DDMA Headline Animator

Friday, January 9, 2015

UAE asks U.S. for $2.5B MRAP deal

by Richard Tomkins
Washington (UPI)
Sep 29, 2014

More than 4,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are being sought from the United States by the United Arab Emirates.

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in its required notification to Congress of a Foreign Military Sales deal, said the sale of vehicles for refurbishment and modification is worth an estimated $2.5 billion.

The 4,569 vehicles to be sold separately would come from U.S. Army stock pursuant to section 21 of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended, as Excess Defense Articles, the agency said.

The vehicle list includes 29 MaxxPro long wheel base vehicle; 1,085 MaxxPro LWB chassis; 264 MaxxPro Base/MRAP Expedient Armor Program capsules without armor; 729 MaxxPro bases; 283 MaxxPro MEAP without armor; 970 MaxxPro Plus; 15 MRAP recovery vehicles; 1,150 Caiman multi-terrain vehicles without armor; and 44 MRAP all-terrain vehicles.

"Notification for the sale from stock of the MRAP vehicles referenced above has been provided separately, pursuant to the requirements of section 7016 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 and section 516 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended," the agency said.

Also included is the requested sales package are improvement kits for vehicle underbodies, spare and repair parts, support equipment and personnel training.

"The UAE intends to utilize the EDA MRAP vehicles to increase force protection, to conduct humanitarian assistance operations, and to protect vital international commercial trade routes and critical infrastructure," according to the notification. "Additionally, these MRAPs will enhance UAE's burden-sharing capacity and defensive capabilities."

Navistar Defense, BAE Systems and Oshkosh Defense would be the principal contractors. Multiple trips to the UAE by U.S. government and contractor representatives would be required for a period of three or more years for program support.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/UAE_asks_US_for_25B_MRAP_deal_999.html.

Poland needs nuclear arms to ward off Russia: Walesa

Warsaw (AFP)
Sept 24, 2014

Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa said Poland should procure nuclear weapons as a safeguard against Russia, which it blames for stoking the crisis in neighboring Ukraine.

"Poland needs to stand up to Russia," the Nobel Peace laureate, who spearheaded Poland's democracy movement and became its first post-communist president, said in an interview published Wednesday.

EU and NATO member Poland has been rattled by Russia's actions in Ukraine, including its March annexation of the Crimean peninsula and suspected backing of rebels in the east.

Russian President Vladimir "Putin has been trying to intimidate us with his nuclear weapons, so why shouldn't we have our own arsenal?" Walesa told the Rzeczpospolita daily.

"We should borrow, lease nuclear weapons and show Putin that if a Russian soldier poses one foot on our land uninvited, we will attack. Just to be clear," the 70-year-old said.

Several countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey currently host shared nuclear weapons on their territory under NATO.

But there is no tradition at the moment of borrowing or leasing the weapons.

Poland should speak up and say: "Mister Putin, we won't let you make one step forward. Try it and you'll perish, and so will we," added Walesa, who as leader of the Solidarity trade union negotiated a peaceful end to Communism at home in 1989.

It is under his presidency in 1993 that the last Soviet troops left Poland. Six years later the country joined the NATO defense alliance.

On Wednesday, Poland began major military exercises involving 12,500 troops, including 750 from other NATO countries, which will continue through October 3.

Poland stages the Anakonda maneuvers every two years but this time they "take on a special significance given the events in Ukraine," Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said at the opening ceremony.

"It is important for NATO to show that we stick together," added Torben Moller, a brigadier general from the alliance's command center at Brunssum in the Netherlands.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Poland_needs_nuclear_arms_to_ward_off_Russia_Walesa_999.html.

Italians protest against controversial wiretap law

ROME (BNO NEWS) -- Italian protesters on Thursday continued to rally outside the country's parliament in Rome to voice their opposition against a government attempt to curb the publication of leaked pre-trial wiretaps, the ANSA news agency reported on Friday.

