Lewis Hamilton says he is itching to get going during the “most exciting period of my life” at Ferrari while cautioning about a transition period as he gets used to a new car.
After 12 years with Mercedes, he will race for the first time in the Ferrari red at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix this weekend, knowing expectations are high.
The seven-time world champion officially began work at the Scuderia in January after his shock move and completed 162 laps of testing in Bahrain.
Hamilton, 40, said on Thursday it was hard to assess Ferrari’s place in the pecking order so early in the season.
“Obviously three days in the car, difficult to know where we stand with everyone else. But we just try to keep our heads down and just focus on our job”, he said in Melbourne on Thursday.
“But for me, I mean, I’m just itching to get going, I guess it’s been a long time coming”.
Ferrari were pipped to the constructors ‘ championship by McLaren last year, the seventh time the Italian team had finished second since they last won the team title in 2008.
Kimi Raikkonen was the last Ferrari driver to lift the world championship for the famous Italian car manufacturer in 2007, and Hamilton tempered expectations about what he might achieve.
“I have an expectation for myself. I know what I can bring, I know I can deliver, I know what it’s going to take to do that, and it’s just getting your head down and working away”, he said.
“So I come with a very open mind. It is about getting into the season, this is about getting into a good rhythm.
” I’m still learning this new car that’s quite a lot different to what I’ve driven for my previous career, in the sense of Mercedes power coming into Ferrari power, “he added.
” It’s something quite new, different vibration, different feel, different way of working.
“The whole team works completely differently”.
But he said the new challenge motivated him.
“Definitely this is the most exciting period of my life, and so I’m really just enjoying it, and I’m so excited to get in the car tomorrow”, he said on Thursday.
Asked what would be a good result in Melbourne, he replied: “I think I just ultimately want to come away knowing that I’ve given absolutely everything.
” That I’ve excelled in the way that I know I can, that I felt comfortable in the car and just one foot in front of the other. “
Lewis Hamilton driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 during day two of F1 testing at Bahrain International Circuit on February 27, 2025]Peter Fox/Getty Images]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has delayed a mission to replace two astronauts stuck on board the International Space Station (ISS) following a last-minute technical glitch.
The postponement of the launch on Wednesday means that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will have to wait at least two more days before they can begin their return to Earth.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June for a mission that was supposed to last 10 days at most, but the pair were forced to extend their stay after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft developed propulsion issues.
Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to return to Earth on board a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft currently docked at the ISS once a team of American, Japanese and Russian astronauts arrives to take their place.
NASA said in a statement that Wednesday’s launch at the Kennedy Space Center was scrubbed due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket.
The space agency said it was working to address the hydraulic system issue and planned to reattempt the launch on Friday.
The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov.
If the mission goes ahead on Friday, Wilmore and Williams could depart the ISS by March 19, according to NASA.
In a call with reporters earlier this month, Williams said she was looking forward to reuniting with her family.
In parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), communities are gearing up for war or fleeing to safety amid the advance of M23 rebels, who captured the key eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu in recent weeks, leaving devastation in their wake.
The rebel group, which the United Nations says is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, has also closed in on Walikale, a major mining hub, while Kinshasa’s offer of a $5m reward for the capture of M23 leaders has not slowed the group down.
While M23 marches on in North and South Kivu, Ugandan troops have intensified deployments across their border with the DRC in Ituri province, only a few hours from the rebel-held regions. The Ugandan army says it is battling the Allied Democratic Forces , (ADF) and the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) – two of several dozen armed groups operating in the DRC. A recent flare-up of CODECO attacks on civilians in February saw at least 51 people killed, prompting Uganda to send additional soldiers to boost its 5, 000-strong deployment inside the DRC.
For political observers, the growing presence of both Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers in the DRC is an eerie replay of a painful past, one they fear could again lead to a bigger, regional war if not contained.
“We are indeed seeing a replica of the Second Congo War with the same actors but in slightly different configurations”, analyst Paul Nantulya of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies told Al Jazeera, referring to the leading roles both countries played in what’s now referred to as the 1998 “Great Africa War” when Rwandan and Ugandan troops invaded the DRC.
Several African countries also followed suit, backing either the DRC or the Rwandan-led side, as well as dozens of local militias on either end. The result was a humanitarian crisis that saw an estimated five million deaths, the DRC looted of mineral resources like gold, and the emergence of dozens of armed groups, including the M23.
At the time, thousands across the globe protested against the atrocities in the DRC, calling for an end to the looting and killings. Today, illegal mining and smuggling from the DRC’s mines – which provide 70 percent of the global supply of coltan and cobalt that powers electronics – have largely continued, as have deaths and displacements due to armed group activity.
