Global Pulse

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  • Florida sheriff identifies body found in Tampa Bay as 2nd missing student from Bangladesh

    Florida sheriff identifies body found in Tampa Bay as 2nd missing student from Bangladesh

    TAMPA BAY, Fla. — Law enforcement officials have confirmed that a badly decomposed body pulled from Tampa Bay earlier this month is that of the second missing University of South Florida international graduate student from Bangladesh, in what a top sheriff calls an unspeakable, cold-blooded double killing.

    Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced the identification Friday, more than a month after the two students were first reported missing. The remains of Nahida Bristy, a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering, were discovered Sunday by a recreational kayaker whose fishing line caught on a discarded garbage bag bobbing in the bay’s waters. Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the corpse, investigators relied on DNA testing and dental records to confirm Bristy’s identity, Chronister explained during a press briefing.

    Just two days before Bristy’s remains were located, the body of her friend and fellow USF doctoral student Zamil Limon was found in a separate garbage bag dumped on a bridge spanning the bay. Limon, who studied geography, environmental science and policy, shared an off-campus apartment with 26-year-old Hisham Saleh Abugharbieh, who has been in custody since the day Limon’s body was recovered. Abugharbieh, a former USF student who dropped out of the institution, faces two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the students’ deaths.

    In chilling comments to reporters, Chronister said the suspect displayed absolutely no remorse or reaction when confronted with evidence of the brutal killings. “He was nonreactive. He was callous and showed no emotion when we showed him the information we had,” the sheriff said. While preliminary evidence indicates both students were killed at the same location and around the same time, Chronister noted detectives are still working to confirm a definitive timeline of the crime.

    To date, investigators have not uncovered a clear motive for the slayings, a detail Chronister says his team remains determined to uncover. “I hope we find that out,” he added.

    The case began on April 16, when Bristy and Limon were separately reported missing to campus police and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. Colleagues and contacts told investigators that failing to show up for scheduled appointments was completely out of character for both students, and law enforcement quickly connected the two disappearances.

    Initial interviews at the apartment shared by Limon, Abugharbieh, and a third roommate immediately raised red flags for investigators. While the third roommate cooperated fully with questions, Abugharbieh gave vague, shifting answers about his interactions with Limon. Investigators also noted he had an unstitched cut on one arm and a bandaged finger, leading them to label him a person of interest, though they did not have sufficient evidence to arrest him at that stage.

    A follow-up interview with the third roommate yielded a critical break: the roommate told investigators he had seen Abugharbieh using a large cart to move items out of his room and to a nearby trash compactor in the overnight hours between April 16 and 17. When investigators searched the compactor, they found Limon’s glasses, student ID, wallet, and blood-soaked clothing. That evidence was enough to secure search warrants for the entire apartment and Abugharbieh’s electronic devices.

    A forensic sweep of the apartment uncovered damning physical evidence: large visible blood traces in the kitchen that extended down the hallway and into Abugharbieh’s bedroom. When investigators used blood-detecting luminal spray, they even found a faint outline of blood matching the shape of a human body curled in the fetal position, pressed against the wall right next to Abugharbieh’s bed. Additional blood traces were later found on the floorboards of Abugharbieh’s car, and genetic testing confirmed those traces belonged to Bristy.

    Investigators have reconstructed what they believe is the sequence of events: after the killings, Abugharbieh loaded the bodies into a cart under cover of darkness and transported them to his car to be dumped. Tracking data from the suspect’s car GPS, paired with surveillance footage from a nearby fire station, allowed investigators to map his route from the apartment to the Tampa Bay area, prompting the extensive search that eventually led to the recovery of both victims’ remains.

    While most of the content on Abugharbieh’s phone had been manually erased, forensic analysts were able to recover disturbing search history from the days leading up to the students’ disappearance. The search queries included deeply troubling questions: “Can a knife penetrate a skull?” and “Can a neighbor hear a gunshot?” Investigators also confirmed that Abugharbieh purchased large quantities of Lysol disinfecting wipes, heavy-duty contractor-grade trash bags, and other suspicious supplies in the days before April 16.

