Rick Bowmer/AP

People pass through Salt Lake City International Airport on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. Aircraft across the U.S. were grounded for hours by a cascading outage in a government system relied on for hazard updates. The incident comes as many software systems across government agencies need renewal or replacement.

When his 6 a.m. flight from Palm Springs, California, to Pittsburgh, was delayed last week Chris Goranson got worried. “I thought something pretty bad must have happened,” says the professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College and former federal employee working on modernizing computer systems.

There were no reasons given for the Jan. 11 delay. And the trouble seemed to be spreading nationwide. Although Mr. Goranson experienced only a 90-minute delay in California and another half-hour delay on his connecting flight in Dallas, some 1,300 flights were canceled and another 10,000 were delayed.

The culprit: a computer glitch at the Federal Aviation Administration, which caused a decision to temporarily ground all flights.

The failure of its 30-year-old hazard-notification system – its first such crash – is focusing a bright light on the outdated computer systems still running at the FAA and beyond. Federal government agencies are relying on thousands of information technology systems that are decades old, expensive to maintain, and vulnerable to failure and cyberattack, IT experts say. And the problem of legacy systems keeps getting worse as technology speeds ahead and hackers become more sophisticated. 

“This is not going to be the only critical infrastructure system that is going to break down like this,” says Gregory Dawson, a clinical professor at Arizona State University who is also a consultant and author of a forthcoming book, “Digitalization and Sustainability: Advancing Digital Value.” “We have to be able to address it.” 

He urges an all-out government effort, like its recent push to create and distribute COVID-19 vaccines, to solve the problem. 

The challenge is that voters apparently want – and politicians certainly deliver – government projects that are tangible. Spending $1 million on a park, for example, is much easier politically than replacing an old and obscure computer system that eventually could fail, says Joseph Steinberg, a cybersecurity expert and author of “Cybersecurity For Dummies.” 

“We saw this in the tech world with Y2K,” he says, referring to the predicted chaos that might have happened had the date function of antiquated computers turned over from 99 to 00 rather than 1999 to 2000. “All this money was invested to prevent the year 2000 problem. And yet people say: ‘Oh, look, it was all a waste, nothing happened.’ What do you mean, nothing happened? That was the goal!” 

AP/File

Hewlett Packard Company employees are shown working in a basement Y2K Command Center on Dec. 31, 1999, at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The transition to a new millennium occurred largely without the feared digital disasters, after many companies invested in precautionary steps.

Unlike Y2K, the scope and expense of the current problem is known. Chief information officers at federal agencies track the condition and vulnerability of each of their systems. “You could walk into any federal government agency as well as at the state level, and they can tell you almost down to the nickel what needs to be replaced, why it needs to be replaced, and what happens if it’s not replaced,” says Professor Dawson at Arizona State. “But there’s got to be the money and, B, there’s got to be the political will.”

Congress has made efforts over the years to address legacy systems. In 2017, during the Trump administration, it passed the Modernizing Government Technology Act, which in turn created a modernization fund that allowed agencies to compete for money. Winning proposals get funds to upgrade their systems, which are paid back with the savings they realize. That’s a step forward, Dr. Dawson says, but it prioritizes upgrades that improve taxpayer interfaces rather than the infrastructure behind it.

The importance of that infrastructure became all too clear with the FAA’s glitch last week. Known as Notice to Air Missions or NOTAM, the system is the central collection point for any hazard – from closed runways to air shows – that flight crews might need to know. According to the FAA, human error was responsible. Personnel – reportedly contractors – failed to follow procedures and corrupted the system.

Such problems would be less likely with a modern system, Dr. Dawson points out, because it would have interfaces and other security measures built in that would keep workers from directly accessing a key database.

Old technology is hardly limited to the FAA. The Internal Revenue Service is busy trying to update the code of its Individual Master File, which it uses to process tax returns. Created in the 1960s with a computer language no longer in common use, the IRS system is one of the government’s oldest systems still operating.

Only a month ago did the Defense Department announce contracts with four commercial companies to provide services for its Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability. Hiring companies to provide cloud services is something small and large businesses have been able to do for years, points out a Hudson Institute report published last month. The F-35 stealth fighter reportedly has far fewer lines of software code than a 2020 Mercedes-Benz S-Class car, to handle everything from takeoff to targeting. And the Pentagon has struggled to get all the fighter’s software to work, the report says.

