Israel said it expelled 171 activists on Monday including Thunberg, bringing the total deported over so far to 341, out of 479 people it detained

International News via Reuters:

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg arrived in Greece to a cheering pro-Palestinian crowd on Monday after she and hundreds of other activists captured by Israel on the high seas were deported following an attempt to bring aid to Gaza.

Israel said it expelled 171 activists on Monday including Thunberg, bringing the total deported over so far to 341, out of 479 people it detained when it captured the flotilla attempting to break its naval blockade of Gaza.

The Greek Foreign Ministry said 161 of the activists arrived on a flight to Athens on Monday, including Thunberg, 22. They included 27 Greeks, as well as citizens of nearly 20 other countries.

“Let me be very clear. There is a genocide going on,” Thunberg told the crowd at the Athens airport referring to Israeli military action in Gaza.

“Our international systems are betraying Palestinians. They are not even able to prevent the worst war crimes from happening,” she said. “What we aimed to do with the Global Sumud Flotilla was to step up when our governments failed to do their legal obligation.”

The activists attempted to reach Gaza in scores of vessels to bring aid supplies and draw attention to the plight of Gaza, where most of the 2.2 million residents have been driven from their homes and the United Nations says hunger is rampant.

Israel, which rejects accusations it is carrying out genocide in Gaza and says reports of hunger there are exaggerated, has dismissed the flotilla as a publicity stunt benefitting Hamas. It had previously detained Thunberg at sea in a similar attempt to breach the blockade in June.

Earlier, Swiss and Spanish activists from the flotilla said they were subjected to inhumane conditions during their detention by Israeli forces.

Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement, accompanied by photos of Thunberg at the airport, saying all participants’ legal rights had been upheld and the only violence involved an activist who bit a female medic at Israel’s Ketziot prison.

DEPORTED ACTIVISTS ALLEGE MISTREATMENT

Among nine members of the flotilla who arrived home in Switzerland, some alleged sleep deprivation, lack of water and food, as well as some being beaten, kicked, and locked in a cage, the group representing them said in a statement.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson rejected the allegations.

Spanish activists also alleged mistreatment on their arrival in Spain late on Sunday after being deported.

“They beat us, dragged us along the ground, blindfolded us, tied our hands and feet, put us in cages and insulted us,” lawyer Rafael Borrego told reporters at Madrid’s airport.

Swedish activists said on Saturday that Thunberg was shoved and forced to wear an Israeli flag during her detention, while others said they had clean food and water withheld and had their medication and belongings confiscated.

After she arrived in Athens, Thunberg said she could “talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment, trust me, but that is not the story”.

“What happened here was that Israel, while continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocidal intent, attempting to erase an entire population, an entire nation in front of our very eyes, they once again violated international law by preventing humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved.”

ISRAEL SAYS CLAIMS ARE COMPLETE LIES

Israel’s foreign ministry has described widespread reports of detainees being mistreated after the flotilla was intercepted as “complete lies”.

A spokesperson told Reuters over the weekend that all detainees were given access to water, food, and restrooms, adding: “they were not denied access to legal counsel and all their legal rights were fully upheld”.

On Sunday, the Swiss Embassy in Tel Aviv visited 10 Swiss nationals and said all were “in relatively good health, given the circumstances”. 

Former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, who was also on the flotilla, said there had been “mistreatment, but that was nothing compared to what the Palestinian people suffer every day”.

Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, David Latona, Alexander Cornwell and Howard GollerWriting by Charlie Devereux and Howard GollerEditing by Alexandra Hudson and Peter Graff

Leo, the first U.S. pope, will visit Turkey from November 27-30 before heading to Lebanon from November 30 to December 2

International News via Reuters:

Pope Leo will travel to Turkey and Lebanon in late November, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, in the first visit outside Italy by the new leader of the 1.4-billion-member global Catholic Church.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, will visit Turkey from November 27-30 before heading to Lebanon from November 30 to December 2, where he is expected to speak about the plight of Christians in the Middle East and to make appeals for peace across the region.

