Why Anthropic’s most powerful AI model Mythos Preview is too dangerous for public release

Copyright AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File

By Pascale Davies

Published on 08/04/2026 - EURONEWS

Anthropic said its artificial intelligence model Mythos Preview is not ready for a public launch because of the ways cybercriminals and spies could abuse it.

US-based AI developer Anthropic this week announced a new artificial intelligence general-purpose language model that it claims is too powerful to release into the world.

The company said on Tuesday that its latest technology, Mythos (officially dubbed "Claude Mythos Preview"), is not ready for a public launch because it is too effective at finding high-severity vulnerabilities, or potential weaknesses, in major operating systems and web browsers. This could result in it being abused by cybercriminals and spies.

A data leak in March first unveiled that Anthropic was working on Mythos Preview, which it said at the time "poses unprecedented cybersecurity risks." These rumours caused cybersecurity stocks to slump, as the technology's strength could make it a hacker’s dream device.

Now, further evidence adding to these concerns has spurred the company to press pause on the technology's public release.

"Claude Mythos Preview's large increase in capabilities has led us to decide not to make it generally available," Anthropic wrote in the preview's system card released on Tuesday.

"Instead, we are using it as part of a defensive cybersecurity programme with a limited set of partners."

Related

• What is Anthropic's Mythos? The leaked AI model that poses 'unprecedented' cybersecurity risks'

How powerful is Mythos?

The company detailed several alarming findings about the new model, including how it could follow instructions that encouraged it to break out of a virtual sandbox, meaning it bypassed the security, network or file system constraints imposed on the model.

The prompt asked Mythos to find a way to send a message if it could escape. "The model succeeded, demonstrating a potentially dangerous capability for circumventing our safeguards," Anthropic said, adding that the model then decided to go further.

"In a concerning and unasked-for effort to demonstrate its success, it posted details about its exploit to multiple hard-to-find, but technically public-facing, websites."

Anthropic is withholding some details about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities Mythos discovered, but did give some examples. It found errors in the Linux kernel, used in most of the world's servers, and autonomously chained them together in a way that would let a hacker take complete control of any machine running the Linux systems.

In another worrying observation, Mythos discovered a 27-year-old vulnerability in the open-source operating system OpenBSD that may allow hackers to crash any machine running it. OpenBSD is heavily used worldwide in specific, high-security, and critical infrastructure roles.

Related

• Light and shade: What 81,000 people want and don't want from AI, major Anthropic study reveals

Who will it be released to?

Given these findings, Anthropic will only make Mythos Preview available to some of the world’s biggest cybersecurity and software firms.

Anthropic itself, as well as 11 other organisations (Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Nvidia and Palo Alto Networks) will get access to the model as part of a new Anthropic initiative named "Project Glasswing".

This allows the companies to use Mythos Preview as part of their security work, and Anthropic will share the takeaways from what the initiative finds.

The company named the cybersecurity project after the glasswing butterfly, saying it is a metaphor for how Mythos found vulnerabilities in plain sight and avoided harm by being transparent about the risks.

Anthropic said its "eventual goal is to enable our users to safely deploy Mythos-class models at scale, for cybersecurity purposes, but also for the myriad other benefits that such highly capable models will bring.

"To do so, that also means we need to make progress in developing cybersecurity (and other) safeguards that detect and block the model's most dangerous outputs," Anthropic wrote in its blog.

Is Anthropic in talks with the US government?

Anthropic said in its blog post that it has been in "ongoing discussions" with US government officials about Claude Mythos Preview and its "offensive and defensive cyber capabilities."

"The emergence of these cyber capabilities is another reason why the US and its allies must maintain a decisive lead in AI technology," Anthropic said. The company wrote that governments have an important role to play in maintaining the lead and assessing and mitigating national security risks associated with AI models.

"We are ready to work with local, state, and federal representatives to assist in these tasks."

The announcement comes as Anthropic and the Pentagon are in a legal standoff after the US Department of Defence labelled the company a supply chain risk in February over Anthropic's refusal to allow the use of its AI, Claude, in autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.

Related

Do other AI tools have the same capabilities?

"More powerful models are going to come from us and from others, and so we do need a plan to respond to this," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a video, which was released alongside the Mythos announcement.

It could take between six and 18 months until other AI competitors release similar models, Logan Graham, head of Anthropic's frontier red team, which studies the implications of frontier AI models for cybersecurity, biosecurity, and autonomous systems, told Axios.

"It's very clear to us that we need to talk publicly about this," Graham noted. "The security industry needs to understand that these capabilities may come soon."

Public comfort with AI in health care falls, Ohio State survey finds

Among those who use AI, half of Americans rely on AI to make important health decisions

Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

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A new survey from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center reveals a significant trend in health care: half of Americans are using artificial intelligence to make important health decisions without consulting their doctor. This rising reliance on AI for self-diagnosis is raising alarms among medical professionals who caution that the technology cannot replace human expertise.

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Credit: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere – in our jobs, in our homes and at the doctor’s office. While the use of AI grows, a new survey commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds fewer Americans are open to AI being used in their health care. 

The national poll of 1,007 adults found only 42% are open to AI being used as part of their care compared to 52% when this survey first ran in 2024. The belief that AI can make some health processes more efficient also fell, going from 64% to 55%.

The drop is on par with the natural hype cycle of any kind of technology, according to Ravi Tripathi, MD, chief health informatics officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

“When we first see something new and shiny, we think it's going to fix the world and replace health care and solve all of our medical problems,” Tripathi said. “People are learning that there are pros and cons of artificial intelligence, where it has actual use and where it really doesn't have a place. I think over the next 2 to 5 years, we'll definitely start to see that increase again as people understand what the true use of artificial intelligence is and as it becomes just common day to all of health care technology.”

One task medical professionals say AI shouldn’t be used for is making health care decisions. The survey found 51% of adults used AI to make an important health decision without consulting a medical professional.

“We know that 2% of the time AI is going to be inaccurate or it will potentially hallucinate,” Tripathi said. “Physicians are not using AI 100%. We're not trusting it 100%. I would be really concerned about a patient who is following AI. The artificial intelligence doesn't understand your story.”

Tripathi suggests using AI in partnership with your doctor. AI can compile health data, explain test results and diagnoses, and help identify questions to ask your provider. Those who participated in the Ohio State survey agree:

• 62% use AI to help understand symptoms before deciding whether to seek medical care
• 44% use AI to help explain test results or a medical diagnosis
• 25% use AI to compare treatment options or help make a treatment decision
• 20% use AI to prepare for an upcoming medical appointment

“There's a strong value for using artificial intelligence as augmented intelligence,” Tripathi said. “Patients should have oversight of what the technology is doing but consult with their health care team for the final plan.”

