Flagship

Ukraine war reaches 1,000th day

Moscow warned Monday that Washington was escalating the Ukraine war by letting Kyiv use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike Russia. “This is a very big step towards the start of World War Three,” a Russian lawmaker said. The Biden administration’s move adds “an uncertain, new factor” 1,000 days into the conflict, the Associated Press wrote. The nearly three-year war has brought an automation boom in Ukraine, Reuters reported: Most of the country’s more than 800 defense production companies were formed in response to Russia’s invasion, producing drones and using artificial intelligence to develop military tech. “The Ukrainian military-industrial sector is the fastest innovating sector in the entire world right now,” a Ukrainian lawmaker said.

Russian gas set to power Shanghai

A massive China-Russia natural gas pipeline was completed, Chinese state media reported Monday, suggesting that Russian gas could begin powering Shanghai by the end of the year. Moscow is now largely reliant on the Chinese market for its gas exports after Europe blocked imports over the Ukraine invasion, but efforts to build a separate pipeline stalled earlier this year over price disagreements. China is already getting discounted Russian natural gas and supplies through the completed pipeline will continue at a “significant discount,” according to a Jamestown Foundation expert. The war in Ukraine has deepened Moscow’s economic dependence on Beijing, and Russia is showing signs of “becoming a subordinate economic partner to China rather than an equal.”

Aid trucks looted in Gaza

Nearly 100 aid trucks were “violently looted” in Gaza over the weekend, the United Nations said, underscoring the challenges of delivering desperately needed food and supplies to the war-torn strip. The convoy was forced to take an alternate route after the Israeli military instructed it to leave a day earlier than planned, according to UNRWA, the main aid agency for Palestinians that Israel banned last month. Israel has been letting in “significantly” less food and supplies into Gaza in recent weeks compared with previous months, The New York Times reported, and the UN recently warned that the entire strip faces the risk of famine. The deteriorating conditions prompted Pope Francis to call for an investigation into allegations of a genocide in Gaza — his strongest criticism yet of Israel’s war with Hamas.

Trump says military to carry out deportations

US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday confirmed he would deploy the military to carry out mass deportations, the backbone of his policy promises. Trump’s plan will face legal challenges, but this time he has “friendlier arbiters,” Politico wrote, including at the US Supreme Court. Mass deportations will also face logistical challenges, experts said, and come with a massive price tag — one estimate puts the annual cost of deporting a million people at $88 billion. Businesses in immigrant-dependent sectors like agriculture, hospitality, and construction also warned that Trump’s plan would risk shutting them down by triggering labor shortages and raising prices: “People are worried about the price of food now?” one immigration attorney told the Financial Times. “Wait until [food producers] can’t get workers.”

Trump taps Musk ally as FCC chair

US President-elect Donald Trump named a Big Tech critic — and Elon Musk ally — to lead the US Federal Communications Commission. Brendan Carr is currently the top Republican at the agency that regulates telecommunications, and has vowed to “dismantle the censorship cartel” of tech companies that he claims silences conservative voices on social media. Carr’s nomination was cheered by Musk: The regulator and the tech billionaire have forged an “unusual” public alliance, Politico wrote. Carr has previously criticized the FCC’s treatment of Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, and as FCC chairman, he could steer generous subsidies to Musk. While Trump’s pick is a win for Musk, Google and Meta will likely brace for harsher regulatory crackdowns under Carr.

India should prepare for Trumponomics

India should follow China’s playbook in responding to incoming US President Donald Trump’s trade policies, The Wire India’s editor argued. China is bracing for the potential impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs, and despite his friendly relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “Trump has already declared India as a big tariff offender,” M.K. Venu wrote. Beijing is countering Trump’s tariff plans by embracing more stimulus and boosting manufacturing, and “India will have to fend for itself by taking innovative measures like China,” Venu argued. But Trump’s tariffs on Beijing could benefit New Delhi, another report suggested, “by reshaping the global supply chain away from China.”

Novo Nordisk expands to China

Novo Nordisk is launching its blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy in China for a fraction of the US price, seeking to tap a vast market hit by rising obesity rates. A one-month supply of a starter dose of the Danish drugmaker’s appetite-blocking shot will cost 1,400 yuan ($193.45), Bloomberg reported, far lower than the $1,349 US list price. The drug’s arrival in China, where the number of obese people nearly tripled between 2004 and 2018, comes as the next generation of weight loss drugs promises to be even more effective than Wegovy. One new shot may solve the problem of patients regaining weight when they stop taking the drug, which “could usher in a whole new class of weight-loss treatments,” Bloomberg wrote.

Supporting Ukraine’s transition to clean energy could be a crucial strategy for the incoming Trump administration to counter Russia and China, Semafor’s Tim McDonnell wrote. Ukraine’s foreign investment crunch has slowed its energy transition, and investing in its green energy sector “may be one of the cheapest and easiest ways for the Trump administration to continue supporting the country… with strategic and economic benefits for the US,” McDonnell wrote.

Cancer treatment used against lupus

A form of immunotherapy that has proven effective against cancer has been successfully redeployed to combat some autoimmune diseases. CAR-T therapy involves engineering a patient’s immune cells to make them attack a particular kind of blood cell that has become cancerous. It is dangerous — it can send the immune system into overdrive — but saves lives. The same blood cells are involved in many autoimmune diseases such as lupus, and doctors tried the therapy on one young lupus patient who was in severe pain. Three years later, she remains healthy and off medication, Science reported. Since then they have treated around 40 patients with various autoimmune conditions, only one of whom has relapsed.

Rolls-Royce plans to power space missions

Rolls-Royce is in talks to build a commercial nuclear reactor for use in space. The British engineering firm has decades of experience building power plants for Royal Navy submarines, and is already planning land-based “small modular reactors” in several nations. But the resurgence of the space industry means there is a potential market for a much smaller reactor that could be lifted to orbit to power deep space probes or potential moon bases. The proposed concept would be roughly the size of a family car and would produce “hundreds of kilowatts” of electricity, an executive told the Financial Times, enough to power several hundred homes. The company is “mindful of the potential dangers,” and the fuel would remain inert until the reactor is in situ.

Military carrier pigeons bred in France

France still breeds carrier pigeons for its military. The carrier pigeon once represented cutting-edge communications technology: The fastest birds can reach 75mph and the strongest can fly 600 miles in one go. The news agency Reuters began by using carrier pigeons, which in 1850 were faster than trains. In World War II, Britain smuggled thousands of the pigeons into occupied France for resistance fighters to use, and one French pigeon was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery in World War I. France no longer employs the pigeons, but maintains its breeding program for tradition’s sake, Swiss paper NZZ reported. The birds may yet be conscripted, though. In 2010, China created a “pigeon reserve army” in case modern technology failed.

Nov. 19:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the European Parliament.
• Italy’s art police present recovered Etruscan archaeological artifacts that were due to be sold on the black market.
• The Country Music Association Awards kick off in Nashville.

A Beatles bootleg described as “a rarity among rarities” is going on sale for $250,000. Superfan Piers Hemmingsen acquired the high-quality recording of the 1965 concert at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens while writing a two-volume history titled The Beatles in Canada. Hemmingsen initially thought the tape was poor quality like most of the band’s bootlegs, the FT reported — until he discovered he’d been using the wrong type of player; when played on a half-track machine, the difference was “day and night.” He plans to use the sale proceeds to publish his next book, but told The Toronto Star that hearing the tape was the real reward: “It’s made everything I’ve done over the years worth it.”