Daniel Shailer embeds with the tiny separatist group “Shetland First,” whose members believe the Shetland Islands were never legitimately ceded to Scotland. Its 83‑year‑old leader, Stuart Hill—shipwreck survivor, serial litigant, self‑proclaimed weather‑controller—is such a compelling eccentric that Shailer ends up as absorbed in Hill’s own story as in the broader currents of populism on these remote isles.
Previously, Hill has focused on relatively esoteric points of history and legalese. Now, on the advice of his chief campaign advisor, ChatGPT, he is meeting people where they are: should council tax go up while official salaries get bumped? Is it fair to live in fuel poverty at the footsteps of Britain’s largest onshore wind farm?
‘There are all these injustices, and once you read the history, you can see a basic injustice,’ Hill says. ‘Everybody seems to be kind of comfortable with it, but at the same time there’s a basic undercurrent of dissatisfaction.’
The U.S. military’s top officer on Wednesday talked about how AI is changing the character of warfare and offered two examples to illustrate his points. His comments included new insights into how two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crew members were rescued after being shot down by an Iranian drone near the coast of Oman in June. The recovery effort involved America’s first known use of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) executing a personnel recovery action as part of a military search and rescue operation.
“Information moves so fast that leader decision times have compressed from weeks down to days down to seconds,” explained Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. “In the future fight, advantage will go to the side who can see first, who can understand first, decide first, and act first, and along the way, be a learning organization, and no factor is accelerating change as fast as artificial intelligence and advancing cyber capabilities.”
“AI is here now, and it’s already changing the way militaries see, sense, decide, and act across the joint force,” the chairman proclaimed.
The first example Caine used to highlight these changes took place on June 8. After the Apache went down, “U.S. CENTCOM launched a rapid, responsive joint search and rescue effort to recover the crew. That response drew on the totality of the joint force, and ultimately was required to use enabled unmanned vessels to participate in the rescue of downed U.S. service members for the first time ever.”
As we noted in our previous coverage, CENTCOM deployed “a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel,” the command’s spokesman told us at the time.
The ability to pull off that rescue mission “did not appear overnight,” Caine pointed out. “It came from the men and women of Task Force 59, CENTCOM’s forward-leaning unmanned joint maritime unit who spent the last several years testing, integrating, and operationalizing unmanned systems and AI in one of the most demanding and kinetic environments on Earth right now.”
“What helped make this possible was not a bunch of general officers and flag officers,” Caine continued. “What made this possible was a bunch of entrepreneurial sailors and members of the joint force on watch floors, at piers, managing networks of unmanned systems across thousands of miles of water, and using AI to turn massive amounts of data into a crisp, clear, perfect maritime picture that allowed us to go grab those two soldiers in the water.”
The second example Caine shared about the use of AI “points in the other direction, not how quickly we are using these tools, but how quickly these tools are changing the threat.”
In Ukraine, “we see first-person view drones operating in heavily contested EMI [electromagnetic interference] environments. Some now using AI-enabled computer vision to continue to drive towards targets, even when there’s no GPS or the links are cut. That gives small units affordable precision and shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark.”
The use of AI to enable lower-end drone warfare is a topic TWZ has been among the first to point out.
“In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes,” Caine added. “Think about that. This is what happens when low-cost precision is fielded fast, adapted quickly, and scaled across the battlefield.”
“The price of lethal exchange is decreasing day over day,” the chairman noted. “One wonders what the future of close air support looks like, but I am comforted by the fact that each and every one of you are in this room thinking about that. Taken together, these examples from the Straits of Hormuz to the front lines in Ukraine show how quickly technology is changing the character of war, and this means our joint force needs to do two things at one time.”
“[W]e need to prepare the joint force to win in this kind of conflict,” the general stated. “We have to assume from now on that our formations will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum, and tracked in real time, and we have to transition the joint force to be prepared to fight and win our future war by generating and delivering lethality at scale with an agile, optimized, high-low mix of combat capabilities to give the young members of the 2.8-million member all volunteer joint force the tools that they need before they need them.”
Contact the author: howard@twz.com
The post Apache Crew Rescue Highlights Need For AI In Combat Says Joint Chiefs Chairman appeared first on TWZ.
Poland wants to transfer missiles for the Patriot system to Ukraine, with Warsaw reportedly consulting with NATO to implement this plan. The plan is proving controversial due to the global shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles which have been rapidly depleted due to the war in Ukraine and the ongoing conflict between the United States and Israel against Iran and its proxies.
Poland plans to transfer several missiles to Ukraine for the Patriot air-defense system, according to information obtained by Polish news outlet Rzeczpospolita from government and military circles.
