China passes US to return as Germany’s top trade partner


By AFP
November 19, 2025


A container ship at the German port of Bremerhaven - Copyright AFP JOHN THYS

China has reclaimed its title as Germany’s top trading partner, dethroning the United States after President Donald Trump launched his tariff onslaught, official data showed Wednesday.

Total trade between Europe’s biggest economy and China from January to September this year grew slightly to nearly 186 billion euros ($215 billion), according to federal statistics agency Destatis.

In the same period, the figure for trade between Germany and the United States slowed by almost four percent to just under 185 billion euros, it said.

China had already been Germany’s top trading partner from 2016 to 2023 but the United States jumped into the top spot in 2024, as Berlin sought to reduce a long-standing economic reliance on China.

On the one hand the development “reflects the negative impact that US tariffs are having on German exports to the US,” ING economist Carsten Brzeski told AFP.

Under a deal struck in July, EU exports to the United States face a baseline levy of 15 percent — far higher than before Trump’s return to office.

The tariffs are a heavy burden for the already struggling German economy.

The US remains Germany’s top export market, for goods ranging from cars to pharmaceuticals, and Germany runs a hefty trade surplus with the United States.

The news also illustrated the challenge for Germany in trying to loosen deep economic ties with China, said Brzeski.

“It shows the ongoing dependence of the German economy and particularly industry on rare earths, semiconductors and other input goods from China,” he said.

Germany runs a substantial trade deficit with China.

This continued reliance is particularly difficult for Germany as “China is now perceived more as a competitor than as a trading partner,” LBBW bank analyst Jens-Oliver Niklasch told AFP.

China is no longer seen just as a key market for German exports, with many Chinese firms having emerged in recent years as competitors to top German companies.

The news comes as Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is on a trip to China this week, the first representative of Germany’s ruling coalition, which took power in May, to visit the world’s number two economy.

Problems in traditional trading relationships are among the many problems facing Germany, which is expected to eke out just meagre growth this year after two years of recession.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to revive the economy, including through a debt-fuelled spending blitz on defence and infrastructure.

Netherlands halts Nexperia takeover in gesture to China: minister


By AFP
November 19, 2025


The dispute erupted in September when the Dutch government effectively took control of Nexperia, based in the Netherlands but whose parent company is China's Wingtech - Copyright AFP JOHN THYS

The Netherlands has suspended its proposed takeover of Chinese-owned chip maker Nexperia in a sign of “good will” towards Beijing, Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday.

The dispute erupted in September when the Dutch government effectively took control of Nexperia, which is based in the Netherlands but whose parent company is China’s Wingtech.

China responded by banning re-exports of the firm’s chips, triggering warnings from automakers of production problems as the components are critical to onboard electronics.

But Beijing announced over the weekend it would exempt some chips from the export ban, reportedly part of a trade deal agreed by President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Karremans said that “in light of recent developments, I consider it the right moment to take a constructive step by suspending my order under the Goods Availability Act regarding Nexperia”.

“We are positive about the measures already taken by the Chinese authorities to ensure the supply of chips to Europe and the rest of the world,” he said.

The takeover has been suspended rather than cancelled, and the minister can reinstate the measure later.



– National security –



Karremans said the decision had been made “in close consultation with our European and international partners” and in the wake of “constructive meetings with the Chinese authorities”.

“We see this as a show of good will. We will continue to engage in constructive dialogue with the Chinese authorities in the period ahead,” he said.

The Netherlands cited national security concerns and poor management when it moved to take control of Nexperia, which was once part of Dutch electronics giant Philips but bought out by Wingtech in 2018.

The Nexperia case was the first time the Dutch had invoked the Goods Availability Act, with the stated reason being that poor management could jeopardise the chip supply chain in Europe.

An Amsterdam corporate court subsequently ordered the suspension of Nexperia’s chief executive Zhang Xuezheng, citing poor leadership and poor preparation for incoming US trade restrictions.

Nexperia is no stranger to regulatory concerns in the west.

Three years ago, Britain blocked the company from buying its main semiconductor manufacturer, Newport Wafer Fab, following a “detailed national security assessment”.

And the United States put Wingtech on one of its “entity lists” last December, meaning the government believed it was acting against US national security and foreign policy interests.





China, Netherlands move to resolve Nexperia chip row

By AFP
November 19, 2025
Charlotte VAN OUWERKERK

The Netherlands said Wednesday it had suspended its proposed takeover of Chinese-owned chip maker Nexperia in a sign of “good will”, a move China welcomed as a positive “first step”.

The two sides are moving to resolve a dispute that erupted in September when the Dutch government effectively took control of Nexperia, which is based in the Netherlands but whose parent company is China’s Wingtech.

China responded by banning re-exports of the firm’s chips, triggering warnings from carmakers that their factories could grind to a halt without the components Nexperia supplies, which are critical to onboard electronics.

The Netherlands stepped back from its position after Beijing announced over the weekend it would exempt some chips from the export ban — reportedly part of a trade deal agreed by President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump.

Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday that “in light of recent developments” he considered it “the right moment to take a constructive step by suspending my order under the Goods Availability Law regarding Nexperia”.

It was the first time the Dutch had invoked the Goods Availability Law — a Cold War-era law designed to keep vital supplies flowing during wartime.

“China welcomes the Dutch side’s initiative to suspend the administrative order, considering it the first step in the right direction towards properly resolving the issue,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The takeover has been suspended rather than cancelled, and the minister can reinstate the measure later.



– National security –



The dispute between China and the Netherlands is part of a wider global battle for control of the supply of semiconductors, the tiny components used across many industries and electronic products.

Karremans said the Netherlands was “positive” about China’s recent moves to ensure chip supply to Europe and the rest of the world.

“We see this as a show of good will,” he said of his move to suspend the takeover, vowing to continue talking to Chinese officials.

The move was welcomed around Europe, with EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic saying it was “another key step in stabilising our strategic chip supply chains”.

Germany, a global centre for car making, also approved, with an economy ministry spokeswoman telling reporters in Berlin that “the situation is easing”.

However, China’s commerce ministry spokesperson warned there was “still a gap in addressing the root cause of the turbulence and chaos in the global semiconductor supply chain”.

The Netherlands had argued that poor management at Nexperia, which was once part of Dutch electronics giant Philips but bought out by Wingtech in 2018, risked jeopardising the chip supply chain in Europe.

An Amsterdam corporate court subsequently ordered the suspension of Nexperia’s chief executive Zhang Xuezheng, citing poor leadership and poor preparation for incoming US trade restrictions.

The decision drew Beijing’s wrath and Wingtech stressed that Wednesday’s move had not fully restored the Chinese firm’s control over Nexperia.

The firm is no stranger to regulatory concerns in the West.

The United States put Wingtech on one of its “entity lists” last December, meaning the government believed it was acting against US national security and foreign policy interests.

Christie’s suspends Paris sale of world’s ‘first calculator’


By AFP
November 19, 2025


The sale was suspended afer a last minute court ruling

 - Copyright AFP/File STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN

Christie’s said Wednesday it was suspending the Paris auction of one of just a handful of examples of the world’s first calculating machine, developed by French mathematician and inventor Blaise Pascal in 1642.

The auction of “La Pascaline” had been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but late on Tuesday a Paris court suspended authorisation for export — meaning buyers would not be able to take it abroad.

This example is one of only nine still existing and the only one believed to be in private hands — others are held in museums.

Christie’s had dubbed the box, decorated with ebony, as “the most important scientific instrument ever offered at auction” and it had been expected to fetch 2-3 million euros.

The auction house had described the machine as “nothing less than the first attempt in history to substitute the work of a machine for that of the human mind”.

It said it had halted the sale at the instructions of the piece’s owner, after the Paris administrative court suspended an export authorisation in a provisional ruling.

The sale, part of an auction of the library of late collector Leon Parce, would be suspended pending the final decision by the court, Christie’s said.

“Pending the final judgment, given the provisional nature of this decision and in accordance with the instructions of its client, Christie’s is suspending the sale of La Pascaline,” it told AFP.

Scientists and researchers had urgently appealed to the administrative court to block the potential export of the machine.

They want the instrument to be classified as a “national treasure”.

The culture ministry said an export certificate had been issued in May following standard procedures.

Two experts — one from the National Centre of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) and the other from the Louvre Museum — approved the decision, the ministry said.

Blaise Pascal was only 19 when he developed the machine to help his father, who was in charge of a court that was tasked with restoring order to tax revenue collections in northern France, Christie’s said.

“To simplify these tasks, Blaise Pascal designed calculating machines that, for the first time in history, allowed for the mechanisation of mental calculation,” it said.

The final court decision could take several months.

Auction of famed CIA cipher shaken after archive reveals code


By AFP
November 18, 2025


The S-shaped copper sculpture "Kryptos" has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia - 

Copyright AFP/File Indranil MUKHERJEE

Victoria LAVELLE

It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by “Kryptos.”

The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far.

Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. The sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging $50 for each response.

In August, Sanborn announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4 as he no longer had the “physical, mental or financial resources” to maintain the code.

In a sign of wide interest in Kryptos, which has inspired cultural figures including “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, the code’s solution is on course to fetch more than $240,000 in a sale due to end this Thursday.

So when two friends announced in October they had uncovered the last message held by Kryptos (“hidden” in ancient Greek), it invoked fury and concern from the auction house and Sanborn.

Jarett Kobek, a writer from Los Angeles, told AFP how the pair came across the code after he noticed a reference to Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, where Sanborn held his archives, in the auction catalog.

He asked his friend Richard Byrne, who is based in the US capital, to take a look through the files.

“I took images of all the coding stuff in the files,” said Richard Byrne, a journalist and playwright.

A few hours later, Kobek called him and said “Hey, you might have found something interesting,” he recalled.

