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Prior to talks with Trump, Sheikh Mohammed met US Secretary of State Rubio, who is heading to Israel to pledge continued support.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is meeting United States President Donald Trump in New York in the wake of Israel’s deadly strike on Doha this week.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the country’s foreign minister, has been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity in the US since Israel’s attack on a Hamas meeting in Doha on Tuesday, which killed a Qatari security official and five Hamas members who were discussing a new deal proposed by Trump to end the Gaza war.

Ahead of Friday’s dinner meeting with the US president, Sheikh Mohammed met US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, where they discussed Israel’s strikes and the US-Qatar security arrangement, according to Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett.

Washington counts Qatar, which hosts its Al Udeid airbase in the desert outside Doha, as a strong Gulf ally.

Trump has already said he was “very unhappy” about Israel’s targeting of Qatar, which appeared designed to derail ongoing Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks.

“The concern is that the relationship between Qatar and the United States has become increasingly complicated as a result of those strikes, so they’re looking for a path forward on both of those issues,” said Al Jazeera’s Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC.

Halkett said Friday’s scheduled meeting with Trump would “continue the conversations regarding Israel’s attack on Doha earlier this week and the negotiations to end Israel’s war on Gaza”.

The location and time of the dinner remain unclear, but Trump is currently in New York and is staying at his eponymous Manhattan tower.

Balancing act

This week has also seen the Trump administration engaged in a balancing act between Middle East allies and Israel.

The issue was brought to the fore on Thursday, when the US – which traditionally shields Israel on the international stage – joined fellow members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the country for its attack on Qatar.

But in what appears to be a show of continued support for Israel, Rubio will arrive in Israel this weekend for a two-day visit before attending an upcoming UN summit on September 22, where a number of Western countries plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

That meeting signals growing international momentum towards a viable post-conflict settlement for Israel and Palestine, which was manifest at Friday’s meeting of the UN General Assembly, which endorsed a resolution pushing for a revival of the two-state solution.

France and Saudi Arabia have been instrumental in pushing for “collective action to end the war in Gaza, to achieve a just, peaceful and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, which has so far killed at least 64,756 people.

During his visit to Israel, Rubio will speak to leaders about “our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions, including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism”, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

“He will also emphasise our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home,” Pigott added.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – When cricketers from India and Pakistan step onto the field for their Asia Cup 2025 match on Sunday, a lot more than two points will be on the line, according to cricket fans and experts.

The match at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium will be played under the cloud of lingering hostility after their intense four-day conflict in May.

While an all-out war between the two cross-border nations was prevented after an internationally brokered ceasefire, a sense of bitterness remains.

“People in India have been very angry about the match ever since this fixture was confirmed,” Kudip Lal, an Indian cricket writer, told Al Jazeera.

“They feel that it’s not right to play this match while the overall relationship between both countries is so strained,” he explained.

“It’s the worst time for an India-Pakistan match.”

‘Why play cricket in the aftermath of war?’

Lal said that fans in India see the fixture as a money-making avenue for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), whom they blame for trying to cash in on the profit generated by these high-profile clashes.

Lal believes the BCCI, widely regarded as the most wealthy and powerful cricket board in the world, could have “easily skipped” the match.

“If the Indian government has stopped issuing visas to Pakistanis, if the diplomatic ties are suspended and Pakistanis visiting India have been sent back, then why have the cricketers been asked to play this match in the aftermath of a war?” Lal questioned.

He expressed fears of a backlash in case India lose the Group A fixture.

Whenever India and Pakistan play, emotions run high and a loss is not taken well by fans on either side of the border.

In the past decades, players’ homes have been torched, their family members have been threatened, and effigy-burning protests have been carried out on the streets.

The current political climate between India and Pakistan is worse than it has been in several decades.

Shared laughs and ‘bromance’ of the past

Despite the political deadlock between the nuclear-armed neighbours, the recent on-and-off-field exchanges between players have been fairly cheerful.

When India last played Pakistan in the Asia Cup in September 2023, the two key talking points were Virat Kohli’s utter dominance of Pakistani bowlers and the countless feel-good moments shared between both teams.

The match was played in the middle of the monsoon season in Sri Lanka, where fans cheered for both teams regardless of their allegiances and danced away their worries during the countless rain delays.

Pakistani fans were seen declaring their nation’s love for Kohli, and the festive atmosphere spilled over onto the pitch.

There were memorable player-to-player exchanges that were plucked right out of a social media manager’s dream.

Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi swapped his on-field aggression for off-field warmth as he handed India’s Jasprit Bumrah a gift hamper for his newborn son. Cue millions of retweets and shares on X and Instagram.

Social media was also flooded with reels highlighting the “bromance” between Kohli and Pakistan allrounder Shadab Khan.

This time, however, experts do not foresee similar public displays of goodwill and friendliness.

“The friendship and warmth seen in the past will not be on display because anything can be blown out of proportion by impassioned fans, and the smallest move can agitate the public,” Sami Ul Hasan, former head of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) media and communications department, said ahead of the match.

When Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets at the ICC T20 World Cup 2021, Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan were warmly embraced by Kohli, and all three shared a hearty laugh while walking off the pitch.

“We can’t expect similar scenes to unfold on Sunday,” Hasan said.

“The interpretation and optics of an overtly friendly encounter could go very wrong, and things could blow up on either side of the border.”

Mixing cricket with politics

Hasan, who has worked with cricketers and cricket officials, said the players will attempt to bat away political questions by saying they are not meant to deal with political matters.

“Sports and politics can never be separated, but athletes aren’t politicians, so they can’t be expected to act like diplomats.”

Despite the heated atmosphere and tense build-up to the fixture, some fans believe the match can still be seen as just another India-Pakistan match.

“Politics shouldn’t be mixed with cricket, which has always helped ease the tensions, so why should it be used as an avenue to propagate politics?” Asad Khan, a Pakistani fan, said.

“When you bring political agendas into cricket, it ruins the game and causes unnecessary stress for the players.”

Khan urged fans to put aside the politically and religiously motivated chants at cricket stadiums and instead enjoy a now-rare India-Pakistan match.

Given the years-long halt in bilateral cricket series between India and Pakistan, their fixtures are limited to multination tournaments.

Cricket fans are hopeful that both teams will not give in to the politically-charged atmosphere and help lighten the mood.

“The players should do their jobs as cricketers and the fans should treat it as just another game,” Ali, a Pakistan fan, said, told Al Jazeera in Dubai.

“Why must the cricketers worry about what happened on the border four months ago,” Ali

But cricket expert Lal believes otherwise.

“When the two teams enter the field on Sunday, they can’t be expected to be completely detached from the conflict. It will play on their minds.”

A hot and humid September evening in Dubai cannot be blamed solely for turning the “Ring of Fire” stadium into a cauldron.

Come Sunday, the latest chapter in a decades-long bitter rivalry will have the players and fans on the edge.

Sept. 12 (UPI) — More than 3,000 Boeing Co. machinists in St. Louis remain on strike after rejecting the latest contract offer from the aerospace company that seeks to end the strike that began on Aug. 4.

The defense contractor’s machinists rejected Boeing’s third contract offer on Friday and instead will continue the first walkout in nearly 30 years at the Missouri facility, CNBC reported.

“Boeing’s modified offer did not include a sufficient signing bonus relative to what other Boeing workers have received, or a raise in 401(k) benefits,” officials for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said in a statement, as reported by CNBC.

“The democratic vote underscores the determination of approximately 3,200 IAM Union members to continue their stand together until their voices are heard,” union officials said.

Friday’s vote nixed a proposed five-year contract that would have raised wages by 45% and paid each worker a $4,000 signing bonus, St. Louis Public Radio reported.

If approved, the St. Louis Boeing machinists would have had their average annual pay rise from $75,000 to $109,000, according to CNBC.

The contract offer would not have changed available vacation time or other benefits offered in two prior contract proposals.

The union said 57% of workers voted to reject the contract offer, which improved upon a prior offer that would have raised their wages by 20% and paid a $5,000 signing bonus.

Boeing Air Dominance Vice President Dan Gillian told CNBC that no additional contract talks are scheduled.

“We’ve made it clear the overall economic framework of our offer will not be changed,” Gillian said. “We have consistently adjusted the offer based on employer and union feedback to better address their concerns.”

Boeing is hiring workers to replace those who are on strike to help the firm meet rising demand for its products, which Gillian called its “contingency plan.”

The Boeing facility produces F-15 fighter jets and missile systems.

Boeing workers in Illinois also walked out on Aug. 4 after rejecting the company’s initial contract offer.

‘Mass surveillance’ tech has enabled world’s most restrictive state to exert ‘control in all parts of life’, UN Human Rights Office says.

North Korea has further tightened its grip on its population over the past decade, executing people for activities like sharing foreign TV dramas, according to a major United Nations report.

