Category: Silicon Valley

Montreal — A 10-year global study of positive doping tests by children and young teenagers showed most were tied to Russia, India and China, and in sports like weightlifting, athletics and cycling, the World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday.

Diuretics, stimulants and anabolic steroids were the most commonly found substances in more than 1,500 positive tests involving more than 1,400 minors since 2012.

The youngest athlete tested was 8 years old, and the youngest sanctioned in a doping case was a 12-year-old, WADA said in the Operation Refuge study.

“Operation Refuge reports in heartbreaking detail the deep trauma and isolation child athletes experience following a positive test and a doping sanction,” the chair of WADA’s athlete council, Ryan Pini, said in a statement.

It cited the testimony of a female minor “who recalled the extreme pressure she and other female athletes felt from the male coaches to keep their weight down,” the report said. “This pressure included an impossible expectation to slow down the effects of puberty, because puberty would supposedly negatively impact their ability to compete.”

WADA said its intelligence and investigations unit analyzed testing data of samples collected from minors since 2012. The investigators also received 58 alerts since 2018 on a confidential hotline that implicated minors in doping.

“Analysis of those disclosures revealed that the majority had originated from Russia and India, and that the most reported sports, globally, were aquatics and athletics,” the agency said.

In cases that reached a sanction, the most commonly found doping substance was the diuretic furosemide in Russia, the anabolic steroid stanozolol in India and clenbuterol in China, the report said.

In weightlifting cases, the most common substance was stanozolol. In track and field, it was the endurance boosting hormone EPO. And in cycling, it was meldonium, WADA said. Meldonium is the heart medication most widely known for the doping case of Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova.

WADA said about 80% of positive tests led to sanctions and others were for substances allowed for therapeutic use. Those included a stimulant for treating ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Some evidence suggested systematic doping, including multiple minors testing positive for the same substance in samples taken on the same day.

WADA highlighted a 2012 case of four boxers in Romania testing positive for furosemide; three track and field athletes in China testing positive for stanozolol in 2021; two Belarusian skaters testing positive for furosemide in 2022; and two Kazakh weightlifters testing positive for ostarine last year.

“Operation Refuge places a difficult but important issue into the spotlight,” said WADA director of intelligence and investigations Günter Younger. “We are working towards ensuring that the experiences of those interviewed during this operation do not continue to repeat themselves.”
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Harare, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwean health authorities — battling a cholera outbreak that has infected about 20,000 people and killed more than 370 — say they hope donated vaccines will ease the spread of waterborne disease now affecting 60 of the country’s 64 districts.  

Zimbabwean Health Minister Douglas Mombeshora told reporters in Harare on Wednesday that the country had recorded 20,121 suspected cholera cases and 376 deaths — six of them since Tuesday. He said the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund had secured 2.3 million cholera vaccine doses for the country, with nearly 900,000 of them to be administered next week.

“The vaccination campaign is expected to start from the 29th of January in [a] phased approach to the hot spots,” he said. “This is because the doses are not enough to cover the whole country. And then roll on to the other affected districts as we receive more vaccines. The challenge is that there is a shortage of vaccine in the world because cholera is not in Zimbabwe alone. So, all other countries that have reported cholera are also getting the same vaccine from the same source. So, it’s now controlled by the WHO. Otherwise only the rich countries will wipe out the vaccines before others get them.”    

Mombeshora said 37 African countries had confirmed cases of cholera. The WHO’s Africa office did not confirm the number Wednesday.

In a statement to VOA, Dr. Paul Ngwakum, regional health adviser for UNICEF in eastern and southern Africa, said the cholera outbreak “remains a serious public health concern and continues to impact children’s lives in the region. An unprecedented surge in cholera cases is being recorded in the region due to many factors, including extreme climatic events such as droughts, cyclones and flooding … With porous borders and high population movements, cholera is spreading fast.”

Mombeshora is urging Zimbabweans to accept the cholera vaccine.

“This is not a new vaccine and it has been used all over the world,” he said. “The only reason why we do not have it enough is because it is only manufactured on demand. Therefore, it’s the same vaccine and it’s very, very safe. We did not receive an adverse report in our past use of it. I have had a cholera vaccine before, years ago, nothing to worry about.”  

Dr. Prosper Chonzi, Harare’s director of health services, says now that there is vaccine, people must not ease up on hygienic practices. Chonzi said he was not happy that Harare is still full of vendors selling uninspected fruits and vegetables.

“I think the general economy is playing against us,” he said. “We have been doing these hide-and-seek games, chase after vendors, it has not been working. At least if we clean up for now, then we come up with medium- to long-term plans to maintain the clean environment that is there. As the director of health, I am not happy with the vending situation in the city. It is playing against what we want to achieve as we try to contain the outbreak. If you buy food from uninspected premises, the chances of you contracting not only cholera, but typhoid, dysentery and other diarrhea, are very high.”

Zimbabwe’s moribund economy is forcing citizens to venture into vending as a source of income as jobs are hard to come by, with some estimates putting unemployment at about 85%. Experts say that is making the fight against a cholera outbreak difficult with the country recording 1,000 new cases every week since the beginning of the year, according to the United Nations.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union on Wednesday unveiled plans to strengthen the bloc’s economic security, including measures to protect sensitive technology from falling into the hands of geopolitical rivals such as China. 

Brussels has bolstered its armory of trade restrictions to tackle what it deems to be risks to European economic security, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and global trade tensions. 

The fallout from the war in Ukraine hit Europe particularly hard, forcing the bloc to find alternative energy sources. Now, it wants to avoid a similar over-reliance on China, which dominates in green technology production and critical raw materials. 

On Wednesday, EU officials outlined an economic security package containing five initiatives, including toughening rules on the screening of foreign direct investment and launching discussions on coordination around export controls. 

The EU has already proposed new rules that it says are necessary to keep the bloc competitive during the global transition to clean technology and to bring more production to Europe. 

“In this competition, Europe cannot just be the playground for bigger players, we need to be able to play ourselves,” said the EU’s most senior competition official, Margrethe Vestager. 

“By doing what we are proposing to do, we can de-risk our economic interdependencies,” she told reporters in Brussels. 

Wednesday’s package is part of the EU’s focus on de-risking but not decoupling from China, pushed strongly by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

“The change in EU-China relations has been the driving force of this embrace of economic security, which is something extremely new for the EU,” said Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Institut Montaigne think tank. 

“Focus on riskier transactions” 

EU officials also pushed back on claims that the package had been watered down and that some of the initiatives would kick in too late. 

One of the initiatives is to revise the EU’s regulation on screening foreign direct investment, but others recommend further discussions, raising concerns that action could come too late. 

For example, the commission said it wanted to promote further discussions on how to better support research and development of technologies that can be used for civil and defense purposes. 

The EU also wants all member states to establish screening mechanisms, which could later lead to investments being blocked if they are believed to pose a risk. 

“I would not agree that the package is watered down,” the EU’s trade commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said. 

He later said the EU wanted “to focus on riskier transactions and spend less time and resources on low-risk ones.” 

The negotiations are likely to prove a delicate balancing act for the commission. Investment and export control decisions are up to national governments; therefore, it must avoid overstepping its mark. 
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With the growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for climate change, a Kenyan-Dutch company is introducing electric bikes in sub-Saharan Africa for deliveries in urban areas to help reduce emissions. The transport sector plays a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of global warming. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa     
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Paris — Power generated from low-emissions sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, will be adequate to meet growth in global demand for the next three years, the International Energy Agency said, adding that emissions from the power sector are on the decline.

Following record growth, electricity generation from low-emissions sources will account for almost half of the world’s power by 2026, up from less than 40% in 2023, the IEA said in report on Wednesday.

Renewables are expected to overtake coal by early 2025, accounting for more than a third of total electricity generation, the report said.

Nuclear power is also forecast to reach a record globally as French output continues to recover from lows in 2022, several plants in Japan come back online and new reactors begin operations in markets including China, India, Korea and Europe.