Using Byrne’s photos and clues previously shared by Sanborn, Kobek unraveled the K4 message.



– Legal threats –



The two men decided to write to Sanborn to share their discovery — but instead of congratulations, they were met by alarm.

Sanborn, the pair said, asked them to sign non-disclosure agreements in exchange for a share of the money raised in the auction.

“The NDA is a total non-starter,” Kobek said. “You are running an auction where what you are selling is intellectual property exclusivity.”

“If I take money from that sale, I feel like this would almost certainly make me party to fraud.”

They later went public with their discovery in a New York Times piece in October.

Sanborn, explaining his communication with the men, wrote in a public letter: “I was trying to save K4 from disclosure by any means possible. I had succeeded for 35 years after all.”

Kobek said the pair were keen to avoid disrupting the K4 auction.

“The last thing anyone wants to do is take money from an 80-year-old artist,” he said.

Even if they have no intention of revealing the code’s solution, the two men say the auction house has sent them cease-and-desist letters.

Sanborn has acknowledged his error in archiving the crucial information — but he downplayed the discovery.

He said the pair had “found and photographed five pieces of scrambled texts that I had accidentally placed in the archive boxes all those years ago.”

“The scrambled plain text was found, but without the coding method or the key. This is a very important distinction,” he separately told a news conference in November.

And, he added, the discovery does not end the mystery of Kryptos.

K5, with a “similar but not identical” coding system to K4, is also to be released after the current auction sale

French court says Perrier can keep marketing as ‘natural mineral water’


By AFP
November 18, 2025


The Perrier brand is iconic - Copyright AFP/File JOEL SAGET

A French court on Tuesday said Perrier can keep selling its famed sparkling beverage as “natural mineral water”, rejecting a case brought by a consumer rights group that said the label was misleading and urged the suspension of sales.

UFC-Que Choisir, which lodged its request with a court in Nanterre near Paris, had argued that the company’s microfiltration process meant Perrier could no longer claim the “natural mineral water” designation.

“The existence of a health risk to consumers linked to Perrier waters labelled ‘natural mineral waters’ has not been established,” said the Nanterre court on Tuesday.

Marie-Amandine Stevenin, the head of the consumer rights group, said they were “angry” at the ruling.

“We believe that this decision does not live up to the issues we were denouncing, namely misleading commercial practices.”

The association was ordered to pay 5,000 euros ($5,790) to the Nestle Waters group.

For its part, Nestle Waters welcomed the ruling, saying it confirmed that “the food safety of Source Perrier natural mineral waters has always been guaranteed”.

In early 2024, media reported that Nestle Waters, which also owns the Vittel and Contrex brands, had used banned processes to improve its quality, including ultraviolet treatment and activated carbon filters.

Such treatment is contrary to French and European law that states natural mineral water cannot undergo any processes that change its original state.

UFC had argued that the alteration of the water carried health risks.

Perrier is obtained from a spring in southern France.

Contamination by bacteria from fecal matter has been found on several occasions in the wells supplying Perrier, especially after heavy rainfall.

Nestle Waters has argued that such incidents have been rare, and that it was no longer using the affected wells.

The Swiss conglomerate had already been under pressure over Perrier and its other brands as EU regulations strictly limit what treatments are allowed for any product marketed as natural mineral water.

In 2024, Nestle Waters admitted using banned filters and ultra-violet treatment on mineral waters.

The company paid a two-million-euro ($2.2-million) fine to avoid legal action over the use of illegal water sources and filtering.

In June of this year, Nestle Waters was fined more than $610,000 in Switzerland for having used activated carbon filters on its Henniez bottled mineral water.

Swiss queasy over chlorinated chicken fears in US tariff deal


By AFP
November 19, 2025


The agreement with the US has sparked fears in Switzerland that the country's proud farmers will be forced to accept American hormone-pumped beef - Copyright AFP Jim WATSON

Nathalie OLOF-ORS

Relief has given way to anxiety in Switzerland over the concessions made to spare the small Alpine nation from US President Donald Trump’s threat of a stark 39 percent tariff.

Many details of the agreement Bern struck last week to slash the levy to 15 percent, on par with the surrounding European Union, have yet to see the light of day.

Businesses hailed the deal as averting potential disaster for the export-driven Swiss economy.

But others fear the fine print will include relaxing rules on the import of American food, including hormone-fed cattle and the chlorinated chicken which has become a bete noire of European critics of US big agriculture.

Switzerland’s powerful farming lobby has waded into the debate, with farmers’ union Uniterre rejecting any imports of chlorinated chicken and concessions likely to harm the country’s proud milk and dairy industry.

Unusually for a party usually at loggerheads with Swiss agriculture, the left-wing Greens agreed, criticising the prospect of “American beef pumped full of hormones and cut-price chlorinated chicken” appearing on supermarket shelves.

