Japan takes aim at the moons of Mars with French and German technology

Japan has launched a spacecraft to Mars’s two small moons in a mission that could shed light on their mysterious origins. With French and German technology on board, the MMX probe aims to collect material from Phobos and deliver it to Earth in 2031.


Issued on: 20/10/2026 - RFI

Phobos and Deimos, the Martian moons NASA


Japan’s next space adventure has a small, potato-shaped destination – and ambitions that reach far beyond its size.

The Japanese space agency JAXA on Tuesday successfully launched its Martian Moons eXploration mission, or MMX, from the Tanegashima Space Centre aboard an H3 rocket.

JAXA had allowed for further launch attempts until 9 November if necessary. Missing this opportunity could mean waiting roughly another two years for a favourable alignment of Earth and Mars.

The spacecraft is expected to reach the Martian system in 2027 and spend around three years investigating Phobos and Deimos, before returning samples from the larger moon to Earth in 2031.

France and Germany are contributing a small rover, while a French-built infrared instrument will help examine the moons’ surfaces and identify suitable landing sites.

The central question is straightforward: where did these two unusual moons come from?

Phobos, an irregular body measuring about 27 kilometres at its widest point, orbits less than 6,000 kilometres above the Martian surface. Smaller Deimos circles much further out, at an altitude exceeding 20,000 kilometres.

Both could be asteroids captured by Mars’ gravity. Alternatively, they may have formed from debris thrown into space by a massive collision involving the planet.

By examining their composition up close – and bringing material home for laboratory analysis – scientists hope to distinguish between those competing explanations.

Building on Japan’s sample-return successes

Reaching Phobos has defeated previous missions.

In 1988, the Soviet Union launched two spacecraft towards Mars and its larger moon. One reached the Martian system in January 1989 and returned photographs of Phobos, but contact was lost before it could deploy its surface equipment.

Russia tried again in 2011 with Phobos-Grunt, an ambitious sample-return mission carrying a Chinese Mars orbiter. Stranded in Earth orbit after its propulsion system failed to send it towards Mars, the spacecraft eventually fell back into the atmosphere.

Other missions have photographed the moons while exploring Mars, but none has landed successfully on either surface.

Japan, however, brings considerable experience in collecting extraterrestrial material.

Its first Hayabusa spacecraft, launched in 2003, overcame major technical difficulties to return particles from the asteroid Itokawa in 2010.

Hayabusa2, launched in 2014, followed with a more substantial haul from the asteroid Ryugu, delivering its samples to Earth in 2020.

MMX builds on those achievements while attempting something different: rather than briefly touching an asteroid to collect material, the spacecraft will settle on Phobos for sampling operations lasting several hours.

First, it will survey the moon from nearby. The French MIRS infrared imaging spectrometer will map minerals on the surface, providing scientific clues and helping mission teams choose where to land.

Then comes a scouting mission with a distinctly European character.

A rover, two landings and a journey home

Developed by France’s CNES and Germany’s DLR space agencies, the four-wheeled Idefix rover will be released towards Phobos ahead of the main spacecraft’s landing.

It is expected to bounce before coming to rest, potentially in an awkward position. Its mechanisms are designed to turn it upright onto its wheels.

Driving will require exceptional care. Gravity on Phobos is around 1,800 times weaker than on Earth, making even basic movements challenging. The rover must advance slowly and maintain contact with the surface.

Over an operating period of around 100 days, Idefix is expected to cover perhaps 100 metres, examining the terrain and helping engineers understand how the loose surface material behaves.

Those findings will inform the main spacecraft’s descent.

National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) Administrator Philippe Baptiste (L) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) president Hiroshi Yamakawa (R) shows to French President Emmanuel Macron a model of a rover developped for the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) project during the International Paris Air Show at the Paris–Le Bourget Airport on 19 June 2023. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

MMX plans two sampling landings, targeting different locations to obtain material that could help reveal Phobos’s origins. Each surface visit is expected to last around two and a half hours.

The goal is to collect at least 10 grams of regolith – the loose dust and fragmented rock covering the moon.

The spacecraft will also make close passes of Deimos before beginning its return journey.

Under the mission timetable, the samples should reach Earth in 2031 inside a protective capsule destined for landing in Australia.

Scientists will examine the recovered material and any gases preserved inside its container. Some samples will be reserved for future research, allowing later generations to study them with instruments yet to be developed.

France will receive a share for its scientific community, with a dedicated conservation and preparation facility planned at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, according to CNES.

After a five-year journey, just a few grams could provide the clearest evidence yet of how Mars acquired its moons.

This has been adapted from an original article in French by RFI's Igor Gauquelin and lightly edited for clarity.

FRANCE - SLAVERY

France turns page on Code Noir as Parliament approves symbolic repeal

France’s Parliament has unanimously approved the symbolic repeal of the Code Noir and related legislation governing slavery in its former colonies, closing a legal chapter left formally unresolved since abolition in 1848.


Issued on: 21/10/2026 - RFI

French MP Max Mathiasin at a debate over his proposed bill aimed at abolishing the slavery-related laws at the National Assembly, France's lower house parliament, in Paris on 28 May, 2026. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery in its colonies, Parliament has given its final approval to legislation formally repealing the Code Noir – the royal edicts that organised and legitimised the enslavement of people under French colonial rule.

Senators unanimously backed the bill on Tuesday, following an equally unanimous vote in the National Assembly in May. Proposed by Guadeloupe MP Max Mathiasin, the measure targets the royal edict of 1685 and the legislation stemming from it.

The vote comes 25 years after France recognised the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity under the 2001 Taubira law.

Its significance is primarily symbolic. The texts governing slavery ceased to have legal effect following abolition in 1848, but had never been expressly repealed. Parliament’s decision clears the way for their formal removal from French legislation.

