A Thai court has accepted a petition from senators that accuse the PM of dishonesty and breaching ethical standards.
Thailand’s Constitutional Court has suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office pending an ethics investigation over a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian official, heaping pressure on Thailand’s governing political dynasty.
The court said in a statement that it had accepted a petition from 36 senators, which accuses Paetongtarn of dishonesty and breaching ethical standards, in violation of the constitution, over a leaked telephone conversation with Cambodia’s influential former leader, Hun Sen.
Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit will assume a caretaker role while the court decides the case against Paetongtarn, who has 15 days to respond.
Paetongtarn will remain in the cabinet as the new culture minister following a cabinet reshuffle.
The controversy stems from a June 15 phone call with Cambodia’s influential former leader Hun Sen that was intended to defuse escalating border tensions between the neighbours.
During the call, Paetongtarn, 38, referred to Hun Sen as “uncle” and criticised a Thai army commander, a red line in a country where the military has significant clout. She has apologised and said her remarks were a negotiating tactic.
The leaked call led to domestic outrage and has left Paetongtarn’s coalition with a razor-thin majority, with a key party abandoning the alliance and expected to soon seek a no-confidence vote in parliament, as protest groups demand the premier resign.
Legal perils
Paetongtarn’s battles after only 10 months in power underline the declining strength of the Pheu Thai Party, the populist juggernaut of the billionaire Shinawatra dynasty, which has dominated Thai elections since 2001, enduring military coups and court rulings that have toppled multiple governments and prime ministers.
It has been a baptism of fire for political novice Paetongtarn, who was thrust into power as Thailand’s youngest premier and replacement for Srettha Thavisin, who the Constitutional Court dismissed for violating ethics by appointing a minister who had once been jailed.
Paetongtarn’s government has also been struggling to revive a stuttering economy, and her popularity has declined sharply, with a June 19-25 opinion poll released at the weekend showing her approval rating sinking to 9.2 percent from 30.9 percent in March.
Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, the 75-year-old family patriarch and billionaire who was twice elected leader in the early 2000s, is also facing legal hurdles.
Antigovernment protesters rally to demand the removal of Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, from office at Victory Monument in Bangkok on June 28, 2025 [Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP]
Divisive tycoon Thaksin, according to his lawyer, appeared at his first hearing at Bangkok’s Criminal Court on Tuesday on charges that he insulted Thailand’s powerful monarchy, a serious offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.
Thaksin denies the allegations and has repeatedly pledged allegiance to the crown.
The case stems from a 2015 media interview Thaksin gave while in self-imposed exile, from which he returned in 2023 after 15 years abroad to serve a prison sentence for conflicts of interest and abuse of power.
Thaksin dodged jail and spent six months in hospital detention on medical grounds before being released on parole in February last year.
The Supreme Court will this month scrutinise that hospital stay and could potentially send him back to jail.
The Senate is slogging through an overnight session that has dragged into Tuesday, with Republican leaders buying time as they search for ways to secure support for President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts while fending off proposed amendments, mostly from Democrats trying to defeat the package.
An endgame was not immediately in sight. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota is working for a last-minute agreement between those in his party worried the bill’s reductions to Medicaid will leave millions without care and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts.
Thune declared at one point they were in the “homestretch” as he dashed through the halls at the Capitol, only to backtrack a short time later, suggesting any progress was “elusive.”
At the same time House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled more potential problems ahead, warning the Senate package could run into trouble when it is sent back to the House for a final round of voting, as skeptical lawmakers are being called back to Washington ahead of Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
“I have prevailed upon my Senate colleagues to please, please, please keep it as close to the House product as possible,” said Johnson, the Louisiana Republican. House Republicans had already passed their version last month.
It’s a pivotal moment for the Republicans, who have control of Congress and are racing to wrap up work with just days to go before Trump’s holiday deadline Friday. The 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it’s formally titled, has consumed Congress as its shared priority with the president.
In a midnight social media post urging them on, Trump called the bill “perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind.” Vice President JD Vance summed up his own series of posts, simply imploring senators to “Pass the bill.”