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday that tech-enabled state repression under the Kim dynasty, which has governed with absolute power for seven decades, had grown over a decade of “suffering, repression, and increased fear”.

“No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world,” concluded the agency’s report, which is based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had fled the country and reported the further erosion of freedoms.

“To block the people’s eyes and ears, they strengthened the crackdowns. It was a form of control aimed at eliminating even the smallest signs of dissatisfaction or complaint,” recounted one escapee, cited in the report.

James Heenan, head of the UN Human Rights Office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for both normal and political crimes had increased since COVID-era restrictions.

An unspecified number of people had already been executed under new laws imposing the death penalty for distributing foreign TV series, including the popular K-Dramas from South Korea, he added.

The clampdown has been aided by the expansion of “mass surveillance” systems through technological advances, which have subjected citizens to “control in all parts of life” over the past 10 years, the report said.

Heenan also reported that children were being made to work in forced labour, including so-called “shock brigades” for tough sectors such as coal mining and construction.

“They’re often children from the lower level of society, because they’re the ones who can’t bribe their way out of it, and these shock brigades are engaged in often very hazardous and dangerous work,” he said.

Last year, the UN indicated that the forced labour could, in some cases, amount to slavery, making it a crime against humanity.

The sweeping review comes more than a decade after a landmark UN report documented executions, rapes, torture, deliberate starvation, and the detention of between 80,000 and 120,000 people in prison camps.

The new report covered developments since 2014, noting the government’s adoption of new laws, policies and procedures providing a legal framework for repression.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement: “If the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] continues on its current trajectory, the population will be subjected to more suffering, brutal repression and fear.”

North Korea’s Geneva diplomatic mission and its London embassy have not yet commented on the report.

The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a resolution reviving a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. It also calls for Hamas to end its rule in Gaza. Israel and the United States were among the 10 members who voted against it.

Sept. 12 (UPI) — A man in Chicago was shot and killed by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent after the man allegedly hit an agent with his car.

Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was stopped by ICE, according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security. He was an undocumented immigrant and had a history of reckless driving, the release said.

Villegas-Gonzalez allegedly resisted arrest and hit an agent with his car, dragging him down the street.

The agent, “fearing for his own life,” shot Villegas-Gonzalez, DHS said.

Villegas-Gonzalez and the unnamed agent were taken to the hospital, and Villegas-Gonzalez was pronounced dead. The officer is stable but has suffered severe injuries, DHS said.

The incident happened in Franklin Park, about 15 miles west of downtown.

“We are praying for the speedy recovery of our law enforcement officer. He followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement,” Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in a press release. “Viral social media videos and activists encouraging illegal aliens to resist law enforcement not only spread misinformation, but also undermine public safety, as well as the safety of our officers and those being apprehended.”

Sceptics wonder whether ‘Diella’, depicted as a woman in traditional folk costume, will herself be ‘corrupted’.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has put an artificial intelligence-generated “minister” in charge of tackling corruption in his new cabinet.

Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, was appointed on Thursday, with the leader introducing her as a “member of the cabinet who is not present physically” who will ensure that “public tenders will be 100 percent free of corruption”.

The awarding of tenders has long been a source of corruption in the Balkan country of 2.8 million people, which aspires to join the European Union.

Corruption is a key factor in Albania’s bid to join the bloc.

Rama’s Socialist Party, which recently secured a fourth term in office, has said it can deliver EU membership for Albania in five years, with negotiations concluding by 2027.

Lawmakers will soon vote on Rama’s new cabinet, but it was unclear whether he would ask for a vote on Diella’s virtual post.

Legal experts say more work may be needed to establish the official status of Diella, who is depicted on screen as a woman in a traditional Albanian folk costume.

Gazmend Bardhi, parliamentary group leader of the Democrats, said he considered Diella’s ministerial status unconstitutional.

“[The] Prime Minister’s buffoonery cannot be turned into legal acts of the Albanian state,” Bardhi posted on Facebook.

The prime minister did not provide details of what human oversight there might be for Diella, or address risks that someone could manipulate the artificial intelligence bot.

Launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the e-Albania public service platform, Diella helped users navigate the site and get access to about one million digital documents.

So far, she has helped issue 36,600 digital documents and provided nearly 1,000 services through the platform, according to official figures.

Not everyone is convinced.

One Facebook user said, “Even Diella will be corrupted in Albania.”

Another said, “Stealing will continue and Diella will be blamed.”

Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday. His suspected killer, identified by law enforcement as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody after a substantial manhunt, based on information from people close to Robinson’s family. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said a family member of Robinson had reached out to a friend, who then contacted the authorities, and that friends and relatives interviewed by investigators described Robinson as “full of hate” when speaking about Kirk at a recent gathering. Robinson’s exact motivations for allegedly carrying out the shooting are still being explored.

If past instances of political attacks are any guide, more detailed information about Robinson’s potential motivations may be revealed over time. But we don’t need to read a manifesto or scroll through social media posts to know that any attempt to justify killing Kirk over his words or views is indefensible.

I mostly avoided Kirk’s rhetoric over the years. I found most of the content I heard from him distasteful, both to me and to many other Americans, and offensive to objective facts and discourse. Kirk often cherry-picked and distorted history to push agendas that many of us believe are not only abhorrent but also dangerous to racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and other marginalised people.

But I did not want Kirk to be harmed. When I learned that he had been shot, I did not want him to die. On the contrary, I prayed that God’s will be done in the situation – the same God whom Kirk and I both claimed, whatever our political disagreements may have been. I hoped that he would recover, and that his brush with death might help him gain a new, more constructive perspective on politics and life.

Last summer, I had similar hopes (though perhaps not expectations) that Donald Trump would be changed for the better after he survived an assassination attempt while speaking at a campaign event. “Trump has the opportunity to put the peace and security of the country ahead of his personal ambition,” I wrote at the time. “Perhaps coming so close to death will change his perspective on stirring up his supporters.”

That did not happen. Instead, Trump quickly returned to the same sort of demonising rhetoric and selective outrage that has heightened and polarised American politics. He pardoned the January 6 rioters who attacked Capitol police officers, as well as the Proud Boys members who had been convicted of conspiring against the United States government. And even with Kirk dying from a shooting similar to the one that almost took Trump’s life last year, the president and many of his supporters have mainly doubled down on the type of vitriol that has become all too common in American politics.

This is not to say that the MAGA movement or the right has been alone in condoning political violence or dehumanising others. When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed late last year, his alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, became somewhat of a folk hero. While this killing does not appear to be explicitly partisan, many of the comments that mocked Thompson or celebrated Mangione took on the tone of class warfare. And when unsubstantiated rumours about Trump’s health started to circulate recently, many of his detractors seemed to celebrate the possibility that Trump could be incapacitated or worse, and expressed disappointment when he re-emerged in the public eye.

But toxic online rhetoric is one thing, and nearly any popular topic will elicit offensive or hateful commentary on social media. With the MAGA movement led by Trump, the hateful language of its most trollish followers is often indistinguishable from the rhetoric coming from the movement’s loudest and most prominent voices. After breaking the news of Kirk’s death on social media, President Trump posted a four-minute video honouring Kirk and demonising the political left.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonising those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”

Now seems like an appropriate time to remind you that, less than a year ago, Trump appeared on Fox News and referred to leftists as “the enemy from within” and “Marxists and communists and fascists,” specifically naming Adam Schiff and “the Pelosis” and calling them “so sick and so evil.”

“From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical Left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

Noticeably absent from the president’s list were several violent, sometimes lethal, attacks against Democrats or carried out by self-declared MAGA followers. It is a calculated choice to condemn the shooting of a prominent Republican in 2017 but not the murders of two Democrats and the shooting of two others in Minnesota three months ago, or the torching of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while Democrat Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside. Condemning “attacks on ICE agents” after pardoning dozens of people who attacked Capitol police officers is a cynical double standard.

Through the discourse surrounding Kirk’s death, I’ve become familiar with the term “selective empathy,” a succinct phrase that covers a concept with which many of us are familiar. At their worst, President Trump and even Kirk engaged in this type of moral relativism, condoning actions against their opponents that they would condemn if done to their allies. And those of us who reject the MAGA ideology are at our worst when we tolerate, excuse, or even celebrate, violence against those who oppose us or who hold us in disdain.

At his best, Charlie Kirk manifested his core religious and political beliefs by appealing to the universal values of love and human dignity rooted in Christianity and the principle of equality on which the United States was founded. While he often failed to conform his rhetoric to these larger principles, Kirk and others in his ideological camp are still deserving of the empathy embedded in those principles. To deny them such consideration based on their views would be to undermine our own opposition to their divisive and even dangerous rhetoric. For all our sakes, we can and must do better.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Sept. 12 (UPI) — Philanthropist Josh Kraft has ended his campaign for mayor of Boston after being soundly defeated in a preliminary election against incumbent Michelle Wu.

