow can now present itself as a participant in relieving the humanitarian catastrophe.
The transformation is politically convenient.
Images of Russian officials accompanying aid convoys may help construct a narrative of humanitarian responsibility, particularly for international audiences unfamiliar with the town’s recent history.
Facilitating an evacuation does not, however, absolve an occupying power of its obligations towards civilians.
Nor should cooperation on a single humanitarian operation be mistaken for evidence that Moscow has reconsidered the policies that produced the crisis.
When survivors become instruments of propaganda
The information campaign surrounding Oleshky is particularly revealing.
On 7 October, Ukraine’s Security Service warned that Russian military personnel were allegedly preparing interviews in which residents would blame Ukrainian forces for their suffering while praising Russian troops.
These allegations require independent scrutiny. But they raise an uncomfortable question: how much weight should be attached to political declarations made by people emerging from years of occupation?
Fear can produce silence. It can also produce conformity.
Civilians dependent upon the authorities controlling their territory may repeat the language of those authorities, whether from conviction, intimidation or self-preservation.
Some residents may genuinely support Russia. That does not make them less entitled to humanitarian assistance.
There is a fundamental distinction between holding pro-Russian political opinions and actively collaborating in crimes against Ukraine.
A state defending its sovereignty need not demand ideological conformity from citizens it seeks to protect.
Indeed, rescuing them irrespective of their political sympathies is a more meaningful demonstration of democratic principles than any carefully staged declaration of gratitude.
Melania Trump and the choreography of compassion
The American dimension introduces its own peculiarities.
The White House has portrayed the ceasefire as an achievement of the First Lady’s personal diplomacy. Yet Washington was not the only party attempting to secure an agreement.
On 16 October, a week before the White House announcement, Pope Leo XIV appealed directly to Putin for a ceasefire in Oleshky to permit food deliveries, medical assistance and voluntary evacuations.
The Vatican’s documented intervention does not negate Melania Trump’s involvement, which Ukrainian and Russian officials have acknowledged. It does, however, complicate the suggestion that the breakthrough was exclusively an American diplomatic achievement.
In the meantime, the publicity surrounding the operation has assumed a conspicuous political character.
On 29 October, Melania Trump announced that four journalists from Newsmax, a broadcaster closely associated with Trump’s conservative constituency, would accompany the mission as neutral observers.
The broadcaster’s involvement was also welcomed by Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special representative for international economic cooperation.
The interests converge rather neatly.
Washington obtains images of successful humanitarian diplomacy. Moscow gains an opportunity to appear cooperative before an American audience. The First Lady receives recognition for an initiative that has produced tangible results where much broader diplomatic efforts have struggled.
None of this diminishes the importance of saving civilians. But the political presentation risks becoming an achievement in its own right, potentially obscuring the question of why those civilians required rescuing in the first place.
The ceasefire ends at Oleshky
The military reality provides a rather less reassuring picture.
Oleshky lies on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, opposite Ukrainian-held Kherson.
According to reporting by Le Monde, Ukrainian officials fear that Russian forces could exploit the temporary pause to replenish supplies and prepare further operations around Kherson.
Such concerns do not establish that a new offensive is imminent. Nevertheless, they highlight the distinction between a local humanitarian agreement and a genuine reduction in military confrontation.
The evacuation route reflects these security sensitivities.
The arrangement avoids an immediate frontline crossing but creates separate concerns about possible coercion, screening and freedom of movement.
Meanwhile, Russia has made clear that its willingness to negotiate humanitarian pauses does not imply a willingness to suspend its broader offensive.
The distinction is critical. Moscow can cooperate over evacuation buses while continuing to launch missiles elsewhere in Ukraine.
What Europe should take from Oleshky
For European governments, the danger lies in confusing limited cooperation with strategic change.
The Kremlin has demonstrated that it can make a carefully circumscribed humanitarian concession, receive international recognition and retain its fundamental negotiating position.
The wider implications are significant.
A diplomatic process that rewards Moscow for temporary gestures while leaving its military objectives untouched risks producing the appearance of progress rather than progress itself.
Europe’s interest is not merely in securing occasional humanitarian agreements, valuable though they are. It is in ensuring that negotiations lead towards a settlement that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and does not leave the continent facing an emboldened Russia.
For now, Oleshky offers no evidence that Moscow has moved substantially closer to such an outcome.
