Month: May 2024

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NAIROBI, Kenya — When Ademola Adesina founded a startup to provide solar and battery-based power subscription packages to individuals and businesses in Nigeria in 2015, it was a lot harder to raise money than it is today.

Climate tech was new in Africa, the continent was a fledgling destination for venture capital money, there were fewer funders to approach and less money was available, he said.

It took him a year of “running around and scouring” his networks to raise his first amount — just under $1 million — from VC firms and other sources. “Everything was a learning experience,” he said.

But the ecosystem has since changed, and Adesina’s Rensource Energy has raised about $30 million over the years, mostly from VC firms. 

Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, with businesses raising more than $3.4 billion since 2019. But there’s still a long way to go, with the continent requiring $277 billion annually to meet its climate goals for 2030.

Experts say to unlock financing and fill this gap, African countries need to address risks like currency instability that they say reduce investor appetite, while investors need to expand their scope of interest to more climate sectors like flood protection, disaster management and heat management, and to use diverse funding methods.

Still, the investment numbers for the climate tech sector — which includes businesses in renewable energy, carbon removal, land restoration and water and waste management — are compelling: Last year, climate tech startups on the continent raised $1.04 billion, a 9% increase from the previous year and triple what they raised in 2019, according to the funding database Africa: The Big Deal. That was despite a decline in the amount of money raised by all startups in total on the continent last year.

That matters because climate tech requires experimentation, and VC firms that provide money to nascent businesses are playing an essential role by giving climate tech startups risk capital, said Adesina. “In the climate space, a lot of things are uncertain,” he said.

The money raised by climate tech startups last year was more than a third of all funds raised by startups in Africa in 2023, placing climate tech second to fintech, a more mature sector.

Venture capital is typically given to businesses with substantial risk but great long-term growth potential. Startups use it to expand into new markets and to get products and services on the market.

Venture capitalists “can take risks that other people cannot take, because our business model is designed to have failures,” said Brian Odhiambo, a Lagos-based partner at Novastar Ventures, an Africa-focused investor. “Not everything has to succeed. But some will, and those that do will succeed in a massive way.”

That was the case for Adetayo Bamiduro, co-founder of MAX, formerly Metro Africa Xpress, which makes electric two- and three-wheelers and electric vehicle infrastructure in Nigeria and has raised just under $100 million since it was founded in 2015.

Adetayo said venture capitalists “are playing a catalytic role that is extremely essential.”

“We all know that in order to really decarbonize our economies, investments have to be made. And it’s not trivial investment,” he said.

The funds can also bridge the gap between traditional and non-traditional sectors, said Kidus Asfaw, co-founder and CEO of Kubik, a startup that turns difficult-to-recycle plastic waste into durable, low-carbon building material. His company, which operates in Kenya and Ethiopia, has raised around $5.2 million since it was launched in 2021.

He cites waste management and construction as examples of traditional sectors that can connect with startups like his.

“There’s so much innovation in these spaces that can transform them over time,” he said. “VCs are accelerating that pathway to transforming them.”

Besides venture capital, other investments by private equity firms, syndicates, venture builders, grant providers and other financial institutions are actively financing climate initiatives on the continent.

But private sector financing in general lags far behind that of public financing, which includes funds from governments, multilaterals and development finance institutions.

From 2019 to 2020, private sector financing represented only 14% of all of Africa’s climate finance, according to a report by the Climate Policy Initiative, much lower than in regions such as East Asia and Pacific at 39%, and Latin America and the Caribbean at 49%.

The low contribution in Africa is attributed to the investors putting money in areas they’re more familiar with, like renewable energy technology, with less funding coming in for more diverse initiatives, said Sandy Okoth, a capital market specialist for green finance at FSD Africa, one of the commissioners of the CPI study.

“The private sector feels this (renewable energy technology) is a more mature space,” he said. “They understand the funding models.”

Technology for adapting to climate change, on the other hand, is “more complex,” he said.

One startup working in renewable energy is the Johannesburg-based Wetility, which last year secured funding of $48 million — mostly from private equity — to expand its operations.

