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Why does Yao Ming, the 7ft 6in ex-basketballer, attend China’s Two Sessions meetings?

Among the generally drab lineup of mostly middle-aged men in suits who make up the nearly 3,000 delegates to the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, a few stand out. There are delegates from China’s 55 official ethnic minority groups, who often arrive dressed in traditional outfits rather than western-style suits. There are military members, identifiable by their uniforms. And then there is Yao Ming, the 7ft and 6in tall retired basketball player who, towering over every other person in the Great Hall of the People, is hard to miss. Born in 1980, Yao is one of China’s most recognisable sport stars. Although he played for the Houston Rockets in the US for nearly a decade, his career after he retired from basketball in 2011 has been mostly focused on China. Between 2017 and 2024 he served as the president of the Chinese Basketball Association. And since 2023, he has been a member of China’s NPC, sitting as an independent delegate. He is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the advisory body that meets in parallel to the NPC in early March each year. At last year’s NPC, Yao submitted a suggestion for launching a digital detox programme for children: a campaign to get kids to quit their phones for 24 hours. “It’s somewhat similar to spring or autumn outings when we were kids. In the past, it was about getting children out of the classroom environment; now it’s about getting them away from the digital environment,” he said. Yao’s stature means that most furniture in China is too small for him. The NPC is no exception. In previous years he has been spotted sat on his own row at the NPC, hunched over a desk that doesn’t leave room for his knees to fit underneath. Additional research by Lillian Yang

US may not have capacity to take down full barrage of Iranian drones, officials warn

Top military officials told lawmakers in a closed door briefing on Tuesday that they may not be able to shoot down every Iranian drone being launched against US military installations and assets in retaliatory attacks, according to two people familiar with the matter. The officials, led by the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said Iran has been deploying thousands of one-way attack drones and while they have capacity to take down the vast majority but not all of the barrage. As a result, the officials said in a classified briefing for lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the US was focused on destroying the launch sites for the drones and conventional missiles as quickly as possible. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. In retaliation against US strikes, Iran has been launching its low-cost, one-way attack Shahed drones. By flying low and slow, the drones are seen to be better able to evade conventional air defenses than ballistic missiles. A senior administration official said Iran’s apparent drone strategy – to get the US to sacrifice its most sophisticated Patriot and Thaad interceptors – was misguided and unsuccessful because the US has been downing the drones with several different measures. Still, top Democrats in Congress have expressed concerns the US has been burning through interceptors to defend against ballistic missiles launched by Iran. Caine acknowledged that concern, a person familiar with the matter said, even as he expressed confidence in stockpile levels in public. “We have sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense,” Caine said at a news conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, although he offered no details or specifics. The high rate of fire has been expensive. In the first days of the war, the US spent about $2bn per day, although that figure has dropped to closer to $1bn and is expected to fall further as the conflict continues, according to a person familiar with a preliminary defense department analysis. A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the joint chiefs of staff declined to comment due to operations security. On Monday night, Trump wrote on social media that the US could sustain its rate of fire indefinitely, saying the stockpile of “medium and upper medium grade” munitions was “virtually unlimited”. Still, he conceded that weapons at the “highest end” were “not where we want them to be”. At a press briefing on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the US had more than enough weapons to wage an extended war with Iran and claimed Trump’s post had been criticizing the Biden administration’s decision to send weapons to Ukraine. “We have weapon stockpiles in places that many in this world don’t even know about,” Leavitt said. “The president was pointing out that, unfortunately, we had a very stupid and incompetent leader in this White House for four years who gave away many of our best weapons for nothing.”

Airstrikes hit Iran-Iraq border as US and Israeli plan to mobilise Kurds gathers pace