Closing a colonial legal chapter

The Code Noir reduced enslaved people to the status of “movable property” – possessions that owners could buy and sell.

It also prescribed brutal punishments for those who tried to escape, including branding with a hot iron, mutilation and, for repeated attempts, the death penalty.

Ahead of the Senate vote, Overseas Territories Minister Naïma Moutchou said the repeal would address an unacceptable remnant of France’s colonial past.

“The Code Noir [Black Code] organised and legitimised slavery. It has no place in our legal system, not even as a relic. This text belongs to our history, not our legislation,” she told French news agency AFP.

The bill also requires the government to submit a report on the legacy of colonial law and its lasting effects, particularly in relation to racism, alongside the place given to the history of slavery in school curricula.

A copy of the "Black Code" of 1743. © Wikipedia commons

The scope of the repeal had prompted discussion before the Senate debate, particularly over how to recognise the different legal texts applied across France’s former colonies.

Senator Evelyne Corbière Naminzo, who represents Réunion and sits with the Communist group, had argued that the legislation governing slavery in the Indian Ocean should be explicitly mentioned, with the “same weight” as the Code Noir applied in the French Antilles.

“When we talk about a symbol, we must not leave anyone out,” she told AFP ahead of the vote.

The Senate’s rapporteur, Louis Vogel, defended the bill’s broader wording, arguing that it already covered all the relevant texts.

“If we start drawing up a list, we are bound to leave some things out,” he told AFP, saying a symbolic law should above all “establish a principle”.

Tuesday’s approval completed the bill’s passage through Parliament.

How slavery money built the Élysée, France’s presidential residence

Reparations remain an open question

While the repeal secured unanimous parliamentary support, it leaves aside the question of reparations – a longstanding demand in several French overseas territories.

During the National Assembly debate, MPs highlighted the contrast between the treatment of slave owners and those they had enslaved after abolition.

The French state compensated former owners for the loss of what the law had treated as their property. The emancipated people themselves received no compensation.

For supporters of reparations, that imbalance remains central to discussions about how France should address the consequences of slavery.

Those debates extend beyond remembrance to the persistent inequalities between overseas territories and mainland France, and the discrimination faced by black people.

The government report envisaged by the bill offers a way to examine those connections, although the legislation itself provides no compensation or other reparations measures.

(with newswires)

Cameroon's Eseka rail disaster survivors still waiting for justice, 10 years on

A decade after Cameroon’s deadliest rail disaster killed 79 people and injured more than 500, survivors are still living with serious injuries, some compensation remains unpaid and an appeal against the convictions over the crash has yet to be heard. RFI spoke to survivors still living with the consequences of the disaster and to the husband of a woman whose body has never been found.


Issued on: 21/10/2026 - RFI

The overturned carriages of the train that derailed at Eseka, around 100 kilometres from Yaoundé in Cameroon on 21 October 2016. AP - Joel Kouam

The Camrail train was travelling from Yaoundé to Douala when it derailed near the town of Eseka, around 100 kilometres from the capital, on 21 October 2016.

That morning, traffic on the road linking Cameroon’s political capital Yaoundé with its economic capital Douala was disrupted, prompting large numbers of people to take the train instead. Numerous carriages were added to cope with the influx of passengers.

An investigation later found that the train was travelling at 96 kilometres per hour on a section limited to 40 kilometres per hour. It also pointed to an overloaded train, the inappropriate addition of extra carriages and carriages with defective braking systems.

The report said Camrail management had failed to take into account concerns raised by the train driver before departure.

Lasting injuries

Among those who survived the crash was Eugénie, now 39, who suffered several fractures, including one to her neck, and has since lost her independence.

“I remember saying three times: ‘Jesus, save me.’ I was trapped underneath the carriage. I started praying and shouting: ‘Please, come and help me, come and help me',” Eugénie told RFI.

“There were so many people. We didn't know who would be saved and who would be left there. There was blood everywhere, people were screaming and crying.”

Eugénie suffered several fractures, including one to her neck, and has since lost her independence.

“I can't do anything by myself,” she said. “I always need someone to be at home with me. Since that accident, my life has ceased to exist. I'm constantly in pain, I suffer from memory loss, and my body is still in tremendous pain.”

Another survivor, Arnaud, was travelling in the second-to-last carriage.

“When things had settled down and I regained consciousness, I realised there were a lot of dead bodies in our carriage and that all the seats and luggage racks had been torn away,” he said.

Still searching

Among the families still seeking answers is that of Dorette Dissakè, a prominent notary in Yaoundé whose body has never been found.

“My daughter, the rest of the family and I are still waiting,” her husband, lawyer Thomas Dissakè, told RFI. “On what basis can we grieve and move on? The idea doesn't even cross our minds.”

Dissakè recently enlisted a team of experts, with the cooperation of Camrail and the Ministry of Transport, to examine the ground at Eseka in the hope of finding human remains.

“How is it possible that her body has never been found? The accident didn't happen at sea. Her carriage overturned at the station. They lifted it up and there was nothing. Was another carriage run over her? This mystery is still on my mind,” he said.

The family's search for answers has even led to the exhumation of a body in a village in Cameroon’s Centre region, but it was not Dissakè's wife.

Criminal convictions

In September 2018, Camrail and 11 of its employees were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and causing unintentional injuries by the court of first instance in Eseka.

The company’s former managing director received a six-month suspended prison sentence. Other Camrail officials received suspended sentences of between three and five months, while the train driver, who was on the run, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Camrail appealed against the ruling, denouncing the “absence of any qualified and competent expert assessment”.

The appeal has still not been heard.

Lawyers representing the victims also said the compensation awarded was too low given the physical and psychological harm suffered. Some payments have still not been made.

The France-based Bolloré Group retained the Camrail railway concession after the disaster until it sold its transport activities to Italian-Swiss company MSC in 2022.