Of course, some areas of government are world class, such as the secretive National Security Agency. “Places like the NSA, CIA, certain parts of law enforcement are very, very sophisticated,” says Mr. Steinberg, the cybersecurity expert. “In some cases, they might be the best in the world. But that’s not everywhere.” 

Modernizing government systems goes beyond changing out hardware and software. “You can’t go and buy your off-the-shelf solution, says Carnegie Mellon’s Professor Goranson, a former employee of 18F, an office within the federal General Services Administration that collaborates with other agencies to fix and modernize their technology. Improving systems means understanding their quirks – how people interact with them and the little tweaks they’ve learned to make over the years to keep the system working.

“One important lesson I learned was that modernizing government systems is really hard,” he says.

For most people in this farming village, it was more than six months before they could come home, after Ukrainian officials had largely cleared away the mines in early December. 

They had to take a bumpy dirt path to get here, because multiple bridges on the former route were damaged by shelling. They brought blankets, coats, tarps, tools, and food because their work would be long and the winter is harsh. They began repairing their homes, often without knowing where to start, and mourning with their neighbors.

The war had taken away what made Partyzanske, Partyzanske. Now, months after the Russian army retreated, the villagers are returning to again make their home a home.

“We are such fools that we will rebuild it,” says village leader Raisha Shulga.

The scenes in Partyzanske are a window into life as the Ukrainian government’s lowest priority. Fighting an all-consuming war and facing an economic recession, Kyiv can’t afford to rebuild everywhere. And what aid does exist mostly filters toward more densely populated cities like nearby Mykolaiv, where most of Partyzanske’s residents now live.

The humanitarian challenge for Ukraine’s government is that many of them don’t plan to stay in Mykolaiv. Making Partyzanske livable again will take months at the least, but villagers may not have a choice. Some are now renting apartments from people who themselves fled farther west and will eventually want their homes back. Others have lived in Partyzanske for decades and say it will always be their home, even if now there’s no home left. 

“What about how you feel inside?” says Ms. Shulga. “You’re Ukrainian. You want to work your land.”

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

Raisa Shulga, standing in front of a fence with shrapnel damage, is leading Partyzanske through its disorganized rebuilding effort, Dec. 4, 2022. "We're used to very hard work," she says.

“We really wanted it to be beautiful”

Nataliia Shulgina and her son are cleaning the mess off their lawn when Ms. Shulga arrives. On the grass are cracked shingles, fence posts, plastic waste, broken bricks, and a heap of other rubble. Almost all that’s left of their roof is scaffolding. There’s a cluster bomb canister in the backyard – a souvenir of either the Russian capture of Partyzanske early in the war, or the Ukrainian army’s long defensive position here later.

They walk to the street, watching their feet because there are still some unexploded shells around, and hug Ms. Shulga. Together, they tour Ms. Shulgina’s home and point out vacant walls that used to be rooms.

Ms. Shulgina and her then-husband spent almost half of the 1990s building this home. There were carefully molded ceilings, a silo and water tower for their cows, and flowers decorated onto the outside walls. “We were working our whole life to build this house to leave it for our children and grandchildren,” she says. “We really wanted it to be beautiful.”

And for the first month of the war, she and her son stayed. They watched as the Russians overtook the area and retreated. They felt the shelling that began afterward – 42 explosions on March 31 alone. Soon after, they fled. There wasn’t anything left for their cows, so they let the animals go.

In Mykolaiv they rented an apartment, and her son found a job. The two of them now survive on that salary and occasional food aid. They came back in mid-November and found family photo albums and documents stored in a safe place by the Ukrainian soldiers who sheltered in their cellar. Their home’s religious icons were among the only things untouched, says Ms. Shulgina.

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

Serhii Shulga surveys the wreckage of his home in Partyzanske, Dec. 4, 2022. From the mound of ruined sunflower seeds he's standing on, he points to the former Russian position when the village was still on the front lines.

She and her son started clearing rubble and sorting the furniture that could be salvaged. “After that, the scale of work is so big we don’t even know what to start with,” she says. They can stay in Mykolaiv, even though rent is increasing.

“I feel pain in my heart because I like this life,” she says of the village. “You don’t have anything that is your own in the city.”

“A kind of captain, commander woman”

Ms. Shulga is used to organizing people.

