Arctic sea ice hits lowest peak in satellite record, says US agency

Arctic sea ice hits lowest peak in satellite record, says US agency
This year’s Arctic sea ice peak is the lowest in the 47-year satellite record, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said on Mar. 27, 2025, as the planet continues to swelter under the mounting effects of human-driven climate change. (AFP)
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Updated 29 March 2025
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Arctic sea ice hits lowest peak in satellite record, says US agency

Arctic sea ice hits lowest peak in satellite record, says US agency
  • Arctic sea ice forms and expands during the dark, frigid northern winter, reaching its seasonal high point in March
  • In recent years, less new ice has formed, and the accumulation of multi-year ice has steadily declined

WASHINGTON: This year’s Arctic Sea ice peak is the lowest in the 47-year satellite record, according to data released by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) on Thursday, as the planet continues to swelter under the mounting effects of human-driven climate change.

Arctic sea ice forms and expands during the dark, frigid northern winter, reaching its seasonal high point in March. But in recent years, less new ice has formed, and the accumulation of multi-year ice has steadily declined.

The maximum sea ice level for 2025 was likely reached on March 22, measuring 14.33 million square kilometers (5.53 million square miles) — below the previous low of 14.41 million square kilometers set in 2017.

“This new record low is yet another indicator of how Arctic sea ice has fundamentally changed from earlier decades,” said NSIDC senior research scientist Walt Meier in a statement.

“But even more importantly than the record low is that this year adds yet another data point to the continuing long-term loss of Arctic sea ice in all seasons.”

The Arctic record follows a near-record-low summer minimum in the Antarctic, where seasons are reversed.

The 2025 Antarctic sea ice minimum, reached on March 1, was just 1.98 million square kilometers, tying for the second-lowest annual minimum in the satellite record, alongside 2022 and 2024.

Combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover — frozen ocean water that floats on the surface — plunged to a record low in mid-February, more than a million square miles below the pre-2010 average. That is an area larger than the entire country of Algeria.

“We’re going to come into this next summer season with less ice to begin with,” said Linette Boisvert, an ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It doesn’t bode well for the future.”

US scientists primarily monitor sea ice using satellites from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which detect Earth’s microwave radiation.

Because open water and sea ice emit microwave energy differently, the contrast allows sea ice to stand out clearly in satellite imagery — even through cloud cover, which obscures traditional optical sensors.

DMSP data is supplemented with historical records, including early observations from the Nimbus-7 satellite, which operated from 1978 to 1985.

While floating sea ice does not directly raise sea levels, its disappearance sets off a cascade of climate consequences, altering weather patterns, disrupting ocean currents, and threatening ecosystems and human communities.

As reflective ice gives way to the darker ocean, more solar energy is absorbed rather than reflected back into space, accelerating both ice melt and global warming.

Shrinking Arctic ice is also reshaping geopolitics, opening new shipping lanes and drawing geopolitical interest. Since taking office this year, US President Donald Trump has said his country must control Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory rich in mineral resources.

The loss of polar ice spells disaster for numerous species, robbing polar bears, seals, and penguins of crucial habitat used for shelter, hunting, and breeding.

Last year was the hottest on record, and the trend continues: 2025 began with the warmest January ever recorded, followed by the third-warmest February.

NOAA predicts that La Nina weather conditions, which tend to cool global temperatures, are likely to give way to neutral conditions that would persist over the Northern Hemisphere summer.

Polar regions are especially vulnerable to global warming, heating several times faster than the global average.

Since mid-2023, only July 2024 fell below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, raising concerns that the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting long-term warming to 1.5C may be slipping out of reach.


Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures

Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures
Updated 24 July 2025
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Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures

Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures
  • The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird
  • The puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding

PRAGUE: Zookeepers in Prague sometimes have to become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents. This was the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched three weeks ago.

Bird keeper Antonín Vaidl said Thursday that when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signaled to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two babies, despite doing so in 2022 and 2023.

The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird, while another is expected to hatch in the next few days.

Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it won’t if it gets used to human interaction.

