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B-200 unmanned copter generates high interest among foreign partners — Aeromax
The unmanned helicopter is planned to be launched in August, Stepan Druganin said
"GENERATES" · 총 15건
필터 보기현재 지수
50.3
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 87,421건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 50.2(균형)입니다. 긍정 4,284건(4.9%)·중립 80,997건(92.7%)·부정 2,140건(2.4%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 14.8(중도 균형)입니다.
The unmanned helicopter is planned to be launched in August, Stepan Druganin said
THIS graph shows personal remittances as a percentage of Pakistan’s GDP since the late 1970s.—Source: World Bank, SBP data • Ex-finance minister Hafeez Pasha says foreign inflows could encourage disproportionate investment in real-estate • 1970s oil imbroglio marked the beginning of labour emigration to Gulf, while current crisis could spell its end • PIDE sees around a million workers’ livelihoods being affected if conflict prolongs ONLINE listings for properties in Punjab districts like Mandi Bahauddin and Gujrat yield images of Spanish-style villas, fully decked out with opulent fittings and European design flourishes. This stylised approach to construction is quite deliberate and reflects the social status that comes with having a ‘Kamanay Wala’ (earning member) abroad. In many families, at least one offspring is abroad, creating an alternative source of income that, in many cases, has reduced the incentive to further develop the district’s fertile agricultural land for those that still dwell there. Mandi Bahauddin particularly is one of many districts where household prosperity is closely tied to money sent from overseas. Saying that remittances are Pakistan’s lifeline is no exaggeration. Released in May, the State of Pakistan’s Economy Half-Year Report 2025-26 projects remittances at up to $42 billion this fiscal year, compared to exports of $30.5bn. At the macroeconomic level, remittances help keep the current account deficit in check. At the household level, they act as an essential safety net, providing direct cash support to families. However, cash in hand at the household level tends to drive spending rather than investment in productive activities. Pakistan’s reliance on remittances has laid the foundation for a form of ‘Dutch disease’, where the economy depends on inflows that fuel demand rather than production. The State Bank reports also note that remittances increase currency in circulation, as recipients convert inflows into physical cash for day-to-day expenditures. Data from the Household Integrated Economic Survey FY25 shows that remittances have risen from five per cent to 7.8pc as a source of household income. While this helps households smooth spending during periods of economic stress, it also increases their exposure to external shocks that can suddenly disrupt these inflows. Remittances and real estate Research by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics indicates that a significant share of remittances is channelled into property and real estate. Anecdotally and empirically, this holds up; the dominant motive behind the decision to migrate is to improve the socio-economic status of the family, which investments in property demonstrate. Nor is Pakistan unique in this regard. India, the world’s largest recipient of remittances, received $136bn in FY25, more than three times Pakistan’s inflows. Non-resident Indians have also become increasingly active in the property market. According to the India Brand Equity Foundation, their share of real-estate investment has risen from 10-12pc in 2019 to a possible all-time high of 20pc in 2025. While property investments are a common feature of remittances, Pakistan faces another conundrum. Former finance minister Hafeez Pasha argues that Pakistan’s real-estate sector neither contributes adequately to tax revenues nor operates fully within the formal economy, yet continues to attract a disproportionate share of investment. “About a decade ago, investment in industry and manufacturing was two and a half times that of real estate. Today, you have the strange situation that real estate is over twice that of industry,” he says, though not solely because of remittances. There are six real estate and property-related taxes, he notes, yet total revenue collection amounts to only 0.2pc of GDP, despite a potential of around 0.8pc. Urban immovable property tax collection in Karachi, for example, generates roughly ten times less revenue than Mumbai in dollar terms because of severe under-taxation, he adds. Oil giveth, oil taketh One oil shock’s legacy, involving the US’s long-standing entanglement with oil markets and support for Israel, was the start of Pakistan’s emigration story. This was also the start of the country’s reliance on remittances. But another such oil shock, involving similar geopolitical players, may well mark the beginning of the end of the Pakistanis-in-Gulf fairy-tale. In 1973, Arab members of Opec imposed an oil embargo on the US in retaliation for its support for Israel. The resulting shock saw prices jump from around $3 to nearly $12 per barrel. The sudden influx of petrodollars supercharged growth across the Gulf, triggering massive infrastructure projects that required large volumes of blue-collar labour. In Pakistan, this coincided with a period of sweeping nationalisation under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which pushed unemployment higher at a time when passage to Gulf countries was relatively easy to obtain. Hence, Pakistani labour moved in large numbers to the region, driving remittances to a peak as a percentage of GDP in 1983. The ratio fell steadily through the late 1980s and 1990s as oil prices fell, Gulf countries cut construction projects, and demand for Pakistani labour declined. Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998 led to sanctions. Pakistan froze foreign currency accounts, trapping diaspora savings deposited in Pakistani banks and eroding confidence in formal channels, leading to a boom in hawala/hundi. Then came 9/11, leading to a global crackdown on informal channels. Pakistan also became a front-line state in the ‘War on Terror’, leading to the lifting of sanctions. The drive by the authorities in recent years to regularise and incentivise remittances has led to flows back into formal channels. Returning labour External shocks — particularly movements in oil prices and developments in the Gulf — have historically shaped Pakistan’s remittance story. The Middle East accounts for roughly 55pc of Pakistan’s remittances and absorbs between 700,000 and 800,000 new Pakistani workers each year. The ongoing conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel has damaged infrastructure, disrupted energy markets and introduced fresh uncertainty across the region, reducing demand for Pakistani labour. A recent policy viewpoint by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics estimates that if the conflict is prolonged, around half a million Pakistani workers may be unable to secure overseas employment this year, while another half a million could be forced to return home. Such a reversal would have serious implications for Pakistan’s labour market, particularly in KP and Punjab, where overseas migration traditionally absorbs nearly one-third of new labour-force entrants. The flow of money that transformed villages, financed homes and underpinned aspirations for generations may no longer be as certain as it once seemed. Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2026
The initiative does not require incineration, leaves zero residue, and generates fuel as well
In 2018, Pakistan produced the widest survey in its history on how much nutrition its people were getting. The NNS or National Nutrition Survey was the fifth such epic exercise to be undertaken since 1965, and the first ever to show us the numbers from the districts. It was the most comprehensive data-gathering effort in Pakistan’s history and is regularly cited today in policymaking. The NNS results painted such an alarming picture at the time that the government should have declared a national emergency. Instead, I find myself writing this seven years on with a question as Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb tables an estimated Rs17.1 trillion federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27: What did Pakistan’s budget-makers do with the population nutrition evidence? No prizes for guessing the answer was scant little. What we got instead is a story of policy documents without funding to see through on the ground, bodies meant to coordinate without the mandate or teeth, and a government that continues to treat nutrition as a humanitarian footnote rather than the country’s economic foundation it actually is. The FY2025–26 federal budget offered a clear indication of where nutrition stood among national priorities. Health spending was reduced by 16 per cent, while no dedicated nutrition allocation was included in the federal budget architecture. Child Nutrition Quiz Quiz: Is this child malnourished, stunted or wasted? Look at the photo carefully, then choose your answer below. Malnourished Stunted Wasted Healthy How others answered Wasted0% Malnourished0% Stunted0% Healthy0% Be the first to answer Image: UNICEF Pakistan This poll accompanies Prism's reporting on childhood malnutrition in Pakistan. Stunting, wasting and malnutrition are clinical conditions defined by measurement — height-for-age, weight-for-height and weight-for-age respectively — and cannot be reliably diagnosed from a single photograph. This exercise is intended to illustrate how easily these conditions are misread by sight alone, not to diagnose any individual child. What the survey told us The 2018 National Nutrition Survey was an extremely big deal in health and policy circles. It was done by the Ministry of National Health Services that teamed up with the Aga Khan University and Unicef to survey over 115,600 households and, for the first time, drill down into district-level breakdowns, adolescents, and water quality. The data it produced was both authoritative and devastating. Four out of every 10 children under five years in Pakistan were stunted or too short for their age. This means that about 12 million children were suffering from chronic malnutrition. Wasting was 17.7pc, the highest recorded in Pakistan’s history and well above the WHO’s 15pc emergency threshold. More than half of children aged six to 59 months were anaemic. Among women of reproductive age, 42.6pc were anaemic and 46.9pc of pregnant women were iron-deficient. A staggering 81.2pc of pregnant women were vitamin D deficient. Meanwhile, the country was simultaneously confronting the other end of the malnutrition spectrum: overweight prevalence had nearly doubled in seven years, and 13.9pc of women of reproductive age were obese. The NNS 2018 was also the first survey to reveal the burden of stunting and wasting happening at the same time in children: 5.9pc of under-fives are affected, and they live mostly in Pakistan’s south. Boys are worse off than girls, and children in cities were more wasted and stunted than commonly assumed. Also, 58pc of Pakistan’s household water supplies were contaminated with coliform bacteria. Malnutrition and unsafe water are not separate crises. They are the same crisis. Infogram taken from the National Nutrition Survey 2018 Key Findings Report. This data was published, cited in international fora, incorporated into global nutrition dashboards, and referenced in at least four major national strategy documents. What it did not do was translate into a budget line. What we decided to spend on the 2025-26 budget Pakistan’s federal budget for the soon ending financial year, 2025-26, was Rs17,573,000,000,000 Nearly half, Rs8.2 trillion, goes to debt servicing Defence has been allocated Rs2.55 trillion, a steep 20pc increase The Benazir Income Support Programme receives Rs716 billion, a 20-21pc increase, covering 10 million families. These are not illegitimate expenditures at all, but they do tell us where our political priorities lie when fiscal space is compressed. Health has not been spared in the compression. The health budget for 2025-26 stands at Rs46.1 billion — a 16pc reduction from the previous year’s Rs54.87 billion allocation. No new health schemes appear in the Public Sector Development Programme for this fiscal year. Within this already-reduced health envelope, the share dedicated specifically to nutrition is not separately reported because, in Pakistan’s federal budget architecture, nutrition does not have its own line. It is submerged within health, within social protection, within agriculture, invisible, untracked, and unaccountable. The estimated budget requirement for nutrition from 2023 to 2030 is Rs1.79 trillion. For the current fiscal year alone, the requirement is Rs227.9 billion. Against this need, Pakistan allocates a fraction which is declining. It is hard to describe this as a funding gap and easier to call it a choice. The rule is that when a subject has no budget line, it will have no accountability because spending on it will not be tracked. If you can’t measure the impact of money being spent, then you cannot improve on your performance. What cannot be improved condemns the next generation before they even begin. The weight of inaction The NNS 2018 documented a country already in nutritional distress. Since then, the conditions have worsened in almost every dimension. The floods of 2022, which were among the most catastrophic in Pakistan’s history, disrupted nutrition services in 84 flood-hit districts at the exact moment when millions of women and children were most vulnerable. The World Bank now projects Pakistan’s poverty rate to remain persistently high, between 40pc and 42.4pc, with an additional 1.9 million people pushed below the poverty line. Over two-thirds of the population cannot afford a nutritionally adequate diet on a daily basis. The infogram, on complementary feeding practices in Pakistan, is taken from the National Nutrition Survey 2018 Key Findings Report. Climate change is not an abstract future threat but an active, present accelerant for Pakistan’s nutrition crisis. We contribute less than 1pc of global greenhouse gas emissions but consistently rank among the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. Floods, heatwaves, and agricultural disruption reduce food availability, drive up prices, and destroy the supply chains that deliver micronutrient-rich foods to rural and peri-urban communities. Every flood season that passes without a nutrition-crisis response protocol is a policy failure with measurable consequences — in wasted children, in anaemic mothers, and in preventable deaths. Infogram taken from the National Nutrition Survey 2018 Key Findings Report. Nutrition International’s Cost of Inaction Tool estimates that Pakistan loses at least $17 billion (about Rs4.7 to Rs4.8 trillion) per year as a direct consequence of undernutrition — through lost productivity, increased healthcare costs, reduced cognitive development, and premature mortality. The 2024 World Bank Nutrition Investment Framework calculates that every dollar invested in proven nutrition interventions generates approximately $23 in economic return. Meeting the 2030 global target on stunting reduction alone would avert 855,000 cases annually, prevent 48,000 deaths, and save 8.8 million IQ points and 1.4 million school years. The economic saving: $6.6 billion per year. From one intervention target. A graveyard of good intentions It would be unfair to say Pakistan has done no work on this front. In the years since the survey, we have come up with a substantive architecture of nutrition strategies, such as the Pakistan Multisectoral Nutrition Strategy (2018–2025), the Multisectoral National Nutrition Action Plan (2023–2030), the Pakistan Maternal Nutrition Strategy (2022–2027), and a separate Adolescent Nutrition Strategy. Three provinces have enacted mandatory food fortification legislation and Pakistan has committed to the Nutrition for Growth summits, aligned with the UN Food Systems National Pathway, and signed the Sustainable Development Goals. The multisectoral convergence PANI (Pakistan Nutrition Initiative) project has secured initial support from the Islamic Development Bank. These are real achievements and they must be acknowledged but they are achievements in aspiration, not in implementation. The Pakistan National Nutrition Coordination Council, which is the top coordinator for all this work, is essentially inactive. The Nutrition Advisory Group does not meet regularly and does not have a working reporting mechanism. Analysis from Sindh suggests that funding gaps for nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions stand at approximately 75pc. No systematic financing gap analysis has been conducted at the federal level. We do not fully know, as a government, what we are not spending on whom, and with what consequence. This is the paradox of our nutrition governance. We look good on paper with an impressive policy architecture, but it sits on an empty treasury and dud institutions. What could be done now I am putting down the minimum Pakistan needs to do to actually execute its own strategies, honour its international commitments, and put to use the evidence its own National Nutrition Survey produced. We need to set up dedicated nutrition budget lines in the federal PSDP and the Annual Development Plan, with mandatory nutrition-tagging of relevant spending across health, education, WASH, agriculture, and social protection. Without visible expenditure, there is no accountability. We should reactivate the Pakistan National Nutrition Coordination Council and the Nutrition Advisory Group with a formal mandate, quarterly convening schedule, and public reporting requirements. Multisectoral coordination must move from aspiration to documented practice. We should urgently commission someone to do a financing gap analysis for federal-level nutrition financing, modelled on the Sindh exercise, so we can establish, for the first time, what Pakistan is actually spending on nutrition and what the true shortage is. We should get the Ministry of Finance involved in decision-making as a stakeholder. Finance officials should receive regular, evidence-based briefings on the economic return on nutrition investment, framed in the language of productivity, GDP, and human capital, not humanitarian obligation. We should aggressively mobilise climate-linked development financing for nutrition from the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and the Child Nutrition Fund. This will position Pakistan’s nutrition crisis explicitly within the climate justice framework it legitimately occupies. This is what the provincial governments should do The 18th Amendment to the Constitution made health and nutrition primarily the job of the provincial governments. The federal budget for 2025-26 acknowledges this explicitly, with over 60pc of provincial ADP allocations directed toward social sectors. But acknowledging the structural reality of devolution is not the same as executing against it. Provincial governments must move from passive recipients of national strategies to active architects of their own nutrition financing. Each province must develop a costed provincial nutrition action plan that is aligned with the national framework but rooted in local epidemiology, particularly the district-level data the NNS 2018 uniquely provides, and integrated into the Annual Development Plan with ring-fenced allocations. Provincial finance departments must introduce nutrition budget tagging in their own PLAS (Provincial Loan Accounting System) and ADP tracking systems, enabling real-time monitoring of nutrition-relevant expenditure across sectors. Provinces with enacted food fortification legislation (Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) must urgently close the implementation gap between legal mandate and actual market compliance, including funding for inspection, enforcement, and public awareness. Infogram taken from the National Nutrition Survey 2018 Key Findings Report. Sindh and Balochistan, which carry the heaviest burden of acute malnutrition and where the NNS 2018 recorded the highest wasting rates, should prioritise nutrition as a cross-cutting emergency response theme within their respective climate adaptation and disaster risk financing frameworks. Provincial health and planning departments must nominate dedicated nutrition focal persons with budget authority (not merely technical advisors) and convene quarterly multisectoral nutrition coordination meetings with documented minutes and action trackers. The verdict of the NNS 2018 Seven years after Pakistan’s most comprehensive nutrition survey delivered its verdict, the children it counted are no longer under five years of age. Many of the stunted children of 2018 are now in school or not, because impaired cognitive development in the first 1,000 days is not recovered by a later enrollment. The wasted infants of 2018 are now children whose immune systems remain compromised by early malnutrition. The anaemic adolescent girls of 2018 are now young women approaching their own reproductive years, carrying the nutritional deficits of one generation into the next. Pakistan cannot build the competitive, educated, productive workforce it aspires to be on a foundation of chronic malnutrition. It cannot achieve the 4.1pc GDP growth target in its own budget while losing $17 billion per year to preventable undernutrition. It cannot claim to be a serious development partner on the global stage while its apex nutrition coordination body remains inactive and its budget carries no nutrition line. The 2018 National Nutrition Survey gave Pakistan’s policymakers everything they needed: the evidence, the geography, the scale, and the moral urgency. The 2025-26 federal budget gives us the answer to what they did with it. The question now is not whether Pakistan can afford to invest in nutrition. The question is whether it can explain, to the 12 million stunted children counted in its own survey, why it chose not to. Header image from Reuters
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The United States and Iran have reached an agreement to extend a ceasefire, allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and lift a US blockade and some sanctions on Iran, sources have said, but the deal has not been finalised. US President Donald Trump’s approval is still pending. An agreement would represent a big step towards ending a war that has pushed the world towards an energy crisis, though the underlying dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme would only be thrashed out in talks over subsequent weeks. Where have the discussions got to? Following a ceasefire in early April, the two sides have remained at odds on issues including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel’s war in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets. After weeks of mainly indirect talks, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday that the US and Iran had agreed to a memorandum of understanding that would halt the war and give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal. However, both sides have said several times before that they believed an agreement was close but without ever concluding an agreement. The position of Israel, which launched the air war on Iran on February 28 alongside the United States, is central to any deal but its role in the agreement is unclear. US President Donald Trump has not yet approved the deal, according to the sources. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday: “We’re not there, but we’re very close and we’re going to keep working on it”. Iran has not yet formally commented, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency cited a source close to the negotiating team as saying the text of the agreement had not yet been finalised or confirmed. Iranian sources have previously said a framework deal is only about ending the war on all fronts, establishing a 30-day framework for international and Iranian movement through the Strait of Hormuz and possibly providing some financial relief. There would then be negotiations on the more difficult issues, such as the status of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and details concerning the strait and the sequencing of the many points in the preliminary deal such as sanctions relief and security. The last deal over the nuclear programme — struck in 2015 and torn up by Trump in 2018 — took years of negotiations between large teams of technical experts. What are the main issues? Hormuz and Gulf blockade Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas, has pushed up oil prices. Reopening the strait is the US priority and Iran’s main point of leverage, but it could take time. The US blockade on Iranian ports is hitting Iran’s own exports and state revenue. Lifting this is one of Tehran’s main goals. A sensitive issue could be how far US forces withdraw. Nuclear The US alleges Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead. Ballistic missiles A prominent US demand before the war was that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. Iran has always said its right to conventional weapons is non-negotiable and that it still has a large arsenal. Sanctions and frozen assets Iran’s economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage. The United States has resisted this, with Trump having lambasted former president Barack Obama for having returned some frozen assets to Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal. Some media have reported that the latest draft agreement would include an investment programme for Iran. Lebanon Iran has repeatedly said that Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any deal. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire last month but both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of repeated violations and Israel’s military is ramping up its campaign in southern Lebanon. Israel would oppose any US-Iran agreement that limits its ability to act in Lebanon.
It is one of the world's fastest-growing industries. Cyber fraud operated out of scam centres scattered across the Mekong region generates tens of billions of euros every year -- by some estimates, equivalent to 40 percent of the region's combined GDP. This edition of Access Asia takes a deep look inside the scam industry with analysis from Jason G. Tower, senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
The United States and Iran have reached an agreement to extend a ceasefire, allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and lift a US blockade and some sanctions on Iran, sources have said, but the deal has not been finalised. US President Donald Trump’s approval is still pending. An agreement would represent a big step towards ending a war that has pushed the world towards an energy crisis, though the underlying dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme would only be thrashed out in talks over subsequent weeks. Where have the discussions got to? Following a ceasefire in early April, the two sides have remained at odds on issues including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel’s war in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets. After weeks of mainly indirect talks, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday that the US and Iran had agreed to a memorandum of understanding that would halt the war and give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal. However, both sides have said several times before that they believed an agreement was close but without ever concluding an agreement. The position of Israel, which launched the air war on Iran on February 28 alongside the United States, is central to any deal but its role in the agreement is unclear. US President Donald Trump has not yet approved the deal, according to the sources. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday: “We’re not there, but we’re very close and we’re going to keep working on it”. Iran has not yet formally commented, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency cited a source close to the negotiating team as saying the text of the agreement had not yet been finalised or confirmed. Iranian sources have previously said a framework deal is only about ending the war on all fronts, establishing a 30-day framework for international and Iranian movement through the Strait of Hormuz and possibly providing some financial relief. There would then be negotiations on the more difficult issues, such as the status of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and details concerning the strait and the sequencing of the many points in the preliminary deal such as sanctions relief and security. The last deal over the nuclear programme — struck in 2015 and torn up by Trump in 2018 — took years of negotiations between large teams of technical experts. What are the main issues? Hormuz and Gulf blockade Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas, has pushed up oil prices. Reopening the strait is the US priority and Iran’s main point of leverage, but it could take time. The US blockade on Iranian ports is hitting Iran’s own exports and state revenue. Lifting this is one of Tehran’s main goals. A sensitive issue could be how far US forces withdraw. Nuclear The US alleges Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead. Ballistic missiles A prominent US demand before the war was that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. Iran has always said its right to conventional weapons is non-negotiable and that it still has a large arsenal. Sanctions and frozen assets Iran’s economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage. The United States has resisted this, with Trump having lambasted former president Barack Obama for having returned some frozen assets to Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal. Some media have reported that the latest draft agreement would include an investment programme for Iran. Lebanon Iran has repeatedly said that Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any deal. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire last month but both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of repeated violations and Israel’s military is ramping up its campaign in southern Lebanon. Israel would oppose any US-Iran agreement that limits its ability to act in Lebanon.
