Yemen national dialogue conference concludes

2014-01-24
By Faisal Darem in Sanaa

Yemen's comprehensive National Dialogue Conference (NDC) concluded Tuesday (January 21st) with the ratification of the final document on which the country's new constitution will be based.

The peace talks, which began March 18th, 2013, had several goals: to write a new constitution for Yemen, prepare for elections in 2014 and resolve nine national issues.

The NDC's official closing ceremony will be held in Yemen on Saturday, and will be attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi, and Gulf Co-operation Council Secretary-General Abdul Latif al-Zayani, in addition to representatives of the 10 countries sponsoring the Gulf initiative facilitating Yemen's transition of power and the reconciliation process in the country.

"The success of the conference is a success for all Yemenis, and its outputs will serve as a roadmap for completing the remaining tasks in the transitional period and beyond," NDC Secretary-General Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak told Al-Shorfa.

"Conference members, who represent all political forces in the arena, unanimously agreed that President [Abd Rabbu Mansour] Hadi remain in office until the end of the transitional phase," he said.

According to the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism, President Hadi's mandate ends with the inauguration of the president-elect pursuant to the new constitution, bin Mubarak added.

"Yemen will witness new bold decisions in accordance with the document of guarantees, including cabinet changes to the national reconciliation government that the [national dialogue] conference imposed on President Hadi to meet the challenges of the current phase, through a government capable of implementing the outputs of the NDC on the ground," he said.

Bin Mubarak said the NDC ran into great difficulties: "We almost lost hope at some points during the dialogue, especially in relation to questions of the south and Saada, but in the end we overcame all difficulties through the co-operation of all the political forces, which were eager to lead Yemen out of the predicament it is in."

'YOUR HONEST AND SINCERE EFFORTS WERE MET WITH SUCCESS'

NDC participants had been divided into nine working groups to find solutions to key difficulties facing Yemen: the issues of southern Yemen; Saada; rights and freedoms; the independence of specialized government entities; sound governance; defence and security; sustainable development; environmental issues; and issues of national importance and transitional justice.

On the last day of the national dialogue, the Ansar Allah movement from Saada pulled out of the final session when their NDC representative, Ahmed Sharafeddine, was assassinated by gunmen as he drove to the conference, Yemen's official Saba news agency reported.

On the same day, the son of NDC member Abdul Wahab al-Ansi, who heads al-Islah Party, was injured when an improvised explosive device targeted his father's car in Sanaa, AFP reported.

President Hadi said in his speech in the closing session that the Ansar Allah delegates had informed him that they approve of all the outputs and documents of the NDC.

The NDC sessions had been followed by the entire world and reflect the vision of the new Yemen, and the final document is "100% Yemeni", he said.

The national march towards the future, safety, stability and unity of Yemen will continue, he said. "Everyone must believe that the forces of good, justice and fairness are stronger and nobler than the forces of evil and aggression that are committing these shameful crimes."

"We meet once again today in the closing session of our conference after all your honest and sincere efforts were met with success," the president said. "You succeeded in the final plenary session in approving the working groups' final reports on transitional justice, the southern issue and state-building, and also in ratifying the NDC's final document."

CONFERENCE OUTPUTS

The conference approved the establishment of a federal Yemeni republic composed of several regions, said Abdullah Lamlas, rapporteur to the NDC presidency.

The system of government of the federal authority will be presidential, and in the regions it will be parliamentary, with an electoral system based on proportional representation, he told Al-Shorfa.

Lamlas said he expects President Hadi to issue a decree naming the regions after forming a committee under his chairmanship to study the regional division of Yemen, as mandated by the NDC.

"The priorities for the upcoming post-dialogue stage include implementing its outputs, in particular the formation of a committee to draft the constitution, which will have about three months to complete its work, followed by a referendum on the constitution, after which Yemen will need about a year to prepare for new elections, which will mark the end of the transitional phase," he said.

NDC Deputy Secretary-General Yasser al-Ruaini spoke with Al-Shorfa about the establishment of the state and elections.

"This phase will include legislative and procedural tasks including the issuance of the judicial authority law, the formation of the constitutional court, issuance of required legislation and arrangements for the transition from a [unitary] state to a federal state, in accordance with the new constitution," he said.

The upcoming stage will witness fundamental changes to the government, al-Ruaini said.

The Shura Council will be expanded to ensure all political and social groups -- including youth, women and civil society organizations -- that participated in the NDC are represented in the same proportion they were during the conference, with southern representatives ensured a proportion of 50%, he added.

The conclusion of the conference represents a "safe exit for all Yemenis", said NDC member Issam al-Qaisi.

This will ensure that all components participate in governing the country based on the dialogue's document, he said.

Source: al-Shorfa.
Link: http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/meii/features/2014/01/24/feature-02.

Ukraine starts campaign for presidential elections

February 25, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has started a campaign for snap presidential elections on May 25, as the location of the country's fugitive president remains unknown.

The Ukrainian Central Election Commission posted an election calendar online early Tuesday, which gives candidates until April 4 to register for the race. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the commission chief saying that he didn't foresee any legal obstacles for any of the candidates currently being discussed, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a top political rival of President Viktor Yanukovych. Tymoshenko was released from prison on Saturday.

Ukraine is being governed by an interim government led by parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchinov. Authorities in Kiev have issued an arrest warrant for Yanukovych over the killing of 82 people, primarily demonstrators, in clashes between protesters and police.

Ukraine issues arrest warrant for president

February 24, 2014

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's acting government issued a warrant Monday for the arrest of President Viktor Yanukovych, last reportedly seen in the pro-Russian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, accusing him of mass crimes against protesters who stood up for months against his rule.

Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial, after a tumultuous presidency in which he amassed powers, enriched his allies and cracked down on protesters. Anger boiled over last week after snipers attacked protesters in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.

The turmoil has turned this strategically located country of 46 million inside out over the past few days, raising fears that it could split apart. The parliament speaker is suddenly nominally in charge of a country whose economy is on the brink of default and whose loyalties are torn between Europe and longtime ruler Russia.

"The state treasury has been torn apart, the country has been brought to bankruptcy," Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leader of the protest movement and prominent lawmaker whose name is being floated as a possibility for prime minister, said in parliament Monday.

The acting finance minister said Monday that the country needs $35 billion (25.5 billion euros) to finance government needs this year and next and expressed hope that Europe or the United States would help.

Ukraine's acting interior minister, Arsen Avakhov, said on his official Facebook page Monday that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Yanukovych and several other officials for the "mass killing of civilians." At least 82 people, primarily protesters, were killed in clashes in Kiev last week.

Avakhov says Yanukovych arrived in Crimea on Sunday, relinquished his official security detail and then drove off to an unknown location, turning off all forms of communication. "Yanukovych has disappeared," he said.

Earlier, after signing an agreement Friday with the opposition to end a conflict that had turned deadly, Yanukovych had fled the capital of Kiev for eastern Ukraine. Avakhov said he tried to fly out of Donetsk but was stopped, then went to Crimea.

Tensions have been mounting in Crimea, where pro-Russian protesters gathered in front of city hall in the port of Sevastopol on Monday chanting "Russia! Russia!" Russia maintains a big naval base in Sevastopol that has tangled relations between the countries for two decades. The head of the city administration in Sevastopol quit Monday.

The tensions seem to be driven by Russia, though a representative of the pro-Moscow Russian Unity party played down fears that Crimea could secede, saying that they want to maintain ties with Moscow and a Putin-driven Customs Union but do not want Crimea to break away.

Yanukovych set off a wave of protests by shelving an agreement with the European Union in November and turning toward Russia, and the movement quickly expanded its grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation.

"We must find Yanukovych and put him on trial," said protester Leonid Shovtak, a 50-year-old farmer from the western Ivano-Frankivsk region who came to Kiev's Independence Square to take part in the three-month protest movement. "All the criminals with him should be in prison."

