Featured photo: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay (although I edited on words in top-right.)
Once again, I go over what I think and many of what were the most significant moments of 2021, and what a year it has been – perhaps not as crazy and 2020 seemed – but it is still certainly a year to remember. In many ways 2021 was the second rendition of 2020 but I think we can say that overall, it did not seem as bad as the previous year, although there were certainly many similarities, especially due to COVID ongoing and the possibility of new variants, and later in the year when COVID numbers begun creeping up once again, and so many places saw the reintroduction of lockdowns.
But in this list I’d like to take our minds off of COVID and focus on the other significant things that have taken place…
You can view my 2020 year roundup post here.
So, let’s dive in for this refresher of the year of 2021.
The US Capitol Siege
This was one of the events that took place that made everyone wonder if 2021 was going to be the second rendition of 2020. Only six days into the new year this was not exactly the goodest of omens – yeah, I know goodest is not a word, but I just decided to use it anyway.
The US Capitol Siege was the culmination of what had already begun from November 2020 following the US Presidential Election where the incumbent Donald Trump failed to win a second term to the presidency, being beaten out by the democratic candidate Joe Biden. Donald Trump decided he did not want to view the outcome as legitimate and begun questioning the results, putting forth a poisonous lie of electoral fraud, something that would snowball into the US Capitol Siege, and something Donald Trump still perpetuates to this day.
Even before the 2020 US Presidential Election Donald Trump was very obviously a controversial and polarizing figure, and with the rise of Qanon and other groups such as the Proud Boys, the ingredients were there for something like this to eventually happen long before the US Presidential Election took place. With many supporters of Donald Trump having been whipped into a frenzy over the alledged existence of a ‘deep-state’ of elitists who would do anything in their power to stop Donald Trump, someone who many of these people saw as a savior who would ‘drain the swamp’.
Nonetheless when it did happen it was no less shocking and unexpected. I remember myself watching it unfold over Twitter wondering what the heck was going on, and watching things just get crazier and crazier from there. I knew that a protest had been planned to take place in the Capitol, and that there were some worries it could become violent, but I do not think many of us realized what it would ultimately come to. I never thought that these people would manage to break into the capitol itself, even making it into the Senate chamber.
These people, having even turned against Mike Pence, and been whipped up into a frenzy at the very least indirectly by Donald Trump during a speech he made in Washington D.C at the time (and then being next to useless in calming the situation so much so that Twitter limited his account) were out with a goal of stopping the count of the electoral votes, which were being counted and verified by the US Congress which was in session.
These are sights and footage we will likely look back on for many decades to come as a dark point in US democracy.
Luckily things were eventually brought under control (although not before a number of deaths had taken place, including that of Ashli Babbit) with the arrival of reinforcements, and the electoral votes were eventually counted and verified, signaling strongly that democracy continues in the face of intimidation. In the aftermath Donald Trump managed to make history by being the only US President to be impeached twice.
But now that something like this has happened, we are left to wonder if such things would repeat some point in the near future, especially with the possibility that Donald Trump may try to run again in the 2024 presidential election, and who still remains favourable in the eyes of a number of prominent Republicans and still maintains plenty enough support to most likely become the Republican nominee again. The best thing for Trump to do would be to step aside and not run again, but I think we can all agree that Trump does not think in this way, so we shall have to wait and see if he does run or not.
All I can say is that US politics will likely remain volatile for some time, it is hard to see the return to a pre-Trump political scene in the US anytime soon.
First Transplant of Both Arms and Shoulders Takes Place
Let’s pop in something good that happened in 2021. Near the beginning of the year history was made when the first double arm and shoulder transplant took place, a milestone in the medical world. The procedure was successfully performed on a 48-year-old Icelandic man called Guðmundur Felix Grétarson at a hospital in Lyon, France.
The man had lost his arms in a work accident where he received a big electric shock from a power line that he was trying to fix in 1998 at the age of 26 due to miscommunication, this sent an 11,000-volt shock through his body and sent him flying down to the ground below, breaking his back and neck in three places, and his arms also caught fire. The result was that his arms had to be amputated, initially below the shoulders, but more amputations had to take place due to recurrent infections which ended up leaving him with no limbs all the way up to the shoulders.
Arm transplants have been possible since 2008, but this is the first time that a double arm transplant had been done and the first to involve the shoulders. The complex procedure took 14 hours to complete. His accident back in 1998 had required 54 operations to save his life, it is quite the medical miracle that he did manage to survive the accident and the time following that itself. The pain and trauma from everything led him to substance abuse to get through it, which itself was then threatening his life, he ended up getting help for his addiction and also two liver transplants were required. Luckily, he managed to turn his life around after so much pain and tragedy following this, and continued to pursue further treatment in the hopes of receiving transplants for his shoulders/arms, which led to him moving to Lyon as his case was reviewed by doctors who had experience with limb transplants. Grétarson even found love in Lyon, and got married.
It will still be around three years at least to know if Grétarson will be able to get full function in his new arms but there have been promising developments, such as on an Instagram post where he showed he was able to flex one of his biceps, which doctors had not anticipated he would be able to do so early on. He also already has some nerve-feeling in his forearms.
Joe Biden Inaugurated as 46th US President + Inauguration of Kamala Harris
As we read about earlier the US Capitol Siege did not put an end to the course of democracy in the US and with the electoral votes still having been counted and verified, Joe Biden was successfully inaugurated as the 46th US President and made history in that he was the oldest US President to have served in office. Further history was also made with the inauguration of Kamala Harris as Vice-President and she became the first female, African-American and South Asian person to hold the position. Predictably, Donald Trump did not turn up to the inauguration, which is quite unprecedented for a former US President to do, but if we are being honest, I don’t think many people really cared. Mike Pence, the adult in the room I guess when it comes to Donald Trump, made sure to take part in Joe Biden’s inauguration.
For many it would have been a sigh of relief that the whole fiasco was finally over after so much division and fighting. For others, such as believers in Qanon, it was a maddening sight to see that Donald Trump was not going to somehow magically remain President in some convoluted fashion, although this did not stop a number of them still believing he was going to find some way back to the Presidency in the future through some other convoluted scheme – trust the plan, I guess. I am sure all of these legal challenges against the various state counts will come to something (they didn’t).
The inauguration saw Biden using a family bible that dates back to the 19th Century for the oath of office and his inaugural speech focused on unity and a warning on the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Comes into Effect
I for one am against nuclear weapons in a sense. I would love for there to be a world without them as their destructive potential is such a grave threat to the existence of humanity and life on Earth itself. But that is harder said than done, but I am certainly favorable to the efforts made to try and create a world without them existing. It is just hard for me to imagine that every country that currently has them would get rid of them and that even if every country did, I would still be afraid of a country that decides to secretly obtain them again. I fear that all it takes is for one country to be left with nuclear weapons through trickery and deceit, and that then the rest of us would be in quite big trouble.
