daily news and analysis we keep you informed and inspired this is well today hello and welcome to world today I'm think honey by gene coming up China's foreign Minister Wang is that China and India should commit to mutual understanding us has put Columbia tariff and a sanctioned threat on hold after deportation steel.
Chinese startup AI app DeepSeek is topping Apple App Store's free downloads in both the U .S.
and China, outpacing Chat's GPT.
But LaRou's president Alexander Lukashenko wins a seventh term in the office.
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First up, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has caught on China and India to work in the same direction and commit to neutral understanding.
The senior Chinese diplomat made a remark in a Monday meeting with Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misari.
Wang Yi said that the two countries should refrain from suspicion and alienation, adding the improvements of China -India relations are conducive to safeguarding the rights and interests of the global South countries.
For his part, Misery said China and India have engaged in a series of beneficial dialogues and communication mechanisms, have managed their differences, and have promoted the resumption of cooperation in various fields.
The Indian diplomat kicked off his trip to Beijing on Sunday.
So joining us now on the line is Sultan Halim.
A China observer and a retired Air Force officer in Pakistan.
So thank you very much for joining us today Mr. Halim.
First of all how do you think China and India can work in the same direction and commit to mutual understanding?
Well thank you very much for having me on your show.
And it is very important because you see both both India and China are developing powers, especially in Asia and internationally.
They have their own clout.
But unfortunately in the previous past they have had differences and there were some borders, skirmishes and all that.
But the pragmatic thing is that the leadership of both these countries, they have met on the sidelines of various international We'll meet – like BRICS, for example – and they have come to the conclusion that the way forward is for the two of them to seek their differences, to talk to each other, to find out common ground and work towards peace in the region, peace in the world, and for the betterment of humanity, which resides in the vast countries of China as well as India.
Now, some people say the Indian foreign secretary's trip to China this time represents the continuation of the momentum of exchanges and stabilization that we saw in terms of the bilateral relations in late 2024.
What is your observation?
And what do you think are some of these specific issues on which his trip is looking to seek some breakthrough?
Well indeed, you see in the near past we saw that President Xi Jinping met with the Indian Prime Minister in Kazan.
And also we have seen a meeting between on the sidelines of other international modes, in which discussions have taken place about how to improve the relationship.
And Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has a statement that both India and China, they should look at ways of how to sync in their differences.
It is very welcome.
So what exactly India is looking for is a better relationship with a direct flight between China and India and visa issues to be relaxed as well as the permission for Indian journalists to visit China and Chinese journalists to go to India and of course underlying all these is the point of tension which is in the Himalayan region and for that already talks have taken in place and things are on the move for a resolution of the issues.
By the way, what is your reading of Indian foreign minister as Jens Shankar's recent remark that the Indian -China relationship is trying to disentangle itself from the complications arising from the post -2020 border situation, and more thought needs to be given to the long -term evolution of the ties?
Well, I think, Mr. Jai Shankar has hit the nail of the head because you see, we saw that in the 2020s, there were border skirmishes and tension was rising.
There was the danger of war, but I saw with, of course, satisfaction that the Chinese side, it showed pragmatism and maturity And did not let the skirmish or let the misunderstandings go beyond a certain point where they could have a conflict because both nations, they have a lot to lose if they go to war.
And especially since both of them are nuclear weapons equipped.
But in this particular situation, Jaishankar's comments obviously stem around the fact that India is keen to defuse the situation and look for understanding.
And, of course, the Chinese side is willing to talk, willing to resolve the issues, and willing to move forward.
Now, on his first day in office, the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted a Qualt meeting in Washington, DC, with his counterparts from India, Japan, and Australia.
QUALD has in recent years, we know it has become a platform used by Washington to counter China as part of Washington's Indo -Pacific strategy.
Though American diplomats never acknowledge this very fact, it has become a de facto fact, at least that's the case from Beijing's perspective, but with regard to the right now?
Well, let me tell you very frankly that India's stance on the quad is quite nuanced while India is seen as the weak link in the quad due to its reluctance to deepen defense cooperation, its previously unhealthy relationship with China had bolstered its willingness to embrace the quad because the quad provides India with a strategic platform to counterbalance China's growing a certain F in the Indo -pacific region.
However, India maintains its strategic autonomy and prefers engagement over entanglement.
And now we see that India is moving towards talking to China so perhaps it's a reliance on co - continuing lessons.
Also let me give you an example that the Orkus which was made the Australian, UK, US understanding or link in which India has been left out and India felt very bad about it that why it has not been considered.
So this is going to play on the minds of the Indian policy makers and they would rather prefer to resolve their issues with China, have a better relationship, which is good for the trade, which is good for the people rather than indulge in something which is going to create disharmony.
Now if we talk about the trade aspect between China and India, why do you think despite the relatively low points in the bilateral, in overall bilateral ties in most recent years, we still saw an overall uptick in terms of the two way trade, either China's imports is from India or China's exports to India?
Yeah, actually that is the, you know, mature approach that whatever your relationship, trade and commerce are two issues which actually bring nations together.
And despite, you know, misunderstandings, despite a little bit of hostility, the Indian trade organizations and the Chinese side, they got together.
They got their act together and they continued with their trade and commerce relationship.
So these have brought them together.
And now the pragmatic thing is that they let the trade and commerce relations get close ties so that, you see the other issues, they can be ironed out and they can be plastered over, and India and China they emerge as a win -win situation and plan a better future for humanity.
Now we understand for quite some time there has been a gap between Beijing's understanding and New Delhi's understanding of the bilateral ties especially the border issue.
China believed that the border issue should not really hijack the overall relationship, but it seems on the Indian side, there was a different understanding.
India tended to see the border issue as a precondition for improvement in other interactions, in other ties, between the two sides.
Do you think this gap between the two sides understandings will continue to be there moving forward?
Well, I'm glad you bring this out, because the problem lies that in India, especially under the leadership of Narendra Modi and who believes in the supremacy of Hindutva, he has been making a lot of claims of India's greatness.
And when that comes about, he thinks that whatever happened with China in the border issues that you see was a damper.
And India should flex its muscles and India should insist that they must resolve the border issues before they move forward.
But you see, there are also sinner voices in India, especially in their think tanks and especially also in their foreign office, who believe that the bilateral issues, they need not become subservient to border issues, I mean, to better relations.
And in that realm, China and India should talk to each other but not be chained or pulled back by whatever was happening in the border issue.
And then the border issues, they're not that serious.
They can be talked about.
They can be resolved.
So that is why I think now we see a ring of hope that probably China and India will be not held back by the border issues but move forward and border issues will get resolved as and when trade ties and commercial ties they improve mmm the final question before we let you go very very briefly speaking from speaking from a Pakistani perspective is the improvement of the bilateral ties between China and India something welcomed by Islamabad?
Indeed, Islamabad would welcome it.
You see, because China is our closest ally, our strategic partner and a very dear friend.
But we cannot ignore the fact that India is also our next -door neighbour.
And we do not like to see any animosity between these two neighbours because it will directly affect Pakistan.
Secondly, the Belt and Road Initiative of which the China -Pakistan economic corridor is a very important part, has been decried and criticised by New Delhi, and Pakistan has not been happy.
Although China, in its wisdom, has invited India to become a part of CPEC, become a part of the BRI, now, Pakistan feels that if New Delhi and Beijing have an understanding and get closer.
So probably India will drop its animosity towards the BRI, towards CPEC and also stop targeting Pakistan just because India thinks that Pakistan is a proxy for China.
So actually Islamabad will leave a sigh of relief if New Delhi and Beijing have met their ties.
Thank you very much for your perspective and for joining us.
That was Southen Halim, a China observer and a retired Air Force officer in Pakistan.
Coming up, U .S. puts Colombia tariff and sanction threat on hold after deportation steal.
Stay tuned. You're listening to World Today, I'm Dean Konygbeijin.
The United States and Colombia have pulled back from the brink of a trade war after Colombia agreed to accept US military aircraft carrying deported migrants.
US President Donald Trump had threatened tariffs and sanctions to punish Colombia for earlier refusing to accept that very arrangement as part of his broader immigration crackdown.
now. Colombian President Gustavo Patro earlier condemned the military deportation flights, saying he would never carry out a raid to return handcuffed Americans back to the United States.
But he has also said that Colombia would welcome home those deported migrants on civilian planes.
Now, for real information, Colombia represents the third largest U .S.
trading partner across Latin America while on the other hand the United States represents Columbia's largest trading partner.
So joining us now on the line is Harvey Golden, former vice president of ABC TV Network.
Thank you very much for joining us.
It's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me on the cusp of the Chinese Euro of the snake.
Yeah so first of all Harvey, why, in your observation, why do you think Colombia has finally decided to accept US military aircrafts carrying deported migrants.
Well, what choice did the Colombian President Petro have?
It kind of reminds me of what Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, said to the Pope during World War II when the Pope criticized him.
Stalin said, the Pope.
Well, what kind of army does he have, and of course he didn't have any army.
Petro has an army, but it's just a poor shadow of what the United States military is.
Petro, I think to his credit though, was at least able to secure more dignified treatment for the returnees and to free those people from being shackled, both their arms and their feet.
That was purely Trump's orchestration of a political theater for the domestic audience who unfortunately bought Trump's fear mongering that all illegals were murderers and rapists.
But we live in a globalized world.
We're all connected, much as Trump would like to pull the plug on globalization.
I personally think that it's a wake -up call for Latin American nations, EU and others, to see the handwriting on the wall and to band together.
And speaking of Latin America specifically, what Trump is doing is hearkening back to His favorite century, which is the 19th century.
It was an earlier era of American imperialism with the Monroe doctrine.
Trump probably thinks of Marilyn Monroe, the blonde bombshell actress of his long ago youth.
But the doctrine, Monroe doctrine, was from President James Monroe, who declared Latin America to be an exclusive zone of US influence.
This is just an updated version of President Theodore Roosevelt, who said, speak softly and carry a big stick, although shrill Trump is anything but a soft speaker.
Thank you very much for providing a historical perspective, by the way.
Now more specifically, the draft measures that President Trump had threatened against Colombia included imposing 25 % tariffs on all Colombia goods coming into the United States, which would go up to 50 % in one week.
A travel ban and a visa revocation on Colombian government officials and emergency treasury banking and financial sanctions.
How would you comment on these measures and when we talk about this very practice of using tariffs and economic sanctions to advance deportation out of America.
Is Trump, is President Trump setting a president here?
I don't think it's a precedent setting matter.
Tariffs have been used politically, economically as weapons going back to our first presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
And more recently, in our memory, Trump won and Joe Biden imposed draconian tariffs on China.
In some cases because China was out competing with the US, but overall because the US wanted to stop China's peaceful economic and political rise.
The US couldn't envision a world where it wasn't the sole number one.
And it used, and it still continues to use every weapon in its tool kit to bend Columbia and maybe Canada, EU, Denmark, and a lot of them to be subservient to the US.
But since we're in an interconnected globalized world, no country can impose its will on the others and wall itself off from the rest of the world as Trump seems to want to do.
Now, Harvey, judging from his first term in office, President Trump very much cares about America's trade deficits with other countries, with other economies, and this was the supporting logic behind the trade wars that he launched during his first term in office.
But if we take a look at this trade pattern between the U .S.
and Colombia, the United States is actually running a very comfortable 1 .6 billion U .S.
dollar annual trade surplus with the Colombian side, according to the data from the year 2023.
So do you think this latest episodes between the two sides is a sign that somehow trade deficits will be less of a concern less of a top priority for Trump during his second term?
I think that Trump is always concerned about trade trade deficits because he sees them in his terms as the US being ripped off and whether they're true or not.
and we don't want to confuse him with facts, that he's going to continue to use trade as a justification for a wide range of actions.
And he just might even drop all the pretext in the naked exercise of power.
I believe really it's as simple as that.
It's Trump's blunt non -military weapon that he's going to continue to wield.
So in the past we know U .S.
military aircrafts have been used in some cases in order to, for example, relocate individuals from one country to another, like during the U .S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan a couple of years ago, but when we talked about this individual, this particular case between US and Columbia.
This has been, according to some existing US officials, this has been the first time in recent memory that American military aircrafts were used to fly migrants out of America.
Do you see any problem with regard to this particular practice?
Yes, I do. Trump's rationale is that illegal immigration is the national emergency from which the US needs to defend itself.
That's partly true.
But like most of what Trump says, it's way overblown.
And these are mostly people trying to build a better life.
Although there are some that are criminals, but there are many legal reasons that the bulk of these people, deprived of due process, deprived of other constitutional rights, are problematic.
And also the use of the military to engage domestically is illegal unless you buy Trump's overblown argument about the nature of the influx as being largely criminal.
Immigration is really what made America great.
Trump comes from a family of German immigrants, although not with a distinguished pedigree.
His grandfather came to America to avoid being drafted into the military in Europe.
Trump. His grandfather made his fortune in Alaska running a hotel and allegedly a house of ill repute.
For sure. In Trump's case, the apple didn't fall very far from the tree." Hmm.
Now some traditionally or seriously trained American economists, according to their study, they say conducting a mass deportation of those undocumented immigrants out of America actually means less drop opportunities not more for U .S.
citizens living in the U .S.
What is your take, Harvey?
Yes. I believe it, even though it is counterintuitive.
Trump wants his followers to believe that the immigrants have taken jobs away from them when the opposite is mostly true.
So these immigrants are not by and large well educated.
They're construction workers.
They work in restaurants, they work at homes as domestic workers.
But a second rate movie I watched at the Mexican Embassy in Beijing in 2004 made a big impression on me.
Its title was a day without a Mexican.
and the plot was that one day all the Mexicans disappeared from California, and there were no cooks, no nannies, no landscapers, and now two decades later a version might come to pass, thanks to Trump.
If there are no dishwashers or waiters in a restaurant, the restaurant can't function and needs to close.
That creates a ripple effect in the larger economy.
Less red is paid, less food ingredients are purchased, and soon there's an economic crisis of more inflation because of rising costs and less demand because people will be out of work.
It's the law of unintended consequences.
And it might be applying to what Trump's trying to do.
Thank you very much for putting this into perspective.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Harvey Dicken, former vice president of ABC TV network, you are listening to world today.
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China's DeepSeek AI app has surpassed the chat GPT and topped the Apple App Store's free downloads in both the US and China, creating a bust in the global tech industry.
The Chinese startup released its latest open source model named DeepSeek R1 a week ago.
It is widely seen as a major technological breakthrough.
model. The model utilizes pure deep learning methods allowing artificial intelligence to spontaneously generate reasoning capabilities, which is a feature setting it apart from traditional models.
Industry insiders say, despite the limitations with regard to chip power, DeepSeek's model is generating results that can rival the best in this very industry.
For more, my colleague and our reporter, Xu Yawen, spoke with Dr. Liu Xiaoxuan, Director of Embodied Intelligence with Shenzhen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society.
Dr. Liu, DeepSig surpassed the chat GPT on the Apple App Store's free downloads in both China and the US, experiencing remarkable growth and grabbing global attention.
What do you think has contributed to this rapid rise in popularity?
Well, I think it's advanced technology compared to competition.
The advantage from DeepSeek is demonstrated for its cost efficiency.
For example, for training workloads, it's 16 times more cost efficient compared GPT 4 .0, and for inference, it's 35 times more efficient compared to GPT 4 .0.
I think it's in its core, it's advanced technology.
Well, we know DeepSeek's R1 model has been praised for its use of deep learning to enable spontaneous reasoning.
As an expert in the field, can you explain how this works and why it represents a major breakthrough in AI development?
Yeah, I think that's a very good point, spontaneous, I think that's the key word.
The way that DeepSeek is able to achieve spontaneous response because it's in French time so short, such that it can give you a very good answer within a very short amount of time, so that brings much better user experience.
For one thing, for the second thing, because it's much shorter even time, that means it takes much less compute cycles.
So the operational cost for Deep Stick is much more or much lower compared to a CHAD GPT.
So within the core of it, it's two innovation.
One is called multi -head latent attention, innovation, which is able to reduce the inference costs for reducing memory usage.
The second innovation is called a mixture of experts that would enable not only faster training but less costly or much cheaper inference by combining these two innovations.
Deep Stick is able to provide spontaneous answers.
So that's different from the chat GPT, which is the traditional way?
Yeah, they did not have to go through these kind of innovations at OpenAI because they pretty much have unlimited amount of compute power.
Unlike DeepSeek, because we have the chip bank, we have access to high -end GPU issues.
We are forced to do innovations like that.
Dr. Liu, another thing is that DeepSeek's R1 model is far more cost -effective than OpenAI's or 1, which has demonstrated how a high -quality AI model can be viewed using relatively less advanced chips at a fraction of the cost.
So what factors have allowed DeepSeek to achieve such impressive results despite using less advanced chips and a smaller budget?
You can assume that one day you may not have access to high end GPUs from Nvidia.
So all the innovation happening within China, with the assumption that if you did not have that kind of chips, what could you use?
So it's a kind of forced innovation.
They have to think through what kind of engineering work they can do to bypass Nvidia GPUs to use, for example, Huawei Ascend chips, or some other alternatives.
I think because of this mindset we see companies like DeepSeek emerging, but I'm sure there will be more companies coming up with the same assumptions and same innovation.
And how might this trend impact the current dominance of high -end GPUs in AI development such as those from Nvidia?
Now that's a very good question.
Nvidia currently plays a monopoly in the market so everybody has to secure a Nvidia chips in the future in order to sustain their AI business with DeepSeek showing an example.
It demonstrates that you don't have to use high -end chips.
So that opens a door for many chip makers, for example, Chinese company, Huawei, and a few others.
In the US AMD, I think AMD is making a lot of moves to adopt the DeepSeek model onto their own chips.
So in a way DeepSeek is democratizing the whole AI ecosystem.
Dr. Liu, DeepSeek has chosen to release his AI models as open weight, meaning researchers can access, examine, and build upon the code.
What do you see as the benefits of this openness?
Well, there are a few benefits.
The first one being open source innovation is much faster compared to closed source.
For the reason that you have a global community testing, verifying, and contributing to your project, innovation would be much faster compared to closed source ecosystems, such as open AI.
That's one thing. And second thing is that once you open source, different chip companies can adopt the technology onto their chips, so you are not constrained to use only and be their chips.
So in the future as your project develops, you have much broader reach to different kinds of chips that indirectly bring you more customers.
Another thing is, how do you think this will impact the future of AI development?
Because we know DeepSeek's model are more affordable and more open than some of the industry giants, do you think this could level the playing field for smaller AI research firms or independent researchers who might not have the access to the same resources as larger companies?
Well, I think that, that may not bring up what you just said, to allow smaller firms to do innovation, but that opens up a new door to show that innovation within the model itself can bring a lot of new opportunities as opposed to one month back people would think the future of AI would be pretty much open AI plus and media, but that's not the case with DeepSeek that shows that with innovation within the model or a kind of forced innovation because they did not have access to high -end chips they were able to do a much better model on a much slower cost.
Then again, I assume that DeepSik is the first Chinese company that is able to achieve that, but will not be the only Chinese company to achieve that.
We will see a lot more innovations coming up." And lastly, Dr Liao.
Despite US export controls limiting Chinese access to cutting -edge chips, DeepSik has still managed to develop the model that competes with the best in the world, such as the firms in the long term.
I think a deep -seek story is the perfect example to show that in the short term, the chip band may work to her Chinese companies.
But in the long term, it actually encourages forced innovation like what we saw in deep -seek.
I think forced innovation like this one is much more powerful compared to passive innovations.
For example, in OpenAI, they did not have the urgency.
They did not have a computer power constraint.
So the speed of innovation is much faster because you are forced to innovate.
So that opens a new door for Chinese companies.
I hope that will convince U .S.
policymakers to reconsider this kind of policy.
And then what does this achievement of Deep Seek say about the future of AI development in China?
What the consensus today is that U .S.
is leading in AI in every aspect, in compute, in algorithms, In a way that's true, but when you look at China it's behind the US, but not by a lot.
So if we pick up the speed of innovation, we may bypass the US in the near future.
At least personally, I'm very hopeful of that.
Dr. Liu Xiaoshan from Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, talking with my colleague Xu Yaohuan, coming up.
China 8 mission, a moon mission is to get a robotics boost from China's private industry.
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A Chinese private aerospace company has secured a ticket to the moon, preparing to launch two AI -controlled lunar exploration robots alongside the Chang 'e -8 mission for the year 2028.
The robots are being jointly developed by this Hangzhou -based StarVision, a professor from Zhejiang University and a professor from Middle East Technical University in Turkey.
Starvision, this particular company says this is the first time that a private company here in China has been responsible for a sub -project in terms of China's space exploration.
China by the way is aiming to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030 and set up a lunar research station by about 2035.
So, joining us now, underlying is Dr. Zhang Fan, Associate Professor of Astronomy from Beijing Normal University.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Hello. So, Professor Zhang, why do you think, or what do you think the latest development tells us about the role that the private sector could possibly play in terms of China's lunar exploration and the broader space exploration?
Right. In terms of the lunar exploration, the role will be limited.
So the Chinese lunar mission, the manned mission will be quite different from the American one, where they rely heavily on private sector, especially SpaceX, to develop landers and all the core infrastructure, a lot of the core infrastructure.
While China's lunar mission is mostly leveraging more mature technology being perfected by the state sector.
Having said that, though, the goal of China on the moon is to establish a research station.
So there will be lots of experiments.
They're more self -contained.
If one experiment fails, the mission wouldn't fail as a whole.
So it's safer for private companies to stand up sort of experiment -level things.
For example, this time, they're participating in this type of mission.
So they can they can put in more risky sort of more speculative ideas and test them out for far and future applications.
Now, according to this Hangzhou -based company Starvision, the two underdeveloped, the two lunar exploration robots that are being developed will interact in an autonomous matter The idea is that through sharing of data and delegation of tasks, they will work together like a team achieving objectives that would otherwise be almost impossible for independent robots to complete.
So what do you make of the role that artificial intelligence will play in China's future lunar exploration?
I think in general, robotic missions would be a dominant form of space explorations, especially when we go further out to Mars and beyond, simply because the environment would be too hostile for humans and the mere act of bringing humans there and back would take too much.
And there's another the issue that when you go far out, you know, the communication, there's a delay, the speed of light is very slow compared to interstellar sort of interplanetary scales.
So there's a delay in communication.
And also when the, for example, a rover goes behind rock, communicate with those satellites anymore.
So, so you can't remote control those robots either.
So humans can go there, robots can be remote control, then they're that leaves the only option of having the robots determine what they do themselves.
The artificial intelligence is a must in terms of space exploration.
And for this particular mission you mentioned, they're trying to realize a vision that artificial intelligence expertise are trying to do, which is called embodied AI.
So in the past, AI mostly learn in the cyberspace.
So they learn on the internet what humans put in there.
And now that information is getting sorted.
They're trying to give the AI software the robotic bodies so they can actually go out and explore the physical world.
They can learn from physics now.
And these two robots will be doing that.
The specific task they will be learning is to be able to move around on the Moon safely.
Once that kind of knowledge is gained by these two robots and being back to Earth, So the next batch of robots going up there can already know how to move around safely and they can do other more demanding tasks.
So it's a gradual learning process and they're putting the first foot out now.
Well, it's interesting to hear about such an interesting way in which artificial intelligence can be applied in terms of lunar exploration and a broader space exploration.
Now, by the way, Professor Zhang Fan, how would you look at this three -way partnership between Starvision, this Hangzhou -based company, and Zhejiang University, and this Middle East -based university?
What could be the reasons that somehow prompted the Chinese side to choose to work with the Turkish university for this program?
Beyond technology know -how, it's quite important that what China's vision for the lunar station is an international research station which means China is always constantly looking for international partners, especially the global south countries, developing countries, trying to get in the door of space exploration to learn the ropes from gradually growing so of becoming more sophisticated type of collaborations.
In this case, Turkey, being a Middle East country, it's a good fit.
So, that's the most important thing.
Actually in 2023, the Chang 'e 8 mission command already sent out international solicit patients giving out 200 kilogram.
That's a large amount of payload space, just asking for for international partners to put in proposals and there's over 20 countries, over 30 proposals being put in.
They're now just evaluating through them.
Okay, so the final question before we let you go, how do you how do you foresee the challenges that this particular program them might encounter when it's to be operated on the moon?
Right. So, I think the biggest issue is that they only have 10 kilograms of total payload and they're splitting that into two robots.
So the reason why I want two robots is because you have a basic form of a swarm of robots.
So in the future this happens in sci -fi movies a lot.
so people have this vision that you put in a whole bunch of robots out there.
They can work independently but they can also join together to perform more tenuous tasks.
So this would be the basic form of testing that and also having two then it's less chance of failure because one gets stuck somewhere.
But having having that is five kilogram is really not much especially if you need to guard against lunar dust which is really really sharp and also, the robots need to be robust enough to survive the takeoff process, which shakes quite a bit.
So that means, among other things, the power, the battery on the robot wouldn't be that large.
So they really need to connect well with another larger, much larger robot.
That's basically a power bank that moves around to recharge others.
So these two, if they can be recharged by the other robots, then they can survive for much longer and a lot better.
A recharge by another robot.
Well, that's an interesting way to put it.
But thank you very much for joining us today.
And for your analysis, that was Dr. Zhang Fan, Associate Professor of Astronomy from Beijing Normal University.
Coming up, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has worn a seventh term in his office.
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Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has worn another term in office, receiving more than 86 % of the vote.