Intense waves of airstrikes have hit dozens of military positions, frontier posts and police stations along northern parts of Iran’s border with Iraq in what appears to be preparation by US and Israel for a new front in their war. A US official with knowledge of the discussions between Washington and Kurdish officials said the US was ready to provide air support if Kurdish peshmerga fighters crossed the border from northern Iraq. A spokesperson for Israel’s military said the air force had been “heavily operating in western Iran to degrade Iranian capabilities there and to open up a way to Tehran and create freedom of operations there”. Both Axios and Fox News, citing a US official, on Wednesday reported that the militias had begun their offensive inside Iran. There was no official confirmation or any immediate detail about how many fighters were involved or where they were operating from. Kurdish officials told the Associated Press that Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq were preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the US has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them. Khalil Nadiri, an official with the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, based in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region said on Wednesday that some of their forces had moved to areas near the Iranian border in Sulaymaniyah province and were on standby. He said Kurdish opposition group leaders had been contacted by US officials regarding a potential operation, without giving more details. Meanwhile, Baloch militant groups opposed to the Tehran regime have also moved from remote mountain bases in Pakistan across the border into Iran, according to local officials. Experts predicted that backing armed groups from Iran’s ethnic communities would “open up a hornet’s nest”, aggravating divisions within the diverse country and increasing the risk of a chaotic civil war if the current regime collapses. Donald Trump called two leaders of Iranian Kurdish factions based in northern Iraq earlier this week and is open to supporting groups that are willing to take up arms to dislodge the regime, US media have reported. Clandestine operations in north-western parts of Iran where Kurdish communities are most numerous were “ramped up” after the brief war between Iran and Israel last summer, according to former intelligence and defence officials in Israel, the US and elsewhere in the region. There were reports in January of clashes between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and groups of Kurdish peshmerga fighters who had entered Iran from Turkey and Iraq. Two weeks ago, five rival Iranian Kurdish organisations led by the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) formed a new coalition dedicated to overthrowing the regime in Tehran. “Getting your groups aligned and united is the first play in the playbook,” said one former US defence official with experience of clandestine operations. A spokesperson for the KDPI would not confirm or deny that its leader, Mustafa Hijri, was one of the two Iranian Kurdish leaders Trump called but said it was the duty of “free, democratic societies around the world to help [Iranian Kurds] win freedom”. “We think that the regime is in a deeply weak situation … and will soon see its end days,” the spokesperson said. Hijri called on Iranian military personnel on Wednesday to abandon their posts and “return to their families”. The KDPI said Hijri had issued the call “in light of ongoing US and Israeli strikes against the regime’s military and security installations, [which] pose a direct and serious threat to the lives of the soldiers, particularly in Kurdistan”. The US has repeatedly used Kurdish fighters as auxiliariesproviding vital assistance to US troops in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in the fight against Islamic State there and in Syria from 2014 to 2019. Alia Brahimi, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, cautioned against using local forces. “If the ground fighting is outsourced to ethnic separatist groups, that will leave the US with even less ability to shape developments on the ground than in the conflict 20 years ago. If other separatists join the fray, the Iranian public may then rally around the regime in Tehran,” she said. “We’re only five days into the conflict, and we’re already seeing the dangerous consequences of the Trump administration’s lack of a strategic plan and the total absence of clarity over both rationales and objectives.” Operatives from the Israeli foreign intelligence service were already active inside Iran, according to one former Mossad official, while two analysts said that a series of short-range drone attacks launched against IRGC units and posts along the border in recent days also bore the hallmarks of Israeli intelligence. The drone attacks and other recent airstrikes along the Iran-Iraq border suggest an effort to open “access points” that would allow lightly-armed Kurdish fighters to cross into Iran and establish strongholds on the other side, said a former US defence official with recent experience of clandestine operations in northern Iraq. Such an operation would follow a well-established US strategy of embedding small teams of military or CIA specialists who can direct airstrikes with locally recruited ground forces. Such strategies were employed in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Syria and Iraq against IS. “If you have enough air power, and it is well coordinated, then [the Kurds] would just be walking through smoking rubble, and any regime counterattacks would be broken up well before there needed to be any shooting,” the former official said. The aim would not be to “march on Tehran” but to distract and drain Iranian military units, however, because US intelligence officials do not believe the lightly armed peshmerga could take on regular Iranian forces and IRGC units. The US has had a clandestine presence in northern Iraq for many years, with communication hubs, surveillance posts and training programmes for Kurdish and other Iraqi fighters. Israel is also thought to have a presence there. Iran’s Kurds – who make up between 5% and 10% of the population – have long history of separatist activism and broader opposition to the radical clerical regime. Kurds also fought alongside US forces in Syria, building close personal connections within the US military and intelligence services. They include many fighters from the KDPI and the other faction Trump reportedly contacted, the Kurdistan Free Life party (PJAK). Reports that the US had provided weapons in recent months are likely to be unfounded, however, with light arms and ammunition already widely available locally, analysts said. Support for Kurdish armed groups is likely to provoke deep concern in Turkey, Iraq and Syria, which also have sizeable Kurdish minorities. “If the administration is seriously mucking about or contemplating mucking about with the Kurds in Iran, they’re opening up a hornet’s nest. I think that Recep Erdoğan [Turkey’s president] will have a lot to say about it and so will others – count on strong reactions from Iraqi PM [Mohammed Shia al-] Sudani and Syrian president [Ahmed al-] Sharaa,” said Barbara Leaf, the former assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs until 2025 and a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute based in Washington DC. “Gulf leaders are likely to be very queasy about the prospect of such a US move.” Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister of the self-governing Kurdistan region of Iraq, said on Wednesday that the region was not part of the current conflict and would maintain its neutrality. There has been intensifying violence from separatist groups among Iran’s Baloch minority in the south-east of the country. Militants attacked an IRGC border patrol and a police checkpoint in December. Around the same time, the most active Baloch separatist group, Jaish al-Adl, announced a new coalition of armed factions that would seek to “strengthen the effectiveness of the struggle” against the “tyranny” of the Iranian regime. The coalition claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the assassination of the commander of a police station in the city of Zahedan, and issued a statement calling on “military personnel to … surrender to their fellow citizens so that no harm comes to them during these critical times”. Nasser Bouledai, an Iranian Baloch leader in exile in Europe, said he believed all Iranian communities would welcome US help, but that Washington had followed inconsistent policies in the past. The US was accused only months ago of cynically sacrificing the interests of Syrian Kurds in clashes with Syrian government forces. “I think [everyone] who is against the brutal cleric regime would accept support from the US but it should be a consistent and permanent support that resolves the issues of minorities – unlike, for example, when the US gave support for Syrian Kurds and then betrayed Kurds,” Bouledai said. “It is high time the US supports Iranian ethnic and religious minorities against the cleric regime and settles the question of Iran once and for all.”

