Those of you tuning in from Shanghai may be able to look up to the starry sky, at the world’s largest astronomy museum.
The Shanghai Astronomy Museum, covering an area of around 58,600 square meters, started embracing visitors on Sunday.
The design of the curvilinear shaped museum highlights the orbital motion of the sun and the earth.
The museum says it hosts exhibitions and serves as a planetarium and observatory that intends to provide guests with exposure to real astronomical phenomenon.
Engineers have restored the science instruments aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, after a glitch took them offline.
Astronomers can now begin collecting data for the first time since 13 June, when a computer stopped working.
Last week, engineers began switching over to backup hardware, in a bid to get one of the most important research tools in history up and running again.
It’s the worst malfunction in years to hit the venerated observatory.
“Hubble is an icon, giving us incredible insight into the cosmos over the past three decades,” said Nasa’s administrator Bill Nelson.
“I’m proud of the Hubble team, from current members to Hubble alumni who stepped in to lend their support and expertise. Thanks to their dedication and thoughtful work, Hubble will continue to build on its 31-year legacy, broadening our horizons with its view of the Universe.”
For about a month, Hubble’s team of experts has been investigating the cause of a problem with the payload computer, which helps control the onboard science instruments.
It came to a halt on 13 June, forcing the instruments to be placed in “safe mode”, where all non-essential systems are shut down.
Last week, Nasa announced that it had identified a probable cause of the glitch and would switch over to the backup hardware.
This changeover was completed on Friday and the science instruments were returned to operational status over the weekend.
Most observations missed while science operations were suspended will be rescheduled for a later date.
Launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble has gathered over 1.5 million observations about the Universe. These have been used to publish some 18,000 scientific papers.
It has contributed to major discoveries in astronomy, including the observation that the observed expansion of the Universe was accelerating. This in turn led to a conclusion that most of the cosmos was made up of mystery “stuff” called dark energy.
A successor to Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is scheduled to launch later this year. But many astronomers hope that the two will be able to operate alongside each other – at least for some period of time.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos will blast into space on Tuesday, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, New Shepard.
He will be accompanied by Mark Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneer of the space race, and an 18-year-old paying customer.
They will travel in a capsule with the biggest windows flown into space, offering stunning views of the Earth.
New Shepard, built by Bezos’ company Blue Origin, is designed to serve the burgeoning market for space tourism.
“I’m excited. People keep asking me if I’m nervous. I’m not really nervous, I’m curious. I want to know what we’re going to learn,” Bezos said in an interview with CBS News.
“We’ve been training. This vehicle’s ready, this crew is ready, this team is amazing. We just feel really good about it.”
The capsule, containing the Bezos brothers, Funk and student Oliver Daemen, separates from its booster around 76km (250,000ft) up. The booster lands about 2 miles from the launch pad, while the capsule continues upwards to a maximum altitude of around 106km (350,000ft).
“We’re in zero-g for around four minutes, and we get to get out of our seats, unstrap, float around, look at the thin limb of the Earth’s atmosphere,” Bezos told CBS News.
“People who have been up – astronauts – say that when they do that, they can see that the Earth is so fragile.
The launch is the latest salvo in what has been dubbed the “billionaire space race”. It comes just nine days after Bezos’ space tourism rival, Sir Richard Branson, flew high above the Earth on his Virgin Galactic space plane on 11 July.
With a net worth of around $200bn, Bezos is the world’s richest man. The 57-year-old recently resigned as chief executive of Amazon, the e-commerce giant he founded, to focus on special company initiatives and his other ventures such as Blue Origin.
The All Progressives Grand alliance, APGA, has hailed the order of a Awka High Court, directing the Independent National Commission, INEC, to restore its candidate, Professor Chukwuma Soludo as the candidate of the party for the November 6 governorship election in Anambra state.
National chairman of APGA, Dr. Victor Oye, who spoke with journalists in an interview in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital shortly after the court judgment said the judiciary in the country, has done well, especially by nipping in bud the activities of these impostors.
According to Dr. Oye, “I believe in the independence of the Judiciary and I believe that Judiciary in Nigeria has done very well despite a few disenchantments.
“I don’t want to be dragged into unnecessary controversy. I think what happened today in Awka shows the independence of the Judiciary and that it is the last hope of the common man. Imagine what would have happened if there are no Judiciary. They would have been chaos and anarchy.