    “This was calculating. That’s what makes this so premeditated,” Chronister said of the suspect’s alleged actions.

    Relatives of both victims have been notified of the identification and ongoing developments in the case, the sheriff confirmed. Jennifer Spradley, an attorney with the Tampa public defender’s office representing Abugharbieh, declined to comment on the case when reached by email earlier this week.

  • An angry crowd riots outside Australian hospital treating suspect in 5-year-old girl’s death

    An angry crowd riots outside Australian hospital treating suspect in 5-year-old girl’s death

    In the remote Australian Outback, a shocking wave of public anger has boiled over into violent unrest outside a major regional hospital, triggered by the brutal murder of a young Indigenous child. The incident unfolded over four days starting on a weekend in the area surrounding Alice Springs, a remote hub in central Australia’s Northern Territory.

    Authorities allege that Jefferson Lewis, the 55-year-old primary suspect, abducted the 5-year-old child from her home in a nearby Indigenous community. Per cultural customs of the local First Nations people, a strict ban prohibits publicly naming deceased community members, so the young victim has been identified publicly only as Kumanjayi Little Baby. Her body was discovered by search teams on Thursday, four days after she was reported missing, sparking immediate, raw outrage across the local Indigenous community.

    Before law enforcement could take Lewis into custody, a large group of community members tracked the suspect down and beat him until he lost consciousness, in an act of vigilante justice. When police arrived at the scene to intervene, they extracted the unconscious suspect and rushed him to Alice Springs Hospital for emergency medical treatment.

    That evening, hundreds of angry local residents gathered outside the hospital’s entrance to protest his presence there. Many in the crowd pushed for Lewis to be subjected to “payback,” a traditional form of customary Indigenous justice that can include corporal punishment such as beating or spearing. As the crowd refused to disperse and tensions escalated into rioting, law enforcement deployed less-lethal crowd control measures: officers fired rubber bullets and released tear gas to push the crowd back. In the chaos of the unrest, multiple police vehicles were damaged by members of the crowd.

    To de-escalate the situation and protect Lewis from further harm, hospital staff cleared him for transport into police custody shortly after the riot broke out. Authorities immediately arranged an air transfer 1,500 kilometers (more than 900 miles) north to Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, where Lewis will remain in pre-charge detention. Prosecutors confirm that formal charges against the suspect are expected to be filed on Friday.

    The incident has thrown a harsh spotlight on the deep tensions between formal Australian state law and traditional Indigenous customary justice in remote central Australian communities, where many First Nations residents continue to prioritize traditional governance systems for addressing serious harm.

  • China’s Manus AI case sets red lines to bar ‘Singapore washing’

    China’s Manus AI case sets red lines to bar ‘Singapore washing’

    China has formally blocked Meta’s proposed $2 billion acquisition of Manus, a high-profile Chinese general-purpose agentic AI startup, and moved to clear up misperceptions around the decision, emphasizing that the prohibition targets regulatory circumvasion rather than domestic firms’ legitimate overseas expansion or foreign inbound investment.

    The ban was issued on Monday by the Office of the Working Mechanism for Security Review of Foreign Investment under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which ordered the involved parties to unwind the unreported transaction entirely. In the days following the ruling, Chinese state media outlets published a series of explanatory commentaries to outline the policy logic behind the decision, aiming to avoid misinterpretation that the move signals a broader crackdown on foreign capital or restrictions on Chinese tech firms going global.

    Chinese policy analysts stress that Beijing does not intend for the Manus ruling to send a misleading signal to the global investment community. As a CCTV-affiliated social media account Yuyuan Tantian clarified in a Thursday article, China’s existing Measures for the Security Review of Foreign Investment draw clear boundaries for regulatory scrutiny. Under the framework, all investments touching on national defense security require mandatory declaration regardless of foreign stake size, while for key sectors including core information technology, internet products and services, and critical technologies, any transaction that grants actual control to a foreign investor falls within mandatory review scope.

    Manus, the article noted, fits clearly into this defined key technology category as a developer of general-purpose AI agent systems. Meta’s proposed acquisition would have transferred full actual control of the startup to the US tech giant, yet neither party submitted the required proactive declaration to Chinese regulators, making the ruling a straightforward application of existing law.