Putin accuses Ukraine of attacking gas tanker that exploded and sank off Libya

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of carrying out a terrorist attack on one of Russia’s liquefied natural gas carriers which exploded into flames and sank in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya. The Arctic Metagaz had been sanctioned by the US and EU for being part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of ageing tankers that carry its oil and gas around the world, skirting Western restrictions. The Libyan Maritime Authority reported “sudden explosions, followed by a massive fire” on the ship on Tuesday, when it was about 150 miles (240km) off the city of Sirte. The tanker, which had been carrying 61,000 tons of LNG, “completely sank” between Libya and Malta, a statement said. All 30 crew members were rescued and put on another vessel heading to the Libyan city of Benghazi, it said. “This is a terrorist attack. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing,” Putin told Russian state television late on Wednesday, accusing Ukraine of being responsible. He said the incident was an attack that “exacerbates the situation on global energy markets, including gas markets”. Russia’s transport ministry had earlier said the vessel had been hit by Ukrainian sea drones launched from the Libyan coast, but provided no details. Ukraine has not commented on the incident, but said in December that it had hit a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean with aerial drones in the first such strike to be confirmed in the four-year war. Previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships in the Mediterranean have reportedly come from the Libyan coast, but Kyiv has not publicly confirmed them. Ukraine’s military has said in the past that it used sea drones to sink Russian vessels in the Black Sea. Ukraine’s state security service unveiled an upgraded sea drone called the Sea Baby in October, which it said had a range of 930 miles and could carry a weapon of up to two tonnes. The Metagaz had sailed from the north-western Russian city of Murmansk on the Barents Sea and was bound for Port Said in Egypt, the Libyan Maritime Authority said. Its last reported position was in the western Mediterranean off the coast of Malta, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking platform. Putin also suggested on Wednesday that Russia could stop supplying gas to Europe and move to other markets. The European Commission will submit a legal proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports on 15 April, three days after Hungary’s parliamentary election, according to EU officials and a document seen by Reuters. “And now other markets are opening up,” Putin said. “And perhaps it would be more profitable for us to stop supplying the European market right now. To move into those markets that are opening up and establish ourselves there. “But this is not a decision, it is, in this case, what is called thinking out loud. I will definitely instruct the government to work on this issue together with our companies.”