The GOP leaders have no room to spare, with narrow majorities in both chambers. Thune can lose no more than three Republican senators, and already two — Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who warns people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who opposes raising the debt limit — have indicated opposition. Tillis abruptly announced over the weekend he would not seek reelection after Trump threatened to campaign against him.
Attention quickly turned to key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who have also raised concerns about health care cuts, but also a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions.
And on social media, billionaire Elon Musk was again lashing out at Republicans as “the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” for including a provision that would raise the nation’s debt limit by $5 trillion, which is needed to allow continued borrowing to pay the bills.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his side was working to show “how awful this is.”
“Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular,” Schumer said as he walked the halls.
A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.
Senators to watch
Few Republicans appear fully satisfied as the final package emerges, in either the House or Senate.
Tillis said it is a betrayal of the president’s promises not to kick people off health care, especially if rural hospitals close.
Collins had proposed bolstering the $25 billion proposed rural hospital fund to $50 billion, but her amendment failed. And Murkowski was trying to secure provisions to spare people in her state from some health care and food stamp cuts while also working to beef up federal reimbursements to Alaska’s hospitals. They have not said how they would vote for the final package.
“Radio silence,” Murkowski said when asked.
At the same time, conservative Senate Republicans proposing steeper health care cuts, including Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, filed into Thune’s office for a near-midnight meeting.
The Senate has spent some 18 hours churning through more than two dozen amendments in what is called a vote-a-rama, a typically laborious process that went on longer than usual as negotiations happen on and off the chamber floor. The White House legislative team also was at the Capitol.
Sen. Mike Crapo, the GOP chairman of the Finance Committee, dismissed the dire predictions of health care cuts as Democrats trafficking in what he called the “politics of fear.”
What’s in the big bill
All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.
The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide. It would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states.
Additionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
Democrats fighting all day and night
Unable to stop the march toward passage, the Democrats as the minority party in Congress are using the tools at their disposal to delay and drag out the process.
Democrats forced a full reading of the text, which took 16 hours, and they have a stream of amendments.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern at the start of debate late Sunday about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump’s first term are now “current policy” and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits.
She said that kind of “magic math” won’t fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books.
The US Senate is holding a marathon vote on a sprawling budget that is critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda, but the spending plan hangs in the balance after weeks of fraught negotiations.
Republicans – who control both chambers of Congress – are split over how much to cut welfare programmes in order to extend tax breaks in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s former close aid Elon Musk has again attacked the legislation, which the president’s party is sprinting to pass by 4 July.
If measures clear the Senate, it will have to go back for another vote to the House of Representatives, which passed its own version of the bill last month by a single vote.
Senators are currently arguing for or against adding amendments to the nearly 1,000-page bill in a process called “vote-a-rama”, which could entail up to 20 hours of debate.
The session is expected to continue through the night into Tuesday morning and the legislation, if passed, would also reduce some welfare programmes and increase the national debt.
Elon Musk has stepped up his criticism of the US president’s tax and spending bill, condemning it as “insane”.
He vowed to challenge any Republican who “campaigned on reducing government spending” and then “immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history”.
The national debt currently sits at $36 trillion, according to the treasury department. If passed, the bill would add $3.3tn to that debt, according to new estimates.
Musk also, once again, threatened to set up a new political party.
Trump suggested Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency – which Musk used to head – should take a look at cutting the subsidies that Tesla CEO’s companies have received.
“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
On Monday, senators made their way to the Capitol chamber floor for various amendment votes, then back to their private meeting rooms where they hashed out grievances outside the view of reporters.
Watch: Why Republican Senator Thom Tillis will not vote for Trump’s bill
“The thing that [Scott’s] bill doesn’t do is it doesn’t take effect until 2031. So I’m not sure how you can make the argument that it’s going to kick any people off of health insurance tomorrow,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.
Democrats, who have repeatedly denounced the bill, particularly for cutting health insurance for millions of poorer Americans, are expected to use all 10 of their allotted hours of debate, while Republicans probably won’t.
