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May 14, 2026

Is AI really ‘writing’? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said ‘no’

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Ryan Leack, Assistant Professor of Writing, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

An ancient disk shows the priestess Enheduanna, third figure from the right, during a ritual. Mefman00/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

I teach writing and rhetoric, but my college students and I often overlook a surprisingly complicated question: What is writing?

And can artificial intelligence really do it?

Many people think of “writing” as putting words on a page. However, even from very early on, writers have seen their craft as something more. From Enheduanna, the first named author on record, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been portrayed and defined in ways that suggest AI may not be “writing” at all.

If not, what should we call AI text? ChatGPT and I have an idea.

Praising and pleading

Enheduanna, who lived around 2,300 B.C.E., was a powerful princess, priestess and poet of the Akkadian Empire, in what is now Iraq. She has been celebrated as the earliest known writer, though the authorship of her poems and hymns is debated.

One of her poems, “The Exaltation of Inanna,” reveals a sense of what writing is and does – portraying it as a living medium that expresses experience and shapes the future.

First, the poem praises the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, who was associated with fertility and war, among other powers. “My Lady, you are the guardian / Of all greatness,” Enheduanna says, in a translation by Jane Hirschfield.

A rectangular tablet covered with tiny, cuneiform-like text. — A tablet in the Penn Museum in Philadelphia inscribed with a copy of Enheduanna’s ‘Exaltation of Inanna.’
Masha Stoyanova/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons

That praise may be strategic. It is followed by Enheduanna’s plea to overthrow Lugal-Ane, a rebel king who she describes exiling her and taking her post at the temple of Ur. “Now I have been cast out / To the place of lepers,” she writes, describing her suffering. “Day comes, / And the brightness / Is hidden around me.”

Grieving, Enheduanna writes a new destiny. In a translation by Sophus Helle, the priestess envisions Inanna coming to her aid and “tear[ing] off this fate, Lugale-Ane.” And her pleading seems to be successful: The end of the poem depicts Enheduanna restored to her post.

In Enheduanna’s poetry, writing does not simply communicate information. It interacts with the present and changes the future. The priestess’s pleas please the goddess, move her heart, and she restore Enheduanna to her post – though historians have little evidence of whether an exile and return really happened.

But her poetry did have real-world influence, helping to create religious and political unity in the world’s first empire. For example, her writing merged the Sumerian goddess Inanna with the Akkadian goddess Ishtar, describing a single “Queen of Heaven.”

AI writing can be used to try to create change, such as by swaying someone’s political opinion. But it lacks the human emotions that make experiences like praise, gratitude and suffering possible – the emotions and motivations that make writing a living medium with real-world effects.

Transforming over informing

Two thousand years after Enheduanna, Plato and his student Aristotle offered another influential view of writing – one that complements hers.

In the “Phaedrus,” which discusses the relationship between love and rhetoric, Plato famously defines writing as a poor copy of speech. Speech’s job is to represent thoughts; thoughts, in turn, represent knowledge and truth. Similarly, Aristotle writes, “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words.”

A hexagonal tile shows two men in loose robes holding up a book and their hands as they debate. — A relief of Plato and his student Aristotle by Italian Renaissance sculptor Luca della Robbia.
sailko/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Even that definition marks a sharp contrast with AI, which lacks thoughts and mental experiences. Its output proceeds from data aggregation and text generation.

To understand what writing is, we also need to look at what it does. Although Plato elevates speech over writing, he suggests in “Phaedrus” that good writing may lead a learner toward truth and knowledge. Similar to Enheduanna, he employs writing as a tool for change, both inside and outside the text.

In Plato’s dialogues, characters often radically change their opinions. And today, almost 2,500 years after his death, the philosopher’s real-world impact is clear. For instance, universities and colleges today are collectively called the “Academy” because that was the name of Plato’s group, the first institution of higher learning in the West. English scholar Alfred North Whitehead famously wrote that all Western philosophy is “a series of footnotes to Plato.”

Aristotle’s voluminous works, too, show writing’s purpose transcends communication. In “Rhetoric,” for instance, he details ways to make writing persuasive. Aristotle defines rhetoric as a way of “moving souls,” not just exchanging knowledge.

For both of the Greek philosophers, then, writing is more about transformation than information.

A dark brown material with so many holes it barely holds together, printed with small text in black ink. — This second-century papyrus of Plato’s ‘Phaedrus,’ found in modern-day Egypt, was reconstructed from several fragments.
Oxyrhynchus Papyri Collection/Oxford’s Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library via Wikimedia Commons

Today, however, AI tools’ popularity may make writing less dynamic and less moving. Use of AI risks a “blandification” of writing, according to a study led by computer science professor Natasha Jaques. In other words, much AI writing today lacks distinct voices, making it sound the same – which could make people’s thinking more similar, too.

‘Generwriting’

Overall, these three ancient authors agree that writing emerges from thoughts and experiences – a process that strives to create change. Enheduanna, Plato and Aristotle also agree that writing’s essence transcends the simple summaries and information transmission common to AI output today.

Although AI can generate creative texts, its writing may not “move souls” the way human writing does. Several studies show a “pro-human attribution bias” or an “AI penalty,” meaning that people prefer human writing even when AI writing is stylistically similar. People want to read what other people write, not what an algorithm pumps out.

Perhaps we need a different word for AI’s output. Common terms today include “generative content” and “synthetic text,” but I wondered if I could land on something simpler – and involve AI itself. After prompting and tweaking ChatGPT over and over, I settled on one word: “generwrite.”

Though AI is here to stay, new words may help distinguish types of text. And as Enheduanna, Plato and Aristotle remind us, there are elements of writing that may always be unique to embodied, thinking beings striving to move souls.

Ryan Leack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is AI really ‘writing’? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said ‘no’ – https://theconversation.com/is-ai-really-writing-from-a-priestess-to-philosophers-ancient-authors-would-have-said-no-280133

May 14, 2026

Trump-XI summit: in a high-stakes meeting the two leaders can’t afford to misread each other

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nicholas John Wheeler, Professor of International Relations Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham; BASIC

The summit between Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and US president, Donald Trump, reportedly covered a lot of ground. The two leaders are said to have discussed trade, technology and the war in Iran, agreeing that Strait of Hormuz should be kept open. But the most potentially hazardous issue they covered was the future of Taiwan, which Xi said if handled poorly, could lead to conflict and “an extremely dangerous situation”.