I understand how fundamentally profound nuclear weapons can be for deterrence and that is literally one of the only parts of them that I am in favour of. I feel like a world where nuclear weapons never came to be could be a world where we still see large-scale wars and many more territorial conquests. The threat of MAD from nuclear weapons I feel is one of the big factors of why we are more or less in a time of peace, yeah sure wars still happen but they are smaller and often far more localized. There have yet been no direct wars between the great powers – merely just the finding of indirect war, which although still bad is still less destructive, but should still be avoided as best as possible.
I am not as naïve to think that nuclear weapons are the only reason for this, but I do feel like they have played a large role for going a diplomatic route more than not and trying to solve issues in a more civil manner, again at least between the larger powers, those countries which would otherwise have the potential to start a new worldwide conflict. And it is understandable why smaller countries that are less powerful would want nuclear weapons, as to deter a potential intervention from larger powers who are ideologically and politically opposed to them.
But enough of my own thoughts and fears, it is a troublesome subject and I see and take in the opinions from both sides of the debate. But anyway, in 2021 the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came into effect, which is a milestone of sorts for the possibility of eventually ending nuclear weapons. The treaty itself is actually legally-binding and so those that have signed it must legally abide by it, it is not one of those things that are not legally binding with vague goals and targets. It clearly states that it wants to prohibit nuclear weapons with a clearly defined end goal of total elimination of nuclear weapons.
The treaty specifically prohibits development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, and use and the threat to use nuclear weapons, and also prohibits giving assistance and encouragement to these prohibited things. If any nuclear-armed states were to become a party to the treaty, a time-bound framework would be worked out to negotiate and aim for verified and irreversible elimination of their nuclear weapons programme.
The treaty currently has 86 signatories and 59 countries that are currently a party to the treaty, those that are a party to it are legally bound to the treaty obligations. Unsurprisingly, I guess, none of the currently nuclear-armed nations are a party to or even signed the treaty, with countries like the US and Russia voicing their opposition although choosing not to vote on the treaty.
The treaty itself could help to strengthen existing treaties such as the Nonproliferation Treaty and which aims to pursue effective measures on disarmament, as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as well as existing nuclear free-zone agreements. These treaties can together help to delegitimize nuclear weapons and build upon a growing legal and political norm against their usage. But even all this together is likely not enough alone to eliminate any nuclear weapons, but it is a step in such a direction that can hopefully be further built-upon. Such treaties still allow the peaceful usage of nuclear energy.
Nuclear-armed states and also most NATO members are against the prohibition treaty with one argument being that the new treaty may actually detract from the existing treaties on nuclear weapons. It should be noted that most of these countries (and most countries of the world bar a few) are a party to the non-proliferation treaty, but its goals are more relaxed and not legally binding. The treaty aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear power, and further the goal of nuclear disarmament. It is certainly likely that this treaty has stopped the creation of many new nuclear-armed nations, but again is unlikely to eliminate existing weapons.
I look forward to seeing what the stricter Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons Treaty shall bring in the years to come.
Myanmar Coup (and others)
We saw a number of military coups in 2021 such as in Guinea and also another one in Mali who had only just had one in 2020 prior to that, we also saw another coup in Sudan as well, a country that has recently removed its long-time dictator after mass protests, hopefully Sudan can eventually transform into a proper democracy, but it will likely be a long road.
Perhaps the most significant coup took place in Myanmar, a country where the military elite dominates and strongly influences politics. Myanmar had been under a military junta from 1962 until 2011 where they installed a civilian government under Aung San Suu Kyi, the removal of which is a major step back for the country into renewed brutal military rule. You may likely have heard Myanmar in the news over the last few years due to the Rohingya crisis, of which both of the civilian government and military have been condemned for.
The Rohingya, a minority Muslim ethnic group, are seen as illegal immigrants in the country and have been barred from gaining citizenship, they have faced persecution for decades with many of them fleeing Myanmar. An army crackdown on them in 2017 led to the killing of thousands of Rohingya and hundreds of thousands more fleeing, and also brought the Rohingya crisis to the international spotlight. Suu Kyi herself has denied allegations that the military had committed genocide, and Suu Kyi’s seeming inaction on the crisis has served to damage her reputation of democratic restoration.
The military seized control of the country after Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won in a landslide in parliamentary elections. The opposition disputed the results and demanded another vote claiming widespread electoral fraud, the armed forces backed the calls of the opposition. The country’s election commission said that there was no evidence of any electoral fraud which was a good step for democracy in the country, but which would unfortunately not last as the military then soon launched a coup and declared a year-long state of emergency.
The military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing now leads the country, a figure with significant political influence and who managed to maintain the armed forces power despite moves towards democracy. Hlaing has also been condemned and had sanctions placed on him due to his alleged involvement on military attacks against ethnic minorities, such as the Rohingya.
Since the takeover, the military have claimed that after the state of emergency ends, they will hold fresh elections, but even if a return to democracy does happen it is still likely to be one where the armed forces have significant power and influence and could easily launch another coup if things do not go their way.
The people have risen up in protest against the military takeover which in turn has been met with restrictions, curfews, limits to gatherings, water cannon, rubber bullets, and also often live ammunition, many protesters have been killed. We can only hope that Myanmar will one day see proper democracy.
Joe Biden ends weapons Support to Saudi Arabia in Yemini Civil War
The war in Yemen is currently one of the biggest ongoing humanitarian disasters, having killed over 100,000 Yeminis and displaced over 8 million. The war is an ongoing result of an uprising that begun in the country during the Arab Spring that then led to civil war. During the civil war the Houthis eventually gained the upper ground when they seized the capital Sana and made the Hadi-led government flee into exile. a Saudi-led coalition has intervened in the war against the Houthis and in support of the Hadi-led government. But many have blamed the Saudi-led coalition for making the war bloodier and prolonged and that they have committed and continue to commit humanitarian violations and human rights abuses, with critics having called on allies such as the US to end arms support to the Saudis and its allies taking part in military operations in Yemen.
This is why Joe Biden’s announcement of ending weapons support to Saudi Arabia related to operations in Yemen was a significant moment. More specifically Joe Biden said that America would end all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales. So, this still left the door open to continue certain arms sales. But that the US would also continue defensive support to the Saudis against missile and drone attacks from Iranian-backed forces, and the US would also continue operations against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Under Trump a bipartisan majority in congress had passed legislation to cut support off to Saudi Arabia due to the civilian death toll and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but the legislation was vetoed by Trump.
