An Air Canada Express flight “experienced a suspected landing gear issue” after arriving at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia on Saturday night, though no injuries were reported, according to the airline.

“The plane shook quite a bit and we started seeing fire on the left side of the plane and smoke started coming in the windows,” Valentine said.

The Halifax incident echoed a far more severe – and deadly – incident in South Korea on Sunday morning local time, when a Jeju Air flight crash-landed at Muan International Airport, killing 179 people. Officials and aviation experts say a landing gear malfunction appears likely in that incident.

While no one was hurt in Halifax, “we appreciated this incident was unsettling for customers and we remain available to assist them,” Air Canada’s statement said.

The airfield was closed for about 90 minutes as a result of the incident, Tiffany Chase, a spokesperson for the Halifax International Airport Authority, said in a statement.

“Four flights were diverted and there were a handful of cancellations and delays while the airfield was closed,” she added.

The incident will be investigated by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which in a notice Sunday said it was deploying a team of investigators to the airport. They are expected to arrive later Sunday.

In the meantime, the aircraft remains on the runway, Chase said. Air Canada is waiting for the Transportation Safety Board to release the aircraft before returning customers’ belongings.

The cause of the suspected landing gear issue is unknown, the airline said, adding, “Out of respect for the investigative process we cannot speculate and have no additional information to provide at this time.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Billed as “the year of democracy,” 2024 may ultimately be remembered as the year voters sent incumbents packing.

The largest-ever single year of elections was also the worst-ever year for those in office. Every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share – the first time this has happened since records began – according to an analysis by the Financial Times.

Incumbency advantage used to be an iron law of politics. Recently, “better the devil you know” has given way to “throw the rascals out.” Voters’ instincts have been to twist, not stick. In the United States, Kamala Harris appeared to pay a price for her unwillingness to distance herself from incumbent President Joe Biden’s policies, to Donald Trump’s gain.

What might 2025 bring for incumbents and what factors are at play?

For decades in wealthy democracies, the surest way to win office was already to hold it. Incumbents were a protected class. Power would switch hands between a small number of mainstream parties, mostly after long periods of relative stability.

In emerging, poorer democracies, things were more volatile. Mainstream parties were weaker, facing constant challenges from upstart insurgents, so power changed hands more often.

But this distinction between richer and poorer democracies has blurred. Wealthy democracies have become more volatile, said Ben Ansell, a professor of comparative democratic institutions at the University of Oxford.

It’s the inflation, stupid

Why was 2024 so difficult for incumbents? Post-mortems have found a common cause of death: inflation.

Prices jumped in many countries after the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Driven by a range of factors, including supply disruptions and a rebound in demand, global inflation reached its highest level since the 1990s in 2022. Voters hated it. Even if most of the causes were global, the governments that presided over soaring costs ultimately paid the price.

Perhaps governments had forgotten just how much voters detest inflation. During and after the last big global shock, the 2008 financial crisis, inflation remained relatively low, despite years of huge government stimulus.

Although unemployment soared in the United States and Europe after 2008, inflation was largely stable. The economic pain was more intense for some but was less diffuse. “Inflation hurts everybody less than unemployment, but it’s so widespread,” said Ansell. As the economist Isabella Weber recalled in the New York Times: “Unemployment weakens governments. Inflation kills them.”

Perhaps lessons can be learned from Mexico, which elected Claudia Sheinbaum from the governing Morena party, a rare bright spot for incumbents in Latin America amid a long run of defeats. To stem inflation, her party introduced price controls to cap the price of basic groceries in 2022 and renewed the measure last month.

Although mainstream economists are uneasy about price controls, Weber, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, points out Western countries have already implemented a global price cap on Russian oil. In the face of overlapping crises, perhaps this taboo will crumble.

If inflation really was the culprit, this may be good news for tomorrow’s incumbents. Once prices stabilize, wages catch up and voters get used to the new cost of eggs, those in office – barring more price shocks – ought to have an easier time in the years to come. At least, that’s the theory.

Shopping around

But it’s not the only theory. The defeat or retreat of incumbents across the globe cannot be explained by materialist factors alone. Cultural, structural forces are also at play, which may be making volatility the rule, not the exception.

This erosion of partisan loyalty has opened the field to new actors who scorn the old rules of the game and chip away at its norms. Vicente Valentim, an assistant professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said this happens at both the policy level, such as the backlash against immigration and gender equality, and the procedural, such as refusing to concede an election or casting doubt on the integrity of a vote.

