A Glitch at Microsoft Causes Global Shutdown; Russia and China Not Affected
A glitch at Microsoft has caused global disruption to air traffic control systems worldwide. Air traffic control has shut down air traffic from the US, the UK, Spain, Germany, Australia, and many others.
A software update that locks Microsoft operating systems and is not exclusive to aeroplanes may have been the reason for the incident. There are also reports of affected broadcasters, banks, emergency services, and financial organisations.
The outage has reportedly impacted the London Stock Exchange, the British news network SkyNews, the Irish airline Ryanair, Aena, Spain’s primary airport operator, and other entities.
Russia and China were not affected. This underscores the necessity for a multipolar system that prevents overdependence on any single country. The global south’s overreliance on the West and US systems, such as Visa, Mastercard, Microsoft, GPS, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Starlink, and nearly all other software, threatens independent countries’ independence. China and Russia are more or less disconnected from such a reliance and, hence, unaffected.
A multipolar world cannot exist with a continuous dependence on the US and Western systems for survival. Africa is too dependent on the US and the West. A single sanction could cripple the continent. A shift to BRICS and a gradual disconnection from the US and its unipolar components in Europe are required. Otherwise, such dependence may come to bite in the long run.
By Ikechukwu ORJI
