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Friday, November 4, 2011

OIC Continues Efforts to Release Salah

14/7/2011

CAIRO, July 14, 2011 (WAFA) - The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said Thursday that its Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has continued his communications with the British government to release Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic movement's northern branch in Israel, who was arrested on June 28 in London.

In a statement, the OIC said Ihsanoglu had a long phone call with the British Minister, Baroness Warsi where they discussed Salah’s case. The secretary-general urged her to take fast action to end Salah’s arrest.

According to the statement, Ihsanoglu said that the significant improvement in relations between OIC and the UK, and the interest by the British government in the rights of the Palestinian people, both call for immediate action, in addition to respecting the feelings of Palestinians and the Islamic world as a whole.

The minister expressed her understanding for Ihsanoglu’s position but said that the British justice will take its course with integrity and objectivity.

Ihsanoglu had sent Warsi a letter last week urging her to intervene to release Salah, and had conducted several communications with the British government to discuss the matter.

Source: WAFA.
Link: http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=16707.

Japan PM urges nuclear-free future

Tokyo (AFP)
July 13, 2011

Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Wednesday that the country must gradually reduce its reliance on atomic power with the eventual goal of becoming nuclear-free.

Four months after the March 11 quake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident, the world's worst since Chernobyl 25 years ago, Kan has argued that Japan must boost solar, wind and other renewables.

Speaking in a televised press conference, the embattled premier said: "By reducing reliance on nuclear power gradually, we will aim to become a society which can exist without nuclear power."

Kan had earlier announced a full review of Japan's energy plan, under which atomic power had been set to meet over half of demand by 2030, up from about one third before the massive quake disaster.

But the premier went a step further Wednesday by outlining his goal of the eventual closure of all the more than 50 nuclear reactors in the quake-prone island nation, although he did not give a timeline.

"Considering the grave risk of nuclear accidents, we strongly feel that we cannot just carry on based on the belief that we must only try to ensure (nuclear) safety," he said.

Speaking about the Fukushima accident, which has forced the evacuation of over 80,000 people, he said "it may take five years, 10 years or longer to reach the final stage of decommissioning the reactors".

The premier, a one-time environmental activist, has said he wants to make clean energy sources a new "major pillar" of the energy mix of the world's third biggest economy and major export powerhouse.

"If everything goes as scheduled, a renewable energy bill will be discussed in the Diet (legislature) starting tomorrow," Kan said.

The premier, Japan's fifth in as many years, made the speech at a time when he is under intense pressure to step down from political adversaries who accuse him of having bungled Japan's response to the tsunami disaster.

Kan has butted heads with plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) over the Fukushima accident, and his energy stance has set him on a collision course with pro-nuclear lawmakers and bureaucrats.

With nearly two-thirds of Japan's 54 reactors now shut, mostly for regular checks, Japan is going through a power crunch in the sweltering summer months, and there are fears that outages could slow the already limping economy.

The premier said that "with energy saving efforts, it will be possible to supply all the necessary electricity this summer and winter".

Kan also again suggested that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the industry watchdog, has lacked teeth as it is part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which promotes nuclear power.

"There are many reasons we could not prevent the accident, but in terms of the administrative system, it has always been pointed out that NISA belongs to the industry ministry, which takes the position of promoting nuclear power, as one of the main reasons for not enabling thorough safety checks," he said.

Kan said that NISA will be separated from the ministry, and stressed that a second body, the Nuclear Safety Commission, will cooperate with it in carrying out "stress tests" on all of Japan's nuclear plants.

Anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan has grown since the Fukushima disaster, and many thousands have since protested at a string of rallies against TEPCO and nuclear power and for a shift toward alternative energy.

Radiation fears have mounted this week on news that contaminated beef from six cows at a farm just outside the Fukushima nuclear no-go zone has been shipped across the country and that much of it had likely been eaten.

Telecom giant Softbank has announced plans to build 10 large-scale solar power plants. Its president Masayoshi Son and 36 of Japan's 47 prefectures launched an alliance on Wednesday aimed at boosting renewables.

The mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun daily earlier Wednesday called for a shift toward a nuclear-free society within two or three decades.

The liberal newspaper suggested in its editorial: "How about setting a target of reducing (atomic power) to zero within 20 years, to urge people to make their utmost efforts, and to review the plan every few years?"

Source: Nuclear Power Daily.
Link: http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Japan_PM_urges_nuclear-free_future_999.html.

Why Are Your Tax Dollars Funding Secret CIA Prisons in Somalia?

July 13, 2011
Jeremy Scahill

An investigation in Somalia uncovers secret sites that include counterterrorism training for Somali intelligence agencies and secret prisons, operated by the CIA.

Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.

The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. “In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.”

According to well-connected Somali sources, the CIA is reluctant to deal directly with Somali political leaders, who are regarded by US officials as corrupt and untrustworthy. Instead, the United States has Somali intelligence agents on its payroll. Somali sources with knowledge of the program described the agents as lining up to receive $200 monthly cash payments from Americans. “They support us in a big way financially,” says the senior Somali intelligence official. “They are the largest [funder] by far.”

According to former detainees, the underground prison, which is staffed by Somali guards, consists of a long corridor lined with filthy small cells infested with bedbugs and mosquitoes. One said that when he arrived in February, he saw two white men wearing military boots, combat trousers, gray tucked-in shirts and black sunglasses. The former prisoners described the cells as windowless and the air thick, moist and disgusting. Prisoners, they said, are not allowed outside. Many have developed rashes and scratch themselves incessantly. Some have been detained for a year or more. According to one former prisoner, inmates who had been there for long periods would pace around constantly, while others leaned against walls rocking.

A Somali who was arrested in Mogadishu and taken to the prison told The Nation that he was held in a windowless underground cell. Among the prisoners he met during his time there was a man who held a Western passport (he declined to identify the man’s nationality). Some of the prisoners told him they were picked up in Nairobi and rendered on small aircraft to Mogadishu, where they were handed over to Somali intelligence agents. Once in custody, according to the senior Somali intelligence official and former prisoners, some detainees are freely interrogated by US and French agents. “Our goal is to please our partners, so we get more [out] of them, like any relationship,” said the Somali intelligence official in describing the policy of allowing foreign agents, including from the CIA, to interrogate prisoners. The Americans, according to the Somali official, operate unilaterally in the country, while the French agents are embedded within the African Union force known as AMISOM.

Among the men believed to be held in the secret underground prison is Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan, a 25- or 26-year-old Kenyan citizen who disappeared from the congested Somali slum of Eastleigh in Nairobi around July 2009. After he went missing, Hassan’s family retained Mbugua Mureithi, a well-known Kenyan human rights lawyer, who filed a habeas petition on his behalf. The Kenyan government responded that Hassan was not being held in Kenya and said it had no knowledge of his whereabouts. His fate remained a mystery until this spring, when another man who had been held in the Mogadishu prison contacted Clara Gutteridge, a veteran human rights investigator with the British legal organization Reprieve, and told her he had met Hassan in the prison. Hassan, he said, had told him how Kenyan police had knocked down his door, snatched him and taken him to a secret location in Nairobi. The next night, Hassan had said, he was rendered to Mogadishu.

According to the former fellow prisoner, Hassan told him that his captors took him to Wilson Airport: “‘They put a bag on my head, Guantánamo style. They tied my hands behind my back and put me on a plane. In the early hours we landed in Mogadishu. The way I realized I was in Mogadishu was because of the smell of the sea—the runway is just next to the seashore. The plane lands and touches the sea. They took me to this prison, where I have been up to now. I have been here for one year, seven months. I have been interrogated so many times. Interrogated by Somali men and white men. Every day. New faces show up. They have nothing on me. I have never seen a lawyer, never seen an outsider. Only other prisoners, interrogators, guards. Here there is no court or tribunal.’”

After meeting the man who had spoken with Hassan in the underground prison, Gutteridge began working with Hassan’s Kenyan lawyers to determine his whereabouts. She says he has never been charged or brought before a court. “Hassan’s abduction from Nairobi and rendition to a secret prison in Somalia bears all the hallmarks of a classic US rendition operation,” she says. The US official interviewed for this article denied the CIA had rendered Hassan but said, “The United States provided information which helped get Hassan—a dangerous terrorist—off the street.” Human Rights Watch and Reprieve have documented that Kenyan security and intelligence forces have facilitated scores of renditions for the US and other governments, including eighty-five people rendered to Somalia in 2007 alone. Gutteridge says the director of the Mogadishu prison told one of her sources that Hassan had been targeted in Nairobi because of intelligence suggesting he was the “right-hand man” of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, at the time a leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa. Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen of Yemeni descent, was among the top suspects sought for questioning by US authorities over his alleged role in the coordinated 2002 attacks on a tourist hotel and an Israeli aircraft in Mombasa, Kenya, and possible links to the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

An intelligence report leaked by the Kenyan Anti-Terrorist Police Unit in October 2010 alleged that Hassan, a “former personal assistant to Nabhan…was injured while fighting near the presidential palace in Mogadishu in 2009.” The authenticity of the report cannot be independently confirmed, though Hassan did have a leg amputated below the knee, according to his former fellow prisoner in Mogadishu.

