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        <title><![CDATA[Trump orders new pharma tariff, reshapes metal duties]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/trump-orders-new-pharma-tariff-reshapes-metal-duties]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[US President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered new tariffs on certain medicines, alongside an overhaul of metal duties, doubling down on his trade agenda a year after unleashing trade wars on virtually all partners. The latest pair of orders he signed pile pressure on pharmaceutical companies to manufacture more in the United States, while separately targeting firms that officials accuse of "artificially manipulating" metals prices. Finished products containing substantial amounts of steel, aluminum and copper will also face a lower 25-percent tariff on their full value instead of being targeted for the amount of metals they contain, a move to simplify an onerous system for firms, reported Agence France-Presse.It is not immediately clear how these would affect consumer prices, but a senior US official told reporters they did not expect to see any effect on affordability. The moves come on the anniversary of what Trump had dubbed "Liberation Day," when he announced varying tariff rates on goods from dozens of economies last year, roiling financial markets and snarling supply chains. Although the Supreme Court struck down these global tariffs this February, Trump has been working to reinstate duties using different authorities, observed Agence France-Presse.His aim of "Liberation Day" was the rebirth of American industry, bringing an influx of jobs, revenue and an investment boom — although critics argue that these have largely not taken place. Making good on his threat last fall, one of Trump's Thursday orders imposes a 100-per cent tariff on patented pharmaceuticals made abroad unless countries struck trade deals to secure lower rates, or companies commit to building plants in the United States. Large companies will have 120 days to commit to "reshoring plans" before the steep duty kicks in, while smaller companies have a 180-day buffer, a senior US official told reporters."We expect the lion's share of the world's patented pharmaceuticals to be building in America," the official said. Those who commit to building manufacturing plants — to be completed by the end of Trump's second presidency — will face a 20-per cent tariff instead.The European Union, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland will be excluded from this plan and face a 15-percent pharma duty, due to trade deals they earlier struck with Washington. Britain meanwhile has secured a deal allowing UK-made medicines tariff-free access to the United States for three years as part of a broader pact, the US Trade Representative's office said. Meanwhile, drug companies that reach "Most Favoured Nation" pricing deals with the Trump administration, while also building plants in the United States, can also be exempt from the sharp pharma tariff.Generic pharmaceutical products are not subject to tariffs, and this will be reassessed in a year's time, said a White House fact sheet. The second order Trump signed reshapes his 50-per cent tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper, pushing importers to pay the duty based on prices that American buyers are facing. It is set to take effect 12:01am Eastern Time on Monday, a White House official told AFP.The senior administration official charged that "foreign countries were artificially manipulating" prices of imported metals in order to pay a lower tariff.The same proclamation called for finished products made with more than 15 percent of steel, aluminum and copper will face a 25-per cent tariff on their full value, rather than being targeted based on their metal content. "It's a simplification and a fairness issue," the official said. Asked about cost of living concerns, which have flared ahead of midterm elections this year, the official maintained that this should not impact affordability for households. "These will not have impact on the price of the good on the shelf," the official insisted.]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/trump-orders-new-pharma-tariff-reshapes-metal-duties]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:09:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Why ‘unretired’ seniors are picking up gig work]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/why-unretired-seniors-are-picking-up-gig-work]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[PLAINVIEW: Before Stu Goldberg begins his night shift driving for Uber, he pulls out a notebook to read a handwritten list of reminders. "No tickets. Full stops," he'd scrawled in the book. "Careful backing up. Watch for pedestrians and bikes." With a Ph.D in neuropsychology and decades of experience running his own business, Goldberg, 74, didn't picture chauffeuring strangers around when he retired. But financially, things didn't go as planned. So he makes the best of his situation shuttling passengers through New York City at night. "I like the freedom. I like the flexibility. I like meeting people," Goldberg said. "I like that most of the time I can get, once or twice a day, a good conversation with somebody."Goldberg is one of a growing number of Americans who have "unretired" in recent years. After concluding decades-long careers at hospitals, universities and corporations, they returned to the workforce due to insufficient retirement savings, rising living costs and a desire to stay active. Some are finding gig work, or contract jobs, through apps or digital platforms. Delivering people and parcels, taking care of pets or folding other people's laundry suits them because they can set their own hours and work, or not, when they choose."We're living longer, so people are working longer because they have to fund those extra years," said Carly Roszkowski, vice president of financial resilience at the nonprofit organization AARP. "And this concept of retirement for most people as like a cliff or a day they're working towards really isn't a reality for most."Goldberg wanted to teach after winding down his software and telemarketing company. But he needed to earn more money than what the occasional adjunct professor job teaching statistics would pay. "Uber came up, and it was not a bad choice for me because I was comfortable driving people," he said. "I felt it could be a good way to make money and keep most of it." About 1 in 5 Americans over age 50 who aren't retired say they have no retirement savings, according to a survey the AARP conducted in January 2025. Retirees and employment experts say gig work has advantages and downsides, including limited job protections and wages that may be insufficient to cover on-the-job expenses. Here are some factors to consider. Barbara Baratta, 72, retired as a pediatric nurse in 2018. But she got restless after a few years and signed up with the pet care app Rover, which connected her to jobs walking dogs and using her nursing skills to administer medications to cats.The work keeps her active. "I get my steps in and do hill climbing," she said. In a leafy New Jersey suburb, Baratta set out to coax Barley, a mix of pit bull, beagle and shepherd, into the afternoon air with a wind chill pushing the temperature down into the 20s."Barley, if you turn this way, the wind will be blowing behind you," she said gently, leading the dog down a wide street. Baratta likes the physical nature of dog walking. She ran two half-marathons in the past year but notices that "being older and not having knees that are totally great" makes steep or uneven terrain a challenge even for her. She advises people in her age group to be careful about which pets they agree to walk."Some dogs are big and strong, which can be an issue, a lesson I learned very early on," Baratta said. "An 80-pound dog, ... they're going to pull, they're going to run away." Driving can be hard on the back and legs, and the challenge of finding restrooms to use on the go becomes difficult to deal with as you age, Goldberg cautioned.Days can feel long and lonely after one retires. Working part-time can provide social interaction. Baruch Schwartz, 78, was a wedding photographer for decades until the work became too physically demanding to do full-time. He started driving for Uber and Lyft and derives satisfaction from feeling needed. "I feel like I'm on a mission," he said after taking a passenger home from a kidney dialysis appointment.Driving for Uber gives Goldberg a chance to meet a variety of people. One night he spoke with a Scottish historian about the movie "Braveheart." Another night a passenger asked him how to know whether it was the right time to propose to his girlfriend. "I'm amazed at what people will tell me about their relationships," Goldberg said. One of the draws of working for gig platforms is the ability to set your own hours. Baratta's schedule allowed her to babysit her grandchildren.Goldberg appreciated the flexibility of setting his own hours when there was a recent death in his family. But between that unplanned trip and a root canal, and no vacation or sick days offered by his job, he went several days without income. "When that happens, even though you have the flexibility, which you like, and you don't have to call anybody and say 'I'm not driving today,' you still don't make the money that day. And you're still paying insurance," Goldberg said.Before investing time into gig work, research what percentage the company takes from workers' earnings."The house always wins, so the amount of money you are going to get as a driver or delivery worker is very much controlled by the platform," said Alexandrea Ravenelle, a sociologist and gig economy researcher at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "There are no workplace protections, so if you get injured on the job, if you have any types of problems, if you have a car accident, for instance, you are entirely out of luck."Uber maintains commercial auto insurance coverage on behalf of its drivers, although New York City requires drivers to hold that insurance themselves, said Uber spokesman Ryan Thornton.Goldberg hit three nasty potholes in three weeks, paying $144 each time to replace the tires. He lost money those weeks, despite working, he said. "I'd say most drivers are not happy with the money that they're making, unless they're working more hours than I'm willing to do," Goldberg said. LisaKay "LK" Foyle, 64, of Orange, Texas, found a way to maximize her earnings on Poplin, an app which connects her with clients who need help with laundry. She has seniority among workers on the app so chooses to accept express orders, which pay the highest rate, and declines lower-paying jobs.Foyle marvels at the state of some families' dirty laundry: "all the socks are inside-out, all the underwear is in the pants, and you've got to check every single pocket, or you're washing marbles or frogs or the snacks they had that day."Baratta's dog-walking income supplements several small pensions and Social Security benefits. She charges $20 for a half-hour walk, not including her driving time to and from the location. Rover keeps about 20%, she said. The $1,000 to $2,000 she makes per month helps pay the bills, she said. "The dogs and cats are delights," Baratta said. "I'm not becoming rich doing this, ... but I've met a lot of great families doing it."Associated Press]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/why-unretired-seniors-are-picking-up-gig-work]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:07:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Peter Magyar, the former Orban ally vying for power]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/peter-magyar-the-former-orban-ally-vying-for-power]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Like many of her fellow volunteers, Hungarian beautician Krisztina Menczel sat idle in the past elections that kept nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban in power. But opposition leader Peter Magyar's hopes of ending the longstanding premier's 16-year reign in Hungary rest in no small part on first-time campaigners like Menczel. "Canvassing has a big impact," the 41-year-old told AFP in Jaszfenyszaru, a central Hungarian town long considered a stronghold of Orban's Fidesz party. "Even those who wouldn't dare reveal their political preferences come over and chat with us."Magyar, a former government insider turned critic, is offering voters a radical break from Orban's self-described "illiberal" system, vowing to crack down on corruption and improve public services. Thanks to his party's on-the-ground network, Orban's grip on small towns like Jaszfenyszaru, population 6,000, appears to be weakening ahead of the April 12 vote.Orban, who has criticised neighbouring Ukraine and acted as a spoiler at many European Union summits, has long counted on his media dominance to promote his platform. Instead, Magyar's TISZA party has had to rely on grassroots word-of-mouth to promote its message. While the ruling party puts up billboards, TISZA has asked its supporters to hang party signs on homes and shopfronts.Menczel said she decided to help the party after Magyar visited the town last August on his nearly non-stop nationwide tour. She now spends up to three hours a day campaigning, on top of managing TISZA's local social media pages. When he shot into prominence in 2024, Magyar had no party apparatus behind him.But his rise came in the wake of a child abuse pardon scandal which shook Orban's tight grip on power.With many Hungarians already dissatisfied with the economy, the scandal proved a "tipping point", when many voters "realised they had enough of Orban's system", according to Zoltan Lakner, the editor-in-chief of the Jelen weekly newspaper. After tirelessly criss-crossing the country and a prominent social media campaign, Magyar led a previously dormant TISZA to second place behind Fidesz at the 2024 European elections.A month after the vote, he called supporters to set up loosely connected associations to handle on-the-ground organising, dubbed "TISZA islands", a nod to the party sharing its name with the country's longest river. According to the party, around 4,000 "islands" have since been established, including in rural areas which the old opposition parties had effectively abandoned.These groups organised local community events, such as charity drives, cookouts and political discussions, before switching to full-time campaigning. Key to these events' success was the involvement of small and medium-sized businesses, according to Lakner, who describes the movement as a "revolution of entrepreneurs"."This also affects the islands' attitude towards politics: They approach it pragmatically instead of ideologically, simply wanting the country to function well," the analyst explained.Dozens of "islanders" ended up being chosen as party candidates during November's primaries. Many of them are locally respected professionals, such as doctors, who are completely new to politics."This lends them credibility, given the widespread disillusionment with professional politicians," Bulcsu Zsiga, a researcher at the Centre for Fair Political Analysis, told AFP. But their political inexperience carries a "danger" which TISZA is "clearly trying to mitigate", the expert noted, pointing to the party's much criticised policy of restricting media access to candidates.Even so, drawing in local figures has helped to break the "spiral of silence" some Fidesz-dominated rural communities, where opposition supporters previously felt isolated or reluctant to express their views, Zsiga added.In the Hungarian countryside, activism often comes at a price, some dearer than others, as campaigners in Jaszfenyszaru can attest.Menczel, the beautician, said that a close relative of the local Fidesz lawmaker stopped frequenting her salon after she posted a picture with TISZA's candidate on social media. Others have suffered more serious consequences.Forty-eight-year-old retailer Eszter Somfai had her home address shared online, after an internal party database with some 200,000 supporters' personal details was leaked last November. "But we will not let them deter us, we proudly campaign for Tisza," Menczel said."I feel people here are increasingly opening up... If everything is conducted fairly, then we will be victorious."Agence France-Presse]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:06:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[As gas prices soar, Tafoya wants Americans to eat cake]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/as-gas-prices-soar-tafoya-wants-americans-to-eat-cake]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Let’s talk about US Senate candidate Michele Tafoya’s viral quote about Starbucks, war and patriotism. The Republican podcaster and former TV sports reporter is running to become one of two US senators from Minnesota, succeeding the retiring DFL Sen. Tina Smith. Her entry into the race has given us a front-row seat to Tafoya’s transition from polite sideline interlocutor of quarterbacks and coaches to the candidate at the center of the chat, revealing her views on consequential concerns of governance and policy. Tafoya has never run for or held elective office, but she’s an experienced and skilled talker from her years as a broadcaster and podcaster.Recently, she spoke about the attack on Iran, sounding as if she were trying to assure the masses and assuage concerns about casualties and rising gas prices caused by the war President Donald Trump began without authorization from Congress. “I know it’s frustrating and I know it’s hard for people. What I would say to them is we lost some service members over there who have put their lives on the line to protect us, to protect the region,” Tafoya said. She then recommended “keeping a stiff upper lip. Maybe you take one less trip to Starbucks so that gas goes a little further until this thing is over and these gas prices come back down again. Let’s just try to be patriots about this.”There’s an inescapable let-them-eat-cake tenor of her comment that was ridiculed online. “Respectfully, she’s Marie Antoinette with a travel mug,” Republican communications consultant Michael Brodkorb posted. Even actor Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz for my generation, got in on Tafoya’s wartime analysis, writing, “Maybe you pass up a loaf of bread or an apple or some protein ... that will do it.”First, let’s address the lattes. There are too many variables to determine whether skipping Starbucks will balance a budget, but it seems to be shaky ground to launch a conversation about required sacrifices. The value of skipping Starbucks depends on a person’s regular order. Would that be a tall black coffee or a venti white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso and a drizzle of caramel? The coffee sells for about $3 before the tip while the other designer caffeinated drinks can easily surpass $8.If a Starbucks run typically also includes food, then yes, definitely there will be real savings by skipping coffee and a fistful of cake pops. The fuel efficiency of the vehicle also matters, as does distance to the store. With gas prices headed toward $4 a gallon, those in larger vehicles or SUVs will save money by not driving, especially if the nearest Starbucks is 20 miles from home.But does anyone really believe the impact of rising gas prices can be wiped out by passing up a single Starbucks run? That claim by Tafoya is going to sound increasingly absurd as fuel prices soar and spread to more consumer goods. Prominent economists are already warning that the economic damage from this war will be long-lasting and widespread, dragging the economy and markets for years. Tafoya’s done well enough that she’s probably blissfully insulated from the pocketbook pressures that most of us face.If Tafoya wants to make a real run at this seat, she’s going to have to be more thoughtful about such serious concerns. “Skip Starbucks” isn’t a workable economic policy or a campaign slogan. This country doesn’t need another politician who equates governance with online virality through sound bites and memes. What we need in this elevated position of power is a senator with compassion and curiosity, much like Smith herself.And yet the Starbucks quip wasn’t the worst of her riff on country and caffeine. That would be Tafoya’s claim that patriotism requires a stiff upper lip. As a career journalist, one would hope Tafoya would be more protective of the American right to speak truth to power. We are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to ask questions and cause good trouble. Tafoya of all people should understand this foundational right.Minnesota already has four Republicans in Congress, political eunuchs who continue to get in line with this president, unwilling to challenge or criticize his self-dealing, authoritarian ambitions and pardons for fraudsters. Now, Tafoya is signaling that she, too, would march in line with Trump and that we should stand behind her. No, thank you.This is the time for all of us, including elected officials from both parties, to question and challenge Trump’s authority before it’s too late. Our blood, treasure and democracy are at risk. Protest is patriotic. It’s the tyrants who prefer silence. I sincerely hope that Tafoya, an Emmy Award-winning sports journalist and would-be national leader, belatedly decides she misspoke and that she actually values dissent as a fundamental right. If, however, she continues to tell Americans to suck it up and sacrifice caffeine for the greater good, her judgment reveals her to be far better suited for podcasting than a policy war room.Tribune News Service]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:05:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[South Africans challenge mine rush in biodiversity hotspot]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/south-africans-challenge-mine-rush-in-biodiversity-hotspot]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Kim Harrisberg, ReutersSouth Africa's western coastline is known for its wildflowers, archaeological sites and pristine beaches, but for mining companies, the real attraction is not what you can see, it's what you can dig up. Large parts of the coastline are already being actively mined or reserved for prospective mining. According to the civil society group Protect the West Coast (PTWC), South Africa's West Coast is being mined and prospected for heavy minerals, diamonds and rock ⁠phosphate, with 48 new mining applications submitted in 2026 alone.The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) said these figures did not align with its own and stated that six prospecting rights applications had been received, with three accepted, alongside two mining permit applications. The DMPR did not provide clarity on the exact region they were referring to. Local groups including artists, indigenous leaders and scientists have launched campaigns, petitions and legal action in recent months citing the potential risks of mining the area."The West Coast is at a tipping point. We risk losing birds, animals and ecosystems that cannot be restored," said Mike Schlebach, managing PTWC. Heavy minerals such as zircon, rutile and ilmenite can be used in renewable energy technology such as solar panels and wind turbines.Global ⁠demand for these so-called green minerals needed in the energy transition is set to nearly triple by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. "There is this mad dash for rare earth and critical minerals, but there has to be proper oversight so that the poorest communities are not left behind," Schlebach told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Inland, 1,800 square kilometres have been earmarked for diamond mining, with up to 2,900 square kilometres in the Western Cape reserved for prospecting, according to PTWC.Currently, the equivalent of 5,000 football fields of land — roughly 37.5 square kilometres — has not been rehabilitated to an environmentally healthy state on the West Coast following decades of mining, a PTWC report said. Open pits, craters, dust and barren slopes of sand indicate decades of unrehabilitated diamond mines in the region. The DMPR said it could not confirm this figure and that closure certificates were only issued once mining companies complete rehabilitation following an inspection.Only 10% of the region is currently protected and the region is home to more than 6,300 endemic plant and animal species, according to PTWC. The department said expert studies and recommendations helped determine whether environmental authorisation was granted and under which conditions to mining companies. "We need to be careful about what type of ⁠development occurs and how that development takes place," said University of Cape Town restoration botanist Peter Carrick."This is a uniquely beautiful landscape which is also incredibly fragile," he said.Alongside the West Coast's biodiversity, the region also holds significant value for indigenous groups with ties to archaeological and heritage sites, as well as smallscale fishers. More than 200 protesters gathered this month to challenge the surge in mining interest in the region, alongside a five metre driftwood sculpture of a gannet bird made by a local artist to symbolise the fragility of the native bird species in the region. A petition to protect the region from mining has drawn more than 60,000 signatures."Our people have lived here for thousands of years," said Gaob Martinus Fredericks, leader of the indigenous !Ama (Nama) people. "We understand the value of our natural heritage and we want to safeguard our children's livelihoods as well as our own." Fishermen groups said they had seen a decrease in the fish population over the years that mining had become more prevalent. "You can see how this has damaged our ecosystems. The snoek runs are fewer now," said Carmelita ⁠Mostert, chairperson of Coastal Links South Africa, small-scale fishers organisation, referring to a type of mackerel in the southern hemisphere.South Africa's constitution outlines that any mining company must engage in meaningful community consultation before going ahead with a project. Failure to do so can lead to a legal dispute. PTWC launched an app called Ripl in October 2024 to allow people to submit their comments, objections and appeals linked to mining projects to government and ⁠the mining companies directly.There are also ongoing plans to keep using the legal system to challenge mining companies that do not take social and environmental risks into consideration, Schlebach told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.They are calling for an urgent moratorium on all prospective mining until a comprehensive social and environmental assessment of this coast is completed. "We are not anti-mining, but it has to be done in accordance with the law and it cannot be the only industry to have a home on ⁠the West Coast," said Schlebach.]