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Washington, United States | A prototype of SpaceX's unmanned rocket Starship exploded on Wednesday, the third time a test flight ended in flames.
The mishaps may seem like disasters but experts say these incidents are part of the spaceship's development, and even, in a way, beneficial.
- What is Starship? -
SpaceX is developing the rocket with the goal of sending humans to the Moon on it from 2023, and then to Mars. It will also be able to place satellites in orbit.
The giant spacecraft is 50 meters (165 feet) tall and nine meters in diameter.
It will in the future sit atop a first stage called Super Heavy, making the combined vehicle 120 meters in height.
The rocket will be reusable -- a key focus of billionaire Elon Musk's space venture.
It can also carry some 100 tons of material into space, with SpaceX calling it "the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed."
- What's causing the explosions? -
Since December, SpaceX has carried out three tests with Starship prototypes.
SN8 and SN9 (SN stands for serial number) came into their landings too quickly and exploded into huge fireballs.
SN10, on Wednesday, managed to land vertically, as expected, but exploded on the ground a few minutes later.
SpaceX has not provided an explanation.
The rocket was not completely upright and was slightly damaged on landing, said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
"Even a small methane leak" could have caused the explosion, he said.
- Was Wednesday's test beneficial for SpaceX? -
The purpose of the tests is to acquire new data for analysis to improve the prototype.
"Testing is not binary," with results measured in black and white, Glenn Lightsey, professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, told AFP.
"Since the explosion occurred after SpaceX had stuck the landing, it is likely that most of the test objectives were met," he said.
Specifically, the rocket reached 10 kilometers (32,800 feet) in altitude as planned, and turned into a horizontal position during its flight.
In addition, "the vertical soft landing is a spectacular achievement," Lightsey said, because it showed SpaceX has successfully fine-tuned deceleration for landing after the SN8 and SN9 explosions.
SpaceX congratulated itself after each of the three test flights.
"Starship SN10 landed in one piece!" Musk tweeted Wednesday, an hour after SN10 exploded.
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator NASA's science mission directorate, also tweeted his congratulations to SpaceX: "Cheers to iteration without which there is no innovation. To many more!"
- More risks... for a better rocket? -
The repeated test launches are possible due to SpaceX's status as a private company.
"To the best of my knowledge, Elon is using his own money for the Starship tests. Thus he doesn't have to answer to NASA, the Congress or anyone but his own shareholders," said G. Scott Hubbard, who previously worked for NASA and now chairs the SpaceX Commercial Crew Safety Advisory Panel.
Meanwhile NASA depends on Congress for its budget, and ultimately answers to the American taxpayer.
SpaceX is free to take more risks.
"In the development phase of a project it's much better to try something quickly," McDowell said.
"Once you put people on the rocket of course you need to change the approach, but at this stage SpaceX is doing exactly the right thing," he said.
Added Lightsey: "By accepting more risk and potential for failure as a privately held company, SpaceX and other companies like it are disrupting the space industry."
A new Starship prototype is already in development.
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Paris, France | While International Women's Day on March 8 celebrates female gains like the right to vote, a World Economic Forum study found that at present rates of change gender parity still won't happen in our lifetimes.
Here's a look at how institutions have evolved to make room for women:
- The vote -
New Zealand was first to give all women –- white and Maori -- the right to vote in 1893. In neighbouring Australia, women got it the following year, but the Aboriginal population would have to wait another 70 years.
By 1920 women had the right to vote in Finland, Australia, the United States and Britain -- though in the UK only women over 30 could vote until 1928.
France only give women a vote in 1944.
But they have nothing on referenda-ruled Switzerland, where the country's men voted over and over to deny women suffrage until 1971.
Oman gave women the vote in 1994 and other Gulf monarchies followed: Qatar in 1999, Bahrain in 2002 and Kuwait in 2005.
Saudi Arabia decided to give its female subjects a voice in municipal polls in 2011 -- the kingdom's only elections.
- Equal pay -
Worldwide it is estimated that women earn 19 percent less than men do, a gap that parity laws have attempted to close with mixed results.
In the US where it has been illegal for nearly 60 years to pay men and women different salaries for similar work, women still earn on average 18 percent less than their male counterparts.
Policies that punish women for pregnancy and related caregiving duties are notorious for holding women back in the workplace.
Even when women do advance to higher-earning positions they continue to make less, with women managers in the EU earning an average of 23 percent less than men in the same jobs.
A major reason that men continue to earn more than women is lack of transparency in salary reporting.
In 2018 Iceland became the first country in the world to require employers to prove they pay men and women equally.
It is currently the country with the lowest gender wage gap at 13.5 percent.
- Abortion and contraception -
Russia was the first country to decriminalise abortion in 1920.
All countries where a woman can legally terminate her pregnancy either require a reason –- such as a threat to the mother's health -- or impose a time limit on the practice.
Commonly abortion becomes illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Five percent of the world's women live in countries where abortion is banned even when the mother's life is threatened.
The contraceptive pill was invented by a US doctor in the 1950s and became legal for women there in 1960.
Married women in the UK could start taking the pill in 1961, and French women got it in 1967.
However, in all of these countries women must obtain a doctor's prescription to get the pill.
- Maternity leave -
Sweden is the best country for paid parental leave with a new mother or father able to take up to 480 days off and continue to earn 80 percent of his or her salary in addition to 18 weeks off reserved just for the new mother.
Iceland gives parents 12 months of leave and requires that time to be split between mother and father.
In Norway mothers and fathers can take up to more than two years off at 80 percent pay, divided between them however they like.
The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries in the world with no national paid maternity leave.
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The very word "lingerie" is a French export -- used from Japan to Holland to Brazil -- but France has been slow to adapt to a changing mood in the global industry which no longer treats expensive underwear primarily as a weapon of seduction.
The shift has been noticeable in recent years in other Western countries, measured most notably in declining sales at Victoria's Secret, the US store that brought sexy lingerie to the mass market in the 1970s and then made billions worldwide by promoting images of impossible physical perfection.
Judging by its typical billboards and shop windows, France held out longer than others, but could not ignore the change forever.
"The priority is no longer seduction, it's no longer about attracting men's attention," said Pascale Renaud, who directed a short film to launch this year's French expo, Promincor-Lingerie.
No photo-shopped sexualised models in her film -- instead it is women of all sizes and ages, exercising, dancing, meditating, riding motorbikes... essentially, being real people.
"Women are playing things differently these days... We see it in all the publicity," said Renaud.
"Things that were seen as faults in the past -- a few extra kilos, lines, scars -- today, these are signs of individuality."
The products featured at the expo were themselves signs of the changing mood.
Empreinte's plus-size bras were pitched as something "to be forgotten once they are on", while another model in black lace was trailed as "sports chic", with the focus very much on assisting posture and distributing weight.
Another with straps that can be crossed at the back was specially designed to cushion movements associated with boxing and horse riding.
"Women complain that they can only find bras that either squash or bother them, or don't offer support. It has taken several years to get here," said its director Noemie Berthaux.
- 'Inclusivity' -
As with so much else, the pandemic has accelerated the trend.
With many turning to yoga during the past year's lockdowns, the bra-and-leggings combo has become particularly popular.
Ethical concerns as well as practical ones are driving the change.
"After #MeToo, pictures of objectified women with large breasts and idealised bums are no longer acceptable," said Brigitte Chauchon, commercial director for Lejaby.
"There's a strong demand now for inclusivity. We are moving away from this model of women with perfect measurements."
That means au revoir to push-up bras in favour of practical shapes, ecologically-sourced materials and maximum comfort.
Glamour still exists, but its meaning is being redefined.
Flesh-coloured tones, once seen as dowdy and unflattering, are "now much more fashionable," said Stephanie Perele, a director at her family's brand, Simone Perele.
"We're now having fun working with transparent designs, adding little details."
"Underwear can be invisible, like a second skin, but still very sophisticated," added Chauchon.
"It's about women who are pleasing themselves, comfortable in who they are, who have their own lives that are free from traditional demands."
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Johannesburg, South Africa | Queueing outside an upmarket Johannesburg clothing store, young fashion lovers hope to lay their hands on the latest sneakers to come out of the United States.
For South Africa's city dwellers, sneakers are more than just shoes.
As a marker of personality as well as social status, they are cared for and worn with pride, and youths compete to hunt down the rarest models from a market flooded with old and new sneakers -- including many fakes.
"Sneakers kind of tell your story," graffiti artist Rasik "Mr.ekse" Green told AFP as he was spray-painting a commissioned mural on the rooftop of a building in downtown Johannesburg.
Green's elaborate graffiti designs -- which he also uses to redecorate and personalise sneakers -- are highly sought after.
The shoes are often an expression of geographic roots in a country with 12 official languages and dozens of ethnicities.
"For instance we know Cape Townians love their bubbles," said Green, referring to a chunky, thick-soled Nike design.
And residents of the Johannesburg township of Soweto "love their (Converse) All Stars", he said. "It's kind of a code."
The athletic footwear craze is linked to African American hip-hop culture, which infuses South Africa's rich musical heritage as well as its fashion.
Collecting and trading shoes has become a hobby in Africa's most industrialised nation, with aficionados known as "sneaker heads".
In 2019, 800 pairs of Reeboks, created in a limited edition in collaboration with South African rap sensation AKA, sold out 10 minutes after their online release.
A South African brand, Bathu -- slang for "shoe" -- conquered the local market with a unique mesh design.
While its low-end sneakers cost 1,300 rand ($84), Bathu came out with a limited edition, the Opel GSI, with only 80 pairs which it sold for 397,000 rand each in June 2019.
"That wouldn't have happened 30 years ago," Green said.
But another designer, Andile "ScotchIsDope" Cele, warned that sneaker fanaticism is "becoming about class."
Paying extravagant amounts for the shoes is "almost like an investment to say, you're helping yourself, so that you can live with these (wealthy) people... almost like 'fake it till you make it' type of thing."
- Worn 'art piece' -
Sneakers have not always been viewed positively in South Africa.
Gangsters terrorising townships during the 1980s often wore Chuck Taylor All Stars, a high-topped stitched canvas shoe manufactured by the US firm Converse.
The sneakers, originally designed as basketball shoes, acquired a "thug" reputation that stuck.
"My parents didn't want me to get a pair because it was mixed up with a certain culture that was for criminals," recalled Hector Mgiba, 28, who has an extensive collection of Converse All-Stars.
He said Converse shoes were also associated with "pantsula", a dance born among young black township dwellers as a form of protest against apartheid, and snubbed by older generations.
"Pantsula" dancers typically wore smart shirts, flare trousers and All-Stars -- perfect for their quick steps and hops.
Mgiba, a teenager at the time, saved up to buy a second-hand pair behind his parents' back.
"I loved it so much and I wanted to pave my own way to how I express myself," he said.
"The way it fades when it gets worn out, it becomes more of an art piece."
A popular music genre known as Kwaito that emerged in Soweto during the 1990s cast Converse into a new light.
Dancers in colourful All Stars turned the shoe into a symbol of township youth in post-apartheid South Africa.
Today the rubber-soled shoe is worn with both formal fitted suits and casual dress by young South Africans of all backgrounds and skin tones.
- 'Bringing us together' -
As demand for sneakers has grown, local entrepreneurs have become fierce rivals to international brands.
Unable to afford the latest sneakers as a young boy, local designer Lekau Sehoana made his first pair of sneakers from worn-out shoes, old jeans and polyurethane.
His "Drip" footwear brand, launched in 2019, gained popularity with its brightly coloured bubble soles and stretchy material.
Sehoana now uses part of the company's earnings to make shoes for children in townships.
"I guess it's one way of uniting us and bringing us together, as a people, as a country, as different races," Green said.