Two months after Hassan was allegedly rendered to the secret Mogadishu prison, Nabhan, the man believed to be his Al Qaeda boss, was killed in the first known targeted killing operation in Somalia authorized by President Obama. On September 14, 2009, a team from the elite US counterterrorism force, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), took off by helicopters from a US Navy ship off Somalia’s coast and penetrated Somali airspace. In broad daylight, in an operation code-named Celestial Balance, they gunned down Nabhan’s convoy from the air. JSOC troops then landed and collected at least two of the bodies, including Nabhan’s.

Hassan’s lawyers are preparing to file a habeas petition on his behalf in US courts. “Hassan’s case suggests that the US may be involved in a decentralized, out-sourced Guantánamo Bay in central Mogadishu,” his legal team asserted in a statement to The Nation. “Mr. Hassan must be given the opportunity to challenge both his rendition and continued detention as a matter of urgency. The US must urgently confirm exactly what has been done to Mr. Hassan, why he is being held, and when he will be given a fair hearing.”

Gutteridge, who has worked extensively tracking the disappearances of terror suspects in Kenya, was deported from Kenya on May 11.

The underground prison where Hassan is allegedly being held is housed in the same building once occupied by Somalia’s infamous National Security Service (NSS) during the military regime of Siad Barre, who ruled from 1969 to 1991. The former prisoner who met Hassan there said he saw an old NSS sign outside. During Barre’s regime, the notorious basement prison and interrogation center, which sits behind the presidential palace in Mogadishu, was a staple of the state’s apparatus of repression. It was referred to as Godka, “The Hole.”

“The bunker is there, and that’s where the intelligence agency does interrogate people,” says Abdirahman “Aynte” Ali, a Somali analyst who has researched the Shabab and Somali security forces. “When CIA and other intelligence agencies—who actually are in Mogadishu—want to interrogate those people, they usually just do that.” Somali officials “start the interrogation, but then foreign intelligence agencies eventually do their own interrogation as well, the Americans and the French.” The US official said that US agents’ “debriefing” prisoners in the facility has “been done on only rare occasions” and always jointly with Somali agents.

Some prisoners, like Hassan, were allegedly rendered from Nairobi, while in other cases, according to Aynte, “the US and other intelligence agencies have notified the Somali intelligence agency that some people, some suspects, people who have been in contact with the leadership of Al Shabab, are on their way to Mogadishu on a [commercial] plane, and to essentially be at the airport for those people. Catch them, interrogate them.”

* * *

In the eighteen years since the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu, US policy on Somalia has been marked by neglect, miscalculation and failed attempts to use warlords to build indigenous counterterrorism capacity, many of which have backfired dramatically. At times, largely because of abuses committed by Somali militias the CIA has supported, US policy has strengthened the hand of the very groups it purports to oppose and inadvertently aided the rise of militant groups, including the Shabab. Many Somalis viewed the Islamic movement known as the Islamic Courts Union, which defeated the CIA’s warlords in Mogadishu in 2006, as a stabilizing, albeit ruthless, force. The ICU was dismantled in a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2007. Over the years, a series of weak Somali administrations have been recognized by the United States and other powers as Somalia’s legitimate government. Ironically, its current president is a former leader of the ICU.

Today, Somali government forces control roughly thirty square miles of territory in Mogadishu thanks in large part to the US-funded and -armed 9,000-member AMISOM force. Much of the rest of the city is under the control of the Shabab or warlords. Outgunned, the Shabab has increasingly relied on the linchpins of asymmetric warfare—suicide bombings, roadside bombs and targeted assassinations. The militant group has repeatedly shown that it can strike deep in the heart of its enemies’ territory. On June 9, in one of its most spectacular suicide attacks to date, the Shabab assassinated the Somali government’s minister of interior affairs and national security, Abdishakur Sheikh Hassan Farah, who was attacked in his residence by his niece. The girl, whom the minister was putting through university, blew herself up and fatally wounded her uncle. He died hours later in the hospital. Farah was the fifth Somali minister killed by the Shabab in the past two years and the seventeenth official assassinated since 2006. Among the suicide bombers the Shabab has deployed were at least three US citizens of Somali descent; at least seven other Americans have died fighting alongside the Shabab, a fact that has not gone unnoticed in Washington or Mogadishu.

During his confirmation hearings in June to become the head of the US Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven said, “From my standpoint as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard” at Somalia. McRaven said that in order to expand successful “kinetic strikes” there, the United States will have to increase its use of drones as well as on-the-ground intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. “Any expansion of manpower is going to have to come with a commensurate expansion of the enablers,” McRaven declared. The expanding US counterterrorism program in Mogadishu appears to be part of that effort.

In an interview with The Nation in Mogadishu, Abdulkadir Moallin Noor, the minister of state for the presidency, confirmed that US agents “are working with our intelligence” and “giving them training.” Regarding the US counterterrorism effort, Noor said bluntly, “We need more; otherwise, the terrorists will take over the country.”

It is unclear how much control, if any, Somalia’s internationally recognized president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, has over this counterterrorism force or if he is even fully briefed on its operations. The CIA personnel and other US intelligence agents “do not bother to be in touch with the political leadership of the country. And that says a lot about the intentions,” says Aynte. “Essentially, the CIA seems to be operating, doing the foreign policy of the United States. You should have had State Department people doing foreign policy, but the CIA seems to be doing it across the country.”

While the Somali officials interviewed for this story said the CIA is the lead US agency on the Mogadishu counterterrorism program, they also indicated that US military intelligence agents are at times involved. When asked if they are from JSOC or the Defense Intelligence Agency, the senior Somali intelligence official responded, “We don’t know. They don’t tell us.”

In April Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali man the United States alleged had links to the Shabab, was captured by JSOC forces in the Gulf of Aden. He was held incommunicado on a US Navy vessel for more than two months; in July he was transferred to New York and indicted on terrorism charges. Warsame’s case ignited a legal debate over the Obama administration’s policies on capturing and detaining terror suspects, particularly in light of the widening counterterrorism campaigns in Somalia and Yemen.

On June 23 the United States reportedly carried out a drone strike against alleged Shabab members near Kismayo, 300 miles from the Somali capital. As with the Nabhan operation, a JSOC team swooped in on helicopters and reportedly snatched the bodies of those killed and wounded. The men were taken to an undisclosed location. On July 6 three more US strikes reportedly targeted Shabab training camps in the same area. Somali analysts warned that if the US bombings cause civilian deaths, as they have in the past, they could increase support for the Shabab. Asked in an interview with The Nation in Mogadishu if US drone strikes strengthen or weaken his government, President Sharif replied, “Both at the same time. For our sovereignty, it’s not good to attack a sovereign country. That’s the negative part. The positive part is you’re targeting individuals who are criminals.”

A week after the June 23 strike, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, described an emerging US strategy that would focus not on “deploying large armies abroad but delivering targeted, surgical pressure to the groups that threaten us.” Brennan singled out the Shabab, saying, “From the territory it controls in Somalia, Al Shabab continues to call for strikes against the United States,” adding, “We cannot and we will not let down our guard. We will continue to pummel Al Qaeda and its ilk.”

While the United States appears to be ratcheting up both its rhetoric and its drone strikes against the Shabab, it has thus far been able to strike only in rural areas outside Mogadishu. These operations have been isolated and infrequent, and Somali analysts say they have failed to disrupt the Shabab’s core leadership, particularly in Mogadishu.

In a series of interviews in Mogadishu, several of the country’s recognized leaders, including President Sharif, called on the US government to quickly and dramatically increase its assistance to the Somali military in the form of training, equipment and weapons. Moreover, they argue that without viable civilian institutions, Somalia will remain ripe for terrorist groups that can further destabilize not only Somalia but the region. “I believe that the US should help the Somalis to establish a government that protects civilians and its people,” Sharif said.

In the battle against the Shabab, the United States does not, in fact, appear to have cast its lot with the Somali government. The emerging US strategy on Somalia—borne out in stated policy, expanded covert presence and funding plans—is two-pronged: On the one hand, the CIA is training, paying and at times directing Somali intelligence agents who are not firmly under the control of the Somali government, while JSOC conducts unilateral strikes without the prior knowledge of the government; on the other, the Pentagon is increasing its support for and arming of the counterterrorism operations of non-Somali African military forces.

A draft of a defense spending bill approved in late June by the Senate Armed Services Committee would authorize more than $75 million in US counterterrorism assistance aimed at fighting the Shabab and Al Qaeda in Somalia. The bill, however, did not authorize additional funding for Somalia’s military, as the country’s leaders have repeatedly asked. Instead, the aid package would dramatically increase US arming and financing of AMISOM’s forces, particularly from Uganda and Burundi, as well as the militaries of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia. The Somali military, the committee asserted, is unable to “exercise control of its territory.”

That makes it all the more ironic that perhaps the greatest tactical victory won in recent years in Somalia was delivered not by AMISOM, the CIA or JSOC but by members of a Somali militia fighting as part of the government’s chaotic local military. And it was a pure accident.

Late in the evening on June 7, a man whose South African passport identified him as Daniel Robinson was in the passenger seat of a Toyota SUV driving on the outskirts of Mogadishu when his driver, a Kenyan national, missed a turn and headed straight toward a checkpoint manned by Somali forces. A firefight broke out, and the two men inside the car were killed. The Somali forces promptly looted the laptops, cellphones, documents, weapons and $40,000 in cash they found in the car, according to the senior Somali intelligence official.

