Spaceship designer who helped send Gagarin into orbit dies at 92

Moscow (AFP)
Sept 18, 2014

A spaceship designer who worked on Yury Gagarin's Vostok spaceship and was the last to shake his hand before liftoff, Oleg Ivanovsky, died on Thursday at 92, the Russian space agency said.

Ivanovsky was a senior designer at the facility codenamed OKB-1 which built the Vostok spaceship that blasted Gagarin into orbit in 1961.

"He participated directly in preparing the flight of the world's first cosmonaut," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"The last to shake the hand of the world's first cosmonaut before blastoff was Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky. After that he closed the hatch of the ship," Roscosmos said, using his patronymic.

Photographs published by Roscosmos show Ivanovsky, a slight man in blue overalls over a shirt and tie, helping Gagarin climb the stairs up to the spaceship and get into his seat.

"I squeezed into the cabin. I hugged him, shook his hand and gave him a slap on the helmet before getting out. A moment later and the hatch swung closed onto its locks," Ivanovsky remembered in a 2007 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

A tense moment followed as the chief designer, Sergei Korolyov warned that there was a glitch: the hatch's locks were not registering as hermetically sealed.

Ivanovsky recalled he swiftly had to remove and replace the hatch, attached by 32 bolts, as Gagarin watched him in a mirror sewn onto his sleeve, while quietly whistling a song with the lyrics: "The motherland hears, the motherland knows..."

It turned out later that the hatch was in fact fine -- one of the light bulbs at mission control was simply faulty and flashed an error message by mistake, Ivanovsky said.

The engineers had a secret code they planned to use if Gagarin fell unconscious or started raving.

"Out of seven flights of Vostok ships before Gagarin's, only three were successful. And only two returned to Earth. So it was a big risk, of course," he recalled.

"But we did everything we could to make the flight safe according to the level of knowledge and the capabilities we then had."

Ivanovsky was born in Moscow and fought in World War II, taking part in the Victory Parade on Red Square.

After the war, he studied at Moscow Energy Institute. He began working as a senior engineer in spaceship construction in 1957 and later worked on the Soviet Union's unmanned lunar missions.

"He was an incredible person, a hero who lived his life in the name of science and to benefit the motherland," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Spaceship_designer_who_helped_send_Gagarin_into_orbit_dies_at_92_999.html.

EIAST visits the National Space Agency of Kazakhstan

Dubai, UAE (SPX)
Sep 15, 2014

A high level delegation from the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) visited recently the National Space Agency of Kazakhstan, Kazcosmos. The delegation, headed by H.E. Yousuf Al Shaibani, Director General of EIAST, also included Eng. Salem Al Marri, Assistant Director General for Scientific and Technical Affairs.

The UAE delegation met with their counter parts in the Kazcosmos and a number of representatives from space science and space industry institutions including Talgat Mussabayev, Chairman of Kazcosmos; Marat Nurguzhin, Acting President of JSC - National Company, Kazakhstan Garysh Sapary; Viktor Lefter, President of National Center for Space Communications; and Zhumabek Zhantayev, President of National center of space Communication and Technology in Kazakhstan.

The purpose of the visit was to enhance and strengthen cooperation between both parties in the field of remote sensing and establish mutual benefits through laboratories and satellite manufacturing cooperation, including image use of both DubaiSat-2 and Kazakhstan satellites, in order to accomplish their common development goals.

This visit comes following an official Kazakhstan delegation that came to EIAST recently during which parties discussed opportunities of cooperation between them in the field of exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.

During that visit, the Kazakhstani delegation discovered the latest achievements realized by EIAST with the launch of Dubai Sat-1 and Dubai Sat-2; in addition to current and future projects, including the building of KhalifaSat which will be developed in the UAE by Emiratis.

Following the discussions, Al Shaibani confirmed that the UAE has reached an advanced position in the field of space sciences and intends to build on these achievements by keeping up with the latest space science research and by exchanging technical and scientific skills with leading local, regional and global institutions in the field.

He further stated that "EIAST seeks to keep up with the rapid growth of advanced technology and space industry to meet the needs of the UAE. The statement follows the recent announcement of the establishment of the Emirates Space Agency by, which will officially signal the start of exploration in outer space. This will be the first Arab probe to Mars with a team of Emiratis in the coming seven years."

"We value the achievements made by Kazakhstan, as it is one of the advanced countries in the field of space science. It has modern satellites and extensive experience in space science and we look forward to having a solid cooperation with Kazcosmos and to activating the strategic partnership. Likewise; the Kazcosmos team admired the achievements of the UAE and the advanced level of the country in terms of space activities and ambitious future plans", he added.

During the visit, Al Shaibani and al Marri visited the headquarters of Kazcosmos, Kazakhstan Garysh Sapary, the National Center for Space Communications and the National center of space Communication and Technology. They were also briefed about the main projects, achievements and future plans of each entity.

In December 2011, EIAST signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kazcosmos, aimed at enhancing a better exchange of scientific skills and the development of human resources in the fields of space science, remote sensing, space communications, and global satellite navigation systems.

By virtue of this MoU, both parties will cooperate to use the infrastructure needed for space researches and all other activities related to the manufacture and launch of satellites.

EIAST was established by the Dubai Government in 2006 with the goal of promoting a culture of advanced scientific research and technology innovation in Dubai and the UAE, and enhancing technology innovation and scientific skills among UAE Nationals.

It is mainly involved in outer space research and development, satellite manufacturing and systems development, space imaging, and ground station services and support for other satellites.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/EIAST_visits_the_National_Space_Agency_of_Kazakhstan_999.html.

Gaia discovers its first supernova

Paris (ESA)
Sep 15, 2014

While scanning the sky to measure the positions and movements of stars in our Galaxy, Gaia has discovered its first stellar explosion in another galaxy far, far away.

This powerful event, now named Gaia14aaa, took place in a distant galaxy some 500 million light-years away, and was revealed via a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness between two Gaia observations separated by one month.

Gaia, which began its scientific work on 25 July, repeatedly scans the entire sky, so that each of the roughly one billion stars in the final catalog will be examined an average of 70 times over the next five years.

"This kind of repeated survey comes in handy for studying the changeable nature of the sky," comments Simon Hodgkin from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, UK.

Many astronomical sources are variable: some exhibit a regular pattern, with a periodically rising and declining brightness, while others may undergo sudden and dramatic changes.

"As Gaia goes back to each patch of the sky over and over, we have a chance to spot thousands of 'guest stars' on the celestial tapestry," notes Dr Hodgkin. "These transient sources can be signposts to some of the most powerful phenomena in the Universe, like this supernova."

Dr Hodgkin is part of Gaia's Science Alert Team, which includes astronomers from the Universities of Cambridge, UK, and Warsaw, Poland, who are combing through the scans in search of unexpected changes.

It did not take long until they found the first 'anomaly' in the form of a sudden spike in the light coming from a distant galaxy, detected on 30 August. The same galaxy appeared much dimmer when Gaia first looked at it just a month before.

"We immediately thought it might be a supernova, but needed more clues to back up our claim," explains Lukasz Wyrzykowski from the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, Poland.

Other powerful cosmic events may resemble a supernova in a distant galaxy, such as outbursts caused by the mass-devouring supermassive black hole at the galaxy center.

However, in Gaia14aaa, the position of the bright spot of light was slightly offset from the galaxy's core, suggesting that it was unlikely to be related to a central black hole.

So, the astronomers looked for more information in the light of this new source. Besides recording the position and brightness of stars and galaxies, Gaia also splits their light to create a spectrum. In fact, Gaia uses two prisms spanning red and blue wavelength regions to produce a low-resolution spectrum that allows astronomers to seek signatures of the various chemical elements present in the source of that light.

"In the spectrum of this source, we could already see the presence of iron and other elements that are known to be found in supernovas," says Nadejda Blagorodnova, a PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.