Despite this announcement by the Biden administration there have been critics over a recent $500m military contract with Saudi Arabia which critics say contradicts the public policy of barring offensive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. This is because the military contract allows the Saudis to maintain its fleet of attack helicopters (and provides for a future fleet of Chinooks) which have seen previous usage in Yemen.
But experts covering the conflict and usage of weapons have said that they believe Apache helicopters have largely been deployed defensively along the Saudi-Yemen border and that it is difficult to pinpoint specific violations of international humanitarian law as a result of Saudi Apache use, mostly because such detailed data is scarce and tough to verify.
The deadliest known violation took place in March 2017, 42 Somali refugees and one Yemini civilian were killed when their boat was hit by a missile from a coalition warship and then further gunfire from a Saudi Apache. Also, an AirForces Monthly magazine report from September 2017 says five Saudi-operated Apache helicopters had been lost in Yemen, suggesting quite strongly they had been used in operations in Yemen.
The US State Department also said it had reviewed allegations of abuses and violations and concluded that overwhelmingly, incidents had been caused largely by air-to-ground munitions from fixed-wing aircraft, and that as such the US suspended two air-to-ground munitions deliveries. But critics have said there is no difference between weapons used defensively and offensively.
So, as can be seen, although there is at least some good to this, it is still a highly hot topic, and arguments over whether the US should provide any kind of support at all to the Saudis and their allies, whether it is considered defensive or not.
Three Epic Mars Missions: UAE’s Hope, NASA’s Perseverance, and China’s Tianwen-1
The year of 2021 also saw many exciting space-related events take place, including three uncrewed missions to Mars, one from the US’s NASA, one from China, and one from the United Arab Emirates.
The first to arrive to Mars was the United Arab Emirates Space Agency’s Hope orbiter which arrived on 9th February 2021 after having been launched from Earth on 19th July 2020. The purpose of the Hope orbiter, which is the first ever space mission by the UAE and the first ever by an Arab nation, is to study Mars’ weather cycles both daily and seasonal, as well as weather events in Mars lower atmosphere which includes things such as dust storms, as well as how much the weather on Mars varies from one region to another. The Hope orbiter will also help learn about drastic climate change on Mars as well as hydrogen and oxygen loss.
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Hope was launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center using a Japanese rocket called the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA launch vehicle.
Next to arrive was that of China’s Tianwen-1 mission which arrived on the 10th February 2021 after having been launched from Earth on the 23rd July 2020 and the Zhurong rover was deployed to Mars on the 22nd May. Although China has previously landed two rovers on the Moon, it is the first time they have landed a rover on another planet, and they are the 3rd country to soft-land a spacecraft on Mars, after the Soviet Union and US.
The rover was carried by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft which was launched from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site by a Chinese-made Long March 5 rocket. The main purpose of China’s Zhurong rover is to study the geology and topology of the local area, including examination of soil, any ice content, surveying elements, minerals and rocks, and also atmospheric sampling.
The Zhurong Rover is part of a larger mission called Tianwen-1, consisting of 6 spacecrafts, which includes an orbiter, two deployable cameras, a lander, a remote camera, as well as the Zhurong rover. Tianwen-1 will be the first of a series of planned missions by China’s National Space Agency as part of the Planetary Exploration of China program.
Finally, the last to arrive, but hardly the least, was the US’s NASA Perseverance rover which also brought the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars. The rover deployed to Mars on the 18th February 2021 after having been launched on the 30th July 2020 using an American-made Atlas V rocket, originally manufactured by Lockheed Martin but now under the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. It launched from the famous Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the US State of Florida.
The Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter are part of the larger NASA Mars 2020 mission, a part itself of the NASA Mars Exploration Program, and NASA’s Moon to Mars missions, aiming to prepare for human exploration of Mars. Perseverance along with Ingenuity touched down in the Martian Jezero crater. The mission of the rover is the identification of ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life, looking for evidence of former microbial life having existed in those environments, the collection of rock and soil samples that will be cached on Mars, study the geology and past climate, and testing oxygen production from the atmosphere for future crewed missions.
Martian rock and regolith which is cached on Mars are for subsequent NASA missions which would be done in cooperation with the European Space Agency, where spacecraft are sent to Mars to collect the sealed samples from the surface of Mars and bring them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
Ingenuity, a mini-helicopter, made the first ever powered flight on another planet on 19th April 2021. It is exciting to see what is discovered by these missions and also the stunning photos that they send back from the red planet. I am also sure there are many out there looking for UFOs and possible aliens and/or remnants of their structures in such photos.
The possibility that an ancient civilization once existed on Mars is a (rather baseless) theory that some choose to believe, and that this apparent civilization was wiped out by some kind of calamity, such as nuclear war or climate change, but of course there is as of yet no evidence of this – although this does not stop conspiracy theorists believing such is being covered up and pointing out odd anomalies in some photos, which are usually explained away as optical illusions or some kind of natural phenomena. I must say though, believing that some civilization once might have existed on Mars is exciting and terrifying at the same time, and I see the allure to it. Some even go as far as to theorize humans originated from Mars – again, no proof of this as of yet. It is though, a fun little rabbit hole to fall down.
I mean hey, maybe Perseverance will find some kind of past evidence of life up there, and even if it is just microbial, that would be extremely exciting and absolutely mind shattering in and of itself, no conspiracy theories required.
First Ever Meeting Between a Pope and Grand Ayatollah
Many people perhaps did not know this but a Pope and a Grand Ayatollah had never met until 2021. Now I don’t know about you, but that is quite amazing I would say. Now, I think most of you know who the Pope is – he is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and also leader of the Vatican, a city-state located in Europe, nestled within Rome in Italy. The papacy has been extremely influential throughout much of history, not as much now a days, although for those who are Catholic the papacy remains very important. Let’s just say a lot of wars from past history have been influenced by a Pope (the Crusades being the most obvious), and they were very powerful people at their zenith, particularly within Europe, with even Kings being wary of defying them, and often if they did dare to, they would face consequences in some way.
That’s just a very basic round up of it, the papacy is something that has so much to it that it would be absolutely 100% impossible to fit it all here, but there are many great resources out there to learn about the history of the papacy and its influence over European wars and politics through the ages.
An Ayatollah on the other hand is an honorific title for high-ranking Shia clergy, specifically the branch of Shia Islam known as Twelver Shi’ism, the title has been mentioned as far back as the 1300s but it did not really come to widespread usage until the recent 20th century, where the title is used in Iran and Iraq (the one the Pope met was in Iraq) and even in Iraq it is only given to clerics of Iranian origin. The Supreme Leader of Iran himself, Ali Khamenei, is a Grand Ayatollah. A Grand Ayatollah is a rare title given to those who have gained a significant following and who are recognized for religiously correct views. All Marja’ are also a Grand Ayatollah, Marja’ is a title given to the highest level of Twelver Shia authority, and who have the authority to make legal decisions within the confines of Islamic law.
