World News

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — When Merat Behnam first gathered enough courage to ride her yellow scooter through the gridlocked streets of Iran ‘s capital to the coffee shop she runs, traffic wasn’t her main worry.

She instead girded herself for disapproving looks, verbal abuse and even being stopped by the police for being a women riding a motorbike in Tehran, something long frowned upon by hard-liners and conservative clerics in Iran.

But Behnam, 38, found herself broadly accepted on the road — and part of a wider reconsideration by women about societal expectations in Iran.

It’s not all encompassing, particularly as hard-line politicians call for laws on the hijab or headscarf to be enforced as Iran cracks down on intellectuals in the wake of the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June — but it does represent a change.

The domain looked rather suspicious, and I'm not entirely certain this wasn't "written with the help of AI," but they actually list citations. The sheer scale of this across multiple sectors should put any fears that we're not in a recession to rest.

This many layoffs, reorgs and "flattenings" (while jettisoning underperforming products and services) doesn't say "economic growth." Middle management doesn't get the axe when the excrement is happily cooped up a full plane ride away from the oscillator.

And we're talking hundreds of thousands of layoffs at minimum in the U.S. alone. That's going to drastically alter the labour market while also reducing consumer spending.

We've only just begun.

The year 2025 has become one of the most turbulent periods for the global workforce in recent history. Across major industries, from technology and energy to automotive and pharmaceuticals, thousands of employees have faced layoffs as companies restructure to adapt to changing market conditions. Rising operational costs, slower revenue growth, and the accelerating shift toward automation and artificial intelligence have reshaped corporate priorities worldwide.

These large-scale job cuts highlight a broader trend in the global economy: businesses are redefining efficiency, focusing on digital transformation, and preparing for long-term sustainability amid uncertain demand. While some layoffs are driven by declining profits, others reflect a strategic move to reallocate resources toward high-growth areas such as AI, renewable energy, and cloud infrastructure.

This article reviews the most significant layoffs of 2025 to provide a clear overview of how global corporations are navigating a year marked by transformation, cost restructuring, and shifting workforce dynamics.

archive.is link

Rooftop solar has grown significantly in Jamaica over the past decade, from less than 1.4 megawatts in 2015 to nearly 65 megawatts in 2023, a significant amount for a small island, experts say. Overall, solar and other forms of renewable energy made up about 10 percent of Jamaica’s power generation in 2023.

The hope is that growth will start to cut down on Jamaica’s dependence on imported oil and liquefied natural gas, which is shipped in tankers to the island nation, at a time when ports, refineries, power plants and transmission lines are becoming vulnerable to extreme weather worsened by a warming planet.

People in Lisbon protest proposed labour reforms

@news

dailypioneer.com/2025/world/pe…

Water levels at the dam reservoirs supplying Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad have plunged below 3%, according to reports, as the country suffers from severe water shortages.

“The water storage in Mashhad’s dams has now fallen to less than 3%,” Hossein Esmaeilian, the chief executive of the water company in Iran’s second largest city by population, told the ISNA news agency.

He added: “The current situation shows that managing water use is no longer merely a recommendation – it has become a necessity.”

Mashhad, home to around 4 million people and Iran’s holiest city, relies on four dams for its water supply. Esmaeilian said consumption in the city had reached about “8,000 litres per second, of which about 1,000 to 1,500 litres per second is supplied from the dams”.

Authorities in Tehran warned over the weekend of possible rolling cuts to water supplies in the capital amid what officials call the worst drought in decades. The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has cautioned that without rainfall before winter, even Tehran could face evacuation.

In Ukraine, sound carries a different weight: the cautionary blurt of sirens, Shahed drones humming overhead, the concussive thwack of air defence interception and the subsequent explosion. But as well as the sounds of war, which continue three and a half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, music still plays, clubs remain open during the day (closing well before the midnight curfew), and electronic dance music remains an intrinsic part of many Ukrainian lives.

Kyiv’s iconic clubs, such as K41, became bomb shelters before transforming into frontline fundraisers. Parties doubling up as cleanup operations are held at strike sites. New venues such as Abo Records – the first of many creative spaces to set up shop in an abandoned liquor factory – have emerged as gathering points where you might share a cigarette with a sniper or combat medic as easily as with a DJ. But the rehabilitative power of dance music is most evident at the Superhumans centre, near Lviv in the west of Ukraine. Here, the most critically war-wounded are treated with prosthetics and reconstructive surgery, and psychological support is given to children and adults affected by the war. And within the range of treatment is music therapy.

Howard Buffett, the son of Warren Buffett and one of the centre’s chief funders, suggested forming a Superhumans band, so the centre teamed up with music charity Victory Beats, which was set up one year into the war to provide veterans with relaxation and a nonverbal outlet for emotional expression.

“We were working with a 25-year-old soldier with severe brain damage and limited use of his hand,” the charity’s founder, Volodymyr Negodada, remembers. “We started with a [sound-based] relaxation session designed to calm the nervous system, but stopped almost immediately because the low frequency triggered pain. When he started to feel better, he asked for a DJ console.”

Despite being sidelined, agroecology empowers communities to take control of their food systems. It’s proving to be a powerful and practical solution based on local knowledge that works harmoniously with nature. For example, in Kenya’s Muranga County, the new agroecology policy supports agroecology by subsidizing organic inputs and building local markets. The Seed Savers Network has set up over 100 community seed banks in Kenya to protect disappearing indigenous seed varieties.

