At least 282 confirmed cases of Ebola have now been reported in Congo’s ongoing outbreak as authorities in Brazil said they were looking into two suspected cases.
The two patients who recently arrived in Brazil from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak is ongoing, exhibited symptoms such as fever and chills.
The first patient is a Belgian traveller who came from Uganda to Rio de Janeiro. The Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases, of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), administered initial testing, which came back positive only for malaria. The patient remains isolated and the people who had contact with him are being monitored, according to health officials.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet shake hands following the signing of a Cambodia-Thailand peace deal at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Cambodia began a UN dispute resolution process with Thailand.
The dispute centres on overlapping maritime claims in the Gulf of Thailand.
Thailand cancelled an agreement on overlapping maritime claims and energy exploration.
An Israeli flag is seen flying over the historic Beaufort Castle (Shaqif Arnun) as Israeli forces occupied the strategic hilltop site of Beaufort Castle (Shaqif Arnun), despite an existing ceasefire at the north of Litani River in Nabatieh, Lebanon.
Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images
Israeli troops pushed further into Lebanon despite a ceasefire.
France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
More than 3 370 Lebanese and 28 Israelis have been killed.
The Trump administration was blocked by a federal appeals court from banning almost 30 transgender-identifying individuals from being able to serve in the United States military.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that 28 transgender individuals — who had filed a lawsuit when the Trump administration barred transgender individuals from serving in the military — are allowed to “continue serving while the case proceeds,” the New York Timesreported.
While the court’s ruling “applies only to 28 plaintiffs,” the plaintiffs have called for the court “to extend the protection to all transgender troops,” according to the outlet.
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The Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Company said Tuesday that all crew members from its container ship MSC Sariska V were safe and unharmed after the vessel was struck by projectiles off Iraq’s Persian Gulf coast the previous day. The company refuted claims of links to Israel or the U.S.
Video circulating Monday on social media showed damage to the MSC Sariska V’s starboard side after pro-Iran social media accounts and Iraqi media said the ship suffered an explosion off the coast of Umm Qasr, Iraq.
The British Navy’s Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said a vessel was hit by an unknown projectile in the same area, but it didn’t identify the ship.
Thousands of households across the UK could suddenly find they lose access to premium television channels, including popular content from Sky. The huge block follows a major crackdown on illegal streaming with Police confirming that they have shut down a large illicit data centre.
It’s thought this platform was supplying thousands of users with unauthorised access to premium sports broadcasts, blockbuster movies, and subscription-based television channels. The operation has now caused widespread disruption to pirate streaming networks across the country, leaving many unable to access the services they were enjoying without paying for official subscriptions from Sky.
For some, the achievement was exciting. But researchers also worry that AI technology, if left unchecked, will change their field for the worse. To address those fears, a group of mathematicians, computer scientists, and math historians have released guidelines to prevent AI from steamrolling their discipline.
Among their most important prescriptions: disclose the use of AI in research, ensure all papers are peer-reviewed and level the playing field between academia and for-profit companies through, for instance, legal resources and public funding.
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Esmaeil Qaani said on Monday that Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza will lead the Resistance Axis, Iran and its allies, to establish a similar traffic situation both in Bab El Mandeb and Hormuz strait, according to state media.
“The evil of the Zionists (Israel) in Lebanon and Gaza, in the shadow of the shameless support of America, will mark the determination of the resistance axis to expand support from both fronts, take steps to activate other fronts, and equate the traffic situation of the Bab El Mandeb Strait with the Strait of Hormuz”, Qaani said.
Middle East crisis live: Conflict continues in Lebanon despite Trump hailing Israeli-Hezbollah de-escalation | Lebanon– www.theguardian.com News Source EXCERPT:
Summary: Conflict in Lebanon continues despite Trump hailing Israeli-Hezbollah de-escalation
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Donald Trump has hailed an agreement to de-escalate the fighting in Lebanon, which has killed thousands of people and inflamed tensions in the broader US-Israeli war with Iran.
Trump said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had pledged not to attack Israel, while Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to pull back any troops preparing to attack Beirut.
“Let’s see how long that lasts – Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
According to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the agreement would not end the conflict in that country. But it calls for Israel to refrain from strikes on Beirut and its suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, while the Iran-aligned group would halt its attacks on Israel.
