Spanish shepherds guide 2,000 sheep through Madrid

October 06, 2013

MADRID (AP) — Shepherds led a flock of 2,000 sheep through Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, droving and migration rights increasingly threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.

Tourists were surprised to see downtown traffic cut to permit the ovine parade to bleat — bells clanking — across some of Madrid's most upmarket urban settings. Since at least 1273, shepherds have had the right to use droving routes that wind across land that was once open fields and woodland before Madrid mushroomed to the great metropolis it is today.

Every year, a handful of shepherds defend that right in Spain's capital city. Following an age-old tradition, they paid 25 maravedis — coins first minted in the 11th century — to city hall officials to use the crossing.

Shepherds have a right to use around 78,000 miles (125,000 kilometers) of ancient paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer and more protected lowland grazing in winter.

The movement is called transhumance and in Spain up until recently involved close to 1 million animals a year, mostly sheep and cattle. Modern farming practices and the use of faster road transport are increasingly confining animals to barns or trucks, because shepherding is costly and time-consuming, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, which has promoted the colorful annual Transhumance Fiesta in Madrid since 1994.

Spaniards are proud of their centuries-old sheep rearing traditions and hold the native Merino breed of sheep in high esteem. Merinos have gone on to form the backbone of important wool industries in places such as Australia and South America.

Madrid became an important urban center when King Philip II chose it as the capital of his vast empire in 1561. Some paths have been used for more than 800 years and modern-day Madrid has sprawled to engulf two north-south routes. One that crosses Puerta del Sol — Madrid's equivalent of New York's Times Square — dates back to 1372.

EU awards top human rights award to Malala

October 10, 2013

BRUSSELS (AP) — European lawmakers have awarded their top human rights prize to Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who survived a Taliban assassination attempt last year.

The European Parliament announced Thursday that 16-year-old Malala won the 50,000 euro ($65,000) Sakharov Award. U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden and a group of imprisoned Belarus dissidents were also in the running.

The prize is considered the Europe's top rights award. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.

Court seeks to lift immunity for 3 Golden Dawn MPs

October 07, 2013

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's Parliament has been asked to lift the immunity from prosecution of three lawmakers from the extremist right-wing Golden Dawn party so they can face charges of participating in a criminal organization, as part of a crackdown on the party sparked by the fatal stabbing of a left-wing rap singer.

A prosecutor sent the request Monday after statements by protected witnesses indicated that legislators Giorgos Germenis, Panagiotis Iliopoulos and Stathis Boukouras were involved in military-style training of new party members or in obtaining weapons.

Boukouras appeared of his own accord at court offering to testify after hearing his name mentioned in news reports about the protected witnesses' testimony. Three top Golden Dawn members, including party leader Nikos Michaloliakos, were remanded in jail last week pending trial.

Greek ex-minister jailed for 20 years for graft

October 07, 2013

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A former Greek defense minister was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty Monday of money laundering in the most prominent corruption case to date in the financially stricken country.

After a five-month trial, an Athens court found Akis Tsochadzopoulos, a prominent figure in previous Socialist governments, guilty along with 16 of his 18 co-defendants, including his wife, ex-wife and daughter.

The 73-year-old former minister had denied all the charges against him and had accused the prosecution of conducting a politically motivated trial. Tsochadzopoulos' wife and daughter both received 12-year prison terms, and his ex-wife and cousin were ordered jailed for six years. The other defendants were handed 6- to 16-year sentences.

Eleven of the defendants — but not Tsochadzopoulos, his wife or daughter — were released pending hearing of their appeals. In March, a court had sentenced Tsochadzopoulos to eight years in prison for submitting false income declarations. It also ordered the seizure of his home in central Athens and imposed a 520,000-euro ($706,800) fine.

He had spent nearly a year and a half in pre-trial detention, as had his wife, daughter and other close associates. The corruption case stems from a scandal over a contract for the purchase of German submarines and for Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Tsochadzopoulos had been accused of accepting bribes between 1997-2001 to award the contracts.

Although the bribery charges are beyond the statute of limitations for a former minister, he was convicted of money laundering for using the proceeds of the alleged bribery. Tsochadzopoulos served as Greece's defense minister from 1996 to 2001 and its development minister between 2001 and 2004. He was a prominent member of the Socialist PASOK party, which dominated Greek politics for much of the past three decades.

The party saw its public support hammered after the financial crisis broke out in late 2009 after PASOK said the former conservative government had fudged the country's financial figures. Greece then had to get international bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. In exchange for the rescue loans, it had to reduce its budget deficit through punishing spending cuts and tax hikes, which contributed to a sharp fall in output and record-high unemployment.