If supply is changing, so is demand. One explanation for rising volatility is that voters have become more like consumers: hard to satisfy, hungry for gratification, always shopping around.

Perhaps one can map changing voter habits onto changing consumer habits. Rather than going to a small selection of bricks-and-mortar stores to buy a fixed selection of goods, many in wealthy democracies have become used to being brought what they want when they want. Amazon and Netflix spoil their customers with choice; voters might expect democracies to catch up.

Having to “choose between the two stores that have always been on the street” – one left, one right – “seems quite mid-20th century in an early 21st century world that we’re used to in every other way,” said Ansell.

On the horizon

A brief survey of upcoming elections suggests 2025 may be equally hard for incumbents in democracies. After failing to hold his coalition together for a full term, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is almost certain to be ousted in February’s snap election, called after he lost a confidence vote this month.

Canadian voters are also likely to end Justin Trudeau’s near-decade-long premiership. The election must be held on or before October 20, but could be brought forward if his coalition also falls apart.

Opinion polls suggest center-left Trudeau may be replaced by the conservative firebrand Pierre Poilievre. A similar story is expected to play out in Australia, where the Labor Party’s Anthony Albanese faces a fierce challenge from the Liberals’ Peter Dutton.

In Europe, next year’s picture is somewhat skewed, as Kremlin-linked propaganda campaigns seek to boost the chances of candidates friendlier to Moscow. Despite what many in the West see as an impressive first term as president, Moldova’s Maia Sandu won reelection by the thinnest of margins in October. Whether her pro-Western party can keep its majority in parliamentary elections in May is less clear. The Kremlin has officially denied accusations by Moldova that it orchestrated and funded a widespread interference campaign this year.

Romania will also have to decide how to proceed after its top court annulled the first round of its presidential election, which it said was marred by Russian interference. A victory for far-right ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu – a virtual unknown before the fall – is still on the cards when a new election is held. Russia has denied interfering in the electoral process.

Things may be different in Latin America. Opinion polls indicate Daniel Noboa is better placed than most incumbents to win a second term when Ecuador votes in February, but blackouts and street violence have bolstered his main challenger, Luisa Gonzalez. And while Xiomara Castro – Honduras’ first female president – may win again in November, observers warn she is showing authoritarian tendencies.

And so, 2025 may look like a slimmed-down version of 2024, with fewer elections but incumbents continuing to struggle.

A charitable reading would say this is no bad thing. If voters are unhappy with their leaders, they should boot them out.

Adam Przeworski, a political scientist, once defined democracy as “a system in which parties lose elections.” (This won’t apply in Belarus next month, however, where Alexander Lukashenko – president since 1994 – will be confident of winning another four-year term. Votes in Belarus are widely seen as neither free nor fair.)

But interminable defeats – like Lukashenko’s interminable victories – should set alarm bells ringing. Elections send signals to governments, said Ansell. “You need to be able to punish people, but you also need to be able to reward them.”

If elections become all stick and no carrot, the process risks descending into sound and fury, to the detriment of both politicians and voters.

World leaders have offered their condolences following the death of former US President Jimmy Carter, who passed away Sunday at the age of 100.

The 39th American president led consequential foreign policy initiatives that still endure today, including a Middle East peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the normalization of relations with China that the Richard Nixon administration initiated, and the signing of treaties that gave Panama eventual control of the Panama Canal from the US.

In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

But Carter was widely criticized for his handling of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, in which dozens of American citizens were held captive for 444 days by Iranian revolutionaries who had stormed the US embassy in Tehran, angered by the US’ support of Iran’s authoritarian ruler Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

In their own words

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi:

“In this moment of sorrow, I extend my sincerest condolences to the family of former American President Jimmy Carter, as well as to the president and the people of the United States of America. President Carter was a symbol of humanitarian and diplomatic efforts, his deep belief in peace and justice has inspired many individuals and institutions around the world to follow his path. His efforts in preserving the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel will remain etched in history, and his humanitarian work demonstrate a standard of love, peace, and brotherhood. His legacy ensures that he will be remembered as one of the world’s most prominent leaders in service to humanity. May God have mercy on former President Jimmy Carter.”

