Taiwan to open new cyberwar unit: report

Taipei (AFP)
May 29, 2013

Taiwan is preparing to launch a fourth cyberwar unit, a local newspaper reported Wednesday, in response to what it claims is a growing security threat from Chinese hackers.

The new unit is scheduled to open on July 1 and will work to counter cyber attacks on government websites, said the Taipei-based newspaper United Evening News.

It will bring to four the number of Taiwanese military units assigned to cyberwar and information-related tasks, added the paper.

The defense ministry declined to comment on the report.

Taiwanese government websites have frequently come under cyber attack from China, usually during disputes between the two sides, military authorities say.

In the six months to June last year, hackers launched more than one million attacks on the website of Taiwan's National Security Bureau (NSB), the Liberty Times reported.

The NSB did not reveal how many of the attacks came from China while saying all hacking attempts were blocked.

But the bureau described the perceived cyber threat from the mainland as "very severe" when asked to evaluate it in parliament two months ago.

"China's cyberwar capabilities were organized by the military and government units, using Internet viruses to attack Taiwan's government, economic and military websites," it said in a report cited by the Liberty Times.

However ties between Taipei and Beijing have improved markedly since Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008 on a platform of ramping up trade and tourism links with the mainland.

Ma was reelected in January 2012 for a second and final four-year term.

Yet China still considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, even though the island has ruled itself for more than 60 years after their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Taiwan_to_open_new_cyberwar_unit_report_999.html.

Japan lawmaker urges Abe effort on US, S.Korea

Washington (AFP)
March 12, 2014

An influential Japanese opposition lawmaker called Wednesday on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to work for more stable relations with the United States and South Korea after rifts over historical disputes.

Seiji Maehara, a former foreign minister and prominent member of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan, said that close allies Washington and Tokyo would inevitably have disagreements but should address them privately.

"Behind the scenes, we may fiercely argue with each other. But still we should showcase our strong bond to outsiders," Maehara said in Washington at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

"We have to understand precisely which country would benefit from a worsening of the Japan-US relationship," Maehara said, in a veiled reference to a rising China.

Abe, a conservative who led his bloc to crush the Democrats in the last two national elections, on December 26 paid a pilgrimage to the Yasukuni shrine which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead and which China and South Korea associate with Japan's past militarism.

The United States, in a rare rebuke of Tokyo, said it was "disappointed" by Abe's visit. An aide to Abe later hit back that it was Japan that was disappointed by the United States.

Maehara did not directly criticize Abe, who is known for his right-leaning views on history, but noted that government leaders during the Democrats' 2009-2012 tenure refrained from visiting the Yasukuni shrine or reviewing Japan's historical apologies.

Abe's government has said that it is reviewing but will not revise Japan's landmark 1993 apology to wartime sex slaves known as "comfort women," an issue that stirs passions in South Korea.

Maehara urged efforts to build relations with South Korea, saying that he was struck during visits to Seoul by widespread opposition to officially pacifist Japan's consideration of allowing "collective self-defense" -- or expanding its doctrine to assist the United States in the event of an attack.

"I believe Prime Minister Abe, as far as he aims at changing the interpretation on collective self-defense, needs to explore every possible way to improve the relations with South Korea," he said.

US President Barack Obama plans to visit Japan next month and added a stop in South Korea amid the strained relations.

A lawmaker from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, also on a visit to Washington, said that Abe was worried about "inaccurate depictions in the US public."

"Abe is the prime minister who is most concerned about deepening and strengthening the alliance and he is the only prime minister who will be able to produce concrete results," Katsuyuki Kawai, who said he spoke to Abe before his visit, told AFP.

Kawai noted that Abe was pushing ahead on a plan to move a US base within the crowded island of Okinawa, although a local mayor has vowed to resist the plan.

US-Japan relations took a hit in 2009 after the Democrats' election when prime minister Yukio Hatoyama vowed to review the plan to relocate the unpopular Futenma base.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_lawmaker_urges_Abe_effort_on_US_SKorea_999.html.

Ukraine supporters hope UN vote isolates Russia

March 15, 2014

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Supporters of Ukraine's territorial integrity are hoping to demonstrate the strength of opposition to Russia's takeover and possible annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in a U.N. Security Council vote on Saturday.

The resolution being put to a vote would reaffirm the council's commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity and declare that Sunday's referendum on whether Crimea should become part of Russia "can have no validity, and cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of Crimea."

Supporters know the U.S.-sponsored resolution is virtually certain to be vetoed by Russia, a permanent council member. But U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the resolution is aimed at "showing the extent of Russia's isolation as it pursues a non-peaceful path."

Supporters are certain that 13 of the 15 council members will vote "yes" and are hoping that China, a close ally of Russia, will abstain rather than join Russia in vetoing the measure. The draft resolution would reaffirm the Security Council's commitment "to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders." It also urges all parties "to pursue immediately the peaceful resolution of this dispute through direct political dialogue," to protect the rights of minorities in Ukraine.

China is very sensitive to the issue of territorial integrity because of Tibet and other restive areas, and China's U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi reiterated Beijing's support again Thursday for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for not interfering in other countries' internal affairs.

The Security Council has held six meetings on Ukraine in less than two weeks but has been unable to take any action because of Russia's veto power. A six-hour meeting in London Friday between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov failed to delay the referendum.

Lavrov said Moscow will make no decisions about Crimea's future, including whether to embrace it as a new territory, until after Sunday's vote, but Kerry said the results are all but a foregone conclusion, and urged Russia's parliament against accepting any offer to claim Crimea as its own.

Ukraine official: 2 dead, several hurt in shootout

March 15, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — Ukraine's acting interior minister says two people have been killed and several wounded in a shootout in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Arsen Avakhov wrote on his official Facebook page early Saturday that around 30 people "from both sides" were arrested during a shootout late on Friday. Russian state news agency Itar Tass reported that the clash occurred outside a building of the far-right Ukrainian nationalist group, Right Sector, although Avakhov made no mention of the group and said the incident was under investigation.

Violence has escalated in Ukraine's Russia-leaning east in recent days, as pro-Russia demonstrators have seized government buildings and clashed with supporters of the new Kiev government. At least one person died and 17 were wounded in clashes in the city of Donetsk on Thursday.

Slovakians to elect a new president

March 14, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakians vote for a new president Saturday as 14 hopefuls vie to succeed Ivan Gasparovic, the first since Slovakia's independence in 1993 to be elected to two five-year terms. Here is a look at the vote:

AT STAKE

The president has the power to pick the prime minister, appoint Constitutional Court judges and veto laws in this central European nation of 5.4 million. Parliament can override the veto with a simple majority, however, so most lawmaking powers reside in the prime minister.