“Appetite for political negotiations is low and international pressure and coercive measures have not had the deterrent effect they once had in previous bouts of crisis”, Nantulya added, referencing the European Union’s suspension of military aid support to Rwanda, and United States sanctions on key Rwandan army officials.
Supporters of the DRC’s Joseph Kabila cheered in front of his poster at an election rally in Kinshasa in July 2006, ahead of the country’s first democratic presidential elections in 46 years]File: Nic Bothma/EPA]
A history of interference
The DRC has been in the throes of low-level violent conflict for more than three decades. In that time, more than six million people have been killed, and millions more displaced.
A complex mix of issues is to blame, among them: grievances by Kigali that the DRC harbours anti-Rwanda rebels who fled after the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis in 1994, ethnic tensions between Congolese Tutsis and their neighbours, a grab for mineral resources in insecure eastern DRC, and corruption in the Congolese government.
Rwanda’s invasion of the DRC prompted both the First and Second Congo Wars (1996-1997 and 1998-2003), as Kigali claimed to be pursuing Hutu genocidaires who had fled across the border. After President Paul Kagame’s army took power in Rwanda in 1994, the fleeing Hutu groups amassed in refugee camps in the DRC where they launched renewed attacks on Tutsis.
Uganda, where Kagame and his troops trained for years before taking power in Kigali, joined Rwanda’s side in the DRC. Both countries then backed a Congolese rebel group, led by Laurent Kabila, to unseat the dictator, President Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu, at the time, had many regional enemies. Several countries backed Kabila by sending arms or weapons, including Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea and South Africa.
However, when Kabila, upon gaining power in 1997, switched sides and ordered Rwandan and Ugandan troops out of the DRC within a day, Kigali grew vengeful. In 1998, Rwanda and Uganda invaded again, sponsoring a Tutsi militia that occupied resource-rich parts of eastern DRC. Kabila managed to rally other African nations to his side, including Namibia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad and Angola, which had now switched sides under a new government. The UN deployed a peacekeeping force, MONUSCO. Kabila also enlisted the help of Hutu militia groups in eastern DRC, deepening ethnic tensions with Congolese Tutsis who are perceived as pro-Rwanda.
From left: Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, and Joseph Kabila of the DRC, address a news conference after meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, in November 2002. The meeting took place to review the implementation of a peace deal signed between the DRC and Rwanda aimed at ending the Congolese war]File: Themba Hadebe/AP Photo]
Looting and rights violations
The Congo wars ended in 2003, but low-intensity violence persists, leading some experts to say it was never actually over.
Several reports in the aftermath, including from the UN, accused Rwanda and Uganda of targeting Hutu civilians and of looting and smuggling DRC’s coffee, diamonds, timber, coltan and other resources. Relatives of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, including his younger brother Salim Saleh and Saleh’s wife, Jovia Akandwanaho, were named as the operators of companies involved in trading illicit items, especially during the second war. Congolese politicians and soldiers were also implicated.
“Natural resource exploitation became increasingly attractive, not only because it enabled these groups to finance their war efforts but also because, for a large number of political/military leaders, it was a source of personal enrichment. Natural resources thus gradually became a driving force behind the war”, one UN report read.
It also accused “foreign buyers willing to handle these goods”, including traders in the DRC and multiple countries. In 2005, Anvil, an Australian-Canadian mining company, was accused of providing logistics to the Congolese army that helped it violently suppress a small uprising in southern DRC.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Kampala guilty of “violating international law” in 2022 and ordered Uganda to pay $325m to the DRC for losses and damages during the wars. Kampala has begun instalment payments and is expected to complete them by 2027.  , Although the DRC also sued Rwanda, the ICJ could not rule in that case because Rwanda did not recognise its jurisdiction.
In the most recent legal battle in 2023, the DRC again sued Rwanda at the East African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania, arguing that by backing M23 rebels, it violated Kinshasa’s territorial integrity against international law. That case is still ongoing. Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23.
Children queue to fetch water at a water point, as schools remain closed down due to conflicts on the outskirts of Goma, DRC, in February 2025]EPA]
‘ DRC needs a break ‘
Countries that took part in the Congo wars are once again in the DRC. And again, a Congolese politician is marching on Kinshasa, this time Corneille Nangaa, leader of the rebel Congo River Alliance (AFC). A one-time elections commissioner, Nangaa fell out with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and then allied with M23 in December 2023. He now leads the AFC-M23 coalition.
However, Accra-based analyst Kambale Musuvali of the Center for Congo Research, told Al Jazeera that interference from DRC’s closest neighbours never stopped.
“When we say Uganda and Rwanda are in the Congo again, it is from the perspective that they left and they are returning”, Musavuli, who is Congolese, told Al Jazeera. In reality, the two governments had continuously maintained a hold on the situation in the DRC, he said.
Across the continent, it’s fairly clear where most parties stand in this iteration of the conflict: Rwanda’s support for M23 is documented by the UN, which says about 3, 000 Rwandan troops are currently supporting the rebels. Burundi, under President Evariste Ndayishimiye – who has frosty relations with Kagame – deployed at least 10, 000 troops to support the DRC army. South African troops lead the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in the DRC and have been fighting the M23 alongside Malawian and Tanzanian soldiers since January. Angola and Kenya are leading two separate peace negotiations, while Chad is considering a request from Kinshasa to deploy troops.
Uganda, though, appears to be the wild card. The country was last year implicated by the UN of providing support to M23 by allowing its territory to be used for launching attacks, and areas the Ugandan army currently occupies in the DRC are so close to M23-held areas that analysts believe there could be some collusion. But Kampala denies any connections with M23.
“Uganda is the big elephant in the room”, analyst Nantulya said. Kampala, he added, is playing an ambiguous balancing act, working to secure a part of the DRC, while committing to not standing in M23’s way on the other hand.
DRC’s resources also remain a focal point in this conflict. So far, M23 has taken over vast expanses of North and South Kivu, which is home to massive gold and cobalt deposits. There’s speculation that the DRC’s gold has been funding the armed group, which has surprised analysts with its high-grade weaponry and telecommunications systems. The UN estimates that M23 earns about $800, 000 monthly from illegal gold sales.
Ending the protracted crisis would involve a large-scale effort by African countries to get both sides to negotiate, analysts say, but also to put pressure on the DRC government itself to fix its internal affairs: Tshisekedi suffers a legitimacy crisis as Congolese popularly rejected elections that brought him into a second term. Weaknesses and ingrained corruption in the country’s military may have helped Congolese defences to falter as M23 advanced. And feelings of marginalisation are still heavy in Congolese-Tutsi communities, worsening tensions.
Kinshasa’s recent calls for a national dialogue, in addition to peace talks led by regional parties, are important steps, Musavuli said. So is the recent visit by International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, who pledged to prosecute all sides accused of rights violations in the conflict, including indiscriminate killings and sexual abuse of civilians, he added.
“I usually get asked, ‘ What about the Rwandan government? What about the Ugandan government? ‘ But nobody is talking about the]Congolese] people”, Musavuli said.
Ukrainian officials say Russia fired a slew of missiles and drones overnight, with one attack on Kryvyi Rih killing a 47-year-old woman and injuring nine others, while an attack on Odesa killed four.
Russia has claimed major gains in the Kursk region with Russia’s Ministry of Defence reporting the capture of five more villages, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that “the dynamics are good”.
Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said that Russian forces had retaken about 1, 100sq km (386sq miles) of territory in the Kursk border region, including 24 settlements over the past five days.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks while visiting troops in Kursk that the “region will soon be completely liberated from the enemy”. It was Putin’s , first visit to the region since Ukraine launched its major incursion there in August of last year.
Putin also said that any Ukrainian fighters captured in the Kursk region would be treated as “terrorists” and would not be protected under the Geneva Convention’s provisions for prisoners of war, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Military bloggers on both sides said Kyiv’s forces have begun withdrawing from Kursk, losing their hard-won foothold inside the Russian region.
Ceasefire talks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expects “strong steps” from the United States against Russia if Moscow does not accept the 30-day ceasefire proposal, which Ukraine agreed to in talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump said that reaching a truce is now “up to Russia”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was hoping for a positive response from Russia, and that if the answer was “no”, then it would tell Washington a lot about the Kremlin’s true intentions.
“Here’s what we’d like the world to look like in a few days: Neither side is shooting at each other, not rockets, not missiles, not bullets, nothing … and the talking starts”, Rubio told reporters.
Russia has reportedly presented Washington with a list of demands for a deal to end the Ukraine war and reset relations with the US.
The Reuters news agency quoted sources saying the demands were similar to previous Kremlin terms for ending its war, including no NATO membership for Kyiv, recognition of Russia’s claim to annexed Crimea and four Ukrainian provinces, and an agreement that no foreign troops would be deployed in Ukraine.
Politics and diplomacy
A “very broad consensus” is emerging among European nations on boosting Ukraine’s long-term security through the Ukrainian armed forces, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said after a meeting with the defence ministers of Britain, Germany, Italy and Poland.
Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz also welcomed a “real unity of the continent”, referring to the threat from Russia.
United Kingdom Defence Secretary John Healey said Britain and its allies knew that “we must step up” and re-arm. “We are looking to build a coalition”, he said. “We are accelerating this work”.
US State Secretary Rubio said that an expected minerals deal with Ukraine would give the US a “vested interest” in Ukraine’s security, although, he said, “I wouldn’t couch it as a security guarantee”.
The Polish foreign minister confirmed that US weapons are flowing back to Ukraine through Poland after the US lifted its pause on military aid to Kyiv.
United States President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy is facing growing pushback from Americans amid wild swings in the stock market and growing fears of a recession, new polling shows.
In a CNN/SSRS poll released on Wednesday, 56 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Trump’s economic management – higher than at any point during his first term in office.
The poll had better news for Trump on his other signature issue of immigration, with 51 percent of respondents expressing support for his strict enforcement policies.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll also released on Wednesday found that 57 percent of Americans believe Trump’s economic policies have been too “erratic”.
Trump’s overall approval rating in the CNN and Reuters polls was 45 percent and 44 percent, respectively.
The results come as Trump’s back-and-forth announcements on tariffs have roiled markets and stoked tensions with trading partners, including key US allies.
The benchmark S&, P 500 has lost more than $3 trillion since its February peak as investors struggle to make sense of the US president’s “America First” economic agenda.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration imposed 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports, prompting retaliatory duties from Canada and the European Union.
The latest tariffs came after Trump a day earlier threatened Canada with a 50 percent duty on steel and aluminium before reversing course after the province of Ontario agreed to suspend a surcharge on electricity exports to some US states.
Trump, who earlier this week declined to rule out the possibility of a recession this year, and his aides have played down the stock market turmoil as a temporary blip on the road to a stronger economy.
“I think this country is going to boom. But as I said, I can do it the easy way or the hard way”, Trump told reporters on Tuesday.
Tom Fletcher, the head of the United Nations office for humanitarian affairs, has told reporters that with 300 million people in need of assistance, recent cuts to humanitarian aid funds are causing a “seismic shock” globally.
“Many will die because that aid is drying up”, Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said at a news briefing at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
“Across the humanitarian community, programmes are being stopped right now”, Fletcher said. “Staff are being let go right now. I think 10 percent of NGO colleagues were laid off in the course of February”, he said, referring to people working for nongovernment aid organisations.
Fletcher also spoke specifically of his recent visit last month to Gaza, saying “supplies are clearly running out very, very fast” amid Israel’s renewed blockade on all food, medicine, fuel and other goods entering the strip.
“The fact that we’re not getting fuel in means that incubators are being switched off, so this is real already, and will quickly become a humanitarian crisis again”, he said.
Describing his visit to Gaza last month, Fletcher said one of the “first shocking things I saw driving in is the dogs going through the rubble”.
“I don’t think anything can prepare you for that”, he said, referring to the spectacle of stray dogs in Gaza looking for dead bodies of people trapped beneath bombed-out buildings.
Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, attends a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, December 3, 2024]Denis Balibouse/Reuters]
A ‘ humanitarian superpower ‘
Fletcher’s news conference came just days after United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US had concluded it would be cancelling 83 percent of US Agency for International Development (USAID) programmes worldwide.
While the US cuts to aid have been the most drastic, Fletcher pointed out other countries have also been slashing their relief budgets.
“It’s not just the American government. I’m spending a lot more of my time than I’d expected in other donor capitals trying to shore up the case for what we do”, he said.
“What I can say is that over years, over decades now, the US has been a humanitarian superpower and that US funding has saved hundreds of millions of lives”, he added.
Fletcher, a former British ambassador to Lebanon, did not elaborate on which countries had cut aid specifically, but at the end of February, the United Kingdom announced it was cutting its aid spending to increase spending on its military. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government would “fully fund our increased investment in defence” by reducing aid spending from 0.5 percent of gross national income to 0.3 percent in 2027. According to The Guardian newspaper, the UK cuts amount to some six billion pounds ($7.7bn).
The change from aid to defence would see the UK spending 13.4 billion pounds ($17bn) more on the military every year from 2027, Starmer said.
Several other countries have also cut back on aid spending, including the Netherlands ‘ right-wing government, which announced in November last year it would cut its foreign aid budget by about one billion euros ($1.09bn) over a five-year period.
Fletcher said the UN humanitarian agency’s response to its reduced funding prospects will be to focus on “utterly essential life-saving work, in the areas of direst need”, including Gaza.
But several organisations are warning repercussions could be more widely felt.
The World Health Organization last week warned US cuts could set back efforts to treat the world’s “deadliest infectious disease”, tuberculosis.
Ebola surveillance work in Africa is also under threat as NGOs that used to be funded through USAID have been forced to stop their work.
