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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Nigerian satellite demonstrates stunning high resolution capability

Guildford, UK (SPX)
Sep 29, 2011

The first high resolution satellite imagery was released Thursday from NigeriaSat-2, as engineers from the Nigerian space agency (NASRDA) and the satellite's manufacturer Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) continue in the successful commissioning of the new satellite from NASRDA's headquarters in Abuja.

Testing of all the systems on-board the satellite has been successfully completed, and calibration of the imaging payloads is ongoing with outstanding results already being produced.

This 2.5m resolution pan-sharpened example shows the airport at Salt Lake City, USA with the terminal buildings, runway layout and surrounding roads all clearly visible.

In the full resolution terminal buildings extract, aircraft can be seen at the stands as well as cars in the parking lot. In the runways extract painted numbers can clearly be read on the tarmac and there is sufficient detail to count the engines on larger aircraft. In another extract of a highway interchange, vehicles are readily discernable on the road.

NigeriaSat-2 is the first SSTL 300kg class satellite, and represents a significant step forward for NASRDA from its 100kg predecessor, NigeriaSat-1. The main reason for its increased size is that imaging at 2.5m resolution demands a larger camera - but the increased capability doesn't end there.

The distinctive heptagonal SSTL-300 platform is highly agile enabling it to roll off-centre to acquire images in a variety of modes to suit the application and the response times required and the data handling and power system are also significantly enhanced to provide greater throughput as well as quality of imagery.

During disasters, NigeriaSat-2 will complement its fellow Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellites by using its high resolution imager to "zoom in" on areas of interest and determine if individual buildings are damaged, bridges destroyed or roads impassable. It is also the first satellite in the African Resource Management (ARM) constellation.

Nigeria's national space agency (NASRDA) also plans to harness the satellite's new capabilities and fast image downloading to map the entire country in detail every four months.

The high resolution and geo-location accuracy of the satellite make it possible to monitor urban development in sprawling cities such as Lagos, and for planning infrastructure such as roads. Geospatial data will also be used to update the land registry with accurate and current information.

There are also benefits for commercial imaging campaigns. NigeriaSat-2's smaller pixel size improves the accuracy of the maps used for applications such as precision agriculture. In this case more granular data improves fertiliser application maps, meaning that fertiliser can be applied more efficiently.

At next week's International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town, NASRDA and SSTL will present a selection of impressive high resolution images from NigeriaSat-2 collected in these early stages of the mission.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Nigerian_satellite_demonstrates_stunning_high_resolution_capability_999.html.

Astronomers crack the Fried Egg Nebula

Manchester UK (SPX)
Sep 29, 2011

Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), teams from The University of Manchester, among others, took the new picture showing for the first time a huge dusty double shell surrounding the central hypergiant.

The star and its shells resemble an egg white around a yolky centre, leading the astronomers to nickname the object the Fried Egg Nebula. The international team's results are published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The monster star, known to astronomers as IRAS 17163-3907, has a diameter about a thousand times bigger than our Sun. At a distance of about 13 000 light-years from Earth, it is the closest yellow hypergiant found to date and new observations show it shines some 500 000 times more brightly than the Sun.

The observations of the star and the discovery of its surrounding shells were made using the VISIR infrared camera on the VLT. The pictures are the first of this object to clearly show the material around it and reveal two almost perfectly spherical shells.

If the Fried Egg Nebula were placed in the centre of the Solar System, the Earth would lie deep within the star itself and the planet Jupiter would be orbiting just above its surface.

The much larger surrounding nebula would engulf all the planets and dwarf planets and even some of the comets that orbit far beyond the orbit of Neptune. The outer shell has a radius of 10 000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

"This object was known to glow brightly in the infrared but, surprisingly, nobody had identified it as a yellow hypergiant before," said Eric Lagadec (European Southern Observatory), who led the team that produced the new discovery.

Yellow hypergiants are in an extremely volatile phase of their evolution, undergoing a series of explosive events - this star has ejected four times the mass of the Sun in just a few hundred years. The material flung out during these bursts has formed the extensive double shell of the nebula, which is made of dust rich in silicates and surrounded by gas.

Professor Albert Zijlstra, from The University of Manchester, said: "It is amazing that one of the brightest stars in the infrared sky had previously gone unnoticed. We are seeing a very rare event, when a star is beginning to blow off its outer layers, as a prelude to its final explosion as a supernova."

This activity also shows that the star is likely to soon die an explosive death - it will be one of the next supernova explosions in our galaxy. Supernovae provide much-needed chemicals to the surrounding interstellar environment and the resulting shock waves can kick start the formation of new stars.

The Very Large Telescope mid-IR instrument, VISIR, captured this delicious image of the Fried Egg Nebula through three mid-infrared filters that are here coloured blue, green and red.

The name IRAS 17163-3907 indicates that the object was first spotted as an infrared source by the IRAS satellite in 1983 and the numbers show the star's place in the sky, in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

IRAS 17163-3907 is one of the 30 brightest stars in the infrared sky, at the wavelength of 12 microns observed by IRAS, but it had been overlooked because it is quite faint in the visible. The total mass of this star is estimated to be roughly twenty times that of the Sun.

After burning all their hydrogen, all stars of ten solar masses or more become red supergiants. This phase ends when the star has finished burning all of its helium. Some of these high-mass stars then spend just a few million years in the post-red supergiant phase as yellow hypergiants, a relatively short time in the life of a star, before rapidly evolving into another unusual type of star called a luminous blue variable.

These hot and brilliant stars are continuously varying in brightness and are losing matter due to the strong stellar winds they expel. But this is not the end of the star's evolutionary adventure, as it may next become a different kind of unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet star before ending its life as a violent supernova explosion.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Astronomers_crack_the_Fried_Egg_Nebula_999.html.

China launches first space station module: CCTV

Beijing, China (AFP)
Sep 29, 2011

China took its first step towards building a space station on Thursday when it launched an experimental module ahead of National Day celebrations.

Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace", took off on schedule shortly after 09:15pm (1315 GMT) from the Gobi desert in China's northwest, propelled by a Long March 2F rocket, ahead of China's National Day on October 1.

The unmanned 8.5-tonne module will test various space operations as a preliminary step towards building a space station by 2020.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was at the launch centre for the take-off, while President Hu Jintao watched from a space flight control centre in Beijing, the state Xinhua news agency said.

China sees its ambitious space program as a symbol of its global stature and state newspapers devoted several pages to the launch, hailing it as a "milestone" for the country.

Tiangong-1, which has a two-year lifespan in space, will receive the unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft later this year in what would be the first Chinese docking in space.

If that succeeds, the module will then dock with two other spacecraft -- Shenzhou IX and X -- in 2012, both of which will have at least one astronaut on board.

The technology for docking in space is hard to master because the two vessels, placed in the same orbit and revolving around Earth at some 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,360 mph), must come together progressively to avoid destroying each other.

French researcher Isabelle Sourbes-Verger said that a correctly functioning docking system would put China "in a potential position to one day access the International Space Station (ISS)."

But she cautioned that this was not likely to happen in the next five years.

China, which has only been open to the world for some 30 years, is playing catch-up in the space arena.

Just like its first manned spaceflight in 2003, the planned space docking later this year will emulate what the Americans and Russians achieved in the 1960s.

China aims to finish its space station, where astronauts can live autonomously for several months like on the ISS or the former Russian Mir, by 2020.

Beijing began its manned spaceflight program in 1990, after it bought Russian technology that enabled it to become the third country to send humans into space, after the former USSR and the United States.

On its national day last year, China launched its second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, and the first Chinese probe destined for Mars is due to be launched by a Russian rocket this autumn.

It is unclear whether China plans to send humans to the moon, particularly after the United States said it would not return there.

But the official China Daily newspaper quoted Wu Ping, a spokeswoman for China's manned space program, as saying that the Asian nation was doing "concept research and preliminary feasibility studies on manned moon landings."

She added there was currently no set timetable for such a landing.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_launches_first_space_station_module_CCTV_999.html.

Ivory Coast opens Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Sep 28, 2011

Abidjan - The Ivory Coast inaugurated on Wednesday a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, part of the country's coming to terms with lethal post-election violence that erupted late last year and ongoing efforts to help create national unity.

Thousands of people were killed after violence broke out in November and carried on until late April. Up to 1 million people were displaced by the conflict, many of whom have not yet returned home, as they fear further unrest.

However, attacks have largely abated and the country, a major cocoa producer, is expected to see economic growth of some 8 per cent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The commission - modeled on the South African panel of the same name and founded after the end of apartheid there - will have 11 members and be headed by former prime minister Charles Konan Banny. Other members include leaders of the Christian and Muslim communities.

How exactly the commission will function, and whether it would have the power to grant amnesty, remained unclear. It is expected to have a two-year mandate.

'The two year-mandate of the reconciliation commission is really short and the absence of the a clear operating mode of the commission is worrying,' said Ngouan Patrick, the chairman of the CSCI, the country's largest coalition of civil society organizations.