PASOK is currently the junior partner in the conservative-led coalition government.

Edward Snowden's father arrives in Moscow

October 10, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — The father of former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden arrived in Moscow Thursday morning to meet with his son who has received asylum in Russia and has been living at a secret location.

Lon Snowden told Russian television outside Moscow's airport that he doubts his son, Edward Snowden, will return to the United States, where he is charged with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing NSA's highly classified surveillance of phone and Internet usage around the world.

"I'm not sure that my son will be returning to the U.S. again," Lon Snowden said but added that "that's his decision." He also said he has not had direct contact with his son and would not say when or where he will be meeting him.

Edward Snowden was stuck at a Moscow airport for more than a month after his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23. He was granted asylum in Russia in August. His whereabouts remain secret although his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, insists that Snowden lives in Russia.

Lon Snowden said that it is his understanding that his son has now stopped leaking information. He thanked Russia and President Vladimir Putin for sheltering his son. Edward Snowden's asylum status has strained the already tense relationship between the U.S. and Russia, and President Barack Obama called off a meeting with President Putin at a Russia-hosted summit in September.

Libya PM 'freed' after several hours held by militia

10/10/2013

TRIPOLI (AFP) -- Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was released on Thursday several hours after being seized from a Tripoli hotel by former rebel militiamen, the foreign minister said.

"He has been freed but we have no details so far on the circumstances of his release," Mohammed Abdelaziz told AFP.

The pre-dawn seizure of Zeidan came five days after US commandos embarrassed and angered Libya's government by capturing senior Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Libi off the streets of Tripoli and whisking him away to a warship.

A source in the premier's office said Zeidan had been taken by gunmen from Tripoli's Corinthia Hotel, where he resides. A hotel employee confirmed a pre-dawn raid by "a large number of armed men".

A government statement said Zeidan had been taken "to an unknown destination for unknown reasons by a group" of men believed to be former rebels.

The Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries, comprising former rebels and which had roundly denounced Libi's abduction and blamed Zeidan's government for it, said it had "arrested" Zeidan under orders from the public prosecutor.

But the cabinet said on its Facebook page that ministers were "unaware of immunity being lifted or of any arrest warrant" for the premier.

Thursday's government statement said it suspected both the Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries and the Brigade for the Fight against Crime of being behind the raid that netted Zeidan.

Both groups loosely fall under the control of the defense and interior ministries but largely operate autonomously.

Two years after the revolution that toppled Gadhafi, Libya's new authorities are struggling to rein in tribal militias and groups of former rebels.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=637824.

Putin lights Olympic flame for Sochi on Red Square

October 06, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ceremoniously lit the Olympic flame on Red Square on Sunday, but the four-month relay to Sochi for the Winter Games got off to a rocky start when one of the torches went out.

The Olympic flame, which was lit a week ago in Greece and flown to Moscow earlier Sunday, kept burning in a cauldron on Red Square. The glitch occurred when a torch bearer ran through a long passageway leading into the Kremlin, which apparently created a wind tunnel, extinguishing the flame. A man standing along the route, most likely part of the presidential security service, pulled out a lighter and the flame leaped back to life.

Dmitry Chernyshenko, president of the Sochi organizing committee, said on Twitter that the problem was that the valve on the torch had not been opened fully. The torch bearer, Shavarsh Karapetyan, 60, was a champion swimmer for the Soviet Union who once saved 20 passengers from a trolleybus that had fallen into a reservoir. He used his legs to break the back window of the trolleybus as it lay in 10 meters (30 feet) of water, and pulled out 20 of the 92 passengers.

The torch relay will stay in Moscow for the next three days, with hundreds of athletes, cultural figures and others, including Prince Albert II of Monaco, taking part. The flame will then begin its journey across Russia, traveling from the western exclave of Kaliningrad to the easternmost point just across the Bering Strait from Alaska, before swinging back through the vast country to Sochi in time for the opening ceremony on Feb. 7.

For most of the 65,000- kilometer (39,000-mile) trip, the flame will travel by plane, train, car and even reindeer sleigh, safely encased inside a lantern. But 14,000 torch bearers also will take place in the relay at the more than 130 stops along the way.

One of the silver and red torches, unlit, will be carried into space in November for a brief visit to the International Space Station, and this same torch will be used to light the Olympic flame in Sochi.

