Why SpaceX rocket catch is such a big deal
We spoke with aerospace engineer Scott Walter about the significance of SpaceX’s world-first success in capturing a rocket booster as it returned to Earth.
WHO Investment Round: Make a commitment to our common health
OPINIONOPINION,
We all value our own well-being and those of our immediate families. Even in the most developed nations, our health is in danger despite significant advancements in science and innovation. As leaders in health, we have a responsibility to ensure the health and safety of our citizens, and we must do so equitably. No one should be left behind. We are aware that this investment is required to promote global health, promote wealth, and foster trust in governments, international organizations, and multilateral approaches to improving the quality of life for everyone. Supporting and strengthening national health systems is one of the most crucial steps, as all nations have done by adhering to the Sustainable Development Goals.
But we know that this alone is no longer sufficient. No one is safe until everyone is safe, so all nations must invest in their shared security and protection. This we can only do by looking beyond borders, regionally and globally. We must strengthen health systems and health security worldwide, supporting all countries around the globe, especially the least developed. We have done this through UN and other multilateral formats, including statements and actions.
A technically and operationally sound World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the most cost-effective and sustainable investments that can be made to create a healthier, safer world for everyone. In representing 194 countries, WHO has a unique reach and mandate to serve as the guiding force in global health, convening scientific excellence, national decision-makers and health partners alike. But to succeed, WHO must be equipped to be flexible, reliable and efficient. The Member States of WHO have chosen to invest in the organization and back the organization’s landmark first WHO Investment Round.
The WHO Investment Round, which will be the focus of the Berlin World Health Summit today, offers a unique opportunity for nations to work together to advance global health. Every $35 spent on WHO can be used to save 40 million lives over the course of four years. Full, sustainable funding of WHO will enable it to support countries to build healthier, stronger and more prosperous communities.
Numerous governments have pledged to help the world reach its goals, including funding research and science, funding community health initiatives, eradicating polio, and funding the vaccination of children. However, these accomplishments and initiatives are in danger because numerous crises simultaneously place enormous demands on national budgets.
However, COVID-19 taught us that disease outbreaks have the potential to cause more economic and social harm than the necessary investment to prevent and combat them in today’s hyper-connected world. We have learned, outbreak by outbreak, that such investment requires a whole-of-society and whole-of-government response and commitment. At the same time, it demands international solidarity and agreements so countries know, when the next crisis strikes, they can rely on one another, whether that be to share knowledge and countermeasures, or to support actions that prevent major disruptions in international trade and commerce, all in order to protect people’s lives and livelihoods.
US-based Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson win 2024 Nobel economics prize
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences declares that James Robinson, Simon Johnson, and Daron Acemoglu have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”
The Stockholm awarding of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Honor of Alfred Nobel was formally known as. The 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1.1 million) prize is the biggest prize of its kind this year.
“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges”, Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement.
The winners have demonstrated how crucial social institutions are to accomplishing this, Svensson continued.
The three winners are all employed in America. While Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago, Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I am delighted. It’s just a real shock and amazing news”, Acemoglu told reporters via telephone after the announcement.
The trio’s approach, according to economics analyst Nina Skero, was “relatively novel” because it sought to find “natural experiments in historical examples.”
According to Skero, chief executive officer at Centre for Economics and Business Research, “some of their work looks at historical periods of colonization and the types of institutions that colonizers built in those colonies.”
They claim that if you examine historical sites where colonial powers implemented better institutions, they would end up doing better and producing more wealth, especially during the days of industrialization.
The Alfred Nobel, a dynamite inventor and businessman, gave the first economics award in 1901, but it was not one of the original prizes for science, literature, and peace. The Swedish central bank funded and established it in 1968 as a later addition.
A number of well-known thinkers, including Ben Bernanke, John Nash, and Milton Friedman, have won the Nobel Prize in the past.
Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economic historian, won the Nobel Prize last year for her book exposing the causes of gender wage and labor market disparities.
US academics have dominated the economics prize since its inception, and US-based researchers have a tendency to make up the majority of winners in the scientific fields for which the names of the 2024 laureates were released last week.
Israeli attack on Gaza hospital tent camp kills displaced Palestinians
In an Israeli attack on tents housing forcibly displaced people in a hospital’s courtyard in central Gaza, at least four Palestinians have been killed and several have been injured.
South Korea on alert as North ‘to blow up border roads’ amid drones dispute
Despite rumor that North Korean troops have been stationed at the border and are getting ready to blow up the roads connecting the two countries along the militarized dividing line, South Korea’s military has declared it is “fully prepared” to respond.
In recent days, tensions have gotten worse as Seoul is accused of flying drones over its capital to drop propaganda leaflets filled with “inflammatory rumours and rubbish” and warned that if another drone was discovered, Seoul would treat it as “a declaration of war” in the nuclear-armed North.
After Pyongyang ordered artillery units along the border to fire on in case of an escalation, South Korean military spokesman Lee Sung-jun told reporters in Seoul on Monday that they are “full readiness” against the possibility of “a provocation.”
Lee’s claim that the North is installing screens along the roads “to make preparations for the explosions” was also quoted by the South Korean state news agency Yonhap.
“It is possible for]North Korea’s explosions] to take place as early as today]Monday]”, he said. “If North Korea undertakes a provocation, we will strongly retaliate in terms of our right to self-defence”.
Seoul Korea called the North’s claim “shameless” on Monday, but it did not confirm or refute that it was to blame for the drones that were sent across the border.
Lee, its military spokesman, instead blamed Pyongyang for starting the tension after it launched “vulgar and base trash balloons” to the South.
Previously, Seoul has denied it was behind the drone flights, with local speculation centred on activist groups in the South, which have long sent propaganda and the currency of the United States, a close South Korean ally, northwards, typically by balloon.
The North insists that Seoul is actually to blame, announcing late on Sunday that it had instructed eight artillery brigades on war footing to “get fully ready to open fire” and that it had installed air observation posts in Pyongyang.
Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister threatens a “horrible disaster” unless they stop, according to Pyongyang, who claims propaganda drones have invaded the capital’s airspace three times recently.
In a statement early on Monday, Kim Yo Jong said the drone flights were “an unpardonable, malicious challenge to our state”.
As part of the North’s retaliatory action, it also seemed to be preparing to carry out explosions at roads connected to the South, Seoul’s military said.
Last week, the North’s military announced the measure will “completely separate” North Korea’s territory from the South.
The two , Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The leaders’ summit in 2018 revealed that there would be no more war and that a new era of peace had begun, and the cross-border roads are remnants of those times of reconciliation.
Why hasn’t US President Biden made any state visits to Africa?
Joe Biden’s planned trip to Angola on October 13 was meant to be historic. His first trip to Africa while serving as president of the United States would have been in that country.
The White House delayed the trip to an undisclosed date as Hurricane Milton advanced on Florida last week, along with a trip to Germany where Biden was scheduled to meet with European leaders about the Ukraine war before heading to Luanda.
After a number of promises, the retiring US president finally made good on his travels to Africa. The visit was intended to give Angola a diplomatic victory while also granting the troubled government of President Joao Lourenco regional standing as its new leader after a ten year absence.
Although the postponement is reasonable, according to critics, Biden never really seemed interested in putting Africa first, despite growing rapidly in the hands of rival world powers like China and Russia, which they regard as important because of its significant natural resources, rapidly expanding population, and significant voting bloc at the UN.
Since Biden’s election into office in 2020, he has not set foot in any African country, despite his administration insisting that it prioritises the needs of the continent’s 1.3 billion people and respects its leaders. Biden has, in contrast, been able to travel to Europe several times, five times to the United Kingdom, as well as to countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.
“The Biden administration has fallen short of its own rhetoric”, Cameron Hudson, a senior Africa analyst at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera. Even the Luanda trip appeared as a “hastily organised” last-ditch attempt for the president as he approached his final months in office, Hudson added.
“Ironically,]an Africa trip] probably matters more to Biden, who is searching to establish a legacy in Africa and wants to make good on a promise he has made repeatedly, than for Africa, which is already preparing for his successor”.
Big promises, little action
In December 2022, Biden made a first-time commitment to visit Africa. He was talking with 49 African leaders who had gathered in Washington, DC for the US-Africa Leaders Summit.
The summit was held at a time when US influence on the continent had already drastically decreased: in 2019, China overtook the US in terms of trade volume with Africa. Countries in the West African Sahel region have resorted to Russia for security partnerships since 2021, even kicking out US and Western troops stationed there.
Following a feast at the White House, Biden made ominous proclamations to his counterparts: The United States would work to ensure that African nations are granted permanent seats on the UN Security Council (UNSC), a goal that the African Union (AU) has pursued for 20 years.
Washington would also notice that the AU was invited to join the Group of 20, he added, to the cheering leaders’ loud cheers. The group accounts for trade and the world’s two-thirds of GDP.
“The United States is all in on Africa and all in with Africa”, Biden declared. Africa is a member of the conversation that takes place in every room, in every institution, and in every room where global issues are being discussed.
The hearty speech was completed by a $55 billion support package to the AU for infrastructure, healthcare, and a number of other sectors.
However, many of the promises have not been achieved, Hudson said. Biden’s failure to match his actions with his words comes largely from the administration’s initial laxness to the continent, he added.
In fact, Biden’s White House didn’t begin developing and publishing a policy statement outlining its planned relations with Africa until August 2022.
Hudson said that only gave him two years to leave a legacy, which isn’t enough time for him to make an appearance on the continent and, evidently, even less time to schedule a trip there.
When it surfaced, analysts called the much-anticipated Africa Strategy document “ambitious” and “modern”. By promising to increase African representation at international global institutions, strengthen economies, and promote climate adaptation, it shifted from former president Donald Trump’s emphasis on trade relations and aid tracking.
However, enthusiasm around the policy dampened gradually, especially after Biden’s exit from the presidential race in July.
Some experts believe that Biden won some games. In September 2023, the AU was admitted to the G20 as a permanent member. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, also made the announcement last month that her country would support two permanent UNSC seats for Africa, but she did so without gaining a veto.
Additionally, Biden visited the continent in a flurry of US officials. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, has traveled to Africa four times. In the final game of January, he assisted in the mediation of peace between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He attended an African Cup of Nations game in Ivory Coast.
Vice President Kamala Harris too was in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia for a week in March 2023, alongside Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
US vs China and Russia
However, pushing for Africa to have a permanent seat on the UNSC without veto power is akin to relegating its citizens to the second-class category, Tim Murithi, a professor and research associate at the University of Cape Town, argued in South Africa’s Daily Maverick.
In effect, according to Murithi, “Africa would once again be confined to the status of spectators in UNSC decisions that affect the lives of its citizens,” referring to a period of colonization and lack of representation at the body.
Besides, Blinken and Harris’s visits do not carry the needed weight, Hudson said. Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, visited Africa eight times.
“Presidential trips to Africa are rare enough that they always matter, though admittedly, this one would matter less coming as it does at the very end of a lame-duck presidency”, he added.
In contrast, China’s Xi Jinping has visited the continent thrice. His last visit was to South Africa in August 2023 for a summit of BRICS (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) – a group analysts say wants to rival the Group of Seven countries. Analysts noted how Xi personally met with many African leaders in Beijing during the China-Africa summit in September when they took them on a tour of the capital.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin too was in South Africa in 2013 for a BRICS meeting. Due to international pressure on Pretoria to arrest him in March 2023 for his war in Ukraine, he was forced to participate in the meeting last year online.
Even Biden’s decision to visit Angola – if that happens – is faulty, critics say. Both sides have praised improved air connectivity and increased trade ties. A space exploration agreement was even signed by them last year.
More importantly, though, Angola is attractive to the US because of the Lobito Corridor, an unfinished $1bn railway project that will see precious minerals from the DRC transported to Angola’s Lobito port.
The US has pumped $3bn into the project. However, some say that this appears to be Biden’s biggest legacy on the continent is odd. The deal ultimately focuses on taking resources and resembles the “exploitation” the US has accused China of undertaking on the continent, some note.
Controversial ally
While Biden’s government lauds Angola as a close ally and “regional leader”, some Angolans are sceptical of the relationship.
President Lourenco’s government is deeply unpopular because of high living costs, corruption, and mounting human rights abuses. In June, authorities opened fire on protesters angry at inflation, killing eight people in the central Huambo province. In several cities across the nation, several others were detained.
Lourenco’s People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, which has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, is also in the throes of an internal power struggle that has weakened the president’s image.
Even when he hosted Lourenco in the White House in November, Biden has not touched on these rights. His closeness to Lourenco, experts say, could be seen as emboldening the Angolan government.
“Lourenco has made significant lobbying investments to strengthen his standing in Washington. However, at home, he faces protests”, said Florindo Chivuvute, director of Friends of Angola, a group advocating for stronger democratic values in Angola and based in Luanda and Washington, DC.
In an effort to catch up, the US should not compromise its fundamental principles of democracy and human rights. These characteristics set the US apart from China, he said, and they are echoed by Angolans.
Angola warmed to the US only recently. Historically, the country leaned towards Russia, and in the early 2000s, towards China. Instead of using financial institutions like the World Bank, the previous government opted for Chinese loans.
However, many Angolans believed that the political elite would only benefit from a infamous obscurity, which experts claim is related to Chinese funding.
For Biden, wrenching Angola from China or Russia might be seen as a success, but experts say it is not one many Angolans recognise.
According to analysts, Biden has little to do now to strengthen his fragile African legacy now that his term has come to an end.
According to Hudson, who he will pass the baton will determine even the few successes he has now. While Harris might not sway too far from her predecessor, Trump’s “shithole” nations comment about African countries is still fresh for many.
Biden’s unfulfilled promises will always be a stain, though.
According to Hudson, “the issue with unmet expectations is that they sting more than promises never made.”