Demonstrators wore gags to protest against what they consider to be an attack on freedom of information. The wiretap bill would allow reporters to only publish wiretaps in the form of summaries before trial.

Both the government and the opposition agree that the publication of gossip unrelated to probes should be banned, but the opposition sees the government's bill as an attack on the freedom of the press. The government said Thursday it expects to push the bill through parliament with a confidence vote next week, according to ANSA.

The Italian edition of Wikipedia earlier shut down all its pages to protest against the draft bill, which would severely limit publication of wiretapped conversations. Under the new bill, anyone found guilty of releasing or publishing wiretaps faces a jail sentence ranging from six months to three years.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, expressed its support for the protest. "This bill would hinder the work of projects like Wikipedia: open, volunteer-driven, and collaborative spaces dedicated to sharing high-quality knowledge, not to mention the ability for all users of the internet to engage in democratic, free speech opportunities," said Jay Walsh, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Italians have become used to wiretap leaks in the media, many of them filled with revelations concerning Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's four trials regarding cases of alleged corruption and paying for sex with an underage prostitute.

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/news/italians-protest-against-controversial-wiretap-law.html.

Some 30,000 Germans protest against anti-Islam rallies

January 05, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — The square around the Cologne Cathedral was plunged into darkness Monday evening after the historical landmark in western Germany shut down its lights in a silent protest of weekly rallies in Dresden against the perceived "Islamization" of Europe.

The symbolic act came as thousands of Germans demonstrated in Cologne and several other cities against the ongoing protests by the group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, which attracted its biggest crowd yet in Dresden on Monday night.

Cologne Cathedral provost Norbert Feldhoff, told n-tv that shutting down the lights was an attempt to make the PEGIDA demonstrators think twice about their protest. "You're taking part in an action that, from its roots and also from speeches, one can see is Nazi-ist, racist and extremist," he said on n-tv. "And you're supporting people you really don't want to support."

Only about 250 PEGIDA supporters showed up in Cologne, as compared to about ten times that number of counter-demonstrators. Similarly in Berlin, police said some 5,000 counter-demonstrators blocked about 300 PEGIDA supporters from marching along their planned route from city hall to the Brandenburg Gate. Another 22,000 anti-PEGIDA demonstrators rallied in Stuttgart, Muenster and Hamburg, the dpa news agency reported.

But PEGEIDA's main demonstration in the eastern city of Dresden, a region that has few immigrants or Muslims, attracted some 18,000, according to police. The demonstrations there have been growing from an initial few hundred in October to around 17,500 at a rally just before Christmas.

Carrying signs with slogans like "wake up" the crowd chanted "we are the people" and "lying press" as they passed television cameras on Monday. In uncharacteristically frank words in her New Year's address, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to stay away from the Dresden rallies.

When the PEGIDA demonstrators chant "we are the people," Merkel said "they actually mean 'you don't belong because of your religion or your skin." PEGIDA organizer Kathrin Oertel slammed the speech at the rally Monday, telling the crowd "in Germany we have political repression again."

"Or how would you see it when we are insulted or called racists or Nazis openly by all the political mainstream parties and media for our justified criticism of Germany's asylum seeker policies and the non-existent immigration policy," she asked the cheering crowd.

PEGIDA has sought to distance itself from the far-right, saying in its position paper posted on Facebook that it is against "preachers of hate, regardless of what religion" and "radicalism, regardless of whether religiously or politically motivated."

"PEGIDA is for resistance against an anti-woman political ideology that emphasizes violence, but not against integrated Muslims living here," the group said. It has also banned any neo-Nazi symbols and slogans at its rallies, though critics have noted the praise and support it has received from known neo-Nazi groups.

Cem Ozdemir, co-chairman of The Greens party and himself the son of a Turkish immigrant, told n-tv that while he, too, was against any form of extremism, "intolerance cannot be fought with intolerance."

"The line is not between Christians and Muslims," he said. "The line is between those who are intolerant ... and the others, the majority." In Berlin, anti-PEGIDA demonstrator Ursula Wozniak said she had joined the protest because she felt the PEGIDA group was abusing Germany's democratic tradition.