Two years ago, she was chosen to head Partyzanske and a neighboring village for a five-year term. She earned the position because she’d lived in the area for 30 years and because of her chutzpah. “I’m a kind of captain, commander woman,” she says. “Everyone is like a friend of mine. I am like a mother to them.”

Before the war, there were 1,100 residents between the two villages. Just dozens of families have returned. Those who have did in part due to Ms. Shulga’s efforts to get Ukrainian deminers into the village. They’re still working around Partyzanske, detonating shells out of sight but within earshot.

Karen Norris/Staff

The deminers first arrived in Partyzanske around early December, after two straight weeks of Ms. Shulga lobbying the local government, representing 11 villages. And she urged residents to return because the deminers can only enter private property with the owner’s consent, and homes might otherwise be ignored.

But almost none of the returned families actually live in the village, which creates something of a bureaucratic paradox. The local government won’t buy simple supplies like tarps for people unless they live full time in a damaged home, says Ms. Shulga. But to actually return full time to their damaged homes, the people of Partyzanske need far more than tarps.

Supplies often just aren’t available, says Oleksandr Tolokinnikov, chief of press service for the neighboring Kherson Regional Military Administration, whose villages face similar rebuilding needs. The government has been distributing wood stoves and other heating equipment for villages this winter, he says. Even with aid programs, crucial materials are still scarce.

“Not many people want to risk their lives and go there to work to rebuild,” says Mr. Tolokinnikov. “There is the need and there are the programs to help them, but there is also a lack of resources.”

Even villages with less damage than Partyzanske suffer from being low priorities. Farmers need to harvest their crops in order to plant this spring, but fields are the last areas that will be demined in the region. Meanwhile, missile tails and cluster bomb canisters poke out of fields like lawn darts.

“Now we have to work even more”

Mr. Tolokinnikov says the government is just telling people to stay away from such fields.

For villages like Partyzanske, that’s almost like saying they can’t restart their lives. People live off the land.

Before the war, Oleksander Zveryshyn and his wife, Hanne, farmed thousands of acres in the area. When Ms. Shulga walks to their home, though, the yard is filled with scorched vehicles and debris. Inside his barn, Mr. Zveryshyn stands atop a mountain of sunflower seeds, illuminated by light through an empty roof. Torn plastic hangs from the rafters like drapes.

Since mid-November, he and his wife have regularly driven to the village and worked from 7 in the morning to 7 at night. Their 180 tons of seeds are all ruined here, he says – fresh and black on the surface but arid and gray underneath. Their tractors, aerators, and harvesters are almost all damaged. Mr. Zveryshyn hopes to lease another farmer’s in the spring.

If he could get reasonable loans somewhere, the farm could be back to normal in two years, he guesses. But those are hard to find, he says, and they can’t count on the government.

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

Oleksandr Zveryshyn, one of the biggest farmers in Partyzanske, stands atop a 180-ton mountain of ruined sunflower seeds in his roofless barn, Dec. 4, 2022. Mr. Zveryshyn hopes he can plant again in the spring but will need to harvest his fields and borrow seeds and equipment.

“We were hard workers and now we have to work even more,” says Mr. Zveryshyn.

Ms. Shulga walks into another building next door to have coffee with her husband, Serhii. There’s a carpet hanging over the door, keeping heat from a wood stove in the room.

For years, she and Serhii put off renovating their own home because of other expenses – children, tuition, weddings, apartments. But “at some point, we decided to do something for ourselves,” she says. They finished three years ago, having added panoramic windows and a brick driveway. “We didn’t have enough time to enjoy the luxury life that we had,” says Ms. Shulga.

Their home is on the village line and was under direct Russian fire. Shells punched through their walls and ruined their farming equipment. In early December, they were planning to buy a mobile home in Kyiv and move into their driveway.

Ms. Shulga describes her old home as though she were telling stories of a lost friend. In the winter, she says, the village is almost always under a harsh, cold wind, but their home was sealed.

“It was very cozy,” she says, pausing. “It will be as well.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported the reporting of this article.

Alessandro Cinque/Reuters

A demonstrator waves Peru's flag as security forces stand guard during a protest in Lima, Peru, on Jan. 12, 2023. Protesters are demanding the dissolution of Congress and new democratic elections, following the ouster of former leftist President Pedro Castillo, who is accused of attempting a coup last December.

Peru is living through its worst conflict this century, and the scenes in many ways are reminiscent of its internal conflict of the 1980s and ’90s: Indigenous villagers carry coffins through the streets, parents wail for children taken too soon, and human rights groups decry excessive government force.

The wave of violent anti-government protests, sparked when interim President Dina Boluarte took office last month, also highlights historic dividing lines in Peru: between the rural, mostly Indigenous poor, and the ruling elites in the capital, Lima.

Many protesters support former leftist President Pedro Castillo, who was arrested in December for trying to illegally take control of Congress and the courts. Mr. Castillo is the son of illiterate farmers from a poor Andean region, and despite his transgressions, he is someone many protesters in rural and Indigenous Peru identify with. Instead of seeing him as a would-be dictator, they see him as the victim of racist elites who never wanted to share power with him – and by extension, them.

Now, they are agitating for President Boluarte’s resignation, the closure of Congress, new general elections, and a new constitution. As death tolls climb, reaching 50 victims nationally since protests exploded in December, the need to identify a peaceful path ahead, starting with healing historic divisions, has grown more urgent.

“We feel we’re hated by those who govern Peru,” says Lucas Pari, a representative of the National Union of Aymara Communities, which supports the protests. “That hatred was always there, but now people are getting organized to demand respect for our fundamental rights to life, to equality, and to our identity.” 

Martin Mejia/AP

Peru's protests have grown since former leftist President Pedro Castillo was arrested for trying to illegally take control of Congress and the courts last month. Here, his former vice president and successor, President Dina Boluarte, waves to the press outside the government palace in Lima, Peru, on Jan. 10, 2023.

“Equal citizens”

At the heart of the current crisis is a long-standing division between those living in the capital, Lima, and rural and Indigenous Peruvians who have faced historic marginalization. Southern Andean regions tend to prefer anti-establishment politicians promising big change, and have produced several campesino uprisings.

After Peru’s independence from Spain, Peruvian campesinos continued to toil as indentured servants on plantations owned by elites up until 1969, when a leftist dictator redistributed land. Many were barred from voting for another decade due to literacy requirements, and scores of communities in Peru’s southern Andes were caught in the crosshairs of bloody battles between leftist insurgents and state security forces and paramilitary groups. Despite a rapid economic expansion during the commodities boom in the early 2000s, extreme poverty has persisted in many rural villages, which frequently lack access to basic sanitation, paved roads, schools, and hospitals.

The pandemic further exposed Peru’s geographic inequality. When the government imposed a strict lockdown, thousands of migrant workers in Lima and other urban hubs were left to trek home en masse after losing their jobs. 

Though he had no prior experience governing, Mr. Castillo promised to remedy historic injustices with a new constitution and heavy spending on health and education. Instead, his 16 months in office were marked by corruption scandals, political and managerial missteps, and growing polarization as he blamed his troubles on Lima elites, many of whom tried to overturn the results of his election with unfounded claims of voter fraud. 

“When people in Lima saw Castillo’s sombrero they said, ‘No, the son of an illiterate farmer!’ But here people felt ‘he’s one of us. He’s on our team,’” says Rolando Pilco, an anthropologist from Puno, who is Aymara.

Mr. Pilco says the lack of Indigenous representation in national politics is part of the problem. Unlike neighboring Bolivia, where former President Evo Morales passed a constitution that empowered Indigenous groups and introduced quotas for Indigenous representation in Congress, in Peru decision-makers are disproportionately part of the country’s white and mestizo elite. 

“People want change. They want to feel like equal citizens in the country,” he says.

Hugo Curotto/AP

Anti-government protesters block the Pan-American Highway in Cuzco, Peru, on Jan. 13, 2023. Protesters are seeking immediate elections, the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, the release of ousted former President Pedro Castillo, and justice for the 50 protesters killed in clashes with police.

Deepening the fury

While Ms. Boluarte was elected alongside Mr. Castillo as his vice president, many who once voted for her now see her as a traitor. They remember her promises to resign when Mr. Castillo faced his first impeachment attempt five months into his administration, and they criticize her for forming a center-right Cabinet backed by Congress, the least popular institution in the country.

A shocking spate of deaths in clashes between security forces and protesters in regions outside of Lima has only deepened the fury.

