The NATO Response Force (NRF) and EU Battlegroups have demonstrated that placing multinational forces on standby does not automatically make them immediately operational. German-Dutch military integration, in contrast, has generated a different outcome since cooperation was internalized within permanent command structures, units, training, and capability planning before a crisis occurred.

Such a comparison is becoming increasingly relevant to Northeast Asia. A Taiwan contingency could absorb American military assets at the very moment when North Korea embarks upon a serious provocation towards South Korea. Continued US commitments in Europe and the Middle East could further complicate the allocation of finite resources.

Why Standby Forces Encountered Problems

The NRF was established after the 2002 Prague Summit as a rapidly deployable multinational joint force of roughly 25,000 troops. Yet the NRF was heavily dependent on the member countries assigning their respective forces to particular rotations, while these governments had the final say over whether the forces could ultimately be employed. During the Afghanistan and Iraq wars—when operational demand was high—each government had strong disincentives in introducing scarce high-readiness units and specialized enablers to NRF rotational deployment.

This created a gap between designated readiness and actual availability. Strategic transportation, logistics, specialized support units, and communication capacity could still be subject to competing national demands. Eventually, in 2024, NATO replaced the NRF with the NATO Force Model, which emphasized a substantially larger pool of high-readiness forces that is closely aligned with specific defense plans.

Meanwhile, the EU Battlegroup was faced with an even clearer problem. Although the multinational battlegroups had been maintained on rotational standby since 2007, they had never been deployed. While acknowledging that the battlegroups enhanced interoperability and military transformation, the European Parliament attributed the shortcoming largely to insufficient political will, difficulties in decision-making, implementation problems, and the financing arrangements.

What Germany and the Netherlands Did Differently

German-Dutch cooperation developed according to a different institutional logic. Although the 1st German-Netherlands Corps was created in Münster in 1995, the integration later expanded deep into both militaries’ force structures. The Dutch 11th Airmobile Brigade was incorporated into the German Division Schnelle Kräfte (DSK) in 2014, while the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade was integrated into Germany’s 1st Panzer Division in 2016, and the Dutch 13th Light Armoured Brigade joined Germany’s 10th Panzer Division in 2023.

The relationship was extended below the brigade level. Germany’s Panzerbataillon 414 is operated under the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade, and Dutch personnel operate Germany’s Leopard 2A6MA2 tanks while serving within the battalion. Moreover, German officers serve in Dutch command headquarters and vice versa, turning multinational command into a routine organizational reality instead of a stopgap measure that is only activated during major exercises.

Needless to say, such an arrangement does not eliminate national sovereignty. Both Germany and the Netherlands preserve the political prerogative over whether and where their forces are deployed. Meanwhile, the benefits of integration would become observable once a crisis necessitates the deployment. Staff are already well-versed in each other’s procedures, and units have repeatedly conducted joint exercises, while command and logistics relations do not need to be newly constructed during mobilization.

The distinctions were visibly observable during training. For example, approximately 7,000 German and Dutch personnel participated in the 2026 Fighter Lion—the largest military exercise conducted by the Netherlands in two decades—ten years after the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade was integrated into Germany’s 1st Panzer Division. These types of exercises strengthen existing command relations rather than creating temporary interoperability for a single event.

What Japan and South Korea Can Apply

It is quite obvious that Japan and South Korea cannot replicate the German-Dutch model. Neither country has a formal mutual defense pact nor a NATO-style integrated command structure. Therefore, the directly applicable lessons are more limited. Nonetheless, selected operational relationships can and should be institutionalized before multiple simultaneous contingencies make such coordination necessary.

The practical first step could be a standing bilateral adjustment mechanism that links Japan’s Joint Operations Command (JJOC) with relevant South Korean joint headquarters. Instead of exercising command authority, the mechanism could maintain procedures for intelligence exchange, deconfliction in the air and at sea, movement of US reinforcements, logistics coordination, and the use of Japanese facilities that support a Korean contingency. This would be especially crucial when Japan has to assist US operations related to Taiwan while installations across Japan—including Yokota, Yokosuka, Sasebo, Iwakuni, and other United Nations Command (UNC)-Rear facilities—play a pivotal role in US reinforcement to the Korean Peninsula in accordance with Operational Plan (OPLAN) 5055.

Under this mechanism, small-scale functional cells could concentrate on specific missions. Missile warning would be the most obvious starting point since the United States, Japan, and South Korea have conducted North Korean missile-warning data-sharing since December 2023. Additional cells could treat maritime domain awareness (MDA), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), cyber defense, transportation, medical evacuation, and logistics.

The exchange of officers should accompany the aforementioned measures. Japanese officers could participate in South Korean command posts, while South Korean officers could join Japanese operational staff who deal with naval operations, air defense, logistics, or reinforcement coordination. The goal is to get familiar with each country’s procedures, communications, command relations, and other miscellaneous constraints before wartime pressure markedly shortens the timeframe for decision-making.

Exercise Scarcity Rather Than Ideal Conditions

The most notable changes should be related to exercise design. Trilateral exercises should not be premised on the assumption that the full inventory of United States support capabilities will always be available. A more pessimistic scenario would begin with a Taiwan scenario that is already consuming a substantial amount of US assets—including its ISR capacity, strategic transportation, and precision-guided munitions—when North Korea embarks upon a serious horizontal or vertical military escalation on the Korean Peninsula.

In this particular situation, elaborated by the Atlantic Council report, South Korean military planners should determine which missions could be conducted independently and which can be addressed bilaterally. South Korea may assume greater responsibility for ISR, missile defense, logistics, and conventional firepower on the Korean Peninsula—yet this would be affected by the tempo of wartime operational control (OPCON) transition—while Japan could take on additional maritime surveillance, ASW, sea lines of communication (SLOC) protection, base defense, and logistics. The primary aim is not to divide the Taiwan and Korean Peninsula theaters between Seoul and Tokyo but to identify how both countries could most effectively conduct missions that complement US military operations across the two regions.

Logistics should be placed at the center of these exercises. A dual contingency could impose on the Japanese government the need to support both US operations on Taiwan and USFJ reinforcement to the Korean Peninsula, which inevitably involves Japanese ports and airfields. It could cause competition for fuel, maintenance, transportation, ammunition depots, runways, and port capacity. Thus, Tokyo and Seoul should develop procedures concerning reciprocal servicing, immediate repair, medical support, transportation, and selected supplies before the bottleneck transmogrifies into wartime problems.