He explained that the puppet doesn’t have to be a perfect replica of an adult bird because the chick responds to certain signals, such as the pale orange coloration on its featherless head and neck.

Lesser yellow-headed vultures live in the wild in Latin America and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one of only three zoos in Europe that breed them.

In the past, the park successfully applied this treatment to save the critically endangered Javan green magpie and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding technique is applicable for birds that live in pairs.

“The method has been working well,” Vaidl said. “We’ll see what happens with the vultures.”


Small Brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after Trump’s 50 percent tariff

Small Brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after Trump’s 50 percent tariff
Updated 24 July 2025
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Small Brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after Trump’s 50 percent tariff

Small Brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after Trump’s 50 percent tariff
  • Experts warn the tariff will hit small producers hardest, as they lack resources to adapt quickly or find new markets for their crops

PORCIUNCULA: Brazilian José Natal da Silva often tends to his modest coffee plantation in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state in the middle of the night, sacrificing sleep to fend off pests that could inflict harm on his precious crops.

But anxiety has troubled his shut-eye even more in recent weeks, following President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier this month of a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian imported goods, which experts expect to drive down the price of coffee in Brazil.

Da Silva sighed as he recounted his fears, sitting on the dry earth surrounded by his glossy green arabica coffee shrubs, in the small municipality of Porciuncula.

“We’re sad because we struggle so much. We spend years battling to get somewhere. And suddenly, everything starts falling apart, and we’re going to lose everything,” da Silva said. “How are we going to survive?”

Tariff linked to Bolsonaro trial

Trump’s tariff on Brazil is overtly political. In his public letter detailing the reasons for the hike, the US president called the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, a ” witch hunt.” Bolsonaro is accused of masterminding a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss to left-leaning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The tariff has sparked ripples of fear in Brazil, particularly among sectors with deep ties to the American market such as beef, orange juice — and coffee. Minor coffee producers say the import tax will hit their margins and adds to the uncertainty already generated by an increasingly dry and unpredictable climate.

Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, exports around 85 percent of its production. The United States is the country’s top coffee buyer and represents around 16 percent of exports, according to Brazil’s coffee exporters council Cecafe.

The president of Cecafe’s deliberative council, Márcio Ferreira, told journalists last week that he thinks the US will continue to import Brazilian coffee, even with the hefty tariff. “It’s obvious that neither the United States nor any other source can give up on Brazil, even if it’s tariffed,” he said.

Tariff could hurt competitiveness of Brazilian coffee in US

But the tariff will likely decrease Brazilian coffee’s competitiveness in the US and naturally reduce demand, said Leandro Gilio, a professor of global agribusiness at Insper business school in Sao Paulo.

“There’s no way we can quickly redirect our coffee production to other markets,” Gilio said. “This principally affects small producers, who have less financial power to make investments or support themselves in a period like this.”

Family farmers produce more than two-thirds of Brazilian coffee. They are a majority in Rio state’s northwestern region, where most of the state’s coffee production lies.

Coffee farming is the primary economic activity in these municipalities. In Porciuncula, which neighbors Brazil’s largest coffee-producing state Minas Gerais, gentle mountains are layered with symmetrical lines of coffee shrubs.

Da Silva, who wore a straw hat for protection from the sun and a crucifix around his neck, owns around 40,000 coffee trees. He started working in the fields when he was 12.

Besides coffee, he grows cassava, squash, bananas, oranges and lemons and has a few chickens that provide fresh eggs. “We have them because of the fear of not being able to eat. We wouldn’t manage if everything were bought, because the profit is very low,” he said.

Last year, drought — made more likely by human-caused climate change — devastated large swathes of da Silva’s production. The reduction in supply pushed coffee prices up, but only after many small-scale farmers had already sold all their crops.

Since peaking in February, prices of arabica have fallen, dropping 33 percent by July, according to the University of Sao Paulo’s Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics, which provides renowned commodity price reports.

“When you make an investment, counting on a certain price for coffee, and then when you go to sell it the price is 20-30 percent less than you calculated, it breaks the producers,” said Paulo Vitor Menezes Freitas, 31, who also owns a modest plantation of around 35,000 coffee trees in the nearby municipality of Varre-Sai.