Starmer’s slow start in the war against Iran could leave UK playing catch-up

Britain knew that the US was considering attacking Iran from the moment Donald Trump told protesters that “help is coming” in the middle of January. It was obvious to the world that the White House was serious when the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was sent to the Arabian Sea in late January. But as Trump gradually built up his “massive armada”, reinforcing it with a second carrier strike group in mid-February, UK deployments were constrained and limited even though there was a recognition that it was likely allies and bases with British soldiers would be attacked in an Iranian retaliation. In January, Ministry of Defence insiders said they understood that Trump was “giving himself options” – so he could attack Iran if nuclear negotiations were deemed to be failing. Qatar asked the UK to redeploy a joint RAF squadron from Coningsby, Lincolnshire, to the country that month as reassurance if an attack on Iran escalated. Six F-35B jets flew to Akrotiri in Cyprus in February, but at that point the UK wanted to keep its military positioning low key. It was clear for weeks that the UK did not want to become part of any initial attack by the US and Israel on Iran, judging it to be illegal under international law, because Tehran posed no imminent threat to the UK. Keir Starmer discussed Iran with Donald Trump on the evening of 17 February. At one point Trump asked if the US could use British airbases to launch bombing missions in Iran, raising the question of what else the US president shared of his military intentions with the prime minister. Starmer refused, prompting an angry post from the US president the following day, complaining that the UK had made “a big mistake” in handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, home to the Diego Garcia airbase. “It may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia” to attack Iran, Trump said. The start of the US-Israeli attack was dictated by the realisation that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was meeting senior security officials in his compound on Saturday morning. But the realisation that something could be close had prompted the UK to withdraw its embassy staff by Friday. Yet when hostilities broke out, the UK did not seem appropriately equipped. By good fortune, a missile and drone attack on a US naval base in Bahrain narrowly missed where about 300 British personnel were based. A reported three Shahed-type drones were fired at the Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus, one striking a runway. The Akrotiri strike was not serious, but it was embarrassing, prompting the evacuation of nearby villages, families from the base and unsettling the Cypriots. The country’s president asked for naval support from France and Germany as the UK considered its options – before choosing to send a destroyer on Tuesday. However, the Royal Navy has no warships, apart from a single mine hunter, in the Middle East for the first time since 2019. The last permanently deployed frigate, HMS Lancaster, was retired in December, and the only options were three destroyers out of a total of six capable of tracking and destroying drones. Last month V Adm Steve Moorhouse, fleet commander of the Royal Navy, argued that a reduced British presence in the Middle East was a virtue. Allies in the region wanted “a more modern offer”, which he said was “boarding teams to help them to build up their own capabilities”. Now there are worries that Iran’s retaliation against Gulf states could exhaust Patriot and Thaad air defence systems used by countries in the region. Starmer agreed to allow the US to use British bases after all to target Iranian missile silos on Sunday – but by Wednesday officials were briefing the UK might have to go further, and participate more actively in striking targets itself. Meanwhile, HMS Dragon, will take several days to be hauled out of dry dock and be made ready. It will then take the best part of a week to arrive at Cyprus. This may not matter if the drone attacks have stopped, but when it comes to reassuring allies – or the 300,000 Britons living in the Gulf – the UK appears to have struggled to keep up.

‘He was smart and kind and amazing’: four American soldiers killed in Kuwait remembered