Yanukovych has proved politically resilient, rising to top posts in Ukrainian politics despite two runs-in with the law during his youth for assault and robbery. He was humiliated in the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned his fraud-ridden victory in presidential elections, but soon came back as prime minister and then as a legitimately elected president in 2010, riding on a wave of popular disappointment in the Orange team.

As president, Yanukvoych moved quickly to consolidate power, wealth, oversee the imprisonment of his top political rival Yulia Tymoshenko and curb free speech. But as protesters took control of the capital over the weekend, his allies quickly distanced themselves from him, concerned for their political survival.

With Yanukovych nowhere to be found, parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchinov assumed presidential powers. Turchinov said Monday that he hopes to form a coalition government by Tuesday. But emotions are running high among the country's rival parties. When a leading member of Yanukovych's party, Oleksandr Efremov, told parliament Monday that he was crossing over to the opposition, an opposition lawmaker got up and waved his fist in Efremov's face, showering him with insults.

Meanwhile, Yanukovych's archrival Tymoshenko, blond-braided heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution, is back on the political scene after having been freed from prison. The EU is reviving efforts to strike a deal with Ukraine that could involve billions of euros in economic perks. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is visiting Kiev on Monday and Tuesday.

Ukraine's acting Finance Minister Yuri Kolobov said in a statement Monday that Ukraine hopes for an emergency loan within the next two weeks from foreigner partners such as the United States and Poland, and called for an international donors conference to discuss aid to Ukraine.

U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said Sunday the U.S. is ready to help Ukraine get aid from the International Monetary Fund. The protest movement has been in large part a fight for the country's economic future — for better jobs and prosperity.

Ukraine's trading partners are also interested in its large potential consumer market, educated workforce, significant industrial base and good natural resources, in particular rich farmland. Ukraine has struggled with corruption, bad government and short-sighted reliance on cheap gas from Russia. Political unrest has pushed up the deficit and sent exchange rates bouncing, and may have pushed the economy back into a recession.

Per capita economic output is only around $7,300, even adjusted for the lower cost of living there, compared to $22,200 in Poland and around $51,700 in the United States. Ukraine ranks 137th worldwide, behind El Salvador, Namibia, and Guyana.

Danilova reported from Kiev. Angela Charlton in Kiev contributed to this report.

Italy's new premier wins crucial confidence vote

February 25, 2014

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi won a crucial confidence vote in Parliament on his brand new government early Tuesday, managing at least for now to tamp down anger from among his own Democrats over his brash, quick rise to power.

The vote in the Senate came hours after he argued that he could get his country back to work while the last three premiers failed. Renzi, at 39 Italy's youngest premier, was sworn into office on Saturday along with an unusually young Cabinet, with many of the ministers newcomers to national government.

The Senate voted 169-139 to confirm Renzi's broad coalition, which ranges from his center-left Democrats to center-right forces formerly loyal to ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi. Renzi needed at least 155 votes to clinch the victory, one of two mandatory confidence votes.

The second vote, in the Chamber of Deputies, was expected later Tuesday. Renzi's coalition has a comfortable majority in the lower chamber. But he had a closer call in the Senate, where his coalition's numbers were tighter, especially after some of his own Democrats questioned on the eve of the vote if he deserved their backing.

There has been loud grumbling among his own Democrats over Renzi's heavy-handed tactics to wrest the premiership from fellow Democrat Enrico Letta. His predecessor led a coalition with the same tense partners for 10 months, but Renzi engineered his ouster after industrialists and union leaders grew impatient with tentative efforts to energize the economy after years of stagnation.

In the end, the potential defectors closed ranks, despite skepticism, after Renzi made a speech that was short on details on how he would quickly revive the economy. "I don't believe that a government of this type can last four years," said Felice Casson, a leading Democrat who said he voted for Renzi "despite indigestion" over the neophyte premier's leadership.

Renzi insisted that debt-laden Italy must heal its public finances not because Germany's Angela Merkel or the European Central Bank chief want that, but because "it's our children" who seek a future. He promised new laws to slash payroll taxes to encourage hiring, but didn't say how Italy would recoup the lower tax revenues.

The new premier faces "pressure to show swift signs of progress on his ambitious reform program," given that unemployment for January is likely to have stayed at 12.7 percent, said CMC Markets UK analyst Michael Hewson ahead of the speech. Youth unemployment hovers at 40 percent.

Noting the tepid Senate applause, Senator Paola Taverna echoed other opposition leaders when she said Renzi offered "nothing concrete."

Torture charges against Moroccan spy chief cause rift between France and Morocco

Sunday, 23 February 2014

French diplomats are puzzled by Moroccan fierce reaction to French judiciary's decision to investigate the Moroccan Intelligence Chief Abdellatif Hammouchi on charges of torturing French citizens from Moroccan and Saharan origins.

French and Moroccan media published a statement issued by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) wherein it stated that a senior MFA official summoned the French ambassador in Rabat Charles Frey to officially object to the French judiciary's decision to probe into torture charges of a Moroccan official. Morocco demanded clarification from France, considering the investigation a serious blow to the bilateral relations between the two countries.

French MFA is reportedly astonished by Moroccan reaction, and is yet to issue a statement in this regard.

Over the past few days, criminal charges have been brought against the Moroccan Intelligence Chief Abdellatif Hammouchi, which would subject him to an international arrest warrant if he refused to appear before the judiciary.

The first charge is related to a Saharan citizen, Neema Safari, a Polisario Front loyalist convicted of dissident activities which took place in the Western Sahara three years ago. His wife filed the charges on his behalf.

Secondly, a former Moroccan athlete called Zakariah Momni, who holds French citizenship, filed a complaint regarding alleged torture he underwent in an issue related to the Moroccan king Mohamed the Sixth. He has staged a sit-in in front of the Moroccan embassy in Paris.

The third case pertains to a Moroccan-French young man called Adel Lemtalsi, who alleges abduction and torture in Morocco in a case related to drug-dealing.

A number of lawyers brought up the case during Hammouchi's visit to Paris last Thursday. Lawyers claim he would have been arrested if he hadn't traveled to Morocco immediately.

Source: Rai Al Youm

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/9921-torture-charges-against-moroccan-spy-chief-cause-rift-between-france-and-morocco.

Venezuelan opposition leader sits out dialogue

February 25, 2014

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A meeting billed as a national dialogue for local and state officials in troubled Venezuela convened Monday without the country's most prominent opposition leader.

Gov. Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate in the last two presidential elections, said he would not attend the meeting called by President Nicolas Maduro amid political turmoil that has engulfed the country in recent weeks.

Capriles did not say whether he would also sit out a national peace conference called by the president for Wednesday. Capriles, governor of wealthy Miranda state, told reporters that attending Monday's meeting would look like an endorsement for a government that he says has engaged in "repression" as troops and police have clashed with protesters.

"I am not going to make Nicolas Maduro look good ... That is what they want, that I go there as if the country was absolutely normal," he said. Capriles also said he would not participate while another opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, remains jailed along with dozens of others who have taken part in anti-government protests.

Lopez, a former mayor of a district in the capital, is being held in a military jail outside Caracas on charges that include criminal incitement of violence for organizing a mass opposition rally Feb. 12 that was followed by clashes that resulted in three deaths and set off waves of unrest that have roiled Venezuela ever since.

His wife, Lillian Tintori, said Lopez believes the time is not right for members of the opposition to sit down with Maduro. "Look at the statements from Nicolas Maduro, every time he speaks, he insults us, he speaks with aggression, speaks with hate," she said following a news conference to announce a march Wednesday by opposition women.

Monday's session of the Federal Government Council was a previously scheduled meeting of all Venezuela's mayors and governors to discuss social and economic problems. At a special meeting of the group in January, following the slaying of a prominent actress with her husband in a robbery, Capriles and Maduro shook hands in a rare showing of cooperation.

This time, Capriles said he felt conditions were wrong for the encounter. "The only thing Maduro wanted was a handshake and a photo so he can tell the world that everything is OK," Capriles said. Vice President Jorge Arreaza said at the start of the meeting that Maduro intended to preside over the session to discuss his peace plan for the country.

"We know that those of us who are here have the shared interest to build a peaceful society," Arreaza told the meeting, which was attended by two of the country's three opposition governors, Henri Falcon of Lara state and Liborio Guarulla of Amazonas state.

Though violent protests have died down, Venezuela remains tense. Opposition protesters erected barricades to block traffic on major streets in Caracas and elsewhere Monday but there were no major clashes.

Maduro told a rally of motorcycle-riding supporters that the blockades had prevented sick people from getting to the hospital. "They have affected the health of thousands of people in these communities that they have cut off," he said.

Since Feb. 12, opponents of Maduro have been staging countrywide protests that the government says have left at least 15 people dead and wounded about 150. Authorities have detained 579 people, of whom 45, including nine police officers and members of the National Guard, remain in custody, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz said.

Tachira state Gov. Jose Vielma Mora, a member of Maduro's party, said the government should release all those detained, including Lopez, to promote peace. Then, in a very rare public criticism by a ruling party member, Vielma faulted as excessive some elements of the government's response to the protests in his state, including deploying warplanes to buzz over opposition protests.

The opposition blames Maduro's administration for the country's high crime rate and economic troubles and says his socialist-inspired polices have led to shortages of basic goods and inflation above 50 percent, among the world's highest, despite the country's vast oil reserves.

The president blames the violence on right-wing opponents of his government, accusing them of receiving support from abroad. Maduro said Monday that authorities in the central state of Aragua had detained a "mercenary" from an unidentified Middle Eastern nation. Gov. Tareck El Aissami said on Twitter that the 34-year-old man had an armored vehicle, communications equipment from the U.S. and Colombia, an explosive device and material to build barricades.

Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez contributed to this report.

Venezuela's Maduro calls for peace conference

Feb. 24, 2014

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for a peace forum with many sectors, not just the opposition, as anti-government protests entered their third week.

The proposed Wednesday conference would include all domestic sectors -- including religious groups, union leaders, artists, "older adults" and people with handicaps, Maduro told Venezuela's state-run teleSUR network Sunday as several hundred mostly elderly people marched in downtown Caracas in support of the regime.

The march came a day after hundreds of thousands of anti-regime demonstrators marched through downtown Caracas.

The student-led mass demonstration was followed by a night of violent clashes between anti-regime activists and security forces in which dozens of people were injured, authorities said.

The demonstrations, which started Feb. 4 in the western Andean border state of Tachira to protest soaring crime, quickly spread to other cities and encompass more issues, including basic goods shortages and an economy buckling under an annual inflation rate of 56 percent, among the highest in the world.

At least eight people have been killed since mid-February and scores of others have been injured.

Opposition sympathizers estimate the number of dead and injured is much higher, the Wall Street Journal said.

"I will carry a proposal for peace with equality, sovereignty and respect for government and I will give that proposal to the federal government council Monday," as a prelude to the proposed Wednesday conference, Maduro told the TV network.

When he first mentioned the peace conference Saturday, he said it would seek to "neutralize violent groups."

Opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles -- who had called for Saturday's anti-regime demonstration -- said he would participate in Monday's council meeting but did not say whether he would participate in a Wednesday conference.

"Shame on you," he told Maduro in a Twitter message Sunday night. "You are destroying this country."

"Around the world people are accusing you of genocide, Nicolas," Capriles said in a follow-up Twitter message. "You're a serious mistake in the history of our Venezuela."

Maduro -- who denies links to armed pro-regime vigilantes, accused by the opposition of being behind much of the bloodshed -- told teleSUR the opposition must end "terrorism and guarimbas," referring by "guarimbas" to anti-government protesters Maduro said had no agenda except to cause trouble.

Maduro, who calls himself a socialist "for the fatherland," repeated his allegation protesters were "right-wing fascists" who were plotting a "coup" with U.S. instigation to destroy him and his regime.

Washington has flatly denied any link to the unrest, calling Maduro's allegations "baseless and false."

Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement Friday expressing concern over the escalating protests in the South American country.

Maduro told the network Sunday the opposition and those supporting it were "encouraging hatred to see if a madman appears and kills me."

"I will live with the blessing and grace of God to fulfill the dream of Hugo Chavez," he said, referring to Venezuela's late president.

Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver and union organizer, was elected as Chavez's successor last April, beating out Capriles with 1.5 percent of the vote separating the two candidates.

Capriles is a 40-year-old law school graduate and governor of Miranda, Venezuela's second-most-populous state. He has called himself a center-left politician with progressive standings.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/02/24/Venezuelas-Maduro-calls-for-peace-conference/UPI-29821393221600/.

Hagel Proposes Army Reduction to Pre-World War II Size

By Joshua Philipp
February 25, 2014

The moment U.S. Army generals feared has arrived. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proposed Monday to shrink the Army to its smallest size since before World War II.

Hagel’s speech was an outline of the defense budget, which President Barack Obama will submit to Congress next week.

“As we end our combat mission in Afghanistan, this will be the first budget to fully reflect the transition DoD is making for after 13 years of war—the longest conflict in our nation’s history,” Hagel said in the Pentagon Press Briefing Room on Feb. 24, according to a transcript.

The plan is to reduce the Army from around 520,000 active-duty soldiers to between 440,000 and 450,000. The original plan was to reduce the Army to 490,000 soldiers. According to the Pentagon’s Armed Forces Press Service, about half the defense budget goes toward personnel costs.

“Since we are no longer sizing the force for prolonged stability operations, an Army of this size is larger than required to meet the demands of our defense strategy,” Hagel said.

The Army isn’t alone. The reduction is part of the Pentagon’s $75 billion budget cut over the next two years, which will affect all branches of the armed services.

Cuts to the Army were expected. Defense officials have been debating for years the role the U.S. Army plays in current defense strategies—particularly the Air-Sea Battle Concept. It is now being applied in the U.S. military shift to the Asia-Pacific, which was partly intended to break China’s anti-access strategy to deny military access to the region.

The concept was developed in the 1970s and 1980s “to counter a Soviet-backed arms attack in Europe,” according to a Pentagon report. It involves close coordination between different military branches, particularly the Navy and Air Force.

The Army has been trying to find its place in the strategy, and military leaders have been discussing the role the Army can play since at least 2011, when the Pentagon opened its Air-Sea Battle Office. Of the 15 officers in the Air-Sea Battle Office, only one is from the Army.

The Army has trouble shaking its role as a force that creates infrastructure and stabilizes whatever ground is taken. As the Pentagon’s American Forces Press Service notes, “The cuts assume the United States no longer becomes involved in large, prolonged stability operations overseas on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Hagel emphasized, however, that the cuts are done with consideration to the evolving threats faced by the United States.

He said, “We are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future: new technologies, new centers of power, and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States.”

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/528662-hagel-proposes-army-reduction-to-pre-world-war-ii-size/.

Uganda president signs harsh anti-gay law

February 24, 2014

ENTEBBE, Uganda (AP) — Uganda's president on Monday signed an anti-gay bill that punishes gay sex with up to life in prison, a measure likely to send Uganda's beleaguered gay community further underground as the police try to implement it amid fevered anti-gay sentiment across the country.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the bill, which goes into effect immediately, was needed because the West is promoting homosexuality in Africa. Museveni may have defied Western pressure to shelve the bill, four years and many versions after it was introduced, but his move — likely to galvanize support ahead of presidential elections — pleased many Ugandans who repeatedly urged him to sign the legislation.

Nigeria's president similarly signed an anti-gay bill into law just over a month ago, sparking increased violence against gays who already were persecuted in mob attacks. Some watchdog groups warn a similar backlash of violence may occur in Uganda.

"Experience from other jurisdictions with similarly draconian laws, such as Nigeria or Russia, indicates that their implementation is often followed by a surge in violence against individuals thought to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender," the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said in a statement Monday. "The Ugandan government has not indicated any plans to counter such violence or to investigate potential allegations of abuse."

The Ugandan law calls for first-time offenders to be sentenced to 14 years in jail. It sets life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," defined as repeated gay sex between consenting adults and acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner is infected with HIV.

Uganda's new anti-gay law has been condemned around the world. In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney called the law "abhorrent," urged its repeal and said the White House is reviewing its relationship with Uganda.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned that the law would institutionalize discrimination and could encourage harassment and violence against gays. The office of European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in a statement said she is "is deeply concerned" by "draconian legislation" to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda.

At least six people have already been arrested over alleged homosexual offenses and more than a dozen have fled Uganda since lawmakers passed the bill in December, according to a prominent Ugandan gay activist, Pepe Julian Onziema.

"The president is making this decision because he has never met an openly gay person. That disappoints me," he said. Museveni signed the bill at the presidential palace as government officials, journalists and Ugandan scientists looked on. Government officials applauded after Museveni affixed his signature. Scientists had written a report which found there is no proven genetic basis for homosexuality, Museveni said, citing it as a reason for signing the bill.

"They should rehabilitate themselves and society should assist them to do so," Museveni said after signing the bill. Some European countries have threatened to cut aid to Uganda if the measure was enacted, though some EU officials have cautioned that interrupting development aid may not be the best reaction since it would harm Ugandans.

U.S. President Barack Obama warned that signing the bill would "complicate" the East African country's relationship with Washington. After Museveni signed the bill, the White House said the U.S. would urge Uganda's government to repeal the "abhorrent law."

"As President Obama has said, this law is more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda, it reflects poorly on the country's commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and will undermine public health, including efforts to fight HIV/AIDS," the statement said.

But in signing the legislation passed by lawmakers, Museveni said he rejected such reaction as interference in Ugandan affairs. "We Africans never seek to impose our view on others. If only they could let us alone," Museveni said. "We have been disappointed for a long time by the conduct of the West. There is now an attempt at social imperialism."

Museveni accused "arrogant and careless Western groups" of trying to recruit Ugandan children into homosexuality, but he did not name these purported groups. Museveni said he believes Western homosexuals have targeted poor Ugandans who then "prostitute" themselves for the money, an allegation repeated by the bill's Ugandan defenders. Museveni did not cite any examples of people he called "mercenary homosexuals."

Some critics believe Museveni signed the bill in hopes of galvanizing political support within his party, the National Resistance Movement, ahead of an upcoming meeting that is expected to endorse him as the party's sole choice in the 2016 presidential election.

Fox Odoi, a Ugandan lawmaker who was once Museveni's legal adviser and the only legislator who publicly opposed the anti-gay measure, predicted more arrests over alleged homosexual offenses now that the bill is law.

"I find it utterly primitive," he said. "But the president doesn't think so. It is a very dark day for the gay community. It is going to result in big harassment of gay people." The bill in its original draft called for the death penalty for some homosexual acts. That penalty was removed from the legislation following an international outcry.

The bill is widely popular in Uganda, where it has been championed by Christian clerics and many politicians. Ugandan schoolchildren from various schools in the capital, Kampala, celebrated after Museveni signed the bill. With big smiles on their faces and arms stretched in jubilation, they held placards including one that said "Obama leave us alone: Homosexuals have no room in Uganda."

The anti-gay measure was introduced in 2009 by a lawmaker with the ruling party who said the law was necessary to deter Western homosexuals from "recruiting" Ugandan children. That legislator, David Bahati, said Monday that the bill's enactment is "a triumph of our sovereignty, a victory for the people of Uganda, the children of Uganda."

Several Ugandan gays say Bahati and other political leaders were influenced by conservative U.S. evangelicals who wanted to spread their anti-gay agenda in Africa. Homosexuality is criminalized in many African countries.

Associated Press reporter Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Belgium contributed to this report.

Parts of South Sudan barren, U.N. mission says

Feb. 25, 2014

JUBA, South Sudan, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The U.N. Support Mission in South Sudan said much of the healthcare system in the country has been looted following rival clashes in Upper Nile state.

UNMISS said it conducted multiple patrols in the Upper Nile city of Malakal where peacekeepers described the situation as "tense."

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan Toby Lanza reported violence in Upper Nile state erupted in mid February. The conflict stems from a December accusation from President Salva Kiir that his former Vice President Riek Machar launched a coup, an allegation he denies.

The mission said in a statement Monday peacekeepers observed more than 100 bodies along the streets of Malakal, much of the city was destroyed and those who did survive required "urgent medical attention."

A U.N. safe haven in Malakal is providing protection for an estimated 22,000 civilians.

Melker Mabeck, head of the ICRC delegation in South Sudan, said in a statement Saturday he was shocked by the reports of violence "targeting civilians and people who are no longer taking part in the fighting, of deliberate killings and sexual violence" in Malakal.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2014/02/25/Parts-of-South-Sudan-barren-UN-mission-says/UPI-11881393341365/.

Unemployment tied to S Africa protests

Sun Feb 23, 2014

A South African research institute says youth unemployment and rising expectations are some of the causes of violent protests that have increased in recent months in the country.

Georgina Alexander from the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said Saturday that the government needs to address the deeper causes of the ongoing protests over service delivery.

Alexander, who is the institute’s program manager, said the recent protests were triggered by the government’s poor service delivery, but there were also other deeper factors such as high youth unemployment.

“This is just a spark, the deeper reasons for the protest lie in levels of youth unemployment and dependency on state as well as increasing rising expectations that people have, but it is all directly reliant on the state to do something about it like to increase people’s living standard for them,” said Alexander.

The program manager also called on the South African government to create an environment, which encourages investment.

“If policy reforms are not put in place, there is a threat that these protests will increase and become more violent.”

“We have more people on social welfare at the moment in the country than those who have employment.”

South Africa has seen a series of protests, some of them violent in the past few months.

The protesters are angry at the substandard utility deliveries, including the lack of water supply and electricity disconnecting.

At least four protesters were killed in January during violent clashes with police over access to water in North West Province.

Experts say the protests pose problems for the administration of President Jacob Zuma ahead of upcoming elections in about three months.

South Africa is the continent’s wealthiest country, but is dogged by stubborn levels of inequality.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/351901.html.

C. African Republic orphans walk to refuge alone

February 25, 2014

CARNOT, Central African Republic (AP) — Ibrahim Adamou's parents had just been killed in front of him. He wasn't sure whether any of his five siblings had survived the attack by Christian militiamen who opened fire on his family of herders as they journeyed on foot.

The 7-year-old just knew he had to keep running. Covering 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) barefoot and alone, he slept under the thick cover of banana trees at night and followed the red rutted paths by day, not entirely sure where he was going, with nothing to eat.

Finally he encountered peacekeepers who gave him some cookies and pointed the way to Carnot, where a Catholic church was sheltering some 800 Muslims, including many ethnic Peuls like Ibrahim. With the help of a Christian man on a motorcycle who risked his life by giving the boy a lift, Ibrahim arrived at the church early Monday.

"When we got to a checkpoint, the militia fighters told the man, 'Leave the boy here and we will kill him'," Ibrahim recounted softly. "But the man said, 'If you are going to kill him, you must kill me too' and then they let us pass."

What is even more remarkable about Ibrahim's story is that there are at least six other children under the age of 10 with a nearly identical story in Carnot. In the nearly three months since the country erupted in violence between Christians and Muslims, leaving many hundreds dead, children appear to be in many cases the only survivors.

The Peul are a nomadic community of herders who span West and Central Africa. They often travel great distances on foot — a habit that probably enabled these children to make the journey alone. Many, like Ibrahim's family, came under attack as they were fleeing west from violence earlier this month. The survivors are only now making their way to Carnot.

"Unfortunately after fleeing they fell upon a spot where violence also had erupted," said Dramane Kone, project coordinator in Carnot for Doctors Without Borders, which has treated some of the children for malnutrition.

The refugees at the church may not be safe much longer. The armed Christian gangs outside the concrete-walled compound have ordered them to leave the country within a week or face death. The fighters have brought in gasoline and threatened to burn the church to the ground.

Ibrahim was brought to the church after the man on the motorcycle hid the boy in his home for several days. Scores of fellow Peul came to hear what news the youngster had brought from the countryside, gathering around him as he wolfed down a bowl of porridge.

Sitting on a bench outside the priest's quarters, his tiny legs too short to touch the ground, the boy seemed overwhelmed by the attention and pulled the hood of his adult-size gray sweatshirt tight around his tiny bird-like face.

The other refugees gave him what coins they had so that he could pay someone to cook meals for him at the mission. The priests said he is welcome as long as he likes, though he was clearly on his own in a sea of strangers.

Around 10:30 on a recent night, a distressed Cameroonian peacekeeper knocked on the church door to wake up the priests. A little Muslim girl who didn't know how old she was had turned up in the center of town, barefoot and shaken. The priests emerged in their pajamas to bring her inside.

Habiba, believed to be about 7, saw anti-Balaka militants kill her parents and her brothers, she whispered to a priest. They asked her where she came from: Her village was more than 80 kilometers away by foot.

Two men who had lost young daughters arrived at the door, then quickly shook their heads in disappointment. She was not theirs. No one knew who she was. One of the women from the church offered her water and some dinner leftovers of manioc and beef. At first she refused but then began to pick at the meat once she was assured it was not pork.

On Sunday just before Mass, four more new arrivals gathered on the steps of the church. One child was inconsolable and sobbed against a tree as other little boys tried to cheer him up. Ten-year-old Nourou said he spent two days being hidden by Christians, who then brought him to the church. Tears rolled down his face, some of them spilling from a crusted eye badly wounded in an anti-Balaka attack. His legs were so spindly he could barely stand.

Beside him was another Peul boy named Ahamat, believed to be about 8. He couldn't say for sure how many days he had spent walking or when he last ate. The Muslim men who welcomed him asked about his village and then shook their heads in disbelief. It is some 300 kilometers away.

"My mother and father were killed along the way, but I kept going," he said. When he heard motorcycles on the road, he would hide in the woods. When the roads were empty, he just kept walking, asking anyone he could where he could find the peacekeepers who were guarding Muslims.

By the end of their first day at the church, Ahamat, Nourou and Ibrahim had formed a band of brothers, brought together by sorrow. At night they cry for their mothers on a well-worn mattress. During the day, they play in the dirt with the other boys and chase each other around the courtyard.

A community leader shaved their heads to indicate they are in mourning for their parents, making them nearly indistinguishable with their little old man faces and knobby knees. In some cases, the children arriving in Carnot were saved by the most unlikely of people. It was an armed anti-Balaka militiaman who brought several of the boys to the church after spotting them on the edge of town.

"He left them at the door and just said that he felt sorry for the poor boys," said the priest, the Rev. Justin Nary. "Apparently he had a heart."

Angry mob kills 3 Muslims in CAR

Sat Feb 22, 2014

Three Muslim civilians have been shot dead by a group of angry Christians in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The three were traveling in the Combattant neighborhood near the airport in the capital Bangui when an angry mob stopped their taxi and killed them brutally on Saturday.

"It was extraordinarily violent. They were executed in cold blood," a witness said.

A Spokesman for the French army, headquartered in the Bangui M'Poko International Airport along with forces of the African Union (AU), confirmed that three bodies were found in the area.

He also said the French soldiers fired warning shots to force the crowd away from the corpses.

Many believe the French troops, known as the Sangaris, turn a blind eye on Christian militia, an accusation Paris rejects.

France invaded its former colony on December 5 after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution giving the AU and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country.

There are many mineral resources, including gold and diamond, in the Central African Republic. However, the country is extremely poor and has faced a series of rebellions and coups since it gained independence in 1960.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/351842.html.

EU troops to arrive in CAR in March

Sat Feb 22, 2014

The European Union (EU) is to dispatch at least 500 forces to the Central African Republic (CAR) in March to help contain the violence in the strife-torn country, a Greek minister says.

Speaking after a two-day meeting of EU defense ministers on Friday, Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said the EU troops are expected to arrive in the CAR early next month, adding that the EU force’s command center would be in Larissa, Greece.

Earlier this month, EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, also announced plans by the 28-nation bloc to send 1,000 troops to the CAR, a former French colony.

In December 2013, France deployed 1,600 troops to the CAR after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution giving Paris and the African Union the go-ahead to send troops to the strife-torn country.

However, the deployment of the French and African Union forces has done little to end the ongoing violence in the country.

Earlier this week, Paris announced that it would send 400 more soldiers to the African country.

CAR President Catherine Samba-Panza has also urged France to keep its soldiers in the country. France is expected to vote on its military presence in the CAR on February 25. Its mission’s mandate will expire in two months.

The CAR has been facing deadly unrest since December last year, when Christian militia launched coordinated attacks against the mostly Muslim Seleka group, which toppled the government in March 2013.

Christian militia in the country has been raging violence against Muslims, many of whom have escaped the country to avoid being killed by the militia.

Fierce fighting in the African country reportedly claimed over 1,000 lives and forced about one million people to flee their homes last month.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/351810.html.

Future of multibillion Sochi investment unclear

February 24, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — As the Olympic circus packs up and flies away from Russia, the Black Sea city of Sochi is looking anxiously toward the future.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors are leaving impressed by the shiny stadiums and hotels, smooth highways and new trains that have transformed a jaded Soviet-era resort into a modern tourist destination.

It has all cost $51 billion, but will it be enough to keep the tourist dollar - or ruble - flooding into Sochi? Sochi "definitely has a future", IOC President Thomas Bach said on Sunday. He listed all the international events that Sochi will be hosting in coming months — the G8 summit, a Formula One race and World Cup matches in 2018 — and expressed hope that Sochi's legacy will live on.

"What happened here, this transformation really is amazing, and now it will be important to secure the legacy of these games," Bach said. Ordinary Russians were also impressed. "We were in the mountain cluster yesterday and we were pleasantly surprised: It looks like a European ski resort," said Irina Mislivets from Togliatti. "I would love to come back."

On the Black Sea north of Georgia, Sochi was a tired seaside resort tailored exclusively for Russians who either could not afford to vacation abroad or were reluctant to leave the country. Former leader Josef Stalin had a Dacha here and President Vladimir Putin has a holiday home in the area, but lack of investment meant the town was gradually crumbling.

The Olympics brought in billions in investment and international attention to Sochi while rattling trucks and cement mixers have rumbled through the area day and night for more than five years. In this time, Krasnaya Polyana, a small mountain village, has been transformed into a Swiss-style ski resort with brand-new lifts and international hotels.

Sochi's mountains will definitely see an increase in visitors in the coming year because of the Olympic publicity, says Vladimir Kantorovich, first vice president of the Russian Association of Tour Operators, but its future will only be clear once the first full season is over.

"Ski slopes which are good for sports are not necessarily always good for recreation. You need to go to find out yourself," he said. "How things will go afterwards will depend on prices and conditions."

Russia built 14 venues for the games with total capacity of 145,000 people. Plans for how to use the venues are changing all the time. Organizers were originally thinking about converting the Iceberg arena into a cycling track. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak announced on Saturday, however, that authorities have been persuaded to turn it into "an international center for ice shows."

Some of the venues can be taken apart and moved to other cities. The Audit Chamber, the government's auditing agency, raised concerns about the future of the Olympic venues. Chairman Sergei Stepashin quoted expert estimates that maintaining the venues would cost Russia at least 60 billion rubles a year ($2 billion).

Kozak dismissed Stepashin's estimate, saying that it will cost "at least 10 times less." Olympic spectators and organizers say Krasnaya Polyana is a potential magnet for tourists. But industry experts are cautious about its long-term prospects.

Russian fans at the Olympic Park this weekend were optimistic about Sochi's future, but all of them complained about prices, saying they are too high compared to other eastern or central European destinations.

"We see that Sochi has changed for the better," Mikhail Savrasov from Latvia, said. "I hope the prices will go down." Ski resorts in the area reported strong sales in December and January before they were closed for the Olympics, and they say they will adjust prices once life in Sochi gets back to normal.

"From what we've seen so far the interest is huge," said Alexander Belokobylsky, director of Rosa Khutor resort up in Krasnaya Polyana. The company is now looking forward to the next season to see how well they can do when the games are over.

"A certain price adjustment will definitely come," Belokobylsky said: "If we see that our prices are too high and we don't get visitors we will adjust." Business and the travel industry experts, however, don't hold out much hope for Sochi as an international destination despite the breath-taking mountains and new hotels.

Unlike most European resorts, Sochi is hard to get to. There are few direct flights to Europe from Sochi, and airport fees at the Sochi Adler airport are too high for low-cost airlines to fly here. And Europeans need to apply for a visa if they want to come to Russia.

"Europeans can travel to most places in the world visa-free: Why would they want to come here if they need to get a visa?" asks Kantorovich. Belokobylsky of Rosa Khutor recalls praise and admiration he has heard from foreign officials and journalists in the past weeks, but says that getting them to come back here will be difficult.

"We need direct flights," he said. "But these are things we cannot influence."

Sochi cleans up as world leaves Olympics behind

February 24, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — By the busload, the world's athletes and visitors rolled toward Sochi's airport and took off for home Monday, fresh from a Winter Games experience that many Russians pronounced a smashing success and that the Olympic movement's chief enthusiastically labeled a victory for the region and the host nation. "Yes! We did it!" one Olympic volunteer exulted as she darted into the night.

After 17 days of global sport and spotlight, Sochi ended the spirited chants of "Ro-ssi-ya! Ro-ssi-ya!" and started cleaning up. Travelers through the region's airport, rebuilt completely for the games, reported briskly moving security lines and check-in times of anywhere from 10 minutes to three hours, depending on destination. On what was predicted to be the heaviest Olympic-related travel day, the transit situation seemed to come down to this: It was like a busy morning at any normal big-city airport.

By the Black Sea coastline, Olympic Park, which will be hosting events at the upcoming Paralympic Games, had cleared out. Like the city of Sochi around it, the park felt deserted except for the legions of volunteers in multicolored patchwork jackets who still patrolled the area. Most security barriers remained in place in anticipation of the Paralympics, but security was noticeably more relaxed.

These Winter Games, Russian President Vladimir Putin's political showpiece and bragging trophy, convened under storm clouds — international concerns about gay rights and fears of a terror attack among them. But athletes overwhelmingly chose not to use the Olympic stage to make any statements, and the games opened and closed with vigorous (if sometimes spotty) security and no sign of any potentially violent activity.

When it came to logistics and sports, Russia outdid itself. Beyond initial grumblings about unfinished hotels and stray dogs, the Olympic infrastructure performed close to flawlessly. And the athletes: The home team claimed 33 medals, its largest haul ever — even counting the Soviet Union days — and a far cry from the 2010 performance in Vancouver that disappointed Putin and so many Russians.

"Russia has delivered on its promise," said Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi organizing committee. The successes — and a visually rich closing-ceremony tour through Russian history that ended with a handoff to the next Winter Games host city, Pyeongchang in South Korea — produced a party-like-it's-1999 atmosphere across the finally chilly Olympic Park during Monday's early hours.

Young Sochi Games volunteers, restrained and professional for 17 days, busted loose, running around outside Fisht Stadium with whoops, hollers and squeals. Selfies gave way to enthusiastic group shots — and group hugs. "Thank you for coming! Thank you for being here!" volunteers shouted to passing visitors as Olympic Park emptied out.

"Amazing. Look at this. Look at what we got done," said Viktor Virchenko, a heavily mustachioed folk dancer from nearby Stanitsa Leningradskaya who was cheerfully stalking Olympic Park early Monday in traditional woolen hat and 19th-century regalia. "I am very proud," he said.

IOC President Thomas Bach, closing the games Sunday night, eschewed the wording of predecessors that sometimes tried to assess the overall quality of a particular Olympics. Instead, he focused on calling them "the athletes' games" and spent many words praising both the region and Putin. Russia, Bach said, came through when it needed to.

"What took decades in other parts of the world was achieved here in Sochi in just seven years," he said. Which raises the question: What happens to Sochi next, now that it has been effectively built up from scratch? After billions in investment and a world-class event pulled off successfully, it has a G-8 summit and Formula One racing just around the corner.

But can it be a resort region with long-term viability, or will it — despite its mountains and water so conveniently close together — suffer the fate of some other former Olympic cities and struggle to bring the masses to its doorstep? Bach, for one, says it "definitely has a future" after a previous bid and two decades of preparation.

"Seeing now, 20 years after this transformation, it was really amazing," he said in the hours before the Olympics ended. "And now it will be important to secure the legacy of this games." Many Russians give all credit to Putin.

"Good for him, our president. He built all this, developed all this. We didn't have this kind of resort before," said Sergei Lesnikov, a 54-year-old hockey coach from the city of Kirov. ""After the Olympics it will remain. ... Tell your friends and family to come and see it here. It's not so bad."

And Russia itself? Though the memorable images of the Sochi Games include Cossack militiamen beating young women activists, the overall impression is one of competence, optimism — and, of course, athletic prowess.

The country's deputy prime minister, Dmitry Kozak, paints a rosy picture of today's Russia — and tomorrow's: "The games have turned our country, its culture and the people into something that is a lot closer and more appealing and understandable for the rest of the world."

A Giant Moon for the Ninth Planet

by Alan Stern for New Horizons News
Boulder CO (SPX)
Jul 10, 2013

This week the New Horizons mission team is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto's largest and "first" moon, Charon. This discovery was made in 1978 by U.S. Naval Observatory astronomers James Christy and Robert Harrington, working in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Washington, D.C.

Charon, whose discovery was first announced on July 7, 1978, orbits about 19,400 kilometers (12,500 miles) from Pluto and has a diameter of about 1,207 kilometers (750 miles) - about the width of Texas. At half the diameter of Pluto, Charon is the largest moon relative to its planet in our solar system.

Charon's reflective but almost colorless surface is covered by water ice, and may contain traces of ammonia or ammonium as well. Its interior is much less rocky than Pluto (which is nearly 70-percent rock). By contrast, Charon's interior exhibits a nearly 50-50 combination of rock and water ice. And unlike Pluto, Charon has no substantial atmosphere.

The historic discovery of Charon ushered in the modern understanding of Pluto as both a double planet and the product of a giant collision that formed the system in much the same way as the Earth-Moon system was formed.

We now know that Charon, once thought to be Pluto's only moon, orbits Pluto with at least four much smaller moons: Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx, all of which, like Charon, orbit in circular paths and in Pluto's equatorial plane.

From Charon, Pluto looms large in the sky-more than 14 times as wide and 200 times as big of an area as the Earth's moon appears in our sky. And at "full Pluto," Charon's night side is about 50-percent brighter than a full moon in Earth's nighttime sky.

New Horizons is on course to fly by and make the first reconnaissance of the Pluto system just two years from now, in July 2015.

When it does, the spacecraft will turn these moons and their parent planet Pluto from points of light into well-mapped worlds, chart their compositions in exquisite detail, explore Pluto's atmosphere, search for other moons and rings, and make many other observations as well.

We're pretty excited to see Charon explored and its appearance revealed in just two years, and hope you are too...

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_Giant_Moon_for_the_Ninth_Planet_999.html.

Hubble Finds a Cobalt Blue Planet

Baltimore MD (SPX)
Jul 12, 2013

Astronomers working with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have deduced the actual color of a planet orbiting another star 63 light-years away. The planet is HD 189733b, one of the closest exoplanets that can be seen crossing the face of its star, and its color is cobalt blue.

If seen directly, this planet would look like a deep blue dot, reminiscent of Earth's color as seen from space. Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measured changes in the color of light from the planet before, during and after a pass behind its star.

There was a small drop in light and a slight change in the color of the light.

"We saw the light becoming less bright in the blue but not in the green or red. Light was missing in the blue but not in the red when it was hidden," said research team member Frederic Pont of the University of Exeter in South West England.

"This means that the object that disappeared was blue." Earlier observations have reported evidence for scattering of blue light on the planet. The latest Hubble observation confirms the evidence.

Although the planet resembles Earth in terms of color, it is not an Earth-like world.

On this turbulent alien world, the daytime temperature is nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and it possibly rains glass -- sideways -- in howling, 4,500-mph winds.

The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean as it does on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles. Silicates condensing in the heat could form very small drops of glass that scatter blue light more than red light.

Hubble and other observatories have made intensive studies of HD 189733b and found its atmosphere to be changeable and exotic.

HD 189733b is among a bizarre class of planets called hot Jupiters, which orbit precariously close to their parent stars.

HD 189733b was discovered in 2005. It is only 2.9 million miles from its parent star, so close that it is gravitationally locked. One side always faces the star and the other side is always dark.

In 2007, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope measured the infrared light, or heat, from the planet, leading to one of the first temperature maps for an exoplanet. The map shows day side and night side temperatures on HD 189733b differ by about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This should cause fierce winds to roar from the day side to the night side.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hubble_Finds_a_Cobalt_Blue_Planet_999.html.

Pluto's largest moon Charon discovered

Fri 12 Jul, 2013

Washington, July 12 (ANI): NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has spotted the planet's Texas-sized, ice-covered moon Charon for the first time, using its highest-resolution telescopic camera.

This represents a major milestone on the spacecraft's 9.5-year journey to conduct the initial reconnaissance of the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt and, in a sense, begins the mission's long-range study of the Pluto system.

The largest of Pluto's five known moons, Charon orbits about 12,000 miles (more than 19,000 kilometers) away from Pluto itself. As seen from New Horizons, that's only about 0.01 degree away.

"The image itself might not look very impressive to the untrained eye, but compared to the discovery images of Charon from Earth, these 'discovery' images from New Horizons look great!" New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md said.

"We're very excited to see Pluto and Charon as separate objects for the first time from New Horizons," he said.

The spacecraft was still 550 million miles from Pluto-farther than the distance from Earth to Jupiter-when its LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) snapped a total of six images: three on July 1 and three more on July 3.

LORRI's excellent sensitivity and spatial resolution revealed Charon at exactly the predicted offset from Pluto, 35 years after the announcement of Charon's discovery in 1978 by James Christy of the Naval Observatory.

Sci-Fi Author Iain M. Banks Gets Asteroid Named after Him

By J.L. Galache
July 1, 2013

In early April of this year we learnt from Iain Banks himself that he was sick, very sick. Cancer that started in the gall bladder spread quickly and precluded any cure, though he still hoped to be around for a while and see his upcoming novel, The Quarry, hit store shelves in late June. He never did—Iain Banks died on June 9th.

I was introduced to Iain M. Banks’s Sci-Fi novels in graduate school by a good friend who also enjoyed Sci-Fi; he couldn’t believe I’d never even heard of him and remedied what he saw as a huge lapse in my Sci-Fi culture by lending me a couple of his novels. After that I read a few more novels of my own volition because Mr Banks truly was a gifted story teller.

When I heard of his sickness I immediately asked myself what I could do for Mr Banks, and the answer was obvious: Give him an asteroid!

The Minor Planet Center only has the authority to designate new asteroid discoveries (e.g., ’1971 TD1') and assign numbers to those whose orbits are of a high enough accuracy (e.g., ’5099'), but names for numbered asteroids must be submitted to, and approved by, the Committee for Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN) of the IAU (International Astronomical Union). With the help of Dr Gareth Williams, the MPC’s representative on the CSBN, we submitted a request to name an asteroid after Iain Banks with the hope that it would be approved soon enough for Mr Banks to enjoy it. Sadly, that has not been possible. Nevertheless, I am here to announce that on June 23rd, 2013, asteroid (5099) was officially named Iainbanks by the IAU, and will be referred to as such for as long as Earth Culture may endure.

The official citation for the asteroid reads:

Iain M. Banks (1954-2013) was a Scottish writer best known for the Culture series of science ?ction novels; he also wrote ?ction as Iain Banks. An evangelical atheist and lover of whisky, he scorned social media and enjoyed writing music. He was an extra in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

Asteroid Iainbanks resides in the Main Asteroid Belt of the Sol system; with a size of 6.1 km (3.8 miles), it takes 3.94 years to complete a revolution around the Sun. It is most likely of a stony composition...

The Culture is an advanced society in whose midst most of Mr Banks’s Sci-Fi novels take place. Thanks to their technology they are able to hollow out asteroids and use them as ships capable of faster-than-light travel while providing a living habitat with centrifugally-generated gravity for their thousands of denizens. I’d like to think Mr Banks would have been amused to have his own rock...

Source: Minor Planet Center.
Link: http://minorplanetcenter.net/blog/sci-fi-author-iain-m-banks-gets-asteroid-named-after-him/.

Space agency studying ways to capture derelict satellites, space junk

Paris (UPI)
Feb 21, 2014

The European Space Agency says it is studying the possibility of a future mission to capture derelict satellites adrift in orbit around the Earth.

The e.DeOrbit mission under study the ESA's Clean Space Initiative, would aim to snag and collect orbiting junk to reduce the environmental impact of the space industry on Earth and space alike, the agency said in a release issued from its Paris headquarters Friday.

Decades of launches have left Earth surrounded by a halo of space junk, with more than 17,000 trackable objects larger than a coffee cup that could threaten working missions with catastrophic collision, ESA scientists said.

The only way to control the debris field across key low orbits is to remove large items such as derelict satellites and launcher upper stages, they said.

The first technical challenge such a mission would face is to safely approach a drifting object left in an uncertain state; then capture it and guide the combined satellite and salvage craft down for a controlled burn-up in the atmosphere.

Several capture mechanisms are being studied, the ESA said, including throw-nets, clamping mechanisms and harpoons.

A symposium in the Netherlands in May will cover studies and technology developments related to e.DeOrbit, the ESA said.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Space_agency_studying_ways_to_capture_derelict_satellites_space_junk_999.html.

Japan's Pocari Sweat bound for the moon: maker

Tokyo (AFP)
Feb 21, 2014

Japan's curiously-named Pocari Sweat is to be sent to the moon, its Japanese maker has said, in what the firm claims will make it the first sports drink on the celestial body.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co said it will take part in a private rocket launch in October that is intended to explore Earth's cratered satellite, and hopes to put some of its flagship beverage onboard.

The firm said it got involved with the project after scientists discovered traces of water on the moon.

"We would like to have many people feel that life on the moon could become a reality sometime soon," it said.

The project will be jointly conducted by US Astrobotic Technology and Astroscale, said Otsuka.

Despite its rather unappetizing-sounding name, Pocari Sweat is one of Japan's most popular drinks, and can be found in vending machines the length and breadth of the archipelago.

Source: Moon Daily.
Link: http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Japans_Pocari_Sweat_bound_for_the_moon_maker_999.html.

Explosions on Venus engulf entire planet

Greenbelt, Md. (UPI)
Feb 20, 2014

A common space weather phenomenon on the outskirts of Earth's magnetic bubble has larger -- much larger -- repercussions for Venus, NASA scientists say.

Giant explosions called hot flow anomalies in the solar wind can be so large when they encounter Venus they're bigger than the entire planet can happen multiple times a day, they said.

"Not only are they gigantic," Glyn Collinson, a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said, "but as Venus doesn't have a magnetic field to protect itself, the hot flow anomalies happen right on top of the planet. They could swallow the planet whole."

Collinson is the lead author of a paper based on observations from the European Space Agency's Venus Express, showing just how large and how frequent this kind of space weather is at Venus.

Earth is protected from the constant streaming solar wind of radiation by its magnetic bubble -- the magnetosphere -- while Venus, a barren, inhospitable planet with an atmosphere so dense spacecraft landing there are crushed within hours, Venus has no such magnetic protection.

At Earth, hot flow anomalies do not make it inside the magnetosphere, whereas on Venus they can create dramatic planet-scale disruptions, possibly sucking the planet's upper atmosphere up and away from the surface, the scientists said.

That suggests Earth without its magnetic field might be as barren and lifeless as Venus, they said.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Space_weather_explosions_on_Venus_engulf_entire_planet_999.html.

As Olympics End, Putin's Response to Ukraine Feared

By Jasper Fakkert
February 24, 2014

With the Olympic flame in Sochi extinguished, all eyes turn to Vladimir Putin’s response to the political upheaval in neighboring Ukraine.

Ukraine is crucial to Putin’s strategy of extending Russia’s power in the region, and as long as the competition in Sochi continued, any intervention by Putin would have been unthinkable.

While Russian athletes won a streak of gold medals over the weekend to put their country at the top of the medal table, the Ukrainian opposition-controlled parliament stripped Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych of his power and freed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

Russian officials have condemned the changes—which also include the passing of an amnesty bill for the protesters and the removal of Russian from the list of official languages.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Sunday saying the opposition in Ukraine violated an agreement reached between protesters and Ukrainian authorities on Feb. 21, by seizing power in Kyiv, refusing to surrender arms, and continuing to rely on violence.

Near midnight Sunday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled the Russian ambassador in Ukraine.

The Olympic closing ceremony Sunday night heralded new fears in Ukraine that Putin will use military force to respond to the crisis—likely in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, where Russia’s military and civil interests are at stake.

Crimea, with a population of around 2 million, has a Russian majority of approximately 60 percent, and is home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet. It is also one of the last strongholds in East Ukraine’s strong opposition to the current political change. Fears are the Kremlin will similarly respond to this situation as its invasion of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia in 2008.

Russian law gives Putin the legal ability for such military action. In 2009 Russian Parliament adopted a law introduced by then-President Dmitry Medvedev that gave the state the right to use military force to intervene in other countries where a Russian minority’s “interests and dignity” would be at risk.

The Obama administration warned Putin on Friday against a possible military intervention. In a phone call, President Barack Obama urged Putin to seek a political solution. Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that it would be a “grave mistake” for Russia to use military force in Ukraine.

Kremlin Ties

Putin struck a multibillion-dollar deal with Yanukovych in December, tying him closely to the Kremlin. Ukraine’s opposition leaders said this influence is behind Ukraine’s forceful response to the protesters, which killed dozens in clashes with riot police last week.

The protests in Ukraine were sparked by Yanukovych’s decision to align with Russia and move away from a trade agreement with the European Union last November.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/526785-as-olympics-end-putins-response-to-ukraine-feared/.

Moscow court sends 7 to prison for protest rally

February 24, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court has handed down prison sentences of up to four years for seven people who took part in a 2012 protest against Vladimir Putin. An eighth defendant received a suspended sentence.

Hundreds of their supporters gathered outside the courthouse to condemn the trial and the Kremlin's crackdown on opposition. Police detained more than 100 of them, accusing them of violating public order.

The defendants were among 28 people rounded up after the May 6, 2012, protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration for a third presidential term. The rally turned violent after police restricted access to Bolotnaya Square, across the river from the Kremlin, where the protesters had planned to gather.

The eight defendants were found guilty last week but sentencing was postponed until Monday.

Hardline Iran cleric warns against resuming US ties

Tehran (AFP)
Feb 21, 2014

A prominent hardline cleric in Iran warned on Friday against the Islamic republic resuming ties with the United States, and said any attempt to do so would prove futile.

"Some people have created an underground network for establishing relations with the America," Ayatollah Ahmad Janati told crowds at Friday prayers in Tehran, in comments broadcast by state media.

"Our people are anti-American -- you should be anti-American as well. Why did you go a different way from the people?" Janati asked, addressing those alleged to be behind the move.

"As long as our people and our supreme leader do not want it, your efforts will not bear any fruit," added Janati, who heads the powerful Guardians Council electoral watchdog.

His comments sparked chants of "Death to the America!" and "Death to Israel!" from the thousands of Friday worshipers.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all Iranian state matters including foreign policy and the nuclear issue.

Icy ties between Tehran and world powers have thawed since President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, defeated a pool of conservatives in last June's presidential election after vowing to engage constructively with the West.

The most remarkable development to date was a 15-minute telephone conversation between Rouhani and his US counterpart Barack Obama in New York in September.

It was the first direct contact between the leaders of the two nations since diplomatic ties were severed after the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran from 1979-1981.

But Khamenei later said he deemed part of Rouhani's New York trip as inappropriate, but without referring directly to the phone call.

The two countries' foreign ministers, Mohammad Javad Zarif and John Kerry, have also met several times, most recently at the Munich International Security Conference.

Zarif has gone so far as to tell Russian television that Washington could one day reopen its embassy in Tehran.

Iran's hardliners and many lawmakers are also critical of a landmark nuclear agreement agreed in November.

They question what Tehran stands to gain from the deal, under which it agreed to roll back parts of its controversial nuclear drive for six months in exchange for modest sanctions relief.

Western nations and the country's arch-enemy Israel have long suspected Iran of covertly seeking nuclear weapons alongside its civilian program, an allegation denied by Tehran.

The conservative-dominated parliament has frequently summoned Zarif and other ministers for questioning on a variety of issues, including the Zarif-Kerry meetings...

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Hardline_Iran_cleric_warns_against_resuming_US_ties_999.html.

Mt. Gox shut down its website, allegedly lost 744,000 bitcoins

By Ananth Baliga
Feb. 25, 2014

TOKYO, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Uncertainty surrounds the future of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox after it shut down its website Tuesday and and ceased bitcoin trading.

The company seems to have gone underground and has not communicated or commented on any of these recent developments. A document, which looks like a Mt. Gox internal memo, has been circulating the internet alleging that the exchange may have lost 744,000 bitcoins in theft over several years.

Six bitcoin companies released a joint statement condemning Mt. Gox's handling of its exchange.

"This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants. As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today. Mt. Gox has confirmed its issues in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community"

It seems companies are worried that Mt. Gox's actions could reflect badly on the entire Bitcoin community, which has faced skepticism for several quarters. Apart from Mt. Gox's actions, the arrest of former Bitcoin Foundation executive Charles Shrem for money laundering and black market website Silk Road, which used bit coins to trade illicit and illegal items, being shut down by federal authorities has cast aspersions on the validity of the crypto currency.

The internal memo was published by San Francisco-based entrepreneur Ryan Selkis, who writes the blog 'The Two-Bit Idiot.' According to Selkis, he has confirmed the authenticity of the document with two independent sources. The document also alleged that the company was about to be acquired by another company.

Tuesday's developments follow Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles' resignation from the Bitcoin Foundation Monday and the company deleting all its Twitter posts.

But a few questions remain unanswered -- Who is controlling the bitcoins allegedly lost by Mt. Gox and would Mt. Gox users be able to access their bitcoin wallets?

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2014/02/25/Mt-Gox-shut-down-its-website-allegedly-lost-744000-bitcoins/9131393339645/.