Syria has started the rebuilding of infrastructure, culture, communities, and more now that the civil war has concluded. The video above shows how Damascus is rebuilding their trains and other core infrastructure. The most interesting thing in the video is the prevalence of solar panels in the city, seemingly every roof has an installation on it!
The future is renewable and that’s made clear as Syria needs to rebuild quickly and efficiently so they can heal and improve the entire nation.
Tram Driver Championship Goes Global
Trams, known in Toronto as streetcars, are a delightful and efficient way to get people around a city. If you’ve ever been a regular rider on a tram network then you know that some drivers are better than others. To celebrate the best tram drivers in the world is the newly global Tram Driver Championship; perviously the competition was only open to European teams. Vienna hosted the competition and introduced the new tram curling competition.
The video above is the official highlight video capturing the highlights and reveals the first ever World Champions.
Successful Treatment for Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease is a neurological disease that combines dementia and motor neurone issues, making for a very unpleasant experience. Historically, people suffering from Huntington’s disease had low prospects for living their lives as they normally did and a shorter lifespan. A UK team has developed a very interesting solution to treat Huntington’s disease by injecting modified viruses directly into the brain, the really cool thing is that these little viruses then block the ability of Huntington’s disease to spread. It’s a novel and very 21st century approach and good news not only for people who may get Huntington’s but also for related neurological diseases.
It starts with a safe virus that has been altered to contain a specially designed sequence of DNA.
This is infused deep into the brain using real-time MRI scanning to guide a microcatheter to two brain regions – the caudate nucleus and the putamen. This takes 12 to 18 hours of neurosurgery.
The virus then acts like a microscopic postman – delivering the new piece of DNA inside brain cells, where it becomes active.
This turns the neurons into a factory for making the therapy to avert their own death.
The cells produce a small fragment of genetic material (called microRNA) that is designed to intercept and disable the instructions (called messenger RNA) being sent from the cells’ DNA for building mutant huntingtin.
This results in lower levels of mutant huntingtin in the brain.
When Taxes Go Up, Millionaires Stay Where They Are
In 2024 the UK government modified their tax system and as a result lobbyists and millionaires all claimed that increasing taxes would lead to millionaires fleeing the country. This did no happen. In fact, millionaires don’t move all that much. In this context millionaire means a person with over $1 million in liquid assets, which means that people who have an expensive property don’t get counted because their wealth is tied down. With his information in mind we should all be ok with increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy so that their contributions back to society are comparable to the wealth that they extract.
The Tax Justice Network’s review – co-published with Patriotic Millionaires UK and Tax Justice UK – of the Henley report finds that the number of millionaires claimed by Henley & Partners to be leaving countries in “exodus” in 2024 represented near-0% of those countries’ millionaire populations. For example, the 9500 millionaires widely reported to be leaving the UK in 2024 represented 0.3% of the UK’s 3.06 million millionaires.
Media reporting widely blamed the alleged millionaire exodus on tax policies in the same year that calls for a wealth tax on the superrich gained unprecedented momentum globally. The media reporting was equivalent to 30 news pieces a day on the non-existent millionaire exodus across 2024.
Solar Surges Around the World
Solar panels are wonderful: you install them and then you get free energy from the sun. The expensive part of solar panels is buying and installing the panels; after that the costs of operation are basically zero. This is the opposite of fossil fuels since with fossil fuels you buy a cheap fuel tank and pay forever for the fuel. The global economy has finally caught on to the genius of solar energy and are increasing panels at a fantastic pace. Countries that don’t embrace free renewable power will find themselves left behind.
Outside China, all other countries together installed an estimated 124 GW in the first half of 2025 — 15% higher than the first half of 2024. India recorded the second highest installations with 24 GW, a 49% increase over the already strong 16 GW added in deployment in H1-2024. The United States ranked third with 21 GW, up 4% year-on-year, despite recent moves by the US government to restrict clean power deployment. Deployment dipped slightly in Germany and Brazil. The remaining countries added 65 GW in H1-2025, 22% more than in H1-2024.
Growth in Africa is also beginning to take-off, as the amount of solar panels it imported from China rose 60% in the last 12 months, as Ember reported. However, lack of access to official installation data still obscures the actual pace of solar deployment on the continent.
With deployment surging across key markets and China’s rapid scale-up pushing global installations to new highs, 2025 is on track to become another historic year for solar power. The numbers highlight not only solar’s momentum, but also its pivotal role in reshaping the global energy system.