    The article added that Chinese regulators assess risk across three core dimensions: technology, talent and data. All of Manus’s core assets — including its foundational algorithms, training data and core R&D team — were developed by domestic teams within China’s borders, so any transfer of control overseas legally requires a national security review. The commentary also pointed to growing global trends of expanding security review scopes and blurred threat definitions that specifically target other countries’ AI development, a practice that China must guard against to protect its own strategic technology ecosystem. Even as it enforces security rules, China remains committed to supporting AI innovation and maintaining an open market for foreign investment, the article emphasized.

    The Manus transaction grew out of a new regulatory workaround that has emerged since the United States barred American investment from China’s domestic AI sector in October 2024, dubbed “Singapore washing.” The term describes the practice of Chinese AI firms spinning off operations or relocating their registered headquarters to Singapore to avoid US investment restrictions and raise foreign capital. In the case of Manus, the startup restructured its operations to sever formal ties with its Chinese origins to secure Meta’s investment, a strategy that the ruling has now invalidated.

    Manus first captured global tech industry attention when it made its high-profile debut in March 2025. Unlike conventional large language models such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek, Manus is positioned as a general-purpose AI agent capable of completing complex, multi-step tasks traditionally handled by white-collar workers. In promotional demonstrations, co-founder Xiao Hong showcased the system’s capacity to sort through 10 candidate resumes, identify a New York City property matching a set budget, and analyze stock correlation trends between Nvidia, Marvell Technology and TSMC, leading the startup to adopt the slogan “Leave it to Manus.”

    The acquisition deal began taking shape in 2025, as Manus restructured to move its registered headquarters to Singapore between June and July that year. It reorganized under a new Singapore-based operating entity, Butterfly Effect Pte, reduced its mainland Chinese team from more than 120 employees to just 40 core members who were relocated to Singapore, deleted all Chinese-language social media accounts, and blocked IP addresses based in China from accessing its official website. By the end of 2025, Manus presented itself as a fully Singapore-based company, and Meta announced the $2 billion acquisition on December 30, with Xiao Hong slated to take a senior leadership role at the US firm.

    Chinese regulators launched their formal review of the unreported transaction in January 2026, and by late March, Xiao Hong and co-founder Ji Yichao were barred from leaving China as the review progressed. The formal ban on the deal was issued on April 27.

    According to Chinese analysts, Manus crossed three non-negotiable red lines in its restructuring and dealmaking: technology sovereignty, data sovereignty and national security. “Where the technology originates determines jurisdiction,” explained Guangdong-based business columnist Shengchandui. Manus’s core algorithms and core team were built entirely within China, so shifting the company offshore and selling it to a foreign buyer amounts to unauthorized export of domestically developed strategic capabilities, a form of “technology smuggling” that weakens China’s domestic innovation base. The columnist added that Manus processes vast volumes of user data, much of it originating from Chinese users, so transferring control overseas creates unacceptable risks of data leakage, particularly under existing rules governing cross-border data transfers. As AI agents are emerging as core infrastructure for digital work, communication and software development, putting a system built on Chinese technology and data under full foreign control creates unacceptable national security risks, he noted.

    Zhu Youping, a researcher at the NDRC’s State Information Center, clarified that the ruling is not a restriction on legitimate global expansion by Chinese firms, but a prohibition on efforts to evade national regulation. “If the proposed acquisition is completed, Meta would obtain 100% control in Manus, but neither Meta nor Manus had declared this to the Chinese regulators,” he said. Regulators apply a “look-through” approach that focuses on the actual origin of technology, the source of training data and ownership of core talent, rather than just the jurisdiction where a company is registered. “Manus’s relocation to Singapore is essentially a case of using domestic resources to incubate value and monetizing it through an offshore structure to bypass oversight,” Zhu added.

    Beyond blocking the unauthorized transaction, Chinese authorities have signaled that they want Manus to remain rooted in China to contribute to the country’s fast-growing domestic AI industry. In a Tuesday editorial, the Global Times noted that “China’s AI industry has entered a phase of rapid development, with a sustained burst of innovative vitality, making it a fertile ground for global AI innovation. We hope that more technology and innovation enterprises, including Manus, can find their place in this blue ocean in China, develop confidently, grow larger and stronger and achieve better development and breakthroughs.”