While Pope Francis I was on his historic tour of Iraq last year he met with Grand Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Ali Al-Husseini Al-Sistani, who is the top Grand Ayatollah in Iraq, and this meeting as said was the first ever meeting between a Pope and Grand Ayatollah. In a religious context, it is quite a big deal. The visit to Iraq by the Pope was in hopes of promoting protection of Catholics in the country by forming closer bonds between the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim world.
The Ever Given Jams the Suez Canal
Now this was certainly a well-known historic moment in 2021, one that received many jokes and memes across social media when it was going down, or at least it was if you were in the right places and following the right people. But nonetheless, most people did hear about it, given it was extensively covered by the news as well. I also did a blogpost related to it at the time here.
The world’s largest type of container ship swung around and fully blocked the most important canal in the world – the Suez Canal, and the name of that container ship was the Ever Given which is time chartered and operated by Evergreen Marine. The major incident threw world trade into chaos as no ships could go either way through the canal and so were held up for a number of days, and on top of things like coronavirus it could not have come at a worse time. Even today trade and supply remains backed up, with the blockage of the Suez Canal having been one of the contributing factors.
A combination of human error and high winds at the time led to the incident, blocking the canal for hundreds of ships and disrupting as much as 12% of world trade. Getting it unstuck again required a major six-day salvage operation to refloat the ship which involved a digger, tugboats, and dredgers, sadly one person was killed during this operation. The operation may have took much longer if these measures alone failed to work and cargo/fuel would have had to have been removed from the Ever Given to make it lighter, but luckily (for trade and economies) this was not the case.
After the Ever Given had finally offloaded its cargo (some of which was no longer viable, such as perishables) in Europe it travelled back through the Suez Canal in August the same year without incident where it then went to China for repairs.
The ship was also impounded by the Suez Canal Authority for three months while a compensation deal was worked out, which sought costs for the Ever Given’s Japanese owner Shoei Kisen, the cost of the salvage operation, and damage to the canal’s banks as well as other losses.
It is a little humorous when looking back on time lapsed footage of maps that track ship movements around the time the Ever Given gets stuck.
The Ever-Given itself is part of a class of ships dubbed ultra-large container vessels, and people have questioned whether these kinds of ships are becoming larger liabilities to commerce, economies, and business.
Something else quite interesting and actually quite crazy I learned from a Foreignpolicy article while reading up on the Ever Given is that every year dozens of crews are left on their ships, without the required fuel, food or water, for months or even sometimes years, due to disagreements between shipowners and governments. Such crews have to rely on charities and seafarer unions for their survival. It is quite unbelievable that such a thing takes place in this day and age, and that I had never heard of it until now, and that nothing really seems to be being done about such treatment of crews, who are not at all main players in any such disagreements, but are yet caught on the frontlines of them.
62-Years of Castro Rule Ends in Cuba
Ever since the 25th July Movement in Cuba which overthrew the then US-backed military dictatorship of Batista and installed a Communist one-party state, Cuba has always been under the rule of a Castro in some form whether they were a Prime Minister, or a President, or First Secretary of the Communist Party (or more specifically the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba), with this last position being seen as de facto leader due to Cuba being a one-party state.
first the infamous Fidel Castro, leader of the revolution in Cuba, infamous mainly for being a big thorn in the side of the US during the Cold War, and avoiding all US attempts to remove him (including the humiliating Bay of Pigs invasion), and also the very scary Cuban Missile Crisis where the world almost ended from nuclear annihilation. Fidel Castro was Prime Minister from 1959 until 1976 and then President from 1976 until 2008, while also holding the First Secretary position from 1965 (when it was first established under this name) all the way to 2011. He was Cuba’s most influentially powerful man even after he was no longer holding any of the big positions. He would die in 2016 at the age of 90. Fidel Castro is seen as the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban revolution.
Next up after him was Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro and a military leader of the revolution. He officially took over the presidency (he was serving as Vice-President at the time) from Fidel Castro in 2008, although had been Acting President since 2006, and served in the presidency until 2018 where then Miguel Diaz-Canel (a Vice-President under Raul) became the first non-Castro to hold the position of President of the Council of State (the second highest position in Cuba behind First Secretary). Raul Castro was also First Secretary from 2011 taking over from Fidel Castro and being the second only person to hold that position, which he would hold until 2021.
And then that finally brings us to the point where a Castro no longer rules Cuba in any form when Raul Castro stepped down from First Secretary which was then taken up by Miguel Diaz-Canel alongside his continuing position as President.
Now this is not necessarily really that good of a thing, it is just historically significant that a Castro no longer holds a top leadership position. Of course, Cuba is still as undemocratic as ever and only a single party is still allowed, and civil liberties remain largely restricted (although there were some limited protests that popped up last year in the midst of an ongoing economic crisis caused by hard-hitting US sanctions, but that did not last long) and it does not look like this will change any time soon, unless something significant and unprecedented happens. Diaz-Canel is also seen as loyal to the Castros and their economic policies and so it is more like removing the sticker off a tin of cookies and slapping on a sticker that says the cookies are cakes.
President of Chad Iriss Deby is killed in Clashes with Rebels after 30-Years in Office
It is an interesting end for someone increasingly seen as an authoritarian figure in Chad, and has us wonder if this could lead Chad towards a more democratic direction, although it is tough to say with the country now under a military transitional council which will govern for at least 18-months and is led by Deby’s son who is a 4-star general. Following Deby’s death the National Assembly and Government were dissolved and a curfew was enacted. The military have promised that free and fair elections will be held after the 18-months is up, but this shall remain to be seen.
Experts have said that a military council is unconstitutional and that instead the Speaker of the National Assembly should have taken over as interim President while fresh elections were organised.
Idriss Deby became leader of Chad in December 1990 after leading a coup against then President Hissene Habre. It is to be noted that Habre was no innocent and was himself a massive human rights abuser who ran a single-party dictatorship after he himself had taken over using his own armed forces, and was also backed by the US and France. So really, it is not like he did not deserve what he got.
Deby then held on to power in the face of other coup attempts and rebellions and was reelected in 1996 and 2001 and then eliminated term limits to allow him to be re-elected four further times, the last ironically being in 2021, with the results of that not coming out until after he had been killed. Despite the first multiparty elections in Chad being held in 1996 following Deby’s takeover he took the country down an authoritarian path with the elimination of presidential term limits, as well as growing corruption, including embezzlement and the existence of cronyism and a patronage system. Idriss Deby’s party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, also continually dominated the National Assembly.
In 2016 two groups, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad and the Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic begun a rebellion and insurgency in northern Chad with the aim of overthrowing Deby from power, this culminated in the Northern Chad Offensive in 2021 which begun on the day of the 2021 Presidential Election. Deby was killed on the frontline while visiting troops who were fighting against the rebels – not something you hear much of now a days.
Deby was an ally to western Nations such as France (who have militarily supported Deby in Chad before against opponents) for the purposes of fighting Islamist extremist forces in the Sahel region, of which Deby’s armed forces had much experience in. Experts are concerned that Deby’s death could lead to a power vacuum in Chad and the wider region, due to surrounding countries that are more unstable and which terror groups exist such as Libya, the Central African Republic, and Sudan.
China Begins Assembling the Tiangong Space Station
Now let’s head back to the topic of space. China began assembling its first long-term space station in low Earth orbit in 2021, and of which will be one of two currently active space stations in low Earth orbit, with the other being the much more well-known International Space Station, which is crewed by both NASA and Roscosmos astronauts/cosmonauts, and who use the station to conduct various experiments and research.
China’s Tiangong Space Station is the first time they have launched and operated a long-term space station, although they have previously launched two other space stations before which were short-term prototype missions, the Tiangong-1 and then the Tiangong-2, with the first being launched in 2011 and the second in 2016. The Tiangong-1 operated as a prototype station a part of the Tiangong program (precursor to the now longer-term Tiangong Space Station), the final mission to Tiangong-1 was in June 2013, and then its service officially ended in 2016, China later lost control of the station which eventually crashed down into the southern Pacific Ocean.
Tiangong-2 was launched in 2016 and would exist until its controlled reentry to Earth into the south Pacific Ocean in July 2019. A 3rd prototype, the Tiangong-3, had also been planned, but it was merged with the Tiangong-2.
The Tiangong Program, a part of China’s Manned Space Program, made China only the 3rd country on Earth to have launched a Space Station (after the US and Soviet Union/Russia), and led to the launching of the longer-term Tiangong Space Station which is based on the Mir Space Station, a Soviet station which was the first to have a modular design, launched in 1986 and which was deorbited in 2001. The first module of the space station, the Tianhe core, was launched on 29th April 2021 from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, using a Chinese-made Long March 5 launch vehicle.
Like the former Tiangong stations, this new one aims to provide for scientific experiments and research in space, including advancements in technology used in space such as spacecraft rendezvous, permanent human operations in orbit, regenerative life support technology, autonomous cargo and fuel supply technology, next-gen orbit transportation vehicles, and technology aimed for deep space exploration, amongst more. Two laboratory modules are planned to be added this year.
There are plans to launch other space stations up into low Earth orbit such as one planned by India aimed roughly for 2030. Russia also has plans to launch two space stations, one aimed for 2025 and another sometime after 2030. And there are also joint ventures by US private companies to launch two space stations. There is also an interesting joint venture between the US’s NASA, the European Space Agency, Canada’s Space Agency, and Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency under the Artemis program to launch the Lunar Gateway space station in November 2024. Of course these are all subject to change or even be cancelled altogether.
SpaceX Successfully Flies, Lands, and Recovers a Starship Prototype
Next up is another space one and it is to do with Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which has an ultimate goal of setting up a human colony on Mars. SpaceX has already brought us reusable launch systems that are able to launch into space, fall back to Earth, and then safely land so that they can be re-used, and it is very impressive to watch on video, and a big step forwards in rocket science. It is of note that the NASA Space Shuttle was the first reusable spacecraft, but that SpaceX has given us the first actual reusable launch systems, which has spurred other companies to develop their own.
In 2021 SpaceX took another step forward towards its big goal by successfully flying, landing, and recovering its Starship prototype, sounding like something right out of Star Wars. It is hoped the massive fully-reusable rocket will help serve many missions in a cost-effective manner, such as for launching satellites and space probes. In the further future it is hoped to be able to take space tourists to places such as the Moon, such as via the dearMoon project and Artemis. There are also hopes for it to be used for the US’s Rocket Cargo program, providing suborbital spaceflight rocket-delivered cargo quickly to places across the Earth, such as via point-to-point space travel.
But the ultimate end game goal of the Starship for SpaceX specifically is to provide towards its goal of colonizing Mars, with the Starship being a method to transport people and cargo there and back, or between both Earth and Mars. It will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, able to carry over 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.
The Starship, which includes the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, uses SpaceX-made and invented Raptor engines, a reusable methalox staged-combustion engine, which were first tested on the Starship prototype rocket in July 2019 and became the first full-flow staged combustion rocket engine ever flown.
The successful landing of the Starship is a milestone for it as the four previous attempts had ended in failure.
Belarus Has Passenger Airliner Land to Arrest Dissident Journalist
We heard a lot about Belarus in 2020 due to the very-likely fraudulent presidential election that saw the re-election of Lukashenko, dubbed Europe’s last dictator. Rare protests and some rioting broke out in the country for a time which were eventually suppressed via security forces, in many cases violently, with many injured, locked-up, and alleged torture of detainees taking place. Since then, the country has cracked down even harder on media and journalists and other opponents, via arresting and sentencing many. Belarus is known for its lack of civil liberties, human rights abuses, and authoritarianism, of which it has been like soon after it left the Soviet Union during its collapse. Lukashenka is still only Belarus’s second leader and first President since independence.
Ever since the events of 2020 Belarus under Lukashenko seems to have taken a more aggressive approach towards its neighbors, such as Poland, where it is alledged Belarus is forcing migrants to try and cross into Poland, causing confrontations between them and Polish security forces. Lukashenko has also blamed protests and unrest in his country on outside Western interference.
In 2021 Belarus entered starkly into the spotlight again when it made a foreign airline (under Ryanair) flying over its country to land (via armed fighter jet escort) where then Belarusian security forces proceeded to board the airliner and arrest a Belarusian dissident journalist and his girlfriend, who is known for writing critical pieces on Lukashenko’s regime. The brazen move to arrest citizens that no longer lived in Belarus (having fled in fear of their lives), and forcing down a foreign airliner, especially one that had no plans to even land in Belarus (flying from Greece, Athens to Lithuania, Vilnius), sent shockwaves through the international community, and incurred mass condemnation.
It was the sort of move that could set a new precedent that other authoritarian nations that abuse human rights and civil liberties may now also be emboldened to perform if any dissidents happen to be flying over their countries in a foreign airliner. Following the incident, a number of airline companies declared that they would no longer use Belarusian airspace and alter flight routes accordingly.
Those arrested were the journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega. Roman formerly worked as an editor for Nexta, a currently dissident media organisation (and of which played a large role in spreading footage of the unrest in Belarus on to social media in 2020 via its popular Telegram account that it operates). Roman left Belarus in 2019 to live in exile in Lithuania.