“After careful consideration, I have decided to suspend my candidacy for mayor of Boston,” he wrote in a letter Thursday evening. “This campaign has never been about speeches or social media posts, talking points or talking heads. It has never been about Josh Kraft or Michelle Wu.”

“This campaign has always been about the future of Boston,” he continued.

Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, was stymied at the polls as fellow Democrat Wu scored 66,398 votes in the election results held Tuesday, to Kraft’s 21,324, according to Ballotpedia.

The other two candidates in the primary, Domingos DaRosa and Robert Cappucci, received 2,409 and 2,074, respectively.

“I respect Josh’s decision and thank him for caring about our city deeply enough to want to make it better,” Wu responded in a statement. “We are going to continue over the next two months and beyond to keep engaging our community members about the critical work in front of us and how we keep making Boston a safe, welcoming home for everyone.”

Kraft entered the race in February and has never held public office. He has most notably managed the philanthropic efforts of his family.

He stated that he will use his remaining campaign resources to partner with charitable organizations to work toward helping the humanitarian crisis at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, known locally as “Mass and Cass,” as well as toward the revitalization of the Operation Exit program that provides employment opportunities for previously incarcerated people.

Kraft closed his announcement by thanking his family and supporters.

“You reminded me every day why this city is worth fighting for,” he concluded. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

The new initiative, known as Eastern Sentry, follows incursion of Russian drones in Polish airspace on Wednesday.

NATO has announced a new initiative to bolster the security of its eastern European members in the wake of Russia’s violation of Polish airspace.

“NATO is launching Eastern Sentry to bolster our posture even further along our eastern flank,” Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Friday in Brussels during a joint news conference with NATO’s top commander in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich.

“This military activity will commence in the coming days and will involve a range of assets from allies, including Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Germany,” Rutte added.

The announcement comes two days after multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland on Wednesday, prompting NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down and underlining long-held concerns about Russia’s three-year war in neighbouring Ukraine expanding.

NATO is still assessing whether Russia intentionally violated Poland’s airspace or not, Rutte said, but repeated that, either way, “it is reckless. It is unacceptable.”

“Although the immediacy of our focus is on Poland, this situation transcends the borders of one nation. What affects one ally affects us all,” Grynkewich said.

“Eastern Sentry will be flexible and agile, delivering even more focused deterrence and defence exactly when and where needed,” he added.

Russia said its forces had been attacking Ukraine at the time of the drone incursions and had not intended to hit any targets in Poland.

More allies to join

The new NATO mission, which begins on Friday evening, will involve a range of assets integrating air and ground bases.

Allies, including Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, have so far committed to the mission with others set to join, Rutte said.

Earlier on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would deploy three Rafale fighters to Poland.

“The security of the European continent is our top priority. We will not yield to Russia’s growing intimidation,” Macron posted on X.

The United Nations Security Council was set to meet on Friday at Poland’s request to discuss the incident.

Poland’s Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz thanked NATO for its “decisive action and decisions in response to Russia’s aggressive policy”.

The new deployment was “not only a strategic decision” but “an expression of responsibility for the security of the entire eastern flank of the alliance,” he added.

Who: Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka
What: Asia Cup T20 Group B match
Where: Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi, UAE
When: Saturday, September 13 at 6:30pm (14:30 GMT)

How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 3:30pm (11:30 GMT) in advance of our live text commentary stream.

The first crunch game of the 2025 Asia Cup comes in Group B with six-time winners Sri Lanka taking on a Bangladesh side that will very much fancy their chances in a game that is likely to go a long way to deciding the fate of the tough group.

With Afghanistan already up and running in the four-team group with their win against Hong Kong, who Bangladesh also beat in their group opener, Sri Lanka will be feeling the pressure to get on the board in their first outing.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at a battle between two sides hoping to lift the trophy following the September 28 final.

What is Bangladesh’s T20 form coming into the game?

A 33-ball half-century from captain Litton Das handed Bangladesh an opening win in the Asia Cup on Thursday.

Bangladesh cruised to 144-3 for a seven-wicket victory after Hong Kong, which lost to Afghanistan in its opening game, made 143-7 after being put in.

Litton made a watchful start after Parvez Hossain Emon (19) was deceived by Ayush Shukla’s slower ball and was caught at deep mid-wicket in the third over.

Hong Kong struck once more inside the powerplay when Nizakat Khan ran back from mid-off and held onto a catch over his shoulders to dismiss Tanzid Hasan, who struggled to score 14 off 18 balls with only one boundary.