The humanitarian mission may save hundreds of Ukrainian lives. If it succeeds, those who negotiated and implemented it deserve recognition.
But political recognition should not become historical absolution.
The occupying power has agreed to help evacuate civilians from a town it continues to occupy. Washington has secured a diplomatic achievement that places few constraints on Russia’s military ambitions.
The cameras will eventually leave Oleshky. The temporary ceasefire will expire.
And unless something more substantial changes, Russia’s occupation — and the war that made the evacuation necessary — will continue.
Dockworkers in more than 20 countries are withholding their labor at 113 ports across 22 countries to demand an end to Israel's assault on Gaza and protest the role of commercial ports in fueling militarism.
The US and Japan have signed a deal to establish an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) facility in Japan, a move that will help bolster production of the most sought-after American beyond-visual-range air-to-air munition.
The agreement paves the way for a final assembly and checkout (FACO) facility for AIM-120 AMRAAMs—which arms F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters operated by both countries and many other US allies—in Japan.
“This is a groundbreaking agreement that will not only ensure the acquisition of equipment needed by both Japan and the United States, but will also strengthen Japan’s defense industry base,” Japanese Defense Minister Shinjirō Koizumi announced after holding discussions with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on 28 October, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus in Cebu, the Philippines.
The Japanese Defense Minister said the AMRAAM missiles are “essential for the F-35” and that the new facility is part of “Operation Supercharge,” a US-Japan initiative to strengthen cooperation on defense equipment and technology, particularly munitions production and industrial capacity.
However, he did not provide any information on the potential facility location, operator, cost, timeline, or the planned output.
The AIM-120 is the primary beyond-visual-range (BVR) active radar-guided air-to-air missile and the longest-range air-to-air weapon in the US Air Force (USAF) arsenal.
It remains the most widely deployed active radar-guided missile, integrated on more than a dozen aircraft types across more than 40 nations, including the F-35, which the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) also operates.
Additionally, the missile is also used in the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) and other ground-based air defense systems, many of which have been combat-tested in Ukraine.
US and Japanese officials said that the agreement will diversify the AMRAAM industrial base and build regional stockpiles for Washington and its allies.
The agreement comes amid intense global demand for precision munitions, as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have depleted stockpiles and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific have heightened the need for resilient supply chains.
Earlier, Raytheon signed a deal with the US Department of War in February 2026 to produce at least 1,900 AIM-120 missiles annually. Later that year, the company was awarded a five-year AMRAAM production contract by the Department worth up to $20.7 billion in September 2026, with options for two more years.
AIM-120 AMRAAM (Via RTX’s Raytheon)
Against that background, Japan’s new facility will not supplant US production lines but will create a second node, improving much-needed surge capacity and reducing logistics risks for the F-35 fleets and other platforms of both countries, as security risks from China in the Indo-Pacific continue to mount.
The agreement on the new facility stems from work that began in July 2024 at that year’s 2+2 meeting.
The licensing process took more than two years due in part to Japan’s tight constitutional prohibitions on exporting lethal weapons or even co-producing offensive equipment with allies, which stem from its peace-focused foreign policy following its tragic losses in World War II.
Additionally, the AMRAAM includes intellectual property and sensitive guidance systems that must be protected.
For this reason, the proposed facility does not promise to produce the entire missile locally. Instead, a final assembly and inspection approach enables Japan to finish and verify missiles with parts made through an industrial structure.
Japanese Industry Pursues Closer Ties With USA
Japan has pursued a deeper defense industrial relationship with the United States as a core element of its security strategy for decades. This push accelerated after the 2022 National Security Strategy and related documents, which called for fundamentally reinforcing Japan’s defense capabilities, revitalizing its industrial base, and expanding international cooperation amid heightened security threats from China.
It is, however, pertinent to note that while it pursues new areas of collaboration that were earlier farther, it already has a long history of licensed production of US equipment, as well as joint development of several cutting-edge systems.
This includes the SM-3 Block IIA ship- and land-based ballistic-missile interceptor, co-developed by Raytheon and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Designed to engage ballistic missiles in the mid-course phase of flight and a key element of Aegis ballistic missile defense for both the US Navy and Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, the SM-3 Block IIA entered full-rate production in 2024.
In fact, in addition to the latest AMRAAM deal, the US and Japan “agreed to share the necessary technical information to achieve increased production” of the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA missile. However, neither side has said when more output will be available or how much the most recent deal is expected to boost overall SM-3 production.
