Saturday, 31 May 2025

U.S. envoy rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal as 'unacceptable': Hamas had reaffirmed its position that negotiations should aim for a permanent ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a sustained flow of humanitarian aid. (LINK) 31 May 2025

U.S. gives Iran updated nuclear deal offer (LINK) 31 May 2025

— Iran has consistently said it won't sign any deal that does not allow enrichment, while U.S. officials have publicly committed to denying Iran that option.

BBC: The Swiss village wiped off the map by a glacier: 64-year-old missing — (LINK)

Turkish authorities escalate their crackdown on the opposition-run Istanbul municipality Saturday over alleged corruption charges, detaining 30 people (LINK) 31 May 2025

SpaceX adds 27 Starlink satellites to constellation after successful launch from California (video) (LINK) 31 May 2025

Bitcoin ETFs soar as investors flee gold holdings (LINK) 31 May 2025

Swiss Bauhaus-trained artist Silvia Heyden wove tapestries in the woods for decades. Now, her legacy comes into focus in New York (LINK) 31 May 2025

— If Silvia Heyden had had her way, she would have been a violin maker. Violin makers said, 'Oh, this is nothing for a girl or a woman. It's too rough on your hands.' She accepted it. From Switzerland to Durham, North Carolina, where she moved with her family in 1966 (her husband was hired as a professor at Duke), Heyden found the manipulating of tensile threads an experience akin to the manipulating of strings on a violin.

Friday, 30 May 2025

Ukraine accuses Russia of undermining next round of peace talks (LINK) 30 May 2025

US to double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to 50% from Wednesday, Trump says (LINK) 30 May 2025

Trump says China has 'totally violated' agreement with US on tariffs (LINK) — ground.news: 6 media reports (LINK) 30 May 2025

— A 90-day tariff suspension was agreed on May 12, intended as a temporary truce after tariffs imposed earlier by both countries sparked economic tension.

Gerry Adams awarded €100k in libel case against the BBC (LINK) 30 May 2025

— A court found the former Sinn Féin leader was defamed in a BBC NI Spotlight programme broadcast in 2016 and an accompanying online article, in which an anonymous contributor alleged he sanctioned the 2006 murder of Denis Donaldson. Mr Adams, 76, denies any involvement.

Hong Kong pro-democracy and gay rights activist Jimmy Sham and 3 others released after 4 years in prison (LINK) — ground.news: 18 media reports (LINK) 30 May 2025

— Sham's activism made headlines during 2019 anti-government protests, when he was the convenor of a now-disbanded pro-democracy group that organized some of the biggest peaceful marches that year, including one that drew an estimated 2 million people.

— Sham was among 47 activists arrested in 2021 for their roles in an unofficial primary election. He was sentenced with 44 other activists last year after judges ruled that their plans to effect change through the primary would have undermined the government's authority and create a constitutional crisis. Only two of the original defendants were acquitted.

Officials say at least 10 people are dead and 6 are missing after stone quarry collapse in Indonesia's West Java province (LINK) — ground.news: 15 media reports (LINK) 30 May 2025

Elon Musk allegedly took large amounts of drugs including ketamine while advising Trump — report (LINK) 30 May 2025

COGAT accuses UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric of lying following claims of 10,000 waiting aid trucks (LINK) 30 May 2025

— According to the IDF, close to 900 trucks of aid were let through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, but due to the UN and Hamas, the trucks remain sitting there on the Gazan side of the border.

PBS suing Trump administration over defunding, three days after NPR filed similar case (LINK) 30 May 2025

FBI says jail video shows Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide (LINK) 30 May 2025

Justin Sun gives "$6.2 million duct-taped banana" from Maurizio Cattelan's artwork Comedian (2019) to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, pardoned by Donald Trump (LINK) 30 May 2025

— "Many, many commentors on X are not in on that joke even after it's eplained, asking, Didn't he eat the banana? Yes, Sun did, in a press conference at Hong Kong's posh Peninsula Hotel on November 29, saying, 'It's much better than other bananas,' as the Guardian reported. He had bought the banana just days before, at Sotheby's New York, for $6.2 million, far more than its $1.5 million high estimate. The piece had been sold, in three editions, for $120,000 and $150,000 at Perrotin's booth at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair in 2017.

Thursday, 29 May 2025

China forms new Hong Kong-based International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) with over 30 developing countries (LINK) — ground.news: 44 media reports (LINK) 29 May 2025

Trump tariffs can stay in place for now, appeals court rules (LINK) 29 May 2025

— The appeals court decision allow tariffs to be used for now while the case is litigated. The next hearing is on 5 June. On the same day, another federal court overseeing a separate tariffs case reached a similar conclusion to the trade court that suspended the tariffs, in relation to a toy company.