"Besides all our differences, at least we share one common thing... shoes."
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© Agence France-Presse
Washington, United States | President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan aimed at fueling the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic is the latest in a long line of efforts by American leaders to bounce back after a calamity.
Here's a look at how the world's largest economy has used extraordinary government spending to pull itself out of slumps in the past:
- New Deal -
Modern American stimulus began in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, which wiped out half the value of the New York Stock Exchange and is widely seen as the beginning of the Great Depression.
With around one in four Americans out of work, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 and unveiled the New Deal, a program of lending and spending at a scale not seen in the country before.
These included massive government-funded jobs programs that put people to work, including in public works, the arts and conservation.
It also created the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to regulate banks and stock trading, as well as Social Security retirement benefits.
However, the country's economic slump did not end until the massive war mobilization that came during World War II.
- Ford, Reagan tax cuts -
Republican presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan opted to cut taxes when the United States went into recession in the 1970s and 1980s, but with different focuses and outcomes.
In a bid to spur consumption during the 1974-1975 recession, Ford turned to tax credits and an increase in the standard yearly deduction, which the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said caused a consumer-driven recovery.
Reagan, who took office in 1981, asked Congress to cut taxes before the country entered a recession later that year, arguing the benefits would boost investment and consumption and lift the economy.
EPI said Reagan's tax cuts were aimed at the rich and not coupled with other stimulus measures like expanded unemployment benefits.
That led to deeper unemployment before the recession ended in 1983, though EPI said the Federal Reserve's tight monetary policy at the time also played a role.
- Bush tax cuts, rebates -
With the country running a budget surplus and going into recession shortly after he took office, President George W. Bush lowered taxes for all Americans in 2001, then expanded on them in 2003.
The 2001 bill also mailed rebate checks out to taxpayers who had seen their tax burdens lowered, a preview of the stimulus checks of more recent years.
The Bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire in 2010, but after some wrangling between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, a 2012 deal saw about 82 percent of them made permanent while 18 percent expired, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Tax Foundation credited Bush with introducing the idea that the middle class should pay a lower level of tax, an idea that survived the end of his presidency in 2009.
- Bush and Obama in the Great Recession -
Before Bush left office, the country was slammed by a combination of financial and housing catastrophes that became the global financial crisis.
In his final months in office, Bush signed a $152 billion spending bill, two-thirds of which was composed of direct stimulus checks to Americans.
With the downturn worsening after he took office in 2009, Obama oversaw passage of a $831 billion measure that included tax cuts, infrastructure spending, expanded unemployment benefits, aid to states and a limited number of stimulus checks -- all aimed at slowing layoffs and encouraging hiring.
However, those steps were not enough to quell the crisis, and it took some sectors of the economy years to recover from the damage of the recession.
- Covid-19 relief -
As the Covid-19 pandemic caused the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression, President Donald Trump signed off on the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020, which sent out stimulus checks of up to $1,200 to every American, expanded the unemployment safety net and offered loans and grants to small businesses.
The law was meant to get the country through the worst of the pandemic, but as the crisis dragged on with the virus worse than ever, Congress in December approved another $900 billion measure that included $600 stimulus checks and an extension of the pandemic unemployment and small business programs.
As he took office in 2021, Biden urged Congress to pass his $1.9 trillion program, arguing it was necessary to keep the recovery going.
Biden's package would continue funding for many of the earlier programs, pay for a Covid-19 vaccination campaign, dole out checks of up to $1,400 to many Americans, and grant aid to cash-strapped state and local governments.
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Beijing, China | Until recently, few people had even heard of the Chinese billionaire with a gruff reputation who built a fortune on China's seemingly unquenchable demand for his ubiquitous red-capped bottled water.
But reclusive Zhong Shanshan has become Asia's richest man following the stock listings last year of his Nongfu Spring mineral water and separate pharma company Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, which has tapped into massive demand for Covid-19 test kits.
Zhong's net worth has surged to $85 billion and made him the seventh-richest person on the planet, Hurun Report, a China-based compiler of "rich lists", said last week.