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino:

“I offer my condolences to the family and to the people and government of the United States on the death of former President Jimmy Carter. His time in the White House marked complex times, which were crucial for Panama in order to negotiate and agree on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977, which achieved the transfer of the canal to Panamanian hands and the full sovereignty of our country. May his soul rest in peace.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

“I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the 39th President of the United States of America, Mr. James Earl ‘Jimmy’ Carter, Jr. I extend my deepest condolences to the Carter family and the government and people of the United States. President Carter’s leadership contributed significantly to international peace and security, including the landmark Camp David Accords, the SALT II Treaty and the Panama Canal Treaties. President Carter’s commitment to international peace and human rights also found full expression after he left the presidency. He played a key role in conflict mediation, election monitoring, the promotion of democracy, and disease prevention and eradication. These and other efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and helped advance the work of the United Nations. President Carter will be remembered for his solidarity with the vulnerable, his abiding grace, and his unrelenting faith in the common good and our common humanity. His legacy as a peacemaker, human rights champion and humanitarian will endure.”

French President Emmanuel Macron:

“Throughout his life, Jimmy Carter has been a steadfast advocate for the rights of the most vulnerable and has tirelessly fought for peace. France sends its heartfelt thoughts to his family and to the American people.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer:

“I was very sorry to hear of President Carter’s passing and I would like to pay tribute to his decades of selfless public service. His presidency will be remembered for the historic Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, and it was that lifelong dedication to peace that saw him receive the Nobel Peace prize. Motivated by his strong faith and values, President Carter redefined the post-presidency with a remarkable commitment to social justice and human rights at home and abroad. Whether supporting elections around the world and spreading healthcare solutions through the Carter Center or still building homes with Habitat for Humanity into his nineties, Jimmy Carter lived his values in the service of others to the very end. My thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

“We express our heartfelt condolences to the American people and to the family of former US President Jimmy Carter on his passing. He was a leader who served during a time when Ukraine was not yet independent, yet his heart stood firmly with us in our ongoing fight for freedom. We deeply appreciate his steadfast commitment to Christian faith and democratic values, as well as his unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s unprovoked aggression. He devoted his life to promoting peace in the world and defending human rights. Today, let us remember: peace matters, and the world must remain united in standing against those who threaten these values. May his memory be eternal.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban:

“The memory of President Jimmy Carter will always be cherished in Hungary. By returning the Holy Crown to the people of Hungary at the end of the 70’s, he gave freedom-loving Hungarians hope in a hopeless time. I would like to express my deepest condolences to the Carter family and the American people.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

“Jimmy Carter’s legacy is one of compassion, kindness, empathy, and hard work. He served others both at home and around the world his entire life — and he loved doing it. He was always thoughtful and generous with his advice to me. My deepest condolences to the Carter family, his many loved ones, and the American people who are mourning a former president and a lifelong humanitarian. May his selfless service continue to inspire us all for years to come.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva:

“Jimmy Carter was a senator, governor of Georgia, and president of the United States. Above all, he was a lover of democracy and a defender of peace. In the late 1970s, he pressured the Brazilian dictatorship to release political prisoners. Later, as a former president, he continued to campaign for the promotion of human rights, peace, and the eradication of diseases in Africa and Latin America. Carter achieved the feat of having a job as a former president, over the decades, that was as important or even more important than his term in the White House. He criticized unilateral military actions by superpowers and the use of killer drones. He worked with Brazil to mediate conflicts in Venezuela and to help Haiti. He created The Carter Center, a world reference in democracy, human rights and dialogue. He will be remembered forever as a name that defended that peace is the most important condition for development. My condolences to his family, friends, co-religionists and compatriots at this time of farewell.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel:

“Condolences to the people and government of the United States, especially to the family and loved ones of President James Carter. Our people will remember with gratitude his efforts to improve relations, his visits to Cuba and his statement in favor of the freedom of the (Cuban) Five.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, is remembered in China for bringing an end to decades of hostility and establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing – at the expense of Taiwan.

The diplomatic switch in 1979 led to profound changes in US-China relations in the following decades – and its implications are still being felt today, as tensions flare across the Taiwan Strait.

During the height of the Cold War, the Carter administration held months of secret negotiations with Chinese officials to normalize relations, which had been estranged since the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949.

For decades, Washington had recognized the Republic of China in Taipei as the sole legal government of China, after the Kuomintang was defeated by the Communists in the civil war and fled from the Chinese mainland to the island of Taiwan.

A rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China began during the presidency of Richard Nixon, who made an ice-breaking visit to Beijing in 1972. But it was Carter who oversaw Washington’s formal switch of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

On December 15, 1978, Carter announced that at the start of 1979, the US would end its diplomatic relations with the Republic of China in Taipei and recognize the People’s Republic of China in Beijing as the sole legal government of China.