The plane in question, which at the time of contact was only 7km away from the Lithuanian border, was told by Belarusian authorities that it had a bomb on board and was told to divert to the Belarusian capital Minsk despite being closer to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius – red flag, although authorities claimed the bomb would have detonated if they had tried to land at Vilnius instead (which makes little sense). Propaganda shown on Belarusian TV made it look as if the pilot of the plane had themselves asked to land in Minsk, but this was later shown to be false.
Belarus claims the bomb threat came from Hamas (a Palestinian Sunni-Islam fundamentalist militant group), although Hamas has denied this. The authorities also said that the bomb threat came through via an email that originated from Switzerland. As it stands there has been no proof of a credible bomb threat.
Interestingly while the plane was grounded in Minsk, three other passengers also opted to remain, with speculation they may have been KGB operatives (although the KGB no longer exists within Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the agency still exists in Belarus). It is of note that Roman was on a KGB terrorist suspect list, which is even more concerning now as that means with him having been captured by Belarusian authorities it is possible that he could face the death penalty, one of the punishments for terrorist offences.
Pro-Lukashenko media has portrayed Roman as a right-wing extremist, alleging he has fought with the Azov Battalion in eastern Ukraine, with images showing a man who resembles him wearing army fatigues and holding weapons. Roman said he had been to the Donbas region and that he was even wounded, but that he was only covering as a journalist and through photography. The accusations have not been confirmed either way.
Blue Origin Conducts Its First Human Test Flight
This is the second to last space-related one… yeah, I know a lot… but space is cool! And a lot of interesting space-related things happened this year, this being another one of them. Blue Origin is an aerospace company founded by founder and former CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, it is an aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company. It aims to make space access cheaper and more reliable through the creation of reusable launch vehicles.
It has created the New Shepard, a vertical-takeoff vertical-landing crew-rated suborbital launch vehicle which has been created for the purpose of providing suborbital space tourism, it was the spacecraft used in Blue Origin’s first crewed launch in 2021, a milestone for the company. The four-member crew launched on 21st July and included founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, American aviator and now commercial astronaut Wally Funk who became the oldest person to go into space, and Oliver Daemen who at 18 became the youngest person to go to space, including the first person born in the 21st Century and first teenager to do so. Cleary Bezos wanted to make history here, and he has done so several times over in this space launch.
Unfortunately, though, Jeff Bezos may have just about missed out on becoming the first private commercial company to go to space, as Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, beat him to it by traveling to space on a spaceflight launched by his own space tourism company Virgin Galactic on 11th July, which included two pilots and three others passengers. The incident produced a little heat between the two billionaire entrepreneurs, as it seemed that Richard Branson had purposely scheduled the flight ahead of Blue Origin’s upon hearing about their planned launch, although Branson claims that Bezos’ plans had not affected his own announcement. But there has also been debate if Richard Branson’s company did beat Bezos’ company to the mark, as Virgin Galactic’s flight did not cross the Karman Line like Blue Origin’s did.
The Karman Line is recognised by all other spacefaring countries and the FAI (excluding the US and NASA) as space at 62 miles or 100 kilometers above the Earth, while Branson’s flight only reached just over 53 miles (just over 86 kilometers) above the Earth – but get this… the US and NASA consider space to be only 50 miles or 80 kilometers above the Earth, therefore by those standards Branson would have been the first, it is also the lowest minimum area that it is possible to keep a satellite in orbit. I guess the question of who truly won the so-called Billionaire Space Race will be an argument for the ages.
But whatever, space is cool, both missions/launches were cool. The end.
On a last note, just think, one day in the near-ish future space tourism may be as common and perhaps even one day as affordable as normal tourism and possibly as often as usual flights, is that not the craziest thing ever?
Taliban Take Kabul and War in Afghanistan Ends
Okay, well now it is time to get pretty serious again. This was perhaps one of the most shocking events to take place in 2021, and also quite unbelievable in that the War in Afghanistan had finally come to an end. When this event was going down, I did release a little blogpost on the matter here (it is quite simple, I did not have a lot of time, but I was worked up over it as you can tell).
What made it even more tragic was the Kabul airport suicide bombing perpetrated by ISIS-K that killed many Afghan civilians and even a number of US troops – a very big and shocking atrocity during the Kabul evacuation. Also bad following this was the US’s drone strike that ended up killing an innocent aid worker and nine members of his family including seven children, mistakenly believing the targets had something to do with the bombings.
How quickly Afghanistan fell was unprecedented, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was expected to happen due to their recent victories as the US and its allies got ready to withdraw from the country, but estimates had put a Taliban takeover much further away than expected, but in the end, it happened in a mere matter of a few months and weeks, creating chaos on the ground as the US and other coalition nations scrambled to evacuate their forces, staff, and citizens from a rapidly developing crisis. Many Afghans also fled the country via the evacuations as well.
I remember watching the Taliban’s rapid advance unfold across the country as more towns and cities fell and eventually provincial capitals one after the other, in such rapid fashion, and before we knew it, they were at the outskirts of Kabul and had captured it by the 15th August. It was like lightning. It is baffling to understand how intelligence services failed to see how rapidly Afghanistan would collapse.
The Taliban had ruled Afghanistan previously from 1996 until 2001 but were removed from power via a US invasion following the 9/11 attacks as the country was seen as a safe haven for terrorists such as Al-Qaeda and the most wanted man at the time – Osama Bin Laden who led the group. And thus, begun what was eventually seen as an endless war and many failed attempts at capturing Bin Laden until he was eventually found in Pakistan where he would be killed by US forces in 2011. It was seen as another victory for the US but it would be their last in the larger war. A withdrawal from Afghanistan was the next step, and although the US had attempted to sure up the Republic that had been installed following the US invasion, it was not enough, and the US and other coalition forces found they had to keep extending their stay to combat an ever-rampant insurgency by the Taliban and terrorist forces.
The endless war became ever more endless as how could you defeat an enemy that could easily hide, regroup and launch quick attacks over and over again, never seeming to tire, while costing coalition forces many lives and much money, angering people back at home, as well as leading to more suffering and war for the general people of Afghanistan? It was a hopeless situation and the way America and its allies handled the aftermath of their initial goals failed to keep Afghanistan as a Republic.
The reasons for why the Taliban were able to take over so quickly were many and would take far too long to go over in this post, it deserves its own blogpost. The US had attempted to combat the insurgency in 2009 via a troop surge but this only worked for a short time and could only be kept up for so long. The bloodiest year since 2001 was 2014 as attacks from the ongoing insurgency picked up, and the start of the withdrawal of NATO forces then also enabled the Taliban to begin taking more territory, leaving security down to an unprepared Afghan Army.