Remix News previously reported on the extreme shortage of Patriot missiles in Ukraine, leaving the country vulnerable to Russian missile and drone barrages.
However, it is a small number of missiles, not a large delivery. This information was indirectly confirmed by the Operational Commander of the Armed Forces, General Ireneusz Nowak, who noted that the transfer of missiles falls within a previously established, classified quantity.
“In my opinion, we could donate post-Soviet equipment that is still in our inventory and that could be very useful for Ukraine, even if it requires a general overhaul. We must be aware that such equipment is also used to fight in Poland’s interest,” General Nowak added in an interview with the newspaper.
How many missiles will Poland donate? The Polish Ministry of National Defence does not want to say.
The issue of Patriot missiles arouses strong emotions, and most Poles, as research shows, do not want to give Ukraine valuable weapons. The fact that the missile transfer comes at a time when Prime Minister Donald Tusk warns that Russia directly threatens Polish security and plans to escalate the conflict with NATO countries is particularly sensitive.
Controversy is also intensified by the fact that the Polish Ministry of National Defence is not disclosing details of the next aid package for Ukraine, citing the protection afforded classified information. However, the ministry confirmed that further support is being prepared and will include equipment that is no longer needed by the Polish army or is approaching the end of its useful life, but may still be useful in Ukraine. Details regarding specific types of weapons remain confidential.
The planned donation is part of broader Polish military aid to Ukraine. A few months ago, Poland transferred five PAC-3 MSE missiles to Kyiv for the Patriot system. Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz argued at the time that combating Russian missiles over Ukraine could increase Poland’s security because it would reduce the risk of them reaching Polish airspace. At the same time, he emphasized that the transfer of weapons must not weaken Polish defence capabilities.
Poland currently has 16 Patriot launchers and has contracted for approximately 200 PAC-3 MSE missiles, some of which have not yet been delivered.
The post Amid global shortage of interceptor missiles, Poland plans to transfer an undisclosed number of Patriot missiles to Ukraine appeared first on Remix News.
Leaders of pro-independence parties in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a memorandum of understanding laying out a plan for strengthened cooperation. The document commits Sinn Féin, the Scottish National Party (SNP), and Plaid Cymru to deepen exchanges on renewable energy, economic policy, and, notably, “supporting the right of each nation to determine its own future.”
“For the first time ever, people across these islands have First Ministers in Scotland, in Wales, and in the North of Ireland who are all committed to independence from the United Kingdom,” the memorandum states. “For people watching across these islands – for people watching around the world – there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is coming to an end.”
The agreement includes commitments to break with the economic policy shaped in London and to build a different approach that would “create good jobs, tackle inequality and ensure that wealth and opportunity are spread more fairly.” It also outlines an energy strategy promising to leverage the three regions’ renewable resources to bring more affordable energy to communities.
However, the provision that has attracted most attention is the commitment to realize the three nations’ right to self-determination. “We call for the British Government to prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change in each jurisdiction,” the party leaders wrote. “No Westminster government has the right to block democracy or undermine the principle that our people will decide their own future,” they added.
The meeting followed comments by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the possibility of independence referendums in Scotland and Ireland. Burnham ruled out – in different terms – such public votes, drawing criticism from independence-oriented parties.
In Ireland, his remarks were called out for contradicting Good Friday Agreement provisions that foresee a path to the island’s unity. “It is not an option that the British government can choose whether or not to exercise based on what is politically convenient, but a legal obligation that plays a critical role in underpinning the relative peace achieved since 1998,” the Workers’ Party of Ireland wrote.
The SNP insisted their ongoing efforts for achieving independence must be contextualized as a response to the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, where unionist parties argued that staying in the UK provided more stability and predictability. Following that vote – where a majority of Scots opted for remaining in the UK – British authorities failed to live up to such arguments, the party said, including when it comes to the protection of public services. “Westminster blocked legislation designed to protect the NHS from being opened up to US healthcare corporations in post-Brexit trade deals, treating our public health service like a garage sale item,” the SNP wrote.
Pro-union critics suggested the memorandum’s commitments risk diverting public attention from everyday issues toward lengthy constitutional discussions. However, Sinn Féin, the SNP and Plaid Cymru contrasted this with a different approach, insisting that independence would allow more space for challenging harmful policies imposed by the British government and for realizing a different vision of society.
Republished via Ordo Iuris legal society:
The “conference” that the Ukrainian company BioTexCom had announced for September 12–13 in Warsaw has no venue — the owner of the premises refuses to rent it out. This is the result of pressure exerted for weeks by Polish legal organization Ordo Iuris and other groups.
