Large rally opposes moves for Catalan independence

October 12, 2013

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Thousands of people gathered in Barcelona on Saturday to assert their right to be Spanish as well as Catalan in a protest designed to demonstrate to separatists that a significant proportion of the region's population is against splitting away from Spain.

Under the movement's slogan of "We are Catalonia, we are Spain," many waved flags saying "We are 47 million," a reference to the population of Spain. "The vast majority of people here are against independence because if we go down that path Spain will be reduced," said Mariano Escudero, 70.

Catalonia regional President Artur Mas has said he wants to hold a referendum on independence. The rally in the Catalan capital's main Plaza de Catalunya square coincided with Spain's national holiday which is also celebrated with a military parade in Madrid. This year Crown Prince Felipe presided over the parade because King Juan Carlos is recovering from surgery to his hip.

Protesters in Barcelona carried a large 100-meter flag, half bearing the Catalan region's colors and the other half those of Spain as loudspeakers played festive music. There was a strong undercurrent of anger at Mas' secessionist policies. Some shouted, "We won't get fooled, we are Spain," while others wore the Spanish national football team's jersey and chanted, "Barcelona plus Madrid equals La Roja" — the squad's popular name.

Maite Avila, 39, who works for Mas' regional government, said she was furious at those leading the independence movement. "Mas is only able to get away with this because we live in a democracy, otherwise someone would have cut his throat," said Avila, who was waving a Spanish flag.

Typhoon Fitow kills 10 in east China province

Beijing (AFP)
Oct 09, 2013

Ten people have died after a typhoon slammed into China's east coast, including a family of three who were all killed by electric shocks, state media reported Wednesday.

Five others are still missing after Typhoon Fitow brought heavy rains to Zhejiang province, Xinhua news agency reported, citing local authorities.

Fitow made landfall early Monday, affecting about seven million people in 11 cities in Zhejiang, with houses torn down and grain flooded, Xinhua reported.

In Wenzhou city, the storm claimed at least 10 lives -- eight of whom died of electric shocks, including the three family members, the agency reported late Wednesday, citing a statement from the local government.

Two others died after their car plunged into a river, the statement reportedly said.

Parts of Zhejiang, which neighbors the commercial hub Shanghai, saw nearly 29 centimeters (11 inches) of rain over 17 hours from Sunday to Monday, the official China News Service said.

On Wednesday, Xinhua said the rain had flooded roads and houses, causing river breaches and power failures, with more than 250,000 people still without power that morning.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Typhoon_Fitow_kills_10_in_east_China_province_999.html.

2 men killed in separate Northern Ireland attacks

October 10, 2013

DUBLIN (AP) — Authorities blamed a resurgent Irish Republican Army faction Thursday for killing two men in separate gun attacks in Northern Ireland, the first such slayings in the British territory in nearly a year.

So-called "New IRA" militants claimed responsibility for killing Kevin Kearney, a 46-year-old Irish Catholic man, on Tuesday in a Belfast park. Police found his body floating in a lake in the park Wednesday and said he had been shot.

On Thursday morning a gunman shot Barry McCrory, 35, fatally in the head inside his apartment in the center of Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second-largest city. IRA extremists again were suspected.

Police and politicians said both victims may have been targeted because of suspected involvement in drug dealing. Detective Chief Inspector Justyn Galloway said Kearney had served prison time for drug-related offenses. Peter Robinson, the Protestant leader of Northern Ireland's unity government, said there was "no justification for anyone taking justice into their own hands."

IRA members in Londonderry, in particular, have been behind scores of shootings and death threats since 2009 against alleged drug dealers in the predominantly Catholic city. Such violence and intimidation allows IRA members to control criminal rackets and discourage community cooperation with police.

Gerry Kelly of the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party accused the militants of extorting money from many dealers in exchange for protection, while those who refuse to pay bribes are targeted. In their admission of responsibility, IRA members said Kearney had been warned to stop trafficking drugs but "refused to heed this warning and carried on with his activities and as a consequence the IRA made the decision to execute him."

McCrory, meanwhile, was imprisoned last year for trying to rob a Belfast bank. Also Thursday, police and British Army bomb experts blocked roads and evacuated homes in three parts of Belfast while dealing with suspected bombs. All three alerts — regularly staged by IRA splinter groups — were declared hoaxes.

The attacks could be timed to coincide with Thursday's start to an international conference in Belfast to woo foreign investment to Northern Ireland, a predominantly British Protestant state that IRA traditionalists want abolished and merged with the Republic of Ireland. British Prime Minister David Cameron is overseeing the two-day event.

The dominant IRA faction, the Provisional IRA, killed nearly 1,800 people in a failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. The Provisionals disarmed and renounced violence in 2005 in support of the territory's Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

But some former Provisionals have continued to mount attacks in breakaway factions. Last year, members of four groups, including the Londonderry-based Republican Action Against Drugs, merged into what they call simply "the IRA." Irish media have christened the umbrella faction "New IRA" to distinguish it from a rival splinter group, the Continuity IRA, as well as the faded Provisionals.

This "new" IRA claimed its first killing in November, when a prison officer was shot to death as he drove to work.

Your guide to the 2013 Nobel prizes

October 11, 2013

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Here's a look at the achievements honored by this year's Nobel prizes, the $1.2 million awards handed out since 1901 by committees in Stockholm and Oslo:

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the investigation and enforcement arm for a 1997 treaty banning the use of chemical weapons. Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the global chemical weapons watchdog deploys teams worldwide to identify whether all 190 nations that have signed the treaty are disclosing all chemical weapons stocks and, if possessing them, destroying both the weapons and their manufacturing sites. An OPCW mission is currently planning the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities in Syria, the most recent nation to accept the arms-control accord.

NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE Canadian author Alice Munro, hailed by the award-giving Swedish Academy as a "master of the contemporary short story." The 82-year-old writer is often called "Canada's Chekhov" for her astute, unflinching and compassionate depiction of seemingly unremarkable lives. She produced several story collections chronicling the lives of girls and women before and after the 1960s social revolution, including "The Moons of Jupiter," ''The Progress of Love" and "Runaway."

NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY Three U.S.-based scientists for developing computer models that can predict chemical reactions for use in creating new drugs and other tasks. Their approach combined classical physics and quantum physics. The winners are Martin Karplus of the University of Strasbourg, France, and Harvard University; Michael Levitt of the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS Peter Higgs of Britain and Francois Englert of Belgium for their 1964 theory, advanced independently of each other, about how subatomic particles get their mass. Their theory made headlines last year when the CERN laboratory in Geneva confirmed it by discovering the so-called Higgs particle.

NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE Three U.S.-based researchers for their breakthroughs in understanding how key substances move within a cell. They developed better understanding of vesicles, tiny bubbles that deliver their cargo within a cell to the right place at the right time. Disturbances in that delivery system can lead to neurological diseases, diabetes or immunological disorders. The prize was shared by Americans James E. Rothman of Yale University and Randy W. Schekman of the University of California at Berkeley; and German-American Dr. Thomas C. Sudhof of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

A look at the impact of recent Nobel Peace Prizes

October 11, 2013

STOCKHOLM (AP) — By honoring the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Nobel Peace Prize committee stuck to its tradition of not just awarding past achievements, but highlighting a cause, movement or process it hopes can promote world peace.