THE FAVORITE

Prime Minister Robert Fico, 49, head of Slovakia's left-leaning SMER-Social Democracy party, led it to a landslide victory in 2012 that allowed the party to govern alone — a first for Slovakia. In his previous term, Slovakia adopted the euro in 2009. Fico was a vocal opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq but supported the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

HIS MAJOR RIVAL

Independent candidate Andrej Kiska, 51, is a successful businessman-turned philanthropist who wants to fight corruption and create a more efficient government. He attracts those appalled by a 2011 scandal in which a financial group allegedly bribed politicians in 2005-06 to win lucrative privatization deals.

NOTABLE OTHERS

Milan Knazko, 68, is a former actor, culture minister and leading figure of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

Radoslav Prochazka, at 41 the youngest candidate, is an independent conservative lawmaker with a degree from Yale Law School.

WHAT'S AHEAD

Polls predict a two-candidate runoff will be needed March 29 because no one is expected to win a majority in the first round. Fico tops the polls with up to 40 percent of the vote, while Kiska is projected to have nearly 28 percent and Knazko and Prochazka have about 10 percent each.

Canadian PM to visit Ukraine next week

March 15, 2014

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Prime Minister Stephen Harper will briefly visit Ukraine next week during a European trip, the first G7 leader to do so since the new government took office under the shadow of Russian intervention.

Harper is traveling to the Netherlands for the Nuclear Security Summit from March 24-25 in The Hague. But he will travel to Kiev on March 22 to meet the country's new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Harper said Friday that Canada remains united with its allies in recognizing the government of Ukraine, and in supporting Ukraine's sovereignty. Harper last visited Ukraine in October 2010. His visit follows Sunday's hastily called referendum in Crimea on splitting off from Ukraine and joining Russia.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says Canada won't recognize the outcome of the referendum.

Chinese president to make first EU visit

Brussels (AFP)
March 12, 2014

Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels on March 31 as part of trip to several EU countries, an EU statement said Wednesday.

Xi will be hosted by European Council head Hermann Van Rompuy and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, it said.

Xi's trip will "be the first visit ever by a Chinese president to EU institutions," the statement added.

On April 1, Xi will make a speech on EU-China relations at the College of Europe in the medieval city of Bruges where future EU civil servants are trained.

He will also visit Germany, France and the Netherlands during the trip.

China and the EU are major global trading partners but ties have been strained at times by dumping disputes over some Chinese imports and by EU criticism of Beijing's human rights record.

They have held regular, alternating annual summits since 1998 but China has up to now been represented by its prime minister when the meeting has been in the EU.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Chinese_president_to_make_first_EU_visit_999.html.

Surrounded Crimean commander makes desperate appeal for help

Kiev (AFP)
March 13, 2014

The commander of a surrounded Ukrainian military base in Crimea made a desperate appeal to his superiors Thursday to give him orders or he might have to shoot.

Yuliy Mamchur, commanding officer at Belbek air base in Crimea's capital Sevastopol, made his cry for help in a video address, broadcast on Ukrainian television, as tensions remained high on the Black Sea peninsula, now under de facto control by Russian forces.

"To avoid armed confrontations, I ask you to tell us as quickly as possible what commanding officers need to do if troops or members of their families come under threat," he urged.

"If you do not make a decision, we will act according to the status of the Ukrainian armed forces, even opening fire if need be," he warned.

Mamchur's appeal came as Russian forces have surrounded Crimean military bases for over a week and as the peninsula prepares to vote in a referendum on Sunday on joining Russia.

"We realize that we cannot resist for long against Russian troops that are greater in number, better armed and better trained, but we are prepared to fulfill our duty to the end," Mamchur said, adding that "Russian ultimatums have become increasingly demanding".

The defense ministry said interim Minister Igor Tenyukh had spoken to Mamchur on the phone Thursday, assuring him that "urgent measures" had been taken to back the units stationed in Crimea.

It did not however say what these measures were.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Surrounded_Crimean_commander_makes_desperate_appeal_for_help_999.html.

After Ukraine protest, radical group eyes power

March 14, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Shoppers in the center of Kiev were out of luck one recent afternoon: A clothing store and a cell phone shop were occupied by black-clad men in masks, and bulletproof vests. Not far away, toughs from the same group patrolled a major Kiev hotel, scaring visitors with their baseball bats, handguns and balaclavas.

Several weeks after mass protests ousted Russian-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych, hundreds of members of the radical ultranationalist group, the Right Sector, continue to patrol central streets and occupy buildings in Kiev, while some more radical members have burst into regional government offices, brandishing rifles, harassing bureaucrats and even punching a prosecutor.

The group isn't stopping at controlling the street: They want real power in government. To achieve that aim the Right Sector is trying to turn itself into a political party. And its leader, Dmytro Yarosh, plans to run for president in May.

Demonized by Russian state propaganda as fascists and accused of staging attacks against Russian-speakers and Jews, the Right Sector has been used by Moscow as the main reason it has sent troops into Crimea and warned about the need to protect Russian-speakers in the east.

But many here downplay the group's importance — and the threat it represents. The group has not received any posts in the new government and observers say it has little real clout or support in the polls. The Associated Press and other international news organizations have found no evidence of hate crimes. Ukraine's Jewish leaders have also spoken in support of the Maidan protests and the new government they have brought to power, and some Jews have served in the Maidan's self-defense units side-by-side with the Right Sector.

Yet the rightist organization still presents a headache for the new Ukrainian leadership with its armed presence in the streets, the antics of some of its members, its far-right rhetoric and symbols that some say are Nazi-inspired — amid Kiev's push to embrace Western values and integrate quickly with the European Union. At the same time, the group stands ready to provide fiercely patriotic men to counter Russia's military incursion. The group is recruiting volunteers ready to fight against Russia as the Crimean peninsula — occupied by Russian troops — prepares for a referendum on Sunday on splitting off from Ukraine and joining Russia.

"We are Ukrainian nationalists. A nationalist is a person who is ready to sacrifice their time, their freedom and even their life for the sake of Ukraine and Ukrainians," Andriy Tarasenko, a top member of the group told the AP in an interview. "If Ukraine is not for Ukrainians, then who is it for?"

Tarasenko hastened to add that all other ethnic groups living in Ukraine, such as ethnic Russians or Jews, should enjoy the same rights as Ukrainians. He and other members also deny that some of the group's symbols harken back to the swastika.

At the same time, he described ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars as the only indigenous people of Ukraine. "They don't have a land of their own anywhere else. All other states have their mother countries, states that must care about their people. The French have France to care about them; the Irish, Ireland," Tarasenko said. "It is normal and in the same way Ukraine must take care of Ukrainians. No one else in the world will do that."

Tarasenko spoke to AP on the sixth floor of the Dnipro hotel in the center of Kiev. The floor was occupied entirely by the group. Two heavily armed men in military-style uniforms, one of them with a shaved head, thoroughly checked an AP crew and wrote down their names before letting them in. Other visitors entering the floor, mostly Right Sector members, were made to hand over their weapons and scribble the weapons' names — "knife" ''pistol holster" Makarov pistol" — on small pieces of paper in order to collect them on the way out.

A prominent member of the Right Sector, Oleksandr Muzychko, recently stirred turmoil by storming into a local parliament building in the city of Rivne, brandishing a Kalashnikov rifle. Muzychko threatened to confiscate the property of regional lawmakers affiliated with Yanukovych's party if they didn't pay compensation to the families of the killed protesters.

He also used a highly derogatory word to describe protest leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who later became Ukraine's prime minister, and suggested that Yatsenyuk belonged in a pig farm. "The one whose hand holds the Kalashnikov will be calling the shots," Muzychko said, clutching his weapon. During a separate incident, Muzychko stormed into a judicial office, insulted a prosecutor, pulled him by his tie and slapped him in the face.

Asked to comment on the incident, Tarasenko claimed Muzychko was merely trying to protect that prosecutor from an angry mob that had gathered outside. The Right Sector is an umbrella group that unites several right-wing organizations. It appeared practically out of nowhere in late November, when Kiev was rocked by mass protests against Yanukovych's decision to embrace Russia and freeze ties with the EU.

The organization was key in keeping the protests going for more than three months and in staging violent confrontations with police, which eventually culminated in bloody clashes that prompted Yanukovych to flee to Russia. Nearly 100 people died in the clashes, the overwhelming majority of them protesters.

Some experts dismiss the power of the Right Sector as a powerful force that could inflict real harm. "The Right Sector is marginal," said Andreas Umland, assistant professor of European studies at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, who studies nationalist groups. "It's an umbrella organization of extra parliamentary lunatic fringe groups that has now come to this big prominence largely because of the media. ... Its importance is certainly overstated."

OSCE: Apparent Russian troops at Crimea roadblocks

March 12, 2014

VIENNA (AP) — A multinational observer mission says Russian armed forces were apparently present at roadblocks where its team was stopped repeatedly at gunpoint from entering Ukraine's tense Crimea region.

The finding appears to be the first time Russian troops — and not Russian-backed local militias — are specifically implicated by international observers as playing a role in controlling Crimea. The observers were sent by the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the military situation in Crimea, which is preparing for a referendum on whether to join with Russia.

An OSCE statement Wednesday said the team observed "significant evidence ... consistent with the presence" of Russian troops, including license plates and markings associated with Russian forces. The observers were prevented from entering Crimea five times over the past week.

3 shot dead during unrest in central Venezuela

March 13, 2014

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A university student, a National Guard captain and a third man were shot to death in separate incidents Wednesday as anti-government protests roiled the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. Three National Guardsmen and several protesters were wounded.

Two of the deaths came in the opposition-dominated Isabelica neighborhood, where residents unhappy with the scarcity of basic items and rising unemployment from the closure of some businesses in the area have protested for weeks by blocking streets and throwing rocks at police.

Valencia Mayor Miguel Cocchiola said a man was killed and six people wounded in Isabelica. The newspaper Notitarde de Valencia said the dead man's cousin, Luis Acosta, identified him as 22-year-old student Jesus Enrique Acosta and said he was killed near his home by men on motorcycles, but it was unclear if the victim was participating in a protest.

The opposition has accused the government of supporting armed civilian thugs who attack protests. The mayor later said through his Twitter account that another man, 42-year-old Guillermo Sanchez, also died from a gunshot wound in Isabelica. He said Sanchez was painting the front of his house when he was shot.

Carabobo state Gov. Francisco Ameliach, who supports the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro, announced via Twitter that National Guard Capt. Ramzor Ernesto Bracho also was killed in Valencia. The federal prosecutor's office said another guardsman was wounded in that shooting. The office reported earlier that a lieutenant colonel and two guardsmen were wounded by bullets while clearing a barricade blocking a highway in the city.

A month of student-led demonstrations in a number of Venezuelan cities has left at least 25 people dead, according to the government. Venezuelans fed up with inflation that reached 56 percent last year, long lines for buying some items at grocery stores and one of the highest homicide rates in the world have joined students in protesting against the government.

Wednesday's death toll matched the highest single day total exactly one month after that mark was set Feb. 12. Maduro's governing bloc, which easily won municipal elections in December, shows no sign of collapse. The president accuses the opposition of trying to instigate his overthrow, but his party controls the legislature and judiciary, retains the support of the military and counts as members the governors of all but three states.

After mentioning the Valencia violence to a group of students at a government rally, Maduro said he would convene a special meeting of his security cabinet Wednesday evening. "I'm going to take drastic measures with all of these sectors that are attacking and killing the Venezuelan people," he said.

In the national capital of Caracas, pro- and anti-government student groups approaching 10,000 people staged competing marches. When the larger opposition group tried to move toward the chief public defender's office to demand his resignation, security forces blocked the way. After negotiations failed to break the impasse, some protesters hurled rocks and National Guard troops responded with water cannons and tear gas.

Jorge Olivares, a 21-year-old chemical engineering student at Simon Bolivar University who joined the anti-government march, said the protests would not push Maduro from office, but expressed hope that the general discontent would guarantee a win for the opposition in the next election.

He also said security forces seemed to be getting tougher in dealing with the daily protests. "Something has changed," Olivares said. "Each time there's more repression." In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left open the possibility of sanctions, but said there was concern that in Venezuela's fragile economic state that sanctions might not be appropriate.

He said Maduro's frequent accusations that the U.S. is participating in a conspiracy against his government have made it difficult for the U.S. to influence the situation. "We have become an excuse, we are a card they play," Kerry said. "I regret that because we pretty much opened up and reached out in an effort to say, 'It doesn't have to be this way.'"

The UNASUR group of South American nations said Wednesday that it will send a commission of foreign ministers to Venezuela in April to encourage dialogue on resolving the political conflict. The Venezuelan political opposition and student leaders have refused to speak with the government until it releases jailed protesters.

Associated Press writers Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington, Andrew Rosati in Caracas, Vivian Sequera in Bogota and Luis Andres Henao in Santiago contributed to this report.

Leftist declared winner in Salvador's election

March 14, 2014

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's electoral court on Thursday declared leftist candidate Salvador Sanchez Ceren the winner of the tight presidential election, making him the first former rebel commander to win the presidency of a nation where 76,000 died in a civil war.