Centrum Żoliborz, which rents out training rooms at 49 Aleje Jerozolimskie in Warsaw has stated that it will not rent premises to that company and that BioTexCom had no right to use its address. Polish media reported the venue would host the “conference” with Ukrainian company BioTexCom on September 12–13.
To those now asking about the possibility to take part in the conference, BioTexCom replies that the event has been postponed to another date and will not take place for the time being. The reason given is the safety of the company’s clients. The company itself, meanwhile, is redirecting interested parties to individual conversations via WhatsApp. The announcement of the Warsaw event nevertheless still appears on BioTexCom’s website, which is why vigilance in this matter remains necessary.
On September 7, Ordo Iuris put a question to Centrum Żoliborz asking whether the Ukrainian company had in fact reserved a room there. The reply Ordo Iuris received left no doubt:
“I would like to inform you that we received an inquiry from this entity about the possibility of renting a training room. An offer was sent, but no room was reserved. At the same time, I wish to inform you that, after learning what this entity does, we categorically do not want to enter into any cooperation with it or to rent it our training rooms. This company had no right whatsoever to use our address.”
This is an important signal. When the owners of venues learn what a “surrogacy program” actually is and what legal risk may be involved in making premises available to promote it, they decided to refuse the client. In this case, it was enough for the matter to come to light: the Ordo Iuris Institute’s notification to prosecutors, a petition, appeals from Catholic Action and the Polish Bishops’ Conference, an announced picket, as well as action from, among others, the Center for Life and Family and dozens of press publications. Pressure works.
It would be premature, however, to declare victory. The announcement of the Warsaw event scheduled for September 12–13 still appears on biotexcom.pl. Nor has the company withdrawn from the Polish market. Instead, it has moved its offer to an individual channel, proposing free online “consultations.” The matter therefore requires continued attention and firm opposition.
The scale of BioTexCom’s disregard for elementary ethical standards is not a matter of interpretation. In November 2021, the company ran a Black Friday promotion: from November 15 to 26, it offered a 3-percent discount on all packages. In practice, this meant €1,947 off the “All inclusive VIP” package worth €64,900 and €447 off the “Perfect Chance” in vitro program costing €14,900. The advertisements urged people to hurry in order to “make it” in time for the discount and fulfill the dream of a child more quickly. The child became a seasonal sale item — exactly like a television set or a washing machine.
The company’s price list is built like a catalog of tourist services: packages from €36,900 to €64,900, divided into “standard,” “standard plus,” and “VIP” versions. The difference is that the object of the transaction is a human being.
The world saw the most telling image of this business in May 2020. BioTexCom then published a video in which 46 newborns could be seen arranged in rows of transparent cribs at the Venice hotel in Kyiv — normally used to receive the company’s foreign clients. The video, translated into several languages, was meant to mobilize buyers to pressure their own embassies and foreign ministries into granting permission to enter Ukraine, which was closed because of the pandemic. The message was unambiguous: the goods ordered are on site, waiting in optimal storage conditions. The camera panning over the rows of infants involuntarily evoked an association with a production line.
It was estimated at the time that around 500 children born to surrogate mothers for foreign clients were stranded in Ukraine. Ukraine took over this market after Asian countries — following a series of scandals — banned the sale to foreigners of children born through surrogacy.
Before the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, BioTexCom accounted for about two-thirds of Ukraine’s exports of this “service,” estimated at around 2,000 newborns a year. In 2018–2019, the company and its owner were at the center of an investigation into more than a thousand irregular surrogacy procedures; no charges were brought against him at the time, however.
In August 2019, the Australian broadcaster ABC showed how children born with disabilities are abandoned by the commissioning parents, who refuse to take delivery of “defective” goods — they then end up in Ukrainian orphanages and public hospitals.
France’s experience shows that consistent social and legal pressure can lead to the permanent cancellation of events of this kind, such as the “conference” BioTexCom had planned in Warsaw. For years, Paris hosted the “Désir d’enfant” fair, later held under the name “Wish for a Baby,” at which — just as BioTexCom intended to do in Warsaw — surrogacy services were promoted, even though they are illegal in France.
For several years, Le Syndicat de la Famille (formerly La Manif Pour Tous) had run a campaign against the fair’s organizers that included demonstrations, leafleting, undercover-camera footage, and lawsuits against the organizers and the owners of the venues. The lawsuits accused them of complicity in surrogacy brokering. As pressure mounted, the fair first had to leave the Espace Champerret and move to the smaller Espace Charenton. Finally, on April 16, 2025, the organizers announced that the event would be moved to Brussels, giving up any further presence in Paris.