Electricity demand is expected to rise on average by 3.4% from 2024 through 2026 with about 85% of demand growth seen coming from China, India and southeast Asia, after growth eased slightly to 2.2% in 2023, IEA data showed.

Over this period, China is expected to account for the largest share of the global increase in electricity demand in terms of volume, despite a forecast for slower economic growth and a lower reliance on heavy industry, the report said.

Meanwhile, global emissions are expected to decrease by 2.4% in 2024, followed by smaller declines in 2025 and 2026, the report said.

“The decoupling of global electricity demand and emissions would be significant given the energy sector’s increasing electrification, with more consumers using technologies such as electric vehicles and heat pumps,” the report said.

Electricity accounted for 2% more of final energy consumption in 2023 from 2015 levels, though reaching climate goals would require electrification to advance significantly faster in coming years, the IEA said.
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Park City, Utah — An audience member was ejected from a Sundance festival event Tuesday in a spat over artificial intelligence, triggering a walkout that illustrates the divisions the technology has rapidly wrought in the film industry.

AI — a key driver of the recent and devastating Hollywood strikes — has been debated extensively at this year’s indie movie festival in Utah.

Filmmakers have experimented with using the technology as a creative tool, while also cautioning about its potential to erase jobs and stifle human expression and connection.

At a Tuesday screening of “Being (The Digital Griot),” in which audience members were encouraged to approach the screen and discuss issues like racism and the patriarchy with an AI bot, an audience member appeared to shout profanity about AI.

“I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either,” responded the film’s creator, artist Rashaad Newsome, refusing to participate in a post-screening Q&A until action was taken.

Festival staff forced the woman who had apparently yelled to leave the auditorium, prompting jeers.

Roughly a quarter of the auditorium walked out in solidarity, with some complaining that debate was being shut down and others insisting the lady expelled had not been the actual culprit.

Sundance organizers told AFP they were “looking into” the incident and “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”

But the incident highlighted long-brewing and sharply escalating tensions triggered by the issue of AI in the film world — something that this year’s Sundance lineup was specifically programmed to address.

‘Scary’

In addition to “Being,” the Sundance indie festival has hosted “Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death.

Another film, “Eno,” explored musician Brian Eno’s career and creative process, using a “generative engine” to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.

AI was also addressed on the fiction side by films like “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart, which imagined a romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite in a post-human world.

“Love Machina” director Peter Sillen told AFP that AI could soon mean that making a film will be a similar process to writing a novel.

“You’re going to be able to have somebody who’s sitting in their room create a masterpiece of filmmaking, probably,” he said. 

The idea was “hard and scary” but “interesting,” Sillen said, concluding: “I think you have to be open to it.”

“Eternal You” director Hans Block pointed out that AI is already widely used in movies — indeed, the Adobe software he used to edit the film is “full of AI” and “helped us as a tool a lot.”

“It’s so much more easy to make a film nowadays,” he said.

But Block said that while AI can help as a tool, it is important to debate what harm could be caused if the technology is not regulated.

“That’s why we are so happy to present the film right now, because it’s a perfect time to open the debate about these discussions,” he said. 

‘Human touch’

The danger that AI could replace screenwriters, actors and other professions was a key sticking point in last year’s Hollywood strikes, with unions holding out for guarantees from studios that they would not be replaced.

The encroachment of AI has sparked resolutely negative reactions from many filmmakers at Sundance.

Anirban Dutta, co-director of “Nocturnes,” an experiential documentary about scientists studying moths in the eastern Himalayas, said his movie is “a response to what’s happening to this world where all our human instincts are being mechanized.”

“Our film is a love letter to invite people to come back to what we are losing… human touch,” he said.

The woman who was thrown out of the “Being” screening, who has not been identified, was making a similar point before chaos erupted.

“As interesting as this (film) is… all of the knowledge it has comes from people,” she said.
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ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A federal judge is being asked to issue a stop-work order on a $10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley to carry wind-generated electricity to customers as far away as California. 

A 32-page lawsuit filed on January 17 in U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona, accuses the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management of refusing for nearly 15 years to recognize “overwhelming evidence of the cultural significance” of the remote San Pedro Valley to Native American tribes, including the Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni and San Carlos Apache Tribe. 