SM 3 Block IIA launched from the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex at Hawaii – Wikimedia Commons
This follows Raytheon’s $745.4 million contract to manufacture and assemble SM-3 Block IIA all-up rounds for both the US and Japan earlier this year, and Tokyo reportedly funded nearly half of the immediate obligation under that contract.
Notably, the US Navy used SM-3—including the Block IIA variant—during the Iran War, and reports suggest the overall inventory of these interceptors has been significantly depleted in the past eight months of hostilities.
Japan has also manufactured Patriot air-and-missile interceptors for decades through licensed production agreements, including that of the PAC-2 and the PAC-3.
In a notable development reflecting easing rules, Japan exported finished PAC-3 missiles to the US in November 2025 to help replenish US stocks depleted by aid to Ukraine, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time. However, Japanese officials clarified that the interceptors would be used only by the US and would not be supplied to a third nation.
PAC-3 | Lockheed Martin
Patriot systems, particularly the PAC-3 MSE interceptor, have been a cornerstone of US defense alongside THAAD in its latest conflicts with Iran.In fact, the US and Japan are currently discussing co-production of the PAC-3 MSE, the more advanced hit-to-kill variant.
The co-development of the Mitsubishi F-2 combat aircraft by the United States and Japan remains a classic example of their collaboration and close defense ties.
The F-2 is a derivative of the US F-16 Fighting Falcon, developed through a partnership between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Lockheed Martin through technology transfer, design support, and manufacturing. Japan has also license-produced an array of US aircraft, including the F-15J, the P-3C Orion, and Sea Hawk military helicopters, among others.
Beyond aircraft production, Japan currently operates a Final Assembly and Check-Out (FACO) facility for the F-35A Lightning II in Nagoya, operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
It is one of only a small number of F-35 FACO facilities located outside the United States. At this facility, Mitsubishi performs final assembly, systems integration, and check-out of F-35A aircraft destined for the JASDF.
For this, major components and kits are supplied from the global F-35 production network, with Japanese industry contributing certain parts and performing final build and testing.
In the past, the Japanese defense industry has also license-produced the AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Currently, Japan is aiding the US in producing the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 2 under a licensed production agreement struck in June 2025.
Under the agreement, Raytheon supplies missile kits, parts, components, and technical assistance, while Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) handles the domestic assembly and production of the missiles.
Japan also builds and equips its destroyers with the Aegis Combat System and manufactures critical radar and missile components in partnership primarily with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX), along with Japanese firms such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Electric.
Japanese destroyers are based on US Arleigh Burke designs and incorporate licensed Aegis technology, and Japan builds the ships domestically with extensive US systems integration.
Further widening the scope of this industrial collaboration, the United States and Japan have expanded practical cooperation on ship repair and shipyard capacity with an eye on expanding the ability of Japanese shipyards to perform maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) work on forward-deployed US Navy vessels.
In 2025, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on shipbuilding cooperation to expand capacity, encourage Japanese investment in US shipyards, explore standardization of designs and parts, and strengthen overall industrial resilience.
The US is considering Japan’s FFM Mogami-class guided-missile frigate design for its next frigate, after US President Donald Trump issued a national security memo in August 2026 allowing the Navy to acquire foreign ship designs and build some warships overseas amid delays and cost overruns at home.
Against that backdrop, the latest agreements on AMRAAM FACO and expanded SM-3 production cooperation suggest Japan is pursuing two goals: strengthening its defense industrial base and contributing more actively to collective deterrence.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
The two-zone winter reduced-rate tariff for electricity (formerly known as the “ night-time tariff”) will come into effect from Sunday, November 1, 2026, and will remain in force until March 31, 2027, the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DEDDIE) announced on Friday. Τhe hours for each zone are as follows: – Midday zone: 12 noon […]
To my knowledge, the first public, English-language warning that a genocide was unfolding in the Gaza Strip came from Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal, five days after the events of 7 October 2023. Amnesty International confirmed Segal's conclusions fourteen months later, by which time at least 40,000 more Palestinians were killed.
The Amnesty Report still failed, however, to compel Western governments to act, despite being the first of its kind the organisation issued in the midst of a genocide.
Instead, the live-stream slaughter continued broadcasting for another ten months when a ceasefire finally came into effect in October 2025. By that time, at least 72,000 Palestinian were killed, and virtually all of Gaza’s urban infrastructure had been transformed into rubble.
