At least nine people died and another 16 were injured this Saturday in Saudi attacks in the province of Taiz, in southwestern Yemen, Houthi media reported amid the military escalation with the coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
The Al Masirah television channel reported that “nine people – including women and children – have died and another 16 have been injured in a new atrocity committed by the coalition’s air force” led by Riyadh.
It accused the coalition of attacking “civilian homes” with four bombings in the Humayr al Jabal area, in the Maqbanah district, located in the northwest of Taiz province.
The channel added that “several civilians remain trapped under the rubble of their homes,” while rescue efforts are “being hampered.”
🇸🇦⚡️🇾🇪 ⚠️ Saudi attacks on Taiz's old airport after Yemeni forces made progress on various fronts in western Taiz. pic.twitter.com/6rnwgtJaZd
So far, the military coalition has not commented on the matter, and the attack could not be independently verified.
For its part, the Yemeni Army claimed to have launched 1,417 “precise and direct attacks in the last 24 hours, using combat aircraft, drones, field artillery and multiple rocket launch systems” against the Houthis, as part of the “Dawn of Yemen” counteroffensive.
Military spokesman Majid al Nuzaili stated in a statement that the operations resulted in approximately “800 casualties – among dead and injured, as well as the destruction or disabling of more than 190 vehicles.”
He assured that in Taiz the Armed Forces “heroically repelled successive waves of attacks, while combat aviation precisely struck the positions and reinforcements of the militias, inflicting serious losses in both personnel and equipment,” but maintained that these attacks “are strictly limited to legitimate military targets.”
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia announced this Saturday on his X account that they intercepted and destroyed four drones in the Riyadh, eastern and southern Saudi regions in recent hours, without specifying concrete points.
The Yemeni Army maintains its counteroffensive against the rebels, which has air cover from Saudi Arabia, a country that in turn is the target of Houthi attacks for its participation in the Yemeni war since 2015 at the head of a military coalition in support of the internationally recognized government.
TV favourite Paul Whitehouse was the victim of a mugging attempt in London while fetching medicine for his wife, Dr Mine Conkbayir, who had suffered a "bad reaction" to some treatment.
At least 17 people were killed and two dozen more injured on Saturday in eastern India after a stampede that was likely caused by sudden rainfall during a Hindu religious gathering, officials said.
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Suvendhu Adhikari told reporters the fatalities included a seven-year-old girl, adding that 25 others were injured outside a pavilion “in a stampede” at the Hindu festival of Durga Puja in the city of Kolkata.
“Six bodies have so far been identified,” Adhikari said.
A senior police official at the scene told AFP an announcement caused “commotion” after it started raining at night and the “crowd waiting outside the pandal (pavilion) was pushing, pulling and rushing forward and fell on the ground, leading to the stampede”.
Deadly crowd incidents are a frequent occurrence at Indian mass events, such as religious festivals, due to poor management and safety lapses.
In August, a stampede at a Hindu temple in Bihar killed at least seven people and injured 19 others.
Last year, a stampede at India’s Kumbh Mela religious fair killed 30 people and injured several others, and 11 fans were crushed to death in Bengaluru during celebrations for the local cricket team’s first Indian Premier League title.
The same year, 36 people were killed after a stampede broke out at a campaign rally of a popular actor-turned-politician in southern Tamil Nadu state.
In 2024, 121 people were killed in northern Uttar Pradesh state during a Hindu religious gathering.
According to an Ifop poll for the newspaper Marianne, nearly half of Muslims and Jews would consider leaving the country if Marine Le Pen were to emerge victorious in the presidential election next year. 20% of them would “certainly” do so.
Which candidate would cause you to leave France? This is one of the questions posed by the Ifop poll for Marianne, released on Thursday, October 15. The study reveals that a significant proportion of Muslims and Jews say they are prepared to leave the country if Marine Le Pen wins the 2027 presidential election.
Some 46% of that number are planning “leaving France to settle in another country,” while 20% say they will “certainly” take the plunge. More broadly, 40% of younger French people say they have made plans to leave. Among voters of La France Insoumise, the figure rises to 43%. Furthermore, 44% of Jewish citizens responded that they would consider leaving the country.
Marine Le Pen’s rise to power could create “significant obstacles” and generate “high levels of fear and insecurity,” Francois Kraus, director of the political division at Ifop, explained to journalists. More than eight out of ten Muslims fear an “increase in attacks and discrimination” against them. This concern is particularly relevant in the context of the National Rally’s plan to ban the wearing of the Islamic veil in public spaces. Confirmed at the end of August by MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, the new measure would impose stiff fines on offenders and is expected to be included in Marine Le Pen’s platform for the 2027 presidential election. To circumvent the legal hurdles that such a ban might encounter, the presidential candidate is reportedly considering putting it to a referendum.
