分类： world

The United Arab Emirates will officially withdraw from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Friday, a decision that has already earned public praise from former U.S. President Donald Trump amid ongoing regional volatility sparked by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Trump voiced clear support for the Gulf nation’s move, singling out UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) for praise. “I think it’s great. I know him very well. Mohamed. Very smart, and he probably maybe wants to go his own way,” Trump said. The former president argued the exit would ultimately help push down global energy prices, noting “They’re having some problems in OPEC” and describing MBZ as “a great leader.”

Outside OPEC’s production quota system, the UAE will gain full flexibility to ramp up its crude output, an outcome the Trump administration has prioritized to ease energy market disruptions tied to the war on Iran. Analysts view the withdrawal as part of a broader shift by Abu Dhabi to deepen its strategic alignment with Washington while hedging against prolonged regional conflict.

Previously unreported details from Middle East Eye (MEE) reveal that UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed informed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year that Abu Dhabi is already preparing for the conflict to last as long as nine months. Just weeks prior, the UAE also requested a currency swap line from the Trump administration to secure access to U.S. dollars should its foreign reserves be depleted by extended market volatility.

The UAE’s decision has also gained backing from Fox News, a outlet that Trump regularly relies on to gauge conservative support for policy priorities. Speaking on Fox Business, host Charles Payne argued the UAE is uniquely positioned to increase production after years of targeted investment in energy infrastructure, unlike many other OPEC members that have underinvested in capacity.

“They have the ability to produce. Right now, there’s about 3.6 million barrels a day. They can do anywhere up to one and a half million more, but they’re locked in because of Opec pricing,” Payne said. “UAE has been brilliant. Everyone knows Dubai [and] what they’ve done economically. And so Saudi Arabia can’t control them anymore.”

In an official statement released earlier this week, the UAE Energy Ministry framed the exit as the outcome of a “comprehensive review” of its long-term national production strategy. The ministry acknowledged that near-term market instability, including supply disruptions from conflict in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, has reshaped regional energy dynamics, but noted that medium and long-term forecasts still point to sustained growth in global energy demand.

The statement also emphasized the country’s decades of constructive participation in the cartel: the UAE, then represented by Abu Dhabi, first joined OPEC in 1967 and retained its membership after the formal unification of the Emirates in 1971. “Throughout this period, the UAE has played an active role in supporting global oil market stability and strengthening dialogue among producing nations,” the statement read.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, which began in late February, has already inflicted significant economic damage on the UAE, the Gulf state with the closest formal ties to Israel. Iranian drone and ballistic missile attacks targeting the country have damaged Dubai’s reputation as a top luxury tourism destination and drastically slowed the country’s oil export volumes. Unlike some Gulf nations that have pushed for diplomatic negotiations to de-escalate tensions with Iran, the UAE has taken a hardline stance, publicly calling for the U.S. to continue military operations.

MEE, which provides independent, on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions, first broke details of the UAE’s pre-exit preparations for extended conflict.

As the annual rice planting season gets underway across Southeast Asia’s vast agricultural expanses, thousands of smallholder farmers are facing an impossible choice that could reshape global food security for the year ahead. Among them is 60-year-old Suchart Piamsomboon, a third-generation rice farmer based in Thailand’s Chachoengsao province, who traveled to his local agricultural supply shop earlier this spring ready to stock up on fertiliser for the new growing cycle. What he found there changed his entire planting plan. No fertiliser shipment had arrived, and the shop owner warned it might not come at all. Even if a shipment turned up, the cost would exceed 1,100 Thai baht per 50-kilogram sack – a steep jump from the 800 to 900 baht price tag just five weeks prior. By the time Piamsomboon returned to his small farm, rumors were already spreading that prices could climb as high as 1,200 baht per sack.