So does this high-minded ambition work? Sometimes. The 1991 prize to Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the 1996 award to East Timor independence leaders Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta are widely seen as having had a significant political impact.

History hasn't been kind to some other prizes, like the 1994 award shared by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for what was seen as a breakthrough in peace talks. Or the 1926 prize given to the foreign ministers of France and Germany to promote reconciliation between the two World War I adversaries. A decade later, Hitler denounced their promises not to invade each other and sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, paving the way for WWII.

The 1973 award to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho (who declined it) for negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam is among the most controversial. The war continued for two more years.

Recently, though, the influence of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is less clear cut. The Associated Press analyzed the fallout of the six most recent peace awards, and asked the committee's non-voting secretary, Geir Lundestad, for his thoughts:

2012 — THE EUROPEAN UNION Last year's prize underscored the EU's role in turning war-ravaged Europe into a continent of peace. It was meant to give the bloc a shot in the arm at a time when the idea of European unity was losing traction amid financial turmoil and social unrest.

FALLOUT: It's still early, but there are no signs that the Nobel helped revitalize the EU's image. Not in the minds of its citizens, at least. Their trust in the EU remains at a record low, according to the EU's own Eurobarometer surveys. The latest survey showed support for the bloc's common currency dropped to 51 percent this year, its lowest point since 2006. Only 30 percent of Europeans — unchanged from last year — had a positive image of the EU.

LUNDESTAD: "It's much too early to come to a definite conclusion about last year's prize. ... I think the committee felt that this was a rather obvious prize, which maybe came too late, but that's a different matter. And the way in which this was received by the EU, I mean you could see how exceedingly happy they were. (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel made all these ... heads of state or heads of government come to take part in the ceremony. So it was just obvious ... how proud the EU has been of this and how they promote the fact that they have received the prize. So it would certainly seem to have had a significant impact on the EU itself."

2011 — PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVIST LEYMAH GBOWEE OF LIBERIA, AND YEMENI ACTIVIST TAWAKKUL KARMAN The committee hoped that giving the prize to the three women would "help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realize the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent."

FALLOUT: The Nobel amplified Karman's calls for reforms in Yemen and the street protests she helped organize against President Ali Abduallah Saleh. He agreed to step down a month later after pressure from the U.S. and Gulf states, but there is little sign that the rights of women have improved since. Human Rights Watch says Yemeni women still cannot marry without permission, do not have secondary rights in divorce and child custody and more than half are married off before they are 18 — some as young as 8.

The political role of women has improved in sub-Saharan Africa, with Joyce Banda becoming president of Malawi and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma appointed as the first female chair of the African Union Commission. Sirleaf used her prize money to help fund scholarships for girls and also to help pay for school dormitories for young women, according to spokesman Jerolinmek Piah. Tangible results from those efforts, though, will take years to materialize. Sirleaf had a falling out with co-winner Gbowee, who resigned her post as head of the reconciliation commission, accusing Sirleaf of engaging in nepotism and failure to fight corruption.

LUNDESTAD: "We should be very careful that we don't attribute too much influence to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. But if you look at the broad developments, there's just no doubt that the situation of women around the world is improving. And you see this most strikingly in the field of education. In country after country, women or girls are in a majority even in higher education. ... There is still a huge distance to go before women have equality in any country, much less in all countries, but we should not overlook the very significant progress."

2010 — LIU XIAOBO The committee wanted to promote the struggle for human rights in China and called for the jailed Chinese dissident to be released. FALLOUT: Liu is still in prison, with no signs of an early release. His wife has been held under house arrest since the prize was announced. In August, his brother-in-law was sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud, in a case that supporters said was politically motivated. The prize has not invigorated the human rights movement in China. The crackdown on anyone who speaks out against the ruling Communist Party continues and got tougher this year. The most tangible effect of the prize is that it so enraged China that trade talks with Norway were put on hold.

LUNDESTAD: "I like to think we have rather realistic ideas about what can be accomplished and what cannot be accomplished. But you wonder when you see very powerful governments, like the Chinese one, so afraid of what the effects of a Nobel Peace Prize to a dissident could be. I mean, really, they went to considerable lengths to prevent such a prize. Because they were afraid of what the results could be. Maybe the prize has had a greater effect than we occasionally think. Although of course we have to admit that in the short term the prize to Liu Xiaobo has not led to anything. But the Chinese response was very interesting just by itself."

2009 — PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA This prize was meant to encourage the U.S. to engage in multilateral diplomacy and was seen by many as implicit criticism of President George W. Bush's foreign policy. FALLOUT: Obama has remained committed to multilateral diplomacy, and even reached out to long-time foe Iran over its nuclear program. So in that respect he has fulfilled the aspirations of the prize committee. But he hasn't closed down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, an issue that the committee highlighted in the 2009 award ceremony. Peace activists are also disappointed at the expanded use of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere under Obama's administration.

LUNDESTAD: "It's too early to judge on Obama's presidency. And the committee doesn't really sit down to evaluate past prizes because we have too much to do focusing on the current year. But I mean, ending two wars — Iraq and Afghanistan, too, is winding down — is a very significant achievement."

2008 — MARTTI AHTISAARI This prize was essentially a lifetime achievement award for the Finnish peace mediator, who played a role in resolving conflicts in Namibia, Kosovo and Indonesia's semiautonomous Aceh region. The committee didn't attach any wider significance to the prize beyond hoping that "others may be inspired by his efforts and achievements."

FALLOUT: None directly, though he may have inspired others. LUNDESTAD: "There is always the hope for more, that leading politicians will take up causes like this, trying to end conflicts and promoting peace."

2007 — AL GORE AND THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE The prize to the former vice president-turned-climate activist and the U.N.'s expert panel on global warming was supposed to spur world leaders into taking action to curb global warming by underlining the scientific assessments that climate change is man-made and poses a serious threat to mankind.

FALLOUT: Emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases have continued to rise and the world is still waiting for governments to reach a global deal to control them. One of the aspirations the committee expressed for Obama's award two years later was that he would help clinch such a deal at a U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, which only yielded modest voluntary pledges. Governments have now set 2015 as a deadline for a global climate deal.

LUNDESTAD: "Action is disappointingly slow. But these issues will have to be addressed. It takes time. ... And if we could help strengthen the scientific case, if only marginally, that's fine."

Associated Press writers Mark Lewis in Stavanger, Norway, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

Peace Prize goes to chemical-weapons watchdog

October 11, 2013

BEIRUT (AP) — The watchdog agency working to eliminate the world's chemical weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a powerful endorsement of the inspectors now on the ground in Syria on a perilous mission to destroy the regime's stockpile of poison gas.

In honoring the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said "recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons."

The prize came 10 days after OPCW inspectors started arriving in war-torn Syria to oversee the dismantling of President Bashar Assad's chemical arsenal. While world leaders and former Nobel laureates praised the group's selection, some in Syria lamented that the prize would do nothing to end the bloodshed, most of which is being inflicted with conventional weapons.

"The killing is continuing, the shelling is continuing and the dead continue to fall," said Mohammed al-Tayeb, an activist who helped film casualties after the deadly chemical attack in August that the rebels and the government have blamed on each other.