Meanwhile, only 27% of Muslim respondents would be willing to “conceal [their] religious affiliation on a daily basis,” for example, by ceasing to wear the headdress in public (18%). More broadly, 41% of those surveyed, regardless of their religion, would refuse to “respect laws” they consider “unjust.” This distrust affects three out of four Jean-Luc Melenchon voters and nearly half of civil servants (45%). According to the latest Ifop-Fiducial poll, Marine Le Pen maintains a significant lead in the first round. Depending on the scenario, the National Rally candidate is in first place with between 32% and 36% of the total vote.
While Le pen has remained antagonistic towards Islam in France, she has often cast herself as a protector of the Jewish people in the country.
In 2024, she remarked, “The best shield for French people of the Jewish faith is the National Rally. It is the only movement that has the will, the conviction and the means to fight Islamist fundamentalism, which is the major danger facing them.”
Yet, nearly as many Jews said they would leave the country under a Le Pen presidency as Muslims.
Every October 12, history once again becomes a battlefield. This year, the two events took place just a few days apart and a few thousand kilometers from one another. On one side, the White House, where on October 9, Donald Trump honored Christopher Columbus in front of a marble statue reassembled from fragments of the Baltimore monument that had fallen into the harbor in 2020, and signed a proclamation linking the 1492 voyage to the 1776 Declaration of Independence and promising that the explorer’s legacy will not be erased by “radical extremists.” On the other side were Indigenous organizations that for more than thirty years have rejected even the name of the continent, calling it Abya Yala.
The dispute over the continent’s name is a dispute over sovereignty, and the fact that it is resurfacing with such intensity in 2026 – while Washington is rewriting its relations with the Western Hemisphere in an openly hegemonic manner – is no mere coincidence of the calendar.
The name “America” originated in a cartographic workshop in the Vosges Mountains. In 1507, in Saint-Dié, Martin Waldseemüller printed a large wall map of the world and a brief accompanying treatise, proposing to name the new fourth part of the world after Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator who had argued that those lands were not Asia. On the map, the name appears in the southern part of the continent. Within a few decades, it came to apply to the entire continental landmass. None of the people who lived there were consulted.
In 1958, the Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman developed a thesis on this that retains its power to this day: America was not discovered, it was invented. Not in the trivial sense that it did not exist before, but in the sense that Europe constructed a new geographical and conceptual entity, placing it within its own image of the world and assigning it a role in its own universal history. The name was the first act of this construction. Before being conquered by force of arms, the continent was conquered on paper.
There is also a second appropriation, less discussed in Europe and deeply felt south of the Rio Grande. In common usage, “America” means the United States. The shift is not merely lexical. On December 2, 1823, James Monroe declared to Congress that the American continent was no longer to be considered open to European colonization: the phrase “America for Americans” already contained, in embryo, the idea that the Americans par excellence were those of Washington. Two centuries later, the same logic has led to pressure regarding the Panama Canal in 2025 and the military operation in Venezuela in January 2026. When an indigenous movement utters “Abya Yala,” it thus challenges two names at once: the one imposed by Europe and the one annexed by the United States.
The nomos of discovery
To understand why the word “discovery” is not neutral, we must turn to the law. Carl Schmitt, in a 1950 book that remains one of the foundational texts of legal geopolitics, argues that 1492 ushered in the first global nomos of the earth: an ordering of space based on the seizure of land. The European powers recognized one another as legal subjects and treated the New World as a free space, available for occupation. The papal bull Inter caetera of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 drew a line from pole to pole that divided the planet between Castile and Portugal. Those who lived on those lands did not participate in the division: they were its objects.
Schmitt describes this order with a jurist’s admiration for an effective legal construct, and his analysis must be read with that in mind. But the mechanism he identifies is real and has had a long institutional life. In 1823, the same year as the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case Johnson v. M’Intosh: Justice Marshall ruled that “discovery” conferred sovereign title to the land upon the European power – and later upon the United States as its successor – leaving the indigenous peoples with a mere right of occupation. The Doctrine of Discovery has remained part of American jurisprudence to this day. It was not until March 2023 that two Vatican departments issued a joint statement formally distancing themselves from it, acknowledging that 15th-century papal bulls were used to justify the expropriation of indigenous peoples.
The human cost of this system is measured in figures that remain uncertain, though their order of magnitude is not. A study published in 2019 in *Quaternary Science Reviews* estimated that between 1492 and 1600, the population of the Americas plummeted by about 90 percent, due to the combined effects of epidemics, war, forced labor, and social disintegration; the reforestation of abandoned lands was so extensive that it left a trace in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Tzvetan Todorov, in his book The Conquest of America, had already spoken of the greatest genocide in human history, questioning how knowledge of the other could coexist with its destruction. The “discovery,” in other words, was also the disappearance of most of those who were there.
What Abya Yala means
Abya Yala comes from the language of the Guna, the people who inhabit the Caribbean coast of Panama and certain areas of Colombia. In its form “Abiayala,” it is usually translated as “land in full maturity”; other renderings such as “living land” or “land of vital blood” are also in circulation. The transition from a local place name to a continental name is recent. According to the most widely cited accounts, it was the Bolivian Aymara leader Takir Mamani who proposed that indigenous peoples adopt this name in their documents, in place of that of the colonizers. The proposal took shape during the wave of protests that accompanied the 500th anniversary in 1992, when counter-celebrations marking “500 years of resistance” stood in opposition to the official commemorations. In the 2000s, the summit meetings of indigenous peoples across the continent permanently adopted it as part of their name.
