📌 Plastic Talks, Cables Cut In Baltic, More

Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global plastic pollution crisis inched closer to an agreement today.

More countries say they want to address the total plastic on Earth. The most contentious issue is whether there will be a limit on how much plastic companies can produce.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, global plastics production is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, up 70% from 2020, without policy changes.

Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation, proposed a global target at a later conference. Support for Panama’s proposal quickly grew to over 100 countries.

Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia, vigorously oppose including plastic production in the treaty, calling it a red line. Russia’s delegation has said that if the world is serious about this treaty, negotiators must concentrate on acceptable provisions for all delegations.

UN Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen said there’s still enough time to land an agreement “if we work hard.” The meeting ends late Sunday or early Monday.

Sweden has asked China to cooperate with its investigation into damage sustained by two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.

The two cables between Sweden and Lithuania and Germany and Finland were severed in Sweden's waters of the Baltic Sea early last week, leading to accusations of sabotage, specifically involving the Chinese-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3.

Sweden Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (pictured) said its authorities have formally asked China to cooperate with the probe and asked for the Chinese ship to return to Sweden's waters. Swedish telecom Telia Lietuva said the cable from Sweden to Lithuania was cut Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. local time.

In a joint statement on Nov. 18, the foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said they were "deeply concerned" about the severed cable connecting their countries. “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times," they said.

This is not the first time in recent years that infrastructure under the Baltic Sea has been damaged. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which connected Russia to Germany and transported natural gas, were blown up in an explosion in September 2022.

In October 2023, the Baltic connector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged. A Chinese cargo ship named Newnew Polar Bear was found responsible.

Amazon workers start a worldwide strike during one of the company’s biggest weekends, from today to Cyber Monday.

The “Make Amazon Pay” strike is organized by UNI Global Union and Progressive International. It seeks to hold the company accountable for what organizers describe as labor abuses, “environmental degradation and threats to democracy.”

According to the organizing union, thousands of demonstrators in more than 20 countries will participate. The campaign will unite over 80 trade unions and advocacy groups. Protests are planned for multiple cities. This year marks the fifth year that workers are looking to “Make Amazon Pay” through action, the group said.

In a statement to the outlet, Amazon defended its treatment of workers. “This group is being intentionally misleading and continues to promote a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said. “At Amazon, we provide great pay, great benefits, and great opportunities.”

The strike could lead to delays in customer holiday deliveries.

The US Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft.

Sources say the FTC is examining allegations the software giant is abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service to other platforms. The FTC is also looking at practices related to cybersecurity and AI products.

Competitors have criticized Microsoft's practices, which keep customers locked into its cloud offering, Azure. The FTC fielded such complaints last year as it examined the cloud computing market.

NetChoice, a lobbying group representing online companies including Amazon and Google, which compete with Microsoft in cloud computing, criticized Microsoft's licensing policies and its integration of AI tools into its Office and Outlook.

"Given that Microsoft is the world's largest software company, dominating in productivity and operating systems software, the scale and consequences of its licensing decisions are extraordinary," the group said.

In September, Google complained to the European Commission about Microsoft's practices, saying it made customers pay a 400% markup to keep running Windows Server on rival cloud computing operators and gave them later and more limited security updates.

Experts say artificial intelligence (AI) can help farmers and producers make food faster and more efficiently.

A US Department of Agriculture study shows that just 27% of farmers use emerging technologies like AI. However, investment in the industry is expected to grow from over $2 billion this year to over $5 billion in 2028.

As AI can process much data quickly, Mason Earles, an assistant professor at UC Davis and researcher at the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), said processing millions of images identifies damage due to weeds, disease or pests so farmers can have higher yields and better fruit and vegetables.

Ilias Tagkopoulos, a computer science professor at UC Davis and the director of AIFS, said: ”We see more data being generated, more tools becoming available, more accessible, much less expensive in terms of AI tools to be able to give recommendations on when to irrigate, when to farm, where to sell.”

But he said farmers need to collaborate more to share their data. “It's not about competition. It's about everybody winning,” Tagkopoulos said.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the killing of West African soldiers by the French Army in 1944 "a massacre."

Between 35 and 400 West African soldiers who fought for the French Army in the Battle of France in 1940 were killed on Dec. 1, 1944 by French soldiers after what the French described as a mutiny over unpaid wages.

The West Africans were members of Tirailleurs Senegalais, a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. There were disputes over unpaid wages in the days before the massacre, but on Dec. 1, French troops rounded up the West African soldiers, mostly unarmed, and shot and killed them.

In a letter addressed to the Senegalese authorities, Macron wrote: “France must recognize that on that day, the confrontation between soldiers and riflemen who demanded their full legitimate wages be paid triggered a chain of events that resulted in a massacre.”

Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said Macron's step should “open the door” so that the "whole truth about this painful event of Thiaroye” — a fishing village on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, where the killings took place —can finally come out.

France still has around 350 troops in its former colony. Faye said: “Historically, France enslaved, colonized and stayed here … when you reverse the roles a little, you will have a hard time conceiving that another army, China, Russia, Senegal, or any other country could have a military base in France.”

Over $1 million of gold coins stolen by salvagers from a three-century-old shipwreck off Florida’s coast have been recovered.

Authorities say that in 2015, 101 gold coins were salvaged from the 1715 Fleet, a collection of Spanish treasure-laden ships that sank during a hurricane off Florida’s central coast. While 51 coins were “reported correctly and adjudicated,” 50 were not disclosed and were subsequently stolen.

Investigations revealed the illegal sale of the coins in 2023 and 2024. Using search warrants, authorities recovered the coins from private residences, safe deposit boxes and auctions.

The agency identified a suspect — a family member of the team contracted to salvage the shipwreck a decade ago — but it is unclear if they have officially been charged yet.

As state and federal law require, the recovered artifacts will be returned to their “rightful custodians.” Additional information on the “rightful custodian” of the coins was not immediately available.

Over the years, millions of dollars in gold coins from the 1715 Fleet — in a coastal area stretching from Melbourne to Fort Pierce, known as Florida’s Treasure Coast — have been found by salvagers and treasure hunters.