Putin, for whom the Olympic Games are a source of personal pride, said the relay will "show the world Russia as she is and as we love her." The torch relay will pass through many cities that showcase the historical, cultural and ethnic richness of Russia, while other cities on the route are more closely associated with the evils of Stalinism, the harsh treatment of dissent under Putin or the Islamic insurgency simmering in the Caucasus Mountains not far from Sochi's ski slopes.

As the relay crosses the expanses of Siberia, it will put the spotlight on Russia's immense wealth of natural resources and the rusting of its industrial towns.

Diamond 'super-earth' may not be quite as precious

Tucson AZ (SPX)
Oct 10, 2013

A planet 40 light years from our solar system, believed to be the first-ever discovered planet to consist largely of diamond, may in fact be of less exquisite nature, according to new research led by University of Arizona astronomy graduate student Johanna Teske.

Revisiting public data from previous telescope observations, Teske's team analyzed the available data in more detail and concluded that carbon - the chemical element diamonds are made of - appears to be less abundant in relation to oxygen in the planet's host star - and by extension, perhaps the planet - than was suggested by a study of the host star published in 2010.

"The 2010 paper found that '55 Cancri,' a star that hosts five planets, has a carbon-to-oxygen ratio greater than one," Teske said. "This observation helped motivate a paper last year about the innermost planet of the system, the 'super-Earth' 55 Cancri e. Using observations of the planet's mass and radius to create models of its interior that assumed the same carbon-to-oxygen ratio of the star, the 2012 paper suggested the planet contains more carbon than oxygen."

"However, our analysis makes this seem less likely because the host star doesn't appear as carbon-rich as previously thought," Teske said.

Observations obtained in 2010, together with simulations astronomers use to model a planet's interior based on data like radius, mass and orbital velocity, had yielded a carbon to oxygen ratio greater than one, in other words, an alien world based on carbon instead of oxygen as most planets are in our solar system, including Earth.

"The sun only has about half as much carbon as oxygen, so a star or a planet with a higher ratio between the two elements, particularly a planet with more carbon than oxygen, is interesting and different from what we have in our solar system," explained Teske, who is graduating this spring with a doctorate from the UA's Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory.

Based on the previous results, it was suggested that the "diamond planet" is a rocky world with a surface of graphite surrounding a thick layer of diamond instead of water and granite like Earth.

The new research by Teske and collaborators, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal and available online, calls this conclusion in question, making it less likely a hypothetical space probe sent to sample the planet's innards would dig up anything sparkling.

Teske's group found that the planet's host star contains almost 25 percent more oxygen than carbon, about mid way between the Sun and what the previous study suggested.

"In theory, 55 Cancri e could still have a high carbon to oxygen ratio and be a diamond planet, but the host star does not have such a high ratio," Teske said. "So in terms of the two building blocks of information used for the initial 'diamond-planet' proposal - the measurements of the exoplanet and the measurements of the star - the measurements of the star no longer verify that."

A so-called super-Earth boasting about twice the Earth's diameter and eight times Earth's mass, the "diamond planet," whose official designation is 55 Cancri e, is the smallest member of a five-planet system located in the constellation Cancer. 55 Cancri e races around its host star at such close distance that one year lasts only 18 hours and its surface temperature is more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

"With rocky worlds like 55 Cancri e, researchers use measurements of a planet's radius, mass and density and basic physical equations governing the internal structure of solid planets to calculate possible compositions of the planet's interior," Teske said.

"This planet is probably rocky or has a large rocky component," she said. "We don't really know if it has an atmosphere."

Since astronomers can't probe the makeups of stars and planets directly, they rely on indirect observational methods such as absorption spectra; each chemical element absorbs light at different wavelengths, in a characteristic pattern that can be used as a fingerprint of that element. By analyzing the absorption spectra of starlight passing through a star's atmosphere, it is possible to deduce what elements are present in the star's atmosphere.

"Instead of using the same absorption lines in the spectrum of the host star as the previous study of 55 Cancri, we looked at more lines of carbon and more lines of oxygen," Teske said. "We find that because this particular host star is cooler than our sun and more metal-rich, the single oxygen line analyzed in the previous study to determine the star's oxygen abundance is more prone to error."

Teske instead relied on several different indicators of the oxygen abundance that were not considered previously. "Averaging all of these measurements together gives us a more complete picture of the oxygen abundance in the star."

Teske pointed out that the 'diamond planet' results hinge on the presumption that a star's composition bears some relation to the composition of its planets, a notion grounded in the idea that planets form from the same material as their host stars. However, as astronomers discover more and more extrasolar systems, a one-size-fits-all formula becomes less likely.

