Global Pulse

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  • Protesters worldwide mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, call for repeal of execution law

    Protesters worldwide mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, call for repeal of execution law

    On Friday, activists and campaigners across 19 countries took coordinated action to observe the annual Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, uniting in a global call to free more than 9,600 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli facilities and overturn a recently enacted Israeli law that enables the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

    This annual observance traces its origins back to 1974, when the Palestinian National Council first designated April 17 to draw international attention to the crisis of Palestinian incarceration. The date was chosen to mark the third anniversary of the first prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian factions, which saw Mahmoud Bakr Hejazi become the first Palestinian detainee to regain his freedom. For five decades, the day has served as a global platform to amplify the stories of detainees and document the systemic challenges they face.

    Updated figures from the Red Ribbons Campaign, a leading grassroots movement advocating for the release of Palestinian detainees, confirm that as of April 2025, more than 9,600 Palestinians remain behind bars in Israeli prisons. Of this population, at least 3,532 are held under administrative detention – a controversial Israeli military policy that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial, with six-month detention orders that can be renewed repeatedly. The detainee population also includes 342 minor children, 84 women, and 119 individuals serving lifelong prison sentences.

    Campaign data shows a dramatic 83% surge in detentions since Israel launched its large-scale military campaign in Gaza in October 2023. Prior to that offensive, just over 5,000 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons. “Thousands of Palestinian prisoners and hostages remain held in Israeli occupation prisons, subjected to severe violations,” the Red Ribbons Campaign said in an official statement shared with Middle East Eye.

    In total, the movement organized more than 137 public events across 19 nations to mark this year’s observance, encouraging supporters to wear or display red ribbons as a visual symbol of global solidarity with detainees. “It should remind the world of the blood being shed, the freedom we seek and the urgent cause we stand for,” explained Adnan Hmidan, coordinator of the Red Ribbons Campaign. Solidarity events were held in major nations across the globe, including the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Spain, Norway and the Netherlands, among others.

    Prominent Palestinian politician and physician Mustafa Barghouti praised global supporters for their solidarity, noting that framing detained Palestinians as hostages accurately reflects their current situation. “The term ‘hostages’ accurately reflects their reality – they are forcibly held, subject to military courts lacking basic standards of justice, and repeatedly detained without charge or trial under administrative detention,” Barghouti said in comments carried by the Red Ribbons Campaign. “These are grave violations of international law carried out by an illegitimate occupation in full view of the world.”

    Parallel demonstrations were also held a day earlier across occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where protesters carried banners, portraits of incarcerated loved ones, and lengths of rope to symbolize their opposition to the new execution legislation approved by Israel’s parliament last month.

    Last month, Israel’s Knesset passed the execution bill by a 62-48 vote, despite widespread international condemnation and calls to withdraw the legislation. The law permits the death penalty for anyone convicted of intentionally killing a person with the intent to harm an Israeli citizen or threaten the existence of the Israeli state. Legal analysts and human rights groups warn the law’s wording is deliberately structured to target Palestinians almost exclusively: Jewish Israelis convicted of killing Palestinians face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, with no eligibility for the death penalty.

    The legislation has drawn fierce backlash from global and local human rights groups, which warn it enshrines systemic discrimination and violates fundamental right to life. Multiple leading Israeli human rights organizations – including Adalah, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, HaMoked, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel – issued a joint statement condemning the policy, warning it would create what they called a “racialised system of capital punishment.” They added that the bill is “among the most extreme and dangerous legislative measures ever proposed by Israel against Palestinians”, establishing a “discriminatory punitive framework” that denies Palestinians equal protection under the law, fair trial guarantees, and safeguards against torture and cruel, inhumane treatment.

    Widespread reports of abuse against Palestinian detainees have been well-documented by human rights groups for decades, but organizations confirm abuses have escalated dramatically since the October 2023 start of Israel’s Gaza campaign. At least 90 detainees have died in Israeli custody since that time. Last month, a group of United Nations independent experts warned that torture has become “state doctrine” in Israel, enabled by decades of official impunity and political protection for perpetrators. “Since the onset of the genocide, the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories.

    Recent revelations have further deepened concerns about systemic abuse. Earlier this week, Israeli outlet Haaretz reported that Israel’s army chief Eyal Zamir has approved the return to reserve duty of five soldiers from elite Unit 100, who were implicated in the torture and rape of a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp in 2024. All criminal charges against the soldiers were dropped last month, and no formal internal military investigation into the incident has been launched.

    The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor released a report earlier this month compiling firsthand testimonies from former Gaza detainees that documented widespread, systematic sexual abuse, including rape with foreign objects and the use of trained dogs to assault detainees. The group concluded that sexual torture of Palestinian detainees from Gaza appears to be an “organised state policy” sanctioned by Israeli authorities.

  • White House chief of staff to meet with Anthropic CEO over its new AI technology

    White House chief of staff to meet with Anthropic CEO over its new AI technology

    The Trump administration is set for a pivotal, high-stakes meeting with Anthropic’s top leadership on Friday, marking a major turn in a months-long public and legal conflict between the U.S. government and one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence developers. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will open discussions with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, centered on the company’s newly unveiled Mythos model, a cutting-edge AI system that has drawn unprecedented federal scrutiny over its far-reaching implications for both U.S. national security and economic competitiveness.