This article has been adapted from interviews in French by Richard Onanena and Jules Ntap.

AI midwife seeks to fill gaps in Zimbabwe's maternal health care

Mutare, Zimbabwe – With public health services stretched thin, women in Zimbabwe sometimes struggle to access reliable information about pregnancy and childbirth. A locally developed app aims to answer their questions and direct them to appropriate care, in an example of the potential of artificial intelligence to ease pressure on overloaded health systems.


Issued on: 17/10/2026 - RFI

A pregnant woman in Zimbabwe looks at her phone to get pregnancy-related information from a WhatsApp chatbot known as DawaMom. © Farai Shawn Matiashe

By: Farai Shawn Matiashe

When Harare resident Samantha Murungweni found out she was pregnant for the first time earlier this year, she felt scared.

The 25-year-old, who lives in Greendale, one of the capital's suburbs, wasn't able to ask midwives all the questions she had when she registered for antenatal care at her local clinic. Zimbabwe’s public healthcare facilities often have lengthy queues.

Murungweni sought help from friends and social media – but she struggled to get reliable information.

Then a friend introduced her to DawaMom, an AI-powered chatbot designed to provide pregnancy-related information.

“I asked about food that would keep both of us healthy,” Murungweni, who started using the service in her second trimester, told RFI.

“I also asked about back pain, frequent urination and foetus movements in the uterus. It felt like I was talking to a real midwife.”

Easy access

Developed in 2024 by DawaHealth, a Zambia-based startup, DawaMom gives pregnant women and mothers validated medical information and connects them with licensed health workers via WhatsApp.

While accessing the chatbot is free, users must pay a subscription fee for more advanced services such as personalised monitoring or home visits.

Tafadzwa Kalisto Munzwa, DawaHealth co-founder and chief executive officer, said they chose WhatsApp because millions of people across Southern Africa already use the platform to communicate with their families and access information directly from their smartphones.

“Google is not accessible to everyone because internet data is expensive, but most people still keep a WhatsApp data bundle,” he told RFI.

A screenshot of a conversation with DawaMom, a WhatsApp chatbot which provides pregnancy-related information for women in Zimbabwe. © Farai Shawn Matiashe

Developers also sought to make the service more reliable than a traditional internet search.

To ensure medical information is accurate and relevant to the local context, DawaMom does not generate answers from general content on the internet. Instead, it uses a technique known as retrieval-augmented generation to provide responses based exclusively on a verified database.

Munzwa said the team compiled information from dozens of medical sources – including Health Ministry guidelines, World Health Organization recommendations, medical school curricula and hospital protocols on women’s health – to create an authoritative knowledge base.

“More than 25 health workers translated and validated this content into Shona, Ndebele and Tonga. Every answer DawaMom gives is drawn from this database,” he said.

Adapting the service to Zimbabwe’s multilingual context was also part of establishing trust.

“This year we also worked with more than 30 women from across Zimbabwe to build an English-Shona code-switching dataset,” said Munzwa. “This lets DawaMom understand the way people actually speak, mixing English and Shona, and reply by voice in a Shona accent that users find natural and understandable.”

According to the company, DawaMom has supported over 20,000 users to date. They are targeting 50,000 users by the end of 2026.

Stigma and sisterhood: how one Kenyan woman knitted a healthcare revolution
Reducing pressure on health workers

With a lack of funding in the health sector and mass migration of skilled professionals abroad, Zimbabwe faces severe shortages of health workers.

Nurses and doctors handle heavy workloads, especially in rural areas. Zimbabwe had just over 22 health workers per 10,000 people in 2022, less than half the World Health Organization’s recommended 45 per 10,000, according to an analysis by the WHO and Ministry of Health.

Elijah Dakwa, president of the Zimbabwe Medical Analytics and Informatics Network (ZiMAIN), which brings together medical professionals, researchers, data scientists and technology experts, says artificial intelligence can help ease the pressure on the country’s health workers – but only if it is used to support them rather than replace them.

“Clinicians we have can focus on the high‑risk cases instead of being swamped by low‑acuity visits,” he told RFI.

Dakwa says building robust digital infrastructure, improving connectivity, making devices widely available and providing training are key to the adoption of AI in the health sector.

“When that is in place, AI acts as a force multiplier: faster, more consistent, clearer decision-support systems for health workers and fewer unnecessary trips to central hospitals, which ultimately reduces congestion and workload across the system.”

The women carrying the burden of Kenya’s rural healthcare on their backs
Identifying high-risk patients

According to Munzwa of DawaHealth, AI can act as a triage filter, identifying women who need urgent or in-person follow-up and those who can be reassured at home without visiting a clinic.

“This means high-risk patients are less likely to be missed and are prioritised for follow-up, so limited staff and resources have more impact,” he said.

DawaMom connects pregnant women and mothers with licensed healthcare facilities and automatically identifies high-risk women, enabling the company to follow up with those who need additional care.

Rutendo, from Rusape in eastern Zimbabwe, used the chatbot to learn about numbness and spotting in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

But one day, when she was in her final trimester, she became alarmed after going for days without feeling any movement from the foetus.

Why the African continent has a role to play in developing AI

Rutendo consulted DawaMom and the chatbot advised her to see a doctor immediately.

She hurried to the nearby clinic where she was registered for antenatal care, but it was too late. The foetus had died after becoming tangled in the umbilical cord, a situation that can also lead to dangerous complications for the mother.

“The information I got saved my life,” said 31-year-old Rutendo, who asked RFI not to use her full name.

In Harare, Murungweni gave birth to a girl last month. DawaMom eased her fears about becoming a mother.

“It helped me navigate pregnancy and gave me access to accurate medical information I was struggling to get elsewhere,” she said.