Last month, protesters blocked dozens of roads, attacked regional airports, and vandalized prosecutors’ offices, courthouses, and factories. Protests were suspended for the holidays but resumed on Jan. 4, and over the past week, the death toll doubled to 50, according to the country’s ombudsman’s office. The worst of the violence unraveled in Juliaca, a highland town in the region of Puno, near Lake Titicaca and the border with Bolivia.

There, in a single day of clashes between police and protesters trying to take control of the airport, 17 civilians were killed, all shot with projectiles from firearms, including multiple bystanders.

“We just want to live in peace,” says Jakeline Zapana, the head of a local animal rights group in Juliaca. One of her group’s young volunteers, Yamileth Aroquipa, was shot dead while making her way to a local market when clashes broke out.

Ms. Aroquipa was 17 years old, bilingual in Spanish and Quechua, and had just started studying psychology. “We’re all in shock,” says Ms. Zapana, who isn’t hopeful military or police officers will be held accountable. The deaths of protesters – especially when they are killed far from Lima – are rarely solved, she says.

The massacre in Juliaca was “the largest registered attack [on] civilians by police since Peru returned to democracy,” says Jo-Marie Burt, a human rights advocate and professor at George Mason University in Virginia. Police are “shooting to kill, aiming at the heads and upper bodies of protesters,” she says.

Ms. Boluarte’s government says it didn’t give orders to fire on protesters and would cooperate with prosecutors. But, in a late-night message to the nation on Friday, she blamed radicals for stirring up unrest, comparing recent vandalism at protests to terrorist attacks by the Shining Path insurgency in the 1980s and ’90s. 

“The only way” to take part in politics?

Thousands of Indigenous people were “disappeared” by government-backed death squads without trial during that time period, and for many living in these historically repressed areas, the comparison to the Shining Path was deeply offensive. It’s part of the stigmatization of leftists and Indigenous people that many in Peru have embraced since its return to democracy in 2000.

“We’re not terrorists. We’re people who know that this system has to be changed to bring true representation,” says Janyce Garcia, a protester in her late 50s, marching alongside thousands of demonstrators in Lima on Saturday. 

As protesters made their way through Lima’s upscale district of Miraflores, some locals shouted “communist” and “terrorist” at them. A man told a truck full of riot police officers to “burn them all,” referring to the protesters. 

“These messages are not innocuous. On the contrary, they contribute to creating an environment of permissiveness and tolerance towards discrimination, stigmatization, and institutional violence against this population. Especially when they come from public authorities,” said Stuardo Rolán, the head of an Inter-American Human Rights Commission delegation that visited Peru last week.

In times of political crisis, peaceful protests can be “the only way for communities that face structural discrimination or political and social exclusion to take part in politics,” he said in a press conference.

Initial hopes for dialogue to end the crisis have faded amid growing polarization. Counterprotesters have launched “marches for peace,” backed by the police, occasionally clashing with demonstrators.

Ms. Boluarte proposed early elections for April 2024, but doing so requires a constitutional reform that lawmakers are reluctant to pass. That has led to growing calls for Ms. Boluarte’s resignation, which could force Congress to schedule a new vote without the need for reforms. 

Even with new elections, high levels of polarization could lead to a result similar to the outcome of the 2021 vote, when Mr. Castillo faced a far-right politician in a divisive runoff race.

“There is no promising scenario,” says Peruvian political analyst Fernando Tuesta. “But elections are always an opportunity.”

It’s a question that has been tantalizing scientists for almost a century: Can humans tap the same force that powers the stars? On Dec. 5, an experiment by scientists in California signaled yes. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California produced a brief nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, or more energy created than was used to start the reaction. 

It took years of effort, but collaboration and innovation turned hope into reality. 

At least for a fraction of a second. More advances are needed to bring nuclear fusion into practical use. And the work comes with controversy, since the research has military as well as civilian applications. But the potential benefit – a future with abundant and relatively clean energy – gives hope to many scientists and environmentalists alike. 

What is nuclear fusion?

Nuclear fusion is the energy that powers the sun and other stars – a process first theorized by British physicist Arthur Eddington in 1920. It occurs when two atoms combine, or fuse together, to make a heavier one. Fusion releases energy because the mass of the new singular nucleus is less than the mass of the two before, and the leftover mass becomes energy. 