The suit was filed shortly after Pattern Energy received approval to transmit electricity generated by its SunZia wind farm in central New Mexico through the San Pedro Valley east of Tucson and north of Interstate 10. 

The lawsuit calls the valley “one of the most intact, prehistoric and historical … landscapes in southern Arizona” and asks the court to issue restraining orders or permanent injunctions to halt construction. 

“The San Pedro Valley will be irreparably harmed if construction proceeds,” it says. 

Government representatives declined to comment Tuesday on the pending litigation. They are expected to respond in court. The project has been touted as the biggest U.S. electricity infrastructure undertaking since the Hoover Dam. 

Pattern Energy officials said Tuesday that the time has passed to reconsider the route, which was approved in 2015 following a review process. 

“It is unfortunate and regrettable that after a lengthy consultation process, where certain parties did not participate repeatedly since 2009, this is the path chosen at this late stage,” Pattern Energy spokesperson Matt Dallas said in an email. 

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the nonprofit organizations Center for Biological Diversity and Archaeology Southwest. 

“The case for protecting this landscape is clear,” Archaeology Southwest said in a statement that calls the San Pedro Arizona’s last free-flowing river and the valley the embodiment of a “unique and timely story of social and ecological sustainability across more than 12,000 years of cultural and environmental change.” 

The valley represents an 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of the planned 885-kilometer (550-mile) conduit expected to carry electricity from new wind farms in central New Mexico to existing transmission lines in Arizona to serve populated areas as far away as California. The project has been called an important part of President Joe Biden’s goal for a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. 

Work started in September in New Mexico after negotiations that spanned years and resulted in approval from the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency with authority over vast parts of the U.S. West. 

The route in New Mexico was modified after the U.S. Defense Department raised concerns about the effects of high-voltage lines on radar systems and military training operations. 

Work halted briefly in November amid pleas by tribes to review environmental approvals for the San Pedro Valley and resumed weeks later in what Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose characterized as “a punch to the gut.” 

SunZia expects the transmission line to begin commercial service in 2026, carrying more than 3,500 megawatts of wind power to 3 million people. Project officials say they conducted surveys and worked with tribes over the years to identify cultural resources in the area. 

A photo included in the court filing shows an aerial view in November of ridgetop access roads and tower sites being built west of the San Pedro River near Redrock Canyon. Tribal officials and environmentalists say the region is otherwise relatively untouched. 

The transmission line also is being challenged before the Arizona Court of Appeals. The court is being asked to consider whether state regulatory officials there properly considered the benefits and consequences of the project. 
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Abortion is on the ballot in 2024, the White House says, with Vice President Kamala Harris crisscrossing the country to equate the Biden campaign with protection and expansion of reproductive rights, and Republican candidates speaking of possible federal abortion bans. This leaves the ultimate choice on this sensitive issue to American voters. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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washington — Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic Coast. 

While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor. 

The largest yet known deep coral reef “has been right under our noses, waiting to be discovered,” said Derek Sowers, an oceanographer at the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust. 

Sowers and other scientists, including several at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently published maps of the reef in the journal Geomatics. 

The reef extends for about 310 miles (499 kilometers) from Florida to South Carolina and at some points reaches 68 miles (109 kilometers) wide. The total area is nearly three times the size of Yellowstone National Park. 

“It’s eye-opening — it’s breathtaking in scale,” said Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who was not involved in the study. 

The reef was found at depths ranging from 655 feet to 3,280 feet (200 meters to 1,000 meters), where sunlight doesn’t penetrate. Unlike tropical coral reefs, where photosynthesis is important for growth, coral this far down must filter food particles out of the water for energy. 

Deep coral reefs provide habitat for sharks, swordfish, sea stars, octopus, shrimp and many other kinds of fish, the scientists said. 

Tropical reefs are better known to scientists – and snorkelers – because they’re more accessible. The world’s largest tropical coral reef system, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, stretches for about 1,430 miles (2,301 kilometers). 