The question of why and how Israel’s genocide persisted for so long despite repeated warnings and full knowledge of its unfolding is a question that must not slip from public conscience.
Indeed, it is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room that world powers pretend isn’t there, and the continued failure to explain its presence tempts others to repeat similar crimes elsewhere.
However, the danger of the genocide resuming full-throttled in Gaza is also very real, particularly after Israeli and US mid-term elections. Almost daily, Israel’s politicians and military brass vow to complete their ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and bicker over whether the slaughter they already committed there was enough.
Furthermore, the US has also recently resupplied Israel with 40,000 two-tonne bombs - the chief weapon of the genocide.
The daily toll of those killed also reminds us that the ceasefire itself was never observed.
Collectively, these factors remind us that the forces that committed the genocide, protected it and pushed it forward, are all still very much alive today, and have used the passage of time to reposition.
Ending the genocide
So how does the solidarity movement get rid of the guerrilla, especially given that Western democratic institutions and representatives have proven themselves to be so spineless, paralysed and complicit?
To its credit, the movement did an impressive job shining a flashlight into the institutional undercarriage of Western capitalism, trying to discover what made the killing machine run.
Of course, its work was assisted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose longstanding work documents where the bloody shoes that stomped all over Gaza were initially purchased and tread.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese also produced an important report that mapped key political-economic connections running between government, the private sector and universities.
The report admitted, however, that it could only document “the tip of the iceberg” and warned that complicity around the genocide would not end “without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives."
This is precisely what lies behind the US State Department’s recent declaration of sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). This extraordinary measure was not just another Trump administration swipe against multilateralism but was a specific attempt to protect US citizens and corporations from possible future prosecution.
Both the ICJ (which prosecutes states) and the ICC (which prosecutes individuals) are deeply engaged in investigating Israel’s genocide and the individuals responsible for it. While article 25(1) of the Rome Statute prevents the ICC from prosecuting corporations, the Court can target individual corporate officers, including directors and employees.
In sum, the US knows it needs to get ahead of the curve because there is no shortage of US corporations and executives that are targets of these courts.
The political economy of the genocide
As time passes, more research surfaces explaining the political economy of the genocide. One of the most effective of these is a visualisation recently produced by an anonymous collective tracing the genocide’s “blood money”.
This impressive set of figures and visualisations exposes a tangled web of inter-permeated interests and actors, chiefly focused around the military-industrial, big tech, and financial services sectors. While none of these sectors is entirely surprising given their profiteering role, the scale and depth of their complicity were both active and conscious, rather than circumstantial or passive.
Microsoft, Google and Amazon provided cloud services to the Israeli government and its main arms producers that enabled Israel to draw up the genocide’s kill lists. This included collecting 200 million hours of audio files that these companies helped Israel browse and analyse.
Google and Amazon even had a secret “winking” mechanism to tip Israel off when foreign courts asked them for information on their servers.
In a just world, the heads of these corporations would all be on trial for these crimes, right next to Netanyahu, Trump, Biden and Starmer.
The audio and video resources these execs helped Israel process should also be made public through enforced court disclosure procedures. They are the records that document the banality of evil in today’s world, and should be interred in a future version of the Palestinian genocide museum when the time comes.
For years, big tech’s relations with Israel have been like a kid in a candy store, as Silicon Valley shopped in Silicon Wadi to see the latest Unit 8200 spinoffs and gadgets. Israeli start-ups were showered with billions in venture capital, encouraging innovation in the dark arts of occupation, apartheid and genocide for the purpose of commercial hyper-scaling.
The blood money visualisations also show that even larger behemoths of Western capitalism sit behind big tech, also profiteering from genocide - the major index funds like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and others.
These funds oversee assets larger than virtually every country in the world, except the US. They own significant chunks of big tech, and virtually everything profitable on the S&P 500.
The index funds link genocide profits to public and private sector pension plans, making individual Western employees unwitting benefactors of Gaza’s blood money.
Profit and interest
All of this speaks to how the genocide was hardly the act of a Zionist cabal that penetrated Western government and corporations. Instead, it was a set of interests, relations, and inclinations that saturated the heart and nervous system of Western capitalism, particularly its big tech, financial services, and military-industrial wings.