Patrick said he was 'satisfied' with the make-up of the panel, noting it was free of serving politicians and military officials.

Violence erupted after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after the international community recognized his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, as the winner of the November poll. Fighting subsided only after Gbagbo was captured and his forces defeated.

Gbagbo and his wife, Simone, along with dozens of allies have been detained for 'breaches of national security' and 'economic crimes,' including embezzlement.

Supporters of the former president have been calling for his release and denounce Ouattara's government.

The commission's opening ceremony, in the capital Yamoussoukro, was presided over by Ouattara and was heavily guarded by UN forces and army troops.

'I officially give you the order and the instrument of the commission that you're going to lead,' the president said to Banny, the chairman, during his brief speech before the gathered crowd.

Many Ivorians have expressed hope the commission will somehow chart a path towards healing the divides in the country, which witnessed stability and economic growth for the first decades after it became independent from France's colonial rule.

In 2002, the country slipped into a deadly civil war, largely along ethnic and religious lines, which lasted for over two years. Peace efforts have been ongoing to help Ivory Coast return to stability and end violence.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/africa/news/article_1665664.php/Ivory-Coast-opens-Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission.

Hamas Leader on Personal Visit to Amman

2011-09-29

By Qusai Ja'roun

AMMONNEWS - The Head of Hamas' political bureau Khaled Meshaal on Thursday arrived in Jordan coming from Syria on a personal visit.

A source close to Meshaal told Ammon News that the Hamas leader's arrived in Jordan to visit his mother, who is ill.

Thursday's visit is the second of its kind since the expulsion of the Hamas leadership from Jordan in August 1999, the latest visit was in 2009 when Meshaal came to Jordan to attend his father's funeral.

Meshaal has been the main leader of Hamas since the 2004 assassination of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, and heads the political bureau of Hamas in Syria, where he has been headquartered since 2001.

Minister of Interior Mazen Sakit said on Thursday that Meshaal was allowed to enter Jordan for a limited time upon his request to visit his sick mother.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13937.

Parliament criminalizes reporting on corruption

2011-09-29

AMMONNEWS - The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) condemned the recent adoption of Article 23 (A draft law for the Authority of Anti-Corruption presented by the executive power) by the Jordanian Parliament, which criminalizes publishing information about corruption with a fine of 30,000 to 60,000 Jordanian Dinars (approx. US$42,000 to US$84,600). The article was approved by 56 members out of the 96 who attended the session, which was held on the morning of 27 September.

Under Article 23, "Whoever unlawfully spreads, publishes, refers or helps in the publication of news by any public means about any person accused of the crimes of corruption which is mentioned in Article 5 of this law and that leads to defamation, impacts on his dignity or targets his personality, will be punished by a fine not less than 30,000 Jordanian Dinars and not more than 60,000 Jordanian Dinars." This means that journalists, bloggers and activists in Jordan will risk prosecution and a steep fine for publishing any news or information about corruption.

ANHRI pointed out that "the adoption of this article by the Parliament is not only considered to be an attack on freedom of expression and gagging of journalists, but is also a violation against the rights of citizens to circulate information on corruption, which must be shared with public opinion as it affects all classes of people directly."

"This oppressive article that was adopted by the Parliament is considered to be an endorsement for corruption in Jordan. It does not provide any benefit to the people in Jordan. On the contrary, it aims to protect some people in power and could provoke suspicions of corruption against them," said ANHRI.

"The adoption of this article by the Parliament is shocking, particularly since the main role of the Parliament is to represent the people and express their interests, limit corruption and curb it. This legislative addition makes us wonder because by adopting this article, it went from guarding against corruption to condoning it. The Jordanian authorities must reevaluate the issue of adopting and applying these arbitrary legal restrictions," ANHRI added.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13932.

Low turnout at Saudi municipal polls, monitors say

Sep 29, 2011

Riyadh - Saudis went to the polls Thursday to elect municipal councils amid a low turnout, according to local monitors.

'The voter turnout has so far been weak because Thursday is an official holiday in the kingdom,' said one monitor. Kateb al-Shamri, another Saudi monitor, however, expected the turnout to increase later in the day.

'It takes around five minutes to cast one's ballot because organization inside polling stations are good,' he said. 'There will be a strong turnout in the afternoon.'

Polling booths opened across the country at 0800 local time (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 1700.

Thursday's elections, the only ones in the oil-rich kingdom, are the last to be held without women voters.

Municipal elections this year are only the second in the conservative kingdom's history. The first were held in 2005.

Around 5,000 candidates are running for 1,056 seats at 285 councils across the kingdom, the spokesman for the electoral commission, Jadeeh bin Nahar, said on Wednesday. They are being monitored by some 500 Saudi lawyers and activists.

On Sunday, Saudi King Abdullah decided to allow women to run for the next municipal elections and be appointed as members of parliament.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1665822.php/Low-turnout-at-Saudi-municipal-polls-monitors-say.

Turks escalate East Med gas confrontation

Sept. 28, 2011

The confrontation between Israel, Turkey and Cyprus over gas fields in the Mediterranean has worsened as a Turkish research ship began drilling off Cyprus.

LIMASSOL, Cyprus, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The confrontation between the energy-poor states of Israel, Turkey and Cyprus over gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean has worsened as a Turkish research ship began exploratory drilling off war-divided Cyprus.

"We have an economic energy conflict that now is kind of coinciding with a political crisis and it's an explosive situation," said Israeli energy specialist Amit Mor.

The vessel, the Koca Piri Reis named after a 16th-century Ottoman admiral, was escorted by a Turkish navy frigate and circling warplanes.

In what appeared to be a deliberate provocation, it started drilling Monday 50 miles off the Greek-controlled southern sector of Cyprus.

That was in retaliation for exploratory drilling by the Texas company Nobel Energy company in nearby waters off the south of the island. Nobel discovered major natural gas fields off Israel in 2009-10 linked to gas deposits off Cyprus.

Israel plans to join forces with the Greek Cypriots to transport their combined gas exports via underwater pipelines to Europe through Greece, Turkey's longtime adversary.

Turkey was once a strategic ally of Israel but they split over Israel's 44-year-old occupation of Palestinian land and the killing of nine Turks by Israeli naval commandos who intercepted a humanitarian aid convoy headed for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip May 31, 2010.

Israel has infuriated Turkey by refusing Ankara's repeated demands for an apology for the bloodletting in international waters.

Turkey and Greece are historical rivals, even though both are NATO members.

The Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974, seizing the northern part of the island and proclaiming it the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Only Ankara recognizes the breakaway enclave. The Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia is recognized worldwide.

Muslim Turkey, which is striving to become the major power in the region, has threatened to use naval power to prevent drilling until there is a peace agreement between the Cypriot factions, including a sharing of the proceeds from gas exports.

Ankara has also warned that Turkish warships will escort any further aid convoys to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The Turks have reportedly deployed fighter aircraft in northern Cyprus.

That heightens the threat of a naval confrontation that could impede offshore drilling operations and damage the long-term economic prospects of not only Israel and Cyprus but other littoral states like Syria and Lebanon.

Tiny Lebanon, whose only natural resource is water, is already in dispute with Israel over the rich gas fields found by Nobel Energy off Haifa that contain an estimated 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Both countries, technically in a state of war, have threatened military action.

"The confirmation of hydrocarbon deposits in the Levant Basin has stoked already tense relations between the energy-poor states of the eastern Mediterranean," Oxford Analytica observed in an analysis Wednesday.

"The prospect these discoveries offer long-term energy security and significant new revenue streams have revived two long-standing disputes over offshore sovereignty -- between the Republic of Cyprus and Turkey and between Israel and Lebanon.

"Amid a deterioration in Israeli-Turkish relations, these developments are forging new alliances and contributing to the reshaping of regional politics," the analysis noted.

"Turkey will do everything it can to help the Lebanese argument regarding its territorial waters and drilling rights," said Mor.

"I'm much more worried about possible clashed between Israeli and Turkish ships in the Cyprus area than in the Gaza area."

The energy stakes are high, which suggests the countries involved could at some point resort to military action to protect their economic prizes.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported in 2010 that the Levant Basin, which encompasses the territorial waters of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Gaza Strip, Cyprus and possibly Egypt, contains up to 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas and perhaps 2 billion barrels of oil.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized Ankara's determination to enforce its will when he attended the induction of Turkey's first domestically built warship, a 300-foot corvette Heybeliada, into the navy Thursday.

He pointedly noted that the ceremony took place on the 473rd anniversary of the Battle of Preveza in northwestern Greece, where an Ottoman fleet destroyed a large Christian force.

"I recommend the international community take the necessary lessons from the Preveza victory," Erdogan declared.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/09/28/Turks-escalate-East-Med-gas-confrontation/UPI-39441317226786/.

Snake found eating snake in home

Sept. 29, 2011

TUCSON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Firefighters called to remove a snake from an Arizona home said what appeared to be a shedding snake was actually a large reptile eating a smaller one.