The startup provides solar panels for homes and businesses and a digital management system that allows users to remotely manage power usage, as it tries to solve the problems of energy access and reliability in southern Africa.

“Private sector financing in African climate is still rather low,” said founder and CEO Vincent Maposa. “But there’s visible growth. And I believe that over the next decade or so, you’ll start to see those shifts.”

Investors are also starting to understand the economic benefits of adapting to climate change and solutions as they have returns on investment, said Hetal Patel, Nairobi-based director of investments at Mercy Corps Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on startups building solutions for climate adaptation and financial resilience.

“We’re starting to build a very strong business case for adaptation investors and make sure that private capital flows start coming in,” he said.

Maelis Carraro, managing partner at Catalyst Fund, a Nairobi-based VC fund and accelerator that funds climate adaptation solutions, urged more diverse funding, such as that which blends private and public sector funding. The role of public financing, she said, should be to de-risk the private sector and attract more private sector capital into financing climate initiatives.

“We’re not gonna go far enough with just the public funding,” she said. “We need the private sector and the public sector to work together to unlock more financing. And in particular looking beyond just a few industries where the innovation is writ large.”
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EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of U.S. airpower. But the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence, not a human pilot. And riding in the front seat was Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.

It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a vast desert facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound and the military has incubated its most secret aerospace advances. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of shielding against surveillance, a new test-pilot generation is training AI agents to fly in war. Kendall traveled here to see AI fly in real time and make a public statement of confidence in its future role in air combat.

“It’s a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it,” Kendall said in an interview with The Associated Press after he landed. The AP and NBC were granted permission to witness the secret flight on the condition that it would not be reported until it was complete because of operational security concerns.

The AI-controlled F-16, called Vista, flew Kendall in lightning-fast maneuvers at more than 800 kph that put pressure on his body at five times the force of gravity. It went nearly nose to nose with a second human-piloted F-16 as both aircraft raced within 305 meters of each other, twisting and looping to try force their opponent into vulnerable positions.

At the end of the hour-long flight, Kendall said he’d seen enough to trust this still-learning AI to decide whether to launch weapons in war.

There’s a lot of opposition to that idea. Arms control experts and humanitarian groups are deeply concerned that AI one day might be able to autonomously drop bombs that kill people without further human consultation, and they are seeking greater restrictions on its use.

“There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software,” the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned. Autonomous weapons “are an immediate cause of concern and demand an urgent, international political response.”

Kendall said there will always be human oversight in the system when weapons are used.

The military’s shift to AI-enabled planes is driven by security, cost and strategic capability. If the U.S. and China should end up in conflict, for example, today’s Air Force fleet of expensive, manned fighters will be vulnerable because of gains on both sides in electronic warfare, space and air defense systems. China’s air force is on pace to outnumber the U.S. and it is also amassing a fleet of flying unmanned weapons.

Future war scenarios envision swarms of American unmanned aircraft providing an advance attack on enemy defenses to give the U.S. the ability to penetrate an airspace without high risk to pilot lives. But the shift is also driven by money. The Air Force is still hampered by production delays and cost overruns in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost an estimated of $1.7 trillion.

Smaller and cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets are the way ahead, Kendall said.

Vista’s military operators say no other country in the world has an AI jet like it, where the software first learns on millions of data points in a simulator, then tests its conclusions during actual flights. That real-world performance data is then put back into the simulator where the AI then processes it to learn more.

China has AI, but there’s no indication it has found a way to run tests outside a simulator. And, like a junior officer first learning tactics, some lessons can only be learned in the air, Vista’s test pilots said.

Vista flew its first AI-controlled dogfight in September 2023, and there have only been about two dozen similar flights since. But the programs are learning so quickly from each engagement that some AI versions being tested on Vista are beating human pilots in air-to-air combat.

The pilots at this base are aware that in some respects, they may be training their replacements or shaping a future construct where fewer of them are needed.

But they also say they would not want to be up in the sky against an adversary that has AI-controlled aircraft if the U.S. does not also have its own fleet.

“We have to keep running. And we have to run fast,” Kendall said.
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omaha, nebraska — Warren Buffett cautioned the tens of thousands of shareholders who packed an arena for his annual meeting that artificial intelligence scams could become “the growth industry of all time.” 

