The announcement of the withdrawal of thousands of US troops from Germany underlines the urgency of a pan-European defence strategy
As Donald Trump’s second term has become overshadowed by plunging poll ratings and an illegal, ill-advised war in the Middle East, European governments have regularly been singled out to bear the brunt of the US president’s growing frustration. Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to militarily back the attack on Iran led to unfavourable comparisons to both Winston Churchill and King Charles. “Unfriendly” Spain has been threatened with a trade embargo for similar reasons. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, previously seen as a key political ally, has also been on the receiving end. “I’m shocked by her,” Mr Trump said last month. “I thought she had courage. I was wrong.”
Currently it is Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who finds himself in Washington’s crosshairs. In the wake of Mr Merz’s accurate observation that the US has no convincing strategy on Iran, the Pentagon has announced the future withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from bases in Germany. Vital long-range weapons are also to be withheld as American military stockpiles are depleted by events in the Middle East. For good measure, Mr Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on European car manufacturers to 25% – a measure that would hit Germany hardest.
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Continue reading...Party divisions over energy have deepened, but the need to move beyond fossil fuels has never been clearer
Energy has not been a prominent subject for discussion in the run-up to Thursday’s UK elections. In England this is logical enough, since the big policy decisions are taken by ministers in Westminster, not at council meetings. But the stances adopted by the new governments in Scotland and Wales matter a great deal. They will have an influence beyond their borders, helping to shape the national climate debate in the coming years.
In both nations, as in England, divisions have deepened as Conservatives have moved away from support for net zero and Reform UK has ramped up its opposition to renewables. Among Scottish parties, only the Greens are categorically against new fossil‑fuel developments in the North Sea. Under John Swinney, the Scottish National party’s earlier opposition to the Rosebank oilfield has softened in advance of the upcoming decision over whether it should go ahead. Scottish Labour, by contrast, has thrown its weight behind new nuclear power.
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Continue reading...
J Craig Venter, the grit that delivered the pearl of the human genome in 2000 rather than 2010, has blinked out at a hospital in San Diego from side-effects of his treatment for cancer. In another world, with different players, he'd have been a candidate for a Nobel gong from any of three different projects ESTs, HGP, or GOS – so fight me.
He first came annoyingly across my horizon in 1991 when he increased the number of known human gene sequences by 50% through the invention of ESTs expressed sequence tags: crap-quality, partial gene sequences that turned out to be, not noise as I complained, but giving a very informative insight into the where, when and wherefore of gene function. The EST Patent created a huge ethical and financial shit-storm at the time. In the late 1990s, tired of the glacial progress of the Human Genome Project, CV scared up some VC and founded Celera Genomics to use whole genome shotgun sequencing to generate a 'good enough' human genome that could be mined for therapeutic targets. The Wellcome Trust and NIH? (I forget) counter-funded the HGP so that the public project wouldn't get scooped by commerce. Game On! Bill Clinton and Tony Blair would like us to believe that they delivered the human genome at a trans-Atlantic press conference in early 2000. 2½ years later, Venter's subsidiary The Institute for Genomic Research TIGR took, without informed consent, a blood sample from Venter's poodle Shadow and delivered The Dog Genome. Single genomes being insufficient of a challenge in 2003 he sent his yacht Sorcerer II round the world on a Global Ocean Sampling Expedition GOS sampling the microbial diversity as the went. Shock: despite being continually stirred by ocean currents up, down and around, microbial communities are different in different locations despite similar salinity and T°C profiles. And indicated again how much genetic activity, wherever you look, is due to viruses. MetaPrev In 2010, he reported the first bacterial genome whose mother was a computer. They created a complete Mycobacterium + genome sequence from clagged-together nucleotides. "+" because, for japes, the team included 4 mystery cassettes which could be decoded to reveal the authors of the paper and various deep statements incl "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life." by James Joyce. The way in which codons coded for English alphabet letters was left as a challenge to the reader. MetaPrev on copyright. Also MetaPrev 2007. in 2016, Venter was back in minimal instruction set land, knocking out genes from an already tiny genome to generate an organism with only 473 genes (about 10% of the complement for Escherichia "Bloatware" coli) of which a third had no known function . . . except that they were essential to life. It's been a long journey for a carefree California surfer who was so traumatized as a 21 y.o. Navy corpsman during the Tet Offensive (1968) that he swam out to sea to end it all -- but then reckoned he was more useful alive than dead.
