Seniors back to work as ageing Germany battles pension burden


By AFP
September 4, 2025


Retirees now represent a quarter of Germany's population of 83 million - Copyright ${image.metadata.node.credit} ${image.metadata.node.creator}

Clement KASSER

At age 70, Pete Maie appears nervous at the start of a job interview to work as a part-time parcel delivery driver for a German logistics company.

“It’s a little stressful but I’m happy to be here,” said the former soldier and retired logistics manager, a blue shirt tucked neatly into his trousers.

Five years after he formally retired, Maie is reentering the labour market with the help of specialised recruitment agency Unique Seniors.

“I’m available immediately and ready to work as long as my body allows,” he said.

If it were up to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government, many elderly people would follow Maie’s lead to help fast-ageing Germany grapple with the twin challenges of a high pension burden and a shortage of skilled labour.

By last year, the cost of the pension system had ballooned to 408 billion euros ($475 billion) according to the Labour Ministry — a 60 percent rise from 2010.

Retirees now represent a quarter of the national population of 83 million, and workforce contributions are no longer enough to cover the cost of paying their retirement benefits.

Meanwhile, the skilled labour shortage has seen employers as diverse as retail chains, banks and the armed forces compete frantically to attract young workers and trainees.

– ‘Autumn of reforms’ –

For many years, the healthy growth rates of Europe’s biggest, export-led economy ensured sufficient tax revenues to finance a generous welfare state.

The model is now showing strains as Germany has been mired in recession for two years, struggles with structural problems and faces tough competition from Asia, high energy costs, and new trade barriers with the United States.

Merz has argued that the welfare state in its current form has become “unaffordable” — comments that rattled his junior coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD), the country’s traditional workers’ party.

The SPD’s Labour and Social Affairs Minister Baerbel Bas retorted with unusual bluntness, labelling such rhetoric “bullshit”.

The conservative and business-friendly Merz, undeterred, promised an “autumn of reforms”, vowing tough steps to rein in outlays from pensions to unemployment benefits.

Another goal of the conservatives is to have more people work longer. The legal retirement age, now 66, is already being gradually raised and set to reach 67 by 2031.

Last year, more than 1.1 million seniors were already working beyond 67 out of a labour force of 46 million.

To put more seniors to work, Merz would like to allow “those who are able to and who want it” to earn up to 2,000 euros tax-free per month.

– ‘Feeling useful’ –

Maie said he is among those keen to keep working — and not just to supplement his monthly pension of 1,600 euros.

“Today, I lack a mission, the feeling of being useful,” he confided.

Ruth Maria Schueler, a specialist in senior employment at the IW Institute, said “most people who return to work after retirement don’t do so primarily for financial reasons”.

She said she was therefore sceptical about the reform, which she describes as a “tax giveaway” to wealthy seniors that would cost the state 2.8 billion euros a year.

By 2027, an independent commission must propose structural reforms to ensure the long-term future of the pension system.

Conservative Economy Minister Katherina Reiche recently reignited the debate by suggesting a legal retirement age of 70, sparking the ire of unions and the SPD.

Bas charged that this would be “a pure and simple reduction in pensions for people who cannot reach that age”.

Economist Johannes Geyer of the Berlin-based DIW institute said that retirement at 70 would help the budget but could harm workers, especially in physically demanding jobs.

Those in their 60s who are harder to retrain would more likely end up unemployed, said Geyer.

Unique Senior chief Tobias Bell said his agency’s model has a lot of promise despite some negative perceptions.

“Most of our client companies continue to discriminate against older workers,” he said, even as experience showed that this age group is “more productive and less absent” on average.

A case in point is another elderly worker who found a new position through Unique Seniors.

At 65, Rainer Guntermann, officially retired for two years, now assembles semiconductors full-time near Cologne.

He proudly asserts he can more than hold his own among a team with many younger colleagues, given that he is “punctual, diligent and never sick”.

