Events

Given that more than half a billion people are living with diabetes worldwide, a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open last Friday provides valuable insight into managing the condition. People with type 2 diabetes (T2D), who followed a time-restricted diet lost belly fat and improved their blood sugar as much as those who counted calories, according to a randomised clinical trial that followed a group of 75 people for six months. “Our findings show time restricted eating is a viable alternative for people with type 2 diabetes who are sick of calorie counting for weight loss,” said lead study author Krista Varady, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago.Diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. The most common is T2D, usually in adults, which occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn’t make enough insulin. In the past 3 decades the prevalence of T2D has risen dramatically in countries of all income levels. Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin by itself.The number of people living with diabetes is projected to more than double to 1.3bn people in the next 30 years, with every country seeing an increase, as published in The Lancet in June this year. The latest and most comprehensive calculations show the current global prevalence rate is 6.1%, making diabetes one of the top 10 leading causes of death and disability. At the super-region level, the highest rate is 9.3% in North Africa and the Middle East, and that number is projected to jump to 16.8% by 2050. The rate in Latin America and the Caribbean is projected to increase to 11.3%. As much as 96% of global cases are T2D. High body mass index was the primary risk for T2D – accounting for 52.2% of T2D disability and mortality – followed by dietary risks, environmental/occupational risks, tobacco use, low physical activity, and alcohol use.The JAMA Network Open study explored the question if time-restricted eating (TRE) without calorie counting more effective for weight loss and lowering of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels compared with daily calorie restriction (CR) in adults with T2D. The participants were randomised to one of three groups: 8-hour TRE (eating 12noon to 8pm only, without calorie counting), CR (25% energy restriction daily), or control. There was a 3.6% reduction in weight for time-restricted eating and a 1.8% loss from counting calories compared with those in the control group who were not assigned to a diet. However, changes in HbA1c levels did not differ between the TRE (−0.91%) and CR (−0.94%) groups compared with controls. These findings suggest that time-restricted eating may be an effective alternative strategy to CR for lowering body weight and HbA1c levels in T2D.“We found that just by limiting the eating window to 8 hours per day, the time restricted eating group naturally cut out about 300 calories per day,” Varady said, even though they were allowed to eat whatever they wanted. Calorie counters were asked to cut 500 calories per day and found tracking the food “too tedious, so they only ended up cutting out 200 calories per day,” Varady said, a factor she attributes to the difference in weight loss. These findings will need to be confirmed by larger randomised control trials with longer follow-up, the authors have recommended.Qatar faces a significant burden of diabetes, with a projected increase in prevalence from 17.8% (37,179 persons) in 2023 to 29.5% (84,516 persons) by 2050 among adult Qataris aged 20-79 years, according to a paper published in June this year by Laith Abu-Raddad, PhD, Professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. Obesity is the main driver of the diabetes epidemic in Qatar, accounting for 57.5% of diabetes cases, it was pointed out in the paper.

Chinese former premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, barely seven months after retiring from a decade in office during which his reformist star had dimmed. He was 68.Once viewed as a top Communist Party leadership contender, Li was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who tightened his grip on power and steered the world’s second-largest economy in a more statist direction.The elite economist Li had supported a more open market economy, advocating supply-side reforms in an approach dubbed “Likonomics” that was never fully implemented.Ultimately, he had to bend to Xi’s preference for more state control, and his former power base waned in influence as Xi installed his own acolytes to powerful positions.“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, experienced a sudden heart attack on October 26 and after all-out efforts to revive him failed, died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on October 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.An official obituary published by state media Xinhua on Friday called his death a “huge loss to the party and nation”, describing him as an “outstanding leader”.“We must turn our grief into strength, learn from his revolutionary spirit, noble character and fine style,” Xinhua said.The obituary listed his policy achievements and said four times that Li carried out his work under the “strong leadership” of Xi.There was an outpouring of grief and shock on Chinese social media, with some government websites going black-and-white in an official sign of mourning.The Weibo microblogging platform turned its “like” button into a “mourn” icon in the shape of a chrysanthemum on its mobile app.“He’s only 68. He probably hasn’t enjoyed his life yet, right? He’s been busy all the time taking care of the country’s important responsibilities,” said a 74-year-old Shanghai retiree Xu. “We’re all very sad.”Li was premier and head of China’s cabinet under Xi for a decade until stepping down from all political positions in March. Laying a wreath in August 2022 at a statue of Deng Xiaoping - the leader who brought transformational reform to China’s economy - Li vowed: “Reform and opening up will not stop. The Yangtze and Yellow River will not reverse course.” Video clips of the speech, which went viral but were later censored from Chinese social media, were widely viewed as a coded criticism of Xi’s policies.Li also sparked debate on poverty and income inequality in 2020 when he said that 600mn people in the increasingly rich nation earned less than $140 per month.Some Chinese intellectuals and members of the liberal elite expressed shock and dismay on a semi-private WeChat channel at the passing of a beacon of liberal economic reform, with some saying it signalled the end of an era.“Li will probably be remembered as an advocate for the freer market and for the have-nots,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at Australian National University. “But most of all, he will be remembered for what could have been.”Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said: “All these types of people no longer exist anymore in Chinese politics.”Li was less influential than his immediate predecessors as premier, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, Wu said. “He was sidelined, but what more could he have done? It was very hard for him, with the constraints he faced under Xi.”