Traffic on a Beirut highway on Monday as residents flee after an Israeli threat to strike the southern suburbs. Photograph: Bilal Hussein/AP
Despite the agreement, hostilities in southern Lebanon – which Israel invaded in March – appeared to continue. This morning, the Israeli military said that it intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, and that no injuries were reported.
After Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, where ground forces are pushing toward the Zahrani River, their deepest incursion in Lebanon in 25 years. His statement made no mention of a new ceasefire.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the group would support a full ceasefire across all Lebanon as a precursor to the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He did not say whether the group would stop its strikes on Israeli territory.
Lebanon said it would seek to expand the ceasefire in talks with Israel in Washington tomorrow. That could clear the path for renewed efforts to end the three-month-old war that began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran. The process has been stuck in limbo for weeks under a fragile ceasefire as negotiators have been unable to agree on an initial framework for peace talks.
In other developments:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) threatened to open “new fronts” and keep the strait of Hormuz closed over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, state media reported. “Iran considers crossing the red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war,” state TV quoted the IRGC’ intelligence organisation as saying.
The ceasefire already in place between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon, Iran’s top diplomat said yesterday after Netanyahu ordered attacks on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. “Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio will face questions at Congress today for the first time since the Iran war began. He will testify before House and Senate committees on the state department’s 2027 budget request, where he is expected to face questions about Trump’s war efforts and shifting diplomatic goals.
Oil prices jumped and equities slid as Middle East peace talks stumbled and tensions mounted between Iran and the US. Crude futures shot more than 5% higher yesterday as an Iranian news agency announced Tehran had suspended the negotiations with the US via mediators, AFP reported.
US forces intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait late on Sunday, the US military said yesterday. No American personnel were harmed, it added.
Key events
Israel’s weapons exports has reached an all-time high for a fifth year running, according to the country’s defence ministry.
In a statement, it said: “Israel’s all-time defence export record has been broken for the fifth consecutive year, with $19.2bn in 2025 – a nearly 30% surge compared to the previous year, more than doubling in five years and quadrupling in a decade.”
Israeli defence minister says US backs striking Beirut suburbs if Hezbollah attacks northern Israel
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the US has backed plans to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs if Hezbollah attacks northern Israel.
The remarks came after Israel appeared to pull back from immediate threats of attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, following an intervention by US president Donald Trump.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits soldiers along Israel’s northern border on Saturday, accompanied by Israeli defence minister Israel Katz. Photograph: Israeli Prime Minister Office/APAImages/Shutterstock
Prime minister Netanyahu and I, together with the IDF, led a move aimed at establishing a new equation: Beirut’s Dahiyeh district will be treated the same as Israel’s northern communities. If Israeli towns continue to come under attack, we will evacuate and strike Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, Hezbollah’s main stronghold.
He added:
The United States endorsed this principle and conveyed it to the Lebanese government and all relevant parties. The test of this policy will become clear in the coming days: either the attacks on Israeli communities stop, or if they continue and we strike Dahiyeh, the equation will have been enforced.
Katz also acknowledged that the IDF has issued warnings for people to flee their homes, saying it has led to “the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents – 600,000 out of 950,000 by last night”.
Here are the latest images from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where the Jabal Amel hospital sustained severe damage from yesterday’s bombing on nearby buildings.
A medical worker looks at the damage in Jabal Amel hospital a day after an Israeli airstrike that targeted buildings in front of the hospital in Tyre, Lebanon. Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPAA destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the hospital. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/APAn ambulance near a car park outside the hospital. Photograph: Aziz Taher/ReutersA man looks through the shattered windows of the damaged hospital. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/AP
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has once again issued a warning telling people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh to flee their homes and move north ahead of strikes.
It is the third such warning in a week for one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, home to tens of thousands of people, which has seen continued Israeli strikes in recent weeks despite a ceasefire.
Smoke billows from southern Lebanon, following Israeli strikes on Sunday, as seen from Nabatieh. Photograph: Reuters
Patrick Wintour
The UK government has let the Palestinian people down and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said.
She accused her own government of lacking ambition and wringing its hands on the Palestinian crisis, and she also chastised Donald Trump for declaring a ceasefire in Gaza and then walking away, leaving Gazans to live in rubble.
Thornberry has never been this critical of the government’s Middle East policy before and her remarks may find resonance in a potential Labour leadership contest that has so far included little mention of foreign policy.
She said the significant decision taken more than eight months ago to recognise Palestine as a state should have been only the first step of many but nothing further had been done since to help bring about a two-state solution.
Read more:
Netanyahu: ‘Iran has paid a very heavy price and is destined to fall’
In a message to David Barnea, the outgoing director of the Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency), Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran has paid a “very heavy” price and is “destined to fall”.
He wrote on X:
Yesterday we bid farewell to the outgoing head of the Mossad, Dedi Barnea.
The price Iran has already paid is a very heavy one. The foundations of this regime of terror in Iran have been shaken. It will never be what it once was, and I tell you – it is destined to fall.
On my own behalf, and on behalf of the entire nation, I have come to say to Dedi – thank you. Thank you for 30 years of dedicated service to the Mossad, and a special thank you for the last few years, which have yielded outstanding successes and achievements for the benefit of Israel’s security.
The Lebanese armed forces said two soldiers were injured “as a result of being targeted by a hostile Israeli drone” on a road between the towns of Habbouch and Deir ez-Zahrani in southern Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) has reported at least eight deaths this morning from Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon.
That is despite Donald Trump announcing an agreement to halt attacks that neither Israel or Hezbollah have publicly accepted.
Israeli attacks were reported in the southern Lebanese towns of Jibchit, Toul and Kfar Sir just north of the Litani River, according to NNA. Other areas in the Nabatieh region were also targeted, NNA reported.
An Israeli airstrike on Tyre yesterday killed at least four people and severely damaged the city’s Jabal Amel hospital, according to NNA.
People gather at the site of an Israeli strike that hit near a hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Monday. Photograph: Kawnat Haju/AFP/Getty Images
The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has condemned Israel’s occupation of parts of Lebanon after Israeli troops seized the Beaufort, a Crusades-era castle south of the country.
An Israeli flag and a Golani Brigade flag fluttering atop the medieval Beaufort Castle in Arnoun, Lebanon. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
“Nothing can justify the continuation of military operations and Israel’s prolonged occupation deep inside Lebanese territory,” he told France TV.
“That is why we have, of course, called for a ceasefire: that Hezbollah cease attacking Israel, that Israel cease attacking Lebanon, and that this dialogue, which has begun for the first time in so long between the Israeli and Lebanese governments, can continue.”
A fourth round of US-hosted direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon is scheduled to begin today.
Summary: Conflict in Lebanon continues despite Trump hailing Israeli-Hezbollah de-escalation
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Donald Trump has hailed an agreement to de-escalate the fighting in Lebanon, which has killed thousands of people and inflamed tensions in the broader US-Israeli war with Iran.
Trump said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had pledged not to attack Israel, while Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to pull back any troops preparing to attack Beirut.
“Let’s see how long that lasts – Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
According to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the agreement would not end the conflict in that country. But it calls for Israel to refrain from strikes on Beirut and its suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, while the Iran-aligned group would halt its attacks on Israel.
Traffic on a Beirut highway on Monday as residents flee after an Israeli threat to strike the southern suburbs. Photograph: Bilal Hussein/AP
Despite the agreement, hostilities in southern Lebanon – which Israel invaded in March – appeared to continue. This morning, the Israeli military said that it intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, and that no injuries were reported.
After Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, where ground forces are pushing toward the Zahrani River, their deepest incursion in Lebanon in 25 years. His statement made no mention of a new ceasefire.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the group would support a full ceasefire across all Lebanon as a precursor to the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He did not say whether the group would stop its strikes on Israeli territory.
Lebanon said it would seek to expand the ceasefire in talks with Israel in Washington tomorrow. That could clear the path for renewed efforts to end the three-month-old war that began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran. The process has been stuck in limbo for weeks under a fragile ceasefire as negotiators have been unable to agree on an initial framework for peace talks.
In other developments:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) threatened to open “new fronts” and keep the strait of Hormuz closed over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, state media reported. “Iran considers crossing the red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war,” state TV quoted the IRGC’ intelligence organisation as saying.
The ceasefire already in place between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon, Iran’s top diplomat said yesterday after Netanyahu ordered attacks on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. “Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio will face questions at Congress today for the first time since the Iran war began. He will testify before House and Senate committees on the state department’s 2027 budget request, where he is expected to face questions about Trump’s war efforts and shifting diplomatic goals.