"What is happening right now in Germany is just extremely shocking," she said. PEGIDA was forced to call off its demonstration early in Cologne, after organizers reported being blocked from marching along their planned route, police said.

Other buildings, including several other churches and a museum, joined the Cologne Cathedral in shutting off their lights in support of the anti-PEGIDA demonstrators. In Dresden, automaker Volkswagen decided to keep its glass-walled manufacturing plant dark, to underscore the company "stands for an open, free and democratic society."

Kerstin Sopke in Dresden and Dalton Bennett in Berlin contributed to this report.

France to send aircraft carrier to Gulf in ‘Islamic State’ fight

2015-01-06

PARIS - The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its fleet will be deployed to the Gulf to support operations against the Islamic State group, a military news site reported on Tuesday.

The deployment of the marine battle group is due to be announced by President Francois Hollande when he gives his annual new year's speech to the armed forces onboard the Charles de Gaulle on January 14, according to the "Mer et Marine" news site.

According to Mer et Marine, the Charles de Gaulle carrier will travel to the Gulf with its fleet of air and naval craft, including Rafale and Super Etendard fighter jets and an attack submarine, to take part in the US-led bombing campaign against IS forces in Iraq.

The president's office, navy and army did not respond to requests for confirmation.

France currently has nine Rafale and six Mirage fighters engaged in the campaign -- based in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan -- as part of Operation Chammal launched in September, along with a C135 supply plane, E-3F surveillance and control plane and an Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in early December that French planes had carried out "120 to 130 missions" -- primarily intelligence-gathering operations.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69575.

Sweden orders submarine overhaul

by Richard Tomkins
Linkoping, Sweden (UPI)
Sep 29, 2014

Swedish company Saab is to overhaul HMS Halland, a Gotland-class submarine commissioned in 1997.

The work was contracted by the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration. It is worth about $17.9 million.

Saab said the overhaul will include all the necessary measures to ensure the submarine's operational availability. The company will also define future needs for the ship's maintenance, which could result in additional work being contracted separately during the period.

"Maintenance of Swedish surface vessels and submarines is an important part of our ongoing business," said Gunilla Fransson, head of Saab's Security and Defense Solutions business area. "It is also important to ensure the customer's long-term operational capability."

Work based on the submarine will be carried during 2014 and 2015 at the Saab Kockums shipyard in Karlskrona.

In other Saab maritime news, the company announced that the government organization also ordered 10 remotely-operated vehicles for seabed surveys, inspections, light underwater operations and object recovery.

The ROVs to be supplied as stand-alone systems are the Seaeye Falcons, which Saab is adapting to meet FMV's specifications.

"This is another example of how Saab combines civil and military technology and adapts it for the requirements and purposes stipulated by the military," said Agneta Kammeby, head of Saab's Underwater Systems business unit. "Over the years, we have developed and established unique expertise within the field and we are delighted and proud of being able to deliver the system to the customer."

The systems will be delivered within 12 months.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Sweden_orders_submarine_overhaul_999.html.

Mexico must probe 'possible' army executions: UN expert

Mexico City (AFP)
Sept 29, 2014

A UN expert urged Mexico on Monday to conduct an independent investigation into the killing of 22 drug gang suspects by soldiers, saying the deaths may have been summary executions.

Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, welcomed the military's arrest last week of seven soldiers and one officer "in what could be summary executions," said a statement by the UN's human rights office.

"The government of Mexico has the duty to fully investigate, prosecute, and punish all suspected cases of extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions," Heyns said in the statement.

Heyns called on the government to protect a witness whose testimony contradicted official accounts that the suspects had died in a gunfight with soldiers on June 30 in Tlatlaya, 240 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Mexico City.

The witness told Esquire magazine that 21 of the suspects, including her 15-year-old daughter, were executed after surrendering, while only one person died during a shootout.

Heyns said the authorities should also protect two other women who survived the shooting and were detained on charges of firearms possession and organized crime.