Sowers said it’s possible that larger deep-sea reefs will be discovered in the future since only about 75% of the world’s ocean floor has been mapped in high-resolution. Only 50% of U.S. offshore waters have been mapped. Maps of the ocean floor are created using high-resolution sonar devices carried on ships. 

Deep reefs cover more of the ocean floor than tropical reefs. Both kinds of habitat are susceptible to similar risks, including climate change and disturbance from oil and gas drilling, said Erik Cordes, a marine biologist at Temple University and co-author of the new study.
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LAHORE, Pakistan — The air smells burnt in Lahore, a city in Pakistan’s east that used to be famous for its gardens but has become infamous for its terrible air quality.

Toxic smog has sickened tens of thousands of people in recent months. Flights have been canceled. Artificial rain was deployed last December to battle smog, a national first. Nothing seems to be working.

Lahore is in an airshed, an area where pollutants from industry, transportation and other human activities get trapped because of local weather and topography so they cannot disperse easily. Airsheds also contribute to cross-border pollution. Under certain wind conditions, 30% of pollution in the Indian capital New Delhi can come from Pakistan’s Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital. There are six major airsheds in South Asia, home to many of the world’s worst polluted cities.

Experts are calling for greater cross-border cooperation among countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and India to address air pollution together rather than working in silos on a city-by-city basis. But it’s a tall order when political relations in the region are fraught.

Ties between India and Pakistan are broken. Their interactions are riddled with animosity and suspicion. They have fought three wars, built up their armies and developed nuclear weapons. Travel restrictions and hostile bureaucracies largely keep people from crossing the border for leisure, study and work, although the countries make exceptions for religious pilgrimages.

“There’s a recognition among the technical and scientific community that air pollution doesn’t need a visa to travel across borders,” said Pakistani analyst Abid Suleri, from the nonprofit Sustainable Development Policy Institute. The culprits and problems are the same on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, he said, so it makes no sense for one province to implement measures if a neighboring province across the border isn’t adopting the same practices.

Regional and international forums offer opportunities for candid discussions about air pollution, even if governments aren’t working together directly or publicly, Suleri said, adding that countries should treat air pollution as a year-round problem, rather than a seasonal one arriving with cold weather.

“Airshed management needs a regional plan,” he said. “But 2024 is an election year in India and Pakistan, and government-to-government cooperation hasn’t reached that level.”

Pakistan is weeks away from voting in national parliamentary elections. So far, only the former foreign minister and political party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has pledged heavy investment in climate adaptability, following record-breaking floods that killed more than 1,700 people.

In India, air pollution doesn’t figure as a core issue that people would vote on, said Bhargav Krishna, a fellow at the New Delhi-based Sustainable Futures Collaborative think tank. But the experience or impact of climate change could make people think about how they vote. 

Krishna said that regional elections sometimes see air pollution-related promises. “It was a feature of every party’s election manifesto in the New Delhi elections in 2020,” he noted.

According to the World Bank, a regional airshed management policy would involve countries agreeing to set common air quality targets and measures that everyone can implement, meeting regularly to share their experiences and, if possible, setting common air quality standards.

The global body said almost 93% of Pakistanis are exposed to severe pollution levels. In India, it’s 96% of the population. More than 1.5 billion people are exposed to high concentrations of air pollution in these two countries alone. It estimates around 220,000 deaths a year in Pakistan’s Punjab can be attributed to causes related to bad air.

Gray haze hangs pall-like over Punjab’s homes, mosques, schools, streets and farmland. There are 6.7 million vehicles on Lahore’s roads every day. Construction, emissions and waste are rife. There is scant visibility at major intersections after dark. Smog shrouds landmarks like the Mughal-era Badshahi Mosque.

The shopping website Daraz has reported a spike in searches for air purifiers and face masks since last October, especially in Punjab.

Pulmonologist Dr. Khawar Abbas Chaudhry laments the deterioration of Lahore, which he describes as a “once-beautiful” city. The hospital where he works is part of the Bill Gates-backed Evercare Group that has hospitals in the region, including India and Bangladesh, and in East Africa.

