DDMA Headline Animator

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Egypt's Mubarak begins Gulf tour

Tue, 23 Nov 2010

Cairo - Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak left for the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, on his first leg of a Gulf tour for political and trade talks.

Mubarak, who heads a ministerial delegation, will also head to Qatar and Bahrain during the two-day visit.

His meetings with the leaders of the three countries will focus on promoting trade cooperation, economic development and to strengthen communication between investors.

They will also discuss the Middle East peace process and developments in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Sudan, as well as security in the Gulf region.

It is Mubarak's first visit to Doha since 2006. The 82-year old recently went to Germany for an operation, and his health is subject to speculation.

Relations strained between Egypt and Qatar in the wake of the Israeli war on Gaza as the state-funded Qatari channel, al-Jazeera, spearheaded a critical campaign against the Egyptian position.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354775,egypts-mubarak-gulf-tour.html.

NASA argues for extra 2011 shuttle mission

by Staff Writers
Huntsville, Ala. (UPI) Nov 22, 2010

NASA should fly an extra shuttle mission to the International Space Station
in 2011 as commercial spacecraft are likely to be delayed, the agency's head says.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made the remarks at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., while addressing NASA employees last week, SPACE.com reported Monday.

"We are hoping to fly a third shuttle mission in June, what everybody calls the launch-on-need mission ... and that's really needed to [reduce] the risk for the development time for commercial cargo," Bolden said.

"If there's any delay in ... delivery of commercial capability to take cargo to station, we could find ourselves in a situation as bad as having to de-man the station or take it down to three people, and we really don't want to do that," Bolden said.

NASA intends to rely on commercially operated space transportation systems to deliver cargo and eventually astronauts to the space station after it retires its shuttle fleet next year.

But development of privately owned rockets and spacecraft designed to ferry cargo to the orbiting outpost is taking longer than expected.

The commercial development of cargo delivery systems is being carried out under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

Source: Space Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NASA_argues_for_extra_2011_shuttle_mission_999.html.

Russia To Start Work On Nuclear Space Engine Next Year

by Staff Writers
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Nov 24, 2010

Russia's Energia space corporation said on Tuesday it is planning to start working on standardized space modules with nuclear-powered propulsion systems next year.

Energia director Vitaly Lopota said the first launches with a capacity of 150 to 500 KW could be made some time in 2020.

Federal Space Agency Roscosmos director Anatoly Perminov previously said the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial if Russia wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the moon and Mars.

The project will require an estimated 17 billion rubles (over $580 million) in funding.

Energia earlier said it is also ready to design a space-based nuclear power station with a service life of 10-15 years, to be initially placed on the moon or Mars.

It is also working on a concept of a nuclear-powered space tug, which could more than halve satellite launching and orbiting costs.

Source: Space Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Russia_To_Start_Work_On_Nuclear_Space_Engine_Next_Year_999.html.

Religious leaders dispute US report's depiction of Jordan

By Hani Hazaimeh

AMMAN - Religious freedom and coexistence in Jordan set an example of tolerance in the region and the world, Muslim and Christian leaders said on Monday in response to a US State Department report on religious freedoms issued last week.

The report claimed that "while relations between Muslims and Christians generally were good, adherents of unrecognized religions and Muslims who converted to other religions faced societal discrimination and the threat of mental and physical abuse".

"The government continued to harass some citizens and resident foreign groups suspected of proselytizing Muslims and a few Muslim converts to Christianity, including by attempting to induce them to revert to Islam," the document added, "but the intensity of the harassment declined during the reporting period".

Father Nabil Haddad, head of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center, said in remarks to The Jordan Times yesterday that although the report highlighted efforts made by the government to establish coexistence and tolerance in the country and encourage dialogue between different religious groups at the international level, it cited individual cases that should not have been used to build a judgment concerning coexistence between Muslims and Christians in the Kingdom.

According to the report’s authors, Jordan’s application of Sharia (Islamic law) “infringes upon the religious rights and freedoms laid out in the Constitution by prohibiting conversion from Islam and discriminating against religious minorities in some matters relating to family law”.

In response, Father Haddad argued that discrimination on religious grounds does not exist in the country, where both Muslims and Christians share the same rights and responsibilities under the Constitution.

“We have never had any difficulties in setting up churches or religious schools to teach our congregation the rituals of Christianity,” the Christian leader said.

An Islamic cleric and politician agreed.

“Muslims and Christians constitute an integral component of the Jordanian fabric. We are one people and we have never had any problems with coexistence,” said Hamzah Mansour, secretary general of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

“We in the IAF and the Muslim Brotherhood have strong ties with our Christian brothers. We see ourselves as representatives and defenders of the interests of all Jordanians regardless of their religious affiliations,” Mansour told The Jordan Times yesterday.

The report acknowledged that neither the Constitution, the Penal Code, nor civil law bans conversion from Islam or efforts to proselytize Muslims, but said the government prohibits conversion from Islam in that it accords primacy to Islamic law, which governs Muslims’ personal status and prohibits them from converting.

Religious leaders argued, however, that resistance to foreign missionary activity in the Kingdom is in fact something on which Jordanian Muslims and Christians agree.

“Any group who comes from outside the country to tamper with the country’s faith will be resisted by Christians even before Muslims. Such acts have been rejected by Christian denominations in Jordan in the past,” Mansour noted.

Father Haddad agreed, adding: “There is a unified stance by all leaders of recognized churches in Jordan regarding missionary groups. We reject any missionary activity by foreign groups.”

23 November 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=32010.