Merz inaugurates supercomputer, says Europe can catch up in AI race


By AFP
September 5, 2025


German Chancellor Friedrich Merz inaugurates Europe's fastest supercomputer, Jupiter - Copyright AFP INA FASSBENDER

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday that Europe can catch up in the global artificial intelligence race as he inaugurated the continent’s fastest supercomputer.

“The United States and China are in a neck-and-neck race to compete for future market share in an AI-supported global economy,” he said at the inauguration of the Jupiter computer, which will be able to perform at least one quintillion (or one billion billion) calculations per second.

“We in Germany, and we in Europe, have every opportunity to catch up and then keep pace.”

Jupiter, based in Juelich, western Germany, is housed in a centre about half the size of a football pitch and is packed with about 24,000 Nvidia chips, which are favoured by the AI industry.

With the power of about one million smartphones, experts say it is the first supercomputer that can be considered internationally competitive in training AI models in Europe.

“In Germany and in Europe as a whole, we need sovereign computing capacities that are on a par with our international competitors,” Merz said.

“This is a question of competitiveness as well as the security of our country.”

Researchers across numerous different fields will be able to access the 500-million-euro ($580-million) supercomputer, whose uses go far beyond AI.

They range from creating more detailed climate forecasts that can help predict extreme weather events to medical research and studies related to the energy transition.


US AI giant Anthropic bars Chinese-owned entities


By AFP
September 5, 2025


US tech giant Anthropic will bar Chinese-linked users from its artificial intelligence services - Copyright AFP Julie JAMMOT

Anthropic is barring Chinese-run companies and organizations from using its artificial intelligence services, the US tech giant said, as it toughened restrictions on “authoritarian regions.”

The startup, heavily backed by Amazon, is known for its Claude chatbot and positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.

Companies based in China, as well as in countries including Russia, North Korea and Iran, are already unable to access Anthropic’s commercial services over legal and security concerns.

ChatGPT and other products from US competitor OpenAI are also unavailable within China — spurring the growth of homegrown AI models from Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Baidu.

Anthropic said in a statement dated Friday that it was going a step further in an update to its terms of service.

Despite current restrictions, some groups “continue accessing our services in various ways, such as through subsidiaries incorporated in other countries,” the US firm said.

So “this update prohibits companies or organizations whose ownership structures subject them to control from jurisdictions where our products are not permitted, like China, regardless of where they operate.”

Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei (R) shared the stage with then Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky (L) at an event in Las Vegas last year – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP WIN MCNAMEE

Anthropic — valued at $183 billion — said that the change would affect entities more than 50 percent owned, directly or indirectly, by companies in unsupported regions.

“This is the first time a major US AI company has imposed a formal, public prohibition of this kind,” said Nicholas Cook, a lawyer focused on the AI industry with 15 years of experience at international law firms in China.

“The immediate commercial effect may be modest, since US AI providers already face barriers to operating in this market and relevant groups have been self-selecting for their own locally developed AI tech,” he told AFP.

But “taking a stance like this will inevitably lead to questions as to whether others will or should take a similar approach.”

An Anthropic executive told the Financial Times that the move would have an impact on revenues in the “low hundreds of millions of dollars”.

The San Francisco-headquartered company was founded in 2021 by former executives from OpenAI.

It announced this week it had raised $13 billion in its latest funding round, saying it now has more than 300,000 business customers.

And the number of accounts on pace to generate more than $100,000 annually is nearly seven times larger than a year ago, Anthropic said Tuesday.

Some users in China do access US generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Claude by using VPN services.

Assumptions that the US was far ahead of China in the fast-moving AI sector were upended this year when Chinese start-up DeepSeek unveiled a chatbot that matched top American systems for an apparent fraction of the cost.

Argentina charges Nazi’s daughter for concealing decades-old art theft


By AFP
September 4, 2025


Patricia Kadgien (R) appeared in court to be charged with 'concealment' in the decades-old theft of art from European Jews by the Nazis - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Adele Rycroft

The daughter and son-in-law of a Nazi who stole art from European Jews during World War II were charged in an Argentine court Thursday with hiding numerous works, including 22 by French painter Henri Matisse.