New Caledonia looks to EU for new markets for troubled nickel sector

The French territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific signed a strategic partnership with the European Union on Tuesday, paving the way to new markets and investment for its struggling nickel industry. The agreement aims to bring producers closer to European supply chains, although funding and industrial projects are yet to be secured.


Issued on: 20/10/2026 - RFI

The European Commission's Stéphane Séjourné meets New Caledonian President Milakulo Tukumuli to discuss the territory’s economic challenges, the future of its nickel industry and European support. © Stéphane Séjourné/X

The memorandum of understanding, signed in New Caledonia's capital Nouméa, sets out cooperation on raw materials, cleaner production and investment, as Brussels seeks to diversify the supply of minerals essential to European industry.

European Commission executive vice-president Stéphane Séjourné signed the agreement alongside New Caledonia's President Milakulo Tukumuli and Alcide Ponga, the government member responsible for nickel.

Addressing the territory’s Congress on Monday, Séjourné said New Caledonia could become “a pillar” of Europe’s effort to diversify its nickel supplies, particularly by forging closer links with the battery sector.

He said the partnership would be “non-exclusive” and would not require the territory to surrender control over its resources. Fifteen other countries have agreements of this kind with the EU, he added.

For New Caledonia, the agreement represents broader commercial opportunities and support for modernising an industry facing high energy costs and a loss of competitiveness.

For Brussels, it forms part of a wider push to strengthen European industrial sovereignty and reduce dependence on China for strategic supplies.

Embattled New Caledonia nickel mine to lay off 1,200 staff

From plans to projects

The deal provides a framework for cooperation, but does not guarantee the purchase of New Caledonian nickel, or funding or immediate investment.

A roadmap is to be drawn up within six months, identifying priority projects, how cooperation will work and possible sources of European funding, according to TV channel Nouvelle-Calédonie La 1ère.

Reducing the carbon footprint of production is expected to be an important consideration. Cleaner energy could help address the nickel sector’s heavy operating costs, while making the product more attractive to buyers seeking lower-emission supplies.

However, the agreement offers no immediate answer to the difficulties faced by the territory’s three nickel plants. The New Caledonian government says it must be accompanied by a locally defined nickel strategy and investors willing to support industrial facilities and jobs.

Speaking in Congress, Vaimu’a Muliava of centrist party L’Éveil Océanien – Oceanian Awakening – said the memorandum was not binding, but paved the way to work on a further agreement.

“We are at a turning point where Europe must tell us what our competitive advantage is in being European today,” he said.

The partnership extends beyond the nickel industry. Séjourné said the EU had committed nearly €32 million to New Caledonia’s energy transition since 2023, citing the proposed Tontouta pumped-storage power station – a project estimated to cost €400 million.

Other initiatives under consideration include an aviation maintenance and training centre and undersea cables in the Pacific.

European Investment Bank vice-president Ambroise Fayolle is due to visit New Caledonia in early December, while a €5 million European training and integration programme is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2027.

Political divisions

The agreement has also exposed political divisions over who should shape the future of New Caledonia’s resources.

The pro-independence Kanaky NC group boycotted Monday’s Congress session, criticising the decision to proceed with the signing without first consulting elected members.

It said it was not opposed to a partnership with Europe, but wanted the nickel strategy developed locally with the provinces, Congress, customary authorities, industry operators and the French state.

Only one representative from the National Union for Independence attended the session, without taking the floor.

The anti-independence Rassemblement-LR described the boycott as a “political blunder”, while loyalists welcomed Europe’s approach as a “gesture of goodwill”.

Alongside the partnership, the European Commission is proposing to double the EU budget allocation for overseas countries and territories to €1 billion for 2028–2034 – a proposal which remains subject to negotiations between the European Parliament and EU member states.

21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY

Could lab-made gold crash prices like diamonds? US start-up says it turned mercury into gold

Copyright AP Photo/Nick Ut

By Quirino Mealha

Published on 23/10/2026 - EURONEWS

Little-known San Francisco start-up Marathon Fusion says it has turned mercury into stable gold at ten times the rate of CERN's record, raising a question that has haunted the diamond trade: could lab-made gold one day sink the price of the mined metal?

Marathon Fusion, a small fusion energy company in San Francisco, announced on Wednesday that it had transmuted, or converted, mercury into stable gold last month, beating a record set by CERN tenfold. The Geneva-based organisation runs the world's largest particle physics laboratory.

The claim, which has not been independently verified, revives an alchemist's dream and a market fear that lab-made gold could do to bullion what lab-grown precious stones did to diamonds.

Founded in 2023 by Kyle Schiller and Adam Rutkowski, a former SpaceX engineer, Marathon develops fuel systems for future fusion power plants, which aim to generate electricity by fusing atoms together, as the sun does.

It lists the US Department of Energy as a partner on its website and won a 2023 award from ARPA-E, the department's agency for high-risk energy research.

Its backers include Breakthrough Energy, the climate technology network founded by Bill Gates, and Anglo American, the mining group that owns De Beers, the world's leading natural diamond company behind the "A diamond is forever" slogan.

In its announcement, the company said it had turned "mercury into real, stable gold, beating CERN's record by a factor of 10".

In 2025, CERN said its Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator, had created about 29 picograms, or 29 trillionths of a gram, of gold during its 2015–2018 run. That amounted to around 86 billion gold nuclei, or atomic cores, which existed for only a tiny fraction of a second before being destroyed in collisions with accelerator equipment.

Marathon's method fires neutrons from fusion reactions at mercury, turning it into an unstable isotope, or form of the metal, that decays into gold.

It also claims to have broken a 40-year-old Soviet record with its plasma centrifuge, a machine that spins electrically charged gas at high speed to separate isotopes used in fusion fuel.

It says it is now building a reactor in San Francisco to achieve record power density, meaning the most power produced for its size.