Faced with runaway input costs that far outpace the revenue he can earn selling his harvested rice, Piamsomboon made the difficult decision to walk away from planting this season. “Farming only leads to financial losses now,” he explained. “I’d rather work as a day laborer, earning 100 to 200 baht a day just to get by. My everyday expenses don’t go down, but my farming income keeps falling year after year.”

Piamsomboon is far from alone in this choice. From Thailand’s central rice belt to Vietnam’s fertile Mekong Delta, rice producers across the Asia-Pacific are running the same financial calculations and landing on the same grim outcome: the planting season is here, but affordable fertiliser is not. The decisions these farmers make over the coming weeks will directly shape the size of the year-end global rice harvest, a staple that feeds half the world’s population.

The root of this unfolding crisis traces back to a conflict thousands of miles away, one that most Asian smallholders never expected to impact their daily lives. In late February, military strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow strategic waterway that carries roughly one-third of all globally traded seaborne fertiliser. With exports through the strait halted completely, global fertiliser markets erupted: within weeks, the price of urea, the world’s most widely used nitrogen fertiliser, surged by more than 40%.

As major importers scrambled to replace lost Gulf supply, the global community turned its attention to China, the world’s single largest fertiliser producer. In 2025, China accounted for 25% of total global fertiliser output and exported more than $13 billion worth of the product to markets worldwide. But Beijing closed its export doors in early March, implementing an immediate ban on several key fertiliser varieties critical to rice and staple crop production. This latest move builds on a series of incremental export restrictions China has rolled out since 2021. A Reuters analysis of Chinese customs data finds that between 50% and 80% of China’s total fertiliser exports are now restricted under the new rules.

One fertiliser exporter based in China’s Shandong province, who requested anonymity to avoid government repercussions, described the sudden order to halt all shipments to international clients. His firm has supplied fertilisers to Asia-Pacific markets including Thailand, Indonesia, and New Zealand for nearly a decade, and had already signed contracts and confirmed shipping dates for shipments to at least five countries before the ban was announced. “We already had the orders in hand, and our clients were waiting for the cargo to arrive,” he said. “But now we’ve been ordered not to ship anything. Of course we’re worried about our business, but we understand the government’s reasoning: they need to guarantee enough supply for domestic farmers first, so we will follow the regulations.”

The only major fertiliser product China still exports in large volumes is ammonium sulfate, a low-grade industrial byproduct that cannot serve as an effective replacement for the more nutrient-dense fertilisers required to produce high-yield rice harvests.

Joseph Glauber, Research Fellow Emeritus at the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, warned that the dual shocks of the Strait of Hormuz closure and China’s export ban will inevitably send shockwaves through global fertiliser markets and put worldwide food security at severe risk.

For the Chinese government, guaranteeing domestic food security has become a core political priority. A national food security law passed in 2023 requires all local governments to embed mandatory grain production targets directly into their regional economic plans. Allowing fertiliser exports to continue amid global price spikes would drive up domestic fertiliser costs in China, squeezing the same domestic farmers the policy is designed to protect. Paul Teng, a senior food security fellow based in Singapore, explained: “In China, food security is a non-negotiable political issue. The government is not willing to compromise on ensuring there is enough grain for the domestic population, no matter the global impact.”

Compounding the issue, China’s own access to liquefied natural gas – the key feedstock for manufacturing nitrogen fertilisers – is now threatened by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving Beijing with even less incentive to release domestic supply to global markets.

For Southeast Asia, a region that is structurally dependent on Chinese fertiliser imports, Beijing’s export halt has triggered an immediate crisis. Vietnam, one of the world’s top rice exporters that supplies much of the Philippines and parts of Africa, sourced more than half of its total fertiliser imports by volume from China in the first quarter of 2026 – totaling more than 480,000 tonnes. Put simply: the country that feeds much of Southeast Asia cannot grow its rice without Chinese fertiliser inputs.