"We still don't know whether our solar system is common or uncommon in the universe," Teske said, "because many of the systems that we are finding have giant gas planets closer to the star, unlike our system where rocky planets dominate the inner orbits and gas giants occur further out."

Given there are so many processes - most of which are not fully understood - happening in a planet-forming disk that could influence the composition of planets, Teske said: "At this point, I would honestly be surprised if there was a one-to-one correlation."

"The compositions of planets and stars don't always match," she said, explaining that in a swirling disk of dust and gas giving birth to a star and planets, "you can have pockets where there is a lot of water, meaning an enhancement of oxygen. Or places where water has frozen out, leaving behind carbon species as the dominant gas molecules. So the planets that are accreting gas at those locations in the disk could be more carbon-rich instead of oxygen-rich."

Therefore, room for uncertainty remains, according to the researchers.

"Depending on where 55 Cancri e formed in the protoplanetary disk, its carbon-to-oxygen ratio could differ from that of the host star," Teske said. "It could be higher or lower. But based on what we know at this point, 55 Cancri e is more of a 'diamond in the rough.'"

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Diamond_super_earth_may_not_be_quite_as_precious_999.html.

Scientists generate first map of clouds on an exoplanet

by Jennifer Chu for MIT News Office
Boston MA (SPX)
Oct 08, 2013

On the exoplanet Kepler 7b, the weather is highly predictable, an international team of scientists has found: On any given day, the exoplanet, which orbits a star nearly 1,000 light-years from Earth, is heavily overcast on one side, while the other side likely enjoys clear, cloudless weather.

The new work, by researchers from MIT and other institutions, is the first mapping of the distribution of clouds on an exoplanet. The scientists observed that one of Kepler 7b's hemispheres is blanketed with a dense layer of clouds - far denser than any found on Earth, and so thick that it reflects a significant portion of its host star's incoming light.

This shield of clouds makes the planet cooler than others of its type, creating an atmosphere that encourages further cloud formation.

The team generated a low-resolution map of the planet's clouds using optical data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. The researchers also analyzed the light originating from Kepler 7b at various phases of its orbit, finding that much of the planet's reflectivity is due to the presence of clouds, and that this cloud cover is unevenly distributed.

"There are a lot of different chemical processes that could take place to create this inhomogenous cloud," says Nikole Lewis, a postdoc in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). "Kepler 7b is an important test-bed for the way circulation and cloud distribution work together in exoplanet atmospheres."

Lewis and her colleagues have published their results in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Co-authors from MIT include postdocs Brice-Olivier Demory and Andras Zsom, graduate student Julien de Wit, and Sara Seager, the Class of 1941 Professor of Physics and Planetary Science.

Mapping clouds, slice by slice
Kepler 7b was among the first exoplanets identified by the Kepler spacecraft, which has since confirmed more than 130 planets outside our solar system. The planet is considered a "hot Jupiter," as it is composed mostly of gas, and is about 50 percent larger than Jupiter (although it has only about half the mass of that planet).

In 2011, Demory analyzed Kepler 7b's albedo, or reflectivity, and found that it is unusually bright for an exoplanet, reflecting about 50 percent of light from its star. At the time, the cause of such reflectivity was a mystery, but the new analysis, which makes use of Spitzer's infrared observations, reveals that much of it is due to the presence of clouds in Kepler 7b's atmosphere.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers looked through three years' worth of Kepler light data, combined with recent thermal observations from the planet, taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Combining both datasets, the researchers compared the amount of light and heat given off by the planet at every phase of its orbit. The planet is tidally locked, presenting the same face to its star at all times. From Earth, the planet appears to wax and wane as it circles its star, much like the phases of our moon.

"You can reconstruct the information in terms of brightness, slice by slice," de Wit says. "This is really fantastic, because though the planet is extremely small, there are techniques for getting spatial information about the planet."

Clouds rolling in
The researchers analyzed Kepler 7b's phase curves - measurements of light from the planet at every orbital phase, taken by the Kepler spacecraft. To determine whether these emissions stem from light or heat, the team looked at phase curves in the infrared, provided by Spitzer. They detected very little thermal energy emitted by the planet - a confirmation that most of Kepler 7b's emissions are indeed reflected light.

But that finding wasn't a sure indication of clouds on the planet. The group reasoned that the reflected light could instead be caused by a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, in which light from Kepler 7b's star uniformly scatters around the planet, reflected by atoms or molecules much smaller than those in clouds - much as Earth's atmospheric gases scatter sunlight, creating a blue sky.

To distinguish between the two possibilities, the group looked again at Kepler 7b's phase curves. If the planet's reflectivity is due to uniform Rayleigh scattering, its light emissions should peak at the point at which the planet is behind the star, displaying its full dayside to an observer. But instead, the researchers found that the planet's brightness peaked slightly after it had passed behind the star, indicating that its reflectivity is not uniform - a sign that the reflectivity was due to an uneven distribution of clouds.

It's unclear exactly what conditions may give rise to such a stark contrast in cloud cover; Lewis says that investigating the possible causes will be a research focus in the future.

"Kepler 7b happens to be in this temperature range where you can form condensates high up in the atmosphere," Lewis observes. "Compared to Jupiter, it has a lower gravity that allows you to keep particles lofted much more readily. So Kepler 7b is in this happy regime that allows the atmosphere to create this dense cloud deck. It will keep us busy for the next several years."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Scientists_generate_first_map_of_clouds_on_an_exoplanet_999.html.

Russia to launch first android robot to ISS

Moscow (Voice of Russia)
Oct 08, 2013

A robot, model SAR-400 android, is destined for the International Space Station (ISS) as helpmate for Russian cosmonauts aboard. Scientists have started testing the first Russian robot designed to work in outer space.

Russia is planning to send its first android robot, SAR-400, to assist Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. The robot is currently undergoing tests at the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center near Moscow.

Plans for its future were announced by Oleg Gordiyenko, science directorate deputy head at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Research Institute, announced on Thursday at a space industry conference.

"It's to perform operations both aboard the ISS and outside," he said. "Scientists' plans envision introducing robots in manned cosmonautics. This is a promising avenue of research for coming years."

So far, the robot can perform the tasks that are simple yet involve risk for crew, such as inspections of the station's outer surface for possible damage and subsequent repairs, the center's deputy director Oleg Gordiyenko said at a conference on the development of space rocket equipment and aerospace engineering training.

In particular, SAR-400 can be used for visual inspection of the spacecraft to assess damage and conduct repairs.

The anthropomorphic robot, SAR-400, was developed by the Scientific-Production Association Android Technology. It has two robotic arms that end with five "fingers" and uses some technologies developed in the former Soviet Union for the Mir space laboratory and Buran space vehicle.

It will set out for the ISS within the next two years and may also be used during potential future missions to the Moon and Mars, Gordiyenko said.

The robot is 144 kilos heavy.

Controllers plan to loft the android to the ISS within two years to partner a US robot already there. Future destinations are likely to be missions to the Moon and Mars.

Soviet-era technologies have been put to use in developing the machine-man. Its manipulators have their roots in the Russian Buran shuttle program and the pioneering Mir space station, now junk beneath Pacific waves since its work was brought to a close.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_to_launch_first_android_robot_to_ISS_999.html.

Russia could build manned lunar base

Moscow (Voice of Russia)
Oct 08, 2013

The federal space agency Roscosmos has launched a feasibility study of a project to build a manned base on the Moon, Academician Lev Zelyony, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute, said on Friday.

"Our nearest task within the limits of the planning horizon is the construction of a piloted outpost on the Moon. A working group was recently set up at the order of Roscosmos's head Vladimir Popovkin," Zelyony said at Space Science Day events at the Space Research Institute.

The working group will integrate proposals made by the leading space firms and institutes specializing in the exploration of the Moon, he said.

A plan to build a spacecraft for a flight to the Moon, proposed by the space rocket corporation Energia, as well as projects to launch spacecraft to the Moon, proposed by the Lavochkin research and production association and the Space Research Institute, are expected to be assessed, he said.

"A spectrum of concrete tasks for crews to deal with on the Moon have been put forward. But even on the Moon humans will have a difficult life. Long-duration missions on the Moon could only be possible in special shelters, most probably under the lunar surface," Zelyony said.

He said space radiation is the main hurdle to long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.

Source: Moon Daily.
Link: http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Russia_could_build_manned_lunar_base_999.html.

Political drama plays out in public in Iran

October 09, 2013

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's internal power plays have produced many moments of political theater, but never one like this: The foreign minister checks himself into a hospital because of stress, blaming it on hard-line critics of the recent thaw with Washington.

A cascade of events Wednesday suggested there was no end in sight to the ideological skirmishes following President Hassan Rouhani's outreach to the U.S. Those overtures will be put to the test next week in Geneva when nuclear talks with world powers resume.

For Rouhani, the immediate prize would be winning pledges from the West to roll back painful sanctions in exchange for concessions on Tehran's nuclear program. But, on a deeper level, Rouhani's gambit also exposes sudden insecurities among the West-bashing factions that have shaped Iranian affairs for decades.