Called a "lone wolf" by Chinese media for his rare public appearances and aversion to interviews, Zhong has achieved one of the fastest accumulations of wealth in history, according to Bloomberg.
He became the first Chinese entrepreneur to enter Hurun's top-ten global rich list this year, leaping out of nowhere to put him hot on the heels of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and American investor Warren Buffett.
Not bad for someone who dropped out of school at the age of 12 during the political upheaval of China's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and whose later jobs included bricklayer, carpenter and news reporter, according to Chinese media.
Zhong founded Nongfu Spring in 1996 and still owns an 84 percent stake in the company which, according to market research firm Mintel, holds more than a quarter of the bottled water market in China, where many people avoid tap water over health concerns.
In contrast to charismatic Alibaba founder Jack Ma -- who Zhong dethroned as China's richest man -- little is known about Nongfu's billionaire boss aside from his gruff image.
"I don't have the habit of flattery in my personality," he once told Chinese media in a rare interview.
"I don't like to deal with people and have to drink," he added, referring to a Chinese business culture that encourages excessive wining and dining to cement deals.
His fortunes have risen just as those of Chinese tech companies have slid.
- Political scrutiny -
Ma is now worth a comparatively paltry $55 billion, according to Hurun, after government regulators launched an anti-monopoly investigation into his tech empire, which has pummelled Alibaba's share price and left a massive IPO by financial arm Ant Group in limbo.
Although Alibaba and Nongfu are headquartered in the humming eastern tech hub of Hangzhou, Zhong is not a regular attendee at the city's business events, one local entrepreneur told China Economic Weekly.
A former business partner told state media he once attended an industry conference with Zhong, who "went to the stage to give a speech, and offended everyone as soon as he opened his mouth", without providing details of the offending words.
Alongside Nongfu, which listed last year in Hong Kong, Zhong is also the biggest shareholder in Wantai, which went public in Shanghai.
The group's rapid Covid-19 test gives results in 75 minutes and, according to its website, has shipped more than 10 million kits.
Wantai is also developing a Covid-19 vaccine nasal spray in conjunction with a prominent university.
Wantai is the biopharma arm of Yangshengtang Group, a medical company Zhong founded three years before Nongfu, which specialises in infectious diseases and says it is the largest production base in Asia for HIV diagnostic reagent.
Hurun says the share listings make Zhong one of only a handful of entrepreneurs in the world today to have founded more than one $10 billion business.
Zhong has a stake, investment or board role in more than 100 companies, according to Chinese business data.
But like other high-profile Chinese industrialists, he has to tread a line between commercial success and official scrutiny.
"The Chinese Communist Party wants Chinese businesses to become big and become international, but it also wants to retain some degree of control over them," said Yun Jiang, director of China Policy Centre in Canberra.
She says no high-profile business people can entirely hope to "escape political scrutiny" -- particularly once they appear on rich list rankings.
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Paris, France | SoundCloud announced Tuesday it would become the first streaming service to link subscribers' payments directly to the independent artists they support, a move welcomed by musicians campaigning for fairer pay.
At the moment, streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and Apple put royalty payments into one big pot and dish them out based on which artists have the most global plays.
Many artists and unions argue this system is grossly unfair, giving a huge slice of the pie to mega-stars like Drake and Ariana Grande while leaving almost nothing for lesser-known musicians.
From April 1, SoundCloud will start using a new system in which the royalties taken from each individual subscriber will only go to artists they stream.
However, this will only apply for the roughly 100,000 independent artists who monetise directly through the site. Musicians licenced from major labels will continue to be paid via the traditional pooled method.
SoundCloud said the new payment system -- known as "fan-powered royalties" or a "user-centric model" -- would empower listeners and encourage greater diversity in musical styles.
"Artists are now better equipped to grow their careers by forging deeper connections with their most dedicated fans," the statement said. "Fans can directly influence how their favorite artists are paid."