Hurricane Otis caused at least 27 deaths and major damage as it lashed Mexico’s resort city of Acapulco as a scale-topping Category 5 storm, officials said on Thursday, in what residents called a “total disaster”.Otis crashed into Acapulco with furious winds of 165mph (270kph), shattering windows, uprooting trees and largely cutting off communications and road links with the region.President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador arrived at the scene late on Wednesday, after his convoy found roads blocked by landslides and other debris, forcing officials to abandon their vehicles and walk part of the way.Acapulco is the biggest city in the southern state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in Mexico.The local economy depends heavily on tourism, and Otis caused extensive damage to some of the most famous hotels on the city’s shoreline.The hurricane peeled off sections of buildings in downtown Acapulco, images showed, leaving debris strewn around main thoroughfares.Some Mexican media posted videos of looting in the city. Reuters could not immediately confirm their veracity.Operations at Acapulco’s international airport remain suspended, officials said, citing structural damage.Some residents slogged for hours through mud and debris in an attempt to find food and shelter.“Acapulco is a total disaster. It is not what it was before,” said 24-year-old Eric Hernandez, who made the decision to leave on foot. “The shops had all been looted, people were fighting for things. So we decided to walk as there wasn’t anything left there.”Others said an overflowing river and collapsed bridges had cut off communities near Acapulco, home to about 780,000 people.“People were left homeless, there’s no electricity,” said Israel Perez, a 21-year-old baker.Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez told a news conference on Thursday that 27 people were dead and four were missing.Three of those unaccounted for were soldiers, Lopez Obrador said after returning to Mexico City.He described the storm as “disastrous” and said that it was only thanks to the actions of people who sought shelter that there were not more deaths.The government would begin an airlift to deliver aid and materials to the region, Lopez Obrador said.Telephone communications began to resume while the main highway from Mexico City to Acapulco was reopened.Otis rapidly intensified within hours from a tropical storm to the most powerful category of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale before hitting land, taking authorities by surprise.“It’s unprecedented in the country in recent times, not only because of the way it strengthened so quickly but also the magnitude,” Lopez Obrador said.People recounted a terrifying ordeal as Otis made landfall overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, causing major structural damage.“The building shook as if there was an earthquake,” Citlali Portillo, a tourist accommodation manager, told the television channel Televisa, adding that she had taken shelter in a bathtub.The storm overturned vehicles and even left a car in the lobby of a luxury hotel, surrounded by broken glass and debris.Soldiers worked to clear the streets of mud and fallen trees.Some residents were seen taking food, water and other goods from looted stores.Hurricanes hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, usually between May and November, though few make landfall as a Category 5.In October 1997, Hurricane Pauline hit Mexico’s Pacific coast as a Category 4 storm, leaving more than 200 people dead, some of them in Acapulco.It was one of the deadliest hurricanes to batter Mexico.In October 2015, Patricia became the most powerful hurricane ever recorded, pummelling Mexico’s Pacific coast with sustained winds of 200mph.However, the storm caused only material damage and no deaths as it made landfall in a sparsely populated mountainous area.Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer with climate change.

Renewable energy stocks have been hit hard in recent months, performing significantly worse than fossil fuel companies due to higher interest rates.The S&P Global Clean Energy Index - comprising 100 major solar, wind power, and other renewables-related companies - has dropped 20.2% in the past two months, according to a Financial Times report.Total renewable capacity additions have been growing steadily, but stock prices are under pressure.This puts it on track for its worst performance since 2013. In contrast, the oil and gas-heavy S&P 500 Energy Index has seen a 6% increase, according to the World Economic Forum.The industry received a fresh blow on Friday, after a sales warning from equipment provider SolarEdge Technologies sent shares in solar stocks across the US and Europe tumbling as much as 25%.Until recently expected to displace oil-and-gas companies from mainstream investment portfolios, clean energy stocks have instead become a no-go zone for many.Investors have been pulling money out, wiping over $280bn from the market capitalisation of green stocks globally since their August 2022 peak — not quite boom-to-bust but a dramatic unravelling for a market that was all the rage at the turn of the decade, according to a Bloomberg report.Now, with the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond creeping toward 5%, their fortunes could be about to take another hit.Higher yields make it costlier to fund the huge investment that clean energy requires, giving investors reason to fret about returns.On top of that, the pace of decarbonisation is in question and oil’s march back toward $100 a barrel is renewing interest in fossil fuels.SolarEdge Technologies sank as much as 25% in US premarket trading last Friday after it warned its third-quarter revenue will come in below its previous guidance range.Other firms in the sector, including Enphase Energy Inc, Sunrun Inc, SMA Solar Technology and Meyer Burger Technology also tumbled.The MSCI Global Alternative Energy Index – which counts Orsted A/S, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, First Solar Inc, and Enphase Energy among its top constituents – has slumped about 39% this year.In value terms, it’s down almost $152bn in 2023 alone.Retail investors have also fled, with global clean energy equity ETFs seeing outflows amounting to over $1.1bn in total since December 2022. They had attracted more than $15bn in the previous three years.True, there have been some pockets of speculative frenzy in green shares this year, with stocks linked to lithium — critical for electric-vehicle batteries — skyrocketing in Australia and India.“When I speak to colleagues and other investment managers, they say ‘let’s get out’,” said Marcus Poppe, co-head of European equities at DWS Group.The picture is a stark contrast with the immediate post-Covid period when US and European governments doubled down on net-zero agendas.So far, companies and governments are still committing cash to renewables — the $358bn of new investment seen in the first half of 2023 is a record for any six-month period, according to BloombergNEF.But progress, including on US President Joe Biden’s $2tn Inflation Reduction Act, may still be falling short.BNEF estimates that keeping net zero on track requires at least $4 to be spent on low-carbon energy supply globally for every $1 that goes to fossil fuels from 2021-2030. Investment hasn’t reached that ratio yet.Investors have been told that over $4tn per year is needed for the next 30 years to achieve net zero by 2050, according to the WEF.Despite governments offering billions in tax credits and subsidies, the renewable sector is struggling.