The United States and Iran have reached an agreement to extend a ceasefire, allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and lift a U.S. blockade and some sanctions on Iran, sources told Reuters, but the deal has not been finalised.An agreement would represent a big step towards ending a war that has pushed the world towards an energy crisis, though the underlying dispute over Iran's nuclear programme would only be thrashed out in talks over subsequent weeks.Where Have The Discussions Got To?Following a ceasefire in early April, the two sides have remained at odds on issues including Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel's war in Lebanon with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, and Tehran's demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets.After weeks of mainly indirect talks, four sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday that the U.S. and Iran had agreed a memorandum of understanding that would halt the war and give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal.Read More: Bigger proportion of non-Iran ships crossing Hormuz strait: DataHowever, both sides have said several times before that they believed an agreement was close but without ever concluding an agreement. The position of Israel, which launched the air war on Iran on February 28 alongside the United States, is central to any deal but its role in the agreement is unclear.U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet approved the deal, according to the sources. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday: "We're not there, but we're very close and we're going to keep working on it".Iran has not yet formally commented, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency cited a source close to the negotiating team as saying the text of the agreement had not yet been finalised or confirmed.Iranian sources have previously said a framework deal is only about ending the war on all fronts, establishing a 30-day framework for international and Iranian movement through the Strait of Hormuz and possibly providing some financial relief.There would then be negotiations on the more difficult issues, such as the status of Iran's highly enriched uranium and details concerning the strait, and the sequencing of the many points in the preliminary deal such as sanctions relief and security.The last deal over the nuclear programme - struck in 2015 and torn up by Trump in 2018 - took years of negotiations between large teams of technical experts.What Are The Main Issues?Hormuz And Gulf BlockadeIran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas, has pushed up oil prices. Reopening the strait is the U.S. priority and Iran's main point of leverage, but it could take time.Many vessels are stuck in the Gulf and Iran says it has laid some sea mines that could be difficult to locate.The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports is hitting Iran's own exports and state revenue. Lifting this is one of Tehran's main goals. A sensitive issue could be how far U.S. forces withdraw.NuclearThe U.S. says it believes Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead.The nuclear question is extremely complicated. Iran might eventually agree to dilute part of its highly enriched uranium in a friendly country into uranium enriched to 5% purity and then have it returned, Iranian sources said.Read more: US inflation hits three-year high in April as Iran war fuels energy price surgeBut many other issues would still need to be addressed: how long the nuclear program would be halted, whether nuclear sites would be dismantled, what happens to stockpiles of uranium enriched to 20% and 5%, the future of Iran's advanced centrifuges and research and development programs and the rules governing an inspections regime, among others.Ballistic MissilesA prominent U.S. demand before the war was that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. Iran has always said its right to conventional weapons is non-negotiable and that it still has a large arsenal.Sanctions And Frozen AssetsIran's economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage.The United States has resisted this, with Trump having lambasted former president Barack Obama for having returned some frozen assets to Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal. Some media have reported that the latest draft agreement would include an investment programme for Iran.LebanonIran has repeatedly said that Israel's war against its main ally Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any deal. Israel and Lebanon agreed a ceasefire last month but both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of repeated violations and Israel's military is ramping up its campaign in southern Lebanon. Israel would oppose any U.S.-Iran agreement that limits its ability to act in Lebanon.
The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is creating a fertilizer supply crunch that is set to spur a global food security crisis. This generates winners and losers.
LONDON/DUBAI: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that negotiating a deal with Iran could “take a few days”, dimming hopes for an imminent end to the conflict after the US conducted “defensive strikes” in southern Iran. A foreign ministry spokesperson in Tehran said earlier that conclusions had been reached on many topics discussed in a potential 14-point memorandum of understanding, but this did not mean a deal to end the war would be reached soon. At what stage are the discussions Following a ceasefire on April 7, the two sides have remained at odds on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets. After weeks of mainly indirect talks, both sides say they have made progress on a memorandum of understanding that would halt the war and give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal. The framework is focused on an end to the war and a US naval blockade, in exchange for Tehran taking steps to ensure safe transit in the Strait of Hormuz. For Iran control over Hormuz, and for US the blockade of ports are main bargaining chips Senior Iranian diplomat Hossein Nooshabadi told ISNA news agency that the possible framework deal included the end of the war on all fronts including Lebanon, the release of blocked Iranian assets, lifting of the US blockade and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the withdrawal of US forces from Iran’s vicinity and freedom to sell Iranian oil. Nooshabadi said Iran’s draft for an initial agreement contained no commitments on the nuclear programme. A senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration said Iran had agreed “in principle” to open the Strait of Hormuz, in exchange for lifting of the naval blockade, and to dispose of Tehran’s highly enriched uranium. Iranian sources said a framework deal is only about ending the war on all fronts, establishing a 30-day framework for movement through Hormuz and shipping, and possibly providing some financial relief. It would then be followed by negotiations on the more difficult issues, such as the status of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and details concerning the Strait. How could a deal move forward? If Iran’s National Security Council approves the memorandum of understanding, it will then be sent to the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei for final approval. The US believes Mojtaba Khamenei had endorsed the broad template of the deal, the US official said. If the first phase of the agreement progressed, the nuclear issue could be reviewed and negotiated during the 60-day period, Nooshabadi said. Main issues Tehran sees its control of Hormuz and Washington views its blockade of Iranian ports as their chief points of leverage. The United States believes Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead. An agreement may eventually be possible including a lengthy moratorium on enrichment and the export or dilution of the stockpile. The nuclear question is extremely complicated. Iran might eventually agree to dilute part of its highly enriched uranium in a friendly country into uranium enriched to five per cent purity and then have it returned, sources said. But many other issues would still need to be addressed: how long the nuclear programme would be halted, whether nuclear sites would be dismantled during that period, what happens to stockpiles of uranium enriched to 20pc and 5pc, and the future of Iran’s advanced centrifuges and research and development programmes. Ballistic missiles A US demand before the war was that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. Iran has always refused to discuss its ballistic missiles, saying its right to conventional weapons cannot be on the table and that it still has a large arsenal. Sanctions and frozen assets Iran’s economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and tens of billions of dollars of oil revenues frozen in foreign banks to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage. Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2026
Pakistan’s obsession with everything Bakra Eid is hard to overstate. Whether it’s young boys heading to the mandi every other night to size up animals, uncles asking the price outside your house, or families having barbecues for the entire week — the festival generates a level of commercial and cultural energy that few other events in the country can match. And all of that energy translates into an enormous amount of money changing hands; almost entirely cash. More than seven million animals were sacrificed nationally in 2025, according to the Pakistan Tanneries Association, with total estimated sales of roughly Rs600 billion. Few other segments of the economy concentrate this much money in so few places over such a short period. The activity clusters around a small number of large mandis, often at city outskirts, where buyers and sellers carry large sums across distances with real risks of theft and counterfeit notes. It is precisely the kind of environment where digital payments should, in theory, take off. No wonder the State Bank has been trying to do exactly that since 2024, through its “Go Cashless in Cattle Markets” campaign, which has now entered its third year. In 2024, the campaign facilitated around 13,000 digital transactions worth Rs560 million across its initial set of markets. Last year, the coverage expanded to 54 markets with 24 participating banks, and the numbers jumped to 64,553 transactions valued at Rs4.65bn ie roughly an eightfold increase in throughput and a fivefold rise in volume. Similarly, the average ticket size climbed from approximately Rs43,000 to Rs72,000. While the growth is promising, the base is still too small. Going by the estimates above, not even one per cent of the mandi economy is routing via digital payments. For context, almost 65pc of the banking transactions are going through an online channel. So why has the uptake remained low? In 2025, the campaign’s coverage increased fivefold in volume over 2024; this year nearly double that number of markets are covered One major, and perhaps underappreciated, part of the problem remains data reporting. Monitoring digital transactions for a specific use is tricky, as the overwhelming majority prefers the regular fund transfers, which are technically not meant for commercial purposes but have a massive organic pull. But that makes it difficult to attribute to a specific campaign. In fact, background conversations with sellers for this piece suggest a real shift towards digital payments, even though not necessarily attributable to the Go Cashless campaign. One middleman, who sources animals from rural parts of Sindh and usually sells them to buyers in Karachi, said that almost half of their transactional value is now going through online channels, both inflows and outflows. Another farm owner, Jameel Memon, shared a somewhat similar mix, saying that around 60pc of the inflows come through digital channels. While not exactly a significant hindrance for relatively wealthier clients, a majority of financial services app users in Pakistan happen to have m-wallets, whose limits are often not enough to purchase even a goat, let alone a cow, based on the current market prices. In the latest scheme, the SBP has introduced temporary relaxations on transaction and account balance limits, effective May 14 through June 5, to accommodate the higher values typical of livestock purchases. On the demand side, a recurring complaint remains network connectivity, which makes the whole digital payment experience clunky and unreliable. Despite these challenges, there is good reason to believe the transaction numbers will shoot up as campaign coverage has nearly doubled to 96 cattle markets. The campaign has also expanded beyond mandis to include institutions involved in collective sacrifice arrangements ie ijtemai qurbani, potentially capturing a segment that involves larger, more structured payments, according to Ahson Saeed, the CEO of Raast Payments Pakistan, the State Bank-owned entity responsible for operating and proliferating the national instant payment scheme in the country. This initiative needs to be looked at as part of the broader cashless economy drive from the Prime Minister’s office. To push QR codes, the government, last year, announced a subsidy to cover the merchant discount rate on transactions, covering 0.5pc or Rs100 — whichever is lower. Though the Go Cashless campaign comprises both person-to-person and person-to-merchant, the regulator is naturally pushing towards the latter. In fact, one major move this season is that of QR transactions; financial institutions have been instructed to ensure settlement on the merchant leg instantly. Such payments require instant credit to the payee by the payor, as delays can cause disputes which are difficult to manage, considering the nature of trade in the mandis, according to Mr Saeed. Meanwhile, financial institutions seem to have significantly amped up their efforts and deployed a field force across key cattle markets. “Our representatives are guiding both merchants and buyers to drive adoption,” said Suhail Jan, Head of Channels at JazzCash, which is active across 85 markets this season. But what do the early results show? Well, it is too early to say. “The data is still preliminary, as around 60pc of transactions happen in the last three to four days before Eid ul Azha. However, we are seeing a noticeable increase in QR transactions as the State Bank of Pakistan and financial institutions have ramped up awareness campaigns,” he continued. Pakistan is not the only country trying to crack this. Bangladesh, which is believed to be the largest market in terms of Bakra Eid economy, launched a similar central bank-led pilot at cattle markets in 2022. It’s not exactly clear if the objectives were achieved or not, since there have been few monitoring updates ever since. For us, that could be the biggest takeaway: measuring performance the right way is almost as important as the campaign itself. Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 25th, 2026
Demand for security engineers has surged as artificial intelligence generates a glut of new code and models like Anthropic’s Mythos create new concerns.