Economy Minister Guy Parmelin, who travelled to Washington thrice for negotiations on the deal, was forced to clarify to public broadcaster RTS that Swiss consumers were not necessarily being expected to put swimming pool-chemical poultry on their plates.

“We have not talked, at this stage — and I have to be very clear on this — of the manner in which these chickens are produced,” said Parmelin, adding that the chlorinated chicken affair was still up for discussion — as with many other issues.



– Cybertrucks, web tax –



In a bid to end the government’s “silence on key points concerning the agreement with Trump”, the Swiss Socialist Party (PS) launched a petition on Monday demanding an explanation.

Besides the chlorine-bath birds, the petition also cites US weaponry and Tesla’s electric Cybertrucks.

Though touted by Elon Musk, the futuristic stainless steel vehicle is currently banned in Switzerland because of safety concerns, while a California family has sued Tesla alleging their daughter died as a result of being trapped in the vehicle due to its door design.

A factsheet published by the White House revealed that Switzerland agreed to recognise US vehicle safety norms, raising questions over whether the polarising cars will soon be a fixture of the country’s alpine roads.

The document equally mentions that Switzerland has committed to “refraining from harmful digital services taxes”, without offering further details.

The economy ministry confirmed to AFP that Bern intended to drop a proposed tax on American Big Tech, while the car question will be a feature of upcoming negotiations.

Parmelin has also pointed to other products on which talks were ongoing, including industrial machines, steel, aluminium, coffee — and the Alpine nation’s world-leading cheese and watches.

“No agreement is ever perfect,” economist Stephane Garelli, professor at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) and the University of Lausanne, conceded to AFP.

Yet he argued that “we had to make concessions because the damage to Swiss industry and employment was far too great”.

When contacted by AFP, Migros, Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, said it “has no plans to stock chlorinated or chemically treated chicken on its shelves” as those birds did not meet Swiss “consumer expectations”.

EU states back new delay to anti-deforestation rules


By AFP
November 19, 2025


Adopted in 2023, the EU's deforestation law was hailed by green groups as a major breakthrough in the fight to protect nature and combat climate change - Copyright POOL/AFP Sina Schuldt

Adrien DE CALAN

EU member states Wednesday backed a new one-year delay to landmark anti-deforestation rules that have hit a wall of opposition from businesses and trading partners, diplomats told AFP.

Already delayed by a year, the rollout of the law banning imports of products driving deforestation would be pushed back to the end of 2026 under plans backed by a majority of member states. These still need approval by the EU parliament.

Led by Germany and Austria, EU capitals also backed holding a review of the sweeping legislation in April next year — before it even comes into force.

The new delay goes further than a six-month grace period for large firms already proposed by the European Commission, while backing a push to cut back reporting requirements including for small companies.

Pierre-Jean Sol Brasier of the Fern environmental group said the move sent a “disastrous signal at every level,” calling the back and forth on the law “a caricature of incompetent EU policymaking”.

“We are creating instability for companies that have invested millions” towards compliance, warned Sol Brasier, who said the door was now open “for EU lawmakers to eviscerate” the text.



– ‘Reward inaction –



Adopted in 2023, the deforestation law, known as EUDR, was hailed by green groups as a major breakthrough in the fight to protect nature and combat climate change.

But the law has faced stiff opposition from trading partners including Brazil and the United States, as well as some EU capitals, who argue businesses will suffer from red tape and increased costs.

The law bans goods produced using land deforested after December 2020, with at-risk items including anything from coffee to cocoa, soy, timber, palm oil, cattle, printing paper and rubber.

Firms importing such merchandise to the 27-nation European Union will need to provide a statement alongside geolocation and satellite data to show the goods did not originate from deforested zones.

Under the original plan, such papers had to be submitted also by companies who then purchase, process and sell the items — for example, sweet makers who buy cocoa to make chocolates.

But the commission later decided the extra layer of checks risked overloading the IT system designed to support the rules — and called for axing the requirement for all but first importers.

Beyond environmental advocates, the flip-flopping over the rules has also rankled firms that have already invested large sums to comply.

Italian chocolate-maker Ferrero and Swiss food giant Nestle are among two dozen businesses that warned this week a further one-year delay would “prolong legal and market uncertainty, penalise first movers, and reward inaction.”

“We’ve done this investment in good faith because we thought there was a sense of direction — and now it’s being questioned,” Francesco Tramontin, a senior executive with Nutella-maker Ferrero, told a news conference Monday.

Central Park to Central America: How conservation can save North America’s migratory birds


ByDr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 19, 2025


Bird conservation. Image by Tim Sandle

Their stunning flashes of bright color and uniquely beautiful songs have made many migratory birds that visit the New York metro area beloved to millions. Yet these birds face growing threats in the forests where they winter.

A new study in the journal Biological Conservation highlights the connection between the landscapes growing numbers of birders in the U.S. encounter migratory birds and the forests where those birds winter that have become increasingly threatened by deforestation.

This tallies with findings that one in four species listed under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species are now facing extinction from habitat loss and degradation, pollution, and climate change.

This study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the first to connect Central American forests to “sister landscapes” in the north using the crowdsourced eBird app. This means that the major forests of the south are tightly linked to forested areas of the Appalachians, the Mississippi Delta, the Great Lakes, New England, and around New York City. These are places connected by the same bird species at different times of year.


The study documents the critical need to protect Central America’s forests by leveraging digital information across the Americas derived from migratory bird concentrations.

eBird is among the world’s largest biodiversity-related science projects, with more than 100 million bird sightings contributed annually by users (‘eBirders’) around the world and an average participation growth rate of approximately 20% year over year.

By using information on where bird populations concentrate week by week each year—made possible by millions of observations around the world from birdwatchers on the Cornell Lab’s eBird platform—scientists found that these five forests collectively support between one-tenth and nearly one-half of the global populations of 40 migratory bird species, including some of North America’s most rapidly declining birds.

Key finding include:More than one-third of the world’s Kentucky Warblers and nearly one-quarter of all Wood Thrushes and Golden-winged Warblers spend the winter within these forests.
Over 40 percent of the global Cerulean Warbler population, a species that has declined by more than 70 percent since 1970, funnels through these forests during spring migration.
The Selva Maya (spanning Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala) and the Moskitia (in Honduras and Nicaragua) are the most critical forests for these birds—yet also the most threatened, having lost a quarter of their area in just 15 years, primarily to illegal cattle ranching.

The research paper finds that actions are being taken, however, these are not enough and financial aid from high income countries is required, especially to boost conservation efforts. As proactive example, across the region, Indigenous and local communities are leading efforts to restore degraded land, fight forest fires, and revive bird-friendly livelihoods such as sustainable cacao and allspice production.

Yet to truly deliver change conservation is essential. This is not only with conserving the major forests of Central America (Selva Maya, Moskitia, Indio Maíz-Tortuguero, La Amistad, and Darién) but focusing on the U.S. too.

In the past, joint conservation efforts across borders have been limited by a lack of understanding of how birds connect habitats and people across seasons. To guide international collaboration, the study applied a framework to trace “stewardship connections” in terms of the regions of North America where species that depend on the great forests concentrate to breed. Protecting and restoring these vital migratory stopovers and wintering habitats is key to ensuring that eastern forest birds keep coming back to North America.

The research, published in Biological Conservation, is titled “Leveraging participatory science data to guide cross-border conservation of migratory birds: A case study from Mesoamerica’s Five Great Forests.”

Vietnam flooding submerges homes, kills 16, after relentless rain


By AFP
November 20, 2025


In coastal Nha Trang, whole city blocks were inundated and hundreds of cars were underwater - Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA

Rescuers plucked stranded people from the rooftops of submerged homes as widespread flooding inundated central Vietnam, where authorities said on Thursday at least 16 people were killed.

Relentless rain has lashed south-central Vietnam since late October, and popular coastal holiday destinations have been hit by several rounds of flooding.

Whole city blocks were inundated in coastal Nha Trang, a popular tourist locale known for its pristine beaches, and hundreds of cars were underwater on Thursday, AFP photos showed.

Business owner Bui Quoc Vinh, 45, said he was safe in his 24th-floor apartment in Nha Trang but his restaurants and shops on the ground floor were under about a metre of water. His employees were even worse off.

“I am worried about our furniture in my restaurants and shops, but of course I cannot do anything now,” he told AFP.

“My staff have to take care of their flooded homes,” which he said were under two metres (six feet) of water. “I don’t think the water is going to recede soon as the rain has not stopped.”

Rescuers using boats in central Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces pried open windows and broke through roofs to assist residents stranded by high water on Wednesday, according to state media.

At least 16 people have been killed since the weekend, while the search was continuing for five others, the environment ministry said on Thursday.

More than 43,000 houses were submerged, while several major roads remained blocked due to landslides.



– Cancelled tours –



There were also deadly landslides in highland passes around the Da Lat tourist hub, with some areas recording up to 600 millimetres (two feet) of rain since the weekend, according to the national weather bureau.

Hotel owner Vu Huu Son, 56, said landslides had blocked all but one road to the city.

“I don’t think we have tourists now as they all left at the weekend before the rain and also cancelled their tours here,” he told AFP.

The government-run Hanoi railway corporation announced the suspension of several train lines linking the north and south due to the flooding, state media said.

Emergency hotlines recorded unusually heavy call volumes on Wednesday night as water levels across the region rose, state media said.

The defence ministry also deployed helicopters to search for stranded people.

Water levels in the Ba River in Dak Lak surpassed a 1993 record in two places early on Thursday, while the Cai River in Khanh Hoa province also surged to a new high, according to the weather bureau.

The floods occurred as heavy rains added to already high water levels, Hoang Phuc Lam, deputy head of the National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting, said on state television.

Natural disasters have left 279 people dead or missing and caused more than $2 billion in damage between January and October, according to Vietnam’s national statistics office.