When applied to energy production on Earth, fusion will be very different from the fission reactions used in nuclear power plants today. Fission involves splitting a nucleus into two smaller nuclei. Less energy is produced with nuclear fission, and the resulting waste is much more radioactive. Where fusion involves light gases (types of hydrogen), fission generally uses heavy elements like uranium.

Why was this experiment so important?

For one thing, it’s a sign that persistence and collaboration can pay off after decades of effort dating back as far as the 1950s. 

“There were a lot of times where people, even leadership, were like, ‘It’s not going to work. This is not going to do it,’” says Ryan McBride, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan. “And finally, they stuck with it and figured out how to get it working, which is really impressive.” 

The breakthrough came down to lasers focused on a small capsule of fuel.

Around 1 a.m. on Dec. 5, data from the experiment at the LLNL’s National Ignition Facility began to pour in. The team realized it had reached “ignition,” or the creation of more energy than what was used to start the reaction. One researcher said it brought her to tears. 

The facility’s 192 lasers – the world’s largest laser system, in a building the size of a sports stadium – were aimed at a
diamond-coated capsule the size of a peppercorn. That creates the immense pressure and temperature required (several times hotter than the sun’s core). The landmark test delivered 2.05 megajoules of energy to the target and resulted in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output. But the tiniest differences in the capsule can create a different result each time.

There were two design changes that helped create the desired result. The capsule that held the fusion fuel was made thicker, and the power of the lasers was turned up by 8% while their symmetry was adjusted, says Arthur Pak, the team lead of stagnation science in the lab’s fusion work. 

The success was hailed as a win for military as well as civilian science. (The experiment was funded by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which focuses on nuclear warfare.) It signals fusion’s potential to replace underground tests for nuclear weapons. 

“That gives credibility to certifying our nuclear weapons stockpile and making sure that they can be as safe and secure and reliable as possible, especially in the era of not testing them,” says Dr. McBride. 

The experiment’s wider message for the world is simple, however: We finally know that ignition is possible. 

“I hope the public will ... realize that they shouldn’t be asking questions about how practical it is at the beginning, because first you have to know that it can be done,” says Paul Bellan, a plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology. “Then you start making it practical.” 

What is the potential benefit? 

It’s nothing less than “clean, carbon free, abundance – reliable energy capable of meeting the world’s energy demands,” said Tammy Ma, the lead for LLNL’s institutional initiative, during a panel announcing the revolutionary achievement. 

Fusion’s radioactive waste has a relatively short half-life, posing little threat, scientists say. They add that there is no risk of meltdown, because fusion stops within seconds without ongoing inputs of energy to sustain it. 

Already, universities and the private sector are teaming up in efforts to make fusion practical, with ways to convert heat from plasma into electricity. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, for example, aims to build a fusion plant by the early 2030s by working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their focus: magnetic fusion. 

It’s a different approach to fusion than lasers, or inertial fusion. In magnetic fusion, magnets are used to contain the fuel that becomes energy-producing plasma (heated by electric current). 

“We set up this collaboration agreement with MIT that effectively allowed us to be born in scale,” says Brandon Sorbom, co-founder and chief scientist at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “We started with a fully functioning lab with 50 years of history and experts in their respective field that have been working on fusion for decades in some cases. And that really was able to sort of catapult us into getting results faster.”

What hurdles remain? 

There are both scientific and technical challenges, says Mr. Pak at LLNL. The biggest: increasing the efficiency of the process. The 3 MJ of fusion energy created on Dec. 5 was greater than the 2 MJ of laser energy fired at the capsule, but 300 MJ of power was used to make those laser bursts. 

Beyond that, the process needs to be sustained over time and at scale. The fuel capsule in the experiment would power about 10 teakettles. To run a power plant, much more fuel would be needed, and lasers would need to shoot about every 10 seconds – something the National Ignition Facility can’t currently do.

Resources are another issue. Although deuterium is plentiful, there is the possibility that tritium, the other gas needed in the capsule, could run out. There are trace amounts in the atmosphere, but scientists say that tritium can be produced, or that eventually fusion will only need deuterium. 

For all the challenges, nations from Europe to China are chasing the fusion dream. 

“The pursuit of fusion ignition in the laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled by humanity,” LLNL Director Kim Budil said at a press briefing last month. “Achieving it is a triumph of science, engineering, and most of all, people.”