Democrat Senator Adam Schiff called the bill “terrible” and told the BBC he was unsure if Senate Republicans would meet Trump’s Friday deadline.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is “confident” the bill would be passed and still expects it on his desk by 4 July.
On Sunday, Democrats used a political manoeuvre to stall the bill’s progress, calling on Senate clerks to read all 940 pages of the bill aloud, a process that took 16 hours.
It followed weeks of public discussion and the Senate narrowly moving on the budget bill in a 51-49 vote over the weekend.
Two Republicans sided with Democrats in voting against opening debate, arguing for further changes to the legislation.
One of those Republicans, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, announced his retirement following that vote and said the legislation broke promises that Trump and Republicans made to voters.
“Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail,” Tillis wrote in his announcement.
The White House reacted angrily to Tillis’ comments, with Leavitt saying Tillis was “just wrong”.
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul objected to the debt increase, and cuts to Medicaid.
During the full Senate vote on the bill – expected early Tuesday morning – Republicans can only afford three defections in order for the bill to pass.
If they lose three votes, Vice-President JD Vance will have to cast a tie-breaking vote.
The bill would then return to the House of Representatives, where leadership has advised a full vote on the Senate’s bill could come as early as Wednesday morning.
Fiscal hawks of the Republican-led House Freedom Caucus have threatened to torpedo the Senate version over budget disagreements.
The Senate proposal adds over $650bn to the national deficit, the group said in a post on social media on Monday.
“That’s not fiscal responsibility,” they said. “It’s not what we agreed to.”
Democrats in both chambers have largely objected to the spending cuts and the proposed extension of tax breaks.
Meanwhile, Republican debate has focused on how much to cut welfare programmes in order to extend $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.
Proposed cuts could strip nearly 12 million Americans of their health insurance coverage and add $3.3tn (£2.4tn) in debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan federal agency.
(With additional reporting from Bernd Debusmann Jr at the White House)
MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles.
At first, everything appears to be in order. But it’s not.
I’ve uncovered multiple examples of how AI-generated music released by – oh yes – fake artists is rapidly growing in popularity on music streaming services.
I’ll focus onSpotify – mainly because of the transparency it offers when it comes to listening data.
Yet music from all of the artists named below is available on a range of streaming services, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and more.
Aven-this… cannot be real
Outlaw country artist Aventhis is verified on Spotify – where just over a million (1.072M) listeners absorb his work each month.
He’s even popular enough to have one of those official Spotify-generated ‘THIS IS… Aventhis’ playlists under his name.
And his music? It’s gaining traction, with the blues-soaked, 2025-released Mercy On My Grave racking up more than 2 million plays.
You already know what comes next, but that doesn’t make writing it feel any less depressing.
Aventhis isn’t real. Neither is his voice. He, and it, are both AI-generated.
Aventhis is not an outlaw of any kind. He’s a bot.
I know this for sure because, to verify it, I deployed some sophisticated decoding technologies. Namely: a human being’s eyes, brain, and fingers. Plus the internet.
Three months ago, over on YouTube, under one of Aventhis’ videos, a commentator outright asked what role AI has played in the artist’s music.
The anonymous owner of Aventhis’ channel replied: “[The] voice and image is created with the help of AI. The lyrics are written by me.”
I’d wager that, in this case, ‘me’ is really David Vieira – the man credited as the songwriter and producer behind Aventhis’ songs on Spotify (see below).
I’d also wager that, to create Aventhis’ music, Vieira probably used one of Udio and Suno – the two best-known generative AI music platforms, which both enable users to input their own lyrics for created songs.
Aventhis was recently recommended to me by Spotify via an algorithmic playlist.
So far, ‘he’ has released three albums of songs on Spotify and other streaming services: Dark Country Vol.1, Dark Country Vol.2, and Dark Country Vol.3.
All three have arrived in the past four months – 57 tracks in total.
The Devil’s in the detail
Once I started listening to Aventhis, Spotify soon recommended another AI artist, also in the ‘outlaw country’ field, and likely created with Suno or Udio.