The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientific evidence has identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.

Study finds 41% of EV drivers would avoid Tesla over politics


By AFP
November 18, 2025


The Tesla store opened its doors in India's financial capital Mumbai - Copyright AFP Punit PARANJPE

More than 40 percent of electric car drivers worldwide would avoid owning a Tesla, the brand run by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, for political reasons, according to a recent survey.

More than half of electric vehicle (EV) drivers — 53 percent — said they would avoid certain brands or countries of production for political reasons, according to the survey published Monday.

More than 26,000 electric car owners in 30 countries were queried on behalf of the Global EV Alliance, an international network of national electric vehicle driver associations.

When asked to specify which brand or country of production they would avoid, 41 percent of all EV drivers named Tesla, 12 percent said China, and five percent said the United States.

The survey was conducted in September and October, and the results were weighted based on the share each country represents in the global EV market.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, was almost inseparable from US President Donald Trump as he headed the cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, but the pair later fell out bitterly over government spending plans under the Trump-led budget.

Musk has also made headlines by supporting European far-right movements, criticising diversity policies, and making a gesture many observers interpreted as a Nazi salute.

There have been calls for a boycott around the world, but their impact has been hard to quantify.

According to the survey, reservations against Teslas were particularly strong in the United States (52 percent), Germany (51 percent), as well as in Australia and New Zealand (45 percent).

In Norway, which is leading the world in the adoption of electric vehicles, 43 percent of respondents said they would avoid a Tesla.

However, in India the figure was just two percent.

Globally, 12 percent of electric car drivers said they would avoid buying cars produced in China, though there were significant disparities between countries on this issue, with 43 percent of Lithuanian drivers wanting to avoid Chinese-made EVs compared to only two percent of Italian and Polish drivers.

“It has to do with the availability of cars,” Ellen Hiep, a member of the Global EV Alliance steering committee, told AFP.

Hiep noted that Chinese models, which are less expensive, are much more common in developing countries than higher-end brands like Tesla.

“In the Global South, people don’t have too much choice. So I think sometimes they want to drive electric, and they want to have an affordable car while maybe in Europe and the US, we’ve got a bigger choice,” she said.

Ireland’s data centres power digital age, drain the grid


ByAFP
November 18, 2025


Irish data centres are a quietly purring economic engine, but doubts are mounting over the environmental cost - Copyright AFP PAUL FAITH

Peter MURPHY

Ireland hosts one of the world’s fast-growing clusters of data centres, but is running headlong into the difficult consequences.

The server farms powering global tech giants now consume a fifth of the small nation’s electricity, igniting concerns over both grid stability and Ireland’s commitments to boost renewable energies and cut gas emissions.

Already home to over 80 data centres, a 2024 report by US-based researchers Synergy ranked Dublin behind only the US state of Virginia and Beijing in its density of such state-of-the-art facilities built for colossal amounts of data.

Vast energy-hungry warehouses around Dublin’s ring road host thousands of servers handling massive amounts of cloud computing, storage and AI demands for data giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.

The facilities are a quietly purring economic engine, injecting billions in investment, employment and anchoring the tech multinationals which, coupled with big pharma, fund over half of Ireland’s corporate-tax take, according to analysts.

But doubts are mounting over the environmental cost.

– ‘Unsustainable’ –

Campaigner group Friends of the Earth told AFP such centres are “completely unsustainable”.

“It’s one of the fundamental climate justice issues of our times,” said spokesperson Rosi Leonard.

Data centres’ share of Irish metered electricity consumption reached 22 percent by 2024, compared to an EU-wide average of 2-3 percent, according to official data.

National grid operator EirGrid projects that data centres could account for 30 percent of demand by 2030 as the growth of artificial intelligence technology accelerates.

That is equivalent to powering two million homes for a full year, energy analysts Wood Mackenzie said in July.

Some data centres in high-pressure areas in Dublin have already turned to generators for back-up, which are usually gas and oil-powered, said Leonard.

That could hamper Ireland’s already fraught efforts to meet EU 2030 climate targets that threaten multi-billion euro fines if missed.

Leonard said the server farms are also gobbling up much of the renewable energy like wind and solar that is being added to the grid.

“We want a moratorium on further expansion of data centres until they pose no threat to our climate and carbon budgets,” she said.

– ‘Limbo’ –

EirGrid plans capacity upgrades to accommodate future data centre demand more evenly nationwide. And the government has said a new strategy will be published soon with a pledge to update the grid within five years.

But experts doubt whether those plans will deliver in time to meet demand.

As Ireland aims “to reduce emissions… expanding a sector that’s going to increase emissions very significantly just… doesn’t make sense,” said Barry McMullin, a climate change expert at Dublin City University.

Data centre compatibility with emissions goals “is unlikely for another decade”, he told AFP.

Some planning authorities have already pushed back.

Last year, a local council in Dublin refused a Google data centre development, citing “insufficient (grid) capacity” and a “lack of significant on-site renewable energy”.

Ireland’s digital sector contributes an estimated 13 percent to GDP.

But Maurice Mortell, head of Digital Infrastructure Ireland (DII), a group representing data centres, warns the nation could lose out on AI-driven investment due to grid and planning blockages.

“We’ve over 18 billion euros ($21 billion) of investment in digital infrastructure here already, with another 5.8 billion planned, but without power, so potentially marooned,” he said.

“Ireland’s lead, particularly in cloud computing, is at risk,” he told AFP, highlighting its fading appeal and frustrations from large US firms.

“Our sector is in limbo, we need a grid that’s capable, and a clear policy environment,” he said.

– Waste heat –

A 2022 government strategy paper said data centres should demonstrate a “clear pathway to decarbonise” and “net-zero data services by design”.

Meanwhile, a project launched in 2023 by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in partnership with a local Dublin authority shows how some climate impacts could be offset.

Waste heat provided from an AWS data centre is carried via hot water through pipes to a local heating hub next door to heat offices and a library, and soon hundreds of homes.

“There is potential for other data centres to do the same,” said Admir Shala, a project manager at the heating hub called Heatworks.

But expert McMullin was sceptical.

“We don’t really have heat networks to plug this waste heat into,” he said, adding that data centres run year-round whereas homes only need to be heated for about six months a year.

Sugary sodas cause deadly diseases. Coca-Cola worked to discredit the science.

Story by insider@insider.com (Murray Carpenter)


Rob Dobi for BI© Rob Dobi for BI

Decades of health campaigns and scientific research about the risks of sugary soft drinks are a big reason that Americans have been drinking less soda since consumption peaked around 2000. A January paper in Nature Medicine found that in 2020, 2.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cases of cardiovascular disease worldwide were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages. But many of us still have not gotten the memo — the average American today drinks about 12 ounces of sugary sodas a day. For each person who doesn't drink any soda, there's someone chugging 24 ounces every day.



Why are we still drinking so much of a beverage that makes people sick?

Eight years ago, two pastors sued Coca-Cola, by far the country's most popular soda company, and the American Beverage Association over "their deceptive marketing, labeling, and sale of Coca-Cola's sugar-sweetened beverages." The complaint, filed in Washington, DC, alleged that Coca-Cola knew about the science linking sugar-sweetened beverages to chronic diseases but obscured those links through aggressive public relations campaigns. Some thought that the suit would finally tip the balance of public opinion against Coke — the same way a court case in 2007 over misleading marketing on OxyContin's addictiveness shifted the tide against Purdue Pharma. But as I cover in my new book, "Sweet and Deadly," every jab by health advocates has been deftly parried by Coke and its allies.

Like the tobacco companies, Coke has spent millions spinning science to hide soda's health costs from the public and downplay the risks of sugar. In fact, Coke has been at this game longer than the tobacco industry. When the Tobacco Industry Research Committee started launching disinformation campaigns in 1954, it imported its staff and strategies lock, stock, and barrel from the Sugar Research Foundation, a nonprofit funded partly by Coke. The soda companies were pioneers of the PR strategy now known as the tobacco playbook.

For decades, the $300 billion corporation has duped consumers by promoting messages that are either misleading or flat-out false. It's used an extensive network of allies and proxy groups to carry its messages, including co-opting scientists and their research, and spent billions of dollars on ads that associate Coke with warm and fuzzy feelings represented by polar bears, Santas, and happy families. Coca-Cola has yet to face a major reckoning for its outsize role in America's health crisis.



One of the dietary falsehoods that Coca-Cola spreads is the concept that a calorie is a calorie. "We don't believe in empty calories," Katie Bayne, Coke's former chief marketing officer, said in 2012. The following year, James Quincey, now the CEO of the corporation, said, "When we talk about obesity, a calorie is a calorie. The experts are clear — the academics, the government advisors, diabetes associations — we need to have balance in the calories. And if you're taking in too many, or burning them off, that is a problem; wherever they're coming from, a calorie is a calorie."

But in the human body, not all calories are created equal — far from it. Research has long shown that a calorie of liquid sugar is not metabolized in the same manner as a calorie of whole grain, for example, or a calorie of fruit or nuts. Those calories have fiber, vitamins, and other nutrients that are not present in soda.


Coke also promotes the related message of "energy balance." The simplest energy balance argument posits that a calorie of food will be metabolized the same whether it comes from cashews, kale, or Coca-Cola, so consumers should focus not on the type of food but on trying to burn as many calories as they consume. Coke has been especially interested in emphasizing the calories-out side of the equation.
Coke is in the business of selling sugar water. If it tries to reduce sales of its products, it would be violating its obligations to its shareholders.