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/south-africans-challenge-mine-rush-in-biodiversity-hotspot]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:03:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Delhi way!]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/delhi-way]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Delhi Capitals (DC) defeated Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in a very interesting match, held in Lucknow, on Wednedsay evening. LSG failed to get going and managed to put only 141, which looked very small target for for DC, but the LSG bowlers espcially Md. Shami, Mohsin Khan and Prince Yadav, bowlded brilliantly and managed to grab four wickets in quick time.  DC looked in deep trouble because Mohsin was very quick and accurate and did not allow any batters to hit him even for a four. But it was DC batter Sameer Rizvi with Tristan Stubbs, managed to chase the target convicingly.  Rizwi scored unbeaten 70, and came out with flying colours.  Rizwi has shown his brilliance in his maiden match only. Though he started on a very cautious note and looked little slow, but when it mattered the most he changed his gear and started hitting well. It was very good match at the end. I am sure Rizwi will do much better in forthcoming matches. Even I am excited to see how LSG bowlers go ahead from here. They look great unit led by brilliant Shami.Sarfaraz Hashmi,By email]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/delhi-way]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:57:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[&#039;No Kings&#039;]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/no-kings]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/03/no-kings]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:55:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Italy overhauls its corporate and financial laws]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/italy-overhauls-its-corporate-and-financial-laws]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[A reform billed as making Italy’s capital markets more attractive is instead unnerving investors, with Monte dei Paschi di Siena becoming the first company to test new board-nomination rules that critics say are opaque and destabilising. The test case will come on April 15, when bailed-out lender Monte dei Paschi (MPS) becomes the first Italian company to appoint a new board and chief executive under provisions dictating how outgoing directors can propose successors. Instead of providing clarity, the criteria have heightened investor uncertainty in a vote that pits the MPS board against CEO Luigi Lovaglio, who is seeking a new term against a board-backed rival candidate, according to Reuters.The legislation, which became fully effective in October, allows outgoing boards to propose an entire slate of directors for shareholders to vote on as a group. That bundled-voting system sets Italy apart from countries like Britain and the United States, where investors vote on each board appointment individually.However, approval of the board’s slate in the first vote is not final, and each candidate must then be ratified in a second, individual ballot. “Italy already had some of the world’s most complex rules for selecting board members,” said Lukas Plattner, a partner at law firm Advant NTCM.“Now there is the added absurdity of regulating how an outgoing board presents its own slate – a mechanism investors, especially foreign ones, find almost impossible to understand.”That second vote, he said, encourages “punitive, disruptive behaviour, turning a governance tool into an instrument of institutional paralysis.”Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) underlined the complexity by backing MPS’ board list while urging investors to reject individual candidates, including the chairman and appointments committee head, over “poor succession planning.”Italy’s Treasury did not respond to a request for comment. The government has said the rules aim to avoid directors being reappointed indefinitely, without shareholder oversight. The board-slate provision is part of a sweeping reform of Italy’s corporate and financial law, rolled out from 2024 and now nearing completion. The changes have drawn criticism from investor groups such as the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), which represents investors with more than $90 trillion of assets and warns the rules risk denting market confidence.Rome moved in March to placate investors by amending a provision on enhanced voting rights, but ignored calls to change the board-slate system, which governance experts have labelled an “aberration” at academic conferences.While it is too early to gauge the broader impact of the reforms on Italy’s capital markets, the vote at MPS will offer an early indication of the distortions the system can produce. The resulting confusion was apparent among investors at a London conference last month, when a fund manager asked the MPS CEO to explain “to a non-Italian” the chain of events surrounding the bank. Governance experts warn the rules risks producing more fractured and lower-quality boards. Headhunters say a requirement to nominate one-third more candidates than available seats would deter candidates, potentially narrowing the pool of experienced professionals as they would be unwilling to risk public rejection. Simulations run by Cattolica University’s corporate governance research centre, FINGOV, show that the rules can lead to situations where a slate with fewer votes than the board’s list ends up securing more seats.“The board’s slate system is a global outlier and can produce unpredictable outcomes,” FINGOV director Massimo Belcredi said, noting that governance experts had not expected any company to make use of it. “What happens now at MPS is anyone’s guess.”]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:10:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Cuban exile aspires to lead Cuba from Miami]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/cuban-exile-aspires-to-lead-cuba-from-miami]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Armando Labrador owns and operates a plastic-surgery clinic in a Miami strip mall that advertises low-cost breast implants and liposuction. He dreams of being Cuba’s next president. Labrador, 56, fled Cuba with his family as a teenager, after his father was imprisoned for almost eight years and his grandfather was executed. When he isn’t running his plastic-surgery business — Labrador is an executive, not a doctor — he leads Cuba Primero, a group of about 100 dissidents inside Cuba who organize protests and scrawl graffiti like “Down with the Dictatorship” and “Viva Trump” along Havana’s Malecon.President Donald Trump has spoken openly of “taking Cuba.” The administration has been pressuring the island’s 67-year-old communist regime, putting in place a blockade that has choked off energy supplies and led to crippling blackouts. To exiles like Labrador, the island’s liberation has never looked more in reach. There is growing conviction in Miami’s fractured Cuban diaspora that Trump will push out President Miguel Díaz-Canel and open up the island’s ailing economy.“I think I’m going to run for president,” said Labrador. “If you asked me that six months ago, I’d have said, ‘No, that’s impossible.’”It’s far from clear whether elections would take place if Cuba’s government were to collapse or be deposed. When the US removed President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, it anointed Delcy Rodríguez, a senior figure from within the regime, as the country’s new leader, rather than someone from the large opposition led by Nobel Peace Prize Winner María Corina Machado. “It’s a moment of hope but also trepidation,” said Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. “Whether we get to the phase of democratization is really an open question.”Labrador, who has written two plays and a song about resisting Cuba’s regime, has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. To promote Cuba Primero, and his clinic, he hosted a beauty pageant in March in the Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the president’s Trump National Doral Miami Golf Club.Hundreds of people watched as 60 mostly Cuban-American women, some clad in red, white and blue evening gowns evoking the Cuban flag, competed for the Miss Nova Femina crown. A dozen contestants performed a Labrador play about hunger, economic duress and repression in Cuba. A video about Cuba Primero depicted an AI-generated shark wearing a Cuban military cap menacing refugees on a raft.Some people in the crowd cried. Others chanted, “Viva Cuba!” The Cuban exile community in Miami is experiencing a generational shift. The leaders of older dissident groups that traced their roots to the years after Fidel Castro’s takeover are ageing or dead. The opposition is more divided among several smaller factions. “We have our differences about how we think about freedom in Cuba,” said Ramiro Collazo, leader of Exilio Unido Ya, or Exiles United Now. “But hopefully we have a common goal of finishing with the Castro tyranny.”For his part, Labrador had lost faith as US presidents repeatedly tried and failed to force change in Cuba with sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but saw a change with the arrival of the new administration. “Trump is different,” he said. Marco Rubio, the Miami-born, Cuban-American secretary of state, has been leading talks with Cuban officials, which people familiar with the matter say include the grandson of Raul Castro, the country’s former president and brother of the late Fidel. Labrador said he is unaware of the Trump administration including exile groups in its planning for Cuba, and doesn’t know whether elections are part of their plans.Mike Hammer, the US chargé d’affaires to Cuba, has briefed Labrador in his living room on Trump’s strategy, the businessman said. Labrador said he’s spoken with Rob Allison, the State Department’s coordinator for Cuban affairs. The State Department regularly meets with a range of people to assess global events and develop policy, an agency spokesperson said. Labrador declined to discuss details of those conversations, except to say that the officials won’t say much about their exact plans. “We in the opposition really aren’t involved,” said Labrador. “But we’ve never been so close to victory.”Cuba’s repression of dissent makes it difficult for opposition groups to operate in the open. More than 1,200 political prisoners, critics, protesters, activists and journalists are detained in the country, according to the human-rights advocacy group Prisoners Defenders.“The risks are so high, so 100 people really is a lot,” said Labrador. He says hundreds more people support him inside Cuba, where the population was almost 11 million at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, but are scared to become activists. “I don’t think anyone else can show they have more people actively resisting inside Cuba than us.”Some exile groups say they have larger followings than Labrador. Cuba Decide, led by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights representative Rosa María Payá, says it has attracted thousands of supporters since 2015. It is described by the U.S. government as the “most prominent” opposition movement.It’s hard to gauge Cuba Primero’s true influence. Labrador posts interviews and news reports about opposition activities on his YouTube channel, which has more than 230,000 subscribers. Labrador and Cuba Primero are on Cuba’s list of terrorists and terror groups. Labrador denies that he or Cuba Primero engage in terrorism, and said 30 Cuba Primero activists are in jail in Cuba for activities such as holding illegal political meetings or staging demonstrations. Cuba is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the US, a charge the regime has rejected.On Feb. 28, a Cuban coast guard patrol fired on a fishing boat in the island’s territorial waters that was carrying 10 heavily armed members of two Florida-based exile groups. Five of the men were killed and the rest were detained on terrorism charges, according to the Cuban government. Labrador said he has no ties to the groups involved and doesn’t approve of violence.“Our goal is to convince people to resist through nonviolent means, and it’s worth the risk of going to jail,” said Leudys Reyes, who spent six years in prison in Cuba on charges of disseminating “enemy propaganda” and engaging in “public disorder” for his work as a Cuba Primero organizer.Reyes was released from jail in 2024 and says he was forced to leave Cuba due to death threats. Labrador helped get him to Miami via Nicaragua.“There is no one bigger than we are in Cuba,” Reyes said in an interview at Labrador’s home.Labrador arrived in Miami in 1989, at age 19. In 1997, a doctor he knew convinced him to finance a varicose vein clinic in Miami’s Little Havana.Six doctors perform 100 procedures a week, Labrador said, and he plans to open a second clinic. In 2018, inspired by the San Isidro free-expression movement in Cuba, Labrador founded Cuba Primero. He began sending money and medical supplies to help San Isidro, which was led by Cuban rapper Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez. The group later collapsed when Osorbo and other leaders were imprisoned.Tribune News Service]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:10:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[New Zealand and Cook Islands reset relationship]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/new-zealand-and-cook-islands-reset-relationship]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[New Zealand and Cook Islands signed a defense and security pact on Thursday, easing more than a year of tension between the Pacific nations over Cook Islands’ deepening ties with China. The fraught diplomatic standoff that prompted Wellington to pause millions of dollars in aid to Avarua was hardly a clash of geopolitical heavyweights: New Zealand has a population of 5 million, while Cook Islands has 15,000 people. But the lengthy freeze gripped Pacific observers because it reflected the struggle confronting tiny island nations with close ties to Western countries such as New Zealand and Australia as they seek to balance their traditional alliances with overtures from Beijing.In the new declaration, Cook Islands pledged New Zealand would be its “partner of choice regarding defence and security matters,” apparently quashing the prospect, feared by Wellington, of China occupying the role. It resolved “ambiguity” about the two countries’ existing ties, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.When Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown inked a comprehensive strategic partnership between his country and China during a visit to Beijing in February 2025, it provoked alarm in Wellington because Brown wouldn’t divulge the content of the deal first, a refusal New Zealand officials said could have security implications. Cook Islands is a self-governing country with a 60-year free association relationship to New Zealand, which means it’s defended by New Zealand’s military and citizens can live and work freely in New Zealand.The links require Cook Islands leaders to consult with Wellington on deals with other countries that might affect New Zealand. Brown defended his decision not to disclose the contents of his pact with China, which he said was unnecessary under his country’s existing accords with Wellington. New Zealand — which is Cook Islands’ biggest benefactor — froze millions of dollars in aid over the episode, although it wasn’t a large amount of the total funding that Wellington contributes. That aid would now flow again, Peters told reporters during a visit to Cook Islands on Thursday, where he and Brown signed the new agreement.“This declaration seeks to remove previous ambiguity about the nature of the relationship between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, especially as it pertains to defense and security,” Peters said. Cook Islands, an archipelago of 15 islands in the vast South Pacific Ocean, is among many small nations in the region to be courted by Beijing, which has offered aid, loans and deals throughout the Pacific to increase its sway. The sparsely populated South Pacific is considered strategically important and many of its countries, including Cook Islands, have large and lucrative exclusive economic zones, where Brown is exploring prospects for mining of deep sea minerals.“The strategic environment we face is more complex and contested today than at any other point since New Zealand and the Cook Islands formed our free association relationship in 1965,” Peters said Thursday. Cook Islanders hold New Zealand passports, which was partly why the deals with China prompted such dismay about security in Wellington. Brown in October 2024 suggested he would consider the creation of a separate Cook Islands passport, a plan he later shelved after he said New Zealand had “bared its teeth” over the matter.“It’s no secret that our two governments have had a series of serious disagreements since late 2024,” Peters said Thursday.Both leaders, however, dismissed questions about what the declaration between New Zealand and Cook Islands meant for Avarua’s earlier deal with Beijing, which covered matters such as deep sea mining, infrastructure and educational scholarships but didn’t contain explicit security elements.Associated Press]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:08:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[A crackdown on Dreamers is a crackdown on American Dream]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/a-crackdown-on-dreamers-is-a-crackdown-on-american-dream]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Mary Ellen Klas, Tribune News ServiceAs a high-achieving college kid, Alex Vallejo wasn’t surprised by the kind of young people he met at the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers’ national conference in Salt Lake City three years ago. Like him, there were other computer-science students who were in their school robotics clubs. Like him, there were other web developers and students who worked two jobs while getting top grades. All predictably impressive. What did surprise him was how many attendees — also like him — were undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the US as children.“They were paying for their full tuition out of pocket, working towards their degree, and were leaving the conference with job offers,” Vallejo told me recently. “It was genuinely inspiring. I’m like, ‘Wow. I thought I was working hard.’” Vallejo, a student at the University of Central Florida, is shielded from deportation through the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme. He says most of the undocumented students he met then didn’t have that legal protection. Still, it didn’t seem like an insurmountable challenge in 2023. “Everyone was so hopeful,” Vallejo recalls.He stays in touch with many of them on a Discord channel, and over the last year, he said, things changed. Deportations ramped up. The Department of Homeland Security urged DACA recipients to “self-deport.” The same country these students pledged allegiance to started hunting them down like criminals. And yet, Vallejo told me, “Their vibe is still so positive. The only difference now is that they’re just more scared.”In an era of cultural tensions, disruptive technology, and an uncertain future for the group that’s been called the “anxious generation,” young people like Vallejo and his peers — known as Dreamers — are a precious resource. Through no fault of their own, millions of young people are without citizenship in the country where they grew up. As of June 2025, about 516,000 of them were enrolled in DACA, which offers two-year renewable work permits as well as protection from deportation.Yet despite Dreamers’ precarious position, they find a way to stay upbeat. Optimism about the future is precisely what once made America great, and it has always sprung from the hopes of immigrants — like Vallejo’s parents, who brought him into the US from Argentina when he was a year old. For immigrants to survive — to embrace the kind of work and sacrifice it takes to maintain a 4.0 GPA while working full-time as the manager of a pretzel shop, like Vallejo did — they need to be profoundly hopeful.That positive attitude comes as no surprise to Hyein Lee, chief operating officer of TheDream.US, a privately funded nonprofit that awards scholarships to undocumented students who have grown up in the US. “They are living proof of the idea that ‘When everyone told me no, I said yes,’” she said. “They are the hope.”But the Donald Trump administration is working very hard to extinguish that hope. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained over 260 DACA recipients and deported more than 80 in 2025 alone. Many students have gone into hiding, afraid to travel even within their own states, Lee told me. Renewal applications for DACA recipients are being slow-walked by the administration, a group of Senate Democrats recently charged, leaving people in limbo and causing some to lose work authorization.The administration is also suing several states to end in-state tuition programs for undocumented students who grew up in their state. It filed its first such lawsuit against Texas last June. Rather than defend the policy that had been on the books since 2001, Texas reversed the state’s long-held position that the law was constitutional. Soon, undocumented students who grew up in Texas and attended state schools found their tuition bills had more than doubled.The federal government has tried to do the same thing in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia, although it’s been blocked in Kentucky and Virginia. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is now suing California and Illinois, which are challenging the lawsuits. A federal judge on Friday threw out a similar lawsuit against Minnesota.This isn’t just a shortsighted approach to immigration policy — it’s squandering one of the best investments the country has ever made in its next generation. The American Immigration Council estimates that undocumented young people who get a college degree increase their earnings by 57% compared with peers who do not. Earnings translate into taxes paid, spending power and job creation. Undocumented college graduates also pay back states by providing a much-needed talent pipeline in professions like education, health care and nursing, Lee said, adding: “They are driven personally by this desire to give back.”TheDream.US currently sponsors scholarships for about 4,000 students, she said, and 76% are undocumented and without DACA status. They have no protections from deportation, no pathways to adjust their legal status, and no work authorization.Vallejo told me he lives his life with both fear and hope. He knows “there is zero room for mistakes” but chose to “come out” publicly as a Dreamer this year because he wishes “more people knew our stories.”“I tell people, ‘Hey, I’m just as American as you, because if I’m not, I don’t know what I am,’” he said. “Every Dreamer feels the same way.” Americans overwhelmingly recognize that Dreamers belong in this country, and 85% support citizenship for them, according to a 2025 Gallup poll.]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/a-crackdown-on-dreamers-is-a-crackdown-on-american-dream]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:03:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Influencers don&#039;t always follow their own advice]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/influencers-dont-always-follow-their-own-advice]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[A lot of the time anything we do or eat is often influenced, not by experts in their fields, but by influencers. Influencers are folk who have managed to garner a massive following because of the videos/reels they upload onto Facebook and Instagram. The bigger their following the more influential they are. Are they experts in their fields? In most cases they are not. They are people who other people seem to listen to and follow because they see images of those people supposedly following their own advice.Did you ever see the movie, ‘Legally Blond’, starring Reese Witherspoon? The young fitness influencer the lawyers are defending claimed that her physique was as a result of her following her own food and fitness regime. But we later learn that it wasn’t her food and exercise regimen at all but liposuction which she secretly underwent on a regular basis! So she was deceiving her clients to make money. Although this is just a fictional character I am now more certain than ever that this is more about fiction relating what actually happens in real life.We all know that with advances in AI and the ability to use Photoshop and other software to manipulate videos and images, anything can be made to look like anything or anyone. What many of us are seeing on social media of late is testament to that. It used to be said that seeing is believing but believing what you are seeing is a big question now and everyone should question what is being shown to them.This is especially important when it comes to your health. Unfortunately there are far too many people around the world who don’t have access to free healthcare or even have health insurance. So they rely solely on the internet to give them a diagnosis and treatment options. The number of posts I see from people on social media asking for health advice from group members is astounding.I feel very sorry for them but at the same time I feel they are very irresponsible asking for a diagnosis from random people in random groups. What makes it even more worrisome is the fact that some of the health issues for which they seek online advice could actually be life-threatening.I also find it very odd when doctors begin to give medical advice on social media. Theirs is not always about directing them to their medical practice for further evaluation. It’s almost a final diagnosis and what the patient should do to help themselves. Honestly, in my opinion, such advice is rather risky because what these doctors are effectively doing is turning themselves into online medical dictionaries and that’s not a good thing if a person is looking for a diagnosis for something they have.Did you ever have a medical dictionary at home?I remember us having one when I was in my teens. Whenever I felt something I’d go to this dictionary and I swear to you I thought I had every symptom described in there which made me feel very scared and anxious, and very weepy. I never read a medical dictionary again.In my humble opinion, those doctors who dispense advice on reels and videos have turned themselves into influencers. A lot of them are unknown but have become famous because their videos get countless views and ‘likes’ even if the advice they dispense may or may not be completely accurate.One doctor on YouTube claimed that having a heart arrhythmia later in life is not hereditary claiming that, if it was, even a baby would have it. He is, of course, wrong. He was clearly displaying poor medical knowledge and if someone can make a mistake that basic, what else can they be wrong about?This, of course, applies to all influencers who are influencers because of the ‘likes’ and views they get, not because they’re experts. They do what they do to get ‘likes’ and views which, in turn, translates to monetisation. Unfortunately, social media platforms that offer monetisation as an incentive to post have created a dangerous level of misinformation. There’s no fact checking and if it does happen, it’s often much too late.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[Birjees Hussain]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/influencers-dont-always-follow-their-own-advice]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:00:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Tireless effort]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/tireless-effort]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[The massive rain across the UAE has been a disturbing one, transforming the familiar cityscape into scenes rarely witnessed in this region. Roads flooded, routines paused, and daily life momentarily slowed as nature asserted its presence in unexpected ways. For many of us, these rainy days evoke memories of a very exclusive time. Back in my high school years, life was simpler and far less dependent on technology especially since I am from the millennial group where there were no remote learning platforms, no tablets, and certainly no expectation of a day off due to weather.I used to wake up  early, packing my bags, and wearing those school sweaters and jackets attended school without disinclination, carrying on with my lessons and revisions as part of a disciplined routine.Today, the scenario is vastly different. With the advancement of technology, safety measures, and modern conveniences, responses to such weather events have evolved with many alerts received. Remote learning ensures continuity in education, while precautionary closures prioritise well-being. These changes reflect progress, but they also remind us of how much our regimes have shifted over the years.Amid the challenges brought by the rain, one aspect that deserves sincere appreciation is the tireless effort of municipal workers, emergency responders, and volunteers. Their swift action in clearing waterlogged roads, managing traffic, and ensuring public safety have been nothing short of commendable. Often working behind the scenes and under difficult conditions, their contribution keeps the nation moving even in the face of disruption.Mathew Litty, Dubai]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/tireless-effort]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:58:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Training time]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/training-time]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/training-time]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:57:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Mediation moves]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/mediation-moves]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt have joined Qatar, India, and several other countries offering to mediate and end the war the US and Israel are waging on Iran in order to ease regional tensions. All three members of the trio have good relations with Washington and can use ties to Iran to promote a ceasefire and a halt to hostilities.Turkey is a NATO ally of the US and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has enjoyed warm personal ties with US President Donald Trump. Dating to the Nixon presidency, Pakistan’s ties with the Trump administration are good. Therefore, both Ankara and Islamabad could be in a position to promote a deal. A deal is the triumph the egocentric US businessman Trump wants.Israel and Turkey formally established diplomatic relations in March 1949, making Turkey the world’s first Muslim-majority country to take this step.Turkey and Iran have established extensive economic ties and have common concerns over Kurdish separatism but compete for regional influence, notably in Syria. Despite supporting opposing sides in regional disputes, the two countries have stable, pragmatic relations.As a key non-NATO ally, Pakistan collaborates with the US on counterterrorism, security, and regional stability although formal US strategic cooperation with India remains an issue with Pakistan. Islamabad also refuses to recognise Israel until a Palestinian state is established. While US-Pakistani trade in goods topped $8.7 billion in 2025, the US also serves as a key source of investment and remittances.Pakistan’s relations with Iran are founded on cultural and religious ties, established when Iran became the first country to recognize Pakistan when it emerged after the partition of India in 1947. Ties have, however, suffered strain due to domestic sectarian tensions, border security issues involving Baluch insurgents and Baluchistan, and other external influences.A staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, Pakistan has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel. While Pakistani public hostility towards Israel is high, the two governments have cooperated covertly on security and intelligence, employing intermediaries, including Turkey, for managing indirect communications.Egypt has enjoyed warm relations with the US since Anwar Sadat became president after the death of pan-Arab nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970. Sadat made peace with Israel in 1979, rendering Egypt a close US ally and a recipient of major US funding.Although Iran adopted an anti-Israel stance after its 1979 revolution, Egypt and Iran have agreed to re-establish full diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after over four decades of estrangement due to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, the first in the Arab world.Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt could boost their separate and combined regional influence if they were to succeed in mediating a ceasefire and/or ultimately putting an end to the US-Israeli war on Iran. However, this cannot happen until President Donald Trump has decided the US has achieved its war aims and announces a halt to hostilities.Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has dreaded this moment. He wants to continue this one-sided campaign for as long as possible as Israelis go to the polls before the end of October to choose a new legislature. Netanyahu might try to postpone the election because of the war or, if he is unable to achieve delay, he hopes that his prosecution of the war will secure his Likud bloc’s return to power.Meanwhile, Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi fighters have belatedly entered the war by launching missiles and drones at Israeli military sites – all of which were intercepted. A Houthi spokesman said attacks will continue until “the aggression on all resistance fronts stops.” This could backfire as Netanyahu could use this expansion to extend the conflict, maintaining a modicum of Israeli unity at a time when Israelis have been bitterly divided over his machinations. Despite criticism of Netanyahu on other issues, Israeli public opinion has united across political lines. According to a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), 82 per cent of the population supports the current offensive and 57 per cent of Jewish respondents agreed that the war should continue until both Israeli military objectives and the political goal of regime change in Iran are achieved.However, the Trump administration could disappoint Israeli hawks as Washington has claimed success on both goals. Iran’s navy has been crippled, its ballistic missile and drone arsenal has been depleted, and its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and his closest collaborators have been killed. While his son Mojtaba has been wounded and has not appeared in public, the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has assumed control and is unlikely to do a deal with Israel.Due to the war, Netanyahu’s approval rating – which had plummeted due to personal corruption allegations and failure to prevent Hamas’ 2023 attack on southern Israel – has rebounded. The latest opinion survey reported that 74 per cent of respondents believe Netanyahu is managing the war effectively. Analysts attribute the pro-war sentiment to the widespread Israeli belief that the conflict with Iran is a matter of national survival. This is, of course, the propaganda line whenever Israel is challenged although Israel is armed to the teeth and has been regional military hegemon for decades. Photo: TNS]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Jansen]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/mediation-moves]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:57:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Best of the best]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/best-of-the-best]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[The idea of A-list actors has evolved over the years as we move into a new generation of stars who are dominating the Hollywood landscape. This week we are taking a look at some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry right now. Margot Robbie is currently one of the ultimate A-listers, and she is everywhere right now. From award-winning movies  to fashion campaigns, Margot’s star is getting bigger by the minute. She has also positioned herself behind the camera as a producer and opened a production company.Timothée Chalamet is another actor at the top of every list at the moment While he did miss out on that Oscar for a third time last month, Chalamet’s career looks like it will go from strength to strength as he cements himself as one of Hollywood’s best actors. Paul Mescal and Jacob Elordi are two other actors who have gone from breakout roles to global recognition very quickly.Being an A-list celebrity is still about talent at its core, but many other factors come into play. It is still about those who capture attention and influence culture, just in a much faster and more competitive environment.In other news this week, turn to our Nutrition pages to read about the MIND diet and how it can help lower the risk of dementia. It combines the most brain-friendly elements of two well-studied eating patterns: the traditional Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, which was originally developed to lower blood pressure.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Taryam]]></dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Opinion ]]></category>
        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/02/best-of-the-best]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:55:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Brazil enlists bank managers to combat deforestation]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/brazil-enlists-bank-managers-to-combat-deforestation]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[After struggling for years to track and punish deforestation across the world's largest rainforest, Brazil is recruiting new allies in the battle to protect the Amazon: bank managers. A new rule taking effect on Wednesday requires banks to check if rural loan applicants have any deforestation on their farms using government tools that provide data about them based on satellite imagery, reported Reuters. If bank managers detect any clearing since 2019 in the Amazon or woodlands, farmers applying for government-funded rural credit must show proof of deforestation permits to get their ⁠loans approved. "We turned every bank manager who handles subsidized credit into an inspector of illegal deforestation," said Andre Lima, who leads efforts to fight deforestation in Brazil's Environment Ministry.The new policy has drawn blowback from Brazil's powerful agribusiness sector, whose deep pockets and growing opposition to the government may shape October elections. The Agriculture Ministry itself argued to scrap the rule late last year. But advocates argue that the government needs more weapons in its anti-deforestation arsenal. As on-the-ground enforcement has become more difficult, the rule change aims to bring deforesters to heel by withholding billions of dollars of subsidized public credit, said Reuters.About 17% of all rural lending disbursed from 2020 to 2024 went to farms on land deforested between 2020 and 2023, according to an ⁠analysis of public data and satellite images by the Climate Policy Initiative, a think tank in Rio de Janeiro. The new rule will cover about $53 billion in loans to farmers with federal subsidies, or roughly a third of rural credit in Brazil, central bank data show.It will also affect a fast-growing type of private lending for farmers known as agribusiness letters of credit, a popular asset for individual investors exempt from income taxes, because around half of it goes through the same rural credit channels in banks. By 2025, investment in letters of credit had grown to $114 billion. Farmers use the funds to invest in their farms and to cover operational costs, like planting new crops."This signals to the sector: look, the financial system will no longer be a partner in these (deforestation) activities," said Juliano Assuncao, the executive director of the Climate Policy Initiative. The policy and its blowback reflect President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's commitment to one of his most globally salient pledges: to end deforestation in Brazil by 2030 - an ambitious goal in a country that still records the most tropical forest loss every year.Denying public credit to some farmers on Brazil's fast-expanding agricultural frontier may stir deeper resistance from rural ⁠powerbrokers already skeptical of the leftist Lula, and hurt his appeal in farm states such as Mato Grosso and Goias as he runs for re-election. The new policy includes a provision blocking subsidized credit to farms if those funds would be used to clear native vegetation, even where farmers have permits to deforest, reported Reuters."You can still do it, but with your money, not with public money," Lima said. Debate over the new rule may wind up in Congress, where Lula has already lost many battles over the environment, including over a law that gutted the country's permitting process.Brazil's National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), the biggest farm lobby group, said it will work to change the rule in Congress, which has a powerful farm caucus. In a statement, the group said that government tools using satellite images to detect deforestation make mistakes and could lead banks to withhold credit unfairly.