The Devil Inside is a ‘band’ with approximately 700,000 Spotify monthly listeners.
Like Aventhis, they are Spotify ‘verified’ and their biggest track – Bones In The River – has 1.6 million streams to date.
The Devil Inside takes the ‘AI-as-f**k’ trophy here, because the group has an entirely fake persona… and fake faces.
According to their streaming platform biography, the band hails “from the rugged landscapes of the American South”.
Then the insidious bit: “The songs are based on real creative inspiration, but the characters are illustrative. The images are part of a carefully crafted visual world that complements the music’s dark, cinematic atmosphere, much like a graphic novel or a fictional film universe.”
In other words, the guys you see below – who have their own Instagram page and a range of merch available online – have never actually been born.
In the human sense, anyway.
The Devil Inside’s ‘illustrative characters’ – not coming to a venue near you soonThe band is fake… the merch is real
Sundown, you better beware vs. Hustles Culture
Some hulabaloo has been caused in the past few days by a different, seemingly AI-generated band – TheVelvet Sundown – gaining traction on streaming platforms.
Following some media pickup, The Velvet Sundown now has just over 550,000 Spotify monthly listeners.
They, too, have an AI-generated band ‘photo’ (see below).
And just like Aventhis and The Devil Inside, they are ‘verified’ on Spotify, with an official ‘THIS IS…’ playlist on the service.
At least some of the online outrage caused by The Velvet Sundown in recent days has been driven by their music being recommended in subscribers’ algorithmic playlists, like Discover Weekly.
In truth, this is nothing new.
Around six months before Spotify recommended me Aventhis’ music, I was directly pitched a suspiciously AI-looking artist by the platform for the first time.
Nick Hustles’ oeuvre combines classic soul sounds of the ’70s with (often pretty offensive) lyrical pastiches of modern street slang.
As we headed into the 2024 festive break, my algo-Spotify playlist added Hustles’ Christmas-themed I Caught Santa Clause [sic] Sniffing Cocaine.
Puerile lyrics and slight AI wobble in the vocals aside, the track was – ahem – heavily influenced by the lazy bass runs and falsetto vocals of Marvin Gaye’s I Want You-era output.
Today, Nick Hustles’ most popular tracks include ‘I Feel Like Slapping A N**** Today’, ‘I LOST MY FUCKING VAPE AGAIN’, and ‘Be Yourself’.
Another Hustles track, ‘Why U N****s Gotta Hate,’ gets a special mention here because 50 Cent recently filmed himself singing along to it – and affectionately chuckling at its lyrics – before broadcasting it to his 35 million Instagram followers.
Nick Hustles currently has over 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Unlike the other AI artists mentioned here, with Hustles, there is a decent online footprint of who actually created him.
According to social profiles, Nick Hustles was unleashed into the world by Nick Arter, who describes himself as a “Songwriter | Lyricist | AI Storyteller | Music Futurist”.
Apparently based in Pennsylvania, Arter is the founder of social channel AI For The Culture, which has over 100,000 followers on Instagram.
Said Instagram page features an array of fictional AI artists of Arter’s creation, usually presented as having recorded ‘deep cuts’ from long-lost 60s/70s/80s soul and funk records.
“Songwriter | Lyricist | AI Storyteller | Music Futurist.”
Nick Arter’s biog on Instagram
This article has yet to discuss how the popularity of AI artists on streaming services – and the rapidity with which ‘they’ can release new tunes – could potentially divert royalties away from real human performers.
Suffice to say that, since Nick Hustles’ music started appearing on Spotify last year, he (aka: Nick Arter) has released over 50 ‘singles’ on the platform.
Tellingly, one of Arter’s Instagram tracks, attributed to the completely made-up artist Terry “Goldmind” Watkins, is called I Make More Money Than My Teachers.
The bigger picture
Now that we’ve started exploring this rabbit hole, it’s not very hard to find much more AI-made music on Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.