Functional Integration Without a Bilateral Alliance

The German-Dutch case illustrates that political authority is not necessarily the same thing as operational preparedness. A government can maintain full authority over whether its forces enter conflicts and can also prepare in advance to cooperate effectively if that decision is made. These distinctions are highly relevant to Japan and South Korea since they enable a considerable level of operational preparedness without a formal defense pact. For instance, South Korea could discuss target allocations for North Korean TELs with its Japanese counterparts in order to effectively use the finite weapons available to Japan’s enemy base strike capability and South Korea’s Kill Chain and Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR).

Naturally, the primary objective should be functional integration in fields where both governments already have overlapping interests. A large set of measures—spanning from ISR coordination to cyber defense—can be institutionalized without creating either an integrated force or an Asian version of NATO.

Both the NRF and EU Battlegroups revealed the limits of formations that remained dependent on political and operational arrangements being assembled only when crises occur. German-Dutch cooperation worked better since many of those arrangements already existed.

Given the historical baggage that Japan and South Korea carry, it would undoubtedly be a Herculean task for them to take novel steps. Nonetheless, the emerging regional security environment is rapidly narrowing down the available options.

Duncan Sheik, who earned a Grammy nomination for his ubiquitous 1990s hit “Barely Breathing” and won a Tony Award for composing the music for “Spring Awakening,” died Thursday. He was 56.

“It is with profound sadness that we confirm the passing of Duncan Sheik,” a statement posted Friday on Sheik’s Instagram account read. “The world has a lost a singular talent, and deeply influential voice in music and theater…. Duncan’s artistry touched many and leaves an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.

“Duncan was a father, husband, son, brother, and friend. He will be remembered for his sensitivity, wit, inteligence, and depth of spirit he brought to those who knew and loved him.”

The statement added that “Duncan passed away last night surrounded by love.”

His mother, Suzanne Sheik, told the New York Times that her son died of organ failure. A statement posted to his Instagram account Thursday said that Sheik was “receiving medical care and remains in critical but stable condition.”

Sheik, a New Jersey native, went to Brown University, where he played in an early band with singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb. His 1996 self-titled debut LP was a hit on the strength of “Barely Breathing,” an exemplar of the upbeat coffeeshop rock that emerged in the wake of grunge on the pop charts. The single stayed on the Hot 100 for over a year, and the album went gold, earning earned him a Grammy nomination for male pop vocal performance.

Sheik’s followup, 1998’s “Humming,” featured rich orchestration, but he already had an eye on Broadway (his sister Kacie Sheik is a stage actor who has appeared in “Hair,” “American Idiot” and “Because of Winn-Dixie,” for which Duncan wrote the score).

He wrote his 2001 album “Phantom Moon” with poet and playwright Steven Sater, whom he’d again collaborate with on the score for the musical “Spring Awakening” — based on the play by German Expressionist Frank Wedekind, which won him a Tony Award — and “Alice by Heart.” His 2009 album “Whisper House” yielded a companion musical of the same name. He also composed the score for the 2004 film “A Home at the End of the World.”

While Sheik sought treatment for alcohol addiction after canceling a tour in 2011, his stage and studio career never slowed. Other major stage credits include hit productions of “American Psycho,” “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” the thriller “Noir” and “The Secret Life of Bees,” along with Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” His last album, “Claptrap,” came out in 2022.

Wales might need it at the back.

The appointments come against the backdrop of Wales’ failure to reach the World Cup and the beginnings of criticism around the side’s openness.

“He’ll bring some unique skills, particularly when you play Nations League A games when you have to defend a lot,” said FAW chief football officer Dave Adams of Williams’ appointment on the Feast of Football podcast.

“Some of the dark arts of defending, he’ll bring some interesting things for the players to think about.”

There is the thought that Williams would also be prepared to challenge Bellamy’s thinking – seen as healthy part of a management team.

But while Bellamy says he is keen to lean on Williams’ defensive know-how, it will still be the former Liverpool, Manchester City and Newcastle forward’s managerial message.

“With his position, sometimes it’s easier coming from a player who’s been in there,” said Bellamy – a former Wales captain himself.

“Now, I’ll lead a lot on the information, but it’s nice for me to be able to ask ‘What would you see with this? If you played there, how did you feel when I asked you to do that? Is that possible? Is that not possible?’ I believe he’ll be a huge asset to me.”

Sheehan’s appointment also suggested a more defensive focus.

The former Republic of Ireland Under-21 international was seen to have a pragmatic style at Swansea.

But it appears Wales will look to benefit from the 40-year-old’s eye for set-piece work, something he has also been responsible for during previous coaching roles at Luton and Southampton.

“We really want someone who is in tune with restarts and set-pieces,” added Adams.

“In these sorts of games they could be the factor that give us a chance to win the game, because they are going to be very hard games to play in.

“We realise the importance of attacking and defending set-pieces in these next six games, and feel Alan and [goalkeeping coach] Martyn Margetson will bring that level of detail to help the team be best prepared for these games.”

Former adversaries say they will settle differences as fears grow of expanding war in Ethiopia.

Seven Ethiopian armed groups have formed an alliance aimed at overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The groups announced the alliance on Sunday, saying that they would work together to set up an inclusive transitional government.

“We have established a joint alliance called the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, known in short as the Alliance for Survival,” the groups said in a joint statement.

The alliance includes the Amhara Fano National Movement, a coalition of Fano factions that has fought federal forces in the Amhara region since 2023; the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Abiy took office; and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which has fought federal forces in Oromia since 2018.

Four smaller groups – the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (Ugugumo), the Benishangul Peoples’ Liberation Movement and the Gumuz Peoples’ Democratic Movement – make up the rest.

The groups’ leaders had been talking to form the alliance for about a year, a source close to Fano told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

The announcement comes weeks after clashes in the northern region of Tigray, one of the most serious breaches yet of a 2022 peace deal, deepened fears of a return to full-scale war.

Fighting has gripped parts of Oromia since 2018 and Amhara since 2023.

Abiy came to power in 2018 promising sweeping reforms. He freed journalists, activists and other political prisoners and revoked bans on many political parties after taking power.

But his opponents and human rights activists accuse his government of reversing those gains in recent years.

In the statement, the alliance accuses the government of imposing “dictatorial rule” that has pushed the country towards break-up.

It also says a transitional government guided by a charter would work to end the wars, protect rights and open a national dialogue.

Jaal Marroo, the OLA’s military leader, told a local broadcaster earlier this month that they had met several times before settling on the final announcement.

Zemene Kassie, the Fano leader, first publicly indicated that deals had been reached in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, published on August 16.

The government has not publicly commented on Sunday’s announcement.

Fano fought alongside federal forces against Tigray’s fighters in the Tigray war of 2020 to 2022, which killed hundreds of thousands.

Amhara and Tigray also both claim Western Tigray, which Amhara nationalists have administered since the war ended.

Ethiopian academic Eyob Tilahun told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the competing groups had agreed to have a dialogue and form an alliance “in the best interests of the public”.

“Those allied forces believe that they all face a survival threat from the government,” Eyob said.

The 2022 peace agreement, signed in Pretoria, South Africa, ended the war between the federal government and Tigray’s forces but left disputes over disarmament and the TPLF’s legal status unresolved.

In mid-July, the TPLF declared the 2022 Pretoria peace deal “effectively dead”.

Sway Dasafo, a pioneering British Ghanaian rapper known for his lyric storytelling and championing of British music, has died. He was 44.

The rapper and producer’s death was announced Thursday on social media by the Mobo Awards, which celebrates music of Black origin. Dasafo’s friend Kash Ahmad confirmed to the BBC that he died at his home in Ghana. No cause of death was provided, but the outlet reported that Dasafo had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2010 before going into remission later that year.

“We’re deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Sway,” Mobo wrote on Instagram. “Sway will always hold a special place in MOBO history.”

In 2005, Dasafo became the first unsigned artist to win the Mobo award for hip-hop act before he released an official album. He won over other established artists including 50 Cent and the Game off the strength of his mixtapes, “This Is My Promo” volumes one and two.

“Mixtapes effectively provide a diary of my life,” Dasafo told the Guardian in 2005. “They feature skits and interviews of me on radio. When people follow your story, they feel closer to you — it’s like a soap opera. People want to know what’s going to happen next.”

“It was a huge moment,” Mobo’s Instagram statement said of Dasafo’s win. “Not just for Sway, but for UK Hip Hop. At a time when British rappers were still fighting to be recognised alongside their US counterparts, his win made a real statement about the talent, creativity and potential coming out of the UK. … [W]e will always be proud that he was part of the MOBO story and of the history we shared together.”

Born Derek Andrews Safo on Sept. 5, 1982, in Hornsey, north London, to Ghanaian parents, Dasafo grew up primarily in England where he developed a love for literature and music. He started rapping as a hobby when he was 10 and was making beats on his computer at 13.

The versatile rapper got his start in groups such as Phynix Crew and One before going solo and releasing his series of mixtapes. Among his early hits were “Up Your Speed” and “Little Derek,” from his debut alum, “This Is My Demo,” which he released from his own label, Dcypha Productions.

“I’m a positive person and this positivity comes out in my music,” Dasafo said in his 2005 Guardian interview. “I don’t go round holding guns to people’s heads, so I won’t rap about holding guns to people’s heads. Trouble attracts trouble. If you rap about trouble, it will come to you.”

From early in his rap career, he expressed his desire to become a producer so he could sign and nurture other talent. Dasafo has collaborated with artists including Riz Ahmed, Ed Sheeran, Lupe Fiasco and Chamillionaire.

BBC Radio 1Xtra broadcaster Remi Burgz called Dasafo a “UK Rap pioneer” and “one of north London’s finest” during her program, according to the BBC.

“He was mine and many others’ first experience of U.K. rap [and] hip-hop in mainstream media,” she said. “He was a literal example of paving the way and showing that U.K. rap can take up space in music.”

Dasafo is survived by his two sons, Jalil and Ammar-Joseph, and twin daughters, Queen-Inaya and Queen-Imara.

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Sparks legend Lisa Leslie has officially been immortalized in Los Angeles.

Leslie, a two-time WNBA champion and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, became the first female professional athlete to receive a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. After the ceremony, the Sparks earned a 105-84 win over the Portland Fire.

Leslie’s friends and family gathered outside the arena for the unveiling of the statue Leslie dubbed “The First Lady,” celebrating her 12-year pro basketball career in Los Angeles. Many speakers, including former Sparks coach Michael Cooper and Lakers legend Magic Johnson, noted Leslie’s accomplishments while also saluting her as a kind person.

Leslie became the second WNBA player to be honored with a bronze statue outside of a U.S. pro basketball arena, joining the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird.

Lisa Leslie celebrates on stage after her statue is unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“We know there is a low percentage of women who have statues in our country,” Leslie said. “I just feel like we are just starting to get our flowers and reap some of the benefits of hard work, blood, sweat and tears that we put into it.”

Leslie sat courtside with her family watching her former team beat the expansion Fire. Rae Burrell led the Sparks with 20 points and added two assists. Nneka Ogwumike finished with a double-double and Ariel Atkins had 14.

Burrell led the team with 13 first-half points. The Sparks led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, during which several Sparks reached double-figure scoring.

The Sparks kept their foot on the gas in the fourth quarter despite playing without Cameron Brink, Dearica Hamby and Aaliyah Nye.

Many Sparks said they felt blessed to have formed relationships with Leslie. Burrell said Leslie has been a big help during her career. The retired star has responded when players around the WNBA have sought advice.

Ogwumike said the team was happy to attend the pregame statue reveal.

Sparks legend Lisa Leslie takes photos with family and friends at her statue unveiling outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“That’s history, you know? I am very adamant about players coming in and knowing their history,” Ogwumike said. “That’s something you can’t let go of. I think we can see, especially in the NBA, where they are honoring these legends and they are coming back. I think we’re entering an era where there is so much history.”

Leslie grew up in Compton. During the ceremony, she spoke about watching her siblings whenever her mother went to work as a truck driver. She said she pushed to make good things happen for her siblings and didn’t quit or make excuses when life was difficult. She embraced challenges and often challenged herself.

Cooper said Leslie would go head-to-head with some of the Lakers players during practice to give herself a bigger challenge and it was impressive to watch her hold her own. Leslie was determined to be the first player in the WNBA to dunk, which helped redefine what was possible in women’s basketball.

The statue outside of Crypto.com Arena depicts her dunking a basketball.