He first came annoyingly across my horizon in 1991 when he increased the number of known human gene sequences by 50% through the invention of ESTs expressed sequence tags: crap-quality, partial gene sequences that turned out to be, not noise as I complained, but giving a very informative insight into the where, when and wherefore of gene function. The EST Patent created a huge ethical and financial shit-storm at the time. In the late 1990s, tired of the glacial progress of the Human Genome Project, CV scared up some VC and founded Celera Genomics to use whole genome shotgun sequencing to generate a 'good enough' human genome that could be mined for therapeutic targets. The Wellcome Trust and NIH? (I forget) counter-funded the HGP so that the public project wouldn't get scooped by commerce. Game On! Bill Clinton and Tony Blair would like us to believe that they delivered the human genome at a trans-Atlantic press conference in early 2000. 2½ years later, Venter's subsidiary The Institute for Genomic Research TIGR took, without informed consent, a blood sample from Venter's poodle Shadow and delivered The Dog Genome. Single genomes being insufficient of a challenge in 2003 he sent his yacht Sorcerer II round the world on a Global Ocean Sampling Expedition GOS sampling the microbial diversity as the went. Shock: despite being continually stirred by ocean currents up, down and around, microbial communities are different in different locations despite similar salinity and T°C profiles. And indicated again how much genetic activity, wherever you look, is due to viruses. MetaPrev In 2010, he reported the first bacterial genome whose mother was a computer. They created a complete Mycobacterium + genome sequence from clagged-together nucleotides. "+" because, for japes, the team included 4 mystery cassettes which could be decoded to reveal the authors of the paper and various deep statements incl "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life." by James Joyce. The way in which codons coded for English alphabet letters was left as a challenge to the reader. MetaPrev on copyright. Also MetaPrev 2007. in 2016, Venter was back in minimal instruction set land, knocking out genes from an already tiny genome to generate an organism with only 473 genes (about 10% of the complement for Escherichia "Bloatware" coli) of which a third had no known function . . . except that they were essential to life. It's been a long journey for a carefree California surfer who was so traumatized as a 21 y.o. Navy corpsman during the Tet Offensive (1968) that he swam out to sea to end it all -- but then reckoned he was more useful alive than dead.
Jongere generaties voelen zich minder verbonden met de Tweede Wereldoorlog en de Nationale Herdenking dan de oudere generatie. Hoe kijken mensen uit deze generaties zelf naar deze verschillen? En valt het te verklaren?
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Weer voor Rotterdam ☁️ - 04-05-2026 19:15 CEST
In één oogopslag:
• 15.4°C · Bewolkt ☁️ | Min 11.8°C / Max 18.9°C | Kans op neerslag 25%
Verwachting voor vandaag:
• Min 11.8°C, Max 18.9°C (Mist) 🌫️, Kans op neerslag 25%, 🧭 1012.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↘ 328°
Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:
• 20:00: 15.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1012.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↓ 346°
• 21:00: 16.2°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1012.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↙ 28°
• 22:00: 15.2°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1012.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 22°
• 23:00: 13.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1013.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 26°
• 00:00: 12.4°C (Gedeeltelijk bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1013.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↓ 7°
• 01:00: 11.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1012.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.1 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↓ 4°
• 02:00: 11.8°C (Helder) 🌕, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1012.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 16.6 km/u (4.6 m/s), richting: ↓ 10°
• 03:00: 11.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 7%, 🧭 1012.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 17.3 km/u (4.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 17°
• 04:00: 10.9°C (Gedeeltelijk bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1011.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.0 km/u (3.9 m/s), richting: ↙ 31°
• 05:00: 10.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1011.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↙ 28°
• 06:00: 10.3°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1011.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.1 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↓ 11°
• 07:00: 10.1°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1011.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ↓ 12°
Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:
• dinsdag 05 mei: Min 10.1°C, Max 15.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, 🧭 1010.8 hPa ↘️ -2.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 22.0 km/u (6.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 24°
• woensdag 06 mei: Min 10.3°C, Max 12.4°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.2 mm, Kans op neerslag 18%, 🧭 1008.9 hPa ↘️ -1.9 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 19.4 km/u (5.4 m/s), richting: ↙ 27°
