Bahrain's Al Munther satellite: How the island nation is building its future in space
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The kingdom is developing Earth-observation satellites and teaming up with space powers like China to reach the Moon
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How homegrown satellites can take India's defence to next level
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26-05-2025
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France's Macron secures major Airbus deal during Vietnam visit
Emmanuel Macron signed a deal with Vietnam on Monday for 20 Airbus planes, among other agreements, in the first visit by a French president to Hanoi in nearly a decade. The Airbus deal with VietJet for 20 A330neo aircraft, worth an estimated €7 billion, follows a previous agreement for 20 European-made aeroplanes. The French leader struck other deals — said to be more than 30 — in a bid to expand a trade relationship worth €5.3 billion, including cooperation on energy, Earth-observation satellites, vaccines and railways. 'It is truly a new page being written between our two countries … a desire to write an even more ambitious page of the relationship between Vietnam and France, between ASEAN and the European Union,' Macron said. France's push towards stronger links with its former colony marks an attempt to offer a "third way" outside of Washington and Beijing. Macron's trip comes amid threats of 50% US tariffs on EU goods. Vietnam, which has also been threatened with 47% tariffs by US President Donald Trump, is considering purchasing Boeing planes to reduce its trade surplus with the US. Macron's three-leg Southeast Asia tour will continue with visits to Indonesia and Singapore. Weeks after now-former Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the first US-born pope, speculation about his political leanings and affiliations continues to spread online. Some commentators are purporting that voting records show Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, is formally affiliated to the US Republican Party. Pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk first planted the theory an hour after white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel on 8 May, indicating Pope Leo XIV's election by the papal conclave. In a post on X, Kirk said: "Our Turning Point Action team pulled the voting history for Pope Leo XIV. He's a registered Republican who has voted in Republican primaries when not living abroad. Our data shows he's a strong Republican, and he's pro-life." The post is accompanied by a screenshot claiming to be Prevost's voting card. Prevost's name, age and date of birth are correctly displayed. The word "Republican" also appears next to "party". But the state of Illinois does not register voters by political party affiliation, according to judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice. It means this cannot be an authentic voting card as the state does not register voters as either Republican or Democrat. In other US states, voters do declare party affiliation when registering to vote, and this sometimes determines in which primary elections voters can cast their ballots. Primary elections, or primaries, are ballots that political parties in the US use to select candidates for a general election. Voters can chose in which party's primary they want to vote. Hoewever, state voting records shared with Euroverify by the office of the attorney general of Will County, Illinois, show that Prevost did vote in three Republican primary elections in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Voters in the state are, however, not bound to pick the same party's primary from year to year. Therefore this is not conclusive proof that Prevost is affiliated to the Republican party. Prevost's party affiliation is also registered as "undeclared" in general elections between 2012 and 2024. According to Reuters, citing a public information officer for the Illinois state elections board, Prevost had requested ballots for the 2008 and 2010 Democratic primaries when registered to vote in Cook County, Illinois. Euroverify was unable to independently fact check this information. Social media users have also been searching for signs of Prevost's political leanings in content shared by him online prior to his election as pope. Months before his election, he shared an article published by the National Catholic Reporter criticising comments made by JD Vance. The article, titled "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others", blasts a comment made by the US vice president during a Fox News interview, suggesting that Christians should prioritise love for their "fellow citizens" and "own country" over "the rest of the world." In April, he also shared a post critical of US President Donald Trump's immigration policies, specifically the controversial decision to deport Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, which has been described by Supreme Court judges as "an error."
Yahoo
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Watch Vega-C rocket launch European forest-monitoring satellite to orbit on April 29
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A European forest-monitoring satellite will launch from South America early Tuesday morning (April 29), and you can watch the action live. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Biomass spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Tuesday at 5:15 a.m. EDT (0915 GMT; 6:15 a.m. local time in Kourou). You can watch the launch live here at courtesy of the French company Arianespace, which operates the Vega-C. Arianespace's stream will begin at 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT). This will be the fourth launch overall for the four-stage, 115-foot-tall (35-meter-tall) Vega-C, and the second since an anomaly in the rocket's second stage led to a mission failure in December 2022. The Vega-C bounced back on its third-ever launch, successfully sending the European Union's Copernicus Sentinel-1C Earth-observation satellite to orbit this past December. Related: Europe's Vega-C rocket launches Earth-observation satellite on 1st liftoff since 2022 failure (video) If all goes according to plan on Tuesday, the Vega-C will deploy Biomass into a sun-synchronous orbit 414 miles (666 kilometers) above Earth about 57 minutes after liftoff. The 2,490-pound (1,130-kilogram) satellite will then undergo a checkout period, which will prepare it for an Earth-observation mission designed to last at least five years. Related stories: — Europe's new lightweight Vega C rocket gets a big Earth observation opportunity — Europe's Vega C rocket fails on 2nd-ever mission, 2 satellites lost — Europe's Vega C rocket launch failure caused by nozzle flaw, investigators say During that mission, Biomass — part of ESA's "Earth Explorers" satellite series — will use synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to study our planet's varied ecosystems, paying special attention to its forests. Biomass' SAR instrument "allows it to collect information on the height and structure of different forest types and measure the amount of carbon stored in the world's forests and how it changes over time," Arianespace representatives wrote in the mission's press kit, which you can find here. "Observations from this new mission will also lead to better insight into the rates of habitat loss and, as a result, the effect this may have on biodiversity in the forest environment," they added.