The pair came into the spotlight after an 18th century painting stolen from a Dutch art collector was spotted in an Argentine property ad last month, only to vanish once again.

“Portrait of a Lady” by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed in the home of a daughter of Nazi Friedrich Kadgien, who had fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978.

Police opened an investigation and conducted multiple raids in search of the painting, only to find 22 works from the 1940s by Matisse (1869-1954), and others whose origins have yet to be determined.

The artworks were found in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata in possession of members of the Kadgien family, officials said.

Daughter Patricia Kadgien, 58, and her 60-year-old husband ultimately handed over the Ghislandi work, and appeared in court Thursday where they were charged with “concealment,” according to prosecutors.

“Portrait of a Lady” was part of the extensive collection of Jacques Goudstikker, who died while fleeing the Netherlands in 1940 when it was invaded by Nazi Germany.

It is thought to be worth about $50,000 today, according to Argentine media reports.

Top German officials, led by Gestapo founder Hermann Goering, divvied up Goudstikker’s collection and Kadgien — a financial adviser to Adolf Hitler — was placed in charge of moving the plunder to South America.

After the war, the Dutch state retrieved some 300 works from the collection, most of which were returned to Goudstikker’s heirs, though many remain scattered around the globe.

Thousands of Nazis fled across the Atlantic after WWII, and many found refuge in Chile and Argentina.

France detains seven over new cryptocurrency kidnapping

By AFP
September 4, 2025


Photo: © AFP

French authorities have detained seven people in an investigation into the kidnapping of a young Swiss citizen believed to be the latest abduction targeting the hugely lucrative cryptocurrency world, a source close to the case said on Thursday.

The man, aged 20 according to Swiss media reports, was freed on Sunday in the southeastern city of Valence in a special operation by French gendarmes, said the source, asking not to be named.

No details were given regarding how long he had been held. Some 150 gendarmes were mobilised in the operation to free him.

According to the Dauphine Libere regional daily, the young man was found tied up in a house near the Valence high speed train station.

French authorities have been dealing with a string of kidnappings and extortion attempts targeting the families of high-worth individuals dealing in cryptocurrencies.

In January kidnappers seized French crypto boss David Balland and his partner. Balland co-founded the crypto firm Ledger, valued at the time at more than $1 billion.

Balland’s kidnappers cut off his finger and demanded a hefty ransom. He was freed the next day, and his girlfriend was found tied up in the boot of a car outside Paris.

In May, the father of a man who ran a Malta-based cryptocurrency company was kidnapped by four hooded men in Paris. The victim, whose finger was severed by the kidnappers and for whom a ransom of several million euros was demanded, was released 58 hours later during a raid by the security forces.

Hot water, hidden risks: Why Legionella persists in U.S. water systems


By Dr. Tim Sandle
EDITOR AT LARGE

SCIENCE

DIGITAL JOURNAL
September 4, 2025


A shower head is a perforated nozzle that distributes water over solid angle a focal point of use, generally overhead the bather. Image by DO'Neil (CC BY-SA 3.0)

An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City this August has sickened more than 100 people and left five dead. Throughout the U.S. reported cases of this severe form of pneumonia have risen significantly over the last 25 years, with most occurring in summer and autumn.

The disease is caused by any species of Legionella bacteria (such as L. pneumophilia). These are aerobic, pleomorphic, flagellated, non-spore-forming, Gram-negative bacteria. The organisms can thrive in water systems, capable of surviving diverse range of environmental conditions, tolerating temperatures from 0°C-63 °C, a pH range of 5.0-8.5, and in dissolved oxygen concentrations of 0.2-15.0 mg/litre.

Virginia Tech experts Amy Pruden and Kirin Furst have explained what the disease is, why it thrives in hot weather, and how to protect yourself.

How do people contract Legionnaires’ disease?