But Litton and Towhid Hridoy (35 not out) ensured Hong Kong did not get a sniff to repeat its historic win against Bangladesh at the T20 World Cup in 2014.

“Very important to win the first game,” Litton said. “Last couple of series, we have played good cricket, but in the Asia Cup, a little bit of pressure comes automatically.”

Bangladesh had beaten both Pakistan and Sri Lanka 2-1 in their last two bilateral series.

What is Sri Lanka’s T20 form like?

An unbeaten 73 from Kamil Mishara led Sri Lanka to an eight-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in Harare last Sunday to seal a 2-1 win in their Twenty20 series to warm up for the Asia Cup.

Put in to bat after losing the toss, Zimbabwe made 191-8, but Sri Lanka cruised to the target with 14 balls to spare.

Mishara and Kusal Perera put on 117 runs in an unbeaten third-wicket stand as Sri Lanka completed a white-ball double, having won the preceding one-day international series against Zimbabwe 2-0.

Having scored just 35 runs in four previous T20I innings, 24-year-old Mishara made his mark with a match-winning knock, hitting three sixes and six fours from the 43 balls he faced.

“It is a privilege to win a game for my country, I just feel very good,” said Mishara.

“There was pressure, of course, but the coaching staff just told me to play my normal game. I just wanted to get into my rhythm and then played my normal game.”

On top of the 2-1 series defeat by Bangladesh, Sri Lanka lost their previous T20 series 2-1 to their hosts, New Zealand, in December and January.

What happened the last time Bangladesh played Sri Lanka?

Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets to seal their three-game T20 bilateral series earlier this year.

Having won the toss in Colombo, Sri Lanka were restricted to 132-7 with opener Pathum Nissanka top scoring with 46 off 39 balls for the hosts.

Only two other batters made it to 20, however, with Dasun Shanaka coming in at seven and hitting 35 off 25 to top up the modest total.

Shak Mahedi Hasan claimed 4-11 off his four overs for Bangladesh before Tanzid Hasan’s unbeaten 73 off 47 made short work of the chase.

What is Bangladesh’s Asia Cup record?

Bangladesh have yet to win the Asia Cup, but with each tournament that passes, the experience grows, and with it the expectation that they will soon hold aloft the trophy.

They have been runners-up on three occasions, the last being the 2018 final, when they were defeated by India by three wickets.

It was Bangladesh’s third appearance in four finals, with India also claiming victory in the 2016 final and Pakistan beating them in 2012.

What is Sri Lanka’s Asia Cup record?

Sri Lanka has claimed six Asia Cup titles already. The islanders last lifted the trophy in 2022, beating Pakistan on home soil by 23 runs in the final.

Their first victory came in the second edition, in 1986, when they also beat Pakistan.

Between 1997 and 2008, Sri Lanka won three out of four editions, and were the defeated finalists when Pakistan claimed the title in 2000.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka team news

After their opening win, Bangladesh look set to be unchanged for the crunch second match in the group.

Janith Liyanage, meantime, was a late addition to the Sri Lanka squad for the Asia Cup. The seam bowling all-rounder’s addition to the squad means the Sri Lankans have a 17-strong group for the tournament.

Sri Lanka chopped and changed their way through the bilateral series against Zimbabwe, with Nuwanidu Fernando replaced for the final match by Kusal Perera.

Kamil Mishara was not selected for the first match of the three-game series, with the former two both playing, but played both the second and third games of the series.

Maheesh Theekshana also dropped out of the side from the second match to be replaced by Matheesha Pathirana.

Nuwan Thushara, like Theekshana, played the first match of the series, only to be replaced by Binura Fernando for the final two games.

Predicted Bangladesh lineup

Litton Das (c & w), Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Parvez Hossain Emon, Tawhid Hridoy, Jaker Ali, Shamim Hossain, Shak Mahedi Hasan, Rishad Hossain, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed

Predicted Sri Lanka lineup

Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis (w), Kamil Mishara, Nuwanidu Fernando, Charith Asalanka (c), Kamindu Mendis, Dasun Shanaka, Dushan Hemantha, Dushmantha Chameera, Maheesh Theekshana, Binura Fernando

Israel has attacked a school in the Al Shati refugee camp that was a makeshift shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City.

Sept. 12 (UPI) — Apple is postponing the release of the latest version of its iPhone in China over regulatory issues related to the company’s eSIM, a digital version of a traditional SIM card used in wireless phones.