• donderdag 07 mei: Min 6.9°C, Max 15.9°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.1 mm, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1013.9 hPa ↗️ +5.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 8.0 km/u (2.2 m/s), richting: ← 77°
• vrijdag 08 mei: Min 8.9°C, Max 18.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 7%, 🧭 1014.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 10.0 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↖ 125°
• zaterdag 09 mei: Min 11.2°C, Max 19.7°C (Lichte regen) 🌧️, Neerslag 5.4 mm, Kans op neerslag 18%, 🧭 1013.0 hPa ↘️ -1.3 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 19.9 km/u (5.5 m/s), richting: ↑ 177°
• zondag 10 mei: Min 11.5°C, Max 21.8°C (Matige motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 4.2 mm, Kans op neerslag 28%, 🧭 1012.5 hPa ↘️ -0.5 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↙ 46°
Details:
• 🌡️ Huidige temperatuur (om 19:15): 15.4°C (Bewolkt)
• 🤚 Gevoelstemperatuur: 14.0°C (-1.4°C)
• 💨 Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 339°
• 🌬️ Windstoten: 27.7 km/h (7.7 m/s)
• 💧 Luchtvochtigheid: 75%
• 🧭 Luchtdruk: 1012.4 hPa ↗️ +0.5 hPa/3h
• 👁️ Zichtbaarheid: 50.0 km
• ☀️ UV-index: 0.8
• 🌅 Zonsopgang: 06:06 · 🌇 Zonsondergang: 21:11
Luchtkwaliteit:
• AQI: 56 🟡 (Matig)
• PM2.5: 16.2 μg/m³
• PM10: 19.2 μg/m³
Gegevens geleverd door Open-Meteo
#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo
In één oogopslag:
• 15.4°C · Bewolkt ☁️ | Min 11.8°C / Max 18.9°C | Kans op neerslag 25%
Verwachting voor vandaag:
• Min 11.8°C, Max 18.9°C (Mist) 🌫️, Kans op neerslag 25%, 🧭 1012.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↘ 328°
Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:
• 20:00: 15.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1012.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↓ 346°
• 21:00: 16.2°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1012.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↙ 28°
• 22:00: 15.2°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1012.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 22°
• 23:00: 13.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1013.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 26°
• 00:00: 12.4°C (Gedeeltelijk bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1013.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↓ 7°
• 01:00: 11.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1012.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.1 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↓ 4°
• 02:00: 11.8°C (Helder) 🌕, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1012.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 16.6 km/u (4.6 m/s), richting: ↓ 10°
• 03:00: 11.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 7%, 🧭 1012.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 17.3 km/u (4.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 17°
• 04:00: 10.9°C (Gedeeltelijk bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1011.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.0 km/u (3.9 m/s), richting: ↙ 31°
• 05:00: 10.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 8%, 🧭 1011.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.5 km/u (4.3 m/s), richting: ↙ 28°
• 06:00: 10.3°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1011.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 15.1 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↓ 11°
• 07:00: 10.1°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1011.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ↓ 12°
Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:
• dinsdag 05 mei: Min 10.1°C, Max 15.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, 🧭 1010.8 hPa ↘️ -2.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 22.0 km/u (6.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 24°
• woensdag 06 mei: Min 10.3°C, Max 12.4°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.2 mm, Kans op neerslag 18%, 🧭 1008.9 hPa ↘️ -1.9 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 19.4 km/u (5.4 m/s), richting: ↙ 27°
• donderdag 07 mei: Min 6.9°C, Max 15.9°C (Lichte motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 0.1 mm, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1013.9 hPa ↗️ +5.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 8.0 km/u (2.2 m/s), richting: ← 77°
• vrijdag 08 mei: Min 8.9°C, Max 18.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 7%, 🧭 1014.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 10.0 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↖ 125°
• zaterdag 09 mei: Min 11.2°C, Max 19.7°C (Lichte regen) 🌧️, Neerslag 5.4 mm, Kans op neerslag 18%, 🧭 1013.0 hPa ↘️ -1.3 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 19.9 km/u (5.5 m/s), richting: ↑ 177°
• zondag 10 mei: Min 11.5°C, Max 21.8°C (Matige motregen) 🌦️, Neerslag 4.2 mm, Kans op neerslag 28%, 🧭 1012.5 hPa ↘️ -0.5 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↙ 46°
Details:
• 🌡️ Huidige temperatuur (om 19:15): 15.4°C (Bewolkt)
• 🤚 Gevoelstemperatuur: 14.0°C (-1.4°C)
• 💨 Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↓ 339°
• 🌬️ Windstoten: 27.7 km/h (7.7 m/s)
• 💧 Luchtvochtigheid: 75%
• 🧭 Luchtdruk: 1012.4 hPa ↗️ +0.5 hPa/3h
• 👁️ Zichtbaarheid: 50.0 km
• ☀️ UV-index: 0.8
• 🌅 Zonsopgang: 06:06 · 🌇 Zonsondergang: 21:11
Luchtkwaliteit:
• AQI: 56 🟡 (Matig)
• PM2.5: 16.2 μg/m³
• PM10: 19.2 μg/m³
Gegevens geleverd door Open-Meteo
#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo
