Month: May 2023

Aiming to secure support for Sweden’s bid to join NATO, U.S. President Joe Biden signaled a transactional approach in his engagement with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The newly reelected Turkish leader has been one of the most consequential yet complicated members of the transatlantic military alliance.

Biden spoke with Erdogan on Monday to congratulate him on winning his third presidential term and said the two had discussed the issue of Sweden’s NATO accession and Turkey’s request to overhaul and expand its fleet of American-made F-16 fighter jets.

“He still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden, so let’s get that done. And so, we’ll be back in touch with one another,” Biden said, adding that they will talk more about it “next week.”

This is the first time Biden has linked the two issues together. Neither the White House nor the Turkish government mentioned the potential F-16 sale in their readout of the call.

U.S. administration officials have repeatedly rejected suggestions of a quid pro quo between the transatlantic military alliance’s expansion and a weapons sale.

“That’s not a condition,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated during her press briefing Tuesday. “President Biden has long been clear that he supports selling F-16s.”

On Tuesday, during a joint news conference with Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Lulea, Sweden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that both issues “should go forward as quickly as possible.”

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022. The bids, which must be approved by all NATO members, were held up by objections from Turkey and Hungary though Finland’s bid was finally approved in April.

F-16s

Ankara has long sought to purchase 40 F-16 fighter jets made by U.S. company Lockheed Martin and nearly 80 modernization kits for its air force’s existing warplanes — a $20 billion transaction.

The F-16 jets make up the bulk of Turkey’s combat aircraft after the Trump administration in 2019 expelled Ankara from the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet program over its decision to acquire Russian-made S-400 air defense systems.

The U.S. Congress, which has authority to block major weapons sales, objects to F-16 sales for reasons beyond NATO enlargement. It wants Ankara to ease tensions with Greece, refrain from invading northern Syria and enforce sanctions against Russia for its war on Ukraine.

In April, about two weeks after Turkey ratified its support for Finland joining NATO, Washington approved a $259 million sale of avionics software upgrades for Ankara’s current fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft. But Sweden’s bid is still held up because Ankara believes that Stockholm is harboring “terrorists” — militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.

Swedish lawmakers have passed legislation tightening the country’s anti-terrorism laws, a move expected to help persuade Turkey. U.S. and Swedish officials have expressed hope that Sweden’s membership will be confirmed by the time NATO leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania, in mid-July.

While Erdogan is likely to leverage his support for Sweden, he is also a pragmatist, said Asli Aydintaşbaş, a Turkish journalist and visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings.

“What we are going to see is a bit of a last-minute drama heading up to the Vilnius summit,” Aydıntaşbaş told VOA. “At the end, it’s possible that this will be resolved on the night of the summit.”

Fraught relations

F-16s aside, U.S.-Turkish ties will remain fraught, said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, who now chairs the Middle East program at the Wilson Center.

“It’s a complicated, transactional relationship,” Jeffrey told VOA. “It’s never 100% on our side. We’re hoping it won’t be more than 50% away from us, but a lot depends on the personal relationship between Biden and Erdogan. It’s been frosty; the call is a good first step.”

Solid ties with Ankara will be “dramatically strategic in terms of containing Russia,” as well as containing Iran and terrorist movements in the region — all key goals for Washington, Jeffrey added.

However, Erdogan’s friendly ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin while NATO helps Ukraine to fend off a Russian invasion have made Western officials uneasy.

“We are not bound by the West’s sanctions,” Erdogan said in a CNN interview earlier this month. “We are a strong state, and we have a positive relationship with Russia.”

Ankara has calibrated its response to the war in Ukraine consistent with its own strategic interests, condemning the invasion and restricting Russian warships and military flights across its territory while refusing to join Western sanctions on Russia and expanding its trade ties with Moscow.

At the same time Erdogan has maintained good ties with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His government has provided aid and drones to Ukraine and was instrumental in the U.N.-backed deal allowing Ukrainian grain ships access to global markets via the Black Sea.

S-400s

The Turkish decision to acquire S-400 air defense systems remains the thorniest issue for the U.S., said Howard Eissenstat, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute.

“That one’s going to be really difficult to solve,” he told VOA.

Washington insists it won’t allow Ankara back into its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program until Ankara abandons the Russian-made weapons. Earlier this month, Turkish media reported that Ankara rejected the Biden administration’s request for Turkey to send its S-400 air defense systems to Ukraine.

Next week, Biden will host British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The leaders are expected to discuss the issue of NATO enlargement, including how to get Ankara on board.

“Those are good interlocutors for the president,” Jeffrey said. “Those are people who understand the geostrategic situation in Europe.”