The dream of becoming a journalist began for Kiin Hasan Fakat when she was just 10 years old. Her family had joined legions of Somalis displaced by war and hunger and since 2007 had been living across the border in northern Kenya, in one of the largest refugee camps in the world.

Each day, Ms. Fakat listened to her uncle’s small radio, which was powered by AA-sized batteries, and tuned to the Voice of America Somali service.

And each day, she became more aware of – and inspired by – the reporting of Asha Ibrahim Aden, a veteran correspondent who spoke with authority and confidence, and whose example showed Ms. Fakat what a Somali newswoman could achieve.

“I used to say, ‘Maybe I can be like this female journalist. I like her reports,’” recalls Ms. Fakat, who was raised in Kenya’s Dadaab Camp but was originally from the southern Somali town of Buale.

Today it is Ms. Fakat who has herself become a role model for Somalia’s aspiring female journalists, as part of the reporting team of the country’s first all-women news outlet, called Bilan, which means “bright and clear” in the Somali language.

With the aim of reporting powerful human stories often overlooked by Somalia’s male-dominated media – from the personal impact of chronic drought and the local ravages of climate change, to living with HIV and issues of addiction and gender-based violence – the six women of Bilan are expanding the practice of journalism in Somalia like never before.

High among their pioneering achievements in a staunchly patriarchal society: Serving as examples of professional excellence to other Somali women.

“A lot of Somali girls who are journalists contact us to join us, and we support them. Everything we write, they say, ‘You did a great job,’” says Ms. Fakat, clad in typical Somali dress, with head-covering and a long shawl.

“We are encouraging our sisters,” says Fathi Mohamed Ahmed, the chief editor of Bilan, interviewed in Mogadishu. “They call us and say, ‘Fathi, can you help me? I want to join Bilan; I want to do this story, how can you help me?’”

Part of their mission is to “bring taboo subjects into the open,” notes Ms. Ahmed’s Bilan biography. “Our sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will talk to us about issues they never dare speak about with men.”

“A game changer”

Launched last April and supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Bilan has brought together a half-dozen highly qualified female Somali journalists, each with years of experience writing news or broadcasting on radio stations or local TV.

Jocelyn Mason, the UNDP resident representative in Mogadishu, described the ambitious aims of Bilan at its creation.

“We hope this will be a game changer for the Somali media scene, opening up new opportunities for women journalists and shining a light on new subjects that have been ignored, particularly those that are important for women,” Mr. Mason said at the time.

In interviews conducted in the six months prior to launching Bilan, the UNDP found that Somali women journalists “reported being harassed not just on the streets but even in their own offices.”

“They are often denied training opportunities and promotions, and when a woman does reach a position of authority, she is often ignored while more junior [male] figures get to call the shots,” the UNDP said in a statement. “News coverage reflects this, with a lack of programming on issues that are seen as primarily affecting women, including childcare, domestic abuse, and equal political representation.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Fathi Mohamed Ahmed, chief editor of Somalia’s first all-women news outlet, Bilan, on a rooftop in Mogadishu, Somalia, Nov. 8, 2022. Her Bilan biography says part of the outlet's mission is to “bring taboo subjects into the open.”

On top of providing stories to local Somali outlets through the broadcast platform of Mogadishu-based Dalson media, Bilan is reaching a global audience by publishing stories in foreign news organizations such as the Guardian and BBC in the United Kingdom and El Pais in Spain.

“Before Bilan, our Somali female journalists were very weak. They were feeling fear for everything, [like] making decisions – they would wait for men, for editors and for the directors,” says Ms. Ahmed.

“But now, after starting this media unit only for female journalists, we have a lot of women who are interested,” she says. Applying for the vacant post of editor were 13 qualified women, which Ms. Ahmed calls an “amazing” number ready to “make decisions in the editor’s room.”

The result is that Bilan stories offer very different fare from what is produced by the country’s other news outlets.

“What is going on in Somali media, they just focus on politics and conflict, nothing else,” says Ms. Ahmed. “But there are so many stories to do on Somali society, especially about Somali people, and what is going on here. We are going to have all those stories.”

Bilan’s journalism sparks action

Bilan reporting has already had an impact. An article last year about the lack of medical facilities for displaced Somalis living in makeshift camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu led to the creation of a small hospital at the site.

One in-depth article in the Guardian last October helped raise an urgent alarm about Somalia’s looming humanitarian crisis and famine. Bilan journalists visiting three different regions of the country warned against repeating the mistakes of 2011, when some 100,000 Somalis died of hunger before there was an official declaration of famine, which ultimately left a total of 260,000 dead.

Finding oft-hidden voices is what Bilan does best. Ms. Fakat says that 80% of her interviews are with women, and Bilan works with civil society activists, especially on issues for women and human rights.

One recent story delved into the challenge faced by HIV-positive Somalis, who are often treated as outcasts, even by their own families. Another television report focused on students at a school with special needs, where the teachers and principal also have special needs, thereby “inspiring the students that they too can have bright, productive futures,” according to Bilan’s description of the report.

Also made for TV, a report showcasing the work and challenges overcome by the only female taxi driver in the northern coastal city of Bosaso.

And Ms. Fakat was in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November to report from the COP27 climate summit, as part of her ongoing reporting about how climate change is affecting Somalia. On a recent Friday morning, she was on the Lido Beach in Mogadishu, speaking to volunteers who each week collect trash washed up on the popular beach.

“Absolutely, we see some progress,” says Ms. Ahmed, whose ground-breaking example includes continuing to work, even as a mother with two young children. A third child was born in early December, soon after she was promoted to chief editor of Bilan.

“We talk to the people, and this is good for our [work], for our culture,” says Ms. Ahmed. “We talk to the young ladies, we tell them sometimes: ‘Don’t listen [to detractors], go ahead.’”

A grandmother’s approval

But the female journalists of Bilan are not just challenging local newsroom culture rife with harassment and de facto glass ceilings. They sometimes have to convince their own families that they should pursue their dreams to be professional journalists.

With a smile, Ms. Ahmed says she faced resistance from her own grandmother.

“I love journalism, talking to the people, [and] writing something,” she says.

“My grandmother always said, ‘It’s not good for you, stop! Stop, stop, stop! Please don’t do this job,’” she recalls. “I told her, ‘I love this,’ and I hid my work when I started out, for eight months.”

The success so far of Bilan, and Ms. Ahmed’s career, has now changed her grandmother’s mind.

“Now she is OK, she is happy!” she says, beaming. “She is proud of me.”

AP

A German soldier stands in front of a Marder armored personnel carrier during a presentation event in Marienberg, Germany, Jan. 12. The government says it aims to supply around 40 of the carriers to Ukraine.

On Friday, leaders of Western countries will gather in Germany for the third time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to coordinate which weapons to send to the war-torn country. Their possible choices, such as the advanced Leopard 2 battle tank, may matter less than the shifting rationale for them.

Nearly a year into the invasion, the original reason for the West to arm Ukraine has gone beyond the goal of ending a “war of aggression,” or the altering of a national border by force. In recent weeks, as the Russian military has lost ground and turned more to killing and abducting civilians, its use of terror has made it easier to justify the deployment of more powerful weapons in order to protect innocent Ukrainians.

“We fight for every human being, for every life,” tweeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Russian missiles hit a nine-story apartment building in Dnipro on Saturday, killing dozens of residents.

In December, a U.S. decision to provide the Patriot air defense system – a weapon that the Biden administration once feared would anger Moscow – was seen as necessary to save civilians. “For me, this is not an escalation,” former German and NATO Gen. Hans-Lothar Domröse told RND news. It is nothing more, he said, “than the obligation to observe the principle of Responsibility to Protect.”

That principle, known as R2P, was enshrined in international law in 2005 by the United Nations to justify collective action in ending war crimes and crimes against humanity. This legal doctrine, which arose out of the world’s failure to stop mass killings in Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s, has elevated the innocence of noncombatants in conflict zones beyond that of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. charter against genocide.

Raising that global norm is now playing out in Western choices for Ukraine. On Saturday, for example, Britain became the first country to announce it will deliver a Western-made battle tank, the Challenger 2. That move may influence a debate in Germany over whether to permit the Leopard 2 – a more powerful German-made tank – to be deployed. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during a Jan. 10 visit to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv that “further arms deliveries” will free Ukrainians “still suffering from the terror of the Russian occupation.”

Russia’s tactic of bombing Ukrainian cities into submission has forced new and harder choices for the West. Better weapons is one choice. But the fundamental one is whether a global principle on the value of innocence is worth defending. That will be the real debate at Friday’s gathering of Western leaders.