This was the focus of the Global Energy Balance Network, an organization launched in 2014 by researchers affiliated with the University of Colorado and the University of South Carolina. One of the academics, Steven Blair, did yeoman's work to shift Americans' focus from the elements of the diet to the concept of balancing calories in and calories out. In a video for the organization, Blair said, "Most of the focus, in the popular media, in the scientific press, is 'Aww, they're eating too much, eating too much, eating too much.' Blaming fast foods, blaming sugary drinks, and so on, and there's really virtually no compelling evidence that that in fact is the cause."


In 2015, a New York Times exposé revealed that the Global Energy Balance Network was simply a front group for Coca-Cola. The corporation had funded it and guided it since its inception but wanted it to appear independent. This prompted a very public apology from Coke's then-CEO Muhtar Kent, who penned a Wall Street Journal column titled "We'll do better." Coca-Cola did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

But it was far from the only misleading messaging Coke had spread. In a May 2013 blog post, Coca-Cola trumpeted its success in removing calories from the American diet through changing its product formulation, portion size, and promotion. "Yesterday, America's top food and beverage manufacturers announced an important milestone: more than 1.5 trillion calories have been removed from the US marketplace," the now-removed post read. "This achievement is the result of efforts made by the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), a coalition of 16 food and beverage corporate partners, including The Coca-Cola Company, and over 230 organizations, who are working together to help reduce obesity, especially childhood obesity."

The post ran beneath a photo of the former Department of Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman, Lisa Gable of HWCF, and the author Hank Cardello at an event sponsored by the Obesity Solutions Initiative at the Hudson Institute. While the photo appears to be three independent experts cordially discussing the problem of obesity, the whole event was paid for by Coke, Pepsi, and other food corporations. Coke alone had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Hudson Institute and $5 million to HWCF.

What the company didn't mention is that Coca-Cola could remove far more calories from the marketplace in a heartbeat by taking full-sugar beverages off the market or reducing its advertising of those products. Not only does it aggressively market these calorie-dense drinks, but it continues to introduce new Coke blends that in some cases, such as Coca-Cola Spiced, have even more sugar than the original Coca-Cola.

Coke is in the business of selling sugar water. If it tries to reduce sales of its products, it would be violating its obligations to its shareholders. (Woe to the CEO who announces on an earnings call — "We did it, we finally succeeded in reducing the amount of Coke we sell, thus reducing calories!") What is unexpected is for Coca-Cola to concurrently sell more sugar-sweetened beverages than any other corporation while taking credit for reducing calories.

One front group ended up taking the pro-sugar stance a bit too far. The International Life Sciences Institute, founded in the 1980s by a Coca-Cola executive, spent decades spinning food science in favor of its corporate funders, including Hershey, Kraft, and Kellogg. But when it funded a 2016 research paper critiquing the growing body of science on the health risks of sugar, it was a step too far for some of its corporate members. Matthias Berninger, a Mars spokesperson at the time, said the paper would not help consumers make better choices. When Mars left ILSI in 2018, Berninger said, "We do not want to be involved in advocacy-led studies that so often, and mostly for the right reasons, have been criticized." Two years later, Coke quietly left the group as well.

In 2018, Coke was part of an elaborate front group to help it push back against the soda taxes several California municipalities had enacted. Coke and its soda industry allies, under the guise of a campaign called "Californians for Accountability and Transparency in Government Spending, Sponsored by California Businesses," gathered signatures to support a statewide initiative that would require municipalities to get the approval of two-thirds of voters before implementing any local tax change. By crafting an initiative so abhorrent to municipalities and unions that California lawmakers would do anything to make it go away, Coke gained bargaining power. With signatures in hand, the soda alliance went to Sacramento and swung a deal. We'll withdraw the initiative, they said, in exchange for a law banning new taxes on groceries, including sodas, through 2030. Legislators took the deal and pushed that provision through as a rider on a budget bill. This strategy, known as preemption, has also proven effective for gun rights groups.

Coke has created this elaborate parallel world to mislead consumers about the health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages and take strategic actions like preventing soda taxes. All of the innocuous-sounding, Coke-funded groups named above are part of a plan that has prevented the balance of public opinion from tipping against Coca-Cola, as it has for other corporations such as the tobacco company Philip Morris, Purdue Pharma, and Exxon. In the 2024 Axios Harris Poll 100, which ranks company reputations, Coke placed 27th with a "very good" score compared to Exxon's "fair" score at No. 86. The PR strategy ensures that Coca-Cola appears shrouded in an aura of goodness while staying profitable and steadily rewarding their shareholders.

And that DC lawsuit? It dragged on for years, as Coke's top-notch legal team successfully whittled it down. The plaintiffs finally withdrew the suit in 2019. Coke won again.

Murray Carpenter is a health and science journalist and the author of "Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick" and "Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us."

This story is adapted from "Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick" by Murray Carpenter. Copyright 2025 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SUGAR 

Sugar - Sidney Mintz

sidneymintz.net/sugar.php

Sugar, or sucrose (C12H22O11), is manufactured photosynthetically by green plants. We humans can't make sugar. The best we can do is to extract it, and change its form. We have been doing so zealously, for more than 2,000 years.