The Station 32 firefighters of the Northwest Fire District in Tucson said they handle snake calls up to five times a day during this time of year, but the call at Mary Jane Overall's home turned out to be unique, KVOA-TV, Tucson, reported Wednesday.

The firefighters said what appeared to be a snake shedding its skin turned out to be a non-venomous king snake eating a smaller, venomous snake.

"You wouldn't think a snake would come upstairs. You just wouldn't imagine that … let alone two!" Overall said.

She said the king snake may have saved her life by eating its deadlier cousin.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2011/09/29/Snake-found-eating-snake-in-home/UPI-18861317281400/.

Day of mourning in S. Africa after mine shooting

August 23, 2012

MARIKANA, South Africa (AP) — Grieving families are mourning at memorial services for 34 striking miners killed by police, as the nation in shock asks who gave the orders and who must be blamed.

Memorial services are being held across the country for South Africans to honor all those killed violently in a country with one of the world's highest murder and rape rates. More than 1,000 people attended the memorial service in Marikana arranged by the government.

The relative of a miner killed in last week's shootings said he wants to see some arrests. "If it were me I'd want everyone who was involved in this incident including the mine managers to be arrested, the whole lot of them, because a person's life is not worth money," Ubuntu Akumelisine told the AP.

Mungiswa Mphumza, the sister of a dead miner from Eastern Cape, said she was at peace. "We have accepted everything that has happened and we ask that the dead rest in peace, there is nothing that we can do at the moment, what has happened has happened. God takes what he likes," Mphumza said.

President Jacob Zuma called on the nation to commemorate not only the miners but all victims of South Africa's violence. Thirty-four miners were killed last Thursday when police opened fire on charging strikers. Another 10 people, including miners and police officers, died in the days before.

The day should be an opportunity for the nation to "mourn and promote a violence-free society," said Zuma in a statement. The president did not attend any of the memorials. Zuma on Wednesday night demanded that mine companies provide decent homes and sanitation for miners. He singled out one mining house where 666 workers share four toilets and four showers, according to the Star newspaper. He did not name the company.

Zuma warned that those who do not comply with the Mining Charter requiring adequate housing risk losing their licenses. The president said it was not a time for pointing fingers in last week's shooting deaths.

"I won't judge the incident. The judicial commission of inquiry will do so," he said at a lecture in North West Province, home to the country's troubled platinum mines. Expelled African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, a fierce critic of the Zuma administration, attended the memorial.

Earlier this week, Malema joined miners as they went to file a criminal case of murder against the police for the shootings. Other memorial services are held around the country, including a service arranged by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, one of the unions included in the dispute.

Syrian rebels advance in town along Iraqi border

August 23, 2012

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels waged fierce battles with regime troops in a town along the Iraqi border on Thursday, capturing a string of security posts and the local police headquarters despite heavy government shelling and airstrikes by warplanes, activists said.

Taking full control of al-Bukamal, located in the eastern oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour and across the border from the Iraqi town of Qaim, would expand the rebel foothold along the frontier with Iraq. The border crossing point has been in rebel hands since last month, although government troops have remained in control of much of the town, activists say.

The opposition already controls a wide swath of territory along the border with Turkey in the north as well as pockets along the frontier with Jordan to the south and Lebanon to the west, which has proven key in ferrying people and material into and out of the country.

Rebels have been fighting troops for days in al-Bukamal, but over the past few hours have taken over several checkpoints, the main police station and the local command of the Political Security Directorate, one of Syria's powerful intelligence agencies, according to Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He added that government troops are still control of the border crossing point leading to Iraq. "There is an attempt to take full control al-Bukamal," Abdul-Rahman said. The Local Coordination Committees activist group said warplanes bombed al-Bukamal, but Abdul-Rahman said the jets were flying over the town and struck nearby areas, not the town itself.

Abu-Omar al-Deery, an activist in the provincial capital of Deir el-Zour, said by telephone that there are "fierce battles" in al-Bukamal and that "the Free Syrian Army is trying to liberate and clean the city."

There was no immediate word on casualties. The main battle fronts in the past month have been in the capital, Damascus, as well as the northern city of Aleppo, where regime forces have struggled to stamp out a rebel offensive that began last month and succeeded in capturing several neighborhoods in the city of 3 million people.

In a report released Thursday, the human rights group Amnesty International said artillery and mortar fire and airstrikes by government forces in Aleppo are killing mostly civilians, including children. It said air and artillery strikes against residential neighborhoods are indiscriminate attacks that seriously endanger civilians.

Amnesty said that during a 10-day fact-finding visit to Aleppo city in the first half of August, Amnesty investigated some 30 attacks in which more than 80 civilians, who were not directly participating in hostilities, were killed and many more were injured.

Amnesty said that among the dead were 10 members of one family, seven of them children. Their home was destroyed in two airstrikes on Aug. 6. It said bodies of mostly young men, most of them handcuffed and shot in the head, have been frequently found near the local headquarters of the powerful Air Force Intelligence, which is in a government-controlled area.

Activists say more than 20,000 people have been killed since Syria's crisis erupted in March last year. The uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began with largely peaceful protests but has since morphed into a civil war that has spread to almost all areas of the country.

In the Damascus suburb of Daraya, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said government shelling killed a mother and her five children. It said the six were members of al-Sheik family and had fled from their hometown of Maadamiyeh to escape the violence.

An amateur video showed the five children draped in which shrouds with their faces showing during the funeral. The body of the mother was all covered.

Ethiopia: Leader's swearing in delayed for funeral

August 23, 2012

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia on Thursday postponed the emergency session of parliament to swear in a new prime minister as many leaders attended the funeral of a church leader.

Acting Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn was to be sworn in Thursday following the death on Monday of longtime leader Meles Zenawi. Bereket Simon, Ethiopia's communications minister, said the country had "ample time" to swear in the new prime minister.

"There is no need to rush into it when the nation is grieving," Bereket said. "What all the lawmakers and their constituencies and the nation at large want to do at this time is mourn the great loss and honor the late prime minister. We want to first honor this and handle the prime minister's funeral with due diligence."

Bereket also said the death of Abune Paulos, the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, was another reason for the delay. Hailemariam attended and spoke at the Thursday funeral. The funeral for Meles, who ruled Ethiopia for 21 years, has not yet been set. Leaders from around the world are expected to attend. Meles died in a Belgium hospital late Monday from an illness that Ethiopian officials have not revealed.

Hailemariam is a relatively young figure on Ethiopia's political scene and it's not clear if old guard leaders will allow him to hold onto the prime minister's seat until 2015 elections. Ethiopia is a strong U.S. ally on counter-terrorism issues, particularly in Somalia. Meles was hailed for advancing Ethiopia's economic progress but was denounced by human rights groups for a heavy handed approach to political dissent.

Pakistan: 22 die from heavy rains, flooding

August 23, 2012

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani officials say heavy monsoon rains that triggered flooding in the country's north have caused at least 22 deaths.

Sardar Nawaz Khan, a disaster management official, says at least 13 people died on Wednesday in the northeast in Pakistan-held Kashmir. Nine of the dead belonged to three families who were buried alive when the roofs of their houses caved in.

Another official, Adnan Khan, says nine people died Wednesday in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Six of the deaths occurred in Mansehra district, and three in Nowshera district. Both officials spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its 65-year history in 2010. Floodwaters inundated one-fifth of the country, an area larger than England, and killed over 1,700 people. Over 20 million people were affected.

Berlin zoo's panda Bao Bao dies

August 22, 2012

BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin zoo says Bao Bao, who was given to West Germany by China in 1980 and was one of the world's oldest giant pandas, has died.

The zoo said the 34-year-old bear died early Wednesday in his enclosure after his health deteriorated over the last several months. Bao Bao was born in 1978 in China and later given as a gift by then-Chinese leader Hua Guofeng to West Germany's chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. Hua, Mao Zedong's successor, also gave Germany female panda Tjen Tjen at the same time, but she died in 1984.

Bao Bao was loaned to London's zoo between 1991 and 1993 as a potential — but ultimately unsuccessful — mate for its panda, Ming Ming. The zoo says Bao Bao was the world's oldest known male panda.

Syrian civil war shakes Damascus-Beirut ties

August 22, 2012

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Lebanon, bringing with it sectarian street clashes, mob violence and general government paralysis in Beirut.

But it was the dramatic arrest earlier this month of a former Lebanese government minister and prominent supporter of Syria's embattled president that has suggested the conflict may be causing Lebanon to slip further away from Damascus' long domination.

The bloodshed in Syria has drawn Lebanon deeper into the unrest — a troubling sign for a country that has gone through its own 15-year civil war and has an explosive sectarian mix as well as deep divisions between pro- and anti-Syrian factions, many of which are armed.

The chaos could give Sunni Muslim fighters in northern Lebanon more leeway to establish supply lines to the rebels inside Syria in their battle to oust President Bashar Assad. Tensions and intermittent fighting in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli continued Wednesday following two days of clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups that killed at least six people and wounded more than 70.

