Tomatoes in 3D: Breakthrough in plant monitoring

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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A team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a low-cost, non-invasive method to estimate total leaf area in dwarf tomato plants using 3D reconstruction from standard video footage. The study applies structure-from-motion techniques and machine learning to predict plant growth with remarkable accuracy. This innovative approach eliminates the need for expensive sensors or destructive sampling, making precision agriculture more accessible. The method holds promise for scaling crop monitoring across greenhouses and open fields alike.

[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]– In an age where precision is everything, a new method promises to change the way farmers and agricultural researchers monitor plant health—one leaf at a time.

A study led by Dmitrii Usenko, a PhD candidate at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Hebrew University researchers, has successfully demonstrated that a low-cost imaging technique can accurately estimate the total leaf area (TLA) of dwarf tomato plants. Working under the guidance of Dr. David Helman (Hebrew University) and in collaboration with Dr. Chen Giladi (Sami Shamoon College of Engineering), the team has shown how two-dimensional videos taken with a simple camera can be transformed into valuable 3D data for agricultural management.

At the heart of the method is the use of structure-from-motion (SfM) techniques—typically associated with computer vision and remote sensing—which reconstruct 3D geometry from the motion of objects in a video sequence. In this case, rather than using expensive LiDAR or multispectral cameras, the researchers used basic video footage of tomato plants, taken from various angles, to reconstruct the shape and size of the plants’ foliage.

“Accurate measurement of total leaf area is crucial for understanding plant growth, photosynthesis, and water use,” explains Dr. Helman. “But traditional approaches often require destructive sampling or costly, inaccessible equipment. Our model brings accessibility and accuracy together in a way that could benefit both smallholder farmers and large-scale agricultural operations.”

Using over 300 video clips of dwarf tomato plants grown in controlled greenhouse conditions, the researchers trained machine learning models to estimate leaf area based on features extracted from the 3D point clouds. Their best-performing model achieved a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.96, outperforming more traditional 2D approaches and showing high reliability even when leaf overlap or plant movement posed visual challenges.

The implications extend beyond tomatoes. Because the method is crop-independent in principle and requires only standard RGB imaging, it opens the door for wide adoption in crop monitoring systems across the globe. The model’s open-source implementation also encourages further development and customization by the research community.

“By reducing the cost barrier to accurate plant monitoring, we hope to democratize access to precision agriculture,” says Usenko. “This is a small but meaningful step toward smarter, more sustainable farming.”

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Journal

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

DOI

10.1016/j.compag.2025.110627 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Using 3D reconstruction from image motion to predict total leaf area in dwarf tomato plants

 

New study: Powerboats can impact lakes below the surface

Researchers recommend operating boats in deep water to minimize negative impacts

University of Minnesota

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This study on large surface waves builds upon previous research of the effects on powerboats on lake ecosystems. Photo credit: University of Minnesota

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Credit: University of Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (08/04/2025) — Large surface waves produced by powerboats are a mainstay for recreational watersports. A new study from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows that beneath the surface, factors such as propeller thrust and other types of waves can impact delicate lakebed ecosystems.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory built on previous research to study the effects of powerboats on lake ecosystems over the 2022 and 2023 field seasons. The team placed acoustic-based sensors that measured pressure and velocities through the water column and at the lake bottom at two different locations and at two different depths. They also collected sediment samples and data on various water quality parameters.

The researchers tested seven recreational powerboats commonly used in Minnesota’s lakes and rivers based on their two most-used settings. For non-wakeboats: displacement mode/leisure cruise and planing mode/cruising. For wakeboats: semi-displacement mode/surfing and cruising. The boats were driven directly over the measurement sensors five times for each operational condition.

The study, published in the University Digital Conservancy, found:

• All powerboats produce water currents and turbulence that can disturb the lakebed.
• More powerful turbulence from wakeboats can directly resuspend sediments in the water. This can indirectly lead to release of nutrients like phosphorus from sediment that can stimulate excessive algae growth, which adversely impacts lakes.
• All powerboats, when leisurely cruising or planing, should operate in 10 feet of water or greater to minimize impacts caused by motions generated by a boat’s hull.
• During surfing, wakeboats should operate in depths of 20 feet or greater to minimize negative impacts on the lake environment.