    A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to detail private planning for the gathering, confirmed that the current administration is proactively engaging with leading advanced AI research labs to review new model capabilities and assess software security protocols. The official emphasized that any AI technology under consideration for future federal government use would first undergo a rigorous, extended technical evaluation process to verify safety and functionality before any official adoption.

    This planned meeting comes after months of escalating friction between the Trump administration and Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI firm that has long prioritized building guardrails around advanced AI development to mitigate catastrophic risk while advancing potential benefits for the U.S. The dispute erupted earlier this year when President Donald Trump issued a public social media order banning all federal agencies from using Anthropic’s flagship chatbot Claude amid a bitter contract conflict with the Pentagon. In the February post, Trump declared the administration “will not do business with them again!”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on the administration’s pressure, pushing to designate Anthropic as a federal supply chain risk—an unprecedented move against a domestic U.S. technology company. Anthropic has challenged that designation in two separate federal courts. The core of the dispute centers on Anthropic’s demand for binding assurances that the Pentagon will not use its AI technology to develop fully autonomous weapons or conduct mass surveillance of U.S. civilians, while Hegseth has insisted the company must permit all lawful uses the Pentagon deems appropriate. In a landmark March ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin blocked enforcement of Trump’s original ban on federal use of Anthropic products, handing the company a major legal victory.

    What has reignited cross-government and global attention on Anthropic in recent weeks is the April 7 launch of Mythos, a model the company describes as “strikingly capable” of outperforming professional human cybersecurity experts at identifying and exploiting critical software vulnerabilities. Because of this unprecedented capability, Anthropic has restricted access to Mythos, only rolling it out to a small, curated group of vetted customers.

    While some tech industry analysts have questioned whether Anthropic’s warnings about Mythos’ power amount to a calculated marketing tactic, even prominent critics of the company have acknowledged the model likely represents a meaningful leap forward in AI capability. David Sacks, the White House’s own AI and crypto czar and a frequent Anthropic critic, told listeners of his popular “All-In” podcast that the claims around Mythos should be taken seriously. “Anytime Anthropic is scaring people, you have to ask, ‘Is this a tactic? Is this part of their Chicken Little routine? Or is it real?’” Sacks said. “With cyber, I actually would give them credit in this case and say this is more on the real side.” He added that the logic of advancing AI capability holds: as coding models grow more powerful, they naturally gain improved ability to find security bugs, chain multiple vulnerabilities together, and develop functional exploits that can compromise protected systems.

    The model’s unique combination of transformative benefits and catastrophic risk has drawn attention from global policymakers beyond U.S. borders. The United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute, which conducted its own independent evaluation of Mythos, concluded the model is a clear “step up” from already rapidly improving earlier AI generations. The institute warned in its report that “Mythos Preview can exploit systems with weak security posture, and it is likely that more models with these capabilities will be developed” across the global tech sector in the coming years. European Union officials also confirmed Friday that Anthropic has held ongoing talks with EU regulators about Mythos and other advanced, unreleased AI models.

    Alongside the launch of Mythos, Anthropic unveiled Project Glasswing, a cross-industry collaborative initiative bringing together tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, plus major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, to harden global critical software infrastructure against the risks posed by next-generation AI systems like Mythos. The company says restricted access to Mythos allows key public and private sector organizations to use the model’s own capability to find and patch unaddressed vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them.

    Speaking at this week’s Semafor World Economy conference, Anthropic co-founder and policy chief Jack Clark stressed that Mythos, while ahead of current industry curves, is not an anomaly. “There will be other systems just like this in a few months from other companies, and in a year to a year-and-a-half later, there will be open-weight models from China that have these capabilities,” Clark said. “So the world is going to have to get ready for more powerful systems that are going to exist within it.”

    The meeting between Wiles and Amodei was first reported by Axios. Anthropic declined to comment on the planned gathering ahead of time. Reporting for this article was contributed by AP business reporter Kelvin Chan from London.

  • No ceasefire for Iran’s Kurdish opposition parties in exile

    No ceasefire for Iran’s Kurdish opposition parties in exile

    In the weeks following the April 8 announcement of a US-brokered ceasefire between Iran, the United States, and Israel, a striking contradiction has emerged in Tehran’s military actions: while pushing to expand the truce to cover Lebanon and Hezbollah, Iran has ramped up cross-border drone and missile attacks on Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.

    The latest deadly strike came on April 14, when an Iranian drone killed 19-year-old Ghazal Moulan, a female fighter with the Komala Toilers of Kurdistan, in the city of Sulaimaniyah. In a statement posted to X following the attack, Komala spokesperson Amjad Hossein Panahi condemned the killing, saying “the criminal hands of the Islamic Republic did not cease their bloodshed even under the shadow of a ceasefire.” Moulan’s funeral, held days later in Iraqi Kurdistan, drew public attention to the ongoing campaign of violence against Kurdish opposition figures.

    Pattern of unrelenting attacks in the ceasefire era

    Mustafa Mawloudi, deputy secretary general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI), another major opposition group, confirmed that Iranian bombardment has not paused for a single day since the ceasefire took effect. “As far as we know, there is also a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for us, the attacks have been ongoing,” Mawloudi told Middle East Eye in an interview.

    The wave of strikes has hit multiple opposition camps across Iraqi Kurdistan in recent days. On the Thursday following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 10-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire that took effect at midnight, the PDKI confirmed Iranian drones targeted its camp in the town of Koya. Just hours before that strike, Komala’s base was also hit. A day earlier, both a PDKI encampment and a position held by the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) came under attack.

