The question of who controls satellite-based connectivity came into sharp focus in recent weeks after Ukraine's service was throttled and then restored.
Wherever Reg readers stand on those activities involving SpaceX's Starlink and Starshield, reliance on a foreign power that may not stay friendly is now under intense scrutiny. Alternatives exist, including Eutelsat OneWeb's constellation, and more are in the works. The Register toured the Harwell facility of another contender - Open Cosmos.
The business is just over a decade old and operates from multiple locations, including the UK, Greece, and Portugal. It has launched dozens of missions over the years, including its OpenConstellation service, which organizations use to share data from Earth observation satellites.
When it launched OpenConstellation in 2022, the aim was to have 25 satellites offering a mix of spatial and spectral resolution. While other services, such as the European Commission's Copernicus, provide similar data, OpenConstellation lets customers assign satellites specific tasks for specific data collection.
However, it is ConnectedCosmos that will interest users concerned about putting all their connectivity eggs in a basket that might be abruptly snatched away. The first two satellites in the constellation are now in orbit; they were launched by Rocket Lab in January 2026. The business plans to operate more than 96 satellites by the end of 2028 and to achieve full coverage by 2030. The core connectivity backbone will consist of 192 satellites, which founder and CEO Rafel Jordà Siquier described as "the foundation, not the ceiling."
The company reckons it can churn out one satellite per day, and judging by what we saw in Harwell, that figure seems realistic, though it's a far cry from the approximately 70 Starlinks per week SpaceX claimed in its IPO filing.
Because ConnectedCosmos operates from an altitude above 1,000 km, it needs far fewer satellites, though at the cost of latency increases.
Jordi Barrera Ars, co-founder and CTO, told us that latency was "anything between 30 and 80 milliseconds." This is OK for most applications, but not great for some. Direct to smartphone is, for example, not currently on the cards. Open Cosmos's VP of Commercial Satcom, Danielle Edwards, said, "We're very much in the direct device business. Direct to smartphone is not an area that we have an interest in right now."
"Never say never…" she added, "and who knows what might come along next Tuesday. But for right now, the direct device play really is on the IoT side."
During the tour, Open Cosmos showed off its assembly and testing facilities (including temperature and pressure testing), as well as a shaker table that simulates launch conditions. The satellites themselves consist of a common bus, onto which solar panels and the payload are fitted. Then they are stored, ready for launch, in what one company representative called "the satellite nursery".
The approach is interesting: OpenConstellation satellites use the ConnectedCosmos constellation as a connectivity backbone, while the latter also provides point-to-point broadband. According to Open Cosmos:
"The constellation is deliberately designed around the requirements of government, institutional and commercial customers that need secure, resilient connectivity and clear custody of critical data."
It is very much a European alternative to customers who are worried about existing services.
The service on offer from Open Cosmos will not, for example, be suitable for guiding drones traveling at high velocities, that isn't really the point, but it will provide sovereign communication channels that aren't beholden to the whim of a man and a big, red Off switch. Where the Starlink constellation stands at well over 10,000 satellites, the numbers proposed by Open Cosmos are far more modest and less likely to alarm astronomers in quite the same way.
Plus, the company has sector experience through its OpenConstellation platform (as well as custom spacecraft built for individual customers). And, unlike so many in the industry, its satellites and facilities exist beyond PowerPoint presentations. After all, we've seen them. ®
With apologies, this will be my last full thread until Monday. My nephew is getting married and I must travel to England and be an embarrassing uncle, as is the way of things. I'll put out a short Climate thread tomorrow before I leave, and Kali is going to be very kind and post the odd thing whilst I'm away to keep the site ticking over.
Thank you all for bearing with me, and special thanks to those who contribute financially.
Many thanks also to my friend Barry Smiler for being October's sponsor. Do take a look at his climate site, which nicely complements mine. He recently added some nifty enhancements to his Research page. And for your climate listening pleasure, he suggests this little song.
"High inflation to persist globally into next year, Reuters poll.
"…central banks could face a more difficult policy backdrop, with inflation no longer driven only by oil prices but increasingly feeding into wider price measures. Most central banks have raised interest rates only a few times or not at all, and further moves remain possible if inflation pressures broaden."
"The Diesel Crisis Is Here To Stay.
"The global diesel shortage is expected to persist well into 2027, as damaged Middle Eastern and Russian refineries continue to constrain fuel supplies. Trump's Russian diesel deal offers little relief, with initial shipments covering less than one-tenth of U.S. daily diesel consumption."
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Diesel-Crisis-Is-Here-To-Stay.html
"'Never-ending' cruise ends journey in Cambodia due to fuel shortages.
"…this week, passengers were told: 'Unfortunately, we were unable to secure the fuel necessary to continue operations. As a result, the Odyssey will enter a temporary layup this afternoon, with crew remaining onboard to maintain the vessel and its essential systems."
"Yemen's Houthi Rebels Strike Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura Oil Terminal.
"Yemen's Houthi rebels claim to have hit the Saudi energy complex at Ras Tanura, a gigantic refinery and loading terminal that handles an outsize share of the world's oil supply. It is the latest strike deep into the heart of Saudi territory…"
"Iran's calculations as US escalation looms: Trust, midterms, Hormuz.
"As regional powers step up diplomatic efforts to prevent another escalation in the eight-month United States-Israel war on Iran, Tehran is showing little sign of backing down from its red lines."
"U.S. Warns Gulf of Possible Short, Intense Renewal of Iran War After Midterms…
"The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the U.S. and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran's strength and pushing it toward negotiations."
"Three Russian diesel tankers steam for US — including one under sanctions.
"Three tankers laden with Russian diesel — including one blacklisted by European authorities — are scheduled to arrive at US ports next week, raising legal risks for firms involved with bringing the fuel into the country."
https://www.ft.com/content/d847744f-cfa5-4dc5-bdd2-faeee0b584f7?syn-25a6b1a6=1
"Trump shows off tanker with '1m barrels of oil' and floats Venezuela as 51st state.
"Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had "one million barrels of oil on it" from the country, nine months after deposing its president."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/27/trump-oil-tanker-venezuela
"America Produces Less Than 1% of the Rare Earth Magnets It Needs.
"China's ongoing weaponization of rare earths, which has now been bolstered to include measures to keep individuals with sensitive technological knowledge from leaving the country, gives it leverage over a $1.5 trillion U.S. civilian economy that depends on permanent magnets."
"Two AI Chipmakers Make Up 34% of America's Earnings Boom…
"The risk posed by that concentrated earnings growth, analysts said, is the same one underpinning the broader AI investing boom: that the technology ultimately won't deliver on the massive sums of money being poured into it."
"The AI bubble has 'already burst' in China…
""Some of the most popular AI stocks — the suppliers of optical equipment to data centres, chipmakers, companies that were seen as providing the nuts and bolts of the AI revolution — have seen their share prices collapse by 50, 60, or 70 per cent in the last few months," he said."
"Is China's economy broken?
"On the one hand, China's exports are surging… Meanwhile, households are saving rather than spending after the property crash. Property investment is down nearly 20% this year alone. Retail sales are barely growing, and youth unemployment hit nearly 19% in August. And some analysts… think the real, the real growth rate is far, far lower than the actual numbers suggest."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-chinas-economy-broken/
"Chinese Government to Speed Bond Sales to Stimulate Growth…
"The amount, estimated by China Chengxin International Credit Rating Co. and Industrial Securities, will only be behind the stimulus splurge in 2024. It'll add to the 11.15 trillion yuan raised in net financing so far this year as of Oct. 23, according to Bloomberg calculations based on ChinaBond data."
"[UK] Government issues debt at highest interest rate since financial crisis on eve of Budget.
"The Debt Management Office has been forced to sell nearly £5bn of five-year gilts at their highest interest rate since 2008, underscoring the fiscal challenge facing John Healey on the eve of his maiden Budget."
"Healey warned 'the dam is breaking' on shop price inflation.
"Retailers have said the long-feared spike in inflation caused by the Iran war's knock-on effects on energy and supply costs is beginning to take hold… Mike Watkins, head of retailer insight at data firm NIQ, said retailers had managed to delay some of the impact of these price rises by working hard to discount products."
https://www.cityam.com/healey-warned-the-dam-is-breaking-on-shop-price-inflation/
"French Consumer Confidence Drops to 13-Year Low After Riots.
"French consumer confidence plummeted to its lowest level in 13 years in October as households reckoned with multiple shocks from a bond market selloff to protests that descended into rioting."
"Fuel shortages worsen across France, hundreds of stations entirely out of supply…
"Government figures from Tuesday (October 27) estimate that 11% of stations in France are out of at least one type of fuel. At the same time, motorists are reportedly using their vehicles less, with the supermarket and service station group Coopérative U seeing sales volumes drop by up to 40%."
"Thousands rally outside Portugal's parliament over housing crisis, police operations.
"Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside Portugal's parliament in Lisbon to protest a worsening housing crisis and recent forceful police actions. The mobilization was triggered by a series of weekend police operations where baton-charging officers dismantled protest tent camps set up by housing activists…"
"Riots break out in Bilbao over right-wing event hosted by activist Vito Quiles.
"Nineteen people, including seven minors, have been arrested following violent riots in the Spanish city of Bilbao. The unrest erupted on Monday night, 26 October 2026, during large-scale anti-fascist protests targeting a planned appearance by right-wing online commentator and activist Vito Quiles."
"'Nobody heard us' - why Gen Z are leading protests across Europe.
"A wave of Gen Z-led protests is sweeping across Europe, driven by a deep sense of intergenerational unfairness, economic stagnation, and a feeling that traditional political systems are completely ignoring them."
"EU pressures allies over looming Ukraine funding crunch…
"According to a forecast by the European Commission, seen by the FT, Kyiv's non-EU allies have so far pledged just €4bn for next year, down from €19bn in 2026. G7 members US, UK, Canada and Japan are collectively set to provide just €1bn, the analysis shows."
https://www.ft.com/content/8aba217f-064f-4193-89fc-3565bd2ee910?syn-25a6b1a6=1
"Russian Businesses Delay Payments as Cash Squeeze Deepens.
"Russian businesses are increasingly delaying payments to suppliers as slowing economic growth, higher taxes, falling profits and expensive borrowing strain their finances, raising the risk of a chain reaction of unpaid bills."
"US bans vehicles from China's BYD at Japan military base, calling them 'unacceptable' risk…
"The ban, which went into effect this week at Kadena airbase on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, has fueled speculation that similar measures could be taken at other US military facilities as part of Washington's crackdown on Chinese technology it suspects of being used to collect sensitive information."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/27/us-bans-byd-electric-vehicles-kadena-military-base
"Japan Joins UK in Urging Households to Prepare Week-Long Emergency Supplies…
"Japan's disaster minister, Goshi Hosono, said the government would issue a nationwide preparedness appeal on 2 November, coinciding with the launch of the country's new Disaster Management Agency. The announcement has also prompted questions on social media about why several governments have been emphasising household preparedness at around the same time."