Chaudhry says he has seen a 100% increase of patients sickened with respiratory illnesses this winter. He attributes this rise to air pollution.

There are forums within Evercare to discuss issues like air pollution, and he and colleagues, including those from India, talk about smog’s health impact. But this dialogue is only happening within one institution.

“Countries, governments, departments need to be involved,” said Chaudhry. “They need to meet regularly. Ultimately, people need to reach out and that could put some pressure on movers and shakers on both sides of the border.”

Pratima Singh, a senior research scientist at Bengaluru-based Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, has researched air pollution in India for over a decade.

She said South Asian countries could emulate the European Union model of collaboration to deal with pollution challenges, formalize new policies and share data and best practices.

After India launched its National Clean Air Programme in 2019, authorities quickly found it was crucial for cities to understand what was happening in surrounding areas — and the boundary kept expanding. “Everyone started realizing that airshed management is essential if we want to actually solve the problem,” Singh said.

The director of Punjab’s Environment Protection Department, Syed Naseem Ur Rehman Shah, is proud of local achievements to fight air pollution. Emissions from industry and brick kilns are under control, farmers can soon buy subsidized machinery to end the menace of crop stubble burning, and there is a drive toward getting electric three-wheeled tuk-tuks, motorbikes and buses on the roads, he said.

Although things are getting better, Shah said it will take time.

He has gone to India to discuss climate change and said a regional body, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, provides opportunities for countries to talk about air pollution. But he acknowledges the absence of formal cooperation at a ministerial level with India.

A screen in a monitoring room, called the Smog Cell, showed Pakistan’s Air Quality Index to be higher than China’s that day. Shah said the province only exceeds World Health Organization-recommended levels for PM2.5 — fine particulate matter that can be inhaled. Everything else about the air quality is within parameters, he said.

His assessment is of little consolation to Pakistani poet and former ambassador Ata ul Haq Qasmi, who is in Evercare for respiratory issues exacerbated by air pollution. “If my friends aren’t in hospital, they should be,” he said. “You only have to step outside for it (the smog) to grab you.”
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ABUJA, NIGERIA     — Nigeria’s tech startups are facing reluctance from investors, stemming from the shutdown of some prominent young companies last year.

Kingsley Eze co-runs Nairaxi, an e-Commerce, on-demand logistics startup in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Despite its record of handling tens of thousands of successful requests, the firm has been largely funded by Eze, as well as family and friends. 

Eze told VOA that even though he is ready for expansion, it has been difficult to secure financing, amid the tales of failing startups in the country. 

“It’s been very difficult to raise funds, investors are cautious, the interest rate hikes in the Western economy is also a contributing factor to that, coupled with a lot of disappointing or not so good outings for a few startups that were like a beacon of hope for the Nigerian startup ecosystem,” said Eze.

Nigeria has been leading growth in African startups. Nevertheless, the sector faced a significant blow in 2023. Prominent startups such as 54Gene, Lazerpay, Vibra, Payday, and Hytch went out of business — largely over their inability to raise more capital to keep the companies running — losing more than $70 million of foreign investors’ funds. 

Abuja-based economist and investment expert Paul Alaje told VOA he blames the collapses on neglect of business principles. 

“Assumption is the major bane to startup development in Africa, especially Nigeria,” said Alaje. “That the idea worked at first and is technology-driven does not mean the fundamentals of traditional business or a growing business, economic principles behind traditional business, should be neglected when it comes to startups.” 

A recent report by Briter Bridges, a London-based business intelligence and research firm, showed a 54% drop in funding for startups between January and October of last year in Africa compared to the same period in 2022. 

Eze said he believes this will make it even harder to navigate the funding terrain.   

“The last statistics we had projected a 60% failure rate for Nigerian startup companies which is not a good bet for most investors,” said Eze. “When everyone is succeeding in the market, it encourages more investors.” 

Alaje said Nigeria’s business ecosystem needs an overhaul. 

((ACT Paul Alaje, Senior Economist (Male, in English) )) 

“Change policy, bring new policies that make it difficult for people who don’t have an idea regarding how business should be properly run,” said Alaje. “Two, show examples of people who got it correctly, including Paystack. We need to become more deliberate at all levels.” 

