Pakistan proposes virtual green university and youth climate fund at COP31
Climate Minister Musadik Malik also offered glacier data and research access to foreign scientists, and said a board has been set up for the youth fund.
Science
What changed in medicine, space, climate and technology, and why it matters.
SpaceX catches Starship’s upper stage at launch tower for the first time
The ship was caught by the launch tower’s arms in Texas after nearly a day in orbit, though the Super Heavy booster had to abandon its own catch and exploded over the Gulf.
Iran’s Guards call France’s fridge-hacking charge a ‘Zionist’ false flag
The Guards’ spokesman told Paris to beware a “false flag trap”, five days after France blamed a Guards cyber unit for sabotaging fridges at about 700 stores.
Thousands march in Edinburgh against AI data centres on COP31 action day
Campaigners marched down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Parliament, demanding a say over proposed sites whose combined power needs are more than twice Scotland’s winter peak demand, grid figures show.
China’s 19-seat electric airliner completes first crewed test flight
COMAC’s CE-25A, built with battery maker CATL, carried two pilots and a test engineer and spent nearly 17 minutes in the air over Binzhou in Shandong province.
At COP31, Danyal Chaudhry calls for debt swaps to fund climate adaptation
Parliamentary Secretary Danyal Chaudhry set out five recommendations at the Pakistan Pavilion in Antalya, from climate checks on tax decisions to debt-for-climate swaps.
Italy fines Meta €805m over Facebook’s access to Android users’ photos
Italy’s privacy regulator says the Facebook app read Android users’ photo galleries without specific consent, in a breach that could have affected about 20 million people, and gave Meta 60 days to fix it.
Microsoft restores Outlook and Teams, says it is ‘deeply sorry’ for outage
The company says a faulty network upgrade, not a cyberattack, caused the day-long outage that hit governments, hospitals, courts, and businesses in more than 70 countries.
Pakistan asks COP31 partners to fund batteries for households going solar
Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik said households had driven Pakistan’s rooftop solar boom largely on their own and urged partners to help pay for storage and grid links.
Sindh orders Thar drought survey as up to 90% of crops fail
Teams will assess food, water, health, and livestock needs in Tharparkar and Umerkot, after the chief minister declared Tharparkar calamity-hit with 85 to 90 per cent of its crops lost.