Dismay as UK prepares to sign 'values-free' £1.6bn trade deal with Gulf states: Trade unions and human rights organizations fear environment and human rights being pushed aside (LINK) 29 May 2025

Trump administration pledges to 'aggressively revoke' US visas for Chinese students with "connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields" (LINK) 29 May 2025

U.S. HHS cancels Moderna's $590M bird flu vaccine award (LINK) 29 May 2025

— Moderna reported positive early stage data on the mRNA vaccine, saying clinical testing in roughly 300 adults was found to be generally well-tolerated. Participants achieved 98% immunity within three weeks of the second dose of the vaccine, the company said.

Hundreds of climbers and their Sherpa guides have attempted to scale Mount Everest this month amidst harsh weather conditions as the climbing season nears its end in May. Combination of experienced and inexperienced climbers has contributed to significant crowding. Climbers lack basic knowledge to use gear safely (LINK) — ground.news: 5 media reports (LINK) 29 May 2025

Robert Kennedy Jr's "Make America Healthy Again" report using AI misinterprets some studies and cites others that don't exist, according to the listed authors. (LINK) 29 May 2025

— MAHA report harnesses "gold-standard" science, citing more than 500 studies and other sources to back up its claims. Those citations, though, are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions. Seven of the cited sources don't appear to exist at all.

At least 88 people dead after floods submerge market of Mokwa in Niger State, Nigeria (LINK) — ground.news: 15 media reports (LINK) 29 May 2025

Ex-Goldman Sachs banker gets 2 years in prison for plot to fleece billions from Malaysia's 1MDB fund (LINK) 29 May 2025

Islamic State group claims first attack on Syrian government forces since Assad's fall (LINK) — ground.news: 26 media reports (LINK) 29 May 2025

— The attacks follow the fall of the Assad family's 54-year rule in December and IS's 2019 defeat when Kurdish-led forces captured all its Syrian territory.

What would happen if the Amazon rainforest dried out? This decades-long experiment has some answers (LINK) — ground.news: 61 media reports (LINK) 29 May 2025

— The forest initially appeared to be resistant to the drought, That began to change about 8 years in, however. "We saw a really big decline in biomass, big losses and mortality of the largest trees." This resulted in the loss of approximately 40% of the total weight of the vegetation and the carbon stored within it from the plot.

Guardian Long Read: Why does Switzerland have more nuclear bunkers than any other country? More than 370,000 nuclear bunkers — enough to shelter every member of the population. But if the worst should happen, would they actually work? — (LINK) 29 May 2025

— Ventilation systems have a shelf life of about 40 years, and neutralise the effects of radiation, nuclear fallout and chemical and biological weapons. Historically, the price per spot is about 1,400 Swiss francs in bunkers with a capacity of 50 to 200, or about 3,000 Swiss francs for smaller ones. In peacetime, most Swiss use them as wine cellars, storage facilities or saunas. In the 1990s, as cold war tensions relaxed, bunkers even played host to paintball and band practice, or served as community centres.

Wednesday, 28 May 2025

EU and six member states take 'historic step' by ratifying UN treaty to protect the high seas (LINK) 28 May 2025

— To come into force, the treaty requires ratification by 60 parties. With these latest additions, the number of ratifications has reached 28. A total of 115 countries have signed the treaty, indicating their potential commitment to ratification. Currently, only about 1 per cent of the high seas is protected. Following years of negotiations, a global consensus on the need to protect the high seas was reached in March 2023. The text of the treaty was formally adopted in June 2023 at the UN headquarters in New York. It allows for the creation of marine protected areas and supports the global goal of safeguarding at least 30 per cent of the world's oceans by 2030. Classified as a "mixed agreement", the treaty needs to be ratified by both the EU and its individual member states separately. Cyprus, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal, and Slovenia joined the EU in submitting their ratification. France and Spain had already ratified the treaty earlier this year.

Chief economists warn global growth under strain from trade policy shocks and AI disruption (LINK) 28 May 2025

— Global uncertainty is seen as exceptionally high by 82% of the chief economists. A narrow majority (56%) expect conditions to improve over the next year. Nearly all the chief economists (97%) place trade policy among the areas of highest uncertainty, followed by monetary policy (49%) and fiscal policy (35%). This uncertainty is expected to weigh on key economic indicators, including trade volumes (70%), GDP growth (68%) and foreign direct investment (62%).

Malawi 100th WTO member to formally accept Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: "we now need just 11 more to add the Agreement to the WTO rulebook!" (LINK) 28 May 2025

Earth's average temperature for 2025-29 80% likely to exceed 1.5°C limit: WMO (LINK) — ground.news: 100 media reports (LINK) 28 May 2025

Social media lies fuelled a rush to war between India and Pakistan — (LINK) 28 May 2025

Even with climate initiatives and worldwide policy changes, sea levels could continue to rise at an accelerated rate that will directly threaten millions of lives (LINK) 28 May 2025

— "Mass loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica has quadrupled since the 1990s." The mass ice melting in the Arctic has created a "dominant source of global mean sea-level rise from the cryosphere."

— NOAA notes that high-tide flooding is now up to 900% more frequent than it was just 50 years ago. This has caused many coastal communities to brace for costly flooding and prepare for future "catastrophic" events that could displace large portions of the population.

Refrigerator-sized machine made by New York–based fuels startup Aircela makes gasoline out of CO2 (LINK) 28 May 2025

Swiss Alpine glacier collapse buries evacuated Loetschental village of Blatten: 300 villagers lose homes: at least one person missing (LINK) — ground.news: 192 media reports (LINK) 28 May 2025

Federal court blocks Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs under emergency powers law (LINK) 28 May 2025

16 mostly Democrat U.S. states sue the Trump administration over National Science Foundation directive for budget cuts, frozen grants and job cuts (LINK) 28 May 2025

Elon Musk bids farewell to White House 3 days early but says DOGE will continue (LINK) 28 May 2025

Elon Musk turns against Trump over budget blowout, says it undermines DOGE (LINK) 28 May 2025

Trump Media stock has dropped over 50% from its 52-week high (LINK) 28 May 2025

Trump administration denies North Carolina request for Hurricane Helene relief at level Biden approved (LINK) 28 May 2025

— The Biden administration directive was to match 100% of the funds that the state puts in to share costs of the disaster cleanup after Hurricane Helene devastated the state as a Category 4 storm in September 2024. Over 230 people were killed by the storm, with at least 72 in Buncombe County, North Carolina, alone, amid record flooding throughout western North Carolina.

Judge rules that Trump administration wrongly ended humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands (LINK) 28 May 2025

Immigration courts are dismissing cases of those sent to El Salvador, potentially cutting off their return (LINK) 28 May 2025

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said a migrant threatened to kill Trump. Investigators think he was set up (LINK) 28 May 2025

VA-based DOGE associate gets 'the boot' without warning the day after publicly discussing his work detailing how the reality of hunting inefficiencies at the Department of Veterans Affairs was not what he had expected (LINK) 28 May 2025

— "It's not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins. [...] never able to get approval to ship anything to production that would actually improve American lives."

Dollar rallies after Trump's tariffs face court roadblock (LINK) 28 May 2025

Trump's border czar was paid thousands of dollars by a company making money from deportations before he joined the administration (LINK) 28 May 2025

Brazilian police arrest members of gang created to kill and spy on lawmakers, judges (LINK limited) — ground.news: 14 media reports (LINK) 28 May 2025

Trees may be able to warn us when a volcano is about to erupt: changing tree leaf colours can be spotted by satellites in space (LINK) 28 May 2025

— As volcanoes get more active and closer to an eruption, they push magma up closer to the surface, releasing higher levels of carbon dioxide. That in turn can boost the health of the surrounding trees, making leaves greener.

What rodent sleep patterns reveal about memory and emotion (LINK) 28 May 2025

Tuesday, 27 May 2025

UN aims to transform urgency into action at Nice Ocean Conference 9-13 June (LINK) 27 May 2025

— "This is an emergency," declared Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France to the UN, during a press conference. "An ecological emergency: we are witnessing the deterioration of the quality of the oceans as an environment, as a reservoir of biodiversity, as a carbon sink." The goal "is to produce a Nice agreement that is pro-oceans, as the Paris Agreement 10 years ago now was for the climate." This agreement will take the form of a Nice Action Plan for the Ocean, a "concise action-oriented declaration", accompanied by renewed voluntary commitments.

— More than 50 world leaders are expected on the Côte d'Azur, alongside 1,500 delegates from nearly 200 countries. The programme includes 10 plenary meetings, 10 thematic roundtables, a blue zone reserved for official delegations, and a series of parallel forums during five days of negotiations.

Robert Kennedy Jr's CDC removes COVID-19 vaccine from schedule for healthy children and pregnant women despite expert objections (LINK) — ground.news: 377 media reports (LINK) 27 May 2025

Protecting chimps, hippos and turtles: IUCN recommends five new World Heritage areas (LINK) 27 May 2025

— Areas in Guinea-Bissau, Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) (extension), Mozambique (extension), Sierra Leone and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have put forward as outstanding places for potential World Heritage status. "IUCN is the official advisor on nature to the World Heritage Committee. If the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) intergovernmental World Heritage Committee follows IUCN's advice when it next meets for its 47th session in July, amazing landscapes, seascapes, and areas of rich geodiversity and biodiversity (including sites protecting up to 850,000 migratory birds, Western Chimpanzees and numerous coral reef fish) will [be] inscribed on the World Heritage list."

— "There's a need for greater action on the imbalance of the World Heritage List, and to support regions and countries that are underrepresented," said Tim Badman, Director of World Heritage at IUCN. "The nomination of these extraordinary sites as World Heritage areas is a positive step towards addressing the gaps on the List and safeguarding some of the planet's most unique sites for nature and people."

Elon boasts of huge Starship improvements immediately before it blows up spectacularly (LINK) 27 May 2025

Elon Musk's Broken Promises: The entrepreneur's habit of overpromising on deadlines 2006-2025 (LINK) 27 May 2025

Tesla's Europe sales plunge 49% on brand damage, rising competition (LINK) 27 May 2025

Three of 5 Swiss weekend avalanche victims are identified (LINK) 27 May 2025

— The avalanche victims are two men aged 38 and 35, and a 34-year-old woman. All of the identified people are Swiss nationals. According to initial investigations, the five climbers left the Britannia hut in the Saas-Fee region at around 4.30am on Saturday with the aim of climbing the Rimpfischhorn.

Charted: the world's most educated countries: Switzerland No 2 behind Ireland for % with degree, China last (LINK) 27 May 2025

Fish don't sleep like humans. here's part of what they do instead: they are able to rest while, for the most part, remaining aware enough to tell if there's a predator approaching. During this period, their metabolism significantly slows, they usually stop swimming, and their gills pump less often (LINK) 27 May 2025

Monday, 26 May 2025

At least 54 Palestinians have been killed — most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families — during Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight, hospital directors have told the BBC. (LINK) 26 May 2025

TimesofIsrael: 170 aid trucks entered Gaza, containing food, medical equipment, drugs (LINK) 26 May 2025

— Israel resumed near-daily aid deliveries to Gaza last week, after a pause since March 2. Since then, 665 trucks of aid have entered the Strip.

Opening of first Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution point delayed at least a day (LINK) 26 May 2025

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, NGO backed by Israel and the United States, has announced that it is set to start distributing aid in besieged Gaza, despite its chief walking out, citing concerns over its independence. (LINK) 26 May 2025

The UN has said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's plan would make "starvation a bargaining chip". — (LINK)

— Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC's Today Programme that the GHF is "militarized, privatized, politicized" and "not in conformity with neutrality". "The people behind it are military — they are ex-CIA and ex-military people… Let's go back to the system that worked" he said.

— Over the weekend, an investigation by The New York Times suggested the group may have been conceived in Israel by a group of Israeli officials and military officers and their partners in the Israeli business sector.

— Under the GHF plan, Palestinians would be expected to collect boxes weighing up to 20kg (44lbs) containing food and basic hygiene items from four distribution points in southern Gaza. It is unclear how the weak or injured would be able to collect the aid. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said it would force further displacement, restrict aid to only one part of Gaza and make "starvation a bargaining chip".

No SWISS flights to Tel Aviv until June 15 (LINK) 26 May 2025

U.S. judge criticizes government inaction in case of migrants held in Djibouti to be sent to South Sudan (LINK restricted) 26 May 2025

White House: Another Activist Judge is Protecting Criminal Illegal Immigrant Monsters — (LINK)

Sweden's Volvo Cars to cut 3,000 jobs as part of major cost-cutting drive (LINK) 26 May 2025

Bankruptcy forces U.S. ice cream chain Thrifty to close 500 locations (LINK) 26 May 2025

Euronews: where do workers take home the most pay across Europe? And how much of your gross salary do you keep after taxes and deductions? (LINK) 26 May 2025

— The answer largely depends on whether you have dependent children and if your partner earns an income.

swissinfo: Behind the scenes of Swiss diplomacy: salaries, facts and neutrality (LINK) 26 May 2025

All living things emit a subtle glow that ceases at the time of death (LINK) 26 May 2025

— Life involves constant chemical activity inside each cell. Sometimes, these metabolic processes release extremely low-intensity light in the spectral range of 200 to 1,000 nm. This is too faint for the naked eye to see, but many animals, plants, and even bacteria give off this gentle energy. Experts studying this glow see potential in measuring it for non-invasive tests. The researchers discovered that living animals show higher emissions than animals that have recently died. They used specialized imaging setups to capture the photons in a pitch-black space.