For years, the field of robotics has used the terms “dull, dirty, and dangerous” (DDD) to describe the types of tasks or jobs where robots might be useful—by doing work that’s undesirable for people. A classic example of a DDD job is one of “repetitive physical labor on a steaming hot factory floor involving heavy machinery that threatens life and limb.” But determining which human activities fit into these categories is not as straightforward as it seems. What exactly is a “dull” task, and who makes that assumption? Is “dirty” work just about needing to wash your hands afterwards, or is there also an aspect of social stigma? What data can we rely on to classify jobs as “dangerous?” Our recent work (which was not dull at all) tackles these questions and proposes a framework to help roboticists understand the job context for our technology. First, we did an empirical analysis of robotics publications between 1980 and 2024 that mention DDD and found that only 2.7 percent define DDD and only 8.7 percent provide examples of tasks or jobs. The definitions vary, and many of the examples aren’t particularly specific (for example, “industrial manufacturing,” “home care”). Next, we reviewed the social science literature in anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology to develop better definitions for “dull,” “dirty,” and “dangerous” work. Again, while it might seem intuitive which tasks to put into these buckets, it turns out that there are some underlying social, economic, and cultural factors that matter. Dangerous Work: Occupations or tasks that result in injury or risk of harm It’s possible to measure the danger of a task or job by using reported information. There are administrative records and surveys that provide numbers on occupational injury rates and hazardous risk factors. While that seems straightforward, it’s important to understand how this data was collected, reported, and verified. First, occupational injuries tend to be underreported, with some studies estimating up to 70 percent of cases missing in administrative databases. Second, injuries and risk factors are rarely disaggregated by characteristics like gender, migration status, formal/informal employment, and work activities. For example, because most personal protective equipment—such as masks, vests, and gloves—are sized for men, women in dangerous work environments face increased safety risks. These caveats are an opportunity for robotics to be helpful. If we went out and looked for it, we could probably find some less obviously dangerous work where robotics might be an important intervention, not to mention some groups that are disproportionately affected and would benefit from more workplace safety. Dirty Work: Occupations or tasks that are physically, socially, or morally tainted Colloquially, most people might think of dirty work as involving physical dirtiness, such as trash removal, cleaning, or dealing with hazardous substances. But social science literature makes clear that dirty work is also about stigma. Socially tainted jobs are often servile or involve interacting with stigmatized groups (for example, correctional officers), and morally tainted jobs include tasks that people commonly perceive as sinful, deceptive, or otherwise defying norms of civility (like a stripper or a collection agent). “Dirty work” is a social construct that can vary across time (like tattoo industry stigma in the United States) and culture (such as nursing in the U.S. versus in Bangladesh). One way to measure whether work is “dirty” is by using the closely related concept of occupational prestige, captured through quantitative surveys where people rank jobs. Another way to measure it is through qualitative data, like ethnographies and interviews. Similar to “dangerous,” we see some hidden opportunities for robotics in “dirty” work. But one of our more interesting takeaways from the data is that a lower-ranked job can be something that the workers themselves enjoy or find immense pride and meaning in. If we care about what tasks are truly undesirable, understanding this worker perspective is important. Dull Work: Occupations or tasks that are repetitive and lacking in autonomy When it comes to defining dull work, what matters most is workers’ own experiences. Outsiders can make a lot of false assumptions about what tasks have value and meaning. Sometimes things that seem boring or routine create the right conditions for developing skills and competence, such as the concentration needed for woodworking, or for socializing and support, when tasks are done alongside others. Instead of assuming that repetitive work is negative, it’s important to examine qualitative data on how people experience the work and what purpose it serves for them. DDD: An actionable framework In our paper, we propose a framework to help the robotics community explore how automation impacts individual jobs. For each term—dull, dirty, and dangerous—the framework gathers key pieces of information to reflect on what physical or social aspects of the task are, in fact, DDD. Worker perspective is an important part of all three considerations. The framework also emphasizes awareness of context—meaning the physical and social environment of an occupation and industry that can influence the DDD nature of a task. Our corresponding worksheet suggests existing data sources to draw on and encourages us to seek out multiple perspectives and consider potential sources of bias in the information. What makes tasks dull, dirty, or dangerous depends on the perspective of the humans doing those tasks.RAI Let’s take, for example, the waste and recycling industry. The world generates over 2 billion tonnes of waste annually, and this figure is expected to rise to nearly 4 billion tonnes by 2050. Intuitively, trash collection seems like a job that hits all the Ds. Going through our worksheet, we confirm that globally, workers in this industry face significant health hazards (dangerous), and waste collection is ranked as a low-status job (dirty), although interestingly, many workers take pride in providing this essential service. The job is also repetitive, but there are aspects that make it not dull. Specifically, workers cite the day-to-day interaction with their coworkers (which includes extensive insider vocabulary, work hacks, and mutual aid groups) and task variety as two of the most enjoyable aspects of the job. Task variety includes inspecting their vehicle and equipment, driving their truck, coordinating with crew members, lifting bins and bags, detecting incorrect sorting of waste, and unloading at the end destination. This finding matters because some types of robotic solutions will eliminate the parts of the job that workers most appreciate. For instance, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends the adoption of automated side loader trucks and collision avoidance systems. This innovation increases safety, which is great, but it also results in a sole worker operating a joystick in a cab, surrounded by sensor and camera surveillance. Instead, we should challenge ourselves to think of solutions that make jobs safer without making them terrible in a different way. To do this, we need to understand all aspects of what makes a job dull, dirty, or dangerous (or not). Our framework aims to facilitate this understanding. Finally, it’s important to note that DDD is only one of many possible approaches to classify what work might be better served by robots. There are lots of ways we could think about which types of tasks or jobs to automate (for example, economic impact or environmental sustainability). Given the popularity of DDD in robotics, we chose this common phrase as a starting point. We would love to see more work in this space, whether it’s data collection on DDD itself or the creation of other frameworks. At RAI, we believe that the fusion of robotics and social sciences opens a whole new world of information, perspectives, opportunities, and value. It fosters a culture of curiosity and mutual learning, and allows us to create actionable tools for anyone in robotics who cares about societal impact. Dull, Dirty, Dangerous: Understanding the Past, Present, and Future of a Key Motivation for Robotics, by Nozomi Nakajima, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, Caitrin Lynch, and Kate Darling from the RAI Institute, was presented at the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in Edinburgh, Scotland.