Anita Powell contributed to this report.

Aiming to secure support for Sweden’s bid to join NATO, U.S. President Joe Biden signaled a transactional approach in his engagement with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The newly reelected Turkish leader has been one of the most consequential yet complicated members of the transatlantic military alliance. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Contributor: Anita Powell

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that he was communicating with authorities in military-run Myanmar as well as members of the armed resistance following a surprise visit to the country last month and called for more diplomatic pressure on the ruling generals to end the violence.

Ban did not specify the nature of those communications and declined to disclose the details of his conversations with military leaders during their April meetings. He was speaking at a Seoul news conference along with other members of The Elders, a group of senior statesmen engaging in peacemaking and human rights initiatives around the world.

“I am in close contact with all those people to do as much as we can do to help them democratize Myanmar,” Ban said.

He said he was still communicating with Myanmar authorities, the president of Indonesia — who holds the rotating chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations — and Myanmar’s National Unity Government, which is leading an underground civilian administration following the military takeover in 2021 that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

In his meetings with Myanmar’s military ruler, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and other top officials, Ban urged them to take the initiative in resolving the country’s violent political crisis and release political detainees. He also called for the military leaders to implement a peace plan proposed by ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, and a separate United Nations resolution to stop the violence between the military and pro-democracy resistance forces.

Ban’s visit came at the invitation of Myanmar’s military government. He has remained tight-lipped about what the military leaders said to him during the meetings. The military government has consistently rejected outside calls for negotiations as an infringement on Myanmar’s sovereignty and labeled the pro-democracy opposition as terrorists.

At the news conference, Ban said he told the military leaders in April that he “could never accept” their attempts to “avoid the argument” but didn’t elaborate on their conversations.

Some experts expressed skepticism about Ban’s initiative, citing the lack of progress in previous peacemaking attempts.

Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson of the National Unity Government, told The Associated Press following Ban’s visit that international leaders should know their hands will be stained with blood when they shake hands with the leader of the “terrorist army,” referring to Ban’s meeting with Min Aung Hlaing.

Ban noted that the military leaders following his meetings released around 2,000 political prisoners, although they didn’t include Suu Kyi, who has been imprisoned since 2021.

When asked whether he would pursue further visits to Myanmar on behalf of The Elders, including possible meetings or contacts with the opposition NUG, Ban replied: “Whatever is necessary.”

As the U.N. secretary-general, Ban went to Myanmar to press the country’s then-ruling generals to let foreign aid and experts reach survivors of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which killed an estimated 134,000 people. He urged the military to embrace democracy, as well. He also attended a peace conference in Naypyitaw, Myanmar’s capital, in 2016 that sought to end decades of armed conflict with ethnic minority groups.

The news conference came hours after a failed North Korean attempt to launch a military satellite into orbit triggered evacuation warnings and security jitters in South Korea and Japan.

Ban and other members of The Elders — the group’s chair and former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia and former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos — criticized the launch, which Santos described as an “unnecessary provocation.”

International efforts to defuse a crisis in Kosovo intensified Wednesday as ethnic Serbs held more protests in a northern town where recent clashes with NATO-led peacekeepers sparked fears of renewed conflict in the troubled region.

Hundreds of Serbs repeated at a rally their demand for the withdrawal from northern Kosovo of the special police and ethnic Albanian officials who were elected to mayor’s offices in votes overwhelmingly boycotted by Serbs. The crowd then spread a huge banner in the colors of the Serbian flag outside the city hall in the town of Zvecan.

The rising tensions have fueled concern about another war like the 1998-99 fighting in Kosovo that claimed more than 10,000 lives, left more than 1 million people homeless and resulted in a NATO peacekeeping mission that has lasted nearly a quarter of a century.

Working to avert any escalation, European Union officials met with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti on the sidelines of a conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. The leaders of France and Germany announced plans to meet top Serbia and Kosovo officials on Thursday at a summit in Moldova.

“The current situation is dangerous and unsustainable,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “We need urgent de-escalation.”

Speaking in Slovakia, Kurti flatly rejected Serb demands but left the door open for fresh local elections.

“As long as there is a violent mob outside the municipal buildings, we must have our special units,” he said. “If there would have been peaceful protests asking for early election, that would attract my attention, and perhaps I would consider that request.”

Kurti also suggested that Russia may have a hand in the latest flare-up, pointing to protesters who “do graffiti with letter Z” and show admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is a close Serbian ally, although Belgrade populist leaders claim to be seeking European Union membership.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow is monitoring the situation and supporting “all legitimate rights and interests of Kosovo Serbs.”

Wednesday’s protest in Zvecan, 45 kilometers north of the capital, Pristina, ended peacefully. On Monday, ethnic Serbs tried to storm municipal offices and fought with both Kosovo police and the peacekeepers, leaving 30 NATO soldiers and 50 rioters injured.

NATO sending more troops

A former province of Serbia, Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence is recognized by Washington and most EU nations but not by Belgrade, Russia or China.

Serbs are a minority in Kosovo, but they constitute a majority in parts of the country’s north bordering Serbia. Many reject the Albanian-majority territory’s claim of independence.

The United States and the European Union recently stepped-up efforts to solve the dispute. NATO said it will send 700 more troops to northern Kosovo to help quell violent protests after the clashes on Monday. The NATO-led peacekeeping mission known as KFOR currently consists of almost 3,800 troops.

A German government spokesperson said Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron plan to meet Thursday with the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo.

Spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin that the meeting will take place on the sidelines of the European Political Community meeting in Chisinau, Moldova.

Highest state of alert

The confrontation first unfolded last week after ethnic Albanian officials entered municipal buildings to take office with an escort of Kosovo police.

When Serbs tried to block the officials, Kosovo police fired tear gas to disperse them. In Zvecan on Monday, angry Serbs again clashed first with the police and later with NATO-led troops who tried to secure the area.

Serbia put the country’s military on its highest state of alert and sent more troops to the border with Kosovo.

Western officials have sharply criticized both Kosovo authorities for pushing to install the newly elected mayors and Serbs because of the violence.

The 1998-1999 war in Kosovo erupted when ethnic Albanian separatists launched a rebellion against Serbia, which responded with a brutal crackdown. The war ended after NATO bombing forced Serbia to pull out of the territory.

The Balkan region is still reckoning with the aftermath of a series of bloody conflicts in the 1990s during the violent breakup of the former country of Yugoslavia.

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China sent three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Tuesday, putting a civilian scientist into space for the first time as Beijing pursues plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by the end of the decade.   

The world’s second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space program in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.   

The Shenzhou-16 crew took off atop a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 9:31 am (0131 GMT), AFP journalists and state TV showed.   

Leading the mission is commander Jing Haipeng on his fourth extra-terrestrial trip, as well as engineer Zhu Yangzhu and Beihang University professor Gui Haichao, the first Chinese civilian in space.   

The Tiangong is the crown jewel of China’s space program, which has also seen it land robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon and made it the third country to put humans in orbit.   

The mission is the first to the Tiangong space station since it entered its “application and development” stage, Beijing said.   

Once in orbit, the Shenzhou-16 will dock at the space station’s Tianhe core module, before the crew meet three colleagues from the previous manned Shenzhou-15 flight, who have been at the space station for six months and will return to Earth in the coming days.   

The mission will “carry out large-scale, in-orbit experiments… in the study of novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity, and the origin of life,” CMSA spokesperson Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday.   

The space station was resupplied with drinking water, clothing, food and propellant this month in preparation for Shenzhou-16’s arrival.   

One expert told AFP that Tuesday’s flight represented “a regular crew rotation flight as one crew hands over to another”, but even that was significant.   

“Accumulating depth of experience in human spaceflight operations is important and doesn’t involve new spectacular milestones all the time,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.   

‘Heavenly palace’    

Plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive under President Xi Jinping.   

China is planning to build a lunar base, and CMSA spokesman Lin reaffirmed on Monday Beijing’s plan to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2030.   

“The overall goal is to achieve China’s first manned landing on the Moon by 2030 and carry out lunar scientific exploration and related technological experiments,” he said.   

The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong — which means “heavenly palace” — successfully docked with the core structure last year.   

The station carries several pieces of cutting-edge scientific equipment, state news agency Xinhua reported, including “the world’s first space-based cold atomic clock system”.   

The Tiangong is expected to remain in low Earth orbit at between 400 and 450 kilometers above the planet for at least 10 years.   

It is constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts.   

China has been effectively excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the United States banned NASA from engaging with the country — pushing Beijing to develop the Tiangong.   

China’s space agency reiterated on Monday it is actively seeking international cooperation in the project.   

China “is looking forward to and welcomes the participation of foreign astronauts in the country’s space station flight missions”, Lin said.   

Beijing plans to send two manned space missions to the space station every year, according to the CMSA.   

The next will be Shenzhou-17, which is expected to be launched in October. 

Vinicius Junior is an idol to millions for his sublime goalscoring skills for Real Madrid but off the football pitch he has prompted a stark national debate over racism in Spain.

The 22-year-old Brazilian player was reduced to tears after, once again, being the target of ugly abuse during a game between his team and Valencia last week.