Lisa Leslie and her family celebrate as her statue is unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

“I hope they see themselves out there. I hope you can find a girl that looks like you, whether she has long hair or short hair,” Leslie said. “That’s the key for kids in general. You have to see yourself. If you see it, then you also start to dream and believe that you can be it.”

Leslie recalled walking around Los Angeles as a child. Her affection for the city receiving a statue here more meaningful.

“I also feel a certain level of pride,” she said. “I feel like we are such good people in L.A.”

Leslie’s statue stands next Lakers Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi Bryant. Leslie called Kobe her younger brother during the ceremony and is happy to be close to him again.

Leslie’s career will be hard to repeat, but she sees it as a blueprint WNBA players can follow.

She said she is pleased with the direction the WNBA is heading, leaps and bounds ahead of her experience joining the league in 1997. She said it’s been great to see sponsors pouring in and helping the game grow.

“I am so proud of where the women’s game is,” Leslie said. “But the dream was always that we hoped that our USA, everybody across the board, could see the beauty in us, could see the strength in us and our resilience. I am so proud of the product that’s on the floor.”

For a decade, the United Nations’s most visible role in the Sahel was its peacekeeping mission in Mali.

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was established by the Security Council in 2013. Its mandate was terminated in June 2023 at the request of Mali’s transitional government, and the mission completed its withdrawal by the end of that year.

But the end of MINUSMA did not end the UN’s engagement with the region.

Its political work continues through the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), while the wider UN system remains involved in humanitarian and development work.

What has changed is the space in which that engagement takes place.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on January 29, 2025. The three countries have also deepened cooperation through the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), putting sovereignty and strategic autonomy at the centre of their political message.

The humanitarian pressures, meanwhile, have not eased.

Displacement, insecurity, food insecurity and other pressures continue to cross borders, even as governments increasingly insist on handling their security and political affairs on their own terms.

The question is what influence the UN can exercise after the departure of the peacekeeping force that once represented its most substantial presence in the region.

What does the UN’s presence look like now?

The UN’s role today is less about troops and more about diplomacy, mediation, humanitarian assistance and development.

UNOWAS is a special political mission rather than a peacekeeping operation. Its work includes preventive diplomacy, good offices, political mediation, conflict prevention and support for political dialogue.

“The influence the UN can actually exercise is narrow. The AES states have stripped away the mechanisms that once gave outside institutions leverage, leaving ECOWAS and the Rome Statute, and building their own confederation and joint force instead,” said Mubarak Aliyu, a political and security analyst in Nigeria.

In February 2026, the Security Council extended UNOWAS’s mandate until January 31, 2029, while requesting an independent strategic review of its mandate and activities, to be finalised by September 30, 2026.

The review comes as West Africa’s political landscape is being reshaped by military governments, new regional alliances and a stronger emphasis on sovereignty.

Russia has also become an important part of that changing security picture.

“What has actually shaped events this year is Russia’s Africa Corps, which helped Mali’s and Niger’s military governments survive shocks the UN was never positioned to influence, functioning mainly as regime protection rather than counterinsurgency,” Aliyu said.

“Moscow’s leverage extends into the Security Council chamber too, since its veto shapes what collective action the Council can attempt on Mali in the first place.”

Kabir Adamu, founder and managing director of Beacon Security and Innovations Limited, an Abuja-based firm that provides security solutions in Nigeria, the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel, said the UN should shift its approach away from large deployments of UN troops to diplomatic and towards diplomatic and development solutions.

“Looking ahead, the UN’s priorities in the Sahel should promote effective security sector governance and security sector reform. This will mean pivoting from traditional, large-scale peacekeeping to deep-rooted and core preventive strategies and diplomacy that addresses the root causes of fragility, conflict and violence, as well as instability,” Adamu said.

For the United Nations, diplomacy has become more important as governments turn to other security partnerships and regional arrangements.

How has sovereignty changed the political space?

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have made sovereignty and strategic autonomy central to their political outlook and built the AES as a framework for closer cooperation.

Their departure from ECOWAS has changed the regional architecture through which West African governments have traditionally dealt with political and security crises.

The UN still works with regional organisations, including ECOWAS and the African Union, but governments no longer share one political framework or the same approach to external engagement.

Consequently, for the UN, maintaining vital political channels has become potentially more difficult.

Adamu said the fragmented security architecture means the UN should seek to work with and through regional organisations and groups, rather than establishing its own large-scale forces.

“As national security structures remain weak and extractive, and regional security architecture fragments, marked by the rise of the Alliance of Sahel States and shifting ECOWAS dynamics, the UN should prioritise pragmatic, inclusive mediation to bridge divides between Sahelian and coastal states, while actively bolstering alternative, functioning frameworks like MNJTF [Multinational Joint Task] and the Accra Initiative,” he said.

Have the problems in the Sahel gone away?

The retreat of peacekeepers has not removed the pressures that brought international organisations into the region in the first place.

Displacement, armed violence, organised crime, food insecurity and climate pressures continue to overlap across the Sahel.

Climate change is perhaps not the root cause of the instability, but environmental and economic pressures can add to existing vulnerabilities, particularly where state institutions are weak and communities are already dealing with conflict and displacement.

For the UN, humanitarian work remains one of the areas where engagement can continue, even when governments reject large-scale military intervention.

Humanitarian work also places greater emphasis on local and regional capacity.

“Crucially, the UN must double down on the core UNISS pillars of governance, resilience, and security by integrating climate-peace initiatives and empowering local capacities, ensuring that international engagement remains flexible, locally owned, and focused on sustainable, multidimensional stability rather than solely militarised responses,” Adamu said.

While the UN cannot determine the security partnerships of sovereign governments or force political processes on authorities that reject them, it can still facilitate dialogue, support humanitarian operations and raise regional crises before the wider international community.

What does UNGA 81 mean for the Sahel?

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on September 8, 2026, with its General Debate due to begin on September 22.

The UNGA meets with no UN peacekeeping mission in Mali and with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger outside ECOWAS, while the AES has become a separate framework for their political and security cooperation.

“That leaves the UN closer to an advocate and service provider than a shaper of outcomes,” Aliyu said. “It can report, brief, fund aid operations and press for access, but it cannot compel it or offer the regime security that has made Russia indispensable to the military governments.”

Yet for the Sahel, insecurity, displacement, humanitarian needs and economic and climate pressures remain.