The Guna’s choice is no accident. This is a people who, in 1925, rose up against the Panamanian state and eventually secured an autonomous comarca – now known as Guna Yala – with its own institutions and effective control over the territory: one of the most successful examples of indigenous self-governance on the continent. Borrowing their word means choosing as an emblem a concrete experience of territorial sovereignty, not mere nostalgia.
It should be noted that Abya Yala does not erase the plurality of local names: Anáhuac for the Nahua world of central Mexico, Tawantinsuyu for the political and territorial organization of the Incas, and Pindorama for the Tupi lands of present-day Brazil. Each of these names expresses a different cosmology of space. Abya Yala functions as common ground, a sort of federal name that does not replace the specific ones. This is an important detail, because it signals that the project is not the invention of a single, symmetrical indigenous identity mirroring the “American” one, but rather a coordination among diverse actors.
Cartography as an act of sovereignty
From a geopolitical perspective, naming is the first form of possession. This is well understood by states that rename gulfs and seas, contest place names on official maps, and impose transliterations in international institutions. The year 2025 provided a textbook example with the U.S. renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. In this context, Abya Yala is a counter-toponym: a name that does not seek to occupy school atlases, but rather to wrest from hegemonic power the monopoly on the description of space.
The Latin American decolonial school has given this insight a precise theoretical form. Aníbal Quijano has termed the structure that survives the end of formal colonialism “the coloniality of power”: a hierarchy of peoples, knowledge, and territories that continues to organize the international division of labor and the production of knowledge. Walter Mignolo has shown how “Latin America” itself is a designation that originated in the nineteenth century in French and Creole circles, with specific political functions. The year 1492 marks not only the beginning of the conquest of the Americas but also the birth of the world-system centered first on Europe and later on the Atlantic. Challenging the continent’s name therefore means challenging the founding date of the unipolar order, tracing it back to its very roots.
Here, the issue intersects with the debate on multipolarism. A multipolar order is not merely a different distribution of power among great states. It implies the recognition that there are multiple civilizations, each with its own concepts of space, law, and relationship to the land. The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador and the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia have translated some of these concepts into positive law: the former by recognizing rights inherent to nature, the Pacha Mama, and the latter by reestablishing the state as plurinational. These are imperfect experiments, but they represent the most serious attempt in the hemisphere to build a form of statehood that does not derive entirely from the European model.
Columbus, Italy, and two identity politics
For the Italian reader, the story takes an additional turn. Columbus Day did not originate as a celebration of conquest. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison’s proclamation came a year after the New Orleans lynching, in which eleven Italians were killed by a mob: the commemoration also served to offer the Italian-American community – which was facing discrimination at the time – a founding hero with whom to identify. Columbus thus became a tool for the integration of a minority that Anglo-Saxons considered little more than white.
Today, that history is being enlisted in a different battle. When Biden first proclaimed Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2021, and when Trump makes it the target of his own “Columbian restoration,” what is clashing are two identity politics within American society, each of which uses 1492 as a symbolic resource. Italian Americans find themselves serving as a shield for an operation that primarily concerns the definition of the U.S. nation and its relationship with the rest of the hemisphere.
Italy and Europe can avoid this dilemma. Remembering Columbus as a navigator, as a figure of Mediterranean and Genoese culture, and as a man of his time does not oblige one to subscribe to the “nomos” of discovery or the legal doctrine that derived from it. One can honor the sailor while rejecting the claim of ownership. Indeed, it is precisely from Europe that a gesture of historical maturity might emerge, similar to the one made by the Holy See in 2023: distinguishing the memory of the person from the legitimization of a spatial order that has produced expropriation and death on a continental scale.
October 12, 2026, revealed two opposing ways of approaching the same date. Washington used Columbus to reaffirm a narrative of national founding that, in foreign policy, translates into a renewed claim to guardianship over the hemisphere. Indigenous movements used Abya Yala to remind us that that hemisphere had names, political systems, and sovereignty before 1492 – and that it still retains some of them today.
There is no symmetry between the two positions. One has aircraft carriers, sanctions, and courts; the other has a word and territories to defend one by one, but the history of maps teaches us that names have a long life – longer than the empires that imposed them. “America” appeared on a map printed in a small town in the Vosges and ended up designating half the planet.
No one can say today what fate awaits Abya Yala, but the mere fact that millions of people refuse to call their land by another’s name already speaks volumes about the crisis of the order that name had ushered in.
Pakistan has extended its airspace ban for Indian aircraft for another month, until Nov 24, according to a Notice to Airmen (Notam) issued by the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA).
“Pakistan airspace not available for Indian registered aircraft and aircraft operated/owned or leased by Indian airlines/operators, including military flights,” the Notam said.
