ANSA (English)
중도 성향
IT/기술
긍정적Govt approves decree regulating use of AI by law enforcement
We won't have Big Brother says Piantedosi
"REGULATING" · 총 19건
필터 보기현재 지수
49.5
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 88,338건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 49.5(균형)입니다. 긍정 10,803건(12.2%)·중립 63,841건(72.3%)·부정 13,694건(15.5%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 20.7(보수 경향)입니다.
We won't have Big Brother says Piantedosi
Oceans play a critical role for the planet, regulating the climate and feeding billions of people.
A top White House artificial intelligence policy adviser on Saturday said he will leave his position at the end of June, marking the exit of a leading figure helping craft policies for frontier technologies. “This journey has been the privilege of a lifetime,” the adviser, Sriram Krishnan, posted on social media platform X. Krishnan did not give a reason for leaving, but wrote in the post he intends to help “tackle some of the large challenges facing America” related to AI. Krishnan has been involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to create a national framework for regulating developments in AI. His departure comes as the president looks at the possibility of the US government acquiring stakes in AI firms. “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, adding that he planned to meet with AI executives as soon as next week. Trump’s embrace of AI has at times been complicated by security concerns about the technology within his own administration. Fears over AI’s unknowns in national security contributed to a months-long standoff between the Trump administration and AI firm Anthropic. The Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic earlier this year after the tech company refused to allow the US military to use its models for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. After a White House meeting with the CEO of Anthropic, which is preparing to go public, tensions have appeared to thaw. The White House in a Tuesday executive order directed federal agencies to ask leading AI developers to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity tests before releasing them to the public. Some populists in the president’s orbit warn that AI presents a political risk, as proposals to build data centres to power these companies have stirred intense backlash. In his State of the Union speech in February, Trump said he told big tech companies to build their own power plants. Tech CEOs later agreed to tackle new electricity generation and efficiency measures.
Governor Michael S. Barr issued one of the most urgent warnings in recent memory about the trajectory of U.S. bank regulation.
Hungary's government stops issuing worker visas to employees from the Philippines, Georgia and Armenia from Friday, a government spokeswoman said, calling the move a first step towards regulating the inflow of guest workers.
The New York State Senate and Assembly passed three bills regulating data centers, surveillance pricing, and digital stalking, while abandoning other environmental, housing, and entertainment measures, leaving them to be signed by Governor Kathy Hochul.
BUDAPEST, June 5 - Hungary's government will stop issuing worker visas to employees from the Philippines, Georgia and Armenia from Friday, a government spokeswoman said, calling the move a first step towards regulating the inflow of guest workers.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that seeks more oversight over new artificial intelligence models before companies release them to the public. After months of debate over how to handle AI, Trump took his biggest step yet in regulating the quickly developing tech. Trump’s executive order asks AI companies to voluntarily submit ...
• US consul general meets Senate chairman • Regional peace, economic ties discussed LAHORE: Senate Chairman Yousaf Raza Gilani has expressed concern over India’s unilateral actions regarding the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), saying that “any attempt to use water as a tool of coercion undermines regional stability and threatens the livelihoods and food security of millions of Pakistanis”. He was speaking to United States Consul General Stetson Sanders, who called on him here on Saturday. Mr Gilani called upon the international community to support the restoration of treaty obligations and adherence to international law. Following the unilateral suspension of the IWT in April 2025, in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, India escalated dam construction and began heavily regulating water at existing facilities such as the Baglihar Dam, posing a threat to Pakistan’s water supply. Mr Gilani and Mr Sanders exchanged views on matters relating to Pakistan-US ties, trade and investment, besides regional peace and security. The Senate chairman reiterated the country’s commitment to strengthening its longstanding relationship with the US, describing bilateral ties as an important pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy, based on mutual respect, shared objectives and forward-looking cooperation. During the meeting, Mr Gilani appreciated the confidence reposed by US President Donald Trump and his administration in Pakistan’s constructive role for regional peace and diplomacy. He noted that Pakistan was pleased to host the historic Islamabad Talks, which facilitated direct dialogue between the US and Iran and underscored Pakistan’s role as a responsible stakeholder in promoting peace and stability. Expanding cooperation The Senate chairman highlighted the positive momentum generated through recent high-level engagements between the two countries and emphasised the need to further