The gold claim has not been independently verified, and the material available does not establish how much gold was produced or at what cost.

What happened to diamonds?

Lab-grown diamonds are chemically identical to mined stones.

Although specialists can tell them apart, factories churned them out and sold them for a fraction of the price.

Wholesale prices for lab-grown stones fell 90% to 95% from their 2015 levels, diamond industry analyst Paul Zimnisky said last year, while competition from lab-grown stones also weighed on mined diamond prices.

De Beers launched its own lab-grown brand, Lightbox, in 2018 at $800 (€712) a carat. However, it shut it down in 2025 to focus on natural diamonds.

De Beers made an underlying loss of $511 million (€455mn) in 2025, and Anglo American is in talks to sell its 85% stake for about $1 billion (€890mn) to a group led by former De Beers boss Gareth Penny, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.

Swiss luxury group Richemont, which owns Cartier, and US jeweller Signet, which owns Kay and Zales, are reportedly also in talks to join the group.

Related

• Netherlands moves 86 tonnes of gold from US and Canada to UK, citing 'geopolitical unrest'

Why gold is different

Gold is a far bigger market.

Mines produced 3,672 tonnes in 2025, and about 222,600 tonnes have been mined throughout history, according to the World Gold Council.

Central banks also hold it in their reserves as a safe store of value, and many have been buying heavily in recent years, including those of China and Poland.

Gold traded at $4,062 (€3,617) an ounce on Thursday, more than 27% below its record high of $5,598 (€4,985) in January.

Marathon's own 2025 study estimated that a fusion plant could make about 5 tonnes of gold a year per gigawatt of electricity, roughly the output of a large nuclear reactor.

On that basis, 100 such plants would add an estimated 500 tonnes a year, roughly 14% of last year's mine output.

However, no fusion plant yet sells electricity, and the first commercial ones are still years away. The gold could also contain radioactive isotopes and might need to be stored for up to 18 years before it could be sold, the company has said.

There are currently no public plans to attempt to produce and commercialise the product, but unlike lab-grown diamonds, transmuted gold, once its radioactivity fades, would be impossible to tell apart from the mined kind.

SPAGYRIC HERBALISM

Poison and remedy: secrets of the botanic garden at Paris's Pharmacy Faculty

Paris – A stone's throw from the Jardin du Luxembourg on Paris's Left Bank, the Faculty of Pharmacy is home to a botanical garden which serves as an educational resource for students and a space for research – as well as a place where visitors can find biodiversity in the heart of the city.


Issued on: 18/10/2026 -  RFI

The garden at the Faculty of Pharmacy in central Paris, with its tropical greenhouse, has become part of the fabric of the neighbourhood. © Olivier Favier / RFI

Accessed by passing between majestic buildings designed in the late 19th century by famed architect Charles Laisné – as well as others added during the 1960s – the botanical garden covers nearly 3,500 square metres.

In the warmer months, students eat lunch at picnic tables in the shadow of the laboratory building, recognisable by its dozens of chimneys.

“When they start their pharmacy studies, the students are welcomed into the garden,” says lecturer and researcher Florence Chapeland-Leclerc. “From their second session with us, they work in the lab with samples cut on site.”

Heated debate over herbalism

Relations between the pharmacy and herbalism sectors have long been fraught.

France stopped issuing herbalist certification in 1941, and specialist shops have become increasingly rare – and are no longer permitted to recommend any particular plant for therapeutic purposes.

While the debate remains heated between those who fear the revival of alternative medicine with no scientific basis and those who regret the loss of traditional knowledge, the Faculty of Pharmacy – part of Paris Cité University – draws on both practices.

Here, a bachelor’s diploma in herbal medicine is awarded, aimed primarily at pharmacy assistants seeking to add another string to their bow, and also frequently at those looking to change careers.

“The term ‘phytotherapist’ is in itself a misnomer. A pharmacist does not, in fact, have the status of a therapist,” points out Raphaël Grougnet, a lecturer and researcher specialising in pharmacognosy – an applied science which studies medicinal substances of natural origin, whether they come from plants, animals, fungi or micro-organisms.

However, knowledge of plants and fungi is also an integral part of the training of community pharmacists, which culminates in a practical doctorate after five years of study, in addition to the foundation year common to many professions in the medical sector, including doctors, physiotherapists and dentists.

By their second year, a pharmacy student must be able to identify 120 plant species.

“These are the source of many medicines,” explains Grougnet. “Willow bark was known for its anti-inflammatory, antipyretic and analgesic properties [reducing fever and pain]. Aspirin was derived from it.”

Psychedelic therapy gains ground in Europe, under strict conditions
Dangerous mistakes

In the garden, the beds are organised in two ways. The first corresponds to what is known as botanical systematics – the classification into families, genera and species established by Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné and subsequently revolutionised by Charles Darwin.

The second method classifies plants according to their toxicity. While some plants are toxic at any dosage, others contain substances which, at certain doses, can be used medicinally.

The botanic garden's greenhouses – designed by Gustave Eiffel’s workshops and faithfully restored between 2000 and 2002 – are dedicated to tropical species.

The garden is an integral part of the neighbourhood’s heritage, and the interest shown by its neighbours – who regularly appear at the gates to watch plants being pruned – also reflects a renewed appreciation for plants, says Chapeland-Leclerc.

Yet this interest, where knowledge is lacking, can lead to some dangerous mix-ups.

“A common mistake is confusing wild garlic with lily of the valley, which is toxic to the heart, or saffron-coloured oenanthe with wild parsnip,” she explains.

From ornitherapy to kissing trees, how can nature benefit human health?

If in doubt, consulting a pharmacist can help avoid mistakes that have serious consequences.