The danger is not simply that Xi and Trump disagree over Taiwan’s future. It is that actions one leader may see as defensive could easily be interpreted by the other as evidence of hostile intent. It’s a security dilemma that is well known in international diplomacy.

For Washington, arms sales to Taiwan, including a recent multibillion-dollar package, are intended to strengthen deterrence and reduce the likelihood of conflict by making coercion more costly for Beijing. But even ostensibly defensive arms sold to Taiwan appear immensely threatening to the Chinese government, given Beijing’s determination to restore Taiwan to Chinese sovereignty.

Chinese fears that Washington’s arms sales will embolden the Taiwanese leadership to seek independence are mirrored in US fears that China will seek to use force to reunify Taiwan. In the weeks and months before the summit, in a clear signal to Trump and the leaders in Taipei that China means business, Beijing ramped up the scale and frequency of its military exercises and drills.

The danger is not that either side necessarily wants war. It is that both sides may believe they are acting defensively while interpreting the other side’s defensive moves as preparation for aggression.

History suggests that the danger of a superpower clash can sometimes be reduced through direct leader-to-leader diplomacy. One important example came during the final decade of the cold war.

Following the 1983 Able Archer crisis (when Soviet leaders reportedly feared that a Nato nuclear exercise might conceal preparations for a real nuclear strike) the then US president, Ronald Reagan, began to reconsider how Moscow interpreted US actions. Reading intelligence reports on Soviet fears, Reagan reflected that “maybe they are scared of us and think we are a threat”.

He concluded that he wanted to go “face to face” with Soviet leaders to explore whether the US-Soviet conflict was being driven by mutual fear and misperceptions.

That instinct helped pave the way for Reagan’s later diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. Their meetings in Geneva (1985), Reykjavik (1986), and Washington (1988) did not erase geopolitical rivalry, but they did help create a degree of interpersonal trust between the two leaders. That trust mattered. It reduced the risk that every military move or diplomatic signal would automatically be interpreted in the most threatening way.

Mikhail Gorbachev sits with Ronald Reagan — Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan: two adversaries who learned to trust each other.
RIA Novosti archive, CC BY-SA

The lesson is not that Trump is Reagan or Xi is Gorbachev. Nor is it that personal diplomacy can magically solve a conflict as deep as Taiwan. The lesson is more modest, but also more urgent. Potential adversaries need leaders who can recognise when fear and misperceptions of the other side’s hostile intent might be driving a conflict, rather than genuine malign intent.

Communication and trust

In our upcoming book on interpersonal diplomacy and trust in international relations, we describe this process through the concept of “security dilemma sensibility”. This is the willingness to recognise that an adversary’s actions may stem from insecurity and fear as well as aggressive intent. Such moments are rare, but they can become critically important in preventing rivalry from sliding into catastrophe.

Direct leader-to-leader communication matters. It allows rivals to bypass some of the bureaucratic, political, and military filters through which signals are often distorted. The Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco in 2023 produced an important agreement to restore high-level military-to-military communications after relations had deteriorated sharply following Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Biden later remarked that both leaders had agreed they should be able to “pick up the phone and call directly and we’d be heard immediately”.

That kind of trusted communication channel matters enormously during crises, where silence, delay, or misinterpretation can rapidly intensify fears on both sides. But communication alone is not enough. Without at least some degree of mutual trust and security dilemma sensibility, even direct exchanges risk being dismissed as manipulative or deceptive.

That is the challenge now facing Trump and Xi over Taiwan. Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy makes the problem especially acute. Beijing may wonder whether Taiwan is something Trump might bargain over. Taipei and US allies may worry that American commitments are less firm than Washington claims. And Trump himself may believe that personal rapport with Xi can substitute for the hard work of clarifying red lines, managing deterrence and reducing the risk of both inadvertent and deliberate escalation.

Exercising security dilemma sensibility would require both leaders to recognise that actions intended as defensive by one side are often experienced as threatening by the other. For Washington, this means appreciating why Beijing views growing US military and political support for Taiwan as a challenge to a core national objective. For Beijing, it means recognising that coercive military pressure around Taiwan deepens fears in Washington and Taipei that China is preparing to impose a solution by force.

If the summit produces only theatrical displays of toughness or transactional bargaining, the deeper dangers in the relationship will remain. But if Trump and Xi can strengthen channels of direct communication while demonstrating a greater awareness of each other’s fears and insecurities, they may reduce the risk that a future Taiwan crisis spirals through miscalculation into catastrophe.

The real test of the Trump-Xi summit is not whether either leader comes out as a winner in the eyes of their domestic constituencies and wider global opinion. They need to leave understanding that deterrence doesn’t just fail when leaders appear weak. It can also fail when they are so convinced of their own defensive intent that they can’t see how threatening they look to the other side.

Nicholas John Wheeler has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.

Marcus Holmes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump-XI summit: in a high-stakes meeting the two leaders can’t afford to misread each other – https://theconversation.com/trump-xi-summit-in-a-high-stakes-meeting-the-two-leaders-cant-afford-to-misread-each-other-282977

May 14, 2026

The Humber region and its cities are a hub for carbon removal – here’s why

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aliyu Ibrahim Nagidi, PhD Candidate, Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull

The Humber estuary in northern England is ideally suited to access abundant clean energy and massive carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage sites.

This region is home to the world’s largest offshore wind farm, which will generate enough electricity for up to 6 million homes when completed by 2027. Further from the coast in the southern North Sea, lies a giant vault on the seabed that can safely store CO₂.

Yet the Humber emits more CO₂ than any other region in the UK. Estimates put the figure at 12 million tonnes per year – equivalent to the CO₂ released from driving a petrol car around the earth 2 million times. Cities like Hull and the surrounding urban environment could provide opportunities for carbon removal.

Technologies such as direct air capture (DAC) can remove CO₂ directly from the air with high levels of purity. That captured CO₂ can then be used as a raw material for local industries – such as meat processing, drink production, construction and chemical manufacturing – while reducing overall carbon emissions.

