World News

Coca-Cola on Tuesday said it would release a version of Coke in the United States made with US-grown real cane sugar, a move requested by President Donald Trump. “We’re going to be bringing a Coke sweetened with US cane sugar into the market this fall, and I think that will be an enduring option for consumers,” said CEO James Quincey on a call with analysts. The company currently uses high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) for many of its US products — a sweetener that has long drawn criticism from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

The head of the United Nations called Tuesday on the surging artificial intelligence sector to prioritize sustainable energy for running power-hungry data centers. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a typical AI data center — sites where data is processed — uses the same amount of electricity as 100,000 regular homes. With AI development booming, those demands are also rapidly expanding. The largest data centers will “soon use 20 times” the current demand, Guterres said, and “by 2030 data centers could consume as much electricity as all of Japan does today.” “This is not sustainable,” Guterres said. “The technology sector must be out front. Today I call on every major tech firm to power all data centers with 100 percent renewables by 2030.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday accused his predecessor Barack Obama of “treason” and called for his prosecution over a report alleging that officials in the Democrat’s administration had manipulated information on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to a report published Friday that asserted the Obama officials had been part of a “treasonous conspiracy.” Gabbard claimed Obama and his team had manufactured intelligence regarding Russian election interference to “lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” Her report flies in the face of evidence amassed in four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes issued between 2019 and 2023 — all of which concluded that Russia did intervene on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election.

More than 100 aid organisations and human rights groups warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza, as the United States said its top envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and aid corridor. Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict. But it denied blocking supplies, saying that 950 trucks’ worth of aid were in Gaza waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute. “We have not identified starvation at this current point in time but we understand that action is required to stabilise the humanitarian situation,” an unnamed senior Israeli security official was quoted as saying by the Times of Israel.

Tehran on Monday accused Britain, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme. The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN Security Council’s permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. But it unravelled when the United States in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed sweeping sanctions.