For example, judging by the telltale factors (algorithmic relation to other AI acts, suspicious artwork, the AI vocal ‘wobble’, etc.), I suspect the following artists have all been created with Suno/Udio/alternatives.
I discovered many of them when they were linked to other AI artists in Spotify’s ‘Fans Also Like…’ section.
As you can see, they’re all doing nicely.
A YouTube comment under Aven’s ‘Bound To Roam’
So.
In this article alone, based on a few days of rudimentary research, I’ve named 13 different AI-made ‘artists’ currently active on Spotify, with approximately 4.1 million cumulative monthly listeners between them.
Obvious question 1: Is this scratching the surface? How much ‘AI slop’ is now running free on music streaming platforms like Spotify – and how much ‘stream-share’ in terms of royalties are being absorbed by the creators of these fake acts?
Obvious question 2: Is there any hope that music streaming services and DIY distributors will/can clean up this music? Would doing so, behind closed doors at the DSPs, actually clash with a tech utopian ideology?
Obvious question 3: Where is all this going?
I can take a crack at answering Q3, there. It’s not a happy place.
Under Aventhis’ ‘Fans Also Like…’ section on Spotify (see below), you’ll find the equally AI-born Devil Inside, Aven, and DV8.
You’ll also find very non-AI artists, including Bryan Elijah Smith, whose The Line is one of my favourite songs from the past year (by an actual homo-sapian).
And here’s the thing. You see Sons Of Legion, above?
They’re a real and popular human duo based in Nashville – who’ve signed to Concord.
But earlier, especially considering the Spotify-recommending-AI situation, I couldn’t be sure.
To check, I deployed music’s acid test for humanness: I searched for any upcoming tour dates – to no avail.
Then I scanned their socials, and found, just a few days ago, they both spoke to camera – explaining that although they might do “pop up” shows in 2025, they won’t look to do a proper tour until 2026.
‘How convenient,’ I found myself thinking. ‘So you don’t need to prove to anyone you’re actual human beings. Am I looking at a couple of AI-generated deepfakes here?’
I wasn’t. I wish Sons Of Legion a long and successful career ahead.
Yet this experience reminds us how skeptical music fans might become over authenticity, should fictional AI slop continue to be splattered throughout their streaming services.
The ultimate test of whether fans like – or trust – tomorrow’s artists may require actually seeing them perform… up close, and away from a screen.
When you think about it, perhaps it was ever thus.Music Business Worldwide
Footage captured the aftermath of the strike, showing the cafe awash in the blood of the dead and the wounded. Tables and seating were smashed and strewn about from the blast.
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Donald Trump’s top trade officials are scaling back their ambitions for comprehensive reciprocal deals with foreign countries, seeking narrower agreements to avert the looming reimposition of US tariffs.
Four people familiar with the talks said US officials were seeking phased deals with the most engaged countries as they race to find agreements by July 9, when Trump has vowed to reimpose his harshest levies.
The narrower, piecemeal plan for new deals marks a retreat from the White House’s vow to strike 90 trade deals during the 90-day pause in the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs the president announced on April 2.
But it also offers some countries a chance to strike modest agreements. The administration would seek “agreements in principle” on a small number of trade disputes ahead of the deadline, the people said.
Countries that agree these narrower deals would be spared the harsher reciprocal tariffs, but left with an existing 10 per cent levy while talks on thornier issues continue, the people said.
However, talks remain complex, and alongside its narrower approach to deals, the administration was also still considering imposing tariffs on critical sectors, people familiar with the matter said.
The twin track, involving the threat of new tariffs alongside openness to deals, underscores the difficulty facing negotiators with Trump, who has used trade as a cudgel to secure concessions from other countries.
Last week the president announced he would end trade talks with Canada, prompting Ottawa to immediately rescind a digital services tax that Washington objected to.
Trump triggered a global stock market rout in early April after imposing steep tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners, following weeks of a chaotic trade policy rollout marked by reversals and U-turns.
Although he has since walked back some of the most punitive levies, so far the US has only reached a trade pact with the UK and signed a tentative truce with China.