In 2023, the UK company Mission Zero Technologies installed a DAC unit at the University of Sheffield. The captured CO₂ is used for making sustainable aviation fuel at a university research centre. Another DAC system was installed in Norfolk in 2025 and the CO₂ produced is used to make limestone for manufacturing bricks and concrete blocks for building constructions.

While DAC is no quick fix, it is a climate solution when working alongside other approaches and technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

Climeworks has been scaling up direct air capture technology.

DAC can be built to be compact and modular. Multiple units can be connected together to form a larger unit. One of the first DAC plants was built by Climeworks, a pioneer in carbon removal technology in Switzerland. The CO₂ from Climeworks’ DAC units was directly sent into nearby greenhouses for growing vegetables. The revenue from the sale of that CO₂ made this technology financially viable. The modularity of DAC systems makes it easier to install them into existing structures.

DAC units need both electricity and heat, ideally from renewable sources. An in-built heat source, such as a heat pump, can minimise the reliance on fossil-fuel-based energy sources while reducing costs. This makes it’s possible for DAC units to run entirely on renewable electricity.

Carbon capture in communities

In the effort to reduce CO₂ emissions in the Humber, the focus has been mainly on large decarbonisation projects. This is understandable, as integrated deployments in the form of regional hubs help achieve climate targets with the Humber aiming to acheive its net-zero target by the year 2040.

However, installing smaller DAC units in urban areas can help build more support for those larger-scale projects and bring the technology closer to the communities.

Smaller DAC units can easily be turned on and off depending on the availability of electricity. This makes them well suited to using clean energy from renewable sources which varies depending on the weather conditions. As such the technology can be implemented in the Humber where offshore wind farms generate clean energy in abundance.

Our research across the Humber region explores how best to pair offshore wind with DAC. While CO₂ storage suits large scale DAC, using CO₂ captured by smaller DAC units is an alternative way to monetise this. This reduces reliance of local industries on external sources of CO₂.

The Humber’s high output of clean energy could power the DAC units. When that captured CO₂ is sold to local businesses, this can provide economic benefits within the area.

People are more inclined towards something that they can see, which benefits them as a community. Individual DAC units can be installed in parks, on rooftops of public spaces and existing urban buildings such as libraries or high-rise residential buildings. Information boards located around the parks can help local people understand how the technology works and support similar, larger projects that could provide more jobs in the future.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Humber region and its cities are a hub for carbon removal – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/the-humber-region-and-its-cities-are-a-hub-for-carbon-removal-heres-why-278146

May 14, 2026

Why a new Plaid Cymru government in Cardiff may pose a fresh challenge for Westminster

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anwen Elias, Reader in Politics, Aberystwyth University

After emerging as the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) election, Plaid Cymru is now establishing itself as the next Welsh government. It’s the first administration not led by Welsh Labour since devolution began 27 years ago.

For UK Labour, Plaid’s breakthrough could become one of the most significant constitutional and political challenges of the coming years.

The clearest guide to Plaid’s immediate priorities is its “first 100 days” programme for government. This was published during its February 2026 conference. It includes calls for a new devolution bill to be passed in the UK parliament giving Wales the same devolved powers as Scotland and new funding arrangements for Wales.

The party’s manifesto provides more detail on its package of constitutional demands. These include further powers over taxation, policing and justice, welfare, broadcasting, renewable energy, migration and the Crown Estate.

During the election campaign, Plaid deliberately played down its longer-term goal of Welsh independence in an effort to broaden its appeal beyond pro-independence voters. But now in government, the party will want to begin laying the groundwork for a longer-term constitutional change.

Its manifesto proposes a new national commission for Wales to prepare for a document exploring the challenges and opportunities that independence could bring for Wales. For Westminster, this may evoke comparisons with the SNP government’s Scotland’s Future which was published ahead of the 2014 independence referendum.

Another reset in UK-devolved relations

In the aftermath of the election, Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said he intended to “take the fight” to the UK government as first minister. It reflects the party’s campaign promise to “always stand up for Wales”.

Plaid has also pledged to “reset” relations with Westminster. The UK Labour 2024 manifesto also committed to a “reset” of the UK government’s relationship with the devolved governments.

Structures intended to improve co-ordination between the UK and devolved governments were introduced in 2022 under the then Conservative UK government. These included a council bringing together the prime minister and devolved leaders, alongside policy-focused inter-ministerial groups.

The outgoing Welsh Labour government argued that relations had improved since Labour entered power in Westminster in 2024. But it also pointed to examples of “limited or uneven engagement” across some policy areas.

Our research has raised questions about the UK government’s willingness to make full use of the intergovernmental arrangements.

Plaid now wants those arrangements strengthened and placed on a firmer legal footing. In particular, it supports recommendations made by the Independent Constitutional Commission on the Future of Wales in 2024 to give intergovernmental structures a statutory basis, rather than relying largely on political convention.

The party also wants stronger protections for the Sewel convention. This is the principle that Westminster should seek consent before legislating in areas of policy that have been devolved.

A new alignment among devolved governments

Plaid’s victory could also reshape relationships between the three devolved governments. Co-operation between Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has often been limited. This reflected their different political leaderships and constitutional settlements. But following the 2026 elections, parties supportive of greater national self-determination now lead all three governments.

That raises the prospect of more co-ordinated pressure on Westminster. Rhun ap Iorwerth has already signalled he wants to pursue greater cooperation.

One probable area of shared interest is the UK’s relationship with the EU. As debates over trade, regulation and economic alignment continue, devolved governments may seek a stronger voice in shaping UK-EU policy. Plaid’s manifesto argues Wales should have a “seat at the table” in discussions directly affecting Welsh interests.

Plaid was able to use Labour’s years of partnership with the previous Welsh government to argue that the UK government had become increasingly indifferent towards Wales.

For Keir Starmer’s government, demands for deeper devolution and constitutional reform may struggle to compete with mounting political and economic pressures elsewhere. Some of Plaid’s proposals may remain low on the list of priorities. But there are risks in dismissing them entirely.