The peace prize, he added, should have gone to "whoever helps the Syrian people get rid of Bashar Assad." After focusing on such themes as human rights and European unity in recent years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee this time returned to the core purpose of the 112-year-old Nobel Peace Prize — disarming the world.

Founded in 1997, the OPCW had largely worked out of the limelight until this year, when the United Nations called upon its expertise. The OPCW's selection caught many by surprise. It was widely expected that the peace prize would go to Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last October for championing education for girls.

"She is an outstanding woman and I think she has a bright future, and she will probably be a nominee next year or the year after that," said Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland. The peace prize committee has a tradition of not just honoring past achievements, but encouraging causes or movements that are still unfolding.

The OPCW was formed to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1997 international treaty outlawing such arms. The Nobel Peace Prize came just days before Syria officially joins as OPCW's 190th member state on Monday.

"I truly hope that this award and the OPCW's ongoing mission together with the United Nations in Syria will (help) efforts to achieve peace in that country and end the suffering of its people," OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said at The Hague, Netherlands.

After the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in Syria, Assad faced the prospect of a U.S. military strike. To avert that, he acknowledged his chemical weapons stockpile, and his government quickly signed on to the Chemical Weapons Convention and allowed OPCW inspectors into the country.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry congratulated the OPCW on Friday, saying: "Since that horrific attack, the OPCW has taken extraordinary steps and worked with unprecedented speed to address this blatant violation of international norms that shocked the conscience of people around the world."

Former Soviet leader and 1990 Nobel peace laureate Mikhail Gorbachev said: "I believe this recognition can provide the impetus to accelerate efforts to rid the world of these deadly weapons. A chemical weapons-free world is within grasp."

A senior Syrian rebel, Louay Safi, called the prize a "premature step" that will divert the world's attention from the bloodletting, while Fayez Sayegh, a lawmaker from Syria's ruling party, declared the Nobel to be a vindication of Assad's government and its willingness to give up its chemical weapons.

In giving the prize to an international organization, the Nobel committee highlighted the Syrian civil war, now in its third year, without openly siding with any of the combatants. The fighting has killed more than 100,000 people, devastated many cities and towns and forced millions of Syrians to flee their homes and country.

U.N. war crimes investigators have accused both Assad's government and the rebels of wrongdoing, although they say the regime's abuses are worse. Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Nobel committee, noted that the award was focused on chemical weapons, not the wider conflict in Syria, but added: "Of course, the committee hopes that a peaceful solution will be achieved in Syria."

The struggle to control chemical weapons began in earnest after World War I, when agents such as mustard gas killed more than 100,000 people. The 1925 Geneva Convention banned the use of chemical weapons, but their production or storage wasn't outlawed until the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force.

Seven nations — Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia and the United States, along with a country identified by the OPCW only as "a state party" but widely believed to be South Korea — have declared chemical weapon stockpiles and have destroyed them or are in the process of doing so.

However, the Nobel committee noted that some countries, including the U.S. and Russia, have not met the April 2012 deadline. "I have to recognize that they have particular challenges. They have huge stockpiles of chemical weapons," the Nobel committee's Jagland said. "What is important is that they do as much as they can and as fast as they can."

According to the OPCW, 57,740 metric tons, or 81 percent, of the world's declared stockpile of chemical agents have been verifiably destroyed. An OPCW report this year said the U.S. had destroyed about 90 percent of its arsenal, Russia 70 percent and Libya 51 percent.

Established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the Nobel Prizes have been handed out since 1901.

Ritter reported from Stockholm. AP reporters Mark Lewis in Oslo, Norway, Michael Corder in The Hague and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.

Lithuanian PM: Russia trying to reassert power

October 10, 2013

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania's prime minister is pointing to a Russian ban on dairy products from his country as evidence that Moscow fears losing influence over Ukraine and other former Soviet states. And he's wondering how far Russia will go in punishing countries it thinks are wooing those nations away.

Lithuania currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, and it has been working overtime to see the regional bloc extend its trade reach in Eastern Europe. In November, the Baltic nation is to host a key EU summit aimed at strengthening trade relations with Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan — all countries Moscow considers to be in its sphere of influence.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said the Kremlin is growing worried about the EU's intentions. "It is a key question to Russia whether Ukraine would choose a path to the West and integrate into the European Union market or whether it joins the Customs Union," Butkevicius said, referring to an alternative trade zone created by Russia that now includes Kazakhstan and Belarus.

For both Brussels and Moscow, the real prize is Ukraine, a nation of 46 million with relatively strong industrial and agricultural sectors. Russia has imposed tremendous pressure on Ukraine not to sign a strategic partnership deal with the EU, saying Moscow would retaliate with trade restrictions that could push the ex-Soviet republic toward default.

In August, Russia began a series of rigorous border control checks that caused crossing delays and millions of dollars of losses for Ukrainian businessmen. Other nations have not escaped Russia's wrath, either. In September, Russia imposed a ban on imports of Moldovan wine after that country's leaders expressed a willingness to sign a partnership deal with the EU at the same summit in Lithuania.

Finally, on Monday, Russia's top consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, issued a decree barring the import of a range of Lithuanian dairy products. It's a ban that hurts many producers in the country. "Some of those diary companies sell 80 percent of their production to Russia," the Lithuanian prime minister told AP. "Today — milk. Tomorrow — meat. Then what?"

Lithuania, a country of 3 million people, has appealed to the EU to intervene, and Butkevicius said he hopes the dairy companies' losses will be covered by EU funds. He denied speculation that Lithuania might react by imposing restrictions on Russian goods and passengers moving across its territory. But he also gave no indication that Lithuania would cease its outreach to Ukraine.

"We are not going to war. Our task is to collect data, use our negotiators in Moscow, and act within the framework of the (World Trade Organization). We already feel that we have the backing of the EU," Butkevicius said.

Moscow, meanwhile, denies the dairy ban has anything to do with Ukraine and the upcoming EU summit. "This topic has absolutely nothing to do with politics. It's an old topic having to do with the fact that a number of Lithuanian companies make dairy products that don't meet Russia's standards," Sergei Glazyev, a Kremlin insider, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station Thursday.

Glazyev, a top adviser to President Vladimir Putin on the Customs Union, in September warned Ukraine that Moscow might impose duties on Ukrainian goods if it were to keep strengthening its ties to the EU.

Glazyev also said Thursday that Russia might also impose a visa regime on Ukrainians traveling to countries that are part of the Customs Union. Currently Ukrainians can travel to Russia without a visa.

4 Americans meet Snowden to give him an award

October 10, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Four former U.S. government officials who met with former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden said Thursday that he is adjusting to life in Russia and expresses no regrets about leaking highly classified information. Separately, Snowden's father arrived to see his son.

The Americans, who once worked for the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and NSA, have criticized the U.S. government and in some cases exposed what they believed was wrongdoing in the security agencies. All supporters of Snowden, they are the first Americans known to have met with him since he was granted asylum in Russia in August.

