A great part of a journalist’s life is about meeting with contacts, conducting interviews, travelling to different parts of the country and the world.
Covid-19 upended all aspects of normality, including how journalists do their jobs. One such journalist is The New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman.
The author who coined the term “the Earth is flat” says that the new reality we are living in means “the world is flatter than ever”.
Reflecting on the year, Mr Friedman is the guest for this episode of “My 2020”, and says: “Mother Nature got the whole world in her hands. Unless you were alive in 1918, and are now 103. No member of our generation of human species has been around when she, Mother Nature, had all of us in her grip. All of us everywhere, are facing the same challenge”.
What is important are the lessons we take from this pandemic.
And he also believes “we're on the cusp of the most amazing era of creative destruction in human history ... Never before have more people around the world had access to cheap tools of innovation”.
Mr Friedman says we will witness the “rapid acceleration of digitisation of the economy. And it's going to be very destabilising, and very amazing”.
But Covid-19 isn’t the only major development in the US this year. The Black Lives Matter and presidential elections have had a profound impact on the US.
“My hometown of Minneapolis has been ground zero for the whole emergence of the this really deep debate we're having about structural racism America. I was actually born two miles from where George Floyd was killed. And I don't have to tell you about America ... how destabilised we are. And so that's been very disorienting for me, I'm looking for a quiet place in my head, which I kind of need. And I don't quite have it right now”.
“My 2020” is a seven-part series, hosted by Mina Al-Oraibi, The National's Editor-in-Chief, speaking to leaders on how their lives and industries have been changed by Covid-19.
Ways to control drones
Countries have been coming up with ways to restrict and monitor the use of non-commercial drones to keep them from trespassing on controlled areas such as airports.
"Drones vary in size and some can be as big as a small city car - so imagine the impact of one hitting an airplane. It's a huge risk, especially when commercial airliners are not designed to make or take sudden evasive manoeuvres like drones can" says Saj Ahmed, chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research.
New measures have now been taken to monitor drone activity, Geo-fencing technology is one.
It's a method designed to prevent drones from drifting into banned areas. The technology uses GPS location signals to stop its machines flying close to airports and other restricted zones.
The European commission has recently announced a blueprint to make drone use in low-level airspace safe, secure and environmentally friendly. This process is called “U-Space” – it covers altitudes of up to 150 metres. It is also noteworthy that that UK Civil Aviation Authority recommends drones to be flown at no higher than 400ft. “U-Space” technology will be governed by a system similar to air traffic control management, which will be automated using tools like geo-fencing.
The UAE has drawn serious measures to ensure users register their devices under strict new laws. Authorities have urged that users must obtain approval in advance before flying the drones, non registered drone use in Dubai will result in a fine of up to twenty thousand dirhams under a new resolution approved by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai.
Mr Ahmad suggest that "Hefty fines running into hundreds of thousands of dollars need to compensate for the cost of airport disruption and flight diversions to lengthy jail spells, confiscation of travel rights and use of drones for a lengthy period" must be enforced in order to reduce airport intrusion.
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