Daily World Briefing, July 15
China launched the cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-9 in the early morning on Tuesday to deliver supplies for its orbiting Tiangong space station, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The Long March-7 Y10 rocket, carrying Tianzhou-9, blasted off at 5:34 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan, the agency said.
After about 10 minutes, Tianzhou-9 separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit. Its solar panels soon unfolded. The agency declared the launch a complete success.
The cargo craft will later conduct the rendezvous and docking with the space station combination.
China, India should adhere to good-neighborliness, friendship: Chinese FM
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday that China and India should adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship, and find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation.
Wang made the remarks when holding talks with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Beijing.
As two major Eastern civilizations and major emerging economies living adjacent to each other, the essence of China-India relations lies in how to live in harmony and achieve mutual success, said Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
Trump says U.S. to send weapons to Ukraine through NATO, threatens "severe tariffs" targeting Russia
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States will send weapons to Ukraine through NATO, and threatened "severe tariffs" targeting Russia if a ceasefire deal is not reached in 50 days.
Trump announced an agreement with NATO regarding weapons to assist Ukraine while meeting NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.
"We are going to be sending them weapons and they're going to be paying for them," said Trump, adding that the United States will manufacture those weapons.
"We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days," Trump said of Russia.
Over 20 U.S. states sue Trump administration over frozen funds for schools
More than 20 U.S. states filed a lawsuit on Monday in a federal court in Rhode Island, demanding that the Trump administration release approximately 6.8 billion U.S. dollars in federal funding for education.
According to the lawsuit, the federal funds were originally intended to support the education of migrant farm workers and their children, teacher recruitment and training, English proficiency learning, academic enrichment, after-school and summer programs, as well as adult literacy and job-readiness training.
The lawsuit said the government was required to distribute the funds to the states by July 1. Instead, the Education Department notified states on June 30 that it would not be issuing grant awards under those programs by that deadline, citing the change in administration as the reason.
Brazilian president announces formation of committee to coordinate trade countermeasures
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Monday the formation of an interministerial committee to coordinate economic and trade countermeasures to protect the country's economy.
The move was taken after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on all imports from Brazil starting Aug. 1.
The interministerial committee is created through a decree regulating the economic reciprocity law and will be chaired by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who is also minister of development, industry, trade and services.
The first meeting of the committee will be held on Tuesday, with representatives from the industrial sector in attendance.
At least 47 killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza
At least 47 Palestinians were killed in Israeli shelling and gunfire across Gaza on Monday, according to Palestinian sources.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Gaza, told Xinhua that in central Gaza, five people were killed and four others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian gathering in the Bureij refugee camp, and one person was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a water distribution tanker in the al-Nuseirat refugee camp,
Three were killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the al-Nasr neighborhood, west of Gaza City, and five others were killed in an airstrike on a gathering in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of the city, Basal said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India.com
8 minutes ago
- India.com
Bad news for NASA employees as Trump administration forced 3870 workers to...
New Delhi: Washington: 3,870 employees will lose their jobs from the US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These employees are going to resign under the Voluntary Resignation Program. Why did these employees resign? US President Donald Trump's administration has launched a programme to reduce the number of employees to cut the budget. Under this, employees have been asked to resign on their own instead of being fired from NASA. To comply with the Trump administration's goal of reducing the federal workforce, space agency NASA officials are taking the path of resignation to avoid layoffs. NASA is world's most prominent space agency. What did NASA say about resignations? At present, 3,870 employees have resigned from NASA. However, NASA has said in its statement on Friday, July 25, that this number may change after reviewing the applications. NASA has given employees two separate opportunities to leave the job in 2025. After both resignation programmes and about 500 people leaving their jobs in general, NASA will be left with about 14,000 employees. This is the second round of resignations The first round of resignations at NASA came in the early part of the Trump administration. This effort was driven by the government efficiency department DOGE led by Elon Musk. NASA launched its second round of deferred resignations in early June, giving a chance to join it till July 25. The agency said that 3,000 employees accepted it, which is 16.4 percent of the total workforce. NASA issues statement NASA has said in its statement that safety is our top priority. Along with becoming a more efficient organization, we are also ensuring that our capabilities for missions like Moon and Mars remain fully intact. However, experts believe that such a huge reduction in the number of employees may harm NASA's future missions and technical expertise.