"Thai army rejects Cambodia's claims over border barriers and displaced residents.
"The Royal Thai Army has rejected Cambodia's allegation that Thailand is using military force and barbed-wire barriers to redraw the international boundary, insisting that its operations are security measures within territory claimed by Thailand."
https://www.nationthailand.com/news/general/40072816
"India deploys extra forces after protests over dam on Chinese border escalate.
"India has deployed hundreds of additional security personnel in its remote northeast, authorities said on Tuesday, after youth protesters clashed with police last week over a plan to build a mega-dam to counter a Chinese hydropower project upstream."
"The new India-Pakistan 'cold war'. The collapse of dialogue: Why New Delhi abandoned formal talks with Islamabad…
"No high-level dialogue has taken place since 2016. Rather than some temporary diplomatic tantrum, this reflects a paradigm shift in Indian foreign policy, permanently altering the subcontinent's security architecture."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2026/10/26/world/india-pakistan-cold-war/
"One killed, several wounded in Pakistan-Afghanistan border clash…
"The clashes occurred in the border district of South Waziristan overnight, local police chief Israr Ahmed told dpa. Afghan troops fired artillery and some of the mortars landed in the populated areas including a bazaar, Ahmed said."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/one-killed-several-wounded-pakistan-053328387.html
"Has Pakistan reopened its border with Iran for trade?
"Traders say some exports are crossing border after a weeklong halt, but Tehran says its cargo is not getting through… "Changes in the implementation of Pakistan's E-Form procedure for imports from Iran have created a situation in which traders are effectively and literally unable to dispatch cargo from Iran to Pakistan," [Iran's ambassdor] wrote."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/26/has-pakistan-reopened-its-border-with-iran-for-trade
"Iran threatens South Korean shipping group Sinokor over Hormuz transits.
"The warning is the first direct threat to a specific shipowner for shuttling oil out from the Gulf via the contested waterway, which Iran sees as crucial leverage in its conflict with the US… Lloyd's List reported last week that seven Sinokor vessels had been attacked in the region since the hostilities began…"
https://www.ft.com/content/171ffdaa-e3e7-41b9-a4c6-09c9ace3f719
"Gulf states worry U.S. could pull most troops from region after Iran war.
"America's Persian Gulf allies are increasingly worried that President Donald Trump is indifferent about their regional security concerns and could expose them to further risk by pulling the bulk of U.S. forces out of the Middle East after the war with Iran ends, according to a U.S. official, a former U.S. official and two other people familiar with the matter."
"Saudi Arabia seeks to mend ties with UAE in Houthi crisis…
"The emerging rapprochement between the Gulf powerhouses comes as Riyadh shores up support from international partners including France, the UK, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt against the latest campaign of assaults from the Houthis, as traditional ally Washington declines to join the fightback."
https://www.ft.com/content/97a6cadc-aedb-40a1-b583-c410d3278191
"Three Arab countries back Greece against Turkey-Libya maritime accord.
"Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates sided with Greece to denounce a Turkey-Libya maritime accord as a threat to regional security and international legal order in a long-standing dispute over sea borders in the eastern Mediterranean Sea."
https://thearabweekly.com/three-arab-countries-back-greece-against-turkey-libya-maritime-accord
"Jordan attacks militants in Syria in retaliation for church attack.
"Jordan has carried out airstrikes against armed groups in Syria in retaliation for Friday's attack on a Greek Orthodox church in the southern Jordanian governorate of Karak that killed nine people, the Jordanian air force has said in a statement."
"Benjamin Netanyahu holds a narrow lead in the Israeli elections with more than two-thirds of all ballots counted, after Tuesday's vote saw the highest voter turnout in over two decades.
"…forecasts suggest neither would be able to form a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, leaving the door open to prolonged coalition negotiations."
"'Gaza belongs to us!': As Israel votes, settlers set up camp on the border of the Palestinian enclave…
"Located south of the Israeli city of Sderot, the camp, which calls itself the "Gaza Pioneers," buzzed with activity. Preparations were underway for a celebration the following day, when legislative elections are due to take place across Israel."
"Time 'running out' to reach Yemen's Taiz amid deepening crisis, UN says…
"A mounting humanitarian disaster is gripping Yemen's Taiz after nearly three weeks of a Houthi siege that has prevented supplies from entering the city, the United Nations has warned. The Iran-backed Houthis have encircled Taiz since early October, cutting off the road that links it to Aden…"
"'Now or Never': Ethiopia influencers push for Eritrea invasion…
"The Ethiopian army has advanced right up to the border after repelling an offensive by rebels in the northern Tigray state, who were supported by Eritrean troops. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly said that securing a base on the Red Sea is a vital national objective for Ethiopia."
"Al Shabaab fighters clash with Turkish-trained Somali troops.
"The Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab group has been fighting the government for two decades and still controls large swathes of central Somalia despite a massive international operation against it. It launched an attack on Monday afternoon on Turkish-trained government troops and an allied militia in the Lower Shabelle region in South West State…"
https://www.dawn.com/news/2040362
"Protests Erupt in Eastern Sudan as Currency Collapses.
"Public anger has erupted in various cities across eastern Sudan as the country faces a deepening economic crisis and the near-total collapse of its currency. Demonstrations were reported on Thursday in regions currently under the administrative and security control of the Sudanese Armed Forces…"
"West warns of famine risk in Sudan as civil war grinds on…
""There is very little to survive on," Yusuf Roble, regional director for Islamic Relief East Africa, told BBC Newsday, describing how people returning to Omdurman were finding their homes destroyed or looted. The war, which began in April 2023, has displaced 14 million people."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ynkk6v3pzo
"As their relations continue to deteriorate, Niger's military government on Monday accused Chad of carrying out a deadly drone strike in which two civilians were killed and others wounded.
"In a statement by the authorities read on national television, it said it had summoned the Chadian ambassador following the incident."
"Ebola cases in DR Congo surpass 10,000 in fastest-growing outbreak…
"It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the country's history and nearly half of the 10,060 confirmed to have the virus have died, according to data from the DRC's Ministry of Public Health. That also makes it the deadliest outbreak of the disease in the country's history."
"South Africa: More than 500 troops sent to deal with anti-immigration protests in KwaZulu-Natal…
"Anti-migrant marches have been going on for months in South Africa, some leading to violent clashes, provoking international criticism and prompting thousands of African foreign nationals to leave the country."
"Brazil's real sinks after Lula's re-election victory…
""I'm not surprised the real is sinking sharply; traders are covering their bets that assume a Bolsonaro victory and tighter fiscal policy," Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera. Brazil's stock exchange halted trading for 30 minutes."
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/26/brazils-real-sinks-after-lulas-re-election-victory
"U.S. troops to train in Colombia to combat security threats…
"The deployment comes amid a shift in Colombia's foreign and security policy under President Abelardo de la Espriella. The right-wing leader recently formalized Colombia's participation in the Shield of the Americas, a regional security coalition promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration."
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/10/27/latam-colombia-us-training-exrcise/5331793122997/
"China urges US to immediately end blockade and pressure on Cuba…
"Fu said the United States' illegal economic blockade and unilateral economic sanctions against Cuba had lasted for more than 60 years and continued to intensify. The General Assembly had discussed the issue for 34 times, yet the relevant resolutions remained unimplemented, he said."
"El Salvador rushes some 1,000 troops to Haiti after gang ambush, source says.
"The troops' arrival aboard flights in recent days dramatically expands the Central American nation's role in Haiti's long-standing gang conflict. Yet it remains unclear who will command the new Salvadoran contingent, how long it will stay in Haiti or whether more forces will follow."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/around-1-000-soldiers-el-172815445.html
"US military gives Elon Musk's SpaceX access to sensitive tracking data.
"The US military has given Elon Musk's SpaceX access to restricted space tracking data, raising a new round of questions about whether the Trump administration is attempting to hand over traffic control in Earth's orbit to a controversial donor. The access also raises new national security questions…"
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/oct/25/spacex-access-sensitive-tracking-data
"'Meaningless as a laptop screensaver': reviewers slate Musk's AI-made Odyssey film…
"Peter Bradshaw's review in the Guardian gave it one star, saying: "Every single dramatic moment - Odysseus's cod-insanity and his agreeing to fight, taking leave of his family, the hardship and adventure of the sea journey and the climactic decision - is all as motiveless and meaningless as the movement of shapes on a laptop screensaver.""
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/27/reviewers-slate-musk-ai-grok-odyssey-film-nolan
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You can read the previous "Economic" thead here. I'll be back on Monday with an "Economic" thread.
The post 28th October 2026 Today's Round-Up of Economic News appeared first on Climate and Economy.
After suffering more than 10,000 corporate meetings, one executive has decided that the world hasn't endured nearly enough management jargon and built an app capable of generating 270 million variations of it.
Dave Doty, who claims to have spent 35 years collecting buzzwords, clichés, and other verbal atrocities inflicted on office workers, turned his life's work into Executive Eightball, an iPhone and Android app designed to help users sound convincingly corporate while saying nothing.
The idea came about after Doty spent decades recording the nonsense he heard in meetings, presumably while everyone else was busy circling back, touching base, and taking things offline.
"I am an executive who has suffered through over 10,000 meetings during the course of my 30 year career," Doty told The Register. "To keep my sanity, in each of them, I wrote down all of the buzz words and business clichés and have built an enormous database of them."
He described his creation as "sort of what would happen if Dilbert and George Costanza had a love child."
The app, which is now available on Apple's App Store and Google Play, takes Doty's collection of corporate waffle and assembles it into sentences that wouldn't look out of place in a CEO's quarterly update or a particularly painful all-hands meeting.
Among the pearls of wisdom it can produce are "We must dashboard the outputs to enable us to focus on operational directives and break the paradigm" and "Drive to cross-functional synergies so we can reengineer the organization and unleash shareholder value."
Doty claims Executive Eightball can produce approximately 270 million unique sentences in 15 languages, meaning workers across the globe can now contribute to meetings without the tiresome business of having an actual idea.
The app's listing promises to help users "Speak fluent corporate nonsense instantly," with suggested applications including office humor, LinkedIn jokes, presentation icebreakers, and, perhaps most appropriately, "Fake CEO energy."
There's a free version, although you'll have to put up with ads and a limited supply of corporate waffle. For $0.99, you can unlock the lot and talk complete rubbish to your heart's content.
The timing is rather fitting. In March, research covered by The Register suggested that people who enthusiastically embrace corporate buzzwords may actually be worse at their jobs. Now there's an app to help the rest of us catch up.
Doty, meanwhile, appears delighted with his contribution to the corporate world.
"This is truly a paradigm shift for corporate leadership and my greatest lifetime contribution to society," he wrote in his latest email, urging potential customers to subscribe to the paid version to "unleash the value."