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/brazil-enlists-bank-managers-to-combat-deforestation]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:53:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Orban fuels anti-Ukraine mood ahead of Hungarian vote]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/orban-fuels-anti-ukraine-mood-ahead-of-hungarian-vote]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Anita Komuves and Andrew R.C. Marshall, ReutersBUDAPEST: US conservatives have long pointed to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as proof that a Western leader can crack down on immigration, defy global institutions and wage war on "woke" liberalism — and still win elections. But as Hungary heads toward an April 12 parliamentary election, some of Orban's most enthusiastic admirers in the US, including President Donald Trump, are confronting a once-unthinkable prospect: after 16 years in power, Europe's champion of "illiberal democracy" could be voted out of office.Defeat for Orban would reverberate well beyond Hungary, casting doubt on the durability of a political system — marked by hardline nationalism and an erosion of democratic checks — that some on the American right have touted as a blueprint for reshaping Western democracy. It would also come as momentum appears to be slowing for some of Europe's far-right parties, with ⁠Trump's unpopularity increasingly seen as a liability among European voters.Opinion polls show Orban and his Fidesz party face the toughest electoral challenge since returning to power in 2010. In most independent surveys, they trail the center-right Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar. Magyar, 45, has toured hundreds of towns and villages, often giving speeches from what has become a symbol of his campaign: a flatbed truck painted in Hungary's national colours.While he vows to tackle corruption and democratic backsliding, blaming both on Orban's long rule, Magyar's rallies focus on bread-and-butter concerns such as low wages, rising food prices and deteriorating public services. Magyar, a lawyer and member of the European Parliament, has drawn strong support from younger voters, with backers attributing his rapid rise to disciplined messaging and slick social media.Orban, 62, has depicted Magyar as a risky bet who will bow to the European Union and drag the country into the Ukraine war. Orban maintains close ties with Russia and opposes helping Ukraine. Across Budapest, pro-Orban campaign posters reinforce that message, branding Fidesz as "The Safe Choice."Five political analysts said that even high-profile backing from Washington — including Trump's endorsement and a planned visit by Vice President J.D. Vance on April 7-8 — is unlikely to shift the outcome, as domestic issues such as the cost of living dominate the ⁠election. Trump has praised Orban as "a truly strong and powerful leader," and conferences in Budapest have drawn conservative figures from across the US to study his political playbook.Orban's self-described "illiberal democracy" mirrors key themes of Trump-era America: harsh anti-immigration policies, open disdain for liberal norms, hostility toward global institutions, and attacks on the media, universities and nonprofit groups. He was the first European leader to endorse Trump during his 2016 presidential bid. Under the Obama administration, Washington repeatedly warned that Orban's government was eroding democratic norms, including judicial independence and media and religious freedoms, but that criticism largely faded once Trump began his first term.Since then, as Trump's ties with much of Europe have frayed, Hungary under Orban has moved closer to him, including by joining his "Board of Peace," an initiative that challenges the United Nations' traditional role. Another trait that has won Orban admirers on the American right is his readiness to confront the European Union. Orban has repeatedly defied the bloc, most notably by opposing Ukraine's bid for membership and maintaining close ties with Russia. His opponent, Magyar, has vowed to pull Hungary away from Moscow and re-anchor it in the West. A spokesperson for Orban did not respond to requests for comment. Magyar, in a previous interview with Reuters, said voters must choose between Europe and development, or a continuation of "16 years of decline."On his Truth Social platform, Trump has credited Orban with helping the US and Hungary reach "new heights of cooperation and spectacular achievement." Trump counted Orban as a "close partner, respected leader, and a winner for the people of Hungary — a great ally to the United States," White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in an email to Reuters. But the Trump administration has not given Orban the kind of economic backing extended to another ally, President Javier Milei of Argentina. Last year, the US provided Argentina with a multibillion-dollar support package to help stabilize its currency and bolster Milei ahead of midterm elections. After a meeting with Trump at the White House in November, Orban said he had secured an agreement with the US for a "financial shield" to protect Hungary's economy. But Trump later denied offering Orban any such lifeline. And Secretary ⁠of State Marco Rubio, during a visit to Budapest on February 16, made only vague promises of "finding ways to provide assistance" if Hungary's economy was struggling."We're hitting a ceiling (on) what the Americans are willing to really offer," said Zsuzsanna Vegh, a Berlin-based political analyst focusing on Central and Eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C."That may signal a level of uncertainty about whether Orban will really win. Trump might not want to be seen supporting a loser," she said.A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.The last general election in Hungary in 2022, which Orban won by a landslide, was deemed free but not fair by election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a Vienna-based regional security organization. It said ubiquitous state-funded advertising and media bias gave Fidesz an "undue advantage."Billboards in Budapest remain dominated by Fidesz today. Changes in election law under Orban have also allowed his party to win supermajorities with less than 50% of votes.Vance's planned visit, days before the vote, highlights Orban's place in a Trump-aligned global conservative network, a role underscored in March by two Budapest conferences attended by right-wing politicians and activists from around the world. But even some of Orban's allies doubt the show of support will translate into votes. "Domestic issues will determine voter intentions," said Zoltan Kiszelly, a political analyst at Szazadveg, a pro-Orban think tank in Budapest. At a March 21 gathering of CPAC Hungary - an offshoot of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a prominent annual forum of U.S. conservatives - attendees included Argentina's Milei, Alice Weidel of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany, and two Republican congressmen, Russ Fulcher of Idaho and Andy Harris of Maryland. The conference was closed to Reuters and other traditional media.Anxiety about Hungary's election surfaced in speeches streamed online. Onstage, the conservative media personality Dave Rubin acknowledged a sense of "trepidation" among delegates. ⁠Harris warned of "vandals" seeking to destroy Christian values and urged Hungarians to "throw the vandals out and shut the gate," adding that "the future of Western, Christian, free civilization depends on it."Harris told Reuters Orban's leadership "led the way for the victory of many right-of-center leaders in Europe. Of course, that put a political target on him."Rubin didn't reply to a request for comment. Two days after CPAC Hungary, Orban hosted leaders of at least 10 European far-right parties, including France's Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands. Their alliance, Patriots for Europe - founded by Orban and allies in 2024 — is now the third-largest group in the European Parliament. Kiszelly, the pro-Orban analyst, said his conservative contacts in the US were unfazed by Orban's polling troubles, arguing that Trump's 2024 victory ⁠had taught them not to trust surveys.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/orban-fuels-anti-ukraine-mood-ahead-of-hungarian-vote]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:49:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[AfD pushes for return to Russian energy imports]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/afd-pushes-for-return-to-russian-energy-imports]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[John O'Donnell and Andreas Rinke, ReutersGermany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has used surging energy prices to revive its longstanding call for Berlin to turn once more to Russia for cheap energy after scoring some of its best results in two state elections this month.German petrol prices have jumped by more than 15% since the US and Israel began their war ⁠on Iran a month ago, and the AfD's argument won a ready hearing this month among voters in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a centre of the German car industry. "That was the defining issue," said Markus Frohnmaier, the AfD's leading candidate in Baden-Wuerttemberg, pointing to energy prices around twice as high as those in China or the United States."This election campaign was all about the economy, the economy, the economy."consolidated its position as Germany's second party by winning around 20% of the vote in both Baden-Wuerttemberg and in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate, where it recorded its best ever result in a western state. "The situation in the German economy at the moment is ⁠dire," Frohnmaier said. "It is essential for Germany's energy sovereignty, as well as for affordable electricity ... that Germany begins to import Russian gas and oil again."Russia had supplied over a third of Germany's crude oil imports and more than half of its natural gas needs, until Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the abrupt shutdown of the Nord Stream pipeline left Berlin scrambling to find alternative suppliers, which now include Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. With the exception of indirect imports of small quantities of liquefied natural gas, it has eliminated Russian oil and gas from its energy mix, statistics office data shows.For two decades, under chancellors Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel, Germany's economic model had been built around access to cheap Russian energy. The shock helped push Germany into a two-year recession from which it has only just begun to emerge. Combined with steadily mounting job losses at manufacturers squeezed by higher energy costs and growing competition from China, this has helped to create fertile ground for the AfD's promotion of Russian energy. "This argument is much more closely linked to people's everyday lives than abstract geopolitical statements," said Johannes Hillje, a political ⁠scientist and specialist in the AfD.For many in Germany's main parties, the calls for a return to Russian energy are part of a wider drive, by a party long accused of being sympathetic to Moscow, to undermine Russia's isolation."The AfD is deliberately promoting Russian narratives in Germany," said Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of parliament's foreign affairs committee from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). "It would be disastrous for European security and the trust of our partners if imports of Russian oil and gas were to increase."But he acknowledged that, even among his fellow Christian Democrats and their Social Democrat coalition partners, some were making similar calls for the restoration of trade and economic ties with Russia. The AfD, which last month won an injunction preventing Germany's domestic intelligence agency classifying it as "extremist" for the moment, is often characterized as far-right, though it disputes the label. Shunned by other parties, it has made strong gains among younger and working-class voters.Frohnmaier said it was not ⁠for German politicians to worry about the possible boost to Moscow's war effort from buying Russian gas."We weren't elected to represent the national interests of Ukraine," he said.The AfD initially made strong inroads among voters thanks to its opposition to a sharp rise in immigration over recent years, but has increasingly expanded its focus to include economic issues."People vote for the political party they believe is capable of ⁠solving the current problems," Frohnmaier said, dismissing the argument that Germany had already secured alternative sources of oil and gas.In eastern Germany, where the AfD has a strong chance of winning power in Saxony-Anhalt in one of three state elections being held in September, the argument is likely to have even more force."There is a widespread view in the German public that cutting ties with Russia was a mistake," said Michael Kretschmer, CDU premier ⁠of the eastern state of Saxony. "The further east you go, the stronger this feeling becomes."]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:45:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[What is the controversy over McSweeney&#039;s stolen phone?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/what-is-the-controversy-over-mcsweeneys-stolen-phone]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Helen MacNamara, The IndependentIn the ballad of Morgan McSweeney's stolen phone, the latest verse is a surreal one. Having taken the unusual step of publishing a transcript of the 999 call that Keir Starmer's former Downing Street chief of staff made last October, to report that his government-issue device had been snatched, the Metropolitan Police has now decided to comb through CCTV footage of the incident. Thoughts and prayers to those attempting to narrow down which of the guys cycling on the pavement is the holder of McSweeney's phone, which is believed may contain messages relating to Peter Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador. There will have been more than one mobile stolen in SW1 that night. But at least now they can check the right camera footage: in the transcript of the police call, Morgan says the incident was on Belgrave Road in Westminster, which was misrecorded by the police call handler as Belgrave Street, miles away in east London.In a way, it's reassuring that even the prime minister's chief of staff is subject to the same laws of gravity as the rest of us when it comes to phones being snatched... and the police doing their worst. I have some game here. I too have had my phone stolen. It was snatched out of my hand while I was texting, by a big bloke on a Lime bike. Like McSweeney, I did not give chase — nor could I elicit any effective response from the Met.When I was deputy cabinet secretary, part of my job was ensuring the proper keeping of the record, including mobile calls made, emails and messages. In that respect, the theft of Morgan McSweeney's phone oughtn't be hugely significant. The crime was (correctly) reported to Downing Street before the police, and so should have been wiped within minutes. Anything on the phone relating to government business will ordinarily have been stored safely elsewhere.But the theft of Morgan's phone does matter, because this everyday tale of low-level London street crime has instead become a haven for conspiracies and compounding mistrust in our political systems. It is eight weeks since the Conservatives, aided by Keir Starmer's own backbenchers, used the roguish parliamentary trick of a Humble Address to force the government to publish all the information they have about the appointment of Peter Mandelson.Humble Addresses short-cut the usual systems protecting the government from disclosing information they would rather keep private. In every other recent case, Humble Addresses have resulted in documents being published in days and weeks. It's not optional. That's the point. This time, however, it will be months before the full information is disclosed — if ever.The first “tranche” of documents produced earlier this month contained industrial quantities of padding. Literally dozens of blank pages and standardised documents about HR processes. What is becoming increasingly clear is the delay is in part because the government simply doesn't hold the relevant information it needs to comply with the Humble Address request. It is only recently that it has occurred to someone high up in Whitehall that they might need to ask people for messages on personal phones, as well as on the standard-issue kit.Well, yes. That much was obvious back in February. If a mobile phone belongs to the government and is used for the business of state, no records on it should be deleted. Periodically, the contents should be transferred to the relevant file. And if something important is on your personal phone, those messages too should be part of the record. In the days after Mandelson was sacked last September, there was a cursory attempt to piece together the process for his appointment. The instinct to find out what went wrong was a good one — for all the reasons, including self-protection and even the possibility of learning from experience. But in these exercises you do actually need to lift the drains, not waft around a bit of Febreze and hope for the best.This was a missed opportunity, a chance to assemble a file of the relevant messages, notes and documents about how the appointment had come to be made, as well as recollections: asking everyone involved for their perspectives. All of this could, and should, have been done well before Morgan's phone was stolen.Worryingly, in the Mandelson papers that have been published so far, there is no voice of the prime minister, nor his now former chief of staff. There is so very little written down when there should be emails, notes of conversations, an audit trail. This is why the disappearance of McSweeney's phone is causing such outcry. No 10 seems unable to offer reassurance because the relevant information is... elsewhere.This failure to write things down goes to the heart of the way in which any government functions. Government business should be recorded. It's not laborious — it's the work.The knowledge that what you are doing, decisions you have taken and advice you have given, will one day be open to the scrutiny of others is such an important, always-on invisible corrective on the behaviour of everyone involved in governing. I've seen my advice, emails and messages published in the cold light of day years later. We should want the people in positions of power to be concerned about what history will think of them.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/what-is-the-controversy-over-mcsweeneys-stolen-phone]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:39:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Chile’s new president Kast gets tough on immigrants]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/chiles-new-president-kast-gets-touch-on-immigrants]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Paulina Abramovich, Agence France-PresseJust three weeks into his term, Chile's new President Jose Antonio Kast has lost no time in tilting the rudder sharply to the right as he looks to slash spending and crack down on immigration, both policies a major about-turn on predecessor Gabriel Boric. Kast, a lawyer of 60, has promised not to shrink from making radical policy choices to revive the economy but also bring illegal immigration under control.This week saw Kast's team cancel leftist Boric's plans to grant legal status to tens of thousands of migrants who entered the country without permission. Boric had prepared a decree giving the green light to 182,000 people who applied for legal status. But after Kast campaigned with a pledge to crack down on the issue, Migration Service director Frank Sauerbaum said, "we are not going to proceed with a massive granting of residency papers as proposed by the Boric government." Kast had already ordered the start of construction of new barriers on the Peruvian border to crack down on people sneaking in. The border with Bolivia will also be tightened.He blames a rise in murders, kidnappings and extortion on undocumented immigrants. He has also axed more than 40 environmental decrees which he sees as holding back economic activity and cut ministry budgets by some three percent.One of the new government's most controversial measures is the scaling back of government schemes designed to cushion the impact of fluctuations in fuel prices, which have soared by 30 percent for petrol and 60 per cent for diesel in a country heavily reliant on imports.Kast's election brought the most right-wing president to power in Chile since the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. But the opening gambits of the professed Pinochet admirer have shocked some. "They're undoing everything the left has achieved, and I don't think they understand how ordinary people feel," complains Rodrigo Araya, a 27-year-old chef from Santiago.For political scientist Rodrigo Espinoza, the change of direction was at least expected. Espinoza points out that "reversing certain decisions made by the previous administration was part" of Kast's campaign pledges. Measures such as the migration clampdown were largely introduced by decree, bypassing congress, where the president lacks a majority. "These are tough measures," Kast concedes."But we cannot buy popularity with money we do not have." The government cites a budget deficit running at 3.6 percent and public debt topping 40 percent, both as a portion of GDP. Kast's embrace of austerity measures has already sparked protests, chiefly by students and environmental activists.Gonzalo Mueller, director of the Centre for Public Policy at Chile's private University of Development, says the goal is to rectify controversial decisions rather than to "dismantle a legacy" of what went before Kast arrived.Kast has sought to hit the ground running on policy yet his approval rating has slumped from 57 percent to 43 percent since he took office on March 11, says a recent poll by the Cadem institute.Some of that loss of support is a reaction to scaling back Boric's environmental protections.One focused on the protection of species such as the Humboldt penguin, which is endemic to the Chilean coast and classified as 'vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.The measure proposed designating the creature a 'natural monument' and extending its protection to the whole of Chile, prohibiting any activity likely to affect it."This sends the wrong signal," warns Chilean scientist Alejandro Simeone, a specialist in the species."We are in a situation where everything is so negative, so complex, that it is likely" the species will disappear within a few decades.According to a study he led, the population of the bird slumped 63 percent between 2022 and 2025, due to the combined effects of avian flu, the El Nino weather phenomenon and pressure from industrial fishing. Cristina Dorador, a specialist in salt desert conservation, said austerity and conservation are not mutually exclusive. "It is a mistake to frame the issue as a stark dichotomy: protecting nature does not mean giving up all economic activity."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:37:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Incredible effort]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/incredible-effort]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up on Tuesday morning and saw the roads of Sharjah looking neat and clean. Despite so much rain, Sharjah Municipality managed to clean all the mess in very quick time. Kudos to them for their effort. I thought it will take a few days for me to be able to drive on the road but on Monday only most of the roads were cleaned and cars started moving.I think Sharjah Municipality was well prepared to tackle the situation.  Even on Saturday and Sunday the whole night I saw workers were on the roads. This is incredible. Even senior staff of municipality and police were patrolling constantly throughout the day and night. I appreciate social media also for appreciating the effort of workers. Social media users were regularly posting photos of workers working for our welfare. They deserve praise for their incredible effort. Even Sharjah Municipality had waived parking fees for almost a week and this came as a huge relief for motorists.Shahid Ahmed,By email]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:31:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Comparison]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/04/01/comparison]]></link> 
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        <pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:28:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[From escalation to isolation: Iran’s strategic unravelling in a rebalancing world]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/31/from-escalation-to-isolation-irans-strategic-unravelling-in-a-rebalancing-world]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[It took less than a month for the US-Israel war on Iran to erupt into a crisis of staggering magnitude — one now threatening to destabilize entire economies and push the most vulnerable nations toward the brink of starvation. What began as a contained confrontation has rapidly metastasized into a global fault line, sending shockwaves far beyond the region. The Gulf has borne the immediate cost of Iran’s response: illegal, indiscriminate, and wholly detached from the diplomatic restraint these countries had consistently championed. Those who argued most forcefully for de-escalation now find themselves directly in the line of escalation.Iran maintains it did not ignite the war — but that assertion neither confers innocence nor absolves responsibility. Conflict does not emerge in isolation; it is forged through accumulated miscalculations, squandered opportunities, and hardened positions that narrow the field of choice until force becomes inevitable. Tehran’s refusal to engage meaningfully in nuclear negotiations with the United States did not preserve leverage — it extinguished it. In doing so, it confined itself to a strategic corner of its own making. A government’s endurance is not measured by defiance, but by its ability to navigate complexity, preserve stability, and protect its people. By that measure, Iran has failed — regionally and domestically alike.Confronted with the consequences of that failure, Iran has chosen escalation over recalibration. In a world governed by balance, restraint is not weakness — it is power in its most disciplined form. Yet Iran has inverted this principle, widening the scope of confrontation and directing its aggression not only at declared adversaries, but at Gulf states that had actively advocated for diplomacy. Its actions in and around the Strait of Hormuz — arguably the most critical artery of global commerce — have transformed the conflict from a regional crisis into a direct threat to global economic stability. This is no longer a war contained by geography; it is a pressure point on the international system itself. Iran has moved beyond being a participant in conflict — it has become a generator of systemic risk.This trajectory is neither accidental nor surprising. As Stephen M. Walt’s theory of alliance formation makes clear, states respond not merely to power, but to perceived intent. Even modest actors can trigger balancing coalitions when their behaviour signals aggression. For a state of Iran’s scale, the consequences are amplified. Aggression in this context does not project strength — it accelerates isolation.