Doubling down on his cautionary words from last year, Buffett told the throngs he recently came face to face with the downside of AI. Someone made a fake video of Buffett, apparently convincing enough that Buffett himself said he could imagine it tricking him into sending money overseas. 

The billionaire investing guru predicted scammers will seize on the technology and may do more harm with it than good. 

“It has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm and I just don’t know how that plays out,” he said. 

Earnings 

The day started early Saturday with Berkshire Hathaway announcing a steep drop in earnings as the paper value of its investments plummeted and it pared its Apple holdings. The company reported a $12.7 billion profit, or $8.825 per Class A share, in first the quarter, down 64% from $35.5 billion, or $24,377 per A share a year ago. 

But Buffett encourages investors to pay more attention to the conglomerate’s operating earnings from the companies it owns. Those jumped 39% to $11.222 billion, or $7,796.47 per Class A share, led by insurance companies’ performance. 

None of that got in the way of the fun. 

Throngs flooded the arena to buy up Squishmallow plush toys of Buffett and former Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who died last fall. The event attracts investors from around the world and is unlike any other company meeting. 

“This is one of the best events in the world to learn about investing. To learn from the gods of the industry,” said Akshay Bhansali, who spent the better part of two days traveling from India to Omaha. 

A notable absence 

Devotees come for tidbits of wisdom from Buffett, who famously dubbed the meeting Woodstock for Capitalists. 

This was the first meeting since Munger died. 

The meeting opened with a video tribute highlighting some of his best-known quotes, including classics like “If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich.” The video also featured skits the investors made with Hollywood stars over the years, including a “Desperate Housewives” spoof where one of the women introduced Munger as her boyfriend and another in which actress Jaimie Lee Curtis swooned over him. 

As the video ended, the arena erupted in a prolonged standing ovation honoring Munger, whom Buffett called “the architect of Berkshire Hathaway.” 

Buffett said Munger remained curious about the world up until the end of his life at 99, hosting dinner parties, meeting with people and holding regular Zoom calls. 

For decades, Munger and Buffett functioned as a classic comedy duo, with Buffett offering lengthy setups to Munger’s witty one-liners. 

Together, the pair transformed Berkshire from a floundering textile mill into a massive conglomerate made up of a variety of interests, from insurance companies such as Geico to BNSF railroad to several major utilities and an assortment of other companies. 

Next Gen leaders 

Munger’s absence, however, created space for shareholders to get to know better the two executives who directly oversee Berkshire’s companies: Ajit Jain, who manages the insurance units; and Abel, who handles everything else and has been named Buffett’s successor. The two shared the main stage with Buffett this year. 

The first time Buffett kicked a question to Greg Abel, he mistakenly said “Charlie?” Abel shrugged off the mistake and dove into the challenges utilities face from the increased risk of wildfires and some regulators’ reluctance to let them collect a reasonable profit. 

Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren said he believes Abel spoke up more Saturday and let shareholders see some of the brilliance Berkshire executives talk about. 

A look to the future 

Buffett has made clear that Abel will be Berkshire’s next CEO, but said Saturday that he had changed his opinion on how the company’s investment portfolio should be handled. He had previously said it would fall to two investment managers who handle small chunks of the portfolio now. On Saturday, Buffett endorsed Abel for the gig, as well as overseeing the operating businesses and any acquisitions. 

“He understands businesses extremely well, and if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks,” Buffett said. Ultimately, it will be up to the board to decide, but the billionaire said he might come back and haunt them if they try to do it differently. 

Nevertheless, the best applause line of the day was Buffett’s closing remark: “I not only hope that you come next year but I hope that I come next year.” 
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Sulaimaniyah, Iraq — Floods caused by torrential rainstorms have killed four hikers in the Sulaimaniyah region of northern Iraq, local officials told AFP. 

“Four members of a hiking team drowned because of heavy rains and flooding in Awaspi village” in the Qaradah district, local official Rouf Kamal said. 