    The Manus ruling aligns with Beijing’s latest policy push to scale up domestic AI adoption for economic growth. On April 21, China’s State Council released a policy document outlining 20 measures to expand and upgrade the country’s AI sector, setting a target of growing total industry output to more than 100 trillion yuan (approximately $13.8 trillion) by 2030, up from 81 trillion yuan in 2025. The policy specifically supports deployment of AI tools in high-impact areas including intelligent programming, contract review, financial services and supply chain optimization, and calls for the construction of national AI application testing bases.

    Pang Chaoran, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC), said the new policy marks a clear shift in China’s AI strategy: instead of focusing primarily on subsidizing AI model training, Beijing is now encouraging private service sector firms to adopt AI models and agents at scale. By driving widespread adoption of AI tools across industries, the government aims to accelerate commercialization of AI innovation, embed the technology deeper into real economic activity, and generate new growth momentum for both the service and technology sectors.

  • Aung San Suu Kyi: The Myanmar democracy icon detained for years

    Aung San Suu Kyi: The Myanmar democracy icon detained for years

    Five years after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup that ousted her democratically elected government, Myanmar’s state-controlled media has announced that 80-year-old former state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who has remained in military detention since her 2021 arrest, will be moved from prison to house arrest. The development marks a shift in the treatment of one of the world’s most famous political prisoners, whose decades-long life has been intertwined with Myanmar’s turbulent quest for independence and democracy.

    Born in 1945 to Myanmar’s independence founding father General Aung San, Suu Kyi lost her father to assassination when she was just two years old, months before the country secured full independence from British colonial rule. She spent her formative years abroad: relocating to India with her mother in 1960, then studying philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, where she met her husband, British academic Michael Aris. After stints working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the UK to raise their two sons, Alexander and Kim, but never severed her ties to her home country.

    In 1988, Suu Kyi returned to Yangon to care for her ailing mother, arriving at a moment of mass pro-democracy upheaval, when thousands of students, workers and monks had taken to the streets to oppose decades of military rule under dictator Ne Win. Inspired by the non-violent philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., she stepped forward to lead the pro-democracy movement, famously declaring: “I could not as my father’s daughter remain indifferent to all that was going on.”

    The 1988 uprising was brutally crushed by a new military coup, and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in 1989. Over the next 21 years, she would spend 15 years in detention, much of it in solitary confinement. She was barred from leaving the country to see her dying husband in 1999, choosing to remain in Myanmar rather than risk permanent exile. Despite her isolation, her profile as a global symbol of peaceful resistance against oppression grew exponentially; she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while still under arrest, and was widely hailed as a beacon of human rights across the world.

    Released from house arrest days after Myanmar’s 2010 general election, Suu Kyi re-entered formal politics, leading her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to a historic landslide victory in Myanmar’s first openly contested general election in 25 years in 2015. Barred from the presidency by a military-drafted constitution, she took on the role of state counsellor, the de facto head of government, raising global hopes that Myanmar would cement its transition to full democracy after decades of military rule.

    Yet Suu Kyi’s time in office shattered her once-saintlike global reputation. When the military launched a brutal 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State that forced more than 700,000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, Suu Kyi refused to condemn the military or acknowledge widespread accounts of mass atrocities. She even personally defended Myanmar against charges of genocide at a 2019 International Court of Justice hearing, a decision that turned much of the international community against her. While she remained overwhelmingly popular among Myanmar’s Buddhist majority at home, her democratic transition stalled, as the military retained control of key ministries and a quarter of all parliamentary seats, and her government drew criticism for prosecuting journalists and activists using restrictive colonial-era laws.

    Despite widespread criticism of her tenure, the NLD won a second decisive landslide victory in the 2020 general election. Just hours before the new parliament was set to convene, the military launched a second coup, arresting Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other senior NLD leaders on 1 February 2021. The coup sparked mass nationwide pro-democracy protests, which the military violently suppressed, pushing the country into a bitter ongoing civil war between the military junta and a broad coalition of ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy resistance forces.