“Why are you here?” Fabrizio Pilo, an electrical engineer, asks me as we sit in an outdoor café near his home in Cagliari, an ancient city on the island of Sardinia. It’s a fair question. I’m a journalist from the United States. I’d just stepped off my flight 2 hours prior and come straight to this meeting, suitcase still stowed in my rental car. I’m here to see three intriguing new energy projects under development in Sardinia. I’d heard there’s strong public resistance to renewable energy, and I want to understand why that is. I tell Pilo, who is vice rector for innovation at the University of Cagliari, that I hope he’ll share some insights before I head out on a reporting trip across the island. (My answer seems to satisfy him, and he kindly gives me an hour of his time). This won’t be the first time that I’m asked to explain my presence on the island. I’d expected it, to some extent; I’m a foreign journalist poking around, after all. What I didn’t expect was the depth of Sardinians’ distrust, not just of journalists, but of any outsider, particularly ones with authority. Over the last few years, developers of wind and solar projects, most of whom aren’t from here, have been absorbing the bulk of this smoldering, communal wariness. Activists Maria Grazia Demontis [left] and Alberto Sala, photographed inside the archaeological monument Giants’ Tomb of Pascarédda, have worked to stop the construction of wind farms by organizing protests and taking legal actions through their organization Gallura Coordination. Luigi Avantaggiato In fact, the resistance is so widespread among Sardinians that over the course of two months in 2024, a grassroots petition to ban new wind and solar projects gathered over 210,000 certified signatures. That’s more than a quarter of Sardinia’s typical voter turnout and represents a cross-party consensus. People stood in long lines in public squares to sign. And it worked: Political leaders responded swiftly with an 18-month moratorium on renewable energy construction. “I’ve never seen so much engagement for anything” in Sardinia, says Elisa Sotgiu, a literary sociologist at the University of Oxford, who was born and raised on the island. “Sardinia has a bunch of problems like enormous unemployment. There’s lots of emigration because there are no jobs. It’s one of the poorest areas in Europe. The area is just decaying,” she says. “And yet the thing people are demonstrating against is renewable energy.” And the opposition continues: A network of mayors has mobilized for the cause. Thousands of people show up at organized protests. Activists vandalize grid equipment. Families are passing down these stories of resistance to their children as a point of pride. Local media outlets are egging it on, frequently publishing misinformation tinged with fearmongering. These aren’t just NIMBY complaints—not in the pejorative sense, at least. The resistance, and the distrust underlying it, is rooted in the island’s complex history, both recent and ancient. It’s based on a past that the Sardinian people carry with them—a past that has seeded a deep sense of suspicion and vulnerability. Resistance, I learn, is part of what it means to be Sardinian. Fabrizio Giulio Luca Pilo, vice rector of innovation at the University of Cagliari, has been working to help Sardinia transition to cleaner, more reliable energy. Luigi Avantaggiato “It is a very sad situation,” Pilo tells me. “There are a lot of economic reasons to do the [energy] transition.” It could attract new companies such as data centers, which would create new jobs, he argues. It could reduce Sardinia’s reliance on imported gas and fuel, making the island more independent. New economic activity on the island might help reverse its population decline, he adds. And while what’s happening on Sardinia is unique, it also represents a larger trend: A growing number of communities around the world are opposing wind- and solar-farm construction, to the consternation of stakeholders. By 2025, nearly one-fourth of the counties in the United States had enacted some impediment to new utility-scale wind and solar energy—up from as few as 15 percent two years earlier, according to a USA Today analysis. In Africa, community pushback successfully canceled major projects such as the 60-megawatt Kinangop Wind Park in Kenya. In India, local pastoralists are challenging the 13-gigawatt Ladakh solar and wind project. And the European Union’s top-down push for renewable energy has created opposition in many communities. Their reasons vary—land-use preferences, generational ethos, government resentment, property values, economic effects, aesthetics—but all of these struggles have this in common: The resisters are passionate and they are often successful in blocking development. This is a looming problem for the energy transition. Unlike large, centralized coal and nuclear power plants, renewable energy is geographically spread out, so it touches far more communities. Sardinia offers one of the clearest cases of what can go wrong when renewable-energy developers and authorities fail to consider the complexities of the local situation on the ground. Why is Sardinia resisting renewable energy? Roughly the size of New Hampshire, Sardinia juts out of the Mediterranean Sea about 200 kilometers west of Italy’s mainland. Technically it’s part of Italy, but Sardinians are quick to point out their island’s autonomous status—a subtle way of saying, “We do things our way.” Its mountains seem to echo the sentiment. With the highest peaks running in a chain along the east side of the island, Sardinia resolutely turns its back to the mainland. At first glance, the island looks like the kind of place that’s ripe for an energy transition. Its two coal plants are aging and are targeted to be shut down to meet climate commitments. It has no nuclear power, nor does it produce its own natural gas. Wind and sun, however, are abundant and could easily meet the energy needs of Sardinia’s sparse population of about 1.5 million. But while the resources may be ready for a transition, the people emphatically are not. When I first arrive in Sardinia and take in its beauty, I assume that the impetus behind the fight against wind and solar farms boils down to how they look. Waves of silicon, metal, and concrete would spoil views of Sardinia’s stunning beaches, rugged mountains, ancient pastures, and idyllic medieval villages, after all. Residents of the city of Orgosolo in 1969 famously stopped the construction of a military firing range on communal grazing land known as Pratobello. Its village walls are still covered in murals advocating social protest and antiauthoritarianism. Luigi Avantaggiato But the island’s aesthetic—and the tourism industry that depends on it—are only part of the equation. The far stronger cultural forces at play are rooted in Sardinia’s past. Over millennia, the island has endured successive invasions from outsiders seeking to exploit the land. These incursions, and Sardinians’ rebellious responses to them, have become an integral part of the island’s identity passed down through generations. The invasions started with the relatively peaceful settlement of the Phoenicians in the 9th and 8th centuries B.C.E. Then came the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Iberians, who conquered with violence, looting, and enslavement. But legend has it that despite the might of these ancient conquerors, pockets of Sardinia sometimes managed to defend themselves. “Not even the Roman empire could conquer the shepherds of the highland regions,” is the oft-repeated tale. Whether that’s true or just an idealization is beside the point; such stories serve as an enormous source of pride and identity. Sardinia exported about 30 percent of the electricity it generated in 2025, largely to Corsica and the Italian mainland via two existing submarine cables. The island is “fiercely proud of its identity…especially in the center of Sardinia, which was the most resistant part,” says Andrea Vargiu, a sociologist at the University of Sassari in Sardinia. “This long history of exploitation is still in our DNA, along with a proud sense of autonomy,” he says. Sardinia’s unification, in the mid-1800s, with what would become the Kingdom of Italy is seen by many as an act of colonization. It didn’t help that Italy then proceeded to exploit Sardinia’s forests and other resources for the benefit of the mainland—a practice that continued through the 20th century, says Vargiu. Sardinian bandits sometimes fought back with their own sense of justice, settling matters through raids, kidnappings, and violence. Their stories live on in Sardinian lore with an almost mythical quality, the brigands admired for their intractability. Pasquale Mereu, mayor of Orgosolo, helped organize the Pratobello 24 movement against renewable energy in Sardinia. Luigi Avantaggiato Italy’s use of the island for military purposes particularly irked locals. In a famous case in 1969, residents of the town of Orgosolo successfully thwarted the construction of a firing range on communal grazing land known as Pratobello. That name has since become synonymous with the defense of one’s territory, and a rallying cry. “Sardinia has always been a land of conquest,” says Pasquale Mereu, mayor of Orgosolo, who spoke with IEEE Spectrum through an interpreter. “We believe that even today we are still a colony of Italy, and I’m not ashamed to say it even though I represent an institution.” A longstanding mural on one of his village’s walls reads: “You are in the territory of Orgosolo; here the people rule supreme and the government obeys.” Sardinia’s History Shapes its Identity Driving around the island and talking to people, I can feel the weight of Sardinia’s history—and people’s propensity for holding onto it. Elaborate heritage