作者： admin

US sounds alarm on China’s AI distillation as DeepSeek V4 debuts

Tensions between the United States and China over artificial intelligence development flared up again in late April 2026, when the Trump administration formally pledged to curb what it labels industrial-scale, unauthorized intellectual property extraction from leading U.S. AI models, just one day before Chinese AI developer DeepSeek launched its latest high-performance frontier model, DeepSeek V4.

In an official memorandum issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on Thursday, April 23, OSTP Director Michael Kratsios detailed allegations that foreign entities, primarily based in China, have been running coordinated, large-scale campaigns to distill proprietary capabilities out of cutting-edge U.S.-developed AI systems. According to Kratsios, bad actors leverage networks of tens of thousands of fake proxy accounts to bypass platform detection, while using jailbreaking methods to access protected proprietary information hidden within these models. This systematic siphoning, Kratsios argued, lets foreign competitors exploit billions of dollars in U.S. research investment and innovation to build competing products.

While Kratsios noted that distilled models do not match the full performance of the original U.S.-built systems, he emphasized that they can achieve comparable results on common industry benchmarks at a tiny fraction of the development cost for their creators. Beyond commercial unfairness, Kratsios claimed these unauthorized distillation campaigns also let bad actors deliberately remove built-in safety protocols and alignment safeguards that ensure original AI models operate responsibly and remain ideologically neutral and fact-based.

To counter these alleged activities, the memorandum outlined a four-pronged strategy for the Trump administration: first, it will share timely intelligence with U.S. AI development companies detailing attempted large-scale unauthorized distillation, including specific tactics used and the actors behind them; second, it will facilitate tighter cross-sector coordination between private AI firms to collectively disrupt these campaigns; third, it will partner with industry to develop standardized best practices for detecting, mitigating, and remediating large-scale distillation attacks, while helping firms strengthen their defensive systems; and finally, the administration will explore new enforcement and policy measures to hold bad actors accountable for these activities.

The White House’s public warning landed just 24 hours ahead of DeepSeek’s April 24 launch of DeepSeek V4, a moment that highlights growing anxiety in Washington over the rapid pace at which Chinese AI developers are closing the performance gap with the United States’ top frontier models. Unlike many firms that keep training methods private, DeepSeek has been transparent about its use of knowledge distillation, a common training technique where a smaller “student” model learns from the outputs of larger, more capable “teacher” models. When the company launched its V3 model in January 2025, it openly confirmed it used knowledge distillation during training. For its new V4 model, DeepSeek says it has advanced the technique with a new method called On-Policy Distillation (OPD), which draws on outputs from 10 separate teacher models to refine its student model’s outputs, speeding up the training cycle significantly.

According to DeepSeek’s published research, its top-tier DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 and Google’s Gemini-3.0-Pro on standard industry reasoning benchmarks, while its lighter, more efficient DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Max matches the performance of those two leading U.S. models at a far lower development and inference cost. The company also noted that its V4 line’s overall performance is only 3 to 6 months behind the very latest frontier models from U.S. developers, OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and Google’s Gemini-3.1-Pro.

The current friction around AI distillation is not new. The launch of DeepSeek V3 in 2025 sent ripples through global financial markets, as investors reacted to the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model that could compete head-to-head with leading U.S. offerings. During a Senate hearing that January, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed DeepSeek had built its model “dirt cheap” by sourcing Nvidia AI chips through third-party countries and leveraging open training data from Meta. That said, then-recent comments from President Trump struck a different tone: in February 2025, he argued that the development of lower-cost AI was an inevitable technological shift that could ultimately benefit the United States, calling falling AI development costs “a very good development.”

Criticism of Chinese AI firms’ distillation practices faded for nearly a year before resurfacing in early 2026, when U.S. AI leaders published formal accusations of so-called “distillation attacks” that reignited the political debate. In a February 12 memo to the U.S. House Select Committee on China, OpenAI accused DeepSeek of using distillation techniques to “free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other U.S. frontier labs,” adding that it had detected new obfuscated methods designed to bypass existing safeguards against misuse of model outputs, and that past attempts to stop the activity had not been fully successful.

Weeks later, leading U.S. AI developer Anthropic published its own report detailing similar alleged activity by three major Chinese AI labs: DeepSeek, Moonshot, and MiniMax. Anthropic claimed the three firms had generated over 16 million interactions with Anthropic’s Claude model across roughly 24,000 fraudulent accounts, a clear violation of the company’s terms of service and regional access restrictions. “Distillation can also be used for illicit purposes: competitors can use it to acquire powerful capabilities from other labs in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost that it would take to develop them independently,” the report noted, adding that these attacks follow a consistent pattern: bad actors use proxy services to scale access, build networks of fake accounts to avoid detection, then send massive volumes of structured prompts to extract capabilities and build training datasets, with thousands of nearly identical prompts across coordinated accounts targeting high-value model functions.

The allegations moved to formal congressional scrutiny on April 16, when the House Select Committee on China held a hearing titled “China’s Campaign to Steal America’s AI Edge,” where lawmakers repeated accusations that Chinese firms source high-end Nvidia chips through third countries and use unauthorized distillation to extract proprietary data from U.S. AI models. “Chinese labs are resorting to unauthorized distillation attacks to extract information from our best AI models. Since they don’t have enough AI chips to develop the models on their own, they prefer to simply steal them from their American competitors. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have all verified that this is happening,” committee chairman John Moolenaar said, adding that Congress must pass new legislation to block what he called China’s multi-pronged effort to acquire U.S. AI technology through both legal and illegal means.