With all the votes counted, the electoral court announced on its website that Sanchez Ceren, candidate of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the FMLN, got 50.1 percent of the votes. Norman Quijano of the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance party, known as ARENA, had 49.9 percent.

With about 3 million ballots cast in Sunday's runoff election, Sanchez Ceren won by less than 7,000 votes, and Quijano's party vowed to appeal the election until a new ballot is held. ARENA informed its members it had filed a complaint with El Salvador's attorney general, where it is presenting evidence of fraud. So far it has not made any such evidence public.

Outgoing President Mauricio Funes was a journalist who was sympathetic to the FMLN rebels during the 1980-92 civil war but was never a guerrilla, unlike Sanchez Ceren, who most recently served as Funes' vice president.

A campaign comparing El Salvador's left to Venezuela's ruling socialist bloc brought Quijano from far behind in the polls to the near tie. Sanchez Ceren has sought to distance himself from Venezuela's crisis, saying during his campaign: "El Salvador is not and cannot be Venezuela."

He said his role model is Uruguayan President Jose "Pepe" Mujica, who spent 14 years in prison during Uruguay's dictatorship. A flower-farming former guerrilla, Mujica gives away 90 percent of his presidential salary, doesn't have a bank account, drives a 41-year-old Volkswagen and never wears a tie.

"Mujica is the example to follow, because he works on two main fronts: development and social investment," Sanchez Ceren said. He has promised to maintain good relations with the United States, where hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran migrants live.

Much like Mujica, Sanchez Ceren, 69, favors rolled-up shirt sleeves and usually eschews suits and ties. Close associates call him "Profe," or "Teacher," a reference to his beginnings as a grade-school teacher in a poor rural school.

"In truth, at the end of the day, I'm a teacher, and my greatest pride is when people call me 'Teacher,'" Sanchez Ceren said at a ceremony in February where he was given an honorary doctorate by the country's National University.

Sanchez Ceren was one of 12 children born to a carpenter and a food vendor. Once he started working, he quickly became an activist in the teachers union, pressing demands for better salaries and working conditions. Amid bloody repression of union leaders in El Salvador in the 1970s, he gravitated toward the rebel movement, then a series of leftist groups allied under the umbrella of the FMLN.

By 1978, Sanchez Ceren headed into the mountains as an armed guerrilla, and by 1983 he became one of the rebels' five top commanders, using the nom-de-guerre "Comandante Leonel Gonzalez." He was seen within the movement as an advocate of dialogue, and he served as a negotiator in the 1992 peace accord that ended the war.

"He is true to his revolutionary principles. He is a stalwart who is a life-long party member, but he is not stuck in the past," said Miguel Montenegro, an official of El Salvador's Human Rights Commission.

Sanchez Ceren is likely to face continued resistance from emboldened activists of ARENA, which governed El Salvador for two decades before losing the presidency to Funes in 2009. Ernesto Muyshondt, ARENA's vice president for ideology, said Thursday that there is strong evidence that members of the FMLN party engaged in double voting across the country.

"We have testimonies, we have videos where people who work closely with FMLN talk about how they did it," Muyshondt said. ARENA has filed complaints with the electoral tribunal and with federal prosecutors and has said it will appeal the results to the country's Supreme Court.

Sanchez Ceren also has to deal with one of the highest murder rates in the world. A 2012 gang truce seemed to cut the country's daily average of 14 dead by half, but the drop appears to have been short-lived. Police statistics show 501 murders the first two months of this year, an increase of more than 25 percent over the same period of 2013.

Influx of CAR refugees into Chad

Wed Mar 12, 2014

Chad is struggling to manage the influx of refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) as its resources are limited.

The Chadian government is sheltering more than 80,000 refugees from the CAR in transit centers across the country.

This is while thousands of people have been neglected by the authorities and humanitarian agencies, and many are suffering from severe malnutrition and with no shelter other than the shade of trees.

“It is unacceptable for thousands of men, women and children who were forced to leave CAR fearing for their lives, to die here in Chad for lack of even the most basic assistance. It is important that the Chadian government and the international community including the UN agencies urgently assist these people and ensure that they have security, access to food, medical services, and adequate shelter,” Christian Mukosa, the Central Africa Researcher at Amnesty International, said.

Doctors Without Borders’ emergency coordinator, Foura Sassou Madi, said refugees fleeing the violence in the Central African Republic are arriving in Chad in very precarious conditions in need of medical assistance.

Tens of thousands of civilians have crossed from the Central African Republic into southern Chad in the past three months. Most of them are Muslims and are sleeping in makeshift shelters near the border. The CAR has been facing deadly violence since December 2013, when Christian armed groups launched coordinated attacks against the mostly Muslim Seleka group, which toppled the government in March 2013.

On March 11, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said ongoing violence pushed most Muslims out of the western side of the CAR.

According to the UN, more than 950,000 people have been displaced and thousands more killed by violence in the country.

The atrocities take place despite the intervention of French troops in the former colony. On December 5, 2013, France invaded the CAR after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution giving the African Union and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/354321.html.

Philippines drops food to troops after China 'blockade'

Manila (AFP)

March 13, 2014

The Philippine military said Thursday it had evaded a Chinese sea blockade by using an airplane to drop food to soldiers on a tiny and remote South China Sea shoal claimed by both countries.

The incident was the latest to escalate tensions between the Asian nations over their conflicting claims to parts of the South China Sea, a major sealane and rich fishing ground that is believed to hold vast mineral resources.

“We confirmed there was an airdrop of food to our troops,” Defense Department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said.

He said the airdrop was “via airplane,” but did not say when it occurred nor give further details.

The incident took place at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly island group, which is around 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and which Manila insists is part of its continental shelf.

The shoal is more than 1,000 kilometers from Hainan island, the closest Chinese landmass, but China claims nearly all of the South China Sea based on what it says are historical records.

A tiny unit of Filipino marines live on the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit, beached former World-War-II US navy transport ship that was transferred to the Philippine navy and run aground on the shoal in the 1990s.

Troops on the 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) long ship have ever since guarded the shoal.

China has long demanded the Philippines pull out the vessel and the marines.

But the Philippines said this week that Chinese coastguard ships blocked two Philippine-flagged civilian vessels on March 9 as they were carrying supplies and personnel to the shoal.

The Philippines said this was the first time there had been such Chinese resistance.

The Philippines issued a diplomatic protest over the incident, but China in response reiterated its position that the shoal was Chinese territory.

The Philippines and China, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all claim parts or all of the South China Sea.