In New York, United Nations political chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council Wednesday that as the crisis in Syria continues to deteriorate, "the situation in Lebanon has become more precarious and the need for continued international support to the government and the Lebanese Armed Forces increasingly important."

Feltman said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about two-way arms smuggling across the Syrian-Lebanese border, which poses risks to both countries and violates a council resolution that ended the month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanese politics.

Seventeen times bigger than Lebanon and four times more populous, Syria has long had powerful allies here, including the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group that now dominates the government. For much of the past 30 years, Lebanese have lived under Syrian military and political domination.

That grip began to slip in 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in Beirut. Widely accused of involvement— something it has always denied — Syria was forced to withdraw its troops. But the killings of anti-Syrian figures continued and opponents of Assad's regime say he has maintained his influence through allies who now control the government.

All this made the Aug. 9 arrest of former Information Minister Michel Samaha all the more shocking. Samaha, one of Syria's most loyal allies in Lebanon who has long acted as an unofficial media adviser to Assad, was plucked from his bed at dawn by special police forces who burst into his summer mountain home. Within hours, various leaks began emerging that Samaha had confessed to having personally transported explosives in his car from Syria to Lebanon with the purpose of killing Lebanese personalities at the behest of Syria.

Two days later, a military court indicted Samaha, along with Syrian Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, of plotting to carry out terrorist attacks inside Lebanon. Mamlouk, who was appointed last month by Assad to head Syria's National Security Bureau, was indicted in absentia on charges he furnished the explosives to Samaha.

According to a senior Lebanese police official, Samaha confessed after he was confronted with audio and video footage taken by a double agent using a camera-equipped pen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

The case stunned many in Lebanon, where political assassinations have occurred with impunity for decades. While Syria has been blamed for many of the killings, no one has been held accountable. Syria's allies in Lebanon — including Hezbollah — were mostly silent following Samaha's arrest, apparently believing that the evidence against him was solid.

"I think the policy (in Lebanon) has been shifting away from alliance with Syria," said Ayham Kamel, a Middle East analyst at the Eurasia Group in London. "The Syrian regime has been under intense pressure, so its allies in Lebanon have recalibrated."

Syria's opponents in Lebanon cited the Samaha case as proof that Damascus was trying to incite sectarian strife in its neighbor to deflect attention from its own problems, and they called for the Syrian ambassador to be expelled.

In unusually bold comments by a Lebanese head of state, President Michel Suleiman said he expected Assad to explain the situation. "When any relationship with a foreign entity harms Lebanon, we end it. And when the relationship is again in Lebanon's interest, we reinstate it," Suleiman said in an apparent reference to Syria. His comments were published in the Lebanese media.

Analysts say Suleiman is aiming to be the new face of a more independent Lebanon, taking advantage of a weakened regime in Syria. Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who heads a government dominated by Hezbollah and pro-Syrian groups, said he isn't taking sides in the Syria crisis, adopting a policy of "disassociation." Critics say that has led to a general government paralysis in which authorities are afraid to take sides when it comes to Lebanon's feuding pro- and anti-Syrian camps.

Mikati commended the security operation that resulted in Samaha's arrest, saying it saved Lebanon from "major disaster." "The Syrian regime's allies are shrinking. The Lebanese government, which was 'Made in Syria,' was among the regime's last allies, and they seem to be losing even that," said Hadi Hobeish, an anti-Syrian lawmaker.

Syria accuses Sunni groups in Lebanon of trying to establish a supply line to Syrian rebels across Lebanon's northern frontier, bringing across fighters and weapons. The Lebanese military has been deployed along the porous border area to try to prevent the smuggling efforts, but if Beirut turns against Damascus, such operations could become easier to carry out.

Even Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group backed by Iran and Syria, has sought to distance itself from the turmoil in Syria. When Shiite clans abducted scores of Syrians in Lebanon last week in retaliation for a kidnapping by Syrian rebels in Damascus, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the mayhem was out of the group's control.

Analysts say Assad still has the tools and the allies he needs to stir up trouble in Lebanon. "I don't think the Syrian regime has fully lost influence in Lebanon," said Kamel, the Eurasia analyst. "But definitely it has less ability and even willingness to intervene on the same level in Lebanese politics," he added.

Hanin Ghaddar, managing editor of the Lebanon opposition website NOWLebanon, said Lebanon is at a significant crossroads in its relationship with Syria. "Assad's aura in Lebanon is fading," Ghaddar wrote last week.

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the U.N. in New York.

Balkans heat wave fuels forest fires in Bosnia

August 21, 2012

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Authorities on Tuesday declared a state of emergency around a town in Bosnia's northeast and a tourist area was evacuated in the country's south as a heat wave fuelled wildfires across the Balkans and left people suffering heat exhaustion.

Bratunac Mayor Nedeljko Mladjenovic declared the emergency as he said wildfires from several directions were threatening his town. Around 50 residents are helping firefighters and forest rangers fight a blaze creeping towards the suburb of Slapasnica, and the town's civil protection agency has asked for help from the army and residents.

In the country's south, firefighters are battling four blazes around the town of Konjic and townsfolk and tourists have begun evacuating houses near Boracko Lake as the extreme heat and strong winds have hindered the extinguishing of approaching blazes.

Many tourists staying at the lake are Bosnians who live in Germany, returning home for the holidays. Zorica Muskovic arrived last week from Munich. "This is really not pleasant at all, I am scared. I want to leave as soon as possible," she told the AP.

Aida Gakic from the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, who earlier evacuated two of her children from the resort, said she and her husband were unsure of the local fire brigade's capabilities, so decided to stay put and protect their property.

"We are terrified of the fire and rocks falling down from the mountain. I evacuated my children, and I only stayed behind to defend my weekend house, ' she said. Many of the fires swept through fields still dotted with mines from the Bosnian War, which took place in the region between 1992 and 1995. The resort is situated on a former frontline.

Tourists said that they could hear loud explosions from the forest as the mines were set off by the blaze Such fires have been burning in several areas of Bosnia for weeks and the fight to extinguish them has been complicated by the country's hilly terrain, strong winds, little rainfall and a 40-Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) heat wave which is forcing people to seek medical assistance.

In the Bosnian capital, Dr. Tigran Elezovic of Sarajevo's emergency service said Tuesday that since the start of the summer, around 600 people have sought daily help for heat-related health problems. "We are constantly instructing people to limit their outdoor activity in the period between 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and to finish whatever they need to do outdoors before 10 in the morning," he said.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, authorities have issued heat warnings, instructing people to stay indoors and drink lots to avoid dehydration. In neighboring Serbia, authorities have warned people to remain inside and protect themselves from high temperatures, while the Croatian Health Ministry warned Tuesday that "only one careless moment is enough for the heat to become fatal," and urged people to shower often and drink lots of water.

Croatia has also suffered a number of wildfires throughout the summer, and the coastal municipality of Split has urged the government to postpone the start of the school year because of the heat. In Serbia, Belgrade city authorities say they will park water tanks on city squares Wednesday, and doctors have reiterated warnings about the extreme heat.

Jovana Gec from Belgrade, and Amer Cohadzic, Eldar Emriand and Radul Radovanovic from Sarajevo contributed to this report

Star Witness: Top Syrian Media Host Abandons Assad For The Truth

2012-08-23

For 15 years, Ola Abbas presented the news on Syrian state television and radio. After spending months reporting President Assad's lies and distortions about the uprising, she finally became the first media broadcast host to defect. Now she sees herself as a missionary for the truth.

At about 7:30 p.m. on July 11, Ola Abbas sat down at her laptop in her apartment in southeast Damascus and summoned her courage. She then compressed her rage, which had been building up for months, into 187 words that have changed her life.

At about 10 p.m., she clicked "Send" and posted her message on Facebook. In it, she explains that she now sides with the Syrian rebels and no longer supports Syrian President Bashar Assad. She fled to Beirut the next day and to Paris a week later. Everything has changed since then.

Abbas, 38, was the face and voice of the regime. For 15 years, she presented the news on Syrian state television and radio. Most recently, she spent more than a year telling Syrians that there was no uprising, that the rebels were merely armed terrorists determined to sow chaos, that there was an Israeli-Saudi-Western conspiracy against her country, and that Assad was the protector of the country's sovereignty.

She presented all these statements to her country. Today, she says she never meant any of it.

Her escape has dealt yet another blow to the regime, and one that is difficult to explain. The firm, smoky voice that listeners had come to love and that is now no longer to be heard on the radio is that of an Alawite who benefited from Assad's regime throughout her life -- and who is now providing insights into the inner workings of the Syrian propaganda machine.

Forced To Lie

Abbas meets with us in an austere, cell-like room in the southern part of Paris. The 10-square-meter (108-square-foot) room is sparsely furnished with a table, a bed and three chairs borrowed from her neighbor, and a bookshelf with an English-language book on it, which she cannot read.

Abbas articulates her words carefully, underscoring the sentences that are important to her by opening her eyes wide and making dramatic gestures, leaving no room for debate. She has retained her announcer's personality, honed and perfected for 15 years. The content has now changed.