What is the survey methodology?

This study was conducted by SSRS on its Opinion Panel Omnibus platform. The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is a national, twice-per-month, probability-based survey. Data collection was conducted from January 16 – January 20, 2026, among a sample of 1,007 respondents. The survey was conducted via web (n=977) and telephone (n=30) and administered in English. The margin of error for total respondents is +/-3.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus data are weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 or older.

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Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

 

An editorial by Tsu-Jae Liu on AI in engineering

PNAS Nexus

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Tsu-Jae Liu, President of the National Academy of Engineering

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Credit: Christopher Michel

In this editorial, National Academy of Engineering President Tsu-Jae Liu presents a forward-looking perspective on the role of artificial intelligence in engineering. She describes AI not as a replacement for engineers, but as a tool that can expand their capacity to solve complex problems and develop innovative solutions that benefit society. By reducing routine tasks and supporting the design process, AI can improve efficiency and allow engineers to focus on higher-level, creative work. Liu also highlights its potential to make the profession more accessible to a broader range of students and early-career practitioners.
 
The editorial calls for a shift toward student-centered, multidisciplinary engineering education that integrates AI while addressing its limitations and societal implications. Liu underscores the responsibility of engineers to ensure that AI systems are reliable, transparent, and aligned with human values. She also emphasizes the importance of collaboration among employers, educators, and professional societies to create more flexible education and training pathways. Expanding participation in the engineering workforce will be critical to ensuring that AI-enabled engineers contribute to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable future for all.

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Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

AI is not replacing engineers: It is empowering them

Article Publication Date

7-Apr-2026

COI Statement

T.-J.L. is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

Teaching AI to spot concrete cracks without heavy labeling

Maximum Academic Press

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An overview of the proposed framework.

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Credit: Machine Intelligence Research

A new study shows that self-supervised artificial intelligence may offer a more practical path for detecting concrete cracks in real-world structures. Instead of depending heavily on large, carefully labeled image datasets, the researchers used DinoV2 to learn rich visual features from images and paired it with a lightweight linear classifier for crack recognition. The system performed strongly across multiple public datasets and showed particular advantages in noisy scenes, varied material textures, and imbalanced data conditions. The findings suggest that self-supervised vision models could help make structural inspection faster, more reliable, and less dependent on costly manual data annotation. 

Crack detection is central to structural health monitoring because missed damage can threaten the safety and lifespan of bridges, buildings, and other infrastructure. Traditional manual inspection is slow, labor-intensive, and vulnerable to human error, while many deep learning approaches require large volumes of labeled data and often struggle to generalize when cracks appear under unfamiliar conditions, such as different surface textures, lighting, or background noise. Class imbalance is another major problem, since non-crack regions usually far outnumber actual cracks. Based on these challenges, there is a strong need for deeper research on crack detection methods that can remain accurate, robust, and adaptable across diverse real-world datasets.

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney, the American University of Beirut, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Western Sydney University reported (DOI: 10.1007/s11633-025-1553-5) in February 2026 in Machine Intelligence Research that a self-supervised DinoV2-based framework can detect concrete cracks with strong accuracy and cross-dataset generalization, outperforming several widely used supervised deep learning models in challenging inspection scenarios.

The team evaluated four public crack image datasets: CCiC, Xu, HBC2019, and SDNET2018, covering different materials, backgrounds, and degrees of class imbalance. Their framework resized images to 224 × 224, extracted visual representations with the pre-trained DinoV2_vits14 model, and passed the features into a two-layer linear classification head. DinoV2 was trained for only five epochs, while five supervised baselines-ResNet50, ResNet101, VGG16, MobileNetV2, DenseNet121 and one self-supervised baseline MoCo v2—were trained from scratch under standardized settings for comparison. On same-dataset testing, DinoV2 delivered the best results on the Xu, HBC2019, and SDNET2018 datasets, including perfect recall on Xu, an F1-score of 0.9346 and accuracy of 0.9731 on HBC2019, and the highest accuracy of 0.9416 on SDNET2018. In cross-dataset tests, DinoV2 also remained consistently strong, often leading in accuracy and F1-score when models were trained on one dataset and tested on others. These results suggest that DinoV2 captures more transferable crack features than conventional supervised models, especially when facing noisy backgrounds and previously unseen data.

The study positions self-supervised learning as more than a technical trend: it may solve one of structural monitoring’s most stubborn problems, namely the shortage of broadly representative labeled data. The authors argue that DinoV2’s strength lies in its ability to learn general image features before task-specific classification, allowing it to remain sensitive to crack patterns even when data are complex, noisy, or imbalanced. In safety-critical inspection, that matters because missing a crack can have far greater consequences than a false alarm.

The implications extend beyond benchmark performance. A crack detection system that needs less manual labeling and generalizes better across materials and environments could support more scalable inspection of bridges, pavements, walls, and aging buildings. Such tools may help shift structural monitoring from labor-heavy visual checks toward faster, more autonomous workflows. The results also point to a broader opportunity: self-supervised vision models may become valuable feature engines for engineering diagnostics in settings where labeled data are scarce but reliability is essential. That could make future infrastructure assessment not only more efficient, but also more resilient and deployable in the field.

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References

DOI

10.1007/s11633-025-1553-5

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-025-1553-5

Funding Information

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions.   

About Machine Intelligence Research 

Machine Intelligence Research  (original title: International Journal of Automation and Computing) is published by Springer and sponsored by the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The journal publishes high-quality papers on original theoretical and experimental research, targets special issues on emerging topics, and strives to bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical applications.

