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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Could exoplanet be a haven for life?

Paris (AFP) May 16, 2011

Scientists said on Monday a rocky world orbiting a nearby star was confirmed as the first planet outside our solar system to meet key requirements for sustaining life.

Modelling of planet Gliese 581d shows it has the potential to be warm and wet enough to nurture Earth-like life, they said.

It orbits a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, located around 20 light years from Earth, which makes it one of our closest neighbors.

Gliese 581d orbits on the outer fringes of the star's "Goldilocks zone," where it is not so hot that water boils away, nor so cold that water is perpetually frozen. Instead, the temperature is just right for water to exist in liquid form.

"With a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere -- a likely scenario on such a large planet -- the climate of Gliese 581d is not only stable against collapse but warm enough to have oceans, clouds and rainfall," France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a press release.

More than 500 planets orbiting other stars have been recorded since 1995, detected mostly by a tiny wobble in stellar light.

Exoplanets are named after their star and listed alphabetically, in order of discovery.

Until now, the big interest in Gliese 581's roster of planets focused on Gliese 581g.

It leapt into the headlines last year as "Zarmina's World," after its observers announced it had roughly the same mass as Earth's and was also close to the Goldilocks zone.

But that discovery has since been discounted by many. Indeed, some experts suspect that the Gliese 581g may not even exist but was simply a hiccup in starlight.

Its big brother, Gliese 581d, has a mass at least seven times that of Earth and is about twice our planet's size, according to the new study, which appears in a British publication, The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The planet, spotted in 2007, had initially been dismissed as a candidate in the hunt for life.

It receives less than a third of the solar radiation Earth gets, and may be "tidally locked," meaning that one side of it always faces the sun, which would give it permanent dayside and nightside.

But the new model, devised by CNRS climate scientists Robin Wordsworth, Francois Forget and colleagues, showed surprising potential.

Its atmosphere would store heat well, thanks to its dense CO2, a greenhouse gas. And the red light from the star would also penetrate the atmosphere and warm the surface.

"In all cases, the temperatures allow for the presence of liquid water on the surface," say the researchers.

For budding travelers, though, Gliese 581d would "still be a pretty strange place to visit," the CNRS said.

"The denser air and thick clouds would keep the surface in a perpetual murky red twilight, and its large mass means that surface gravity would be around double that on Earth."

Getting to the planet would still require a sci-fi breakthrough in travel for earthlings.

A spaceship traveling close to light speed would take more than 20 years to get there, while our present rocket technology would take 300,000 years.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Could_exoplanet_be_a_haven_for_life_999.html.

Warrant out for Iraq's Allawi?

KUT, Iraq, May 16 (UPI) -- Tehran claimed an Iraqi court has issued an arrest warrant for former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, though his party denied the allegation.

Allawi is at loggerheads with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over the shape of the Iraqi government. Allawi's party, Iraqiya, lays claim to several ministerial positions in the Maliki Cabinet, though many top positions in the government remain to be filled with new names.

A source told Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency on condition of anonymity that a court issued an arrest warrant for Allawi following a complaint made by a former member of the Iraqi Parliament.

A representative of Allawi's party denied the claims that an arrest warrant was issued, though there was a case filed against the former leader in Iraq's western Wasit province.

Maliki threatened in April to dissolve the government amid political wrangling that has lingered since parliamentary elections in March 2010.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/05/16/Warrant-out-for-Iraqs-Allawi/UPI-64091305560276/.

Ivory Coast needs help securing border

YAMOUSSOUKRO, Ivory Coast, May 16 (UPI) -- The Ivorian government has invited members of the international community to help secure the border with Liberia, the prime minister's office said.

The government in Ivory Coast appealed for the estimated 160,000 refugees in Liberia to return home as the country tries to recover from a political stalemate that left hundreds dead.

Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo was arrested last month at a compound in the commercial capital Abidjan. Gbagbo refused to surrender power despite international recognition that Alassane Ouattara won a November election.

At least 220 civilians were killed by pro-Gbagbo forces and Liberian mercenaries while fleeing to Liberia after the former president's arrest. Patrick Achi, a spokesman for the Ivorian government, said the international community was called on to help secure the Liberian border, Bloomberg News reports.

The Ivorian Defense Ministry said that most of the victims were singled out for ethnic reasons or because they lived in parts of country typically considered supportive of Ouattara.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast added that U.N. Security Council had recently extended its mandate.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/05/16/Ivory-Coast-needs-help-securing-border/UPI-33691305556009/.

Iran helped Damascus suppress rebellion?

AHVAZ, Iran, May 16 (UPI) -- Iranian military forces are training Syrian troops to help put down a wave of deadly demonstrations across the country, an Iranian opposition leader said.

Syrian troops are roaming the streets of the country to curb anti-government demonstrations that have raged throughout the country. Hundreds of people have been killed or injured in the protests.

Ammar al-Qurabi, the head of Syria's National Organization of Human Rights, told Asharq al-Awsat during the weekend that Syrian authorities have turned the country into a "huge prison."

Nasir Jabr, a spokesman for the opposition Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz in western Iran, told the pan-Arab daily newspaper that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps have been training Syrian forces since 2009.

"The Revolutionary Guards Corps currently provides the latest military training for the forces of (Syrian President) Bashar Assad and helps them with tactics to bring the protests in Syrian cities under control," he was quoted as saying.

Some regional observers note the Syrian upheaval is reminiscent of the Iranian response to the political unrest that greeted the 2009 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The opposition leader said Tehran was anxious to see the Syrian regime remain intact.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/05/16/Iran-helped-Damascus-suppress-rebellion/UPI-15221305556269/.

Moroccan police quell Temara protest

2011-05-16

At least 10 people were wounded in clashes with Moroccan police on Sunday (May 15th) during a demonstration in Temara, AFP reported. Some 100 activists from the February 20th Youth Movement tried to reach the headquarters of the national intelligence services to protest alleged human rights violations at the site's detention center.

The Moroccan National Press Union (SNPM) denounced the "aggression" used by security forces against journalists covering the Temara rally, MAP reported Sunday. The union called on journalists, politicians and human rights defenders to protest the "repressive behavior" at a sit-in on Thursday.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/05/16/newsbrief-06.

Italy upgrades Palestine's diplomatic status

Monday 16/05/2011

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said Monday that Rome would upgrade Palestine's representation to a full diplomatic mission.

During a visit to Bethlehem, Napolitano said the head of the mission would have the status of an ambassador.

At a joint press conference, President Mahmoud Abbas thanked his Italian counterpart for upgrading Palestinian diplomatic status and for Rome's commitment to a peaceful settlement in the Middle East.

France, Portugal, Norway, Greece, Spain and Ireland have all elevated Palestine's diplomatic representation in their capitals.

Following his meeting with Napolitano, Abbas said that 63 years after Palestinians were forced from their homes in what is now Israel, there was still an opportunity for a historic solution.

But Palestinians could not return to negotiations while Israel continued to build illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land, Abbas said.

The president said that Israel deepened the occupation by building settlements on land which would be a Palestinian state in a peace agreement.

The Palestinian leadership accepted the 2002 Road Map, which called on Israel to stop building settlements, and tried to move on after the Annapolis conference in 2007, reaching understandings with the previous Israeli government, Abbas said.

However, the current Israeli administration was "putting everything on hold," he said.

Abbas said the Israeli government was launching a media campaign to discredit the recent reconciliation of Palestinian factions in Cairo. He noted that Israeli leaders had previously said that peace was impossible because of Palestinians' division.

Israel must realize that "our people will not fade away," even after decades of occupation, the president said.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=388321.