Israel pounded hundreds of targets in Gaza from the air yesterday while its soldiers battled Hamas fighters during raids into the besieged Palestinian enclave where deaths are soaring and civilians are trapped in harrowing conditions.Gaza’s health ministry said 436 people had been killed in bombardments over the past 24 hours, most in the south of the narrow, densely populated territory, next to which Israeli troops and tanks have massed for a possible ground invasion.The Israeli military said it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza over 24 hours..Figures from the Hamas government say more than 181,000 housing units have been damaged, of which 20,000 had been totally destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.With the territory’s 2.3mn people running short of basics, European leaders looked set to follow the United Nations and Arab nations in calling for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities so aid could reach them.The conflict is escalating beyond Gaza.Israeli aircraft also hit positions in south Lebanon held by Hezbollah.The Israeli army and Palestinians also clashed in the occupied West Bank. And Hamas fired more rockets into Israel.The UN said desperate Gazans lacked food, water, medicines and places to shelter from the unrelenting pounding that has flattened swathes of the Hamas-ruled enclave.Some aid was trickling over one border crossing into Gaza, but only a small fraction of the amount needed.At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in two weeks of strikes, including 2,055 children, Gaza’s health ministry said.With thousands more wounded, the ministry called on citizens “to immediately go to hospitals and blood banks to donate blood”.The Israeli bombardment was triggered by an October 7 cross-border assault on Israeli communities by Hamas fighters who killed 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostage – the bloodiest episode in a single day since the state of Israel was founded 75 years ago.Israel said its armed forces’ incursions overnight were partly intended to gather intelligence, with the whereabouts of the hostages unknown, and had helped improve its military readiness.“These raids are raids that kill squads of (Hamas fighters) who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep,” military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters engaged with an Israeli force that infiltrated southern Gaza, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forcing the raiders to withdraw.Israel made no comment on the incident.The al-Qassam Brigades also said they were firing missiles at the southern Israeli towns of Ashkelon and Mavki’im. Warning sirens blared out on the Israeli side.The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said about 1.4mn of Gaza’s population – more than half – were now internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in overcrowded UN emergency shelters.Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate the north.Early yesterday, Israeli warplanes also struck two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon.Israel also hit a Hezbollah compound and an observation post.The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN agency, said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on October 8.In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two Palestinians were killed at the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said.Residents told Reuters that Israeli forces raided the camp and made many arrests as they clashed with gunmen and some youths who threw stones.The Israeli military said 15 suspects were apprehended, ten of them Hamas operatives.The UN said aid arriving so far was just 4% of the daily average before the hostilities.At the weekend, Israel said it was stepping up its raids on Gaza and has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border ahead of a widely-expected ground invasion.It has said its aim is to destroy Hamas, but has offered little detail about what would follow.Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh has accused Western nations of giving Israel a “licence to kill”, saying that Israeli plans for a ground invasion would mean “more crimes, atrocities and forced displacement”.“We condemn the statements that constitute a licence to kill and give Israel political cover to commit massacres and spread destruction in Gaza,” he said.US President Joe Biden and other leaders including Britain’s Rishi Sunak and Germany’s Olaf Scholz have visited Israel in recent days and urged it to keep within international humanitarian law.

The debate whether rapid developments in robotics and artificial intelligence will aggravate human unemployment or not has been around for some time. Global e-commerce giant Amazon has just added a new dimension to the discussion by introducing two more automation technologies at its warehouses.The new robotic solutions, Sequoia and Digit, will support workplace safety and help Amazon deliver to customers faster, the company has claimed. “From our latest robotic arms like Sparrow and Cardinal, to our first autonomous mobile robot, Proteus, we’re excited to see the impact our technology is having in Amazon’s operations. We now have over 750,000 robots working collaboratively with our employees, taking on highly repetitive tasks and freeing employees up to better deliver for our customers”.Amazon has a global workforce of almost 1.5mn, one million of whom are in its warehouses. The company has been introducing more technologies to automate human jobs for over ten years now, but it insists the aim is not to replace human workers but take over monotonous tasks and improve safety.Sequoia, now operating at a fulfilment centre in Houston, Texas, US, is supposed to reimagine how inventory is stored and managed, increase accuracy for delivery estimates, while also improving employee safety.“Sequoia allows us to identify and store inventory we receive at our fulfilment centres up to 75% faster than we can today. This means we can list items for sale on Amazon.com more quickly, benefiting both sellers and customers. When orders are placed, Sequoia also reduces the time it takes to process an order through a fulfilment centre by up to 25%, which improves our shipping predictability and increases the number of goods we can offer for Same-Day or Next-Day shipping.”Building off a series of research and development efforts, Sequoia integrates multiple robot systems to containerise Amazon’s inventory into totes, bringing together mobile robots, gantry systems, robotic arms, and a new ergonomic employee workstation.With this system, employees will no longer have to regularly reach above their heads or squat down to pick customer orders, supporting the efforts to reduce the risk of injuries. Once customer orders picked from inventory are retrieved, the remaining inventory needs to be consolidated so that the totes are full, and site storage is efficiently managed. This is where Amazon’s newest robotic arm, Sparrow, comes in, taking on the highly repetitive task of consolidating inventory in totes so that full totes can be returned to storage.Company data shows that, in 2022, recordable incident rates and lost-time incident rates were 15% and 18% lower, respectively, at Amazon Robotics sites than non-robotics sites. Sequoia will help continue this positive trend.Amazon Robotics have also begun testing mobile robots that can move while also grasping and handling items. Broadening the partnership with Agility Robotics, Amazon will begin testing their bipedal robot, Digit, for use in its operations, collaboratively with employees. The initial use for this technology will be to help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them.Tye Brady, the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, admitted that while the robots will make some warehouse jobs redundant, their deployment will create new ones.He also said that the prospect of a future Amazon warehouse that was fully automated without any human workers would never be a reality. “People are so central to the fulfilment process; the ability to think at a higher level, the ability to diagnose problems,” he added.