Leo was elected by the world’s Catholic cardinals on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, who had planned to visit both countries but was unable to go because of health issues.

The pope is expected to meet in Turkey with Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians, for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of a major early Church council, which took place in Nicaea, now called Iznik.

“It is profoundly symbolical that Pope Leo … will visit (the patriarch) on his first official journey,” Rev. John Chryssavgis, an advisor to Bartholomew, told Reuters.

“Pope Leo is doubtless seeking to express and affirm his identity as a Christian in a world of many different creeds, where all people, regardless of religion and race, are called to live together in mutual understanding,” said the priest.

Travelling abroad has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes seeking to meet local Catholics, spread the faith, and conduct international diplomacy.

A new pope’s first travels are usually seen as an indication of the issues the pontiff wants to highlight during his reign.

Leo had been expected for months to travel to Turkey for his first trip abroad, but the additional visit to Lebanon only emerged in discussions in recent weeks.

Vatican officials say the pontiff wants to make appeals for peace and commemorate at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

Reporting by Joshua McElwee, editing by Cristina Carlevaro and Alvise Armellini

Outdoor enthusiasts have flocked to China’s rugged interior since an eight-day holiday began on October 1, but a sudden blizzard over the weekend caught offguard hundreds of hikers

International News via Reuters:

Efforts to evacuate more than 200 trekkers still stranded near the eastern face of Mount Everest in Tibet are expected to wrap up on Tuesday, a source familiar with the situation said, after snowstorms tore across western China.

Outdoor enthusiasts have flocked to China’s rugged interior since an eight-day holiday began on October 1, but a sudden blizzard over the weekend caught offguard hundreds of hikers hoping to catch a glimpse of Everest’s Kangshung face.

Their evacuation, which began on Monday, should be completed by Tuesday, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of authorisation to speak to media on the matter. Tibet’s regional government had no immediate comment.

Snow fell through Saturday in Tibet’s remote Karma valley, at an average altitude of 4,200 m (13,800 feet). On Sunday, rescuers had guided about 350 stranded hikers to safety.

“Thankfully, some people ahead of us were breaking trail, leaving footprints we could follow – that made it a little easier,” said Eric Wen, 41, adding that he trudged through 19 km (12 miles), most of it heavy snow, to leave the valley.

“Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible for us to make it out on our own.”

Regional authorities helped Wen and others on his expedition reach the Tibetan capital of Lhasa by Monday.

First explored by Western travellers a century ago, the valley is relatively pristine. In contrast to the arid north face of the world’s highest mountain, it is swathed in lush vegetation and untouched alpine forests fed by glacier melt.

‘METRE OF SNOW’

The snowstorm also thwarted the plans of climbers guided by U.S.-based Madison Mountaineering to summit Cho Oyu, a 8,188-m (26,864-ft) peak on China’s border with Nepal that is the world’s sixth highest.

“A major storm suddenly developed and dumped over a metre of snow on Everest and the surrounding Himalayan peaks,” expedition leader Garrett Madison told Reuters in a text message on Tuesday.

When the weather improves, they aim to resume their ascent.

North of Tibet, one trekker died of hypothermia and acute mountain sickness after being stranded by snowstorms on Sunday in a gully in the Qilian Mountains on the border of the western provinces of Qinghai and Gansu.

By Monday evening, 213 in the Qilian area were pulled to safety, China Central Television (CCTV) said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, authorities further west in Xinjiang suspended hiking and camping in the lake district of Kanas in the Altai mountains. Police have so far convinced more than 300 hikers heading for the area to turn back.

On Tuesday, CCTV said highways had been cleared of dangerous ice and snow that had blanketed them over the weekend, stranding tourist vehicles.

Police patrolling the area on Sunday had encountered a group of 16 hikers, one of whom, showing symptoms of hypothermia and unable to move, was taken to hospital and is now in stable condition, the broadcaster added.