Oil prices jumped and equities slid as Middle East peace talks stumbled and tensions mounted between Iran and the US. Crude futures shot more than 5% higher yesterday as an Iranian news agency announced Tehran had suspended the negotiations with the US via mediators, AFP reported.
US forces intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait late on Sunday, the US military said yesterday. No American personnel were harmed, it added.
The British police arrived on a bloody scene in Hampshire, England. An Englishman, Henry Nowak, aged 18, had been stabbed by a Sikh man. The man accused Henry of being racist, so the police arrested the young man, not the Sikh who stabbed him.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which has affiliations with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that a potential memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Iran and the United States has not been finalized.
According to Tasnim, Iran has not notified the Pakistani mediator involved in the talks that any agreement text has been completed. The agency indicated that Iranian officials would inform both the mediator and the public once an MOU is ready.
This statement came in response to earlier reports on the same day from outlets such as Reuters and Axios, which described negotiators as having reached a draft MOU. Reuters reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a memorandum of understanding concerning a 60-day extension of the existing ceasefire and the initiation of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
A Russian drone struck an apartment building in NATO-member Romania, its defence ministry said on Friday, wounding two people in a city near the Ukrainian border.
“During the night of May 28–29, the Russian Federation resumed drone attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, near the river border with Romania,” the Romanian defence ministry said, condemning an “irresponsible escalation”.
“One of these drones entered Romanian airspace, was tracked by radar as far as the southern part of the city of Galati, and crashed onto the roof of an apartment building, with the impact triggering a fire,” it said.
On April 15, technology podcaster Dwarkesh Patel published a two-hour interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. For roughly forty minutes, Patel asked one question six different ways. The question was this: If American-made compute trains AI models with the serious cyber-offensive capabilities Anthropic’s Mythos Preview demonstrated — and that compute is sold to a strategic adversary — what responsibility does the seller bear?
Huang’s answers hovered a safe distance away from the question. AI is a “five-layer cake,” he told Patel, and ceding any layer to China would be industrial suicide. The Chinese, he argued, already have enough compute to do whatever they intend to do, so marginal sales do not change the strategic balance. By the end, Patel was visibly worn down. Huang accused him of arguing from extremes and of thinking in absolutes.
The United States and Iran reached an agreement on Thursday to extend their ceasefire and lift restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sources told Reuters, though U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to approve it and Iranian state media said it had not been finalized.
According to four sources familiar with the matter, the agreement would extend the truce for another 60 days and allow traffic to flow through the strategic waterway while negotiators tackle difficult issues such as Iran’s nuclear program.
If approved by leadership in Washington and Tehran, it would amount to the biggest step towards peace since the conflict began on February 28. News of the possible agreement came after a round of tit-for-tat attacks between the two countries, the latest such incident since the ceasefire took effect in early April.
Trump has not yet approved the deal, the sources said. The White House declined to comment, and Iran has yet to comment on news of the proposed deal, which was first reported by Axios.
Iran has claimed that it has deployed a new air defence system to take down a United States MQ-9 Reaper drone near the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week. Iran’s state-sponsored media said the American drone– that costs between $16 million and $30 million per unit– was brought down near Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz using a locally developed system called Arash-e-Kamangir.
If the claim is correct, the interception marked the first combat use of the defence system named after the legendary Iranian character Arash-the-Archer. It would mean Tehran has retained its military capacity to repel US and Israeli attacks despite months of war in the Middle East.
Iranian media claimed the drone was brought down over regional waters during an operation to protect the country’s airspace and maritime borders. “This operation, which was carried out using a system with hidden capabilities, is a clear and decisive message from Iran,” Iran’s Fars news agency quoted unnamed officials as saying.
However, so far, no independent source has corroborated the Iranian claim of a new interception system.
The US will continue to ramp up economic pressure on the island, sources have told the outlet
US President Donald Trump is set to escalate Washington’s economic pressure campaign on Cuba in an attempt to force regime change, Axios reported on Friday, citing sources. The island is already enduring near-total fuel starvation and daily blackouts stretching up to 20 hours.
The US has thus far opted for a phased campaign designed to choke Havana, but which avoids a direct military invasion, several unnamed officials told the outlet.