Bashar Assad is a criminal, Abbas says, a monster who is slaughtering his own people. She describes the state-owned media as his vicarious agents, both dependent and obedient. She cuts short any attempt to reproach her by slicing her finger through the air, as she chain-smokes hand-rolled cigarettes.

She says that she had made up her mind that she was against the regime within the first few months of the rebellion, especially after government forces opened fire on peaceful protestors; but she remained silent out of fear.

She drove to work every morning through downtown Damascus to the state television building. "I often sat crying in my car. The thought of having to read Bashar's messages every day almost broke my heart," says Abbas.

Like Assad, Abbas is a member of the Alawite religious minority, and thus part of the Syrian elite. Her parents were writers, and her mother, the president of the Arab Writers Union, is a firm supporter of Assad. Abbas's fiancé is also loyal to the regime.

Only close friends and colleagues knew about her plan to flee the country. It was rarely discussed, she says, and when anyone did talk about it, it was only in hushed tones in a storage room at the office, out of range of the intelligence service's microphones. The Syrian media have kept silent about her disappearance.

Inklings Of The Truth

For a long time, Abbas told herself that everything would turn out for the best. Whenever Assad appeared in public, she says, she hoped that it was to announce his resignation. But the opposite happened, and things only got worse. With each new instruction that arrived in the offices of the state television and radio network from the Information Ministry, Abbas says, her conscience felt increasingly guilty.

The word "demonstrators" was prohibited in the media from the start. Soon there was no longer just talk of "people who are going into the streets to cause chaos," but also of "armed groups," "conspirators" and, finally, "extremists, Islamists and terrorists." The uprising was dubbed a "conspiracy" and the revolution a "crisis." As the rhetoric escalated, so did the conflict.

Abbas had gotten used to the fact that none of what her friends were reporting from Daraa and Homs, the centers of the uprising, could be mentioned on air. Neither could the reports she saw every day on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

She obediently quoted SANA, the Syrian state news agency, which she says gets its information directly from the information office at the presidential palace. She also became accustomed to the friendly nods of the information minister, whom she repeatedly encountered in the hallways at the station. She played along.

Soon notes were posted at the station with the names of singers like Fadl Shaker and Assala Nasri, whose music was no longer to be played. At a certain point, live conversations with listeners were no longer permitted because they couldn't be controlled.

One day the secret police came and took away a colleague who had filmed a pro-Assad demonstration in way that made it obvious that hardly anyone was there. Abbas hasn't seen him since. And still she said nothing.

Deciding Between Angels And Devils

When images of the massacres in Houla and Masraat al-Qubair began turning up, images of murdered women and children, and when she started hearing reports about the brutality of the Shabiha militias, she decided to act.

She posted her message, received anonymous threatening phone calls that same evening, packed up her documents and a small amount of money and fled. Friends have sent her the bare necessities, including some clothes and the red pants she likes to wear.

She has talked herself into a rage and, for the first time, she becomes emotional and says: "At a certain point, everyone has to decide between the devil and the angels. I did it, even if it was a little too late. I was driven by my conscience, which, after all, is what separates us from animals."

Abbas is the first broadcast media host to defect. She might not be the last. She says she knows other journalists in the state-owned media who are sympathetic to the opposition but are still holding out.

She speculates that perhaps it's because they are unwilling to leave their families or give up a relationship, as she did. Or perhaps they are afraid of what will happen once Assad is gone.

Meanwhile, the dictator is also losing support among those who speak on his behalf. In any case, few people believe what's reported anymore. Now that the fighting has spread to Damascus, Syrians know that their country is embroiled in a large-scale rebellion.

Stuck In Limbo

In Paris, after being the face of the regime for years, Abbas has now become the face of the revolution. She sees herself as a missionary whose goal is to spread the truth.

She sees Paris as a temporary solution. She doesn't know her way around, keeps getting lost in her own neighborhood, eats almost all of her meals in a Syrian restaurant around the corner, and speaks little French.

She can't go back. The secret police would arrest her immediately, she says, and she would be forced to confess, in front of a live camera, that she is a terrorist and that foreign powers paid her to harm Syria. Abbas is familiar with such videos because they're the ones that are played on state television.

She is waiting for the day when Assad is overthrown. Once that happens, she says, she wants to go back immediately and work as a journalist. "I believe that I can help my country in that way," Abbas says.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Australia opens combat roles to women

Wed Sep 28, 2011

Australian Defense Force has approved a government plan to allow women soldiers to serve in frontline combats within the next five years, Press TV reports.

Stephen Smith, Australian defense minister, said that as long as women meet the physical entry standards, they would be able to serve in all military roles, including the Special Forces, infantry and army artillery roles.

“If a woman is fully capable of doing the entrance program for the Special Air Service or Commandos, they'll be in it,” Smith said.

The move has been criticized by the founding member of “Stop the War Coalition” and the campaigner for women's rights, Pip Hinman.

“This reform will do nothing to empower women in our society, if anything, over the next five years it will mean that women will increasingly will be drawn into the longest-running war in Australia's history in Afghanistan,” Hinman told Press TV.

Australian military has sent more than 2,000 troops to fight in Iraq and currently makes up the largest contingent of any non-NATO member fighting in Afghanistan.

As of August, 335 women were serving on overseas operations, accounting for more than 10 percent of Australia's fighting forces deployed overseas.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201655.html.

Spain's PM dissolves parliament

Mon Sep 26, 2011

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has dissolved the country's parliament two months ahead of the next parliamentary elections.

Zapatero had earlier in the year announced that he would not seek a third term in office, after having held on to power since 2004.

“A stage is coming to an end, and that stage puts an end to my political activity,” AFP quoted Zapatero as saying in a news conference on Monday.

The elections will determine the country's next prime minister.

Zapatero expressed optimism about the country's economy, saying it would be able to climb out of its current debt crisis.

Moreover, Zapatero had in late July announced November 20 as the date for the parliament's General Election, which was originally scheduled for March 2012.

Many analysts believe the conservative People's Party (PP) will defeat Zapatero's Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the upcoming elections.

Meanwhile, Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado had last week said that the country's economic growth was moving too slowly, despite the government's efforts to boost economic activity.

“We are recovering more slowly than we would like, in particular more slowly as regards employment which is without doubt the main problem we have,” Salgado said.

Spain faces an unemployment rate of nearly 21 percent, with more than 4.1 million Spaniards having lost their jobs due to the economic crisis.

Spain's economy grew by a meager 0.2 percent in the second quarter of 2011.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201325.html.

Armies of teachers jolt France's streets

Tue Sep 27, 2011

Thousands of teachers and their supporters take to the streets across France following a related national strike to protest at the government-ordered job cuts in the education sector.

On Tuesday, more than 165,000 demonstrators took part in over 100 nationwide protests, the Associated Press reported.

The public voiced outrage at French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, which has shed tens of thousands of education-related positions since 2007 and plans to rid a further 14,000 in 2012.

The measures have caused schools to run into training problems and staff shortages.

The protest action was for the first time joined by private school teachers as well as their public sector colleagues.

According to France's Education Ministry, more than one in four school teachers went on the strike, though, two teachers' unions put the figure at over 50 percent of the workforce.

Sarkozy, however, adopted a comparatively relaxed tone, saying, "I know quite well that there are protests today. It's normal in a democracy."

"But the jobs under threat are not in the public sector - it's jobs in industry, jobs in business, and jobs exposed to competition," he said.

Teachers say endangering the education system as a means of shrinking France's massive red-ink budget will, in the long run, compromise the country's ability to keep up with an educated workforce.

The popular indignation came as the country is gearing up for the next-year's presidential and legislative elections and amid the labor unions' efforts to pile up pressure on the ruling conservatives.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201530.html.

Venus Weather Not Boring After All

Greenbelt MD (SPX)
Sep 28, 2011

At first glance, a weather forecaster for Venus would have either a really easy or a really boring job, depending on your point of view. The climate on Venus is widely known to be unpleasant - at the surface, the planet roasts at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit under a suffocating blanket of sulfuric acid clouds and a crushing atmosphere more than 90 times the pressure of Earth's. Intrepid future explorers should abandon any hope for better days, however, because it won't change much.

"Any variability in the weather on Venus is noteworthy, because the planet has so many features to keep atmospheric conditions the same," says Dr. Tim Livengood, a researcher with the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, Capitol Heights, Md., and now with the University of Maryland, College Park, Md.

"Earth has seasons because its rotation axis is tilted by about 23 degrees, which changes the intensity of sunlight and the length of the day in each hemisphere throughout the year. However, Venus has been tilted so much, it's almost completely upside down, leaving it with a net tilt of less than three degrees from the sun, so the seasonal effect is negligible," explains Livengood, who is stationed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"Also, its orbit is even more circular than Earth's, which prevents it from getting significantly hotter or cooler by moving closer to or further away from the sun. And while you might expect things to cool down at night - especially since Venus rotates so slowly that its night lasts almost two Earth months - the thick atmosphere and sulfuric acid clouds act like a blanket while winds move heat around, keeping temperatures pretty even. Finally, almost all the planet's water has escaped to space, so you don't get any storms or precipitation like on Earth where water evaporates and condenses as clouds."