“For all motorized boats, simply being careful about where you steer your boat and avoiding shallow spots can make a huge difference,” said Jeff Marr, co-author on the study and associate director of engineering and facilities at the St. Anthony Falls Lab in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering. “Staying in deep water when you're out on the water —  especially when wakeboarding or surfing — is an easy and effective way to enjoy and protect our waterways. Also, give space between your boat and other boaters and the shoreline."

Fieldwork for the final phase of the research will conclude in fall 2025. This project phase will examine how wind-driven waves differ from wake waves produced by recreational boats, including their impacts on the lake environment.

Research partners from the St. Anthony Falls Lab include Andrew Riesgraf, William Herb, Matthew Lueker and Jessica Kozarek.

The study was supported by a University of Minnesota crowdfunding campaign with more than 200 donors. Additional funding was provided by the Environmental Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

Read more about this study in the Frequently Asked Questions from the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory.

Wake Boat Study [VIDEO] |

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DOI

10.13020/r7w9-dp20 

Article Title

A Field Study of Recreational Powerboat Hydrodynamics and their Impacts on the Water Column and Lakebed

 

Less processed diet may be more beneficial for weight loss

University College London

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When given nutritionally matched diets, participants lost twice as much weight eating minimally processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods, suggesting that cutting down on processing could help to sustain a healthy weight long term, finds a new clinical trial led by researchers at UCL and UCLH.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, is the first interventional study comparing ultra-processed food (UPF) and minimally processed food (MPF) diets in ‘real world’ conditions, as well as being the longest experimental study of a UPF diet to date1.

The trial split 55 adults into two groups. One group started with an eight-week diet of MPF, such as overnight oats or homemade spaghetti Bolognese. After a four-week ‘washout’ period during which participants went back to their normal diet, they switched to a diet of UPF, such as breakfast oat bars or a lasagne ready meal. The other group completed the diets in the opposite order. In total, 50 participants completed at least one diet.

The provided diets were nutritionally matched in accordance with the Eatwell Guide, the UK’s official government advice on how to eat a healthy, balanced diet. This included levels of fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, salt and fibre, as well as providing recommended intakes of fruits and vegetables. Participants had plenty of food (i.e. more calories than they needed) delivered to their home and were told to eat as much or as little as they wanted, as they would normally. They were not told to limit their intake.

After eight weeks on each diet, both groups lost weight, likely as a result of the improved nutritional profile of what they were eating compared to their normal diet. However, this effect was higher (2.06% reduction) on the MPF diet compared to the UPF diet (1.05% reduction)2.

These changes corresponded to an estimated calorie deficit of 290 kilocalories (kcal) per day on the MPF diet, compared to 120 kcal per day on the UPF diet. To put this in context, the Eatwell Guide recommends a daily energy intake of 2,000 kcal for women and 2,500 kcal for men.

The greater weight loss experienced on the MPF diet came from reductions in fat mass and total body water, with no change in muscle or fat-free mass, indicating a healthier body composition overall.

The findings suggest that, when observing recommended dietary guidelines, choosing minimally processed foods may be more effective for losing weight.

Dr Samuel Dicken, first author of the study from the UCL Centre for Obesity Research and UCL Department of Behavioural Science & Health, said: “Previous research has linked ultra-processed foods with poor health outcomes. But not all ultra-processed foods are inherently unhealthy based on their nutritional profile. The main aim of this trial was to fill crucial gaps in our knowledge about the role of food processing in the context of existing dietary guidance, and how it affects health outcomes such as weight, blood pressure and body composition, as well as experiential factors like food cravings.

“The primary outcome of the trial was to assess percentage changes in weight and on both diets we saw a significant reduction, but the effect was nearly double on the minimally processed diet. Though a 2% reduction may not seem very big, that is only over eight weeks and without people trying to actively reduce their intake. If we scaled these results up over the course of a year, we’d expect to see a 13% weight reduction in men and a 9% reduction in women on the minimally processed diet, but only a 4% weight reduction in men and 5% in women after the ultra-processed diet. Over time this would start to become a big difference.”

Participants completed several questionnaires to assess their food cravings before starting the diets, and at weeks four and eight during the diets3.

There were significantly greater improvements in the number of cravings and ability to resist them (craving control) on the MPF diet compared to the UPF diet, despite greater weight loss on the MPF diet that might ordinarily be expected to lead to stronger cravings.

On the MPF diet compared to the UPF diet, participants reported a two-fold greater improvement in overall craving control, a four-fold greater improvement in craving control for savoury food, and an almost two-fold greater improvement in resisting whichever food they most craved. 

Professor Chris van Tulleken, an author of the study from UCL Division of Infection & Immunity and UCLH, said: “The global food system at the moment drives diet-related poor health and obesity, particularly because of the wide availability of cheap, unhealthy food. This study highlights the importance of ultra-processing in driving health outcomes in addition to the role of nutrients like fat, salt and sugar. It underlines the need to shift the policy focus away from individual responsibility and on to the environmental drivers of obesity, such as the influence of multinational food companies in shaping unhealthy food environments.

“Stakeholders across disciplines and organisations must work together and focus on wider policy actions that improve our food environment, such as warning labels, marketing restrictions, progressive taxation and subsidies, to ensure that healthy diets are affordable, available and desirable for all.”

The trial also measured secondary health markers, such as blood pressure and heart rate, as well as blood markers such as liver function, glucose, cholesterol and inflammation. Across these markers, there were no significant negative impacts of the UPF diet, with either no change, or a significant improvement from baseline.

Generally, there weren’t significant differences in these markers between the diets, and the researchers caution that longer studies would be needed to investigate these measures properly in relation to the changes in weight and fat mass.

Professor Rachel Batterham, senior author of the study from the UCL Centre for Obesity Research, said: “Despite being widely promoted, less than 1% of the UK population follows all of the recommendations in the Eatwell Guide, and most people stick to fewer than half.

“The normal diets of the trial participants tended to be outside national nutritional guidelines and included an above average proportion of UPF, which may help to explain why switching to a trial diet consisting entirely of UPF, but that was nutritionally balanced, resulted in neutral or slightly favourable changes to some secondary health markers.

“The best advice to people would be to stick as closely to nutritional guidelines as they can by moderating overall energy intake, limiting intake of salt, sugar and saturated fat, and prioritising high-fibre foods such as fruits, vegetables, pulses and nuts. Choosing less processed options such as whole foods and cooking from scratch, rather than ultra-processed, packaged foods or ready meals, is likely to offer additional benefits in terms of body weight, body composition and overall health.”

This research was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre and the Rosetrees Trust.

Notes to Editors:

There will be an embargoed (online) press briefing on this paper at the UK Science Media Centre on Monday 4 August at 10.30 UK time – email lethbridge@sciencemediacentre.org if you’re interested in attending.

 1 MPF have undergone very little alteration from their natural state, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, fish and dairy products like natural yoghurt. UPF have been significantly altered from their original form through processing, and typically contain ingredients not commonly used in home cooking, such as artificial flavours, preservatives and emulsifiers.

2 Not all participants lost weight, with 10 individuals in each group gaining weight. This is thought to be due to a lack of adherence to the diet, particularly on the second diet that they undertook. When the unadjusted results from the first round of diets (either MPF or UPF) were considered in isolation, the weight loss was greater than when the average across both rounds of diets (4.09% reduction for MPF and 2.12% reduction for UPF).

3 The Control of Eating Questionnaire (CoEQ) assesses overall craving control, craving for sweet foods, craving for savoury foods, positive mood, and the perceived ability to resist eating foods that are craved. The Power of Food Scale (PFS) assesses the appetite for and motivation to consume palatable foods when that food is available (but not physically present), when it is present (but not tasted), and when the food has been tasted (but not yet consumed).

Publication:

Samuel J. Dicken et al.  ‘Impact of ultra-processed and minimally processed diets following UK dietary guidance on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, cross-over, controlled feeding clinical trial’ is published in Nature Medicine and is strictly embargoed until Monday 4 August 2025 at 16:00 BST / 11:00 ET.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03842-0

About UCL – London’s Global University

UCL is a diverse global community of world-class academics, students, industry links, external partners, and alumni. Our powerful collective of individuals and institutions work together to explore new possibilities.

Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world's best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.

The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2024, we are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.  

For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.

We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.

www.ucl.ac.uk | Follow @uclnews on Bluesky | Read news at www.ucl.ac.uk/news/

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Journal

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-025-03842-0 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Impact of ultra-processed and minimally processed diets following UK dietary guidance on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, cross-over, controlled feeding clinical trial

Article Publication Date

4-Aug-2025

‘Unspeakable horror’: the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki


By AFP
August 4, 2025


The first atomic bomb was dropped on the western city of Hiroshima by the US bomber Enola Gay, nicknamed "Little Boy" - Copyright AFP/File -

Japan this week marks 80 years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

The first on August 6, 1945 killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima and three days later another 74,000 perished in Nagasaki.

Here are some facts about the devastating attacks:



– The bombs –



The first atomic bomb was dropped on the western city of Hiroshima by the US bomber Enola Gay, nicknamed “Little Boy”.

It detonated about 600 metres from the ground, with a force equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of TNT.

Tens of thousands died instantly, while others succumbed to injuries or illness in the weeks, months and years that followed.

Three days later the US dropped a second bomb, dubbed “Fat Man”, on the southern city of Nagasaki.

The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.



– The attacks –



In Hiroshima, the first thing people noticed was an “intense ball of fire”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Temperatures near the blast reached an estimated 7,000 degrees Celsius (12,632 degrees Fahrenheit), which incinerated everything within a radius of about three kilometres (five miles).

“I remember the charred bodies of little children lying around the hypocentre area like black rocks,” Koichi Wada, a witness who was 18 at the time of the Nagasaki attack, has said of the bombing.

ICRC experts say there were cases of temporary or permanent blindness due to the intense flash of light, and subsequent related damage such as cataracts.

A whirlwind of heat generated also ignited thousands of fires that ravaged large parts of the mostly wooden city. A firestorm that consumed all available oxygen caused more deaths by suffocation.

It has been estimated that burn- and fire-related casualties accounted for more than half of the immediate deaths in Hiroshima.

The explosion generated an enormous shock wave that blew people through the air. Others were crushed to death inside collapsed buildings or injured or killed by flying debris.



– Radiation effects –



Radiation sickness was reported in the aftermath by many who survived the initial blasts and firestorms.

Acute symptoms included vomiting, headaches, nausea, diarrhoea, haemorrhaging and hair loss, with radiation sickness fatal for many within a few weeks or months.

Survivors, known as “hibakusha”, also experienced longer-term effects including elevated risks of thyroid cancer and leukaemia, and both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have seen elevated cancer rates.

Of 50,000 radiation victims from both cities studied by the Japanese-US Radiation Effects Research Foundation, about 100 died of leukaemia and 850 suffered from radiation-induced cancers.

The group found no evidence however of a “significant increase” in serious birth defects among survivors’ children.



– The aftermath –



The twin bombings dealt the final blow to imperial Japan, which surrendered on August 15, 1945, bringing an end to World War II.

Historians have debated whether the bombings ultimately saved lives by bringing an end to the conflict and averting a ground invasion.

But those calculations meant little to survivors, many of whom battled decades of physical and psychological trauma, as well as the stigma that sometimes came with being a hibakusha.

Despite their suffering, many survivors were shunned — in particular for marriage — because of prejudice over radiation exposure.

Survivors and their supporters have become some of the loudest and most powerful voices opposing nuclear weapons, including meeting world leaders to press their case.

Last year, the Japanese anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2019, Pope Francis met several hibakusha in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, decrying the “unspeakable horror” and calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In 2016, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima. He offered no apology for the attack, but embraced survivors and called for a world free of nuclear weapons.

Russia is one of around 100 countries expected to attend this year’s memorial in Nagasaki, the first time Moscow has been invited to commemorations in the city since the start of the war with Ukraine.

80 years on, Korean survivors of WWII atomic bombs still suffer

By AFP
August 3, 2025


Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped "Little Boy", the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 - Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE
KANG Jin-kyu with Harumi OZAWA in Hiroshima

Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped “Little Boy”, the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Like thousands of other ethnic Koreans working in the city at the time, her family kept the horror a secret.

Many feared the stigma from doing menial work for colonial ruler Japan, and false rumours that radiation sickness was contagious.

Bae recalls hearing planes overhead while she was playing at her home in Hiroshima on that day.

Within minutes, she was buried in rubble.

“I told my mom in Japanese, ‘Mom! There are airplanes!'” Bae, now 85, told AFP.

She passed out shortly after.

Her home collapsed on top of her, but the debris shielded her from the burns that killed tens of thousands of people — including her aunt and uncle.

After the family moved back to Korea, they did not speak of their experience.

“I never told my husband that I was in Hiroshima and a victim of the bombing,” Bae said.

“Back then, people often said you had married the wrong person if he or she was an atomic bombing survivor.”

Her two sons only learned she had been in Hiroshima when she registered at a special centre set up in 1996 in Hapcheon in South Korea for victims of the bombings, she said.

Bae said she feared her children would suffer from radiation-related illnesses that afflicted her, forcing her to have her ovaries and a breast removed because of the high cancer risk.



– A burning city –



She knew why she was getting sick, but did not tell her own family.

“We all hushed it up,” she said.

Some 740,000 people were killed or injured in the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

More than 10 percent of the victims were Korean, data suggests, the result of huge flows of people to Japan while it colonised the Korean peninsula.

Survivors who stayed in Japan found they had to endure discrimination both as “hibakusha”, or atomic bomb survivors, and as Koreans.

Many Koreans also had to choose between pro-Pyongyang and pro-Seoul groups in Japan, after the peninsula was left divided by the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kwon Joon-oh’s mother and father both survived the attack on Hiroshima.

The 76-year-old’s parents, like others of their generation, could only work by taking on “filthy and dangerous jobs” that the Japanese considered beneath them, he said.

Korean victims were also denied an official memorial for decades, with a cenotaph for them put up in the Hiroshima Peace Park only in the late 1990s.

Kim Hwa-ja was four on August 6, 1945 and remembers being put on a makeshift horse-drawn trap as her family fled tried to flee Hiroshima after the bomb.

Smoke filled the air and the city was burning, she said, recalling how she peeped out from under a blanket covering her, and her mother screaming at her not to look.

Korean groups estimate that up to 50,000 Koreans may have been in the city that day, including tens of thousands working as forced labourers at military sites.



– Stigma –



But records are sketchy.

“The city office was devastated so completely that it wasn’t possible to track down clear records,” a Hiroshima official told AFP.

Japan’s colonial policy banned the use of Korean names, further complicating record-keeping.

After the attacks, tens of thousands of Korean survivors moved back to their newly-independent country.

But many have struggled with health issues and stigma ever since.

“In those days, there were unfounded rumours that radiation exposure could be contagious,” said Jeong Soo-won, director of the country’s Hapcheon Atomic Bomb Victim Center.

Nationwide, there are believed to be some 1,600 South Korean survivors still alive, Jeong said — with 82 of them in residence at the center.

Seoul enacted a special law in 2016 to help the survivors — including a monthly stipend of around $72 — but it provides no assistance to their offspring or extended families.

“There are many second- and third-generation descendants affected by the bombings and suffering from congenital illnesses,” said Jeong.

A provision to support them “must be included” in future, he said.

A Japanese hibakusha group won the Nobel Peace Prize last year in recognition of their efforts to show the world the horrors of nuclear war.

But 80 years after the attacks, many survivors in both Japan and Korea say the world has not learned.



– ‘Only talk’ –



US President Donald Trump recently compared his strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Would he understand the tragedy of what the Hiroshima bombing has caused? Would he understand that of Nagasaki?” survivor Kim Gin-ho said.

In Korea, the Hapcheon center will hold a commemoration on August 6 — with survivors hoping that this year the event will attract more attention.

From politicians, “there has been only talk… but no interest”, she said.

Bangladesh protest victim gives evidence at ex-PM trial

By AFP
August 3, 2025


Bangladesh's ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India following mass student-led protests - Copyright AFP/File MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

The first witness in the trial of Bangladesh’s fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina gave evidence on Sunday, a man shot in the face during protests that toppled her last year.

Hasina, 77, who has defied court orders to return from India to attend her trial on charges amounting to crimes against humanity, is accused of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed bid to crush the student-led uprising.

Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.

The first witness, among the 11 cases that the prosecution is expected to present to the court, was Khokon Chandra Barman, whose story reflects the violence of the protests.

The 23-year-old wears a mask to conceal his face, which was ripped apart by gunshot during the culmination of the protests on August 5, 2024, the same day that Hasina fled Dhaka by helicopter.

“I want justice for the ordeal I’ve been going through, and for my fellow protesters who sacrificed their lives,” he told the court.

Barman lost his left eye, while his right eye was damaged, as well as his lips, nose and teeth.

A video showing Barman’s blood-covered face was played in court, with the opening statements aired on the state-run broadcaster.

Prosecutors have filed five charges against Hasina — including failure to prevent mass murder — which amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.

“Sheikh Hasina was the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed during the July–August uprising revolved,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told the court on Sunday.

Hasina is on trial in absentia alongside two other accused.

One, her former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, is also a fugitive.

The other, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, the former inspector general of police, is in custody. He has pleaded guilty.

Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman said he wanted a “fair trial”, speaking to reporters outside the court.

“People were killed and maimed — we demand the highest punishment for the crimes committed,” Asaduzzaman said.

Amir Hossain, the state-appointed lawyer for Hasina, noted that Barman was shot during the chaotic final day of the weeks-long protests.

He pointed out that several police officers were also killed in clashes with protesters and it was “unclear who actually shot Barman”.

Hossain said he was not in contact with Hasina, who has refused to accept the authority of the court.

The trial continues.

Italy fines fast-fashion giant Shein for ‘green’ claims


By AFP
August 4, 2025


Italy's competition authority accuses Shein of having 'adopted a misleading communication strategy regarding the characteristics and environmental impact of its clothing products' - Copyright AFP Roslan RAHMAN

Italy’s competition watchdog said Monday it has fined the company responsible for Shein’s websites in Europe one million euros ($1.15 million) for false and confusing claims about the e-commerce giant’s efforts to be environmentally “green”.

The AGCM watchdog accuses the China-founded fast-fashion colossal of having “adopted a misleading communication strategy regarding the characteristics and environmental impact of its clothing products”.

The fine was imposed on Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd, the company responsible for managing Shein’s product trading websites in Europe, the authority said in a statement.

The AGCM accused it of “misleading and/or deceptive environmental messages and claims… in the promotion and sale of Shein-branded clothing products”.

These were “in some instances, vague, generic, and/or overly emphatic, and in others, misleading or omissive”.

In particular, claims about the recyclability of products “were found to be either false or at least confusing”, it said.

Consumers could easily be led to believe Shein products were made exclusively from sustainable materials and fully recyclable, “a statement which, given the fibres used and current recycling systems, does not reflect reality”.

The AGCM also took issue with the retailer’s claims it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2050.

These “vague” pledges by a company which has seen phenomenal growth in recent years were “contradicted by an actual increase in Shein’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 and 2024”, it said.

In a statement to AFP, Shein said it had “cooperated fully” with the watchdog’s investigation and “took immediate action” to address the concerns, saying all environmental claims on the website were now “clear, specific and compliant with regulations”.

Environmentalists have long warned of the damage wreaked by the fast-fashion sector’s wasteful trend of mass producing low-cost clothes that are quickly thrown away.

Fast fashion uses up massive amounts of water, produces hazardous chemicals and clogs up landfills in poor countries with textile waste, while also generating greenhouse gases in production, transport and disposal.

Italy’s fast fashion hub becomes Chinese mafia battlefield


ByAFP
August 3, 2025


A mafia war in Prato is believed to be behind the killings of two Chinese nationals in Rome - Copyright AFP Stefano RELLANDINI

Alexandria SAGE

When Zhang Dayong lay in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in Rome after being shot six times, few suspected a link to Italy’s storied textile hub of Prato.

But a “hanger war” is raging in the city near Florence — turning Europe’s largest apparel manufacturing centre and a pillar of Made in Italy production into a battleground for warring Chinese mafia groups.

The situation has become so urgent that Prato’s prosecutor, Luca Tescaroli, has appealed to Rome for help, calling for an anti-mafia division and reinforcements for judges and police.

Tescaroli has warned that the escalation in crime has become a huge business operation and moved beyond Italy, particularly to France and Spain.

The gangs are battling to control the production of hundreds of millions of clothes hangers each year — the market is estimated to be worth 100 million euros ($115 million) — and the bigger prize of transporting apparel.

The Chinese mafia also “promotes the illegal immigration of workers of various nationalities” for Prato, Tescaroli told AFP.

The veteran anti-mafia prosecutor said the “phenomenon has been underestimated”, allowing the mafia to expand its reach.

With one of Europe’s largest Chinese communities, the city of nearly 200,000 people has seen Chinese business owners and factory workers beaten or threatened in recent months, with cars and warehouses burned.

The ex-head of Prato’s police investigative unit, Francesco Nannucci, said the Chinese mafia run betting dens, prostitution and drugs — and provide their Italian counterparts with under-the-radar money transfers.

For mafia leaders, “to be able to command in Prato means being able to lead in much of Europe,” Nannucci told AFP.

– ‘Well-oiled system’ –

Chinese groups in the district thrive on the so-called “Prato system”, long rife with corruption and irregularities, particularly in the fast-fashion sector, such as labour and safety violations plus tax and customs fraud.

Prato’s 5,000-odd apparel and knitwear businesses, mostly small, Chinese-run subcontractors, churn out low-priced items that end up in shops across Europe.

They pop up quickly and shut down just as fast, playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to avoid taxes or fines. Fabric is smuggled from China, evading customs duties and taxes, while profits are returned to China via illegal money transfers.

To stay competitive, the sector relies on cheap, around-the-clock labour, mostly from China and Pakistan, which Tescaroli told a Senate committee in January was “essential for its proper functioning”.

“It’s not just one or two bad apples, but a well-oiled system they use, and do very well — closing, reopening, not paying taxes,” said Riccardo Tamborrino, a Sudd Cobas union organiser leading strikes on behalf of immigrants.

Investigators say the immigrants work seven days a week, 13 hours a day for about three euros ($3.40) an hour.

Tamborrino said Prato’s apparel industry was “free from laws, from contracts”.

“It’s no secret,” he said. “All this is well known.”

– ‘Miss Fashion’ –

Trucks lumber day and night through the streets of Prato’s industrial zone, an endless sprawl of asphalt lined with warehouses and apparel showrooms with names like “Miss Fashion” and “Ohlala Pronto Moda”.

Open metal doors reveal loaded garment racks, rolls of fabric and stacks of boxes awaiting shipment — the final step controlled by Zhang Naizhong, whom prosecutors dub the “boss of bosses” within Italy’s Chinese mafia.

A 2017 court document described Zhang as the “leading figure in the unscrupulous circles of the Chinese community” in Europe, with a monopoly on the transport sector and operations in France, Spain, Portugal and Germany.

Zhang Dayong, the man killed in Rome alongside his girlfriend in April, was Zhang Naizhong’s deputy. The shootings followed three massive fires set at his warehouses outside Paris and Madrid in previous months.

Nannucci believes Naizhong could be in China, after his 2022 acquittal for usury in a huge ongoing Chinese mafia trial plagued by problems — including a lack of translators and missing files.

On a recent weekday, a handful of Pakistani men picketed outside the company that had employed them, after it shut down overnight having just agreed to give workers a contract under Italian law.

Muhammed Akram, 44, saw his boss quietly emptying the factory of sewing machines, irons and other equipment. “Sneaky boss,” he said, in broken Italian.

Chinese garment workers, who are in the majority in Prato and often brought to Italy by the mafia, never picket, union activists say — they are too frightened to protest.

– Trading favours –

Changes in apparel manufacturing, globalisation and migration have all contributed to the so-called “Prato system”.

So has corruption.

In May 2024, the second-in-command within Prato’s Carabinieri police was accused of giving Italian and Chinese entrepreneurs — among them a chamber of commerce businessman — access to the police database for information, including on workers.

Police complaints from attacked workers “ended up in a drawer, never reaching the court”, Sudd Cobas organiser Francesca Ciuffi told AFP.

Prato’s mayor resigned in June in a corruption investigation, accused of trading favours with the businessman for votes.

In recent months, the union has secured regular contracts under national law for workers at over 70 companies.

That will not help those caught in Prato’s mafia war, however, where “bombs have exploded and warehouses have been burned down”, said Ciuffi.

“People who wake up in the morning, quietly going to work, risk getting seriously injured, if not worse, because of a war that doesn’t concern them.”

Assange joins pro-Palestinian protest on Sydney Harbour Bridge


By AFP
August 4, 2025


Copyright AFP DAVID GRAY

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, closing the world famous landmark.

Assange, who returned to Australia last year after his release from a high-security British prison, was pictured surrounded by family and marching alongside former Australian foreign minister and New South Wales premier Bob Carr.

France, Britain and Canada have in recent weeks voiced, in some cases qualified, intentions to diplomatically recognise a Palestinian state as international concern and criticism have grown over malnutrition in Gaza.