The federal attorney general's office is conducting its own investigation into the case, which has put a spotlight on Mexico's controversial use of the military in the drug war.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Mexico_must_probe_possible_army_executions_UN_expert_999.html.

US plans Patriot missile sale to Saudi Arabia: Pentagon

Washington (AFP)
Oct 01, 2014

The United States plans to sell Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia worth $1.75 billion and long-range artillery to the United Arab Emirates valued at about $900 million, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The Defense Department informed Congress of the potential arms sales this week as fighter jets from both of the Gulf states took part in a US-led air campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria.

The Saudi government had requested the purchase of 202 Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-3 missiles -- the most sophisticated version of the Patriot anti-missile weapons -- as well as a flight test target, telemetry kits and other related equipment, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

"The proposed sale will help replenish Saudi's current Patriot missiles which are becoming obsolete and difficult to sustain due to age and the limited availability of repair parts," the agency said.

"The program will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a partner which has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East," it added.

Both Kuwait and Qatar already have purchased the PAC-3 weapons, which are designed to knock out incoming ballistic missiles as well as enemy aircraft and cruise missiles using ground radar.

Gulf countries in recent years have invested heavily in missile defense weapons, radar as well as air power, mainly as a hedge against Iran which they view as a regional threat.

The Patriot missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, have an estimated range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) and have more advanced radar than the older systems.

Separately, the Defense Department notified lawmakers about a planned sale of 12 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) Launchers to the United Arab Emirates for nearly one billion dollars.

The system "will improve the UAE's capability to meet current and future threats and provide greater security for its critical infrastructure," the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said. The weapons, which deliver precise and powerful artillery fire at a long range, would also bolster the UAE military's ability to operate with US forces, it said.

Congress has 30 days to raise objections to the potential arms sales. Without any move to block the deals, the US government can then negotiate contracts with the two countries.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_plans_Patriot_missile_sale_to_Saudi_ArabiaPentagon_999.html.

Media-Savvy Protesters Join New Era of Unrest

By Zack Stieber
October 7, 2011

NEW YORK—Reminiscent of Arab Spring, social media has been instrumental in rallying the Occupy Wall Street movement. But Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo have all been accused of blocking the movement in various capacities.

Yahoo users were blocked from sending emails containing the phrase “Occupy Wall Street.” Emails containing the weblink occupywallst.org could not be sent, with a message saying, “suspicious activity has been detected on your account." Yahoo later apologized for having a “false-positive” spam filter in place, and fixed the problem.

Twitter has been accused of removing hashtags #OccupyWallStreet, and #occupywallst from their trending lists—after the topic hit the top spots on the first day of the protests. Hashtags are used on Twitter to identify certain trends. One can enter the term to pull up a list of tweets, or updates, about the topic the hashtag is attached to.

Twitter representatives denied this. In a 2010 blog post explaining what trending topics are Twitter said they “capture the hottest emerging topics, not just what’s most popular."

"That’s horrible. That’s outrageous," said Barbara Wien, professor of peace studies at American University in Washington, D.C, about the possibility. "It’s a basic constitutional right; that’s called freedom of speech. It’s a bedrock value in our society, which should never be suppressed."

Facebook users have encountered similar interference in making posts, according to Queens resident Vlad, who helps broadcast a 24/7 live feed from Zucotti Park, the base camp of the protest. The video feed has had more than 20,000 viewers at peak times.

“They censor us all over the place. It’s not news,” he said. “They censor this stuff and we actually don’t care.”

Facebook did not return a request for comment.

Occupy Wall Street as a group is disenchanted with the current state of society and is protesting against issues such as rising unemployment, the gap between the rich and the poor, and special interests influencing the government. They frequently call themselves "The 99 percent," and often chant, "We are the 99 percent. You are the 99 percent," as they march. They have shied away from specifying demands or goals.

"This isn’t just about a single war or corporate greed; it’s about the underlying cultural values,” Wien said. “I sense the young people want something very different culturally.”