The Philippines faces an even more precarious situation. The island nation relies on China for 75% of its total fertiliser supply, with almost no domestic fertiliser production to fall back on. To make matters worse, the Philippines sources roughly 80% of its imported rice from Vietnam, creating a tightly interconnected supply chain of dependencies: Filipino consumers depend on Vietnamese rice, and Vietnamese farmers depend on Chinese fertiliser. Break just one link in this chain, and the entire system could collapse.

Thailand, another regional agricultural powerhouse whose rice exports feed much of Asia, faced a dual supply shock: in 2024, it sourced 20% of its fertiliser from China and 32% of imports from the Persian Gulf. Both supply routes are now blocked at the same time.

Analysts emphasize that the full impact of this crisis will not show up in global food prices immediately. The consequences will only become visible at the end of 2026, when this spring’s planted harvests come in far smaller than expected – or fail to materialize entirely. Teng noted: “Many countries do have enough fertiliser stockpiled to get through the immediate planting season, but if the crisis stretches on for months, we will see severe production shortfalls for rice and other staple crops in the second half of the year.”

The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that the combined fallout from the Middle East conflict and resulting fertiliser crisis could push an additional 45 million people into acute hunger by the end of 2026. Across Asia and the Pacific, the prevalence of food insecurity is projected to rise by 24% – the largest relative increase of any region in the world.

For smallholder farmers already on the edge of financial ruin, the hardship is already overwhelming. “Sometimes I wish every rice farmer across the country would stop planting altogether, so that government officials would have no rice to eat and finally understand what we’re going through,” said Pratheuang Piamsomboon, a 48-year-old rice farmer in Bangkok’s Nong Chok district. “This hardship is impossible to put into words.”

A violent assault on a 48-year-old nun and researcher at Jerusalem’s French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research has sparked renewed international alarm over escalating hostility targeting Christian communities across Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. The attack unfolded on Tuesday at the Cenacle, a sacred Mount Zion site revered by both Christian and Jewish faith traditions, according to detailed accounts from institutional leaders.

Father Olivier Poquillon, director of the Dominican-managed institute that employs the nun, described the unprovoked attack to Agence France-Presse. He confirmed that an unidentified assailant approached the researcher from behind, hurled her with full force onto a nearby rock, and continued to repeatedly kick her while she lay incapacitated on the ground. Photographs circulating widely on social media have documented visible facial bruising from the beating; the victim has since received outpatient medical care for her injuries.

Following the incident, both Poquillon and the French Consulate General in Jerusalem issued public condemnations of the “gratuitous assault” via social media platform X, and jointly demanded immediate law enforcement action to apprehend and prosecute the attacker. Israeli police announced Wednesday that they had taken a 36-year-old suspect into custody, but declined to release any further identifying information about the individual. Local Israeli journalist Yossi Eli of Channel 13 later reported that the arrest only came after the incident gained widespread viral media attention, prompting public pressure on law enforcement.

In an official statement, Israeli police asserted that they “treat any attack on members of the clergy and religious communities with the utmost seriousness and apply a policy of zero tolerance to all acts of violence,” adding that the force remains “committed to protecting all communities and ensuring those responsible for violence are held accountable.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry also released a condemnation, noting that the attack “stands in direct contradiction to the values of respect, coexistence and religious freedom upon which Israel is founded,” and reaffirming the country’s stated commitment to safeguarding worship access for all faith groups.

But local and institutional leaders have pushed back against these official assurances, framing the assault as part of a sustained, growing pattern of anti-Christian aggression. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which maintains an affiliation with the nun’s research center, released a statement calling the incident “not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of rising hostility toward the Christian community and its symbols.” The university added that the attack represents a direct violation of Jerusalem’s core founding values of religious pluralism and safe interfaith dialogue.