According to the notice, the extension came into effect at 7:45pm on Saturday and will remain until 04:59am on Nov 24, 2026.
The country’s airspace is divided into two flight information regions (FIRs) — Karachi and Lahore, according to a Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) document from 2022.
Saturday’s Notam applies to both the Karachi (OPKR) and Lahore (OPLR) FIRs.
India and Pakistan closed their airspaces to each other’s airlines in late April 2025, when tensions between them escalated in the wake of a deadly attack in India-occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
On April 24, Pakistan’s top brass had announced a series of measures, including the closure of its airspace to all India-owned or Indian-operated airlines with immediate effect, as it retaliated against New Delhi’s slew of aggressive measures against the country.
New Delhi, without evidence, had alleged that Islamabad backed the Pahalgam attack. However, Pakistan had strongly denied any involvement and offered a neutral probe. The nuclear powers had the fiercest air battle in May, in which Pakistan said it downedseven Indian fighter jets.
Since then, Pakistan has extended the airspace ban several times, forcing Indian carriers to use longer and costlier routes.
For Air India, the country’s only carrier with a major international network, fuel costs rose by as much as 29 per cent and journey times by up to three hours on some long-haul routes, according to a document submitted to Indian officials last October.
The airline, owned by Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, estimated the Pakistan airspace closure’s impact on its profit before tax at $455 million annually — a significant amount given its fiscal 2024-25 loss stood at $439m.
Police and protesters clashed violently in Paris and other French cities on Saturday on the sidelines of nationwide marches against soaring inflation, with one demonstrator’s hand blown off, multiple blazes set, and looters breaking into dozens of stores to strip them bare.
With just months to go before the two-round elections in April and May to choose Macron’s successor, the demonstrations follow weeks of high-school student blockades demanding better learning conditions.
Macron and his government were criticised by many of the demonstrators, who numbered 500,000 across the country, according to the CGT union. Authorities did not immediately give their estimate of the numbers.
Police used tear gas and water cannon against masked protesters in Paris and other cities who were throwing projectiles and aiming fireworks. Several parked cars were torched in the capital, and more than 130 arrests were made.
In the southern city of Saint-Etienne, a male protester had his hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, a police source told AFP. His maiming came after a 15-year-old lost his hand on October 5 to a police stun grenade during another protest in the city of Lens.
Protesters stand amid tear gas smoke as clashes erupt ahead of a demonstration to protest against the “high cost of living”, at Place de la Republique in Paris, France on October 17, 2026. — AFP
The protests geared up with a handful of gatherings nationwide on Saturday morning, AFP reporters said.
In Lyon, protesters set ablaze a tourist office in the city centre, and smashed their way into town halls in the cities of Marseille and Lille, where they vandalised the premises before leaving.
Dozens of shops were looted, including many in Marseille, among them a Hermes boutique, an Apple store in Lille, several shops in Nice and at least one mobile phone outlet in Paris, AFP journalists saw.
A crowd of more than 300 protesters tried to move up Paris’s Champs-Elysees, home to flagship luxury stores. As police firing tear gas blocked their way, they yelled, “All cops are bastards”.
In the western city of Rennes, around 20 people set up a barricade using trash bins and large pallets on the outskirts of a shopping mall.
Christophe, a 47-year-old carpenter and former Yellow Vest protester who did not give his surname, said he was indignant after seeing what he viewed as police brutality against teenagers in recent weeks.
“We’ve reached the point where the repression is targeting our own children,” he told AFP.
A French national police officer fires tear gas during clashes prior to the start of a demonstration to protest against the “high cost of living”, in Marseille, southern France on October 17, 2026. — AFP
‘Macron, resign’
The looting and confrontations with police were being carried out by masked youths on the sidelines of marches that were largely peaceful and which attracted people of all ages, including families with children.
Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire stressed that “the overwhelming majority of demonstrators” wanted to “march calmly”, but “acts of vandalism” were tarnishing their protest.
In Paris, tens of thousands marched across the east and north of the city in one major march, some shouting “Everyone hates the police” and “Macron, resign”.
Protesters wearing yellow vests face police as clashes erupt ahead of a demonstration to protest against the “high cost of living”, at Place de la Republique in Paris, France on October 17, 2026. — AFP
One demonstrator, Jules Petrichor, 47, who had brought his son, said: “There was a good atmosphere and then suddenly they (the police) started gassing us, even though nothing was happening. Naturally that worsened things and the hot-heads got hot-headed.”
Another protester who gave his first name as Louis, 19, complained that police were trigger-happy any time there was a demonstration.
“We can’t protest any more, it’s frightening,” he said.
The country’s Yellow Vest movement, which eight years ago staged street protests against Macron’s government over planned fuel tax hikes, has called Saturday’s “yellow and youth” demonstrations. It has appealed to teachers and students, workers, pensioners and farmers to take part in the protests on the first day of half-term holidays.
The principal grievance was the cost of living — pushed up in part by the war in the Middle East — that has helped send inflation soaring in Europe as elsewhere. But there were other issues too.