In the changed regional environment, the UN’s influence is more likely to come through diplomacy than force, through access rather than authority, and through regional relationships rather than a large international security presence.

Officials urge civilians to stay away from site in Al-Eis near Aleppo after series of explosions.

Powerful explosions at a weapons depot in northern Syria have injured at least four people, according to state media, with officials urging the public to stay away from the site.

The explosions occurred early on Monday at a Syrian army site in the vicinity of the town of al-Eis, south of the city of Aleppo, the state-run SANA news agency reported.

The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear.

Faisal Mohammad Ali, the head of civil defence operations in Aleppo, told SANA that rescuers have evacuated four injured people from the site.

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Aleppo, said a series of blasts has followed the initial explosion.

“The explosions are audible from a few kilometres away from the site. We have now seen a series of ambulances and fire trucks enter towards the position,” he reported.

Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib urged residents not to leave their homes for the time being, adding that “hospitals, ambulance and emergency teams are on full alert”.

Roads leading to the site of the explosions were closed “to ensure the safety of civilians”, Aleppo’s Internal Security Command said.

A resident of Aleppo’s Hamdaniyeh neighbourhood told the AFP news agency that they heard a “huge explosion” and when they went up to the roof could see “large flames in the distance”.

Several such blasts have previously occurred in Syria, which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war following the toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

An explosion of unknown origin killed 11 people at a military site in the eastern province of Deir Az Zor on Friday.

Earlier this month, an explosion at a weapons depot belonging to the Ministry of Defence killed 14 people and injured 11 in Syria’s northwest Idlib province.

Five people were killed just over a week earlier in the same area when a vehicle carrying munitions exploded.

The staging is simple. A circle of nine stately wood chairs on a bare stage. Four actors, affixed with in-ear monitors, occupy different seats as testimony is elicited, provided and undermined.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is back in session in “The Ford/Hill Project,” now at REDCAT through Saturday. What follows is some of the most riveting and distressing testimony ever delivered in such a setting.

Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford are called back to testify under oath about the Supreme Court nominations of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, respectively. This documentary drama, created by Elizabeth Marvel and director Lee Sunday Evans, is composed from the verbatim transcripts of these painful proceedings.

In 1991, Hill testified that Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her when he was her supervisor at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Education. In 2018, Ford testified that she had been sexually assaulted in 1982 by a 17-year-old Kavanaugh when she was 15.

Marvel and Evans create a double helix from excerpts of these two hearings, which are separated by nearly 30 years yet reveal highly entrenched patriarchal patterns. Two women, summoning the courage to tell what they know about two men who are about to be entrusted with the most consequential governmental power, are put through the wringer as the political machine shifts into gear.

The actors wear in-ear monitors that feed them edited clips from the real audio of the hearings.

(Angel Origgi / REDCAT)

Marvel, one of the treasures of New York theater, takes on the role of Ford at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a run that ends Sunday. (The piece premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 2024.) At REDCAT, the superb Rosemarie DeWitt assumes Marvel’s place, standing in for Ford but never attempting anything as crass as an impersonation.

The production, under Evans’ precise direction, manages to find a tone that might be paradoxically described as emotionally resonant neutrality. Those in-ear monitors that the actors are wearing feed them edited clips from the real audio of the hearings.

Ford, a psychology professor with an expertise in biostatistics, answers prosecutorial questions about a life-altering trauma in a manner that leans on her scientific training for security. Hill, a Yale-educated lawyer asked to elaborate on the prurient conduct she was chronically subjected to at work, never loses her professional composure.

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford tells Sen. Patrick Leahy when asked about the strongest memory she has of the incident. (Ford’s voice, resounding at the start of the production, keeps the brutality of the assault at the forefront of our minds.)

Hill, played by Betty Gabriel, describes the threatening nature of the unwanted advances that created such a toxic work environment. Aware of the damage that Thomas could inflict on her young career, Hill was determined to do what she could to salvage an extraordinary legal opportunity.

At times during Thursday’s performance, Gabriel appeared to stumble on her lines, but it was hard to tell because Hill is speaking extempore in the most difficult of public forums and she doubles back on her sentences, carefully parsing out her words. What both DeWitt and Gabriel honor exquisitely in their performances is the quiet integrity of these women as they willingly expose themselves to political attacks for the sake of causes greater than themselves — the truth, first and foremost, but also gender equality and the Senate’s advisory role as a cornerstone of American democracy.

The actors change not only their seats but also their roles.

(Angel Origgi / REDCAT)

Dulé Hill channels the presence of Thomas, who eventually theatrically hijacks the hearing by referring to the experience as a “high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.” Rich Sommer gives us the voice of Kavanaugh extolling the pleasures of beer and barking at senators who pointedly ask about the extent of his drinking.

The actors change not only their seats but also their roles. The interrogated become the interrogators in a way that gets a little blurry when the focus initially shifts from Hill and Ford to Thomas and Kavanaugh. But the murkiness doesn’t last long in a production that achieves an admirable balance between objectivity and emotion, abstraction and representation.

The restraint imposed by the production adds to its power. There’s no need to editorialize. The proceedings skewer themselves.

When Sen. Alan Simpson quotes from “Othello” in defense of Thomas, he uses Shakespeare’s lyrical authority but fails to realize that he is in fact invoking the false words of the tragedy’s villain, Iago. Not that the easily impressed senators, eager to exculpate a favored man, took note of the irony.

The patriarchy cares mostly about shoring up its own power. Thomas and Kavanaugh were part of the Supreme Court majority that voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The ending, the only time when Evans’ direction loses its poise, blares “make it right,” performed by the Tune-Yards, as Thomas and Kavanaugh, adorning themselves in black robes, find their seated place according to seniority among the nine chairs. The theatrical flourish seems jarring, but so too is the historic moment.

“The Ford/Hill Project” filled me with sadness but not despair. The bravery of Hill, who educated a nation on sexual harassment, and the emotional strength of Ford, who bared her trauma for public enlightenment, live on in the American consciousness as it progresses, in fits and starts, toward justice.

Angel City cruised to a 3-0 road victory over a shorthanded Utah team that received two red cards in the first half.

Defender Paige Cronin and midfielder Ana Tejada were ejected by the 24th minute. Two minutes later, Ally Sentnor converted the resulting penalty kick past goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn to put Angel City (11-8-6) ahead in Sandy, Utah.