The livelihoods of over half a billion people in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) are under threat, as current projections indicate a 4C increase by 2050.A new World Economic Forum report titled ‘Closing the climate action gap: Accelerating decarbonisation and the energy transition in Mena’, highlights the key sustainability challenges in the region and provides a blueprint for bold decarbonisation actions that could fuel new economic opportunities.The report indicates how local governments could simultaneously counter these projections while fostering greater economic diversification and high-quality jobs.This would spur on the regional momentum for holistic climate action and position Mena as a global leader in sustainable technologies for years.‘’The Mena region has been one of the fastest growing regions over the past decade and there is a pathway for the region to position itself at the forefront of sustainability efforts while maintaining its upward economic trajectory,” said WEF President Borge Brende.“As global markets continue to shift, and energy demands rise, the region requires bold and co-ordinated action from policymakers and businesses to lead a just energy transition and meet both climate- and development-related goals.”According to the report prepared in collaboration with Bain & Company, temperatures in the region are rising at twice the global average rate, presenting an array of challenges in the coming decades that could threaten the livelihoods of the 575mn people who live there, 70% of them in low-income countries.Climate shocks, such as rising temperatures and prolonged droughts, could have serious effects on agriculture and liveability, as well as a compound effect on Mena’s systemic issues.Mena countries, it said, trail behind comparable regions in terms of their sustainability progress. While local governments have pledged in the past 24 months to bring 60% of Mena’s emissions under the net-zero ambition, businesses overall have yet to follow suit and bridge the gap with comparable global markets –12% have set up a net-zero target and 6% have established a roadmap to reach net zero.“Successfully transitioning to a sustainable future will hinge on bold measures from policymakers and companies, raising awareness and multi-stakeholder partnerships”, said Tom De Waele, managing partner of Bain & Company Middle East.With abundant natural resources like solar and wind energy, and significant land availability, the region could become a global leader in scaling new energy pathways, such as renewables and clean hydrogen.Coupled with capital availability and decisive governance in the largest economies, these characteristics could facilitate Mena’s transition to a decarbonised economy while helping it meet the growing international demand for clean energy.The report offers a tailored roadmap for regional policy-makers and businesses to advance sustainability action and facilitate economic diversification through the energy transition, considering the characteristics and needs of both the GCC and non-Gulf countries alike.To safeguard economic growth and global energy influence, Gulf nations should focus on technology-based solutions that reduce emissions in challenging sectors, optimise consumption, transition to renewables and implement carbon capture at scale.Upskilling in green jobs through skill development programmes and industry partnerships will be crucial across the region.

Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, who died yesterday aged 86, was a mediator who brokered peace around the globe, winning a Nobel Peace Prize for a formidable career spanning over 40 years.Ahtisaari had battled Alzheimer’s disease, which forced him to retire from public life in September 2021.The former UN diplomat was credited with overseeing the 2005 talks between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, which brought an end to a three-decade conflict in which some 15,000 people were killed.Both sides described Ahtisaari, who was president of his native Finland between 1994 and 2000, as steely but with a sense of humour and warmth.“I have enormous amounts of patience. I don’t usually get angry, but I can be tough,” he said later, adding that he felt the key to his success was an ability to understand people.Ahtisaari also helped lead Kosovo down the path toward independence, even though his intense efforts failed to clinch an agreement with Serbia before Pristina unilaterally declared independence in 2008.Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari was born on June 23, 1937 in Viipuri – now Vyborg – in Finland’s eastern Karelia province, which his family was forced to flee at the end of World War II after it was annexed by the Soviet Union.He said that his childhood experience of war and being a refugee “gave me sensitivity ... perhaps that made me a peace negotiator”.An academic career led him to a teaching post in Pakistan in the early 1960s, before entering the diplomatic service.In 1994, Finland’s Social Democratic Party nominated him to run for the presidency and Ahtisaari became the country’s first directly-elected president.His true passion remained foreign affairs and Ahtisaari later likened his six-year diversion into domestic politics to “an extramarital affair”.In 2008, aged 71, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts “on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”.

Nearly 100mn Arab youth will reach working age over the next 10 years in the entire Arab world, according to projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).But, IMF recently warned that growth in the Middle East is not forecast to be strong or inclusive enough to create the needed jobs for them.In its recent outlook, IMF noted growth in many economies in the Middle East and Central Asia is slowing, reflecting the combined effect of tighter policies, oil production cuts, geopolitical tensions, and other domestic challenges.In the Middle East and North Africa, IMF has lowered its real GDP growth forecast to 2% for 2023, a downgrade by 1.1 percentage point from the fund’s last projections in April. Growth will accelerate to 3.4% in 2024, as some of these factors fade. Persistent structural hurdles will constrain growth over the forecast horizon.IMF noted financing conditions in the region remain generally tight. Mena central banks have continued raising rates in 2023, albeit at a slower pace than that of last year.The monetary policy tightening cycle appears to have peaked in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA). A higher for longer interest rate environment could strain corporate, financial institution, and public finance in the region, with implications for banking sector profitability, credit provision, economic growth, and financial stability.Sovereign bank linkages may worsen, with implications of higher for longer. The balance of risk has improved since April as adverse global challenges have preceded, but risks remain tilted to the downside as we saw last week, and climate related threats are rising.On the upside, a faster than anticipated global decline in inflation would reduce pressure on central banks to raise interest rate further. Downside risks include reduced external demand if China were to experience a sharper than expected slowdown reignited global price pressure.On fiscal policy, fiscal consolidation efforts should focus on building buffers and safeguarding debt sustainability, especially in emerging markets and those economies with high debt levels and financing needs.Oil exporters should focus on economic diversification and boosting fiscal buffers to strengthen resilience. All countries would benefit from domestic revenue mobilisation and increase spending efficiency.Fiscal reforms that help increase budget transparency and the adoption of credible medium term fiscal frameworks will help reach domestic goals and facilitate access to international financial markets. Structural reforms can help support near-term growth and longer-term growth prospects at the same time.IMF outlook shows that sequencing and packaging reforms strategically can magnify growth dividend. A first-generation reform package that includes governance, external sector and regulatory framework could increase output by almost 10 percent over five years.The IMF said it continues to engage closely with Middle East as well as also Central Asian countries to provide policy advice, technical support, as well as financing.It has approved $34bn in financing to some 15 countries in both Middle East and Central Asia since the onset of the pandemic, and Fund has allocated $49.3bn additional financing through the SDRs, the Special Drawing Rights.

Police officers fatally shot the driver of a vehicle that ploughed through the Chinese consulate in San Francisco and into the lobby of the building’s visa office on Monday, city police said.Official details of the incident were sketchy, and police said the identity of the motorist and what precipitated the crash were not yet known.There was no mention of anyone else being injured in the incident.“I don’t know how many people were inside the visa office at the time of the collision,” San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Sergeant Kathryn Winters told reporters at a news briefing hours later.“When officers arrived here on scene, they found the vehicle had come to rest inside the lobby of the Chinese Consulate. Officers entered, made contact with the suspect and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” Winters said. “The suspect was later pronounced deceased at the hospital. This is an open and active investigation.”Police are co-ordinating with investigators from the US State Department, she said, adding: “There’s very little information that we can give at this time.”The Chinese diplomatic post in San Francisco issued a statement saying that an “unidentified person drove violently into the document hall of the consulate, posing a serious threat to the safety of the staff and people at the scene, and causing serious damage to the facilities and property of the consulate”.The consulate went on to say that it “strongly condemns this violent attack and reserves the right to pursue responsibility for the incident”.A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said the individual drove violently into the lobby of the Chinese Consulate-General “in an attempt to kill the people at the scene and the staff”.“China strongly urges the United States to conduct a prompt investigation” and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese diplomatic institutions and personnel, said Wang Wenbin during a regular media press briefing yesterday.The consulate said it would temporarily close its consular certificate hall from October 10, in a statement released on its WeChat account.The consulate said it would inform the public when services will resume.The State Department said it was in touch with its counterparts in China, which had said it made “solemn representations” to Washington and urged “serious punishment” over the attack.“We are committed to addressing this issue, consistent with our obligations under the Vienna Conventions relating to safety and security of diplomatic facilities and personnel,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We condemn all violence perpetrated against foreign diplomatic staff working in the United States.”

A wave of water released by a burst dam killed at least 28 people in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde following heavy rains, with the death toll expected to rise, authorities said on Monday.A colonial-era dam gave way at around 4pm (1500 GMT) on Sunday, unleashing water from a small lake down the steep hillside of the Mbankolo neighbourhood, said local leader Assola Joseph.The deluge swept away a large chunk of hillside, destroying homes and burying the area in debris and mud. Residents and rescue workers on Monday picked through the mess of rubble, broken timber, uprooted banana trees and corrugated metal.“The search is on but we can say the situation is under control,” communications minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi said at the site.Twenty-eight people died and more than 20 had been injured, he said.Among the dead were children attending a birthday party, said resident Fanwi Believer.A Reuters journalist at the scene saw five bodies being carried away and some 30 destroyed houses. Among the personal belongings buried in mud were a walking stick, a wedding photo, school textbooks and toys.

DR Congo’s leader Felix Tshisekedi has submitted his candidacy for a second term in office, joining a crowded list of presidential hopefuls including opposition heavyweights and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.The turbulent central African nation, a vast and impoverished country of about 100mn people, is due to hold parliamentary and presidential votes on December 20.Tshisekedi, who came to power after an election in 2018, officially submitted his candidacy for a second five-year term in office in the capital Kinshasa on Saturday.He thereby joins over a dozen opposition candidates, including political heavyweights and senior members of the previous administration, but the opposition is far from unified.Given the fractured opposition, the 60-year-old president is thought to stand a strong chance of winning again.“He’s in a good position,” said Congolese political scientist Christian Moleka.“He’s the incumbent, he has the resources of the state, people still believe in him and he’s managed to build strategic alliances,” he added. The divided political opposition would need to unite around a single candidate to stand a chance of beating Tshisekedi, according to Moleka.But that possibility appears slim. Several opposition figures who have something prove have thrown their hats in the ring.Moise Katumbi, a business magnate and former governor of then-Katanga province is amongst those running. He had been barred from contesting the 2018 vote.Fellow candidate Martin Fayulu says he won the popular vote in 2018 and that Tshisekedi took the presidency illegitimately.Nobel-Prize winner Denis Mukwege’s entry into the race has complicated matters further.The surgical gynaecologist and winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, for his work with sexual assault victims, announced his candidacy on October 2.He has “moral authority,” said a diplomat in Kinshasa, who declined to be named.Still, Mukwege is also little known outside of his native eastern DRC, and is viewed negatively in some quarters as a Western-backed candidate.Announcing his presidential bid this month, Mukwege told supporters that “unity of all forces” is needed to change the DRC.Mukwege is open to forming alliances, said Moleka, the political scientist, noting that it remains to seen whether other opposition figures are of a similar mind. Several analysts argue that should one unifying opposition candidate emerge, the move will likely arrive late in the election campaign.The reason for this, according to Moleka, is because that would avoid the government going into “aggressive mode” to defeat the candidate — by fair means or foul.Opposition candidates have in recent months decried what they term a narrowing of the ‘democratic space’ in the DRC.Opposition politician Cherubin Okenda, a member of Katumbi’s party, was assassinated in Kinshasa in July, for example, under circumstances that remain unclear.A leading Congolese journalist has also been imprisoned on charges of disseminating false information about the murder.On top of this, most opposition parties are convinced the elections will be fraudulent.