China has pushed back firmly against these allegations. In response to the White House’s claims of AI IP theft, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the accusations completely groundless, saying they amount to a deliberate attack on China’s legitimate AI industry development. “We urge the U.S. to respect facts, discard bias, stop its containment of China’s sci-tech development, and choose the course of action conducive to sci-tech exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.S.,” Guo stated.

The escalating focus on AI IP comes as U.S. lawmakers have already ramped up restrictions on Chinese access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology. Earlier in April, a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers introduced the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act, which aims to block Chinese chipmakers from purchasing ASML’s deep-ultraviolet immersion lithography systems, critical equipment for producing advanced logic chips. Lawmakers are now expanding that regulatory push beyond semiconductor hardware to target AI model distillation.

These latest developments also come against a shifting backdrop of AI chip policy. Just one day before the OSTP memorandum, on April 22, Commerce Secretary Lutnick confirmed that no Nvidia H200 AI chips have yet been sold to Chinese companies, after Beijing urged domestic tech firms to avoid purchasing the U.S.-made chip, three months after the Trump administration approved H200 exports to China. Industry analysts note that Chinese AI firms still want access to H200 chips but remain wary of potential abrupt shifts in U.S. trade policy that could disrupt supply chains. Against this backdrop, analysts say DeepSeek V4 and Huawei’s recently launched Ascend 950PR AI chip are positioned to become the core of China’s emerging domestic AI ecosystem. Huawei launched the Ascend 950PR in late March, marketing the chip as delivering 2.87 times the performance of Nvidia’s earlier H20 chip and approaching the performance of the H200, with plans to ship roughly 750,000 units of the new chip in 2026.

24 4 月, 2026
Trump administration pitching US companies to rebuild Gulf infrastructure hit by Iran

In private discussions with several Gulf Arab nations, the Trump administration has pushed local authorities to award multi-billion-dollar infrastructure reconstruction contracts to American engineering, manufacturing and construction companies, following the widespread damage the region sustained in Iran’s retaliatory strikes amid the U.S.-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic, multiple U.S. and Arab officials with direct knowledge of the talks confirmed to Middle East Eye.

The Gulf states targeted by the lobbying effort include Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates – the three countries that bore the brunt of Iranian counterattacks and suffered the worst infrastructure damage. Neighboring Saudi Arabia and Oman, by comparison, reported far less severe damage from Iranian air and drone strikes, the officials added.

In talking points shared with Gulf leaders, U.S. officials have centered their pitch on the deep-rooted economic partnerships between Washington and Gulf monarchies, framing American involvement in reconstruction as a natural extension of those long-standing ties. A senior U.S. official told Middle East Eye that the push to secure reconstruction contracts for domestic firms aligns with the Trump administration’s core “America First” foreign policy doctrine, which prioritizes economic statecraft designed to benefit U.S. commercial interests.

However, one senior Arab official criticized the timing of the lobbying effort, calling it “a little tone-deaf” at a moment when Gulf governments remain on high alert for a resumption of open hostilities, and are increasingly uncertain about long-term U.S. security commitments to the region.

This push is far from a symbolic gesture: independent energy analyst firm Rystad Energy estimates that repair costs for energy-related infrastructure across the Gulf alone could climb as high as $39 billion, a figure that does not include the massive damage sustained within Iran itself. Currently, a fragile ceasefire holds between Washington and Tehran, even as the two sides remain locked in a tense stalemate over control of the Strait of Hormuz, with both enforcing rival blockades on shipping through the critical chokepoint. The Iranian government has calculated that it sustained $270 billion in combined direct and indirect economic damage from the U.S.-Israeli war.

Though most Gulf monarchies publicly opposed the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, they nonetheless became the primary target of Tehran’s retaliatory strikes. The UAE alone faced at least 2,000 ballistic missiles and drone attacks, according to regional defense sources. The hardest-hit Gulf states are also the most economically vulnerable to Iran’s new control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies pass; unlike Saudi Arabia, which operates a pipeline that bypasses the strait via the Red Sea, these nations remain fully reliant on the chokepoint for their energy exports.

While Gulf states collectively hold massive sovereign reserves that can cover reconstruction costs, growing signs indicate they are bracing for a prolonged period of economic downturn as energy exports remain stalled. Kuwait, for example, hosts one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, valued at roughly $1 trillion – on par with the funds held by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, though it generally maintains a far lower public profile. Even so, U.S. Secretary of State Scott Bessent confirmed this week that the UAE and other affected Gulf states have approached Washington to request currency swap lines that would give them access to much-needed U.S. dollars while their energy export revenue remains frozen.

A former senior U.S. official familiar with the negotiations told Middle East Eye that a quid pro quo is already on the table: “I could see the US looking for a trade-off where Gulf states using a swap line commit to US firms for rebuilding.”

Kuwait, located at the northeastern edge of the Persian Gulf, was also heavily damaged by Iranian strikes. The country already hosts the fourth-largest U.S. military presence in the world, and Iranian strikes hit key U.S. facilities including Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base. Beyond military sites, Kuwait International Airport suffered extensive damage, and at least two major national power and water desalination plants were also hit, Reuters reported.

Similarly, Bahrain – a small island kingdom connected only to Saudi Arabia via the King Fahd Causeway – sustained widespread infrastructure damage. The kingdom’s main port, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, was heavily targeted, and critical industrial sites across the country also sustained heavy damage. The Financial Times confirmed that Amazon’s regional cloud computing operations based in Bahrain were knocked offline by the strikes, and Aluminium Bahrain – one of the world’s largest single-site aluminum smelters – was forced to declare force majeure after sustaining critical damage. Bahrain’s national Bapco refinery also issued a force majeure notice following the attacks.