The US withdrawal itself was agreed in negotiations between the US and the Taliban in Qatar during 2020 and the Afghan government itself at the time had little involvement in these talks, which was not exactly a good sign. Even after the talks and agreement the Taliban did not end their attacks and merely refocused them on Afghan security forces and civilians, including targeted assassinations, all of which allowed them to gain more territory.
the fact of the matter is that the takeover happened and as such was a significant event of 2021. It shall be interesting to see how the nation now develops under renewed Taliban rule and whether or not any different approaches are taken, including on women’s rights and how harshly Sharia law is enforced, if there will be any kind of democracy, and whether or not they allow terrorist groups safe haven again. It is to be noted that the Taliban itself is not a fully unified group, and so even here there is room for interesting developments.
After 10s of thousands of deaths, and uncountable injuries of civilians, security forces, and US and NATO forces, and millions upon millions of displaced peoples and costly destruction of infrastructure, the long-running war that seemed like it would never end, finally came to a swift and chaotic end.
El Salvador Becomes World’s First Country to Accept a Cryptocurrency as Legal Tender
If you have been to many areas of the Internet over the last few years, be it typical social media, chatrooms, anonymous social media, or even just an avid reader of the news, it is likely you have heard of cryptocurrency, a type of virtual or digital currency. Cryptocurrencies use cryptography making them nearly impossible to counterfeit and double-spend and also cut out third parties, allowing much more secure online payments.
A lot of cryptocurrencies also run-on decentralized networks (one of the things many fans of cryptocurrencies like) and use blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger enforced by disparate computers. Each block of the Blockchain contains a set of transactions that have been independently verified by each member of the network. As each block generated must be verified by each node before being confirmed, forgery of transaction history is almost impossible.
They are usually not issued by a central authority (like normal currencies are) meaning that in theory they are immune to government interference and manipulation. Advantages include cheaper and faster money transfers, and the decentralized nature means systems can avoid collapsing at a single point of failure (2008 financial crisis being an example). The downsides for cryptocurrencies include their price volatility (which is the part many economists say make them unviable for widespread adoption over normal currencies in the future), and the high energy demand of mining cryptocurrencies can be expensive and harmful to the environment.
Cryptocurrency became increasingly popular as a trading instrument after the explosion in the value of Bitcoin, known as the first Cryptocurrency, and ever since then thousands of other cryptocurrencies have popped up along with cryptocurrency exchanges, including many which have popped up more as a joke than anything, such as Dogecoin (although even this gained in value at points in 2021, making some likely surprised people quite a bit of money). Now a days it is certainly becoming a big thing for many people. Cryptocurrencies can make you money, as you can exchange something like Bitcoin for Pound Sterling or US Dollars and vice versa on relevant exchanges.
I have dabbled in cryptocurrency myself a little bit and through the minimal amount I have obtained and hold in a wallet, its value has increased by many times, not enough to be that significant (because I did not obtain that much) but enough to still be quite surprising, although I have yet to exchange any of it back into Sterling. I would advise caution to anyone who invests in something (whether cryptocurrency or normal stocks, or anything at all), as it can obviously be very risky and can very easily lose you money if you are not careful, which is why I myself did not buy too much. Some lucky people have managed to become fairly wealthy from cryptocurrency investment. Just make sure to conduct adequate research if you are thinking about investing in cryptocurrencies.
Also note that while the blockchain is highly secure, things like cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets can be hacked, meaning it is possible to have your cryptocurrency stolen, possibly losing much money in the process. This is why it is important to not keep your money and cryptocurrency on exchanges (which is typically less secure than a wallet) and when using a wallet, choosing one that is as reliable as possible with good security features, such as two-factor authentication or better yet multi-factor authentication, and those which utilise using security words only known to you, which makes it much harder for people on other devices to crack a wallet.
Anyway, there has also been much debate over cryptocurrencies on whether they are the future or just something that will remain niche for many people, some businesses do accept certain cryptocurrencies, usually Bitcoin, but even that is very limited as it stands. There has also been debate whether cryptocurrency should be legal at all due to it being unregulated, and the impact they may have on industry, as well as their impact on finance and laws. Cryptocurrencies themselves are increasingly used by criminals and criminal enterprise, including cybercrime such as via ransomware, due to being harder to trace, and their decentralized and unregulated status, and just the general ease of obtaining and holding it virtually, making it easy to access and move and exchange into fiat currency.
Many people believe that cryptocurrencies are impossible to trace but this is not actually the case. Many cryptocurrencies even falsely claim to be entirely anonymous, but in reality, they are pseudonymous, they still leave a digital trail that authorities can decipher, meaning it is possible to trace it back to individual citizens, although it is not as easy as tracing fiat currency.
Despite the arguments, El Salvador has still decided to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender for the nation, becoming the first country to make a cryptocurrency legal tender, of which it has received its fair share of critics for doing so, actually quite a lot of critics.
I also do not really understand it either. The US Dollar is the other official currency in the country which it adopted over its own previous currency the colon due to monetary instability, this adoption worked well for the country and dramatically lowered inflation. At the same time this means El Salvador does not have its own independent currency, meaning it does not have the ability to adjust monetary policy to combat local economic issues.
The adoption of Bitcoin for El Salvador does not seem to provide much near-term benefit and many residents of the country are not looking favorably on the decision. International markets were also not too happy with the decision, leading to an impact on the country’s debt, including downgrading and need to pay higher interest rates on the debt. Plus, there is also the stigma around criminal usage of cryptocurrency and harm on the environment from energy required to mine them. Half of El Salvador’s population cannot even access the internet, something needed to obtain and interact with cryptocurrencies.
One of the few benefits can be for cross-border transactions, for streamlined and cheaper conversion into the relevant fiat currency, and this is actually one of the big reasons for its adoption in El Salvador, many citizens in El Salvador have issues with sending money home from abroad, which is something that makes up a fifth of the country’s GDP, but the downsides are high transaction costs and also that 70% of citizens do not even have a bank account, Bitcoin in this regard is faster, cheaper, and does not need a bank. Each Salvadoran was also gifted $30 of Bitcoin following adoption, and they can use it to pay taxes and all shops and businesses in the country must accept it by law, but are allowed to instantly convert it to US Dollars.
I must say though that one of the articles I read on El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin does seem incredibly biased, but I do not necessarily disagree with their points. At the same time there are a growing number of people in various countries who would like to see Bitcoin become legal tender, such as a recent YouGov poll where there were 27% of adults in the US who either strongly or somewhat support Bitcoin becoming legal tender alongside the US Dollar, particularly among the young which is of little surprise given its digital nature, but 39% oppose this either strongly or somewhat, while 34% said they do not know. When compared to a 2017 poll that said less than 20% of Americans planned to purchase Bitcoin in the next 5-years, it can be taken as a 7% increase in Bitcoin’s favour.