Upon discovering that the men were foreigners, the Somali NSA launched an investigation and recovered the items that had been looted. “There was a lot of English and Arabic stuff, papers,” recalls the Somali intelligence official, containing “very tactical stuff” that appeared to be linked to Al Qaeda, including “two senior people communicating.” The Somali agents “realized it was an important man” and informed the CIA in Mogadishu. The men’s bodies were taken to the NSA. The Americans took DNA samples and fingerprints and flew them to Nairobi for processing.

Within hours, the United States confirmed that Robinson was in fact Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a top leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa and its chief liaison with the Shabab. Fazul, a twenty-year veteran of Al Qaeda, had been indicted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings and was on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list. A JSOC attempt to kill him in a January 2007 airstrike resulted in the deaths of at least seventy nomads in rural Somalia, and he had been underground ever since. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Fazul’s death “a significant blow to Al Qaeda, its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa. It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents.”

At its facilities in Mogadishu, the CIA and its Somali NSA agents continue to pore over the materials recovered from Fazul’s car, which served as a mobile headquarters. Some deleted and encrypted files were recovered and decoded by US agents. The senior Somali intelligence official said that the intelligence may prove more valuable on a tactical level than the cache found in Osama bin Laden’s house in Pakistan, especially in light of the increasing US focus on East Africa. The Americans, he said, were “unbelievably grateful”; he hopes it means they will take Somalia’s forces more seriously and provide more support.

But the United States continues to wage its campaign against the Shabab primarily by funding the AMISOM forces, which are not conducting their mission with anything resembling surgical precision. Instead, over the past several months the AMISOM forces in Mogadishu have waged a merciless campaign of indiscriminate shelling of Shabab areas, some of which are heavily populated by civilians. While AMISOM regularly puts out press releases boasting of gains against the Shabab and the retaking of territory, the reality paints a far more complicated picture.

Throughout the areas AMISOM has retaken is a honeycomb of underground tunnels once used by Shabab fighters to move from building to building. By some accounts, the tunnels stretch continuously for miles. Leftover food, blankets and ammo cartridges lay scattered near “pop-up” positions once used by Shabab snipers and guarded by sandbags—all that remain of guerrilla warfare positions. Not only have the Shabab fighters been cleared from the aboveground areas; the civilians that once resided there have been cleared too. On several occasions in late June, AMISOM forces fired artillery from their airport base at the Bakaara market, where whole neighborhoods are totally abandoned. Houses lie in ruins and animals wander aimlessly, chewing trash. In some areas, bodies have been hastily buried in trenches with dirt barely masking the remains. On the side of the road in one former Shabab neighborhood, a decapitated corpse lay just meters from a new government checkpoint.

In late June the Pentagon approved plans to send $45 million worth of military equipment to Uganda and Burundi, the two major forces in the AMISOM operation. Among the new items are four small Raven surveillance drones, night-vision and communications equipment and other surveillance gear, all of which augur a more targeted campaign. Combined with the attempt to build an indigenous counterterrorism force at the Somali NSA, a new US counterterrorism strategy is emerging.

But according to the senior Somali intelligence official, who works directly with the US agents, the CIA-led program in Mogadishu has brought few tangible gains. “So far what we have not seen is the results in terms of the capacity of the [Somali] agency,” says the official. He conceded that neither US nor Somali forces have been able to conduct a single successful targeted mission in the Shabab’s areas in the capital. In late 2010, according to the official, US-trained Somali agents conducted an operation in a Shabab area that failed terribly and resulted in several of them being killed. “There was an attempt, but it was a haphazard one,” he recalls. They have not tried another targeted operation in Shabab-controlled territory since.

Source: AlterNet.
Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/151624/why_are_your_tax_dollars_funding_secret_cia_prisons_in_somalia?page=entire.

Rebuilt Iraq hospital plans surgery on infants

Baghdad (AFP)
July 13, 2011

It will be three years before doctors in Iraq can perform heart surgery on infants, doctors say, in a country where birth defects are high due to marriage within extended families.

"Until now, we have not been able to conduct heart surgery on infants," said Doctor Hussein Ali al-Hilli, director of the Ibn Bitar Hospital for Cardiac Surgery in Baghdad.

"We receive 80 children a day with various heart-related birth defects that we cannot treat. We need three years to learn because such procedures are complicated," he added.

The publicly-funded Iraqi hospital this weekend signed an agreement with Beirut's Hotel Dieu hospital for its staff to receive training in heart surgery on infants, through agreements with Lebanese charity Heart Beat and France-based international NGO Chain of Hope.

The first seven-member Iraqi team, including a pediatric cardiac surgeon, a pediatric cardiologist and five other staff members from Ibn Bitar are to travel to Beirut on September 1 for a four-month training course.

A second team will follow.

"Here (in Iraq) the level is good for adult cardiac surgery but it is average for pediatric cardiac surgery," said Issam Rassi, a Lebanese pediatric cardiac surgeon and vice president of Heart Beat.

"The smaller the child in weight and age, the greater the need for intensive-care units and advanced life-support systems," he said.

"Congenital deaths are high in Iraq because there are a lot of marriages between cousins," Rassi said, referring to the Iraqi custom of marriages within extended families.

Victor Jebara, also of Heart Beat, said that "children who cannot be operated in Baghdad because their case is complicated" would be sent to Hotel Dieu under the terms of the agreement.

UNICEF said in a report marking "Day of the Iraqi Child" on Wednesday that nearly 900 children were killed in violence in Iraq between 2008 and 2010 and more than 3,200 wounded.

The Day of the Iraqi Child was named after 32 children were killed by a car bomb on July 13, 2005, as they rushed toward American soldiers offering them candy and toys.

Meanwhile, by 2012 the Ibn Bitar Hospital plans to complete a 55-bed pediatric wing with four operating rooms and an intensive-care unit.

For the hospital, which was built in 1979 by an Irish company but closed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's forces, the new wing will the culmination of a great adventure.

The hospital was severely damaged during "Desert Storm," in which a US-led coalition pounded Iraqi occupation forces out of Kuwait. The restored facility reopened in 1992, named the Saddam Heart Hospital.

But during the US-led invasion it was looted and burned, to the point that the US military's medical mission concluded in April 2003 that it was beyond repair.

But the Americans had not counted on the commitment of doctors to their hospital. To get it going again, they scavenged around Baghdad's "thieves' market" buying back looted equipment.

Today, Ibn Bitar receives 80,000 patients a year from around the country.

Hilli, the director, remembers when the Americans told him the hospital was a write-off. "Your assessment is wrong," he recalls replying. "You don't know us, we will rebuild it."

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Rebuilt_Iraq_hospital_plans_surgery_on_infants_999.html.

Air Algerie strikes strands passengers

2011-07-13

An Air Algerie strike forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Wednesday (July 13th), Passengers were left stranded at airports in Paris, Marseille, Nice and several Algerian cities, AFP reported. The national carrier's cabin crew mounted the strike three days ago to demand a 106% pay hike. After angry passengers at Paris' Orly Airport protested the disruption of flights, law enforcement officers were forced to intervene, ANSA reported.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/07/13/newsbrief-05.

Opposition, Security Forces Clash in Yemen

By Jack Phillips
Jul 13, 2011

Yemen security forces fought with the opposition in the restive city of Taiz, the country’s third largest, and thousands more demonstrated in Sana'a demanding a regime change, according to media reports.

Protesters have demonstrated for more than five months in the capital against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled the country for some 30 years.

Saleh and the protesters have been deadlocked in a stalemate over the past month as the president recuperates in Saudi Arabia after an assassination attempt that left him seriously injured. Last week, he appeared on state television and looked badly burned and heavily bandaged.

However, tribal militiamen in Taiz have clashed with security forces, leaving several injured. Yemen police also fired shots into the air to disperse around 5,000 people, reported Reuters.

U.S. officials have urged Saleh to step down from power to prevent further violence.

More than 19,000 Yemenites who attempted to cross into Saudi Arabia to flee the conflict were arrested in June, a spokesperson told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, security forces have been battling in regions in the country’s south that have been overrun by Islamic militants. According to AP, five militants were killed in an airstrike in the towns of Jaar and Zinjibar.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/opposition-security-forces-clash-in-yemen-59060.html.

Ai Weiwei Accepts Job Offer in Berlin

But whether he will be allowed to leave China is another question.

By Matthew Robertson
Jul 13, 2011

The high-profile Chinese dissident-artist Ai Weiwei, recently released from over two months of arbitrary detention, has decided to accept a job at the Berlin University of Arts.

He told the press on Wednesday that he made up his mind only recently about the offer that had been in the pipeline for some time.

The university had first made the offer public in April, after Ai was effectively abducted from the Beijing airport by Chinese security forces.

During his detention, Chinese officials retroactively stated that Ai was being charged with vague tax offenses. It is commonly thought that he was actually targeted for his outspoken political views and bitter remarks about the Communist Party’s rule. He is expected to respond soon to the tax charges.

During Ai’s detention, unconfirmed reports emerged that he had been subjected to a range of cruel tortures while in custody. The reports have not been confirmed, but some Chinese journalists and commentators thought there was substance to the claims, particularly given Ai’s broken spirit upon release. Ai has not been his rambunctious and defiant old self. He has said nothing of his experience in custody and has refrained from criticizing the authorities since his release.

It is not known whether he will be allowed to leave China to fill the Berlin position.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/ai-weiwei-accepts-job-offer-in-berlin-59061.html.

Snow Leopards Spotted in Afghanistan

Jul 13, 2011

A population of snow leopards has been discovered in north-east Afghanistan by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Located in Wakhan Corridor, hidden cameras have revealed the rare cats at 16 locations covering a broad area. Up to 7,500 snow leopards are believed to live in the wild in the mountains of various Central Asian countries.

But in Afghanistan, the animals are at risk from the pet and fur trades, and from retaliation by shepherds, according to a WCS study.

"This is a wonderful discovery—it shows that there is real hope for snow leopards in Afghanistan," said Peter Zahler, WCS Deputy Director for Asia Programs, in a press release.

"Now our goal is to ensure that these magnificent animals have a secure future as a key part of Afghanistan's natural heritage."

Since 2006, WCS has helped to protect the leopards through a conservation project that involves ranger training, partnership with local communities, and education in schools.

"By developing a community-led management approach, we believe snow leopards will be conserved in Afghanistan over the long term," said lead author Anthony Simms, the project's Technical Adviser, in the release.

Rangers enforce poaching laws, and watch over other species, like Marco Polo sheep, with 59 rangers trained so far. Meanwhile, shepherds are assisted through a livestock insurance program and construction of predator-proof corrals.

The project also helped create Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan's first national park, with shared management by the government and local communities.

The WCS study was published in the Journal of Environmental Studies on June 29.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/snow-leopards-spotted-in-afghanistan-59051.html.

Private space race heats up as US shuttle retires

by Jean-Louis Santini
Washington (AFP)
July 13, 2011

Private companies, aided by NASA's cash and expertise in human space flight, are rushing to be the first to build a space capsule to replace the retiring US shuttle in the next few years.

With Atlantis wrapping up its final mission and the end of the 30-year US program just days away, NASA is pinning its hopes on commercial industry to build the next low-cost vehicle to take astronauts to low Earth orbit.

"We are transferring 50 years of human space flight experience from NASA to the private sector," said Phil McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA.

Faced with mounting criticism over its lack of a replacement for the shuttle, the US space agency insists it is focused on building a deep space vehicle while it "partners" with the private sector on a spacecraft to tote astronauts to familiar destinations like the International Space Station (ISS).

"We are bringing financial resources so we are going to invest in these systems, and we are also helping them technically," McAlister said.

Earlier this year, the US space agency distributed nearly $270 million in seed money to four companies -- Boeing, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin -- to boost their bids to be first in the new space era.

President Barack Obama's budget request for fiscal year 2012 includes $850 million for such efforts and would mark the third round of funding so far.

A host of former NASA astronauts have already joined the private sector as highly paid consultants to companies in the space race.

By the middle of the decade, NASA hopes that more than one option will be available to carry US astronauts to orbit.

"Competition is a key aspect of our strategy," said McAlister. "We want very much to have competition, with multiple providers."

NASA has sent astronauts to low Earth orbit at least 150 times over the past four decades, McAlister said.

Now, it is aiming for a space plan that would transport a total of eight astronauts, four at a time, aboard two flights per year to the ISS.

Boeing, which is working on the CTS-100 spacecraft, and SpaceX with its Dragon capsule, say they are ready for the challenge.

"We have laid out a viable program that does test flights in 2014 and will be ready to carry crew in 2015," said John Elbon, vice president and program manager of commercial crew at Boeing.

"Of course it will be depending on the funding we will receive (from NASA) going forward between now and 2015," he said, touting Boeing's long history building spacecraft, including the first manned space capsules Mercury and Gemini, as well as Apollo, which took men to the moon.

Space tourism could also prove a lucrative side business, he said, with a company called Bigelow aerospace working on a space habitat module that could be leased to countries without a spaceflight program for short-term research.

Elbon declined to project a cost per seat, but said it would likely be competitive with what it currently costs to send an astronaut to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz capsule, or about $51 million per ticket.

When it comes to SpaceX, founded in 2002 by multimillionaire Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, the cost per seat could be as low as $20 million on its four-seat Dragon spacecraft.

"With NASA's support, SpaceX will be ready to fly its first manned mission in 2014," Musk said on SpaceX's website.

SpaceX communications director Kirstin Grantham told AFP that it has "a tremendous advantage over other companies looking to carry astronauts, because our vehicles were designed from the start to carry astronauts and, unlike other companies, our vehicles have already flown."

In December 2010, SpaceX became the first company to successfully send its own space capsule, the Dragon, into orbit and back.

The next step is for a fly-by of the ISS as part of a mission in which the Dragon will approach the orbiting station within six miles.

NASA may allow the company to also berth with the outpost as part of that same mission, scheduled to take place in 2011.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Private_space_race_heats_up_as_US_shuttle_retires_999.html.

Rights group: Libyan rebels loot seized towns

July 13, 2011 — TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels fighting to oust Moammar Gadhafi have looted shops and clinics and torched the homes of suspected regime supporters in some of the towns they seized in the country's western mountains, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The findings come as the rebels have enlarged the area under their control in the west and inched closer to a key supply route to Tripoli. NATO has been bombing Gadhafi's forces and military sites to enforce a U.N. resolution to protect civilians. Still, the civil war has fallen into a virtual stalemate, with neither side able to make significant progress in recent weeks.

Rebel leaders visiting NATO headquarters in Belgium, meanwhile, denied that there had been any negotiations with the Libyan government about a diplomatic end to the conflict and called for continued airstrikes, even during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan.

The Human Rights Watch report, based on interviews with local fighters and residents, said that after seizing towns, rebel forces burned down a number of homes believed to belong to Gadhafi supporters and carted out supplies from stores and medical facilities.

The spokesman for the rebel National Transitional Council based in Benghazi, more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away, denied at first that anti-Gadhafi fighters were involved. "These acts were carried out by individuals who don't represent the NTC nor the February 17 revolution," he said, referring to the anti-Gadhafi uprising.

He acknowledged, though, that it "could be a mistake" and said if there was evidence, those involved would be brought to justice. In one case cited by the report, the rights group witnessed five houses on fire in the village of Qawalish, which was seized by the rebels on July 6, and gunmen loading their truck with supplies looted from a shop.

A few days later, nine more houses had been set alight. HRW said clinics in three other towns were also looted and vandalized. "We basically took everything," a rebel medic in Awaniya told the New York-based group.

The alleged violations by the rebel fighters, mostly armed civilian volunteers with a loose command structure, raise concerns about retaliatory violence as Gadhafi clings to power from his base in the capital, Tripoli.

The reports also throw NATO in an awkward position, since the stated goal of their air campaign against government forces is to protect civilians. Also Wednesday, Libya's prosecutor general accused NATO of killing 1,108 people with its airstrikes and wounding another 4,500 and filed charges against the alliance's chief in Libyan court.

"As the prosecutor general responding to the calls of the Libyan people I have decided to purse criminal procedures against the secretary general of NATO," said Mohammed Zikri al-Mahjoubi. "Nothing can explain the crimes and actions of NATO on Libyan soil .. it cannot be described as a crime, it is something exceptional and unprecedented."

He outlined 10 charges, including the attempted assassination of Gadhafi, and described the air campaign as genocide against the Libyans. For his part, alliance head Anders Fogh Rasmussen told visiting rebel leaders that NATO would continue its bombing campaign in Libya as long as Gadhafi's forces threaten civilians.

Rights groups have accused Gadhafi's forces of violations, too, including indiscriminately shelling civilian areas, abusing detainees and laying land mines. Since the uprising seeking to end Gadhafi's nearly 42-year rule broke out in mid-February, armed rebels have seized control of much of the country's east, where they've set up an administration in Benghazi. They also control the coastal city of Misrata and much of the Nafusa mountain range southwest of Tripoli.

HRW called on rebel commanders to hold their forces responsible for damaging civilian property. "Opposition forces have an obligation to protect civilians and their property in the areas they control so people feel they can return home safely and rebuild their lives," said Joe Stork, the group's deputy Middle East and North Africa director.

Rebel commanders in the western mountains could not be immediately reached for comment. HRW quoted one commander as acknowledging that some abuses had taken place, but denying that such acts were policy.

"If we hadn't issued directives, people would have burned these towns down to the ground," the group quoted Col. El-Moktar Firnana as saying.

Hubbard reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Rami al-Shaheibi in Benghazi, Libya contributed to this report.

Madrid seeks 2020 Olympics in 3rd straight bid

July 13, 2011 — MADRID (AP) — Madrid will bid for the 2020 Olympics, hoping to replicate Pyeongchang's perseverance in winning on a third consecutive attempt.

Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon confirmed the Spanish capital's candidacy on Wednesday, citing Pyeongchang's victory as providing the necessary push for Madrid to bid again. "There's no doubt that if a European city had been hosting the 2018 Games then our hopes on bidding again would probably not have been so roundly considered," Ruiz-Gallardon said. "The IOC sent out a very robust message that persistence can lead to victory."

Last week, the South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics, beating European rivals Munich and Annecy, France, after narrow defeats for the 2010 and 2014 Games. Madrid lost bids to London for the 2012 Olympics and Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Games.

Rome and Istanbul are also bidding for the 2020 Olympics, with Tokyo expected to announce its candidacy later in the week. Other potential contenders could come from the United States, South Africa, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

The Spanish Olympic Committee still has to formally approve the Madrid bid later this month before it is formally submitted to the International Olympic Committee before the Sept. 1 deadline. Ruiz-Gallardon repeatedly mentioned that the Madrid bid would provide a much needed boost to Spain's economy, which has been battered by recession and unemployment. Terms like austerity measures were mentioned throughout the news conference.

The mayor said Madrid's bid budget would be half that of 2016, while not one Euro would be spent on infrastructure before the IOC votes for the 2020 host in Buenos Aires in September 2013. "Our obligation is to look to the future and not be shortsighted. We're convinced by then that Spain will have gotten through the economic crisis and be in fine shape to host," Ruiz-Gallardon said.

The mayor said he believes public opinion would remain in favor of the games despite the current financial problems and an unemployment rate above 20 percent. "I believe the public understands this decision," he said.

Nearly 3,400 people were divided on the issue in a survey carried out by sports daily Marca's website on Wednesday. "Madrid has already completed a high percentage of the necessary infrastructure to organize the Olympic and Paralympic Games and can also count on the experience of the past two bids," said Ruiz-Gallardon, who added that 80 percent of the venues are ready.

"The already completed work means the cost of the 2020 bid will be significantly reduced. It would also provide an economic boost and reactivate the economies of Madrid and Spain." Mercedes Coghen, who led the 2016 bid, ruled herself out of the 2020 team.

"I think a breath of fresh air is good," Coghen was quoted as saying by Europa Press. "Madrid 2020 can count on me, but as more of a volunteer." Former Secretary for Sport Jaime Lissavetzky, who helped lead the 2016 bid, also lent his support to the 2020 effort.

"There will be less money spent and absolute transparency in all costs," said Lissavetzky, Ruiz-Gallardon's Socialist Party opponent at the mayor's office. "We're thinking about Madrid and its citizens. It's a great opportunity to start an economic movement, it's a great opportunity for Madrid and a great opportunity for Spain."

Al Jazeera turning into private media organization

By Habib Toumi
July 13, 2011

The change from a public entity will allow the Doha-based TV station, set up in 1996, to embark on an ambitious expansion plan and will provide it with more flexibility in its administrative and editorial functioning.

Manama: Pan-Arab Al Jazeera channel is planning to change its legal status and turn into a "private organization devoted to public interest."

The change from a public entity will allow the Doha-based TV station, set up in 1996, to embark on an ambitious expansion plan and will provide it with more flexibility in its administrative as well as editorial functioning, Qatari dailies The Peninsula and Al Sharq reported.

Launching regional channels

Following the change of status, the network credited with changing the media landscape in the Arab world will work on launching a host of regional channels that include Al Jazeera Balkans, Al Jazeera Turkey and Al Jazeera Swahili.

The channel will be able to get involved in wider media activities, social networking sites, mobile and Internet-based news services, the daily said.

The Arab broadcaster, launched on November 1, 1996, has reportedly been given the go-ahead to alter its legal status through an amendment formalised by Law 10/2011 ratified by the Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani in May, the dailies said.

'Al Jazeera Media Network'

The new name will be ‘Al Jazeera Media Network' and the changed status would ensure that the channel becomes a truly international media organization.

Legal experts told The Peninsula newspaper that the change of status could mean that Al Jazeera shareholders and staff members may have to sign new contracts.

"Although it is difficult to get investors because it is a very expensive enterprise, going private would mean Al Jazeera would have private shareholders," a legal expert said.

The channel has a wide network of offices and correspondents.

"Al Jazeera is truly a phenomenon in the world of media, and especially in Arabic media", the unidentified expert said. "However, going private could also mean some job cuts even though that is highly unlikely."

'Private organization devoted to public interest'?

According to the expert, the meaning of the phrase ‘private organization devoted to public interest' is that the channel would not deal with issues that are harmful to national security or stability of the country.

However, the decision was challenged by Khalid Al Sayed, the editor in chief of The Peninsula who in a front-page editorial, wrote that the move raised several questions.

"First, the purported reason for the change is not convincing since Al Jazeera already enjoys the freedom and flexibility to report on controversial issues like no other channel in the Arab world. The need to change its legal status to enable flexibility, therefore, makes little sense," he wrote.

"Then, how can a media outlet become a ‘public utility'? What do they exactly mean by ‘public utility'? And how will Qatar as a nation benefit from this public utility?

This is the first time that we have heard of a media company, which is profit-based, being turned into a public utility. Besides, it will become a private institution.

Our question: What happens to the billions of dollars spent by the Qatar government on Al Jazeera? Will it just be considered as a donation then? Or do they want to utilize Law 21/2006 which gives more autonomy to the management of a public utility."

According to Al Sayed, the reason Al Jazeera is seeking these changes is to bypass the new media law expected anytime now.

"If the government allows Al Jazeera this status change, will it also allow other local media outlets the same opportunity? Maybe, by taking this decision, Al Jazeera is challenging the government to give a similar opportunity to other media outlets."

Another reason, according to the editor-in-chief, could be a drive by Al Jazeera to avoid being questioned in future about its finances by an elected parliament.

"The big question here is how can a company that was financed by government money become a private institution? What is the legality of this action?"

Al Sayed wrote that he had high hopes for Al Jazeera, "especially after the role they played during the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt."

"I thought Al Jazeera will become the voice of the Arab people similar to the radio station, Sout Al Arab, during the era of [Egypt's President] Jamal Abdul Nasser. I was hoping that our Emir will make a present of Al Jazeera to the Arab people and there will be something like an Advisory Council to support the board members of Al Jazeera, and that Advisory Council will have representatives from the different countries in the Arab world," he wrote.

"Al Jazeera would thus become an institution of the Arab people and the real voice of the Arab world. That would stop future regimes from saying that Al Jazeera is biased or has its own agenda since the people managing it would represent the Arab world and not just one country. Al Jazeera would be the free media zone, where all Arabs would be given the chance to have their voices heard."

Source: Gulf News.
Link: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/al-jazeera-turning-into-private-media-organisation-1.837871.

Egypt fires hundreds of police as protests grow

July 13, 2011 — CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's security chief fired nearly 700 police officers Wednesday in a step to cleanse the much-hated force, the latest concession military rulers have made under pressure from protesters holding a sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the past six days.

Widespread abuses by the police under the former regime were a key reason behind the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February. But the ruling military council that took over from him has been slow to hold ex-regime officials and police accountable for killing nearly 900 protesters during the uprising and other crimes.

With public frustration rising sharply, protesters resumed a sit-in in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution that was occupied day and night for most of the 18-day uprising. Protesters say the dismissal of 669 police officers was not extensive enough.

"These are just sedatives. We won't be fooled," said Walid Saoud, a 34-year old protester at Tahrir. He said the sit-in will go on because the protesters want to see a total restructuring of the police force, the main tool of political control under the previous regime.

Some are even accusing the ruling military council of trying to protect Mubarak and his former regime loyalists. In another nod to demands by activists, the military is delaying parliamentary elections that had been expected in September, the state news agency said. The vote is now expected in October or November, the report said.

Many of the political parties that arose from the uprising want the delay so they can compete more effectively against better prepared and financed Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite the latest string of concessions, protesters appear more determined than ever to press of their demands. Many are calling for the dismissal of the current Cabinet.

"Tahrir Square is the popular and legitimate monitor of the performance of any institution in Egypt," Saoud said. "As we see it, there has been no change in the police ways." Interior Minister Mansour El-Issawi announced the dismissal of 669 high-ranking police officers including 505 major-generals — 10 of them top assistants to the minister. State TV said 37 of the dismissed officers face charges of killing protesters.

"This is the biggest administrative move ... to bring new blood," to the police force, el-Issawi said. He promised that "any police officer will be held accountable for any violation." How to deal with Egypt's delegitimized police force, with nearly half a million members, has been a major testing ground for the interim government.

During the early days of the uprising, there were intensely violent clashes when police used force to try to hold back peaceful marches. A few days into the uprising, the police melted away from the streets mysteriously, leaving the streets to waves of looting and theft.

The force never redeployed in full force since, and some blame police for the rising wave of crime in Egypt in the past months. Activists say lack of security is the biggest challenge to meeting their demands to overhaul the system, including holding fair and free elections.

Magda Boutros, an activist and part of a team that launched a new initiative to reform the police force, said the measures introduced by el-Issawi fall short of expectations. She said her group estimates that at least 200 officers responsible for the killing of protesters and facing trials should have been dismissed.

"We can't take one of Mubarak's biggest problems and deal with it piecemeal. We need a comprehensive plan," she said. Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, a lawyer specializing in torture cases, said torture continued after the revolution. He is currently representing three who were abused by a police officer. Abdel-Aziz said the minister's plan didn't send a "deterrent" message to middle level officers.

Many fear a total shake-up of the ministry may lead to revenge from the ousted force, or a widening of chaos because of a leadership gap. Ahmed Ragab, spokesman for a pro-reform association of police officers, said restructuring has to be gradual and the new leadership must be given time.

Mubarak's former security chief Habib el-Adly and six of his aides are currently on trial for ordering the killing of protesters. Mubarak himself is facing similar charges and his trial begins next month.

Protesters still in Tahrir lifted their siege of Cairo's largest government building Wednesday, allowing business to resume there while staying camped out in the square to press the military rulers for faster change.