To date, U.S. officials have not yet pushed for contracts to go to any specific American firms, but have made clear their goal of positioning U.S. companies as the top candidates for all major reconstruction work moving forward.

24 4 月, 2026
Japan awakens to Radio Taiso exercise tradition. One face of the country’s longevity

Every morning at 6:30 across Japan, a familiar piano melody drifts through radio airwaves, calling millions of people to begin their day with movement. This centuries-old tradition, known as Radio Taiso (translated as Exercise Radio), has become a woven thread in Japanese daily life, uniting people across generations in parks, office campuses, schoolyards, and living rooms.

What makes Radio Taiso enduringly popular is its remarkable accessibility. The 10-minute routine consists of simple calisthenic movements, from overhead stretches and torso twists to arm swings and gentle squats that can be adjusted to any fitness level. Participants can make the workout as low-impact or as strenuous as they prefer, with options to do every move standing or seated. Split into three 3-minute segments that gradually increase in difficulty, the sequence requires no specialized equipment, and beginners can pick up the choreography after just one or two sessions. Every movement is repeated four to eight times, with consistent cues to breathe slowly and stay relaxed, keeping the routine gentle even for older participants.

### A Tradition Steeped in History
Radio Taiso’s origins trace back 100 years, inspired by a similar radio exercise program launched by Metropolitan Life Insurance in the United States. In the 1920s, Japanese postal ministry officials brought the concept home after observing the program overseas, and Radio Taiso was formally introduced to the public in 1928, coinciding with the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito. Within 10 years, millions of Japanese people were joining the daily routine, with postal workers leading outreach by distributing instructional pamphlets and hosting local training sessions.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the group exercise program was banned during the U.S. occupation, with authorities viewing mass collective practice as carrying potential militaristic and totalitarian overtones. But popular demand for the ritual never faded, and group Radio Taiso sessions resumed in 1951, just one year before the formal end of the U.S. occupation. Today, the tradition is stronger than ever: a 2023 survey from the Japan Radio Taiso Federation found that more than 20 million Japanese people practice the routine at least once a week, out of the country’s total population of 122 million. It has also spread globally, with particularly large followings in countries like Brazil, which is home to the world’s largest population of Japanese descent outside Japan. Anyone curious can also find English-language and multilingual Radio Taiso tutorials on YouTube to try the routine at home.

### More Than Exercise: A Community Anchor for Aging Japan
Beyond physical benefits, Radio Taiso has long served as a critical social space, especially for Japan’s large elderly population. In Tokyo’s sprawling Kiba Park, a group of regulars gathers almost every morning to move together. Eighty-eight-year-old Mieko Kobayashi, a longtime participant, says the routine keeps her feeling well, while her 77-year-old friend Yoshiko Nagao notes that the gathering is a lifeline for many elderly residents who live alone. “We even come on New Year’s Day,” Nagao says, explaining that post-workout walks and casual conversation are just as important as the exercise itself.

Eighty-three-year-old Kenji Iguchi, who has practiced Radio Taiso regularly for 20 years and appears decades younger than his age, says the routine keeps his joints — particularly his knees and back — healthy. He wakes at 5 a.m. every day, walks through the park before the 6:30 session, and counts the social connection with familiar fellow participants as one of his favorite weekly rituals.

Japan consistently boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world, with an average of 85 years — just slightly behind Hong Kong, and six years higher than the United States’ average of 79. Last year, the Japanese government confirmed that 99,763 people aged 100 or older are currently living in the country, marking the 55th consecutive year that the number of centenarians has hit a new national record. Japan holds the global record for the highest share of centenarians per capita, and experts often attribute the country’s longevity to a combination of healthy diet, universal high-quality healthcare, and cultural norms that encourage consistent physical activity across all ages — including the simple daily ritual of Radio Taiso.

24 4 月, 2026
Falklands veteran hopes King can persuade Trump to ‘back down’

A decades-long sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands (known as the Malvinas to Argentina) has reignited after leaked reports suggested the United States could reconsider its longstanding stance on the contested South Atlantic territory, drawing sharp pushback from a decorated British Falklands War veteran.

Simon Weston, a Welsh Guardsman who survived the 1982 Falklands conflict with life-altering 46% burns after the bombing of RFA Sir Galahad, has publicly urged King Charles III to press US President Donald Trump to reverse course during the monarch’s upcoming state visit to Washington next week. In an exclusive interview with BBC Newsnight, Weston framed the potential US shift as a disrespectful slight to the sacrifices of service members who fought for the islands four decades ago.

Weston characterized the reported policy review as a childish “hissy fit” from Trump, saying it undermines the meaning of the sacrifices made by British troops and dismisses the right of Falklands islanders to self-determination. “He’s paying absolutely no heed to the humanity that he’s abusing with his words because the people of the Falklands deserve more respect, but so do every veteran who served down there deserve more respect,” Weston said. Calling Trump’s stance “very unstatesmanlike,” the veteran added that he was “sad and disappointed it’s come to this.”

The reported potential policy shift stems from an internal Pentagon email obtained by Reuters, which claims the US is weighing options to penalize NATO allies that it accuses of failing to back its campaign against Iran. The BBC has not independently verified the contents of the leaked email.

Downing Street has quickly reaffirmed Britain’s longheld position: sovereignty of the Falklands rests exclusively with the UK, and the islanders’ right to self-determination is non-negotiable. The United States has attempted to walk back tensions following the leak, however. A US State Department spokesperson told AFP on Friday that Washington’s stance remains unchanged: it maintains formal neutrality on sovereignty claims, acknowledges that both the UK and Argentina assert competing claims, and recognizes the UK’s de facto administration of the archipelago.

