SpaceX rocket ship lifts off with 2 Americans

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off during NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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Updated 31 May 2020
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SpaceX rocket ship lifts off with 2 Americans

  • The spacecraft took off on Saturday afternoon from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral
  • Trump flew to Florida to watch the launch, described it as "really something special"

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA: A rocket ship designed and built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has lifted off with two Americans on a history-making flight to the International Space Station.

The spacecraft took off Saturday afternoon from the same launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, that was used during the Apollo missions to the moon a half-century ago.
The flight ushers in a new era in commercial space travel and marks the first time NASA has launched astronauts from US soil in nearly a decade.
“Let’s light this candle,” Commander Doug Hurley said just before liftoff.
Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian rockets launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts took and from the space station.
Earlier the two NASA astronauts climbed into their capsule for a second attempt at a history-making ride into orbit aboard a rocket ship designed and built by SpaceX company.
Stormy weather had threatened another postponement most of the day, but the skies began to clear and the outlook improved markedly in the afternoon, just ahead of the scheduled 3:22 p.m. liftoff of the 260-foot Falcon 9 in what would be the first launch of astronauts into orbit by a private company.
Their destination: The International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth.
It would also be NASA’s first human spaceflight launched from US soil in nearly a decade.
The mission unfolded amid the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed over 100,000 Americans, and racial unrest across the US over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police. NASA officials and others held out hope the flight would would lift American spirits.
“Maybe there’s an opportunity here for America to maybe pause and look up and see a bright, shining moment of hope at what the future looks like, that the United States of America can do extraordinary things even in difficult times,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
Veteran astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken pulled on their angular, white-and-black spacesuits with help from technicians wearing masks, gloves and black hoods that made them look like ninjas.
Before setting out for the launch pad in a gull-wing Tesla SUV — another Musk product — Behnken pantomimed a hug of his 6-year-old son, Theo, and said: “Are you going to listen to Mommy and make her life easy?” Hurley blew kisses to his 10-year-old son and wife.

FASTFACT

Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts to and from the space station.

Wednesday’s countdown of the rocket and its bullet-shaped Dragon capsule was halted at just under 17 minutes because of the threat of lightning.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence returned to the Kennedy Space Center for the second launch attempt.
Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts to and from the space station.
“I would be lying to you if I told you I wasn’t nervous,” Bridenstine said before the launch attempt. “We want to do everything we can to minimize the risk, minimize the uncertainty, so that Bob and Doug will be safe.”
Because of the coronavirus, NASA severely limited the number of employees, visitors and journalists allowed deep inside Kennedy Space Center, and the crowd was relatively small, at a few thousand. At the center’s tourist complex, though, all 4,000 tickets were snapped up in a few hours.
The space agency urged people to stay safe and watch from home, and by NASA’s count, over 3 million viewers tuned in online. But spectators also began lining the Cape Canaveral area’s beaches and roads. Signs along the main beach drag read, “Godspeed.”
Among the spectators was Neil Wight, a machinist from Buffalo, New York, who staked out a view of the launch pad from a park in Titusville.
“It’s pretty historically significant in my book and a lot of other people’s books. With everything that’s going on in this country right now, it’s important that we do things extraordinary in life,” Wight said. “We’ve been bombarded with doom and gloom for the last six, eight weeks, whatever it is, and this is awesome. It brings a lot of people together.”
NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to taxi astronauts to and from the space station, under contracts totaling $7 billion. Both companies launched their crew capsules last year with test dummies. SpaceX’s Dragon aced all of its objectives, while Boeing’s Starliner capsule ended up in the wrong orbit and was almost destroyed because of software errors.
As a result, the first Starliner flight carrying astronauts isn’t expected until next year.


UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report

Updated 23 January 2025
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UK delaying reversal on Israeli arms export ban: Report

  • British PM expects ‘sustained’ aid deliveries to Gaza before reversing partial weapons freeze
  • Israeli counterpart raised the matter during phone call on Tuesday

LONDON: The UK is delaying lifting its partial ban on arms exports to Israel until “sustained” humanitarian aid shipments arrive in Gaza, The Times reported.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who spoke to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone on Tuesday, is believed to be resisting pressure from Tel Aviv on the matter.

Starmer is expected to wait for formal legal advice that Israel’s policy on aid deliveries has improved before reversing the ban.

A source told The Times: “There are signs that the trucks are getting through. But we have told the Israelis we need that to be sustained and to see numbers increased.”

Last September, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended 30 of 350 export licenses to Israel due to fears that the weapons could be used to commit violations of international law, implicating Britain in the process. Licenses are reviewed every six weeks as per government policy.

The government’s existing legal position on the banned export licenses cites credible claims of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners of war, as well as insufficient aid deliveries to Gaza. Israel could “reasonably do more to facilitate humanitarian access and distribution,” it says.

During Tuesday’s phone call, Netanyahu “raised the issue of the weapons export licenses to Israel that have been frozen in the UK,” according to an Israeli government report.

There are concerns that an Israeli law set to take effect next week designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees as a terrorist group could prevent it from helping with urgent aid deliveries.

UNRWA is the largest aid organization in Gaza, with about 13,000 staff in the Palestinian enclave.


Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan

Updated 23 January 2025
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Daesh claims responsibility for killing Chinese national in Afghanistan

  • Daesh said it had targeted a vehicle carrying the Chinese citizen, which led to his death and damage to his vehicle
  • China said it was “deeply shocked” by the attack and demanded the Afghan side thoroughly investigate the incident

KABUL: Daesh (Islamic State) has claimed responsibility for the killing of a Chinese national in Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province, it said in a post on its Telegram channel late on Wednesday.

Afghan police in the province had said on Wednesday that a Chinese citizen was murdered and a preliminary investigation had been launched, but it was not clear who was behind the attack.

Daesh said it had targeted a vehicle carrying the Chinese citizen, which led to his death and damage to his vehicle.

China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it was “deeply shocked” by the attack and had demanded that the Afghan side thoroughly investigate the incident and severely punish the perpetrators.

“We urge the Afghan interim government to take resolute and effective measures to ensure the security of Chinese civil institutions and projects in Afghanistan,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

China was the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan under the Taliban and has said it wants to boost trade and investment ties.

The Taliban took over in 2021, vowing to restore security to the war-torn nation.

Attacks have continued, including an assault in 2022 on a Kabul hotel popular with Chinese investors. Daesh has claimed responsibility for many of them.


NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy

Updated 23 January 2025
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NATO allies must pay ‘fair share’ before adding members: US envoy

  • NATO allies must pay their “fair share” on defense before considering enlarging the alliance, a US presidential envoy said Thursday, as NATO’s chief said members will need to ramp up defense spending

DAVOS: NATO allies must pay their “fair share” on defense before considering enlarging the alliance, a US presidential envoy said Thursday, as NATO’s chief said members will need to ramp up defense spending.
“You cannot ask the American people to expand the umbrella of NATO when the current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who need to step up,” US envoy Richard Grenell said by video link at an event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in response to NATO chief Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister.
“We have collectively to move up and we will decide on the exact number later this year, but it will be considerably more than two (percent),” Rutte said, referring to the alliance’s target of defense spending of two percent of GDP.


Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals

Updated 23 January 2025
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Balkan air pollution crisis threatens public health, EU membership goals

  • Old coal plants, cars keep Balkan pollution high
  • Economic hardship hinders progress toward reducing emissions

OBILIC: For 30 years, Shemsi Gara operated a giant digger in a Kosovo coal mine, churning up toxic dust that covered his face and got into his airways. Home life wasn’t much better: the power plants that the mine supplies constantly spew fumes over his village.
Gara died on Sunday aged 55 after three years of treatment failed to contain his lung cancer. In his final days, unable to walk, he lay on a couch at home, gaunt and in pain, as a machine pumped oxygen into his dying body.
“I kept telling him I wanted to help, but I couldn’t,” said his wife Xhejlane, who mourned in her living room with friends on Wednesday. “He would say ‘Only God knows the pain I have’.”
As much of the world moves to reduce the use of fossil fuels, pollution in Western Balkan countries remains stubbornly high due to household heating, outdated coal plants, old cars, and a lack of money to tackle the problem.
Relatively small cities such as Serbia’s capital Belgrade and Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo have frequently topped daily global pollution charts, according to websites that track air quality worldwide.
This has costly health impacts, and could also jeopardize such countries’ prospects of joining the European Union, which has stricter emissions standards.
“There are no resources in the region for the reduction of air pollution,” said Mirko Popovic, a director with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute think-tank in Belgrade.
In the EU, net greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by about 40 percent since 1990, driven by the embrace of renewable energy, a European Commission report said in November.
Western Balkan nations have pledged to reduce carbon emissions but economic hardship has slowed progress.
Kosovo, one of Europe’s poorest countries, generates more than 90 percent of its power from coal. The World Bank estimates that a transition to a coal-free economy will cost 4.5 billion euros.

SMOG
The impact of pollution is clear across the region, especially in winter.
Smog has cloaked Belgrade this week, while Sarajevo sits in a valley that acts as a pollution trap. The Bosnian capital’s air quality was classed as “hazardous” on Tuesday, the worst in the world, according to IQAir, which tracks pollution levels.
In North Macedonia’s capital Skopje, mask-wearing locals often lose sight of nearby snow-capped mountains for days.
The rate of deaths attributable to ambient pollution is relatively high — 114 per 100,000 people in Bosnia and around 100 in Serbia and Montenegro, World Health Organization data show, compared with just 45 in Germany and 29 in France.
Gara was buried on Monday in a cemetery in Obilic, outside Kosovo’s capital Pristina. From the graveside, mourners could hear the chug of a nearby conveyor belt transporting coal from the mine to the power plants.
Gara’s doctor, Haki Jashari, blamed Gara’s cancer on his years at the coal mine, and on the polluting power plants.
Cancer rates more than doubled in Obilic over the last two years, Jashari said — the result, he added, of a generation of exposure to pollutants. He expects it will get worse.
Kosovo’s energy ministry told Reuters it was committed to reducing emissions and was investing in renewable energy projects and upgrading existing plants.
Jashari only wishes more could have been done sooner.
“They would have shut the plants down if we were part of the EU. It is unacceptable.”


India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US

Updated 23 January 2025
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India says 'open' to return of undocumented immigrants in US

  • India was working with the Trump administration on the deportation of around 18,000 Indians

Washington: India is prepared to take back its citizens residing illegally in the United States, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said after meeting the top diplomat of President Donald Trump’s new administration.
Jaishankar’s remarks came after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Tuesday a day after Trump’s inauguration.
Trump issued a raft of executive orders this week that aim to clamp down on illegal immigration and expedite his goal of deporting millions of immigrants.
Jaishankar said New Delhi was open to taking back undocumented Indians and was in the process of verifying those in the United States who could be deported to India.
“We want Indian talent and Indian skills to have the maximum opportunity at the global level. At the same time, we are also very firmly opposed to illegal mobility and illegal migration,” Jaishankar told a group of Indian reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
“So, with every country, and the US is no exception, we have always taken the view that if any of our citizens are here illegally, and if we are sure that they are our citizens, we have always been open to their legitimate return to India.”
Jaishankar was responding to a query on news reports that India was working with the Trump administration on the deportation of around 18,000 Indians who are either undocumented, or have overstayed their visas.
Rubio had “emphasized the Trump administration’s desire to work with India to advance economic ties and address concerns related to irregular migration,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a readout after Tuesday’s meeting.
India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and enjoys world-beating GDP growth, but hundreds of thousands of its citizens still leave the country each year seeking better opportunities abroad.
While its diaspora spans the globe, the United States remains the destination of choice.
The most recent US census showed its Indian-origin population had grown by 50 percent to 4.8 million in the decade to 2020, while more than a third of the nearly 1.3 million Indian students studying abroad in 2022 were in the United States.