Reporting by Ryan Woo and Beijing Newsroom, Joyce Zhou in Hong Kong and Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu; Editing by Kate Mayberry and Clarence Fernandez

Shares of AMD surged more than 34% to touch a more than one-year high of $226.71 and added $80 billion to its market capitalization

International News via Reuters:

AMD said on Monday it will supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year deal that would bring in tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT creator the option to buy up to roughly 10% of the chipmaker.

Shares of AMD surged more than 34% to touch a more than one-year high of $226.71 and added $80 billion to its market capitalization.

The latest deal, among a string of investment commitments, is a testament to OpenAI and the broader AI industry’s voracious appetite for computing power as companies race toward developing AI technology that meets or exceeds human intelligence.

The deal offers OpenAI an opportunity to take a stake in one of Nvidia’s most formidable rivals and is a major vote of confidence in AMD’s AI chips and software.

“We view this deal as certainly transformative, not just for AMD, but for the dynamics of the industry,” AMD executive vice president Forrest Norrod told Reuters on Sunday.

The agreement covers the deployment of hundreds of thousands of AMD’s AI chips, or graphics processing units (GPUs), equivalent to six gigawatts, over several years beginning in the second half of 2026. This is roughly equivalent to the energy needs of 5 million U.S. households, or the electricity produced by the Hoover Dam thrice over.

AMD said OpenAI would build a one-gigawatt facility based on its forthcoming MI450 series of chips beginning next year, and that it would begin to recognize revenue then.

AMD executives expect the deal to net tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Because of the ripple effect of the agreement, AMD expects to receive more than $100 billion in new revenue over four years from OpenAI and other customers, they said.

“Other people are going to come along with it because this is really the pioneer, a pioneer in the industry that has a lot of influence over the broader ecosystem,” AMD strategy chief Mat Hein said.

The deal with AMD will help OpenAI build enough AI infrastructure to meet its needs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how OpenAI would fund the massive deal with AMD.

OpenAI has generated around $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025 and has burned through $2.5 billion in cash, according to media reports, as the startup splurges on attracting top talent, while investing heavily in developing new AI tools.

Analysts, on average, estimate AMD will generate revenue of $32.78 billion this year, according to LSEG data.

As part of the arrangement, AMD issued a warrant that gives OpenAI the ability to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD for 1 cent each over the course of the chips deal. The warrant vests in tranches based on milestones that the two companies have agreed on.

The first tranche will vest after the initial shipment of MI450 chips set for the second half of 2026. The remaining milestones include specific AMD stock price targets that escalate to $600 a share for the final installment of stock to unlock.

OpenAI has a valuation of $500 billion.

OPENAI WANTS MORE GPUs

OpenAI has worked with AMD for years, providing inputs on the design of older generations of AI chips such as the MI300X.

The San Francisco-based AI company has been taking a number of steps to ensure it has the chips needed for its future needs.

In September, Nvidia announced an investment of up to $100 billion in OpenAI that included a plan to supply at least 10 gigawatts worth of Nvidia systems. The plan includes OpenAI deploying a gigawatt of Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin chips in late 2026.

Altman has floated expectations of reaching 250 gigawatts of compute in total by 2033, The Information has reported.

In addition to using Nvidia hardware, cloud computing giants such as Alphabet’s Google and Amazon build their own in-house processors. Similarly, OpenAI is in the process of developing its own silicon for AI use and has partnered with Broadcom, Reuters reported last year.

Shares of Nvidia dipped more than 1%, while those of Broadcom were little changed.

OpenAI and its main backer Microsoft also announced last month that they had signed a non-binding agreement to restructure OpenAI into a for-profit entity, signaling further changes in the governance of the fast-growing AI company.

A person familiar with the matter said the deal with AMD does not change any of OpenAI’s ongoing compute plans, including that effort or its partnership with Microsoft.

Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Anil D’Silva

The institute said all three laureates brought to the fore so-called regulatory T cells, a class of white blood cells that act as the immune system’s security guards

International News via Reuters:

American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi from Japan won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for work shedding light on how the immune system spares healthy cells, creating openings for possible new autoimmune disease and cancer treatments.