- 'Distortion in value' -
Major record labels are thought to be resistant to "user-centric" payments, in part because the current system allows them to generate massive profits through a relatively small number of huge stars.
A study by France's National Music Centre earlier this year found that 10 percent of all revenues from Spotify and Deezer go to just 10 artists at the very top.
That has allowed the major labels to amass record revenues over the past year, just as most musicians were thrown into crisis by the cancellation of live tours due to the pandemic.
French streaming platform Deezer, which has been pushing for the user-centric system for months but has been blocked by label resistance, said SoundCloud's scheme was "a great first step".
"Deezer stands ready to launch a full (user-centric payment system) pilot and we look forward to having SoundCloud on our side in convincing the labels to do it," chief content and strategy officer Alexander Holland told AFP.
Earlier this year, label bosses told a British parliamentary commission investigating the streaming economy that it may be too complicated for platforms to shift to fan-based royalty payments.
SoundCloud, which has been trialing the new model for months, said this was exactly wrong -- that its computing calculations took just 20 minutes for user-centric, compared with 23 hours for the pooled model.
"The most important takeaway from SoundCloud's data is that none of the previous modeling has been accurate, that when you actually run a user-centric system, the rewards to artists that have an audience are significantly improved," said Crispin Hunt, chair of the British Ivors Academy. The Academy has been running a campaign to "fix streaming".
"It proves the distortion in value that the existing model delivers," he said.
- 'Interesting initiative' -
The French National Music Centre study, which only used data from Spotify and Deezer, found that changing to fan-based royalties would make only a slight difference to the income of smaller artists.
It would take around 4.5 million euros from the top 10 but distribute it very thinly around lower tiers, it said.
But SoundCloud found it made a significant difference. Using the example of an artist with 124,000 followers, it said they would see an increase in royalties from $120 to $600 per month.
It said the overall effect was that 90 percent of royalty payouts would now be driven by 90 percent of listeners, rather than just 40 percent of listeners under the existing model.
SoundCloud said its positive data may be linked to the particular nature of its users, who tend to be "younger and much more active".
It was launched in Berlin in 2007 as a sort of YouTube for music, allowing anyone to upload their music, from scrappy garage band covers to dubstep DJ sets.
This made it hugely popular, with some 175 million users by 2019. But it struggled to generate revenues and landed in legal trouble over the number of unauthorised remixes and covers on the site.
In 2016, it shifted strategy, signing deals with the major labels to provide a premium service with a catalogue similar to those of its rivals. But it has remained a long way off the customer numbers of Spotify, Amazon and Deezer.
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© Agence France-Presse
Rabat, Morocco |Hollywood's Angelina Jolie and Britain's iconic wartime prime minister Sir Winston Churchill,a keen artist who took inspiration from the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, combined for a March 1 date at Christie's auction house in London.
"The Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque", an oil painting Churchill produced during a World War II visit, sold for £7 million ($9.75 million), smashing expectations it would fetch between £1.5 million and £2.5 million ($2 million and $3.5 million).
Put up for auction by Angelina Jolie, it was vaunted in Christie's catalogue as "Churchill's most important work. Aside from its distinguished provenance, it is the only landscape he made" during the war.
A career army officer before entering politics, Churchill started to paint relatively late, at the age of 40.
His passion for the translucent light of Marrakesh, far from the political storms and drab skies of London, dates back to the 1930s when most of Morocco was a French protectorate, and he went on to make six visits to the North African country over the course of 23 years.
"Here in these spacious palm groves rising from the desert the traveller can be sure of perennial sunshine... and can contemplate with ceaseless satisfaction the stately and snow-clad panorama of the Atlas Mountains," he wrote in 1936 in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
He would set up his easel on the balconies of the grandiose La Mamounia hotel or the city's Villa Taylor, beloved by the European jet set of the 1970s.
It was from the villa, after a historic January 1943 conference in Casablanca with US president Franklin Roosevelt and France's Charles de Gaulle, that he painted what came to be regarded as his finest work, of the minaret behind the ramparts of the Old City, with mountains behind and tiny colourful figures in front.