The Philippine government has accused China of becoming increasingly aggressive in asserting its claims to the sea. Last year it initiated United Nations arbitration to settle the dispute, but China refused to participate.

The Philippines also last month accused Chinese ships of using water cannon to drive away Filipino fishermen who were approaching Scarborough Shoal, another South China Sea outcrop.

Source: Space War.

Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Philippines_drops_food_to_troops_after_China_blockade_999.html.

Baseball, softball merge to seek Games return

Sun Apr 14, 2013

(Reuters) - The governing bodies of baseball and softball have merged in a bid to win back their spot on the Olympic program, the heads of the federations said on Sunday.

The newly named World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) will campaign for a return to the Olympic program at the 2020 Games as a single sport. The International Olympic Committee will pick one sport to be included in the 2020 program at its meeting in September.

Seven other sports - wushu, squash, karate, wakeboarding, sports climbing, roller sports and wrestling - are also vying for Olympic inclusion.

The IOC's executive board voted to drop wrestling from the list of core sports for the 2020 Games, forcing it to join seven other candidate sports seeking one spot in a revamped program.

"This is an historic day," said Riccardo Fraccari, the president of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and co-president of the new WBSC.

"We have brought a new level of worldwide unity and determination to our quest to return to the Games.

"The 65 million currently playing baseball and softball around the world now have a single federation to rally behind," he added after a new joint constitution was ratified.

Baseball and softball were dropped from the program in 2005 and their last Olympic appearance came in Beijing three years later.

By joining into one global confederation they are now bidding as one unified sport rather than two, hoping to increase their chances of a return.

Olympic inclusion guarantees a sport millions of euros in funding from the IOC, sponsors and broadcasters, while being cut from the program severely limits a sport's global appeal and reach.

"This is in the best interests of the athletes and putting the welfare of the athletes and the future of sport first, and inspiring young athletes to stand on the highest podium that an athlete can aspire to - the Olympic Games," Fraccari said.

The IOC will pick one sport to be included in the 2020 Olympics at its meeting in September but baseball and softball will first have to make it onto a May shortlist.

The IOC executive board will meet in St Petersburg in May to determine which of the seven sport will be put to the vote at the session in Buenos Aires, where the host city for the 2020 Games will also be chosen.

"Baseball-softball is a game that anyone, anywhere can play," said International Softball Federation chief and WBSC co-president Don Porter.

"There are no barriers to participation. If you've got a bat and ball you can play, regardless of age, gender, social, cultural or economic stature."

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/14/us-olympics-softball-baseball-idUSBRE93D02U20130414.

UK joins the planet hunt with Europe's PLATO mission

London, UK (SPX)
Mar 13, 2014

The UK is set to play a leading role in the search for habitable planets orbiting alien stars, following David Willett's announcement 11 March 2014 that the UK Space Agency will invest 25 million pounds in ESA's PLATO mission.

Planned for launch by 2024, the planet hunting mission will see strong involvement from several UK institutes, with Professor Don Pollacco from the University of Warwick providing UK scientific leadership for the European consortium.

With several UK space companies in a strong position to bid for the industrial opportunities that PLATO will produce, the UK's investment in the mission is also set to secure excellent return, generating economic growth and creating new jobs.

PLATO (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) was selected by ESA's Science Program Committee for implementation as part of its Cosmic Vision 2015-25 Program.

The mission will address two key themes of Cosmic Vision: what are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life, and how does the Solar System work?

Dr Chris Castelli, Acting Director of Technology, Science and Exploration at the UK Space Agency said:

"With strong involvement from our science community and UK industry, PLATO is an important mission for the UK. It's also a very exciting mission, as this is the first time we've been involved in a spacecraft designed to seek out habitable planets like our own."

PLATO will monitor relatively nearby stars, searching for tiny, regular dips in brightness as their planets transit in front of them, temporarily blocking out a small fraction of the starlight.

By using 34 separate small telescopes and cameras, PLATO will search for planets around up to a million stars spread over half of the sky.

It will also investigate seismic activity in the stars, enabling a precise characterization of the host sun of each planet discovered, including its mass, radius and age.

Professor Don Pollacco from the University of Warwick, said:

"PLATO is the logical next step in our search for extrasolar planets. It will revolutionize our knowledge of rocky planets and will enable the first directed search for life around sun-like stars in the next decade."

When coupled with ground-based radial velocity observations, PLATO's measurements will allow a planet's mass and radius to be calculated, and therefore its density, providing an indication of its composition.

The mission will identify and study thousands of exoplanetary systems, with an emphasis on discovering and characterizing Earth-sized planets and super-Earths in the habitable zone of their parent star - the distance from the star where liquid surface water could exist.

The UK and PLATO

The UK, together with other ESA member states, will design PLATO's scientific instruments and finance their development while ESA commissions the spacecraft to be built in European industry. Eleven UK Institutes (Birmingham, Cambridge, Keele, Leicester, Open University, Oxford, Queens Belfast, Queen Mary's London, St Andrews, Warwick, UCL MSSL) have involvement in PLATO and Prof Don Pollacco of Warwick University is the Science Consortium Leader for the mission.

Professor Alan Smith, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, will lead the Focal Plane Array development for the detection system, with support from Leicester and the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.

The Ground System Exoplanet Analysis software development program is being co-ordinated by Dr Nic Walton at the IoA in Cambridge.

UK industry is well placed to bid for the build of the spacecraft and the development of the sophisticated CCD detectors needed for PLATO's camera.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/UK_joins_the_planet_hunt_as_Government_pledges_25_million_pounds_to_Europes_PLATO_mission_999.html.

"Space Odyssey": China's aspiration in future space exploration

by Xinhua Writers Ji Shaoting and Wang Wen
Beijing (XNA)
Mar 13, 2014

In near future, in outer space, Chinese scientists and their international colleagues, perhaps in the company of robots, will seek knowledge in labs on China's future space station. Aboard the space station, deep in space, researchers will probe the profound mysteries of the universe, while explorers penetrate the darkness beyond both Moon and Mars.

This is no sci-fi movie, but a vision of the future presented to the people' s congress and members of the CPPCC during the two sessions. The vision is of a "space odyssey" for China' s future and for space exploration.

China's Future Space Station

By the year of 2020, the International Space Station is expected to be retired, while, in that same year, China's space station should be complete. China's station may then be mankind's only foothold in space.

Zhang Bonan, chief designer of the program, told Xinhua that the station will be multi-cabin with a large capacity and high power. "The 2020 space station will be a national space lab," Zhang said.

"Experiments there will be diverse and flexible," he said, "International cooperation will be encouraged and the door of the lab will open for any experiments that fit the requirements."