However, higher up, the weather gets more interesting, according to a new study of old data by NASA and international scientists. The team detected strange things going on in data from telescopic observations of Venus in infrared light at about 68 miles (110 kilometers) above the planet's surface, in cold, clear air above the acid clouds, in two layers called the mesosphere and the thermosphere.

"Although the air over the polar regions in these upper atmospheric layers on Venus was colder than the air over the equator in most measurements, occasionally it appeared to be warmer," said Dr. Theodor Kostiuk of NASA Goddard.

"In Earth's atmosphere, a circulation pattern called a 'Hadley cell' occurs when warm air rises over the equator and flows toward the poles, where it cools and sinks. Since the atmosphere is denser closer to the surface, the descending air gets compressed and warms the upper atmosphere over Earth's poles. We saw the opposite on Venus.

In addition, although the surface temperature is fairly even, we've seen substantial changes - up to 54 degrees Fahrenheit (about 30 K change) - within a few Earth days in the mesosphere - thermosphere layers over low latitudes on Venus. The poles appeared to be more stable, but we still saw changes up to 27 degrees Fahrenheit (about 15 K change)."

Kostiuk and Livengood are co-authors of a paper about these observations that appeared July 23 in the online edition of the journal Icarus.

"The mesosphere and thermosphere of Venus are dynamically active," said lead author Dr. Guido Sonnabend of the University of Cologne, Germany. "Wind patterns resulting from solar heating and east to west zonal winds compete, possibly resulting in altered local temperatures and their variability over time."

This upper atmospheric variability could have many possible causes, according to the team. Turbulence from global air currents at different altitudes flowing at more than 200 miles per hour in opposite directions could exchange hot air from below with cold air from above to force changes in the upper atmosphere. Also, giant vortexes swirl around each pole. They, too, could generate turbulence and change the pressure, causing the temperature to vary.

Since the atmospheric layers the team observed are above the cloud blanket, they may be affected by changes in sunlight intensity as day transitions to night, or as latitude increases toward the poles. These layers are high enough that they could even be affected by solar activity (the solar cycle), such as solar explosions called flares and eruptions of solar material called coronal mass ejections.

Changes were seen over periods spanning days, to weeks, to a decade. Temperatures measured in 1990-91 are warmer than in 2009. Measurements obtained in 2007 using Goddard's Heterodyne Instrument for Planetary Wind and Composition (HIPWAC) observed warmer temperature in the equatorial region than in 2009. Having seen that the atmosphere can change, a lot more observations are needed to determine how so many phenomena can affect Venus' upper atmosphere over different intervals, according to the team.

"In addition to all these changes, we saw warmer temperatures than those predicted for this altitude by the leading accepted model, the Venus International Reference Atmosphere model," said Kostiuk.

"This tells us that we have lots of work to do updating our upper atmospheric circulation model for Venus." Although Venus is often referred to as Earth's twin, since they are almost the same size, it ended up with a climate very different from Earth. A deeper understanding of Venus' atmosphere will let researchers compare it to the evolution of Earth's atmosphere, giving insight as to why Earth now teems with life while Venus suffered a hellish fate.

The team measured temperature and wind speeds in Venus' upper atmosphere by observing an infrared glow emitted by carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules when they were energized by light from the sun. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye and is perceived by us as heat, but it can be detected by special instruments.

In the research, it appeared as a line on a graph from a spectrometer, an instrument that separates light into its component colors, each of which corresponds to a specific frequency. The width of the line revealed the temperature, while shifts in its frequency gave the wind speed.

The researchers compared observations from 1990 and 1991 using Goddard's Infrared Heterodyne Spectrometer instrument at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to observations from 2009 using the Cologne Tunable Heterodyne Infrared Spectrometer instrument at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's McMath Telescope at Kitt Peak, Ariz.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Venus_Weather_Not_Boring_After_All_999.html.

2 Killed in Zarqa Brawl

2011-09-25

AMMONNEWS - A fight in Hashemiyah district in Zarqa on Saturday escalated, resulting in the death of two people and the injury of two others.

Medical sources told Ammon News that two people were pronounced dead at the hospital after sustaining gun-shot wounds.

Security forces cordoned off the area in an attempt to contain the clashes, which lasted until Saturday night.

Tribal leaders in the area intervened to contain the incident and prevent possible escalation in violence after the death of two people.

An investigation was launched into the incident.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13867.

Jordanian prisoner in Israeli jail goes on open hunger strike

2011-09-26

AMMONNEWS - After 17 days a Jordanian prisoner in Israeli jails refuses to eat to protest the Israeli authorities repeated refusal to allow his wife and children visit him.

Ala’a Hammad, a Jordanian prisoner in Israeli occupation jails since 2006, is serving a 12-year sentence, has been held in Israeli jail since 2006.

The Palestinian prisoner society said in a statement on Monday that Hammad told its lawyer during a visit to Gilboa jail that his wife’s repeated requests to the Israeli embassy in Amman to visit him were always denied.

The society, meanwhile, noted that the Israeli administration in Gilboa jail had transferred 17 detainees to Megiddo jail.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13883.

Students Forced to Pledge Distance from Political Parties

2011-09-27

AMMONNEWS - University students receiving 'Makruma' scholarships were asked to sign a pledge not to join memberships of any political parties and not to conduct any political activities on university campuses.

The Higher Coordination Committee of the Jordanian National Opposition Political Parties on Monday blasted the move to force students to sign such pledges, stressing that such a stipulation violates principles of freedom and obstructs the development of democratic and political life.

Students who receive 'Makruma' scholarships allocated for underprivileged areas noted that they were asked to sign a pledge not to participate in political activism inside university campuses.

A statement issued by the Opposition Political Parties' Coordination Committee on Monday cited receiving notice from the 'National Campaign for Students' Rights' noting that Makruma students were asked to sign the pledge.

The Committee requested clarification from Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit during a meeting last Saturday, at which Bakhit noted that he had no knowledge of such a decision.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13901.

1200 Students Returning from Libya, Yemen to Enroll in Jordanian Universities

2011-09-28

AMMONNEWS - Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research on Wednesday said that 1,200 Jordanian students returning from study abroad in Libya and Yemen will be admitted into Jordanian Universities.

Higher Education Minister Wajih Oweis will announce in a press conference on Wednesday the standards that the Ministry will adopt in implementing the Royal 'Makruma' scholarships to enroll returning students into Jordanian Universities.

Ammon News learned that the Ministry will administer a comprehensive exam for first, second, and third year students for evaluating the fields of study that students will be enrolled in.

Fourth year students will be admitted into programs without examination.

990 students studying in universities in Yemen registered their cases with the Ministry, of them 664 students are studying medicine.

Meanwhile, 166 students returning from Libya also submitted applications for admission into Jordanian universities, of them, 110 are medical students.

Over 375 of the students who returned from Yemen and Libya as a result of the ongoing developments there have achieved 85 percent or above in the Tawjihi (General Secondary School Certificate) Examination.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13910.

Salafi Detainees Abused in Jordanian Prisons ~ lawyer

2011-09-28

By Amal Ghabayen

AMMONNEWS – Jordan's special military tribunal has repeatedly wronged and been gravely unjust towards members of Salafi Islamist movements, a legal expert on Islamist movements said on Tuesday.

Musa al-Abdullat, an attorney defending the cases of over 100 Salafists has spoken out against the State Security Court’s oppression.

Abdullat said during a press conference Tuesday evening that Salafists have faced grave violations of human rights, torture, and indignity, particularly those tried in the aftermath of the Zarqa clashes in April.

In exposing the double-standards practiced by the State Security Court (SSC), Abdullat indicated that SSC has been trying the Salafists on charges of committing violence and inciting strife, while it has failed to arrest or bring any of the 'thugs' involved in violence against protestors throughout the kingdom since the beginning of the year to trial.

He added that the testimony of a number of the security officers in the SSC's court sessions supported the Salafis and contradicted other testimonials which were at odds with what was said before the public prosecutor since the investigation.

Al-Abdallat said that some of the Salafis had been arrested from their homes without an arrest warrant or inspection, revealing that a number of the security personnel had raided their homes ‘savagely’ and some of them had tampered with belongings within houses.

Al-Abdallat displayed video clips of the Zarqa events that in his view pointed to the innocence of the Salafis of terrorist charges.

On his part, the Chairman of the Popular Committee for Defending Detainees Muhammad al-Hadid claimed that Salafi detainees had been beaten and tortured, and indicated that they had been undressed and photographed inside prisons by members of the Public Security Department.

Lawyer, Majid al-Fatawi, spoke of the suffering of the families during the court cases since most of them were not allowed to attend, and they were forbidden from sitting under the canopy in front of the prison, even though most of them came from provinces far from Amman.