Sovereignty over the resource-rich islands has been a core nationalist rallying point for successive Argentine governments for decades. A commemorative plaque claiming the islands as Argentine territory sits in a prominent position in the country’s presidential palace. Current Argentine President Javier Milei, a close political ally of Trump, doubled down on his country’s claim this week, posting in all capital letters on social media: “The Malvinas were, are, and always will be Argentine.” Milei’s foreign minister has repeated calls to restart bilateral sovereignty negotiations with the UK—a demand the UK has repeatedly rejected—and condemned ongoing British efforts to explore and extract oil from the large offshore reserves surrounding the islands.

24 4 月, 2026
Dozens of sloths died before opening of Sloth World attraction in Florida

A planned Orlando, Florida, sloth exhibit billed as the region’s only purpose-built “slothnarium” has been thrown into chaos after regulators confirmed 31 of the mammals imported for the attraction died months before its scheduled spring opening, triggering widespread scrutiny of animal welfare practices and regulatory gaps in the state’s wildlife permitting system.

According to a report released Friday by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the bulk of the fatalities stemmed from dangerous, unfit living conditions at a private Florida warehouse where the imported sloths were held awaiting the attraction’s completion. The incident has already prompted additional investigations from multiple state and local regulators, as well as harsh criticism from animal conservation groups and elected officials.

The 31 sloths were imported in two separate shipments to be displayed at Sloth World, a permanent public tourist attraction marketed as a rainforest-inspired sanctuary built specifically to prioritize sloth welfare, located along Orlando’s busy tourist corridor. The FWC’s investigation, obtained by the BBC, details two separate fatal incidents that unfolded between late 2024 and early 2025.

The first shipment, carrying 21 sloths imported from Guyana, arrived in Florida in December 2024. Investigators found the animals were held in a disused warehouse that lacked basic running water and working electricity. Staff purchased portable space heaters to warm the temperature-sensitive tropical mammals, which naturally thrive in constant temperatures between 70°F and 86°F, but the heaters overloaded the building’s electrical system, tripping a circuit breaker that cut off power to the heaters. For at least one full night, the sloths were left without any heating during a week when outdoor low temperatures dropped to 46°F, according to regional historical weather data. All 21 sloths ultimately died from exposure to cold, a condition investigators labeled “cold stun.”

A second shipment of 10 sloths imported from Peru arrived in February 2025. Two of the animals were already dead on arrival, and the remaining eight were found to be severely emaciated. All eight later died from complications linked to their poor pre-existing health, the report confirmed.

When FWC investigators launched their probe, Peter Bandre, who is publicly listed as Sloth World’s vice president and promoted in the attraction’s marketing as “one of the most respected sloth experts in the world,” admitted the warehouse was never properly prepared to receive the animals. He told investigators the shipment could not be canceled after it was already en route, confirming the cold exposure killed the first group of sloths. The FWC also found that on two separate occasions, sloths under Bandre’s care were held in enclosures that failed to meet the state’s minimum captive wildlife welfare standards, resulting in a verbal warning at the time, but no formal citation.

Ben Agresta, owner of Sloth World, has pushed back against the FWC’s findings, dismissing the official report as rife with misinformation. Agresta claims the sloths died from an undetectable virus that produced no visible symptoms and could not be identified even after post-mortem necropsies. The BBC has reached out to Agresta, Sloth World, and its listed representatives for additional comment, but has not received a formal response.

The FWC closed its investigation without issuing any written warnings or formal citations, but an agency spokesperson confirmed that multiple other regulatory bodies are currently conducting separate probes into the incident. Last week, Orange County’s Building Safety Department posted a stop-work order at the warehouse where the sloths were held, citing alleged violations of state building codes and local county regulations.

With regulatory investigations ongoing and the site shuttered by local officials, it remains unclear whether Sloth World will ever open to the public as planned. The 13 surviving sloths intended for the attraction are currently being cared for by another accredited zoo in Central Florida, according to local media reports. While Agresta holds a valid state wildlife permit that allows him to exhibit captive wildlife, the incident has exposed major gaps in Florida’s regulatory framework, according to critics.

Democratic Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani, who has publicly criticized the handling of the case, noted that current rules do not require the FWC to be automatically notified when captive wildlife dies under a permit. She argued that the deaths would likely have never been uncovered without reports from concerned private citizens. “If it wasn’t for everyday people who care and reported these deaths it’s hard to know when FWC would have even learned about the deaths,” Eskamani said.

Leading sloth conservation organizations had already raised red flags about Sloth World long before the deaths were revealed. The Sloth Institute and the Sloth Conservation Foundation both warned that capturing wild sloths and shipping them long distances for captive exhibits puts the animals at extreme risk of life-threatening health complications stemming from sudden diet changes, stress, and adaptation to artificial environments. Sam Trull, executive director of The Sloth Institute, noted that for many illegally or improperly captured sloths, the stress of transit and captivity proves fatal.

24 4 月, 2026
Palestinians to vote in first elections since Gaza war

On Saturday, Palestinian residents across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the central Gaza district of Deir el-Balah cast ballots in municipal elections, marking the first popular vote held by Palestinians since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war. This long-awaited electoral process unfolds against a backdrop of a restricted political field, widespread public apathy, and deep-seated challenges posed by ongoing conflict and occupation.

According to official figures from the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission, approximately 1.5 million registered voters are eligible to participate in the West Bank, while another 70,000 residents in Deir el-Balah, one of the only areas of Gaza with a largely non-displaced population after more than two years of war, can also cast their ballots.