In interviews with The Associated Press, they described spending the previous evening with Snowden to present him with an award given annually by a group of retired CIA officers. "He spoke about going out and about and getting to understand Russia and its culture and the people," said Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who gave inside information to a newspaper about an electronic espionage program that he saw as invasive. "This is where he lives now, and so where you live is your home."

Snowden's father, Lon, did not say when or where he would meet his 30-year-old son, but expressed optimism about his situation. "You know, I have heard so many things through the media, and my assumption is certainly, given the circumstances, he's doing as well as could be expected," Lon Snowden told the AP shortly after he arrived in Moscow. "He's safe and he's free, and that's a good thing."

The elder Snowden said he doubts his son will return to the United States, where he is charged with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the NSA's surveillance of phone and Internet usage around the world.

The four former U.S. officials refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living. "For his own safety it's best that no one else knows where he actually lives," Drake said. "But I believe he is making the best of his circumstances and is living as normally as possible."

Like Snowden, Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act, but the felony charges were dropped before trial and he was convicted on a lesser charge and sentenced to one year of probation and community service.

Drake and the other Americans — Raymond McGovern, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley — said Snowden was in good spirits and still believes he did the right thing in disclosing the NSA surveillance program.

All but McGovern are pass recipients of the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the U.S. military of underestimating the strength of the enemy for political purposes. The award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

The winner of the award in 2010 was WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. McGovern, a retired CIA officer, said the anti-secrecy group had facilitated their trip to Moscow and that WikiLeaks staffer Sarah Harrison, who had arrived with Snowden from Hong Kong in June, remained by his side.

The Americans said they saw no evidence that Snowden was under the control of Russian security services, as many in the U.S. government believe. "He spoke very openly about a whole range of things, a number of which I won't get into here, but it certainly didn't involve any kind of manipulation by the Russian government or anyone else for that matter," said Radack, a former Justice Department adviser now with the Government Accountability Project. "He definitely is his own person and makes his own decisions and says and does what he wants to."

Snowden's asylum status has strained the already tense relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

Lynn Berry contributed to this story.

Germany, Belgium, Switzerland reach World Cup

October 12, 2013

Germany, Belgium and Switzerland qualified for the World Cup in Brazil while Spain, England and Russia also won on Friday to keep their fate in their own hands heading into the European zone's final round of group games.

Next year's tournament is also within sight for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has never played in a World Cup, but Cristiano Ronaldo looks destined for the playoffs with Portugal after a night when the qualifying picture in the nine groups became much clearer.

The Netherlands had already secured their passage to the World Cup before their 8-1 demolition of Hungary, featuring a hat trick by Robin van Persie that put the Manchester United striker top of his country's all-time scoring chart with 41 goals.

Germany eased past Ireland 3-0 through goals by Sami Khedira, Andre Schuerrle and Mesut Ozil to guarantee first place in Group C and reach football's biggest tournament for the 16th straight time. "We've won eight from nine games and we should have won the ninth," Germany coach Joachim Loew said.

For Belgium, though, it will be a first World Cup in 12 years after the country's so-called golden generation topped Group A with a 2-1 win in Croatia, with striker Romelu Lukaku scoring twice. "It's a party in Belgium. What more can you ask?" said coach Marc Wilmots, whose team played in front of Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo in Zagreb.

Switzerland prompted a jubilant tweet from tennis great Roger Federer after beating Albania 2-1 to win Group E with a game to spare and advance to the World Cup for a third successive occasion. "Switzerland made it to the World Cup, how happy am I on a scale 1-10?" Federer wrote. "About a 25."

Spain beat Belarus 2-1 through second-half goals by Xavi Hernandez and Alvaro Negredo and requires just one point from a home match against Georgia to guarantee the world champions will defend their title next summer.

England stayed top of Group H, a point clear of Ukraine, after an impressive second-half display sealed a 4-1 win over Montenegro, with in-form strikers Wayne Rooney and Daniel Sturridge and debutant Andros Townsend among the scorers. The English now just need a victory over Poland on Tuesday to go through automatically but a draw will let in Ukraine, which beat the Poles 1-0 and have an easy match against San Marino left.

"It is only a half-done job, but it is nice to know whatever happens we will not be out," said England coach Roy Hodgson, whose team can't finish lower than second place. The scenario is easier for Russia after its 4-0 win in Luxembourg, which left Fabio Capello's team three points ahead of Portugal and needing only a draw in Azerbaijan to guarantee first place.

Portugal conceded a goal to Eden Ben Basat with five minutes left to draw 1-1 at home to Israel and virtually ensure it will be in next month's two-legged playoffs, which feature the top eight runners-up.

Helped by two goals by Edin Dzeko, Group G leader Bosnia-Herzegovina beat Liechtenstein 4-1 at home and can qualify automatically for its first major tournament with a win at Lithuania on Tuesday. Greece defeated Slovakia 1-0 and is level on points with the Bosnians, but has a vastly inferior goal difference.

Elsewhere, Sweden joined Croatia in the playoffs after securing second place in Germany's group with a 2-1 home victory over Austria, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic grabbing a late winner. They are the only two countries definitely in the two-legged playoffs, which will played on Nov. 15 and 19.

Italy, which qualified along with the Dutch last month, equalized in injury time to draw 2-2 at Denmark and leave Bulgaria second on goal difference in Group B despite a 2-1 loss in Armenia. Iceland stayed second behind Switzerland after overcoming Cyprus 2-0, while Turkey and Romania won away games on Friday to stay tied on points behind the Netherlands with one match remaining.

The Turks have the edge on goal difference but finish off against the Dutch, who showed they are in no mood to relax by ripping apart Hungary in Amsterdam. Van Persie scored twice before half time and seven minutes into the second half to go one goal ahead of Patrick Kluivert in the all-time list.

"Records are made to be broken ... I'm happy for him," said Kluivert, who is now one of Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal's assistants. Thirteen of the 32 spots at the World Cup are now set. The United States, Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Iran, Japan and South Korea had also already qualified before Friday, and Brazil gets an automatic berth as host.

Colombia and Chile were in position to advance later Friday.

Germany reaches WCup with 3-0 win over Ireland

October 12, 2013

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — Germany sealed a spot at next year's World Cup with an assured 3-0 win over Ireland on Friday.

Sami Khedira opened the scoring with a deflected shot in the 12th minute, Andre Schuerrle scored in the 58th after Toni Kroos scooped the ball over the Irish defense, and Mesut Ozil completed the scoring on his 50th appearance in injury time.

"It was clear we wanted to book our ticket (for Brazil) today and you could see that from how we approached the game," said Germany captain Philipp Lahm. "The team showed from the first minute that we wanted to have everything sorted out."

When Germany last booked its World Cup place in Cologne, it went on to win the tournament win with Franz Beckenbauer as coach in 1990. The hosts should have scored more but found Irish goalkeeper David Forde in excellent form.

"I'm delighted with our boys, I'm just sorry we didn't score," said Irish interim coach Noel King, whose side pushed hard for a consolation before Ozil scored. Sweden clinched second place with a game to spare in Group C after Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored late for a 2-1 win over Austria in Stockholm. Austria finished the game with 10 men after Marco Arnautovic was sent off in the closing minutes.