After 35 years and 10,000 meetings, at least someone has finally found a productive use for all that wasted time. ®
From 80s synthpop and 90s trip hop through to mischievous, glitched-out electronics, Andy Stott talks through 13 records that hold significance to him ahead of the release of his new album, Late Loop
Across a career that now spans more than two decades, Andy Stott's name has become synonymous with a style of electronic music that is patient and understated. Early records like Passed Me By and Luxury Problems dealt in dubbed-out minimalism and hauntingly gritty chuggers, while albums like 2016's Too Many Voices and 2019's It Should Be Us retained some of those qualities while introducing shades of dream pop into his captivating oeuvre.
On new record Late Loop, which is his first studio LP in five years, Stott explores those...
The post Coming Up for Air: Andy Stott's Favourite Albums appeared first on The Quietus.
Dis Fig
What To Make Of These Mortal Hands
Her debut was called PURGE and it was about her. This one is about what people do to each other, and it is named after the part of the body that does it
What To Make Of These Mortal Hands by Dis Fig
The title tells you where to look. Hands make things and hands wreck them, and Felicia Chen has built her second solo album around that double function. Track ten is called 'A Hundred Hands'. Track six is 'The Snake You Built'. The third track is named after the psaltery, an instrument you have to pluck with your fingers to make a sound at all. None of this is decoration. What To Make...
The post Dis Fig - What To Make Of These Mortal Hands appeared first on The Quietus.
5-letter national capitals: Abuja, Accra, Amman, Cairo, Dakar, Hanoi, Kabul, La Paz, Minsk, Paris, Praia, Quito, Rabat, Sana'a, Seoul, Sofia, Tokyo, Tunis, Vaduz
Chinese Zodiac animals in Japanese: 子, 丑, 寅, 卯, 辰, 巳, 午, 未, 申, 酉, 戌, 亥
Posh M&S crisp flavours: Aberdeen Angus Beef and Mustard, Butter Basted Roast Turkey, British Ham and Hot Mustard, Cornish Cruncher and Pickled Onion, Mature Cheddar and Spring Onion, Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar/Cracked Black Pepper, Roast Chicken and Garlic Butter, Extra Virgin Olive Oil Crisps with Lobster/Black Truffle/Mediterranean Sea Salt/Serrano Ham
Nightbuses in Harrow: N5 N18 N32 N83 N98 N118 N140
Anglican dioceses on the Greenwich Meridian: York, Lincoln, Ely, St Albans, Chelmsford, London, Southwark, Rochester, Chichester, Gibraltar, Alexandria, West Africa
Radio stations that launched in 1976: Radio 210, Downtown Radio, Beacon Radio, BBC Radio Highland
Middle names of the last seven Ballon d'Or winners: Edward, Ousmane, Hernández, Andrés, Mostafa, Andrés, Andrés
Frequency of the digits in the barcode for a Terry's Chocolate Orange: 6 four times, 4 thrice, 3 twice, 0 7 and 8 once, 1 2 5 and 9 never
4-letter words you can make out of FIASCO: coif, foci, ciao, oafs, soca, sofa
Cube-numbered Pokémon: Bulbasaur, Wartortle, Sandshrew, Kadabra, Electabuzz, Teddiursa, Baltoy, Simisage, Brionne, Gholdengo
Stations on the Central line without toilets: Northolt, North Acton, East Acton, every station from Shepherd's Bush to St Paul's, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Leyton, Wanstead, Gants Hill, South Woodford
Opening days at Bembridge Windmill in 2003: Jan-Feb closed, Mar-Jun not Saturdays, Jul-Aug daily, Sep-Oct not Saturdays, Nov-Dec closed
Born in the same week as Thora Hird: Vincent Price, VP Hubert Humphrey, James Marjoribanks, Vice Admiral Ian Hogg
10 things that won't be affected by today's Budget: Freddos, the colour yellow, HB pencils, pigeons, elastic bands, iced buns, VHS recorders, orchids, helipads, Jupiter
Commemorative 8½p stamps in 1976: Housewife (Telephones), Hewing coal (Social Reformers), Elizabeth of Glamis (National Rose Society), Archdruid (British Cultural Traditions), The Canterbury Tales (William Caxton), Virgin and Child (Christmas)
Goals Tottenham have scored in their Premiership matches so far this season: 00002132
How I get from here to Bow Road station: right, left, right, left, right, right, right, right, right, left, right, left, right, left
The last words of the chapters in the book I'm currently reading: him language who language show life Italy Sánchez again that man consciousness leave me of again thereafter secret now trap now shock there bin trying too family though talk call Sweden it hands talk is (...and that's as far as I've got so far)
Debuts: N J S M STGCARDR LMDNJMD MSDGB?DGT PA?C?GD LPJPM JDAPJ N SND SDPKGLGILATAJDCJ CWPIMDSI CSAGRAS PGG DDVJ SPJA A M
Icelandic coins I have in a small pot: 2×100kr, 5×10kr, 6×5kr, 4×1kr (=£1.75)
The longest-serving Coronation Street characters: Ken Barlow, Rita Tanner, Audrey Roberts, Kevin Webster, Sally Metcalfe, Steve McDonald
Overground colours in HTML: #0077AD, #5BBD72, #5D6061, #823A62, #ED1B00, #FAA61A
Farrow & Ball purples: Peignoir, Calluna, Brassica, Pelt, Paean Black, Brinjal, Sugared Almond, Imperial Purple, Titmouse Blue
Double-landlocked ceremonial counties: Bedfordshire, West Midlands
New entries into the Top 40 60 years ago this week: Beach Boys, Lee Dorsey, Spencer Davis Group, Creation, Easybeats
New entries into the Top 40 50 years ago this week: Neil Diamond, Leo Sayer, the Who, John Miles
New entries into the Top 40 40 years ago this week: Duran Duran, the Smiths, Letitia Dean & Paul Medford, Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush, Red Box, Bob Geldof, Swing Out Sister, Shakin' Stevens, Prince
New entries into the Top 40 30 years ago this week: East 17 & Gabrielle, Toni Braxton, Reef, Livin' Joy, Madonna, Space, Alisha's Attic, Lightning Seeds, REM, the Braids, Gene, Presidents of the USA, Huff & Puff, Alexander O'Neal, Mazzy Star
Kings whose reigns began in a year ending in 6: Edmund Ironside, Cnut, Harold II, William I, Henry III, Edward VIII, George VI
Letters ordered by their frequency in the numbers from one to ten: enitofhrsvguwx
Anagrams of Scottish airports: Brush Mug, Cop Newt Lamb, Denude, Hunger Bid, Nerviness, Retie, Sick Twerp, Sly AI, To Norways, Uncle Babe
X-Files episodes containing the letter X: Excelsis Dei, Max, Redux, Patient X, Folie à Deux, The Sixth Extinction, The Sixth Extinction II, X-Cops, Brand X, Existence, Rm9sbG93ZXJz
Years with purple car tax discs: 1987, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013
UK's 10 biggest charities by expenditure: Wellcome Trust, Nuffield Health, Charities Aid Foundation, British Council, Save The Children, National Trust, United Learning, Arts Council, Cancer Research, Cardiff University
Extras at the Cross Road Fish Bar in Kingston: mushrooms in breadcrumbs, onion rings, mushy peas, curry sauce, buttered roll, gherkin, pickled onion, pickled egg, pineapple fritter
Mr Men characters whose bodies are formed of straight lines: Mr Cool, Mr Rush, Mr Christmas, Mr Grumpy, Mr Sneeze, Mr Birthday, Mr Strong
Toblerone variants: Dark chocolate, White chocolate, Mint crisp, Snowtop, Fruit & Nut, Honeycomb crisp, Crunchy Salted Almond
MPs with the lowest majorities: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby) 6, David Pinto-Duschinsky (Labour - Hendon) 15, Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole) 18, Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay) 20, Sam Carling (Labour - North West Cambridgeshire) 39, Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon) 61
Gants in Braintree: Bailey's Gant, Bird In Hand Gant, Hilly Gant, Leatherworkers Gant, Osborn's Gant, Pig's Head in the Pottage Pot Gant
Welsh stations with three Ls: Energlyn & Churchill Park, Heath Low Level, Lisvane & Thornhill, Llandeilo, Llansamlet, Llwyngwril, Wildmill
Cinemas in Watford: ABC, Carlton, Cineworld, Empire, Essoldo, Gaumont, Odeon, Plaza, Regal, Super, Vue
Saints Days on October 28th: Abraham, Africanus, Anastasia II, Anglinus, Eadsin, Faro, Ferrutius, Fidelis of Como, Godwin, Honoratus of Vercelli, Joachim Royo, John Dat, Jude Thaddaeus, Remigius, Rodrigo Aguilar Alemán, Salvius, Simon the Zealot
0.5 in trigonometric functions: cos(60°), sin(30°), tan(26.565°)
Trademarked apple names: Evelina®, Jazz™, Junami®, Kanzi®, Red Prince®, Rubens®, Worcester Pearmain®, Zari®
Centuries without a transit of Venus: 3rd, 9th, 15th, 20th, 26th, 32nd, 37th
The ten highest mountains on the Falkland Islands: Mount Usborne 705m, Mount Adam 700m, Mount Robinson 680m, Jack's Mountain 648m, Mount Philomel 600m, Mount Simon 600m, Mount Moody 554m, Muffler Jack Mountain 542m, The Onion 535m, Storm Mountain 521m
Words that can be written using just one Morse Code symbol: he, hi, hie, hies, his, hiss, hisses, is, mom, moo, moot, motto, sees, she, sheesh, shhh, shies, to, tom, tomtom, too, toot, tot
Newly formed Quake AI is a cloud provider that expects its users will be mostly agents rather than humans.
It was created after US-based Rumble Inc acquired German datacenter operator Northern Data in June. The parent then rebranded as RUM Group, a holding company for Quake AI (formerly Northern Data) and the Rumble video platform.
Quake AI is an Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP) operating a 22,000 GPUs estate, making it a neocloud: a specialized infrastructure provider dedicated to AI workloads.
Yet where other neoclouds are building a full stack of services around their GPU farms, Quake AI wants to make its infrastructure discoverable to AI agents, which may soon be traversing the internet in hordes on behalf of their owners.
RUM Group's chief financial officer Mike Massey told The Register that "Cloud 1.0 - let's call it applications - is like a user interface of how you interact with a machine of some kind."
He added: "Now, if you think about agents, they don't use vision. That's not how they interact with systems. They interact with APIs and with information effectively, and that means they want highly discoverable, highly data-driven platforms..
"So, to us, the things that make GPUs and AI compute easier to consume for humans, things like model-as-a-service, dashboards and one-click settings, are actually orthogonal to, if not detrimental to what agents are going to want, agents are going to want homogeneous compute… to understand and know what your data and your expectations are in terms of performance and uptimes, and then they're going to want to consume that compute as a utility," he claimed.
In other words, Quake AI believes that, at some point, the customers for its compute services are going to be AI agents rather than people, but carrying out tasks on their behalf.
"I think that is the case, and it's the vision that we are driving towards, and you know ultimately agents are in service of people, right?" Massey said.