Chapeland-Leclerc said that while increasingly popular plant identification apps are fairly reliable, those for mushrooms remain inaccurate and should under no circumstances be trusted to classify which specimens are safe to consume.

French pharmacies commonly offer to check the safety of foraged mushrooms – but Chapeland-Leclerc stressed that if you take yours to your local chemist, it's important to bring your entire haul.

“Pharmacists still have a naturalist side to them that we might not necessarily realise,” she smiles.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Olivier Favier.

World set to breach 1.5C warming limit as UN warns time is running out

Global warming is now set to breach the 1.5C target limit set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, after decades of insufficient climate action, the United Nations Environment Programme has warned. Temperatures could still be reduced, but only with far larger emissions cuts and the removal of vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using methods the UN says are "costly and risky".


Issued on: 21/10/2026 - RFI

A giant postcard calling for global warming to be limited to 1.5C is displayed on Switzerland’s Aletsch glacier in November 2018. © Valentin Flauraud/Keystone via AP

The chances of keeping average warming to 1.5C have effectively vanished – at least temporarily – the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in its annual Emissions Gap Report published on Wednesday.

The report comes ahead of Cop31, the UN climate conference to be held in Antalya, Turkey next month. UNEP had already raised the prospect of an overshoot – temporarily exceeding the 1.5C limit before bringing temperatures back down – in its Limiting Overshoot report in September.

Average global warming is already around 1.4C above pre-industrial times, when economic development in the West began warming the planet. The past nine years have been the hottest on record.

The year 2024 was the first individual year to average more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, however the Paris Agreement target refers to long-term warming, typically measured over around 20 years.

In 2025, global emissions stood at 58.4 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, a measure used to compare the warming effect of different gases.

That total was roughly unchanged from 2024, but CO2 from fossil fuels, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases are still rising, so it is too early to say emissions have peaked, UNEP warned.

Smaller releases from forest fires, after an exceptional 2024, offset those increases.


'Imminent and unavoidable'

After decades of falling short on emissions cuts, a larger overshoot of the 1.5C limit is now “imminent and unavoidable”, the report said.

Passing 1.5C does not trigger a single sudden shift. Instead, each additional fraction of a degree adds to the damage, shrinking sea ice, thawing permafrost, killing corals and worsening droughts and fires, with knock-on effects on health and on food and energy prices.

The challenge is to keep warming well below 2C while limiting how far and how long temperatures overshoot 1.5C, with a credible return by the end of the century, the report said. Some changes, including glacier melt, cannot be reversed.

“Overshoot is not surrender. We can still keep it as small and as short as possible,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said in a video message released with the report.

In the best-case scenario, warming would peak at 1.7 or 1.8C around the middle of this century before falling. This scenario gives an approximately 50 percent chance of returning to 1.5C or below by 2100. Emissions would have to fall by 18 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035 and 69 percent by 2040 – so almost 6 percent a year.

“This 18 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions makes complete sense. If we act very quickly, with political will and courage, it is entirely possible,” UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said at a press conference.

Pledges off track

Even if governments fully implemented their national climate plans, emissions would fall by only 5-8 percent by 2030 and 11-15 percent by 2035, the report found.

Warming would still reach about 2.6C by the end of the century on that basis, or 2.8C under current policies. Without urgent action, keeping peak warming below 1.7 or 1.8C will soon become impossible.

Returning to 1.5C would also require cutting coal’s share of the world’s energy supply by 55 percent by 2035, oil by 15 percent and gas by 5 percent. Coal-fired electricity would need to be effectively phased out worldwide by 2040, even as China and India continue building new plants.

Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, would need to fall at least 25 percent below 2025 levels by 2035 and at least 40 percent by 2040. Such cuts are within technical reach if governments find the will to repair leaks that satellites can now track.

Carbon removal gamble

Deep emissions cuts would not be enough on their own. Bringing temperatures back down would also require removing CO2 already in the atmosphere.

The best-case pathway would require removing and storing about 320 gigatonnes of CO2 over the century, equivalent to roughly eight years of emissions.

Carbon could be removed through nature-based measures such as planting forests and improving wetland management, as well as technologies that capture emissions during energy production or remove CO2 directly from the air, report author Keywan Riahi explained.

But both natural and technological approaches may fail to remove carbon on the scale required. Climate change is weakening nature’s ability to absorb CO2, while technological solutions remain uncertain.

“All of those technologies come with risks,” said Riahi, director of the Energy, Climate and Environment Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, an Austria-based research centre.

The aim should therefore be to keep the overshoot as low as possible so the world does not have to depend heavily on carbon-removal technologies later, he said.

UNEP had already warned in its September report that large-scale carbon removal carried major risks. “Removal on such a scale is costly and risky,” UNEP science advisor Anne Olhoff said.

Solar boom, fossil reliance

One area in which progress has been made is clean energy. Solar power has expanded seven times faster than expected since the Paris Agreement, the report found, while renewables are on track to meet the goal of tripling global capacity by 2030.

Andersen said this showed climate policies can work, although clean-energy growth alone would not be enough.

Fossil-fuel use has not fallen at the same pace.

Oil, gas and coal still provide 80-86 percent of the world’s energy supply, while demand is rising with growth in emerging economies, electric vehicle sales and data centres. Reducing energy demand, which science recognises as an effective way to cut emissions, is not mentioned in the report.

Countries in attendance at the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai in 2023 agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

“Developing renewable energy is of course critically important, but we increasingly need to focus on phasing out fossil fuels. We are not seeing progress anywhere near what is needed,” Olhoff said.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by Géraud Bosman-Delzons.

Cop17 biodiversity summit confronts funding gap for wildlife conservation

Almost 200 countries will be in attendance at the United Nations Biodiversity Cop17, opening in Armenia on Monday, to take stock of faltering progress towards the UN’s 2030 nature targets. Wildlife populations are shrinking and protected areas are under threat from drilling and mining, while more money still goes into damaging ecosystems than protecting them.