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report

Sri Lanka to count its elephants for first time

July 13, 2011 — COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka is preparing for its first census of elephants in the island's forests to help protect the endangered species against the loss of its habitat.

The head of the Wildlife Department, Chandrawansa Pathiraja, said the census will run over two days starting on the full moon of next month, which falls on Aug. 13. Elephants will be counted as they come to drink from water holes, reservoirs and tanks.

With the survey, Pathiraja said he hopes to find out the minimum number of elephants, distribution of the population and the composition of herds, including males, females, babies and tuskers. It will also help the government determine whether it needs legislation to regulate the elephant population

"The census we do can be used for many years for the policymakers and government authorities in order to prepare policies and projects aimed at conservation of elephants," Pathiraja said. Elephants are considered sacred animals in Sri Lanka. Costumed and decorated pachyderms are used in Buddhist ceremonies as they parade through streets carrying the sacred relics of the Lord Buddha.

In the past, elephants were the country's trucks, taxis and even battle tanks. But human encroachment and development have eaten into their habitats, and wild elephants are increasingly entering villages in search of food, rampaging through houses and destroying crops and killing people.

Around 250 elephants are killed every year, mostly by farmers. About 50 people are killed in elephant attacks each year too. The only count available now dates back a century when an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 elephants roamed wild in Sri Lanka. But habitat loss and poaching are believed to have roughly halved their numbers.

Wildlife officials estimate Sri Lanka's elephant population at between 5,000 to 6,000. Previous head counts by the Wildlife Department were confined only to certain regions and in 1993, one such census found 1,967 elephants but it excluded the island's north and east where a civil war was raging at the time.

With the war's end in 2009, wildlife officials have gained access to the former war zones. The Wildlife Department has already opened up some parks that were closed down during the quarter-century strife.

Saudi Arabia, Zionism, Peace and the Palestinian Cause

12. Jul, 2011

By Haytham A. K. Radwan – Intifada Palestine.com

(Adelaide, Australia) – The attempts to destroy the Palestinian Cause have been on the drawing board of the Al Saud’s alliance with Zionism and the West for at least 63 years. Today, not only are they fighting against the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to resist occupation, they are doing everything in their power to prevent them from returning to their indigenous land in favor of Israel.

Established as a kingdom without an independent strategic plan or a sense of nationalism, Saudi Arabia has sought to destabilize Billad el-Cham in order to undermine the Palestinian cause in favor of Zionism and the West. Indeed, since the occupation of Palestine in 1948 the kingdom has persevered with it mission to strengthen Zionism by inciting disputes between rival groups. This has had the effect of destabilizing the region so that Zionism and Israel’s occupation of the territory of Billad el-Cham continue, though Riyadh disguises its activities and policies under the banner of Islam, peace and its relationship with the West. Today, the mission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to strengthen Zionism continues, this being accomplished by undermining popular regional and national resistance movements, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, in order to destroy their confidence and their willingness to resist Israel’s Zionist projects. This paper seeks to shed light on Saudi efforts to undermine the Palestinian cause for the sake of Israel through the propagation of myths, by destroying all forms of resistance, and by instigating peace initiatives which it knows will ultimately be ineffective.

Palestine and the Saudi Myth

This year (2011) marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Zionist movement. However, not all Arab countries have resisted Zionist projects in Palestine, notable among them being Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Al Saud have created the myth that the Saudis have used their position as an oil supplier, as a valuable friend and ally of Western nations, and as the protectors of the most important Islamic sites, Mecca and Medina, to help liberate Palestine. Saudi Arabia’s message to Arab people and to Muslims everywhere is that the kingdom is acting in support of Palestine and its displaced population. Additionally, the kingdom has fostered the notion that it is not in conflict with the establishment of Israel in Palestine and is willing to do everything in its power to restore peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is argued here that these messages have been accepted uncritically by the media, and this situation has served the House of Saud – as well as Zionism – very effectively. However, many (or most) Palestinians have resisted the message very effectively. Indeed, research into the events of the past 60 years or more reveal a very different situation from the reports provided in the media, and it is evident that there has been a high degree of on-going Saudi cooperation with Israel. Indeed, Saudi Arabia negotiated with the British Foreign Office and with Churchill, expressing its willingness to accept openly the Jewish claim to Palestine in return for Britain withholding support from its Hashemite rivals, and in doing so the Saudis ignored calls by King Ghazi of Iraq to form a common Arab front to defend Palestine. Then, as events unfolded during 1948 Saudi Arabia remained on the sidelines and refused to contribute forces to liberate Palestine. Furthermore, when the 1948 Arab-Israeli War ended, the kingdom withheld financial support from the Egyptian and Jordanian forces still occupying parts of Palestine, and it made every effort to prevent Syria from uniting with Iraq to create a military counterweight to Israel. The kingdom also refused to contemplate the possible use of oil to pressure the US into a more even-handed Palestinian policy.

Since 1948 Saudi conspiracies against the Palestinian cause have continued through secret meetings and communications between Saudi government officials and princes and the Israelis. According to statesmen, senior military officers and former intelligence officers, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, has maintained regular contact with Israel since at least 1990. Moreover, evidence indicates that such contacts occurred much earlier; for example, in 1976 the Saudi government secretly sent a letter, via Tunisian Foreign Minister, Mohammed Masmoudi, to Israel offering a large sum of money in return for withdrawing from the occupied territories.

Saudi efforts to destroy the Palestinian cause even entailed military plans. Accordingly, in 2009 when the Gaza attack occurred, Saudi Arabia was in support of Israel, and repeatedly met the chief of Mossad to plan an attack on Iran, the main supporter of Hamas, the most influential anti-Israeli movement in the occupied land. Similarly, during the conflict along the Israel- Lebanon border in 2006, the Saudis allegedly contacted the Israelis, the top-selling Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot reporting that Israel and Saudi Arabia had been conducting secret negotiations. It appears, then that while Hezbollah was fighting for the interests of both Lebanon and Palestine – and for all Arab countries – the Saudis were conspiring against it by collaborating with Israel.

Secret meetings and military planning between the Saudis and the Israelis have not been the only conspiracies to undermine the Palestinian cause. For instance, in 1958 the Saudis endeavored to put an end to unity plans between Iraq and Jordan after a pro-Nasser coup d’état succeeded in overthrowing Iraq’s Hashemite monarchy. The Hashemite had long been the strongest traditional Arab force, but they were displaced when Ibn Saud forced them from Mecca in 1924 and Medina in 1925. Then in 1921 the British placed Faisal on the throne in Jordan, and shortly afterwards, in 1923, granted Abdullah control of Iraq. These Hashemite princes were outsiders, but the British used religious differences to justify their actions to the Arab people by asserting that the Hashemite lineage could be traced back to Muhammad. They also worked hard to put an end to the Syrian-Egyptian union (described at the time as the United Arab Republic) which lasted from 1958 until 1961.

The secret relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel has not been intended to help the Palestinian people nor is it to maintain stability and peace in the region. Instead, it has sought to increase the threat of terrorism, a situation which is favorable both to Israel and the House of Saud. Indeed, their relationship can be considered to be lower than that between al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the differences between the two are akin to the differences between the act of war and terrorism. Both have supported terror and war to justify their expansionism. Saudi Arabia has used Islam and its wealth to further its cause. Israel has used Saudi Arabia’s wealth, Islam, its military superiority, and its contacts with the West to achieve its objectives.

Thus, the interaction between the Saudi royal family and the Anglo-American-Israeli alliance has dangerously strengthened anti-secular and national movements in Billad el-Cham. Also it has deepened the divisions that emerged during the period of colonial rule in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Indeed, events show that the Saudi royal family has stood against Syrian nationalism and the liberation of Palestine in order to strengthen Saudi-style religious movements. However, what now concerns the Saudis is the threat that Syrian nationalism can cause to the existence of the royal family and its Wahhabi mission within Billad el-Cham. Similarly, what worries Israel and the West is the threat that nationalism can cause to the existence of the State of Israel.

Unlike the Saudis, who have never realized that Zionism constitutes a threat both to Billad el-Cham and to the kingdom itself, the people of Billad el-Cham have seen the emergence of Israel as a real threat to the security and stability of the entire Middle East. This danger lay in the Zionist endeavor to establish an exclusively Jewish state in Billad el-Cham based on the claim that the Jewish people had an ancient, inherent and inalienable right to Palestine. This endeavor has been founded on the belief that the Jews constitute a nation, yet such a belief is unwarranted because the Jews are very diverse racially, socially, and culturally. Indeed, for the liberation of Palestine in particular, and the existence of Billad el-Cham in general, the Zionist threat cannot be denied. Zionist Jews have claimed an historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine even though they are not descendants of the original inhabitants of the country. Historically, the Jews, or the Israelites, arrived in the land of Canaan as immigrants and they then lived with the Canaanites. However, there was never peaceful coexistence between them and the Philistines, who also came to the land of Canaan almost contemporaneously with them. The Israelites eventually disappeared from Palestine after their deportation by the Romans following their second revolt in AD 132-5. Moreover, the Jews who migrated to Palestine in the twentieth century showed no disposition to share the country or to coexist with the Palestinians. Rather, they were determined to realize the political ambitions defined by the World Zionist Organization, to create an exclusively Jewish state.

Today, like the West, the Saudis continue to do everything in their power to strengthen Zionism and weaken Syrian nationalism. Within Billad el-Cham this is continuing to this day; Israel is using similar tactics in order to justify its wars against the Palestinians, Lebanese and the Syrians in the occupied territories while the Saudis, like the West, have done little to end the crises by putting a stop to Israel’s step-by-step expansionism. However, these policies are having an impact on the behavior of Muslim sects, on radical organizations, and on US-backed political parties within Billad el-Cham. Similarly they are affecting the behavior of the Zionists and Saudi Arabia. For example, Israel and the US are using Saudi Arabia’s influence in the Persian Gulf to destabilize Iran. However, there may be unforeseen consequences for these policies will impact on the security of Saudi Arabia itself and not just Iran.

Using Iran as an Excuse to Weaken the Palestinian Cause

Today, the Saudi royal family continues the policy of Ibn Saud in harming the Palestinian cause, although the Palestine question remains important for Saudi policy-makers. This is so not because of the sensitivities of the Palestinian crisis but because of growing Iranian influence in the occupied land. This may explain why Saudi Arabia is opposing the Iranian-backed democratically elected anti-Israel Sunni government led by Hamas while supporting the unpopular Fatah government led by Mahmud Abbas. Indeed, Saudi officials have repeatedly stated that Iranian support for Hamas has widened the rift with Fatah and hampers a resumption of peace talks.

This situation helps explain why, during a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February 2010, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal expressed support for United Nation sanctions against Iran because of Iran’s military support for Hamas and Hezbollah. The Foreign Minister commented:

We see the issue [Iran's nuclear program] in the shorter term maybe because we are closer to the threat … So we need an immediate resolution rather than a gradual resolution [sanctions].

However, by June, as the UN Security Council passed a new round of sanctions against Iran, The Times in London published a report stating that:

Defense sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

At this point it is relevant to note that Zionism has been successful in influencing policies and events in Saudi Arabia. It has been successful in convincing the Saudi royal family that Iran is a threat to their existence and that the royal family needs to co-operate with Israel to ensure the kingdom’s safety. Indeed, the Saudis have apparently accepted the view that they need Israel as a back-up in any future confrontation with Iran. Israel is still considered to be an enemy in the eyes of Arab and Muslim people, and though Iran is a Muslim country and shares similar values and interests with Arabs nevertheless Saudi Arabia still favors Israel. This is evident today. At present, Saudi policy regarding Iran is aligned with that of Israel, and both are sectarian in nature and publicly political. A Saudi/ Sunni war against the Shias would achieve Israel’s aim of destroying Iran’s growing power, but from an Israeli standpoint such a conflict would be to the benefit of Zionism which is hostile to both Shias and Sunnis.

Today, Saudi policy makers are keeping pressure on Iran regardless of the fact that Iran is seeking to counter-balance Israel’s hegemony in the region. It is widely believed that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but this seems to ignore the fact that Israel is already a nuclear state. There is no evidence yet that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction, however Saudi Arabia chooses to insist that Iran is a threat to the region and in so doing is ignoring Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

It seems that Iran’s enmity toward Saudi Arabia has a more immediate strategic cause. Iran is not going to forgive Saudi Arabia’s political stand with the US against Iran’s nuclear interests, nor is it going to forget Saudi Arabia’s support for Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Iran/Iraq conflict in the 1980s. Indeed, Tehran’s main hostility stems from the belief that Saudi Arabia is covertly co-operating with its enemies on three fronts. Firstly, the government in Tehran believes that the Saudis collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the abduction of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2009. Iran accused Saudi Arabia of assisting the CIA abduction of Shahram Amiri while he was in Mecca, this view being confirmed by Amiri who stated on his return from the US that the CIA has kidnapped him with the help of Saudis. Secondly, the Iranian regime suspects that the Saudis have agreed to support Israel in planning a’ ‘surgical strike’ against Iran’s nuclear facility, and thirdly, that the Saudi government has been providing ideological support for Iran’s main domestic terrorist group, the Jundallah.

Unworkable Peace Process

Soon after the events of 9/11 King Abdullah negotiated the so-called ‘Arab Peace Initiative’ to avoid criticism from the West because 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The initiative was produced in the 2002 Arab Summit in Beirut, but in the subsequent ten years Israel has refused to comply, and Saudi Arabia has taken no steps to implement it.

In the light of these events it is reasonable to question whether Saudi Arabia could solve the crises through peace negotiation and whether Saudi Arabia is able to pressure Israel to make peace. It is argued here that there is no evidence to suggest that Israel is dedicated to peace in the region. Nor is there evidence that Saudi Arabia would cease supporting Zionism or reduce its loyalty to the US, especially since the US itself is under Zionist control.

Theoretically, peace is represented in contemporary literature as a ‘liberal peace’: that is, an institutional peace to provide international governance and guarantees, a constitutional peace to ensure democracy and free trade, and a civil peace to ensure freedoms and rights within society. However, these distinctions mean little to people living under occupation and in refugee camps.

But in reality, peace with Israel means recognizing the Zionist state as a sovereign political entity, something Palestinians refuse to accept. Accordingly, the peace process is not welcomed in Billad el-Cham in general and Palestine in particular. For the people of the region there are deep disagreements about the issue of peace with Israel. Additionally, there is a growing awareness among the indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East that Israel has become firmly entrenched, but despite this there has not been a commensurate shift in support for Israel’s presence; to the contrary, opposition to Israel remains as high as ever.

It is proposed here that a peace arrangement between Israel and its neighbors would legitimize injustice because millions of displaced Palestinians still live in refugee camps abroad, a state of affairs in violation of basic human rights. Although much is heard about the plight of the Jews in the holocaust, little is said about the Palestinians who fled from their homeland. It is clear that Israelis have no intention of living peacefully with the Palestinians, and evidence of this can be seen in the relentless extension of settlements on Palestinian land. This process is exacerbating the refugee problem by forcing the remaining Palestinian inhabitants to cross into Jordan. Despite this worsening situation Saudi Arabia is doing nothing except encourage Mahmud Abbas to continue peace talks with Israel and by supporting the Oslo Agreement, although the kingdom’s rulers know that the Oslo process is unlikely to contribute to a lasting peace. In 2002, King Abdullah proposed peace in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders. Israel did not accept his initiative. Five years later (in March 2007) that proposal was revived, but, as before, it produced no tangible results, and Saudi Arabia was still unwilling and unable to force Israel’s hand on the matter. Instead, the Saudis are now cooperating with Israel to prepare an air strike against Iran, a new fabricated enemy to replace the original enemy of all Arabs, Israel.

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians may never be achievable regardless of the efforts of the Israelis and Saudis because Israel has no roots in the region. Palestine has been occupied, it has been renamed Israel, and the original inhabitants have been forced to flee their homeland. Consequently, Israel can never really achieve a lasting peace with people who they have displaced. Some may argue that Israel has signed a peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan, countries with whom they now enjoy relatively peaceful relationships. But are those treaties sustainable? It is argued that they are not because while Governments may sign treaties those arrangements may never be accepted by the public, especially after so many years of bloodshed and injustice. Public feelings on the matter are becoming more evident today in Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere, where anti-Israeli slogans are appearing more often. Can the Saudi government continue to resist (or ignore) rising public sentiment today, and can its petrodollars, allies, and political advocates, both internal and external, protect the world from growing sectarianism, extremism and terrorism?

Today, although Palestinians have not forgotten the lessons of military power and occupation, Saudi Arabia still believes that peace with Israel is achievable and that Israel itself is serious about making peace and ensuring justice. It is insisting that the Palestinian (and Lebanese) resistance to Israel must be halted in order to resume peace negotiations. Saudi Arabia’s rulers have repeatedly witnessed Israel’s rejection of many offers of peace and Israel’s recourse to violence and expansion of settlement, yet they insist that the Palestinians must negotiate peace with Israel.

Meanwhile, injustice can result in more violence, propelling people to acts of resistance in order to gain justice. In the eyes of the international community, Israel has persistently violated international law which requires it to recognize the rights of the indigenous Palestinian people. The occupation is illegal, the Palestinians have been confined to small areas in Gaza and the West Bank and have remained under siege, and displaced people have been prevented from returning to their native land – all acts being condemned by natural and human laws. In the meantime, Israel, protected by the US, has caused many Palestinian deaths and condemned many others to a life of agony and despair. Thus, a just settlement would require an independent and an honest broker, Western or non-Western, but can this happen?

So far the international community has been unable and unwilling to solve the crisis in Palestine. Similarly, it has demonstrated unwillingness to challenge the Saudis for their tacit support for the status quo. Indeed, for the American government the occupation of Arab and Muslim territory, and the displacement of its population are convenient ways to force the hand of the Saudi, Arab, and Muslim people.

In summary, this paper has examined the Saudi-Zionist efforts to undermine the Palestinian cause. While these policies have succeeded in some places, they have failed to be effective in Palestine, as well as in other places in Billad el-Cham. Failure to win over the hearts and minds of people in the region has caused the Saudi-Israeli-Western policy makers to forge what they called “the New Middle East”. But for this new vision to succeed will entail the destruction of regimes regardless of whether these regimes are secular or Islamic. This also requires the destruction of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and of leaders who are willing to stand in opposition.