Al-Fatawi said that excessive violence had been used to arrest the detainees and firearms employed to open the doors of houses. Security personnel had also, according to al-Fatawi, entered bedrooms without respecting the sanctity and privacy of homes.

The spokesperson for the Committee, Wissam al-Amush, also known as ‘Abu Abida,’ noted that 150 families were being punished and are suffering from the detention of their sons, adding that what happened in Zarqa was no more excessive than what happened at the Interior Ministry Circle in March, or the Nakhil Square in July.

He continued that most of what happened in Zarqa was no more than a brawl between the Salafis and the ‘thugs’, saying they refused to divide people into first-class and second-class citizens, since such a division would only bring disarray and tension.

Source: Ammon News.
Link: http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=13919.

Morocco pursues UN Security Council seat

2011-09-27

Morocco will apply for a 2012-2013 non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, MAP reported on Monday (September 26th). Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri called Monday in New York for UN General Assembly members to support Morocco's candidacy.

In his address, Fassi Fihri noted Morocco's commitment to peace, stability and solidarity. Morocco continues to work towards disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, he added. The minister also pointed out that over the last several decades; more than 50,000 members of the Royal Armed Forces have participated in peacekeeping operations around the world.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/09/27/newsbrief-03.

Bahrain continues detaining females

Wed Sep 28, 2011

The Saudi-backed Bahraini regime admits that its security forces are still holding 20 women in detention for holding a protest against the Al Khalifa monarchy in Manama, Press TV reports.

Those still in the regime's detention are among the 45 females, who came under arrest in the capital on Saturday for chanting slogans against the ruling regime in a shopping mall.

The protest had been formed against recent controversial parliamentary by-elections, which, according to Bahraini government's own website, were shunned by over 80 percent of the legitimate voters.

Amnesty International on Monday said the females -- who included seven minors -- had been tortured and denied legal representation.

"They were apprehended without arrest orders, interrogated without lawyers present and some of them reportedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated," the group said.

Meanwhile, Bahrain's Military Prosecutor-General Yussef Fleilfal announced on Monday that the sheikhdom's military court had sentenced another 32 people to 15 years in prison for participating in pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this year.

Bahrainis have been holding peaceful anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa's over-40-year-long rule over the Persian Gulf island.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more arrested in a brutal Manama-ordered and Riyadh-backed crackdown in the country, which hosts a huge American military installation for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201552.html.

Bahrain to imprison 32 women, girls

Tue Sep 27, 2011

The Bahrain regime has sentenced 32 women and girls, who were arrested for protesting against the recent parliamentary by-elections in the Persian Gulf kingdom, to 15 years in jail.

These Bahraini protesters, including seven minors aged between 12 and 15, were arrested on Friday, one day before the by-elections -- boycotted by the opposition -- to replace 18 lawmakers who resigned from the parliament in protest to the crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.

According to Amnesty International (AI) the women were tortured in detention and they have been denied access to their lawyers and families.

AI says the girls remain in custody despite a Bahraini juvenile court order for their release.

On Monday, Bahrain's Military Prosecutor-General Yussef Fleilfal announced that the kingdom's military court had sentenced another 32 people to 15 years in prison for taking part in anti-government protests earlier this year.

Bahrainis have been holding anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty's 40-year rule.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others have been arrested in a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in Bahrain, which is home to a huge American military installation for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201431.html.

US claims kick up furor in Pakistan

Tue Sep 27, 2011

Pakistani people have staged anti-US rallies across the country to protest at American officials' recent threats and accusations against Islamabad.

Protesters shouted, “We'll sacrifice our lives to save Pakistan" and "Death to America" in a demonstration held outside the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi, AFP reported on Tuesday.

Rallies were also held in the town of Landikotal in the Khyber Agency near the common border with Afghanistan as well as the city of Hyderabad in southern Pakistan.

The already-fragile relations between the two sides were further strained last week, when the US military chief accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of “exporting” violence to Afghanistan.

The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said the Inter-Services Intelligence was supporting the Taliban-allied Haqqani network of militants that is blamed by Washington for recent attacks on the US Embassy and the US-led military alliance of NATO's headquarters in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Islamabad has stiffly rejected the accusations.

On Monday, the US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Washington had to consider military action against Pakistan in the event of, what he called, Islamabad's continued support for militant attacks against the US troops in Afghanistan.

The US says it is considering listing the Haqqani network as a terror group. The potential designation, analysts say, would provide Washington with excuse to go ahead with the attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani warned on Tuesday that military course of action by the US inside 'a sovereign country' would not be 'acceptable.'

The premier said the Untied States blames Pakistan for recent attacks in Kabul because “they (the US) have not achieved what they visualized” in Afghanistan, referring to the US-led forces' failure to defuse tension on the Afghan soil, despite their 2001-present presence there.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201541.html.

NATO approves C2 system tests

Sept. 28, 2011

MASSY, France, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- NATO has given approval to Air Command Systems International in France to test a fully integrated C2 system.

The NATO ACCS is the first fully integrated command-and-control system for planning, tasking and execution of air operations and will replace multiple, aging air C2 systems in NATO countries.

"NATO ACCS is the largest system of its kind to be delivered across multiple nations and provides critical new capabilities, including resource management, surface-to-air missile planning and automated flight safety aids in support of modern NATO operations," said Jack Harrington, chief executive officer of ThalesRaytheonSystems, ACSI's parent company.

"ACCS has left the factory to complete its validation at the NATO Test and Validation Facility and the national operational sites."

ACCS was identified as one of the Top 10 NATO priorities at the Lisbon Summit in 2010. With ACCS, NATO operators will have a state-of-the-art air C2 system. ACCS will provide opportunities for common training, standard operational procedures and centralized maintenance for all NATO nations.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/09/28/NATO-approves-C2-system-tests/UPI-55921317210149/.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Reporter Threatened for Exposing China Sex Slave Case

By Jane Lin & Pam McLennan
September 26, 2011

A journalist in China has been accused of "leaking state secrets" after he exposed the grisly case of a government employee who dug a basement and used it for the kidnapping and rape of six women, two of them were murdered.

Ji Xuguang, a reporter with the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily, documented how the young women in Luoyang, Henan Province, were kidnapped and imprisoned as sex slaves by an employee of the Luoyang Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.

Li Hao, the man, spent a year digging the dungeon in his home in a crowded residential area. Escorts at karaoke bars became his quarry.

By the time police took Li into custody in early September two of the women had been killed—one by Li and the other by another of the women with Li’s help. But four were rescued. Their ages ranged from 16 to 24.

The women had been imprisoned from three months to two years, and some had developed Stockholm syndrome toward their captor: they would vie for his favor and refer to him as "big brother."
Despite the ghastly details of the case local Communist Party officials, fearing political trouble, kept it a secret. Ji said that one police officer told him that the local government wanted to "save face." Luoyang was applying for the title of “Nationwide Civilized City,” and they also worried that the cruel nature of the incident could cause residents in the area to panic.

Ji wrote that on the same day that when his report was published, two men, who declined to identify themselves, came into his hotel room and aggressively interrogated him about the source of his information. They also accused him of “leaking state secrets.” He later learned that they had been sent by local Communist Party officials.

Ji sounded the alarm about the encounter on his microblog at 11 p.m. that night: “Judging from the situation, I may be taken away. Please watch out for me and rescue me.” Security forces in China are known to use extralegal means to intimidate, beat, or kidnap journalists who report on what are considered political matters.

He said that the case was being treated with extreme secrecy by Luoyang police authorities, with only a few directors in the department let in on the full details.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) contacted Ji on Sept. 23. He said that he had already left Luoyang but that his phone was probably being monitored, and he didn’t want to discuss how he was threatened.

“Without freedom of the press, journalists’ safety is at stake. I am not in a position to talk about the situation any further,” he told RFA.

On his microblog Ji wrote that when he left Henan that night, his wife’s brother, concerned for his safety, packed a knife for him. “I am tearful after realizing how vulnerable my profession is. I realized that we [reporters] are so weak and helpless. With the accusation of “leaking state secrets” pinned on me, can this piece of metal [the knife] really protect me?”

His blog posts were forwarded over 16,000 times and received thousands of comments. Many expressed skepticism at the idea that this sort of crime could be legitimately classified a “state secret.”

“The local authorities’ being unnerved about this makes me wonder if there’s something behind this case,” wrote one blogger.

“Who determines what a ‘state secret’ is? A regular criminal case like this is a state secret too?" the blogger asked. "Why are they hiding everything? This isn’t about ‘secrets.’ It’s a political move."

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/reporter-threatened-for-exposing-kidnappings-abuse-62090.html.

Egypt: The Arab Spring Turning Into Fall?

By Aron Lamm
September 26, 2011

When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned in February, most of the world cheered for what looked like another victory for the Arab Spring uprisings. But although the resignation felt like closure and seemed to herald a new beginning, Egypt is still struggling with much the same problems as before. Some commentators even suggest that the worst is yet to come.