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Is the scope of the authority of Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, limited only to the doctrinal affairs and the matter of worship, and not to worldly affairs? By some Western circles, the function of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, is restricted to correct the doctrinal beliefs of the Ummah and to teach them how to worship Allah. According to them, worldly affairs are not governed by the prophetic authority. Nevertheless, the authority of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, is clearly established by the Holy Qur’an for all people and all times.These worldly affairs include, in the view of those who would limit the scope of the Prophet’s authority, all the economic, social and political affairs which should be settled according to the expediency at each relevant time, and the Prophetic authority has no concern with them. Even if the Holy Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, gives some directions in these fields, he does so in his private capacity, and not as a Messenger. So, it is not necessary for the ummah to comply with such directions.A report which is often misquoted to support the above-mentioned fallacious view is as follows from Imam Muslim: The blessed Companion Talha (radiallahu ‘anhu) says: “I passed along with the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, across some people who were on the tips of the palm-trees. The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, asked, What are they doing? Some people said, “They are fecundating the tree. They insert the male into the female and the tree stands fecundated”. The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said, I do not think it will be of any use.The people were informed about what the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said. So, they stopped this operation. Then the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, was informed about their withdrawal. On this, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, says, If it is in fact useful to them, let them do it, because I had only made a guess. So, do not cling to me in my guess. But when I tell you something on behalf of Allah, take it firm, because I shall never tell a lie on behalf of Allah. Further, According to Anas (radiallahu ‘anhu), the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, has also said on this occasion, You know more about your worldly affairs.If the Ummah was to take the above-mentioned Hadith literally, Islam, like some other religions would only be restricted to doctrines and rituals, and having no concern with the day-to-day affairs of the human life. Once one has observed the prescribed doctrines and rituals, he is free to run his life in whatever way he likes, not hindered in any manner by the divine imperatives. However, it is an established fact that Islam, unlike some other religions which can coincide and co-exist with the secular concept of life, is not merely a set of doctrines and rituals. Islam is a complete way of life which deals with the political, economics and social problems as well as the theological issues. Allah states in the Holy Qur’an: O those who believe, respond to the call of Allah and His Messenger when he calls you for what gives you life (8:24).There are vast fields in our day-to-day worldly affairs which are not directly commented upon by the Qur’an and Sunnah, where people have been allowed to proceed according to their needs and expedience on the basis of their knowledge and experience. However, for these worldly affairs that are not directly addressed by the Qur’an and Sunnah, the Muslim must align his decision with existing principles laid down by both, to ensure that they are guided Islamically in the performance of that affair, and most importantly, avoiding the major sin of committing Shirk.For, if Allah and His Messenger, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, are to call people towards life, the affairs of life must totally be within the jurisdiction of Allah and His Messenger, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam,. Otherwise, vital branches of human life will always fall prey to satanic desires leading the people toward disaster.Furthermore, none who has studied the Qur’an can endorse that its teachings are limited to worship and rituals only. There are specific injunctions in the Qur’an about sales, purchase loans, mortgages, partnership, penal laws, inheritance, matrimonial relations, political, social and family affairs, problems of war and peace and other aspects of worldly relations. Likewise, the Sunnah of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, also deals with the economic, social, political and legal problems in such details that voluminous books have been written to compile them. The injunctions of the Qur’an and the Sunnah in this field (worldly affairs) are so absolute, imperative, and of mandatory nature that they cannot be imagined to be personal advises lacking any legal (divine) reference.Finally, there are numerous verses from the Qur’an which enjoin the obedience of Allah and the authority of the Messenger, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, upon the believers, in particular Chapter 4 Aayat 65 which says: But no, by your Lord! They could not be believers, until they make you (Muhammad) judge in all disputes between them and find in their souls no resistance against your decisions, but accept them fully with submission. Hence, to accept the fallacy that the Prophet’s, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, authority does not encompass worldly affairs, is to denounce the second source of Islamic Law, the Sunnah. This authority of the Sunnah is based on the revelation the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, received from Allah. This obedience to the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, has nowhere been limited to some particular field. It is an all-embracing obedience which requires total submission from the believers, having no exception whatsoever, neither by limiting its tenure, nor by exempting the worldly affairs from its scope.[Compiled from The Authority of Sunnah, by Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani.] Sunnah — the second source of legislationThe Sunnah (the actions, sayings and confirmations of Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, is the second source of Islamic legislation and must be in complete agreement with the first source (i. e. the Qur’an).The term Sunnah comes from the root word ‘sanna’, which means to pave the way.Sunnah can be used to describe a path that people follow. In Islamic terminology, Sunnah applies to a prophetic way which includes references to the Prophet’s sayings, actions, approvals, physical features and character traits.His actions pertain to anything he did, as authentically reported by the Companions. His silent approvals on different issues meant he didn’t oppose or mind what he saw, heard or knew of the actions or sayings of his Companions. Sunnah also includes everything authentically narrated concerning the Prophet’s physical features and his traits.The Qur’an and the Sunnah complement each other. Without the Sunnah, Islam is not complete, likewise without the Qur’an, Islam is not complete.Actually, Sunnah is so important that without it one cannot fully understand the Qur’an and Islam, or be able to apply it to his life. Both of these sources guide us to the right path.The Qur’an is the word of Allah, whereas the Sunnah is its practical interpretation. Sunnah also gives a full account of the life of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.The Qur’an principally deals with basics. It is the Sunnah which gives the details and necessary explanations of Qur’anic injunctions. For instance, Allah Says in the Qur’an what means: “...Establish the prayer...” [2: 43] But it does not specify how the prayer has to be performed.Even after knowing the details, it may not be possible to follow the divine injunctions contained in the Qur’an. For not everything can be properly understood by words alone. Therefore, the Messenger of Allah, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, demonstrated before the believers how the prayer was to be performed.Thus, not only did the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, inform the believers of the divine injunctions, but he also put these teachings into practice in all matters pertaining to religion and daily life. He, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, himself practiced these injunctions scrupulously. His practice was not a private matter; it had the status of a detailed interpretation and application of the Qur’an.Importance of the SunnahThe Qur’an repeatedly reminds us of the importance of the Sunnah, enjoining us to strictly follow the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam.Allah, Almighty, Says what means: “...And whatever the Messenger has given you – take; and what he has forbidden you – refrain from...” [Qur’an 59:7]Allah also Says what means: “But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you [O Muhammad] judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged and submit in [full, willing] submission..” [Qur’an 4:65)Again, Allah Says what means: “It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error.” [Qur’an 33:36]According to many verses in the Qur’an, the Muslim is bound to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. No one remains Muslim if he does not accept the Prophet’s Sunnah.The Sunnah is nothing but a reflection of the personality of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, who is to be obeyed at every cost.The Sunnah was not, as is generally supposed, a thing of which the need may have been felt only after the Prophet’s death, for it was very much needed in his lifetime. The two most important religious institutions of Islam are Prayer and Zakaah (obligatory alms giving); yet when the injunction relating to Prayer and Zakaah were delivered, and they were repeatedly revealed in both Makkah and Madinah, no details were supplied. ‘Keep up prayers’ is the Qur’anic injunction, and it was the Prophet himself who by his own actions gave details of the prayer by saying: “Pray as you see me praying.” [Al-Bukhari]Zakaah is again an obligation frequently repeated in the Qur’an, yet it was the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, who gave the rules and regulations for its payment and collection. These are two examples, but since Islam covers the entire sphere of human activities, hundreds of points had to be explained by the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, in word and deed.The importance of the Sunnah, even as a second source of Islam, was an openly accepted issue by the Companions of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Whenever they couldn’t find a solution to a problem in the Qur’an, they would refer to the Sunnah. And they were the most diligent in preserving it for those who came after them.Article source: http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) did not reach a staff-level agreement with Sri Lanka in its first review under a $2.9bn bailout package, due to a potential shortfall in government revenue generation, the IMF said yesterday.Speaking after a two-week visit to the country, IMF delegation head Peter Breuer said a second tranche of about $330mn under a lending programme would only be released after the IMF reaches a staff-level agreement, and there was no fixed timeline on when that would take place.“Sri Lanka has made commendable progress in implementing difficult but much-needed reforms. These efforts are bearing fruit as the economy is showing tentative signs of stabilisation,” the IMF said in a statement.“The team will continue its discussions in the context of the First Review with the goal of reaching a staff-level agreement in the near term.”The IMF delegation said despite early signs of stabilisation, full economic recovery is not yet assured and growth momentum remains subdued.In the last six months Sri Lanka has seen its runaway inflation drop to 1.3% in September, its currency appreciate by about 12% and foreign exchange reserves improve.But the island has struggled to improve its revenue with additional measures likely to be taken in the upcoming budget in mid-November.Despite revenue mobilisation having improved relative to last year, the IMF said revenue was expected to fall short of initial projections by nearly 15% by year end.“While partially due to economic factors, the onus of fiscal adjustment would fall on public expenditure if there were no efforts to recoup this shortfall. This could weaken the government’s ability to provide essential public services and undermine the path to debt sustainability.”The global lender said Sri Lanka would need to strengthen tax administration, remove tax exemptions and actively eliminate tax evasion to increase revenues and signal better governance.Sri Lanka accepted offers to exchange about $10bn worth of defaulted local debt for new bonds, taking it a step towards meeting debt restructuring requirements ahead of the IMF review.Sri Lanka has also held multiple rounds of talks with bondholders and bilateral creditors including Japan, China and India to reach an agreement to rework its foreign debt after suspending repayments in May last year.