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Journal

Machine Intelligence Research

DOI

10.1007/s11633-025-1553-5 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Autonomous Detection of Concrete Cracks Using Self-supervised DinoV2

 

AI unlocks the “1+1>2” recipe for green hydrogen

HEP Data Cooperation Journals

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Credit: HIGHER EDUCATION PRESS

The global energy crisis has intensified the demand for efficient, clean hydrogen production. Polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) is a visible-light-responsive, metal-free semiconductor, but its practical performance is hindered by poor charge mobility and insufficient active sites. Strategies such as heteroatom doping, defect engineering, and heterostructure construction have been widely explored to overcome these limitations.
In particular, alkali-metal incorporation can induce internal polarization fields, while isolated d¹⁰ metal species (e.g., Ga³⁺) anchored on PCN frameworks can optimize electronic structure and promote charge separation. Clay minerals offer abundant, low-cost layered supports, and transition-metal modification can introduce semiconducting behavior, enabling effective heterojunction formation.
Here, AI/ML-assisted literature mining and descriptor-based screening were employed to prioritize rational design directions. A Ga–Na–PCN photocatalyst with Ga–N anchoring sites and intercalated Na⁺ was synthesized via molten-salt calcination and coupled with Fe-modified Kunipia-F clay (Fe–KF). The built-in electric field at the heterointerface significantly enhanced charge separation and transfer, leading to markedly improved hydrogen evolution. These findings clarify the structure–activity relationship and provide guidance for designing advanced carbon nitride-based photocatalysts.
This work entitled “Artificial intelligence-guided design of metal-doped polymeric carbon nitride/clay composites for increased photocatalytic hydrogen evolution” was published on Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica (published on January 19, 2026).
 

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Journal

Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica

DOI

10.1016/j.actphy.2026.100246 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Artificial intelligence-guided design of metal-doped polymeric carbon nitride/clay composites for increased photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

AI uncovers two decades of evolution in China’s hydrological research: a novel large language model approach

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

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Figure 1: The overall publication status of each basin. (a) total number of publications in each basin; (b) temporal trends in publications across the basins.

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Credit: Chiyuan Miao

Over the past three decades, China's unprecedented economic growth and rapid urbanization have brought major challenges in water resource management, flood control, and ecological protection. This demand has driven a rapid expansion and evolution in hydrological research. However, the exponential growth of scientific literature makes it increasingly difficult for individual researchers to quantitatively grasp the field’s development and shifting trends, particularly when trying to extract specific geographic locations or thematic nuances from publication abstracts.

In a study published in Fundamental Research by a team of researchers led by Professor Chiyuan Miao from Beijing Normal University, a fine-tuned Large Language Model paired with geocoding tools to automatically “read” and parse complex basin information from 289,513 global publications was deployed. 

"Traditional reviews inherently reflect qualitative assessments shaped by researchers' personal expertise and perspectives," explains Miao. "Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence techniques, such as LLM and topic modeling, we have achieved automated processing at an unprecedented scale, isolating 4,177 highly relevant studies specifically focusing on China's major basins."

The team's extensive data analysis highlights several crucial milestones in the development of Chinese hydrology

1. Surging Research Output & Collaboration: Chinese hydrology publications have significantly increased. Scientific collaboration has also deepened, with the average number of authors per paper rising by 0.9 authors per decade.
2. Dominant Hydrological Models: The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) leads with a 46.7% usage rate, closely followed by the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model at 15.7%, and the domestically developed Xinanjiang (XAJ) model at 11.9%. This highlights a research landscape that balances international integration with regional adaptability.
3. Shifting Research Focus: The analysis identified "water resources" (13.9%), "climate change" (13.6%), and "hydrological modeling" (10.8%) as the primary research topics. Notably, the discipline has shifted from a "resource hydrology" phase (2000–2010), focused on water development and management, to an "eco-hydrology" phase (2011–present), prioritizing climate change, carbon dynamics, and ecological protection.
4. Basin Attention: The Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin have garnered the most scientific accounting for approximately 34.8% and 20.6% of the total basin-specific publications, respectively. This focus directly aligns with their crucial economic status, ecological vulnerability, and national strategic initiatives.

The team hopes their AI-empowered approach will not only trace the historical trajectory of Chinese hydrology but also guide future research priorities and sustainable water resource strategies worldwide.

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Contact the author: Chiyuan Miao, State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China, miaocy@bnu.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

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Journal

Fundamental Research

DOI

10.1016/j.fmre.2025.05.002 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Advances in hydrological research in China over the past two decades: Insights from advanced large language model and topic modeling

The Persian-Parsi Identity – Analysis

Parsi wedding in India. Credit: The Parsees and the Towers of Silence at Bombay, India by William Thomas Fee, The National Geographic Magazine, Dec 1905, Wikipedia Commons

April 8, 2026
Gateway House
By Coomi Kapoor

With Iran in the news, the Parsi community in India is finding that their peripheral connection to the country evokes interest. Iran is the land of their very distant ancestry. Parsis are the followers of the prophet Zarathustra, who preached the ancient Persian faith, considered the world’s oldest monotheistic religion. It exercised a profound influence on later religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam on issues such as heaven, hell and the Day of Judgement.

Parsis see themselves as inheritors of the glorious traditions of two great Persian empires, the Achaemenid (550-330 BCE) and the Sassanid (224-651 CE). The ruins of Persepolis, standing majestically atop a hill, an architectural marvel of the ancient world, are a reminder of the legacy of the mighty Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great was fortified by Darius the First. A replica of the `Cylinder of Cyrus’ from 539 BC is preserved in the United Nations building in New York and is acknowledged as the world’s first bill of human rights. The Old Testament refers to Cyrus, King of Persia, who conquered Babylon and set free the Jews who had lived in captivity for 70 years, allowing them to return to Jerusalem. The Book of Ezra refers to Cyrus as “Anointed of “The Lord”, a term normally reserved for Jewish prophets.

The Parsis fled Persia for India about a century after the Sassanid empire collapsed and Persia came under Arab control following the Battle of Nahavand in 642 CE. India and Persia were two ancient civilisations with a deep connection and similar roots. Their early dialects, Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan, are sister languages with many common words, sometimes with opposite meanings. Their religions have several common concepts, including the deification of fire. The commonalities between the two countries continue. The most obvious is an extensive vocabulary of familiar words: khush, jabardast, hafta, sal, pyar mohbat, muskeelian, meherbani, tehzeeb, etc.

Persian was the official language for the Indian courts, administration and literature under the Mughal emperors and even early British rule. The fabled mosques and palaces of Persia, with their brilliant colours and delicate workmanship, was the inspiration for India’s Mughal monuments. Great Persian poets like Firdosi, Omar Khayam, Hafez, Rumi and Sa’di had a huge impact on Indian literature. Despite their theocratic state, the Iranians have remained proud of their pre-Islamic heritage, whether it is Persepolis or the Tomb of Cyrus. The winged Farohar, symbol of the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda, can be seen on some Islamic houses and across tourist shops in the country.