Oye equally said that no matter how imperfect the Judiciary may be, it is indispensable in a democracy.
“I feel happy that the court in Awka has done justice to this matter by ordering the reinstatement of Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo as the Governorship candidate of APGA for the November 6 Anambra Governorship election.
“INEC should immediately reinstate Prof. Soludo as the APGA’s candidate for Anambra Governorship election without delay.
“I have never had any doubt about the candidacy of Soludo because the Chukwuma Umeoji and his co-impostors have no place in law to claim anything in APGA. Did they conduct any genuine congress or primary?
“I feel it was a gross injustice for INEC to have declared him candidate of APGA. This is evil and an invitation to chaos,’ he said.
Oye said that reason there was protest and chaos in Anambra State over INEC’s decision was because the leadership of APGA had appealed for calm.
“I am repeating my call on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that those impostors that attempted to impersonate the leadership of APGA are punished. That is the only way to restore confidence in the management of the electoral system”
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced “Freedom Day”… which means face masks are no longer legally required, distancing rules are nulled and businesses can open without restrictions on crowds.
While health authorities are sceptical many young British people say, they’ve suffered enough.
“People say that it’s not a big deal because it’s young people that are getting infected and they won’t get, it wouldn’t be a serious thing, they’re not going to die from it, so it feels okay for us to do it in a way.”
Some agree to the eased restrictions, while others ask for tough guidelines as the virus is still spreading.
Algeria has decided to recall its ambassador to Rabat for consultations, following the slip-up of the Moroccan diplomatic representation in New York which distributed an official note to the member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement in which Morocco “supports publically and explicitly the alleged right of Kabilya’s people to self-determination,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad said Sunday in a communiqué.
“In a statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, released on 16 July 2021, it was noted that Algeria was expecting from the Kingdom of Morocco to clarify its final position on the extremely serious situation created by the unacceptable statement of its ambassador in New York.
Since then, and in the absence of any positive and appropriate echo, it was decided today to recall immediately for consultations Algeria’s ambassador to Rabat, without ruling out other possible measures according to the development of this issue.”
Gold prices slipped to a one-week low on Monday as investors sought comfort in the U.S. dollar amid rising Pandemic cases.
Spot gold fell 0.5% to $1,802.26 per ounce by 1248 GMT. U.S. gold futures slipped 0.7% to $1,802.00.
Making gold more expensive for holders of other currencies, the dollar strengthened 0.3% to a more than three-month high against its rivals.
“The dollar strength is limiting gold’s upside and sort of remains one of the key headwinds,” said Harshal Barot, a senior research consultant for South Asia at Metals Focus.
“There are emerging concerns about the Delta variant and its impact on global economic growth. So, primary safe-haven flows are also going into the dollar and bonds.”
Gold’s losses came despite U.S. 10-year Treasury yields dropping to their lowest since mid-February.
Independent analyst Ross Norman also said gold’s failure to convincingly breach the $1,820 level, and move higher, “had a detrimental impact.”
Sentiment in wider financial markets took a beating as investors feared a relentless surge in coronavirus cases and growing inflationary pressures.
Meanwhile, many Asian countries have been forced into taking lockdown measures as they struggle to curb the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Focus also remains on the European Central Bank, when policymakers are set for a showdown as they chart a new policy path amid growing fears of a third wave of coronavirus infections.
“(Gold) investors are also pricing in the expectation that recent spikes in inflation will force the hand of the Fed, driving a higher likelihood of earlier than previously expected rate hikes and tapering of the asset purchase program,” said Ricardo Evangelista, a senior analyst at ActivTrades.
Elsewhere, silver dropped 2% to $25.15 per ounce, platinum slipped 2.8% to $1,071.21, and palladium fell 1.9% to $2,579.20.
African Heads of State and Government have approved the Abidjan Declaration, calling on donors and international partners to mobilize resources of USD 100 billion for replenishment of the International Development Association – IDA 20.
With the Abidjan Declaration, African countries establish a common Agenda for prioritizing World Bank Group interventions on the continent, based on three main areas.
These are human capital development, job creation through private sector development policies and economic recovery.
The minister of Finance, Vera Daves, who spoke at the Summit of Heads of State and Government, representing the President of the Republic, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, emphasized the set of economic and social challenges faced by African countries before the pandemic of Covid-19, including economic downturns.
For the government official, the set of difficulties was expanded due to the effects of the pandemic and “with the lack of access to vaccines, the scenario only gets worse.”
Vera Daves added that the current scenario requires coordinated, ambitious and committed action by IDA partners and donors, multilateral institutions and African countries that will help support and benefit from this replenishment, underlining that Angola joins its voice in this African initiative.
In the document, according to a note from the Ministry of Finance that ANGOP had access to, the statesmen declare their strong commitment to improving the capacity of countries to absorb IDA resources through more diligent execution of programmes and projects.
All statesmen reaffirm efforts to improve the capacity to mobilize tax revenues and use resources more efficiently and transparently while improving national governance frameworks.
African countries have also recognized issues related to security, fragility and peace as an urgent priority.
In addition to the intervention of the host Head of State, other African statesmen also intervened, the operations director of the World Bank, IFM-International Financial Cooperation, respectively, Axel van Trotsenberg and Makhtar Diop.
Vera Daves heads a delegation that includes the Angolan ambassador to Côté d’Ivoire, the director of the Studies and International Relations Office, the deputy head of the Public Debt Management Unit, among other staff.
This high-level meeting follows the request of African leaders, made during the summit on financing African economies in Paris in May, in which they called for increased support for better and greener reconstruction after the Covid-19 pandemic.
IDA is the World Bank’s financing arm for the poorest countries, guaranteeing grants and loans at very low-interest rates, and already provided more than US $420 billion dollars for investments in 114 countries, 39 of which in Africa.
The debates at this high-level event aim to help identify the main priorities for financing the continent, which advocates a financial and policy package for an ambitious replenishment of the IDA 20.
Sustainable investments total US$35.3 trillion, or more than a third of all assets in five of the world’s biggest markets with Canada experiencing the biggest increase over the past two years, a report from the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance on Monday showed.
Investors are increasingly driven by environmental, social and governance-related (ESG) factors that traditionally have not been captured in a company’s balance sheet, but that can influence future returns.
The GSIA, whose member bodies track growth in their region, said professionally managed assets, using a broad gauge of what it means to invest sustainably, account for 36 per cent of total assets under management.
While some assessments of industry growth focus on retail-focused mutual funds with a specific sustainability mandate, the GSIA also includes wholesale and institutional assets.
Canada and the United States saw the strongest growth over the last two years, the report said, at 48 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.
“Designated sustainable and responsible investment retail products, including mutual funds and ETFs, have experienced a growth in popularity in Canada,” according to GSIA. “Net asset flows for Canada-domiciled sustain–able and responsible investment mutual funds and ETFs, estimated by Morningstar, were CAD5.3 billion for Q1 2021, already exceeding the CAD3.3 billion in 2020. In addition, a total of 17 sustainable and responsible investment funds launched in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 40 in 2020.
The report also includes money invested using a process that assesses the risk and return impact of issues, such as climate change, even if the strategy’s mandate does not have a formal, explicit sustainability focus, so-called ‘ESG integration’.
The biennial industry survey looked at assets in the United States, Europe, Australasia, Japan and Canada, using data from end-2019 for all regions except Japan, where the data was to end-March 2020.
Since the last report, total assets across the markets had risen 15 per cent, the report said.
Oil prices recouped some losses on Monday, but were still down after OPEC+ overcame internal divisions and agreed to boost output, which sparked concerns about a crude surplus as COVID-19 infections continue to rise in many countries.
Brent crude was down 61 cents, or 0.8%, at $72.98 a barrel by 0617 GMT, after falling to $72.35 earlier in the session. U.S. oil was down 66 cents, or 0.9%, at $71.15 a barrel, having slipped to $70.64 earlier.
OPEC+ ministers agreed on Sunday to increase oil supply from August to cool prices that earlier this month climbed to the highest in around 2-1/2 years as the global economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group, which includes members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies such as Russia, agreed new production shares from May 2022.
“Oil prices may continue to gyrate in the coming weeks,” Goldman Sachs said after the agreement.
However, the U.S. investment bank said it remained bullish on the outlook for oil and the agreement was in line with its view that producers “should focus on maintaining a tight physical market all the while guiding for higher future capacity and disincentivising competing investments.”
It said the OPEC+ deal represented $2 “upside” to its summer forecast for Brent to reach $80 a barrel and $5 upside on its outlook for the international benchmark to average $75 a barrel next year.
To overcome internal divisions, OPEC+ agreed new production quotas for several members from May 2022, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait and Iraq.
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