Foreign negotiators are now trying to understand what will come next.
The US commerce department had already launched national security probes — Section 232 investigations — into goods including copper, lumber, aerospace parts, pharmaceuticals, chips and critical minerals.
Several countries in serious trade talks with the US have sought relief from existing sectoral tariffs of 25 per cent on cars and their parts and 50 per cent on steel and aluminium.
The US’s trade deal with the UK provides a limited lower-tariff quota for British cars and pledges to negotiate other carve-outs for pharmaceuticals. The UK also won lower levies on steel and aerospace parts.
People familiar with the talks said the poor visibility of possible new sectoral tariffs the US might impose at a later date were hindering discussions.
On Monday, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent suggested the US was focused primarily on the reciprocal tariffs, and would leave sectoral levies until later.
“The Section 232s take longer to implement, so we’ll see what happens with those,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
It is also unclear how Trump will set any new tariff rates on countries that do not agree a new deal before the July 9 deadline.
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was meeting with his trade team to set tariff rates for “many of these countries if they don’t come to the table in good faith”.
The president later suggested on his Truth Social account that Japan would be sent a new tariff rate, despite weeks of trade negotiations between them.
“To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” Trump wrote.
“In other words, we’ll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come.”
Some people familiar with the talks said there was also uncertainty about whether Trump would stick to his schedule about ending his 90-day pause.
Bessent also told Bloomberg TV that any potential extensions to the July 9 deadline would be up to the president, but that he expected to see “a flurry” of deals ahead of the deadline.
But last week the Treasury secretary told Fox News that the US was negotiating with 18 trading partners and agreements could be done during the summer.
In May, two court rulings declared Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose reciprocal tariffs unlawful. The administration has appealed, but the rulings had also injected uncertainty into talks, people familiar with the negotiations said.
Water, paradoxically abundant yet often out of reach, is present in oceans, mountain peaks, polar ice caps, and underground aquifers. While desalination by reverse osmosis is widely used to convert seawater, atmospheric water extraction holds immense potential. The Earth’s atmosphere contains the equivalent of 1.66 million Olympic swimming pools of water.
Although atmospheric water percentages are higher in tropical regions, there is still water even in desert areas. In other words, it’s practically everywhere. The question is: how can we efficiently and sustainably extract water from the air? This article explores the main technologies for doing so and some real-world applications.
Main technologies used to extract water from air
Several innovative methods can convert atmospheric moisture into drinkable water, many of which operate passively, without external energy sources. Here are six groundbreaking approaches:
Dew point condensation: This technology cools the air until the water vapor condenses into liquid water. It uses cooling units and condensers to collect the water. It’s an effective solution in areas with high relative humidity.
Desiccants: These systems use hygroscopic materials that absorb water vapor from the air. The water is then extracted by heating the desiccant and collecting the generated vapor.
Passive condensation. It utilizes special hydrophilic surfaces to facilitate the condensation of water vapor without external energy, allowing for efficient and sustainable water collection.
It harnesses solar energy to heat the air and direct the vapor into a chamber where it condenses and is collected. It’s an efficient solution for arid regions.
Hydrophilic Nanomaterials: Nanoscale materials with high moisture absorption capacity. They capture water vapor even in low humidity conditions and release it through controlled heating.
Fog nets. They use fine meshes to capture water droplets from fog. They are particularly useful in mountainous and coastal regions, providing a low-cost and low-tech solution.
From Diapers to Harps: Real-World Innovations in Water Extraction
The technologies mentioned above are far from being utopian solutions for extracting water from the air. Although they do not yet offer large-scale results, there are multiple projects worldwide addressing potable water scarcity. Here are some of the most striking examples.
Fog catchers in Chile
ACCIONA Energía has launched a pilot fog catcher project in the Punta Palmeras wind farm, located in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. This project uses high-density polyethylene meshes to capture water from the fog.
The fog catcher technology not only facilitates water collection for irrigating revegetated areas in this park but could also be used for cleaning solar panels in other complexes, further improving their efficiency and sustainability.
Fog harps
Similar to the Chilean project, a team of researchers at the Virginia Tech Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology has developed a system inspired by sequoia needles to collect water from the air. They use ultrathin parallel strings like a harp. This biomimetic design triples the efficiency of conventional fog-catching systems and makes it easier to collect water in arid areas with a simple and inexpensive device.
MIT’s “diapers”
In their search for innovative solutions against drought, MIT discovered an unexpected technology: superabsorbent polymers used in baby diapers. These materials can absorb large amounts of water and, when properly adapted, can capture and retain moisture from the air. The idea is to use these polymers in devices that, by capturing atmospheric moisture, can then release potable water when heated.
Experiments show that when combined with high thermal conductivity materials, the polymers can release water more effectively when exposed to solar heat. This technology is promising not only for its low cost but also for its adaptability to different climatic environments. Moreover, researchers are exploring the possibility of integrating these absorbent materials into infrastructure, such as roofs and walls, to maximize atmospheric water collection in urban and rural areas.
Copper fins
Another research direction focuses on improving the efficiency of absorbent materials. A recent example is an innovative device created by MIT scientists that uses absorbent fins to collect potable water from the air. These fins, coated with zeolites—a microporous silicate—on a copper base, trap moisture from the air and release water when heated. In tests, the device has collected up to 1.3 liters of water daily in conditions of 30% relative humidity.
Beyond these outdoor technologies, advancements are also being made in domestic atmospheric moisture condensation systems, like this machine capable of producing up to fifteen liters of water daily.
US Treasury says it removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions after president’s decree.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle a web of sanctions against Syria, a move that will likely unlock investments in the country more than six months after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
Trump’s decree on Monday offers sanction relief to “entities critical to Syria’s development, the operation of its government, and the rebuilding of the country’s social fabric”, the US Treasury said in a statement.
The Syrian government has been under heavy US financial penalties that predate the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011.
The sprawling sanction programme, which included provisions related to the former government’s human rights abuses, has derailed reconstruction efforts in the country. It has also contributed to driving the Syrian economy under al-Assad to the verge of collapse.
Trump promised sanctions relief for Syria during his visit to the Middle East in May.
“The United States is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbours,” the US president said in a statement on Monday.
“A united Syria that does not offer a safe haven for terrorist organisations and ensures the security of its religious and ethnic minorities will support regional security and prosperity.”
The US administration said Syria-related sanctions against al-Assad and his associates, ISIL (ISIS) and Iran and its allies will remain in place.
While the US Treasury said it already removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions, some Syria penalties may not be revoked immediately.
For example, Trump directs US agencies to determine whether the conditions are met to remove sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act, which enabled heavy penalties against the Syrian economy for alleged war crimes against civilians.
Democratic US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar had partnered with Republican lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna to introduce earlier this week a bill that would legislatively lift sanctions on Syria to offer long-term relief.
Real relief for the Syrian people requires repealing certain laws.
My bill with @RepLuna permanently repeals the sanctions and gives the post-Assad Syria a fighting chance. https://t.co/gExbLiKS7z
As part of Trump’s order, the US president ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review the designation of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.
Moreover, the US president ordered a review of the status of al-Sharaa’s group, al-Nusra Front – now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – as a designated “foreign terrorist” organisation. Al-Nusra was al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, but al-Sharaa severed ties with the group in 2016.
Al-Nusra later became known as Jabhat Fath al-Sham before merging with other rebel groups as HTS.
Al-Sharaa was the de facto leader of a rebel enclave in Idlib in northwest Syria for years before leading the offensive that overthrew al-Assad in December 2024.
Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and praised the Syrian president as “attractive” and “tough”.
The interim Syrian president – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani – has promised inclusive governance to allay concerns about his past ties to al-Qaeda.
But violence and kidnappings against members of al-Assad’s Alawite sect by former rebel fighters over the past months have raised concerns among some rights advocates.
Al-Sharaa has also pledged that Syria would not pose a threat to its neighbours, including Israel, which has been advancing in Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights and regularly bombing the country.
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