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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Pakistani girl, 16, survivor of Taliban, visits US

October 11, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — A defiant 16-year-old Pakistani girl whose advocacy for education made her the target of a Taliban assassination attempt a year ago told an audience in New York on Thursday she one day hopes to become her country's prime minister.

Malala Yousafzai made her comments in an interview with CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour at the 92nd Street Y. She spoke a few hours after being awarded Europe's top human rights prize and on the eve of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which she is considered a likely contender.

Asked if she wanted to be a doctor or a politician, Malala said she initially wanted to be a doctor but had learned she could help more people as prime minister. "I can spend much of the budget on education," Malala said to applause and laughter as she sat next to her father, human rights activist Ziauddin Yousafzai, the founder of an all-girls school in Pakistan.

In the interview, to be broadcast on CNN on Sunday, Malala recounted the moment she was shot while sitting in the back of a vehicle traveling home from school and reiterated that she was not intimidated by threats.

"I'm never going to give up," Malala said when asked about repeated death threats made against her by the Taliban. "They only shot a body but they cannot shoot my dreams." On Oct. 9, 2012, a masked gunman jumped into a pickup truck taking girls home from the school and shouted "who is Malala" before shooting her in the head.

Her father asked his brother-in-law to prepare a coffin. But Malala woke up a week later at a hospital in Birmingham, England, and gradually regained her sight and her voice. She said Thursday her first thought was of two friends she was with who were also injured in the attack.

"If I was shot that was fine for me but I was feeling guilty that they have been the target," she said. The world's horrified reaction to the attack led to the creation of Malala Fund, which campaigns for girls' education around the world. Malala has received multiple awards, including the $65,000 Sakharov Award, which she was awarded just hours before her interview.

The assassination attempt drew worldwide attention to the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan. Malala addressed the United Nations on her 16th birthday, and she expects to meet with Queen Elizabeth II later this month.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee will say only that a record 259 candidates, including 50 organizations, have been nominated this year. Speculation on front-runners for Friday's announcement is primarily based on previous choices and current events.

Malala said Thursday it would a "great honor and more than I deserve" to win the accolade, but insisted she still had more to do before she felt she'd truly earned it. "I need to work a lot," she said.

Malala's father said he didn't regret how outspoken his precocious only daughter has been since she was 11 years old, when she first started blogging and speaking out against the denial of education to young girls in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

"I will never put my head into the yoke of slavery," he said. Malala spoke passionately Thursday against forced marriages and the denial of education to girls and boys throughout the world. She urged young girls in the developed world to take advantage of their education — and to do their homework and be kind to their teachers.

"I would like to tell all the girls: Realize its importance before it is snatched from you," she said. Malala lives with her family in Birmingham, England. She said that while in Pakistan she liked to listen to Justin Bieber, but now longs for the Pashto music of her homeland.

New major earthquake rocks southwest Pakistan

September 28, 2013

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A major earthquake rocked Pakistan's southwest Saturday, sending people running into the street in panic just days after another quake in the same region killed 359 people, officials said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website that a 6.8 magnitude quake was felt in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province. Pakistan's Meteorological Department measured the earthquake at 7.2 magnitude. The department said its epicenter was located about 150 kilometers (90 miles) west of the town of Khuzdar.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, said Abdur Rasheed, the deputy commissioner of Awaran district where both quakes were centered. There may have been little left to damage after Tuesday's disaster. Few of the mud and homemade brick houses in the area survived the 7.7 magnitude quake that leveled houses and buried people in the rubble.

Since then tens of thousands of people have been sleeping under the open sky or in tents. Rasheed said they had received reports that some homes damaged but still standing after Tuesday's quake had collapsed Saturday.

He said they are trying to get information whether people were living in some of the partially damaged homes. Chief Pakistani meteorologist Arif Mahmood told Pakistani television that it was an aftershock from this week's earthquake and such tremors might continue for weeks.

Pakistan television showed people at the main hospital in Awaran district fleeing into the street. In the provincial capital of Quetta, the tremor was so strong it prompted members of the local parliament to evacuate the building.

Baluchistan is Pakistan's largest but least populated province. The rough terrain and the lack of decent roads have made it difficult for rescue staff. The Pakistani Air Force has been making air drops of supplies and using helicopters to ferry injured people to medical care.

But at least two of those helicopters have come under fire from separatists, say Pakistani officials. The Pakistani military has been trying to suppress an uprising in the vast, arid province for years by separatists who want their own state for the Baluch people.

To the north Pakistan is dealing with militants who want to overthrow the central government and establish a hard-line Islamic state. Newly-elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to pursue peace talks with the militants as a way to end the fighting. But the militants have given little indication they are interested in negotiations. They initially rejected talks with the government and later demanded Islamabad release prisoners and begin withdrawing troops from the group's tribal sanctuary before talks could begin. Recent attacks have also called into question their interest in negotiating.

On Saturday, a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban criticized Sharif, saying his new government is not serious about holding peace talks. The spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, did not explicitly reject the offer but his words gave little room for negotiations.

The comments appeared to have been sparked by an interview Sharif made with the Wall Street Journal during a trip to New York, in which he said militants must lay down their arms and follow the constitution. Previously Sharif had not given preconditions for the talks.

"By telling us that we will have to lay down arms and respect the constitution, the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, showed that he is following the policy of America and its allies," the spokesman said. "We will hold talks with it only when it gets the real power to take decisions."

__ Sattar reported from Quetta. Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar contributed to this report.

Pakistanis struggle for food, shelter after quake

September 26, 2013

DALBADI, Pakistan (AP) — Survivors built makeshift shelters with sticks and bedsheets after their mud houses were flattened in an earthquake that killed 348 people in southwestern Pakistan and pushed a new island up out of the Arabian Sea.

While waiting for help to reach remote villages, hungry people dug through the rubble to find food. And the country's poorest province struggled with a dearth of medical supplies, hospitals and other aid.

Tuesday's quake flattened wide swathes of Awaran district, where it was centered, leaving much of the population homeless. Almost all of the 300 mud-brick homes in the village of Dalbadi were destroyed. Noor Ahmad said he was working when the quake struck and rushed home to find his house leveled and his wife and son dead.

"I'm broken," he said. "I have lost my family." The spokesman for the Baluchistan provincial government, Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, said Thursday that the death toll had climbed to 348 and that another 552 people had been injured.

Doctors in the village treated some of the injured, but due to a scarcity of medicine and staff, they were mostly seen comforting residents. The remoteness of the area and the lack of infrastructure hampered relief efforts. Awaran district is one of the poorest in the country's most impoverished province.

Just getting to victims was challenging in a region with almost no roads where many people use four-wheel-drive vehicles and camels to traverse the rough terrain. "We need more tents, more medicine and more food," said Bulaidi.

Associated Press images from the village of Kaich showed the devastation. Houses made mostly of mud and handmade bricks had collapsed. Walls and roofs caved in, and people's possessions were scattered on the ground. A few goats roamed through the ruins.

The Pakistani military said it had rushed almost 1,000 troops to the area overnight and was sending helicopters as well. A convoy of 60 Pakistani army trucks left the port city of Karachi early Wednesday with supplies.

Pakistani forces have evacuated more than 170 people from various villages around Awaran to the district hospital, the military said. Others were evacuated to Karachi. One survivor interviewed in his Karachi hospital bed said he was sleeping when the quake struck.

"I don't know who brought me from Awaran to here in Karachi, but I feel back pain and severe pain in my whole body," he said. Jan said he didn't know what happened to the man's family. He was trying to contact relatives.

Local officials said they were sending doctors, food and 1,000 tents for people who had nowhere to sleep. The efforts were complicated by strong aftershocks. Baluchistan is Pakistan's largest province but also the least populated. Medical facilities are few and often poorly stocked with supplies and qualified personnel. Awaran district has about 300,000 residents spread out over 29,000 square kilometers (11,197 square miles).

The local economy consists mostly of smuggling fuel from Iran or harvesting dates. The area where the quake struck is at the center of an insurgency that Baluch separatists have been waging against the Pakistani government for years. The separatists regularly attack Pakistani troops and symbols of the state, such as infrastructure projects.

It's also prone to earthquakes. A magnitude 7.8 quake centered just across the border in Iran killed at least 35 people in Pakistan last April. Tuesday's shaking was so violent it drove up mud and earth from the seafloor to create an island off the Pakistani coast.

A Pakistani Navy team reached the island by midday Wednesday. Navy geologist Mohammed Danish told the country's Geo Television that the mass was a little wider than a tennis court and slightly shorter than a football field.

The director of the National Seismic Monitoring Center confirmed that the mass was created by the quake and said scientists were trying to determine how it happened. Zahid Rafi said such masses are sometimes created by the movement of gases locked in the earth that push mud to the surface.

"That big shock beneath the earth causes a lot of disturbance," he said. He said these types of islands can remain for a long time or eventually subside back into the ocean, depending on their makeup.

He warned residents not to visit the island because it was emitting dangerous gases. But dozens of people went anyway, including the deputy commissioner of Gwadar district, Tufail Baloch. Water bubbled along the edges of the island. The land was stable but the air smelled of gas that caught fire when people lit cigarettes, Baloch said.

Dead fish floated on the water's surface while residents visited the island and took stones as souvenirs, he added. Similar land masses appeared off Pakistan's coast following quakes in 1999 and 2010, said Muhammed Arshad, a hydrographer with the navy. They eventually disappeared into the sea during the rainy season.

Santana reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Adil Jawad in Karachi contributed to this report.

Death toll from Pakistani earthquake rises to 208

By Gul Yusufzai
QUETTA, Pakistan
Wed Sep 25, 2013

(Reuters) - The death toll from a powerful earthquake in Pakistan rose to at least 208 on Wednesday after hundreds of mud houses collapsed on people in a remote area near the Iranian border, officials said.

The earthquake struck Pakistan's thinly populated province of Baluchistan on Tuesday and was felt across South Asia.

It destroyed houses and cut communications with the worst affected district of Awaran, and was so powerful that it caused a small island to emerge from the sea just off the coastline in the Arabian Sea.

"We have started to bury the dead," Abdul Rasheed Gogazai, the deputy commissioner of Awaran, told Reuters by telephone from the affected area.

He said at least 373 people were injured.

The army deployed helicopters and hundreds of soldiers to help deal with the rescue effort in the huge, earthquake-prone province of deserts and rugged mountains bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake was 7.8 in magnitude.

On the coast near Gwadar port, crowds of bewildered residents gathered to witness the rare phenomenon of the island that the quake forced out of the sea.

(Reporting by Gul Yusufzai; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/25/us-pakistan-quake-idUSBRE98N0HJ20130925.

Tunisia signs new constitution in step to democracy

TUNIS Mon Jan 27, 2014

(Reuters) - Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and the head of the National Assembly on Monday signed the country's new constitution, officially adopting a charter that is one of the country's last steps to full democracy after a 2011 uprising.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/27/us-tunisia-constitution-idUSBREA0Q0OU20140127.

Tunisia finally passes progressive constitution

January 27, 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — After decades of dictatorship and two years of arguments and compromises, Tunisians finally have a new constitution laying the foundations for a new democracy.

The document is groundbreaking as one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world — and for the fact that it got written at all. It passed late Sunday by 200 votes out of 216 in the Muslim Mediterranean country that inspired uprisings across the region after overthrowing a dictator in 2011.

"This constitution, without being perfect, is one of consensus," assembly speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar said after the vote. "We had today a new rendezvous with history to build a democracy founded on rights and equality."

The constitution enshrining freedom of religion and women's rights took two years to finish. During that period, the country was battered by high unemployment, protests, terrorist attacks, political assassinations and politicians who seemed more interested in posturing than finishing the charter.

At the same time, Egypt wrote two constitutions — and went through a military coup against an elected government. Egypt's charters were quickly drafted by appointed committees and involved little public debate or input. In Tunisia, an elected assembly of Tunisian Islamists, leftists and liberals worked on a detailed roadmap for their political future.

Tunisians hope its care in drafting the constitution makes a difference in returning stability to the country and reassuring investors and allies such as the U.S. "We needed time to get this constitution as it is today," said Amira Yahyaoui, who has closely followed the assembly's activities with her monitoring group Bawsala. "Clearly, writing this constitution to do a real transformation of the minds of people needed time and I absolutely don't regret these two years and I am happy we had time to discuss and think about all the arguments."

The new constitution sets out to make the North African country of 11 million people a democracy, with a civil state whose laws are not based on Islamic law, unlike many other Arab constitutions. An entire chapter of the document, some 28 articles, is dedicated to protecting citizens' rights, including protection from torture, the right to due process, and freedom of worship. It guarantees equality between men and women before the law and the state commits itself to protecting women's rights.

"This is the real revolution, many democratic constitutions don't even have that," said Yahyaoui. "It will have a real impact on the rest of the Arab region, because finally we can say that women's rights are not a Western concept only, but also exist in Tunisia."

Tunisia has always had the most progressive legislation on women's rights in the Arab world and Yahyaoui believes the long period of writing has made people comfortable with its contents. One of the most hotly debated articles guarantees "freedom of belief and conscience," which would permit atheism and the practice of non-Abrahamic religions frowned upon in other Islamic countries. It also bans incitement to violence and declaring a Muslim an apostate — a fallen Muslim — which leaves them open to death threats. In response, conservative lawmakers insisted that "attacks on the sacred" be forbidden, which many see as a threat to freedom of expression.

"This formulation is vague and gives too much leeway to the legislators to trample other rights such as the right to free expression, artistic creation and academic freedoms," warned Amna Guelleli, the Human Rights Watch representative in Tunisia. "However, the risk is reduced given the strong safeguards (in other articles) against overly broad interpretations."

Since the revolution, there has been a rise in convictions for so-called attacks on religion, especially by artists. A Tunisian cartoonist is in the second year of a seven-year sentence for posting cartoons insulting to the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook.

Constitutional scholar Slim Loghmani said despite some drawbacks, the constitution is an "historic compromise between identity and modernity" that can serve as a model for other countries in the region seeking a balance between an Arab-Islamic heritage and contemporary ideas of human rights and good governance.

"It's a step forward in the nagging question of cultural identity in Arab countries," he said, lauding in particular not just freedom of religion but what he calls the freedom "not to have a religion."

While the constitution itself will not solve the country's persistent unemployment, rising prices, crushing debt and constant demonstrations, Loghmani said it will move politics forward and reassure foreign investors that the country is back on track after a rocky transition.

"It will be a relief for the average Tunisian who is impatient to see the end of the transition period," he said. "It will reassure Tunisia's international partners that country is headed in the right direction."

The completion of the constitution is also a tribute to the assembly's disparate parties to compromise and negotiate to reach a consensus. The moderate Islamist party Ennahda, which holds more than 40 percent of the seats in the assembly, backed down on putting a number of religious-inspired measures into the constitution in the face of wide opposition.

At times the constitution looked like it would never get written, with numerous walkouts by different parties and at one point a complete suspension of its activities in the wake of the assassination of a left-wing deputy in July.

In the end, Ennahda made concessions to the opposition and stepped down in favor of a caretaker government to manage the rest of the transition, allowing the constitution to be completed. The willingness of Ennahda to negotiate stood in sharp contrast to the more overbearing approach of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which had a more dominant position in the elected parliament and held the presidency. It ran roughshod over the demands of the opposition, citing its electoral successes.

"Egyptian constitutional politics has been a winner-take-all game; Tunisian politics has been more consensual —though consensus has been difficult to achieve," said Nathan Brown, an expert on Egyptian law at George Washington University. "The Tunisian experience is one that is more likely to give birth to a functioning democracy."

The overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt by the military in July and subsequent violent repression was a stern warning to Tunisia, said Yahyaoui of Bawsala, and it helped the various parties find a compromise.

"The only people who won something out of what happened in Egypt was Tunisia," she said. "Ennahda saw what happened to the Brotherhood and they didn't want to see the same scenario in Tunisia."

Paul Schemm reported from Rabat, Morocco.

Oman orders NASAMS air defense system

Tewksbury, Mass. (UPI)
Jan 27, 2014

An advanced surface-to-air missile system developed by Raytheon and Norway's Kongsberg Defense Systems is being purchased by the Sultanate of Oman.

The purchase order -- a direct sales contract -- is valued at $1.28 billion and includes provisions for the supply of ground support equipment, training and technical assistance, Raytheon reported.

"The Sultanate of Oman's competitive selection of Raytheon's National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System validates the superior performance, system adaptability and overall security that NASAMS provides," said Dan Crowley, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "Raytheon is committed to delivering the exceptional defense capabilities of NASAMS to Oman."

NASAMS is a modular, networked ground-based medium to long-range air defense system for AIM 120 AMRAAM missiles. It works with the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System and the Hawk Air Defense system and is used by Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Finland. It is also deployed by the U.S. military in the National Capital Region.

A NASAM system consists of missile launchers, radars, a fire control center and a tactical control vehicle.

Raytheon said work on supplying the system to Oman will be conducted by Raytheon at its Integrated Air Defense Center in Andover, Mass., and in Kongsberg, Norway.

Kongsberg is a sub-contractor of NASAMS elements to Raytheon. Its work on the Oman project is worth more than $440 million.

"The cooperation with Raytheon has over the years developed into a close and strong partnership with a large potential market for our air defense solutions," said Walter Qvam, chief executive officer of Kongsberg. "This agreement with Oman is the single largest supply contract in Kongsberg's history and is strong evidence of NASAMS' international position.

Added Harald Annestad, president in Kongsberg Defense Systems: "NASAMS is the most sold air defense system in its class in the last 10 years. Its modularity and open architecture enable a continuous evolution in performance to meet the latest threats."

The contract for the system was signed at a ceremony attended by Mohammed bin Nasser al-Rasbi, secretary general at the Omani Ministry of Defense, Air Vice Marshal Matar bin Ali al-Obaidani, commander of the Royal Air Force of Oman, and others.

Neither the number of systems ordered by Oman nor their schedule for delivery have been announced.

The original NASAMS program by Raytheon and Kongsberg began as a joint effort on behalf of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. It became officially operational in 1998.

Raytheon, in announcing the contract with Oman late last week, said it was awarded in the fourth quarter of last year.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Oman_orders_NASAMS_air_defense_system_999.html.

Ukraine president ready to scrap anti-protest law

January 28, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's beleaguered president on Monday agreed to scrap harsh anti-protest laws that set off a wave of clashes between protesters and police over the past week, a potentially substantial concession to the opposition that stopped short of meeting all of its demands.

In a possibly major sticking point, a proposed amnesty for arrested protesters would not be offered unless demonstrators stopped occupying buildings and ended their round-the-clock protests and tent camp on Kiev's central Independence Square, according to a statement by Justice Minister Elena Lukash on the presidential website.

President Viktor Yanukovych has been under increasing pressure since he pushed the tough laws through parliament, setting of clashes and protests in other parts of the country in a sharp escalation of tensions after weeks of mostly peaceful protests over his rejection of a deal to deepen ties with the 28-nation European Union.

At a meeting between top opposition figures and Yanukovych late Monday "a political decision was made on scrapping the laws of Jan. 16, which aroused much discussion," Lukash said. She made no mention of a key opposition demand — that Yanukovych resign.

One of the opposition figures, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, turned down the prime minister's job, which Yanukovych had offered him on Saturday, the statement said. Eliminating the laws, which is likely to be done in a special parliament session Tuesday, appears to be a serious step back for the government. The session is also expected to include a discussion of government responsibility in the crisis, suggesting a cabinet reshuffle could be imminent.

It was not immediately clear how the announcement would be received. On Independence Square, there was no immediate reaction from the relatively small crowd gathered in bitter cold near midnight. A key issue will be the amnesty offer, which could allow for the release of dozens of protesters currently being held in jail in exchange for an end to the demonstrations.

The statement did not say the opposition would agree to those terms. Doing so could infuriate radical factions within the broad-based protest movement, such as the group called Right Sector that has driven much of the recent violence.

Several hours before the statement, Right Sector issued its own demands, which include punishing officials responsible for the deaths and abuse of protesters, disbanding Ukraine's feared riot police and locating all missing opposition figures.

Protest leaders say scores of people have gone missing, presumably arrested. Three protesters died in the clashes last week, two of whom were shot by hunting rifles, which police insist they do not use.

Protesters have been afraid that authorities were preparing to end the spreading demonstrations by force, but the foreign ministry said earlier the government has no immediate plans to declare a state of emergency.

With protesters now willing to risk injury, a state of emergency would be likely to set off substantial fighting on the streets of the capital. "Today, such a measure is not on the table," Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara told journalists.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement that she was alarmed by reports about the government considering a state of emergency and warned that such a move "would trigger a further downward spiral for Ukraine which would benefit no one."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Yanukovych on Monday and warned that harsh security measures like declaring a state of emergency would inflame the situation. He called for Ukraine to pull back riot police and respond to citizens' grievances.

The protesters still occupy three sizable buildings in downtown Kiev, including City Hall. One of the buildings was seized in a spectacular assault early Sunday, when hundreds of protesters threw rocks and firebombs into the building where about 200 police were sheltering. The crowd eventually formed a corridor through which the police left.

Lukash, in a televised statement, noted that protesters seized the building as justice employees were working on the measures to grant amnesty to protesters. The fears of a state of emergency come after other official statements suggesting the government is considering forceful moves against the protesters.

Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko, an official deeply despised by the protesters, on Saturday warned that demonstrators occupying buildings would be considered extremists and that force would be used against them if necessary. He also claimed demonstrators had seized two policemen and tortured them before letting them go, which the opposition denied.

The protests began in late November when Yanukovych shelved the EU deal and sought a bailout loan from Russia. The demonstrations grew in size and intensity after police violently dispersed two gatherings. Demonstrators then set up the large tent camp.

After Yanukovych approved the anti-protest laws, demonstrations spread, including to some cities in the Russian-speaking east, the base of Yanukovych's support.

Juergen Baetz contributed to this report from Brussels.

Ukrainian minister threatens state of emergency

January 27, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's justice minister is threatening to call for a state of emergency unless protesters leave her ministry building, which they occupied during the night.

The seizure of the building early Monday underlined how anti-government demonstrators are increasingly willing to take dramatic action as they push for the president's resignation and other concessions. Protesters now occupy four sizable buildings in downtown Kiev, including the city hall.

Justice Minister Elena Lukash said early Monday that she would ask the national security council to impose a state of emergency if the protesters don't quit the building. But she did not specify a deadline for leaving.

Imposing a state of emergency likely would cause anger to spike among protesters, who have clashed with police repeatedly over the past week. Three protesters have died. Lukash, in a televised statement, noted that the "so-called protesters" seized the building as ministry employees were working on measures to grant amnesty to protesters and to make changes in the constitution to return the country to a system where the prime minister's powers are stronger.

Beleaguered President Viktor Yanukovych on Saturday offered the prime minister's post to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, one of the opposition's most prominent leaders. Yatsenyuk, while not flatly rejecting the offer, said protests would continue and that a special session of parliament called for Tuesday would be "judgment day."

It's not clear if constitutional changes will be on the agenda for that session, but granting more power to the prime minister could both sweeten the offer and allow Yanukovych to portray himself as seeking genuine compromise.

The prospect of a state of emergency comes after other official statements suggesting the government is considering forceful moves against the protesters in the wake of the violent clashes between demonstrators and police over the past week. Three protesters died in the clashes, two of them after being shot and the third of unspecified injuries. Authorities have said police do not carry the sort of weapons that allegedly killed the two men who were shot.

Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko, one of the ministers most despised by the protesters, on Saturday warned that demonstrators occupying buildings would be considered extremists and that force would be used against them if necessary. He also claimed demonstrators had seized two policemen and tortured them before letting them go, which the opposition denied and called a ruse to justify a crackdown.

The protests began in late November when Yanukovych shelved a long-awaited agreement to deepen ties with the European Union and sought more support from Russia. The demonstrations grew in size and intensity after police violently dispersed two gatherings. Demonstrators then set up a large tent camp on downtown Kiev's main square.

Anger boiled over into clashes on Jan. 19, days after Yanukovych pushed through harsh new anti-protest laws. Protests also spread into other parts of the country, including to some cities in the Russian-speaking east, the base of Yanukovych's support.

250 arrested, 19 police injured in Paris protest

January 27, 2014

PARIS (AP) — Paris police say 19 officers were injured and some 250 people detained after a protest against President Francois Hollande's leadership degenerated into violence.

Police said Monday that none of the injuries is critical. The numbers of injured and detentions is high compared with other protests in recent weeks expressing discontent with Hollande, who is particularly unpopular for his handling of the economy.

Police say some 17,000 people took part in Sunday's largely peaceful protest, while organizers put the number several times higher. Some 50 associations were involved, including conservative and far right groups. Also present were supporters of provocateur-comic Dieudonne, who has been repeatedly convicted of anti-Semitism and racism.

Peru gets more ocean, Chile keeps fishing grounds

January 28, 2014

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The United Nations' highest court set a maritime boundary between Chile and Peru on Monday that grants Peruvians a bigger piece of the Pacific Ocean while keeping rich coastal fishing grounds in the hands of Chilean industry.

Despite high emotions over the dispute, especially in Peru, the ruling is expected to have little effect on cordial ties between the two neighbors whose economic interdependence has grown greatly in recent years.

Chile's outgoing president, Sebastian Pinera, called the International Court of Justice's ruling "a lamentable loss" in a nationally televised address. But President-elect Michelle Bachelet, who takes office in March, said that "most of the fishing occurs inside the area that the court ratified as belonging to our country."

Peru's leader, Ollanta Humala, told his countrymen on national TV that he was satisfied with the outcome, saying the court had recognized Peru's argument that no maritime treaty previously existed between the South American neighbors.

Peruvian patriots might crow, but Chilean commercial fishing fleets appeared to be the biggest beneficiaries, analysts said. In Chile's northern port of Arica, police dispersed a group of fewer than 100 small-time fishermen with water cannon after some, considering themselves losers, hurled stones at a military barracks.

"Only the rich are profiting from this," said Eduardo Ferreira, a street vendor who sells paintings on the main square of Chile's capital, Santiago, where police had to break up a few heated arguments between Chileans and Peruvians.

The ruling announced in a European courtroom ends a decades-old dispute centered on nearly 38,000 square kilometers (14,670 square miles) of the world's richest fishing grounds - the value of the area's annual catch has been estimated at $200 million.

Peruvian historian Nelson Manrique called the ruling an "intelligent verdict" that is "not going to please anyone but it's also not going to bring anyone to fits." The case filed by Peru in 2008 was a matter of national pride for Peruvians, some of whom maintain rancor over the 1879-83 War of the Pacific in which Chile gained its three northernmost provinces by winning territory from Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia lost its coast in the conflict.

Humala, a retired army officer when he was elected Peru's president, called Monday "one of the days that will mark my life, and I feel proud to have lived as a soldier and now as a politician. I feel prouder every day to be Peruvian." The national anthem then played.

Peru had sought a sea border perpendicular to the coast, heading roughly southwest. Chile insisted the border extend parallel to the equator. The court, whose rulings cannot be appealed, compromised by saying a border already existed parallel to the equator extending 80 nautical miles from the coast. From there, it drew a line southwest to where the countries' 200-mile territorial waters end.

Patricia Majluf, a leading Peruvian fisheries scientist, said the area remaining in Chilean hands "is where the Chilean boats fish the most." "All the anchoveta is fished in that zone," she said. The species of anchovy is converted into fish meal for an insatiable global market that uses it in animal feed, fertilizer and fish oil pills. Peru is the world's No. 1 exporter of fish meal and Chile is second as they share the world's most productive fishing grounds, the cold Humboldt current,

Majluf said about 1 million tons of anchoveta are harvested annually off the northern Chile coast, about the same amount as off the southern Peruvian coast. Peruvian economist Juan Carlos Sueiro said the verdict maintains the status quo in the anchovy industry, benefiting in particular Chile's Grupo Angelini, while Peruvian fishermen can catch shark, tuna, mackeral, cuttlefish and mahi-mahi farther offshore will also benefit.

The director of Peru's largest producer of fish meal, Humberto Speziani of TASA, predicted "a positive impact" for big Peruvian fishing fleets like his although environmentalists expressed concern about overfishing by such fleets continuing to deplete stocks.

The leader of small-time Peruvian fishermen in the region, David Patino, was not happy, however. "We haven't won anything. We are in the same situation as the past," he said. Despite differences over fishing, the border area has been a model of coexistence. Citizens of both countries travel across it freely, with Chileans crowding into hospitals and clinics in Tacna, Arica's sister city for cheaper health care. Peruvians work in construction and other day jobs on the Chilean side.

Peru and Chile have seen their annual trade grow from $500 million in 2006 to $4.3 billion today. Chilean government figures put Peruvian investment in Chile at $11 billion last year and Chilean investment in Peru at $13.5 billion.

Associated Press writer Frank Bajak reported this story in Lima, Peru, and Mike Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. AP writers Eva Vergara and Luis Henao in Santiago, Chile, and Franklin Briceno in Lima contributed to this report.

Big Boy locomotive begins California farewell tour

27th of January 2014, Monday

POMONA, Calif. (AP) — An enormous steam locomotive that has been entertaining train enthusiasts at a California museum for years began a trek of more than 1,200 miles on Sunday with the ultimate goal of putting the engine back on the nation's rails.

The 600-ton Big Boy locomotive left the Pomona fairgrounds on its way to a Union Pacific rail yard in Colton, about 60 miles away, where it will be available for two weekends of public viewing before moving on to Cheyenne, Wyo., for restoration work. The goal is to eventually get Engine 4014 back on the rails, said Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt.

The engine, which weighs 1.2 million pounds when its fuel car, or tender, is included, was one of 25 massive steam engines that began riding the transcontinental rails in 1941.

It pulled heavy freight trains over the Wasatch Mountains between Ogden, Utah and Green River, Wyo., and retired after a 17-year career.

In 1962, the behemoth was donated to the RailGiants Train Museum in Pomona.

Since November, the locomotive has been slowly moved across the grounds at the Pomona fairplex on 4,500 feet of temporary track.

On Sunday, Union Pacific pushed the locomotive onto the main tracks, where it will be towed by modern diesel freight locomotives 56 miles to Colton — a last stop before heading to Wyoming. The repairs there could take several years, Union Pacific has said.

In exchange for getting No. 4014 back, Union Pacific plans to deliver diesel locomotive No. 3105, a caboose and a box car to the RailGiants museum, company officials said.

Israelis urged to prepare for battlefields dominated by robots

Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI)
Jan 27, 2014

Israel's military planners and high-tech defense industry must accelerate development of robotic and unmanned systems that will dominate the future battlefield, eliminating the need for large armies with fighter jets, tanks and warships, a study recommends.

That's a message the U.S. Department of Defense acknowledges it's already received with its recent technological vision of how wars will be fought in the years ahead, one in which robots and drones will be "critical to the future success" of the United States' armed forces.

A 2012 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service found 31 percent of the U.S. warplanes currently in service are drones, changing the way wars are fought.

The Israeli study by the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, unveiled at a recent institute conference, included research by 30 specialists in public policy-related fields over the last two years.

They were tasked with putting together a report to be presented to Israel's decision-makers and generals as a guide to formulating military policy, budgets and priorities for the defense of the Jewish state in 2035.

"The bottom line of the grand project was that any army that wishes to continue to function as an army in the future will need to rebuild itself and to adapt its manpower, its chain of command, and its combat strategy, to a situation in which the real field work is executed by swarms of unmanned devices," defense analyst Yuval Azulai observed.

Israel is already a leading producer and exporters of unmanned aerial vehicles, which are increasingly a critical element in combat operations for the world's most advanced armed forces, including the United States, Britain, France and Israel.

These are largely produced by a cluster of defense companies, most of them state-owned, headed by the flagship Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Elbit Systems, Aeronautics Defense Systems and the recently privatized Israel Military Industries.

Israel's 176,500-strong military operates some of the most advanced weapons and surveillance systems available, thanks to a well-funded research and development program and enterprising defense companies. This has produced some unique systems, such as Rafael's Iron Dome, designed to shoot down short-range rockets and missiles but ignore those headed for uninhabited areas, and the Arrow-3 exo-atmospheric anti-ballistic interceptor.

Azulai observed that the researchers arrived at three main conclusions concerning unmanned systems in 2035: "It will be possible to plan almost any military operation using autonomous unmanned devices; it will be possible to carry out most military operations using such devices; and unmanned devices will operate in swarms.

"In other words, hundreds of devices, of different kinds, will communicate with one another in real time, will react to the changing reality, and will attain the desired outcome on the battlefield, with no human presence on the scene."

Azulai went on: "The research methodology is based on a set of central technologies, by assessing the rates and directions in which they will be developed over the next 20 years.

"This includes technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotic automation, general awareness, communication, survivability and information security, energy resources and more.

"Alongside these, future capabilities that would enable unmanned devices to repair themselves, to replicate, to change shape, to camouflage effectively in broad daylight, to operate with stealth and invisibility, and more, were accounted for as well.

"There is no doubt these abilities, even if only some become reality, will change the landscape of the battlefield, and, moreover, will change the role of humans in warfare," Azulai noted.

Lead researcher Liran Antebi said she estimated that within two decades unmanned systems will be capable of performing 70-80 percent of "classic military tasks."

"We'll need human fighters in this era too," she noted, "but they'll serve within very specialized frameworks and will be trained to execute specific tasks that have been determined to be better for human to execute, and this is because of morals and ethics.

"It's reasonable to assume that by then there will be an organized system of considerations based upon which it will be decided whether to allow a machine to decide in real time whether to open deadly fire on a human being, or where it is preferable ... to deploy a force of human soldiers."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Israelis_urged_to_prepare_for_battlefields_dominated_by_robots_999.html.

British astronaut says space travel vital to survival of human race

London (UPI)
Jan 24, 2014

A British astronaut preparing to go into space next year says space travel and learning to work and live in space is vital to the survival of humanity.

Tim Peake, due to spend 6 months on the International Space Station beginning in late 2015, made the remarks recently while undergoing intensive mission training in Germany.

"Humanity's aim is to explore the solar system, not just for the sake of exploration," Peake told BBC News. "I genuinely believe it is for the sake of our own survival in the future.

"Whether it's an asteroid mission or a moon mission the ultimate aim is the future exploration of the solar system and get to Mars on a manned mission," he said.

Peake will travel to the ISS on a Soyuz rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in November or December of next year to begin his six-month stay.

Peake said he believe that in the not-too-distant future astronauts would journey to another world.

"We are being trained for these kinds of missions on the new launch systems," he said. "It's easy to dismiss this stuff about 'Moon, Mars and Beyond' as NASA propaganda. But they are taking it seriously and I think it really will happen."

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/British_astronaut_says_space_travel_vital_to_survival_of_human_race_999.html.

Aging ISS a space lab of 'unlimited' opportunity

Washington (AFP)
Jan 27, 2014

It may be 350 kilometers (215 miles) above Earth and a place that only a privileged few will ever visit, but the International Space Station is crucial to advances in science, health and technology, experts say.

Earlier this month, NASA said the life of the $100 billion ISS would be extended by four years, or until at least 2024, allowing for more global research and scientific collaboration.

John Holdren, a senior White House adviser on science and technology, hailed the space station -- mainly built with US money -- as "a unique facility that offers enormous scientific and societal benefits.

"The Obama administration's decision to extend its life until at least 2024 will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world and maintain American leadership in space," he said.

The orbiting outpost, which was launched to fanfare in 1998, has more living space than a six-bedroom house and comes complete with Internet access, a gym, two bathrooms and a 360-degree bay window offering spectacular views of Earth.

Its entire structure is made up of various working and sleeping modules, and extends the length of a football field (about 100 meters or yards), making it four times bigger than the Russian space station Mir and about five times as large as the US Skylab.

The aging structure requires regular maintenance, which is done by astronauts who don spacesuits and venture outside the lab.

One such repair was completed Christmas Eve when two Americans stepped out to replace a failed ammonia pump that served to cool equipment at the ISS.

Julie Robinson, an ISS scientist at NASA, insisted that the space station, which has a mass of 924,739 pounds (420,000 kilograms) but is near-weightless in space, is worth the trouble and expense.

The ISS, which is maintained by a rotating crew of six astronauts and cosmonauts who have hailed from 14 countries, allows scientists to study the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body, she said, while testing new space technologies that will be essential for missions to Mars.

"The goal of using the space station is to make discoveries that cannot be made anywhere else... and do research that is really focused on bringing benefits back to Earth by developing knowledge that can directly help bio-medical treatments, make new materials, have better Earth and climate observations," she told AFP.

Robinson added that "many of our early research results are making their way into drug development, medical technologies, pathways. We also have Earth-remote sensive instruments that provide unique data about the Earth and its climate and there are a number of new instruments going up in the next two years.

"When you put all of that together it's really an extraordinary set of benefits back here on Earth."

Robinson noted that a robotic arm used at the space station can save lives during brain surgery.

"What was special about this one is the ability of the arm to perform inside an MRI machine so that doctors are able to see the tumor and then use the ability of the robotic arm to be more stable than the human hand," she said.

"Those two things together have allowed surgery on patients who were considered inoperable before."

Cheryl Nickerson, a professor of microbiology at Arizona State University, has been involved since 2006 in research that has taken place as part of the space program, for example homing in on the salmonella bacteria that causes food poisoning.

"I believe that the discovery potential at microgravity research is enormous and holds potential to provide ground-breaking discoveries in some of the major causes of human morbidity and mortality on Earth," she said.

"That stems from the fact that there is no way on Earth that we can study our cells and biological systems respond without the force of gravity affecting it."

Robinson described the possibilities at the ISS as "unlimited," and noted that a growing amount of private money was supporting research at the space station.

"This is an era of space research that is unlike the past and we are looking at the decades ahead as the time when science can finally pursue these boundaries, explore these frontiers and make these unique discoveries," she said.

"I think as we look back, 20 or 30 years from now, we will call this the era of the space station... because of the number of advances and benefits that will come out."

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Aging_ISS_a_space_lab_of_unlimited_opportunity_999.html.