The news you didn’t ask for,
but read anyway

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a bill formally suspending the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States, amid soaring tensions with Washington over Moscow’s action in Ukraine. Putin had declared a week ago in his state-of-the-nation address that Moscow was suspending its participation in the 2010 New START treaty. He had charged that Russia can’t accept U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites under the pact at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Russia’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal.Both houses of parliament quickly ratified Putin’s bill on the pact’s suspension last week. On Tuesday, Putin signed it into law, effective immediately. The document says that it’s up to the president to decide whether Moscow could return to the pact. Putin has emphasized that Moscow was not withdrawing from the pact altogether, and the Russian Foreign Ministry said the country would respect the caps on nuclear weapons set under the treaty and keep notifying the U.S. about test launches of ballistic missiles. On Monday, a top U.S. arms control official strongly criticized Russia for suspending its participation in the treaty, but noted that Washington will try to work with Moscow to continue its implementation. “Russia is once again showing the world that it is not a responsible nuclear power,” Bonnie Jenkins, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, said at a session of the Conference on Disarmament, a United Nations-affiliated international forum. Jenkins told reporters that the U.S. has not fully assessed the consequences of Russia’s suspension move, but said: “We’re not seeing any evidence that Russia is in noncompliance.” “We remain ready to work assertively with Russia to fully implement the New START treaty,” she added. The New START, signed by then-presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The agreement envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance. The inspections have been dormant since 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions on resuming them were supposed to have taken place last November, but Russia abruptly called them off.

The decision follows a review by Canada's chief information officer, and the app "presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security", a government spokesperson said in a statement. A TikTok spokesperson said the company was disappointed by the decision. It comes just days after the European Commission announced a similar ban. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was enough concern about security around the app to require the change. "This may the first step, this may be the only step we need to take," he said on Monday at a press conference near Toronto. TikTok has been criticised for its use of personal information and ties to the Chinese government. The short-form video app is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd. US federal employees were banned from using TikTok late last year, and on Monday the White House gave government agencies 30 days to scrub the app from their systems. A number of American universities have banned the app from being used on their networks. Broader public bans have been implemented in India and several other Asian countries. The company insists that Chinese government officials don't have access to user data and that a Chinese version of the app is separate from the one used in the rest of the world. But last year, the company admitted some staff in China can access the data of European users. The ban for European Commission employees is set to come into force on 15 March. Canadian privacy regulators are also investigating TikTok over concerns about user data, in particular whether the company obtains "valid and meaningful" consent from users when collecting personal information. About a quarter of Canadian adults use the app, according to a recent survey by researchers at the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. In a statement, Mona Fortier, the president of Canada's Treasury Board, said the government "is committed to keeping government information secure". The app will be removed from government-issued phones this week and other devices and blocked from downloads in the future. "On a mobile device, TikTok's data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone," Ms Fortier said. "While the risks of using this application are clear, we have no evidence at this point that government information has been compromised." The Treasury Board, which oversees the operations of the federal government, includes the country's chief information officer.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has been sworn in as a Member of Parliament, allowing a non-parliamentary member to be appointed into President Cyril Ramaphosa's Cabinet. Godongwana was sworn in on Tuesday following the resignation of Mike Basopu. This is the clearest indication that Ramaphosa will announce his reshuffle in the coming days. News24 reported on Tuesday morning that Ramaphosa needed to make space to appoint a minister who is not part of the National Assembly to his executive to become the minister of electricity - which is why his Cabinet reshuffle has been delayed. By law, Ramaphosa is allowed to appoint two Cabinet ministers who are not MPs to his Cabinet. Godongwana and Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel were occupying these positions. Speculation is rife that the non-MP who will be co-opted to Ramaphosa's Cabinet is the head of investment and infrastructure in the Presidency, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who is likely to become the minister of electricity. News24 understands that the Eastern Cape had initially targeted Noxolo Abrahams to resign and make space for Godongwana. However, Parliament said Abrahams was on Parliament's national list and that an MP on the provincial list would have to resign. An insider close to the discussions told News24 that Basopu and Sakhumzi Somyo, who were both on the ANC Eastern Cape provincial list in Parliament, were approached and Basopu, who became an MP in November 2021, resigned to make way for Godongwana. Godongwana is the latest ANC member to be sworn in as an MP. Parks Tau, Sihle Zikalala, Paul Mashatile, and Maropene Ramokgopa were sworn in earlier in February. Mashatile is set to replace David Mabuza as the country's deputy president, while Zikalala, Tau, and Ramokgopa are also likely to join Ramaphosa's Cabinet.

