The United States on Friday grounded SpaceX’s Starship and ordered Elon Musk’s company to investigate why the spaceship spectacularly disintegrated in a fiery cascade over the Caribbean during its latest test mission.Authorities in the Turks and Caicos Islands confirmed they diverted all flights from their airspace during the incident and urged residents not to touch fallen debris, warning it could be hazardous.”The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation into the loss of the Starship vehicle during launch operations on Jan. 16,” the agency said.  “There are no reports of public injury, and the FAA is working with SpaceX and appropriate authorities to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos.”It added that during the event, it briefly activated a “Debris Response Area” protocol to slow aircraft outside the area where the debris was falling or stop aircraft at their departure location.”Several aircraft requested to divert due to low fuel levels while holding outside impacted areas.”Under established procedures, SpaceX will now be required to carry out a “mishap investigation” — including the identification of any corrective actions, which the FAA will review before determining the launch vehicle can return to flight. Alternatively, the company may seek an early return to flight if it can demonstrate sufficient safety measures and confirm the mishap posed no public risk.The government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British-controlled archipelago, confirmed the diversion of all flights during the incident, which lit up social media with dazzling photos and videos of the meteor-like shower of debris.Officials also met with UK Space Agency experts and reiterated warnings to residents to avoid fallen debris.”If possible, take a photograph of the object (without touching it) alongside another object for scale,” a public advisory read, emphasizing, “Space debris remains the property of the spacecraft owner.”- Mars rocket – Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, and is key to Musk’s ambitions of colonizing Mars. NASA hopes to use a modified version of the rocket as a human lunar lander for its Artemis missions to return to the Moon. Thursday’s uncrewed launch was Starship’s seventh orbital test, and the first involving a taller, upgraded version of the rocket.SpaceX, which dominates the commercial launch market through its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, underscored its technical prowess by catching Starship’s first stage booster in the “chopstick” arms of its launch tower for a second time. But the triumph was short-lived when teams lost contact with the upper-stage vehicle. SpaceX later confirmed it had undergone “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” the company’s euphemism for an explosion.”Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!” Musk quipped on X , sharing one of the many viral clips of the event. He added the cause of the explosion appeared to be an “oxygen/fuel leak” that caused an excess buildup of pressure. “Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month,” he ventured.

The United States offered to extend its signature African investment project into the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo as an incentive for a peace deal, but Rwanda has backed away, a senior US diplomat said.Molly Phee, the outgoing assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the United States proposed an expansion of the Lobito railway, a project visited last month by President Joe Biden that aims to speed up the transport of minerals from southern DRC and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast.”We had proposed to both sides that if we could get to stabilization in eastern DRC, we could work on developing a spur from the Lobito Corridor up through eastern DRC,” Phee told AFP in an interview ahead of her exit Monday as the Biden administration comes to an end.”We tried to offer positive incentives. A genuine framework — fundamentally negotiated by the parties — exists, and at the moment, Rwanda seems to have walked away,” she said.Rwanda-backed rebels known as the March 23 (M23) Movement since 2021 have seized swaths of eastern DRC, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis.Rwandan President Paul Kagame, while never admitting direct military involvement, has demanded the elimination of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group in DRC primarily composed of Hutu militants formed in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.Authorities in Kinshasa accuse Rwanda of seizing valuable mines in the region amid the conflict.Phee, who was part of the Biden administration’s negotiations along with US intelligence chief Avril Haines, said the United States presented a solution that would include a DRC crackdown on the FDLR.”They did not take that action,” she said of Kinshasa.”We put it all back together again and then I thought we were on a good track. And then in the end, President Kagame decided not to go to the Luanda summit in December, and you’ve seen Rwanda and M23 take more territory.”Kagame has dismissed recent peace initiatives such as the summit in the Angolan capital Luanda as little more than photo-ops that do not address “root causes.”- ‘Heavy-handed’ security response in Ethiopia -Biden took office vowing to pay more attention to Africa than Donald Trump, his predecessor and successor, although the administration soon also became focused on the Ukraine and Gaza wars.But one of the most devastating conflicts of this century was a two-year war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region where at least 600,000 people died, according to an African Union envoy.The violence stopped with a ceasefire reached in November 2022 in the South African capital Pretoria.”I’m very proud of the work we did to help end the war in Tigray, which at that time was the largest conflict in the world,” Phee said.But she voiced concern over Ethiopian forces’ actions since then, in conflicts in the separate regions of Amhara and Oromia.”It’s a legitimate and difficult problem, as all insurgencies are, but we feel the security services are heavy-handed and are not as attentive to civilian casualties as they should be,” she said.The Biden administration booted Ethiopia out of a major trade pact in response to rights concerns in Tigray.Phee said the United States “would like to be in a position to resume the kind of partnership that we had” but that Ethiopia still has steps to take.- Still hopeful in Niger -The United States also saw a setback when the military seized power in Niger in 2023 — soon after a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken — and moved closer to Russia.The junta scrapped a military cooperation deal, forcing Washington to give up a $100 million drone base, soon after Phee voiced concern over Niger potentially selling uranium to Iran, whose nuclear program is under scrutiny.In a diplomatic dustup, Nigerien authorities denied that there was a deal with Iran and called Phee’s attitude “condescending.”Phee said her remarks to Niger should be understood more as an offer than warning.She said she told Niger that “Iran is a bad actor in the world” and that a deal would cause problems due to sanctions on Tehran.But she said she told them, “you deserve to use your uranium to benefit your people. We’ll be happy to find you a reputable buyer.” “I’m hopeful that action on that kind of path will be taken by them.”

The United States unveiled a new rule Friday to tighten an exemption allowing low-value imports to enter the country duty-free, taking aim at Chinese shipments that might be benefiting from it.The proposal disqualifies certain products from the low-value, or “de minimis,” exemption, which allows goods valued at $800 or below to come into the United States without paying duties or certain taxes.”Both the volume and combined worth of low-value, or de minimis, shipments to the United States have risen significantly over the past ten years,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement.He added that the exemption has “undermined American businesses and workers” while allowing foreign products to flood US ports of entry, making it harder to screen the goods for security risks.”The actions announced today to tighten this exemption will strengthen America’s economic and national security,” he said.The number of shipments claiming the exemption rose from about 139 million in fiscal year 2015 to more than a billion in 2023.US officials have pointed to the growth of Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu — known for selling items at low prices — as a key factor behind this increase.National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard accused Chinese-founded e-commerce platforms of trying to “gain an unfair trade advantage” by using the rules.With the new proposed rule, products subject to tariffs imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act, for example, would not qualify for duty-free treatment under the de minimis exemption.The section has been a key tool used to justify levies against China in recent years.Section 301 tariffs hit about 70 percent of Chinese textile and apparel imports, meaning the move would reduce the number of shipments entering through this exemption.Packages containing products subject to Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum goods, as well as Section 201 safeguards impacting solar manufacturing, are also targeted.In a notice on Friday, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said low-value e-commerce shipments pose the same risks as higher-value ones.The large volume of imports and smaller amount of data received about low-value shipments make it increasingly tough to “target and block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic drug raw materials and related manufacturing equipment from entering the country,” said the CBP.In 2024, more than 120 US lawmakers raised “grave concerns” over the de minimis “trade loophole” in a letter and urged President Joe Biden to close it.Further action on the matter will fall to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office next week.