“People can contract Legionnaires’ disease if they inhale tiny droplets of water containing the bacteria Legionella, which can grow in the biofilms of pipes and fixtures that deliver drinking water to taps and shower heads, especially hot water lines,” Pruden said. “Legionella also can grow in water cooling towers, such as those that serve HVAC systems in large buildings.”

Why do rates of the disease rise during hot weather?

“In hot water heaters, the temperature often is not high enough to kill opportunistic pathogens like Legionella, which thrive in warm temperatures,” said Furst. “During the summer, water in the distribution pipes that bring water to your house can also heat up to optimal temperatures for Legionella, while causing the protective disinfectants like chlorine to decay a lot faster. Together, these conditions create a significant public health concern.”

How can cities control outbreaks?

“The New York City outbreak is a reminder that Legionella is the leading cause of waterborne disease and death in the U.S. We must remain vigilant in keeping it at bay in both cooling towers and drinking water systems to protect vulnerable populations,” said Pruden. “Building water system managers, especially at hospitals, nursing homes, apartment buildings, and hotels, should regularly test water temperature and disinfectant levels.”

How can people make sure their water is clean?

“If your ‘cold’ tap water runs very warm in the summer, I suggest getting a filter pitcher that you can keep in the fridge, so at least you have cold, clean drinking water,” said Furst. “But this won’t address exposure to Legionella or other pathogens that are primarily contracted while showering. For that, you could consider a whole-home water treatment system or a filter for your shower head. Just make sure any water treatment systems have been tested and certified by NSF for the contaminants you are concerned about.

Also, check your household plumbing configuration, as your pipes may run through an uninsulated part of your home, which will contribute to warming. If the water is already warm before it reaches your property because of heating in the distribution system, you could advocate for your municipality to increase shade coverage. Shade decreases both surface and subsurface temperatures, and may help keep water in distribution pipes and storage tanks cool in addition to many other benefits of shade.”

Pruden further explained that if you are in a risk group, like being elderly or immunocompromised, you might consider taking baths instead of showers.

“By doing this, you are less likely to inhale aerosols that contain the bacteria,” she said. “It’s also important to make sure your water heater is set above 140 F*, which is hot enough to kill the bacteria, but take care to mix with cool water in the tub to avoid scalding.”

*60 degrees Celsius, as the conventional expression of temperature

US tech titans pay homage to Trump at White House dinner

DAY AFTER HIS CABINET KISSED HIS ASS BIG TECH FOLLOWS SUIT

By AFP
September 4, 2025


Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was seated directly next to Trump at the dinner - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP ALEX WONG

Tech world executives showered Donald Trump with praise Thursday during a rare dinner that saw the US president host some of the most important players in AI at the White House.

“This is quite a group to get together,” said Meta chief and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was seated at Trump’s right side.

At the table were heads of major tech companies including Google-parent Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and artificial intelligence star OpenAI.

Some of those at the dinner had attended Trump’s inauguration, signalling they were ready to fall in line with the 79-year-old president’s world view — or at least seek to avoid his ire.

Notably absent from the dinner was multi-billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk, a former Trump ally who had a spectacular falling out with the president.

The chief of Tesla and SpaceX put out word in a post on his X social network that he had been invited to the dinner but couldn’t attend, sending someone to represent him.

Companies at the dinner were making huge investments in US data centers and infrastructure to “power the next wave of innovation”, Zuckerberg said.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook voiced thanks for Trump “setting the tone” for the companies to make major investments in US manufacturing.

Trump recently threatened trade sanctions against countries that apply regulations to US tech companies, aiming particularly at the European Union.

“Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president,” said OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.

“It’s a refreshing change.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, seated next to First Lady Melania Trump, was less effusive, calling for artificial intelligence to be used to promote international development.

“It’s great we all get together and talk about how the United States could lead in this key area and apply it even to the poorest outside the US, as well as to our great citizens,” said the Microsoft legend turned philanthropist.

Gates cited Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s first term initiative which saw the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines, as an example of America’s capacity for innovation.