The structure of the electoral race reflects long-standing political divisions within Palestinian society. Nearly all competing candidate lists are either aligned with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular-nationalist Fatah party or running as independent candidates. Notably, no candidate lists are affiliated with Hamas, Fatah’s long-time political rival which controls roughly half of the Gaza Strip. In most contested constituencies, Fatah-backed tickets face off against independent lists led by figures from smaller factions including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Widespread public disillusionment defines the lead-up to the vote, with many Palestinians questioning whether the election will deliver any tangible change to their daily lives under occupation. In Tulkarem, a northern West Bank city where two adjacent refugee camps have been under continuous Israeli military control for more than a year, local businessman Mahmud Bader said he would still cast a ballot, even as he saw little hope for improvement. “Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no effect or benefit for the city,” Bader told Agence France-Presse. “The Israeli occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media — as if we have elections, a state or independence.”

In a sign of the limited political competition, multiple major population centers including Nablus and Ramallah, the administrative seat of the Palestinian Authority, only saw a single candidate list submitted for each local council. Those candidates will automatically claim their seats without any public vote.

Electoral officials have adjusted voting procedures to accommodate the extreme conditions in war-ravaged Gaza. Polling stations in the West Bank will operate from 7 a.m. local time to 7 p.m., while voting in Deir el-Balah will end two hours earlier at 5 p.m. This early closing is designed to allow vote counting to finish before dark, as widespread damage to infrastructure has left most of Gaza facing chronic electricity shortages.

International observers have framed the vote as an important milestone for Palestinian democratic process. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov praised the Central Elections Commission for organizing a “credible process” amid extraordinary hardship. “Saturday’s elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period,” Alakbarov said in an official statement.

For Palestinian political analysts, the limited scope of the Gaza vote — restricted only to Deir el-Balah — carries clear strategic meaning for the Palestinian Authority. Deir el-Balah was selected for the pilot vote in large part because it is one of the only areas of Gaza where the majority of the original population has remained in place, rather than being displaced by the war, explained Jamal al-Fadi, a political scientist at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. Al-Fadi added that the restricted election is an experiment for the Palestinian Authority to test public support after the war, when no formal opinion polling has been conducted.

The vote comes amid long-standing criticism of Abbas, who is 90 years old and has held the presidency for more than 20 years without winning a single re-election. Abbas has repeatedly promised to hold national legislative and presidential elections, but none have been held since 2006.

Despite widespread cynicism, some first-time voters in Gaza see the election as an act of political resilience. Twenty-five-year-old Farah Shaath, who is voting for the first time in her life, said she felt excited to participate even amid the chaos of war. “Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” Shaath said.

Logistical and security arrangements for the Gaza vote have already highlighted overlapping authority between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Election commission spokesman Fareed Taamallah said the body had recruited polling staff from local civil society groups and hired a private security firm to secure voting locations in Deir el-Balah. However, an anonymous source within the Gaza branch of the election commission told AFP that Hamas police have insisted on taking responsibility for securing the electoral process. The source added that Hamas will deploy unarmed personnel in civilian clothing around the 12 polling stations established in Deir el-Balah.

24 4 月, 2026
Saudi Arabia cuts $200m in Met Opera House funding due to Iran war: Report

In a move that marks the first visible impact of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran on Gulf Arab financial commitments across Western markets, Saudi Arabia has pulled out of a $200 million sponsorship agreement to support New York City’s iconic Metropolitan Opera House, The New York Times reported Friday.

While the quarter-billion-dollar commitment amounts to a tiny fraction of Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the decision carries outsize symbolic weight: it offers the clearest evidence yet that the regional conflict is forcing Riyadh to hit pause on its high-profile global soft power push and refocus its spending on core priorities.

Metropolitan Opera General Manager Peter Gelb told the NYT that Saudi officials attributed the withdrawal directly to widespread economic disruption stemming from the war on Iran, including blockages to oil shipping traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz. According to Gelb, the kingdom is only moving forward with projects deemed strictly essential in the current climate, and the Met sponsorship fell outside that threshold.

The storied American arts institution first turned to Saudi Arabia for this financial lifeline back in September 2025. At that point, the Met had already drawn down more than a third of its endowment — roughly $120 million — to cover ongoing operating costs, leaving it desperate for new external funding. In the original deal, Saudi Arabia had agreed to provide the $200 million in exchange for a long-term commitment from the Met to host three weeks of performances in the kingdom every winter.

For nearly a decade, Saudi Arabia has poured tens of billions of dollars into global sports, arts and entertainment partnerships as a core pillar of its Vision 2030 initiative, which seeks to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from its historic reliance on oil exports and build a thriving domestic tourism sector. But the ongoing conflict has upended those plans, delivering widespread economic shocks across the Gulf region.

Regional tourism has already collapsed amid rising security fears. Earlier this month, Dubai’s luxury Burj Al Arab hotel announced it would shut its doors for 18 months to undergo renovations, a move that came after a steep and sustained drop in international visitor numbers. The United Arab Emirates had enjoyed years of booming tourism growth prior to the outbreak of conflict, while Saudi Arabia had only recently begun building out its own tourism ecosystem to attract international visitors.

The Met’s collapsed funding deal is far from an isolated case. As the Financial Times first reported in April, PIF is already preparing to slash its backing for LIV Golf, the breakaway golf league that Saudi Arabia launched with $5 billion in startup funding to compete with the established PGA Tour. Riyadh has been scaling back its most ambitious non-essential projects even before the full-scale conflict began; last December, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan publicly noted that the kingdom had “no ego” that would prevent it from reevaluating costly infrastructure and investment projects to align with shifting economic conditions.

Earlier this year, Riyadh suspended construction on the Mukaab, a massive cube-shaped mega-development planned for central Riyadh, and shelved proposals for a desert ski resort and a large artificial lake dam. Even as the conflict creates new financial windfalls for Riyadh – the kingdom’s East-West pipeline, which connects Gulf oil fields to Red Sea export terminals, allows it to bypass Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, making it the only major Gulf oil exporter still operating at full capacity and benefiting from sky-high global oil prices – the broader regional instability has undercut its ability to position itself as a safe, stable hub for global business and tourism.

PIF Governor Yasir al-Rumayyan confirmed the shifting priority framework in an interview with Al Arabiya Business Wednesday, acknowledging that the Iran war has forced the fund to reorder its investment strategy. “The war would add more pressure to reposition some priorities,” al-Rumayyan said. He also publicly confirmed for the first time that The Line, the futuristic 170-kilometer car-free linear city at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s flagship Neom mega-development, is no longer a core investment priority for the kingdom.

24 4 月, 2026
Ukrainians thought they had reduced the risks at Chernobyl. Then Russia invaded

In the quiet dead of night, two catastrophic events have shaken the Chernobyl nuclear site, separated by nearly four decades and forever linked to Ukraine’s history of crisis. The first, at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, tore through Reactor No. 4 during a routine safety test, sending a deadly plume of radiation across Europe, unraveling public trust in the Soviet Union, and leaving a permanent scar on the region that many historians link to the bloc’s eventual collapse. The second, recorded at 1:59 a.m. on February 14, 2025, is a new wound inflicted by war: Ukrainian officials attribute the blast to an explosive-laden Russian drone that hit the iconic New Safe Confinement (NSC), the massive protective structure that caps the site of the 1986 disaster. While far less catastrophic than the original explosion, the strike has sparked urgent global anxiety over nuclear safety in an era of full-scale invasion, turning a site already synonymous with suffering into another frontline of Russia’s campaign.

For the thousands of workers who tend to the decommissioned plant inside Chernobyl’s 2,600-square-kilometer exclusion zone — the uninhabited swath of land carved out after the 1986 disaster — the attack brought back traumatic memories many thought they had laid to rest. Klavdiia Omelchenko, now 59, was a 19-year-old textile worker living in Pripyat, the ghost plant town built for Chernobyl employees, when the 1986 explosion occurred. She slept through the blast, waking only to scattered rumors, and did not grasp the full scale of the disaster until weeks later, when she was evacuated with nothing more than a small bag of documents and cosmetics. Her home became part of the exclusion zone, and never having been able to build a new life elsewhere, she returned in 1993 to work in the plant’s cafeteria.

Decades of living with low-level radiation have become routine for Omelchenko, but the risks of war have proven far more terrifying. “It wasn’t as scary as now. Back then, at least, there was no bombing,” she explained. Though she developed persistent headaches after the 1986 accident and later underwent surgery for a precancerous condition, she shrugs off the daily contamination risk that comes with living and working inside the zone. “We grew up in it,” she said. “We don’t pay attention to it anymore.”

Completed in 2019 at a cost of $2.1 billion, the NSC is a massive arch-shaped engineering marvel large enough to enclose the entire Statue of Liberty. It was built to replace the crumbling, hastily constructed concrete sarcophagus the Soviet Union erected immediately after the 1986 disaster, designed to contain the 200 tons of highly radioactive fuel and debris left inside Reactor No. 4 for a projected 100 years, while enabling the safe dismantling of the old sarcophagus. The Chernobyl plant ceased all electricity production in 2000, when its final operational reactor was shut down, and the NSC was supposed to be the cornerstone of a decades-long global effort to finally neutralize the site’s ongoing threat.

That progress has been completely upended by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022. Liudmyla Kozak, an engineer with more than 20 years of experience working at the plant, was on duty when Russian troops seized the Chernobyl site in the opening weeks of the invasion. For nearly three weeks, staff kept critical operations running while under armed guard, receiving radiation doses far exceeding safe limits for their rotations. “We had no hope we would make it out alive — it was really that scary,” Kozak recalled. Workers slept on office floors and desks, while Russian soldiers occupied key infrastructure, damaged and stole critical equipment, and stirred up radioactive dust by driving heavy military vehicles through contaminated areas and digging defensive trenches. Now, with the added damage from the drone strike, completing the decades-long cleanup has become even more challenging.

Serhii Bokov, who manages day-to-day operations for the NSC, was on duty early the morning of the 2025 strike when he felt the dull thud of the explosion ripple through the arch. He and his colleagues rushed outside, smelled smoke, but could not immediately locate the source. After a nearby military checkpoint confirmed the strike, firefighters arrived roughly 40 minutes later, and crews eventually found the fire smoldering through the structure’s outer membrane. Flames repeatedly re-ignited, and it took more than two weeks to fully extinguish the blaze.

“There was no feeling of fear, none at all. It was just a fire — something we practice in drills — only this time it was real,” Bokov said. “I didn’t think, honestly, that we could lose the entire arch.”

The strike did not fully penetrate the NSC’s outer layer, and the damage was confined to a section of the arch with low contamination. Radiation monitors recorded no spike in radiation levels beyond the structure, and no workers were injured in the attack. The breach has been temporarily patched, with the visible damage sealed from the outside, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned that the damage could cut significantly into the arch’s projected 100-year lifespan, compromising its core safety function.

Before the strike, crews were preparing to begin dismantling the old Soviet sarcophagus, a milestone decades in the making. That work is now on indefinite hold, and Bokov estimates the project will be delayed by at least 10 years. While the NSC can continue to operate in its damaged state for a limited period, the long-term stability of the crumbling sarcophagus beneath it remains a critical concern. “Everything depends on how quickly we can restore this and return to normal operations — and to preparing for dismantling,” Bokov noted.