“This victory is the fruit of a mobilization carried on year after year,” commented Ludovine de La Rochère, the organization’s president. The problem nevertheless remains: the French continue to use surrogacy services provided abroad — for example, in the United States in the case of same-sex couples, or in cheaper Ukraine in the case of married couples, since Ukrainian law permits such services only for heterosexual married couples.
This is why Italy has gone further. Surrogacy has been banned there since 2004 under Article 12(6) of Law No. 40. The provision imposes a penalty of three months to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of €600,000 to €1 million on anyone who carries out, organizes, or advertises surrogacy.
This solution, however, was relatively easy to circumvent — it was enough to use services abroad, for example in Ukraine, Georgia, or the United States. Giorgia Meloni’s government decided to close this loophole. On the initiative of the Brothers of Italy, the Italian parliament passed an amendment, which the Senate adopted on October 16, 2024, by a vote of 84 to 58. Law No. 169 of November 4, 2024, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on November 18 and in force since December 3, 2024, supplemented Article 12 of Law No. 40 with a provision under which, if acts related to surrogacy are committed abroad, an Italian citizen is subject to punishment under Italian law. The Italian media dubbed the new measure a “reato universale” — a universal offense. “This is a common-sense rule against the commodification of women’s and children’s bodies. Human life has no price and is not a commodity,” Giorgia Meloni argued.
The Italian solution shows that a state which treats surrogacy as a form of human trafficking can effectively counteract it even when the practice is organized beyond its borders. It need not stop at mere declarations — it can create real legal tools to limit circumvention of the national ban.
For years, Ordo Iuris has pointed out that surrogacy is not a service but human trafficking. In connection with the announced conference in Warsaw, the Ordo Iuris Institute filed a notification with the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw regarding BioTexCom, citing Article 211a of the Polish Criminal Code (arranging adoptions in violation of the law for financial gain), Article 189a § 2 of the Criminal Code (preparation for human trafficking), and Article 258 of the Criminal Code (participation in an organized criminal group), and requesting, among other things, a travel ban for those responsible.
As Julia Książek of the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law emphasized, the promotion of commercial reproduction treats a woman’s body as a means of production and the child as a product tailored to the client’s expectations. The Ordo Iuris Institute is also part of an international coalition, coordinated by the group of experts behind the Casablanca Declaration, which is appealing to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to recognize paid surrogacy as the sale of children within the meaning of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“I was programmed to be abandoned,” said Olivia Maurel, a woman born as a result of surrogacy, during a June conference organized by the Ordo Iuris Institute together with the Research and Teaching Center for Catholic Social Teaching at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (UKSW). At the same conference, Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, called for the global abolition of surrogacy.
The Warsaw “conference” of the Ukrainian company BioTexCom has no venue today. That is good news, but it is not the end of the matter. Continued vigilance is needed, both from the owners of conference and hotel venues and from the organs of the state, which should consistently enforce the law in force in Poland.
The best solution, however, would be to follow Italy’s example and adopt legislation providing for severe penalties for the use of surrogate mothers’ services — regardless of whether the practice takes place in Poland or abroad. Only in this way can the path to circumventing the ban be effectively closed and the growth of a market in which the human body and children become objects of transaction be curbed.
The post ‘A company that puts children on sale’ – Ukrainian surrogacy firm blocked from ‘surrogacy fair’ in Warsaw after pressure campaign appeared first on Remix News.
Debris from a Chinese-made ballistic missile found in Yemen could have inadvertently revealed a previously undisclosed addition to Saudi Arabia’s secretive ballistic missile arsenal. Imagery circulating online appears to show the wreckage of a Chinese DF-15A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), potentially marking the first known Saudi combat use of a weapon in this class, although both the identification and ownership remain unconfirmed.
The booster stage of a Chinese-made DF-15A (Dong Feng-15A) ballistic missile operated by Saudi Arabia fell in Raghwan District, Marib Governorate, northern Yemen. pic.twitter.com/dfSXMOiCzQ
— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) September 14, 2026
It is also unclear what happened to the missile itself. The debris suggests a stage separation or the missile broke apart or crashed before reaching its target. The Houthis are not known to possess any weapons that could have intercepted it.
The development comes amid a sharp escalation in the long-running Saudi-Houthi conflict. After years of relative de-escalation following the 2022 truce, fighting has intensified in recent weeks as Houthi forces have dramatically overrun Saudi-backed Yemeni government positions, including around strategically important Marib and Taiz. The Houthis have also escalated missile and drone attacks against southern Saudi Arabia, targeting military and energy infrastructure while threatening the kingdom’s ability to move oil through the Red Sea. The group has declared the Bab el-Mandeb closed to Saudi oil traffic, adding a direct threat to one of Riyadh’s critical energy-export routes.