China’s three large telecom companies have yet to obtain the necessary approval from the country’s government to sell devices using the eSIM technology.

Apple China’s website has a message that says “release information will be updated later,” for the new iPhone Air.

The California-based tech giant announced this week it would start selling the ultra-thin iPhone Air, as well as the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models, on Sept. 19.

Global pre-orders for the devices began Friday.

The iPhone 17 uses the traditional, physical SIM card that can be removed from the device.

The iPhone Air does not contain the chip, with the eSIM built into the phone.

“It’s eSIM only, and so we were able to take the battery and extend the battery to areas that previously had the physical cell,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said Friday during an interview with CNBC.

The iPhone Air is the company’s thinnest so far, coming in at 0.22 inches.

The base model of the phones is expected to retail for $799.

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Israeli forces have rounded up and arrested Palestinians en masse in the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem. The operation is being described as “collective punishment” after several Israeli soldiers were injured in an attack.

Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has released new pictures from testing of a prototype electromagnetic railgun aboard the testbed warship JS Asuka earlier this year. ATLA also asserts that it is the first time anyone has successfully fired a ship-mounted railgun at an actual target vessel. Japan continues to push ahead with railgun development, a technology the U.S. Navy notably halted work on in the early 2020s, despite showing promise, due to significant technological hurdles.

JS Asuka, a one-of-its-kind dedicated experimental vessel with a 6,200-ton-displacement belonging to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), was first spotted with the railgun in a turret installed on its stern flight deck in April, as TWZ reported on at the time. Additional views of the ship in this configuration emerged afterward.

“ATLA conducted the Ship-board Railgun Shooting Test from June to early July this year with the support of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force,” according to a post yesterday on the agency’s official Instagram page. “It’s the first time that a ship-mounted railgun was successfully fired at a real ship.”

One of the pictures accompanying ATLA’s Instagram post, seen at the top of this story, which was also shared on the agency’s other social media accounts, shows the railgun being fired. What looks to be a radar array and an electro-optical and/or infrared camera system are also seen in the image on a separate turret.

Another, seen below, shows a tug-like ship in the crosshairs of a targeting system. Additional pictures of the tug have now also emerged clearly showing target boards on the port and starboard sides of its funnel, as well as one facing the stern.

So far, ATLA has not released any imagery of target vessels actually being struck by projectiles fired from the railgun mounted on Asuka. The agency says more details will be provided at its upcoming Defense Technology Symposium in November.

Back in 2023, ATLA said it had conducted the first-ever successful firing of a railgun from any ship. The agency did not name the vessel used in those tests.

#ATLA has accomplished ship-board firing test of railgun first time in the world with the cooperation of the JMSDF. To protect vessels against air-threats and surface-threats by high-speed bullets, ATLA strongly promotes early deployment of railgun technology. pic.twitter.com/MG5NqqENcG

— Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (@atla_kouhou_en) October 17, 2023

ATLA has been working on railguns since the mid-2010s and has also conducted test firings at facilities on land. The agency and the JMSDF have a clear eye toward developing an operational weapon that could be integrated onto Japanese warships.

ATLA has previously shown renderings of potential railgun installations on the future 13DDX destroyer, as well as existing Maya class destroyers (also known as the 27DDG class). The Japanese Ministry of Defense has also publicly shown a model of a railgun in a much more streamlined turret compared to the one tested aboard Asuka.

The video from ATLA below, which the agency put out last year, also depicts ground-based truck-mounted railguns.

Speaking through an interpreter at a panel discussion at the DSEI Japan 2025 exposition earlier this year, Kazumi Ito, principal director of the equipment policy division at ATLA, said his country’s railgun efforts were “progressing,” but acknowledged “various challenges,” according to National Defense Magazine.

Railguns use electromagnets instead of chemical propellants to fire projectiles at very high velocities. Historically, they have had significant power generation and cooling requirements, which has, in turn, typically made them physically very bulky. As TWZ has previously noted, mounting the experimental railgun turret on Asuka‘s flight deck made good sense given the ample open space it offered. A more traditional installation on an operational warship would require finding sufficient space, especially below deck, for the various components, which could require extensive modifications that are costly and time-consuming.

The wear and tear that comes from sustained firing of projectiles at very high speeds presents additional challenges for railguns. Rapidly worn-out barrels can lead to degraded range and accuracy, and increase the risk of a catastrophic failure.