If Rouhani's brand of diplomacy pays off in the eyes of Iran's top policymaker, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it could bring sharper limits on the reach of powerful factions led by the Revolutionary Guard — which has already been warned by Khamenei to stay out of politics and let Rouhani's overtures run their course.

The Guard will remain a pillar of Iran's establishment no matter what happens with Rouhani's efforts. But Khamenei's directive to give Rouhani political breathing room was a rare roadblock for a group whose power and influence has expanded steadily in the past decade. The Revolutionary Guard's network now extends beyond its fighting forces to cover sectors as diverse as the nuclear program and airport security.

Possible attempts by Khamenei to separate the Guard from the worlds of politics and foreign affairs would mark a profound change on how Iran interacts with the West, and offer more of flexibility in diplomacy.

"Opposition or frustration by hard-liners is a natural reaction," said Tehran-based political analyst Saeed Leilaz. "But nothing can derail Rouhani's policy of outreach to the U.S." as long as Khamenei remains nominally in his corner.

Khamenei has previously said he's not opposed to direct talks with the U.S. to resolve Iran's nuclear standoff with the West but is not optimistic. Last week, he called the U.S. "untrustworthy." "There is a political will to reduce tensions with the U.S.," said a Tehran political commentator, Hamid Reza Shokouhi. "This strategy is supported by the supreme leader."

But that has not stopped critics of Rouhani's government from making their complaints heard. The nationally broadcast Friday prayers last week included the familiar chants of "Death to America." A week earlier, protesters hurled eggs and insults and Rouhani's entourage after he returned from the groundbreaking exchanges in New York.

It was capped by President Barrack Obama's phone conversation with Rouhani in the highest-level dialogue between the countries since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The latest counterpunch followed a drama that began with a report in the hard-line newspaper Kayhan that contained alleged misquotations of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that criticized the overtures with Washington. This was followed by Zarif seeking medical help because of what he called muscle spasms "due to being nervous."

"A bitter day," the U.S.-educated foreign minister posted on his Twitter account. Zarif claimed the newspaper Kayhan misquoted him as saying Rouhani's 15-minute telephone conversation with Obama was "inappropriate." It also quoted Zarif as saying he believed it was wrong to hold a lengthy face-to-face meeting in New York with Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mohammad Hossein Naqvi, spokesman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, rejected the Kayhan report. The editors and management at the paper were not immediately available for comment. But in a front-page story Wednesday, Kayhan defended its account and said Zarif's acknowledgment "brought down the line of compromise" with the U.S.

To further complicate matters, Kayhan's director is appointed by Khamenei. This suggests fissures within one of the main outlets for hard-line commentary. A major moment for Rouhani's agenda will come next week in Geneva when Iranian envoys — led by Zarif — meet with delegations from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany in a follow-up to discussions in New York last month.

Rouhani has made it clear he wants the U.S. and allies to pull back on sanctions, which have cut Iran's vital oil exports in half and blackballed the country from international banking networks. But Iran has not announced what it will offer in return.

In Geneva, Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, told The Associated Press that Iran has more enriched uranium than it needs for its research and would be willing to discuss the "surplus" with Western powers next week.

He said Iran is open to discussions about what to do with the 20 percent enriched uranium that it doesn't need. Iran has reported to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency that it has turned half of its 20 percent enriched uranium into a powder form that cannot easily be used to make weapons-grade fuel.

The 20 percent enriched uranium has been a centerpiece of the showdown with the West. It is closer to warhead-grade material than the level needed for energy-producing nuclear reactors. Iran, however, says it needs the higher level enrichment for its medical research reactor and repeatedly denies claims it seeks an atomic weapon.

"We have some surplus, you know, the amount that we don't need," Larijani said. "But over that we can have some discussions." Last week, parliament overwhelmingly backed Rouhani's initiatives. In an attempt to further push back against hard-liners, Rouhani has asked the government to conduct a poll on views of his U.N. visit and outreach to the U.S., spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Meanwhile, other battle lines could be emerging. The semiofficial Fars news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, reported that authorities are studying a proposal to free Iran's two most prominent opposition figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since early 2011.

In recent weeks, officials have freed more than 90 people jailed in crackdowns since huge unrest after the disputed re-election of Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in 2009. Mousavi and Karroubi led those protests.

In a separate statement, Rouhani urged police to be less aggressive in enforcing Iran's Islamic dress codes for women, who often push limits with body-hugging coverings and head scarves barely hanging on.