expand cooperation in trade, investment, information technology, energy, minerals, health, education and agriculture. Referring to economic relations, he stated that the US remained one of Pakistan’s most important economic partners and the largest destination for the country’s exports. He welcomed the growing bilateral trade and the successful conclusion of the US-Pakistan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade. He also invited greater American investment in the country’s agriculture, IT, mining and minerals, and energy sectors. Mr Gilani said the US continued to be a major investor in Pakistan, with American enterprises contributing significantly to employment generation and economic development. On regional peace and security, he acknowledged the efforts of President Trump and the US administration in facilitating a ceasefire understanding between Pakistan and India following the military standoff of April-May 2025. He reiterated Pakistan’s desire for constructive relations with all countries in the region while safeguarding its national interests and security. Highlighting parliamentary diplomacy, the Senate chairman underscored the importance of exchanges between legislators of both countries. He recalled Pakistan’s participation in parliamentary engagements at the United Nations and welcomed further exchanges between Pakistani and US parliamentarians to strengthen mutual understanding. The Senate chairman also emphasised the vital role of people-to-people contacts in enhancing bilateral relations. He praised the contributions of the vibrant Pakistani diaspora in the US and acknowledged the role of Pakistani students studying at American universities as future ambassadors of goodwill between the two nations. He expressed confidence that Pakistan-US relations would continue to expand across diverse fields for the mutual benefit of both countries and their peoples. Published in Dawn, May 31th, 2026
• US consul general meets Senate chairman • Regional peace, economic ties discussed LAHORE: Senate Chairman Yousaf Raza Gilani has expressed concern over India’s unilateral actions regarding the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), saying that “any attempt to use water as a tool of coercion undermines regional stability and threatens the livelihoods and food security of millions of Pakistanis”. He was speaking to United States Consul General Stetson Sanders, who called on him here on Saturday. Mr Gilani called upon the international community to support the restoration of treaty obligations and adherence to international law. Following the unilateral suspension of the IWT in April 2025, in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, India escalated dam construction and began heavily regulating water at existing facilities such as the Baglihar Dam, posing a threat to Pakistan’s water supply. Mr Gilani and Mr Sanders exchanged views on matters relating to Pakistan-US ties, trade and investment, besides regional peace and security. The Senate chairman reiterated the country’s commitment to strengthening its longstanding relationship with the US, describing bilateral ties as an important pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy, based on mutual respect, shared objectives and forward-looking cooperation. During the meeting, Mr Gilani appreciated the confidence reposed by US President Donald Trump and his administration in Pakistan’s constructive role for regional peace and diplomacy. He noted that Pakistan was pleased to host the historic Islamabad Talks, which facilitated direct dialogue between the US and Iran and underscored Pakistan’s role as a responsible stakeholder in promoting peace and stability. Expanding cooperation The Senate chairman highlighted the positive momentum generated through recent high-level engagements between the two countries and emphasised the need to further expand cooperation in trade, investment, information technology, energy, minerals, health, education and agriculture. Referring to economic relations, he stated that the US remained one of Pakistan’s most important economic partners and the largest destination for the country’s exports. He welcomed the growing bilateral trade and the successful conclusion of the US-Pakistan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade. He also invited greater American investment in the country’s agriculture, IT, mining and minerals, and energy sectors. Mr Gilani said the US continued to be a major investor in Pakistan, with American enterprises contributing significantly to employment generation and economic development. On regional peace and security, he acknowledged the efforts of President Trump and the US administration in facilitating a ceasefire understanding between Pakistan and India following the military standoff of April-May 2025. He reiterated Pakistan’s desire for constructive relations with all countries in the region while safeguarding its national interests and security. Highlighting parliamentary diplomacy, the Senate chairman underscored the importance of exchanges between legislators of both countries. He recalled Pakistan’s participation in parliamentary engagements at the United Nations and welcomed further exchanges between Pakistani and US parliamentarians to strengthen mutual understanding. The Senate chairman also emphasised the vital role of people-to-people contacts in enhancing bilateral relations. He praised the contributions of the vibrant Pakistani diaspora in the US and acknowledged the role of Pakistani students studying at American universities as future ambassadors of goodwill between the two nations. He expressed confidence that Pakistan-US relations would continue to expand across diverse fields for the mutual benefit of both countries and their peoples. Published in Dawn, May 31th, 2026
