This Week's Brief

In Memoriam: Dame Dr. Jane Goodall

By our editor

She was tireless. My favourite interview of 25 years. At the end of it, I didn’t get an MBE, an OBE, a Legion award or a Padma Ratna. I got something better: The Title of FOJ – Friend of Jane. And it is a title I’ve worn proudly ever since. That conversation left me wiser, more determined to stay true to my path, and to try to leave the world a little better than I found it – just like her.

Jane Goodall has died at 91. Her institute said she passed of natural causes in California, while on a US speaking tour.

Her discoveries in Gombe, Tanzania, in the 1960s changed science. Chimpanzees using tools, their social lives and hierarchies – it all rewrote how we understood ourselves. But she didn’t stop there. She turned it into a lifelong fight for the planet, for conservation, for our children through the Roots and Shoots programme and mainly for the idea that action matters.

She didn’t just change science. She changed the way people imagine what’s possible.

Dear Jane, we hope we can keep your science based, human centric, momentum for nature and your awe inspiring storytelling for change going. We know you’ll be watching.

On to This Week’s News

(These pins mark the stories with deeply buried, but globally significant signals.)

📌 EU Tough Talks, Little Action Yet

📌 Moldova’s Choice

📌 Gaza In Focus

📌 Fintech Founder’s Jail Time

📌 FTSE 100 Loses Another CEO

📌 A Cure? For Huntington’s Disease

In Politics

Russia-EU

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned “We are now in the most difficult situation in Europe since the end of the second world war.”

In an informal meeting this week, EU leaders said they are pressing ahead to unlock and utilize €140 billion of frozen Russian assets. They also discussed“next steps” to bolster European security, including a “drone wall” to protect European airspace, other collective defence initiatives proposed by the European Commission and discussion of co-ordinated Nato actions to increase deterrence against Moscow. Read more at the FT

Moldova’s Made Its Choice

Moldova’s pro-Western ruling party has won a decisive parliamentary election marked by claims of Russian interference. President Maia Sandu, who founded PAS in 2016, is expected to nominate Prime Minister Dorin Recean again. An economist and Sandu’s former defence and security adviser, Recean has steered the country through multiple crises since 2023. Moldova, once a Soviet republic, lies between war-hit Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania. Read more at France 24

📌 Gaza Update

• Israel and the United States reached terms that could open the way for a ceasefire, which now also looks to be in troubled waters as the Israeli government is attempting to change certain parameters laid out by the U.S. President. Read more at Sky News
• The flotilla of lawyers, parliamentarians and humanitarians which continued its voyage to challenge the blockade was again intercepted. With the Irish government among others now calling for the release of their citizens. The interception happened despite the flotilla being escorted this time, by European navy vessels which said they would offer emergency assistance but would not engage militarily with the Israeli navy/army. Turkish drones were also monitoring the ships, which include climate activist Greta Thunberg. Read more at Al Jazeera
• Prior to the interception, Italian MEP Benedetta Scuderi told Radio 24 from aboard the flotilla, “Israel has shown several times it has no red lines so it is clear that we are worried by what it could do. We will obviously do everything to have a peaceful, non-violent stance.” News is awaited on the flotilla members. Read more at Reuters
• Meanwhile, six human rights and relief groups, including the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Center and the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse network have told the AP they are aware of reports of serious sexual abuse and exploitation linked to aid distribution in Gaza. Read more at AP
• In the U.K, a terror attack on a Synagoguye in Manchester has left 2 victims dead and the attacker killed. The terror incident has occured during Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the month in the Jewish calendar. Read more at the BBC

In Business

Charlie Javice, convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in the $175mn sale of her fintech start-up, has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered her to pay $288mn in restitution and forfeit a further $22mn. Read more at Business Insider

GSK announced this past week that Emma Walmsley will step down as CEO in December, nine months before her contract ends. She will be replaced by insider Luke Miels. Walmsley, the UK’s most senior female CEO, took the helm in 2017 and reshaped the drugmaker by spinning off its consumer health division as Haleon in 2023 and doubling R&D budgets in pharma and vaccines. Her tenure was marred by pandemic losses in shingles jabs and US litigation over Zantac. Read more at Wall Street Journal

In Science

Breakthrough in Huntington’s Disease

A new gene therapy, AMT-130, has slowed the progression of Huntington’s disease by up to 75 per cent in trials. Delivered via brain surgery, a single dose is expected to last a lifetime.

Professor Sarah Tabrizi, Professor Ed Wild and Jack May-Davis at UCL say the therapy could “preserve daily function,” keep people in work longer and “meaningfully slow disease progression.” Wild called it “a result that changes everything.”

The neurodegenerative disease, which has no cure, affects around 8,000 people in the UK. Read more at University College London Hospitals