Agroecology isn’t just about farming. It improves the health of people and ecosystems, supports local economies, strengthens communities, and helps African countries adapt to climate change. Yet it still receives only a tiny fraction of funding. Between 2016 and 2018, just 2.7% of EU support to agriculture in Africa went toward agroecological approaches, according to the CIDSE Finance for Agroecology Report.

Ignore Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb on the left and the fairy on the right, The Bald guy is Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff, James Blair This was during a lunch at the Oval Office for Senate Republicans, I zoomed in on the folder and flipped the image, apparently they are planning a coup not only on Venezuela but also Colombia, as we can see both Maduro and the Colombian President Gustavo Pedro in Prison Outfits and the so call "THE TRUMP DOCTRINE" which the media were calling the Munroe Doctrine 2.0 turns out to be the Moreno Doctrine written by Ohio Senator and Colombia born Bernie Moreno.. They are going to use Venezuela as an excuse to overthrow Colombian Govt. too whose president has been vocal against the US for supporting Genocide..The US is doing something they did back in 2003 all over again..

Original pic by whitehouse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/P20251021MR-0281.jpg

The original post with 15k upvote was deleted on reddit on some rule about incorrect tittle format: https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1on1nqr/i_know_trumps_plan_image_is_from_oct_21st_at_the/

https://imgur.com/a/12hPQhT

The Trump Doctrine For Colombia and the Western Hemisphere

Despite decades of close partnerships between the United States and her allies in South America, the government of Colombia has been taken over by Gustavo Petro, who was elected with the help of drug cartels. There is ----- the Trump Doctrine for Colombia and the Western Hemisphere.

Designate additional cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations
Support pro-United States leaders in the Western Hemisphere
Establish targeted ------- for Petro, his family, and his -------
------- corrupt, anti-American criminal -----
-------- a comprehensive investigation into Petro's campaign ------

The blackout makes it impossible to assess the full scale of the massacres, but the videos that have trickled out provide a horrifying glimpse. Some were filmed and proudly posted online by RSF fighters, showing them taunting crowds of terrified people before shooting them at close range. Most prominent in the videos is RSF Brigadier General Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, nicknamed Abu Lulu, who boasted on Monday that he may have killed more than 2,000 people.

An aid worker helping fleeing civilians, speaking on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said his organization had heard multiple accounts that men and teenage boys were being separated from their families and beaten, tortured or killed. “Numerous reports emerged of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians in El Fashir being targeted and killed on ethnic grounds,” the aid worker said. The U.N. Human Rights Office said Monday it was “receiving multiple, alarming reports” that RSF forces were “carrying out atrocities, including summary executions.”

Hurricane Melissa will make landfall in southern Jamaica less than 24 hours from now, and it is likely to be the most catastrophic storm in the Caribbean island’s history.

As it crawled across the northern Caribbean Sea on Monday morning, Melissa officially became a Category 5 hurricane with 160 mph winds, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane will likely fluctuate in intensity over the next day or so, perhaps undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle. But the background conditions, including very warm Caribbean waters and low wind shear, will support a very powerful hurricane and the potential for further strengthening.

I don't have a lot of insight into Irish politics, but I wanted to share this as a reminder of how adults act regarding elections.

The leftwing independent candidate, Catherine Connolly, has won a landslide victory in Ireland’s presidential election.

Her rival, Heather Humphreys, conceded defeat on Saturday afternoon after early vote tallies showed an insurmountable gap between the candidates.

“Catherine will be a president for all of us and she will be my president and I really would like to wish her all the very, very best,” Humphreys said.

What nonsense is this? Conceding a loss and pledging support for the winner?

But wait, there's more sanity here (emphasis mine):

She was a marginal political figure when she declared her candidacy in July, and only small parties – the Social Democrats and People Before Profit – backed her. Labour then endorsed her, and Sinn Féin, which had decided to not run its own candidate, threw its formidable resources and electoral organisation behind Connolly.

Imagine ... a campaign that only lasts three months and then people go back to their lives.

Today on Lifestyles of the Rich and Pedo ...

It is one of the mysteries of the modern monarchy – and one that is under more scrutiny than ever before.

How on earth does Prince Andrew fund his lifestyle?

This is a man who has lived a life of luxury for decades, been an outcast for years because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, yet has no visible means of financial support.

Even King Charles is said to be unsure about some of the sources of his brother’s income, particularly how he finds the significant sums of money needed to afford the upkeep of his home, the 30-room Royal Lodge.

The disgraced prince has been able to keep his financial affairs from the public for years through a mixture of the traditional secrecy which envelops the Windsors and the confidentiality of his dealings with wealthy, mainly foreign, people.

Left unanswered: Why would anyone intentionally swallow one magnet, let alone 100? This is like blaming Temu for someone drinking gasoline.

A 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed up to 100 high-power magnets he bought online, forcing surgeons to remove tissue from his intestines, doctors said on Friday.

After suffering four days of abdominal pain, the unnamed teenager was taken to Tauranga hospital in the North Island. “He disclosed ingesting approximately 80 to 100 5x2mm high-power (neodymium) magnets about one week prior,” said a report by hospital doctors in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on the online shopping platform Temu, they said.

An X-ray showed the magnets had clumped together in four straight lines inside the child’s intestines. “These appeared to be in separate parts of bowel adhered together due to magnetic forces,” they said.

@news Trump Says He Will Not Seek Authorization for Cartel Strikes

“I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Mr. Trump told reporters of his campaign of deadly strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea near Colombia and Venezuela. “I think we are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be like, dead.”

In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.

themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/22/…

japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/10/…

themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/22/…