Source: Intifada-Palestine.
Link: http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2011/07/saudi-arabia-zionism-peace-and-the-palestinian-cause/.

Special American Meal Planned for Final Space Shuttle Crew

Houston TX (SPX)
Jul 13, 2011

Food scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have prepared a special "All-American Meal" for the final space shuttle crew as the iconic American spacecraft makes its last voyage. The public is invited to prepare the meal on Earth and share it virtually with the astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

All are invited to share the "All-American Meal" with the crew on July 14.

"Since the crew is launching in July, we thought it would be fun to have a typical summer meal often enjoyed in our backyards with friends and family," said Michele Perchonok, NASA food scientist and manager of the shuttle food system.

The crew's American menu begins with crackers, brie cheese and sausage. The entree features grilled chicken, Southwestern corn and baked beans. The meal concludes with the quintessential American dessert-apple pie.

The shuttle will dock to the International Space Station to deliver supplies and equipment. The shuttle and station crews will have the American meal although the entrees will differ. The shuttle crew will have the chicken while the station crew will have barbeque brisket.

The crackers, brie cheese, sausage and apple pie are commercial off-the-shelf products that were repackaged for spaceflight. To assist in preparing the meal, click on the link below to view the recipes-what the food scientists call "formulations"-for the regular space food items that are on the menu:

Space food has come a long way since the early days of the space program. Currently, there are about 180 different types of food and beverage items available. The food items range from shrimp cocktail to seasoned scrambled eggs.

The food list includes freeze-dried items and thermostabilized foods, which are foods that have been processed with heat to destroy microorganisms and enzymes that can cause spoilage. Many of the food items come from commercial products that are turned into freeze-dried creations.

Other commercial products, especially natural form items such as nuts and crackers, are purchased and then repackaged for flight.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Special_American_Meal_Planned_for_Final_Space_Shuttle_Crew_999.html.

Last spacewalk of US shuttle era ends

Washington (AFP)
July 12, 2011

Two US astronauts wrapped up the last spacewalk of the shuttle era Tuesday at the International Space Station, where Atlantis is docked on the final mission of the 30-year US program.

Americans Ron Garan and Mike Fossum, who were already aboard the ISS as part of the six-member international Expedition 28 crew when Atlantis arrived on Sunday, successfully completed their repair and maintenance tasks at the lab.

The main objective -- of retrieving a failed ammonia pump from the orbiting outpost and placing it into the shuttle's payload for return to Earth -- was tackled early in the six hour, 31 minute spacewalk.

The duo then turned their efforts toward attaching a Robotic Refueling Module experiment to the lab. The joint US-Canadian project aims to test technologies for repairing and refueling satellites in space.

The Atlantis crew of four American astronauts helped support the spacewalk, which was choreographed by mission specialist Rex Walheim and formally ended at 3:53 pm (1953 GMT).

A total of 160 floating trips have been carried out by astronauts and cosmonauts to build the ISS over the past decade.

The last-ever spacewalk by astronauts from a US shuttle crew was completed on May 27 during Endeavor's final visit to the orbiting outpost.

American astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff's seven and a half hour trip helped move the global space tally past 1,000 hours of spacewalking to construct, maintain and repair the ISS.

The next spacewalk by US astronauts is not scheduled until the fall of 2012, NASA said.

Tuesday's outing marked the 249th spacewalk by US astronauts in history, and brought the total time spent on spacewalk assembly and repair of the ISS to 1,009 hours and nine minutes, mission control in Houston said.

On Monday, NASA decided to extend Atlantis's mission by a day, so the astronauts will now spend 13 days on their final journey to space before the US shuttle program closes down forever.

Atlantis's key mission is to take advantage of the massive cargo space available one last time in order to restock the space station with a year's worth of food and supplies.

The Atlantis crew began work on Monday with their six colleagues at the ISS to transfer nearly five tons of goods to the orbiting outpost and succeeded in unloading the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module.

Other supply ships from Europe, Japan and Russia will be able to stock the ISS when the shuttle program retires after Atlantis, but the space available on the shuttle is unparalleled.

The container is "packed with 9,403 pounds (4,265 kilograms) of spare parts, spare equipment, and other supplies -- including 2,677 pounds (1,215 kilograms) of food -- that will sustain space station operations for a year," NASA said.

Over the coming days, the combined crew will be transferring items from the Raffaello to the station and moving more than 5,600 pounds (2,540 kilograms) of old station gear back into the module for the return to Earth.

"It is pretty much all hands on deck," said flight director Jerry Jason. "It is going to be a very busy time period."

Atlantis's flight marks the end of an era for NASA, leaving Americans without their own vehicle for sending astronauts into space until private industry comes up with a new capsule, likely by 2015 at the earliest.

With the shuttle gone, only Russia's three-seat Soyuz capsules will be capable of carrying astronauts to the ISS -- at a cost of more than $50 million per seat.

With the extra day in space, Atlantis is now scheduled to land back on Earth July 21 at 5:56 am (0956 GMT), mission control in Houston said.

The four remaining US shuttles -- Discovery, Endeavor, Atlantis and the prototype Enterprise -- will be sent to museums across the country after the program ends.

Two shuttles were destroyed in flight: Challenger blew up in a post-takeoff explosion in 1986 and Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth in 2003. The disasters killed 14 crew members.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Last_spacewalk_of_US_shuttle_era_ends_999.html.

Time Enough for Tiangong

by Morris Jones
Sydney, Australia (SPX)
Jul 12, 2011

It's taken long enough, but it seems that we are finally getting close to the launch of Tiangong 1, China's first space laboratory. This small, cylindrical spacecraft will almost certainly take off before the end of September 2011, and will probably lift off a lot sooner than that. Chinese media reports now seem focused on this, although an exact launch date has yet to be specified.

It's time enough for the launch. Tiangong was originally expected to launch in 2010, and was also once slated for launch in the first half of this year. Why the long wait?

Admittedly, launches in China's human spaceflight program are stretched thinly at the best of times. The last launch in this program was Shenzhou 7, which took off in late 2008. This historic mission produced China's first spacewalk, and rounded off the first sequence of "solo" Shenzhou missions.

Part of the reason why we have waited so long is almost certainly a lack of any haste on the part of the Chinese. Tiangong does not need to meet any rare "launch windows" to fly to a distant planet, nor is it due to meet up with anything that's already in orbit. Launch officials can wait until they are ready, and not worry about other constraints.

But it seems likely that there have been some technical factors at work. Tiangong is a brand new spacecraft, although it almost certainly draws on much of the engineering experience (and probably some of the same systems) from previous spacecraft. Some gremlins would have almost certainly crept into the system, as they do with mature spacecraft designs.

Tiangong is also expected to host a crew on the first laboratory launched in this program, which places additional pressure on engineers to make sure it's spaceworthy.

There's also a positive reason for the delay. It's possible that engineers have re-designed some of the spacecraft's systems as it was being assembled. China's Shenzhou astronaut launch spacecraft has undergone several changes in its design as successive Shenzhou missions were flown. Some of these were simply about making prototype test spacecraft ready to carry astronauts, but other changes were deeper. In one case, the wiring topology on Shenzhou was re-designed, which reportedly produced a large saving in weight.

Tiangong could have already experienced several engineering makeovers before the first vehicle was even launched. Thus, the first vehicle is probably not really the first design for Tiangong. China has not only avoided launching an early prototype: They have avoided building a totally new spacecraft to include these upgrades. Viewed from this perspective, China is arguably accelerating the Tiangong program by quickly moving past these earlier revisions.

CG animation and a model of Tiangong exhibited recently at a UN office in Vienna yielded little further clues to the spacecraft or its mission. Yes, there are a few more antennas clustered around the laboratory's docking port than we knew about before. Some of these could be used for rendezvous and docking purposes. We have also been shown rough CG footage of astronauts entering the laboratory, which seems to be outfitted like a typical space station module. A central corridor for the crew is surrounded by equipment and storage racks. Apart from that, we don't have any good photos or diagrams of exactly what lies inside.

Tiangong 1 will presumably orbit in a solo mode for at least two weeks. This will give controllers time to "check out" the spacecraft in orbit, and make sure it is ready for its next tasks. The next stage in this program will be the launch of the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, which will dock with Tiangong 1. On the ground, engineers and technicians will also need time to get this second spacecraft ready for launch from the same site at Jiuquan.

A report from a German group supplying an experiment package to be carried on Shenzhou 8 provides some insight into this. This report, published some months ago, states that Shenzhou 8 is "foreseen to be launched in September 2011."

If this is the case, then it seems more than likely that Tiangong 1 will be launched in August, to ensure that there's enough time to get Shenzhou 8 ready for flight.

Tiangong 1 is destined to remain in orbit for at least two years. Shenzhou 8 will return to a controlled landing a lot sooner. In February this year, I reported on a communication from DLR, Gemany's space agency, on the mission. DLR told me that the flight, carrying the German experiments back to Earth, would last between 20 and 22 days. This suggests an October landing for Shenzhou 8 is probable.

After waiting years for more activity in China's human spaceflight program, we now have two launches coming up within the space of roughly two months. It's pleasing to finally see some progress, but we will still have to wait longer for the next launch of a crew of Chinese astronauts. That will finally come in 2012, if all goes well.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Time_Enough_for_Tiangong_999.html.