In addition, the blue part of the spectrum appears significantly brighter than the red part, as expected in a supernova. And not just any supernova: the astronomers already suspected it might be a 'Type Ia' supernova - the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star.

While other types of supernovas are the explosive demises of massive stars, several times more massive than the Sun, Type Ia supernovas are the end product of their less massive counterparts.

Low-mass stars, with masses similar to the Sun's, end their lives gently, puffing up their outer layers and leaving behind a compact white dwarf. Their high density means that white dwarfs can exert an intense gravitational pull on a nearby companion star, accreting mass from it until the white dwarf reaches a critical mass that then sparks a violent explosion.

To confirm the nature of this supernova, the astronomers complemented the Gaia data with more observations from the ground, using the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the robotic Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, Spain.

A high-resolution spectrum, obtained on 3 September with the INT, confirmed not only that the explosion corresponds to a Type Ia supernova, but also provided an estimate of its distance. This proved that the supernova happened in the galaxy where it was observed.

"This is the first supernova in what we expect to be a long series of discoveries with Gaia," says Timo Prusti, ESA's Gaia Project Scientist. Supernovas are rare events: only a couple of these explosions happen every century in a typical galaxy. But they are not so rare over the whole sky, if we take into account the hundreds of billions of galaxies that populate the Universe.

Astronomers in the Science Alert Team are currently getting acquainted with the data, testing and optimizing their detection software. In a few months, they expect Gaia to discover about three new supernovas every day.

In addition to supernovas, Gaia will discover thousands of transient sources of other kinds - stellar explosions on smaller scale than supernovas, flares from young stars coming to life, outbursts caused by black holes that disrupt and devour a nearby star, and possibly some entirely new phenomena never seen before.

"The sky is ablaze with peculiar sources of light, and we are looking forward to probing plenty of those with Gaia in the coming years," concludes Dr Prusti.

Source: Skynightly.
Link: http://www.skynightly.com/reports/Gaia_discovers_its_first_supernova_999.html.

Iran president pledges to back Iraq amid attacks

October 21, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised on Tuesday that Iran will stand by Iraq in the neighboring country's fight against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group.

Rouhani told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Heidar al-Abadi that Iran "will remain on the path until the last day," according to a report by the official IRNA news agency. Rouhani says Iran will continue to provide Baghdad with military advisers and weapons. He also criticized the U.S. for allegedly failing to sufficiently support Iraq against an escalating Sunni insurgency.

That insurgency continued its wave of attacks on Tuesday as a string of bombings in and near Baghdad killed 26 people. Police officials said the deadliest attack took place Tuesday afternoon when a double car bomb attack hit Habaybina restaurant in the Shiite-majority district of Talibiya in eastern Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 32 others.

Earlier, a bomb struck at an outdoor market in the southern district of Abu Dashir, a mostly Shiite neighborhood, killing four people and wounding nine, police officials said. A little bit later, a bomb that went off near a small restaurant in central Baghdad killed five people and wounded 12, the officials said. Another bomb exploded at a commercial street in the town of Madian, just south of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but they bore the hallmarks of the al-Qaida-breakaway Islamic State group which has captured large chunks of territory in western and northern Iraq, plunging the country into its worst crisis since U.S. troops left at the end of 2011.

On Monday, militants unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on Iraq's majority Shiite community, killing at least 43 people. In the Shiite holy city of Karbala — home to the tombs of two revered Shiite imams and the site of year-round pilgrimages — four separate car bombs went off simultaneously, killing at least 26 people.

The attacks on the Shiites are likely calculated by the Sunni extremists to sow fear among Iraqis on both sides of the sectarian divide.

Yacoub reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Head of Iran's chief clerical body dead at 83

October 21, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A leading Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani, who headed the country's most influential clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing the nation's supreme leader, has died. He was 83.