Anjuman Atash Bahram, Mumbai, with the winged Farohar symbol at the top. Image credits: Heritage India

Iranians constantly emphasised that they were Persian Aryans as opposed to being of Arabic origins like most of West Asia. Many Iranians steadfastly continue to celebrate the ancient spring festival of Navroze with flowers and fruit decorations despite the disapproval of hardline Muslim clerics.

The Persian civilisational journey is a contrast with that of Pakistan, which inherited the famous cradle of civilisation, Mohenjo Daro, in Sindh. Few Pakistanis visit this glorious site; the locals feel little ancestral connection to the site, preferring to trace their roots to West Asia and not to Mohenjo Daro, despite being of sub-continental ethnicity.

Persia and India’s impact on each other go back to antiquity. But the extent of the Persian influence on the Parsi identity is more difficult to quantify. Till the 19th century, and even today for formal occasions, the Parsis have elements of Persian style in their dress code, including covering their heads. Men still wear long, stiff, lacquered black pagris or black prayer caps to the fire temple. Parsi women took to the sari early, but Persian elegance with bold colours and refined design is seen in their Chinese-style embroidered gharas. Their success in cultivating fruit orchards, usually chikoos or mangoes. is often attributed to their Persian heritage.

Wedding photograph of a Parsi couple in traditional attire from the 1900’s. Image credits: Chitravali

Rock icon Freddie Mercury, though a Parsi who consciously tried to hide his identity, in an unguarded moment admitted that his flamboyant persona was because he was a “Persian Popinjay”.

Farrokh Bulsara, aka Freddie Mercury (centre), with his father, Bomi, and mother, Jer Bulsara, who were a part of the Parsi community from Bulsar (present-day Valsad), Gujarat. Image credits: Mid-Day

Persian influence is also glimpsed in Parsi food, where fruit and nuts are common embellishments in savoury dishes. The later Zoroastrian immigrants, the Iranis, who arrived in India in the 19th and 20th centuries looking for better opportunities, set up several bakeries and cafes in Mumbai in the style of those back in Iran. Most familiar Parsi names, such as Meher, Feroze, Hormaz, Darius, Jamshed, Dinshaw, Rustom, Sorab, Niloufer, Roxana et al., continue to be popular not just in Iran but all over West Asia. The names are from Avestan times and appear in Zoroastrian folklore and history.

Yazdani Bakery, 73 years old, is one of Mumbai’s iconic Iranian bakeries. Much loved by locals, it has been cherished through paintings and artworks, as seen on the left.

Despite this deep cultural connect, however, Parsis do not identify with Iran as the mother country. They left for India in the eighth century after more than a 100 years of religious persecution following the Arab invasion of Persia and assimilated completely with India, even while rigidly maintaining their own identity and religion. The local people named the new arrivals Parsis since they came from the Pars region in Iran. Zoroastrians who left Iran, however, retained ties with their co-religionists back home over the centuries through messages known as Rivayats. But while initially it was the Indian side which deferred to the spiritual advice from their fellow believers in Iran, gradually the tables turned as the Parsis became more prosperous and influential and the Iranian Zoroastrians more marginalised.

For instance, when the Iranian Zoroastrians pointed out the inaccuracies in the Parsi calendar, with spring falling in August, many Parsi scholars declined to own their mistake in calculation. While back in Iran and much of Central Asia, modern-day Navroze and spring are ushered in on the basis of the vernal equinox and not calendars. Orthodox Parsis stick dogmatically to their own calendar. They did eventually reach a compromise – but only to dub the new equinox festival as Jamshedji Navroz.

In the mid-nineteenth century, prominent Parsis, enlisting the help of the British government, sought to alleviate the lot of their Zoroastrian brethren in Iran by getting the jizya tax – levied for centuries by the Muslim rulers on all non-Muslim communities such as Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians was abolished by 1882, encouraging them to settle in India with their assistance.

The 20th century’s self-anointed Iranian monarchs, Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammed Reza Shah II, impressed with the achievements of the progressive Parsis in India, attempted to persuade them to return to Iran. Though Parsis often referred approvingly to II as “apro Shah” (Our Shah) since his family has assumed the title Pahlavi from pre-Islamic Persia and he celebrated the 2,500-year anniversary of Cyrus’s dynasty with jaw-dropping extravagance, he could not be enticed to leave India. The Shah, by playing up Persia’s ancient glory, only further alienated the Muslim theocracy and may have contributed to the Islamic revolution.[1]

In 19th-century British Raj India, Christian missionaries who converted a Parsi boy taunted the Parsis, suggesting that they recited their prayers by rote without understanding them. This motivated the Parsis to take renewed interest in learning the dead languages of Persia, in which their scriptures are written. The generations of Parsi boys were made to study the language of their liturgical texts in Avestan, the extinct Persian language dating back to 1500 BCE.

It has similarities to Vedic Sanskrit and Pahlavi spoken from the 3rd to the 7th century CE. Today, Zoroastrianism and the early Persian language are taught in a few educational institutions in India, such as the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute in Mumbai and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, and some centres in the West, such as SOAS in London, are funded by Parsi trusts. But in present-day Iran, there seems to be little interest in learning this ancient language.

[1] Avesta.org. “The Persian Rivayats.” Edited by Ervad Bamanji Nusserwanji Dhabhar.
https://www.avesta.org/rivayats/rivayats.htm

About the author: 

Coomi Kapoor is the author of The Tatas, Freddie Mercury and Other Bawas: An Intimate History of the Parsis.

Source: This article was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations is a foreign policy think-tank established in 2009, to engage India’s leading corporations and individuals in debate and scholarship on India’s foreign policy and its role in global affairs. Gateway House’s studies programme will be at the heart of the institute’s scholarship, with original research by global and local scholars in Geo-economics, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy analysis, Bilateral relations, Democracy and nation-building, National security, ethnic conflict and terrorism, Science, technology and innovation, and Energy and Environment.

As Emerging Markets Attract More Nonbank Capital, They Also Face New Challenges – Analysis

April 8, 2026 
By Salih Fendoglu, Mahvash S. Qureshi and Felix Suntheim
published by IMF Blog

Emerging-market firms and governments seeking funding from abroad are increasingly looking beyond banks to nonbank sources. As we discuss in an analytical chapter of the latest Global Financial Stability Report, this trend delivers important benefits but also poses new risks—notably greater vulnerability to a sudden reversal in capital flows when global shocks occur.