    Following her arrest, Suu Kyi was charged with a litany of widely discredited offences ranging from Covid-19 restriction violations and illegal importation of walkie-talkies to corruption and voter fraud, all of which she has denied. The United Nations and global human rights groups have universally condemned her closed-door trials as a political sham. She was ultimately sentenced to 33 years in prison, a term that has been reduced multiple times in the years since.

    The junta’s 30 April 2026 announcement that Suu Kyi would be transferred to house arrest has been met with scepticism from her son Kim Aris, who has raised repeated concerns about her health and well-being in detention. Today, as an 80-year-old with uncertain health, Suu Kyi’s future role in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement remains deeply unclear. Many younger pro-democracy activists have rejected her longstanding commitment to non-violence in favor of armed resistance against the junta, and a growing number have openly criticized her handling of the Rohingya crisis during her time in office. Even so, her decades-long struggle against military rule has cemented her as a global symbol synonymous with the struggle for a free and democratic Myanmar.

  • A citizen campaign returns iconic kiwi birds to New Zealand’s capital after a century-long absence

    A citizen campaign returns iconic kiwi birds to New Zealand’s capital after a century-long absence

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — More than 100 years after New Zealand’s flightless, culturally sacred national bird the kiwi disappeared from the rolling hills surrounding the nation’s capital, a grassroots community movement is working to reverse that historic loss, turning a once-improbable dream of urban coexistence with the endangered species into a growing conservation success story.

  • What to know about May Day demonstrations as workers face rising energy costs due to Iran war

    What to know about May Day demonstrations as workers face rising energy costs due to Iran war

    As working populations across the globe grapple with skyrocketing energy costs and plummeting purchasing power linked to ongoing conflict in the Middle East, millions of labor activists and ordinary workers are set to march in annual May Day rallies Friday, uniting behind core demands for fairer pay, improved working conditions and an end to armed conflict.

    Celebrated as a public holiday in dozens of nations, May Day has long served as a platform for organized labor to highlight systemic economic and social inequities. This year’s gatherings, planned for major cities across every inhabited continent, carry heightened urgency as cost-of-living crises deepen in both developing and developed economies. Past editions of the demonstrations have occasionally seen isolated outbreaks of violence, and authorities across multiple regions are preparing for large-scale turnout.

    The European Trade Union Confederation, which represents more than 40 million workers across 41 European countries through 93 affiliate organizations, issued a sharp statement blaming geopolitical policy for working people’s hardship. “Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” the group said. “Today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.” In the United States, activists critical of the Trump administration’s policy agenda have organized nationwide marches, boycotts and work stoppages to amplify their demands.

    Spiking energy and consumer costs, directly tied to market volatility caused by the Middle East conflict, have emerged as the defining rallying cry for 2025’s demonstrations. In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, protest organizers anticipate massive turnout from workers grappling with record fuel price increases. “There will be a louder call for higher wages and economic relief because of the unprecedented spikes in fuel prices,” Renato Reyes, a leader of left-wing political coalition Bayan, told the Associated Press. Josua Mata, head of Philippine labor federation umbrella group SENTRO, added that workers across the country now recognize their domestic struggles are part of a broader global crisis.

    In Indonesia, national labor leaders have warned that existing economic pressures on working households are reaching a breaking point. “Workers are already living paycheck to paycheck,” explained Said Iqbal, president of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation. The crisis hits even harder for low-income daily wage workers in countries like Pakistan, where May Day is an official public holiday but many cannot afford to skip a day of work. “How will I bring vegetables and other necessities home if I don’t work?” said Mohammad Maskeen, a 55-year-old construction worker based near Islamabad. Pakistan, which is heavily dependent on financial support from the International Monetary Fund and allied nations, currently faces headline inflation of roughly 16%, driven largely by rising global oil prices.

    Across Europe, demonstrations are planned in nearly all major European Union capitals, with many unions tying daily economic struggles to ongoing global conflicts. In France, organizing bodies have called for national demonstrations under the slogan “bread, peace and freedom,” explicitly linking worker hardship to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Ahead of the rallies, the Italian government approved a €1 billion ($1.17 billion) package of employment incentives this week, designed to boost stable hiring, curb labor exploitation, extend tax breaks for hiring young workers and disadvantaged women, and address abuse in platform-based gig work. The package was immediately dismissed as “pure propaganda” by opposition parties. In Portugal, tensions remain high after center-right government’s proposed labor law revisions sparked a general strike and widespread protests in 2024. After nine months of stalled negotiations with unions and employer groups, no agreement has been reached: unions warn the proposed changes would weaken core worker protections by expanding legal overtime limits and cutting key benefits.

    This year holds special symbolic meaning for May Day in France, where a heated debate has erupted over long-standing rules that grant most workers a mandatory paid day off on May 1 – the country’s most protected public holiday. Under current law, nearly all private businesses, shops and malls are required to close, with exemptions only for essential sectors including healthcare, public transport and hospitality. A recent parliamentary proposal to expand eligibility for work on May Day prompted massive backlash from unions and left-wing political parties, which issued a joint statement demanding “Don’t touch May Day.” Backtracking amid widespread public controversy, the government ultimately introduced a scaled-back bill that would only allow additional workers to staff bakeries and florists – two sectors where May Day work is rooted in long-standing custom, as the French traditionally gift lily of the valley flowers on the day as a symbol of good luck. “May 1 is not just any day,” said Small and Medium-sized Businesses Minister Serge Papin. “It symbolizes social gains stemming from a century of building social rules that have led to the labor code we know in France. It is indeed a special day.”

    In the United States, where May Day is not recognized as a federal public holiday, a coalition of labor unions and activist groups called May Day Strong has organized nationwide protests under the banner “workers over billionaires.” The coalition, which opposes multiple Trump administration policies including a hardline immigration crackdown, has listed thousands of independent actions across the country and called for a national economic “blackout” through a “no school, no work, no shopping” boycott. Key demands include higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans and an end to stricter enforcement against undocumented immigrants.

    The modern observation of May Day as International Workers’ Day has its roots in 19th century American labor history. In the 1880s, U.S. unions organized mass strikes and demonstrations to push for a standardized eight-hour workday. A 1886 rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned deadly when an unknown assailant detonated a bomb, prompting police to open fire on the crowd. Multiple labor activists, most of them first-generation immigrants, were convicted of conspiracy; four were executed. In the years after the Haymarket incident, global labor bodies designated May 1 to honor the fallen activists and the broader struggle for worker rights, and the holiday is now observed across much of the world, from Europe to Latin America, Africa and Asia. A monument at Chicago’s Haymarket Square still bears the inscription: “Dedicated to all workers of the world.”

  • Trump, Fox News praise UAE decision to leave Opec

    Trump, Fox News praise UAE decision to leave Opec

    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.

  • China scraps tariffs for all but one African nation

    China scraps tariffs for all but one African nation

    Starting this Friday, China will roll out a sweeping unilateral zero-tariff policy that covers 53 African countries — all but the landlocked southern African nation of Eswatini, which retains official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Prior to this expansion, as of December 2024, China had already eliminated tariffs on imports from 33 least-developed African economies; the updated framework will remain in effect through April 30, 2028, with no clarification yet on terms beyond that date.

    Beijing has positioned the policy as a landmark milestone, framing itself as the first major global economy to extend full unilateral duty-free treatment to nearly the entire African continent. While the move is widely recognized as a strategic step to boost China’s soft power across Africa, industry analysts and economists note that tariff barriers are rarely the primary challenge holding back African exporters, even as the region struggles with a rapidly widening trade deficit with China.

    Lauren Johnston, senior research fellow at the AustChina Institute, points out that this initiative also creates a clear contrast between China’s self-styled image as an Africa-friendly advocate of trade liberalization and the trade policies pursued by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Just last August, the U.S. imposed tariffs as high as 30% on goods from several African nations; most of those duties were later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving a 10% tariff in place for most affected imports.

