- 'Taiwan also has baseball': jubilant fans celebrate historic win
- Russia pummels Ukraine with 'record' drone barrage
- Paul Pogba blackmail trial set to open in Paris
- China's Huawei unveils 'milestone' smartphone with homegrown OS
- Landmine victims gather to protest US decision to supply Ukraine
- Indian rival royal factions clash outside palace
- Equity markets retreat, dollar gains as Trump fires tariff warning
- Manga adaptation 'Drops of God' nets International Emmy Award
- China's Huawei launches 'milestone' smartphone with homegrown OS
- Philippine VP denies assassination plot against Marcos
- Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
- Hong Kong's legal battles over LGBTQ rights: key dates
- US lawmakers warn Hong Kong becoming financial crime hub
- Compressed natural gas vehicles gain slow momentum in Nigeria
- As Arctic climate warms, even Santa runs short of snow
- Plastic pollution talks: the key sticking points
- Indonesia rejects Apple's $100 million investment offer
- Pakistan police fire tear gas, rubber bullets at ex-PM Khan supporters
- Ronaldo double takes Al Nassr to brink of AFC Champions League last 16
- Pakistan police fire tear gas, rubber bullets at pro-Khan supporters
- Hong Kong same-sex couples win housing, inheritance rights
- Indonesia digs out as flooding, landslide death toll hits 20
- Liverpool's old guard thriving despite uncertain futures
- Mbappe takes reins for Real Madrid in Liverpool clash
- As AI gets real, slow and steady wins the race
- China's Huawei to launch 'milestone' smartphone with homegrown OS
- Porzingis and Morant make triumphant NBA returns
- Hong Kong top court affirms housing, inheritance rights for same-sex couples
- Philippines, China clashes trigger money-making disinformation
- Most Asian markets drop, dollar gains as Trump fires tariff warning
- England 'not quivering' ahead of New Zealand Test challenge
- Bethell to bat at three on England Test debut against New Zealand
- Trump vows big tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China
- New Zealand and England to play for Crowe-Thorpe Trophy
- Scheffler, Schauffele and McIlroy up for PGA Player of the Year
- Trump to face less internal pushback in new term: ex-commerce chief
- Extreme weather threatens Canada's hydropower future
- More than 34,000 register as candidates for Mexico judges' election
- Australia ban cycling's Richardson for life after UK defection
- Internal displacement in Africa triples in 15 years: monitor
- 'Remarkable global progress': HIV cases and deaths declining
- Social media firms raise 'serious concerns' over Australian U-16 ban
- Tiger to skip Hero World Challenge after back surgery
- MLB shifts six 2025 Rays games to avoid weather issues
- US women's keeper Naeher retiring after Europe matches
- Dow ends at fresh record as oil prices pull back on ceasefire hopes
- West Ham stun Newcastle to ease pressure on Lopetegui
- Menendez brothers' bid for freedom delayed until January
- Arteta calls on Arsenal to show 'ruthless' streak on Champions League travels
- Israel bids emotional farewell to rabbi killed in UAE
Israel's war budget leaves top scientists in limbo
Israeli scientist Ellen Graber has spent years researching ways to save chocolate crops from climate change. But with the government slashing spending to fund the war in Gaza, her project is one of hundreds now hanging in the balance.
Graber's research had already been hit by the war -- she had to abandon her cacao plants when the area where they were grown was evacuated after the October 7 Hamas attack.
They survived weeks of drought-like conditions in a greenhouse.
But the state-funded Volcani Institute where she works is now facing huge budget cuts.
The institute specialises in arid and desert environments, increasingly vital areas of study for a planet wracked by extreme weather caused by climate change.
Now the government's war budget means hundreds of the institute's projects are under threat.
- 'Functionally stagnant' -
Israeli politicians approved sweeping cuts to ministry budgets earlier this month to pay for an 82 percent rise in defence spending and some key demands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition allies.
They included controversial measures to boost financing of ultra-Orthodox education programmes and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The ministry of agriculture was one of the hardest hit, facing a 12 percent cut.
The Volcani Institute is set to lose a fifth of its state money, which it says will effectively bring its research to a halt.
The warning comes days after Israel's state auditor criticised the government's "functionally stagnant" handling of the climate crisis.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the budget "the most sectarian, disconnected and reckless" in the country's history.
And economist Itai Ater, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, said the budget "will certainly harm... education, health, welfare and infrastructure".
- 'Whole thing will dry up' -
Volcani's acting director Shmuel Assouline warned lawmakers its revised budget would only cover basic running costs.
He said halting its research could mean a loss of around 100 million shekels ($27 million) in its partnerships with other institutions and corporate partners.
"If we lose our good name, private companies won't come to invest," he added.
Graber, a soil scientist, started growing tropical cacao plants four years ago to devise ways "to increase yields, to increase quality, to deal with pests and pathogens and diseases" plaguing the cacao industry globally.
"I can't buy important chemicals, the equipment that I need, the materials I need to work and to continue this study," Graber said.
"Within one year, this whole thing will dry up."
Volcani's sprawling campus in central Israel has the atmosphere of a kibbutz crossed with a top-secret research facility.
Cows low in barns metres from laboratories where researchers are trying to isolate fungus-killing bacterial strains they hope will replace chemical pesticides.
Its researchers are at the forefront of climate change solutions for agriculture.
They collaborate with universities, governments and private companies around the globe on subjects as diverse as meteorology and water-use to gene-editing and environmental microbiology.
Eddie Cytryn, director of Volcani's Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, said the cuts would have "tremendous impacts" on field research and international collaboration -- and the grants that fund them.
- Cell growth research stunted -
Scientists Hinanit Koltai and Guy Mechrez head a team studying a novel method to accelerate and control cell growth in cows.
Their research, carried out in partnership with an Israeli firm called Nanomeat, aims to overcome a major hurdle for the lab-grown meat industry.
But Koltai echoed Graber and Assouline in saying her team was no longer able to buy materials for their research and warning they could lose their corporate partners.
"Nanomeat will go to somebody else no doubt," she said.
Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter told Kan public radio that he had "a serious disagreement with the finance ministry" over funds for the Volcani Institute.
He said Netanyahu "promised to intervene" but for the time being the scientists are left in limbo.
M.Furrer--BTB