Time of India
17 minutes ago
- Time of India
What happened to UAE's Iceberg Project? The ambitious plan to haul a colossal Antarctic iceberg to the coast of Fujairah
The UAE Iceberg Project planned to tow a massive Antarctic iceberg 6,480 nautical miles to Fujairah but faced major challenges and remains unfulfilled/ Representative Image In a region where rain is rare and water more precious than oil, the United Arab Emirates once had its sights set on an audacious engineering marvel: towing a gigantic Antarctic iceberg to its sun-baked coast to quench thirst, summon clouds, and maybe even reshape climate patterns. But as of 2025, the only glacier ice that has made it to Dubai is not floating off the coast but chilling highball glasses in rooftop bars, courtesy of a boutique Greenland startup. The UAE Iceberg Project : Cold Ambitions in a Hot Desert Launched in 2017 by the National Advisor Bureau Limited, a private Abu Dhabi-based company, the UAE Iceberg Project sought to tow a massive tabular iceberg, measuring roughly 2 kilometers long by 500 meters wide, from Antarctica to Fujairah, a coastal emirate on the Gulf of Oman. 3D concept of the iceberg stationed roughly 3 kilometers off the coast of Fujairah for harvesting/ Image: National Advisor Bureau Ltd. The logic, according to Abdulla Alshehi, the firm's managing director and the project's chief architect, was straightforward: an average iceberg holds over 20 billion gallons of fresh water, enough to supply 1 million people for five years. 'This is the purest water in the world,' he told Gulf News in 2017. And the UAE, consuming 15% of the world's desalinated water and facing depleting groundwater within 15 years, was in no position to ignore unconventional ideas. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Premium 1 BHK at Mahindra Citadel – Coming Soon! Mahindra Citadel Enquire Now Undo The iceberg, selected via satellite near Heard Island in the Southern Ocean, would undertake a 12,000-kilometer (≈6,480 nautical miles), 10-month journey across the Southern, Indian, and Arabian Seas to reach the coast of Fujairah in the UAE. Towed by large ocean-going vessels, it would travel northward through the Indian Ocean before entering the Gulf of Oman. Upon arrival, it would be stationed roughly 3 kilometers off Fujairah's coast. Harvesting would begin immediately, with the aim of extracting potable water within two to three months before significant melting occurs. Computer simulations commissioned by the company projected that up to 30% of the iceberg's mass could be lost during the journey, a challenge the team hopes to mitigate by timing its arrival during the UAE's winter season, when sea temperatures are lower and melting would slow. To prevent breakup during the long journey, Alshehi's firm developed a patent-pending metal belt, a kind of reinforced corset designed to hold the iceberg intact against wave stress and temperature gradients. In 2020, the UK Intellectual Property Office granted Alshehi a patent for his invention, called the "Iceberg Reservoirs" system. The patent was promoted as a credibility boost to attract investment and reinforce the project's technical feasibility. In 2020, the UAE Iceberg Project's 'Iceberg Reservoirs' system was patented by the UK Intellectual Property Office/ Image: National Advisor Bureau Limited A pilot project, costed between $60–80 million, was announced for 2019. A smaller iceberg was to be towed to Cape Town or Perth as proof of concept. The full UAE project carried a price tag of $100–150 million. Despite a splashy website launch ( promises of scientific panels, and a vision of global humanitarian water relief, no trial was ever confirmed to have taken place. As of 2025, there's been no operational progress, no updated logistics, and no official cancellation, just prolonged silence. The Rainmaker Fantasy What made the proposal especially memorable was its near-mystical secondary goal: climate engineering. Alshehi claimed that the presence of a colossal iceberg floating off the UAE coast could induce localized weather changes. 'Cold air gushing from an iceberg close to the Arabian Sea would cause a trough and rainstorms,' he told local media. The iceberg, he argued, could 'create a vortex' that would attract clouds from across the region, generating year-round rain for the desert interior. This, he claimed, could help reverse desertification and transform arid landscapes into lush, green areas, with benefits for agriculture, biodiversity, and the broader ecosystem. Meteorologists weren't sold. While some acknowledged localized effects, like minor cloud formation due to temperature differentials, experts like Linda Lam from said sustained, regional rainstorms were unlikely due to the complex nature of atmospheric dynamics. Water Crisis and the Case for Desperation The UAE's acute water issues form the bedrock of the project's rationale. The country experiences a paltry 120 millimeters of rainfall annually, and according to a 2015 