Two minutes after coming off the bench for the second half, Taylor Suarez made it 2-0 with a one-touch finish off a pass from Gisele Thompson.

Sveindis Jonsdottir capped the scoring in the 67th minute, dispossessing Tatumn Milazzo deep in Utah territory before rolling a shot past McGlynn’s right side.

Utah fell to 13-9-3.

The broadcaster has been accused of ‘classic overkill’ after it removed 11 sketches from the comedy duo’s BAFTA-winning television show amid concerns of racism and racial stereotyping

The BBC has removed several sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look on iPlayer after deciding some of the comedy show’s material “no longer works today”.

The sketch comedy show, starring comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, who wrote and starred in the programme, originally ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2010. It also took home a BAFTA in 2007.

To celebrate the sketch comedy programme’s 20th anniversary, the national broadcaster added four seasons of the smash-hit show onto iPlayer for fans to enjoy – but with a few notable omissions.

A total of 11 sketches have been edited out amid fears of racism and ethnic stereotyping.

“That Mitchell and Webb Look has been made available on BBC iPlayer,” the British broadcaster said in a statement. “This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t.”

As per The Times, material removed from the programme included scenes featuring war re-enactors in blackface, a joke about Jimmy Savile, and an indigenous tribe living in a garden centre.

One now-deleted sketch sees Mitchell play a woman in a burka in a scene sending up reality TV programming.

The sketch then cuts to the pair – as themselves – discussing whether or not the sketch itself is actually offensive.

“I’m not sure we quite know what we’re trying to say,” Webb suggests, asking: “Aren’t we just taking the piss out of people’s sincerely held beliefs?”

Mitchell says: “I think you can worry too much about this kind of thing. I mean, what’s offensive to one person is just good, clean fun to another.”

He then pulls off the burqa to reveal he is wearing blackface underneath.

Comedian Dom Joly told The Times: “I totally get it if the BBC is putting out something really racist, which is laughing at and encouraging other people to feel that it’s OK to do that.”

He dubbed the decision to cut the scenes as “classic BBC overkill” and an act of “hysterical censorship”.

“But it’s so clear that Mitchell and Webb are not doing that. Their intent was not to be racist.”

As a possible alternative solution, broadcasters could put trigger warnings on older programmes if they believed they were necessary, he told The Times.

Joly did say such trigger warnings would be “patronising” to the audience, with the move reminiscent of the furore regarding another sketch show that has attarcted criticism years after airing, Little Britain.

A smash-hit in its day, the three-season skit show began in 2003, starring David Walliams and Matt Lucas, who also wrote the gags.

But it was later pulled from the BBC’s Player in 2020 due to its offensive content, such as the use of blackface, homophobic jokes, and ablesit humour. The series did return to iPlayer in late 2022, but in an edited format, complete with removed scenes and a trigger warning for audiences.

Match of the Day pundit Rob Edwards says Liverpool’s Alexander Isak is playing with greater “confidence” after scoring four goals this season – one more than he managed in the whole of last season.

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Measures targeting the court itself could disrupt payments, IT services and investigations.

The Trump administration is reportedly preparing sweeping sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) that could disrupt the tribunal’s finances and day-to-day operations.

The US sanctions would prohibit most transactions with the ICC after a grace period of six to seven months, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The move would mark a sharp escalation in Washington’s campaign against the Hague-based court by targeting the institution itself rather than individual judges and prosecutors.

The Trump administration plans to announce the sanctions soon, according to the Reuters news agency, quoting two sources familiar with the matter.

The Journal, citing anonymous officials, said a decision could be finalised during this week’s United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York or soon afterwards.

If imposed, the measures would generally bar US citizens and companies from providing the ICC with money, goods or services without a licence from the US Treasury.

Banks and other companies often take an especially cautious approach to US sanctions because they rely on access to the American financial system.

The ICC president and registrar have previously warned that sanctions on the organisation as a whole could interfere with its ability to buy information technology and insurance services, hire investigators and make routine payments, including salaries for American employees.

The ICC was created in 2002 to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so.

Washington has already sanctioned more than a dozen ICC judges and prosecutors under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in February 2025.

In August, it added the court’s President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye to the list, with restrictions on them taking effect on September 17.

The United States has never joined the court.

The Trump administration says the court has exceeded its authority by pursuing officials from countries that are not ICC members.

Relations deteriorated sharply after the court issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel, like the US, is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.

Washington has also objected to an earlier ICC investigation into alleged abuses in Afghanistan involving US personnel.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign in July to further isolate the court and urged other countries to withdraw from it.

Trump’s move adds to growing opposition to the ICC in recent months.

Chad and Venezuela moved in July to withdraw from the court, following Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Four US-based rights groups sued the Trump administration in August, arguing that existing sanctions obstruct their legal and human rights work.

Lockheed Martin has unveiled a modular airframe concept for its stealthy and combat-proven AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) family that could support multiple configurations, launch methods, and sensor packages while making use of the existing JASSM and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) production infrastructure. Highly survivable, the missiles are an incredibly important and staple weapon for the U.S. military, and for select export customers.

Called AGM-158 FLEX, the new concept is centered on a common airframe with interchangeable components. Lockheed Martin says it has invested more than $35 million of its funds in the effort so far, including airframe design, testing, prototype production, subsystem qualification, and work with suppliers.

The company says the FLEX design will use removable nose sections that can accommodate sensor suites associated with the AGM-158 family. A removable boat tail would allow the same basic airframe to be configured for different launch methods, including air, surface, and subsurface launch. That would open the AGM-158 architecture up to ground-, ship-, and submarine-launched applications, although Lockheed Martin has not provided details on the specific launchers, platforms, or configurations envisioned. It’s worth noting the LRASM has been tested in vertical launch configuration for vessels equipped with the Mk 41 launch system.

In addition to the Navy vertical launch tests, the idea of moving the JASSM family beyond its traditional combat aircraft launch platforms is not new. The Air Force’s Palletized JASSM concept, better known as Rapid Dragon, has demonstrated the ability to deploy JASSM-ER from palletized launchers carried inside cargo aircraft, using an expendable airdrop system. FLEX takes a different approach by building those kinds of launch options into the airframe architecture itself, with modularity supporting various launch configurations for the same basic weapon.

Rapid Dragon Flight Test

For aircraft-launched weapons, Lockheed Martin says FLEX will retain compatibility with current and future JASSM and LRASM launch platforms.

