As the space race is resumed, and expanded to include private corporations, it is more important than ever to lay the groundwork for peaceful collaboration.
Stephen Hoadley, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Kennan was one of America’s few true experts on Soviet affairs. He famously urged a “Containment” strategy to prevent Soviet expansionism, advising against military responses and arms build-ups.
The sketchy history of international efforts to control bioweapons suggests that nations will resist cooperative monitoring of gene hacking for medical research.
Sibo Chen, Toronto Metropolitan University; Henry Yu, University of British Columbia, and John Price, University of Victoria
Banning research ties with China, as Alberta just did, should be vetoed not only by the academic community but also the general public for its recklessness in fanning the flames of anti-Asian racism.
Researchers tried several times to have the document declassified, including in 1992, 2004 and 2016. It was initially written to help American NSA agents crack difficult coded messages.
Just as Fidel Castro’s 2016 death did not transform US-Cuba ties, his brother Raul’s exit from politics is unlikely to do so. But Cuba itself is changing. Eventually, Havana and Washington will, too.
It’s 60 years since Gagarin’s world-first return from space. The cosmonaut never did make it to Australia, but his huge feat was celebrated here by many, despite tensions with the USSR.
Leon mulls over the Democratic Alliance’s biggest challenge: ‘how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority’.
Both Russia and China are signalling they will only deal with the West where and when it suits them. They are also increasingly comfortable working together as close partners.
The battle between media companies and foreign governments over who controls the news dates back some 150 years, to when European and US wire services dictated the world’s headlines.