festivals occur nearly every autumn weekend in the island’s interior. They’re well attended, multigenerational affairs that aim to keep old traditions alive. In the medieval town of Belvì, men roast chestnuts—marroni—over an open fire in a frying pan the size of a swimming pool and then serve them to the crowd by shoveling them into troughs. They’re delicious. In an adjacent amphitheater, the crowd sways along to costumed performers leading traditional dances. Then there are the Bronze Age stone structures, called nuraghi, that are pretty much everywhere. Built before the violent conquests, these conical towers have come to symbolize a romanticized vision of the heyday of Sardinia’s independence. More than 7,000 of them remain, ranging from unremarkable piles of rocks to complex towers, each one carefully documented on an interactive online map. I visit one of the more intact ones that’s fenced off and requires an admission fee. As I take some video with my phone, an employee asks me who I am and what I’m doing and informs me I’ll need to get permission from the government before posting anything online. This rock hollowed out by erosion and walled up with stones was likely used by shepherds as a shelter near the historic Sardinian village of Tempio Pausania. Luigi Avantaggiato But in interviews with residents, I’m continually reminded of the darker side of Sardinia’s past. People often bring up painful things that happened 50 or 500 years ago. A middle school science teacher named Giannina Serpi, and her husband, Roberto Moro, meet me at a café in the seaside town of Sant’Antioco. When I ask why people are so opposed to renewable energy, they (like many people I interviewed) point to the 1970s. Sheep return from pasture in Bonorva, Sardinia, near the Bonorva wind farm operated by EDF Renewables. Luigi Avantaggiato That decade brought a new kind of exploitation: not by empires or governments, but by technology companies. Petrochemical, aluminum, and other industrial companies from overseas built factories on the island, creating jobs and adjacent businesses. But after a few decades, economic and geopolitical factors led the companies to close the factories, sinking local economies and in some cases leaving behind toxic contamination. In the northern city of Porto Torres, several petrochemical plants, a thermoelectric power plant, and an industrial harbor employed about 8,000 workers in the early 1970s. But the oil crises of that decade took its toll on jobs, and when environmental contamination became evident in the 1990s, employment plunged further. By 2010, most of the petrochemical plants had closed. Studies show that residents of Porto Torres during that time had curiously high rates of death from cancer, although there is no consensus on the cause. Similarly, studies have found higher rates of lead in children in the Portovesme area in the southwest, about a 20-minute drive from where I sit with Serpi and Moro in Sant’Antioco. There, the U.S. aluminum producer Alcoa operated a smelter that employed about 500 people and supported an estimated 1,500 adjacent jobs. But the company shut down the smelter in 2012. Three years earlier, Russian aluminum manufacturer Rusal had idled its Eurallumina factory nearby. The impacts of these events still feel fresh, Serpi explains through a digital translator. She says she teaches this history to her students but doesn’t tell them how to feel about it. “I let them decide,” she says. Energy Colonialism in Sardinia Against this backdrop, renewable-energy developers in the early 2010s began sizing up Sardinia. They were drawn by the cheap land, low population, strong wind, and sun that shines an average of about 300 days a year. EF Solare Italia commissioned an 11-MW solar plant in 2010. Rome-based Enel Green Power began construction of a 90-MW wind farm in Portoscuso the following year. Other developers followed, and they mostly came from elsewhere—mainland Italy, Europe, and later, China. The way many Sardinians saw it, the new plants didn’t bring many long-lasting jobs. Most of the work ended after the design and installation phases, and profits went back to the companies’ headquarters outside of Sardinia, they argued. People called it “energy colonialism” and lauded landowners who refused to sell or lease their property to developers. Pink granite called Ghiandone Limbara was extracted from the Sinnada quarry in northern Sardinia from the late 1970s to 2011. Luigi Avantaggiato The uncle of Oxford’s Sotgiu is one of those landowners. She says that a couple of years ago a solar company asked him if he would allow the installation of an array on his family farm in Logudoro in Sardinia’s interior. “From that, he would have gotten something around €150,000 a year, which is more money than he’s seen in his life,” says Sotgiu. The money could have covered his three kids’ college education, she says. “But he refused.” He had many reasons. For one, switching from sheep grazing to the more passive business of leasing land would have put the fate of his income in the hands of an outsider. “If you deprive a region of any sort of economy that is self-reliant, then it’s really fragile,” says Sotgiu. Her uncle didn’t trust that the income would last, and worried he’d be left with a ruined farm, she says. Plus, his farm has been in the family for generations and one of his sons is interested in continuing the business. “So I understand his pride in saying, ‘No, this is my farm, I don’t care about the money,’” she says. Sardinia has one of the largest carbon footprints per capita in Europe. Despite that kind of grassroots resistance, development continued. In 2023, the Italian government authorized the construction of a 1-GW submarine power cable to connect Sardinia to Sicily and the Italian mainland. When completed, the bidirectional cable, called the Tyrrhenian Link, will increase electricity exchange between the regions, bolster grid reliability, and help grid operators efficiently use more renewable energy. Sardinian activists, however, view the cable as a way to justify even more construction of wind and solar plants, and to export the island’s energy for the benefit of non-Sardinians. The island already exports about 30 percent of its electricity, largely to Corsica and the Italian mainland via two existing submarine cables. The Florinas wind farm, commissioned in 2004, was one of the earliest wind farms built in Sardinia. Luigi Avantaggiato And then came the tipping point. In June 2024, in an effort to meet the European Union’s 2030 renewable energy targets, Italy committed to building more than 80 GW of new wind and solar energy capacity over December 2020 levels. The national government divvied up the burden among its regions and told Sardinia to build its portion, 6.2 GW. The move triggered an onslaught of requests from wind and solar developers wanting to build projects in Sardinia. The queue at one point topped 50 GW of grid-connection requests. That represented more than 700 solar and wind projects, many of which came from companies outside of Sardinia. The southern newspaper L’Unione Sarda ran wild with the numbers. Almost daily, for months, it published stories about the “wind assault.” The call-to-arms posts urged people to protest. “The Attack on the Landscape Does Not Stop; The Threat From Agrivoltaics Is Growing,” read a July 2024 headline. Unsubstantiated articles tried to link wind and solar developers to organized crime. “It was scaremongering,” says Sotgiu. “It was a little dishonest, as I saw it, because they kept exaggerating and scaring people into thinking that we were going to be invaded.” (Representatives of the newspaper declined to comment.) The numbers did scare people. Lost was the fact that a grid-connection request is just the start of a multiyear process that involves permitting and legal review and often ends in withdrawn or downsized projects. Submitting a request is inexpensive, and developers often cast a wide net by entering lots of these queues globally to increase the odds of being accepted. In the end, only a fraction come to fruition. In other words, building all, or even most, of the requested 50 GW was never going to happen. “I tried to explain this” to the public, says an industrial engineer at the University of Cagliari, in Sardinia, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid any detrimental impacts of speaking out. “I went to the regional television station. But it’s difficult with technical information. And the newspaper communication is so bad, and its impact is so strong in the community, that it’s very difficult to change people’s minds,” he says. Pratobello 2024 and Anti-Wind Protests And so the collective angst caused by powerful outsiders, industry, and the state united Sardinians into a singular cause. Faced with what felt like another attempted conquest, they did what their families and community had taught them to do: They resisted. Says Mereu: “This is what we are rebelling against: the idea that Sardinians are few and therefore must put up with everything.” In a nod to the 1969 resistance in Orgosolo, they dubbed the movement “Pratobello 2024.” Activist groups, called “committees,” organized protests, and created social media campaigns and videos. Thousands of people started showing up at planned demonstrations. A lawyer went on a hunger strike. Vandals unscrewed bolts on wind turbine blades and set fire to grid and construction equipment. Italy’s transmission system operator, Terna, had to switch to company cars without logos to avoid being targeted. Students studying the electricity system in a master’s program sponsored by Terna were verbally attacked at an airport, according to a professor at their school who spoke with me about the violence. Celebrities got involved. Italian actress and Bond Girl Caterina