Mozambique Prime Minister Tipped for Global Health Post

news possible design changes needed to the probe, and how the size and surface of the target comet will affect the lander’s Mozambique prime minister descent plan. Rosetta’s planners currently seem to tipped for global health post favour a spring 2004 launch that would

allow targeting of the comet Churyumov– Declan Butler, Paris AP Gerasimenko; other possible windows An African official is emerging as the front- would allow visits to the comets Howell, runner to succeed Gro Harlem Brundtland Finlay, Schwassmann–Wachmann 2 and as director-general of the World Health Wild-2. Launch dates for these options Organization (WHO) in May. cannot be firmly defined until scientists If he is elected, Mozambique’s prime at ESA’s Operations Centre in Darm- minister Pascoal Mocumbi will be the first stadt, Germany, take ESTEC’s proposals African to head the WHO. The chances that and work out the various possible tra- Mocumbi will win a secret ballot of the jectories to get the craft to its potential WHO’s 32-strong executive board to be held targets. But these targets might not be next week increased after his strongest reachable until 2015 — a painful delay African rival, former Senegalese health min- for those involved in a mission for which ister Awa Marie Coll-Seck, withdrew from planning began in 1993. the contest. Mocumbi says that he would Pascoal Mocumbi (left) and Peter Piot are in the Rosetta teams will meet on 13 Febru- resign from his current position if appointed running to head the World Health Organization. ary to consider possible solutions to the to lead the Geneva-based organization. problem, before presenting them to ESA’s Others shortlisted are Julio Frenk Mora, Critics of the election process say that it Science Programme Committee on 26 Mexico’s health minister; Peter Piot, a former reflects the highly politicized workings of February. But the crunch will come in AIDS researcher who now heads the Joint many international agencies during the cold May, when ESA will select one of the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); war, and should be replaced by a more open options — and decide how to pay for it. Jong Wook Lee, a physician from South and merit-based contest when the next Southwood estimates that the delay Korea, who heads the WHO’s tuberculosis director-general is elected in 2008. will inflate the mission’s E1-billion programme; and former Egyptian health Under pressure to fight an open cam- (US$1-billion) price tag by a further minister Ismail Sallam. The World Health paign, candidates initially agreed to take part E50 million–100 million. Assembly is expected to endorse the board’s in a two-hour question-and-answer session ESA may ask its member states to choice when it meets in Geneva in May. on 19 January, set up by non-governmental make a one-off contribution to cover this, The WHO is under strong pressure to end organizations and the Interactive Health Net- although with national space budgets the political horse-trading that traditionally work’s World Health Channel, and broadcast under pressure, this may not be forthcom- characterizes its elections. This time, The live on the Internet. But several of the candi- ing (see previous page). That could force Lancet and the New York-based Rockefeller dates pulled out of the session. the agency to make cuts elsewhere in its Foundation have organized a campaign Each candidate has, however, taken up science programme — possibly including to introduce greater openness into what The Lancet’s challenge to provide detailed the cancellation of Venus Express, ESA’s they describe as the “secret and generally responses on its website to ten questions planned 2005 mission to Venus. unaccountable process” of the election. about the WHO’s future direction.

Bushfires annihilate Australian observatory

Carina Dennis, Sydney Observatory, which lies at the western Schmidt to digitally map the southern sky. One of Australia’s premier observatories has outskirts of the city, on 18 January, melting The observatory’s construction been destroyed by bushfires that have raged telescope housings, incinerating workshops workshops were destroyed in the blaze, for days in and around the nation’s capital, and destroying precious archives. including those that were to be used for a Canberra. Flames engulfed Mount Stromlo “It looks like it has been firebombed,” A$6.3-million contract to build an imager says Brian Schmidt, a research fellow at the for the Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Australian National University’s astronomy A A$5-million near-infrared integral field ANU school in Canberra, which operates the spectrograph for the Gemini North observatory. “All our active telescopes have Telescope in Hawaii, which was ready for been destroyed.” shipment, was also damaged. No astronomers were killed or injured in Historical records have been lost, the fires — which caused four deaths and including drawings of astronomical objects, injured hundreds in the area — but several some dating from the nineteenth century. of their homes near the observatory were But buildings containing computers and destroyed. Preliminary estimates value the databases were spared. “Our current research observatory’s losses at more than A$20 data seem to be intact,” says Schmidt. million (US$12 million), although Schmidt The Australian National University has thinks the final figure could be twice as much. already given assurances that the observatory Gutted: the charred remains of Mount Stromlo Many research projects have been cut will be rebuilt, with resources and facilities Observatory — remarkably, some data survived. short or temporarily halted by the fire, made available to researchers to fulfil including a five-year programme led by equipment contracts in the interim.