Oleh Solonenko, head of a radiation safety shift at the plant, emphasized that the strike has shattered long-held assumptions about nuclear safety during armed conflict. “What once seemed unthinkable — strikes on nuclear facilities and other hazardous sites — has now become reality,” he said.

Moscow has denied intentionally targeting the Chernobyl plant, claiming the attack was staged by Ukrainian authorities. But environmental group Greenpeace Ukraine has echoed the IAEA’s warning, noting that without urgent repairs, the risk of the old sarcophagus collapsing increases dramatically. “It is difficult to comprehend the scale of the deadly, hazardous conditions inside the sarcophagus,” said Eric Schmieman, an engineer who spent years working at Chernobyl and assisted in designing the NSC. “There are tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel, dust and debris. Now it is critical to find a way to restore the key functions of this facility.”

Today, yellow daffodils bloom beside wartime fortifications inside the exclusion zone, and workers in plain clothes, carrying radiation badges and special access permits, still pass through restricted checkpoints to keep the site stable. For the people who have dedicated their lives to containing Chernobyl’s legacy of disaster, the strike is a reminder that the site’s danger is not just a historical memory — it is an ongoing risk amplified by a war that has already upended decades of progress on nuclear safety.

24 4 月, 2026
‘We cried together’: Trump’s deportation drive forces tough decisions for couples

Since US President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025, a sharp escalation in immigration detention and deportation operations has forced hundreds of thousands of mixed-status American families—couples where one partner is a US citizen and the other lives in the country without authorized immigration status—to make an agonizing choice: stay separated forever, or leave the only home many of them have ever known to rebuild their lives together in Mexico. This is the untold story of two families who chose love over distance, chronicling their pain, sacrifice, and fragile hope for the future.

For Janie Pérez, a 29-year-old US-born woman from Missouri, that fateful choice began on an ordinary October morning. Her husband Alejandro, an undocumented Mexican migrant who had lived in the US for 16 years, left for his cook job at a local café, just like any other workday. Minutes after he walked out the door, Janie’s phone rang. On the line, Alejandro whispered the words that would upend their entire lives: “I think ICE is here.”

As Janie held the phone, she could hear US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the background moving to arrest her husband. She immediately began to pray, but in that moment, she knew her life would never be the same. What she could not anticipate, though, was that just months later, she would be packing up her entire life, leaving her home country to follow her deported husband to central Mexico, alongside their two young daughters, Luna and Lexie.

Alejandro’s journey to the US began long before he met Janie. Born in Michoacán, Mexico, he first crossed into the US without documentation at age 7 with his father. When he returned to Mexico as a pre-teen, he faced a growing threat that haunts young men across his home region: forced recruitment by violent criminal organizations. To escape that danger, he made the decision to cross back into the US unlawfully as a young adult, building a quiet, law-abiding life working in restaurants for 16 years.

The pair met in 2019 while working at the same Missouri café—Alejandro as a cook, Janie as a waitress. Bonded by their shared Christian faith, they fell in love and married, and immediately sought legal help to secure Alejandro permanent resident status (a green card) through their marriage. But their efforts failed: current US immigration law bars most people who entered the country unlawfully from gaining legal status through spousal sponsorship, trapping thousands of mixed-status couples in legal limbo.

Though they knew Alejandro could be detained at any time, they tried to live as normal a life as possible, raising their two young daughters. That normalcy shattered the morning ICE agents arrested Alejandro. Over the next five months, as Alejandro awaited deportation in a detention center, Janie could only meet him through a thick pane of glass, pressing their hands together from opposite sides and crying together. She watched him in court hearings, shackled at the hands, feet and waist, a sight she describes as heart-wrenching.

When Alejandro was formally deported to Mexico in March 2025, Janie did not hesitate. Leaving behind all her friends, family and the life she had always known, she packed her belongings and brought their two daughters across the border to join him, reuniting at Querétaro’s international airport. “I had tears of happiness when I saw him again,” Janie recalled. For Alejandro, the emotion of hugging his 3-year-old daughter after five months apart was overwhelming: “It can’t be explained in words.”

Today, the family is adjusting to their new life. Janie, a native English speaker who does not speak Spanish, admits building a life from scratch in an unfamiliar country has been far from easy. Still, she has no regrets about her choice. “There is nothing more important than being together,” she says. She also pushes back against the narrative that justifies deporting undocumented migrants like her husband. Though Alejandro entered the US without authorization, he has never been convicted of a crime. He came to escape violence and build a better life, a decision Janie calls morally justified. “All these years he has devoted himself to working and he has no criminal record. That makes me think that many people want this to be a country only for white people. I am white and that does not make me a better person.”

Janie and Alejandro’s story is far from unique. Official US estimates place the number of US citizens married to undocumented partners at roughly 1.1 million. As deportation operations have ramped up, hundreds of these families are making the same choice to relocate to Mexico. For Raegan Klein, a US citizen, and her husband Alfredo Linares, an undocumented Mexican who had lived in the US for 22 years, the choice came earlier: they left voluntarily before they could be separated by detention and deportation.

Alfredo, who entered the US unlawfully at 17, built a successful career as a fine dining chef, and the couple had just launched their own Japanese-style street food barbecue business in Los Angeles when Trump took office and ramped up enforcement. Raegan, terrified that ICE would detain Alfredo and tear their family apart, convinced him to move voluntarily to Puerto Vallarta, a popular tourist hub on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Leaving was devastating for Alfredo, who had built his entire adult life in the US. In a tearful social media post the day he left, he wrote: “Today is my last day here in the United States. After 20 years, it’s time to leave.” Now, one year after their move, the challenges persist. Though Alfredo is Mexican by birth, he left as a teenager and feels like a stranger in the country he now calls home. The pair have struggled to build a steady income: Alfredo cooks private dinners for small groups, but the work is inconsistent, and Raegan, who does not speak Spanish, has been unable to find steady remote work. There have been many days when they have questioned their decision.