Investors in Eskom are showing the deepest concern about the threat of Cyril Ramaphosa’s removal as president of South Africa. That much is clear from the embattled company’s dollar-denominated bonds, which languish as some of the worst performing developing-nation debt so far this month. Eskom bonds maturing in 2025, 2027 and 2028 are all among December’s biggest laggards in the Bloomberg Emerging Markets Hard Currency Aggregate Index, which has 2 100 members. In particular, yields on the state-run power utility’s 2025 notes have climbed on eight of the past nine days, surging 137 basis points. Those on similarly dated South African sovereign dollar bonds have also risen, but by a much more moderate 19 basis points. The gap may point to idiosyncratic risk surrounding Eskom, according to Jones Gondo, a Johannesburg-based credit research analyst at Nedbank Ltd. “Clients are concerned about policy continuity given that Eskom/Energy sector reform measures are underway with high execution risk and which have been propelled primarily from the President’s Office,” said Gondo. Eskom has debt of about R400 billion and is also struggling to supply enough electricity from its fleet of old and poorly maintained power plants to meet demand — blackouts were at the sixth level of an eight-grade scale on Thursday. South Africa in October said it may shift as much as two-thirds of that debt on to its own balance sheet, with strict conditions. Ramaphosa has announced a series measures to try and address the country’s energy crisis. But he is now fighting calls for his impeachment over a scandal surrounding the theft of at least $580 000 in cash stashed in a sofa at his game farm. Another factor weighing on Eskom bonds could be worries about large losses at the company, with delayed financial results now expected by Dec. 31. “Together with the debt restructure coming,” this could see investors “trimming risk exposure to Eskom, all things considered,” Nedbank’s Gondo said. Ramaphosa’s political future was cast in doubt on Nov. 30 when an advisory panel issued a scathing assessment of the president’s handling of the 2020 theft. After initially considering resigning, he is now contesting the report in court and has been given assurances by the governing African National Congress that its lawmakers will reject the findings when the matter is debated in parliament on Dec. 13. The ANC’s internal integrity committee has conducted its own probe into Ramaphosa’s conduct and the party’s National Executive Committee is due to consider its conclusions at a December 9 meeting. It’s unclear when the decision-making body will pronounce on them. South Africa’s rand has pared its losses against the dollar since the advisory panel’s report to about 1%. The main stock index is also about 1% lower.

The pension fund industry could miss the proposed March 1 2024 deadline to be ready to implement the new two-pot pension fund system should the reforms not be finalised in the first half of 2023, according to commentators at Old Mutual. Retirement Reform Executive at Old Mutual, Michelle Acton, said the industry is hopeful that updated draft regulations would be released with the National Budget Speech on February 22. The 2022 Draft Revenue Laws Amendment Bill, which was released for public comment in July last year, proposed the two-pot system, which would allow pension and provident fund members, as well as retirement annuity policyholders, to access a portion of their retirement savings before retirement age. “We at Old Mutual wholeheartedly support the reforms as the most important regulations to move us towards ending old age poverty at retirement. In this context, the industry is doing all it can to prepare for implementation, but we cannot undertake any work on system development until the reforms are passed into law,” said Acton. She noted that the amount of work needed to ensure readiness is far-reaching, as entire new and sophisticated automated systems will have to be developed to enable fund members to efficiently access the allowed portion of their savings. Old Mutual estimates that the new level of accessibility will lead to a 300-400% increase in claims to be processed by administrators. This new system would have to allow for member-initiated claim functionality as, for the first time, members will have to register claims without going through their employer. This would require member engagement through an automated digital platform, the establishment of entire new call centres, and implementation of fraud and risk prevention measures. “The administrative changes will be the biggest ever seen in the retirement industry in South Africa and means the need for an entirely new processing and service model. We will have to build a new system overlayed on the existing system. This will take a massive amount of budget and resources and will require at least 12 to 18 months to build,” said Acton. Acton said the two-pot savings regime meant that even the contribution mechanism had to be redesigned to ensure separation of payments into the two separate pots. In addition, member education and change management processes would have to be implemented to ensure that members understand the new system including qualifying criteria for applications and the claims process. Acton said retirement funds will also need time to prepare and to plan around the liquidity and cashflow implications of a sudden exponential increase in applications. Without finalised regulations, the industry cannot be ready by March 1 next year, as it would be almost impossible to address the multitude of changes required to be compliant in less than a year. Blessing Utete, Managing Executive of Old Mutual Corporate Consultants, said the company was also expecting Minister Godongwana to provide updates on several critical issues related to the pension fund reforms. Seeding. This seeding aspect related to a portion of current savings being used to seed the accessible savings pot up to a regulated capped amount. The Minister would have to provide specific details on how this would work to ensure the stability of funds and protection of members’ retirement fund outcomes. Implications for over-55s. Updated provisions in September noted that provident fund members over 55 years old would have the option to continue contributing to their current provident regime or move into the new two-pot regime. Members who opted for the new regime would lose the ability to access 100% of their future accumulated funds in cash when they retired but would continue to enjoy full access to their current savings accumulated before the new regime took effect. This option would be a once-only decision and irreversible once the change had been made. Utete noted that the option would amount to a complex decision for members to make and industry needed more detail on how this would work to properly advise its members. Alternative funds. He said clarification was needed on how National Treasury would deal with the aspects of defined benefit, public sector, and legacy funds. Defined benefit funds and public sector funds were under consideration and Treasury had indicated that a consultative process would be undertaken with defined-benefit funds and stakeholders to consider the options available. He said the announced protective mechanisms needed to be explored, including increasing future contributions when a member withdrew funds before retirement. Further clarification was also anticipated around the possibility that members could be allowed to access their savings in the event of retrenchment.

Elon Musk is in the process of searching for AI researchers to join a team to create a ChatGPT competitor. If OpenAI has proven anything over the past 2-3 months, it is that AI can be profitable and doesn’t have to be an unending research project without market implementation. This sudden realization not only attracted the investment of Microsoft but has reinvigorated traditional rivals Google, Amazon, and others. Now, according to a leaked report from The Information, Elon Musk is looking to get back into the mix. Elon Musk, a co-founder of the OpenAI non-profit in 2015, has since distanced himself from the project, leaving its Board of Directors in 2018. Since then, he has shared a mix of admiration and skepticism regarding OpenAI’s first massively successful project, ChatGPT. At one point, Musk called the venture “scary good” but has since criticized Microsoft’s implementation of the product in its Bing search engine. The Information reports that Musk has since taken to Silicon Valley in search of AI researchers to join his team. One such researcher, ex-Google AI project leader Igor Bubuschkin, was reportedly approached by Musk but has yet to “officially sign on.” Elon Musk has not officially announced his intention to start this potential AI project, though it would not be his only company focusing on the technology. Tesla is currently the clear leader in the auto industry in implementing artificial intelligence, while Twitter, Musk’s most recent acquisition, has previously worked with AI in the social media space. It remains unclear how Musk intends to use his AI project, but there are certainly plenty of use cases within his numerous companies; Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX. But what is clear is that his window of entering the market is rapidly closing as other competitors scoop up top researching talent. Despite numerous layoffs in Tech over the past four months, a hiring frenzy has surrounded the AI world, showing how interested many tech companies are. Sam Altman, another co-founder and current CEO of OpenAI, has yet to react to this explosion of interest and has not commented on Musk’s potential project either. However, with his investment from Microsoft, others, and his team, Altman likely has his hands full as his now flourishing organization takes a strong leadership position in the market.

SpaceX has successfully launched its first batch of next-generation Starlink V2 satellites, likely kicking off a new era of affordability for the constellation. Simultaneously, demonstrating just how far SpaceX is ahead of its competitors and the rest of the spacefaring world, the Starlink 6-1 launch culminated in the 100th consecutively successful landing of a Falcon rocket booster. As a result, SpaceX’s landing reliability now rivals the launch reliability of some of the most reliable rockets ever flown. That extraordinary feat bodes well for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket, which is designed to propulsively land humans on the Earth, Moon, Mars, and beyond. SpaceX’s landing reliability milestone is made all the more impressive by the lack of immediate competition. More than seven years after SpaceX’s first successful Falcon 9 booster landing and six years after the company’s first successful Falcon booster reuse, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are still the only reusable orbital-class rockets in operation. Blue Origin has had some success reusing the first stage of its suborbital New Shepard rocket. Rocket Lab has also recovered small Electron rocket boosters from the ocean, but it’s yet to catch a booster with a helicopter – a necessity for cost-effective reuse. Many other companies have announced or begun developing their own partially or fully-reusable rockets. But even in a best-case scenario, the most promising of those potentially competitive rockets are still a year or two from their first launch attempts, let alone their first successful recoveries and reuses. SpaceX debuted the Falcon 9 rocket behind most of its successful booster recoveries and reuses in June 2010. SpaceX recovered a Falcon 9 booster for the first time in December 2015 and reused a (different) booster for the first time in March 2017. It completed nearly all of that risky development work during launches for paying customers. Even after the first success, many unsuccessful landing attempts followed as SpaceX pushed the performance envelope and discovered new failure modes. Falcon’s most recent landing failure occurred during a Starlink launch in February 2021 and was caused by a hole in a flexible ‘skirt’ meant to keep Earth’s superheated atmosphere out of the flight-proven booster’s engine section. However, every landing since Falcon 9’s Starlink-19 landing failure has been successful. On February 27th, 2023, almost exactly two years after that failure, Falcon 9 booster B1076 touched down on one of SpaceX’s three drone ships, marking the rocket family’s 100th consecutively successful landing. Starlink 6-1 was also the Falcon family’s 183rd consecutively successful launch, as a Falcon landing failure has never prevented the completion of a mission’s primary objective. Launch-wise, Falcon 9 and the Falcon family have already become the most statistically reliable rockets in history. Very few rockets in history have managed 100 consecutively successful launches, let alone landings. For example, according to spaceflight reporter Alejandro Romera, the next most reliable American rocket – the McDonnell Douglas Delta II – narrowly achieved 100 consecutively successful launches before its retirement in 2018. The landing reliability of SpaceX’s Falcon rockets is thus tied with the launch reliability of the most reliable American rocket not built by SpaceX. Additionally, SpaceX Falcon booster landings are now statistically more reliable than the launches of United Launch Alliance’s much-touted Atlas V rocket, which has (more or less) successfully launched 97 times. Falcon’s landing reliability is an encouraging sign for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket. For Starship to fully achieve SpaceX’s goals, it will eventually need to be able to propulsively land humans on Earth and at other destinations throughout the solar system. SpaceX currently has no plans no plans to develop an independent crew escape system for Starship, meaning that the rocket itself will instead have to demonstrate extraordinary overall reliability. SpaceX executives have stated that Starship will only be deemed safe enough to launch humans once it has completed “hundreds” of successful launches and, presumably, landings. Falcon has managed 100 successful landings in a row despite large gaps in redundancy. Most landing burns are conducted with a single Merlin 1D engine. Any issue with that engine would likely result in a failed landing. Falcon boosters also have four landing legs and four grid fins powered by a single hydraulic pump. The failure of that pump or one of four legs have demonstrably doomed earlier landings. Starship’s much larger size and excess performance could provide a larger margin for error and allow for more redundancy. But Falcon has demonstrated that that even a rocket with multiple glaring single-points-of-failure can achieve 100 consecutively successful landings.

A winter storm that has made its way over the Pacific has brought several days of flooding, freezing temperatures and snowfall to some parts of Southern California. Rivers have swelled to dangerous levels and snow has even fallen in low-lying areas around Los Angeles - with some areas receiving over 30 inches of snow, and forecasters saying there is more to come. The National Weather Service said it was one of the strongest storms to ever hit southwest California, and it continued to have a significant impact even as the volume of wind and rain dropped. Hills around suburban Santa Clarita in the north of Los Angeles were blanketed in white, as snow also surprised inland suburbs to the east. The storm tapered off in the region as rare blizzard warnings for the mountains and widespread flood watches ended late in the day. Forecasters said there would be a one-day respite before the next storm is expected on Monday. More than 120,000 California utility customers went without electricity following several days of fierce winds, toppled trees and downed wires - while the West Coast's major north-south highway, Interstate 5, remained closed due to heavy snow and ice in Tejon Pass through the mountains of north Los Angeles. As of Saturday morning, multiday precipitation totals included 205cm (81 inches) of snow at the Mountain High resort in the San Gabriel Mountains, northeast of Los Angeles and up to 160cm (64 inches) at Snow Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains. There was also nearly 38.1cm (15 inches) of rainfall at Los Angeles County's Cogswell Dam and nearly 26.6cm (10.5 inches) in the Woodland Hills section of the city. "Quite a remarkable storm the last few days with historic amounts of precip and snow down to elevations that rarely see snow," an LA-area weather office wrote. The Los Angeles Fire Department used a helicopter to rescue four homeless people who were stranded in the Los Angeles River's major flood control basin - a river that is mostly dry throughout the whole year. A spokesperson said two people were taken to hospital with hypothermia. Meanwhile, in the Valencia area of north Los Angeles County, the Santa Clara River carried away three motorhomes early on Saturday after carving into an embankment where an RV park is located. KCAL-TV reported no one was hurt, but one resident described the scene as devastating. Lightning strikes shut down LA County beaches as scattered bursts of snow, showers and thunderstorms persisted before the storm, fuelled by low pressure rotating off the coast, finally departed. The Weather Prediction Center of the National Weather Service has forecast heavy snow over the Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada in California through the weekend. Further east, some residents were still struggling to deal with the impact of storms earlier in the week. Some 350,000 customers were without power in Michigan as of early Saturday afternoon, according to reports from the two main utilities in the state, DTE and Consumers Energy. Both energy suppliers said they hoped to have the lights back on for most of their customers by Sunday night. Around half an inch of ice weighed down some power lines, equivalent to the weight of a baby grand piano, according to Consumers Energy spokesman Brian Wheeler.

Global efforts to tackle climate change are currently insufficient, meaning it is time to explore technologies to reflect sunlight hitting the Earth back into space, a UN report has said. With efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions "not on track to meet the 1.5°C Paris Agreement goal", the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said: "Climate change continues to worsen, with some of its impacts already irreversible." The UNEP report looked at Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) technologies, which aim to cool the Earth rapidly by reflecting a small percentage of sunlight back into space. It concluded that while the use of such technology was not recommended at this time, "this view may change should climate action remain insufficient". It comes as more than 60 scientists signed an open letter calling for further research into the strategy, which is sometimes referred to as "solar geoengineering". The UNEP report said SRM "is the only option that could cool the planet within years" but would need to be maintained for "several decades to centuries" at a cost of tens of billions of dollars a year per 1C cooling. Some scientists think the technology could be developed within 10 years. However, UNEP said it "requires far more research into its risks and benefits before any consideration for potential deployment". It warned there are currently "critical unresolved issues overall" including "significant uncertainties on the social and environmental impacts of SRM, and its safety and viability". The impacts of SRM on low and middle-income countries are "understudied", it said, "even though these countries are often on the frontlines of climate change and would face the potential impacts of SRM technologies should they be deployed". "Climate change is taking the world into uncharted lands, and the search is on for all viable solutions," said Andrea Hinwood, UNEP chief scientist. "However, all new technologies must be clearly understood, and potential risks or impacts identified before being put into use. "The private sector and regulators need to address the basic uncertainties surrounding these technologies, answer some fundamental questions about safety and employ the precautionary principle before SRM can even be contemplated." The UNEP said the technology "is no substitute for a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which must remain the global priority". Ms Hinwood added: "There are no shortcuts or substitutes for slashing harmful emissions and there is no better alternative for our peace, health and wellbeing than a shift to a circular economy, in harmony with nature."

The Weeknd has become the first artist in Spotify history to hit 100 million monthly listeners, the streaming service has confirmed. The star already has the service's most-played song of all time, Blinding Lights, which has been played a staggering 3.4 billion times. His latest accolade comes a few days after he dropped a new remix of Die For You with Ariana Grande. The 2016 track has enjoyed a new lease of life after going viral on TikTok. A minor hit when it was first released, reaching number 74 in the charts, it re-entered the Top 40 last week and is set to be a high climber this Friday. The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, has become one of the biggest chart stars of the last decade, with more than 45 platinum and singles and albums. Born in Toronto to Ethiopian immigrants, he uploaded his first songs to YouTube in 2010, showcasing a dark, explicit strand of R&B that delved into drug use, casual sex and alienation. His popularity exploded after Canadian rapper Drake posted those early demos to his personal blog; allowing Tesfaye to produce a nine-song mixtape, House of Balloons, which he released as a free download. Despite critical acclaim, he seemed an unlikely candidate for mainstream success but by the mid-2010s, Tesfaye had achieved a stunning run of hit singles. These included a duet with Ariana Grande (Love Me Harder), a Michael Jackson-inspired disco-funk smash (I Can't Feel My Face), and a futuristic collaboration with Daft Punk (Starboy). His fourth album After Hours topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, while the lead single Blinding Lights became the longest-running top five single on the US Hot 100. After Hours was a concept album, themed around a character whose hedonistic night out takes a dark turn - involving alcohol, a fight and ultimately possession by an evil spirit. Tesfaye stayed in character throughout the publicity campaign, with his face masked in bandages. Last year's follow-up, Dawn FM, continued the story, with the character travelling through purgatory to the afterlife. It became the star's third number one album in the UK, adding to a list of achievements that includes four Grammy Awards, two MTV Awards and an Oscar nomination for Earned It, his contribution to the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack.