The Fathom Report — bulletin archive

This is The Fathom Report, with Edmund Hale, for Monday the ninth of November, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman. The headlines. The COP thirty-one climate summit opens in Antalya. Washington suspends South Africa and Rwanda from its African trade preference programme. Singapore makes companies liable for fires that start abroad. And a German satellite prints a structural beam in orbit.

In Antalya, in Turkey, the thirty-first United Nations climate conference opened today, under a joint Turkish and Australian presidency, and runs until the twentieth of November. The central question is money. The goal agreed in Baku is at least three hundred billion dollars a year from developed countries by twenty thirty-five. Climate finance today stands at about one hundred and ninety billion.

The forecast is that the final text will again leave the share of grants undefined. In trade, the United States announced on the second of November that South Africa and Rwanda will lose duty-free access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act from the first of January. South Africa exported about one point seven billion dollars under the programme last year, including cars built by BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

Washington cited trade barriers and corruption, and also South Africa's genocide case against Israel. In Singapore, Parliament passed amendments to the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act on the fourth of November, after the country's worst haze in more than a decade.

The maximum fine rises tenfold, to twenty million Singapore dollars, and liability now reaches supply chains, related companies and financiers of firms whose fires cause haze. In orbit, the German start-up Orbital Matter announced on the third of November that its Replicator Two satellite had printed a half-metre rigid beam in space, a first for a free-flying spacecraft.

The company says beams a hundred metres long are achievable with the same technology. Looking ahead. The climate leaders' summit in Antalya is on the eleventh and twelfth of November. The American suspension of South Africa and Rwanda takes effect on the first of January. That was the news on Fathom FM, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman.

This is The Fathom Report, with Edmund Hale, for Sunday the eighth of November, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman. The headlines. Washington and Tehran trade fire over Qeshm Island. Ukraine and Russia head to Abu Dhabi with incompatible demands. Brent crude settles above one hundred dollars. And the European Union and Indonesia aim to sign a deal built on nickel.

In the Strait of Hormuz, the United States struck an Iranian air-defence installation on Qeshm Island on the sixth and seventh of November. Iranian media reported that Iran shot down an American drone, and Tehran warned of a new battlefield. Six months of limited coercive force have not changed Iran's conditions for reopening the strait.

In Abu Dhabi, the United States, Ukraine and Russia are due to resume peace talks, the first trilateral round since February. Both want security guarantees, but of opposite kinds. Ukraine wants binding commitments that it will be defended if Russia attacks again, and Russia wants commitments that NATO will not expand further east.

The forecast is a limited framework on energy infrastructure and prisoner exchanges, with no formal ceasefire. In the oil market, Brent crude settled above one hundred dollars on the sixth and seventh of November, as American and Iranian strikes and tanker attacks intensified. Prices are not higher because the market is betting that the strait will not close completely.

A full closure would remove about twenty percent of globally traded oil and push Brent toward one hundred and fifty dollars. In trade, Indonesia's chief economic minister announced a target of the twenty-first of November for signing a trade agreement with the European Union, which would eliminate duties on ninety-eight point five percent of Indonesian tariff lines.

At its heart is nickel, which Indonesia has refused to export as raw ore since twenty twenty. Looking ahead. The Abu Dhabi talks run on the tenth and eleventh of November, and the target for signing the European Union and Indonesia agreement is the twenty-first. That was the news on Fathom FM, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman.

This is The Fathom Report, with Edmund Hale, for Saturday the seventh of November, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman. The headlines. Democrats take the largest congressional majority in nearly two decades. Spain heads to a snap election on the twenty-ninth of November. An artificial intelligence system spots pancreatic cancer four hundred and seventy-five days early.

And China keeps a fifty-three-vessel naval arc around Taiwan. In the American midterms, Democrats won at least two hundred and fifty-six House seats, against one hundred and seventy-nine for Republicans, and at least fifty-four Senate seats. Texas, Kansas and South Carolina changed hands in the Senate. It is the largest Congressional majority in nearly two decades, and the new Congress convenes in January.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez dissolved the Cortes on the sixth of October, after his housing relief package failed in parliament. The election is on the twenty-ninth of November. The People's Party leads by six to seven points, and together with Vox it is projected to win at least one hundred and ninety-six of the three hundred and fifty seats. A majority needs one hundred and seventy-six.

In medicine, a new artificial intelligence framework called REDMOD can spot pancreatic cancer on routine CT scans a median of four hundred and seventy-five days before clinical diagnosis. The study, published in the journal Gut, reports a sensitivity of seventy-three percent, against thirty-nine percent for experienced radiologists.

In the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan's National Security Council on the twenty-ninth of October published a map showing fifty-three Chinese naval and coast guard vessels in a continuous arc from the south of Japan to the Philippines. Thirty-four are warships, including the Liaoning carrier group. And on the fourth of November, North Korea launched multiple Hwasong-eleven short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea.

Looking ahead. The United States, Russia and Ukraine resume talks in Abu Dhabi on the tenth and eleventh of November, and the COP thirty-one climate conference opens in Antalya, Turkey, on the ninth. That was the news on Fathom FM, drawing on reporting by The Leadsman.

This is The Fathom Report, with Edmund Hale. The headlines. Lula wins Brazil's presidential runoff. Five major central banks will announce interest rate decisions this week. SpaceX closes a forty billion dollar financing deal for AI chips. And this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to optogenetics. Brazil first.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has won the country's presidential runoff, beating Flavio Bolsonaro with about fifty one point seven percent of the vote. It is a record fourth term for Lula. According to The Leadsman, it is the first time since Brazil returned to direct elections in nineteen eighty nine that a candidate who finished second in the first round has gone on to win the runoff.

Mr Bolsonaro had not conceded at the time of reporting. Now, the markets. Five G10 central banks will announce monetary policy between Wednesday and Friday: the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Bank of Japan. Markets are pricing in a hold at all five, The Leadsman reports.

In technology, SpaceX says it has closed about forty billion dollars in debt financing to buy Nvidia chips for its AI operations. The package combines about ten billion in bank loans with thirty billion in bonds, and the chips are due for delivery in the first half of next year. The Leadsman describes it as the largest single AI infrastructure debt commitment by a private company.

And in science: the twenty twenty six Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, for their work on light gated ion channels, the foundation of optogenetics. The technique lets researchers switch specific neurons on and off using light. That was the news on Fathom FM. Reporting by The Leadsman.