    These recent strikes are part of a much larger escalation that predates the current ceasefire. Data collected by Kurdish independent news outlet Rojhelat Info shows that starting on February 28, Iran and its allied militias have launched nearly 700 drone and missile attacks targeting areas within Iraqi Kurdistan. Around 170 of these strikes have specifically targeted Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based in the region. To date, the campaign has killed at least 15 people total, including six opposition fighters.

    This escalation follows a shifting series of statements from Trump on Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. In early March, the US president announced he would back Iranian Kurds to launch an offensive against the Tehran government, only to reverse that position days later. Just one week before the April 8 ceasefire was announced, Trump claimed Iranian Kurdish groups had received US weapons intended for anti-government protesters inside Iran — a claim all Kurdish opposition groups have repeatedly denied.

    Regional leaders have pushed back against efforts to draw Kurdish groups into cross-border conflict. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq has repeatedly emphasized it will not allow its territory to be used to escalate tensions with Iran, and issued a formal statement last week confirming that multiple drones targeting the region on April 9 were intercepted, reaffirming its “firm stance against involvement in conflict or escalation.”

    Analysts point out Iranian hypocrisy in the dual ceasefire policy

    Foreign policy analysts say the ongoing attacks against Kurdish groups represent a clear violation of the spirit of the US-brokered ceasefire, and highlight a stark double standard in Iran’s negotiating position. Mohammed A Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, explained that Tehran has vehemently opposed Israeli targeting of Lebanese Hezbollah, which carried out 39 days of active strikes against Israeli targets during the recent conflict. Yet Tehran continues to attack Iranian Kurdish groups that have not fired a single shot at Iranian forces during the same period.

    “It also shows a deep double standard in the Iranian position as Tehran is against Lebanese Hezbollah being targeted even though Hezbollah was actively striking Israel during the 39 days of conflict,” Salih noted. “Yet it insists on attacking Iranian Kurds based in Iraqi Kurdistan even though not a single shot was fired at Iranian troops by these groups during the war.”

    Targeted strikes on Kurdish opposition groups are not a new development: Tehran has launched repeated attacks on opposition bases in Iraqi Kurdistan for decades. In a major 2020 strike, Iranian missiles and drones killed at least 16 opposition members in a single attack. Analysts say the recent escalation, even amid a broader ceasefire, reflects Tehran’s long-held concern about the political and ideological influence of opposition groups inside Iran.

    Hana Yazdanpanah, foreign relations coordinator for the PAK, told Middle East Eye that Iran views even relatively small Kurdish opposition groups as a potential threat to its domestic stability, and uses cross-border strikes to prevent that influence from growing. “Therefore, through these attacks, Iran wants to prevent that influence and potential from growing,” she explained.

    Ranj Talabani, a former intelligence official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s Zanyari agency, echoed that analysis, saying the strikes serve as a permanent warning to opposition groups against any effort to undermine the Iranian government, now or in the future. “The regime understands that, although limited in number, these groups still have the potential to cause problems, not only overtly along the borders, but also covertly deeper in the country,” Talabani said. He added that public calls by Kurdish opposition leaders for US support have reinforced Tehran’s perception that Kurdish groups pose a more immediate threat to the regime than exiled royalist opposition led by Reza Pahlavi.

    Kurdish opposition leaders say US has remained silent on attacks

    Kurdish opposition officials say they have called on the US to intervene to halt the strikes, but have so far seen no action from Washington. Mawloudi said he hopes the US will take steps to stop the attacks, but added “we don’t think they have a plan like this, the US did not even condemn these attacks.”

    Yazdanpanah echoed that frustration, noting that the US has the leverage to force Iran to end the campaign if it chooses to act. “If the United States warns Iran that if even a single drone is launched in the Kurdistan Region, it will be hit, then they wouldn’t dare fire a single bullet,” she said.

  • US envoy Barrack plays down idea Turkey could be ‘next Iran’ for Israel

    US envoy Barrack plays down idea Turkey could be ‘next Iran’ for Israel

    Appearing at a high-profile panel discussion during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, senior U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has sought to de-escalate spiraling public tensions between NATO member Turkey and Israel, framing the heated exchanged rhetoric between the two countries as just verbal sparring rather than a precursor to open conflict. Barrack pushed back directly against growing warnings from political figures on both sides that a direct confrontation between Ankara and Tel Aviv could be on the near horizon.

    Barrack opened his remarks by acknowledging Turkey’s regional standing, noting, “I think Turkey is just not a country to be messed with.” He went on to argue that sensationalized media coverage on both sides has created a deeply distorted, exaggerated perception of the other country’s ambitions, framing each side as aggressively expansionist to their domestic audiences.

    “If you wake up in Tel Aviv, you read the newspaper, what do you see? You see the diagram on the paper of The Ottoman Empire 2.0, which is Vienna to the Maldives, right,” Barrack explained. “You wake up in Istanbul and read the paper and it’s Greater Israel.”

    The two countries share a long history of largely cooperative relations: Turkey became the first Muslim-majority nation to formally recognize Israeli statehood in 1949, and maintained cordial security and commercial ties for most of their modern bilateral history. That stable dynamic shifted dramatically in 2010, when Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged aid flotilla bound for Gaza, killing nine Turkish passengers on board (a tenth died of his injuries later). Since that incident, bilateral relations have remained strained, with successive Turkish governments increasingly criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinian people in the occupied territories and Gaza.