Panama has introduced legislation to make the country more favourable to cryptocurrencies. But it is unlikely many major economies would accept any current cryptocurrencies that exist, and if anything, they would pursue the making of a digital version of their own fiat currency, which in many cases would not be a true cryptocurrency, but would work along similar lines, but would certainly be controlled by some kind of Central Authority for ease of regulation and stability.
PwC, a financial consulting firm, released a report claiming as many as 60 governments are currently working on some form of digital currency, with over 80% being based on blockchains. The Bahamas already uses a cryptocurrency version of their Bahamian Dollar (released in 2020), to make it easier to move money across its many islands, and Cambodia has also used a digital version of its currency called the Bakong also since 2020. China has also been testing a digital currency called e-CNY.
The US has also been looking into the possibility of a digital dollar, while the Bank of England has been looking into what a digital currency would look like here.
I guess it shall be exciting to see where we head from here.
The Pandora Papers are Published
First, we had the Panama Papers, then the Paradise Papers, and now in 2021 the Pandora Papers. All of them exposed the financial dealings of some of the world’s rich and famous, particularly that of politicians and world leaders including heads of state. So, it is not really that much of a big surprise as even before the Panama Papers it was widely thought that many rich elites and famous people had dodgy financial dealings, especially in relation to tax avoidance loopholes, such as keeping money in offshore accounts in so-called tax havens. I mean if we are honest, lots of people in general have dodgy dealings!
So really, Pandora Papers gave us more of what we basically already suspected and expected. And I think it is more important than ever that things like these continue to be exposed to the world to keep us transparent on those who lead us and who have influence and control policy and legislation, and to those we may even look up to. For so many of these people it seems to revolve around money more than anything else. We see similar dodgy dealings by large companies and conglomerates such as Apple who use practices and loopholes to avoid a good deal of tax, and is one of the reasons why recently countries came together to agree on a so-called global minimum corporation tax to try and clamp down on such activities, which can be detrimental to a country’s economy.
The Pandora Papers were published to the media and world by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the same group that helped the whistleblower known as John Doe with the Panama Papers in 2016 and helped analyze the Paradise Papers in 2017. The leaked documents included in the Pandora Papers were 11.9 million, larger than the Panama Papers (11.5 million) but less than the Paradise Papers (13.4 million). But although the number of documents is less the Pandora Papers is still the most expansive in terms of total data (at 2.9 terabytes) while Panama was second at 2.6 terabytes and Paradise last with 1.4 terabytes.
The leak gave light to the offshore accounts of at least 35 world leaders, which included current and former presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state such as monarchs. The papers also included more than 300 politicians and more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders, and business leaders. It includes documents, images, emails, and spreadsheets from 14 offshore financial service companies, across a number of countries. The investigation is described as the world’s largest journalistic collaboration that involved over 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.
The ICIJ tell us how it exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories, who use tax and secrecy havens to buy real estate, yachts, jets, and life insurance and hide assets, with many also avoiding tax and worse, and much of this is used to make investments and move money between bank accounts. The 14 offshore service providers from where the documents/data were leaked from give professional services to the wealthy and to corporations who seek to incorporate shell companies, trusts, foundations, and other entities in low or no-tax jurisdictions (tax havens). So, it is usually stuff that is generally unethical practices that may also stray into being unlawful.
It also exposes the involvement of banks and law firms working with such providers to create complex corporate structures. It also exposes how such providers do not always know their own customers, even while they have a legal obligation to avoid doing business with people engaging in questionable dealings.
Such entities then allow the owners to hide their identities from public sight and even sometimes from actual regulators. Such providers often even help open bank accounts in countries where there is light financial regulation. Some of the data from this leak dates back to the 1970s but most of it comes from between 1996 and 2020.
You can go here to read up on some of those who showed up in the Pandora Papers, and there are also many other media outlets covering various areas.
The James Webb Space Telescope is Launched
Finally, we end on another space-related one, and this one is really exciting. The James Webb Space Telescope is dubbed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and with it being more powerful and including more recent advancements it will be able to see more than the Hubble and provide us with even better-quality photos of our galaxy and the universe. What we have already been provided with by Hubble over the years have been stunning, so I cannot wait to see what the James Webb space telescope will give us, which will be able to view objects up to 100-times fainter than the Hubble could.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been up in orbit since 1990 (originally planned to go up in 1983 but faced various delays) and even then, its mirror faced a technical issue while in orbit that was not resolved until 1993. Although it was not the first space telescope it is the largest and most versatile and was the only one to still be in operation (until it was joined by the James Webb space telescope). The Hubble was first funded in the 1970s and developed by NASA also with contributions from the European Space Agency. It has been further upgraded via manned missions on a number of occasions. The Hubble is expected to remain operational until at least 2030 and possibly as long as 2040. It is credited with many stunning observations and scientific breakthroughs and understanding.
The James Webb space telescope itself was successfully launched up into orbit on Christmas Day (giving many of us an extra present on that day) using an Ariane V rocket manufactured by the French Arianespace company for the European Space Agency and launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. The space telescope was developed by the US’s NASA along with contributions from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
The telescope first begun development all the way back in 1996 (two years before I was even born) and has faced many delays and issues before it finally finished being constructed in 2016 (the originally planned finish year was 2007!) where then a long testing phase begun. It is quite amazing how this thing has been constructed pretty much throughout all my life so far and I had only begun hearing about it by the end of 2021 when its launch date was getting closer.
It will enable broad investigations across astronomy and cosmology, and will be able to see some of the oldest and most distant events and objects in the universe, giving insight into the formation of the first stars and galaxies, and contribute towards the search for a potentially habitable exoplanet.
The telescope consists of 18-hexagonal mirror segments that combined together make a 6.5 meter or 21ft in diameter mirror, and also makes it look pretty cool and high-tech. The mirror gives the telescope a light-collecting area of around 5.6 times as large as Hubble’s. The Hubble telescope uses near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectrum to observe, while the James Webb telescope will observe using a lower frequency range, beginning at long-wavelength visible light through to mid-infrared, which is why it will be able to view objects older, fainter, and more distant than Hubble can.
The James Webb space telescope since being launched into orbit has now fully deployed itself successfully and will now calibrate itself for the next six-months, so it will not be until around mid-year before we begin seeing the first amazing shots of our universe from it. It is also to be noted that unlike the Hubble, the James Webb will not be orbiting around the Earth, but is traveling to the second Lagrange point, where it will orbit the Sun while making sure to stay in line with the Earth, being held in place by both the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity.
The space telescope is named after the late James E. Webb, an administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 and who played an integral part in the Apollo Program.
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