You can catch up with our latest coverage of the fighting here.
As for the DF-15, also known by its NATO designation CSS-6, this is a road-mobile, solid-fueled SRBM developed by China during the 1980s. The system formed part of Beijing’s effort to develop a new generation of conventionally armed mobile ballistic missiles, including systems primarily intended for export.
العثور على بقايا صاروخ صيني من طراز DF-15A في اليمن. pic.twitter.com/af9mGNNxiA
— إيران بالعربية (@iraninarabic_ir) September 14, 2026
As you can read about here, the DF-15 family has evolved through several variants, although open-source information concerning their capabilities remains inconsistent.
The DF-15A reportedly entered Chinese service in the mid-1990s. Estimates of these missiles’ maximum range vary substantially, from roughly 600 kilometers (373 miles) for the original DF-15 to as much as 900 kilometers (559 miles) for later versions.
China is the only confirmed operator of the DF-15 family. There have been longstanding reports of Chinese transfers of the DF-15 or the related M-9 export version to Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, but in each case, the export record is heavily disputed, with some reports likely conflating the DF-15 with the broadly similar DF-11.
While Saudi Arabia has never publicly acknowledged operating the DF-15 family, it has a well-established history of acquiring Chinese ballistic missiles.
In 2013, Prince Fahd bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, Deputy Minister of Defense, visited the Strategic Missile Forces of Saudi Arabia, and was given this model. YEARS of speculation on the smaller missiles (The large is DF-3). Now we know – they are DF-15 and DF-15A. pic.twitter.com/oOn8qiCgye
— Tal Inbar (@inbarspace) September 14, 2026
Saudi Arabia imported Chinese ballistic missiles to expand its long-range strike options. Its desire for a land-based strategic deterrent was initially driven by concerns over Iran, regional missile proliferation, and nuclear hedging. More recently, however, it shifted toward fielding more accurate, mobile systems with greater conventional military utility.
Riyadh secretly obtained DF-3A missiles from China beginning in the late 1980s, establishing a strategic ballistic-missile capability that remained largely outside public view.
The kingdom has also subsequently been linked to the DF-21 family. Satellite imagery and other open-source intelligence have provided evidence of Chinese-designed ballistic-missile infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
While the Houthis have their own ballistic-missile arsenal, this is principally associated with Iranian technology, captured Yemeni systems, and locally produced or modified weapons.
Saudi employment of an SRBM in the current fighting would represent a notable expansion of the kingdom’s response options. If Saudi Arabia did indeed do this, its main advantage would be speed and responsiveness. A solid-fueled ballistic missile could reach targets deep inside Yemen within minutes while keeping Saudi aircraft and crews out of the immediate engagement area, providing Riyadh with a rapid strike option against fixed Houthi targets. That could be particularly valuable as the conflict expands and Saudi forces face pressure to respond quickly to Houthi attacks on military and energy infrastructure.
Previous losses at the hands of Houthi ground-based air defenses could also dissuade Riyadh from relying on crewed aircraft to strike targets on the ground deep inside Yemen. Houthi air defenses, while pathed together in many ways, are capable enough to give even U.S. airpower a serious run for their money.
At the same time, a conventional SRBM like the DF-15A can deliver a large warhead at very high speed, imparting significant kinetic energy, making it particularly useful against fixed, high-value, or hardened targets.
Use of an SRBM would also be in line with the current pattern of escalation, with the Houthis conducting missile and drone attacks against Saudi military and energy targets while Saudi-backed Yemeni forces are engaged in renewed ground fighting. Riyadh’s demonstration of an SRBM capability in this campaign would also signal that it is is willing to draw more heavily on its strategic missile inventory as the conflict intensifies, potentially further raising the stakes of the confrontation.
Such a move would carry a message beyond Yemen. Using a previously unacknowledged ballistic missile capability in combat would signal to Iran that Riyadh is now willing to employ this arsenal, after decades of keeping it very much in the shadows.
If the evidence ultimately points to a Saudi DF-15A launch, the discovery would offer a rare look at the operational use of an extremely secretive part of the kingdom’s arsenal, and add a significant new dimension to the rapidly escalating Saudi-Houthi war.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
The post Saudi Arabia Appears To Have Used Its Secretive Stash Of Ballistic Missiles For The First Time appeared first on TWZ.
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