A protestor with a gas mask holds a French flag in front of a fire at the Boulevard des Capucines during a demonstration to protest against the “high cost of living”, in Paris, France on October 17, 2026. — AFP
High school student Kamil Alahyan, 18, said he was protesting “for so many reasons — the elections coming up in 2027, politicians who lie, the ultra-rich who’ve been taking more and more wealth over the past 10 years”.
“For years we’ve had climate, economy and equality problems but the government is not doing anything about it,” said Agnes, a 50-year-old actor who did not give her second name.
Anae, a 24-year-old student who did not give her surname, said she was protesting because she did not have a “sustainable future”.
“Our planet’s burning. And we’ve got a government that doesn’t give a toss,” she said.
Le Pen blames ‘rioters’
Opposition politicians vying to succeed Macron have seized upon the protests.
Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who has sided with the police, said on X: “Looting, pillaging, attacking police — rioters have once again sullied the October 17 demonstrations over the cost of living.” She claimed that the protesters’ demands had been “hijacked by the far left”.
Her far-left rival Jean-Luc Melenchon, insisted early Saturday that “everything is passing off peacefully”, while accusing television news of “flooding us with images of violence in dozens of cities”.
Several protesters sought to draw parallels with the French Revolution of 1789.
“It’s the Revolution — we’re taking the Bastille!” some shouted in Marseille during the forced entry of the mayor’s offices.
In the western city of La Rochelle, marchers streamed behind a placard reading: “Revolution or death.” And in the southern city of Montpellier, a giant blue sign reading “The people will win” was unfurled above a central square.
“The government is trembling and it’s right to tremble because when the French people are angry, they never let up,” Ryad Rani, the head of the LSU high school student representative body, told journalists in Paris.
Founded less than a decade ago in 2017, US defense technology company Anduril has reached a roughly US$90 billion valuation in a recent employee tender offer, placing its private-market value in the same range as, or above, the public-market capitalizations of long-established defense firms such as Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.
According to a Bloomberg report, Anduril Industries Inc. opened a tender offer allowing its employees in 16 countries to sell shares at a valuation of about US$94.80 each, with the total offer capped at about US$ 1.3 billion. The subscription period is open from October 13 to November 9.
Unlisted companies often offer employees and others a chance to cash out shares they hold through tender offers to retain talent.
Notably, in recent years, AI-focused, venture-backed startups increasingly use tender offers rather than public listings to give employees access to cash.
AI startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Clay, ElevenLabs, and Harvey have used employee tender offers to stay private longer while still offering cash incentives to retain talent.
Anduril’s tender offer will push the AI-focused defense company’s valuation to US$90 billion, up nearly 50 percent from its May valuation of US$60 billion.
Beneath this skyrocketing valuation lies the story of how the global defense market, and the U.S.’s famous defense-industrial complex in particular, has transformed beyond recognition in just a decade.
What Anduril’s US$90 Billion Valuation Tells Us
For generations, slow-moving, mammoth defense-industrial houses lobbied for lucrative Pentagon contracts and delivered hardware-centric defense platforms over decades-long procurement cycles.
This system created the U.S.’s distinct politico-military-industrial complex, dominated by legacy prime contractors, including the Big Five: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
Today, however, venture-backed startups increasingly dominate the U.S. defense market, offering software-defined autonomous weapons systems with AI integration.
In this market, a defense product’s journey from concept to initial operational clearance (IOC) and front-line deployment takes years, sometimes even months, not decades.
For instance, the Zumwalt-class destroyers program traces back to the 1990s Surface Combatant for the 21st Century (SC-21) and DD-21 programs. Construction of the lead ship began around 2009; it was launched in 2013, commissioned in October 2016, and was finally accepted around 2020. The ships have since undergone multi-year modifications to carry hypersonic missiles.
Similarly, the B-2 Spirit program spanned two decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s; the F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter) program also took nearly two decades, from early concept work in 1996 to Initial Operational Capability in 2015.
However, venture-backed firms such as Anduril, Shield AI, and Palantir focus on software platforms that can be updated iteratively, often paired with smaller or modular hardware, and use faster acquisition pathways.
For instance, Anduril was founded in 2017. It piloted its AI-powered Sentry surveillance towers on the U.S.-Mexico border around 2018, within a year of its founding, and later made them a program of record, deploying hundreds by the early 2020s.
Similarly, Shield AI was founded in 2015. The company reported deploying its AI autonomy software stack, AI Hivemind, for the first time around 2018, within three years. Hivemind has since operated on dozens of platforms, including drones, F-16s in tests, helicopters, and, more recently, maritime and space systems, in GPS-denied, contested environments.
The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programs of these defense AI startups are progressing much faster than the typical two-decade development cycle for traditional fighter aircraft.
For instance, Anduril’s YFQ-44A Fury, a jet-powered, uncrewed autonomous combat aircraft with mission-autonomy software such as Hivemind and Anduril’s own Lattice, is already in testing.