Since taking office in January, Trump has cut international aid and ended investments in the kinds of vaccines deployed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Silicon Valley leaders who did not support Trump during his first term in office changed course with his return to office.

Many have visited the White House to promise heavy investment in the United States, and some have been quick to follow the US president’s lead in ending diversity promotion programs and initiatives to combat online misinformation.

Trump ‘attacking US universities’: ex-Harvard president


By AFP

September 3, 2025


Claudine Gay accused the Trump administration of attacking higher education institutions - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Kevin Dietsch

The Trump administration is attacking higher education institutions in the United States as authoritarian governments seek to quash independent thought, the former president of Harvard University said Wednesday.

The prestigious university is at loggerheads with Trump, who believes Ivy League schools are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism, particularly around the protests against Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

Trump has sought to cut more than $2.6 billion of funding to Harvard, and has moved to block entry of international students — a quarter of its student body.

“The truth here is that our government, the American government, is attacking higher ed and universities,” Claudine Gay told the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam.

“The agenda here is about destroying knowledge institutions because they are centres of independent thought and information,” she added.

“That is the story. Nothing justifies that. Nothing explains that. Other than authoritarians don’t like independent centres of thought and information,” said Gay in rare public comments.

– ‘Distressing’ compliance policy –

Gay, the first black woman to lead Harvard in its 368-year history, stepped down in January 2024 amid a row over alleged anti-Semitism on campus following protests about the Gaza war.

Her resignation followed a heated appearance at a Capitol Hill hearing.

Republican lawmaker Elise Stefanik likened student calls for a new intifada — an Arabic word for uprising that harks back to the first Palestinian revolt against Israel in 1987 — to inciting “genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally.”

When Stefanik asked Gay whether such calls would violate Harvard’s code of conduct, Gay replied: “We embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.

“When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action,” she said during the hearing.

The blowback to the Congress hearing was rapid and intense.

Former Harvard student and multi-million-dollar donor Bill Ackman claimed that the high-profile row had led to “billions of dollars of cancelled, paused, and withdrawn donations to the university”.

Gay apologised but eventually resigned in January 2024 after allegations that she improperly cited scholarly sources in her academic work added to the pressure.

In her comments in the Netherlands, she said Harvard appeared to be moving towards a policy of “compliance” with Trump’s demands.

“This is distressing… Not only for those of us who are on campus and face the consequences directly, but also for all of those in higher ed who look to Harvard for leadership and guidance.”

White House quietly drops WTO, ILO from foreign aid cut list


By AFP
September 4, 2025


The WTO headquarters is next to Lake Geneva - Copyright AFP Chris J Ratcliffe

The World Trade Organization and the International Labour Organization told AFP on Thursday that they no longer figured among entities targeted in the White House’s latest round of foreign aid cuts.

US President Donald Trump’s Republican administration announced last Friday that it was cancelling $4.9 billion of congressionally-approved foreign aid, sparking outrage among Democrats.

In a memo detailing the cuts, the administration said it was “committed to getting America’s fiscal house in order by cutting government spending that is woke, weaponised, and wasteful”.

Trump, who has already effectively dismantled USAID — the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency — since taking office again in January, listed a number of international organisations among the targeted entities.

The list originally included $107 million in cuts to ILO funding and another $29 million in slashed funding to the WTO.

But by Wednesday, the WTO had disappeared from the list, and on Thursday the ILO had also vanished.

“We are aware of the removal of the International Labour Organization from a US administration memo released on 29 August,” the agency told AFP.

“We are seeking more information on what this latest development means for the ILO.”

The WTO also confirmed to AFP that it was “not on the funding cut list any more.”

There was no immediate explanation for why the two Geneva-based organisations had been quietly removed from the official White House document.

The UN labour agency told AFP earlier this week that after Trump’s earlier executive orders slashing foreign funding, “the majority of ILO projects funded by the USA were given closure orders”.

Of the 229 ILO staff who had been working on projects funded by Washington, 190 initially received a pink slip, but in the end more than half of them were reassigned to other projects, a spokeswoman said.

The United States remains the largest contributor to the WTO’s budget, pitching in 23 million Swiss francs ($28.5 million) this year, or 11.4 percent of the total.

US backing had meanwhile covered 22 percent of the ILO’s regular budget.

But Washington has so far not paid its contributions for 2024 or 2025 to either organisation, with such delays quite common among member countries.

Singapore to order Meta clamp down on govt impersonator scams


By AFP
September 3, 2025


Four years ago, Donald Trump was kicked off Facebook -- this time around, Meta's policies are more likely to please conservatives - Copyright AFP Drew ANGERER

Singapore will order Meta to crack down on scammers pretending to be government officials, a type of fraud that has boomed in the city-state and cost victims tens of millions of dollars, authorities said Wednesday.

Meta’s Facebook is the top platform fraudsters use to carry out the scams, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Goh Pei Ming, who warned of fines of up to Sg$1 million ($776,000) if the tech giant fails to act.

During the first half of this year, so-called government official impersonation scams rose by 200 percent from the year before to more than 1,760 cases, Goh said in a speech to an anti-scam conference.

In a notorious example, scammers used deepfakes or images of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong this year to sell fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes.

Losses to impersonation scammers rose by about 90 percent to Sg$126 million in the first half of 2025.

Facebook is the “top platform used by scammers for such impersonation scams”, Goh said.

Singapore has seen a rise in scammers impersonating government officials and is ordering Facebook to help crack down – Copyright AFP Roslan RAHMAN

Police “will require Meta to put in place measures to address scam advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages impersonating key Government officials on Facebook,” he said.

This will be the first time police will order an online platform to tackle the rising scam problem in the city-state, Goh said.

Meta said it was against the tech giant’s policies to impersonate or run ads that deceptively use public figures to try to scam people, adding “we remove these when detected.”

“Scammers use every platform available to them and constantly adapt to evade enforcement,” the firm told AFP.

“That’s why Meta has specialized systems to detect impersonating accounts and celeb-bait ads, including facial recognition technology,” Meta added, saying legal action was taken against offenders.

Goh noted Singapore is a “very attractive scam target” because the median wealth of adults in the city-state is above the global benchmark and the country is well-connected to the internet.

Scammers also like to impersonate government officials because of Singaporeans’ high trust in their government, he said.

Goh added TikTok has also been classified as a “designated online service” with effect from September 1 this year.

This means that by February 28 next year, the social media platform must comply with a code that requires it to implement efforts to counter scams and cybercrime.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s neighbour Malaysia has summoned TikTok’s top management after delays by the company in cooperating with police to curb the spread of fake news on the platform, local media reported.

The meeting is expected to take place at Malaysian police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

England moves to ban sale of energy drinks to children


By AFP
September 3, 2025


Up to a third of 13- to 16-year-olds in England are believed to consume energy drinks, some of which contain more caffeine than two cups of coffee, the government says - Copyright JIJI Press/AFP STR

High-caffeine energy drinks such as Red Bull will be banned for sale to youths under 16 in England under plans announced by the government on Wednesday.

“By preventing shops from selling these drinks to kids, we’re helping build the foundations for healthier and happier generations to come,” health minister Wes Streeting said in a statement.

Up to a third of 13- to 16-year-olds in England are believed to consume energy drinks — some of which contain more caffeine than two cups of coffee — despite most supermarkets having introduced a voluntary ban, according to the government.

“How can we expect children to do well at school if they have the equivalent of a double espresso in their system on a daily basis?” Streeting said.

“We’re acting on the concerns of parents and teachers and tackling the root causes of poor health and educational attainment head on,” he added.

A 12-week consultation will now gather evidence from experts, the public, and retailers and manufacturers.

Under current rules, any drink with over 150mg of caffeine per litre requires a warning label saying it is not recommended for children.

“Energy drinks might seem harmless, but the sleep, concentration and wellbeing of today’s kids are all being impacted, while high sugar versions damage their teeth and contribute to obesity,” Streeting said.