    Johnston argues that the expanded zero-tariff regime holds tangible potential to boost African agricultural exports, which could in turn raise rural household incomes, lift agricultural productivity, and make incremental progress toward reducing hunger and poverty across the continent. However, the core structural challenge of Sino-African trade remains the growing imbalance heavily tilted in China’s favor: Chinese exports to Africa far outpace African shipments to China, and that gap is accelerating at a rapid pace. In 2025 alone, Africa’s trade deficit with China surged 65% to reach approximately $102 billion.

    Currently, African exports to China are overwhelmingly dominated by unprocessed minerals and raw commodities, including crude oil and metallic ores. China’s top three trading partners on the continent are Angola, whose bilateral trade is driven almost entirely by oil exports, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major source of critical minerals, and South Africa, the region’s most industrialized economy.

    Johnston cautions that uniform zero-tariff access across the economically diverse African continent will not deliver equal benefits. More developed, diversified economies such as South Africa and Morocco already have the export capacity and infrastructure to take advantage of expanded market access, while smaller, less developed nations will struggle to compete. Other experts echo this view, noting that tariff elimination alone cannot address the widespread structural barriers holding back African economic transformation.

    “Many African economies still face deep structural constraints, such as limited industrial capacity, underdeveloped logistics networks, and an overreliance on raw commodity exports, which tariff reductions alone cannot fix,” explained Jervin Naidoo, a political analyst at Oxford Economics Africa.

    Alfred Schipke, director of the East Asian Institute in Singapore, shares this assessment, noting that the short-term economic impact of the policy “will likely be modest and concentrated in African countries that already have established export capacity.” Still, he adds, the long-term potential could be far more significant if African governments use this opening to expand domestic production, diversify their export portfolios, and move up global value chains.

    Other analysts point to shifting consumer demand in China as an underrecognized opportunity for African producers. Amit Jain, a Singapore-based expert on China-Africa relations, notes that Chinese consumer demand for high-value agricultural goods such as coffee and tree nuts has grown dramatically over the past two decades, creating new, untapped markets for African exporters.

    Ken Gichinga, an economist based in East Africa, echoed that optimism, telling reporters that “these new measures will improve access to Chinese markets, help close that trade deficit and expand opportunities for African companies to prosper. For Kenya, it will be a big boost to certain subsectors such as avocado. The agriculture sector will benefit the most — macadamia nuts, coffee, tea and leather.”

    Wangari Kebuchi, an Africa fiscal policy economist, welcomed the short-term benefits of the policy, including potential gains in foreign exchange earnings and a modest lift to the agriculture, mining and logistics sectors, but warned that medium and long-term fiscal growth cannot be achieved through expanded market access alone. “The structural problem has not changed. Africa continues to export raw materials and import manufactured goods. That asymmetry drives persistent trade deficits, constrains domestic revenue mobilization, and limits the jobs and tax base that governments need to fund public services,” Kebuchi explained. “Zero tariffs on commodities that have already left our shores unprocessed do not solve that problem. They can entrench it. African governments must now ask the harder questions: How do we use improved market access as leverage for industrial policy?”

    Turning to the exclusion of Eswatini, analysts broadly agree that the move is a deliberate political gesture with minimal direct economic impact. In fact, Jain suggests that the exclusion may even backhandedly benefit Eswatini by prompting Taiwan to offer additional economic concessions to maintain the diplomatic relationship.

    Eswatini is one of only 12 countries worldwide that still maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Beijing claims Taiwan as an inalienable part of Chinese territory, while Taiwan’s self-governing authorities widely view the island as a sovereign independent state. The issue made headlines just last month, when Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te was forced to cancel a planned trip to Eswatini after three other African nations — Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar — denied his aircraft permission to fly through their airspace. Taiwan has accused the three countries of acting under intense economic and political pressure from Beijing.

    Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Centre, argues that the exclusion of Eswatini from the zero-tariff policy sends a deliberate political message. By sidelining Eswatini, China is “weaponising its ties with African countries, and showing how relations with China comes up with strings attached,” Sung said. “China wants to show the world how it treats its friends, versus Taiwan’s friends.”

  • It’s not just oil: Iran war also threatens Asia’s food security

    It’s not just oil: Iran war also threatens Asia’s food security

    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.”