Kani was the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 senior clerics that monitors the supreme leader and picks a successor after his death. That makes it potentially one of the most powerful institutions in Iran, although it does not involve itself the daily affairs of state.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani declared two days of national mourning. Kani held the top post at the Assembly of Experts since March 2011, after his predecessor, Iran's influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was forced out following a dispute with hard-line clerics who backed then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Kani also served as acting prime minister and interior minister in the 80s. He had been in a coma since June, after being hospitalized for heart failure. Kani was considered a moderate conservative and had backed Rouhani in his bid for the presidency in 2013.

The Assembly of Experts has only once picked a supreme leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution — in 1989, when it chose Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to succeed his late mentor, the Islamic Revolution patriarch Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khani's family said he will be buried on Thursday.

Iran military ready to ship equipment to Lebanon

October 20, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's defense minister said his country is ready to ship defensive materials to Lebanon to aid its army in the fight against Sunni extremists on Monday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

The report quoted Gen. Hossein Dehghan, speaking at a joint briefing with visiting Lebanese Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, as saying the shipment would help thwart extremists who plan to commit "inhuman crimes" in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

"We will provide an Iranian-made consignment of defensive items to the Lebanese army for their use in fighting the group and other terrorist groups," Dehghan said. The Lebanese troops have been fighting militants from the Islamic State group since fighting spilled into the Mediterranean country from neighboring Syria.

Dehghan did not elaborate on the contents of the shipment but said it was a gift intended for "swift action against a possible threat." The United Nations imposed an arms embargo on Iran in 2007, banning it from importing and exporting weapons.

"The aid mainly includes items for ground forces — for confronting terrorist currents," he said, adding that Iran was also ready to provide training to the Lebanese army. The shipment now awaits approval from Lebanon, Dehghan said, a country he described as having a "special position" in Iran's foreign policy. Shiite Iran backs Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group now fighting alongside forces of key Iran ally President Bashar Assad against the Sunni extremists in Syria.

Iran's former ambassador to Beirut, Ghazanfar Roknabadi, said the U.S. and some groups in Lebanon are worried about the aid because they are concerned it could be used against Israel. "They say the aid breaks sanctions, but it is just a gift and there is no money in return," said Roknabadi, adding that Iran had proposed gifting the aid years ago.

Iran, a major weapons manufacturer in the region, has in the past said it exported military products to scores of countries, although it has never revealed details.

China completes construction of advanced space launch facility

Beijing (SPX)
Sep 12, 2014

China has finished building of its fourth and most advanced space launch center, a senior space official said.

Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said in Beijing on Wednesday that infrastructure construction on the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in the southern island province of Hainan has been completed and that the station will soon become operational.

"The center is basically ready for spacecraft launches," he said.

Yang also said the nation's space program is progressing in the development of the Tiangong-2 space lab, the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, the Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft and the Long March 2F-Y11 rocket as astronauts and ground facilities begin preparing for new missions.

After Tiangong-2 is launched around 2016, Shenzhou-11 and Tianzhou will be sent into space to dock with it, he said.

China has three operational space launch centers in Sichuan and Shanxi provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

According to earlier reports, more than 6,000 people would be relocated to make way for the Wenchang center. The construction of the center was approved by the State Council and the Central Military Commission in 2007, and work began in 2009.

The biggest advantage of the Wenchang center is its low latitude - 19 degrees north of the equator - which will enable rockets to save a lot of fuel compared with launches from other centers in China, experts said.

A satellite launched from Wenchang is expected to have a longer service life as a result of the fuel saved by the shorter trip from transit orbit to geosynchronous orbit.

The favorable location also allows a substantial increase in payload on the rockets to allow them to carry heavier spacecraft.

Liu Jianzhong, deputy designer of the Long March-5 rocket system, China's most powerful rocket that is under development, said the new center would be suitable for the launch of the Long March-5 because the large rocket can be transported to the center by sea.

Other launch centers in China are in inland regions and have to transport their rockets by rail.