A perception that Wales is being ignored by Westminster could deepen political frustration. It could also simultaneously strengthen support for further constitutional change. In the longer term, that may create more fertile ground for Plaid Cymru’s case that a journey to independence is the only option for Wales to achieve its own interests.

Anwen Elias receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.

Elin Royles received funding from the James Madison Charitable
Trust.

– ref. Why a new Plaid Cymru government in Cardiff may pose a fresh challenge for Westminster – https://theconversation.com/why-a-new-plaid-cymru-government-in-cardiff-may-pose-a-fresh-challenge-for-westminster-282436

May 14, 2026

Westlife at 25: how the boyband emerged during Ireland’s economic boom

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pat Collins, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Galway

We were all flying without wings back in the heyday of Irish boy band Westlife. The group were formed in Dublin in 1998 and rose to international popularity during the early 2000s. The new release of their anniversary album, 25: The Ultimate Collection, affords an opportunity to reflect on the band’s story. They emerge as bold and brash, but also as airbrushed as an advertisement for a new housing development in Dublin.

Irish music manager Louis Walsh took five young men and handed them to British music mogul Simon Cowell. Some of the band members were from the west of Ireland, from a generation whose older brothers had left for London and Boston in the 1980s with a bag and a prayer.

The songs were almost aggressively un-Irish. Free from political statement or critical reflections on the place they came from. Instead, they put out American soft rock from the 1970s and 80s, which they delivered in close harmony and in matching knitwear, sitting on stools, off which one of them would occasionally rise for the key change.

It was, in the most literal sense, a performance of aspiration. And Ireland in 2001 understood aspiration.

The Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan once described a trad music (Irish traditional music) session as a frenetic spinning and spiralling whirl where kids fuelled on Fanta were thrown around and everyone felt like the spiral might get so strong as to free everyone from the pull of Earth’s gravity. Much of the way we were in Ireland in the 2000s was similar to that whirl.

The country had been experiencing rising economic statistics for long enough that we started believing that we were actually rich. It was dubbed the Celtic Tiger economic boom.

Ireland had emerged from the poor man of Europe moniker to become something shinier and less complicated. Westlife were simply doing the same thing, at volume, on Top of the Pops.

All this growth came under the guidance of that Taoiseach in the anorak, Bertie Ahern. He was a leader so confident in the fiscal strength of the country that he thought any economists who thought any different should do away with themselves – the same man who didn’t feel the need to have a bank account.

As Westlife was topping the music charts in 2001, Ireland was dubbed the “world’s most globalised country” – top of a list of the countries most integrated into the global network of trade, capital, information and people. More than the US, more than Singapore, little Ireland was considered the most open of them all.

Consider all of this growth for a country which five decades earlier was a place where nearly one in every two people made their living off the land, the grip of the Catholic church was strong and faith in local industry was unquestioned. It was an Ireland that considered itself an island on its own.

By the start of 2001, however, Ireland had gone so far down the road of liberalisation that it would be difficult to find its way back. What wealth had been accumulated from the start of the Celtic Tiger was finally starting to be spent. We were building major motorway networks to connect the country and we even went as far as building a light rail system in the capital city.

The nation turned to housing as the “spatial articulation of wealth”. For many, one home was not enough. For a country tied to the fiscal and monetary unions of much larger countries, which were faring much worse in terms of economic metrics, low interest rates and easy access to money acted as the propellant to fuel a bubble that would take a full seven years to burst.

The Flood Tribunal (established in 1997 and later called the Mahon Tribunal) exposed how corrupt the new developments could be. Land zoning, planning applications and suburban sprawl were leaving permanent scars on the countryside. The wealth the country had accumulated became manifest in hotels, shoddy apartments and three-bed semi-detached houses built too far away from where everyone wanted to be.

Amid all this, Westlife were gaining international popularity, which came to its apex in 2001 when the group set off on their first world tour and released their third album, World of Our Own.

There was something almost too neat about the whole arrangement of the band. Boys from the west of Ireland – historically the part of the country most associated with emigration and with the Famine in the mid-1800s – were now being exported not as labour, but as a product. They weren’t going to England to build roads, as boys like them traditionally had; they were going to conquer the charts. The geography was the same. The power dynamic had, apparently, reversed entirely.

Except, of course, it hadn’t really reversed at all. The money, the decisions, the creative control – all of that remained firmly in London, in the hands of Cowell, a man who had identified that pop music could be industrialised like any other product. Find the ingredients, test the recipe, remove anything interesting, repeat.

What Cowell understood, better than anyone, was that the audience didn’t want to be surprised or challenged or moved in any direction they hadn’t already been moved before. They wanted the familiar, delivered with a cheeky smile.

And Westlife, to their credit, delivered the familiar with lovely smiles. They were professionally polished and almost completely without edges. Every rough corner that might have connected them to an actual place or an actual feeling had been sanded back to a smooth, radio-friendly finish.

Ireland, with all its bounty of beautiful complexity – its landscape, its history, its complicated relationship with leaving and returning – was not something that fit in a Cowell product. So it was removed.

What remained were five young men who could hold a note, sing Billy Joel’s songs, and look sincere on cue. International financial capital fuelled by Fanta did the rest, flying as it does, without wings.

Pat Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Westlife at 25: how the boyband emerged during Ireland’s economic boom – https://theconversation.com/westlife-at-25-how-the-boyband-emerged-during-irelands-economic-boom-281656

May 14, 2026

Pregnancy is a chance to reshape family eating habits before the baby arrives

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Netalie Shloim, Lecturer in Counselling & Psychotherapy, School of Healthcare, University of Leeds

Pregnancy is often regarded as a time to prepare the nursery, but it is also a useful moment to get the kitchen ready.

For many expectant parents, the months before a baby arrives are filled with practical jobs: buying clothes, assembling a cot, choosing a pram, packing a hospital bag. Yet one of the most important forms of preparation happens somewhere less photogenic: in the cupboards, the fridge and the daily routines of the home.

Research Peles and colleagues conducted suggests that pregnancy can be a powerful moment for change. During pregnancy, food becomes about more than personal preference. It is bound up with the health of the developing baby, the wellbeing of the mother, and the kind of family life parents hope to create.