Indian activist Partha Chaudhury is on a war footing as he strides out of the ruling BJP’s regional headquarters in Kolkata armed with passion and pages of voter lists.“We need to meet each and every BJP supporter, and all of this has to be done in less than 300 days,” the 39-year-old tells a group of fellow activists advancing into the north of Kolkata, the teeming riverfront capital of West Bengal that’s home to about 15mn people.“We want people to remember that the BJP knocked on their doors much before any opposition party worker did.” Chaudhury and his team are among an army of 18,000 volunteer activists fanning out across India ahead of next year’s national election. Their mission is to meet – face-to-face – with about 35mn BJP supporters by January.The Bharatiya Janata Party, the world’s largest political outfit with 180mn members, is betting on what it says is the biggest voter outreach campaign in history, to secure a third term in power in the world’s most populous country.Its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, remains enduringly popular among Indians after almost a decade having brought political stability, invested in infrastructure, and championed welfare reforms and national security.Despite voter concerns about inflation, unemployment and uneven growth, opinion polls suggest the right-wing BJP will comfortably win a third term in the federal elections, expected to be held in April and May.It’s no sure thing, though: growing anti-incumbency sentiment is conspiring with a newly formed national alliance of 26 opposition parties, including archrival Congress, to pose what BJP officials say will be Modi’s toughest test by far.“For once we are now seeing a united opposition,” said Tamoghna Ghosh, a senior BJP official campaigning in Kolkata. “They may be devoid of a shared political ideology or vision, but their determination to defeat Modi can’t be overlooked.”While Modi and his party stress they govern for all Indians, their emphasis of their Hindu faith and culture has disquieted some members of minority groups who feel politically excluded, especially Muslims who make up about 14% of the 1.4bn population. Some critics warn of an erosion of India’s status as a secular democracy, long enshrined in its constitution. BJP leaders in New Delhi have been spurred to action by an internal report presented to them by researchers in February that concluded that an anti-incumbency vote could see the party lose about 34 of their 303 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, robbing it of the majority that gives it a freer hand to pass laws, three senior party officials said.“This time we will have to win in uncharted territories as retaining all the existing seats for the third time in a row is going to be a challenge,” said BJP national president J P Nadda, who is leading the grassroots mobilisation drive.Nadda and six other senior BJP figures outlined previously unreported details of the project – dubbed the “Big Outreach” internally – which they said marked a shift from its 2014 and 2019 election strategies focused more on large campaign rallies across the country.It won’t be an easy task, or free of risk, according to Nalin Mehta, dean at the UPES School of Modern Media in Uttarakhand and author of the book The New BJP.He said the ground mobilisation, accompanied by an online campaign blitz, could fuel anti-incumbency sentiment in some quarters.“The BJP’s challenge as the dominant national party is to manage voter fatigue and to sustain the enthusiasm among its cadres after two terms in power,” Mehta added.“The party’s ground-level cadre-building goes hand in hand with the creation of a massive digital footprint ... as well as an industrial scale use of social media.”The BJP’s outreach began over the summer, much earlier than in its previous campaigns when mobilisation started about four months before national elections.The campaign isn’t focusing on wooing voters from rival parties, according to the party officials, but will instead make direct contact with people who voted BJP in 2019 to lock down their support, enlist their campaigning assistance and provide intelligence on local issues.

Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman yesterday warned that uncontrolled migration poses an “existential challenge” to Western nations and called for the rewriting of a treaty which has influenced global asylum policy for the last seven decades.Addressing the American Enterprise Institute think-tank in Washington, Braverman said the United Nations refugee convention has expanded the definition of “persecution” and increased the number of people qualifying for refugee protection.Braverman, who is seen as a possible future leader of the governing Conservative Party, called for a global overhaul of the approach towards immigration, which is likely to be a key issue at Britain’s general election expected next year.The United Nations 1951 convention – the legal foundation for the protection of refugees worldwide ratified by Britain and about 150 other countries – enshrines the principle that states that have signed up to the agreement must protect civilians fleeing conflict or persecution.Braverman said case law arising from the convention has lowered the threshold so that asylum seekers need only prove that they face “discrimination” instead of a real risk of torture or violence.“Just as it is a basic rule of history that nations which cannot defend their borders will not long survive, it is a basic rule of politics that political systems which cannot control their borders will not maintain the consent of the people, and thus not long endure,” Braverman said.The number of people who might qualify for asylum had reached “unsustainable” levels and “being a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection”, she said.The government says the UN convention has been one of the biggest legal barriers to dealing with people arriving in Britain in small boats and sending them either home or to so-called safe third countries such as Rwanda.Stopping small boat arrivals across the Channel from France is a priority for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Almost 24,000 people have been detected crossing the Channel this year, despite Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats”.Human rights campaigners, opposition politicians and even some members of her own party criticised Braverman’s speech.Stewart McDonald, a member of parliament for the Scottish National Party, said she displayed “appalling, nasty and cruel instincts that are at odds with common decency”.In her speech, Braverman said asylum seekers should be obliged to make a claim in the first safe country they reach.“The vast majority have passed through multiple safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years,” Braverman said.“We have created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivising millions of people to try their luck, knowing full well that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand.”

The discovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) on Jupiter’s moon Europa last Thursday from research using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data has made scientists confident there is a huge ocean of saltwater kilometres below the ice-covered surface, making the moon a prime candidate for hosting extra-terrestrial life (such as tiny, primitive microbes), in the solar system. But determining whether this concealed ocean has the right chemical elements to support life has been difficult. Aiming to find an answer, two US-led teams of researchers used data from JWST’s near-infrared spectrometer to map CO2 on the surface of Europa, publishing their results in separate studies in the journal Science. The most CO2 was in a 1,800km-wide area called Tara Regio, where there is a lot of “chaos terrain” with jagged ridges and cracks. Exactly what creates chaos terrain is not well understood, but one theory is that warm water from the ocean rises up to melt the surface ice, which then re-freezes over time into new uneven crags. The first study used the JWST data to look at whether the CO2 could have come from somewhere other than the ocean below — hitching a ride on a meteorite, for example. Samantha Trumbo, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and the study’s lead author, told AFP they concluded that the carbon was “ultimately derived from the interior, likely the internal ocean”. But the researchers could not rule out that the carbon came up from the planet’s interior as rock-like carbonate minerals, which irradiation could then have broken apart to become CO2. In another exciting development, table salt has also been detected in Tara Regio — making the area significantly more yellow than the rest of Europa’s scarred white plains — and scientists think it may also have come up from the ocean. Looking at the same JWST data, the second study also indicated that “carbon is sourced from within Europa”. The Nasa-led researchers had also hoped to find plumes of water or volatile gases shooting out of the moon’s surface, but failed to spot any. Meanwhile, two major space missions plan to get a closer look at Europa and its mysterious ocean. The European Space Agency’s Europa probe JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) launched in April this year on an eight-year journey, while Nasa’s Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to blast off in October 2024, but arrive at its destination one year earlier than the former. JUICE project scientist Olivier Witasse welcomed the two new studies, saying they were “very exciting”. JUICE will study Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, three of the largest moons in the entire solar system. When JUICE flies past Europa twice in 2032, it will collect “a wealth of new information,” including about surface chemistry, he told AFP. Carbon has been detected in Ganymede and Callisto. The missions will get the first close-ups of Jupiter’s icy moons since Nasa’s Galileo probe visited the gas giant from 1995 and 2003. “We learned about Europa having a subsurface ocean as a result of the Galileo mission,” says Emily Martin, a research geologist in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The Galileo finding ignited interest in so-called ‘ocean worlds’ that have liquid water under their thick surface ice and might be the best place to look for alien life in the solar system. Ganymede and Callisto are likely ocean worlds too.

Ethiopia told the UN yesterday it wanted quicker implementation of a peace deal in Tigray, including on disarmament of former rebels.Ethiopia’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in November last year reached an accord in Pretoria that has largely halted a brutal two-year war.“The implementation of the agreement continues to make significant progress despite some delays in the execution of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process,” Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech to the UN General Assembly.“There is a need to expedite this process and ensure its successful completion,” he said.The TPLF, formerly Ethiopia’s dominant party, agreed to disarm under the Pretoria deal as government forces advanced.An African Union monitoring mission confirmed in January that the TPLF had begun surrendering heavy weapons, and Tigray authorities said in July that more than 50,000 fighters had been demobilized, but the scale of implementation remains unclear.Demeke said that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, which has faced intense criticism including from the US over alleged human rights violations, remained “committed to consolidate peace and stability throughout the country.”The agreement brokered in South Africa by the African Union “is a practical embodiment of African solutions to African problems,” Demeke said.Complicating efforts, forces from the neighbouring region of Amhara still control Western Tigray, in a potentially dangerous flashpoint.The Pretoria agreement called for the withdrawal of foreign forces, but residents say there remains a presence of troops from neighbouring Eritrea, which has been accused of some of the worst abuses after intervening against the TPLF.