"Launching from the Wenchang facility also means rocket wreckage will fall into the sea rather than onto inhabited areas," he said.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_completes_construction_of_advanced_space_launch_facility_999.html.

SpaceX's next cargo launch set for Sept 20

Washington (AFP)
Sept 12, 2014

SpaceX's next unmanned cargo trip to restock supplies at the International Space Station is scheduled for September 20, the US space agency said Friday.

The Dragon spacecraft will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 2:16 am (0616 GMT) on September 20 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, NASA said.

"If for any reason the launch is postponed, the next launch opportunity is Sunday, Sept. 21 at approximately 1:53 am," it said in a statement.

The cargo ship will be loaded with more than 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of supplies and scientific experiments, including an ocean surface wind speed monitor, equipment for studying rodents in microgravity and cabbage-like plants to see how their growth adapts in space.

The mission, called SpaceX CRS-4, "is the fourth of 12 SpaceX flights NASA contracted with the company to resupply the space station," the space agency said.

The trip marks the fifth Dragon journey to the orbiting outpost, including its initial demonstration mission.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation each have billion-dollar contracts with NASA to supply the space station over the coming years.

The retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011 has left the United States without a government spacecraft to transport cargo or crew to the space station.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/SpaceXs_next_cargo_launch_set_for_Sept_20_999.html.

Japan space agency unveils asteroid hunting probe

Tokyo (AFP)
Sept 02, 2014

Japanese space scientists have unveiled the asteroid hunting space probe they hope to launch later this year on a mission to mine a celestial body.

The probe, named Hayabusa-2, is expected to be flung into space on a rocket for a mammoth four year voyage to the unpoetically-named 1999JU3 asteroid.

When it gets there, some time in 2018, it will release a powerful cannon which will fire a metal bullet at the asteroid's barren crust, once the probe itself has scuttled to safety on the far side of the rock.

It will then return to scoop up material uncovered by the cannon blast.

If all goes well, these pristine asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.

At a weekend press conference, Hitoshi Kuninaka, project leader at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said he and his team were readying to redouble their efforts for this "new voyage".

"I'm grateful as the new asteroid probe is now nearly complete," he said, according to Jiji Press.

The probe is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa -- the Japanese term for falcon -- which returned to earth in 2010 with dust samples after a trouble-plagued seven-year mission.

The spherical 1999JU3 asteroid, which is around a kilometer (half a mile) across, contains significantly more organic matter and water than the potato-shaped rock previously studied by the original Hayabusa.

Analyzing this valuable cosmic material could shed light on the mysteries surrounding the solar system and its origins 4.6 billion years ago.

Scientists at JAXA say Hayabusa-2 will build on the work of its predecessor, which was only able to collect surface dust samples that could have been altered by years of exposure to various forms of energy encountered in space.

Despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year journey, including intermittent loss of communication and damage to its motors, the first Hayabasa was hailed as a triumph of science when it returned to Earth.

JAXA's work guiding the craft back to terra firma made it a source of pride for Japan, even inspiring several Japanese feature films.

Kuninaka said there were a number of possible complications and pitfalls that could await Hayabusa-2.

"Of course, I hope things will go smoothly," said Kuninaka.

"We have had many difficulties in the process of developing the new asteroid probe. Space is never an easy place," he said.

Asteroids are believed to retain materials unchanged from the solar system's earliest days, unlike scorched remains such as meteorites or materials on Earth which have been transformed through pressure and heat.

The 1999JU3 asteroid was selected in part because of its make-up and also because of its relative accessibility.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Japan_space_agency_unveils_asteroid_hunting_probe_999.html.

Glitzy Russian TV drama brings Chernobyl to new generation

Moscow (AFP)
Oct 14, 2014

A group of teenagers wanders through abandoned classrooms, clambers up a rusted wheel and stands on the roof of an apartment block topped with letters reading "Glory to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union".

The eerie scenes come from "Chernobyl. The Exclusion Zone", a new Russian teen drama that retells the story to a generation with no memories of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, in 1986.