“I am sorry for those Spaniards who disagree but today, in Brazil, Spain is known as a country of racists,” he said after the match, implying the latest insults were proof of how racism permeates not just La Liga but Spanish society.

His words were echoed by Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called on FIFA, football’s governing body, and La Liga to take serious measures.

“We cannot allow fascism and racism to seize control of football stadiums,” he added.

Within Spain, politicians were swift to condemn the racist insults directed at Vinicius Jr and promised action.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that “hatred and xenophobia should have no place in football nor in our society.”

Three people were arrested for alleged hate crimes against Vinicius Jr and another four were detained for hanging a black blow-up effigy of the player from a bridge. Valencia will have part of its stadium closed for five games.

Debate over xenophobia

But beyond the political bubble, what is the reality for racial minorities in Spain?

Spain is a country which has a relatively small population of Black people, compared to Britain or France.

Moroccans form the largest group of non-Spaniards, with 833,343 people according to government figures from 2022, followed by Romanians with 627,478.

A survey published last year by the Centro Reina Sofia research center found 25% of Spaniards aged 15-29 hold clearly racist or xenophobic views, with most of their hatred directed to Roma, Black people, and people of Moroccan origin.

Spanish police investigated 639 racist or xenophobic incidents in 2021, a 24% rise compared to 2019.

Ousman Umar’s life is a world away from that of a superstar footballer.

Dumped in the Sahara by traffickers, the then 13-year-old son of a traditional healer believed that he was going to die like other migrants.

Umar survived not just the desert but every other step of a five-year odyssey from Ghana to Spain.

Sixteen years later, he is a successful businessman in Barcelona with a master’s degree from one of the world’s top business schools. He has made it his mission to persuade Africans to stay at home rather than follow his footsteps through the NGO Nasco Feeding Minds.

“I don’t think Spain is a racist country. You have to remember that Britain and France have much larger populations of Black people. Spain is the entrance to the European continent, but they go to France or Germany,” Umar told VOA.

“I don’t share Vinicius’ opinions at all but unfortunately in sport you do get cases like this and there should be rigorous ways to stop this.”

However, Umar, who lived rough on the streets for two years when he arrived in Barcelona, said he had been the victim of racism.

“(Recently) I went to give a lecture to young businessmen at a leading business school, but I could see this woman guarding her bag. It’s a very racist way of acting. I could give you hundreds of cases like this.”

Ignacio Garriga, whose mother emigrated from Equatorial Guinea to Spain in 1960, is a lawmaker for the far-right Vox party, the third largest party in Spain’s parliament. He is one of a handful of lawmakers from racial minorities.

“I don’t think Spain is a racist country. There are cases of racism like the anti-Spanish racism which I suffer in parliament from separatist supremacists,” he told VOA.

“They say ‘a Black person cannot have the views that I have, that a Black person cannot say that illegal immigrant should be expelled, that a Black person should be left-wing.”

Mikel Mazkiaran, of NGO SOS Racismo, said many migrants suffer ‘institutional racism’.

“It is good that a debate of this kind happens, but most migrants suffer problems accessing residence permits, accessing home rental and their treatment which they receive in detention centers,” he told VOA.

Spain created a specific law against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sports in 2007, Associated Press reported, which said a state commission has monitored cases which might break the law.

However, the law stipulates that not all cases of racism can be punished criminally, only those in which there is an extra element affecting the victim. In practice, this means perpetrators, like the fans at Valencia, escape with fines or bans from stadiums.

Some information in this report was provided by Associated Press.

An unprecedented string of wildfires in Canada’s Atlantic Coast province of Nova Scotia continued to burn out of control for a fourth day on Wednesday, preventing thousands of evacuees from trying to see whether their homes have been destroyed. 

Fire officials were hoping for a break in the dry, windy weather, but that’s not forecast to happen until Friday night at the earliest. 

Halifax deputy fire chief David Meldrum made it clear that none of the 16,000 evacuees from the suburbs around Halifax would be able to return home for now. Another 2,000 people who fled a much larger uncontained fire in southwestern Nova Scotia also were being kept away from their properties. 

Fire officials said an estimated 200 structures, including 151 homes, had been destroyed since the fire started in the Upper Tantallon area on Sunday afternoon. No deaths or injuries have been reported, but “it’s the site of a tragedy,” Meldrum said. 

“There’s widespread destruction, and there’s a level of randomness that comes with wildfires when they hit … where people live. There are properties that are unharmed close to properties that are destroyed. It’s terrible to see. These are people’s homes,” the deputy fire chief said. 