Associated Press report, its groundwater could be fully depleted within 15 years. Meanwhile, the Gulf states have among the highest water usage rates in the world: around 500 liters per person per day. Desalination, though critical, is energy-intensive, costly, and environmentally damaging. Alshehi warned of desalination plants pumping concentrated brine back into the Gulf, increasing salinity and harming marine life. His iceberg initiative, he claimed, would be not only cheaper in the long run but eco-friendlier, despite concerns about dragging a 100,000-year-old ice mass across the globe. He asserted that environmental impact assessments had been conducted, and results suggested minimal disruption to ecosystems,though no independent third-party review was ever published. Ice, Reimagined: A Greenland Startup Finds the Sweet Spot While Alshehi's Antarctic ambitions appear stalled in bureaucratic limbo, a smaller, scrappier company in Greenland has quietly realized a modest version of his vision,not as a humanitarian water source, but as luxury indulgence. Founded in 2022 by Greenlandic entrepreneurs, Arctic Ice ships ice harvested from Greenland's fjords to high-end bars and restaurants in Dubai. Their first commercial shipment, around 22 metric tonnes, arrived recently, offering the 'cleanest H₂O on Earth' to be shaved into ice cubes for cocktails, ice baths, and facial massages in Dubai's spas. Arctic Ice harvests ancient glacier fragments from Greenland's fjords, tests them, and ships purified chunks to Dubai for luxury use/ Image: Arctic Ice The process is artisanal: Using a crane-equipped boat, workers collect naturally calved icebergs from the Nuup Kangerlua fjord near Nuuk. Only the clearest, bubble-free ice, locally known as 'black ice,' is selected. These are believed to be over 100,000 years old, having never touched soil or contaminants. Each chunk is cut with sanitized chainsaws, stored in food-grade insulated crates, and sampled for lab analysis to screen for ancient microorganisms or harmful bacteria. The ice is shipped via refrigerated containers aboard cargo ships already returning empty from Greenland, minimizing additional emissions. The second leg, from Denmark to Dubai, completes the frozen supply chain. Despite the company's carbon-neutral commitment, backlash has been fierce. Critics online lambast the concept as 'climate dystopia,' arguing that glacial ice should not be commodified, especially given the accelerating melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Co-founder Malik V. Rasmussen says some messages have verged on death threats. Still, Arctic Ice insists it is creating economic opportunity for a financially dependent Greenland, where 55% of the budget is subsidized by Denmark. 'We make all our money from fish and tourism,' Rasmussen said. 'I've always wanted to find something else we can profit from.' The Fine Line Between Innovation and Spectacle Both projects,the giant iceberg tow from Antarctica and the boutique glacier cubes from Greenland, highlight a pressing tension: how far will humanity go to secure water, and at what cost? Alshehi's vision is bold but fraught with logistical and ethical challenges. Icebergs aren't endlessly renewable, and towing them across hemispheres feels more sci-fi than sustainable. Arctic Ice's venture, meanwhile, has found a controversial niche,combining novelty, luxury, and symbolism. In a time of climate anxiety, it offers an icy illusion of control, frozen fragments of a melting world, crafted into cocktail spheres. Whether climate solution or spectacle, these ideas raise key questions: Who owns natural ice? Can it be harvested responsibly? And as water scarcity grows, how do we balance local needs with global care? For now, the UAE's giant iceberg remains a dream deferred, and Dubai's cocktails are as cold as ever, just sourced from a little farther north, and in smaller, sparkling doses.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
21 minutes ago
- Business Standard
New IRDAI chairman, private banks' retail loan growth, hiring at major commercial banks & more
The Centre has appointed Ajay Seth, recently retired finance secretary, as the new chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, 4 months after the position was left vacant. He'll serve for 3 years or until he turns 65, whichever comes first. Retail loan growth at private banks slowed down in Q1 of FY26, with the top 5 lenders showing single-digit growth. Hiring at major commercial banks dropped in FY25 due to slower retail business growth, fewer new branches, and improved attrition rates thanks to better employee engagement. SBI is aiming high. It wants to be among the world's top 10 banks by market value in the next five years, said chairman CS Setty after its latest Qualified Institutional Placement share listing on the NSE. India's net FDI saw a major dip in May 2025, down 98% to just $40 million, mainly due to higher repatriation and more outward investments by Indian firms.