    A recent push to normalize ties gained traction in September 2023, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met and shook hands for the first time in years on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. That progress unraveled just one month later, following the October 7 attacks on Israel led by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians to date. Since the outbreak of the latest Gaza war, verbal attacks from political leaders on both sides have intensified, with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett labeling Turkey as a potential “next Iran” in comments made in March 2024.

    The U.S. government has maintained unwavering public support for Israel’s military actions across the Middle East, including its ongoing confrontation with Iran. However, Turkey’s status as a longstanding NATO ally and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s publicly stated positive regard for Erdogan has pushed American diplomatic officials to work toward repairing the fractured bilateral relationship between the two regional powers.

    Speaking at the forum, Barrack pointed to recent global energy market shocks spurred by the ongoing conflict with Iran as clear evidence that deepened regional cooperation between Turkey and Israel is critical to shoring up long-term energy security for the entire region. “Everything comes from Turkey. It’s fiber optics. We’re talking about Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is flowing oil, gas, information, data and materials. Where does it go? How does it go?” he said. “So Israel aligned with Turkey, like Israel aligned with Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia could be aligned with Israel and, for the prosperity of the Israeli people, to me that’s the answer.”

    Barrack went further, urging Israeli leaders to invite Turkey to take part in the proposed international stabilization force for Gaza that was outlined as part of ongoing ceasefire negotiations. “The smartest thing that Israel could do is to entice and embrace Turkey to enter that force,” he said. He added that Erdogan’s existing open channels to Hamas — which Ankara has not formally designated as a terrorist organization — were critical to securing earlier hostage release deals, making Turkey a uniquely valuable partner for post-ceasefire stability in Gaza.

    The forum also saw a bilateral meeting between Barrack and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday, which the pair described as “productive” in discussions of regional issues.

  • China Shock 2.0 jolts global economy as Trump does Xi’s work

    China Shock 2.0 jolts global economy as Trump does Xi’s work

    Against a backdrop of persistent global economic volatility driven by tariffs, regional conflicts, and stubborn inflation, a new preoccupation is dominating discussions in corporate boardrooms across the United States and beyond: which technology and advanced manufacturing player will be the next to be outpaced by Chinese competition, much as Tesla was overtaken by China’s BYD as the world’s top electric vehicle producer.

    The once-widely held belief that BYD’s rise was an isolated anomaly has been thoroughly dismantled in recent years. The so-called “DeepSeek shock” that upended the global artificial intelligence landscape, paired with major breakthroughs from Chinese startups ranging from chip designer Horizon Robotics to autonomous driving developer Qcraft, have made clear that Chinese innovation is spreading across multiple high-value sectors.

    As we move through 2026, despite aggressive tariffs and trade restrictions imposed by the second Trump administration, which has prioritized trade confrontation over domestic investment to boost U.S. technological competitiveness, China has been steadily and quietly capturing global market share across advanced industries. This shift is no rhetorical talking point: it is a tangible economic reality forged by the 11-year-old “Made in China 2025” strategy first launched in 2015, now widely referred to as the arrival of “China Shock 2.0” that is reorienting global commerce.

    To understand the significance of this new wave, economists draw a clear distinction between the first and second China shocks. The original disruption followed China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization, when a flood of low-cost Chinese manufactured imports and a surge in inbound foreign direct investment turned China into the world’s factory floor. By the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, China accounted for 22% of all U.S. goods imports. While this dynamic helped suppress global inflation, it also gutted large swathes of U.S. manufacturing, leading to widespread job losses.

    Today’s second shock stems from a very different set of dynamics, Nomura Holdings chief economist Rob Subbaraman explains. After years of government-led industrial upgrading that expanded China’s production capacity, paired with stubbornly weak domestic consumer demand in the wake of a prolonged property sector crisis, China now faces significant overcapacity in key high-tech sectors. This has triggered intense domestic price competition, pushing highly competitive Chinese manufacturers to redirect excess output to global markets, squeezing profit margins for foreign competitors worldwide.

    Beijing has moved to curb excessive cutthroat domestic pricing, a policy economists describe as “anti-involution” efforts. But weak domestic consumption means production continues to outpace domestic demand, says Brookings Institution economist Jon Czin. “So a lot of that is getting pushed to Europe, to the United States, maybe less so to the United States over the past year due to trade barriers, but to other parts of the world.”

    The electric vehicle sector offers the clearest case study of this trend. Buoyed by rising global oil prices amplified by the U.S.-Iran conflict, global demand for EVs has surged, and Chinese manufacturers have capitalized. In March alone, exports of new energy vehicles and plug-in hybrids from China hit a record 349,000 units, jumping 140% year-on-year, with BYD accounting for a third of that growth. Geely and Chery rounded out the top three Chinese exporters.

    This picture reveals a stark divide for China: while exports boom, domestic demand remains muted. The ongoing property sector crisis continues to drag on consumer confidence, leading to the third consecutive monthly drop in domestic EV and hybrid sales in March, which fell 14% year-on-year. Even BYD recorded a domestic sales decline, while Tesla saw its own China sales drop 24% over the same period.