Meldrum said the 8.4-square kilometer fire northwest of the port city’s downtown grew slightly overnight and could flare up again in the warmer than usual weather. Wind gusts from the southwest were expected to reach 25 kilometers per hour, and the temperature was forecast to rise to about 25 C (77 F), with the humidity remaining very low at around 20%. 

Meldrum said the fire could quickly grow and spread, which is why the Halifax area’s 100-square-kilometer evacuation zone will remain in place. 

Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said charges would be brought against anyone burning outdoors, and that anyone responsible for starting a wildfire could be required to pay expenses relating to controlling or extinguishing the blaze, along with any related damages. 

“We are taking a no-tolerance approach,” Savage said. 

The much larger fire that forced 2,000 people to flee outside Barrington has grown to almost 200 square kilometers since it started last weekend, making it one of largest ever recorded in Nova Scotia. 

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston declared a ban on all travel and activity in wooded areas, and he implored people to avoid any activity that could start more fires. 

“Don’t be burning right now. No burning in Nova Scotia. Conservation officers reported six illegal burns last night. This is absolutely ridiculous with what’s happening in this province — three out-of-control fires, eight fires yesterday, 12 on Sunday. Do not burn!” Houston said Tuesday. “We have to do what we can to make sure we don’t have new fires popping up.” 

Scott Tingley, the forest protection manager in the province’s wildfire management group, said it was safe to say that all of these fires were “very likely human-caused.” 

“Much of it probably is preventable. Accidents do happen and so that’s why we certainly appreciate the premier’s message,” Tingley said. 

Scientists have expanded the search for technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations by monitoring a star-dense region toward the core of our galaxy for a type of signal that could be produced by potential intelligent aliens that until now has been ignored. 

Efforts to detect alien technological signatures previously have focused on a narrowband radio signal type concentrated in a limited frequency range or on single unusual transmissions. The new initiative, scientists said Wednesday, focuses on a different signal type that perhaps could enable advanced civilizations to communicate across the vast distances of interstellar space. 

These wideband pulsating signals for which the scientists are monitoring feature repetitive patterns – a series of pulses repeating every 11 to 100 seconds and spread across a few kilohertz, similar to pulses used in radar transmission. The search involves a frequency range covering a bit less than a tenth the width of an average FM radio station. 

“The signals searched in our work would belong to the category of deliberate ‘we are here’ type beacons from alien worlds,” said Akshay Suresh, a Cornell University graduate student in astronomy and lead author of a scientific paper published in The Astronomical Journal describing the new effort. 

“Aliens may possibly use such beacons for galaxy-wide communications, for which the core of the Milky Way is ideally placed. One may imagine aliens using such transmissions at the speed of light to communicate key events, such as preparations for interstellar migration before the explosive death of a massive star,” Suresh added. 

The effort, called the Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS), is a collaboration between Cornell, the SETI Institute research organization and Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million initiative to search for advanced extraterrestrial life. 

Diverse exploration called crucial

“In the realm of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, we embark on a journey to detect signals from technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations,” said astronomer and study co-author Vishal Gajjar of the SETI Institute and University of California at Berkeley. 

“However, the nature of these signals remains a mystery, leaving us uncertain about their specific characteristics. Hence, it becomes crucial to explore a diverse array of signals that are unlikely to occur naturally in the cosmic environment,” Gajjar added. 

Using a ground-based radio telescope in West Virginia, BLIPSS has focused upon a sliver of the sky less than 1/200th of the area covered by the moon, stretching toward the center of the Milky Way roughly 27,000 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion kilometers. 

This area contains about 8 million stars, Suresh said. If extraterrestrial life forms exist, they presumably would populate rocky planets orbiting in what is called the habitable zone, or Goldilocks zone, around a star – not too hot and not too cold. 

The scientists in the various monitoring efforts passively scan for signals of alien beings and do not actively send their own signals advertising our presence on Earth. 

“In my opinion, transmission of ‘we are here’ type beacons comes with the danger of potentially inviting aliens with unknown intentions to the Earth,” Suresh said. 

Prudent approach

Deliberate transmissions to potential aliens from Earth should be considered only if by global consensus humankind deems it safe and appropriate, Gajjar said. 

“In my personal opinion, as a relatively young species in the grand cosmic scale, it would be prudent for us to focus on listening and investigating before embarking on deliberate transmissions,” Gajjar said. “Furthermore, it is crucial to recognize that sending signals on behalf of the entire Earth raises political and ethical considerations. Presently, it would not be appropriate for a single country or entity to make decisions on behalf of the entire planet.” 

No aliens have yet been detected in the monitoring efforts. 

“Thus far, we have not come across any definitive evidence. However, it’s important to note that our exploration has been limited to a relatively small parameter space,” Gajjar said.

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