ATLA has reportedly been able to demonstrate the ability to fire rounds at a velocity of around 4,988 miles per hour (2,230 meters per second; Mach 6.5) while using five megajoules (MJ), or 5 million joules (J), of charge energy in previous tests. The agency has at least previously had a goal of achieving a muzzle velocity of at least 4,473 miles-per-hour (2,000 meters-per-second) and a barrel life of 120 rounds are among previous testing goals, according to Naval News. Separate reports have said that ATLA has been trying to reduce the weapon’s power demands, as well.

At the same time, the potential rewards from developing a practical railgun suitable for operational military use are great. In addition to applications against targets at sea and on land, the weapons have long held promise in the anti-air role. As TWZ has written in the past:

“In principle, a practical electromagnetic railgun would offer a highly capable and flexible weapon system that can rapidly engage a wide array of targets at sea, on land, and even in the air, and at considerable ranges. Japan has previously expressed interest in this capability explicitly to help protect against incoming hypersonic threats. Such a weapon would also offer benefits in terms of magazine depth and cost compared to traditional surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, given the small size and lower unit price of the individual rounds.”

“When it comes to warships, in particular, where physical space is at a premium and where options for reloading missiles at sea can be at best extremely limited, having a weapon system firing lower-cost munitions from a large magazine and that can engage a broad swath of target sets would be a clear boon.”

With its potential capabilities, Japan has not been alone in pursuing railguns, especially for naval applications. The U.S. Navy was notably active in this realm between 2005 and 2022, but, despite promising progress for a time, shelved that work in the end in the face of persistent technical issues. By that point, plans for an at-sea test had been repeatedly pushed back. The U.S. Army also experimented with ground-based railguns in the same general timeframe. The Army is now leveraging the ammunition technology from the Navy’s abortive railgun effort as part of a new program to develop a mobile 155mm howitzer for use as an anti-air weapon, as you can read more about here.

ATLA has reportedly met with U.S. Navy officials to discuss leveraging its past railgun work and raised the possibility of greater collaboration in the future.

Back in 2018, a turreted railgun also emerged on a ship belonging to China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The current status of that design or other Chinese railgun developments is unclear. China has at least been experimenting with this technology since the 1980s.

Work on railguns, including for potential naval use, in Turkey has received public attention in recent years, as well. Other countries globally are at least exploring future railgun capabilities. Last year, Japanese authorities signed a deal with their counterparts in France to cooperate on railgun developments.

ATLA is now set to share more details about progress on its railgun program, including test firing against actual target ships, in November, and more details could begin to emerge in the interim.

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Sept. 12 (UPI) — Russia said Friday that it shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones overnight, many of them targeting facilities of the multinational Russian oil company, Lukoil, southwest of Moscow, according to the defense ministry.

More than half of the 221 UAVs were brought down over the regions of Smolensk and Bryansk, where five civilians and two military personnel were injured after a bus was struck, while nine got through to the Moscow area before being destroyed.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said emergency services were attending a location hit by falling debris from downed drones but gave no details of where or the extent of the damage. Russian social media accounts reported blasts in Mozhaysk and Dedovsk in the western suburbs of the capital.

As many as 30 others were intercepted in the Leningrad region, temporarily closing St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport and setting ablaze a vessel at Russia’s largest oil terminal northwest of the city at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea.

Secret Service of Ukraine sources told The Kyiv Independent that the agency was responsible for the Leningrad strikes, which also successfully targeted three pumping stations serving the Ust-Luga oil terminal 80 miles southwest of St. Petersburg, as part of what was believed to be one of the largest attacks on the region since the start of the war in 2022.

Drones were also downed over Oryol, Kaluga, Novgorod, Belgorod, Tver, Pskov, Tula and Kursk — but without any further casualties, authorities said.

Ukraine stepped up its targeting of Russia’s energy infrastructure in August, hitting more than a dozen refineries and knocking out a fifth of Russia’s oil processing capacity during the month, according to the White House.

Russia has tried to downplay the disruption, with state-run media outlets claiming it was caused by “unscheduled repairs.”

Ukraine has modified its drone strategy from trying to attack Moscow and military facilities on Russian soil to higher-profile targets in an effort to make the Russian people more cognizant of the war.

At least 31 Ukrainian drones were downed early Tuesday as they closed in on the Black Sea resort of Sochi, hours after President Vladimir Putin was in the city for a virtual meeting with other world leaders belonging to the so-called BRICS grouping of economic powers.

The attack killed one person, damaged six homes and forced authorities to close the city’s international airport.