“The best way to describe it is ‘accelerationism,’” one senior official said, referring to the philosophy of hastening societal collapse. “But we don’t want to kill off the regime just yet. There’s a method to this. It’s in stages.”
On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight,” Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter said that Iran has “1,700 centrifuges” capable of producing enriched material imminently, and those “have to be dismantled as well or at least completely taken out of the ability to be reconstituted.”
Leiter said, “[T]he best case scenario would be that they actually open it up as a result of any deal and turn it over, by inspectors that would come in, experts that would come in and assess that all of it has been removed. But it’s important to point out, they have 1,700 centrifuges that can produce nuclear weapons tomorrow — enriched material, I should say, tomorrow. So those have to be dismantled as well or at least completely taken out of the ability to be reconstituted.”
Earlier, he said that “we’re very confident, at the end of the day
SAN FRANCISCO: Artificial intelligence company Anthropic said Thursday (May 28) it had raised US$65 billion in a new funding round that values the Claude maker at US$965 billion, more than its archrival OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
The latest fundraising round confirms Anthropic’s place as one of the most significant players in AI, with the startup led by Dario Amodei having drawn fans for its coding powers and state-of-the-art models.
Anthropic’s rise came by doubling down on delivering generative AI to enterprise clients rather than general users, the path initially chosen by archrival OpenAI.
President Donald Trump will meet with his Cabinet on Wednesday after Iran’s Mizan news agency reported the framework of a deal is in place.
As he prepares to talk with his top aides, Trump has been projecting confidence that he’s closing in on a deal that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide him a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that’s been politically unpopular for Republicans.
Details over a nuclear agreement though remain unclear.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has said mass white-collar layoffs have not materialized, while Anthropic has warned of major disruption
The heads of two leading artificial intelligence companies have offered sharply different forecasts on whether the technology will trigger mass job losses. The split comes as as Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech giants continue large-scale layoffs tied to AI restructuring.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday that AI is unlikely to trigger a global “jobs apocalypse,” admitting that he had been wrong about how quickly the technology would eliminate white-collar jobs.
“I’m delighted to be wrong about this, I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened,” Altman told Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn.
Google’s AI boss, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind is in a real mood to make science-fiction come alive, and he’s in a hurry to do it. After dropping a bombshell last week about AGI or Artificial General Intelligence (a type of AI that matches or surpasses human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks), the Google AI boss is now on record saying that this feat is just 3-4 years away. So by 2029-2030 humanity may find itself at even stranger crossroads than now as it grapples with automation and serious job loss fears.
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone that was part of an overnight attack on Ukraine crashed into an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people, Romanian authorities said Friday.
In response to the crash, NATO member Romania asked the alliance for a faster transfer of anti-drone capabilities, the Foreign Ministry said, calling the drone’s flight a serious violation of international law.
Ukrainian forces shot down 217 drones overnight on Friday according to the country’s air force. In total, Russia attacked with 232 drones and one ballistic missile. Hits were recorded in 14 areas, the air force said.
The drone was tracked by radar in Romanian airspace and crashed onto the roof of a
The rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk has officially reached the Moon. NASA announced on Tuesday that it had selected Bezos’s Blue Origin to carry out the first in a planned series of three uncrewed lunar missions aimed at preparing for a future Moon base, handing the company a contract worth about $230M. The mission, expected no earlier than fall 2026, will use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon cargo lander to transport scientific payloads and test technologies near the Moon’s south pole. While SpaceX remains deeply involved in NASA’s Artemis programme, the decision marks a symbolic win for Bezos in the increasingly intense billionaire battle shaping the future of space exploration.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin takes centre stage in NASA’s Moon base ambitions
For years, NASA’s idea of building a long-term human presence on the Moon existed mostly as an ambition tied to the Artemis programme. Tuesday’s announcement showed the agency is now moving into the practical phase.NASA administrator and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman said the first three uncrewed missions will help test landers, rovers, cargo systems and survival technologies needed to support astronauts on the lunar surface in the future. More than a dozen additional missions are expected later as the agency works towards creating an operational Moon base sometime in the next decade.The first mission will target the Shackleton de Gerlache Ridge region near the lunar south pole, an area scientists believe may contain water ice. NASA sees the region as critical because future explorers could potentially use the ice for drinking water, oxygen production and rocket fuel.