The contrast is stark. While traditional defense platforms were hardware-centric, with development cycles spanning decades, these new software-centric Autonomous platforms emphasize rapid prototyping and continuous software updates, compressing development timelines to years, and even months.
Another advantage of these software-centric defense platforms is that their upgrades also take months, not years, enabling continuous updates.
The war in Ukraine has shown that the modern battlefield is changing every few months.
For instance, FPV drones first appeared in the war in Ukraine around May 2022; by September 2022, Kyiv had introduced maritime drones.
Barracuda-100M. Credits: Anduril Industries.
In 2024, Russia countered Ukraine’s Starlink-linked drones with its Fiber-optic drones, which were immune to jamming. By the end of 2024, these drones carried air-to-air missiles such as the R-73 and R-60. Ukraine also armed its naval drones with surface-to-air missiles.
By 2025, Ukraine had developed multiple drone interceptors that reversed the cost-benefit advantage drones had over traditional interceptor missiles.
Russia responded with jet-powered drones that can fly at 500-600 km per hour and is developing others that can exceed 800 km per hour.
This continuously evolving battlefield means traditional procurement cycles spanning decades no longer suit modern warfare, where systems become outdated within months.
A hardware-centric approach can’t meet the demands of this evolving battlefield; therefore, the Pentagon increasingly prefers working directly with Silicon Valley-based AI defense firms.
Anduril’s US$ 90 billion valuation reflects this broader story. Anduril, however, is not the only AI defense firm cashing in on this trend.
Palantir, founded in 2003, is already worth nearly US$480 billion, more than any of the Big Five.
Palantir’s valuation is nearly seven times Northrop Grumman’s, more than five times General Dynamics’, nearly four times Lockheed Martin’s, three times Boeing’s, and nearly double RTX’s.
Similarly, Scale AI is worth US$29 billion, Shield AI around US$13 billion, and SandboxAQ and Applied Intuition around US$15 billion.
“Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have been tapped for multi-billion-dollar contract awards from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unpiloted vehicles, anti-drone defenses, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these awards will flow to the companies over time, which should put them in the top ranks of Pentagon contractors by value of awards within the next several years,” a recent report from the Costs of War project said.
What sets Palantir and Anduril apart is that while most AI defense firms have only one product in their portfolios, such as autonomous aircraft, counter-drone systems, or data fusion software, these two firms are offering a range of products.
Anduril offers AI-powered software, autonomous drones, cruise missiles, drone interceptors, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), underwater drones, undersea sensor networks, autonomous rotorcraft, surface-to-air interceptor missiles, autonomous sensor towers for land, water, and sea, radars, infrared imaging, and more.
Earlier this month, Anduril won a contract worth up to US$2.9 billion with the U.S. Navy to boost submarine production. The company is also investing US$3.7 billion to scale a new shipyard in Maryland. The new facility will build components for the Virginia-class submarines.
Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey was also selected to lead “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a new 120-day initiative tasked with identifying the technologies and capabilities needed for future military dominance.
Anduril has also been selected to build the next generation of Army goggles, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), which are “intended to give soldiers everything from night-vision capability to warnings of incoming airborne threats.”
However, Anduril’s most lucrative contract could be in border security technologies. The Big Beautiful bill commits over US$6 billion for various border security technologies. However, as Eurasian Times reported earlier, the bill’s conditions mean Anduril is the only firm that qualifies for these border surveillance tenders.
Anduril has also been called the Nvidia of the US defense market.
The sky-high valuation of Palantir and Anduril will also have a knock-on effect on other Silicon Valley-based AI-defense firms.
If these new tech defense firms maintain their growth momentum for another decade or so, then we might have to redefine the ‘Big Five’ of the US defense market.
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
Several hundred people protested in Kyiv this Saturday to demand the resignation of the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, due to criticism of his management and the alleged lack of preparedness of the city for winter.
The protest was organized by representatives of civil organizations, activists, and veterans who denounce systemic problems in the management of the Ukrainian capital, according to the public broadcaster Suspilne.
In their opinion, Klitschko has not ensured adequate preparation of the city for autumn and winter. In front of the State Administration building, protesters carried banners with slogans such as “Klitschko, resign!” or “Your inaction is costing Kyiv residents their lives!”.
But they also expressed their discontent over the increase in municipal public transport fares, the destruction of green areas and their transfer for urban development projects, as well as insufficient funding for the Ukrainian army from the municipal budget.
Ukrainians took to Kiev's City Hall in a massive protest, demanding Mayor Vitali Klitschko's resignation.
Protesters chanted slogans such as “Kyiv without Klitschko” and “Shame!”, according to Suspilne, which also highlighted that some residents came to the protest to express their support for the mayor.
“Klitschko is our mayor” and “Hands off Klitschko,” read the banners of his supporters, according to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, which states that the protest, at its peak, gathered up to a thousand participants.
On the eve of the demonstration, Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) faction had asked residents of the capital to avoid mass gatherings this Saturday, citing the security situation and the threat of Russian attacks.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Sergei Koretsky, described the energy situation in Kyiv as “one of the most difficult” due to increasing Russian attacks. Mayor Vitali Klichkó had previously advised residents to evacuate temporarily.