The demands of coffee farming

Life out in the fields is tough, according to Menezes Freitas.

During harvest season, he sometimes gets up at 3 a.m. to turn on a coffee drier, going to bed as late as midnight. The rest of the year is less intense, but still, there are few to no breaks because there’s always work to do, he said.

Menezes Freitas, who is expecting his first child in October, said the tariff’s announcement increased his fears for the future.

“It’s scary. It feels like you’re on shaky ground. If things get worse, what will we do? People will start pulling out their coffee and finding other ways to survive because they won’t have the means to continue,” he said.

In addition to slashing the value of his coffee beans, Menezes Freitas said the tariff will impact machinery and aluminum — goods that producers like him use every day.

“We hope this calms down. Hopefully, they’ll come to their senses and remove that tariff. I think it would be better for both the United States and Brazil,” he said.


Bermuda shorts, beachwear and a local ban divide Algerian town

Bermuda shorts, beachwear and a local ban divide Algerian town
Updated 23 July 2025
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Bermuda shorts, beachwear and a local ban divide Algerian town

Bermuda shorts, beachwear and a local ban divide Algerian town
  • A dispute over men’s swimwear is dividing an Algerian beach town. Earlier this month, the mayor of Chetaïbi banned Bermuda shorts, calling them indecent

CHETAIBI: A scenic beach town on Algeria’s Mediterranean coastline has become the center of a clash over men’s bathing suits, pitting religious and conservative values against tourist habits.

Chetaïbi, a town of 8,000 known for its turquoise waters, rocky coves, and forested hills, draws thousands of Algerian beachgoers each summer. Seasonal tourism is a cornerstone of the local economy.

“The mood is warm, welcoming, colorful, bustling — no hostility toward bathers, not in words, not in looks. People here have a tradition of hospitality,” said Salah Edine Bey, a longtime resident.

In his view, there was little sign of controversy, until there was.

Earlier this month, some vacationers and business owners were caught off guard when the town’s mayor issued a decree banning beachgoers from walking around in Bermuda shorts, calling the attire indecent in contrast to the longer, looser shorts preferred by conservative male beachgoers.

“These summer outfits disturb the population, they go against our society’s moral values and sense of decency,” Mayor Layachi Allaoua wrote.

“The population can no longer tolerate seeing foreigners wandering the streets in indecent clothing,” he added, referencing visitors from elsewhere in Algeria.

The order sparked immediate backlash from officials, including in the regional capital Annaba, who called on the mayor to revoke it.

The mayor reversed the decree within two days. On Facebook, he insisted his order wasn’t driven by Islamist pressure, but by a desire to preserve “peace and tranquility” for both residents and guests.

Still, the episode tapped into deeper tensions over religion, identity, and public space in a country that remains haunted by a civil war that killed an estimated 200,000 people throughout the 1990s. The conflict began in 1991, when the army canceled elections that an Islamist party was set to win.

The so-called “black decade” ended long ago. But it left unresolved some underlying friction between political Islam and Algeria’s military-backed secular state.

“Even though Islamists lost the war in the 1990s, they never gave up on their invasive and intrusive ideological project, which has gained ground in society,” said sociologist Redouane Boudjemaâ.

For some, the beach debate echoed that earlier era, when Islamist-run municipalities tried to reshape public life in line with religious doctrine. For many Algerians, particularly in underserved regions, political Islam remains popular not out of extremism, but as a reaction to corruption, inequality, and distrust in state institutions. While Islamist parties have mostly fared poorly at the ballot box, they play a large role in daily life, filling social and moral voids.

In neighboring Jijel, residents have roped off parts of the beach for mass prayers, with videos of the scenes circulating online and dividing opinion.

For Halim Kabir, it’s a stark reminder of the past. In the 1990s, Islamists who won local elections in Jijel imposed stricter rules on public behavior. Today, cars parked near the beach have been vandalized with warnings telling beachgoers to “go sin elsewhere.”

“It’s provocation,” Kabir said. “An attempt to drive away visitors from other regions.”

Said Boukhlifa, a former senior official at the Ministry of Tourism, warned that conservative groups are exploiting Algeria’s economic troubles, as falling gas revenues strain the state, to expand their influence. That, he said, could undermine the country’s ambitions to grow its tourism sector.


Photos show a Filipino couple walking down a flooded aisle on their wedding day

Photos show a Filipino couple walking down a flooded aisle on their wedding day
Updated 22 July 2025
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Photos show a Filipino couple walking down a flooded aisle on their wedding day

Photos show a Filipino couple walking down a flooded aisle on their wedding day
  • The couple anticipated the risk of flooding, but instead of letting the weather dampen the mood, they decided to push through
  • “We just mustered enough courage,” said Verdillo

MALOLOS, Philippines: Jade Rick Verdillo and Jamaica Aguilar were determined to walk down the aisle on their wedding day. Even if it meant walking down a flooded one.

On Tuesday, the Barasoain church in Malolos, Bulacan province, Philippines flooded due to heavy rain. Typhoon Whipa had intensified seasonal monsoon rains in the Philippines, bringing widespread flooding.

The couple anticipated the risk of flooding, but instead of letting the weather dampen the mood, they decided to push through, as all marriages have their challenges.

“We just mustered enough courage,” said Verdillo. “We decided today because it is a sacrifice in itself. But there will more sacrifices if we don’t push through today.”

Aguilar waded down the aisle with her white dress and wedding train floating behind her through waters almost up to her knees. At the altar, Verdillo was waiting to receive her while wearing an embroidered shirt called a Barong Tagalog, worn during special occasions.

The newlyweds have been together for 10 years. The groom said, “I feel that challenges won’t be over. It’s just a test. This is just one of the struggles that we’ve overcome.”

Despite the turbulent weather, some family and friends made it to the wedding.

“You will see love prevailed because even against weather, storm, rains, floods, the wedding continued,” said Jiggo Santos, a wedding guest. “It’s an extraordinary wedding.”


Humans beat AI gold-level score at top maths contest

Humans beat AI gold-level score at top maths contest
Updated 22 July 2025
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Humans beat AI gold-level score at top maths contest

Humans beat AI gold-level score at top maths contest
  • Humans beat generative AI models made by Google and OpenAI at a top international mathematics competition, despite the programs reaching gold-level scores for the first time

SYDNEY: Humans beat generative AI models made by Google and OpenAI at a top international mathematics competition, despite the programs reaching gold-level scores for the first time.

Neither model scored full marks — unlike five young people at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), a prestigious annual competition where participants must be under 20 years old.

Google said Monday that an advanced version of its Gemini chatbot had solved five out of the six maths problems set at the IMO, held in Australia’s Queensland this month.

“We can confirm that Google DeepMind has reached the much-desired milestone, earning 35 out of a possible 42 points — a gold medal score,” the US tech giant cited IMO president Gregor Dolinar as saying.

“Their solutions were astonishing in many respects. IMO graders found them to be clear, precise and most of them easy to follow.”

Around 10 percent of human contestants won gold-level medals, and five received perfect scores of 42 points.

US ChatGPT maker OpenAI said that its experimental reasoning model had scored a gold-level 35 points on the test.

The result “achieved a longstanding grand challenge in AI” at “the world’s most prestigious math competition,” OpenAI researcher Alexander Wei wrote on social media.

“We evaluated our models on the 2025 IMO problems under the same rules as human contestants,” he said.

“For each problem, three former IMO medalists independently graded the model’s submitted proof.”

Google achieved a silver-medal score at last year’s IMO in the British city of Bath, solving four of the six problems.

That took two to three days of computation — far longer than this year, when its Gemini model solved the problems within the 4.5-hour time limit, it said.

The IMO said tech companies had “privately tested closed-source AI models on this year’s problems,” the same ones faced by 641 competing students from 112 countries.

“It is very exciting to see progress in the mathematical capabilities of AI models,” said IMO president Dolinar.

Contest organizers could not verify how much computing power had been used by the AI models or whether there had been human involvement, he cautioned.