The company is also proposing multiple airframe lengths. A 206-inch configuration is associated with the supersized JASSM-XR, while a 168-inch version is consistent with the dimensions of JASSM-ER. Lockheed Martin says JASSM-XR will be the first configuration of the FLEX airframe.

The Brand New AGM-158 Extended Range

The AGM-158 family has already grown well beyond the original JASSM. The AGM-158A is the baseline stealthy air-launched land-attack missile, with a publicly reported range of roughly 230-330 miles, while the AGM-158B JASSM-ER uses a more efficient engine and additional fuel to roughly double that reach, to around 575 miles or more.

Alongside the land-attack variants is the AGM-158C LRASM, which uses the JASSM airframe but substitutes a sophisticated imaging infrared anti-ship seeker, electronic support measures, datalink, and other capabilities, for operations against heavily defended surface combatants.

Finally, the much larger JASSM-XR is being developed with a substantially stretched fuselage to carry more fuel and a larger 1,000-pound-class warhead, with a range expected to approach or exceed 1,000 miles. This would give it a similar striking capability as the Tomahawk cruise missile, although in a stealthier package.

Beyond range and launch options, the company is pitching its new FLEX concept as a way to simplify future upgrades. Components could be replaced as they become obsolete or new capabilities become available without necessarily requiring a completely new missile design.

That approach could have an industrial-base advantage, particularly as the United States seeks to increase production of long-range weapons. Lockheed Martin says FLEX would use the existing JASSM/LRASM production line, supply chain, mission-planning infrastructure, and software ecosystem rather than establishing an entirely new manufacturing and support architecture.

The company says its JASSM/LRASM production infrastructure includes a 225,000-square-foot facility opened in 2022 with increased automation and a robotic paint line.

Notable, however, is the fact that FLEX is being proposed at a time when the U.S. Air Force is pursuing affordable mass as a key priority.

For example, as part of a slew of low-cost cruise missile offerings, the service has been moving ahead with the Extended Range Attack Munition, or ERAM, a new air-launched missile explicitly intended to provide a relatively low-cost, rapidly producible standoff weapon. The Air Force conducted a live-warhead ERAM test in January of last year, less than 16 months after the program received its initial contract, and described the weapon as a means of generating mass against fixed targets. ERAM is understood to have a range of between 150 and 280 miles, putting it below the reach of the baseline JASSM, let alone the JASSM-ER or XR.

However, the emerging class of lower-cost weapons are intended very much more to complement than compete with JASSM. While the Air Force plans to buy thousands of the cheaper missile, the JASSM will still be needed to take up the higher end of the cost and capability list.

Lockheed Martin mentions that FLEX should “unlock future cost savings,” but this sounds more about giving customers the ability to swap out components and upgrade capabilities on existing missile rounds, to avoid obsolescence, rather than facilitate mass production.

As it stands, JASSM has evolved into a family of increasingly capable and longer-range weapons, but those capabilities necessarily come with a different set of cost and production considerations than a weapon designed from the outset around large-scale production. Lockheed Martin’s announcement does not disclose a target unit cost for FLEX, nor does it explain how the eventual cost of a FLEX-derived weapon would compare with a baseline JASSM or LRASM. The unit price of the latest subvariants of the JASSM-ER is around $1.2 and $1.5 million, according to official budget documents.

The new weapon is a way of getting more variants and launch options out of the established JASSM/LRASM architecture, potentially with less development work than creating entirely new weapons. Whether that translates into enough savings or production capacity to satisfy the military’s growing demand for large numbers of standoff weapons remains to be seen.

For Lockheed Martin, the proposal also offers a way to extend the relevance of the AGM-158 family as the company and the Pentagon pursue additional range, new launch platforms, and potentially new launch methods.

The flexibility of the missile could be particularly relevant to the Agile Combat Employment concept, and the wider U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific, where forces are expected to operate from a larger number of dispersed and potentially austere locations. A common missile architecture that can be adapted to different launch platforms and different target sets could allow weapons to be positioned and employed across a distributed force rather than tying particular missile variants to particular launchers.

The original JASSM/LRASM has also become a significant export weapon, with Australia, Finland, Poland and several other U.S. allies cleared to acquire variants of the missile. While the advanced capabilities of the weapon have seen its export opportunities carefully controlled, FLEX could potentially open up the market to more customers, including less-advanced, ‘sanitized’ versions.

Lockheed Martin’s announcement provides few details on FLEX’s eventual cost, production rate, schedule, or specific performance beyond the stated airframe dimensions. For now, the concept demonstrates that the company is seeking to create a more adaptable architecture around an established missile family, one that has played a critical role in numerous operations since its introduction.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Frankie Muniz had a vulnerable moment on social media Friday, revealing he’s hit rock bottom following the announcement of his split from wife Paige Price.

The “Malcolm in the Middle” star announced he and Price were calling it quits after seven years of marriage in July, and now the actor is revealing he’s experienced some painful introspection in recent weeks.

“The last 6 weeks of my life have been a nightmare I’m praying to wake up from,” he wrote on Instagram. “Everything felt heavy, unclear, and like it was falling apart at the same time. I wouldn’t wish this season on anyone.”

He continued that despite the painful experience, “the unexpected gift in the middle of it is that I’ve had nowhere to hide.”

The actor-turned-race car driver said he’s spent the last several weeks reflecting and can now see the areas of his life where he thinks he can improve.

“I want to become a better version of me. Not the polished version I show the world … the actual one,” he wrote.

“I read that sometimes hitting rock bottom is the thing that wakes you up. It forces the changes you needed to make all along so you can live the best life possible. That idea has been sitting with me. In five years I believe I’ll look back at this exact low point and feel grateful for it, because the high I’ll be standing on then only exists because I went through this.”

He told his followers that this period isn’t the end of the story, but the catalyst for change.

“It’s the part where I start doing the work … the uncomfortable, unglamorous, necessary work. I’m choosing to treat this season as the foundation, not the finish line.”

Shortly after Muniz’s post, Price posted an Instagram story with a message that some followers speculated may be a response to the actor’s admission.

“Life is all about perspective. If you ask the grass, the zebra is the monster and the lion is the protector,” Price wrote.