Earlier, the Faeroe Islands drew 1-1 at home against Kazakhstan in a game that had no bearing on qualifying. Despite missing a host of players through injury, Germany dominated against Ireland, particularly in the first half with more than 75 percent possession and 13 shots on goal compared to two from the visitors.

Lahm put in a captain's performance, and it was his interception from an ambitious Irish pass that set up Khedira to score. It seemed just a matter of time before the second goal arrived but the visitors went closest just before the break when Ciaran Clark struck the crossbar with a header after a free kick and Anthony Stokes missed the rebound.

Stokes had two good chances after the interval, and James McCarthy shot over as the Irish improved drastically for the second half. However, Kroos unlocked the visitors' resolute defense with a delightful ball for Schuerrle to turn and pick his spot.

Jerome Boateng struck the crossbar late on, but it was the Irish who made a late surge, before Kroos took advantage on a counterattack to send Ozil through to chip the goalkeeper. "Altogether it was a very good qualification. We've won eight from nine games and we should have won the ninth," said Germany coach Joachim Loew, referring to the 4-4 draw with Sweden in October 2012, when the Swedes fought back from four goals down.

Sweden hosts Germany on Tuesday in a now-meaningless final game. "We have a little score to settle with Sweden and so we'll approach the game in all seriousness," Loew said. Martin Harnik gave Austria a 29th-minute lead in Stockholm, only for Ibrahimovic to set up Martin Olsson to equalize with a diving header in the 56th.

Ibrahimovic then sealed the win in the 86th when substitute Kim Kallstrom found him with a long ball into the area. The Sweden captain controlled the ball with one touch and then slotted a low shot into the far corner with his second.

"It's magical," Ibrahimovic said. "It was a fantastic feeling. Now we're one step closer to the World Cup." However, Ibrahimovic will be suspended against Germany after a late booking in the final minutes.

Spain beats Belarus to inch 1 point from World Cup

October 12, 2013

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain (AP) — Xavi Hernandez and Alvaro Negredo scored second-half goals to give Spain a 2-1 win over Belarus on Friday, leaving the world and European champions one point away from sealing their place in the 2014 World Cup.

Belarus' disciplined defense held Spain to one shot on target in the first half, but Spain's insistence led to Xavi scoring the 61st-minute opener before substitute Negredo added a second goal in the 78th.

Substitute Sergei Kornilenko snatched a consolation goal for last-place Belarus on the break in the 89th. The victory gave Spain 17 points in Europe Group I. France has 14 before both play on Tuesday.

Spain hosts Georgia and France hosts Finland in their final group matches. The winner of the group qualifies for the 2014 tournament in Brazil, while the top eight of the nine group runners-up face a playoff.

Spain, which had drawn its previous two qualifiers played at home, is now undefeated in 29 straight games on home soil. "It wasn't easy. We weren't very crisp with our final passes, but we got the win and took an important step toward the World Cup," Xavi said.

Xavi wore the captain's armband after Spain coach Vicente del Bosque started Victor Valdes over regular skipper Iker Casillas. Del Bosque also gave Swansea forward Miguel "Michu" Perez his first intentional start even though he had been a late replacement in the squad for the injured David Villa.

After Spain struggled to create scoring chances in the first 45 minutes, Del Bosque took off defender Nacho Monreal for another playmaker in Andres Iniesta and later sent on Negredo for Michu. Spain continued to probe and the breakthrough came when Pique blindly lobbed the ball backward from near the end line. After Belarus' Egor Filipenko grazed it, the ball fell perfectly for Xavi to drive in a low right-footed strike.

Negredo secured the result with a header from a cross by Sergio Ramos after Pedro Rodriguez had played the defender free with a deft back-heeled flick. Negredo dedicated his goal to former Formula One test driver Maria de Villota who was found dead in a Seville hotel early on Friday one year after a life-threatening racing accident. Police said she died of natural causes.

"It's a sad day," said Negredo. "I didn't know her personally, but she was an example of how you can overcome anything." The game went ahead despite an explosion in the power supply at Iberostar Stadium on Thursday night that injured three people— two seriously— and led to several power outages.

Vatican beatifies 522 killed in Spain during 1930s

October 13, 2013

MADRID (AP) — The Vatican on Sunday beatified 522 people — mostly priests and nuns — who were killed in the turmoil that led to Spain's civil war.

The beatification, the last step the Roman Catholic church takes before declaring sainthood, was conducted by Cardinal Angelo Amato in an outdoor ceremony attended by thousands in the northeastern Tarragona region. Pope Francis gave a brief address via a teleconference link to the congregation, which included almost 4,000 relatives of those being beatified.

So far, the church has beatified in several similar events more than 1,500 people killed during Spain's worst period of internecine strife in the 20th century. In the 1930s, Spain was engulfed in instability that saw the head of state, King Alfonso XIII, abandon the country and anti-clerical mobs attack clergy and burn churches.

The mayhem culminated in a 1936-1939 war, won by forces allied to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy and led by Gen. Francisco Franco.

Malala, Mukegwe, Manning in Nobel peace buzz

October 10, 2013

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — All we know is this: a record 259 candidates, including 50 organizations, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. With no clues from the judges in Norway, speculation about the front-runners for Friday's announcement is primarily based on the committee's previous choices and current events. Here's a look at some of those getting the most attention:

MALALA YOUSAFZAI The Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last October for advocating education for girls is the bookmakers' favorite to win the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Since recovering from her injuries, she has toured the world, becoming a global celebrity. Now 16, she would be the youngest winner of any Nobel. On Thursday, she won the Sakharov Award, the European Parliament's 50,000-euro ($65,000) human rights award. Concerns that a Nobel Prize might pile too much pressure on her young shoulders were somewhat assuaged by the mature speech she gave to the U.N. this summer.

DR. DENIS MUKWEGE The Congolese surgeon, a powerful advocate for women, has treated thousands of gang-raped women at the Panzi Hospital he set up in Bukavu in 1999. Last year he lashed out at the international community for its inaction on his country's vicious civil war. The result: He is now hiding in Europe following an assassination attempt last October. Giving him the Nobel could give world attention to the conflict — but it might come too soon after 2011, when two African women and one Yemeni were honored with the peace prize for their work for women's rights.

RUSSIAN ACTIVISTS With the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics around the corner, the Nobel committee could be tempted to shine its spotlight on human rights activists in Russia. Svetlana Gannushkina and the Memorial rights group she heads have been seen as top candidates for several years. Another potential candidate is Lyudmila Alexeyeva, an 84-year-old former Soviet dissident and a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin's regime. The committee has broadened its concept of peace work to include things like human rights and climate change, so it could also choose to honor those fighting the anti-gay legislation recently passed in Russia.

SISTER MAGGIE GOBRAN The Egyptian computer scientist chucked in her academic career to become a Coptic Christian nun and has been running the Stephen's Children charity since 1989. The group reaches out across religious boundaries to help the disenfranchised in Cairo's slums. With the Arab Spring revolutions and politics in Egypt taking a more threatening turn, the committee might seek to reward someone seen as untainted by sectarianism and violence. Lawmakers in the U.S. and Norway have nominated her.