Civil defense spokesperson Aram Ali confirmed the toll and said eight other hikers survived the incident south of Sulaimaniyah on Friday, the autonomous Kurdistan region’s second city. 

He said a weather warning was issued Thursday, with hikers particularly urged to avoid mountainous areas. 

Heavier than usual rainfall has caused flooding in several parts of Iraq, especially the north, and some roads in Kurdistan region capital Arbil were blocked. 

Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. 

But Ammer al-Jabiri, spokesperson for the weather service in Iraq, where the rainy season is generally from December to March, said precipitation in 2024 was “better than last year.” 
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month, the national weather center said.

The country experienced days of extreme weather in April that killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said Pakistan witnessed heavier rains because of climate change.

Last month’s rainfall for Pakistan was a 164% increase from the usual level for April, according to a report published Friday by Pakistan’s national weather center.

The intense downpours affected the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern Baluchistan provinces the most.

Devastating summer floods in 2022 killed at least 1,700 people, destroyed millions of homes, wiped out swaths of farmland and caused billions of dollars in economic losses in a matter of months.

At one point, a third of the country was underwater. Pakistani leaders and many scientists worldwide blamed climate change for the unusually early and heavy monsoon rains.
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GENEVA — The World Meteorological Organization warns that Tropical Cyclone Hidaya, which is projected to make landfall in Tanzania and Kenya this weekend, threatens to worsen the humanitarian crisis triggered by torrential rains in these and other heavily flooded countries in East Africa.

“Hidaya is the first documented system to have reached tropical cyclone status in this part of the world. We are not talking about Sudan. We are talking about lower and East Africa,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis told journalists in Geneva on Friday.

“It is historically significant. It is also going to have a very big impact, and specifically on Tanzania, where the ground is already absolutely soddened. Tanzania, which has suffered flooding, is about to get hit with more heavy rains falling … from this system.

“And the moisture in this tropical cyclone will also impact Kenya, where there is also very, very bad flooding,” she said, noting that “climate change was supercharging extreme weather.”

El Nino, which sparked heavy rains and severe flooding sweeping East Africa, is waning. Despite this, the WMO says this weather event still carries a big punch and is leading to more heavy rainfall, devastating floods and landslides in the East African region.

While casualty figures continue to rise, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports this disaster so far has killed more than 400 people. This includes at least 210 in Kenya, more than 150 in Tanzania and others in Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia.

OCHA reports heavy rains and floods in these five countries have affected more than 637,000 people, including 234,000 who are displaced. It says governments and humanitarian agencies are still assessing the damage and destruction of infrastructure, which is extensive.

“In terms of economic losses, it is still too early to say. When you look at the images of bridges and roads being swept away, it is going to be immense,” said Nullis. “The loss of livestock, the disruption of agriculture. It is a huge, huge investment.”

In an address to his nation Friday, Kenyan President William Ruto outlined a series of measures to deal with this emergency, noting that no corner of the country “has been spared from this havoc.”

“Sadly, we have not seen the last of this perilous period, as this situation is expected to escalate,” he said. “Meteorological reports paint a dire picture. The rains will persist, increasing both in duration and intensity for the rest of this month and possibly after.”

While all those caught in this disastrous event are suffering immense hardships, the U.N. refugee agency expresses particular concern about the welfare of thousands of refugees and other displaced people “being forced to escape once again for their lives after their homes were washed away.”

“In Kenya, nearly 20,000 people in the Dadaab refugee camps, which host over 380,000 refugees, have been displaced due to the rising water levels,” said Olga Sarrado Mur, UNHCR spokesperson.

“Many of them are among those who arrived in the past couple of years after severe drought in neighboring Somalia. Some 4,000 people are currently sheltering in six schools with facilities that have been extensively damaged,” she said.

She noted that many of the tens of thousands of refugees in Tanzania, Burundi, and other hard-hit countries in the region have had to relocate multiple times as water levels continue to rise. She said many people are struggling to find shelter, to pay the rent, to earn enough money to feed themselves and their families.

“Climate change is making many parts of the world, especially in fragile regions like East Africa and the Horn of Africa, increasingly uninhabitable,” said Sarrado Mur.