Muniz is best known for his titular starring role in the beloved Fox sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” which ran for seven seasons in the early aughts. In April, the series returned for a four-episode reunion arc on Hulu starring returning fan favorites Bryan Cranston as Hal, Jane Kaczmarek as Lois and a couple of Malcolm’s TV siblings.

In 2006, when “Malcolm in the Middle” wrapped, Muniz transitioned away from acting and pursued race car driving.

Tens of thousands of people walk in and out of Dodger Stadium on any given night, paying scant attention to the trees, plants, and other foliage surrounding it on all sides. Chaz Perea made his peace with that a long time ago.

“Getting to Dodger Stadium is not a small thing,” said Perea, 41, the stadium’s landscape manager. “You’ve got to park in this monster,” he said, motioning to the acres of asphalt around him, “and then go find your seat in that monster.”

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1. The agave garden sits outside Lot B at Dodger Stadium on Friday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 2. Dodgers fans walk past vibrant plants behind photos of former Dodgerss outside center field at Dodger Stadium on Friday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 3. A group visits agave island during a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic garden on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

For the past 17 years, Perea and his four-person crew have been responsible for every bit of stadium landscaping that isn’t the field itself. That’s roughly 300 acres, encompassing the parking lots, the hillsides meeting the 110 Freeway, and 149 concrete planters nicknamed “martinis” for their glass-like shape. The planters are original to the stadium’s 1962 construction, and many had crumbled badly enough over the decades to need painstaking repair.

The landscaping isn’t just about plants and planters. Behind a fence beyond the iconic orange 76 ball in the parking lot once sat a hidden garden. Its centerpiece was an eight-foot-tall stone lantern given to then-Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley by Japanese sports columnist Sotaro Suzuki and his wife, Toku, who had attended the stadium’s grand opening in 1962. Suzuki commissioned the 3,921-pound Kasuga-style lantern, which arrived in five pieces in late 1965 and became the centerpiece of a garden that also featured a small wooden bridge and a collection of rocks.

“For years, it was maintained by our gardener with great pride,” said former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, Walter’s son. “But it was remote, and fans couldn’t really get up there easily to see it or sit in the garden. And it got neglected for a few years. Some years later, I forget how many, we had to fence in the whole property.”

In 2024, shortly after the Dodgers signed two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani, the club moved the lantern to a place of prominence outside the top-deck gates, overlooking the downtown skyline. The move was an elaborate, delicate production. Bundled and boarded up, the lantern inched across the parking lot on the back of a flatbed truck that climbed a ring road steep enough to cause concern.

“It was like they were moving the Ark of the Covenant,” Perea said.

No one exhaled until the cargo was unloaded, unswaddled, and confirmed to be in one piece.

An 8-foot-tall stone Kasuga-style lantern is displayed at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Perea’s crew works out of a large metal shed at the far end of a parking lot, a shop they affectionately call “the Oasis.” Much of what’s inside was retrieved from a dumpster, or scavenged before it landed in one. Perea, who describes himself as a bargain shopper, is passionate about repurposing whatever he can; many of the succulents at the stadium came from his own clippings.

“My general philosophy is I don’t treat the Dodgers like I’m salaried management,” he said. “I treat them like I’m a contractor that they don’t want to get rid of. So I manage the expenses and the labor as such.”

He doesn’t have much interaction with players and executives, though he’s occasionally been called to their homes to help with landscaping problems. One visit stands out.

“Vin Scully is the coolest one I’d stake a claim to,” he said of the legendary play-by-play man. “He was an unbelievable class act. He had a tree issue. He had us out, and was so attentive and appreciative, it was just stunning to me.”

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1. Landscape manager Chaz Perea gives a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic garden. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 2. A ceramic dog and monkey sit on a golf cart inside the Dodger Stadium landscape team’s shed on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 3. A photo of Jim Lefebvre, Dodger player from 1965-1972, is surrounded by plants at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 4. Adolfo Hinojosa checks on the planters near center field at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

On the hillside above the shop is an open-air lunch area, its seating made from wooden bleachers salvaged from the old right-field pavilion. Peek through the bushes and the stadium is visible in the distance. Inside the shop, the walls are lined with neatly organized shovels, pickaxes, and ladders. Above them hang paintings, art being another of Perea’s passions, most of them made by his friends.

Perea freely admits he’s an odd fit for the job. He’s not a baseball fan; he prefers beach volleyball and mixed martial arts. He had a rough upbringing in Arizona, dropped out of high school, and got by on $6.75 an hour doing golf-course maintenance, supplementing it with landscaping gigs he ran out of his pickup truck before eventually returning to school.

He came back to the classroom with a purpose, not only finishing high school but going on to earn multiple advanced degrees and, ultimately, a Ph.D. He’s now a professor of horticultural science and co-chair of agricultural science at Mt. San Antonio College.

But it’s his day job that draws clusters of Dodger fans willing to pay $52.25 each for his 90-minute botanic garden tour of the grounds. They explore “Agave Island” near the main entrance, a wedge of land planted with nine palm trees to match the number of players on a baseball field, and the planters outside the club-level entrance, where the crew grows chilies (jalapeños, serranos, habaneros), along with basil, mint, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. That garden spawned an annual salsa competition, in which club employees harvest their own ingredients from the planters, make salsa at home, and bring it back to be judged. Perea and his crew make handmade tortillas and quesadillas for the event.

Landscape manager Chaz Perea gives a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic gardens on Tuesday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Two more planted islands are devoted entirely to tequila agave. It takes nearly a decade for the plant to mature, and about 110 pounds of its core to yield a single liter of tequila through processing. Perea and his crew hope to eventually try making some themselves, as an in-house project rather than a commercial one.

The landscape looked very different before Perea arrived. He describes the old look as Disneyland-esque: heavy on lawns and flowers, constantly in need of replacement, and thirsty for water. About two years into the job, he began swapping annual flower beds for drought-tolerant succulents. When one executive noticed and ordered the flowers put back in a particular spot, Perea complied there, then made the same swap a little farther down the hillside, out of view.

Turnover among executives and ownership gave him repeated openings to make wholesale changes, a shift that coincided with California’s drought crisis. Within a few years, he had planted 10,000 cuttings and stripped every flower bed from the property.

“A lot of people look at this as the last unpainted canvas in Los Angeles,” Perea said.

Chaz of Chavez Ravine, perpetually painting the corners.

Tehran says it has learned the US may be planning a new round of strikes, warns of retaliation ‘without limitations’.