President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the municipal authorities for their alleged ineffectiveness in protecting energy infrastructure, to which Klichko replied that air defense was not the city’s responsibility and that they could not prevent the effects of Russian attacks.
Meghan Lambert, 25, died when a 16-year-old allegedly opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. Three children, aged five, eight and 11, were also killed in the attack — a school her family said was her "dream job".
On Saturday, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy reported another supertanker caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after striking a naval mine. The announcement came hours after authorities reported a similar incident in this strategic maritime passage.
“This morning, a second supertanker, which was navigating in an irregular manner, caught fire violently after colliding with a naval mine,” the military force stated in a release circulated by the Tasnim news agency.
According to Iranian authorities, the vessel was carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil; a powerful explosion occurred in the engine room following the collision, leaving the ship immobilized. The Revolutionary Guard did not identify the tanker’s flag.
The organization claimed that the ship attempted to traverse an unauthorized route after the U.S. military, through deception, induced it to turn off its positioning and radar systems. There is no response from Washington included in the available information regarding these claims.
Earlier in the day, Iran had reported a fire on another crude-laden supertanker—also following a collision with a naval mine—while it was navigating with its navigation systems switched off. With this latest incident, Iranian authorities have reported at least six collisions involving vessels and naval mines in and around the Strait of Hormuz over the past week.
The Revolutionary Guard reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, warning that vessels failing to comply with its navigation rules risk striking naval mines and catching fire. This statement comes as the United States attempts to re-establish maritime transit along a route near Oman.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints, and any disruption to traffic there can ripple through global oil markets.
A fresh wave of drone attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea, an alternative shipping route to the disrupted Strait of Hormuz, is deepening insecurity along the EU’s eastern flank and compounding pressure on a stretched global shipping network.https://t.co/uE3eUcAjWf
Hundreds of young people gathered this Saturday morning at Brussels Central Station to the rhythm of anti-fascist slogans and other slogans rejecting the police, who have deployed a strong presence in the surroundings, local media reported.
The young people, among whom there are also teachers and trade unionists, according to the Belga news agency, began a march peacefully towards Brussels South station in the middle of the morning and followed by a large police deployment.
This noon, after several blockades by the police that prevented the demonstrators from continuing the march, the situation became “chaotic”, the media pointed out. The police deployed water cannons and tear gas, while the protesters used construction fences to protect themselves and continue advancing.
As a result of the disturbances, several accesses to Brussels South station remain temporarily closed.
At Liege station, east of Brussels, another group of young people demonstrated who, according to Belgian media, expressed their concern about cuts in education, as well as working conditions, public services and social inequality.
Tear gas and water cannons unleashed as education funding protest sparks clashes in Brussels
Around 500 to 600 demonstrators gather for a march against education funding policies.
Anti-fascist activists join the protest, with some hurling projectiles and advancing behind metal… pic.twitter.com/8MMzfJMaiO
This Friday, several calls for protests in the Belgian capital were reported through social networks, including French-speaking students and other movements linked to the ‘yellow vests’ in France.
For his part, the mayor of Brussels, the socialist Philippe Close, declared that none of the demonstrations expected for this Saturday had official authorization.
These protests are in addition to the day of demonstrations by various groups organized today in France, where the Ministry of the Interior has counted “some 500 actions” and “more than 90 demonstrations” throughout the country.
The Egyptian Parliament will hold an extraordinary plenary session this Sunday at the request of Egyptian President Abdelfatah al Sisi, who awaits authorization from the legislative body for a possible military intervention in support of Saudi Arabia in the face of the escalating conflict with the Yemeni Houthi.
The General Secretariat of the House of Representatives, a body largely controlled by legislators aligned with the president, announced that an extraordinary plenary session will be held this Sunday at the request of the Egyptian president at 1:00 p.m. (10:00 GMT), according to a brief statement disseminated by the official Egyptian news agency, MENA.
This Saturday, the Egyptian president assured that Egypt would take any measure to defend Saudi Arabia, and asked the Egyptian Parliament to hold an extraordinary session to support a possible intervention if necessary.
🔴 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has directed the Egyptian parliament to convene in an emergency session to grant the armed forces the necessary authorization to protect and support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states if requested
“Egypt will continue to support the directives” of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Bin Salman, the Egyptian president said during a speech at the graduation ceremony for new classes of students from the Egyptian Military Academy.
“We are ready to take any measure to protect and defend you. I know that this matter requires authorization from the Egyptian Parliament, and I hope that the Parliament will hold an extraordinary session to grant us that authorization, if it becomes necessary,” said the Egyptian president.
He then clarified that “he is not talking about fighting anyone or attacking anyone”: “We are only talking about defense.”
These statements come amid the regional challenges facing Saudi Arabia, with an offensive by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have launched attacks against Saudi airports and oil facilities.