“Lots of chaos is going on. No one is satisfied with the current situation at all,” said Ahmed Zidan, Egyptian activist and editor-in-chief of Mideast Youth, summing up the situation on the ground in Cairo in an email to The Epoch Times.

In the eight months since Mubarak’s resignation, not much has changed, except that world media interest has moved elsewhere. The military council still rules Egypt, although elections have been announced for November and January. Emergency laws are still in effect and crackdowns against protesters, bloggers, and activists continue, with some 10,000 civilians behind bars following military trials, according to Zidan.

Mere days ago, the military carried out a large-scale crackdown against some activist/blogger cafes in downtown Cairo. Meanwhile, the case of blogger Maikel Nabil, who was sentenced to three years in prison for a long and critical blog post about the military in March, is up for review on Oct. 4.

Nabil has been on a hunger strike for 32 days, Zidan says. He called the military trials against civilians the “boiling point” in Egypt today, along with the emergency laws.

This development is hardly a surprise to commentators. Just days after Mubarak’s resignation, analyst George Friedman of STRATFOR wrote a sobering report titled “Egypt: The Distance Between Enthusiasm and Reality,” in which he named the military, rather than the people, the real force behind the Egyptian “revolution.”

“The crowd in Cairo, as telegenic as it was, was the backdrop to the drama, not the main feature,” Friedman says, going on to describe how the military was already at loggerheads with Mubarak over the aging president’s plan to let his son Gamal take over after him.

Gamal Mubarak had no military experience, and making him the leader would have signaled a shift in the Egyptian regime. Ever since Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser founded the current regime in a military coup, Egyptian leaders have come from a military background, ensuring the military’s continued influence.

With Mubarak’s plan to simply put his son in charge via another highly dubious election, despite his not even having served in the military, Egypt would in effect have become a hereditary monarchy, Friedman argues.

“What happened was not a revolution. The demonstrators never brought down Mubarak, let alone the regime. What happened was a military coup that used the cover of protests to force Mubarak out of office in order to preserve the regime,” Friedman wrote in February, and today’s situation seems to indicate that he may have been right.

Litany of Problems

Meanwhile, regardless of the leadership situation, Egypt is struggling with huge domestic problems. Public employees such as teachers, doctors, and transport workers are on strike, and unemployment has in fact risen since Mubarak’s resignation. According to government figures quoted by Al-Jazeera, the unemployment rate among the young population is 20 percent, and for women with university degrees a staggering 55 percent.

In his Sept. 13 article on PajamasMedia titled “Endgame for Egypt,” David P. Goldman paints an extremely bleak picture of Egypt’s future, predicting that the whole Egyptian state will collapse, not due to political instability, but because it is essentially bankrupt in all ways that matter. He calls the Arab Spring a misnomer, arguing that it is in fact “a convulsion of a dying society.”

“Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, 45 percent of its people are illiterate, its university graduates are unemployable, its $10 billion a year tourism industry is shuttered for the duration, and its foreign exchange reserves are gradually disappearing,” Goldman says.

Increased world market prices of staple foods and the ongoing fiscal crisis in parts of Europe are further exacerbating the situation, according to Friedman.

Egypt today is the result of decades of dictatorship and mismanagement, keeping the people ignorant and letting public education deteriorate, and it has left the country, which lacks the big natural resources of Libya, for example, in a hopeless cul-de-sac.

“The result, I predict, will be a humanitarian catastrophe that makes Somalia look like a picnic,” Friedman writes.

Ahmed Zidan says he is “[not] pessimistic, but rather realistic” about Egypt’s future, and predicts that the military will hold the elections, but choose to make some kind of deal with the popular political Islamists and thereby remain in power behind the scenes. Such a development would mean the last straw for many better-educated Egyptians, who would then choose to leave the country, draining its intellectual resources.

“I hope I’m wrong, because if that happened, it means we’ve progressed backward,” Zidan said.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/egypt-the-arab-spring-turning-into-fall-62081.html.

Shipwreck With $200 Million in Silver Found

By Jack Phillips
September 26, 2011

A shipwreck containing nearly 220 tons of silver worth at least $200 million was located by divers nearly 3 miles beneath the surface of the North Atlantic on Monday, and if recovered, would be the largest known precious metal cargo ever taken from the sea.

The SS Gairsoppa, a British vessel with a cargo of seven million ounces of silver, was torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II around 300 miles off the coast of Ireland in international waters.

Only one person aboard the ship, which had a crew of 85, survived the attack.

Odyssey Marine Exploration, a U.S. exploration company, said it located the sunken ship; it will keep 80 percent of the cargo under terms of a contract with the U.K. Department of Transport.

“We’ve accomplished the first phase of this project -- the location and identification of the target shipwreck," said Andrew Craig, Odyssey Senior Project Manager in press release. “And now we’re hard at work planning for the recovery phase.”

"Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo," he added.

The company said work on actually recovering the silver would start in the spring. If the crew is able to successfully finish the job, it would be the deepest recovery operation in history.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/shipwreck-with-200-million-in-silver-found-62075.html.

Morocco protest rallies draw thousands

2011-09-26

Moroccans rallied in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Tangier on Sunday (September 25th), following a call for demonstrations by the February 20 Movement, Yabiladi reported. The Casablanca protest, which demanded political reforms and anti-corruption measures, drew some 10,000 people. In Rabat, some 1,000 people demonstrated for the release of political prisoners, including young rapper Mouad Al-Haqed, who was arrested on September 10th.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/09/26/newsbrief-05.

China and Russia to vote in favor of Palestinian UN bid

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- Both China and Russia, two of the five permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, will vote in favor of Palestine's request to become a UN member state, although the bid is unlikely to succeed.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday handed over an application to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to request a full UN membership for Palestine, which currently has observer status. Ban later sent the request to the President of the Security Council as per the provisions of the UN Charter.

Any application for a full membership is considered by the Security Council, which decides whether or not to recommend admission to the 193-member General Assembly. If it does give a recommendation, the Assembly would then have to adopt a resolution.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi voiced Beijing's support to grant UN membership to the Palestinian people. "We support efforts to achieve the two-state solution through political negotiations so as to establish, on the basis of the 1967 borders, an independent Palestinian state that enjoys full sovereignty with East Jerusalem as its capital," Yang was quoted as saying by the DPA news agency.

In addition, the Interfax news agency cited a source from the Russian delegation at the UN General Assembly as saying that Russia will also support the Palestinian request. "If this issue is put to a vote, we will support it," the source said.

Both China and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council. However, the United States earlier said it would veto a Palestinian bid to seek a full UN membership and urged them to return to peace talks with Israel. If a veto is used by any of the permanent members, the UN Security Council would be unable to recommend admission to the General Assembly.

About 120 out of 193 countries have currently recognized the State of Palestine and those are seen as possible supporters if the UN General Assembly votes on the issue. If the UN Security Council resolution to recognize Palestine is approved, Palestine would become the 194th member of the United Nations.

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/news/china-and-russia-to-vote-in-favor-of-palestinian-un-bid.html.

China prepares to launch first space lab module this week

Jiuquan, China (XNA)
Sep 27, 2011

Engineers are conducting the final preparations before launching China's first space laboratory module at the end of this week at a launch center in northwest China.

The unmanned Tiangong-1 module was originally scheduled to be launched into low Earth orbit between Sept. 27 and 30. However, a weather forecast showing the arrival of a cold air mass at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center forced the launch to be rescheduled for Sept. 29 or 30, depending on weather and other factors.

"This is a significant test. We've never done such a thing before," said Lu Jinrong, the launch center's chief engineer.

A full ground simulation was conducted on Sunday afternoon to ensure that the module and its Long March 2F carrier rocket are prepared for the actual launch.

Cui Jijun, commander-in-chief of the launch site system and director of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, told Xinhua that they developed a new target spacecraft for the mission and made more than 170 technical improvements to the Long March 2F, China's manned orbital carrier rocket.

Engineers have also made more than 100 updates at the launch site in order to make it compatible with the Tiangong-1, Cui added.

The module will conduct docking experiments after entering orbit, which is the first step in China's space station program.

Cui said the launch site has an updated computer center and command monitoring system and increased ability to adapt to changes in mission conditions, as well as the resources to handle both the launch and command duties. An integrated simulation training system for space launching has also been developed for the docking mission.

The mission comes just one month after the Long March 2C rocket malfunctioned and failed to send an experimental satellite into orbit. The Tiangong-1 mission was subsequently rescheduled in order to allow engineers to sort out any problems that might occur during the launch.

Cui said that engineers conducted a two-month comprehensive technical check on equipment at the launch site from March to May. The safety and reliability of all the instruments have been significantly improved.

"[The launch site] has the full conditions to conduct the Tiangong-1 mission," said Cui.

The Tiangong-1 will remain in orbit for two years. During its mission, it will dock with China's Shenzhou-8, -9 and -10 spacecrafts.

Unmanned docking procedures will be an essential step toward China achieving its goal of establishing a manned space station around 2020.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_prepares_to_launch_first_space_lab_module_this_week_999.html.