Using lavish computer-generated imagery rarely seen on Russian television, the show airing from this month follows a group of teenagers on a roadtrip to Pripyat, the nuclear plant workers' town evacuated after the disaster.

The series of eight spooky, hour-long episodes was made by TNT, a youth-oriented channel aimed at an 18 to 30-year-old audience that normally airs stand-up comedy, sitcoms and reality shows.

"I wanted to tell the story of this to an audience ... that doesn't have such a personal sense of empathy," said co-writer and producer Yevgeny Nikishov, himself only seven when the accident occurred.

A nuclear explosion triggered by a test shutdown led to radioactive fallout being carried by winds over northern neighbor Belarus and across the then "Iron Curtain" into Western Europe, in a disaster initially covered up by the Soviet authorities.

While only two people were killed in the blast, 28 rescue workers died of radiation in the following three months, the UN atomic agency says. And more than 25,000 cleanup workers, known as "liquidators", have died since the disaster, according to official Ukrainian figures.

But the true scale of the death toll directly attributable to the disaster remains the subject of bitter scientific debate.

- 'Mysterious' -

The TV show includes footage filmed in the ghost town of Pripyat, 110 kilometers (69 miles) from Kiev, where radiation levels are still high and authorities control access to the overgrown streets.

The story centers on five Moscow teenagers who set off to Chernobyl together, their motivations varying from stolen money to family secrets -- or just the chance of "getting lucky".

"If you go, maybe you won't be a virgin any more," one of the teenage girls, Anya, whispers to nerdy Gosha, who promptly steals his grandfather's Volga car for the trip.

Teenagers at a gala screening at a Moscow cinema admitted they knew little about Chernobyl.

"There was a nuclear explosion -- that's all (I know)" said 13-year-old Nikita, bursting out laughing.

He said he enjoyed the episodes in Pripyat but found the build-up "boring", adding: "You could see where they used computer graphics."

"I know what happened: there was a nuclear explosion and all the buildings --," 15-year-old Yana hesitated, before adding: "There was radiation."

She praised the show as well-acted and "mysterious."

It includes a cartoon sequence explaining that "once upon a time, so long ago that no one remembers, there was a country called the Soviet Union."

The makers also slip in nuggets of history.

"We don't stuff you with historical facts -- first this happened, then that -- you just find out things through us," said actress Kristina Kazinskaya, who plays one of the teenagers.

In one scene, the gang drives past a village that was buried after the accident in an experiment to contain the contamination.

In another, the gang's leader, Pasha, emotionally recounts how locals, not realizing the seriousness of the accident, gathered to watch the fire at the plant.

- 'Chernobyl in people's heads' -

"They just stood on the bridge and watched and the wind blew tonnes of radioactive fuel at them," he said.

In another scene that rings true for teens, Gosha calmly snaps pictures on his iPad as they visit an abandoned school.

The story of the manmade disaster has had a huge influence on popular culture and legends have grown up about the exclusion zone around the plant, which has been left to grow wild since 1986, becoming a kind of open-air museum to the late Soviet era.

A subculture of extreme thrill-seekers explores the area and artists have graffitied the buildings with child-like figures, as seen in the show.

Pripyat was the setting for a popular video game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developed in Ukraine, while film director Alexander Mindadze's "Innocent Saturday" in 2012 told the story of people trying to escape after the explosion.

The show's makers argued that it is not disrespectful to those who died or the horrific scale of the accident.

"I think we treated the real parts of this story with huge attention and deference," said Alexander Dulerain, TNT channel's chief producer.

And it was not intended to be a documentary, writer Nikishov stressed.

"The film's not about the real problems, the social problems of the disaster at the nuclear power station.

"It's more about the image of Chernobyl in people's heads."

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Glitzy_Russian_TV_drama_brings_Chernobyl_to_new_generation_999.html.

Myanmar says 2015 election won't be delayed

October 21, 2014

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's government said Tuesday that a general election planned for late 2015 would be held on schedule, countering rumors that the vote could be postponed.

