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On the front page of the press, the outcry over the destruction on Monday of one of its satellites by Russia - a missile fire that generated a lot of debris and created a risk for the International Space Station.
Is "Star Wars" still just a science fiction hypothesis? The "space battle", in any case, made the headlines, Wednesday, of several French dailies, starting with
Le Figaro
, which sees in this episode "the proof that space has become a major strategic issue": "Without the 4000 satellites in service, all kinds of human activity would be instantly plunged into darkness, from everything from telecoms to GPS for transport, from weather forecasts to military surveillance and espionage." Space, this "common good" of which
La Croix
denounces both militarization and pollution, regretting that attempts at regulation at the United Nations have been blocked for years. A specialist in space law notes that "if the Russian shooting is not illegal, it contravenes, in any case, the good practices that the States have undertaken to respect, in particular in the UN directive of 2007 on the prevention space debris ".
Russian President Vladimir Poutine is accused by the United States of being responsible for this "dangerous and irresponsible" shooting.
Liberation
even accuses him of engaging in an "orbit contest", of trying to "show the muscles", in what the newspaper presents as a new cold war: "The missile crisis version 21st century, will not take place not in Cuba, but in the cosmos, "predicts Libé. For its part, the Kremlin, quoted by
The Moscow Times
, responded by accusing Washington of "hypocrisy" as the United States itself "actively develops and tests, and without notification, various types of strike and combat weapons in orbit." , according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, which sees the American actions as "a threat incompatible with (the) declared objectives of peaceful use of space".
On the front page of Liberation this Wednesday:
đź›° Space: orbit contest https://t.co/nj2k4mQp7h pic.twitter.com/rHjwMMzeNr
- Release (@libe) November 16, 2021
The space race is also played on Earth, on a small island off the coast of Indonesia.
The New York Times
refers to the invitation by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to SpaceX founder Elon Musk - an invitation to launch his rockets from Indonesia. According to the American daily, the boss of Tesla has not yet concluded an agreement or even commented publicly on this invitation, but the possibility of his installation would have already seduced the authorities of a small island in the east of the archipelago, Biak Island, West Papua. The problem is, the indigenous peoples who live there are fiercely opposed to this project, which would involve cutting down trees in protected forests and disrupting the habitat of endangered birds. “Tell Elon Musk we don't want to lose our farms because of this space base. We don't eat satellites.We eat taro and fish from the sea, ”said the head of the Customary Council of Biak.
Also on the front page, the reactions to the virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, on the night of Monday to Tuesday. Information on what the American and Chinese presidents said to each other is trickling in. According to
The Financial Times
, which quotes an American adviser, the two leaders would have raised the need to discuss nuclear "strategic stability", which would be a step forward since China had initially refused these discussions.
The Global Times
does not mention any progress in this direction but insists that the two leaders have assured that they do not want a "new cold war", the official Chinese newspaper expressing its wish to see Washington keep its promises. The United States, on the other hand, seems to be mostly hot and cold.
The Washington Post
reports that the White House is expected to announce soon that neither President Joe Biden nor any other member of the government will attend the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. A "diplomatic boycott", rather than total, to protest against the repression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
A word, finally, of the appearance before French justice, Wednesday, of Eric Zemmour for "complicity in provocation to racial hatred". Is this new summons - like his past convictions - a handicap or an asset for the far-right polemicist, who has still not declared himself a presidential candidate?
La Croix
observes that "these trials give him the opportunity to present himself both as a defender of freedom of expression and as a victim muzzled by a political and judicial 'system'." Éric Zemmour, whose "identity obsessions and anti-Islam colonize the debate", according to
Le Monde
, who presents him as "the spearhead" of the "reactionary media pole" of the Breton billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
A media empire one of whose goals would be to influence the presidential election, according to the newspaper.
Will Star Wars take place?
Are we on the eve of a new cold war?
Does the personal pronoun "iel" have its place in Le Petit Robert?
For the French Minister of National Education, quoted by the
Huffington Post
, the answer is no.
According to Jean-Michel Blanquer, this new personal pronoun, used for a person whatever their gender, feminine or masculine, does not have to appear in the dictionary "because the inclusive language is not the future of the French language ".
The future, a huge question ...
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