The idea of nutritional nesting is useful here. It describes how first-time parents begin shaping the home food environment during pregnancy. It means the food world a baby will eventually be born into: what is bought, what is visible, what is easy to reach, what gets cooked, what is eaten together, and what becomes normal.

Healthy habits begin before a baby first tastes puree or sits in a high chair. They begin in the rhythms and environment parents establish before birth. Vegetables in the fridge may technically be available, but they are unlikely to be chosen by exhausted parents looking for something quick. Fruit on the counter, chopped vegetables ready to use, batch-cooked meals in the freezer and simple ingredients within reach make healthier eating easier when energy is low.

The distinction between availability and accessibility matters. Availability means the food is present in the home. Accessibility means it is easy to see, easy to reach and easy to eat. Research on the home food environment suggests that what is available at home, what parents eat themselves, and family eating routines all play a role in the overall healthiness and variety of children’s diets. Shloim describes this as healthy mealtime interactions, accounting for what and how the family eats.

Kitchens are shaped by more than mothers alone. Pregnancy can be an especially useful time to think about food because many parents, including fathers and partners, are already imagining the family they want to become. Peles’ work with first-time expectant fathers suggests that men often see pregnancy as a turning point: a chance to take more responsibility, support their partner, and help create a healthier home. Good intentions, though, do not chop vegetables, plan meals or fill a freezer. Fathers and partners may need practical support to turn motivation into everyday action.

Nutrition support during pregnancy should involve the household, not only the pregnant mother. The home food environment is usually shaped by more than one person. Partners influence shopping, cooking, budgeting, snacking and the emotional tone around food. Treating food preparation as a shared parental responsibility, rather than another task added to the mother’s mental load, makes it more realistic and fair.

The point is to make nutrition advice more useful, rather than more judgmental. Lists of foods to eat or avoid have their place, but they rarely solve the daily problem of what tired people can afford, cook and face eating. Families also need help with the basics: planning meals, preparing quick options, shopping on a budget and making nutritious food convenient before the sleep deprivation of early parenthood begins.

For many parents, the second trimester may be a useful period for this kind of preparation. For some women, though not all, the nausea and exhaustion of early pregnancy may have eased, while the physical demands of late pregnancy have not yet fully arrived. That can make it a more realistic time to ask: what will make daily eating easier when life gets harder?

The answer does not have to be complicated. Parents might reorganise the fridge so healthier foods are visible, learn a few reliable recipes that can be cooked quickly, prepare snacks that do not depend on willpower at 3pm, or decide together how meals will work when the baby arrives. These small changes are not glamorous, but they reduce the number of decisions tired parents have to make.

Heavily pregnant woman stands in front of open fridge, which is stocked with healthy food on display — Pregnancy may be a good time to reorganise the fridge so healthier foods are visible.
nelic/Shutterstock

Early family food culture is about nutrients, but it is also about relationships. Children learn from what is served and from how meals feel.

Shloim suggests that a calm, responsive feeding relationship means paying attention to a child’s hunger and fullness cues, offering food without pressure, and making mealtimes feel safe rather than stressful. Evidence suggests that these early interactions can support children’s ability to regulate their own eating. They also support overall positive interactions.

Early-life conditions, including the period before birth, can influence health later in life. A child’s future is not fixed before birth, but early environments matter, and supporting families before and during pregnancy can be a practical way to improve long-term health.

Expectant parents do not need a perfect diet or a perfect kitchen. Nutritional nesting is about making ordinary healthy choices more visible, more convenient and more shared. Its value is practical: reducing friction before the exhausting early months begin.

The nursery matters. But the kitchen may be where some of the most important family interactions begins.

– ref. Pregnancy is a chance to reshape family eating habits before the baby arrives – https://theconversation.com/pregnancy-is-a-chance-to-reshape-family-eating-habits-before-the-baby-arrives-278058

May 14, 2026

How severe has the economic impact of the Iran war been for the Gulf states?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emilie Rutledge, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University

The US and Israel’s war on Iran has cast a long shadow over the Gulf. It has placed many of the economies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regional grouping – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia – under substantial strain.

Since the war began in February, the World Bank has downgraded its 2026 GDP growth forecast for the region from 4.4% to just 1.3%. Some thinktanks, including Oxford Economics, even predict that some GCC economies will enter recession in the second half of the year.

However, the effects of the war have differed across the region. While the Gulf states are often viewed as a unified economic bloc bound by a shared dependence on hydrocarbons, the conflict has revealed significant differences in their economic vulnerability and resilience.

Countries like Qatar and Kuwait have seen their oil and gas exports seriously disrupted by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have access to bypass infrastructure, have been partly able to circumvent this limitation.

Saudi Arabia has diverted 7 million barrels of crude per day through its east-west pipeline, allowing it to export oil from Yanbu on the Red Sea. The UAE, meanwhile, has utilised a pipeline from Habshan to Fujairah to export up to 1.8 million barrels of oil each day from the Gulf of Oman.

This infrastructure has enabled both countries to capitalise on soaring global oil prices. Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, reported a 26% jump in profits in the first quarter of 2026.

Disruption to energy exports is one part of the story. The war has also caused substantial physical damage to energy infrastructure across the region. Around 80 energy facilities, ranging from production plants to refineries and pipelines, have been targeted by Iranian missile and drone attacks so far.

It will take months – and in some cases years – to repair the damage (which stands at an estimated US$58 billion) once the war ends. Qatar’s liquified natural gas industry, in particular, has suffered serious damage. QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, says it will take up to five years to repair its Ras Laffan industrial hub alone.

Gulf diversification

The GCC states have adopted strategies to diversify their economies away from a dependency on hydrocarbons. Tourism and aviation are two central pillars of this, with GCC countries investing heavily in these sectors. The Gulf is now home to some of the busiest international airport hubs in the world.

But these industries, too, have been damaged by the war. Financial analysis firm, Moody’s, suggested recently that hotel occupancy in Dubai is set to plummet to 10% in the second quarter of 2026 from 80% before the war. Some Iranian attacks have targeted civilian areas, including hotels and residential buildings, prompting tourists to stay away.

The Iran war has also placed Gulf airlines such as Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways under increasing financial pressure. More than 30,000 flights to the Middle East were cancelled in the first month of the war and jet fuel prices – the biggest variable cost to airlines – are up 90% on the annual average.