Country: Yemen Source: Famine Early Warning System Network Please refer to the attached file. Key Messages In areas controlled by the Sana’a-Based authorities (SBA), Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes are expected to persist through September in Al-Hudaydah, Hajjah, and Ta'izz governates, with Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes widespread elsewhere. The slow recovery of operational capabilities at Red Sea ports and a worsening business environment continue to severely constrain income-generating activities. Additionally, in the rural lowlands, high fodder costs and above-average temperatures, along with declining household purchasing power, are expected to limit the seasonal profits of pastoral households during Eid al-Adha, when demand for livestock increases. Intense competition for scarce opportunities, further intensified by the presence of large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), is expected to result in extremely limited financial access to food, widespread food consumption gaps, and the persistent use of negative coping strategies. Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes are expected to persist in areas controlled by the internationally recognized government (IRG) through September, with pockets of Emergency (IPC Phase 4), particularly among households with extremely limited sources of food and income. Prolonged economic disruptions, significantly below-average labor demand, and severely limited livelihood opportunities are resulting in income levels insufficient to meet food consumption needs. Demand for agricultural labor is expected to rise moderately throughout May due to the fruit harvesting season, especially for mangoes. However, from June to September, which is typically a dry period across most IRG areas, demand for all types of labor is expected to decline. For the poorest households, food consumption gaps or the use of unsustainable coping strategies to mitigate those gaps remain likely through September. Price fluctuations for basic food, and particularly non-food items, continued in May as demand increased with the approach of Eid al-Adha. Data for SBA-controlled areas are limited, but indicate reduced imports and higher shipping costs are driving increased prices for select food and non-food commodities, including cooking oil, which increased 13 percent between March and April. In IRG-controlled areas, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) in Aden is regulating market prices through the enforcement of an administrative circular, mandating set prices for essential commodities. Additionally, the Supreme Authority for Medicines and Medical Supplies in Aden has issued a requirement that pharmaceutical companies print the official retail price on medicine packaging, aiming to regulate the market and curb price manipulation following sustained price increases since January 2026. Nonetheless, higher shipping costs and more limited enforcement of price controls are leading to price increases of 10-22 percent for cooking oil, diesel, and gasoline, and for cooking gas in reference markets outside of Aden. Extreme heat – with temperatures expected to reach as high as 42 degrees Celsius in coastal and desert areas – is placing additional burdens on poor households and limiting their income-earning capacity. Countrywide, the extreme heat has adversely affected the development of vegetable crops and livestock production: households have limited shelter to protect their animals from the heat, resulting in diminished productivity and reduced profits. In IRG-controlled areas, power outages have worsened in recent months, with outages lasting over 18 hours in Aden in May, further driving down casual labor demand as operational hours and profits for small businesses dwindle. Expenditures on energy and health typically begin to increase at this time of year; however, the intense heat has driven these expenditures to atypical levels. Demand for public water is soaring, and there are reports of increased malaria and Dengue fever incidence. Given extremely low income levels and strained budgets, reports of poor households turning to self-treatment with natural products and food items are increasing. The IRG continues to operate with a fiscal deficit, as revenues remain stagnant and local authorities continue to withhold the transfer of local revenues to the government’s account at the Central Bank of Yemen in Aden (CBY-Aden). The Ministry of Finance announced a 20 percent duty on wheat flour imports from May 1 to October 31 (renewable) in an effort to protect the local milling industry. While likely increasing government revenues, the new duty is unlikely to meaningfully decrease the deficit. Additional policy plans were also introduced in May, which are expected to have mixed effects on government revenues; however, detailed information on implementation is not yet available. A significant amount of currency, estimated at trillions of YER, remains outside the formal banking system, leading to local currency shortages. Many small companies and private-sector employers have had to withhold or delay salary payments due to liquidity issues. However, the severity of the shortage eased slightly in May as the approximately 3 billion YER injected to the Yemeni economy by CBY-Aden in March began to circulate more widely. As a result, the limit for hard currency exchange transactions increased from 100 SAR to 1,000 SAR, providing some relief to households, particularly as the Eid al-Adha holidays approach (a time when remittances from abroad traditionally increase).
President Lee Jae Myung’s suggestion that his government could move to abolish Ilbe, one of South Korea’s most notorious online communities, has reopened debate over how far the state can or should go in regulating online hate speech and extremist content. Lee said he would instruct his Cabinet to review “punitive actions” against Ilbe, ranging from compensation orders and fines to blocking access to — or even shutting down — the site. His comment followed reports that some Ilbe users had mocked
The measure goes beyond legislation in California and New York regulating America’s largest AI companies. It still needs to be signed by the governor.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau on Wednesday said the city would continue to study various tobacco control policies, after the World Health Organisation (WHO) gave "high scores" to the city's efforts in recent years. The remarks came after the global body last week awarded its "World No Tobacco Day Award" to Lo, in recognition of the city's tobacco control progress, while raising public awareness over the harms from smoking. "World No Tobacco Day" falls on May 31, and the WHO selects individuals or organisations each year from members of each of the six WHO regions that have demonstrated outstanding achievements in tobacco controls for the award. Speaking in an exclusive interview with RTHK, Lo noted the city's smoking rate fell from 9.1 percent in 2023 to 8.5 percent last year, and that the city's efforts in regulating alternative tobacco products have been successful. "Actually this award is definitely not for one individual, it's a recognition of Hong Kong's efforts in controlling tobacco, especially the work done in recent years," he said. "Of course managing the overall smoking rate is one of their considerations, but [they also look at whether] there are also new innovative measures or control measures for alternative products, such as e-cigarettes. These are their focus areas," he added. Separately, the health minister said the implementation of the city's current 10 tobacco control measures has been smooth over the past few months. This includes banning the possession or usage of alternative tobacco products such as vapes in public areas, a regulation which took effect at the end of last month. Lo said authorities have already ramped up inspections at smoking hot spots, and recorded 39 violation cases over the past month — all from local citizens who possessed a small amount of alternative tobacco and were fined. "We pay attention particularly to crowded areas and areas where we have observed a large number of people using alternative smoking products in public spaces, such as footbridges. These are the areas where we'll ramp up inspections and monitoring," he said. "But we don't want to require a large number of staff from the anti-smoking department to chase after people to issue warnings in these areas. We hope that our citizens will develop a mindset to obey the law so that the number of warning tickets issued will gradually decrease," he added. Lo also noted since the import of alternative cigarettes was prohibited in 2022, the city has so far seen nearly 4,000 violations, with half of the cases being successfully prosecuted. Looking ahead, Lo said the city would continue to refer to policies recommended by WHO as well as that elsewhere to further manage smoking, such as the "smoke-free generation" legislation in the UK, which bans the sale of tobacco products to people born after January 2009. Edited by Tony Sabine
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Trump administration on Tuesday in a dispute involving its policy regulating immigration judges’ “work-related speech.” In its per curiam opinion, the high court vacated and remanded a decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that centered around the government’s rules governing the executive’s immigration courts. The […]
Comments
With a public backlash against AI mounting, the White House is changing its tune on AI regulation and talks with China on AI.
For nearly a century, America’s defense industrial strength yielded a subtle benefit: influence as the world’s security guarantor of choice. But the system that once anchored partner access to U.S. weaponry is now an obstacle. Modern statecraft — the interplay of industry, diplomacy, and defense — requires a fresh approach to regulating defense trade.While the American arsenal accounts for more than 40 percent of global arms transfers, that share largely comprises exquisite systems for which the United States is unable to meet its own demand, let alone the needs of other nations. Arab partners expended hundreds of high-end interceptors to The post Regulatory Friendly Fire: How ITAR Undermines the Alliance It Was Built to Protect appeared first on War on the Rocks.
“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.