  • US may deploy new hypersonic missile against Iran as Trump weighs fresh strikes: Report

    US may deploy new hypersonic missile against Iran as Trump weighs fresh strikes: Report

    On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that U.S. Central Command (Centcom) has formally requested authorization from the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy the U.S. military’s highly classified Dark Eagle hypersonic missile system to the Middle East. The request comes amid shifting military positioning from Iran that has outmaneuvered existing American strike capabilities, opening the door for a potential first-ever operational use of the long-delayed advanced weapon against targets deep within Iranian territory, while keeping U.S. deployment platforms well outside the range of Iran’s existing air defense networks.

    The impetus for Centcom’s request traces to new intelligence confirming Iran has relocated its ballistic missile launch facilities beyond the strike range of the U.S. Precision Strike Missile, a supersonic surface-to-surface weapon fired from the Army’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). With these assets now out of reach of current conventional strike options, U.S. military leaders have turned to the untested Dark Eagle system, which boasts an officially cited range of more than 2,776 kilometers—more than enough to hit targets across Iran from regional deployment positions.

    If the request gains approval, this deployment would mark the first operational fielding of the Dark Eagle, a program that has faced years of development delays. The weapon could see active combat use if the Trump administration moves forward with new offensive strikes against Iran. Parallel reporting from Axios on Thursday confirmed that President Donald Trump has already received briefings from Centcom outlining plans for a new round of attacks on Iranian targets. According to Axios’ sources, U.S. military planners have drafted proposals for “short and powerful” strikes focused on key Iranian infrastructure, a move shaped by the ongoing deadlock in diplomatic peace talks between the two sides.

    The proposed deployment of the $15 million-per-unit Dark Eagle has already drawn skepticism from defense analysts. Originally designed to counter advanced integrated air defense systems operated by nuclear-armed major powers China and Russia, the weapon is vastly overengineered for the Iranian threat environment, experts note. This mismatch has raised questions about the strategic and financial wisdom of expending one of the U.S.’s limited stockpiles—currently only eight completed Dark Eagle missiles exist, per Bloomberg’s reporting—against a country President Trump has repeatedly publicly described as already militarily defeated.

    Despite longstanding claims from the Trump administration that the U.S. maintains unchallenged air superiority across Iranian airspace, a recent incident underscores Iran’s still-functional defensive capabilities: earlier this month, Iranian air defenses successfully shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet. At present, direct large-scale combat between U.S. and Iranian forces has paused under a fragile, informal ceasefire, with both sides shifting their focus to maritime pressure campaigns in strategic waterways. The U.S. and Iran have each seized commercial vessels in the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean in recent weeks as both seek to assert dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supplies pass.

    Military analysts widely agree that both powers are using the current ceasefire window to rearm, regroup, and reposition their forces for potential future conflict, as diplomatic efforts to reach a permanent end to hostilities remain completely deadlocked. In recent weeks, new reporting has shed light on external military support to Iran: Middle East Eye was the first outlet to confirm that Iran has received advanced air defense systems from China, and a subsequent New York Times report added that Beijing may also have shipped shoulder-fired anti-air missiles to Tehran.

    The three-month-long conflict has already taken a significant toll on U.S. military capabilities, multiple official and media reports confirm. The New York Times reported earlier this month that sustained combat operations have drastically depleted U.S. global ammunition stockpiles, forcing the Pentagon to reallocate critical military stockpiles originally positioned for deterrence missions in Asia and Europe to the Middle East. Both offensive and defensive weapons systems have been drawn down, including the same Precision Strike missiles now rendered less effective by Iran’s relocation, as well as Patriot air defense interceptor missiles. On Wednesday, the Pentagon confirmed that direct war costs to the U.S. have already reached $25 billion.

    This week, President Trump rejected a proposed peace deal put forward by Tehran that would have addressed non-nuclear disputes first while deferring negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. As the conflict enters its third month, multiple diplomats and analysts speaking to Middle East Eye warn that a lasting negotiated resolution may be out of reach, largely due to the Trump administration’s refusal to offer the sanctions relief that Iran has made a core requirement for any final agreement.