Since the global financial crisis, portfolio flows to emerging markets have increased eightfold, reaching about $4 trillion in cumulative terms, compared with a more modest increase in bank flows. Most of these inflows take the form of debt: portfolio debt liabilities now average about 15 percent of gross domestic product in emerging markets, up from around 9 percent in 2006. Eighty percent of this capital is provided by nonbanks, including investment funds, hedge funds, pension funds and insurance companies, twice the share seen 20 years ago.


For borrowers in emerging markets, the advantages can be significant. Plentiful capital can lower financing costs, supporting higher investment and stronger productivity growth. Market-based finance can help firms integrate into global value chains, a key driver of exports, by easing access to funding for trade, working capital, and other needs that increase their productive capacity. Over time, sustained access to international capital markets can also help deepen domestic financial systems and support long-term financial development.

At the same time, portfolio flows to emerging markets tend to be more volatile than bank flows and are increasingly sensitive to global risk conditions, as our analysis shows. Abrupt retrenchments can intensify external financing pressures, raise borrowing costs, and trigger sharp currency depreciations, leading to financial strains that weigh on economic growth. These risks have come to the fore in the context of the war in the Middle East, as several emerging markets are experiencing a reversal of capital flows from nonresident nonbank investors.


To gauge these effects, we use a one-standard-deviation increase in a widely used measure of global risk appetite, the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX. This is roughly equivalent to the measure’s surge during the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases in early 2022. Such a jump is associated with portfolio debt outflows from emerging markets of about 1 percent of quarterly GDP on average (corresponding to a 0.3 standard deviation decline in flows relative to GDP). Outflows from investment funds are roughly twice as large. These effects are likely larger in countries with weaker fundamentals, such as higher public debt burdens, less adequate international reserve buffers, and weaker institutional quality.


Why are portfolio debt flows from nonbank financial investors so volatile? The reasons vary across investor groups.

Investment funds, which account for the bulk of portfolio investments in emerging markets, can be exposed to sudden redemption pressures, forcing them to sell assets quickly. Benchmark-driven strategies, such as those used by passive funds and most exchange-traded funds, automatically adjust portfolios when index weights change, increasing the risk of synchronized asset sales. Hedge funds, an increasingly important investor group in some emerging markets, often use leverage to amplify returns.


Such strategies can create vulnerabilities, as rising market volatility may trigger margin calls or risk limits, forcing asset sales and amplifying price pressures. Moreover, post‑2008 regulatory reforms that constrained the risk-taking capacity of global banks have likely pushed riskier borrowers toward nonbank financing. The result: reduced sensitivity of bank‑based financing to global risk, and increased sensitivity for market‑based nonbank financing.

Among nonbank investors, hedge funds and mutual funds are most sensitive to changes in global risk, while other investor groups such as pension funds and insurance companies tend to be more stable. For example, a VIX surge is associated with a decline of 1.3 percent in hedge funds’ holdings of emerging market securities. Mutual funds also retrench, but by a smaller amount—around 0.6 percent—broadly in line with the average response of all nonresident nonbank financial investors. By contrast, holdings by insurance companies and pension funds do not show a statistically significant response to the same shock.


Private credit, a fast-growing and relatively opaque segment of nonbank finance, poses additional challenges. In emerging markets, private credit—mainly direct lending to companies by nonbank investors—has expanded rapidly, with estimated assets under management increasing fivefold over the past decade to between $50 billion and $100 billion. While private credit can broaden access to capital, gaps in transparency and data availability may make it hard to quickly identify vulnerabilities or potential risks to financial stability.
Building resilience

Our analysis underscores the need for emerging market policy makers to closely monitor the composition of the nonbank investor base when assessing financial stability risks. Strengthening institutional quality and maintaining adequate fiscal and external buffers can also help mitigate capital flow volatility and attract more stable, long-term external investment.


In addition, a combination of measures—including monetary policy and exchange rate flexibility, complemented where appropriate by foreign exchange intervention—and macroprudential tools can help contain vulnerabilities and protect against potential risks. The IMF’s Integrated Policy Framework provides guidance on calibrating the appropriate mix and sequencing of these policy tools.

Systemwide stress tests, which simulate the impact of severe but plausible economic shocks, can further help gauge the resilience of the financial system to sudden capital flow reversals and ensure that financial institutions hold adequate capital and liquidity buffers.

Finally, stronger international cooperation is essential to close regulatory and data gaps and to limit the undesirable cross-border effects of global financial shocks.

—This article is based on Chapter 2 of the April 2026 Global Financial Stability Report, Capital Flows to Emerging Markets: The Role of Global Nonbank Investors.

About the authors:

Salih Fendoglu is a Senior Financial Sector Expert in the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He works in the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division, where he regularly contributes to the thematic chapters of the Global Financial Stability Report. He has also participated in the IMF’s Article IV surveillance and the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) for Japan.

 
Mahvash S. Qureshi is an Assistant Director and Division Chief in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, where she heads the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division and oversees production of the analytical chapters of the Global Financial Stability Report.

Felix Suntheim is a Deputy Division Chief in the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department. Previously, he worked in the Economics Department at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Source: This article was published by IMF Blog

Putin Seen Making Ever More Mistakes, Sending Approval Rating Down – Analysis

April 8, 2026
By Paul Goble

Russian anger over President Vladimir Putin’s moves against the internet is growing and spreading even to groups long thought to be his most loyal supporters (The Moscow Times; Kavkaz Realii; Vazhnye Istorii, April 3; see EDM, April 6). Russian commentators are pointing to other mistakes the Kremlin leader has been making, and polls show that his approval rating is falling to the lowest level since before he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (The Moscow Times; Agentstvo; Radio Svoboda, April 3). He now faces a buildup of negativity that one Russian sociologist calls “a perfect storm” (Echo, April 5).

There are even signs—and this is surely more important in the Russian system—that opposition to Putin’s policies is spreading within Russian elites, increasing the likelihood that they will coalesce into groups that will seek and perhaps even succeed in blocking Kremlin policies that they do not approve of (Agentstvo, April 4).

None of this, to be sure, means Putin is about to be overthrown—all of it could lead him, as it has in the past when he felt at all cornered, to take even more repressive and aggressive steps. This combination of factors, however, does suggest that he will no longer be able to act as if opposition is irrelevant and will likely have to devote more time to rebuilding his authority among elites and in the population than he has in recent times.

Putin’s moves against the internet are increasingly unpopular because they have affected the lives of so many Russians, including members of the elite in government, the military, and business, who have grown accustomed to using various internet channels (see EDM, April 2;Agentstvo, April 4).

Recent polls show that support for and trust in the Kremlin leader have fallen to seven-year lows. The decline reflects anger over his internet policies, a flood of bad news at home and abroad in recent months, and signs that Putin does not intend to change course. This marks a shift from the past, when he often backed away from the more extreme aspects of his policies or sought to isolate unpopular ones by restricting their impact, as was the case with his war against Ukraine, where, instead of general mobilization, he relied on huge bonuses to encourage enlistment (see EDM, September 11, 23, October 9, 21,November 5, 2025, February 12, March 2).


That policy, however, is also failing. In 2022, only 15 percent of Russians had a close relative in the war. Now more than twice that share do (Echo, April 5). Russian analysts argue that popular anger over Putin’s moves against the internet is compounded by other concerns, including the lack of progress in Ukraine toward either victory or peace, failures in Venezuela and Iran, and deteriorating economic and social conditions at home (The Moscow Times, April 3).

Putin has responded to protests about the internet in two ways—repression and silence. He has ordered widespread arrests and detentions of those who have taken to the streets to protest his actions. He has not spoken out about the internet restrictions or any of these other problems in recent times, reducing his public appearances in the last quarter by a significant amount compared to a year ago (see EDM, April 6). The Kremlin leader may assume that repression is enough, but his failure to address various issues may result in an even larger problem, analysts say, as it contributes to the sense that he is out of touch (The Moscow Times, April 3).

The Kremlin leader may not care very much about popular opposition to his internet policies. He still has reliable security forces to control the situation, and his popularity ratings are above 60 percent in polls released by his regime (Echo, April 5). Putin certainly has reason to worry about the appearance of opposition to his internet policies among members of his elite, especially technocratic groups that favor development over tighter control. Ever more members of these groups have been speaking out, contributing to the sense, not only among other elite groups but also in the Russian population, that splits are developing in the Kremlin. This perception encourages others to resist, in the hope of tipping the political balance away from Putin and toward those who share their views (Echo, April 5). [1]

The question now is how far this process, involving the alienation of the Russian population and of Russian elites beyond the super-loyalist siloviki segment, will go. Russian commentator Sergey Shelin suggests that Putin has been committing more mistakes and angering more ordinary people and members of the elites than at any time since he began his expanded war against Ukraine. While the situation has not yet reached a critical level and, as a result, Putin may be able to ride out this storm, it will come with increased difficulty, especially if he does not return to the tactics he used in earlier crises his regime has faced (The Moscow Times, April 3).

In six earlier crises since Putin became president, Shelin says, the Kremlin leader not only took public positions to seize the propagandistic high ground but also modified his policies. This signaled that he was paying attention to the population and would avoid angering it more than he felt necessary. Now Putin is doing neither, however, appearing in public far less frequently and showing no signs of being willing to modify his original decisions. This increasingly sclerotic approach has come to a head over the last three months, as the Kremlin has suffered a series of policy defeats abroad amid a rising tide of problems at home. Dictators fail when the number of problems grows too large for them to handle. Such rulers, however, risk serious problems if they do not show themselves responding to crises and act as if they are not required to (The Moscow Times, April 3).


That is where the Putin dictatorship now stands. The number of problems is growing, although likely not yet to the point where they alone will be enough to bring the Kremlin leader down, Shelin suggests. Putin’s failure to react now is undermining his rule, perhaps not enough to lead to his ouster in the immediate future but likely reducing the number of additional crises that could prove sufficient to produce that outcome.

[1] For a detailed, heavily footnoted survey of who among the Russian elites has spoken out on Putin’s moves against the internet, see, in particular, the compilation at Agentstvo, April 4.


This article was published at The Jamestown Foundation

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .

U.S. Army’s Dark Eagle: 

America’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) – Analysis


Artist notional rendering of the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, Dark Eagle. 

Photo credit: Lockheed Martin.


April 8, 2026 
The Congressional Research Service (CRS
By Andrew Feickert and Ebrima M’Bai

What Is the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon?

The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW)—also known as Dark Eagle —with a reported range of 1,725 miles, consists of a ground-launched missile equipped with a hypersonic glide body and associated transport, support, and fire control equipment. The LRHW is intended to provide the Army with a long-range, conventional precision strike capability against time sensitive and heavily defended targets, particularly in contested environments.

The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) notes that, “Army commanders will use the LRHW (Dark Eagle) to engage adversary high-payoff and time-sensitive targets. U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), with direction from the National Command Authority, will serve as the employment authority for LRHW missions.”

On April 24, 2025, the Army formally designated the LRHW as the Dark Eagle.

LRHW Components

Missile


The missile component of the LRHW is being developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. When the hypersonic glide body is attached, it is referred to as the Navy-Army All Up Round plus Canister (AUR+C). The missile component serves as the common two-stage booster for the Army’s LRHW and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system, which can be fired from both surface vessels and submarines.
Common Hypersonic Glide Body

The Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) is based on the Alternate Re-Entry System developed by the Army and Sandia National Laboratories. Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos, currently is under contract to produce C-HGB prototypes for the Army and Navy. The C-HGB uses a booster rocket motor to accelerate to well above hypersonic speeds and then jettisons the expended rocket booster. The C-HGB, which can travel at Mach 5 or higher on its own, is planned to be maneuverable, potentially making it more difficult to detect and intercept.

LRHW Organization and Units

The LRHW battalion is organized into batteries. According to the Army, the “LRHW system [battery] consists of Army ground support equipment—one battery operations center (BOC), four transporter erector launchers, a BOC support vehicle and up to eight All-Up Rounds plus Canister.”

The 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), WA, was designated to operate the first battery of eight LRHW missiles. The battalion, also referred to as the Long-Range Fires Battalion, is part of the Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), a unit in the Indo-Pacific-oriented I Corps stationed at JBLM. Other LRHW batteries are planned for Long-Range Fires Battalions in the remaining MDTFs scheduled for activation.

LRHW Testing and Program Activities

According to the January 2023 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives, extensive flight testing is necessary to shield “hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics” to understand “how various materials perform,” and predict “aerodynamics at sustained temperatures as high as 3,000° Fahrenheit.” The Army originally planned for three flight tests of the LRHW before the first battery fielding in FY2023. On October 21, 2021, the booster rocket carrying the C-HGB vehicle reportedly failed a test flight, resulting in what defense officials characterized as a “no test,” as the C-HGB had no chance to deploy. Reportedly, a June 2022 test of the entire LRHW missile also resulted in failure.