Issued on: 19/10/2026 - RFI

Wild Asian elephants in China’s Yunnan province, pictured in May 2021. Protecting threatened species is among the goals countries will review at the UN biodiversity summit in Armenia. AP - Hu Chao

By: Amanda Morrow


Cop17 runs in the Armenian capital Yerevan until 30 October. At its core is the first global review of progress since the adoption of a landmark nature pact in 2022.

That agreement set 23 targets, from cutting pollution to saving threatened species and conserving 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans.

Countries are off-track on 22 of them, a draft UN review found.

“Do I think we’re moving in the right direction? Yes, but way too slowly,” said Astrid Schomaker, who heads the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.


“I think it’s too early to say whether any of the targets will be reached or not reached. But I think we can clearly say they’re all still reachable – but only with significant changes being made.”

Barriers to action

Drawing on national reports and other evidence, the review examines where countries have made progress – and what is holding them back where they have not.

Barriers differ between countries, Juliette Landry, a biodiversity researcher at the Paris-based think tank IDDRI, told RFI.

“This is a combination of a lack of political will for some countries,” she said. “But for some others, there is also lack of access to financial resources, lack of capacities, lack of technologies.”

Progress has been stronger on traditional conservation work than on changing the way goods are produced and consumed, one of the root causes of nature loss.

Environment ministries are often left to tackle damage caused by activities in other parts of the economy, creating what Landry described as a “kind of responsibility dilemma”.

Those ministries need more funding both to protect nature and to work with other ministries on changing those activities.

But budgets are being cut in rich and poor countries alike, she said, creating “a major barrier” to delivering on the pact.

Nature in decline

The talks come as wildlife populations continue to shrink. Across nearly 6,000 species, monitored populations fell by an average of 73 percent between 1970 and 2022, the conservation group WWF found in its Living Planet Report this month.

Freshwater populations showed the steepest average decline, at 85 percent, while South America saw the sharpest regional fall, at 95 percent.

“Monitored global populations continue to decline on average, with no evidence yet of that global recovery,” said Andrew Terry, chief conservation officer at the Zoological Society of London, which manages the report with the WWF.

Flamingos are among the wildlife covered by global pledges to protect biodiversity, as countries gather in Armenia to review progress towards their 2030 goals. AP Photo/Emrah Gurel - Emrah Gurel

Targeted conservation has nevertheless helped the populations of some species recover, including tigers, Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna, southern African elephants and green sea turtles, the report said.

Zones earmarked for oil and gas overlap more than 61 million hectares of protected tropical ecosystems – an area nearly the size of France – research by the NGO Earth Insight found. Mining concessions, or areas set aside for mining, overlap another 42.7 million hectares of protected areas.

However, simply adding up protected hectares is not enough, the NGO warned. Even if countries reach the 30 percent target, those areas could remain vulnerable to industrial development.

“A majority of those concessions haven’t been licensed yet – certainly plenty are, but that means there’s an opportunity for countries to remove those concessions,” said Tyson Miller, Earth Insight’s executive director.

Funding the damage

The cost of conservation remains a primary obstacle. Under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal pact, countries pledged to raise $200 billion a year by 2030 from public and private sources – including $30 billion in annual international funding for developing countries.

However, they are lagging in this respect, and the wealthy nations under pressure to fill the gap are facing budget squeezes in other areas.

Wars, debt and economic pressures are demanding attention and straining budgets, Schomaker said despite nature being seen as "one of those issues that does not respect political borders".

Corporate contributions have also fallen short. The UN’s Cali Fund, launched in February 2025 with a goal of raising $1 billion a year, has reportedly only collected $6,000.

This fund seeks voluntary contributions from companies that use genetic information from nature, such as drugmakers, to support conservation in developing countries.

Meanwhile UN figures show that governments are spending $2.6 trillion a year on environmentally harmful subsidies. For every dollar invested in protecting or restoring ecosystems, about $30 goes into activities that damage them.

Governments pledged in the 2022 pact to cut subsidies and other incentives that encourage environmental damage by $500 billion a year by 2030, but have made little progress.

Many countries want to reform or scrap those payments, Landry said. “This is money that is actually affecting nature, and this is money that is out there right now.”

But even identifying which payments to change is proving difficult, she added, because countries “can’t even agree on what is counted” as a harmful subsidy.

In its negotiating position adopted last week, the EU urged countries to maintain the ambition of the 2022 agreement and back it with faster action and more public and private funding.

The United States is not a party to the biodiversity convention and does not participate in the talks.

A sperm whale calf swims beside its mother off Guam in June 2001. Protecting marine habitats is part of the global pledge to conserve 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030. ASSOCIATED PRESS - CHRIS BANGS

Community participation

For indigenous peoples and local communities, the summit in Armenia will also determine how much say they have in decisions about protecting the ecosystems they help safeguard.

Governments must agree how a permanent body created for them in 2024 will work, including their participation and decision-making rights, the International Institute for Sustainable Development said in its summit briefing.

A deal in Yerevan could set priorities for the next four years. Once delegates return home, civil society groups are poised to use those commitments to challenge governments over what they are doing to fulfil them.

“We have those political signals that were agreed upon by all those parties, all those countries, but we need some accountability,” Landry said, describing the challenge those groups could put to governments.

“So are you going to be following up on that nationally? What are you going to do to accelerate those actions?”

Pacific nations await climate billions, as fossil fuel divide looms over Cop31

Ahead of next month’s United Nations Cop31 climate summit, as a strengthening El Niño drives Pacific sea temperatures towards record levels, more than $5 billion promised to the region remains unpaid. Cop31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia are pushing to speed up the switch to electric transport, heating and industry, but participating countries are divided over how to wind down the use of coal, oil and gas.