While celebrated in Beijing, the announcement came as a shock to many in Taiwan, followed by anger and a bitter sense of abandonment and betrayal – even leading to violent anti-American demonstrations in Taipei. The US also terminated its mutual defense treaty with Taiwan and pulled its military personnel from the island.

On January 1, 1979, the US and the People’s Republic of China formally established diplomatic ties, opening embassies in the two countries’ respective capitals. At the end of that month, Carter welcomed China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on the South Lawn of the White House – the first visit by a Chinese Communist leader to the US.

“We expect that normalization will help to move us together toward a world of diversity and of peace,” Carter said at the welcoming ceremony. “For too long, our two peoples were cut off from one another. Now we share the prospect of a fresh flow of commerce, ideas, and people, which will benefit both our countries.”

In response, Deng praised Carter’s “farsighted decision” in playing a key role in ending the “period of unpleasantness between us for 30 years.”

Bilateral ties flourished in the following years, from trade and investment to academic and cultural exchanges. One area of engagement Carter facilitated was student exchange. During negotiations for normalizing relations, Deng raised the question of whether Chinese students would be allowed to further their studies in the US.

“When posed with that question, my adviser, Dr. Frank Press, thought it important enough to call me at 3 a.m. in Washington to be sure,” Carter wrote in a letter addressed to the Chinese Embassy in Washington and the US State Department in 2019.

“Deng asked me if China could send 5,000 students, and I answered that China could send 100,000,” Carter wrote.

Proponent for engagement and democracy

As bilateral ties worsened in recent years, some critics in the US have questioned the strategy of engagement with China.

Under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing has taken a stark authoritarian turn domestically and become increasingly assertive abroad, dashing the once widely held hope that China would move toward a more liberal political model following economic growth and its integration with the world.

Amid escalating tensions and calls for “decoupling,” Carter has remained a cool-headed voice and firm supporter of continued engagement.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the normalization of US-China relations, Carter warned in The Washington Post that the two nations’ critical relationship is “in jeopardy” and “a modern Cold War between our two nations is not inconceivable” if the deep mistrust continues.

“At this sensitive moment, misperceptions, miscalculations and failure to follow carefully defined rules of engagement in areas such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea could escalate into military conflict, creating a worldwide catastrophe,” he wrote.

After he left the presidential office, Carter remained a key figure in US-China relations. He visited China multiple times and was received by successive Chinese leaders, from Jiang Zemin – who called him “an old friend of the Chinese people” – to Xi.

In 2019, at the height of a bruising trade war with China, former US President Donald Trump sought Carter’s council in a rare phone call to discuss ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing.

But Carter’s experience with China far predated his presidency. It was his visit to the Chinese coast in 1949 as a young submarine officer in the US Navy that sowed his interest in China, according to an interview Carter gave to the Council on Foreign Relations.

As the civil war raged in China, Carter’s submarine was operating in and out of Chinese seaports, from Shanghai all the way up to Qingdao.

“And so, I got to see the transformation in China between the nationalist Chinese forces who were just occupying a few of the seaports and the communist forces whose campfires we could see on the hillsides,” he said.

A few months after Carter left China, the nationalists fled the mainland to Taiwan. “So, I saw the birth of China which, by the way, was born on my birthday, October the 1st, 1949. And I think that has precipitated my intense interest in China ever since,” he said.

In China, Carter remains a well-respected figure, despite the rocky relationship in recent years.

In reports about his death, Chinese state media outlets noted Carter’s legacy on US-China relations. On Chinese social media, many users hailed him the “good old man.”

Less mentioned by the Chinese government and state media, however, was Carter’s role in promoting religious freedom and grassroots democracy in China.

At a banquet he hosted for the Chinese delegation in 1979, Carter secured Deng’s agreement to permit unrestricted worship and the distribution of Bibles in China. (Under Xi Jinping, Christians have experienced a significant crackdown).

The Carter Center had supported and monitored village elections in rural China for more than a decade since the late 1990s. Carter himself visited a village in eastern China to monitor one such election in 2001, witnessing villagers casting their votes and greeting elected local officials on stage.

That kind of engagement is nearly unthinkable in today’s China, with the Chinese Communist Party repeatedly attacking “Western values” and viewing foreign non-profits – especially those promoting democracy, rule of law and rights advocacy – with deep suspicion.