    EVs are just the leading edge of this new wave of Chinese competitiveness, which is challenging long-standing U.S. dominance across cutting-edge industries. Harvard economist Gordon Hanson notes that China has shifted from a global underdog to a top contender, aggressively competing in sectors the U.S. has led unchallenged for decades: aerospace, artificial intelligence, telecommunications, microprocessors, robotics, nuclear and fusion energy, quantum computing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, and advanced batteries. To counter this shift, Hanson argues, the U.S. needs far more than tariffs: it requires a comprehensive new trade and innovation strategy that prioritizes targeted investment in key high-growth sectors.

    This second China shock is also dramatically reshaping economic dynamics across Southeast Asia, which is now China’s largest trading partner. Former Indian prime minister economic adviser Arvind Subramanian warns that the region should prepare for intensifying competitive pressure from China’s push into higher-value-added sectors, which will squeeze out existing market opportunities for developing economies.

    As China moves up the technological value chain, it is crowding out lower-income developing economies from the low-skilled manufacturing sectors that historically allowed emerging Asian economies like South Korea and Taiwan to grow. The traditional “flying geese” development model that drove Asian growth for decades is being rendered obsolete, Subramanian argues, raising the risk of premature deindustrialization across many South and Southeast Asian economies. As Chinese goods undercut foreign competitors on price and increasingly compete on innovation, many local manufacturing sectors across emerging markets may not survive the pressure.

    The threat of being “BYD-ed” – out-innovated and outcompeted by Chinese firms – is now a widespread anxiety across corporate leadership from Tokyo to Detroit. U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford are already among the most exposed. In June 2025, Ford CEO Jim Farley warned that China’s combination of low production costs and high product quality far outpaces that of Western automakers, calling his deep dive into China’s auto sector “the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen.” “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs,” Farley said. “And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

    Policy shifts under the second Trump administration have only weakened U.S. automakers’ competitive position. The rollback of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit for new purchases and $4,000 credit for used models completely reordered Detroit’s strategic priorities. The trade war launched by Trump in early 2025 disrupted long-standing integrated supply chains that relied on Canadian and Mexican production. Meanwhile, the rollback of fuel efficiency standards has encouraged Detroit to refocus on high-margin gas-powered SUVs and trucks that struggle to compete in global markets, rather than scaling EV production.

    As U.S. automakers pulled back from the battery research and development that Chinese firms are currently pioneering, BYD, Geely, Chery and other Chinese competitors aggressively expanded market share across Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, Thailand and other regions. This incremental expansion has eroded U.S. automakers’ global market share in ways that Washington policymakers are only now beginning to fully grasp.

    For now, 100% U.S. tariffs, layered regulatory barriers, and growing political pushback ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and 2028 presidential campaign have kept BYD from entering the U.S. consumer market directly. But that has not stopped Chinese EV makers from building robust global market share elsewhere, producing affordable, technologically advanced models with price tags starting as low as $10,000.

    William Li, CEO of Chinese premium EV maker Nio, notes that the entire Chinese EV supply chain has been transformed since 2018. “Costs across the supply chain, including batteries, have plummeted,” Li says. “In the past, we only needed to focus on making products. Now, everyone is confused, asking what is happening and why we’ve been sucked into a downward spiral of price competition.”

    China’s recently released 2026-2030 five-year economic plan signals that Beijing plans to ramp up state support for advanced industries even further, spanning biotechnology, robotics, and other cutting-edge sectors. Mingda Qiu, analyst at Eurasia Group, explains that Beijing is doubling down on technologies with clear, scalable industrial applications. AI, semiconductors, and quantum technology remain central priorities, while newly elevated sectors include industrial robots, brain-computer interfaces, commercial aerospace, satellite internet, low-altitude drones, and building out a domestic advanced computing ecosystem. Previously prioritized areas like virtual reality and “internet plus” have been deprioritized, while cloud computing, big data and blockchain are now treated as enabling infrastructure rather than standalone strategic goals.

    This shift reflects a clear preference for technologies that can achieve large-scale industrial deployment quickly, rather than unproven concepts, Qiu says. The plan also upgrades China’s industrial transformation goal from simple “digitization” to “intelligentization,” embedding AI, big data and autonomous systems into manufacturing, machinery and corporate management to advance Beijing’s priority of developing “new quality productive forces.” Beijing’s strategy prioritizes real-world AI deployment to drive demand for AI hardware and software, while reducing the risk of an unproductive AI investment bubble.

    Even as China faces significant domestic economic headwinds, from the property crisis to weak consumer demand, Beijing has no plans to slow down implementation of the Made in China 2025 vision. As a recent Financial Times series on China Shock 2.0 details, this shift is challenging the traditional “flying geese” development model that Japan pioneered in the 20th century, in which a leading advancing economy would move up the value chain and leave lower-value manufacturing to poorer follower economies.

    Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton argues that this new dynamic means many Asian economies will need to completely reevaluate their long-term growth models. “China’s lopsided economic structure — muscular manufacturing, enervated consumption — is a feature of its macro policy and is set to have even bigger global consequences in the years ahead,” Tilton says. Historically, advancing Asian economies passed lower-value manufacturing down to poorer neighbors as they moved up the value chain, following the flying geese model that saw Japan lead, followed by South Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and then China.

    But China breaks this historical pattern, Tilton argues: “Dragons don’t fly in formation: China is far larger and its policymakers intend to build as large a manufacturing ecosystem as they can, and to limit the flow of technologies and core manufacturing out of China even as it moves up the value chain.” While low-value sectors like apparel and basic assembly have moved to Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, in part to avoid U.S. tariffs, China’s policy prioritizes retaining as much control over core manufacturing and technology as possible.

    “Together with a protectionist shift by the single largest export market — the United States – and growing discomfort with the hollowing out of manufacturing in Europe, this has major implications for economic models elsewhere in Asia,” Tilton says. For emerging Asian economies without a clear differentiated competitive advantage – such as India’s services sector, Indonesia and Malaysia’s commodity reserves, or South Korea and Taiwan’s established high-tech sectors – export-led growth will become increasingly difficult.

    It is important to note that China’s high-tech ambitions are held back by slow progress on domestic financial and economic reforms, and ongoing domestic headwinds mean the Chinese government is prioritized short-term growth support over long-term structural reform. The regional volatility sparked by the Iran war has further delayed much-needed economic rebalancing toward higher domestic consumption. Even so, Beijing remains focused on its long-term goal of accelerating its move up the global value chain. As the Trump administration prioritizes 1980s-style protectionist trade policy, China is positioning itself not just to compete in the future global economy, but to lead it.

  • Wildfires used to ‘go to sleep’ at night. Climate change has them burning overtime

    Wildfires used to ‘go to sleep’ at night. Climate change has them burning overtime

    For decades, wildfires across North America followed a predictable rhythm: as temperatures dropped and nighttime humidity rose, flames would die down, giving crews a critical window to contain blazes before they spread further. But a landmark new study published in *Science Advances* confirms what firefighters and researchers have suspected for years: human-caused climate change has thrown that natural cycle off balance, extending wildfire-prone conditions deep into the night and pushing the start of dangerous fire weather earlier each season. The findings paint a stark picture of how rising global temperatures are escalating wildfire risk across the United States and Canada. The study, led by researchers from the Canadian Forest Service and University of Alberta, calculates that the total number of annual hours with weather conditions favorable to wildfire spread across North America has jumped 36% over the past 50 years. In some hard-hit regions, the increase is far more dramatic: parts of southwestern New Mexico and central Arizona now see more than 2,000 additional fire-prone hours each year compared to the mid-1970s, the highest increase recorded in the research. California, a state that has faced repeated catastrophic wildfire seasons in recent years, has gained 550 extra high-risk hours annually. Beyond extending daily burning windows, the research also found the overall wildfire season has grown 44% longer, adding 26 extra days of fire-prone conditions to the calendar over the past half century. Study authors note the shift is driven overwhelmingly by warmer, drier nighttime temperatures paired with slightly increased wind speeds. Unlike past decades when overnight humidity would restore moisture to vegetation and cool temperatures would slow flame spread, modern nights no longer deliver that relief. “Fires normally slow down during the night, or they just stop,” explained study co-author Xianli Wang, a fire scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. “But under extreme fire hazard conditions, fire actually burns through the night or later into the night.” Wang warned that ongoing atmospheric warming means this trend will only grow more severe in coming decades. Overnight-burning blazes are not just a statistical shift — they pose a direct, increased danger to communities and firefighters alike. Recent high-profile catastrophic fires have followed this dangerous new pattern: the 2023 Lahaina wildfire on Maui that killed more than 100 people ignited at 12:22 a.m., while the 2024 Jasper fire in Alberta and 2025 Los Angeles fires all raged uncontrolled through the night. Fires that do not die down overnight gain a critical head start the next day, making them far harder to extinguish, explained John Abatzoglou, a fire scientist at the University of California Merced who was not involved in the study. “Nights aren’t what they used to be — that is, more reliable breaks for wildfire,” Abatzoglou said in an email interview. “Widespread warming and lack of humidity is keeping fires up at night.” Wildland firefighters face unique hazards battling overnight blazes, from navigating dark, rough terrain to encountering nocturnal wildlife displaced by approaching flames. Nicholai Allen, a career wildland firefighter and founder of a home fire prevention company, noted a colleague of his was bitten by a bear fleeing a nighttime fire. “You have to deal with all the same hazards you face in the daytime: snakes, bears, mountain lions,” Allen explained. “But at night, those animals are disoriented and terrified, running straight away from the flames, putting them right in our path.” To reach their conclusions, the research team analyzed hourly atmospheric data — including temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, and vegetation fuel moisture — from nearly 9,000 large wildfires recorded between 2017 and 2023, using data from weather satellites and ground monitoring stations. They built a statistical model linking weather conditions to fire activity, then applied that model to historical climate data stretching back to 1975 across the U.S. and Canada. The research aligns with longstanding climate science that shows nighttime temperatures are warming faster than daytime temperatures across most of the globe. The root cause is the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning, which increase nighttime cloud cover that traps heat near the Earth’s surface, acting like a blanket to prevent cooling. Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirms that since 1975, average summer overnight low temperatures in the contiguous United States have warmed by 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius), compared to a 2.2 degree Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) increase in average daytime high temperatures. This rapid nighttime warming means overnight humidity no longer rebounds to the levels it reached in past decades after a day of hot, dry conditions, explained study lead author Kaiwei Luo, a fire science researcher at the University of Alberta. Drought conditions, which have become more frequent and severe across much of western North America due to climate change, amplify this effect: higher temperatures suck additional moisture out of soil and vegetation, turning trees and underbrush into highly flammable fuel for fires. When vegetation dries out, it can take weeks to regain enough moisture to become less fire-prone, Wang explained. Just as warm summer nights prevent human bodies from cooling off and recovering from heat stress, warmer nights prevent forest ecosystems and vegetation from recovering from daytime heat and dryness. “It’s just an added stress to the plants,” Wang said. “That also increases fuel flammability and makes fire spread more easily.” The trend of lengthened burning windows has already translated to far more area burned across the continent. Between 2016 and 2025, U.S. wildfires burned an average of 11,000 square miles (28,500 square kilometers) — an area roughly the size of Massachusetts — each year, according to the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center. That is 2.6 times the average annual burn area recorded in the 1980s. In Canada, the past decade has seen an average annual burn area 2.8 times higher than the 1980s average, per the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Outside experts have called the study a rigorous, important confirmation of climate change’s growing impact on wildfire risk. Jacob Bendix, a fire scientist at Syracuse University who was not part of the research team, called the work “a sobering reminder of climate change’s role in driving increased fire potential across almost all of the fire-prone environments of North America.” This reporting on climate and the environment is supported by funding from multiple private foundations, with The Associated Press retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • China set to deliver 2nd homegrown cruise ship in November

    China set to deliver 2nd homegrown cruise ship in November

    China’s growing domestic cruise ship manufacturing sector has hit a new milestone, with the country’s second entirely homebuilt large cruise liner, Adora Flora City, scheduled for handover on November 6 — two months ahead of its originally projected delivery timeline. The builder and future operator of the vessel made the official announcement on April 16.

    This achievement comes on the heels of the 2023 launch of Adora Magic City, China’s first domestically constructed large cruise ship, and marks a clear leap forward in the country’s shipbuilding expertise. Compared to its predecessor, the Adora Flora City project has recorded a 20 percent improvement in overall construction efficiency, putting the vessel solidly on track to begin its scheduled sea trials in mid-May.

    The cruise ship successfully completed its undocking process on March 20, and as of the mid-April announcement, 96 percent of total construction and outfitting work has been finalized. The vessel is currently undergoing dock mooring debugging at the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co Ltd facility, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC), the lead enterprise behind the project.

    Measuring 341 meters in total length and boasting a gross tonnage of 141,900, the Adora Flora City is larger than China’s first homegrown cruise ship, stretching 17.4 meters longer than Adora Magic City. In terms of passenger capacity, the new liner will feature 2,130 individual cabins, with space to accommodate up to 5,232 guests on board when it enters commercial operation.

    The accelerated delivery timeline for the second domestic cruise ship underscores China’s rapid mastery of the complex, high-value large cruise ship manufacturing sector, an industry long dominated by European shipbuilders. This progress signals the emergence of China as a competitive new player in the global cruise ship construction market, while also supporting the growth of China’s domestic cruise tourism industry.

  • Japan reveals new name for 40C and hotter days after blistering summer

    Japan reveals new name for 40C and hotter days after blistering summer

    Against a backdrop of worsening global climate trends and a historic heat event last year, Japan’s national weather authority has formally created a new official term to classify the country’s most extreme high-temperature days. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) announced the new designation, *kokushobi*, on Friday, following a nationwide public consultation that crowned the term the top choice among more than a dozen candidate phrases.

    Translated across regional and international outlets as “cruelly hot,” “brutally hot,” or “severely hot” day, the term draws from the Japanese character *koku*, which carries connotations of harshness and intensity – a deliberate choice to reflect the dangerous severity of temperatures climbing to 40°C (104°F) and above. *Kokushobi* beat the runner-up option “super extremely hot day” to claim the official designation, after winning the preference of participants in a two-month national online survey held between February and March. The public poll drew approximately 478,000 responses, with respondents invited to select their preferred term from 13 pre-vetted options.

    This new classification fills a gap in Japan’s existing temperature tier system, which already had established labels for days exceeding 25°C, 30°C, and 35°C. The update comes in direct response to the record-breaking heat that scorched the country during the 2025 summer season, which official data confirms was the hottest summer Japan has seen since national record-keeping began in 1898. Last year, the national average summer temperature hit 2.36°C above the long-term baseline average. Between June and August, temperatures topped 40°C on nine separate days, and the city of Isesaki set a new all-time national temperature record of 41.8°C.

    The total number of extreme high-temperature days across the country also outpaced the previous record set just one year prior, in 2024. Major urban centers saw staggering jumps in the frequency of dangerous heat: Tokyo notched 25 days with temperatures above 35°C, compared to the historical average of just 4.5 days. Meanwhile, Kyoto recorded 52 days above 35°C, far exceeding its average of 18.5 days.

    Looking ahead to the 2026 summer season, the JMA is already projecting a very high likelihood that temperatures across Japan will remain above the historical average between June and August, putting renewed pressure on public health systems and heat safety protocols as the country adapts to a warmer climate.

  • Flying Tigers foundation revisits military cooperation legacy in Shanxi

    Flying Tigers foundation revisits military cooperation legacy in Shanxi

    Eighty years after the World War II-era partnership between Chinese and American combatants and civilians, a delegation led by Jeffrey Greene, chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, has traveled to northern China’s Shanxi province to commemorate the enduring friendship forged by the legendary Flying Tigers and renew cross-cultural people-to-people bonds.