"One of the main reasons behind Ayatollah Khamenei's recent decision to support (Rouhani's) efforts is sanctions," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born political analyst based in Israel. "Such support will not be open-ended or unconditional, as (Khamenei) has his own hard-line audience to play to. So Rouhani better deliver, and deliver fast."

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer John Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.

Iran claims breakthrough with Israeli-lookalike combat UAVs

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UPI)
Oct 7, 2013

Iran's Revolutionary Guards say they're now producing armed unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Shahed-129, capable of attacking air and ground targets.

If that's correct, it marks a significant technological advance for the Islamic Republic's defense industry -- even if the Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, or UCAVs, do appear to be rip-offs of Israeli or U.S. systems.

In recent days, Iran's military leaders have claimed self-sufficiency in the UAV sector and announced initial production of a combat drone called Raad-85, Farsi for thunder, and the mass production of the Shahed-129, unveiled in September 2012.

The Shahed, or witness, has an operational radius that tops 1,000 miles, can stay aloft for 24 hours and can carry as many as eight indigenous Sadid-1 missiles on four under-wing twin-launchers.

According to the U.S. military website Defense Update, the Shahed-129 is a "precision-guided version of the Zelzal medium-range rocket.

Maj. Gen. Mohammad-Ali Jafari, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, hailed Shahed-129, built by the IRGC's Aerospace Division, as a major technological breakthrough.

However, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Israel's Hermes 450 UAV, built by Elbit Systems. Analysts say it has the same shape, size, landing gear type and performance characteristics.

Although details of the Shahed's internal systems, sensor arrays and ground control station are not known, the similarities with the Hermes 450 suggests the Iranians may have had access to one of the Israeli craft, possibly lost on a covert mission, and were able to reverse-engineer its components.

Tal Inbar, a UAV specialist with Israel's Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Studies, said photos of the Shahed-129 indicated a size and design similar to Elbit Systems' Hermes 900, with what appeared to be a laser designator for advanced laser-guided anti-tank missiles.

"Based on the visuals, this could be a real UCAV system, not just a mock-up for exhibitions," Inbar observed.

Defense Update said that on the basis of the performance characteristics cited by the Iranians, the Shahed-129 "is a more powerful platform with significantly more payload capacity compared to the Israeli drone.

"Its external shape reflects significant advancement in composite materials fabrication, including the production of large airframe and structural elements."

Defense Update says the Sadid missiles seen on the Shahed-129 "are similar in diameter and container size to the Israeli Spike LR missile," a long-range anti-tank weapon built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Iran captured a U.S. stealth RQ-170, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, in December 2011 after it went down over the Islamic Republic during a secret mission for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Iranians claimed they were able to hack into its command system and force it to land. The CIA later admitted Iran had captured one of the highly sensitive surveillance craft designed to evade enemy defenses.

It was believed the Iranians would seek to reverse-engineer the RQ-170.

Indeed, Jafari himself claimed in a Sept. 27, 2012, interview with the semi-official Fars news agency the IRGC had successfully reverse-engineered a version of the RQ-17.

But if that's true, the results have not yet been sighted.

"All the memories and computer systems of this plane have been decoded and some good news will be announced in the near future not just about the RQ-170 and the optimizations that our forces have done on the reverse-engineered model ... but also in areas of other important defense achievements," IRGC Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said in September without elaborating.

The U.S. weekly Defense News quoted Israeli expert Danny Eshchar as saying he doubted the Shehad-129 was a fully integrated, combat-capable UCAV for various technical reasons.

"It's a real air vehicle, but that's about all," said Eshchar, deputy chief executive of Aeronautics Ltd.

The Iranians also unveiled details of new designs, including photos of a tactical reconnaissance UAV named Yaseer.

The Israeli experts said it appeared to be a copy of the U.S. ScanEagle, manufactured by Insitu, a subsidiary of the Boeing Co.

Iran claimed to have captured one over the Persian Gulf in December 2012, plus two more soon after. The U.S. Navy insisted none of its ScanEagles was missing.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_claims_breakthrough_with_Israeli-lookalike_combat_UAVs_999.html.

Indian protesters clash over creation of Telangana state

New Delhi (UPI)
Oct 7, 2013

Parts of India's Andhra Pradesh state were paralyzed after more than 30,000 electricity workers went on indefinite strike as a protest against the proposed creation of Telangana state.

Hundreds of smaller towns along the coastal regions were plunged into darkness on the weekend and electric train schedules were severely disrupted or services canceled because of a lack of power, The Times of India reported.

Several power stations were partially closed and police in several coastal regions battled street mobs that looted buildings and set fires, Indian media reported.