Paystack, a successful Nigerian payment processing company, was acquired by an Irish-American company for $200 million in 2020. 

According to venture capitalists in Nigeria, poor infrastructure, lack of accountability by business owners, and the foreign exchange crisis aided the collapse of many startups. 

For his part, Eze said he will continue to build his business from the revenues it generates. 
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Tokyo, Japan — Japan on Saturday became only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, but its Moon Sniper spacecraft was running out of power because of a problem with its solar battery.

After a nail-biting 20-minute descent, space agency JAXA said its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) had touched down and communication had been established.

But without the solar cells functioning, JAXA official Hitoshi Kuninaka said the craft, dubbed the Moon Sniper for its precision technology, would only have power for “several hours.”

As mission control scientists prioritized acquiring data while they could, Kuninaka suggested that once the angle of the sun changed, the batteries might work again.

“It is unlikely that the solar battery has failed. It’s possible that it is not facing in the originally planned direction,” he told a news conference.

“If the descent was not successful, it would have crashed at a very high speed. If that were the case, all functionality of the probe would be lost,” he said.

“But data is being sent to Earth,” he said.

SLIM is one of several recent lunar missions that have been launched by countries and private firms, 50 years after the first human moon landing.

Crash landings, communication failures and other technical problems are rife. Only four other nations have made it to the moon: The United States, the Soviet Union, China and most recently India.

NASA chief Bill Nelson tweeted his “congratulations (to Japan) on being the historic fifth country to land successfully on the moon.”

“We value our partnership in the cosmos and continued collaboration,” he added.

JAXA hopes to analyze data acquired during the landing, which will help determine whether the craft achieved the aim of landing within 100 meters of its intended landing spot.

SLIM was aiming for a crater where the moon’s mantle, the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust, is believed to be exposed on the surface.

Two probes detached successfully, JAXA said. One with a transmitter and another, a mini-rover, is designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.

This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the firm behind the Transformer toys.

While the accuracy of the touchdown needs to be verified, “I think the mission is a big success,” said Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Several things could have caused the solar panel problem, he told AFP.

“A wire came loose, a wire was connected the wrong way, or the lander is upside down and can’t see the sun for some reason,” McDowell speculated.

The scientist said he hoped JAXA had been able to download the landing images, but an experiment to study the composition of local rocks may be a lost cause.

“But frankly, that experiment was a bonus and not really that important to the mission,” he said.

Two previous Japanese lunar missions — one public and one private — have failed.

In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission.

In April, Japanese startup ispace tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.” 
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TOKYO — Japan landed a spacecraft on the moon Saturday, an attempt at the world’s first “pinpoint lunar landing.” The milestone puts Japan in a club previously occupied by only the United States, the Soviet Union, India and China.

A raft of countries and companies are also plotting moon missions. Success means international scientific and diplomatic accolades and potential domestic political gains. Failure means a very expensive, and public,

.Here’s a look at high-profile recent and upcoming attempts, and what they might mean.

The United States

NASA plans to send astronauts to fly around the moon next year, and to land there in 2026.

Just this week, however, a U.S. company, Astrobotic Technology, said its lunar lander will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere after a failed moonshot.

The lander, named Peregrine, developed a fuel leak that forced Astrobotic to abandon its attempt to make the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years. The company suspects a stuck valve caused a tank to rupture.

NASA is working to commercialize lunar deliveries by private businesses while the U.S. government tries to get astronauts back to the moon.

For now, the United States’ ability to spend large sums and marshal supply chains give it an advantage over China and other moon rivals. Private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have made crewed space missions a priority.

Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, plans to launch its own lunar lander next month.

India

Last year, India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, where scientists believe that perpetually darkened craters may hold frozen water that could aid future missions.

In 2019, a software glitch caused an Indian lander to crash on its lunar descent. So the $75 million success in August brought widespread jubilation, with people cheering in the streets and declaring India’s rise as a scientific superpower.

Indian scientists said that the next step is a manned lunar mission.