The logistics sector is another area of Gulf diversification. It has grown rapidly since the early 2000s thanks to the region’s strategic position between east-west trade routes. The UAE’s Jebel Ali Port, for instance, is now one of the world’s largest container ports and the base of Dubai’s multinational logistics firm, DP World.

However, Jebel Ali has seen a 40% drop in vessels due to the war, with container carriers rerouting to alternatives such as Salalah in Oman and Colombo in Sri Lanka. And while DP World has opened emergency land corridors to ports outside the Gulf to keep cargo moving, these routes are costly and have limited capacity.

The UAE and Qatar also both serve as major air freight hubs, acting as bridges for cargo travelling between Asia and Europe. But this has been affected by the war too. Freight rates have increased following attacks on both Dubai and Doha that led to grounded flights and air space closures.

In the long-term, the economic impact of the war on the Gulf economies will hinge on its duration and political outcome. But the risks are firmly tilted to the downside. The fiscal outlook for some GCC states is deteriorating, with several facing scenarios where government spending exceeds revenue. Public sector debt in some GCC states is rising too.

Moody’s has downgraded its outlook on Bahrain, which was already facing longstanding financial issues prior to the war, from “stable” to “negative”. This will make it harder for Bahrain to access much-needed capital and increase future borrowing costs.

GCC economies invest their surplus oil and gas revenues through sovereign wealth funds, which collectively manage between US$4 trillion and US$6 trillion in global assets. Governments are likely to draw on these funds to support domestic spending on reconstruction and bolstering their defences after the war.

This could undermine their future potential to fund large long-term diversification mega-projects such as Saudi Arabia’s Neom City. Plans for Neom, which was initially proposed as a linear city to home 9 million people, have already been scaled down in recent years due to issues including funding pressures.

The Gulf’s loss of “safe-haven” status due to the war, and the resulting reputational damage, cannot easily be reversed. Even after the conflict ends, higher risk premiums will persist for those doing business in the Gulf. Shipping disruptions could take months to unwind, and a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be likely to trigger permanent rerouting.

If the conflict drags on, structural shifts in global supply chains may deepen, with lasting costs for the Gulf economies.

Emilie Rutledge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How severe has the economic impact of the Iran war been for the Gulf states? – https://theconversation.com/how-severe-has-the-economic-impact-of-the-iran-war-been-for-the-gulf-states-282629

May 14, 2026

How the world can avoid millions going hungry when supply chains collapse

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jasper Verschuur, Assistant Professor in Engineering Systems and Climate, Delft University of Technology

Millions more people will face hunger in the coming months if the conflict in the Middle East is not resolved soon, the UN has warned. The price of energy, which instantly affects the cost of producing and transporting food, has risen sharply due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The price of fertiliser, much of it made in the Gulf states and exported via the same stretch of water, has also soared. So it seems inevitable that the cost of food around the world will increase, just as it did after Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (both countries were big exporters of food and fertiliser).

Back then, some governments responded with expensive taxpayer funded subsidies for producers and consumers. But the situation in the Middle East highlights how consumers everywhere remain vulnerable to such geographically concentrated production of energy and fertiliser.

Here are four ways that the world could attempt to build a food system that would be far more resilient to future shocks.

1. Grow greener

The current situation is surely a sign that the time has now come for agriculture to make the transition to “green ammonia” – ammonia produced using renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels. (Ammonia is a key ingredient in nitrogen-based fertiliser.)

Instead of depending on certain countries or regions for fertiliser production, it would be possible to produce home grown fertiliser when the sun shines and the wind blows.

The first green ammonia plants are now being constructed in sunny places such as Chile, Morocco and Australia. It’s an expensive switch, but the declining cost of renewables combined with wildly fluctuating gas prices could soon make it a more competitive and secure alternative.

A successful transition will depend on sustained commitment (and investment) from governments – especially when the Strait of Hormuz eventually opens again.

2. Stockpile

Governments should also rethink the way they stock food. Modern logistics and slick supply chains mean that many countries store certain products to last a few days or weeks, with the assumption that those stocks can be swiftly replenished.

Some places (Sweden, China and India for example) take a longer term approach, seemingly driven by a stronger sense of the importance of self-sufficiency. Other countries should follow their lead, and think beyond stockpiling things like grains, to other essential farm supplies like fertiliser and pesticides. But they need to do so gradually to not distort already tight markets in the short term.

This kind of change would also align with broader national security ambitions that are emerging across Europe and elsewhere. Food stocks to cope with periods of uncertainty and disruption would be an essential part of that.

3. Grow more plants

A demand change towards reducing waste and healthier diets – specifically by eating more plant proteins – could swiftly improve food security and resilience.

Animal farming requires large amounts of fertiliser for the crops providing their feed. Plant proteins such as legumes (beans, lentils, peas) require much less fertiliser (they can even “create” their own fertiliser in their roots through nitrogen fixation).

Raw beans and pulses in pots. — Beans mean green.
Lukas Gojda/Shutterstock

They also have other advantages including improved nutrition, and much reduced carbon emmissions.

4. Electrify transport

Biofuels, such as ethanol and bio-diesel, are often portrayed as sustainable fuel alternatives. But the crops used to produce these fuels (such as corn and rapeseed) now occupy an area at least the size of Italy.

That’s a lot of land being used to deliver not very much fuel (in the UK, biofuel powers less than 7% of the country’s transport needs).

Instead, building solar or wind farms to provide energy for electric vehicles is a much more efficient use of land when it comes to fuelling transport needs.

Accelerating the electrification of transport and rapidly phase out crop-based fuel would release tens of millions of hectares globally for things like food production, rewilding and carbon storage.

Towards resilience

Building a more resilient food system will not happen overnight. Changing diets and switching fuels and fertiliser dependencies takes time. It will involve trade-offs as well as considerable political and commercial will.

None of that is easy to achieve, and previous global spikes in food prices (in 2007, 2010 and 2022) did not led to significant changes.

Yet the alternative is to remain exposed to repeated shocks. Climate change and geopolitical tensions will continue to disrupt global supply chains.

The current crisis is not only yet another warning about the fragility of today’s food system, but also an opportunity to accelerate the transition towards one that is much better able to withstand future disruption.

Paul Behrens receives funding from The British Academy and the REAPRA Foundation.

Jasper Verschuur does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How the world can avoid millions going hungry when supply chains collapse – https://theconversation.com/how-the-world-can-avoid-millions-going-hungry-when-supply-chains-collapse-282441

May 14, 2026

Sleep and diet may matter more than exercise for buffering the health toll of chronic stress

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nick Turner, Professor and Future Fund Chair in Leadership, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary

When work gets stressful, the standard advice is familiar: exercise more, eat better, sleep more and cut back on unhealthy habits. But our new research study suggests not all healthy habits offer the same protection from chronic work stress.

Using data over 10 years from a long-running national survey of 2,871 Canadian workers, we examined whether five health-related behaviours outside work helped weaken the relationship between work stress and general health over time: nutrition, exercise, sleep quality, alcohol use and smoking frequency.

What we found was more uneven — and more interesting — than the usual wellness advice suggests. Some behaviours appeared to offer real stress-specific protection. Others were linked to health overall, but did not seem to buffer the effects of work stress specifically.

Some habits protect; others don’t

Sleep quality stood out most clearly. Nutrition also mattered. Exercise remained good for health overall, but did not buffer the health effects of work stress in the same way once the other behaviours were considered together.

For many workers, work stress is chronic. It builds through heavy workloads, difficult or unpredictable schedules, after-hours emails and text messages, and the feeling that work keeps spilling into evenings, weekends and family time.

Over time, that kind of stress can wear people down physically and psychologically. Research has linked work stress to burnout, depression, anxiety, fatigue, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and mortality.

Our study asked: when stressful work conditions persist, are there things people do outside work that actually help protect their health? Our findings suggest the answer is yes, but selectively.

Sleep may matter more than people think

Sleep quality stood out as the strongest buffer against the health costs of work stress. Good sleep supports attention, emotional regulation, recovery and the self-control needed to maintain other healthy behaviours in the first place. In that sense, it functions less like one good choice among many and more like a foundational resource.

Nutrition also showed a meaningful buffering effect, suggesting that diet may help sustain the physical and psychological reserves needed to cope with sustained strain.

The exercise finding pushed against popular assumptions. While more frequent exercise was associated with better general health overall, it did not significantly weaken the relationship between work stress and health. This could reflect the way exercise was measured in the survey, or it could mean exercise helps health in ways that are real but not specifically stress-buffering.

Being healthy and being protected from stress are not always the same thing.

The alcohol finding was the most unexpected and warrants particular caution. Lower alcohol use was associated with better overall health, as expected. But the data showed that higher work stress was more strongly associated with poorer general health among people who reported lower alcohol use than among those who reported drinking more frequently.

This should not be read as evidence that drinking protects people from the health effects of work stress, however. People who drank more frequently still reported worse overall health. More likely, this pattern reflects something our data could not fully unpack, such as prior health conditions, different coping profiles or non-linear patterns in alcohol use and health.

Healthy habits don’t excuse unhealthy work design

When work is chronically stressful, some forms of self-care may protect health more than others. Most importantly, wellness interventions cannot compensate for a job that is structured to exhaust people.

Organizations are still responsible for designing healthy workplaces. Employees should not be expected to sleep or meal-prep their way out of excessive workload, unreasonable expectations or poor work design.

What our findings suggest is not that individual behaviour replaces organizational responsibility. Rather, certain behaviours may help protect people when work remains stressful and structural change is absent, incomplete or slow to arrive.

Our study is explicit that these behaviours should be understood as complementary to, but not substitutes for, broader organizational change.

That has practical implications for both workers and employers. For workers, the message is not to do everything perfectly. It’s that some behaviours may offer more protection than others when work stress is high, and sleep deserves to be taken especially seriously.

For employers, the lesson is not to moralize wellness or shift responsibility onto individuals. It’s to make protective behaviours easier to sustain by reducing after-hours communication, allowing real on-the-job breaks, improving scheduling and designing work in ways that do not erode recovery.

Nick Turner receives research funding from Cenovus Energy Inc., Haskayne School of Business’s Future Fund, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Erica Carleton receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

A. Wren Montgomery and Serra Al-Katib do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sleep and diet may matter more than exercise for buffering the health toll of chronic stress – https://theconversation.com/sleep-and-diet-may-matter-more-than-exercise-for-buffering-the-health-toll-of-chronic-stress-282015

May 14, 2026

Baloch insurgency: Suicide bombs and uptick in violence threaten Pakistan, regional security

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson University

The aftermath of an attack by Baloch separatists in Quetta, Pakistan, on Feb. 1, 2026. Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty Images

In the space of 10 days in late April 2026, insurgents in Pakistan purportedly carried out 27 attacks in the country’s southwest province of Balochistan, killing at least 42 military personal. Then, on May 11, authorities announced that a suicide bombing plot on the capital, Islamabad, had been foiled. Authorities arrested a girl over the incident – a nod to militants’ increasing use of young Baloch women to carry out attacks.

These incidents represent the latest flaring up of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan’s largest province and home to around 15 million people.

For a rundown of what you need to know about the Baloch insurgency and groups involved, The Conversation turned to Amira Jadoon and Saif Tahir, experts on militant and terrorist organizations currently researching such groups’ operational activities and strategic messaging in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What is the Baloch insurgency about?

Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan has long been the site of resistance and armed movements involving Baloch, an ethnic group of an estimated 8 million to 10 million people that straddles parts of Pakistan and Iran.

Their insurgency is rooted in both contemporary and historical grievances. Its origins trace back to the contested annexation of the princely state of Kalat in 1948, months after the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, and the resulting confrontations between Baloch tribal leaders and the newly formed Pakistani state.

While the insurgency long remained a low-level struggle framed around Baloch marginalization and economic exploitation, it turned violent in the early 2000s with the rise of militant factions, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, in 2000 and the Balochistan Liberation Front, or BLF, which was revived in 2004 under current leader Allah Nazar Baloch decades after its 1964 founding. The insurgents’ goals vary, from greater autonomy and control over the province’s natural resources to full independence.