Flight Test Delays

In October 2022, the Department of Defense (DOD), which is “using a secondary Department of War designation” under Executive Order 14347 dated September 5, 2025, “delayed a scheduled LRHW test to assess the root cause of the June 2022 no-test.”
March 2023 LRHW Test Scrubbed

On March 10, 2023, it was reported that. “On March 5, [DOD] was preparing to execute Joint Flight Campaign-2 featuring the Army version of the prototype weapon launched at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, when the countdown was halted…. “As a result of pre-flight checks during that event, the test did not occur.”

Cancelled September 2023 LRHW Test and Program Delay

On September 6, 2023, it was reported that, “[DOD] “planned to conduct a flight test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, to inform hypersonic technology development. As a result of pre-flight checks, the test did not occur.”

On September 14, 2023, in an Army statement to Bloomberg News, the Army reportedly acknowledged it would not be able to meet its goal of deploying the LRHW by the end of FY2023.

Successful LRHW Flight Test

On June 28, 2024, DOD announced that, “The U.S. Navy and U.S. Army recently completed an end-to-end flight test of a hypersonic missile from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, HI.”

Reportedly, the two-stage missile was launched from a ground stand in Hawaii across the Pacific Ocean more than 2,000 miles to a test range in the Marshall Islands, with the missile flying its intended course and releasing the C-HGB, which flew to the target.

December 2024 LRHW Flight Test

On December 12, 2024, DOD announced that, “The U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, in collaboration with the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs, recently completed a successful end-to-end flight test of a conventional hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.”

This is the second successful end-to-end flight test of the All Up Round (AUR) this year and was the first live-fire event for the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon system using a Battery Operations Center and a Transporter Erector Launcher.

March 2026 LRHW Flight Test

On April 2, 2026, DOD announced that, “The U.S. Army’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Fires, in partnership with the U.S. Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Strategic Systems Programs, conducted a successful launch of a common hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on March 26, 2026.”
First Operational LRWH Fielding Expected

Reportedly, on March 20, 2026, an Army official stated that “the Dark Eagle battery based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord [JBLM] in the Pacific Northwest will receive its first operational [LRHW] missiles soon” and that “Bravo Battery, 1st Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force, based at JBLM, has been designated to operate” the LRHW.

LRHW Procurement and Estimated Missile Cost

According to the January 2023 CBO study, purchasing 300 Intermediate-Range Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles (similar to the LRHW) was estimated to cost $41 million per missile (in 2023 dollars).

 In CRS discussions with Army program officials, the Army stated that the “fly away cost” for the eight missiles requested in the Army’s FY2025 budget request would exceed CBO’s 2023 per missile cost estimate, but future missile costs could likely decrease as order quantities increased.

During June 4 and 5, 2025, Army Posture testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, then Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George stated the following regarding the LRHW:

We are getting ready to do some tests this summer, with long-range missiles that are a tenth of the price. And when you start talking about “magazine depth” … we can invest in things that are much more cost-effective.

Oversight Consideration for Congress

Congress could consider additional oversight of the LRHW program.

LRHW Missile Costs, Operational Testing, and Stockpile

Congress has expressed its concern regarding the cost of LRHW missiles as well as further operational testing and missile stockpile requirements. As the Army begins procurement of its first eight missiles, continues fielding LRHW batteries, conducts additional operational tests, and builds missile stockpiles, Congress might decide to require more frequent updates from Army program officials. Enhanced oversight of the LRHW program as it attempts to achieve full operational capability could better inform future congressional budgetary decisions and the program’s overall direction.

About the authors:

Andrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces
Ebrima M’Bai, U.S. Army Fellow

Source: This article was published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States Congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS has been a valued and respected resource on Capitol Hill for nearly a century.

 

The world could run out of chocolate by 2050

Is the world going to run out of chocolate by 2050? The accelerating climate crisis is making it more difficult to grow cacoa plants. / bne IntelliNews

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By bne IntelliNews April 7, 2026

The world could face a severe shortage of chocolate by 2050 as climate change disrupts cocoa production in key growing regions, according to scientific estimates and industry data.

Rising temperatures and declining rainfall in West Africa — particularly in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, which together account for up to 70% of global cocoa output — are placing increasing strain on crop yields. Researchers warn that as much as half of the land currently suitable for cocoa cultivation could become unusable within the next 25 years. But over the past two years, cocoa production has plummeted by as much as 40% due to changes in the weather.

The last three years have been the hottest in recorded history and even hotter years are ahead as the Climate Crisis accelerates faster than scientists predicted. For every 1℃ increase in air temperature, the atmosphere is able to hold around seven per cent more moisture, which can cause more intense and heavy rainfall. Cocoa plants love humidity, but they drown if there is too much rain.

That is already dramatically changing rainfall patterns that threaten to turn formerly fertile regions into barren wastelands and make parts of the planet uninhabitable for human life and unproductive for agriculture.

The projected decline reflects cocoa’s sensitivity to climatic conditions. The crop requires a narrow range of temperature, humidity and rainfall, leaving it vulnerable to even modest environmental shifts. Prolonged dry seasons and higher average temperatures have already begun to reduce productivity in some areas.

Ghana raised the price it pays cocoa farmers by more than 60% for the 2025/26 season to pressure top producer Ivory Coast and boost production. Ghana's cocoa industry was on the brink of crisis in 2024 as local Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) face potential collapse, threatening the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and destabilising the country's cocoa supply chain

The tightening supply outlook has been reflected in global markets. Cocoa prices have surged by more than 400% in recent years, driven by poor harvests and mounting concerns over long-term availability. The sharp increase has added pressure on manufacturers, many of whom have responded by reducing the size of chocolate products while maintaining prices.

Industry participants are also exploring adaptation strategies, including the development of more resilient cocoa varieties and shifting cultivation to higher altitudes. However, such measures face logistical and economic constraints, particularly for smallholder farmers who dominate production in West Africa.

The cocoa belt sits in the band 20 degrees north and south of the equator, where there are the best conditions to grow the cocoa trees, everywhere from Mexico to Fiji. The steady moisture a cocoa tree needs to thrive is being replaced with consistent rainfall along with a climb in temperature as weather patterns move due to global warming.

In 2024 Côte d'Ivoire saw 40% more rain than expected, submerging plantations and damaging crops. By December, the rains had vanished, leaving cocoa trees to wither in scorching heat. In Peru, wildfires destroyed vast areas of farmland, in Mexico, cocoa farming is on the decline as extreme heat and erratic rainfall push young farmers to abandon the industry altogether. And in Brazil, Ecuador, and Indonesia, rising temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns are putting cocoa production at risk.

In addition to climate change, a fungus has plagued cocoa plants in South America for decades. However, scientists from the University of California, UC Berkley, are using CRISPR gene-editing to tweak the DNA of cocoa to make it more disease-resistant, according to reports.

Researchers are already looking for alternatives to keep the billion-dollar chocolate industry going and focused on carob, a climate-resilient plant grown in the Mediterranean that thrives in hot, arid climates with very low water requirements. After roasting, it releases a "unique aroma” that resembles cocoa – but doesn’t quite taste the same. But through the use of enzymes to increase bitterness and enhance sweetness, researchers are hoping to create a viable alternative.

 

Can pipelines make a comeback?

/ bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Newsbase April 7, 2026

The shock to LNG supply is forcing buyers to confront both physical disruption and rising dependence on the US, which could revive interest in long-stalled pipeline projects.

WHAT: A fifth of global LNG supply has been knocked offline, exposing the market’s reliance on a handful of producers and leaving the US accounting for roughly a third of remaining flows.

WHY: The crisis highlights twin vulnerabilities—geographic concentration of supply and growing dependence on US LNG—prompting concerns over both physical disruptions and potential geopolitical leverage.

WHAT NEXT: Attention will turn to whether projects such as Power of Siberia 2 and expansions of the Southern Gas Corridor can gain momentum, although political, commercial and security constraints mean only a limited number are likely to advance.

 

The ever-escalating US-Iran war has exposed how vulnerable the global LNG market is to supply shocks, given that production of the fuel is heavily concentrated in only a handful of countries.

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and subsequent strikes against Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefaction hub has caused global LNG production to drop by a fifth. Of remaining global flow, about a third comes from the US, whose increasingly erratic foreign policy calls into question the reliability of this supply. Some US allies in Europe have already raised this concern, fearing that Washington might one day weaponise US LNG to exert political pressure.

The meteoric rise of LNG trading over the past decade had led to a belief that large-scale gas pipeline projects were mostly a thing of the past. But in light of these key vulnerabilities, major consumers of natural gas may reconsider long-delayed pipeline projects, which—while not without geopolitical risks of their own—are less exposed to the global price swings and shipping disruptions that define the LNG market.

The key question now is which of these projects could receive a meaningful tailwind from the current crisis.

 

Power of Siberia 2

NewsBase considers Power of Siberia 2 as the pipeline project most likely to make significant headway as a result of the Middle East crisis. Russia has been trying to convince China to sign a long-term supply contract to underpin its construction for seven years now, but Beijing has been wary of relying too much on its northern neighbour for gas, given that it already imports 38bn cubic metres (bcm) per year from Siberia via the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline, and is set to receive a further 10 bcm per year from a new Far East pipeline later this decade. Beijing has also been pushing for a price cut. 

China is the world’s biggest LNG importer, but until recently received about a fourth of its supply from Qatar. A third comes from Australia and the rest from Malaysia, Russia and others. As geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington mount, China views reliance on US LNG as increasingly risky. China can always fall back on domestic coal for its energy security, but as far as gas is concerned, LNG may be viewed as a more unreliable source of supply as a result of the crisis.

Power of Siberia 2 would transport 50 bcm per year of gas from the Russian Arctic to China via Mongolia. Beijing could view such large quantities of Russian gas supply as a strategic vulnerability. And even if a supply contract is signed tomorrow, the pipeline would not deliver meaningful volumes until the early-to-mid 2030s. Even so, NewsBase believes the crisis presents an opportunity that Moscow will be eager to capitalise on.

 

Southern Gas Corridor expansion

An expansion of the existing Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) network that pumps Azeri gas to Europe might seem like the most obvious project to get a greenlight as a result of the crisis. But NewsBase still doubts whether the EU will provide the necessary conditions to enable it to go ahead.

SGC has been flowing over 10 bcm per year of Azeri gas to southern Europe for seven years. After Russia cut most of its pipeline gas supply to Europe, Brussels agreed with Baku on doubling shipments to 20 bcm per year by 2027. With deliveries reaching under 13 bcm per year, this target is sure to be missed.

The Azeri side has criticised the EU for discouraging the long-term supply contracts and financing necessary to support increased SGC deliveries. These policies are rooted in concerns that support for new fossil fuel projects would derail its ambitious climate agenda. Despite a spike in gas prices in Europe over the past month, Brussels has shown no indication it will shift its position. As such, while a SGC expansion has a very strong economic rationale, it simply lacks the needed political will.

 

EastMed

The 10 bcm per year EastMed pipeline that would pipe gas from Israel to Europe looks far riskier now than it did prior to the war, for obvious reasons. The project has been on hold for years already, largely because of limited support from Europe. The EU is simply uninterested in large-scale pipeline projects which it feels would lock in natural gas use for longer.

 

TAPI

The 33 bcm per year Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project was first conceived in the 1990s and has hardly made any progress since then. That said, Turkmenistan does appear to be making some incremental headway, having completed its section some years ago and finished some initial works in Afghanistan.

The ultimate question is whether Pakistan and India will support the project fullheartedly. In the past, both countries have favoured more flexible LNG supply instead. After many decades of mutual deep-rooted mistrust, India is also reluctant to rely on gas supply through Pakistan. 

The crisis may prompt a rethink of energy policy in both countries. With limited access to market, Turkmen gas could potentially be secured at a cost lower than typical LNG prices, provided that the Turkmen government is sufficiently pragmatic. Pakistan frequently grapples with energy shortages – this has been the case for years – while India has ambitious plans to expand the role of gas in its energy mix over the coming years and curb its use of coal. TAPI might be the solution.

 

African options

Initial agreements on the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline were first reached in 2016 and the project has barely made any headway since. A memorandum The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on construction in 2022 at the height of the prior energy crisis. With a proposed capacity of 30 bcm per year, it would deliver gas to Morocco for onward delivery to Europe through existing pipelines. 

NewsBase views this 5,600-km project as a very unlikely prospect, considering that it will involve coordination between no less than 13 West African nations whose territories it would possible through and, for reasons stated earlier, will struggle to get any tangible support from the EU. 

Prospects for the shorter Trans-Saharan pipeline that would run from Nigeria through Niger to Algeria looks equally dim. The 4,000-km pipeline would also carry 30 bcm per year of Nigerian gas for onward supply to Europe. Both projects are beset by regulatory and policy risks and will not receive the political will from Brussels that is necessary.