Issued on: 17/10/2026 - RFI

An aerial view of Funafuti, Tuvalu, on 6 September 2024. Rising seas threaten to make much of the Pacific country uninhabitable, while a divide over fossil fuels persists ahead of Cop31 in Turkey. REUTERS - Kirsty Needham

By: Amanda Morrow

Cop31 will run from 9-20 November in the Turkish resort city of Antalya. In a compromise that ended their rival bids to host, Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum will hold the presidency, while his Australian counterpart for climate and energy, Chris Bowen, will lead the negotiations.

Pacific countries had an opportunity to stress their priorities at last week’s lead-up meeting in Fiji, known as Pre-Cop. Around 4,000 people from more than 100 countries attended, with limiting global warming and getting climate money to vulnerable communities central to the discussions.

Leaders also travelled to Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific atoll state, where rising seas threaten to make much of the country uninhabitable.

“Tuvalu has made no contribution to this crisis, but unfortunately, they are faced with the threat,” Kurum told reporters in Fiji. “They are faced with an existential crisis, and they are paying the heaviest price.”

Locked in Arctic ice, the floating lab studying climate and wildlife

Hotter seas, higher stakes

El Niño, a natural warming of the tropical Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide, is forecast to peak in December – with heat, drought and flood risks increasing in different regions.

Sea temperatures in a key stretch of the Pacific near the equator are forecast to average around 3.7C above average from October to December, a record for the El Niño index, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) last week warned.

The event releases heat stored beneath the ocean surface, helping make strong El Niño years unusually hot. “The ocean it's drawing from is the warmest we've ever measured it,” WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo told this month's Global Heat Forum in Bangkok.

El Niño returns every few years, but this event is adding to long-term warming already approaching the goals of the Paris Agreement, which commits countries to strive to limit warming to 1.5C.

That threshold is projected to be breached in the early 2030s, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said. Every additional fraction of a degree increases the risks, making rapid emissions cuts essential to limiting the damage.

A farmer tends crops during prolonged dry conditions in Coatepeque, El Salvador, on 1 September 2026. The country declared a national emergency on 7 October over the effects of El Nino. REUTERS - Jose Cabezas

The missing billions

Of the more than US$16 billion in climate finance committed to Pacific countries since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, more than US$5 billion is yet to be paid out, Pre-Cop organisers warned.

“We need adaptation finance to reach the communities that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change,” Lenora Qereqeretabua, Fiji’s assistant foreign minister, told reporters.

While adaptation helps people prepare for and cope with floods, drought and rising seas, getting the money to the communities that need it can be a slow and complex process.

Australia used the Pre-Cop to launch a plan aimed at simplifying access to climate finance and getting funds moving faster, with other countries and development banks invited to sign up.

That backlog is separate from a far larger target agreed at Cop29 in Baku in 2024 to mobilise at least US$300 billion a year for developing countries, including Pacific nations, by 2035.

EU finance ministers reaffirmed that goal on Friday, backed efforts to triple adaptation finance by the same deadline and urged other countries with the means to contribute.

But a separate draft EU strategy says there is “no scope” for new climate funding commitments at Cop31. Drawn up by Ireland, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, it focuses instead on emissions cuts and putting existing pledges into practice.

Climate support should arrive reliably and mainly through grants rather than loans, the aid group CARE International said in its Cop31 policy paper. Wealthy countries also need to explain how they will deliver the promised US$300 billion a year by 2035.

Fossil fuel fault line

Brazil, which hosted last year's Cop30, is preparing a roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels outside the formal talks. How to take that plan forward will fall to the hosts of the November summit.

A voluntary target to raise electricity’s share of global energy use from around 20 percent to 35 percent by 2035 is a priority.

Electrification means swapping petrol cars, gas boilers and other fossil-fuelled technology for electric alternatives. But the target does not say how the extra power should be produced, and switching to electricity only cuts emissions if that power comes mainly from renewables.

“If you electrify and you increase coal, then what are you doing?” Alden Meyer, an analyst at the climate policy think tank E3G said at the mid-year UN climate talks in Bonn.

In Turkey, wind and solar supplied 22 percent of electricity in 2025, up from 12 percent in 2020, Climate Action Tracker, an independent research project, found. Fossil fuels still generated 56 percent, and power-sector emissions hit a record high.

Australia, which will lead the negotiations, meanwhile faces scrutiny over its coal exports.

On Wednesday, the country’s High Court dismissed an appeal by mining company MACH Energy, blocking approval for an expansion of its Mount Pleasant mine in New South Wales.

Planners had failed to consider conditions to minimise emissions from coal burned overseas, the court found.

A coal-fired power station beside the Ohio River near New Haven, West Virginia. Cop31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia are promoting electrification, but its climate benefits depend on how the power is generated. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster - Carolyn Kaster

Ocean beyond the margins

For Pacific countries, the fossil fuel debate is inseparable from the health of the ocean.

Around a quarter of the carbon dioxide released by human activity and more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases have been absorbed by the ocean, Fiji’s lands and mineral resources minister Filimoni Vosarogo reminded the Pre-Cop.

That has come at a cost to ocean health, with warming waters and increasing acidity. Pacific nations used the meeting to press for the ocean to be given a bigger place in UN climate negotiations.

“So, the resounding message from the Pacific Pre-Cop should be that never again should Mother Ocean, the planet's primary climate regulator, be consigned to the back rows of deliberations,” said Peter Thomson, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for the ocean.

Ocean warming, acidification and sea level rise are recognised in the Taku Pakasoa Declaration adopted by leaders last week. Tuvalu has invited other countries to endorse it before the Antalya summit.

Turkey has also promised to work towards an Antalya Ocean Declaration recognising the ocean’s vital role in regulating the planet’s climate.