    During the April 2026 visit, Greene lauded Shanxi’s consistent efforts to preserve the historical record of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945) and expand people-centered international educational exchange. He emphasized that the shared history of Sino-U.S. wartime collaboration remains deeply rooted in collective Chinese memory, noting that the mutual trust and joint effort displayed by Chinese and American people 80 years ago proved that partners can overcome even the most daunting obstacles when they stand side by side.

    “This spirit of cross-border cooperation is a treasure that must be passed from one generation to the next,” Greene said. “In today’s deeply interconnected global landscape, the core values of the Flying Tigers legacy hold growing contemporary relevance. It continues to inspire both our peoples to rise above ideological and political differences, and work collaboratively toward shared goals that benefit everyone.”

    A key focus of Greene’s visit was expanding the Flying Tigers Friendship Schools initiative, a program designed to connect secondary and postsecondary institutions in China and the United States. Greene called on more Shanxi-based schools to join the network, saying that structured exchange activities — including virtual dialogues, in-person student visits, and themed academic competitions — will deepen mutual understanding and foster genuine friendship between young people from both nations, ensuring the Flying Tigers spirit is carried forward into the new era.

    Shanxi holds profound historical significance for this wartime legacy: it was one of the most critical battlefields of the Chinese resistance, served as the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, and hosted multiple key revolutionary bases during the war. During their trip, delegation members visited two local educational institutions — Taiyuan University of Technology and Shanxi Experimental Secondary School — to tour campuses, learn about the schools’ unique academic profiles and existing international exchange programs, and hold open discussions with students and faculty on topics ranging from Flying Tigers history to U.S.-China cultural differences and youth people-to-people exchange.

    Ma Xiaomin, deputy director-general of the Foreign Affairs Office of Shanxi Province, reaffirmed the province’s commitment to advancing the Flying Tigers legacy during the visit. He noted that the Flying Tigers spirit is far more than a historical footnote: it is a tangible, living witness to the joint struggle and mutual assistance between the Chinese and American people, and a precious spiritual asset that preserves the longstanding friendship between the two nations.

    “The Foreign Affairs Office of Shanxi will fully support local schools to join the Flying Tigers Friendship Schools network,” Ma said. “We hope that by using this program as a binding link, we can build a strong bridge for exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and American young people, carry forward the great Flying Tigers spirit, and advance more practical cooperation between Shanxi and the United States in education, culture, and other key fields. In doing so, we can contribute our part to strengthening the non-governmental friendship between our two nations.”

  • Tinder and Zoom offer ‘proof of humanity’ eye-scans to combat AI

    Tinder and Zoom offer ‘proof of humanity’ eye-scans to combat AI

    As artificial intelligence grows more capable of mimicking human behavior and likeness, two major digital platforms — dating giant Tinder and enterprise video conferencing service Zoom — are turning to cutting-edge biometric authentication to root out fake bot accounts and deepfake scams.

    The new verification system relies on advanced iris-scanning technology developed by World, a biometrics startup previously known as Worldcoin and World Network. Operated by Tools for Humanity, a firm co-founded and chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the project lets users confirm their human identity via a scan of their irises — the unique colored portions of the eye that are more biologically distinct than even fingerprints. Users can complete the scan either through a mobile app or a dedicated orb-shaped scanning device provided by World. Once verified, users receive a blockchain-stored unique digital credential called a World ID saved to their smartphone, which they can use to prove their humanity across participating platforms.

    World representatives emphasize that the verification process is designed to be anonymous, with no requirement for users to submit basic personal data such as full names or home addresses to receive a World ID. To date, more than 40 million people globally have registered for a World ID through the company’s platform.

    The push for stronger identity verification comes as platforms face a surge in AI-driven malicious activity over the past two years. On Tinder, which is owned by Match Group, automated bot accounts have become a pervasive problem: these fake profiles typically use AI-generated photos and scripted conversations to lure real users into romance scams that steal money or sensitive personal data. One Tinder user documented last year that an estimated 30% of all profiles she encountered were AI-powered romance scammers optimized to manipulate users emotionally.

    U.S. Federal Trade Commission data confirms the scale of this crisis: American consumers lost more than $1 billion to romance scams alone last year. To address this issue, Match Group already rolled out mandatory video selfie verification for all Tinder users in late 2024. The optional integration with World ID will serve as an additional, more robust verification layer for users who choose to opt in. “Partnering with World ID is a natural next step” for the platform, said Yoel Roth, Match Group’s head of trust and safety, noting that the tool will help users confidently confirm that the person they are interacting with is a real human being.

    For Zoom, the technology addresses a different but equally urgent threat: increasingly convincing deepfake impersonation that targets business and professional video conferences. In a high-profile 2024 case, a Hong Kong-based employee was defrauded out of $25 million after being tricked by deepfake video of the company’s CFO and multiple senior colleagues during a fraudulent video call. Industry analysis from Deloitte projects that total losses from deepfake-enabled financial fraud could hit $40 billion annually in the U.S. alone by 2027. Like on Tinder, World ID verification will be an optional tool for Zoom users to publicly prove their identity during calls, helping participants avoid falling victim to impersonation scams.

    As AI capabilities continue to advance, the partnership between these major platforms and World marks one of the first widespread deployments of iris-scanning biometrics for consumer-facing identity verification, setting a potential precedent for how digital platforms will tackle AI-driven abuse in the coming years.