This latest assault comes against a backdrop of escalating tensions that have raised concern among Christian communities across the region over the past two months. In March 2025, Israeli police initially blocked Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and other senior clergy from accessing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to lead the annual Palm Sunday Mass. Access was only partially restored after widespread international pushback. In a recent pastoral letter, Pizzaballa warned that holy sites meant for prayer have increasingly become identity-focused battlegrounds, noting that “sacred texts are invoked to justify violence, occupation, and terrorism,” and calling the abuse of religious belief to legitimize harm “the gravest sin of our time.”

Earlier in April, video footage emerged showing an Israeli soldier destroying a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon, triggering global public outrage. The Israeli military ultimately removed the soldier from combat duty and issued a 30-day sentence for the incident. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers have stepped up repeated attacks on Taybeh, one of the only remaining majority-Christian towns in the territory, in recent weeks.

A April 2025 report from the Rossing Centre for Education and Dialogue, a Jerusalem-based interfaith advocacy organization, documented what it calls a “continued and expanding pattern of intimidation and aggression” targeting Christian communities, with clergy and church properties bearing the brunt of attacks. The organization recorded 155 separate incidents of anti-Christian hostility in 2025 alone: 61 physical assaults, 52 attacks on church-owned property, 28 cases of harassment, and 14 incidents of vandalized religious signage. Researchers stressed that the recorded incidents are almost certainly just the “tip of the iceberg,” as many cases go unreported.

The report links the rising violence to a shifting “sociopolitical climate increasingly intolerant of diversity and more assertive in exclusivist national-religious claims,” noting that Palestinian Christian communities are disproportionately impacted by the hostility. Separate from physical attacks, Christian educational institutions in Jerusalem now face an existential threat: the Israeli Education Ministry has recently banned teachers holding Palestinian-issued teaching permits from working in Israeli-jurisdictional schools, putting more than 200 Christian teachers out of work and pushing dozens of schools toward potential permanent closure.

A fresh wave of Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank has left two Palestinians dead, including a 16-year-old teenager, amid a documented sharp escalation in civilian casualties and forced displacement that has reached levels not seen since the 1967 occupation, United Nations data confirms.

The most recent fatal incident unfolded Wednesday evening in the al-Hawooz neighborhood of Hebron, where Israeli forces launched a large-scale raid into the densely populated urban area. Medical sources confirm 16-year-old Ibrahim al-Khayyat sustained a critical gunshot wound to the abdomen during the operation, which saw Israeli troops deploy dozens of military vehicles, block major thoroughfares, and order local shop owners to close their businesses mid-day.

During the incursion, troops opened live fire and launched tear gas canisters directly at local residents, leaving two people injured. Both casualties were transported to the local Red Crescent hospital for emergency care, where al-Khayyat was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. In addition to the fatality, Israeli forces took at least one Palestinian into custody during the raid, which also targeted the headquarters of a local charitable association.

The Hebron killing came hours after a separate Israeli incursion in Silwad, a town located northeast of Ramallah, that left another Palestinian, Abd el-Halim Hammad, dead. These two deaths are part of a consistent, daily pattern of Israeli search-and-arraid operations across the occupied West Bank that regularly involve the use of live ammunition against Palestinian civilians.

UN data compiled on the ongoing crisis shows that Palestinian fatalities at the hands of Israeli forces in the West Bank have spiked dramatically since October 2023. Since that time, at least 1,080 Palestinians have been killed, with at least 35 additional deaths recorded already this year. Thousands more have sustained injuries from military activity in the region.

Parallel to the increase in military operations, UN officials also record a significant surge in violence carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities. The data shows an average of 140 settler attacks per month, nearly twice the frequency recorded before October 2023. These attacks have grown increasingly organized, with a clear goal of forcing Palestinian communities out of Area C — a section of the West Bank that makes up roughly 60% of the total territory, and remains under full Israeli military and administrative control.

According to latest UN displacement figures, approximately 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly removed from their homes in the West Bank since January 2023. More than 3,000 of these displacements are directly tied to targeted attacks by settlers. UN officials note that the current scale of forced displacement is the worst it has been since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.