The indefinite strike in Andhra Pradesh, on the Bay of Bengal, follows a 48-hour strike that ended on Sunday.

The strikes are to protest the decision by the decision by the Congress Party's federal cabinet in New Delhi to split the state.

Protesters in Vizianagaram town defied a curfew and engaged police, who had shoot-at-sight orders, in running street battles, The Hindustan Times reported. Among the properties attacked were those of the head of the state's Congress Party.

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters in the town of Kothapeta and used batons against a mob in Palliveedhi.

"A lot of violence was reported, with the protesters indulging in arson, looting shops, setting a bank on fire and damaging public and private properties," the state's north coastal zone Inspector General of Police Dwaraka Tirumala Rao said.

"In view of the violence, authorities ordered a curfew late last night."

The BBC reported that at least four federal ministers have offered to quit the government over the controversial decision that has sparked protests both for and against the creation of Telangana.

India's ruling Congress Party announced July 30 it would carve up the southeastern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh to create a land-locked Telangana state -- the culmination of a half-century struggle by Telangana people.

Andhra Pradesh would remain as a coastal state.

But protesters against the carve-up are calling what would be left Seemandhra, the accepted name of the combined regions of Rayalaseema in southern Andhra Pradesh and the regions north along the coast.

The new state would be India's 29th state and have a population of more than 35 million within its 44,300 square miles, a 2011 census indicated.

But the decision was met with periodic street protests that have resulted in clashes with police.

Under the Congress Party's proposal, Andhra Pradesh's capital and India's sixth-biggest city, Hyderabad, will be included in the new state and serve as joint capital for at least a decade.

Hyderabad, as the capital of a mostly agricultural new state, will remain a magnet for IT research and pharmaceutical investment dollars.

The BBC reported that the timing of the announcement is aimed at general elections scheduled for early 2014.

Recent opinion polls show the Congress party is struggling in the state and hope the creation of Telangana would be looked upon favorably by ethnic Telangana people, the BBC said.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Indian_protesters_clash_over_creation_of_Telangana_state_999.html.

'Like nothing we had seen before': New species of owl discovered

ADAM WITHNALL
FRIDAY 04 OCTOBER 2013

A British ornithologist working in Oman was able to track the unfamiliar hoots of a bird previously unknown to science

A British ornithologist and his team have discovered a completely new species of owl while on a research expedition in Oman.

The bird, previously unknown to science, is slightly bigger than a tawny owl and has been named the Omani Owl.

It was first spotted in a remote mountainous region of the Middle Eastern country while sound-recordist and author Magnus Robb, 43, formerly from Edinburgh, was studying another species in March.

Mr Robb said he and his team were recording the Arabian owl, which he knows well, when he noticed “faint owl-like hooting in the background with a rhythm I had never heard before”.

The expert was so struck by the sound that he immediately phoned a colleague and said: “I think I’ve just discovered a new species of owl.”

“My colleague Rene Pop and I tried in vain to find the mystery bird again the next night, but it was only on the last night of our trip that we heard it again,” Mr Robb said. “We had to leave for the airport with the unseen owl hooting up on a cliff.”

He returned a month later, accompanied by colleague Arnoud B van den Berg.

Mr Robb said: “Tracking it down again wasn't easy. This owl inhabits vertical terrain and its voice is difficult to hear. Worse still, in April the bird was virtually silent. Eventually we heard one. What a relief to actually glimpse it perched on a rock, confirming that this was indeed an owl and looked like nothing we had seen before.”

Over the course of the next months the team made another two research trips to look for new specimens, gather photographs and sound recordings, and observe the owls’ behavior.

After critical analysis, they concluded this was indeed a new owl for science, and the first bird species to be discovered in Arabia for 77 years.

Details of its discovery were published today in the ornithological journal Dutch Birding.

Mr Robb’s work is part of an international project called the Sound Approach, which aims to catalog bird sounds with a view to better understanding them.

And he told the BBC that he and his colleagues had undertaken such rapid and extensive study of the Omani Owl so that it could be made a candidate for conservation projects as soon as possible.

“One of the reasons we've gone through this process of describing and confirming this as a new species so quickly is to get conservation for this owl as soon as possible,“ he said.

“Conservation can only start when this species is accepted and given some official status.”

He said he wants to return to Oman later this year to discover more about the owl, its habitat and its behavior.

So far, he and his colleagues have found only seven of the birds in a single wadi in the remote, mountainous area of the country which, he said, “suggests that it’s a very rare creature indeed”.

Source: The Independent.
Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/like-nothing-we-had-seen-before-new-species-of-owl-discovered-8859083.html.