Social Media Mobility

The media-savvy protesters have aptly demonstrated their social media prowess. A live video feed, multiple websites, blogs, and social media accounts, fuel related protests nationwide and globally. “It’s instantaneous,” said Vlad, “and because it’s instantaneous, it’s honest. It’s not money-pervaded. The live stream is live; it’s not edited. It’s proof.”

A Kickstarter account had raised $52,503 as of Thursday evening to publish a newspaper. The first edition was published on Oct. 1 and Oct. 6, while a second edition is planned for Saturday.

The instantaneous pictures and videos elicit a huge response from the public.

For instance, at the end of Wednesday’s march, two compelling videos were quickly released. One was of a police officer wielding a baton to force back protesters that had rushed the Wall Street barricades while a bevy of cameras and cell phones are focused in. The other video shows a police officer saying that his “nightstick’s going to get a workout tonight.” There are 736 comments attached to this video, after more than 100,000 views.

Wednesday’s March

 The protesters have organized marches twice per day, almost every day for the past two weeks. Last weekend, more than 700 people were arrested after a spillover onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.

A march to Foley Square on Wednesday consisted of 5,000 to 10,000 people, witnesses said. The group met with various unions and organizations, then returned to the Financial District. A large portion of the group ended up by a barricade in front of Wall Street on Broadway.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said a group of protesters rushed the barricade and the police standing in front of it. “They wanted to occupy Wall Street. They are going to be met with force when they do that, it’s common sense,” Kelly said in a press conference Thursday.

Mike, a 22-year-old Queens resident, said the group had a meeting in front of the barricades, debating what the next action would be. Some people decided they didn’t want to risk getting arrested, while others wanted to pushed through.

“That’s rational, not mob mentality,” he said. “Legally, we are allowed to walk down Wall Street.”

Protesters that have spoken to The Epoch Times have reiterated that only a small group of police, usually white-shirted officers, have undertaken violent actions.

Likewise, Commissioner Kelly said, “The vast majority of the people who are demonstrating are doing it with a peaceful mind.” He also said there is no legal basis to bar the group from Zucotti Park, a privately-owned plaza that allows public access 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Occupy Wall St. appears set to stay indefinitely—with growing mounds of donated sleeping bags, food, and medicine, and more people joining the cause. Area residents have complained about their presence, mostly about noise throughout the night. After several meetings with Community Board 1, the protesters have decreed quiet hours from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

They have received support from local politicians, including Councilors Jumaine Williams and Charles Barron, and prominent figures like Russell Simmons, who mostly identify with the political left. Criticism has come from others, mostly conservatives, including presidential candidates Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.

Vlad, the live stream volunteer said, “If we have to move, we’ll move. If we don’t have to move we’ll probably stay, just because we’d rather focus on the business of getting the conversation going than moving.” He explained how a generator was set up with floodlights surrounding it on Wednesday night after hundreds of police amassed outside the park; if police action were taken, protesters would move into the well-lit area for easy live streaming.

The group was prepared to relocate and people were throwing ideas out about where to relocate to. “Some people wanted to take Central Park but I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” Vlad said. “But we might get there; if the whole city enters the discussion, we’re probably going to need to need Central Park.”

With reporting by Ivan Pentchoukov and Yi Yang.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/media-savvy-protesters-join-new-era-of-unrest-62538.html.

Mozambique opposition spokesman arrested after disputed poll

06 January 2015 Tuesday

The spokesman for Mozambique's main opposition party has been arrested after leading a demonstration protesting against the result of last October's election, police said on Tuesday.

The ruling Frelimo party and its candidate Filipe Nyusi won the presidential and legislative elections, a result certified last week by the country's constitutional court.

The Renamo opposition party and its candidate, former civil war rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama, have alleged widespread fraud and irregularities, including ballot stuffing.

The party's spokesman Antonio Muchanga has since called for nationwide demonstrations and on Saturday led a march in the capital Maputo to protest the result, which police said was illegal because permission had not been obtained in advance.

"The spokesman for Renamo was arrested today. He led last Saturday an illegal demonstration in Maputo. In addition he has delivered speeches that incite violence," police spokesman Orlando Mudumane told a news briefing.

Tensions are running high in Mozambique. In the run-up to the election, Renamo partisans clashed sporadically with troops and police. The Renamo leader only emerged from a bush hideout in September to reaffirm a 1992 peace pact which ended a 17-year civil war.

Mozambique is hoping revenue from its large natural gas deposits and its fledgling coal mining industry will help it emerge from years of poverty and aid dependence.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152350/mozambique-opposition-spokesman-arrested-after-disputed-poll.

Philippine troops capture breakaway fighter camp in south

06 January 2015 Tuesday

Philippine government troops have captured a camp belonging to a splinter group of the country's one-time largest Muslim rebel organization in southern Maguindanao province.

Army spokesperson Capt. Joann Petinglay said in a statement Tuesday that a five-hour offensive starting at 06.50 a.m. Monday led to the overrunning of the base of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), whose weekend attack killed one soldier.

"The camp can house up to a thousand fighters and is equipped with a training facility," Petinglay said, explaining that no casualties were reported on the government side during the mortar shelling and ground assaults.

On Saturday, a soldier was killed and three others wounded when the BIFF launched attacks on two army detachments in Maguindanao’s General Salipada K. Pendatun and Sultan Kudarat province’s President Quirino, adjacent towns in restive Mindanao island.

Lt. Colonel Markton Abu, commander of the 33rd Infantry Battalion, said in a statement that the BIFF rebels dispersed into smaller groups as they fled toward the marshland in Salipada Pendatun town as howitzers were fired.

The BIFF broke off from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2011 and opposes the peace deal signed between the Front and the government last year. Its campaign of bombings and attacks on government forces is aimed at achieving an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152345/philippine-troops-capture-breakaway-fighter-camp-in-south.

Monitors: Sri Lankan vote largely peaceful despite incidents

January 08, 2015

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Long lines formed in the capital Thursday and voter turnout was heavy in Sri Lanka's Tamil heartland as President Mahinda Rajapaksa faced his toughest electoral challenge in years, with a former ally trying to unseat the leader who crushed a brutal Tamil insurgency and amassed immense power for himself and his family.

Some voters were prevented from casting ballots in the Tamil-dominated north, according to the Center for Monitoring Election Violence, and there were a handful of incidents of isolated violence, but no injuries were reported. Results were expected to be announced Friday.

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said the election was peaceful. Until just a few weeks ago, Rajapaksa was widely expected to easily win his third term in office. But that changed suddenly in November, when his former friend and health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, defected from the ruling party and turned the election into a referendum on the president and the enormous power he wields over the island nation of 21 million.

Sirisena gathered the support of other defecting lawmakers and many of the country's ethnic minorities, making the election a fierce political battle. Rajapaksa, though, will be difficult to beat. He controls the state media, has immense financial resources and is still popular among the Sinhala majority, some of whom see him as a savior for destroying Tamil Tiger rebels and ending a decades-long civil war in 2009.

But polling was notably strong Thursday in Tamil-dominated areas, where voting had been poor in previous elections. Many Tamils have felt abandoned since the war's end, when Rajapaksa largely ignored Tamil demands to heal the wounds of the fighting and years of ethnic divisions. They were expected to vote heavily for Sirisena.

Both Sirisena and Rajapaksa are ethnic Sinhalese, who make up about three-quarters of the country. Neither has done much to reach out to Tamils, who account for about 9 percent of the population, but Rajapaksa is deeply unpopular in the Tamil community.

The wider world was watching the election in case violence should erupt after the results are announced, especially since Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in the country on Tuesday. While Rajapaksa's campaign has centered around his victory over the Tamils and his work rebuilding the country's infrastructure and economy, Sirisena's focuses on reining in the president's expanding powers. He also accuses Rajapaksa of corruption, a charge the president denies.