In its view of things, agents won't go through an intermediary, they'll go to the compute to retrieve the answers they need. "So all of these tool frameworks and all of these things that we have set up, I think, are a hindrance or an encumbrance to what the agents are going to want to consume, which is a utility," he explained.
"Yes, we're a little crazy in this regard," Massey added. "It's different. But I think our worldview is very grounded in the data and the realities. Like, we're a technical team. We understand the engineering, and at the end of the day, I think that most would validate our hypothesis," he continued.
John Hoffman, CEO of Northern Data and acting CEO of Quake AI, compared this with a solution he had been shown of an AI that was developed to navigate the internet by itself.
"I told it I wanted pizza. It went on to DoorDash's website. Typed pizza in the search box, clicked on the pizza with the highest ranking, went to add to order, knows I like pepperoni, and it clicked through all of this," he said.
"Don't get me wrong, this was a good solution that solves the problem. But the amount of compute that you are using to try to get an AI agent to act like a human that has eyes that can see web links is insanity compared to if DoorDash just created an API that is queryable," Hoffman claimed.
Done that way, the compute usage would be one thousandth of the way that the problem was actually accomplished, Quake AI claims, but it will require that everybody embraces the idea of how agents interact.
"And they don't interact with interfaces or applications. They interact with data and APIs. Just give me the raw data. That's what it wants," Hoffman told us.
"I would imagine DoorDash is developing an API for agents," he added. "It just makes sense, and that's why we're doing the same exact thing."
Earlier this year, TollBit, an outfit that tracks AI bot traffic, said that agents were gradually taking over the internet. Its State of the Bots report found that by the end of 2025, there was roughly one AI bot visit for every 31 human visits to a site, up from just one for every 200 human visits at the start of the year.
Last year, consultants McKinsey & Company produced a report saying that the neocloud operators had to evolve beyond being just a provider of GPUs-as-a-service and move up the AI stack to sell services on top of bare metal, or risk being commoditized into competing on price.
Analyst firm Gartner was also reading the last rites for much of the neocloud industry recently, forecasting that AI services are unlikely to deliver enough revenue to cover the expected capital expenditure on IT infrastructure between now and 2030, and that consolidation in the provider market was inevitable.
Quake AI's gamble is that AI agents will be a reality, and that by tailoring its APIs to make it easier for these autonomous software bots to access its resources as needed, it will be one of the winners. ®
Travelling in the modern day and age differs significantly from what it looked like a few short decades ago. Today, it is all about apps: you need applications for navigation, booking accommodation, buying tickets for events, following the local news, staying in touch with friends and family, and more. That also means that you depend on connectivity at all times while abroad.
The problem is that a lot of people still rely on traditional roaming, while the roaming model is out of date. You cannot choose a specific mobile internet plan that suits your travel plans. Instead, operators have split the world into zones, and each zone has its own pricing, limits, and permissions.
That is why many have turned to alternative ways of staying connected, and so far, the travel eSIM has emerged as the most practical solution. Companies like the Swiss eSIM pioneer, Yesim, have recognized the problem that travelers are facing and have come up with a solution. They let you pick a specific plan that will fit your trip. That way, you get to tailor your connectivity experience in advance. Furthermore, you even get to see the price in advance and know exactly what you will have to pay.
Home-operator roaming: Connectivity under outdated rulesThe problem with roaming is that your home operator decides what your internet will be like abroad. When you try to book a flight or a hotel room, you will try to get the best deal possible. That means comparing providers, prices, any potential benefits that different providers offer, and the like. However, with roaming, you can't do any of that. The terms of your existing home contract still apply, and connectivity abroad just gets added to it.
That means that your operator decides what zones are available, what partner networks you can access, and, most importantly, how much they will charge you. You, as the user, can only accept their terms or choose to look for a different way to secure an internet connection. In other words, there is no flexibility and no participation on your end, you can only take it or leave it.
Take EE as an example - the official terms for their EE Travel Data pass for Canada and the US say that the user gets 500 MB of data per day. This is not nearly enough for someone who will depend on their phone for everything, from paying for food to comparing ticket prices and booking accommodation. The limit is the same for countless other countries, including Australia, China, India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and the UAE.
It gets even worse for other countries, including Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Indonesia. For these, the daily allowance is only 150 MB. That essentially forces you to ration your data use very carefully and pick what you are going to use it for.
Some providers have introduced daily packages as a secondary roaming option. O2 Travel Bolt On roaming option for Pay Monthly customers charges £7 for every 24 hours of use. They start charging you as soon as you make a call, send a text, or use data for anything. It happens even if your phone updates an app automatically in the background, without you even knowing about it.
As a result, you get barely any connectivity, but still have to pay the full price of this deal. For some, that might be fine, but if you aren't aware of it, you can return home to a surprise bill that you now have to pay.
Travel eSIM as an alternative to roaming: Choice and control pass to the userAs mentioned, travel eSIM emerged as an alternative to the roaming model. The first thing to note about it is the difference between an eSIM and a travel eSIM.
An eSIM is a chip that is built into most modern smartphones, tablets, and similar devices. This chip allows users to install operator profiles offered by travel eSIM providers. This can be done remotely, without having to go to the provider's shop. It's as simple as downloading an app.
Travel eSIM uses this chip to create a digital service. That typically includes the provider's app, tariffs, partnered mobile networks, full control of your data, and even top-ups and customer support, should you need them.
The system is also quite practical, as you get to set up everything in advance. You don't have to wait to enter another country to secure your connectivity, but can instead do it from home before you leave on your trip. Start by checking your device's compatibility with eSIM technology. If it's compatible, you can download the operator's app, pick a package for the region you plan to visit, and install the appropriate profile. Then, sit on the plane, travel to your destination, and activate the profile when you get there. You get instant connectivity without having to stand in line at a SIM kiosk, rely on Wi-Fi coverage, or pay high roaming prices.
If you are still not sure if a travel eSIM is the right option, consider the following: A one-week trip from the UK to the US will have you paying £7 per day if you are an O2 Travel user. For seven days abroad, that will end up being £49. Alternatively, if you use Yesim's unlimited package for the US for seven days, the price is only £18.27 as of the time of writing. You buy it upfront, and it won't activate until you start using it after arriving at your destination.
Travel eSIM fits the app-first logic of travelWhen selecting a plan, you start with the trip itself. In other words, you click on the country or region that you plan to visit. You can also enter the length of your stay there, and how much data you expect you will need. Then, select a tariff to match the parameters.
All terms of the deal will be known to you in advance, including the country that is covered by the plan, how long the plan will last, how much data you get, and how much it all costs. Best of all, everything is managed in the app, so you don't really have to get in contact with anyone.
A package can be selected for a single country, an entire region, or a route that includes several countries. You prepare all of this at home, and activate it after arrival. You even get to keep your home number active, since you don't have to replace your SIM card. That way, any banking messages, service notifications, important calls, 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) texts, and the like can come through and reach you at any time.
Yesim: The Swiss standard for travel connectivityIf you need a travel eSIM provider, consider the Swiss company Yesim. The firm has been in the travel eSIM market since 2019, becoming one of the pioneers in this sector. Today, it provides connectivity to over 4 million users across 200+ destinations. For travelers, this means that they can rely on one service that they are familiar with regardless of whether they are going on a short holiday in one country or a lengthy, complex trip that will include multiple nations.
Yesim's position as a global provider of connectivity services is also reflected in the fact that the company has become an official partner of the World Players Super League - the largest golf tour in the world. The League holds over 1,800 tournaments in more than 50 countries every year, and is one of the largest events of this kind.
The same global scale is evident in Yesim's pricing options. The firm offers a flexible tariff range, especially when it comes to its most popular packages. For example, the Global Package covers 80+ countries, while the Global Plus Package covers 140+ destinations. These will likely suit those who tend to travel a lot and want to pay a fixed budget. But, if your data needs are unpredictable, you can always pick the Pay & Fly tariff - Yesim's pay-as-you-go model. This is a single eSIM for 170+ countries, and you only pay for the data that you actually used.
Yesim's offer is known for the ease and simplicity of connection. The firm has created an intuitive app where you simply pick a country or a region, install the profile, and activate it in a few taps after getting there. Plus, the app uses automatic network selection. This is possible thanks to SwitchLess Networks technology, which switches the user to the strongest available network at any given time. This is especially important for remote locations, where connectivity is usually unstable, but it can also come in handy for mass events, when the network may struggle to cope with tens of thousands of connections at once.
Yesim also offers the Multiple eSIMs feature, which helps you manage several profiles from a single account. This is convenient for those traveling with their family or a small group. You can even test its service with a trial plan that gives you 500 MB for a symbolic price of £0.45. That way, you can see how it all works for yourself before committing any real money. Lastly, Yesim offers a 15 percent discount to new users who use promocode GETYESIM15, so make sure to use it.
ConclusionSince modern travel has evolved and is now an app-first experience, the old roaming model is no longer a good fit for an average traveler. Instead, travel eSIMs give tourists the freedom to choose their location, amount of data, and even to know the cost upfront. Yesim is a prime example of the fact that the travel eSIM model works and that it can satisfy the needs of modern-day travellers.
"For Yesim, freedom of connectivity is a fundamental human right that helps people stay close, communicate, and share meaningful moments in spite of distance," emphasizes the company's founder and CEO, Dmitri Verbovski.
Contributed by Yesim
Source: LinkedIn Ultraviolette Automotive | Indian electric motorcycle maker Ultraviolette has outlined its next technology phase. The company introduced a new 100V vehicle architecture called VX-100, a first motorcycle built on it, the X-47 Venom, and several supporting technologies covering battery safety, motor design and rider protection. It also confirmed that the Shockwave will adopt the new architecture, with launch now planned for the first quarter of 2027.
VX-100: a new base for future models
VX-100 is an entirely new platform rather than an update of existing hardware. Ultraviolette says it was developed to raise performance, shorten charging times and improve efficiency, while also enabling more advanced electronics for the rider. The company positions it as the foundation for its upcoming vehicles. No technical specifications for the platform have been released yet.
X-47 Venom: first model on the new architecture
The X-47 Venom is the first production motorcycle based on VX-100. According to Ultraviolette, it is faster, accelerates harder and weighs less than its existing models.
Pyrofuse: battery fault isolation
Pyrofuse is a battery protection system that Ultraviolette describes as derived from aerospace safety technology. Its purpose is to cut off critical electrical faults within milliseconds. The company claims this is the first time such a system has been applied to electric two-wheelers.
UV Lightfury: new electric motor
The UV Lightfury is Ultraviolette's next-generation in-house motor. The focus is on power density: more output from a smaller and lighter unit. Output and weight figures have not been disclosed.
B-Max: reusable safety vest
Outside the motorcycle itself, Ultraviolette introduced B-Max, a reusable safety vest for riders. Details on how it works, its certification and availability were not provided.