Australia has called for an end to the war in Gaza but has so far stopped short of a decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

But in a joint statement with more than a dozen other nations on Tuesday it expressed the “willingness or the positive consideration… to recognise the state of Palestine as an essential step towards the two-State solution”.

The pro-Palestinian crowd braved heavy winds and rain to march across the bridge, chanting “ceasefire now” and “free Palestine”.

New South Wales police said it had deployed hundreds of extra staff across Sydney for the march.

Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, told the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park that the march would “make history”.

She called for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Gazans, and criticised New South Wales premier Chris Minns for saying the protest should not go ahead.

Dozens of marchers held up banners listing the names of thousands of Palestinian children killed since the Gaza war broke out after an October 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Labor backbench MP Ed Husic attended the march and called for his ruling party, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to recognise a Palestinian state.

Assange did not address the crowd or talk to the media.

Israel is under mounting international pressure to end the bloodshed that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.

Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

The Harbour Bridge is over a kilometre long and was opened in 1932.

Since then its twin parabolic arcs have become world famous, a symbol of both Sydney and of Australia.

Rwanda bees being wiped out by pesticides

By AFP
August 4, 2025


Pesticides have been linked to the deaths of bees around the world - Copyright AFP Roslan RAHMAN

Moses GAHIGI

The use of pesticides in East Africa, some sold by European firms despite being banned in the EU, is killing off bees in large numbers and threatening whole eco-systems, scientists say.

Joseph Ruzigana, of Muhanga district in southern Rwanda, woke up one morning to find all the bees in his 20 newly constructed beehives had died.

“Fellow beekeepers have also lost plenty of bees to these dangerous pesticides. It looks like we won’t get any honey this season,” he told AFP.

Ruzigana said many beekeepers, who number more than 100,000 in Rwanda according to officials, were giving up.

“The few bees left are very weak and unproductive… I used to get up to 25 kilogrammes (55 pounds) of honey from one beehive in a month-long season, my family was well taken care of, but all that has collapsed,” he said.

Changing climate conditions are part of the problem: longer rains this season were not favourable to beekeeping.

But the main issue is pesticides, say locals and experts.

Bees pollinate crops including coffee, tea, avocados, mangoes, beans and tomatoes — making them key to an agricultural sector that accounts for 30 percent of GDP and 70 percent of employment in Rwanda.

It is the same across the region. Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya have all reported increasing bee mortality rates due to pesticides, according to the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi.



– Hazardous pesticides –



Rwanda is a poor and landlocked country striving to feed its people through improved maize and rice cultivation, and pesticides help control pests like armyworms.

But many pesticides affect bees’ navigation and reproduction, and have been linked to colony collapse disorder, when worker bees abandon a hive.

Rwanda grows large amounts of pyrethrum, a flower that could be used to make a natural pesticide, but exports all its pyrethrum liquid.

Instead, Rwandan farmers use imported synthetic pesticides. A 2022 study by Turkey’s Ondokuz Mayis University found that 72 percent used Rocket, containing profenofos, which is highly toxic to bees.

Jeanne Nyirandahimana, part of a women’s beekeeping cooperative, said average earnings have fallen from around 250,000 Rwandan francs ($178) per season to around 30,000 ($21).

“It is pesticides like Rocket killing our bees, every day we find many bees dead on roofs and some die in beehives,” she said.

An earlier study by the University of Rwanda found that 22 percent of farmers around Lake Kivu used malathion, also deadly to bees.

Despite being banned for use in the EU, malathion is still exported by Denmark, France and Germany — 12.5 tonnes in 2023, according to the European Chemicals Agency.



– ‘Critical importance’ –



Jean Claude Izamuhaye, head of crop production at the Rwanda Agricultural Board, said the body was working on the problem.

“They are our natural pollinators, and it is of critical importance that bees are saved,” he said, adding that the board was looking into increasing the use of less harmful “bio-pesticides”.

The continued sale of toxic pesticides by EU companies can also mean they end up in the food that is sold back to Europe.

A study released this month by Foodwatch, an advocacy group, found that more than half the food imported into the EU from Rwanda contained traces of “highly hazardous” pesticides that are banned in Europe.

EU countries sold 81,615 tonnes of 41 banned pesticides to other countries for agricultural use in 2022, according to the Pesticide Action Network.