More details have emerged about four of the American service members who were killed in an unmanned aircraft system attack in the Shuaiba port in Kuwait on Sunday, the first known US fatalities since the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran on Saturday. All four soldiers had been assigned to the 103rd sustainment command in Des Moines, Iowa, and were “supporting Operation Epic Fury”, the Department of Defense said, adding that they “died on March 1, 2026, in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, during an unmanned aircraft system attack”. The US Department of Defense identified the US soldiers on Tuesday evening as Capt Cody A Khork, 35; Sgt first class Nicole M Amor, 39; Sgt Declan J Coady, 20; and Sgt first class Noah L Tietjens, 42. Two other service members who were killed have not yet been publicly identified. The incident remains under investigation. Since Saturday, when the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, US and Israeli forces have carried out large-scale strikes across Iran, including striking the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes, launching missiles aimed at Israel and US military facilities in the region, including in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. When announcing the operation, Donald Trump said that his administration was “taking every possible step to minimize the risk to US personnel in the region”. But, he added, “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties”, adding that “that often happens in war”. On Tuesday evening, the US army reserve said that the US soldiers who were killed “served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation”. “Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten,” said Lt Gen Robert Harter, the chief of the army reserve and the commanding general of the US army reserve command, said. “On behalf of the army reserve, we express our heartfelt condolences to their families and loved ones.” Here is what we know about the four US service members who have been identified. Sgt Declan J Coady, 20 The US army reserve said that Coady, who was posthumously promoted from specialist, was a resident of Des Moines, Iowa, and had enlisted in the army reserve in 2023 as an army information technology specialist. During his career, he received awards including the Army Service Ribbon, National Defense Service Ribbon and Overseas Service Ribbon. Coady was a 2023 graduate of Valley high school and was an Eagle Scout, according to a 2020 Facebook post from his Boy Scout troop in West Des Moines. In a statement, Drake University in Des Moines said that Coady was a student at the university, studying information systems, cybersecurity and computer science. The school described him as a “a well-loved and highly dedicated” student who had “an incredibly bright future ahead of him”. In a statement shared with the Guardian, Coady’s sister, Keira Coady, said that “as his older sister, I can’t quite comprehend it even now, but the only thing I can think is that I wish I had called him one more time and told him I loved him”. “He was supposed to be 21 on May 5,” she said. “He was just a baby, and will forever be mine and Aidan’s baby brother, Rowan’s older brother, and our parents’ son.” “Trying to find any words at all to describe Declan feels impossible at this moment,” she added. “However, to say what my mom would say is, ‘He was so kind and so amazing, and he was my baby.’” Keira said that, growing up, Declan was part of a swim team, did fencing, and was an Eagle Scout. Outside of that, she said, he loved gaming and “while in Kuwait he was shipping home pieces so that when he came home he could build his own PC to not only play games but continue working in IT and cyber security”. “Declan was a man of few words more often than not, but if you ever had the chance to talk to him about something he was passionate about you were lucky,” she continued. “He was so smart and could just talk your ear off for hours about what he loved, and while we may not have always known what terms or acronyms he was throwing out we would always listen because we all loved to just hear him speak.” “I wish I could think of words beyond that he was smart and kind and amazing, but even if I were to throw in other words it still wouldn’t quite capture his spirit,” she concluded. “He was truly a rock in all of our lives and was just the most amazing brother and son my family could have asked for.” Capt Cody A Khork, 35 Khork was a resident of Lakeland, Florida, the US army reserve said. Khork had enlisted in the national guard as a multiple launch rocket system/fire direction specialist in 2009, before commissioning as a military police officer in the army reserve in 2014. Over his career, the army reserve said, he deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2018, Guantánamo Bay in 2021 and Poland in 2024. He received numerous awards, including the Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal. In a statement online, the city of Winter Haven, Florida, said that Khork was a 2008 graduate of Lake Region high school and 2014 graduate of Florida Southern College. “Friends remember Cody as someone who was easygoing, always smiling, and the kind of person who looked out for the people around him – the type of friend who made it feel like no time had passed when you ran into him around town,” the statement added. Florida Southern College said in a statement that they mourned the loss of Khork, who they said was a political science major and member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and “was known among his classmates, professors, and friends for his ‘leadership, character, and commitment to serving others’”. In a statement to the New York Times on Tuesday, his family described him as “deeply patriotic” and as someone who “took great pride in serving something greater than himself”. “He lived with purpose, loved deeply, and served honorably,” they added. “His legacy will endure in the lives he touched, the example he set, and the love of country and family that defined him.” On social media, a friend of Khork’s called him “my best friend, best man, and brother” who he said “gave his life defending our country overseas”. “He’s helped me get through the hardest and lowest parts of my life and been there to celebrate the best,” they added. “I’ve watched him support others and myself through the years when he had nothing to his name and never complained about it. That’s just the type of person he was.” “He went out doing what he loved, defending our freedom,” the friend added. Sgt first class Nicole M Amor, 39 Amor, a resident of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, enlisted in the national guard as an automated logistics specialist in 2005 and transferred to the army reserve in 2006, the army reserve said. She deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in 2019. Her awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal and the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal. Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator, said in a statement that Amor was an “avid gardener who made salsa from the peppers and tomatoes in her garden with her son, a senior in high school”. “She also enjoyed rollerblading and bicycling with her fourth-grade daughter,” the statement added. Klobuchar shared a photo of Amor with her husband, Joey. Joey told the Associated Press that around a week before the drone strike, Amor had been moved off-base to a shipping container-style building. “They were dispersing because they were in fear that the base they were on was going to get attacked and they felt it was safer in smaller groups in separate places,” he said. He said that he last spoke to her about two hours before she was killed. “She just never responded in the morning,” he said. Sgt first class Noah L Tietjens, 42 Tietjens, a resident of Bellevue, Nebraska, enlisted in the army reserve in 2006 as a wheeled vehicle mechanic, the US army reserve said. He had multiple deployments, including to Kuwait in 2009 and 2019, the release said. Tietjens’s decorations included the Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal. His twin brother, Nicholas, described Noah to the New York Times as someone who had proven himself to be a “great leader” and said that he had been several months away from the end of his deployment in Kuwait. “He just wanted to get there, and get it over with, and get back,” Nicholas said. Tietjens is survived by his wife, Shelly, and their teenage son, Dylan. The Times reported that the family had trained together at Martial Arts International in Bellevue. In a statement on Facebook, the Philippine Martial Arts Alliance wrote that they “are heartbroken to share the loss of our brother, Sergeant First Class Noah Lee Tietjens, who tragically lost his life while serving our country in Kuwait”. “To us, he was Mr Noah, a devoted husband and father, a respected Black Belt in Philippine Combatives and Taekwondo, and an instructor who gave his time, discipline, and leadership to others,” the statement added. “Noah lived the martial arts code. He did not simply wear a Black Belt … he lived it. He led with integrity. He trained with purpose. He taught with humility.”