Murino met with Sardinia’s president to ask her to reject wind farms. Murino posted on Instagram: “Nobody touch Sardinia!!!!” On Italian national TV, the jazz legend Paolo Fresu performed on trumpet while popular TV host Geppi Cucciari read an impassioned lament about the exploitation of the island. Sardinian author Erre Push penned a graphic novel titled Fàula Birdi about a protagonist who resisted an imposition from outsiders. He wrote it upon the request of the activist group ReCommon, whose mission is to “challenge corporate and state power responsible for the plunder of territories.” Push hopes the book will inspire more people to follow the protagonist’s lead. “Renewables are another imposition like in the past—not to help Sardinians but to help external people like industry managers or founders of companies,” he told me through an interpreter. Concerned about the influx of solar and wind farms being built in Sardinia by outsiders, Roberto Pusceddu, under his pen name Erre Push, published a graphic novel that aimed to inspire young people to resist such impositions. Luigi Avantaggiato Mereu and a network of mayors drafted the petition that gathered so many signatures. The people had spoken. In response, Sardinian politicians passed a law that imposed an 18-month ban on construction of wind and solar projects within 7 km of a nuraghe or other archeological site. It wasn’t a total ban, but it might as well have been. “If you put a circle with a 7-km radius around each archeological site, you cover all of Sardinia,” says Emilio Ghiani, a power systems expert at the University of Cagliari. “In this way, it is impossible to find a place to install a new plant.” The move was like giving the Italian government—and the EU’s clean energy targets—the middle finger. And it sent renewable-energy developers scrambling. One company building an agriphotovoltaic plant raced to bring construction to 30 percent completion, which the new law said was the threshold for being allowed to proceed. The company asked not to be named in this story to avoid trouble. Furious, the government in Rome challenged the Sardinian regional law in Italy’s Constitutional Court, and in January this year it prevailed. In its decision, the court rejected the law, saying that renewable-energy projects should be evaluated case by case. Project development quickly resumed. So did the backlash. A headline in L’Unione Sarda declared: “Enough With Top-Down Decisions Without Consulting Communities.” Sardinia’s Renewable Energy Conflict Where the island goes from here is unclear. There’s a willingness among a portion of the population to move forward with an energy transition. For example, some of Sardinia’s largest cheese makers are powering their operations with renewable energy and installing systems to utilize waste heat for efficiency. But for the most part, the public isn’t budging in its resistance. Researchers are trying to dispel inaccurate information, but regional newspapers seem bent on perpetuating fear. Plus, there are technical issues to work out before a full-scale energy transition can be made. Sardinia’s transmission system was built around the centralized generation of two coal plants; it wasn’t made for the distributed generation of wind and solar plants. Renewables require a more dynamic grid, more energy storage, and a wider range of power sources to compensate for their intermittency. Engineers are working on it, but they’ve got a ways to go. The new Tyrrhenian Link undersea power cable will help with that. By connecting Sardinia, Sicily, and the mainland, the cable creates more flexibility in the system. When wind or solar generation slows in Sardinia, for example, electricity from the mainland can fill in the gap, and vice versa. “It will increase the reliability of the system, and after it’s installed, it will be possible to switch off the old generation plants that use coal,” says Ghiani. In January, Terna finished laying the western section of the cable between Sardinia and Sicily, and in April it completed the eastern section between Sicily and Campania on the mainland. Doing so set a world record for power cable depth, at 2,150 meters below sea level, according to Terna. Italy originally ordered Sardinia’s two coal plants to shut down by 2025 but later extended the deadline to 2038. The link is one of the most innovative high-voltage direct current (HVDC) projects in Europe. It can move up to a gigawatt of power and reverse that power flow nearly instantaneously. By using voltage source converter (VSC) technology, it can also help prevent power-flow problems by regulating frequency and smoothing out oscillations in the grid in real time. And it has black-start capability: In the event of a shutdown, it can help restore the grid without relying on an external electric network. These features are particularly helpful for an isolated network like Sardinia’s. Italy has created new incentives and regulations to build a market for grid-scale energy storage. Having plenty of storage is a key to scaling up renewables because it provides backup power when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. To this end, Italy created MACSE, an auction that gives storage developers revenue certainty. Its name translates to mechanism for the procurement of electricity storage capacity. The first auction round, in September, successfully awarded 10 GWh. Energy experts in Sardinia are also working with policymakers to change the rules around grid-connection requests. But these kinds of nerdy details don’t grace most household conversations. Industrial Sites Host Energy Storage Something more accessible that the public can get behind is building renewables on Sardinia’s abandoned industrial sites. “To be honest, not everything is so beautiful here. We have a lot of industrial areas where you can place PV panels. We have a lot of rooftops,” electrical engineer Pilo says. “We have unused coal mines.” I visit one such project that’s proceeding with local support—or at least without much opposition. It’s a coal mine near Gonnesa that shut down in 2018 and is now being turned into a data center and a pumped-hydro energy storage system. The plan is to move water through the mine’s vertical geometry via an enclosed membrane—like a soft pipe—and use the flow to turn a turbine that generates electricity. The water then gets pumped back to the surface and stored in pear-shaped vessels above ground. The scheme will help power the data center, which will be built both above and below ground, including in the mine’s largest chambers nearly 500 meters below the Earth’s surface. Energy Vault will remove old mining equipment from the Carbosulcis coal mine near Gonnesa to make way for an underground data center [above]. It will be powered by a pumped-hydro energy storage system that flows through the mine’s vertical geometry and stores water in above-ground tanks [top].Luigi Avantaggiato Energy storage developer Energy Vault is building it, and despite being based in Lugano, Switzerland—that is, not Sardinia—the company seems to have avoided protest. It helps that the mine is owned by Carbosulcis, a Sardinian regional-government-owned company, which is calling the shots on the project. Plus, doing nothing with the mine costs money. The mine closed eight years ago because it wasn’t profitable, but Carbosulcis must continue maintaining it because of its high methane emissions, which require monitoring and ventilation to prevent explosions and leaks. Carbosulcis managers figured that if they’re going to continue putting money and personnel into the mine, they might as well do something useful with it, Luca Manzella, vice president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa at Energy Vault, says as he and I tour the mine. An innovative project in Sardinia’s interior—Energy Dome’s grid-scale carbon dioxide battery—seems to be avoiding protest as well. Built in a gated industrial complex near Ottana, this energy-storage facility looks like a giant bubble—the kind that fits over a stadium or tennis complex. It’s filled with carbon dioxide that is compressed to store 200 MWh of electricity for the grid. Although the bubble is visible from several of the surrounding hillside villages, and although the developer is headquartered on the mainland, there’s little sign of public pushback. Energy Dome began operating its 20-megawatt, long-duration energy-storage facility in July 2025 in Ottana, Sardinia. In partnership with Google, the company this year aims to build replicas of the system on multiple continents.Luigi Avantaggiato Another path forward is through “energy communities.” In this grassroots approach, consumers work together to build their own solar plant or other power generation. Dozens of these communities are already active on the island, according to the Sardinian Electricity Association, a group that provides guidance to consumers. But by far the greatest need is for energy developers and authorities to understand the people and the history of the land on which they want to build. “When Europe or the national government make a law, they have to also consider the background of Sardinian people and why they are so afraid,” says Simone Micheletti, CEO at Futura Group, a renewable-energy developer based in Serramanna, Sardinia. “You cannot apply the same law to Sweden and Sicily. Sometimes you need to understand [the situation] locally,” he says. Decision makers everywhere would be wise to listen. Otherwise, they may suffer the same fate as their counterparts in Sardinia: despised by locals, delayed by politics, and surprised at how badly it all went. Special thanks to Luigi Avantaggiato for interpreting and additional reporting. This story was updated on 13 May, 2026 to correct the percentage of electricity that Sardinia exports.