These wings have come to dominate Western capitalism today and are deemed ‘too big to fail’ by the political class, as they also lie at the centre of Western geo-economic strategies to compete with China in this post-neoliberal age of imperial anxiety.
Their power transcends the domain of states, and they use their resources to manipulate the markets, states, and international systems they operate across.
These corporations also hide their wealth in tax havens and defy regulation because they operate at the frontiers of technological and economic ‘innovation’ the world has never seen. It will take years for lawmakers to catch up to their tax-beating chicanery, if ever.
By serving as parastate actors, they undermine traditional bourgeois liberal capitalism and its elementary associated values - not only of free trade and competition, but also of privacy, free expression, the free press, the right to organise, and academic freedom. It is not by chance that critics have come to describe this era as one marked by technofeudalism that is ushering in authoritarianism and fascism.
Indeed, this is the anatomy of the 800-pound gorilla that explains its self-righteous staid. The gorilla that hangs about the room smashing up Gaza has also plundered the public assets of social democracy, to say nothing of the resources of the Third World. He is king because we are in his jungle.
Like the ‘disposable’ people of Gaza, the Western working class now awaits an inevitable culling, be it from mass AI-induced redundancy, WWIII or both.
Seen in this light, Palestine and the Gaza genocide are but one frontier in a fragmented global dystopia where AI technologies now juice the gorilla with amphetamine.
This is also why the movement to end the genocide in Gaza has such a historic role: it is the key global political actor that understands the political-economic connections that animate the gorilla and which make it so dangerous - not only in Palestine and the Middle East, but also in Porto, Paris and Milan. It has also built and mobilised an inchoate global infrastructure of movement to contain the gorilla, even though the task of actually disempowering him is now down to the ropes and arrows of the global Lilliputian class in our millions.
God save us all if we fail.
Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American academic and author of “Palestine Ltd: Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territory.” He has worked in various capacities across the OPT as a journalist, researcher, consultant, editor, and publisher, including in Gaza for several UN bodies since 1997, and was most recently the Director of the Council for British Research in the Levant's Jerusalem Branch - the Kenyon Institute. He also writes for the Palestinian policy network Al Shabaka.
Dez empresárias algarvias participaram, a 27 e 28 de outubro, no 1.º Fórum de Empresárias da Eurorregião Alentejo-Algarve-Andaluzia (EURO AAA), em Sevilha, Espanha. A participação foi promovida pelo NERA – Associação Empresarial da Região do Algarve, no âmbito do projeto INTREPIDA pro, que pretende reforçar o empreendedorismo feminino e a cooperação transfronteiriça.
As participantes, provenientes dos concelhos de São Brás de Alportel, Faro, Tavira, Silves e Loulé, representam setores tão distintos como o artesanato, o design, a apicultura, a produção de aguardente de medronho, o turismo e o desenvolvimento pessoal.
Organizado pela Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo, entidade líder do projeto, o encontro combinou sessões de capacitação com momentos de networking, permitindo a partilha de experiências e o estabelecimento de contactos empresariais entre mulheres das três regiões.
A comunicação assertiva, a aplicação da inteligência artificial aos negócios, a marca pessoal e as estratégias de venda estiveram entre os temas abordados. Um dos destaques foi a sessão “A Arte e a Ciência de Vender”, dinamizada por Penélope Serrano Serradilla, que incidiu na identificação das necessidades dos clientes, na comunicação do valor dos produtos e serviços e na construção de relações comerciais de confiança.
O projeto prevê a realização de novas sessões em Portugal, dedicadas ao empreendedorismo feminino e à utilização de ferramentas de inteligência artificial em contexto empresarial. Estão também previstos mais três fóruns transfronteiriços para mulheres empresárias, que terão lugar em Cádis, na Andaluzia, em Évora, no Alentejo, e no Algarve, em local a definir.
O INTREPIDA pro é cofinanciado pelo Programa Interreg VI-A Espanha–Portugal (POCTEP) 2021-2027. A parceria é liderada pela Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo e integra o NERA – Associação Empresarial da Região do Algarve, o NERE – Núcleo Empresarial da Região de Évora, a Mancomunidad de Desarrollo Condado de Huelva e a Fundación Bahía de Cádiz para el Desarrollo Económico.