New Flight System

The first step to the stars is new technology, principally in supply lines. A cargo ship named "Tianzhou" (Heavenly Vessel) is planned to ferry cargo back and forth to the station.

China is expected to launch a cargo ship around 2016 to serve the Tiangong-2 space laboratory, said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the manned space program and member of the National Committee of the CPPCC.

The cargo ship will be delivered into space by the new Long March-7 carrier rocket and dock with Tiangong-2 automatically, Zhou said.

A cargo transportation system that supplies goods and propellants is key to China building its own space station, he said.

Liang Xiaohong, Party chief of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, also a member of the National Committee, explained that the Long March carrier rocket series is already industrialized. By 2020, China will meet a market demand of more than 270 domestic and 460 foreign launches.

The Tianzhou cargo ship and the Long March rocket will be ready around 2016, heralding a new era in space transportation. Moreover, China is expected to launch a "space shuttle bus" this year to carry payload.

The "space shuttle bus", Yuanzheng-1 (Expedition-1) is an upper stage aircraft attached to a carrier rocket. It can carry spacecraft, using its own power, into an initial orbit, Liang Xiaohong said. It has the same function as a carrier rocket and can take multiple craft to different locations, Liang said.

Yuanzheng-1 will play an important role in future moon and Mars exploration as well as orbital transfer and space debris clearing, he said. From the Earth to the Moon

While the Jade Rabbit moon rover sleeps on the moon, other dreams are taking wing.

Preparation for the 2017 launch of lunar probe Chang'e-5 is going as planned, said Ye Peijia, a top scientist with the Chang'e-3 lunar probe mission.

Chang'e-5, as part of China's third-phase lunar program, is expected to bring back moonrock samples to Earth, which Ye believes will be "a historic moment".

The more sophisticated Chang'e-5, including unmanned sampling and returning, requires breakthroughs in moon surface takeoff technology, sampling encapsulation, rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit, as well as high-speed Earth reentry.

To make sure the mission is a success, a Chang'e-5 test probe will be launched this year to rehearse the route, Ye disclosed.

Chang'e-2, launched on Oct. 1, 2010, is now China's first man-made asteroid, about 70 million km from Earth and heading into deep space. Ye said the ship could travel as far as 300 million km from Earth. "New discoveries cannot be ruled out," Ye said.

"We plan to send a manned mission to the moon. The Earth is our cradle, and humanity will go out from here someday. The moon is the nearest: if we cannot land on it, where else can we go?" he said.

The Martian Chronicles

China now has the capability to explore Mars by sending a probe to circle the planet and land, Ye said. The only question is when.

Humanity has launched more than 40 missions to planets in the solar system and over half of them have failed.

Zhang Bonan said that the logjam for a manned mission to Mars is still the technology.

"Exploration is the ultimate target of human beings. If we cannot break through the technological bottleneck, the future for the whole species will be bleak."

The life of Earth is limited compared with that of the whole universe, Zhang said.

"The future lies beyond the Earth," he said.

"We know so little about the Milky Way, and the whole universe is even more vast. There's too much for us to know," he said, adding that the "unknown" is the biggest drive for humans to explore.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Space_Odyssey_Chinas_aspiration_in_future_space_exploration_999.html.

First space tourists to fly around Mars and Venus in 2021

Moscow (Voice of Russia)
Mar 13, 2014

American congressmen seem to be seriously interested in the idea of a space expedition in the course of which the spaceship will make flies around Venus and Mars. Several days ago, the Congress's Committee of Science asked NASA to estimate the possibility of realization of such a flight (it is supposed that NASA would also take part in it). It is expected that the flight will start in November 2021 and will last 582 days, and that a married couple will take part in it.

The idea to send a married couple to space first occurred to Dennis Tito, who is known as the first person to fly to space as a "tourist", not a professional astronaut. According to Mr. Tito's initial idea, the expedition was to take place in 2018 and last 501 days. Initially, it was planned to make a rotation only around Mars.

Dennis Tito planned to use a private rocket and spaceship for this project. However, the private non-commercial fund "Inspiration Mars Foundation", which was collecting money for this project, failed to collect the needed sum. There were several other uncertainties as well. Then, Dennis Tito realized that he would hardly be able to bring this project to life without NASA.

He added a flight around Venus to his project, postponed the launch to 2021 and turned to NASA. The year 2021 was chosen because it is planned that by that time, NASA will finish the construction of a spaceship called "Orion" and a heavy launch rocket "Space Launch System". It is on them that Dennis Tito wants to carry out his expedition.

Mr. Tito says that the whole project would cost $ 1 bln. His fund has promised to give $ 300 mln, and the rest, as he hopes, would be allocated by NASA.

At a hearing devoted to this case in the Congress committee, the majority of speakers expressed the opinion that this project is quite realizable. However, Alexander Zheleznyakov from the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics has some doubts about this.

"Quite likely, both the spaceship and the launch rocket will really be ready by 2021," Academician Zheleznyakov says. "But I doubt that NASA would agree to immediately send them to such a long and risky flight without any preliminary tests. The congressmen who are supporting this project do not probably realize to the full how difficult and risky it really is."

Somebody has already called Dennis Tito's project "an interesting interlink" between space missions no further than the Earth's orbit and flights to other planets.

The head of the Congress's commission Lamar Smith is actively supporting Dennis Tito's initiative. Mr. Smith says that NASA has not put forward any interesting ideas for a rather long time.

The US astronautics is now not what it once used to be, and no one else than President Obama and his administration should be blamed for this, Lamar Smith believes. For example, President Obama has cancelled a flight to the Moon in favor of an expedition to an asteroid. However, many experts do not take this asteroid project seriously.

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Russian magazine "Voprosy Kosmonavtiki" ("Issues of Cosmonautics") Igor Lisov notes that no representative of NASA spoke at the hearings over Dennis Tito's project:

"The project was presented by people who once used to work for NASA but are now private individuals. I believe that there are practically no chances that NASA would accept this project. At least, NASA's draft budget for 2015 does not mention anything of the kind."

However, the idea of a flight around Venus and Mars is too fascinating to reject it. One year ago, when the first variant of this project was announced, a lot of people offered their candidatures as the "space tourists". Several scientists have also suggested some interesting ideas about how to better protect the crew from space radiation.

Besides, in 2021, Mars and Venus will come close to each other, which does not happen very often, and it would be convenient to make a fight to both planets without spending much fuel. The next such chance will occur only 12 years later.

As for Dennis Tito himself, he considers his project to be a daring challenge, but a quite realizable thing. He does not give up hope that once, officials who have the authority to make his initiative a government project will do that.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/First_space_tourists_to_fly_around_Mars_and_Venus_in_2021_999.html.

Tracing the Canals of Mars

by Richard Milner for Astrobiology Magazine
Moffett Field CA (SPX)
Oct 07, 2011

In a remarkable discovery, images taken over the past five years by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which circles Mars to photograph the planet, seem to indicate the presence of water there.

For decades, space scientists searched the red planet without detecting the life-sustaining liquid, and concluded that it was bone-dry.

Last August, however, scientists found dozens of slopes across the southern hemisphere of Mars where previously undetected dark streaks come and go with the seasons.

When the planet heats up, the streaks appear and expand downhill, and disappear when it gets cold. Scientists think it may be evidence of melted, salty water running down slopes during the Martian summer.

Five image sequences from the Newton crater and one from the Horowitz crater show the black lines appearing near the tops of slopes and then growing into scores of "streaks" that remain for months until the cold weather returns and they disappear. At Newton Crater, photos indicate as many as 1,000 of these possible streams flowing down the slopes and into a basin.

If confirmed, the discovery would fundamentally change our understanding of Mars, lending support to the theory that the planet was once far more wet and warm, and would renew hope that it may be able to support life.

But before back around 120 years ago, at least one prominent astronomer was convinced that Mars not only supported life, but was home to an advanced civilization that built an extensive network of canals to draw water down from supposed icecaps at the red planet's poles to irrigate a world that was drying out...

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Tracing_the_Canals_of_Mars_999.html.

Piecing together a global color map of Saturn's largest moon

Nantes, France (SPX)
Oct 07, 2011

An international team led by the University of Nantes has pieced together images gathered over six years by the Cassini mission to create a global mosaic of the surface of Titan. The global maps and animations of Saturn's largest moon are being presented by Stephane Le Mouelic at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France on Tuesday 4th October.

The team has compiled all the infrared images acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) during Cassini's first seventy flybys of Titan. Fitting the pieces of the puzzle together is a painstaking task.

The images must be corrected for differences in the illuminating conditions and each image is filtered on a pixel-by-pixel basis to screen out atmospheric distortions.

Titan is veiled by a thick, opaque atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen. It has clouds of methane and ethane and there is increasing evidence for methane rain. Only a few specific infrared wavelengths can penetrate the cloud and haze to provide a window down to Titan's surface. An exotic frozen world with many Earth-like geological features has progressively emerged from darkness.

Stephane Le Mouelic explains: "As Cassini is orbiting Saturn and not Titan, we can observe Titan only once a month on average. The surface of Titan is therefore revealed year after year, as pieces of the puzzle are progressively put together. Deriving a final map with no seams is challenging due to the effects of the atmosphere - clouds, mist etc. - and due to the changing geometries of observation between each flyby."

Cassini has made 78 flybys of Titan since it arrived in orbit around Saturn in July 2004. A further 48 flybys are planned up to 2017. On flybys to date, VIMS has only had a few opportunities to observe Titan with a high spatial resolution. This means that the global map currently shows some regions of Titan in more detail than others.

"We have created the maps using low resolution images as a background with the high resolution data on top. In the few opportunities where we have VIMS imagery from the closest approach, we can show details as low as 500 meters per pixel.

"An example of this is from the 47th flyby, which allowed the observation of the site where the Huygens descent module landed. This observation is a key one as it might help us to bridge the gap between the ground truth provided by Huygens, and ongoing global mapping from orbit, which will continue up to 2017."

In addition to improving the spatial coverage, future mapping will allow the observation of seasonal changes in both the atmosphere and the surface. As spring comes to the northern hemispheres of Saturn and its moons, some areas are only now coming into view.

"Lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere were first discovered by the RADAR instrument in 2006, appearing as completely smooth areas. However, we had to wait up to June 2010 to obtain the first infrared images of the northern lakes, emerging progressively from the northern winter darkness," says Le Mouelic.

"The infrared observations provide the additional opportunity to investigate the composition of the liquids within the lakes area. Liquid ethane has already been identified by this means."

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Piecing_together_a_global_colour_map_of_Saturn_largest_moon_999.html.

Russia's solar potential

Brussele, Belgium (SPX)
Oct 07, 2011

Russia is the biggest country in the world and one of biggest suppliers of oil and gas has not yet seen a real need to develop a market for solar technologies.

This might change during the next few years - says Tomasz Slusarz, CEO of Solar PV Consulting - observing the policy and market situation on the global markets for the past 8 years and comparing it to the current situation in Russia, he is confident that cumulative solar installed capacity in Russia can reach above 1 or even 2 GW by 2020. He is even ready to bet on it. Here are his three arguments to back the claim.

Argument 1: Growing energy demand

In 2009, the Russian Energy Agency was forecasting that 51.7 GW of capacity would be decommissioned by 2020, requiring more than 150 GW of new capacity to meet consumption growth during the current decade.

I also notice a growing understanding from Russian policy makers and the private sector that increased use of renewable energy technologies can help meet the growing demand.

The Energy Strategy of Russia has set a target of 4.5% for the installed renewable electricity generation by 2020 (including small hydro up to 25 MW), which means a requirement of 22 GW for the new installed capacity.

As there are no sectorial targets within the 4.5% target, theoretically, quasi whole renewable energy capacity can be built from small hydro, wind, biomass or geothermic sources. However, in my opinion, solar PV with its more and more competitive prices can become a quite an important piece of the 22 GW cake.

Increasingly competitive prices of solar PV generation will be confronted with rapidly growing electricity prices in the country. According to the 2010 Budget of the Russian Federation, in 2020 the average electricity tariffs for all users will reach a level of 10.5cents/kWh and residential tariffs 15.3cents/kWh, compared to today's 7cents/kWh.

Argument 2: Huge investments in production capacities

Russian solar industry and RUSNANO, a state-owned fund, have invested billions of dollars in new manufacturing facilities such as Hevel Solar (thin-film PV), and Nitol (large-scale polysilicon and monosilane manufacturing).

When looking at the increasingly competitive global solar markets, they realize the urgent need to establish a sustainable domestic market in order to help the Russian industry grow and be able to compete on export markets.

Few weeks ago we heard that Russia's North Caucasus region is about to set up its own Silicon Valley with a joint venture between the regional government and private businesses. The cost of the project would be around 1 billion USD with pre-estimated production volume of 12 billion USD per year, and 2 to 7 years of return on investments.

Polycrystalline silicon production would be located in Stavropol region, with monocrystalline silicon production set up in Kabardino-Balkaria. The final production of photovoltaic cells and solar modules would be located in Karachay-Cherkessia and Dagestan respectively.

I am quite sure that if the project is successful, a lot of modules will be installed not only in the region but also all over the country.

Argument 3: Russia - sunny country!

The technical potential of solar energy was estimated as 1.870 TWh, with an economic potential of around 101 GWh per year in the national report titled "Role of renewable energy sources in energy strategy of Russia".

The southern parts of Russia, especially the North Caucasus, have the greatest potential for solar energy. The Krasnodar Region and most parts of Siberia have insolation levels comparable to the south of France and central Italy while the Zabaikalsky Region gets more solar energy than Spain.

Argument 4: Big giants start to understand that solar PV can be a good business

It is worth to mention that today not only Renova group of companies, one of the largest diversified business groups in Russia, understand that solar energy can be a profitable investment.

Renova is a major shareholder of Oerlikon and controlling shareholder of Avelar Energy Group as well as a shareholder of previously mentioned Hevel Solar. It has also recently established NAVI Capital Management, a fund that is going to invest 200 million dollars in clean-tech innovation with an important focus on solar PV.

Lukoil, a major Russian oil company, in partnership with the government of Uzbekistan and the Asian Development Bank, is planning to construct Uzbekistan's largest solar plant, which will have an initial capacity of 100 MW, to expand eventually to 1 GW. Earlier this year Lukoil started to build its first 4 million dollar solar plant in Bulgaria.

These examples show that a growing number of Russian giant companies, with available financial resources, feel that investing in solar energy can be a good business strategy.

Moreover, I have heard from many companies exhibiting at 26EUPVSEC that their booths were visited by representatives from some of the biggest energy companies in Russia, which were potentially interested in investing in solar parks in Italy, Greece or Bulgaria. I am quite sure that at the end of the day these big companies will strongly support the development of a domestic solar market.

Source: Solar Daily.
Link: http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Russia_solar_potential_999.html.

Iran's Rouhani extends hand to Gulf monarchies

Muscat (AFP)
March 13, 2014

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sought Thursday to mend fences between his mainly-Shiite country and Sunni-dominated Gulf monarchies distrustful of Iran's nuclear ambitions and its support of the Syrian regime.

Rouhani, winding up a two-day visit to Oman, said the Islamic republic offered "a hand of fraternity to all the countries of the region."

"Relations with one country should not grow at the expense of another. We want to see the countries of the region live in peace, understanding and friendship," Rouhani told a business gathering in Muscat.

The sultanate maintains strong links with Iran and has played an important role as mediator between Western countries and Tehran.

But other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which besides Oman also comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have cool relations with Tehran.

Its Arab neighbors have expressed concern about the reliability of Iran's sole nuclear power plant at Bushehr in the southern Gulf and the risk of radioactive leaks should it be hit by a major earthquake.

Like world powers, they also fear a possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear drive, despite repeated assertions by Tehran that its atomic ambitions are peaceful.

Ties between Gulf countries and Iran have also been strained by Tehran's backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in its battle against rebels supported by the Arab monarchies.

"Cooperation and rapprochement would benefit the whole region," said Rouhani, adding that his country is "open to investors from the region, especially Omanis."

Oman and Iran are seeking to expand trade, which reached $1 billion last year, and bilateral investments which they expect will top $10 billion by the end of this year, Iranian Ambassador Ali Akbar Sibeveih said Monday.

Oil- and gas-rich Iran has been struggling to export its products due to strict US and European sanctions on Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

Iran and Oman signed a preliminary agreement Wednesday to build a $1 billion, 200-kilometer (125-mile) submarine pipeline to import gas from the Islamic republic...

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Irans_Rouhani_extends_hand_to_Gulf_monarchies_999.html.

India PM says border dispute with China can be solved

New Delhi (AFP)
April 27, 2013

India's prime minister said Saturday a dispute over an alleged incursion by Chinese troops deep inside Indian-claimed territory can be settled peacefully and warned against exacerbating tensions.

The reported Chinese infiltration across the disputed Himalayan border has strained ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors whose relations have long been chequered by mutual suspicion -- a legacy of a 1962 border war.

"We do believe it is possible to resolve this problem. Talks are going on," Prime Minister Manmoahn Singh said in his first comments on the incident in the Ladakh region normally controlled by India.

"It is a localized problem," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Indian analysts say a Chinese intrusion could be a response to New Delhi's drive to step up road-building near their de facto border to ferry Indian troops and counter China's build-up of military infrastructure.

Singh's statement came a day after Indian Defense Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma told parliamentarians Chinese soldiers had pitched their tents nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) inside Indian-claimed territory.

The premier's comments echoed other Indian ministers who have insisted the alleged incursion in the unpopulated desert area can be settled through diplomatic channels.

Beijing has made similar statements, with the Chinese government saying Friday both countries had the "capacity and wisdom" to defuse the row through "friendly consultation".

India has called on Beijing to withdraw its solders but China's foreign ministry earlier in the week denied Chinese troops had "crossed the lines".

Singh warned against stoking tensions between the Asian giants whose bilateral trade soared by a third to nearly $76 billion last year.

"We do not want to accentuate the situation," Singh said, adding New Delhi has "a plan", without elaborating.

Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid announced earlier in the week he will head for China on May 8, saying both countries had a mutual interest in not allowing the dispute to "destroy" long-term progress in ties.

An Indian foreign ministry official has said new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will travel to New Delhi late next month.

Lower-level talks between military officials have so far failed to break the impasse over the camp that New Delhi says Chinese troops set up on April 15.

The informal border separating China and India is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). While it has never been formally demarcated, the countries have signed two accords to maintain peace in frontier areas.

Small incursions of a few kilometers across the contested boundary are common but it is rare for either country to set up camps in disputed territory.

Sujit Datta, a Sino-Indian specialist at New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University, said the extent of the Chinese advance indicated a "planned operation" and reflected China's new assertiveness.

"Nineteen kilometers is a serious matter," Datta told AFP. "The Indian diplomats will have to do their job and talk tough to keep the Chinese at bay."

India's infrastructure buildup is "in response to the systematic Chinese building of roads and other facilities on the Chinese side", he added.

"The Chinese don't want India to equalize its infrastructure capacity -- they want to be in a position of strength along the border."

India increasingly sees Beijing as a longer-term threat to its security than traditional rival Pakistan. Last November, India was angered by a new map in Chinese passports showing disputed territories as its own.

India's conciliatory approach has drawn fire from the opposition with Jaswant Singh, a former defense minister under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government, calling New Delhi's response "inadequate".

The row with India comes as China's ties with its East Asian neighbors, especially Japan, have frayed over territorial disputes in the East and South China seas.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_PM_says_border_dispute_with_China_can_be_solved_999.html.