Al Sisi has reiterated on several occasions that he considers the security of the Persian Gulf, the stability of its neighboring countries, and the protection of maritime routes to be part of the same strategic framework.
Pope Leo XIV left Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital this Saturday after being discharged following his operation for a cancerous lung tumor, and has returned to the Vatican where he will lead the Angelus prayer tomorrow, Sunday.
The 71-year-old Pope left the hospital walking normally, smiling, and greeting patients and faithful gathered at the main door of Gemelli. After stopping for a few minutes to chat with a girl and her family, he got into the car that took him to the Vatican.
Before leaving the hospital, the pontiff celebrated mass at noon in a room in the area where he had been admitted since Tuesday the 13th, the day of his hospitalization and operation.
News of the American-Peruvian Pope’s discharge generated great anticipation and gathered dozens of faithful at the doors of the health center, who joined the numerous media outlets that have been following the pontiff’s operation and recovery from outside Gemelli.
Tomorrow, Sunday, Leo XIV will reappear on the balcony of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican to lead the Angelus prayer, exactly one week after he announced, from that same spot, that he needed surgery for a nodule detected in his lung.
The pontiff was hospitalized and operated on Tuesday the 13th in the afternoon, and the lower lobe of his right lung was removed due to adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer, in an operation that lasted 90 minutes.
On Saturday, demonstrations in France against the rising cost of living turned violent in Paris and Lyon, with further unrest reported in other locations, according to the Police Prefecture and sources from the Ministry of the Interior.
In Paris, the day began with clashes at the Place de la République. The Prefecture reported that several hundred individuals, identified as members of far-left groups, threw projectiles at police officers and gendarmes. Some participants also damaged building facades, prying loose stones.
Security forces responded with tear gas and moved to disperse the violent groups. Despite these incidents, the march began its route at 2:15 p.m. local time (12:15 GMT), moving from the Place de la République toward the Place de Clichy, even as police operations continued in the area.
By 2:00 p.m. local time, authorities had made 133 arrests in Paris—primarily for alleged participation in groups organized to commit acts of violence or cause property damage, as well as for assaults on law enforcement officers. Additionally, police conducted 1,046 preventive security checks throughout the day.
In Lyon, in southeastern France, a group of protesters smashed the windows of a tourist office located in the central Place de Bellecour and set it on fire, according to footage broadcast live by BFM TV.
The French government had previously warned of a high risk of unrest during the protests across various cities in the country. Sources close to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez indicated that, by midday, 140 protest actions and 32,800 participants had been recorded across the provinces, while the total number of arrests throughout France had reached 166.
“There is a very high probability that the far-left will cause the afternoon demonstrations to turn violent,” the same sources stated, also reporting targeted acts of violence in Paris, Marseille, Rennes, Toulouse, and Angers.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the incidents included attempted looting, attacks on security forces, the setting of fires to street furniture, and actions directed against institutions and media outlets.
In Marseille, several businesses were vandalized, and a municipal police station sustained damage. Additionally, a group forced open the doors of City Hall and briefly entered the lobby before being stopped.
Thousands of French people continued to protest and block educational centers just hours before student organizations held a new meeting with the Education Ministry, the third since the protests began more than two weeks ago.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that Tehran supports a “political process” to resolve the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi targets, including energy facilities and Riyadh’s international airport, where 13 people were killed in a major attack last week.
“We support an inclusive and comprehensive political process as the only practical and sustainable way to resolve the issue,” Araghchi said in a speech at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Baghdad.
Araghchi repeated Iran’s offer to mediate between the two sides. Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh previously said Riyadh has not responded to Iran’s overture.
On Friday, Iran denied having anything to do with the Houthi attacks, after Saudi Arabia accused Tehran of encouraging the group’s escalation.
In his speech, Araghchi also said “either we build security together, or we will endure insecurity together,” adding that Tehran was willing “to cooperate with all its brothers and neighbours to achieve the first option”.
The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s coalition government unravelled in July.
On Wednesday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they had targeted facilities belonging to Saudi Aramco, after Saudi officials reported a strike on a building in Riyadh housing the energy giant’s operations centre.
Powerful explosions also rattled the Saudi capital, as the coalition fighting the Houthis said it had intercepted a missile fired by the group towards Riyadh.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia launched strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, targeting fuel and energy facilities it said were being used to support missile and drone attacks, as the Yemeni group threatened a “harsh and painful” response against Saudi airports, refineries and oil installations.
Hours later, Saudi authorities issued warnings of potential hostile aerial threats in the kingdom’s eastern province and Riyadh.
Loud explosions were heard near Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran, according to witnesses. Later, a Saudi energy ministry official confirmed the attack. Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency said that four people — two women, a man and a child — were wounded by debris from two intercepted Houthi cruise missiles in the capital and that 15 homes were damaged.
Pope Leo XIV is being released from the hospital on Saturday, four days after lung cancer surgery, and will deliver the traditional noon blessing on Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV is being released from the hospital on Saturday, four days after lung cancer surgery, and will deliver the traditional noon blessing on Sunday.
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