The success is seen as key to boosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity before a crucial general election this year.

India has been pushing for a space program since the 1960s and aims to visit the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.

New Delhi also sees victory in space as important in its rivalry with nuclear-armed neighbor China. Relations between India and China have plunged since deadly border clashes in 2020.

China

China landed on the moon in 2013, and last year launched a three-person crew for its orbiting space station. It hopes to put astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade.

In 2020, a Chinese capsule returned to Earth from the moon with the first fresh lunar rock samples in more than 40 years. China’s first manned space mission in 2003 made it the third country after the USSR and the United States to put a person into space.

China’s space ambitions are linked to its rivalry with the United States as the world’s two largest economies compete for diplomatic, political and military influence in Asia and beyond.

China built its own space station after it was excluded from the International Space Station, in part because of U.S. objections over the Chinese space program’s intimate ties to the military.

China and the United States are also considering plans for permanent crewed bases on the moon. That has raised questions about competition and cooperation on the lunar surface.

Russia

Also last year, Russia’s Luna-25 failed in its attempt to land in the same area of the moon that India reached.

It came 47 years after the Soviets landed on the moon, and Russian scientists blamed that long break, and the accompanying loss of space expertise, for the recent failure.

The Soviets launched the first satellite in space in 1957 and put the first human in space in 1961, but Russia’s program has struggled since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union amid widespread corruption and Western sanctions that have hurt scientific development.

Russia is planning for another moon mission in 2027.

Russia’s failures and the growing role of private companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX have cost Russia its once-sizable niche in the lucrative global space launch market.

Just as India’s success was seen as evidence of its rise to great power status, Russia’s failure has been portrayed by some as casting doubt on its global influence and strength.
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tokyo — Japan’s spacecraft arrived on the surface of the moon early Saturday, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the landing was a success, because the Japanese space agency said it was still “checking its status.”

More details about the spacecraft, which is carrying no astronauts, would be given at a news conference, officials said. If the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, landed successfully, Japan would become the fifth country to accomplish the feat after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

SLIM came down onto the lunar surface at around 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time Saturday (1520 GMT Friday).

As the spacecraft descended, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s mission control said that everything was going as planned and later said that SLIM was on the lunar surface. But there was no mention of whether the landing was successful.

Mission control kept repeating that it was “checking its status” and that more information would be given at a news conference. It wasn’t immediately clear when the news conference would start.

SLIM, nicknamed “the Moon Sniper,” started its descent at midnight Saturday, and within 15 minutes it was down to about 10 kilometers (six miles) above the lunar surface, according to the space agency, which is known as JAXA.

At an altitude of five kilometers (three miles), the lander was in a vertical descent mode, then at 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, SLIM was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.

About a half-hour after its presumed landing, JAXA said that it was still checking the status of the lander.

SLIM, which was aiming to hit a very small target, is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle. It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.

While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).

The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by JAXA.

The mission’s main goal is to test new landing technology that would allow moon missions to land “where we want to, rather than where it is easy to land,” JAXA has said. If the landing was a success, the spacecraft will seek clues about the origin of the moon, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.

The SLIM, equipped with a pad to cushion impact, was aiming to land near the Shioli crater, near a region covered in volcanic rock.

The closely watched mission came only 10 days after a moon mission by a U.S. private company failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after the launch.

SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September. It initially orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on Dec. 25.

Japan hopes a success will help regain confidence for its space technology after a number of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.

JAXA has a track record with difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900-meter-long (3,000-foot-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.

Experts say a success of SLIM’s pinpoint landing, especially on the moon, would raise Japan’s profile in the global space technology race.

Takeshi Tsuchiya, aeronautics professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said it was important to confirm the accuracy of landing on a targeted area for the future of moon explorations.

“It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the appropriate technology in order to be able to properly assert Japan’s position in lunar development,” he said. The moon is important from the perspective of explorations of resources, and it can also be used as a base to go to other planets, like Mars, he said.

SLIM is carrying two small autonomous probes — lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2, which were due to be released just before landing.

LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM’s landing. LEV-2, is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.
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