A month after the explosion in historical center of Athens, in Plaka, where 6 people were killed, the Fire Service Arson Crime Division identified three suspects: cooper-thieves who had cut off a pipe of natural gas, thus triggering the explosion on September 25.. Authorities issued arrests warrants against three men, aged 34, 37 and 55, […]
After missing out on the F-22 and F-35 fighter programs, the B-21 Raider next-generation bomber deal, and absorbing billions in losses on the fixed-price KC-46 Pegasus tanker development, Boeing’s Defense, Space, and Security division has rebounded strongly with a series of major contracts.
Amid this turnaround, Boeing reported its third-quarter results on October 27, with CEO Kelly Ortberg assuring investors that the dark days for the company’s defense unit are over.
In the first three quarters of 2026, Boeing’s defense sector brought in US$23 billion in revenue and US$710 million in earnings, up from US$379 million a year earlier, a healthy 87.3 percent increase.
Meanwhile, the company reported a record backlog of US$745 billion, more than five times its market capitalization of about US$132.36 billion. This also includes a backlog of over 6,300 commercial airplanes.
The backlog at Defense, Space & Security grew to a record US$101 billion, with 23 percent representing orders from customers outside the US.
Rising defense sales also helped Boeing narrow its third-quarter losses.
In fact, Boeing believes its Defense unit will continue to deliver healthy growth after massive multi-year contract wins over the last two years and its decision to shun risky contracts, such as the fixed-price contract for the KC-46 Pegasus tanker development, in which it has already lost billions of dollars.
“We are going to see higher growth out of our defense portfolio than maybe what we thought a year ago. I think we were thinking more in terms of low-single-digit revenue growth. Clearly, that’s going to be more towards the high – middle-single- digit or higher going forward,” Ortberg said.
Boeing’s Massive Contract Wins
CEO Ortberg highlighted the recent 737 certification and Boeing’s win in the competition to build the Navy’s sixth-generation F/A-XX fighter as the company’s two most important third-quarter highlights.
“Recent milestones, including certification of the 737-7 and 737-10 and selection to design and build the Navy’s sixth-generation fighter aircraft, are important steps as we continue building on our progress.”
In September, the U.S. Department of War (DoW) selected Boeing to develop the Navy’s next-generation F/A-XX fighter jets. The contract is valued at over US$20 billion for the full-scale development phase.
This was the second time in as many years that Boeing was selected to develop a sixth-generation aircraft. Earlier, in March 2025, the US awarded Boeing the NGAD contract, now called the F-47.
F-47: Image for Representation
Boeing is therefore building the sixth-generation fighter for both the US Air Force (USAF) and the US Navy.
This is a remarkable turnaround, as Boeing has no genuine experience in building a stealth aircraft.
In 2015, Boeing lost the contract to build the USAF’s next-generation bomber, the B-21 Raider, to Northrop Grumman.
Earlier, Boeing lost the contract to build both fifth-generation fighters to Lockheed Martin.
In 1991, the Pentagon selected Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor for the F-22 Raptor. Boeing, however, participated in the project and built the aircraft’s wings and tail sections.
In 2001, Boeing’s X-32 lost the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) competition to Lockheed Martin’s X-35, which became the F-35. That was a winner-take-all program.
Boeing then went roughly 24 years without winning a new fighter design competition.
During those years, the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas kept Boeing’s defense and aerospace business alive.
The merger with McDonnell Douglas brought the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet/Super Hornet lines. Boeing continued production, maintenance, and upgrades of these aircraft, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas.
Its lack of experience in stealth technology and its failure to design and build a new (clean-sheet) fighter in over three decades were major impediments to Boeing’s bid to design and develop sixth-generation fighters.
In fact, the USAF’s NGAD program was widely described as existential for Boeing’s future as a fighter designer and builder.
Boeing, however, came from behind and not only won the NGAD contract, but also cemented its lead by winning the Navy’s next-generation fighter, the F/A XX.
“We scored a generational win with the US Navy when they selected Boeing to design, build, and deliver its sixth-generation fighter jet, making Boeing the exclusive sixth-generation fighter company for both the US Air Force and the US Navy,” Ortberg said.
Boeing also won substantial F-15EX orders.
In September, the Air Force awarded Boeing a US$2.38 billion contract for 22 additional F-15EX Eagle II fighters. This brings the total F-15EXs under contract to 120.
“In the quarter, we also received a contract to manufacture 22 more F-15EX aircraft for the US Air Force. And this award brings the total number of aircraft under contract to 120, with the potential for additional upside as the F-15EX continues to demonstrate the value of its unmatched payload and range capability,” Ortberg said.