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                        The Gulf has borne the immediate cost of Iran’s response: illegal, indiscriminate, and wholly detached from the diplomatic restraint these countries had consistently championed. Those who argued most forcefully for de-escalation now find themselves directly in the line of escalation
                                    
                                
                                
                                    
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                                        Aysha Taryam
                                    
                                
                            
                        And isolation is precisely what has followed. In the span of weeks, Iran has eroded years of diplomatic capital, severed fragile lines of engagement, and catalyzed a realignment of alliances against it. In its attempt to assert control, it has instead constrained its own strategic horizon. What is unfolding is not calculated statecraft, but reactive escalation — an approach that risks devolving into strategic exhaustion while exposing the state to broader and more dangerous confrontations.Yet the true significance of war lies not only in its destruction, but in its revelations. War strips away diplomatic theatre and exposes the underlying architecture of alliances — their strength, their limits, and their sincerity. For the Gulf, this moment of crisis is also a moment of recalibration. It presents not only a threat to be managed, but an opportunity to redefine strategic relationships within a rapidly shifting order. Alliances are not permanent — they are tested, reshaped, and redefined in moments such as these. The ultimate victor will not be the one who prevails militarily, but the one who reads the transformation most clearly and acts with precision.Beyond the geopolitical arena, this war has laid bare deeper fractures within the Arab world itself. Long-standing narratives have resurfaced, most notably the reductive logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In practice, this has translated into hesitation — an unwillingness among some to unequivocally condemn Iran’s aggression against the Gulf on the basis of its hostility toward Israel. It is a dangerously simplistic lens, one that substitutes clarity with convenience and principle with expediency.Reality is neither binary nor forgiving. Two truths can — and must — coexist. Multiple actors can be held accountable simultaneously. The refusal to do so is not neutrality; it is a failure of political judgment. It is within this failure that the Arab League’s hesitation becomes consequential. Its delayed response has not gone unnoticed, raising fundamental questions about its credibility and relevance at a moment that demands decisiveness, not ambiguity.The Gulf has long stood as a pillar of Arab economic and diplomatic influence. Its stability is not peripheral — it is foundational. Yet the League’s reluctance echoes a familiar pattern: its division during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Then, as now, competing loyalties diluted collective action, allowing ambiguity to prevail at a moment that demanded clarity. The parallel is not incidental — it is instructive.History, in this instance, is not merely repeating itself; it is issuing a test. Whether its lessons have been absorbed remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the Gulf is far less willing to accept hesitation as an acceptable response. The demand now is not symbolic alignment, but substantive clarity rooted in principle.In the end, war is the great revealer. It tears through the fabric of diplomacy, exposing what lies beneath — intentions, loyalties, and the true limits of power. It does not merely redraw maps; it reshapes meaning. This conflict will not be remembered only for what it destroyed, but for what it unveiled. And when the noise fades, it will not be the loudest who endure, but those who understood when to act, when to restrain, and when to transform crisis into consequence.  ]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:15:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Trump says Russia can deliver oil to Cuba]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/trump-says-russia-can-deliver-oil-to-cuba]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Moscow could send oil to Cuba despite Washington's de facto fuel blockade, as a Russian tanker was expected to deliver some much-needed crude to the crisis-hit island, reported AFP.  While the shipment would give the country some relief, Trump renewed his threats against the communist government, predicting that it would fail "within a short period of time." The Anatoly Kolodkin, which is carrying 730,000 barrels of crude, was off northeast Cuba on Sunday evening and is expected to dock in the western port of Matanzas by Tuesday, according to shipping tracker MarineTraffic.It would be the first shipment of oil to the island since January, bringing some temporary relief to the country of 9.6 million people that has endured a deepening energy and economic crisis. "If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with that, whether it's Russia or not," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida."Cuba's finished, they have a bad regime, they have very bad and corrupt leadership, and whether or not they get a boat of oil it's not going to matter," Trump said. "I'd prefer letting it in, whether it's Russia or anybody else, because the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things that you need," he added.Cuba lost its main regional ally and oil supplier in January when US forces captured Venezuela's socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, reported AFP. Trump subsequently threatened to impose tariffs on any country sending oil to Cuba and has mused about "taking" the island. "Within a short period of time, it's going to fail, and we will be there to help it out," he said on Sunday."We'll be there to help our great Cuban Americans out who were thrown out of Cuba, in many cases, their family members were mutilated and killed by (Fidel) Castro...Cuba's going to be next."After Washington launched the oil blockade, President Miguel Diaz-Canel imposed emergency measures to conserve fuel, including strict rationing of gasoline. He warned this month that "any external aggressor will encounter an unbreakable resistance." Fuel prices have soared, public transport has dwindled and some airlines have suspended flights to Cuba, hitting the country's fragile economy. Cubans have endured regular outages as its aging power plants struggle to meet demand, with seven nationwide blackouts since 2024, including two this month, sparking rare protests.A humanitarian aid convoy brought more than 50 tonnes of medicine, food, solar panels and other goods to Cuba by air and sea in recent days. The Anatoly Kolodkin, which is under US sanctions, left the Russian port of Primorsk on March 8. It was escorted by a Russian navy ship across the English Channel, but the two vessels parted ways when the tanker entered the Atlantic Ocean, according to the British Royal Navy. The New York Times, citing an unnamed US official briefed on the matter, said the US Coast Guard was allowing the tanker to reach Cuba. The US Coast Guard did not reply to an AFP request for comment. Another ship that was reportedly carrying Russian diesel to Cuba, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, rerouted to Venezuela this week.Once the Anatoly Kolodkin's crude arrives in Cuba, it would take about 15-20 days to process the oil and another 5-10 days to deliver its refined products, according to Jorge Pinon, an expert on Cuba's energy sector at the University of Texas at Austin.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:54:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[US factory boom: A tale of two realities in Indiana]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/us-factory-boom-a-tale-of-two-realities-in-indiana]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Timothy Aeppel and Jarrett Renshaw, ReutersSOUTH BEND: One of his best customers recently asked John Axelberg to invest $800,000 to double the output of the tubular frames his factory here churns out for large-scale solar energy farms. He said no. Although the solar side of Axelberg's small metal forming business fueled all of his company's nearly 30% revenue growth last year, bolstered by tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act passed under President Joe Biden, all the other industries he serves — including farm equipment and heavy trucks — were off a collective 20%. And he worries about solar. President Donald Trump often says his policies are unleashing a new American factory boom.Yet in industrial communities like South Bend, the reality is more nuanced: government policies are lifting some sectors while clouding the outlook for others, leaving ⁠many manufacturers navigating a patchwork of incentives, tariffs and shifting signals from Washington. Trump's stewardship of the economy has emerged as a political pain point for him and Republicans in recent polling with critical midterm elections just over seven months away. Just 29% of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll approve of his economic leadership, the lowest of either of Trump's presidential administrations and lower than any economic approval rating of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Case in point: Axelberg faces far higher costs for the metal and imported parts he uses because of tariffs, while one of the current administration's first acts was curbing construction of solar farms on federal lands."I have no confidence that he won't just pass another executive order and start coming after the (solar) credits we've received and try to claw them back," said the CEO of General Stamping & Metalworks, a family-owned business with sales of $130 million that's been bending metal since 1922. Pierre Yared, acting chair of President Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, pointed to improved manufacturing productivity, increases in new plant and equipment investment activity and a slowing of the pace of manufacturing job losses as early signs that administration policies will pay off."However, given the nature of these investments, it takes time to ⁠get production online, and therefore it will be some more time before we fully materialize the benefits of the President's policies," Yared said.Few places better illustrate the sharp divide between a few booming niches and a lingering malaise in manufacturing than South Bend, a once thriving industrial hub that has struggled for six decades to regain its economic footing after the closure of Studebaker's sprawling auto plant here in 1964. Many established manufacturers here are treading water or facing erosion in key sectors, including businesses that boomed as a result of the last administration's policies, like electric vehicles.Michael Hicks, an economist at Ball State University who studies the factory sector, said "there's no evidence of a manufacturing renaissance." Instead, it looks like the sector has been in decline for the last 10 to 11 months. Defense is one business that is doing well. Humvee maker AM General, based here, recently built a new plant to serve a $8.7 billion U.S. defense contract to build a new generation of military vehicles.And Cleveland-Cliffs operates a steel processing complex that should benefit from tariffs, which have pushed up domestic steel prices. CEO Lourenco Goncalves said in a release announcing the company's earnings last February that the taxes will bring about "a new golden era and a manufacturing renaissance that will make America strong again." Up the road from the steel plant, there's a surge of construction where Amazon is building an $11 billion data center that will eventually have 30 buildings.Data centres aren't manufacturing plants, but they need vast amounts of machinery and raw materials that fuel other goods producers. Once built, they don't create many permanent jobs. Spending on data centres was over an estimated half a trillion dollars last year, according to the Federal Reserve, and the splurge is expected to "increase dramatically" through 2030.Across the street from Amazon, there's a $3.5 billion GM-Samsung joint venture under construction to make electric car batteries.But the data centre frenzy has sparked a fierce backlash and made land prices around the new developments "nutso," according to South Bend Regional Chamber CEO Jeff Rea. Skilled labor has grown scarce, ⁠and the big developments have driven up taxes and utilities for many long-time producers. The GM plant, meanwhile, faces headwinds from Trump's anti-EV push. The automaker said it has slowed construction and no longer has a target date for opening.Stuart Fowle, a GM spokesman, said "current market conditions give us more time to observe EV demand and plan for our future needs." The White House keeps a running list of new US investments in manufacturing and innovation on its website, which includes Apple's announcement of a $600 billion investment in factories and workforce training and Meta's plan to spend the same amount by 2028 to support AI technology and infrastructure in the U.S. And yet South Bend has seen factory jobs drift downward since the end of 2020 —shedding over 1,000 workers, 265 of those since President Trump took office. The same pattern holds across the country. U.S. manufacturing jobs have declined by 100,000 since Trump's inauguration, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.To be sure, there are big projects underway across the industrial heartland. But the boom began during the Biden administration, including massive new investments in semiconductor plants and electric car and battery projects like the one GM and Samsung are building. Total construction spending on manufacturing plants grew from $5.9 billion in February 2021 to a peak of $20.8 billion in October of 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but fell to $17 billion by December of 2025."I don't know if I'd call it a revival," said Jon Ferguson, CFO of Master Roll Manufacturing, which operates a plant that overlooks Amazon's massive data center site outside South Bend. Even though the company makes and reconditions steel processing equipment parts, Ferguson said sales are steady, not booming.Meanwhile having so much development nearby is a headache. The surge in land prices has pushed up property taxes, he ⁠said, while electricity and water costs have increased. It's nice for land to appreciate, he said, but it doesn't mean much if they're not looking to sell."A lot of companies in the area are upset with how (the data center boom) is falling out," he said.Some companies have struggled to find skilled workers to install or repair new production lines at existing facilities, since so much labor has been soaked up by construction. Daniel Adams, CEO of Manufacturing Technology Inc., also sees a mixed bag for manufacturers. His great-grandfather started the business as a tool and die shop in 1926 and the company more recently carved a profitable niche in friction welding, a process used to make everything from golf putters to jet engines. He ⁠said since Trump came in, it's become clear that EVs will be less important, which has cut into his auto-related business. "There's an investment pause by car companies and tier-one (auto suppliers)," he said.Adams said his aerospace customers are doing well-but that's not enough to push the whole business forward.Bringing new industry into the area is good for his business in the long term, Adams said, but is causing short-term tension with some other local businesses, for instance with regard to labor. "People go to the shiny place and maybe make two dollars (an hour) more," he said. Back at General Stamping & Metalworks, CEO Axelberg remains cautious. He has 25 acres adjacent to his plant that he planned to use to expand finishing and assembly work. But that's on hold as he's lost confidence in the current business ⁠climate. "It's almost like there is no policy," he said. "It's like the whims of a king."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:52:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Starmer pledges to ‘fight for values’ in elections]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/starmer-pledges-to-fight-for-values-in-elections]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Athena Stavrou, The IndependentSir Keir Starmer will vow to "fight for our values" as he launches Labour's local election campaign on Monday, amid fears a looming electoral wipeout could threaten the future of his premiership. Labour is bracing for heavy losses at the polls this spring as the party continues to lose voters to both Reform on the right and the Greens to the left, in a blow which could spell the end of Sir Keir's leadership. Pollsters have warned Labour is facing a "very substantial threat", as it continues to flounder in the polls ahead of the pivotal electoral test.But in an attempt to stave off opposition and rally his supporters, Sir Keir will kick off the campaign for the May 7 elections by calling for unity and urging the country to "stand together"."This is about pride and hope," he will tell a launch event in the West Midlands on Monday."That is the political choice in this election. Our opponents respond to this war on two fronts by dividing our communities."We meet this test by unlocking the pride that is our communities." He will add: "We're going to fight to earn every vote. Fight for our values. And fight for the country we are building together, a Britain built for all.The test poses a critical threat to Sir Keir's premiership, with some warning a heavy defeat could raise fresh questions over the future of his leadership. Pollster Lord Robert Hayward has warned Labour faces a "very substantial" threat following what he described as a series of "absolutely horrendous" council by-election results.It comes months after Labour faced a brutal defeat in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election, which saw them place third behind both the victorious Green Party and Reform.Zack Polanski insisted the win showed that his party "could win everywhere" and predicted a Green wave in May's elections, threatening to further wipe out Sir Keir's already struggling vote on the left of the political spectrum.Heavy losses are expected across the country, including in Welsh Labour heartlands, where a recent poll suggested Labour could face being pushed out of government for the first time since devolution began in 1999 in a devastating blow.The MRP poll for YouGov has suggested that the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru is set to become the biggest with 43 seats, followed by Nigel Farage's Reform UK in second place on 30.The dismal polling comes as noise around leadership bits from both within cabinet and from Sir Keir's former deputy Angela Rayner continues to grow, with challengers expected to strike following the elections in May.But Sir Keir will hope that a series of measures intended to help with the cost of living, including a lower energy price cap and an increase in the minimum wage, will translate into votes."We meet this moment with hope," he is expected to say to an audience expected to include his cabinet colleagues and deputy leader Lucy Powell."The hope of an NHS where waiting lists are coming down - and they are. The hope of a country where wages for working people are rising - and they are."And the hope of a country where poverty is being slashed and our children have a better future — and it is. "That is what we are building. That is what we are fighting for."His pitch comes after both the Conservatives and Reform UK leaders launched their own local election campaigns, with Nigel Farage framing the vote as a "referendum on Keir Starmer".In a speech to members in Sunderland, the Clacton MP said the May 7 polls were a "referendum on our entire political class". Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch said the Tories are 'fighting to win everywhere' in local elections, as she insisted they are "coming back" in the polls.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:49:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Could a Democrat really replace Marjorie Taylor Greene?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/could-a-democrat-really-replace-marjorie-taylor-greene]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[During almost three decades of living in Georgia's conservative northwest corner, Kimberly Seals got used to keeping her liberal opinions to herself. She suspected there were others who felt the same way, but she had no way to know for sure. So on a recent Saturday afternoon, she gazed in amazement at the crowd of hundreds who gathered in the town of Rome to hear Pete Buttigieg stump for long-shot Democratic congressional candidate Shawn Harris. "There's a lot more people that think like us than we anticipated," Seals said alongside her husband.Harris, a farmer and retired Army general, is running to replace conservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned in January after a falling-out with President Donald Trump. He's up against Republican candidate Clay Fuller, a district attorney, and faces slim chances in a runoff on April 7. But as early voting begins on Monday, some Democrats are still feeling hopeful after their party performed better than expected in recent special elections leading up to the November midterms, which will determine control of Congress."I believe that there is no such thing as a permanently red district or state or town," said Buttigieg, who served as President Joe Biden's transportation secretary. A former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, he previously ran for the White House and might try again.Speaking to reporters after his speech, Buttigieg insisted "things really are shifting in this country." Harris is testing the limits of that theory with his second campaign for Georgia's 14th District, banking that nationwide Democratic enthusiasm and simmering discontent with Trump could help him defy political gravity.Sporting blue jeans and well-worn orange sneakers last week, Harris zig-zagged down a residential street in south Rome, chatting with voters who recognized him immediately. Phoebe Johnson, 69, said it was the third time she saw Harris knocking on doors. He is "actually talking about the things that really matters," she said, such as rising grocery prices and the cost of the Republican president's tariffs.Unlike in 2024, when he lost to Greene, Harris said more people know him — as Shawn, rather than as Gen. Harris. He served in the military for 40 years, including time as an infantry commander in Afghanistan, before retiring as a brigadier general in the Army National Guard. He lives on his cattle farm in Rockmart."I went right back to work with my hands and built a cattle farm that I live on every day," Harris said. "That says to the hardworking people here in northwest Georgia that Shawn Harris works hard just like them out in the hot sun and I get the results." He said a group of Republican veterans helping him put up fences on his farm were among the first people who pushed him to run for office, before they knew he was a Democrat.Harris said his background as a farmer and veteran resonate with working-class voters. Odell Battle, 76, said Harris "stands for the kind of lifestyle that I like and enjoy." "This man is here to serve the community," Battle said after Harris gave him his cellphone number. "It's not just to get into Washington and forget about us."Harris finished first on the ballot in the March 10 election. But while he was the best-known Democrat, Republicans split their vote among several candidates. Consultants from both parties caution against extrapolating too much from special elections with limited turnout. "It's just too solid a red district," said conservative commentator and former state Rep. Buzz Brockway. "But it might be closer than it should."Jay Morgan, former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party, said, if anything, the district could become even redder, and he described Fuller as "central casting." "You have a guy who's a stand-up law enforcement guy who is an extremely attractive candidate," he said. "To have somebody like that follow Marjorie Taylor Greene is just a huge boost for the party."Many Republicans were relieved to see Fuller make it to the runoff over former state Sen. Colton Moore, the brasher, more controversial far-right candidate whose style mirrors Greene's."The people of Northwest Georgia stand with President Trump and Clay Fuller," Fuller campaign manager Dabriel Graham said.Floyd County Democratic Chair Vincent Mendes works as a chiropractor and said many of his Republican patients are considering voting for Harris. He believes Harris has a shot because the district is "tired of being a talking point.""We're ready for real representation," Mendes said. "We had somebody who was mostly interested in chasing headlines for years."Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey hopes that excitement will lift candidates across the state in the midterms, especially as Republicans attempt to oust Sen. Jon Ossoff."This race is critical for Georgia's 14th District, but it's even bigger than that," Bailey said. "Shawn is building momentum right now that will keep growing all the way through November, boosting Democrats at every level of the ticket in North Georgia and beyond."Associated Press]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:47:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[China&#039;s neighbours get cold shoulder on energy]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/chinas-neighbours-get-cold-shoulder-on-energy]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Joe Cash, ReutersAs energy stress spreads across Southeast Asia, governments across the region are asking China to deliver on its pledges of closer energy security cooperation by freeing up now-banned exports of fertiliser and fuel. But so far China has offered only vague statements and has yet to even publicly acknowledge the exportbans reported by Reuters and others as it focuses on insulating its own economy from the ⁠war in Iran. Analysts don't expect that to change, pointing to the tension between China's stated ambition to be a bigger player in regional affairs and the realpolitik of its commitment to keep its own economy outpacing global growth. China is the world's second largest fertiliser exporter and also a large supplier of fuel. For many countries in Asia including Bangladesh, the Philippines and even Australia, Chinese imports are a major source of supply, now cut off by its export bans.Dhaka earlier this month asked China to honour existing fuel contracts, while Thai diplomats will engage Chinese counterparts to keep fertiliser shipments from China flowing if needed, officials in Bangkok said. In Malaysia, officials said last week the Chinese export ban would worsen fertiliser rationing, including in its ⁠oil palm industry, the world's second-largest, and add a further blow on top of the war in Iran.Even the Philippines has sought assistance despite the two countries' disputes over the South China Sea. On March 17, the Philippines minister of agriculture visited China's embassy in Manila and said China had agreed to continue fertiliser shipments. Beijing's one-sentence readout said only that they had discussed agriculture. The same day Australia, which imported a third of its jet fuel from China last year, said it was discussing jet fuel exports with Beijing."China may offer some ceremonial assistance, but it's highly unlikely, if not wholly improbable, that it will share any substantive amount of its food, energy, or other reserves with other countries," said Eric Olander, co-founder of the China-Global South Project.In fact, analysts said Chinese policymakers were likely quietly congratulating themselves on the strategic foresight to begin stockpiling since the early 2000s, a policy that may have seemed excessive in peacetime but now looks decidedly practical. People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, trumpeted China's relative energy security in an editorial earlier this month and said the country's foresight meant China held the "energy lifeline" in its own hands.China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters.China's ⁠flagship Belt and Road infrastructure initiative has seen world leaders regularly congregate in Beijing to discuss “win-win” cooperation but with the region now short on fuel and fertiliser, Southeast Asian capitals are instead looking for replacements from the likes of Russia. "China won't want to create expectations it can't sustain. Beijing has no desire to be a regional energy backstop for an indefinite period of disruption," according to Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.Beijing will likely stick to its tried-and-tested playbook: imposing sharp, broad curbs on energy and energy-related exports before selectively resuming trade once officials are confident domestic demand can be met, she said. Famine and scarcity remain deeply embedded in China's political consciousness, with the trauma of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution still close enough to remember."Only if China gets more comfortable with its own exposure, then I would expect meaningful support," said Max Zenglein, senior economist at the Conference Board Asia. "I expect any support will be very transactional. Not a good position to be in if you are one those countries, unfortunately."Wang Jin, a ⁠senior fellow at the Beijing Club for International Dialogue, a think tank under China's foreign ministry, said Beijing could also benefit if the shock pushes trading partners to accelerate investment in green and nuclear energy, sectors where China leads after years of state-backed investment.What is more, with no major aid donor such as Japan, or regional rival, stepping in to plug shortages, China faces little pressure to do so itself, analysts said.Olander compared the situation ⁠to the COVID-19 pandemic, when officials across the region looked to India as Asia's main source of vaccines, only for New Delhi to halt exports as infections surged at home. Osman said China's partners seeking concessions would do well to remind Beijing of its own commitments. "Maybe the key is just to quote this new bit of the five-year plan back to Beijing: 'strengthen international cooperation in food, energy, data, biological and sea passage security, counter-terrorism and other fields.'"]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:45:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Wonderful job!]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/wonderful-job]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[It rained in Dubai on Wednesday and Thursday. Pools of water were there in some areas of Dubai. But I could see delivery riders on the job, despite challenges they facing them on the roads. I always admire them. I know almost everyone who comes to my building to deliver us water, vegetable, juices, or fast food. I appreciate them for their attitude. They always come wearing a pleasant smile.I have always thanked them for their services and I make sure not to let them wait at the door. I feel they are the most hard-working people on this earth. Even in India I see these riders are always on their two-wheelers running here and there to meet their deadlines. They are the backbone of global society. It is they who make our lives much easier. Like doctors, teachers and police they too deserve a salute.Asad Jaleel,By email]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/wonderful-job]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:21:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Blame game]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/blame-game]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[gulftoday]]></dc:creator>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/30/blame-game]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:20:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Massive protests against Trump across US on &#039;No Kings&#039; day]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/massive-protests-against-trump-across-us-on-no-kings-day]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Huge crowds of protesters rallied across the United States on Saturday against President Donald Trump, venting their fury over what they see as his authoritarian style of governing, his hardline immigration policies and the war with Iran, reported Agence France-Presse.  Organizers said "at least 8 million people gathered today at more than 3,300 events across all 50 states," from big cities and small towns. US authorities provided no national crowd estimate.It was the third time in less than a year that Americans have taken to the streets as part of a grassroots movement called "No Kings," the most vocal and visual conduit for opposition to Trump since he began his second term in January 2025. In New York, America's most populous city, tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied, including Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro, a frequent Trump critic, who called the president "an existential threat to our freedoms and security." Protests unfolded from Atlanta to San Diego, with Alaskans joining the mix later in the day. "No country can govern without the consent of the people," 36-year-old military veteran Marc McCaughey told AFP in Atlanta, where thousands turned out. "We're out here because we feel that the Constitution is under threat in a multitude of different ways. Things aren't normal. They aren't okay."In the Michigan town of West Bloomfield, near Detroit, people braved below-freezing temperatures to protest. And in the US capital Washington, thousands of marchers — some carrying banners that blared "Trump Must Go Now!" and "Fight Fascism" — flocked to the National Mall. "He keeps lying and lying and lying and lying, and no one says anything. So it's a terrible situation we're in," 67-year-old retiree Robert Pavosevich told AFP. Trump himself was in Florida for the weekend.The anti-Trump mood has spilled beyond US borders, with rallies Saturday in European cities including Amsterdam, Madrid and Rome, where 20,000 people marched under a heavy police presence. The first "No Kings" nationwide protest day came last June on Trump's 79th birthday and coincided with a military parade he organized in Washington. Several million people turned out, from New York to San Francisco.The second such protest, in October, drew an estimated seven million protesters, according to organizers, who said Saturday's events saw one million more participants and 600 additional demonstrations. Just as Trump is worshipped by many in his "Make America Great Again" movement, he is disliked with equal passion on the other side of America's wide political chasm.Trump's approval rating has sunk below 40 percent and midterm elections loom in November, with his Republican Party at risk of losing control of both chambers of Congress. Foes bemoan his penchant for ruling by executive decree, his use of the Justice Department to prosecute opponents, his apparent obsession with fossil fuels and climate change denial — and his taste for flexing US military power after campaigning as a man of peace."Since the last time we marched, this administration has dragged us deeper into war," said Naveed Shah of Common Defense, a veterans' association connected to the "No Kings" movement. "At home, we've watched citizens killed in the streets by militarized forces. We've seen families torn apart and immigrant communities targeted. All of it done in the name of one man trying to rule like a king."While organizers said rallies were staged across the country, from major cities to suburbs and rural areas — and even in the Alaskan town of Kotzebue, above the Arctic circle — a key focus point was the northern state of Minnesota.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:35:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Trump faces unprecedented domestic and global protests]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/trump-faces-unprecedented-domestic-and-global-protests]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[WASHINGTON: Although he proclaimed himself to be a peace president, Donald Trump failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize and became a war president by teaming up with Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu to wage a war on Iran. They claimed this war would be won in three-to-four days, but four weeks have passed and there is no sign that the US won and Iran is not ready to surrender. Trump announced a 10-day pause in attacks on Iran’s energy facilities followed warnings from Gulf states that the war was growing increasingly dangerous.  Concerns were expressed that that Trump had under-estimated Tehran’s readiness to continue the war. Since it is estimated that Iran retains two-thirds of its missiles Iran  has retaliated against US-Israeli attacks and the war has morphed into a regional conflict before going global.   The war became global because Iran closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf to the world via the Gulf of Oman by threatening vessels delivering oil, liquified gas, and petroleum derivatives to customers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Italy and other countries.  After a Thai ship was struck and ran aground, 2,000 ships waiting near Hormuz did not try to leave or enter the strait until permission was obtained from the Iranian authorities. Only ships without links to the US, its allies, and Israel are allowed and some are asked to pay $2 million for right of passage. Fewer than 100 have sailed through Hormuz since February 28th when the US and Israel began their war on Iran.  Traffic has fallen by 95 per cent.A frustrated Trump initially threatened to bomb Iran's energy infrastructure by Monday March 23rd if Hormuz did not open to all traffic but postponed military action until April 6th if Iran does not ceasefire and accept the May 2025 15-point peace plan which has been outdated for many months. Iran has rejected the plan.This is the first time Hormuz has been closed in its millennial history of serving as a sea passage and there is serious risk that Iran’s ally Yemen could block Bab al-Mandeb (“the Gate of Tears”).  It is a narrow passage between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.  If both straits were blocked, shipping through two of the world’s three crucial maritime chokepoints would be disrupted at the same time.  It is unlikely that the third, the Suez Canal, which was blocked for six days in 2021, will close.  However, if Yemen were to block the entry of most ships into the Red Sea, the Suez Canal would have little business, rendering the third chokepoint inoperative.It is misleading to refer to Hormuz as an energy passage although oil and liquified gas account for 60 per cent of its normal traffic. The remaining 40 per cent includes chemicals for fertilizers, manufactured and construction items and semiconductors.  Consequently, food and goods production as well at high-tech industries could be seriously impacted.So far, the war has cost the US about $30-40bn and Israel $300m a day. Stymied by Iran's refusal to accept the outdated US plan, Trump has upped pressure by ordering the deployment of an additional 10,000 US troops to augment the 50,000 already in pace in the region and ventured to suggest they could be used for a combined ground and air campaign. The initial target of choice would be Kharg island which hosts infrastructure and staff for the export of 90 per cent of Iran's oil. As Iran has recently fortified Kharg and increased its military presence there, resistance is to be expected to a US seaborne assault complemented by troops parachuted onto Kharg. In the run-up to November's mid-term legislative elections, Trump cannot afford to have US soldiers returning home wounded, crippled or in body bags from a "war of choice" most US voters criticize and reject.At home, Trump faces unprecedented domestic and global protests.  On Saturday, there was a third round of mass rallies in all 50 states and 16 countries against his authoritarian rule and unilateral policies.  Among the high-profile US figures who support the protests are actress Jane Fonda, folk songstress Joan Baez, musician Brice Springsteen, and independent Senator Bernie Sanders. The latest simultaneous demonstrations, mounted by  an estimated nine million, are said to be the largest in US history and have been motivated by opposition to the rising cost of petrol, Trump's war on Iran which fuelled this spike, and his mass deportations of "illegal aliens" which have impacted lives in entire communities across the US.  These protests coincided with polls showing that Trump's approval rating has fallen to 36 per cent, the lowest ever. All too clearly his fall from grace has not impressed Trump who has an egotistic penchant for ignoring bad news, claiming ownership of sites in the news, and briefly dubbed the Strait of Hormuz the "Strait of Trump" before dropping the characterization.]]></description>
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                <dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Jansen]]></dc:creator>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:33:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Republicans divided on identity, strategy for US midterms]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/republicans-divided-on-identity-strategy-for-us-midterms]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Frankie Taggart, Agence Frrance-PresseConservatives gathering in Texas this week showcased a Republican Party wrestling with its identity, as activists debated whether ideological purity or broader appeal offered the best path to victory in looming midterm elections. In conversations across the Dallas-area Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), supporters framed the stakes not just in terms of who should prevail in the "primary" elections that pick candidates for November, but what kind of party Republicans should be.It is an increasingly heated debate that has exposed tensions between hardline conservatives, pragmatists and those unsure of how to reconcile the two. The discussion is playing out most visibly in high-profile contests such as the Texas Senate primary between incumbent John Cornyn and state attorney general Ken Paxton, a race that has become a proxy for the party's wider struggle. For some, the answer is clear: the more conservative the candidate, the better."Oh, Paxton, definitely. All the way. Paxton, all the way, because he is a genuine conservative," said Petrina Bullard, 49, a realtor and community health worker from Dallas."Cornyn is not. He never has been. I honestly believe he's a Democrat parading as a Republican just to get voted in." Bullard said Republicans should prioritize candidates who are "really down in the trenches with the people" rather than establishment figures, arguing that ideological compromise risks diluting the party's core values."It definitely needs to be more conservative people rather than establishment people," she said, warning that Texas risked becoming a "purple state" with the Democrats growing as powerful as the Republicans.Others, however, see that approach as a liability in competitive races. Sean O'Brien, a 20-year-old from Connecticut who is studying at Alabama's Auburn University, said Republicans need to broaden their appeal — even as he acknowledged tensions within that position."I will say that we need to pivot more towards the center," he said, arguing that President Donald Trump remains "a very divisive figure." At the same time, O'Brien said he favored candidates aligned with Trump's "America First" agenda, reflecting the balancing act facing many younger conservatives. He also warned that broader political dynamics — including the war in Iran — could weigh on Republican prospects. "I see Democrats winning more seats...possibly taking the Senate," he said of November's midterms, while suggesting Republicans might still hold the House. For others, the question of direction remains unresolved."If we want to try to get more moderate votes, we definitely should be less 'far right, conservative, Trump' and all of that," said Michal Szpak, 31, from Austin."But, at the same time, we might lose people who vote for that stuff. So it's a million-dollar question. And I really don't have an answer." Szpak said voters' immediate concerns — including rising prices — could ultimately matter more in November than ideological positioning."People care more what's going to happen with Iran. People care how (high) the gas prices are," he said.He warned that those economic pressures could sway the small bloc of undecided voters who often determine election outcomes. "If we had the midterms tomorrow, I think we might lose the House," he said, citing rising costs and recent instability.Despite the disagreements, some activists struck a more optimistic note about the party's ability to avoid damaging infighting. Bullard said tensions in the Texas primary appeared to be easing, with Republicans increasingly focused on uniting ahead of November. "I see a lot of people...really working towards that goal, having people work together instead of all of this division," she said. "I think it's actually coming together slowly."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:31:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[European Union continues to tighten migration policies]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/european-union-continues-to-tighten-migration-policies]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[The European Union is expanding its powers to track, raid and deport migrants to "return hubs ″ in third countries in Africa and elsewhere, quietly adopting tactics of the Trump administration that have drawn public criticism across the 27-nation bloc.  The EU continues to tighten migration policies after right-wing parties took power in some countries in 2024. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People's Party coalition, has said the new measures will prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis caused by Syria's civil war, when about 1 million people arrived to seek asylum."We have learnt the lessons of the past. And today, we are better equipped," von der Leyen has said. The new policies, known as the Pact on Migration and Asylum, go into effect on June 12. Far-right parties in Europe have praised the deportation policies of US President Donald Trump and called for the EU to adopt a similar approach. Human rights groups warn that authorities are already illegally pushing back migrants at EU borders and hollowing out their legal protections. The EU already spends millions of dollars to deter migrants before they reach its shores, and has supported tens of thousands of Africans returning home, voluntarily or by force.What's envisioned now is an expansion of what Italy has created under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her "tough on migration" stance. It operates two migrant detention centers for rejected asylum-seekers in Albania. One currently holds at least 90 migrants, said lawmaker Rachele Scarpa, who said she found people confused and scared during a recent visit.In addition, Meloni's Cabinet has approved an anti-immigration package that would allow the navy to halt vessels in international waters for up to six months if they are deemed a threat to public order; return intercepted migrants to countries of origin or third countries; and speed up the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes.An "informal group" of EU nations including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece are pursuing deportation center agreements, said Bernd Parusel, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies. Kenya is one country they are speaking with, said a Dutch member of the European Parliament, Tineke Strik. Whether consciously or not, the plan is similar to Trump's deals with nations like El Salvador to take in deported migrants, she said.Other countries are exploring similar ideas. Sweden's migration minister has said the conservative ruling coalition approves setting up hubs outside Europe, especially for Afghan and Syrian asylum-seekers. During the Winter Olympics in Italy, protests erupted over the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation. But others in Europe have praised ICE's actions and called for setting up deportation-focused police units.The EU border service Frontex began sending officers along on raids with Belgium's police in 2024 to detain and deport migrants. It is not clear whether it is doing this in other countries. The European Commission has declined requests to take a position on US federal immigration policies. In Britain, which left the EU several years ago, the center-left Labour Party government has made curbing unauthorized immigration a key focus.The Home Office in February said almost 60,000 people had been deported since the government was elected in July 2024. It said 9,000 arrests were made of people working without permission in 2025, up by more than half from the year before.Under the principle of non-refoulement in EU and international law, a person cannot be returned to a country where they would face persecution. But European immigration enforcement tactics include so-called pushbacks, where people trying to cross into the EU are forced back across a border without access to asylum procedures.Authorities in Europe carry out an average of 221 pushbacks a day, according to a February report by a group of humanitarian organizations. More than 80,000 pushbacks were recorded in 2025, the report said, mostly in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia."Men, women and children - including individuals in critical medical condition - are routinely subjected to beatings, attacks by police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings and theft of personal belongings," according to the report. European agents are brutalizing migrants just like in the US, said Flor Didden, migration policy expert at the Belgian human rights group 11.11.11. Some, like in Greece, even wear masks."The images are shocking and the outrage is justified," he said of the US "But where is that same moral clarity when European border authorities abuse, rob and let people die?"The groups also have recorded an expansion of surveillance technology like drones, thermal cameras and satellites to monitor people on the move. Other human rights groups warn of a weakening of legal protections. The EU's new migration regulations allow for more police raids in private homes and public spaces and more use of surveillance and racial profiling, said a letter to EU institutions in February from 88 nonprofit groups including the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants."We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while also supporting these practices in Europe," said the platform's director, Michele LeVoy.Olivia Sundberg Diez, EU migration advocate for Amnesty International, said Europe retains more protections for vulnerable migrants than the United States but shares much of the political momentum toward harsher policies.Associated Press]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:29:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[High hopes at China&#039;s gateway to N.Korea as trains resume]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/high-hopes-at-chinas-gateway-to-nkorea-as-trains-resume]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Peter Catterall, Agence France-PresseNow retired, Wang Meili wants to see the world — including North Korea, the reclusive nation that lies across the river from her lifelong home in northeastern China. North Korea has long kept tight control over foreign visitors, and effectively sealed its borders at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago. It has since partly reopened and restored daily passenger train services with China this month, but has not yet resumed issuing tourism visas to Chinese citizens, who once made up the bulk of its overseas visitors."We'd like to get visas to go. I've already got my passport," said 68-year-old Wang, who grew up in the border city of Dandong. In another apparent sign of North Korea's reopening, Air China is set to resume flights to Pyongyang on Monday. But for now, only those with work or study visas can go. AFP journalists in Dandong, the main gateway for cross-border travel and trade, saw a mostly empty passenger train rattle over a bridge into North Korea this week.Nearby, tourists on another bridge, partly destroyed by US bombs during the Korean War, posed for photographs and peered through binoculars at the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the opposite shore. Tour boats took curious sightseers to gaze at North Koreans cycling along the Yalu river separating the two countries or cleaning boats on the bank. Uniformed guards stood at regular points along the boundary.Li Shuo, the manager of a Dandong-based travel agency, said the resumption of passenger train services had had "no impact" on his business. Unable to run tours into North Korea, he has been offering trips through border areas so customers can catch glimpses into the secretive state from a distance."We can only wait for news" on tourism visas, Li said, adding that they "would be a good thing for domestic tourists". "Many people want to go," he said. Others were less keen. One Chinese tourist from the northeastern city of Shenyang told AFP that a peek at North Korea from Dandong was close enough for him."It's totalitarian over there, the people are brainwashed," he said, declining to provide his name given the sensitivity of the topic and his public-sector job. "Actually, there's brainwashing here in China too, but it's not as severe," he said.AFP also spoke to tourists from outside mainland China — including Hong Kong, Japan and Australia — all drawn to Dandong for a rare view of the country it borders. Louis Lamb, a 22-year-old nurse from Brisbane, told AFP that travelling into North Korea was "a bucket-list item"."You can see (North Korea) from a certain perspective in what we see from our media," said Lamb, adding that he would like to experience the country for himself. Although stretches of the opposite riverbank appeared "desolate", he said, "it's a lot more developed than I thought".China is a major backer for diplomatically isolated North Korea, though Pyongyang has notably drawn closer to Russia since the start of the Ukraine war. But trade with China, much of it through Dandong, is a key lifeline for North Korea's moribund economy, under UN sanctions because of its nuclear weapons programme.Cross-border shipments swelled to $2.7 billion last year and have nearly rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, according to Chinese customs data. AFP journalists saw a steady stream of trains and freight trucks hauling cargo from Dandong to Sinuiju.For some in Dandong, North Korea's tentative reopening kindled hope of returning home. Thousands of North Koreans are thought to reside in the city of two million people, despite sanctions banning them from working overseas. North Korea's abrupt border closure in 2020 stranded many of them abroad for years, and Pyongyang later beefed up defences along the frontier to dissuade illegal crossings. Staff at a North Korean restaurant in Dandong forbade AFP journalists from filming or taking photos of a large screen showing a patriotic music and dance performance.One waitress from Pyongyang told AFP she had been in China for over six years without returning home. Western experts say such workers endure miserable living and working conditions, have their movements restricted and see most of their wages commandeered by the North Korean state. But after a long wait, travel between the two nations now seemed to be getting easier, the waitress said, declining to give her name. "I'll be going home soon."