Baloch militants generally cast their emergence as a nationalist rebuttal to the Pakistani government’s long-standing narrative, which states that the unrest is driven by a handful of tribal chiefs resisting development rather than a broad-based movement.

In practice, the contemporary insurgency has expanded well beyond its tribal base, and Baloch militant groups have invested heavily in strategic communications that directly challenge the Pakistani state’s framing.

Today, Baloch militants’ propaganda targets the local educated youth, including women. They play on existing grievances over enforced disappearances, state repression and resource extraction. Balochistan is home to significant deposits of copper, gold, natural gas and coal, including at the Reko Diq mine, one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold reserves. Yet the province remains Pakistan’s poorest.

Baloch militants’ efforts are designed to broaden the insurgency’s appeal, adding an urban, middle-class layer to what was once a primarily tribal revolt that casts itself as a struggle to defend the Baloch “motherland” and achieve national liberation.

The Baloch insurgency has emerged as one of Pakistan’s most consequential internal security challenges. In 2025, the BLA claimed 521 attacks and 1,060 security-force fatalities, though independent monitoring records substantially fewer attacks, at around 254 events, in Balochistan over the same period.

Two Baloch militants’ operations bookend the recent escalation. In March 2025, BLA fighters hijacked the Jaffar Express – a heavily used passenger train connecting Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan – holding more than 350 passengers in a 30-hour siege. In April 2026, the group announced a new naval wing, the Hammal Maritime Defence Force, following its first maritime attack on a Pakistan coast guard vessel near Jiwani, in Gwadar district.

These tactical innovations have been reinforced by deliberate efforts at broadening the support base for Baloch separatism. The 2018 formation of Baloch Raji Ajohi Sangar, an alliance of Baloch militant groups, and the 2020 entry of the non-Baloch Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, a Sindhi separatist group based in neighboring Sindh that has extended Baloch militants’ operational reach into Karachi, signal an expanding ethno-regional coalition aimed at broadening the geographic and ideological scope of the insurgency.

Why the uptick in violence now?

Four converging factors explain the recent escalation.

First, the Pakistani state’s crackdown on peaceful political space in recent months has accelerated social discontent. Following the March 2025 Jaffar Express attack, prominent Baloch rights defender Mahrang Baloch was arrested under anti-terrorist laws, while three protesters were shot dead at a peaceful sit-in in Quetta.

As nonviolent avenues close, aggrieved civilians become more receptive to Baloch militants’ recruitment narratives.

Second, Baloch militants have acquired U.S. weapons left behind in Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal, including M4 and M16 rifles fitted with thermal optics. Recent reports have linked the arms used in the Jaffar Express attack directly to abandoned U.S. stockpiles in Afghanistan.

Third, militant operational collusion has deepened between the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the latter ranked by the Institute for Economics and Peace as the world’s fastest-growing insurgent group in 2024.

Despite the groups’ divergent ideologies, the cooperation appears to have produced clear tactical convergence, including town takeovers, the use of suicide bombings, and sniper and ambush tactics.

Finally, Baloch groups have excelled in the effective use of social media to influence and recruit educated young people, including women.

A man in a gun stands in the middle of a street. — A policeman stands guard near the blast site in Quetta after an attack by Baloch separatists on Jan. 31, 2026.
Adnan Ahmed/AFP via Getty Images

The BLA’s elite Majeed Brigade has formalized a women’s wing, and the use of female suicide bombers has now spread across multiple Baloch factions. At least five known cases have been reported since 2022.

The deployment of women is strategic: Female operatives present a softer public face and yield both reputational and tactical benefits, evading security profiling, expanding target reach and amplifying media impact.

Has the insurgency been affected by the Iran war?

Tehran’s destabilization creates new tactical space for insurgents. Ethnic Baloch communities straddle the Pakistan-Iran border, and the BLA already maintains a presence in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The “Greater Balochistan” narrative promoted by Baloch nationalists, which envisions the reintegration of Baloch lands across both states, is gaining traction on the Iranian side. Moreover, weaker border enforcement gives militants greater freedom to move, recruit and coordinate.

Cross-border trade flows have dropped sharply since the war in Iran began, but the disruption is more likely to expand than to shrink Balochistan’s illicit economy over time. As state enforcement weakens on both sides of the border, the cross-border fuel and narcotics smuggling networks that Baloch militants tax and target are likely to expand further.

The cross-border problem had already escalated to interstate confrontation. In January 2024, Iran and Pakistan exchanged tit-for-tat strikes on Baloch militant groups operating across their shared border.

Counterterrorism coordination between the two countries remains modest, and attacks have continued, including the killing by militants of Pakistani migrants inside Iran as recently as April 2025.

With Iran’s stability weakening, these dynamics are likely to deepen, potentially raising tensions between Islamabad and Tehran over separatists in the future.

How are Pakistan-US relations affected?

The Baloch insurgency is now also an increasingly important focus of a warming U.S.-Pakistani relationship.

In August 2025, the U.S. State Department designated the BLA and its Majeed Brigade as foreign terrorist organizations – a move Islamabad had long pressed for.

Months later, the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved US$1.3 billion for the Reko Diq copper-gold project in Balochistan, its single largest critical minerals investment to date.

The current insurgency directly contests Pakistan’s capacity to deliver security in Balochistan. The Reko Diq mine lies in the same district where Zareena Rafiq, a BLF-affiliated female suicide bomber, struck a base of Pakistan’s federal paramilitary force on Nov. 30, 2025.

Further, in April 2026, a BLF commander declared that the group would target all foreign companies operating in Balochistan, regardless of country of origin.

Yet the present alignment between the U.S. and Pakistan is transactional: Its durability depends on Pakistan delivering on counterterrorism, mediation with Iran and mineral access.

Meanwhile, absent a counterinsurgency approach that addresses the underlying political and social drivers of the Baloch insurgency – including state repression, political marginalization and resource grievance – the broader U.S.-Pakistan reset is unlikely to deliver the stability its investments require.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Baloch insurgency: Suicide bombs and uptick in violence threaten Pakistan, regional security – https://theconversation.com/baloch-insurgency-suicide-bombs-and-uptick-in-violence-threaten-pakistan-regional-security-282513