Their discoveries relate to peripheral immune tolerance, or “how we keep our immune system under control so we can fight all imaginable microbes and still avoid autoimmune disease”, said Marie Wahren-Herlenius, a rheumatology professor at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, the awarding body.

The institute said all three laureates brought to the fore so-called regulatory T cells, a class of white blood cells that act as the immune system’s security guards that keep immune cells from attacking our own body.

RESEARCH INTO WHAT STOPS IMMUNE SYSTEM ATTACKING ITSELF

Brunkow, who found out she had won after being woken by her dog barking at a news photographer on the front porch of her Seattle home, said she, Ramsdell and their colleagues had isolated a gene called FOXP3 that could be used as a marker for the cells.

“They’re rare, but powerful, and they’re critical for sort of dampening an immune response,” she said in an interview, describing the cells as a braking system that prevents the body’s immune system from tipping over into attacking itself.

Sakaguchi expressed surprise at a press conference in Osaka, western Japan, because he felt any major recognition would have depended on more development advances.

“I used to think that some sort of reward may be forthcoming if what we have been doing will advance a little further and it will become more beneficial to people in clinical settings,” he said in a calm voice, cracking a smile now and then.

The press conference was interrupted for Sakaguchi to take a congratulatory phone call from Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who asked him how effective immunotherapy could be for cancer treatment in the future.

“I believe the time will come when cancer is no longer a scary disease, but a curable one,” said Sakaguchi.

The winners of the award are selected by the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute, a leading medical university, and receive a prize sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), as well as a gold medal presented by Sweden’s king.

Brunkow is senior programme manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, while Ramsdell is scientific adviser at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. Sakaguchi is a professor at Osaka University.

MORE THAN 200 TRIALS ON HUMANS IN PROGRESS

Jeffrey Bluestone, a decades-long friend of Ramsdell and a co-founder with him of Sonoma Biotherapeutics, told Reuters that his associate’s extraordinary contribution was finding the FOXP3 gene, initially in mice, that controlled the development of regulatory T cells. They described their findings in a paper in 2001.

“Those cells were the master regulators of the tolerance of the immune system,” said Bluestone.

Ramsdell could not be reached by Reuters – nor by Brunkow or Bluestone, with Bluestone saying he may be on a hiking trip in an area without cell phone reception.

After announcing the winners, the Karolinska Institute’s Thomas Perlmann said specific therapies had yet to win market clearance but more than 200 trials on humans involving regulatory T cells were ongoing.

Among companies in the early race, Ramsdell’s Sonoma Biotherapeutics is partly funded and supported by U.S. drugmaker Regeneron to work on therapies against diseases including inflammatory bowel disease.

Also targeting that condition, Quell Therapeutics has partnered with AstraZeneca. Other biotech firms exploring the approach include Bayer’s BlueRock.

MEDICINE THE FIRST PRIZE OF NOBEL SEASON

The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and a wealthy businessman.

They have been awarded since 1901 for outstanding contributions in science, literature, and peace. The economics prize was added later and is funded by Sweden’s central bank.

Winners are selected by expert committees from various institutions. All prizes are awarded in Stockholm, except for the Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo.

Past recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine include renowned scientists such as Alexander Fleming, who shared the 1945 award for discovering penicillin. In recent years, the prize has recognized major breakthroughs, including those that enabled the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

Last year’s medicine prize was awarded to U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its key role in how multicellular organisms grow and live. 

Medicine in accordance with tradition kicks off the annual Nobels. The physics award is next, on Tuesday.

The awards culminate in ceremonies attended by the royal families of Sweden and Norway, followed by lavish banquets held on December 10 – the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.   

($1 = 9.3898 Swedish crowns)

Reporting by Niklas Pollard, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Jonathan Allen in New York, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo and Marie Mannes and Greta Fondahn in Stockholm; Writing by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; editing by Alex Richardson