The economy has grown quickly in recent years, fed by enormous construction projects, many built with Chinese investment money. But Sri Lanka still has a large underclass, many of whom are increasingly frustrated at being left out.

"It is true big projects came but the poor struggle even to build a home," said Ranjith Abeysinghe, a taxi driver in the town of Gampaha, north of Colombo. "We need a change, we need a government that thinks about the poor."

Others disagreed. "The president did what he promised by winning the war — he has shown results," said Janaka Pradeep, who is from the same town. "The opposition will only lead the country to chaos." The Center for Monitoring Election Violence said it had complained to the election commissioner that bus drivers in the northern Mannar district had stopped transporting voters to balloting stations on the instructions of a ruling party politician. The center also said Rajapaksa campaigners had sent text messages to Tamil voters urging them to boycott the election.

Rajapaksa's power grew immensely after he defeated the Tigers. Following his victory in the last election in 2010 he jailed his opponent and used his parliamentary majority to scrap a constitutional two-term limit for the president and give himself the power to appoint judges, top bureaucrats, police officials and military chiefs. He also orchestrated the impeachment of the country's chief justice.

He also installed numerous relatives in top government positions. One brother is a Cabinet minister, another is the speaker of Parliament and a third is the defense secretary. His older son is a member of Parliament and a nephew is a provincial chief minister.

Associated Press writer Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed to this report.

Ground-Based Detection Paves Way to Remote Sensing of Small Exoplanets

Boston MA (SPX)
Dec 02, 2014

Astronomers have measured the passing of a super-Earth in front of a bright, nearby Sun-like star using a ground-based telescope for the first time. The transit of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is the shallowest detected from the ground yet.

Since detecting a transit is the first step in analyzing a planet's atmosphere, this success bodes well for characterizing the many small planets that upcoming space missions are expected to discover in the next few years.

The international research team used the 2.5-meter Nordic Optical Telescope on the island of La Palma, Spain, a moderate-sized facility by today's standards but equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, to make the detection. Previous observations of this planet transit had to rely on space-borne telescopes.

The host star, 55 Cancri, is located just 40 light-years away from us and is visible to the naked eye. During its transit, the planet crosses 55 Cancri and blocks a tiny fraction of the starlight, dimming the star by 1/2000th (or 0.05%) for almost two hours. This shows that the planet is about twice the size of Earth, or 16,000 miles in diameter.

"Our observations show that we can detect the transits of small planets around Sun-like stars using ground-based telescopes," says Ernst de Mooij of Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom, lead author of the study.

He continues, "This is especially important because upcoming space missions such as TESS and PLATO should find many small planets around bright stars and we will want to follow up the discoveries with ground-based instruments."

TESS is a NASA mission scheduled for launch in 2017, while PLATO is to be launched in 2024 by the European Space Agency; both will search for transiting terrestrial planets around nearby bright stars.

"With this result we are also closing in on the detection of the atmospheres of small planets with ground-based telescopes," says co-author Mercedes Lopez-Morales of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

"We are slowly paving the way toward the detection of bio-signatures in Earth-like planets around nearby stars."

"It's remarkable what we can do by pushing the limits of existing telescopes and instruments, despite the complications posed by the Earth's own turbulent atmosphere," says study co-author Ray Jayawardhana of York Univerity in Canada. "Remote sensing across tens of light-years isn't easy, but it can be done with the right technique and a bit of ingenuity."

The planet 55 Cancri e is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. With a period of 18 hours, it is the innermost of five planets in the system. Because of its proximity to the host star, the planet's dayside temperature reaches over 3100 Fahrenheit (1700 Celsius), hot enough to melt metal, with conditions far from hospitable to life.

Initially identified a decade ago through radial velocity measurements, it was later confirmed through transit observations with the MOST and Spitzer space telescopes.

Until now, the transits of only one other super-Earth, GJ 1214b circling a red dwarf, had been observed with ground-based telescopes. The Earth's roiling air makes such observations extremely difficult. But the team's success with 55 Cancri e raises the prospects of characterizing dozens of super-Earths likely to be revealed by upcoming surveys.