Still, Raegan stands by the choice to stay together. Despite the financial struggles, they hold onto a new dream: opening their own restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, catering to the area’s large community of foreign tourists. Right now, they lack the startup capital to make that dream a reality, but they continue to work toward it. For these couples, the American dream that once drew their partners north of the border is now in the rearview mirror; what remains is the quiet hope of building a new “Mexican dream” together, united as a family.

The current US administration says its immigration enforcement priorities focus on deporting undocumented migrants with criminal records. Department of Homeland Security data, however, contradicts that framing: less than 38% of people deported under the new policy have ever been charged or convicted of a crime. For the growing number of mixed-status families, that means the threat of displacement and separation remains a daily reality, forcing impossible choices that prioritize immigration policy over family unity.

24 4 月, 2026
Hegseth calls Iran war Trump’s ‘gift to the world’

On a Friday briefing at the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on a controversial demand: the international community should owe President Donald Trump gratitude for launching an unauthorized, unprovoked war against Iran — a conflict that has already upended global energy markets and put millions at risk of imminent food insecurity. The war, which was orchestrated unilaterally by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late February with no advance consultation or coordination with European allies, has already drained an estimated $60 billion from U.S. taxpayer funds, a cost Hegseth acknowledged but framed as a bold, historic contribution to global security.

Calling the conflict a “bold and dangerous mission” and “a gift to the world courtesy of a bold and historic president,” Hegseth went on to rebuke U.S. allies for refusing to join the military campaign. He argued that alliance commitments are not a one-way street, noting that European nations rely far more heavily on unimpeded access to the Strait of Hormuz, the critical oil and goods chokepoint currently disrupted by the war, than the U.S. does. “They need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe, and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours,” Hegseth told reporters, adding that the U.S. does not count on European support but expects allied nations to step up.

Far from being a boon to the global community, the conflict has already triggered cascading global disruptions that are hitting economies and vulnerable populations hard. According to a Friday report from Barron’s, the war has sparked a widespread global jet fuel shortage that has forced major airlines to slash thousands of scheduled flights. Europe has borne the brunt of the disruption: German flag carrier Lufthansa has announced it will cut 20,000 flights through October, and even major U.S. carriers including Delta have implemented service cuts to offset spiking jet fuel costs.

The risks extend far beyond air travel, with looming threats to global food security that have alarmed senior United Nations officials. The South China Morning Post reported Wednesday that Asian nations are already mobilizing to prepare for widespread food shortages, as the war has cut off global supplies of fertilizer critical for the 2026 northern hemisphere planting season. Compounding this risk, climate scientists have already warned that the year will bring a powerful “super El Niño” event that is projected to reduce rainfall across much of South and Southeast Asia, creating a double blow to crop yields. “It is very concerning because this year is supposed to be a super El Niño, and you are getting into the planting season,” Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, founder of India-based Commtrendz Research, told the outlet. “This is going to be widespread across South and Southeast Asia. There will be dryness everywhere.”

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), warned this week that the world faces a severe, immediate risk of a full-scale global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to fertilizer shipments. “The planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May,” Moreira da Silva explained. “So, if we don’t get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens.”

Beyond the global humanitarian and economic fallout of the conflict, the Trump administration and the Pentagon have launched an aggressive crackdown on press freedom covering the war, with Hegseth issuing a new explicit warning to reporters during Friday’s briefing. Hegseth told journalists to “think twice” before publishing stories based on leaked classified information — a standard journalistic practice that has exposed past government abuses including mass surveillance and war crimes. He described such reporting as “incredibly irresponsible and unpatriotic,” and warned that the Pentagon treats leaks “very seriously,” adding a direct rebuke to major outlets including the *New York Times*: “encourage members of the press to think twice about the lives they’re affecting when they publish things in their publications.”

This escalation fits a broader pattern of aggression against press freedom under the current administration amid the Iran conflict. Earlier this month, President Trump publicly stated his administration would seek jail time for journalists who published leaked information about a U.S. fighter jet recently downed over Iran. Just weeks prior, the Pentagon temporarily barred press photographers from on-the-record war briefings after Hegseth’s staff expressed displeasure with unflattering photos of the defense secretary circulating in media coverage.

The Pentagon has also attempted to implement a rule forcing journalists to pledge they will not publish or even solicit any information not explicitly authorized by the department, with violations resulting in permanent revocation of press credentials. A federal judge blocked that policy earlier this month and rebuked the Pentagon for attempting to reimpose the rule after making only insubstantial cosmetic changes. Press freedom advocates warn the policy represents a historic threat to First Amendment protections for investigative reporting. Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in a recent column for *The Intercept* that the administration’s legal arguments go far beyond revoking press access, and would criminalize core work by national security reporters.

“The government argued that although journalists may lawfully ask questions of ‘authorized’ Pentagon personnel, ‘a journalist does solicit the commission of a criminal act, and that solicitation is not protected by the First Amendment, when he or she solicits … non-public information from individuals who are legally obligated not to disclose that information,’” Stern wrote. “The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals.” He added that the Trump administration is expanding on a precedent set by the prior Biden administration, which secured a controversial plea deal with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing classified government records exposing Iraq War crimes, over repeated objections from First Amendment advocates.

24 4 月, 2026