"You cannot come all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakesh," he is reputed to have told Roosevelt. "I must be with you when you see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains."
A newspaper photograph taken at the time shows the two wartime Allied leaders admiring the sunset.
- 'Truly remarkable panorama' -
After the US delegation had left, Churchill stayed on an extra day and painted the view of the Koutoubia Mosque framed by the mountains.
He sent it to Roosevelt for his birthday.
"This is Churchill's diplomacy at its most personal and intense," said Christie's head of modern British and Irish art, Nick Orchard. "It is not an ordinary gift between leaders. This is soft power, and it is what the special relationship is all about."
Sold by the Roosevelt family in the 1950s, it changed hands several times before passing on to Hollywood dream couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in 2011, well before their high-profile separation.
A second Churchill landscape, "Scene in Marrakesh", painted on his first visit to Morocco in 1935, also went under the hammer at Christie's on Monday.
That was painted while on a stay at Mamounia, where he marvelled at the "truly remarkable panorama over the tops of orange trees and olives", in a letter to his wife Clementine.
The hotel today has a suite and a bar named after its illustrious guest.
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Stockholm, Sweden | One of the best-known modern technologies owes its name and logo to a Viking-era king with a bad tooth: a quarter century ago, two engineers hatched the idea for the moniker "Bluetooth" over beers.
At the end of the 1990s, Sven Mattisson, a Swedish engineer working at telecom group Ericsson, and Jim Kardach, an American employed by Intel, were among those developing the revolutionary technology.
In 1998, at the dawn of the "wireless" era, the two men were part of an international consortium that created a universal standard for the technology first developed by Ericsson in 1994.
But prior to that, they had struggled to pitch their wireless products.
Intel had its Biz-RF wireless programme, Ericsson had MC-Link, while Nokia had its Low Power RF. Kardach, Mattisson and others presented their ideas at a seminar in Toronto in late 1997.
"Jim and I said that people did not appreciate what we presented," Mattisson, now 65 and winding down his career at Ericsson, recalled in a recent interview with AFP.
The engineer, who had travelled all the way to Canada from Sweden for the one-hour pitch, decided to hang out with Kardach for the evening before flying home.
"We received a lukewarm reception of our confusing proposal, and it was at this time I realised we needed a codename for the project which everyone could use," Kardach explained in a long account on his webpage.
- 'Chauvinistic story' –
To drown their sorrows, the two men headed for a local Toronto bar and ended up talking about history, one of Kardach's passions.
"We had some beers... and Jim is interested in history so he asked me about Vikings, so we talked at length about that," said Mattisson, admitting that his recollection of that historic night is now somewhat foggy.
Kardach said all he knew about Vikings was that they ran "around with horned helmets raiding and looting places, and that they were crazy chiefs."
Mattisson recommended Kardach read a well-known Swedish historical novel about the Vikings, entitled "The Long Ships".
Set in the 10th century -- "a chauvinistic story" about a boy taken hostage by Vikings, says Mattisson -- one name in the book caught Kardach's attention: that of the king of Denmark, Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson.
- Unification –
An important historic figure in Scandinavia in the 10th century, the king of Denmark's nickname is said to refer to a dead tooth, or, as other tales have it, to his liking for blueberries or even a simple translation error.
During his reign, Denmark turned its back on its pagan beliefs and Norse gods, gradually converting to Christianity.
But he is best known for having united Norway and Denmark in a union that lasted until 1814.
A king who unified Scandinavian rivals -- the parallel delighted those seeking to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.
And the reference to the king goes beyond the name: the Bluetooth logo, which at first glance resembles a geometric squiggle, is in fact a superimposition of the runes for the letters "H" and "B", the king's initials.
Low-cost and with low power consumption, Bluetooth was finally launched in May 1998, using technology allowing computer devices to communicate with each other in short range without fixed cables.
The first consumer device equipped with the technology hit the market in 1999, and its name, which was initially meant to be temporary until something better was devised, became permanent.