“Storms are more devastating. Wildfires have become commonplace. Floods and droughts are intensifying. Some of these impacts are irreversible and threaten to continue worsening, and displaced people are bearing the brunt of the impact,” she said.

The WMO reports early warning systems are critical in saving lives before natural disasters strike. It says these systems are more crucial than ever to protect people from the extreme weather conditions stemming from human-induced climate change.

“So, on tropical cyclones, we do have very, very good warnings these days in most parts of the world that enable evacuations to take place,” said Nullis, underscoring that early warning systems enable “what we call anticipatory action, which is sort of prepositioning by humanitarian agencies of relief supplies.”

“Thanks to such actions, we have prevented a great loss of life in many regions of the world,” she said.

However, UNHCRs Sarrado Mur observed that “many of the preparations resulting from early warnings often do not reach the most vulnerable communities, including refugees or other displaced communities, which often are in areas that are more exposed to these climate hazards.”

She emphasized the importance of providing funding to vulnerable peoples and the communities hosting them, “so they can be equipped and be prepared, and so they can adapt to this new situation which is unfortunately the new reality.”
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MEXICO CITY — If a woman wins Mexico’s presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind?

The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico’s first female president for the term 2024-30.

Out of three candidates, the frontrunner is Claudia Sheinbaum, who has promised to keep President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s legacy on track. Next comes Xóchitl Gálvez, representing several opposition parties, one of which is historically conservative.

The triumph of Sheinbaum or Gálvez, however, would not guarantee their support for certain gender-related policies.

In a country of more than 98 million Catholics, neither of the two leading candidates has shared specific proposals on abortion. Both have suggested equality and protection measures for women amid a wave of violence and femicide.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges that Mexico’s next president would face regarding abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

What’s the current abortion landscape?

Twelve of Mexico’s 32 states have decriminalized abortion, most of them in the past five years. One more will join them after its legislature complies with a recent court’s ruling, demanding a reform in its penal code.

A few more states allow abortion if the mother’s life is in danger, and it is legal nationwide if the pregnancy is the result of rape.

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that national laws prohibiting abortions are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The ruling, which extended Latin America’s trend of widening abortion access, happened a year after the U.S. Supreme Court went in the opposite direction, overturning the 1973 ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion.

Although the Mexican ruling orders the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires federal health institutions to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it, further state-by-state legal work is pending to remove all penalties.

In most of the states where it has been decriminalized, abortion-rights activists say they face persistent challenges in trying to make abortion safe, accessible and government-funded.

To address restrictions and bans, dozens of volunteers — known as “acompañantes” — have developed a nationwide network to share information on self-managed medication abortions following guidelines established by the World Health Organization.

Could a new government strike down the constitutional right to abortion in Mexico?

Whoever wins, the next president would not directly affect abortion legislation, since each state has autonomy over its penal code.

However, the president could indeed have an impact as a moral authority among the members of his or her party, said Ninde Molina, lawyer at Abortistas MX, an organization specializing in abortion litigation strategies.

“Much of the governors’ behavior emulates what the president does,” Molina said.

She’s among the activists who worry that neither Sheinbaum nor Galvez have shared specific proposals addressing abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and the protection of migrants.

“Such lukewarm proposals send the message that these are not fundamental rights,” Molina said.

And though she wouldn’t immediately worry about a setback on abortion policy, the scenario would change if López Obrador or Sheinbaum manage to get the approval of a judiciary reform aiming to replace the current judges with new ones elected by popular vote.

“The court is also in danger,” Molina said. “People may find this (electing the judges) attractive, but they don’t realize what it entails.”

If, for example, an abortion case reaches the Supreme Court and its current composition has changed, then a setback could indeed happen, Molina said.

What do the conservatives think?

Isaac Alonso, from Viva México Movement, which supported right-wing activist Eduardo Verástegui’ s presidential aspirations, thinks that neither Sheinbaum nor Gálvez represent Mexico’s conservative interests.

In his ranks, he said, no one is in favor of criminalizing women who have abortions. But since they firmly believe that abortion is unjustifiable, they would hope for government policies that encourage births through improvements in the adoption system.

Rodrigo Iván Cortés, director of the National Family Front, an anti-abortion group, said the current administration could not be considered an ally. “Before 2018, abortion had only been approved in Mexico City,” he said.

“It is very relevant to say how the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Arturo Saldívar, had an ideological bias,” said Cortés about a judge who currently advises Sheinbaum.

Still, he said, despite who wins the elections, his organization will continue “to take care of the first and fundamental of rights: life.”

What’s needed to rule with a feminist perspective?

“Just because a woman wins does not guarantee a gender perspective at all,” said Pauline Capdevielle, an academic from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

“In fact, what we are seeing are strategies by conservative sectors to create a façade of feminism that opposes the feminist tradition.”

A true change, Capdevielle said, would start by integrating feminists into the government.

“It is not about putting women where there were none, but about politicizing these issues and really promoting a transformation.”

Some feminists have shown support for Sheinbaum, but both she and López Obrador have also received criticism for their lack of empathy towards women who protest against gender violence.

Amnesty International and other organizations have denounced excessive use of force against women during International Women’s Day protests and say that Mexican women’s right to protest has been stigmatized.

According to Capdevielle, some of the issues that need to be addressed in Mexico’s gender agenda are reproductive justice and women’s participation in political processes.

“The right to get an abortion must be consolidated,” she said. “It is far from being a reality for all women.”

Comprehensive sexual education, access to contraceptives and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community should be prioritized as well, Capdevielle said.

What about LGBTQ+ rights?

“The needs of this community are not likely to figure prominently in Mexico’s presidential elections,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Gay and transgender populations are regularly attacked and killed in Mexico, a nation marked by its “macho” culture and highly religious population. Human rights organization Letra S documented more than 500 homicides of LGBTQ+ people in the last six years, 58 of them in 2023.

The latest deaths came in 2024, with the murder of three members of the transgender community. This group, along with migrants, are particularly vulnerable to attacks, Gonzalez Cabrera said.

“LGBT migrants continue to suffer abuse from criminal groups and Mexican officials,” he said. “Too often, these human rights violations are not effectively investigated or punished.”

Sheinbaum said in 2023 that, as Mexico City’s mayor, she created a special unit for trans people and said that her dream would be to continue fighting on behalf of sexual diversity, but did not go into specifics.

As for Gálvez, she showed support for women “from the sexual diversity,” but also did not delve into specifics.

González Cabrera highlights that since 2022 all Mexican states recognize same-sex marriage, but some LGBTQ+ rights are not yet guaranteed nationwide.

“There are 11 states where the legal recognition of gender identity for trans people is not possible through administrative means, despite a Supreme Court’s ruling recognizing this right,” he said.

For there to be an agenda in favor of the LGBTQ+ population, González Cabrera said, a government should approach the communities’ organizations to learn about their needs, allocate resources to address violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity, support LGBTQ+ migrants and encourage local governments to align their legislation with the court’s rulings on their rights.
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DUESSELDORF, Germany — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother were taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany’s Nazis were rounding up tens of thousands of Jews from his hometown in what is now southwestern Ukraine.

“It was nothing but a miracle that we survived,” Rubinstein told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his apartment in the western German city of Duesseldorf.

The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor is participating in a new digital campaign called #CancelHate. It was launched Thursday by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference.

It features videos of survivors from around the globe reading Holocaust denial posts from different social media platforms. Each post illustrates how denial and distortion can not only rewrite history but perpetuate antisemitic tropes and spread hate.

“I could never have imagined a day when Holocaust survivors would be confronting such a tremendous wave of Holocaust denial and distortion, but sadly, that day is here,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference.

“We all saw what unchecked hatred led to — words of hate and antisemitism led to deportations, gas chambers and crematoria,” Schneider added. “Those who read these depraved posts are putting aside their own discomfort and trauma to ensure that current and future generations understand that unchecked hatred has no place in society.”

The Claims Conference’s new digital campaign comes at a time when antisemitic incidents, triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, have increased from Europe to the U.S. and beyond, to levels not seen in decades, according to major Jewish organizations.

Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 people in the attack and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. They are still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of some 30 others. The war has ground on with little end in sight: the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, displaced around 80% of the population and pushed hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of famine.

The war has inflamed tensions around the world and triggered pro-Palestinian protests, including at college campuses in the U.S. and elsewhere. Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents.

The launch of the Claims Conference campaign also comes days before Yom HaShoah — Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — on Monday.

In one of the videos, Rubinstein reads out a hate post — only to juxtapose it with his personal testimony about his family’s suffering during the Holocaust.

“‘We have all been cheated, lied to, and exploited. The Holocaust did not happen the way it is written in our history books,'” he reads and then says: “That is a lie. The Holocaust happened. Unfortunately, way too many members of my family died in the Holocaust.”

Rubinstein then continues to talk about his own persecution as a Jewish child during the Holocaust.

While forced into the ghetto of Cernisvtsi, his family managed to obtain forged Polish identity documents, which were the only reason he and his mother were taken off the cattle train in 1941.

They fled and hid in several eastern European countries until the war ended in 1945. After that, they briefly went back to his hometown, only to find out that his father, who had been forced into the Soviet Red Army during the war, had been killed. They moved on to Amsterdam, where his mother married again, and eventually settled in Duesseldorf.

“I lived through the Holocaust. Six million were murdered. Hate and Holocaust denial have returned to our society today. I am very, very sad about this and I am fighting it with all my might,” Rubinstein says at the end of the video. “Words matter. Our words are our power. Cancel hate. Stop the hate.”

Even at his old age, Rubinstein, who calls himself an optimist, says he will continue fighting antisemitism every single day. And he has a message, especially for the young generation of Jews.

“Don’t panic,” Rubinstein says. “The good will win. You just have to do something about it.”
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islamabad — Pakistan on Friday witnessed the launch of its first lunar satellite aboard China’s historic mission to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon in a technologically collaborative mission that signals deepening ties between the countries.

China’s largest rocket, a Long March-5, blasted off from the Wencheng Space Launch Center on Hainan Island at 09:27 UTC, ferrying China’s 8-metric-ton Chang’e-6 probe.

If successful, the uncrewed mission will make China the first country to retrieve samples from the moon’s largely unexplored South Pole, also known as the “far side” of the moon that is not visible from Earth.

Chang’e-6 will spend 48 hours digging up 2 kilograms of surface samples before returning to a landing spot in Inner Mongolia.

In 2018, China achieved its first unmanned moon landing on the far side with the Chang’e-4 probe, which did not retrieve samples. India became the first country to land near the moon’s South Pole in August with its Chandrayaan-3.

Chang’e-6 is carrying cargo from Pakistan, Italy, France and the European Space Agency.

According to the Institute of Space Technology (IST) in Islamabad, Pakistan’s lunar cube satellite named ICUBE-Qamar (or ICUBE-Q for short) will be placed into lunar orbit within five days, circling the moon for three to six months, photographing the surface for research purposes.

IST engineers say ICUBE-Q is also designed to “obtain lunar magnetic field data; establish a lunar magnetic field model and lay the foundation for subsequent international cooperation on the moon.”

IST developed the iCUBE-Qamar satellite in collaboration with the country’s space agency SUPARCO and China’s Shanghai University. Qamar, which means moon in Urdu, is the nuclear-armed South Asian nation’s first mission in space.

The iCUBE-Q orbiter has two optical cameras that will gather images of the lunar surface.

‘Milestone’

The mission’s launch from China was carried live on Pakistan state television.

Calling it a “milestone,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it would help the country build capacity in satellite communications and open new avenues for scientific research, economic development and national security, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Information.

The Pakistan-China friendship, Sharif said, has “gone beyond borders to reach space,” according to the official statement.

Beijing is one of Islamabad’s closest allies. Pakistan is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar development project that is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.

Pakistan’s navy in late April launched its first Hangor-class submarine, built jointly with China, with a ceremony in China’s Wuhan province.

According to the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace, Beijing is Islamabad’s leading supplier of conventional and strategic weapons platforms. China is also the dominant supplier of Pakistan’s higher-end offensive strike capabilities, the report found.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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