Complicated legacy in Taiwan

In Taiwan, Carter’s legacy is more complicated.

When Carter made his first visit to Taiwan in 1999, he still faced plenty of questions – and criticism – over his abrupt announcement to break diplomatic relations with Taipei 20 years ago.

At a speech in Taipei, Carter was confronted by veteran Taiwanese opposition politician Annette Lu, who accused him of having set back the democratization process in Taiwan and demanded an apology from him to the Taiwanese people.

Carter declined to apologize, insisting that his decision had been “a right one.”

In a guest lecture at a university in Atlanta in 2018, Carter said he had “a big argument” with Deng over the status of Taiwan during negotiations in 1978.

“China always wanted us to declare that Taiwan was a province of China, and they wanted us to break our treaty with Taiwan and stop all our military assistance,” he said. “I was insisting that we should break our treaty with Taiwan only in agreement with our treaty, which required a one-year notice. I also insisted that we continue to provide defensive assistance to Taiwan and that the differences between China and Taiwan be resolved peacefully.”

Following the diplomatic switch, the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which allows Washington to retain close unofficial ties with Taipei, facilitating commercial, cultural and other exchanges through the American Institute in Taiwan – the de facto US Embassy in Taipei.

The legislation also requires the US to “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” to maintain “a sufficient self-defense capacity,” though it did not specify how the US would respond in case of a Chinese invasion of the island – which became known as a policy of “strategic ambiguity.”

As relations between China and the US plummeted in recent years, the Taiwan issue has become a key source of tension between the two countries.

One of the original stereotypes about robots is that their movements are stiff and abrupt, something that endures in the “robot dance” that first became popular in the 1980s.

Robots have since evolved and now exhibit far more human-like qualities, with movements that have become softer and subtler. However, that has been true mostly for humanoid robots, which are a tiny minority compared to the industrial robots that have helped manufacture our goods — such as cars — for decades.

Around 3 million robots work in factories around the world, with about a third of those in the automotive industry, according to an industry body. Now, a company called Micropsi Industries is looking to make even industrial robots closer to humans. “We make a control system that allows industrial robots to do things that without our software they couldn’t do,” says Ronnie Vuine, Micropsi’s founder, “which is essentially having hand-eye coordination and adapting to changing conditions in the environment as they do their work in a factory.”

The company’s first product, called MIRAI, uses artificial intelligence (AI) and cameras to train robots to perform tasks that would be impossible via traditional, pre-programmed movements.

Vuine became interested in AI while a student at Berlin’s Humboldt University in the 2000s. “There was a working group that was interested in how machines learn in the real world when there’s no engineer around to tell them what to do, but they just need to sort out and find out what to do to survive. How would you do that? So that’s been our research interest.”

Vuine says that AI was distinctly unfashionable at the time, but when Google purchased AI company Deep Mind in 2014, it showed the team how AI had become more mainstream and was the motivation they needed to push forward. Micropsi was founded in the same year.

The company is now developing its products for various brands of manufacturing robots. “By far the most advanced industry when it comes to deploying robots at scale is automotive,” Vuine says. “Cars are the most complex artifact we make at scale as humans. We also make planes, and they’re more complex, but we don’t make as many of them. Cars are just the most advanced automation game we play.”

This opens up options for automation to carry out tasks previously handled by humans, which could prove especially useful in producing electric cars. “Automotive is moving to electric. There’s much more cables to be plugged in,” says Vuine. “Of course, it’s terribly important in electronics, where you have ribbon cables (to connect to circuit boards). All of these applications couldn’t be done with robots (previously). You would have to use a human, or you couldn’t do it at all, and would need to redesign your product for manufacturability.”

Having recently moved its headquarters from Berlin to San Francisco, the company is now looking to expand from cars to other products, like power tools and white goods, as well as other fields altogether, like logistics. In the future, the system could power humanoid robots, too. “The software that drives the robot would be very much applicable outside a factory, in a service robot that does your dishes,” Vuine says. “In fact, we sometimes do playful demos that show these capabilities.”

The hurdle to that expansion is not the software, he adds, but robots themselves. “Robots are not made of soft material like humans. They’re made of metal, so it really hurts if they hit you. You need to go very slowly, and you need to put lots of safety around and lo and behold, you’ve created a machine that’s too expensive and too cumbersome to actually live in your home. We just haven’t solved that yet.”