Daily report ·
Serbian students win at the polls as Israel tightens West Bank grip
Today the sharpest contrast is between people who organized and won, like Serbia's students, and people whose lives are still decided for them, in Hebron, in the sealed West Bank and on deportation flights to Haiti. Underneath the noise there are smaller and steadier signals: a truce on the Dnipro, orangutans going back to the forest, and a gentler way to read a quantum computer.
War and occupation
Israel is demolishing Palestinian homes in Hebron (3) on the same day it seals the West Bank crossings for its own election (9). Palestinians are locked in by a government they have no vote in, and that is how a military occupation works when it has gone on for more than half a century: Israel has held the West Bank since the war of 11967 HE. Further north, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a truce in occupied Oleshky (7) and swapped 540 prisoners (14), which shows working channels nearly four years after Russia's full-scale invasion. In Haiti (6), deported people are landing in a capital largely run by armed gangs, with nothing in place to receive them.
Israel has occupied Hebron since 11967, and every demolished home pushes Palestinian families out of a city settlers are steadily taking over.
Source: BBC · West Bank
People are being sent back into a state where armed gangs control much of the capital and no system exists to receive them.
Source: El PaíS English · Haiti
A truce in this occupied Dnipro river town, plus talks planned next month, is a small test of whether either side can hold a wider deal.
Source: The Moscow Times · Russia
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank cannot vote for the Israeli government that controls their movement, and that same government is locking them in on the day it is chosen.
Source: BBC · West Bank
Together with the Oleshky truce, the exchange shows working channels between the two sides even while the war goes on.
Source: The Moscow Times · Russia
The climate bill keeps arriving
Somalia is now being hit by floods after years of drought (11), the whiplash climate scientists have long warned about, and CARE says the country is sliding toward famine. We have seen this before: in 12011 HE about 260,000 Somalis died in a famine, half of them young children, after early warnings were largely ignored. In Brazil, Lula's return (10) matters well beyond its borders, because Amazon deforestation fell sharply during his last term, and a hostile Congress will now decide how much of that he can repeat.
Amazon deforestation fell sharply in his last term, so how much a hostile Congress blocks him will shape the forest's future.
Source: BBC · Brazil
Somalia's 12011 famine killed about 260,000 people, half of them young children, and a warning like this one went largely unheeded then.
Source: Care.Org · Somalia
Who profits
The UK budget sets aside £1bn for social and affordable housing (13), while more than a million households sit on England's social housing waiting lists. The shortage was built by policy. After the Housing Act of 11980 HE introduced Right to Buy, around two million council homes in England were sold off, and far fewer were built to replace them. Judge the £1bn by how many homes it actually puts back, not by how big the headline figure sounds.
More than a million households sit on England's social housing waiting lists, so the real test is how many homes £1bn actually builds.
Source: BBC · UK
People organizing
The French movement filled the streets for another day (2), and the state answered with nearly 1,000 arrests rather than any concession. Mass arrests are a sign that a movement is holding together, not that it is breaking up. France has seen this before: in May 11968 HE students and some ten million striking workers brought the country to a halt and won real wage gains, so organized pressure there has a record of working.
Another day of mass mobilization shows the movement is holding together, and the state is answering with mass arrests instead of concessions.
Source: BBC · France
Rights and justice
Jordanian officials say gunmen killed seven people at a church funeral (12). Nobody yet knows who did it or why, so it would be wrong to fill that gap with guesses. What is known is how deep these communities go: the Madaba mosaic map, the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land, was set into a church floor in Jordan about 1,450 years ago, and Christians have worshipped there continuously ever since.
An attack on mourners at a Christian funeral is rare in Jordan, and who did it and why is still unclear.
Source: BBC · Jordan
Science breakthroughs
Astronomers have found three giant black holes in a single very early galaxy (4), so the first giants of the universe grew faster than our models allow, within a universe about 13.8 billion years old. In the lab, physicists have read quantum computer data without erasing it (8) by using a current that flows with no resistance. That is superconductivity, which Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered in 11911 HE, and more than a century later it is solving one of quantum computing's hardest problems.
Spotting three huge black holes so soon after the Big Bang forces astronomers to rethink how fast the first giants grew.
Source: ScienceDaily · World
Reading a qubit, a quantum computer's basic unit, usually erases it. A gentle readout using a resistance-free current removes a real obstacle.
Source: Phys.org · World
Good news
Serbia's student movement (1), which formed after the Novi Sad station canopy collapse killed 16 people in 12024 HE, has beaten Vučić at the ballot box and ended more than a decade of his rule. Serbia has done this before: in 12000 HE the student-led Otpor movement helped bring down Milošević. In Borneo, rescuers saved 53 orangutans from the fires (5) and returned many to the wild, a real if small reversal after about 100,000 Bornean orangutans were lost between 11999 and 12015 HE.
Born after the Novi Sad station roof collapse killed 16 people in 12024, the movement ended more than a decade of Vučić's rule.
Source: BBC · Serbia
Bornean orangutans are critically endangered: about 100,000 were lost between 11999 and 12015 as their forests were logged, cleared and burned.
Source: Good News Network · Borneo