Notably, the Air Force has significantly raised its overall planned buy of F-15EX fighters, from earlier targets of around 129 to roughly 267 aircraft.
According to the US force structure plan 2035, submitted to Congress earlier this month, nearly 20 percent of the USAF’s combat-coded fleet could be F-15EXs by 2035.
F-15EX teamed with MQ-28 during Exercise Valiant Shield.
These new F-15EX orders would provide Boeing with stable cash flow for at least another decade.
Another major victory was new multi-year agreements for Patriot PAC-3 seeker production.
“Boeing received a seven-year contract to accelerate and eventually triple the PAC-3 Seeker production, supported by our early investments in facilities, workforce, and supply chain,” Ortberg said.
Besides, Boeing also saw growth in the MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueling drone and in the T-7A Red Hawk trainer program. Both programs have achieved Milestone C approval and moved into low-rate initial production.
Ortberg also stressed that all these programs are “being underwritten with the right contract type,” and the company has decided to avoid risky contracts, such as fixed-price contracts.
Boeing has lost more than US$7 billion on the KC-46A Pegasus fixed-price program.
The original firm-fixed-price development contract was valued at roughly US$4.9 billion. Boeing, however, has absorbed far more than that in overruns because, under the fixed-price terms, the company covers all costs above the agreed ceiling.
CEO Ortberg has repeatedly called it a “bad contract for the last decade.”
“The important part is all these programs are also being underwritten with the right contract type. So not only are
we booking more orders, we’re booking more orders that won’t result in some of the challenges we’ve had,” Ortberg said.
The F-47 contract is a cost-plus deal, Ortberg said. He declined to identify what type of contract Boeing signed for F/A-XX, but said it is “an appropriate contract type.”
Boeing has already decided to shun fixed-price contracts by 2022, when its newly appointed chief of the defense unit, Ted Colbert, announced the company would no longer bid on such contracts with the Pentagon.
The company also made major leadership changes as it worked its way back to recovery.
In July 2024, Boeing named Robert “Kelly” Ortberg to succeed Dave Calhoun as the company’s CEO.
Then, in September 2024, the company fired defense unit chief Colbert and replaced him with Stephen “Steve” Parker.
Two major labor strikes in 2024 and 2025 also impacted the company’s recovery.
However, strong defense sales and FAA certifications for the 737-7 and 737-10 aircraft have helped the company narrow its losses, build its backlog, and reassure investors of future growth potential.
“So the outlook is strong, our products are in strong demand, and the budget supports additional growth,” Ortberg said.
Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
Alcoutim recebe, a 20 de novembro, as 9.as Jornadas da Rede de Museus do Algarve (RMA), dedicadas ao tema “Arqueologia para Todos: Mediação e Comunicação do Património”. O encontro decorre a partir das 9h30, no Espaço Guadiana, e é organizado pela RMA em parceria com o Município de Alcoutim.
A iniciativa pretende debater os desafios da comunicação do património arqueológico e as formas de tornar o conhecimento científico mais acessível, inclusivo e compreensível para o público. Entre as questões em análise estão as ferramentas, as linguagens e as narrativas que permitem despertar o interesse pela arqueologia, bem como as estratégias para valorizar os sítios arqueológicos e os espaços museológicos.
A arqueologia permite conhecer a ocupação humana dos territórios ao longo do tempo, mas a transmissão desse conhecimento exige formas de comunicação capazes de aproximar a investigação das comunidades. Segundo a nota de imprensa, a mediação do património assume, neste contexto, um papel importante na criação de laços entre o passado e o presente, promovendo o “sentido de pertença identitária e de valorização da sua herança coletiva”.
As jornadas vão reunir especialistas e técnicos de várias instituições, num espaço de partilha de experiências, metodologias e boas práticas relacionadas com a comunicação e a divulgação da arqueologia.
A participação é gratuita, mediante inscrição até 13 de novembro, estando sujeita à disponibilidade de lugares. A ficha de inscrição está disponível em https://forms.gle/CfhB3GBkQiG2RRSi7.
Para mais informações, os interessados podem contactar a Unidade de Cultura, Património Cultural e Turismo da Câmara Municipal de Alcoutim, através dos números 281 540 545 ou 281 540 555, ou a organização, pelo endereço de correio eletrónico rede.museusdoalgarve@gmail.com.
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