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:27:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Very true]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/very-true]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[President Trump has declared that Gavin Newsom, the California Governor, cannot be president due to his “learning disability.” Newsom has dyslexia, a fairly common condition that makes reading more difficult.  The reality however is that a number of presidents, all considered better than him, have had medical concerns and yet could do the job. People should be supported and praised for what they achieve especially if they have had a harder journey through life.Dennis Fitzgerald Melbourne, Australia]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:26:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[GIVE TO THE TSA]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/29/give-to-the-tsa]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:25:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[India’s office leasing market maintains strong pace in Q1]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/28/indias-office-leasing-market-maintains-strong-pace-in-q1]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[India’s office market maintained its strong momentum with 18.3 msf leasing in Q1 2026, up 15% YoY, according to a survey by Colliers India, international property consultants.Bengaluru & Hyderabad drove space uptake, collectively accounting for nearly half of the leasing activity.In a related development, conventional leasing remains strong at 14.4 msf, and technology firms drive 36% of conventional space uptake during Q1 2026.  Flex spaces gain share, accounting for 21% of the overall leasing in Q1.While new supply level remained strong at 11.8 msf during Q1, a 19% YoY rise, vacancy levels declined close to 90 basis points on an annual basis to 15.3%.India’s office market across the top seven cities has started on a strong note in 2026, registering 18.3 million sq ft of leasing activity in the first quarter, up by 15% year-on-year (YoY).This continued momentum has been supported by strengthening occupier demand across sectors and expanding Global Capability Centers (GCCs) footprint, despite ongoing global uncertainties.Bengaluru, followed by Hyderabad, together accounted for nearly half of the quarterly leasing activity, cumulatively contributing 8.7 million sq ft of demand. Meanwhile, Grade A space uptake was firm in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR and Chennai, with each of them witnessing leasing in the range of 2-3 million sq ft.Interestingly, office space demand in Hyderabad and Pune more than doubled on an annual basis during Q1 2026.“Space uptake from GCCs too has been firm, accounting for almost half of the overall demand.“Although global headwinds continue to loom large and can potentially impact completion timelines, demand side outlook for 2026 remains positive at this juncture.The Indian office market will continue to be one of the best performing markets in the APAC region,” said Arpit Mehrotra, Managing Director, Office Services, India, Colliers.New supply across the top seven cities remained strong at 11.8 million sq ft, up 19% YoY in Q1. Technology firms drove 36% of conventional space uptake in Q1; Flex space demand continued to witness sustained growth.During Q1 2026, leasing in conventional spaces remained robust at 14.4 million sq ft driven by technology and BFSI occupiers. These two sectors together drove nearly two-thirds of the conventional space uptake, with 9.5 million sq ft of cumulative leasing during the quarter. While Bengaluru and Mumbai accounted for a majority of the space uptake by BFSI firms during the quarter, in case of technology firms, Bengaluru and Hyderabad collectively drove more than 60% of the demand.Leasing activity by flex space operators too witnessed a notable 77% YoY increase in Q1 2026 with close to 4 million sq ft of space uptake. Delhi NCR followed by Hyderabad together drove more than 45% of the flex space leasing.Interestingly, flex space adoption in cities like Kolkata & Delhi NCR was notably strong, with at least 40% of quarterly leasing of respective cities being driven by flex operators.As demand continues to outpace new supply consistently, overall vacancy levels dropped by close to 90 basis points on an annual basis, to around 15.3% at the end of Q1 2026. In fact, four out of seven top office markets witnessed significant drop in vacancy levels of at least 100 bps on a YoY basis during the quarter.I received an apartment which has been gifted to me by my relative and bought using local funds in India.  Can I sell and repatriate the sale proceeds as it was bought out of rupee income?  Please clarify.  Pranam Sudhir, Sharjah.The Reserve Bank has allowed authorised dealers of foreign exchange to permit repatriation even in respect of properties which were not acquired with foreign funds but held by NRIs in India either by inheritance or gift.  Repatriation of sale proceeds of such properties is permitted out of NRO account of an amount upto $1 million per financial year subject to the payment of applicable taxes in India.I entered into a JV with a developer but the construction is partially completed and completion certificate issued for part of the project.  What will be the implication on capital gain tax?  Deepak Tilsani, Dubai.Generally, capital gain shall be chargeable to tax in the year in which certificate of completion for the whole or part of the project is issued by the competent authority.  In your case, capital gain proportionate to the land involved in the part of the project for which certificate of completion has been issued shall be chargeable to tax in the year in which such certificate has been issued by the competent authority.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2026 19:57:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Living through a siege never experienced before]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/living-through-a-siege-never-experienced-before]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Doctors at Cuba's main paediatric heart hospital face wrenching decisions as a US fuel blockade further strains an already fragile health system: which children receive life-saving treatment first -- and which must wait longer, according to Agence france-Presse.During a visit by AFP journalists, mothers wearing medical masks were bedside next to children sitting or laying in dim rooms, with the sun providing the only light through the windows, according to Reuters.Universal health care is one of the proud achievements of the Cuban revolution, but the island's hospitals have struggled with shortages and aging equipment for years.The situation has deteriorated since US President Donald Trump imposed a de facto oil blockade in January, with Cubans enduring daily blackouts that last several hours.Herminia Palenzuela, a 79-year-old doctor, said the William Soler Paediatric Hospital must now make "very difficult" decisions.Children with the least serious cases are "at the end of the list and simply wait," she said.The hospital treats newborns, children, and pregnant women whose foetuses have been diagnosed with severe congenital heart defects.It has 100 beds, but they are not all used as doctors says they must conserve equipment and medical supplies for the sickest patients."Resources are always reserved for that type of patient, because they are the ones who could die at any moment," said Palenzuela, her face etched with anguish."We would like to operate more. We would like to do more, but the resources don't allow us to do so," said Palenzuela, who founded the hospital in 1986.Yaima Sanchez waited in a dimly lit hallway for her nine-year-old son to be seen and given the portable device needed to monitor his heart rate."I come here with the faith that the doctors will see me with whatever they have available," said Sanchez, whose son has tachycardia, an abnormally fast heartbeat."Sometimes the device isn't there, or it's dead because there are no batteries," she told AFP. "So far, we've been lucky, but you never know."With daily blackouts affecting Cubans across the island -- including two nationwide outages last week alone -- the government has prioritized hospitals, which are equipped with generators to ensure they never go dark.Palenzuela said she can only visit the hospital three times a week. Colleagues walk several kilometres to work every day. A transport system has been set up for health workers, but not all have access to it.In Havana, nurses and doctors in white lab coats are among people seen hitchhiking along the capital's famous Malecon seafront promenade.According to the health ministry, more than 96,000 Cubans, including 11,000 children, are waiting for surgeries due to the energy crisis.The director of the William Soler hospital, Eugenio Selmam, said a US trade embargo in force since 1962 has always made it difficult for Cuba to get medicine and medical equipment."It's something we have lived with for decades," Selmam said. "But now, with this new situation, it has reached dramatic levels."The United Nations, which is in talks with Washington to allow imports of fuel for its aid work in Cuba, has proposed an action plan to keep critical services running in the country."If the current situation continues and the country's fuel reserves are exhausted, we do fear a rapid deterioration, with the potential loss of life," the UN's coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichon, said Wednesday.The hospital this week received a shipment of medicine, food and hygiene products from an international humanitarian aid convoy that brought 50 tonnes of supplies to Cuba by sea and air."The situation is clearly complicated," said Martina Steinwurzel, a 41-year-old Italian activist and member of the Our America Convoy.As volunteers and medical staff stacked boxes of donated supplies in a hospital room, Steinwurzel looked around and said: "These are people who have resisted for many years, and now they are living through a siege they have never experienced in their history."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:27:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[DOGE cuts: Workers whose lives were upended question what was saved]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/doge-cuts-workers-whose-lives-were-upended-question-what-was-saved]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Thea Price anticipated changes under the second Trump administration, but she never expected her life to be thrown into such disarray.Along with the 300 other employees of the United States Institute of Peace, Price was fired, rehired and then fired again as part of President Donald Trump's crusade to shrink the federal government, a chaotic effort that cut tens of thousands of jobs and shrank or dismantled entire agencies.One year later, many of those impacted are left wondering whether their pain was worth it."Nobody was prepared for the complete destruction,” said Price, a former program operations manager. "And for what?”The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by then-Trump adviser Elon Musk, instigated purges of federal agencies with the expressed mission of rooting out fraud, waste and abuse.USIP, a congressionally funded independent nonprofit, became a symbol of the upheaval. DOGE staffers entered the USIP building early last year, setting off a battle over who controls the institute, which later saw Trump plant his name on its Washington headquarters.The blow to its workers came on March 28, 2025, when they were fired, a decision a judge later reversed and then another one reinstated – whiplash that still weighs on the former staffers.A year on, DOGE's toll on people’s lives is clear – what was actually saved in the process of upending them is not.Musk set a target of $2 trillion in savings. The DOGE website says it has saved about $215 billion through job cuts, contract and lease cancellations and asset sales, as well as grant rescissions.More than 260,000 workers left federal service due to Trump administration initiatives in 2025, according to the Office of Management and Budget, including reductions in force, early retirement, deferred resignations and a hiring freeze."President Trump was given a clear mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle when asked how much was saved. "In just a year, he has made significant progress in making the federal government more efficient to better serve the American taxpayer.”Organizations that have examined elements of the DOGE operation, along with the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog of how taxpayer dollars are spent, have not been able to pinpoint how much was saved, or lost, by the reform efforts. Many challenge the Republican administration's numbers.Dominik Lett, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said there were basic mistakes on the DOGE pages tracking savings, leading him to believe the numbers were too high. He said Cato and other organizations have shied away from trying to arrive at a number because of the complexity of the moves.'Who is getting fired matters'"Who is getting fired matters. How they’re getting fired, will there be lawsuits?” was among the questions Lett has. Even terminating leases and contracts wasn’t as simple as it sounds.In the end, he said, "we don’t know how much DOGE has saved.”In her analysis of media reports and public sources, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, found that about 25,000 people who were fired were rehired because they were deemed to be essential."What DOGE did is it cut so big and so deep and so randomly that when the Cabinet secretaries came in, and Elon Musk was gone, they realized that they had to bring some of these people back,” Kamarck said.With that, Kamarck estimated the savings might hit between $100 billion and $200 billion, though final figures remain highly uncertain.A GAO analysis found layoffs in the Education Department’s civil rights division may have cost $38 million, with employees paid months after termination.The impacts of DOGE’s work are the subject of ongoing litigation. More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration for DOGE’s actions over the past year, which challenge everything from the cancellation of grants, mass firings and buyouts, to access to sensitive U.S. Treasury data and payment systems, to the closure of massive federally funded programs.Musk, in an interview with conservative influencer Katie Miller, said last December that his efforts leading DOGE were only "somewhat successful” and he would not do it again.Created by Congress during the Reagan administration, USIP was meant to promote peace and prevent global conflict. At the time it was shuttered, the institute operated in more than two dozen conflict zones, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.Employees watched as DOGE dismantled another organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development. Then, DOGE staffers showed up multiple times at USIP and ultimately took over the headquarters. Most of the institute's board and the acting president were fired.On the evening of March 28, 2025, termination notices began showing up in employees' personal emails. Within two hours, most of the 300-plus staffers were gone.USIP leaders and employees sued, arguing it was independent of the executive branch. A federal judge ruled Trump had acted outside his authority, in a decision that restored control of the institute and reinstated workers with backpay – though few returned as operations resumed gradually.In June, an appeals court stayed that decision. And for the second time, the staff was fired.The case is suspended now, awaiting a US Supreme Court decision in another personnel-related case, which could expand the president’s control over federal agencies that have long been considered independent of the executive branch.Depending on that decision and what the appeals court does, the staff could be due back pay and benefits again, despite not having worked for months.While the original iteration of DOGE has dissipated from the public view, its presence is still felt in parts of the government. High-ranking DOGE officials have been hired as permanent staffers in federal agencies, including at the Treasury Department.For the people who worked at USIP, the past year has been a whirlwind.Some have found jobs, but many have faced headwinds in a market flooded with skilled labor. Some meet regularly and update one another on job searches and the suspended court cases they still hope might revive their former employer.Price came off maternity leave one day before she was fired. When she was fired for the second time, she and her husband, who had lost his job as a contractor at a museum when his project’s funding was cut, lived on their reserves and applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, which took months to be approved.She was forced to use a food pantry when the government shutdown last year stopped her SNAP payments. After filing dozens of job applications, her family left the capital region and moved to the Seattle area.She now works for a nonprofit that focuses on affordable housing. It is meaningful, but she misses the institute, its mission and her team.Liz Callihan, who worked in communications at USIP, has applied for 140 jobs since being fired. She often wonders why her former professional home, with a noble mission and a relatively small annual budget of $50 million, became a target of DOGE."I absolutely ask myself every day what all this was for,” she said.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:24:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Trump weaves from Sharpies to Bessent’s glasses in cabinet meeting]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/trump-weaves-from-sharpies-to-bessents-glasses-in-cabinet-meeting]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Four weeks into a US-Israeli war with Iran that has sparked the worst energy shock in history, President Donald Trump addressed his cabinet and the news media on Thursday, digressing into his preference for Sharpie pens, admiring his Treasury secretary's glasses and joking about running for president ‌of Venezuela.Here are some examples of the Republican president’s rhetorical style, which he describes as "the weave":A LOVE OF SHARPIESTrump's large, ​angular signature is well ⁠known and he spent several minutes talking up his favourite writing instruments, Sharpie markers, which he ‌said he prefers to $1,000 ballpoint pens."See this pen ‌right here? This pen is an interesting example. So this pen is very inexpensive. But it writes well; I like it ... I don't want to give them too much publicity but they do treat me well – Sharpie," he said, holding up a large black marker. "I love ‌the government like I love myself economically. I want to save money. So I'm saying this is crazy. And I had another problem – ⁠they didn't write well. ... There's no ink in the pen and it costs a thousand dollars."RENAMING THE KENNEDY CENTERAs he does in many public appearances, the former real estate developer devoted a lot of time to the construction projects he has kicked off across Washington, knocking down the White House's East Wing to build a ballroom, planning for a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and planning to rebuild the Kennedy Center performing arts complex named after the slain US President John F. Kennedy, which a board heavy with ​Trump appointees has renamed the "Trump-Kennedy Center.""I was honoured when the board changed the name a little bit. Actually it ‌shows that the Republicans and the Democrats they work together – it's really something. We work together," said Trump, who has repeatedly urged Republicans in Congress to use their narrow majority to override Democrats, including changing rules that preserve some power for the minority party.One of the ⁠few Democrats on the Kennedy Center board, Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, has sued to block the renaming, noting that Congress established the center's Kennedy name in the legislation that created it.BESSENT'S GLASSESTrump regularly praises the appearances of his cabinet officials, male and female, and turned his attention ​on Thursday to Treasury ‌Secretary Scott Bessent."I'm looking at this guy; he's central casting. Even the glasses are perfect. Where'd you get those glasses? I ‌think I'm going to get glasses like that. Great job," said Trump, who is not known to wear glasses, referring to Bessent's rimless silver-toned pair.RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELATrump joked that he might go to Venezuela to run against Delcy Rodriguez, who succeeded President Nicolas Maduro, who was seized ‌by US troops in ‌a lightning early-January raid."I'm the highest-polling person – in other words, ⁠after the presidency I think I may go to Venezuela and run for president – against Delcy. I may ‌run against Delcy. They love me in Venezuela. It's an option for me. It's a wonderful option."THE 25TH AMENDMENTAsked by reporters about his plans for advancing the war on Iran, he referenced the 25th Amendment to the ⁠US Constitution, which established a process for removing a president found to be unfit to do the job."I can't say ​what we're going to do because if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here for long. They probably, what is it called, the 25th Amendment," Trump said. Referring to his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, he continued, "They institute the 25th Amendment, ⁠which they didn't do with Biden, which is shocking."]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:23:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Judge weighs whether Venezuela can pay Maduro&#039;s legal costs]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/judge-weighs-whether-venezuela-can-pay-maduros-legal-costs]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[A US judge pressed the Trump administration Thursday about its basis for barring Venezuela’s government from paying former President Nicolás Maduro's legal fees in the drug trafficking case that has put him behind bars in New York.As Maduro and Cilia Flores, his wife and co-defendant, looked on in beige jail uniforms, his lawyers argued that the US is violating the deposed leader’s constitutional rights by blocking Venezuelan government money from being used for the couple's legal costs. The US government hasn't let the funds flow because of sanctions against the South American country.Judge Alvin Hellerstein questioned why the prosecution's argument still stands, now that US and Venezuelan relations have warmed. Since Maduro's capture by US military forces in January, Venezuela and the US have reestablished diplomatic relations, Washington has eased economic sanctions on Venezuela’s crucial oil industry, and the US has dispatched a chargé d’affaires to Caracas."We have changed the situation in Venezuela,” Hellerstein observed, suggesting that the argument for continuing to block the defence funds has changed with it: "The current paramount goal and need and constitutional right is the right to defense.”He didn't issue a ruling, however, nor say when he will.As supporters and opponents rallied outside, Maduro and Flores made their first court appearance since a January arraignment at which he declared: "I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” Flores has also pleaded not guilty.A 25-page indictment accused Maduro and others of working with drug cartels and members of the military to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the US. He and Flores also are accused of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their trafficking operation. If convicted, they face life in prison.Maduro and Flores remain jailed in Brooklyn, and neither has asked to be released on bail. Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date.In a noisy scene outside the Manhattan courthouse, contrasting groups of demonstrators chanted, blew horns and beat drums and cowbells. Among Maduro critics, one person waved a sign reading "Maduro rot in prison.” On the other side of a metal barrier, people held signs reading "Free President Maduro.”In Caracas, hundreds of people gathered at a public plaza, including ruling party supporters, state employees and civilian militia members. One attendee, retiree Eduardo Cubillan, said he was there to pray for Maduro and Flores and condemn the violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty during the Jan. 3 operation."We hope that in the United States, if justice truly exists, a trial will be held that will lead to President Maduro’s freedom, because this kidnapping violated international legal principles, and we want justice to be served,” Cubillan, 80, said.Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, continue to enjoy some support in Venezuela, with murals and billboards across Caracas demanding their return. But while Maduro's ruling party remains in power, he has slowly been erased from the government of Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela's acting president.Rodríguez has replaced senior officials including Maduro’s faithful defense minister and attorney general. She has reorganized agencies, appointed ambassadors and eliminated tenets of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled Venezuela for more than two decades.In court on Thursday, Hellerstein cut off Flores’ lawyer, Mark Donnelly, when he referred to her as "the first lady,” telling him: "There are no titles to be used in this court.”As the hearing was ending, Maduro held up two fingers in a "V,” a gesture that has become a symbol in Venezuela - portrayed in murals with the slogan "Nosotros Venceremos,” or "We Shall Overcome,” since he flashed it upon arriving in New York in January."Hasta mañana,” he said, shaking hands with Pollack before officers escorted him out.In court, Assistant US Attorney Kyle Wirshba noted that the sanctions, in place long before Maduro and Flores were charged, were driven by allegations that Maduro's government was cracking down on free speech and plundering Venezuelan wealth.Allowing them to use Venezuelan government funds to defend themselves in a case arising from that conduct would "undermine the sanctions,” Wirshba said.The US has said Maduro and Flores can use personal funds to pay his lawyers. They have said they don't have the money.Maduro lawyer Barry Pollack contended that if Maduro got public defenders, investigating and preparing his case would sap legal resources meant for people who can’t afford their own attorneys. That doesn’t make sense, he contended, in "a case where you have someone other than the US taxpayer standing ready, willing and able to fund that defence.”]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:20:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[US Senate approves funding for TSA]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/us-senate-approves-funding-for-tsa]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[The Senate early on Friday morning approved Homeland Security funds to pay Transportation Security Administration agents and most other agencies, but not the immigration enforcement operations at the heart of the budget impasse that has jammed airports, disrupted travel and imposed financial hardship on workers.The deal, which the Senate approved unanimously without a roll call, next goes to the House, which is expected to consider it on Friday."We can get at least a lot of the government opened up again and then we’ll go from there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. "Obviously, we’ll still have some work ahead of us.”With pressure mounting to resolve the 42-day stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the endgame emerged in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheque on Friday. President Donald Trump said he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, saying he wanted to quickly stop the "Chaos at the Airports.” The deal did not include any of the restraints Democrats have demanded as they sought to rein in Trump’s mass deportation agenda.Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the outcome could have been reached weeks ago, and vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Trump's "rogue” immigration operation "does not get more funding without serious reform.”Senators worked through the night on the deal that would fund much of the rest of the department, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and TSA, but without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs was funded, but Border Protection was not.The package puts no new limits on immigration enforcement, which has remained largely uninterrupted by the shutdown. The GOP’s big tax cuts bill that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions in extra funds to DHS, including $75 billion for ICE operations, ensuring the immigration officers are still being paid despite the lapse.Next steps in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., holds a slim majority, are uncertain. Passage will almost certainly require bipartisan support, as lawmakers on the left and right flanks revolt.Conservative Republicans have panned their own party’s proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations. Many have vowed to ensure ICE has the resources it needs in the next budget package to carry out Trump's agenda."We will fully fund ICE. That is what this fight is about,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said as he tried to offer legislation to fund the agency. "The border is closing. The next task is deportation.”Earlier Thursday, Thune announced he had given a "last and final” offer to the Democrats. But as the day dragged on, action stalled out.Democrats argued the GOP proposals have not gone far enough at putting guardrails on officers from ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies who are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places. Democrats have also pushed for an end of administrative warrants, insisting that judges sign off before agents search people's homes or private spaces - something new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he is open to considering.Trump had largely left the issue to Congress, but warned he was ready to take action, threatening to send the National Guard to airports in addition to his deployment of ICE agents who are now checking travelers’ IDs.The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach. Instead, Trump’s order would pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.If the Senate package is approved by the House and signed it into law, the action Trump announced to pay TSA agents may be temporary or unneeded.The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paycheques stop coming to work.Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers and nearly 500 of the agency's nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:18:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Shining model]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/shining-model]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[If there is one thing that strikes me about the UAE, it is that the government goes to great lengths to make life comfortable for the residents.  It is ready to face challenges, such as the heavy rain that has affected the nation. Sharjah in particular is a shining model.The Sharjah Civil Defence Authority has bolstered its operational readiness by introducing advanced amphibious vehicles equipped with standard specifications. These vehicles are designed to efficiently perform rescue, evacuation, and logistical support missions across diverse environments, with a particular focus on addressing emergencies during severe weather or widespread flooding in the emirate’s cities and regions.Sharjah Electricity, Water and Gas Authority (SEWA) has launched a public awareness campaign via text messages as part of its ongoing efforts to promote community awareness of safety procedures, especially in light of the weather fluctuations and periods of rainfall that the country is experiencing.In its messages, SEWA underlined the importance of conducting regular maintenance of electrical wiring with focus on exposed wires, which must be tightly insulated and secured in accordance with approved safety requirements and standards so as to reduce potential risks.Sharjah Roads and Transport Authority (SRTA) continues to enhance its readiness to deal with the weather conditions in the country through integrated proactive plans that focus on the safety of road users and ensure the smooth flow of traffic across the emirate concurrently with the weather fluctuations and the accompanying field challenges.Maqbool Ali,By email]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:16:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Gas prices]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/gas-prices]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:15:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Why Pakistan has emerged as a mediator between US and Iran]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/27/why-pakistan-has-emerged-as-a-mediator-between-us-and-iran]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[As fears of a wider regional conflict escalate following US and Israeli strikes on Iran that began in late February, Pakistan has emerged as an unexpected mediator, offering to help bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table.Islamabad isn't often called on to act as an intermediary in high-stakes diplomacy, but it's stepped into the role this time for a number of reasons, both because it has relatively good ties with both Washington and Tehran and because it has a lot at stake in seeing the war resolved.Pakistani government officials have said that their public peace effort follows weeks of quiet diplomacy, though they have provided few details. They have also said that Islamabad stands ready to host talks between representatives from the US and Iran.Here's what to know about Pakistan's mediation effort:Pakistan’s role in Iran-US negotiations surfaced only days ago following media reports. Officials in Islamabad later acknowledged that a US proposal had been conveyed to Iran.It remains unclear who has served as Iran’s point of contact in the indirect talks. Iran has maintained it has not held such talks and dismissed the US proposal, but Tehran has acknowledged responding with its own proposals.According to Pakistani officials, US messages are being passed to Iran and Iranian responses relayed to Washington, though they did not specify how the process is being handled or who is directly communicating with whom.Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said this week that Turkey and Egypt are also working behind the scenes to bring the sides to the negotiating table.Abdullah Khan, managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said that Pakistani’s mediation efforts may be contributing to relative restraint in the conflict. He noted that US President Donald Trump has delayed his threats of large-scale attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure citing diplomatic progress.Previous US-Iran negotiations have been facilitated mainly by countries in the Middle East, including Oman and Qatar, but as they come under Iranian fire during the war Pakistan has stepped into the role.Analysts say Pakistan’s geographic proximity to Iran — it’s one of its neighbours ‚ coupled with its longstanding ties with the US, gives it a unique position at a time when direct communication between the two sides remains constrained.Islamabad has good working relations with most of the key parties in the war, including both the US and Iran. It has close strategic ties with Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, with which it signed a defence cooperation agreement last year. However, Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Israel because of the lingering issue of Palestinian statehood.Relations between the United States and Pakistan have improved since last year, with increased diplomatic engagement and expanding economic ties. Pakistan also joined Trump's Board of Peace, which aims to ensure peace in Gaza, despite opposition from Islamists at home.Over the weekend, Trump spoke to the Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, whom the US president has publicly described as his "favourite Field Marshal.”Analysts say he's a player who enjoys good ties with both the Iranian and US militaries.The conflict poses some of "the biggest economic and energy security challenges” in Pakistan’s history, said Islamabad-based security analyst Syed Mohammad Ali.The country gets most of its oil and gas from the Middle East - and, he said, the five million Pakistanis working in the Arab world send home remittances each year roughly equal to the country’s total export earnings.Rising tensions have already contributed to higher global oil prices, forcing Pakistan to increase fuel prices by about 20% and putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.The war is also adding to domestic turmoil, even as Pakistan has been grappling for months with its own conflict with neighboring Afghanistan. Islamabad has accused the country's Taliban government of tolerating militant groups that are behind attacks in Pakistan.Earlier this month, protests erupted across the country following US strikes on Iran, with demonstrators clashing with security forces in several cities.A day after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, clashes erupted in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi and in parts of the north, leaving at least 22 people dead and more than 120 injured nationwide.At least 12 people were killed in and around the U.S. Consulate in Karachi after a mob breached the compound and attempted to set it on fire.Khamenei was a central religious and political figure for Shiites worldwide, including in Pakistan.While Pakistan rarely serves as a mediator, its record does include playing a role in some very high-profile talks.Pakistan’s then-President Gen. Yahya Khan facilitated backchannel contacts that led to US President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China. That paved the way for the establishment of diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing in 1979.Since then, Pakistan has played a role in several other complex regional conflicts, most notably during the 1988 Geneva Accords that paved the way for the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.Acting as a frontline state and key interlocutor, Islamabad participated in UN-brokered negotiations while working closely with the United States and other stakeholders and helped increase pressure on Moscow to pull out its forces.More recently, Pakistan facilitated contacts between the Afghan Taliban and Washington that led to talks in Doha that culminated in a 2020 agreement and set the stage for the withdrawal of US-led Nato troops and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.Associated Press ]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:20:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Balendra Shah’s rise reflects broader shift in Nepal’s politics]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/26/balendra-shahs-rise-reflects-broader-shift-in-nepals-politics]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Balendra Shah, a structural engineer who rose to fame as a rap artist before becoming Kathmandu’s mayor, is poised to become Nepal’s next prime minister, after his party swept a parliamentary election earlier this month, observed Associated Press. Shah, widely known as Balen, leads the Rastriya Swatantra Party, or, RSP, which won about two-thirds of the 275 seats in the bicameral parliament’s powerful lower House of Representatives. It is the first time in many years in Nepal that a single party has won such an overwhelming majority.Shah was chosen as the leader by the elected members from his party on Thursday. The president is set to appoint Shah as the prime minister of Nepal, and to swear him in on Friday.The victory positions the 35-year-old political outsider to lead a government to navigate deep public frustration with Nepal’s established parties, which were widely blamed by voters for corruption and chronic political instability. Shah’s rise reflects a broader shift in Nepal’s politics after youth-led protests toppled the previous government last year.Analysts say his decisive mandate could give him room to pursue reforms. But his limited national governing experience and the challenge of managing supporters’ expectations may test his leadership in the months ahead. “Balen Shah does not have the experience of government operation and lacks the complex knowledge of running the state,” said Hari Bahadur Thapa, a Kathmandu-based author who has written extensively on corruption and governance. Yet Thapa said that Shah may benefit from a weakened opposition. With his party backed by nearly two-thirds of lawmakers, he could find it easier to push legislation through parliament and advance reforms, Thapa said. Shah rose to national prominence as Kathmandu’s mayor after winning the post as an independent in 2022. He later joined the RSP and quickly became its candidate for prime minister, positioning himself as an alternative to two other prominent leaders from rival parties.Shah directly challenged former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli in a southeastern district and won by a wide margin, a result widely seen as a sign of voter anger toward the country’s entrenched political establishment, reported Associated Press.As mayor of Kathmandu, Shah won praise for tackling the capital’s garbage crisis, clearing illegal street vendors and pushing road expansions, though critics accused him of demolishing homes and businesses without adequate planning or notice. Before entering politics, Shah trained as a structural engineer and gained modest fame as a rap artist, often using his music to rail against corruption and social injustice.One of his songs, “Nepal Smiling,” circulated widely on Instagram and TikTok. It opens with children’s voices singing: “I want to see Nepal laugh.” Shah then enters with a verse that imagines a more just country. “May the country be a beautiful garden,” he sings.In another track called “Sacrifice,” his tone is far sharper. “All the people who defend the country are idiots. All leaders are thieves ... plundering the country,” he raps.Shah also emerged as a prominent voice during the bloody youth-led uprising in September that toppled the government in the nation of 30 million people, a wave of unrest that left dozens dead.Although he didn’t directly participate in the protests, he publicly expressed support for the largely Generation Z demonstrators who led the movement.As unrest intensified, he urged calm and restraint, calling for order to prevent further violence. Later, he backed negotiations that helped pave the way for the formation of an interim government.Often dressed in black and wearing dark sunglasses, Shah rarely gave speeches during campaigning and spoke to his supporters mostly through social media. His campaign centred on economic reforms, with promises to expand access to education and health care for poorer Nepalis.]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:25:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Kim and Lukashenko sign friendship treaty in N. Korea]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/26/kim-and-lukashenko-sign-friendship-treaty-in-n-korea]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[North Korea and Belarus’s strongmen leaders signed a “friendship and cooperation” treaty on Thursday after Kim Jong Un gave a lavish welcome to President Alexander Lukashenko on his maiden visit.Besides supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine — around 2,000 North Korean soldiers are thought to have died — both nations are under Western sanctions and are accused of gross human rights violations. The two men met last year in China. “In the modern realities of global transformation — at a time when the world’s major powers openly ignore and violate the norms of international law — independent countries must cooperate more closely and consolidate their efforts aimed at protecting their sovereignty and improving the well-being of their citizens,” Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted Lukashenko as saying.“We oppose the illegitimate pressure on Belarus from the West and express our support and understanding for the measures taken by the leadership of Belarus aimed at ensuring social and political stability and economic development,” Belta quoted Kim as saying. Earlier Belta showed Kim and Lukashenko hugging at a lavish welcome programme on Wednesday at the start of the two-day visit involving an artillery salute and goose-stepping soldiers before a large flag-waving crowd. Lukashenko visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun — where Kim’s embalmed father and grandfather lie in state — to pay his respects, flanked by top North Korean officials, the Korean Central News Agency reported.Lukashenko, 71, who has ruled Belarus since 1994 and has swung firmly behind Moscow since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, also laid a bouquet on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.Belarus and North Korea are part of a push driven by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin to create what they call a “multipolar world” to challenge Western hegemony.They have both provided Moscow assistance in its Ukraine war, with Minsk serving as a launchpad for the invasion and Moscow stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have estimated that the North has sent thousands of soldiers to Russia, primarily to the Kursk region, along with artillery shells, missiles and rocket systems.Russia and North Korea signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2024 that obliges either side to provide “military and other assistance” should the other be attacked.Analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology, food and energy supplies from Russia, helping Pyongyang reduce its reliance on its long-time backer China. US President Donald Trump has sought to build ties with Belarus in his second term, easing sanctions and welcoming it to his “Board of Peace”. Trump met Kim three times in his first term, and there has been speculation of a re-run when the US president makes his visit — delayed by the Iran war — to China on May 14-15.Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov said that in addition to the treaty of friendship and cooperation, the two sides would agree to cooperate in an array of fields from agriculture to information.“Our greatest interest... is strengthening truly friendly, partnership relations. We have friends here, and they are waiting for us. Just as we await them in Belarus,” he told state news agency BelTA.Trade between the two countries is “modest”, but areas for growth include Belarus exporting pharmaceutical products and food to North Korea, Ryzhenkov said. “Meanwhile, various cosmetic products, which are renowned for their quality and affordable prices, can be imported from the DPRK,” he added, using the initials of the North’s official name.Agence France-Presse]]></description>
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        <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:20:00 +0400</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Crawfish industry feels the pinch of limits on foreign workers]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/26/crawfish-industry-feels-the-pinch-of-limits-on-foreign-workers]]></link> 
        <description><![CDATA[Spring is peak season in Louisiana for crawfish, the hard-shelled star of outdoor parties. But a shortage of foreign workers is dampening the mood. Deep in Louisiana’s bayous, where crawfish production is a $300 million industry that is a key ingredient for backyard boils and buttery etouffees served in New Orleans’ French Quarter, operators are fuming over labor struggles and pointing fingers at President Donald Trump’s administration over what they say has been a failure to authorize enough guest foreign workers.The shortages add to a list of industries in the US that rely on seasonal foreign labour, including landscaping and construction, whose struggle to fill jobs has been exacerbated during the Trump administration’s wider clampdown on legal avenues for immigration. In Louisiana, the need for crawfish workers has strained an industry that is a symbol of state pride and frustrated Republican officeholders, many of whom broadly support Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda but say their pleas for more legal labourers have gone unanswered.“People have built businesses around these workers and this year we can’t get them,” said Alan Lawson, who runs a crawfish production facility in the rural town of Crowley. “This industry would not exist without it because the American people don’t want to do the jobs we’re offering.”Large-scale crawfish producers use guest workers, many from Mexico and Central America, to shell and freeze the freshwater catch that is often pulled from swampy rice fields. They are hired on H-2B visas for nonfarming jobs and are allowed to stay in the US for less than a year after businesses first offer the jobs to Americans.The Department of Homeland Security is required to release 66,000 H-2B visas each year and can release nearly double that amount. But that process happened later than usual this year — after Louisiana’s crawfish season had already begun.DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Department of Labor said it respects the crawfish industry and importance to the U.S. economy, and that the agency “has been actively engaging with industry stakeholders to help address workforce needs and identify workable solutions.”But even if guest workers arrive before crawfish season ends around June, Lawson says, the damage is done. Restaurant owners and processors say crawfish prices could spike for consumers already struggling with affordability.US businesses’ increasing reliance on seasonal foreign workers to do grueling jobs predates the Trump administration. The federal government has not kept pace with the expanding need, and Trump’s immigration crackdown also has impacted the labor market. Businesses are seeking tens of thousands more guest workers than the federal government has made available, according to Labor Department data.“The demand is there but the supply is not,” Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Policy Coordinator Andy Brown said. “These businesses want to follow the law. They want to go through the legal parameters to meet their labor needs.” Most seasons at Lawson’s facility, the job of peeling and packaging thousands of pounds of the sweet-tasting, bright red crustaceans is handled by more than 100 foreign workers. None have been allowed to come this season.DHS can begin offering supplemental visas in consultation with the Labor Department at the start of the federal fiscal year in October. However, the Trump administration did not release supplemental visas until February. Initially, it capped them at 35,000, or roughly half what the Biden administration authorized. The Trump administration eventually agreed to release nearly 65,000 supplemental visas — on par with recent years — following pressure from businesses.Louisiana officials say the federal government rejected many crawfish producers’ applications because they listed start dates before January. DHS told Lawson that his company was not eligible because he had applied months earlier, according to a February rejection notice he showed to The Associated Press. At least 15 of the state’s 20 major crawfish processing plants have no guest workers this year, according to Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain. The Republican said the Trump administration’s indifference to their plight has been “unacceptable.”Crawfish processors say that despite advertising locally for months for their peeling jobs, only a handful of Americans have turned up for seasonal gigs paying around $13 an hour. “I can’t put the crawfish somewhere else. They have to be peeled at this time,” said processor David Savoy. “The locals don’t want to do it, I’ve tried — standing on concrete for seven, eight hours a day, peeling crawfish until your hands hurt.” Some immigration law experts said the crawfish industry’s labor shortage reflects the administration’s attitude toward legal immigration.Associated Press]]></description>
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        <guid><![CDATA[https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2026/03/26/crawfish-industry-feels-the-pinch-of-limits-on-foreign-workers]]></guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:48:00 +0400</pubDate>
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