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Dakhla Oasis, Egypt | Surrounded by thousands of live scorpions in a laboratory deep in Egypt's Western Desert, Ahmed Abu al-Seoud carefully handles one of the curved-tailed arachnids before extracting a drop of its venom.
A mechanical engineer who worked in the oil sector for almost two decades, Abu al-Seoud decided in 2018 to strike a different path -- producing scorpion venom for pharmaceutical research purposes.
"I was surfing the internet and saw scorpion venom was one of the most expensive on the market," said the 44-year-old, clad in a white lab coat.
"So I thought to myself: Why not take advantage of this desert environment where they roam around?"
Biomedical researchers are studying the pharmaceutical properties of scorpion venom, making the rare and potent neurotoxin a highly sought-after commodity now produced in several Middle Eastern countries.
"Dozens of scorpion-derived bioactive molecules have been shown to possess promising pharmacological properties," said a review published last May in the journal Biomedicines.
It said labs are now studying its potential anti-microbial, immuno-suppressive and anti-cancer effects, among others, hoping to one day use or synthesise them for medicines.
Abu al-Seoud is from the Dakhla oasis, located in Egypt's vast New Valley province and around 800 kilometres (500 miles) southwest of the capital Cairo.
Sand dunes and towering palms surround his laboratory, which he affectionately calls the "Scorpion Kingdom".
"Here, every family has a story about a scorpion sting," Abu al-Seoud said.
To get the animals to secrete venom in the controlled conditions of the lab, the scorpions are given a slight electric shock.
Workers wait 20-30 days between extractions to obtain the highest quality venom.
"What matters is the level of purity," Abu al-Seoud said, adding that one gram requires the venom of 3,000-3,500 scorpions.
- Deathstalker -
The liquid is refrigerated and transported to Cairo, where it is dried and packaged for sale as powder.
The laboratory "is certified (by the government) and has the ability to export this unique product", said 25-year-old Nahla Abdel-Hameed, a pharmacist who works at the centre.
Abdel-Hameed referred to some scientific studies that explored the healing benefits of the venom in curing certain diseases.
Mohey Hafez, a member of the pharmaceutical chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, was more cautious in his assessment of its current uses.
"Scorpion and snake venoms can be used in making antisera," he explained to AFP.
"There is no ready-made medication that entirely depends on the venom as a direct ingredient, but there has been promising research into its uses".
New Valley province boasts around five different species of scorpions, including the sought-after deathstalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus), whose venom sells for up to $7,500 per gram, according to Abu al-Seoud.
While he himself also catches the creatures, he employs residents of nearby villages for the risky activity, equipping them with gloves, tweezers, boots, UV lights -- and antivenom.
The scorpion hunters earn one to 1.5 Egyptian pounds (around six to 10 cents) per animal.
Pharmacist Abdel-Hameed said the arachnids are caught in residential areas so as not to harm "the ecological balance".
"I classify them according to the area where they were caught, the species and size," she said.
Her colleague Iman Abdel-Malik said that although the scorpions could go without eating for long periods, they were given "food and protein to increase the toxin excretion" -- comprised of cockroaches and worms twice a month in the summer, and less during the winter hibernation.
- 'Bad reputation' -
There are plans to breed the scorpions in the future rather than catching them, the veterinarian aged in her 20s added.
About 20,000 of the animals have been collected so far, according to business partner Alaa Sabaa, while the lab has a maximum capacity of 80,000.
He said the first scorpion venom extractions took place in December and January after two years of preparations, and yielded "three grams of venom".
The self-financed project has so far cost about five million pounds, or around $320,000, he said, and has also attracted government support.
They also extract bee venom and sell agricultural products, including aromatic plants.
While Egypt has been producing various types of venom for years, Abu al-Seoud said, it was often done illegally or was of poor quality.
He said he hoped his operation would one day be an antidote to the country's "bad reputation" in the sector.
"We are trying to show off the country's capabilities... through a high-quality product that has been studied scientifically as well as produced and exported legally," he said.
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© Agence France-Presse