Shockwave delayed to Q1 2027
The Shockwave, Ultraviolette's lightweight off-road-oriented model, will now be built on the 100V architecture before it reaches customers. The company lists stronger power delivery, better thermal efficiency and faster charging as the main gains, while keeping the bike's light and simple character. To prepare for production, Ultraviolette is setting up a dedicated Shockwave assembly line inside its existing factory. The switch to the new architecture means the launch moves to Q1 2027.
THE PACK's take:
Guy Salens: "The announcement shows Ultraviolette shifting from individual models to a shared platform strategy, a step that typically precedes a broader model range. The company continues to stress that its technology is developed in India and intended for international markets. For now, the release sets out the technical direction; specifications, pricing and market timing for the X-47 Venom and the supporting technologies are still to be announced."
ULTRAVIOLETTE >Pictures launch X-47
All pictures © Ultraviolette Automotive
Drukqs has long been one of John Doran's favourite LPs; with a reissue looming, he attempts to articulate why he loves this critically derided album so much
Drukqs by Aphex Twin
Rereading the contemporary reviews of Drukqs 25 years later is like rubbernecking the aftermath of a motorway crash. Just ahead of release in October 2001, it became wince-inducingly clear that some previously long-term supporters of Richard D. James were ready to start questioning the validity of his art if not gearing up to fully turn on him. His traditional allies in the leftfield press hated the album, that much was clear. "Too much cake and no nuts" was the stinging but memorable summary minted by Rob Young for The Wire, who...
The post Prepared for the Future: the Slow Reveal of Aphex Twin's Drukqs appeared first on The Quietus.
Emissions from exported oil would not count against carbon budget, insiders say - reasoning likely to draw dismay from climate campaigners
The giant Rosebank oilfield can be approved without breaching the UK's emission targets, according to government insiders, in a boost to those in the cabinet who are pushing for it to be given the go-ahead.
The Guardian revealed last week that Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, was leaning towards rejecting the project, but her position has put her at loggerheads with cabinet colleagues, including the chancellor, John Healey, who are lobbying for an approval.
Continue reading...The radical Stern report showed that a low-carbon future is also good economics. But it seems that capitalism needs a reminder
Saving the only planet we have makes good economic sense. There is, after all, no money to be made on a dead Earth. There may be costs involved now, but they are worth paying to protect our children from certain destruction.
These propositions seem self-evident now. But two decades ago, mainstream economists had very different ideas. They had proved that the climate crisis would be a mere economic blip, easily absorbed by growing economies and therefore not worth spending money on. In their accounting, they considered ice caps and glaciers functionally worthless, that trees only add to GDP when they are cut down, and that a livable climate shouldn't even merit a line on a spreadsheet.
Fiona Harvey is an environment editor at the Guardian
Continue reading...Extreme heat accelerated disappearance of Triglav glacier from mountain revered as a symbol of Slovenian identity
The final ice patch has vanished from Slovenia's Triglav glacier, the latest Alpine casualty of Europe's scorching summer.
The once mighty ice mass lost 93% of its surface area between 1983 and 2003, shrinking to cover less than a hectare of overheated rock, but went on to surprise researchers who feared its imminent demise, clinging on to the mountain for two more decades.
Continue reading...Wharram and York, North Yorkshire: It's the nervy few days before a ceremony that will honour our local waterways, and I have work to do
I visit the source of the tiny stream called the Gypsey Race now and then, drawn by the everyday miracle of its water welling to catch sunlight like a plaything and alchemise it into colours and sparks. Today, though, is different, because I've come to ask for something. Something like permission, or approval maybe.
I've been helping to organise a gathering of river advocates to co-draft a regional charter of river rights - making explicit our responsibilities towards them. We will be holding a ceremony to blend waters from across Yorkshire to make ink in which the charter will be written. I want to collect water from the Gypsey, but I also want some of its potent reputation. Its course is regarded as auspicious thanks to an extraordinary concentration of nearby prehistoric barrows, cursuses and henges, not to mention England's tallest standing stone. Local folklore insists that its capricious flow holds the power of prophecy.
Continue reading...
The UK has beaten its target to provide £11.6bn of climate aid to developing countries by 2026 - but only through "questionable accounting".
As part of its obligations under the Paris Agreement, the UK pledged to give at least £11.6bn in overseas "climate finance" between 2021 and 2026.
Now, Carbon Brief analysis reveals that around £2.1bn of the funds the UK counted towards this goal did not come from new spending.
Instead, the government relabelled existing funding for development banks, private-sector investment and aid for Afghanistan, Sudan and other war-torn nations as "climate finance".
Without these changes, the UK would have fallen nearly £1bn short of its target.
Carbon Brief's analysis is based on numerous FOI requests and reveals the otherwise-unpublished details of the UK's climate-finance spending.
Experts and MPs say the use of "questionable" accounting shows the UK is "cutting corners" to hit its climate goals, while making unprecedented cuts to its foreign aid budget.
'Moving the goalposts'The UK and other developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to provide "new and additional" climate finance to help developing countries tackle climate change.
They also have specific targets to "mobilise" $100bn of climate finance per year through to 2025 and "at least" $300bn by 2035.
As the UK's contribution to international climate finance, in 2019 the Conservative government pledged to provide £11.6bn between the financial years 2021-22 and 2025-26. This amounted to "doubling" its previous five-year target.
Since then, successive governments have slashed the amount of money going towards foreign aid, citing economic strain and a need for more defence spending. This has placed great pressure on the £11.6bn target, which comes from the UK aid budget.
In order to retain the target while cutting aid, the Conservative government decided in 2023 to loosen the criteria for what it defined as "climate" spending.
This enabled the UK to remain committed to the £11.6bn goal, without spending more on new climate projects, by simply relabelling existing funds. The current Labour government has opted to maintain this approach, while pledging to cut aid spending even further.
The move has been strongly criticised by campaigners, MPs and even the UK's official aid watchdog, who have described it as "creative accounting" and "moving the goalposts".
'£1bn shortfall'The UK government has announced that it met the £11.6bn target, but has not released the full details of how it did so - or even the total amount provided by 2025-26.
FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief over the course of several months reveals that, in fact, total climate finance over the past five years reached £12.8bn - with a record £4bn in the past year alone.
However, Carbon Brief analysis of government data also shows that around £2.1bn - nearly a fifth of the total - comes from the government's accounting changes.
Without these changes, as the chart below shows, cumulative UK climate finance would only have reached around £10.7bn by 2026, leaving a shortfall of £924m.
This final figure of £2.1bn is higher than forecast by the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which estimated in 2024 that the total amount of "reclassified" climate finance would reach £1.7bn.
The government has stressed that its accounting changes are "consistent" with "internationally agreed ways of calculating ICF", used by other major donors.
(Experts have noted that, traditionally, the UK was viewed as taking a more rigorous approach to climate-finance accounting, which is notoriously unregulated and opaque.)
A recent International Development Committee (IDC) report noted that developed countries have committed to providing "new and additional" climate finance to developing countries, which is generally interpreted as extra funds on top of existing aid.
Evidence gathered by the IDC concluded that, alongside aid cuts, the UK's accounting changes have "eroded" the "additionality and credibility" of its climate finance.
Responding to Carbon Brief's findings, IDC chair Sarah Champion said the data "shines a new light" on the committee's findings:
"The picture is not getting any better. If questionable accounting has been used to get around a £1bn shortfall on ICF spend between 2021-22 and 2025-26, this only underlines my concerns that the government has been cutting corners to maintain headline climate-spending commitments, rather than working to deliver genuine climate and nature outcomes."
These accounting changes remain relevant as the UK begins its next phase of international climate finance, while cutting the aid budget further.
The government has pledged £6bn of foreign aid for climate projects over the next three years. This makes the UK one of the only major donor countries to set out a new climate-finance target for the period after 2025, despite a global pledge to scale up support.
Nevertheless, the new UK goal amounts to a halving from £4bn in the financial year 2025-26 to £2bn a year, on average. Previous Carbon Brief analysis also shows that the continued use of "questionable accounting" is likely to make up around a third of the new target.
Responding to Carbon Brief's analysis, a UK government spokesperson says:
"We are proud to have both hit, and exceeded, our third international climate-finance target - and will continue to work hard on protecting climate and nature.
"Climate change and nature loss pose a real and significant threat to global security and prosperity. That is why the UK is leading action on climate and nature, and prioritising climate finance in its aid budget."
Accounting changesThe UK's accounting changes break down into three major components, which are behind most of its upward revision in climate-finance spending.
The first is counting a share of "core" funding for multilateral development banks (MDBs) as climate finance.
This refers to un-earmarked contributions that governments provide to support these banks in their work, which includes providing loans and grants to developing countries.
Counting this spending as "climate finance" adds £1.1bn to the total of £12.8bn, split mainly between the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
As the chart below shows, this is by far the largest chunk of extra climate finance resulting from the UK's accounting changes.
A spreadsheet with details of these accounting changes can be viewed here.
This revision has been justified on the grounds that the World Bank and other banks have clear targets for funding climate-relevant projects, using their core funding.
However, MDBs have also faced criticism for their lack of transparency around climate finance and their reliance on loans, rather than grants. (In contrast, nearly all of the UK's climate finance so far has been grant-based.)
Moreover, the US has been pressuring MDBs to drop their climate plans altogether. Indeed, the Trump administration has already forced the World Bank to abandon its overall target to put 45% of its funds towards climate finance.
Jon Sward, environment project manager at the Bretton Woods Project NGO, tells Carbon Brief:
"One thing removing the overall [World Bank] target definitely does is it adds…a lack of predictability of the flows going forward."
The second-largest UK accounting change - contributing nearly £600m - comes from automatically counting 30% of humanitarian aid as climate finance, if it is going to one of the countries judged most vulnerable to climate change.
This includes some of the most war-torn and low-income nations in the world, such as Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Crucially, this means projects are counted even if they have no discernible link to climate change, such as helping "conflict-affected" people in Yemen and orphans in Zimbabwe.
The Center for Global Development (CGD) has described this revision as "arbitrary", given every aid project is already screened for any climate-relevant components.
The third significant portion comes from counting more of the government's private-sector investments via British International Investment (BII) as climate finance. BII is a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially funded with injections of UK aid money.
The UK government decided to start calculating the climate share of its BII spending based on real-world BII investments, rather than a default, fixed share of 30%.
Data obtained by Carbon Brief via FOI suggests that £133m of extra BII funding was labelled as climate finance over the first four years of the £11.6bn target.
However, government records of BII climate finance have been inconsistent, making it difficult to estimate the total impact of accounting changes. Therefore, Carbon Brief has used an earlier internal government forecast that estimated this change would add a total of £266m over the five-year target period.
BII has increasingly turned its attention to investing in clean power in recent years, reaching more than £1bn in "climate investments" in 2025.
However, the company has faced criticism for investments that "conflict" with UK priorities - including legacy fossil-fuel investments - as well as channelling aid money to "billionaires".
There was also some extra spending that the government decided to count as climate aid - notably, £99m of "spending on COP26", from when the UK hosted the climate summit.