CHELSEA MANNING Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, the American soldier convicted of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks in one of the biggest intelligence leaks in U.S. history, is considered an outsider for the award. She is serving 35-year prison sentence for sending more than 700,000 documents to the anti-secrecy website. Awarding her the prize would not go down well with the U.S. government, but the fiercely independent Norwegian Nobel Committee is not afraid of riling powerful nations. Its 2010 peace prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo deeply angered the Chinese government. NSA leaker Edward Snowden is also getting attention in online betting, but that is wasted money. The deadline for nominations was Feb. 1, months before he became known.

OIC's new mediation unit now in operation

JEDDAH: HABIB SHAIKH
Sunday 8 September 2013

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has established a new unit called Peace, Security and Mediation Unit. “It was established in March this year and is beginning to function,” Dina Madani, a member of the unit, said.

Speaking to Arab News, she said that in light of the cooperation between the United Nations and the OIC, a three-member UN team from the Political Affairs Department — Alice Chow, team leader for the Mediation Support Unit; Kyoko Ono, team leader for Guidance and Learning Unit, and Jeffrey Mapendere, an expert on process design and a member of the UN standby team of mediation experts, visited the OIC.

They held talks with the unit, and shared perspectives, experiences, and consultation regarding mediation, best practices and process design.

It was attended by members of the unit, including Madani, a professional from the Legal Department, a professional from the Political Affairs Department with the director and advisers.

At one point, it was also open for political, minorities and legal departments in the OIC. “We all interacted, exchanged ideas, shared experiences and perspectives with the UN,” she added.

Asked about the first issue to be taken up, she said: “First, as an OIC mediation unit, we have to start functioning. They shared with us their best practices and we will set our objectives and concentrate on capacity building of the unit during the initial period.”

Regarding whether the Palestinian issue would be a part of the political mediation, Madani replied, “Palestine is at the core of cases with the OIC, yet it is premature to decide at this point.”

She explained further saying, “The idea of this unit is that it will support the OIC departments and organs involved in peace, security and mediation issues. It will help and assist the mediators within the OIC to be able to better mediate with both member states as well as non-member states. The unit once fully functional will be available for the member states to utilize its services.”

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://www.arabnews.com/news/463916.

Whither India and Pakistan?

25.07.2013
By Kamal Wadhwa

With the modernization of their armed forces, both India and Pakistan are again locked into a military lockjaw that may ultimately lead to that fatal embrace - given the new developments on the sub-continent such as the setting up of an Indian Air Force base in Tajikistan. Except that now there is no turning away from good neighborliness and the unpleasant realities of forever having to stare at each other - be it from field binoculars or the look-down facility  offered by reconnaissance airplanes and spy satellites.

Not too long ago, the deposed former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, sought to unlock his nation from the permanent hostility of the Indo-Pakistani embrace  after his dream of a secular and democratic Pakistan had been resoundingly rejected by everyone of note in that ill-starred country. He now turned the eyes of the Pakistani nation towards the Muslim world where Pakistan was respected and looked up to as a natural leader of great energy and vision.

Pakistan thereafter became an Islamic republic with Islam enshrined as the State religion in its very Constitution. Bhutto now focused his eyes on creating the only platform that could yet enable Pakistan to secure a place on the world map - on the fragile Pakistani economy- that could not yet free itself from American largesse and the resultant interference in Pakistani foreign policy.

Pakistan may well have become a great Islamic nation because the entire Muslim world was a ready receptacle for Bhutto's grand vision - even willing to pay for it without recompense- unlike those hated Americans whose influence in Pakistani affairs was finally to lead Bhutto to his grave.

Had Pakistan finally managed to separate itself from its permanent engagement with India, it may well have become a stable and prosperous country. Bhutto was even ready to put the Kashmir issue on the backburner to attain that end. Indeed, India too could have benefited immensely from Bhutto's vision and secured its own development budget against the periodic imbalances caused by unpredictable military expenditures. Alas, that dispensation was not to be and the deadlock between the two neighbors continues to this day.

Perhaps, India too could have resiled and retreated from its cousin across the border. Surely, India has more in common with the Buddhist countries of Thailand, the Koreas, Vietnam and Cambodia than an Islamic Pakistan that openly emphasizes its religious and cultural differences with India! Even in lowly neighboring Bangladesh, there are periodic outbursts of anti-Indian sentiment voiced vociferously and zealously by large sections of the populace who threaten to march to New Delhi to do justice to their Islamic forebears and heritage.

Then, too, most Muslims outside India believe Hindus to be idolatrous and regard Hinduism to be an unworthy religion. This is the mindset in much of the Islamic world and it is reflected in the refusal of Saudi Arabia to allot jobs to Hindus even when they are well-qualified. Yet no Indian government has taken up serious issue with this valid concern because it has a large, established and vociferous Muslim minority within its own borders. This is the permanent and surreal tragedy of the Indian republic from which there seems to be no real escape!

However, it is the bonhomie and conviviality of Indo-Pakistani diplomacy that tell a different tale, no less sordid in other aspects. After the periodic bloodletting on their borders, both India and Pakistan send their seasoned and topmost diplomats for parleys, negotiations and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs). Hospitality is shared, pleasantries exchanged and a flurry of diplomatic memos is passed between peers who have illustrious lineages, expensive foreign education and sartorial elegance that would put British royalty to shame. And, what's more, they like each other's company!

Yet, curiously enough, nothing concrete or substantial has emerged from this decades-long diplomatic endeavor between India and Pakistan though both sides express full satisfaction at the pace and seriousness of the dialogue undertaken by their diplomats. Diplomatic parleys are buttressed by Indo-Pakistani cricket tours where the very decency and civility of the game create feelings of camaraderie and brotherhood so that all loose talk of Kashmir is drowned out in the resounding din of adulating crowds who by now can judge each bowler or batsman on his own merits - be he Indian or Pakistani!  In brief, Indo-Pakistani diplomacy and cricket have survived the British Raj on the sub-continent!

However, it is the occasional and unexpected act of resentment by some lowly official in India or Pakistan that shows the hardening of attitudes on both sides of the border. When a former Prime Minister of Pakistan is snubbed by his generals who refuse to meet a visiting Indian premier, or indeed when an Indian ex-Prime Minister is not given deferential treatment worthy of his status by officials at the Wagah border checkpoint, the state of Indo-Pakistani relations begins to be seen in its true perspective.

For most Indians and Pakistanis, there can be no half-war, half-peace daily bombarded as they are by images of violence perpetrated by the other side - on TV, radio and the print media. Yet most maintain a complacent, even indifferent, attitude to the reality of Indo-Pakistani confrontation as they are caught in the daily toil of earning a livelihood. Until the demagogue and politician again take center stage at public meetings and exhort the crowds to commit greater acts of desperation and frenzy - and violence! That is the saga of Indo-Pakistani affairs as they stand now!

Source: Pravda.
Link: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/25-07-2013/125262-india_pakistan-0/.

Iftar meals ancient Islamic custom

Thursday 25 July 2013

JEDDAH: KHADIJA HABIB

Iftar meals for the needy or travelers to break their fast, or “Banquets of God” as the custom is known among Muslims, is an ancient Islamic custom.

Taha Al-Bashir, a researcher in Muslim customs, said: “Historians differ on how the custom originated. Some people believe it goes back to the era of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) when he was in Madinah. When a delegation from Taif came to see him to convert to Islam, he ordered that they be given food every morning and night.

“The other story is that this custom first started during the era of Ahmad ibn Toulon, who invited Egyptian dignitaries to a banquet to break their fast and asked them to feed the poor from what they ate. He told them that this should go on during the whole month of Ramadan. This became an Egyptian custom, and was later copied in other countries.”

Regardless of the controversy over its origin, some observers believe that it's better to provide the food directly to the poor at their houses and gathering places.

Ahmad Hamzah, imam of Al-Rahmah mosque, told Arab News that “to do so is better because this preserves their dignity and does not embarrass them. It's much better than having them line up at the mosque to wait to be served,” he said.

“I believe this is where charities should step in. They have lists of the poor and needy families, or the families with low incomes. And they can take the food to them.” He said iftar meals at mosques often see people who are not poor come for food.

Some wealthy families offer these meals to the poor at “Ramadan tents” that are erected for this purpose.

Ikram Husseini, a Pakistani cook, said that he has been working for a wealthy family for five years, who “offer these meals to the poor in Ramadan.”

Al-Azhar University recently conducted a study about the Banquets of God in Egypt. It found that in Ramadan people offer 21,000 meals at a cost of more than 1 billion Egyptian pounds (SR535 million) in Cairo, while people in other provinces spend another billion pounds. It also found that these banquets feed about 3 million people, and are organized by 10,000 parties or institutions.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://www.arabnews.com/news/459111.

Watery asteroid discovered in dying star points to habitable exoplanets

Cambridge UK (SPX)
Oct 14, 2013

Astronomers have found the shattered remains of an asteroid that contained huge amounts of water orbiting an exhausted star, or white dwarf. This suggests that the star GD 61 and its planetary system - located about 150 light years away and at the end of its life - had the potential to contain Earth-like exoplanets, they say.

This is the first time that both water and a rocky surface - two "key ingredients" for habitable planets - have been found together beyond our solar system.

Earth is essentially a 'dry' planet, with only 0.02% of its mass as surface water, so oceans came long after it had formed; most likely when water-rich asteroids in the solar system crashed into our planet.

The new discovery shows that the same water 'delivery system' could have occurred in this distant, dying star's solar system - as latest evidence points to it containing a similar type of water-rich asteroid that would have first brought water to Earth.

The asteroid analyzed is composed of 26% water mass, very similar to Ceres, the largest asteroid in the main belt of our solar system. Both are vastly more water-rich compared with Earth.

Astronomers at the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick say this is the first "reliable evidence" for water-rich, rocky planetary material in any extrasolar planetary system.

They describe it as a "look into our future" as, six billion years from now, alien astronomers studying the rocky remains around our burned out sun might reach the same conclusion - that terrestrial planets once circled our parent star.

The new research findings used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and are reported in the journal Science.

All rocky planets form from the accumulation of asteroids, growing until full size, so asteroids are essentially the 'building blocks' of planets.

"The finding of water in a large asteroid means the building blocks of habitable planets existed - and maybe still exist - in the GD 61 system, and likely also around substantial number of similar parent stars," said lead author Jay Farihi, from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy.

"These water-rich building blocks, and the terrestrial planets they build, may in fact be common - a system cannot create things as big as asteroids and avoid building planets, and GD 61 had the ingredients to deliver lots of water to their surfaces," Farihi said.

"Our results demonstrate that there was definitely potential for habitable planets in this exoplanetary system."

The researchers say that the water detected most likely came from a minor planet, at least 90 km in diameter but probably much larger, that once orbited the GD 61 star before it became a white dwarf around 200 million years ago.

Previous and current astronomical observations have measured the size and density of exoplanets, but not their composition.

This is because conventional work was done on planets orbiting living stars. But the only way to see what a distant planet is made of is to take it apart, say the researchers, and nature does this for us in a dying white dwarf system through its extreme gravitational pull - sucking in and shredding the surrounding material.

This debris, which "pollutes" the atmosphere of the white dwarf, can then be chemically analyzed using powerful spectrograph techniques that "distill the entire asteroid, core and all", they say.

The team detected a range of "elemental abundance" in the white dwarf's contaminated atmosphere - such as magnesium, silicon and iron, which, together with oxygen are the main components of rocks.

By calculating the number of these elements relative to oxygen, the researchers were able to predict how much oxygen should be in the atmosphere of the white dwarf - but they found "significantly" more oxygen than if there were only rocks.

"This oxygen excess can be carried by either water or carbon, and in this star there is virtually no carbon - indicating there must have been substantial water," said co-author Boris Gansicke, from the University of Warwick.

"This also rules out comets, which are rich in both water and carbon compounds, so we knew we were looking at a rocky asteroid with substantial water content - perhaps in the form of subsurface ice - like the asteroids we know in our solar system such as Ceres," Gansicke said.

Ultraviolet observations are the only way to obtain such precise measurement of oxygen levels in the white dwarf's debris - and that can only be carried out above the Earth's atmosphere.

The team used the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph onboard Hubble to get the data required, with chemical analysis computed by team member Detlev Koester from the University of Kiel.

The "planetary bodies" such as these asteroids that fall into and pollute this dying star - which, in its heyday, was three times 'heavier' than our sun - also reveal that giant exoplanets probably still exist in this remote and withering system.

"In order for the asteroids to pass sufficiently close to the white dwarf to be shredded, then eaten, they must perturbed from the asteroid belt - essentially pushed - by a massive object like a giant planet," added Farihi.

"These asteroids tell us that the GD 61 system had - or still has - rocky, terrestrial planets, and the way they pollute the white dwarf tells us that giant planets probably still exist there.

"This supports the idea that the star originally had a full complement of terrestrial planets, and probably gas giant planets, orbiting it - a complex system similar to our own."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Watery_asteroid_discovered_in_dying_star_points_to_habitable_exoplanets_999.html.

Kepler Finds First Signs of Other Earths

Los Angeles CA (SPX)
Oct 14, 2013

A new analysis of observations from the Kepler spacecraft reveals what may be the first earth-sized planets with earthlike temperatures found orbiting sunlike stars.

Until now, Kepler's nearly continuous observations of over 150,000 stars have confirmed the existence of Earth-sized planets in the hot regions close to their star. Larger planets, some as small as one and a half times the Earth's diameter, have been found in the Habitable Zone, where the amount of heat they receive from their star may sustain earthlike temperatures.

In addition, earthlike planets have been found in the Habitable Zone of tiny, cool red dwarf stars, which may offer a more hazardous environment for life than with sunlike stars. But finding planets with the combination of earthlike size and earthlike temperature around sunlike stars, a major goal of the Kepler mission, has been elusive.

Part of the challenge is how difficult it is to spot a single transit by an Earth-sized planet, which blocks only 0.01% of its star's light, far less than larger planets block. This figure (figure 1 top image) shows the graph of three different stars' brightness as measured by Kepler during actual transits by extrasolar planets the size of Jupiter, Neptune, and Earth. Transits of larger planets stand out prominently, but transits by Earth-sized planets are so subtle, Kepler can only identify them when there is a series of many such dimming events occurring at the same regular interval.

Last December, the Kepler team released a list of 18,406 possible planets found by an algorithm that searched the first three years of Kepler data looking for series of transits.

If we define a size limit of no more than 1.25 times the Earth's diameter and a Habitable Zone where the amount of heating that a planet would receive is between that of Venus and Mars in our solar system, then this list contains 87 possible earthlike planets - a bonanza! There is, however, a catch: It is certain that the vast majority of these 87 are not real planets at all.

The algorithm is overly lenient in interpreting normal variations in starlight as being transits of small planets, and this was further complicated by abnormalities in the Kepler instrument itself. To explain this, it's necessary to say something of how Kepler operated.

During its operational lifetime, which ended earlier this year, Kepler would spend a quarter year (about three months) at a time staring very steadily at the same region of the sky. The light from Kepler's telescope falls onto an array of charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, like those in a digital camera.

At the end of each quarter, Kepler rotated its entire body 90 degrees, still staring at the same area of the sky, but with each star now observed by a different location on the surface of Kepler's grid of photosensitive CCDs for the new quarter. After that quarter, Kepler would rotate again, and so on for the four years, or 16 quarters, of Kepler's lifetime. This means that each particular star was observed by four different locations on Kepler's CCD grid, alternating in a cycle of four quarters, or one year.

The problem in this scheme is that certain locations of Kepler's CCD grid have proven to be slightly erratic. The data they collected are still useful, but with a little random noise, or jitter, added to the observations in ways that could make it seem like a small planet had transited in front of the star when in fact no transit at all had taken place. As a result, the same balky electronics could report bogus transits each quarter it observed the star, which therefore means at intervals of about a year.

If the bogus transits happened by chance to come at even intervals in time, this fooled the search algorithm into thinking it may have seen a small planet. What makes this particularly insidious is that these false reports of planets often seem to be earthlike in both size and temperature, including many of the 87 seemingly earthlike planets mentioned above.

That list of possible planets came from Kepler's first three years of observations, but fortunately, there is a saving grace - the fourth year. For three bogus transits to be spaced out evenly in time is not highly unlikely: The second bogus transit simply has to occur at the time halfway between the first and the third. But if the planet is real, then a fourth transit should occur about a year later, timed just as precisely as the first three. This is unlikely to occur if the first three were bogus. So by finding a fourth transit is a powerful reality check on that list of possible earthlike planets.

In my analysis of this data, I first studied the "noise" that Kepler recorded in observing each star to come up with an estimate of how likely it was that Kepler was registering some false transits associated with that star. Then, by focusing on a small list of stars which had a possible earthlike planet and seemed to escape the problem of Kepler's noisy electronics, I checked to see if their that planet showed an additional transit in the final year of observations. At least two, and perhaps five, showed signs of an additional and confirmatory transit.

Does this constitute the discovery of five truly earthlike planets around other stars? Not yet, because in any particular case there are other explanations for how real astrophysical events can mimic the transits of an earthlike planet. This figure (figure 2 lower image) shows three different cases that can look the same to Kepler. In case (a), we see an earthlike planet in the process of transiting its star, the case we are hoping to find.

In case (b), we see a large planet transiting a distant star, which just happens to be lined up right behind the closer (and therefore seemingly bigger) star that Kepler was looking at. In this figure, we can see what's happening, but Kepler doesn't obtain pictures with this level of detail; it only measures how the total amount of light varies over time.

When the large planet transits across the distant star, the loss of light is the same as if a small planet were transiting across the nearer star, so Kepler is effectively blind to the difference between these two cases. Case (c) shows another possibility, that a pair of binary stars perform a grazing eclipse of one another, hiding just enough of each other to block the same amount of light that an earth-sized planet would.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Kepler_Finds_First_Signs_of_Other_Earths_999.html.

Fossil bird from 125 million years ago shows some dinosaur traits

Beijing (UPI)
Oct 8, 2013

A bird 125 million years ago had two distinct kinds of feathers, resembling those of non-flying feathered reptiles and modern birds, Chinese researchers say.

A new analysis of the fossil Jeholornis, first described more than a decade ago, revealed a previously unrecognized second group of flight feathers at the base of its tail, Zhonghe Zhou of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing said.

"We did not expect to find this new structure," he told New Scientist.

Like the tails of modern birds, these formed an airfoil that could have provided control during flight, the researchers said.

Previously it had been thought Jeholornis only had feathers at the tip of its tail, largely useless for flight, similar to the tail feathers of some dinosaurs like the flightless Caudipteryx.

"We believe that the fan at the base of the tail mainly helps to streamline the body and reduce drag," Zhou said. They could have also generated more lift than the feathers along the tail of the most primitive bird, Archaeopteryx, making it more useful for flight, he said.

The find raises new questions about feather evolution, leaving the place of Jeholornis in the avian family tree somewhat unclear, Michael Habib of the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study, said.

"This could be an intermediate form or an 'evolutionary experiment', which left no descendants," Habib told New Scientist.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Fossil_bird_from_125_million_years_ago_shows_some_dinosaur_traits_999.html.

French far-right candidate scores election win

October 13, 2013

PARIS (AP) — A candidate of France's far-right National Front won a run-off vote in a local election Sunday that drew widespread attention amid signs that the once-shunned anti-immigrant party is gaining strength.

Laurent Lopez defeated center-right UMP candidate Catherine Delzers in the by-election to win one of 43 seats on the Var department council. France is made up of more than 100 departments; five or so departments make up a region.

A smiling Marine Le Pen, the National Front's leader, appeared on French television and declared the results showed "a real desire for change by the French." Le Pen, who scored 17.9 percent in the first round of last year's presidential vote, said her party could win "hundreds, maybe a thousand" seats in local elections next March.

The National Front currently holds dozens of local seats across France and two seats in the national parliament. A call by the ruling Socialist party of President Francois Hollande and other left-wing parties to vote for the UMP candidate in Sunday's election fell flat, with the Lopez taking 53.9 percent of the more than 9,000 votes cast. More than half of the eligible voters stayed home.

Thousands in Romania protest plans for gold mine

October 13, 2013

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Thousands of people blocked a major road in downtown Bucharest on Sunday to protest plans to create what would be Europe's biggest gold mine.

Protesters marched past government headquarters yelling, "Your treason is measured in gold!" Demonstrations also took place in other cities, including the city of Cluj, where thousands called for the 2,000 year-old site where the open-cast mine will be located to be listed as a UNESCO heritage site.

Canada's Gabriel Resources has been trying to gain permits to go ahead with the planned mine in northwest Romania's town of Rosia Montana for 14 years. The site has been mined for precious metals since at least Roman times, though work there stopped a few years ago. The Canadian company's approach would be far more efficient and involve razing four mountains. It is expected to fully extricate all the gold and silver in a couple of decades.

The mine is believed to contain 314 tons of gold and 1,500 tons of silver. Protests against the plans began after the government sent a law to parliament on Aug. 27 calling on lawmakers to give their support to the controversial project. A vote is expected in the coming weeks.

Opponents of the mine criticize plans to use cyanide in the extraction process, while others say Romania would earn too little from the project. But supporters argue that the project would create jobs for unemployed miners and provide vital foreign investment to a deprived area. The Canadian company has pledged to protect the environment and historical monuments in Rosia Montana.