Tin Aye, chairman of the Myanmar Union Election Commission, made the announcement at a meeting with political party members in Yangon, Myanmar's main city. He said international and local observers would be invited to witness the election, to be held in late October or early November of next year.

The general election will be the second since former strongman Gen. Than Shwe handed power to a nominally civilian government, ending half a century of military rule. The 2010 election was widely seen as having been crafted so the military-backed government's party would win. There has been widespread speculation that the 2015 election would be delayed because the current leaders were uncertain of victory and needed more time to prepare.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said the 2015 election should be free, fair and held on time.

For teen with passport, Syria trip can be seamless

October 23, 2014

PARIS (AP) — The teenage sisters told their father they were staying home sick from their suburban Denver school. Instead, they took $2,000 and their passports and headed off for Syria with a 16-year-old friend. They made it as far as Germany before border guards detained them for questioning.

The fact that adolescent girls could make their way across the Atlantic might come as a surprise to many parents, but a patchwork of laws and rules governing international air travel in many cases makes it easy for teenagers to travel with nobody's permission but their own.

Airlines have a range of rules governing minors' travel: Many major carriers including United Airlines and Scandinavian airline SAS place no restrictions on children over 12, while others let even young minors travel as long as they are accompanied by someone over 16. Yet others, including American Airlines, require a parent to accompany travelers under the age of 15 to the gate, while those 15 and over face no restrictions.

Countries have a separate set of laws that is no less haphazard, from a Russian requirement for notarized parental permission to the U.S. system where adolescents with valid passports are free to come and go.

In Spain, both parents must fill out a permission form at a police station before a minor can travel alone. In Germany, where the American teens were stopped, border guards are required to verify that minors have parental permission to travel.

And in France, which is Europe's single largest source of would-be jihadis, parental authorization had to be received by city hall — until January 2013. That's when a small administrative change took effect suspending the requirement for parental approval. The government said it would streamline unnecessary bureaucracy and officials remarked that few runaways went abroad, and even fewer stayed there.

Fast-forward 22 months, and nearly every week new reports emerge of French adolescents leaving for Syria. Teenagers from France can travel within the European Union with a valid ID; outside the EU, they need only a passport.

Under French law, parents can have their children flagged if they fear they will leave the country to join extremists. But for many of those who have left, their families had no warning. Lawyer Agnes Dufetel-Cordier represents a teenage boy from Toulouse who left in January to join the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, before coming back to his family to face criminal charges. She said the teen — now 16 — gave no sign he was about to bolt for Syria, and his departure came as a shock to his parents. He was not stopped at the airport in Marseille, nor on arrival in Turkey or crossing into Syria.

"If you reverse the regulation that lets them travel without their parents' permission, you will see right away that minors are no longer leaving," Dufetel-Cordier said. "Today in France, in the case of most minors who go to Syria, the families have absolutely no idea ahead of time."

At age 17, Sahra Ali Mehenni went so far as to ask her mother to get her a passport, saying she wanted her paperwork in order before she reached adulthood. When she left for Syria on March 11, departing from the Marseille airport just as the teen boy did, she took her burgundy-bound passport and nobody stopped her before she boarded the flight to Istanbul.

"If I go out and I run a red light, they're going to get me right away," said her father, Kamel. "But these minors are going to Istanbul — and if they're going to Istanbul, it's to go to Syria. They know it. You can't say they don't know it. And no one stops it."

The same concerns apply in the United States, where parental permission is required to obtain a passport — but none is needed for travel. The teens who flew to Germany were stopped because their parents, part of suburban Denver's tight-knit East African community, reported them missing quickly, and American authorities contacted German authorities before they landed.

"Kudos to those family members in Colorado," said Omar Jamal, CEO of American Friends of Somalia. "Time is of the essence. They did the right thing."

Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Amy Forliti in Minneapolis; Ellliot Spagat in San Diego; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow; and Lara Jakes in Washington.