Shruti Agarwal, senior climate finance adviser at Save the Children UK, tells Carbon Brief the reduction in overall "financial effort" by the UK is a "concerning pattern that must cease". She adds:
"[The UK should] strengthen transparency by publishing timely, detailed data on international climate spending and stop classifying expenditure as climate finance retrospectively, as seen with COP26 expenses."
MethodologyCarbon Brief obtained the full datasets of international climate-finance spending via FOI, covering the five-year period 2021-22 to 2025-26. For more details and to access the full dataset, see Carbon Brief's analysis of the £12.8bn in spending over this period.
In addition, Carbon Brief requested details from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of what climate-finance spending would have been prior to the 2023 accounting changes, for the period 2021-22 to 2024-25.
Carbon Brief then used this information to calculate the impact of accounting changes in 2025-26, combining the figures to work out the full impact.
A spreadsheet with the full details of the accounting changes can be viewed here.
UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.
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The post Revealed: UK relied on £2bn of 'questionable accounting' to hit its climate-aid goal appeared first on Carbon Brief.
- The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021
- UK climate aid has reached record levels - but is set to drop
- Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other country
- Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiaries
- Methodology
The UK has spent £12.8bn on climate aid for developing countries since 2021, according to official figures obtained by Carbon Brief.
Freedom-of-information (FOI) requests reveal how the UK has used its "climate finance" to support everything from solar projects in Mozambique to carbon offsets in the Amazon.
UK climate funding, which reached a record £4bn this year, has supported roughly 500 aid projects, climate funds and private-investment initiatives over the past five years.
With this spending, the UK has surpassed its £11.6bn climate-finance target for this period, although Carbon Brief analysis shows that it has partly relied on "questionable accounting".
This target is part of the UK's ongoing responsibility under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries in their efforts to tackle climate change.
Despite being central to its international climate policy, the UK government does not routinely release data on progress towards its climate-finance goals.
Here, Carbon Brief has published the data in full for the first time and pulled out key trends since 2021.
The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021According to the FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief, at least 493 projects, funds and institutions received UK climate finance between 2021-22 and 2025-26.
These included £45m to help Ukraine curb its reliance on fossil fuels, £40m in cash transfers for Kenyans affected by drought and £30m to provide flood resilience in Nepal.
Larger sums were provided to projects spread across multiple countries, often with the stated goal of "mobilising" additional finance from the private sector.
For example, the UK channelled £198m into a World Bank-backed project to help Colombia, Cambodia and others create and sell "high-integrity" carbon offsets.
The UK also provided £229m to a group that uses foreign aid to attract private capital for projects in predominantly low-income nations, such as a solar farm in Uganda and a "sustainable aviation fuel" project in Pakistan.
All of the funded projects can be viewed in the interactive table below.
The UK has been criticised by campaigners and MPs for its lack of transparency around climate finance data.
In line with its international obligations, the government routinely releases its climate-finance figures to the UN - albeit with a two-year delay.
However, it does not publish this data broken down by financial year, making it impossible to accurately gauge progress towards the £11.6bn goal.
The data gathered by Carbon Brief is therefore the most comprehensive attempt to track this information to date. Carbon Brief has been periodically tracking this data since 2017.
UK climate aid has reached record levels - but is set to dropThe UK government committed in 2019 to spending £11.6bn of the nation's aid budget on "climate finance", between 2021-22 and 2025-26.
This is the nation's contribution to an international goal to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year between 2020 and 2025.
Developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries, assisting their efforts to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
However, alongside other major donors, such as the US, the UK has dramatically cut its aid budget, placing significant strain on the nation's climate finance.
Despite this, FOI data shows that UK climate finance reached a record £4bn in 2025-26, as shown in the chart below.
Not accounting for inflation, this amounts to a tenfold increase from 2011-12, when the UK started providing climate finance.
The £11.6bn target was met comfortably, with £12.8bn provided over the five-year period.
However, as separate Carbon Brief analysis shows, the target was only met due to the government reclassifying £2.2bn of existing foreign aid as climate finance, without spending any more.
Rather than setting a new five-year goal, in March 2026 the Labour government committed to spending "around £6bn" of UK aid as climate finance over the next three years. On average, this would mean £2bn in climate aid annually - roughly half the level achieved in the financial year 2025-26.
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This amounts to a significant reduction from the £11.6bn pledge, especially once accounting changes and inflation are factored in, as Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Alongside the £6bn in climate aid, the government has also pledged to invest £6.7bn from outside the aid budget to "drive climate and nature outcomes".
Rather than grant funding, this support will include private investments, export credit and guarantees to development banks. The UK already provides such finance, but has not previously counted it towards its climate-finance targets.
Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other countryThe vast majority of UK climate finance was delivered "multilaterally", meaning it supports large funds or institutions working in multiple countries.
More than 80% of the funding since 2021 is therefore listed as helping "developing countries" in general, or whole regions such as "Africa".
Of the £2.1bn (17%) that was delivered "bilaterally", with the UK directly supporting climate projects in specific countries, the biggest beneficiaries are nations in east Africa and south Asia. Around two-thirds of this funding goes to nations classified as "least developed".
For many years, Ethiopia has been the top recipient of bilateral UK climate finance, largely due to long-running projects supporting ecosystem restoration and drought resilience.
However, Afghanistan overtook Ethiopia over the £11.6bn period, with £256m of its aid labelled as climate-related, compared to Ethiopia's £226m. (The UK does not provide aid via the Taliban, instead channelling it through partners, such as UN agencies.)
Afghanistan is struggling with floods and low electricity access. However, the UK's apparent surge in support for the nation is not, in fact, due to new climate-related initiatives.
Instead, it is the result of the UK automatically labelling 30% of aid for all humanitarian projects in this country as "climate finance", following a controversial accounting change.
This shift affected other climate-vulnerable and war-torn nations, meaning Somalia (£139m), Sudan (£136m) and Yemen (£130m) were also among the top recipients of "climate aid".
Where the UK has provided large sums of climate finance to projects in middle-income nations, they are typically aimed at "mobilising" private-sector investment, rather than achieving humanitarian goals.
Examples include £83m to support Brazil's Amazon Fund - a carbon offsetting initiative - and £43m to boost UK investment in India's low-carbon infrastructure.
Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiariesThe largest chunks of UK climate finance are channelled via international climate funds and other bodies, which in turn use that funding to support climate projects in developing countries.
Despite recently cutting its 2024-27 support for the Green Climate Fund, the UK still provided £1.5bn to this flagship UN fund - more than any other initiative.
British International Investment (BII), a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially supported with UK aid money, received almost £1.4bn.
The UK has increasingly been relying on BII to meet its climate-finance goals, partly reflecting the body's decision to prioritise clean-energy investments, rather than fossil fuels.
Other major recipients of UK climate finance are multilateral development banks, particularly the various arms of the World Bank and the African Development Bank. This reflects the UK's decision to start counting "core" funding for these banks as climate finance.
The government's accounting changes - which have boosted the significance of BII and MDBs in UK climate finance - have faced criticism from experts, MPs and the UK's aid watchdog. For more, see Carbon Brief's full analysis of these changes.
MethodologyAll of the international climate-finance data used in this piece was obtained via FOI requests. Carbon Brief has compiled the data into a spreadsheet, which can be accessed here.
UK climate finance comes from the aid budgets of four departments, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) providing three-quarters of the total.
The remainder comes predominantly from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with much smaller sums from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST).
BIST has also released a dataset detailing the hundreds of climate-science projects in developing countries - or benefiting those countries - that have been supported with UK climate funds.
UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.
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The post Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Scientists uncover ancient hills and swamps that disappeared as sea levels rose across northern Adriatic
Venice is famed for being a floating city, but research shows the land it sits on once lay many miles inland. Dramatic changes in sea level over 10,000 years have reshaped the northern Adriatic coastline, with much of the land that our ancestors roamed now lying beneath the waves.
Samuele Ongaro, at the University of Southampton, and colleagues combined seismic data with sedimentary cores from the coastal basins of northern Italy, Slovenia and northern Croatia to model changes in sea level across the region and reconstruct past landscapes over the past 10,000 years.
Continue reading...A striking transformation takes place along the coast of Qinqdao in autumn, when a native seepweed turns a brilliant shade of red.
The 'red beach' phenemon can be seen in the salt marshes and wetlands on the coast of China's Shandong province, where the Suaeda glauca plant matures and absorbs water, changing it from green to crimson between September and November
Continue reading...
Korean memory-maker SK Hynix has predicted memory shortages will persist until at least the year 2030 and says that will help it to boost its already exceptional revenue and profits to new levels.
In remarks published on Wednesday alongside its quarterly results, the company offered its belief that "a virtuous cycle has taken hold in which AI-driven productivity gains and new revenue generation in areas such as software development, customer service, and search lead to greater AI adoption, which in turn drives increased investment in infrastructure."
SK Hynix thinks this is great news, because it means more buyers are entering the market for AI infrastructure, including "general enterprises" and nations building sovereign infrastructure. In coming years, the company sees even more demand for memory coming from autonomous cars and the growing robotics market.
While the company is working hard to build more factories and get them working, execs admitted it can't do that fast enough to meet demand.
"The company assessed that supply … is not keeping pace with the growth of the market," SK Hynix told investors. "Given technical difficulty of leading-edge processes and the long lead time required to build new production facilities, it expects the structure in which demand exceeds supply to persist through 2030."
It gets worse. SK Hynix has 14 long-term deals with 14 big buyers, who will collectively buy more than half of its output during 2027 and 2028, and some of them want to extend those agreements. The Korean giant doesn't mind that because the deals include "a mechanism that reflects market conditions within a price range agreed upon with customers" and give it "a structure that secures stable profitability while allowing flexible responses to market changes."
Those deals helped SK Hynix to record quarterly revenue of ₩104.6 trillion ($78.1 billion), up 328 percent year-over-year and 32 percent quarter-over-quarter. Operating profit came in at ₩87.68 trillion ($62.8 billion), up 486 percent year over year.
The company told investors it's not done yet, outlining plans to expand production and emphasize lucrative products that will "scale up revenue and profit one step further next year."
Doing so will likely dent profits elsewhere, because on the company's earnings call, chief financial officer Kim Woo-hyun predicted "shipment volumes for PCs and mobile devices are expected to decrease due to cost burdens from rising memory prices and supply shortages."
The company also outlined some of its future plans, among them:
Increasing HBM4 production, which it believes will "surpass HBM3E in both shipment volume and revenue in the fourth quarter and … establish itself as a mainstream product."
"Rapidly" increasing the portion of its 10nm-class 6th generation (1c) process technology and expand sales of DDR5 and LPDDR5 SOCAMM for AI servers.
Developing NAND "into a core solution that enhances the throughput and economic efficiency of AI services, based on HBF and system optimization technologies."
Investors liked what they heard, with some apparently seeing the memory-maker's outlook as suggesting the AI boom won't sputter out any time soon and sent the company's share price up by about three percent in after-hours trading. ®
Indian tech services giant Infosys has mixed news about AI.