Lukashenko first took office two years after the collapse of former Soviet Union.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has congratulated Lukashenko on his election victory, saying that China is attaching great importance to its relations with Belarus.
So joining us now on the line is Dr. Kamau Makini Alief from Raul Wallenberg Institute for Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Sweden.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you for having me again.
So Kamau, what do you make of the challenges that President Lukashenko might be facing over the course of his new term?
Well, there are several challenges that Lukashenko is going to be facing.
After the his two last rounds in office the relationship that Lukashenko used to have with the West, always difficult, have the duration server because of buildup aligned and very close aligned with with the Russian Federation and the war in Ukraine, that relationship did arise to become server because of the enemyorry, but right now, going on between Europe and the United States and Russia.
That widened the rest even more.
But Belarus is a European country.
Geographically, it's very close proximity to the heartland Europe.
So having the attention to the neighbor like that is always difficult.
And for Belarus this is as well because before it was a country that benefited from its relationship both with Russia and Europe.
But while the list has been widening so big it's been trying to diversify both its economy with cultural connections towards the East, which it has been doing with, let's say, modest success, because it's very difficult to decouple economic relations that have been built since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as trying to, you know, change them completely in terms of market.
So that economic part is very difficult, of course, but then, politically, now with the so closely located.
Europe is going to be falling in fear of political engagement on this wind, and there is immense pleasure on Lukashenko in terms of globalization, the support of the position that Belarus has provided for a very long time, etc., etc. The political challenges are also there.
There's also questions about the alliance with Russia and how much ...that Russia will be able to support Belarus in its closest tellate.
So, all of these questions are there.
Now, since you have already mentioned Belarus relations with the West.
Some observers say that actually after the election this time around President Lukashenko might once again seek to reach out to the West.
What is your take on this?
I think even if it tries, we will have any interest in doing this is going to be much difficult in the present circumstances of the geopolitical rivalry between West and Russia.
With Belarus squarely taking the position of the Russian strategic partner and the strategic space that has even the union kind of relationship may be more total, but at least there is substantial with the Russian Federation is going to be much more difficult than used to be there in the 90s or even in the beginning of 2000s.
And this right now is going to be also a diplomatic question because they're quite openly and quite openly, and clearly opposed the Lukashenko almost stepping at the line of not accepting him as a legitimate ruler of the Earth.
That's one step from that.
So, in this kind of situation, it's going to be very difficult.
It is in your term.
Lukashenko has actually campaigned with this slogan, peace and security, quote, unquote, saying he has saved his country from being drawn into this war, this military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
So how would you comment on the ways in which Belarus has responded to the war in Ukraine over the past, almost the three years?
Well it was very important as you say while providing the support to strategically allow Russia not to engage itself in any kind of military confrontation and that it would not be dragged into the military conflict.
And Lukashenko was able to avoid that situation, so quite successfully.
This has to be, of course, taken into account and recognized.
First, how much of that is geopolitical maneuvering?
And how much of that is practical political engagement on the ground?
A lot of these things are unknown to the researchers because of the close nature of negotiations concerning this part of the very almost under -appreciated side of the Ukraine -Russia conflict, where the nose -based huge role, but it's largely, we only see that people can from the state level, for example, and this kind of things but we do not see what actually happens behind the thing.
We can only judge but by the picture, by this cover, that we see.
So this is unknown, but it has to be taken into account.
So those would be very good if the fighting between Ukraine and Russia will stop and it's very obvious because Belarus doesn't want this to be a point of contention so close to its borders so much for at least national security and of course it's not pleasant for any state.
Yeah, I'll take your points.
Belarus is of course interested in that and I think the the Lukashenko statement also reveals that Belarus is feeling that the winds are changing in terms of the geopolitical consensus on how the Ukrainian conflict is going to play out, towards more of the less fighting and more negotiation at least.
And I think that's what the Lukashenko is binding on.
Yeah, in addition to the frontline betraying Russia and the Ukraine, I guess in the meantime, last year, for example, we saw Belarus become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and currently it is also a BRICS partner country, along with 8 other countries that are becoming the partner country for the BRICS.
I guess there is indeed a reason for Belarus to try to engage in these multilateral platforms and institutions to try to maximize its national and international interests.
But thank you very much for joining us.
We have been speaking with Dr. Kamau Makini -Aliyan from Raul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanity Henrietta Love in Sweden.
That's all the time for this edition of world today.
I'm Dinhaleen Beijing, thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