In its most recent quarterly results late last week, the company revealed that it's racked up 29 percent sequential growth in AI revenue, which now delivers 10.5 percent of Infosys' incoming cash.
Those are far nicer numbers than the 1.5 percent year-on-year revenue growth Infosys reported for its second quarter.
"Growth was below our expectations. Volume was softer, and price increases were lower than anticipated amid high competitive intensity," chief financial officer Jayesh Sanghrajka told investors. One reason for lower price increases was that customers expect Infosys to charge less when it uses AI, and those cost savings are now "baked in" to its multi-year deals.
CEO and managing director Salil Parekh also pointed to AI as one reason the cost of services is falling.
"I think what we see today is there is definitely some of our peers who are putting, I would say, more intense effort into the pricing pressure," he said, "but it is also across the board because of the environment and also the discussion on AI productivity. If you are talking with clients today on large programs, it is a three or five-year outlook."
That leaves Infosys dependent on new work from AI to boost revenue growth, while AI also makes it hard to keep growing revenue from existing customers.
Infosys won't go low to win deals and intends to hold its margins at around 21 percent, Sanghrajka said. He sought to prove that point by citing "a large deal that we walked out of, or we did not pursue because it did not meet our return expectations."
To help preserve margins, the company is conducting "Project Maximus" to find efficiencies within its own operations. AI-powered tools to win more sales are also in the mix.
The company sees difficult months ahead. Sanghrajka said the retail and high-tech industries have slowed their services spending and acknowledged that the second half of Infosys's financial year is usually its slow period.
The company tried to convince investors that they have little to worry about, pointing to $8.8 billion of new deals won in the first half of its financial year - 68 percent of which were net new customers - as a sign that Infosys' fundamentals are sound.
But the company also offered less optimistic guidance about its future. In its Q1 results, Infosys predicted full-year revenue growth of 1.5 to 3.0 percent. In Q2, it revised that prediction to 1.0 to 2.0 percent.
Infosys's share price didn't dive after that news but is already down over 25 percent in the last twelve months. And Bloomberg reports that investment analysts have downgraded the company, suggesting they feel its prospects are poor. ®
Academic science (natural or social) is about making new discoveries. When a researcher thinks they have found something new, or a flaw in established knowledge, they normally write a paper and submit it to an academic journal - from the high status global journals like The Lancet or the British Medical Journal, to smaller, more specialised ones. These journals are the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge. Their editors and reviewers decide what does and does not become part of accepted knowledge. Publication makes the findings accessible to everyone working in the field.
Peer reviewTo decide what to publish, the journal gives the draft, anonymised, to an expert in the field, for 'peer review'. The reviewer looks for problems such as weak evidence, unclear writing, errors, missing references, arguments that do not hold up or failures to recognise previous research. Their comments help authors improve the work before it goes to publication. If the reviewer thinks the research is sound and makes a significant contribution to knowledge, they may recommend that it be published.
This is how it has been done for more than two hundred years. When the system is working at its best, a conscientious reviewer will provide detailed, carefully evidenced feedback, and the author will revise and resubmit. But the process uses a great deal of people's time, and has a range of weaknesses. Editors struggle to find available reviewers. Reviewers have busy lives, incomplete knowledge, professional prejudices and rivalries. The work is usually unpaid and the process can take months.
So, two Harvard professors, Gary King and Steven Worthington, set out to see whether AI could improve the process. They have now presented their findings for comment and discussion in a 'pre-publication' paper.
What they didThey took 124 research manuscripts across a range of academic fields.
- Each manuscript was reviewed twice: by Claude Opus 4.8 and by an established human expert in the relevant field.
- They then used ChatGPT 5.5 to compare the pairs of reviews, using seven measures: theory, methods, weaknesses, framing, communication, figures, and sources. To ensure that ChatGPT was not favouring AI-generated reviews, the human ones were converted to an AI style.
- Finally, they asked three former journal editors to review ten of the pairs of reviews.
They expected a mixed pattern of responses. But they were wrong. In side-by-side comparisons, the AI review won in virtually every case, with the AI one judged, by both ChatGPT and the human editors, as more useful, more thorough, more accurate, and better at identifying weaknesses in the research. Although the AI reviews did make mistakes, the human reviews made more.
The bottom lineThis paper does not suggest that AI can replace the traditional peer review process. But it does suggest that AI can play a more important part in academic research than has previously been suggested. It can help original authors to improve their articles before submission, acting like a very well-read, tireless assistant that can read a long manuscript, spot possible problems, and suggest improvements. For the author, a detailed AI review, generated in a few seconds, is much more helpful than a human one delivered three months later. But there are also risks. We still need humans to check AI for confident mistakes, invented or misrepresented sources.
And humans still need to decide whether a given article is suitable for a particular journal, whether it meets ethical standards, whether there are conflicts of interest, and whether it should ultimately be accepted or rejected. A human must take responsibility if a flawed or misleading study is published.
Next stepsThis is a significant paper, with surprising findings and serious implications for academic life.
But, in science, all findings are provisional. Every discovery or new theory is only correct until someone proves it wrong. This is just as true for this paper. It is clear that AI has a role to play in the dissemination of academic research. But future researchers will refine this finding.
And it is worth noting that King and Worthington are not comparing a perfect model with an AI one. The introduction of their paper lists 16 well-documented weaknesses of the traditional system. As the authors say, "although human peer review is the default quality-control standard for scholarly publishing … problems with this system are deep, common and well known."
For all its weaknesses, this paper suggests that AI can overcome some of them, and perhaps free academics for more creative tasks.
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Science
The machines are marking our science - and doing it better
by Stephen McNair 28 October 2026
Brexit
The Swiss route to a closer relationship with Europe?
by Niall Ó Conghaile 27 October 2026
Activism
Palantir under fire: the battle over its NHS role
by Aidan Baker 26 October 2026
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Pedego was one of the earliest companies to see the promise of ebikes and to build them at scale. It sales model was based around developing retail stores hosting both sales and rental options for customers. It was a great option, as it let prospective buyers see Pedego's various ebikes ... [continued]
The post The Pedego Element 2 eBike — CleanTechnica Tested appeared first on CleanTechnica.
It involves the fracturing of a patient's ribs, before they spend three months laced into a corset. Some of those who have had this cosmetic procedure say it is like being 'hit by a bus'. Why is it becoming more popular?
Daniela Cesin was 14 when she began thinking about her looks. "I was a little bit chubby and I started to work out at home and lose weight. I saw the difference in my body: my abs, the muscles in my arms, and I started liking it," she says. By 31, she had the slim, toned body she had hoped for, but something was still missing. "I wanted to have that guitar hourglass shape."
In August, Cesin travelled from Miami, where she has lived for the past 15 years, to her native Venezuela for liposuction and a fat transfer to her hips. She met her cosmetic surgeon for the first time the day before the procedure, and he realised she didn't have enough fat to go ahead with it. Instead, he offered to perform RibXcar: a rib remodelling surgery that would involve fracturing three of her lower ribs on each side and binding them in a corset for three months, to set the ribs in a new position and give her a wasplike waist.
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Brazilian right-wing presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro holds a picture of his father, convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, during a motorcade with supporters in Goiania, Brazil, on Sept. 27, 2026. Photo: Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images
"I never thought about leaving the country," Flávio Bolsonaro, a Brazilian senator and son of the deposed, disgraced leader, told his 16 million Instagram followers on Monday. It was the day after he lost the presidential election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by a margin of more than 4 million votes.
Flávio promised to stay in Brazil to "organize the opposition" during Lula's next term.
"I'm the last obstacle to the Workers' Party's plan to destroy the country," Flávio warned, referring to the party of Lula, who defeated his father four years earlier.
A few hours later, he left his mansion in Brasilia and sought asylum in the U.S. The Trump State Department told the Associated Press that it will grant him and his family visas.
The affinities become obvious when you watch Bolsonaro's failsons end up in Trump's America.
"I didn't take sides, but it looked like another rigged election," President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday, echoing Flávio's election night talking points without providing any credible evidence that casts doubt on Lula's come-from-behind victory — even as Flávio's own party put out a statement acknowledging the results later that day.
It is no coincidence that the Trumps and the Bolsonaros are so fond of each other. Their modus operandi is nearly identical.
Both wrap themselves in the rhetoric of patriotism and moral righteousness, while treating their political offices as personal get-rich-quick schemes. And, when their lies finally catch up with them, you can be sure that they will jump ship to save themselves first and abandon their followers.
The affinities become obvious when you watch Bolsonaro, his failsons, and co-conspirators all end up in Trump's America, where Flávio is about to join his brother, and in the denialism and violence that follow their failures.
Coups and Flight RisksFlávio Bolsonaro's election denial and hasty escape are his version of Trump's infamous January 6 speech: Rile up the troops to do your dirty work and get the hell out of the way.
It's not the first time a Bolsonaro ran this playbook. After Jair Bolsonaro became the first modern Brazilian president to lose a reelection bid, he refused to attend the January 2023 inauguration ceremony. Instead, he also fled to the U.S., staying in a Minions-themed children's bedroom in the Orlando, Florida, home of retired UFC fighter José Aldo.
A week later, on January 8, the ex-president's allies laid siege to the capital, Brasília, vandalizing Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court, as foot soldiers in a larger coup plot to overthrow the Lula government. Nearly four decades of Brazilian democracy was only spared when key military leaders blinked before they could finish the job.
Jair Bolsonaro eventually returned to Brazil and was sentenced to 27 years in prison for leading the plot, which included a plan to assassinate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Allies, including top military brass, were also convicted. Jair remains under house arrest — widely thought to be pinning his hopes for freedom on a Flávio presidency that wasn't to be.
Flávio, however, will not be lonely in the States. His brother, former Brazilian Congress member Eduardo Bolsonaro, just received green cards for his family and is living in a $1.2 million McMansion in Southlake, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as we revealed in The Intercept Brasil earlier this year. Eduardo, who is a regular on the Trumpworld circuit, was sentenced in absentia to four years and two months in prison for lobbying the U.S. government to interfere in his father's trial.
Flávio, too, seems poised to receive news of his own prison sentence while sitting on a couch in a Texas suburb. In May, our reporting at The Intercept Brasil put the first nail in the coffin of his presidential campaign when we published chat logs and audio recordings of the senator negotiating $24 million — and being wired $10 million — from disgraced billionaire banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is a sort of Brazilian cross between Charles Ponzi and Jeffrey Epstein.
Read Our Complete Coverage
Secret Brazil ArchiveThe payments, wired to a U.S. account, were supposedly meant to finance "Dark Horse," a biopic about Jair Bolsonaro starring Jim Caviezel. Brazilian Federal Police, though, have already poked holes in Flávio's story as they investigate whether the money was actually used to bankroll Eduardo's treasonous lobbying of the Trump administration to sanction Brazil and help his brother's electoral chances.
Flávio is also being investigated for his alleged ties to a billion-dollar money-laundering scheme through an online betting company run by Willer Tomaz. The two are not only close friends but also business partners. Flávio even had unfettered access to one of Tomaz's offshore bank accounts. You will not be surprised to learn that Tomaz left Brazil in August and is now living in Miami.
Police argued that, after losing the election, Flávio would pose a flight risk, especially in light of his closest associates' recent actions. They asked the Brazilian Supreme Court to order Flávio to turn over his passport, which is permitted under Brazilian law. A top justice granted the request and, when the deadline passed, canceled the senator's travel documents.
By then, Flávio was already gone.
The post The Bolsonaro Family Playbook: Lose, Cry Fraud, and Run to Trump's America appeared first on The Intercept.
If there are good, nuanced ways to make use of generative AI in gaming, as I think there are, that doesn't change the fact that there are nuance-free and terrible ways for advocating for AI in gaming. Tim Sweeney and Epic Games have emerged as helpful foils for the never-AI crowd, given just how cartoonishly brazen Sweeney has been about the use of AI at Epic, as well as the absolute trash vibe-coded launcher the company recently produced. What's going on there almost seems purposefully designed to bolster the arguments from those against any use of AI in gaming.
Epic and Sweeney are not alone in this, it seems. Brandon Stirrup is a business strategy employee at Xbox and he recently went on his own brazen ExTwitter screed that claimed AI use is in far greater employ than anyone is talking about, that games can be easily made by anyone using generative AI tools, and that anyone not using the technology as much as possible doesn't deserve to be in the industry at all.
Stirrup kicked off his thread on October 18 with a simple message saying he'd "vibe coded a bad but improvable game" over two days, although he only "actively" worked on it for about three hours. "I'm telling you I tried it and it's true…anyone can build a game."
After saying that developers and studios who aren't incorporating AI into their strategies are "planning for a fake future," Stirrup went all in.
"Look if I'm fired tomorrow it will be because I told you the truth that nobody wants you to know. You can make a game with a simple prompt and yes you can make custom, tailored games. Everything you want in a game is right there for the taking, for better or worse," he wrote.
This epic online rant went much further than that. Here is a capture of all of it in one image.
There's a ton to hate in there, frankly. Calling gamers stubborn and stupid is one hell of a "business strategy" for Microsoft to be taking here, for instance. I have my own issues with the never-AI crowd, but I have made the point over and over again that their fears are not stupid, not unfounded, and their complaints are not only not to be dismissed, but rather that we need their viewpoint to be taken into account to navigate to a proper type of AI use in the industry. Stirrup does the opposite and dismisses them entirely out of hand. And that is very dumb.
The claim that anyone can make games with a "simple prompt" is also about as obviously untrue a statement as I can think of. Even Stirrup couldn't do so, acknowledging that what he'd managed to produce in his own experimentation was "a bad but improvable game." And that's his own self-assessment. I would hope that a business strategy manager at a gaming company would understand that his opinion of his own product isn't really what matters here. This is what gets so many AI bros in trouble with the public: the constant unsubstantiated claims that AI can do things it simply cannot do. And I imagine that the human artists currently making Xbox games aren't in love with this devaluation of their work, either.
And, finally, stating that anyone who disagrees with him "should not be in the business of being in business" is idiotic. There are many game developers out there making zero or very limited use of AI tools. And they're making great games. There is of course a place in the industry for never-AI developers, just as there is a place in the film industry for directors who make no use of CGI. These are tools, nothing more. Insisting that a painter has no place as an artist if he doesn't use your preferred type of paintbrush makes no sense.
Stirrup deleted his ExTwitter account, claiming he did so because of the volume of responses he got from all of this. I imagine the tone and tenor of those responses had as much to do with it as the volume. And he has only his completely tone-deaf, dismissive screed to blame for any of that. He said aloud he could be fired for what he said. I think he should be.
Not because AI use in gaming should be entirely verboten, but because posting all of that while being employed in a business strategy role seems to prove to me that he's not built for that role.
Waymo keeps rolling out robotaxi service in more and more places. With Tesla right on its back, the initial self-driving car company might be pushing even harder in order to keep growing and spreading quickly. Either way, the news today is that Waymo is growing again. Here are more details ... [continued]
The post Waymo Growing Further appeared first on CleanTechnica.
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HARTFORD, Connecticut — Today, Sierra Club Connecticut, local environmental justice leaders, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, and state elected officials hosted a Press Conference on Connecticut's High Asthma Rates in the Legislative Office Building. Hartford ranked eighth in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation's rankings of "Asthma Capitals" due to ... [continued]
The post Connecticut Advocates, Elected Officials, & Public Health Experts Speak Out Against High Asthma Rates appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Central heat pump water heaters (HPWH) are on the up and up by any way you measure it. These HPWHs heat water for bigger buildings such as apartment complexes, hotels, and grocery stores. More manufacturers are getting into the market and producing a variety of products. More innovations are helping ... [continued]
The post Central Heat Pump Water Heaters Are On The Up & Up appeared first on CleanTechnica.
We remember the late and much-loved Malcolm Johnson, author of Crypts of London, who wrote this brief history of crypts. Malcolm was formerly Rector of St Botolph's, Aldgate, where he ran a homeless shelter in the crypt.
At St Clement, King Sq
After the Great Fire of 1666, it was decided not to replace thirty-two out of those churches destroyed in the Square Mile. Yet St Paul's Cathedral and fifty-one churches were rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke and others, and almost all of these new buildings were given a crypt of the same extent as the ground floor. This was also true for churches in Westminster and those on the edges of the City such as in Spitalfields, Shoreditch and St Clement, King's Sq.
What were these spaces intended for? Charity schools? Storage? Meeting rooms? There was no chance of any of these, because the clergy and their vestries soon realised that good money was to be made by charging wealthy parishioners to stack coffins containing their dead family members under the church.
In doing so, they went against the advice and opinions of both architects and others, who doubted the wisdom of burying the dead among the living. In 1552, Bishop Hugh Latimer thought it "an unwholesome thing to bury within the city," considering that "it is the occasion of great sickness and disease." Mainly for architectural reasons, Wren and Vanbrugh were also opposed to burial in or close to a church, although when Wren was interred beneath St Paul's when he died.
In my research, I found that in the eighteenth century most parishes received around seven per cent of their income from interments, although at St James Garlickhythe the average was nearly twenty-seven per cent. All five Westminster parishes had a high burial income by the end of the eighteenth century - around thirty-five per cent of the wardens' income at St Martin-in-the-Fields and twenty-five per cent at St James Piccadilly.
After the Reformation, burial within a church was seen as a mark of social distinction - the nobility regarding it as their right - but by the mid-seventeenth century the professional classes were also seeing it as a sign of a successful career. Over the next century, doctors, solicitors, high-ranking soldiers and 'gentlefolk' frequently left instructions in their wills for intra-mural burial, although some cautioned prudence and economy in arranging it, because fees could be high. Coffins of the clergy were placed in the vault below the altar and the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields allowed Nell Gwyn to be interred in his space there.
Why were families willing to pay large sums for a crypt burial when churchyard fees were much cheaper? Some hoped for an 'eternal bedchamber' because they knew that bodies in the churchyard would be dug up after thirty or so years and the bones placed in a charnel house when the space was needed for new burials. Others hoped the congregation worshipping above the crypt would continue to pray for them and many more were apprehensive that body-snatchers might plunder the churchyard. Yet, in crypts, bodies were sometimes tipped out of their coffins so that the lead could be sold together with the metal handles.
Rarely do published histories of our churches mention these undercrofts. Obviously it is possible to visit those churches that have survived and establish precise details of their crypts - where it is not possible to enter, burial registers can give details of size and layout. For the churches that have not survived, the best descriptions of their crypts are often found in the faculties which authorised their destruction, and in the Vestry minutes recording the process of emptying the remains and transferring them to a cemetery. Written accounts are rare, because few people visited these dark, dismal places apart from the sexton.
The lucrative burial income ended abruptly in 1852 when sanitation legislation forbade further interments in crypts and churchyards. Joint-stock cemeteries such as Kensal Green were opened to receive London's dead and the clergy lost the links with parishioners although they were still financially recompensed, even if the vestries and sextons lost their burial dues. The removal of human remains from crypts began for a variety of reasons - such as demolition of the building, its sale to raise funds or road widening. If the building remained and a new use for the crypt was found, then an appeal for funds was made, such as at St Bride Fleet St in the nineteen-fifties when its museum was equipped from gifts of nearby publishing firms. Other churches have attracted grants from the Lottery fund, statutory bodies, charitable foundations, businesses and individual donors.
The first crypt to be cleared of human remains for use other than storage was in 1915 when the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Dick Sheppard, set up a canteen to welcome men returning from the Front. Two learned reports of the Council for British Archaeology describe the clearance of coffins and remains from the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields in 1984/5. Nearly one thousand bodies were carefully examined and researched. Interment in a crypt obviously preserves a corpse and coffin longer than if it was buried in a churchyard but the state of preservation of those in coffins in Spitalfields'crypt varied from virtually complete, including skin, hair and internal organs to a just sediment of crystal debris being all that remained of the bones. When lead was used, as it was in this crypt after 1813, this preserved the cadaver longer, but if air or water was allowed to penetrate then decomposition was much quicker.
Where were coffins and remains from crypts taken? A minority went to the East London Cemetery, Plaistow, or to the Great Northern London (now New Southgate) Cemetery. Some relatives were allowed to transfer the coffin of a family member to a burial ground of their choice, but most went to Brookwood or the City of London Cemetery, Ilford.
Some two thousand two hundred acres of land owned by Lord Onslow on Woking Common at Brookwood were purchased by the newly-formed London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company. Despite opposition, Royal Assent was given to the London Necropolis Bill on 30th June 1852, but the first funeral was not held until 13th November 1854. Soon afterwards, several Westminster parishes, including St Anne Soho, St Giles-in-the-Fields and St Margaret Westminster, reserved plots there. Coffins and mourners were transported by special trains from a private terminus near Waterloo to the cemetery's two stations, one for Anglicans and one for others. The Bishop of London was apprehensive that the coffin of 'some profligate spendthrift' might be in the same compartment as a respectable member of the Church. A notice in the station refreshment room at Brookwood reads 'Spirits served here.'
The City of London Cemetery, used by nearly all the City parishes, opened in 1856 and is approximately eight miles north-east of the City. Since then, over forty City parishes have removed their crypt remains to Ilford, which is today one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the country.
Today, around half of London's crypts have been emptied. Some, such as that of St Martin-in-the-Fields house a restaurant, bookshop and meeting rooms which contribute a very large sum to the Parish Church Council. Others are chapels and columbaria, yet others are museums while - sadly - two which were once homeless centres are now empty. Those with coffins still in place await a use - as at St Clement, King Sq, where David Hoffman took the photographs which accompany this article.
Coffin plates from Holy Trinity, Minories - now demolished
At St Clement, King Sq
The entrance to the family vault of Mr Thomas Gall of King Sq
Crypts of London by Malcolm Johnson is published by the History Press
Photographs copyright © David Hoffman
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