"We expect these surveys to find so many nearby, terrestrial worlds that space telescopes simply won't be able to follow up on all of them. Future ground-based instrumentation will be key, and this study shows it can be done," adds Lopez-Morales.

The research team also includes Raine Karjalainen and Marie Hrudkova of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. Their findings appear in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Ground_Based_Detection_of_Super_Earth_Transit_Paves_Way_to_Remote_Sensing_of_Small_Exoplanets_999.html.

Observing Solar System Worlds as if They Were Distant Exoplanets

by Adam Hadhazy for Astrobiology Magazine
Moffett Field CA (SPX)

"It takes one to know one," as the old truism goes. When it comes to unraveling the mysteries of far-off exoplanets, the same holds true - one more reason why astronomers want to thoroughly understand the local planets right here in our Solar System.

A new scientific paper moves the ball forward in this regard by simulating how several rocky Solar System bodies would look if glimpsed at the light-years distance of alien worlds. Across such great spans, exoplanets are just dim specks. But what little light does get to us could, the study suggests, imply intriguing details about their surface features, provided we know what to look for.

Previous studies of Earth have demonstrated that oceans, continents and ice caps bounce back strikingly different amounts of light into space. Models demonstrate that even from considerable distances, an observer would be able to pick out the different types of surface materials of water, land and ice.

The new study extends this concept to solid worlds unlike Earth, such as Mars and the Galilean moons, to broaden our basis for comparison.

"We eventually want to investigate the surface environments of Earth-like exoplanets, and for this purpose the observable signatures of Earth have been widely studied," said lead author Yuka Fujii, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Earth-Life Science Institute. "To interpret the data of unknown planets obtained in the future, we also need to know the possible variety of observable features of other, non-Earth-like planets."

The study, titled "Geology and Photometric Variation of Solar System Bodies with Minor Atmospheres: Implications for Solid Exoplanets," has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrobiology.

Staring right at you

Although astronomers have discovered nearly 2,000 exoplanets to date, we know very little about any of them. For the vast majority, we merely possess either a mass or a size measurement. Exoplanets are simply too remote and faint for our current suite of instruments to glean tangible, worldly properties like color, surface features and cloud cover.

Our most detailed exoplanetary information so far has it that a handful of these worlds harbor gases, such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, in their atmospheres. That knowledge comes from signatures imprinted by those gases onto light that has passed through the atmosphere. The measurement, though, is indirect. The light assumed to pertain to the exoplanet is separated out from the overwhelming glare of its star.

Fujii's study goes a step further in considering worlds that we will "directly image." The distinction: The light from a directly imaged world is just from the world itself, not inferred from within a star's comparatively blinding glare. This happens to be how we study planets in the Solar System: We look right at them rather than teasing their presence out from a blaze of light.

Less than two dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged to date. The potential advantage of this technique is to be able to distinguish features on small, rocky exoplanets, the best places we think for life to arise.

Today's top-notch telescopes, like the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, will not be up to this task, however. Instead, we must wait for next-generation telescopes and specialized instruments that can collect the planetary light more efficiently than today's instruments, separately from the host star. Several of these instruments in the works may utilize the James Webb Space Telescope, slated for launch in 2018, and the "thirty meter" class of telescopes on the ground.

From here to there

To lay a foundation for this future work, Fujii's study rendered Solar System worlds as far-off, dim exo-worlds. Fujii and colleagues collected existing data, as well as some fresh observations of Mercury, the Moon, Mars and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto).

Because these bodies are all relatively close, detailed maps have been made of their surfaces, consisting of thousands of pixels. Exoplanets, however, owing to their distance, can occupy only a single pixel - a so-called point source. To render Solar System bodies as point sources, Fujii averaged the total color, or brightness, of their numerous pixels down to a single pixel. (Ice, for instance, reflects more light than land, so it has a brighter color.)

As a world rotates, the brightness of this single pixel varies over time if the world's surface is not all the same. For example, when Earth rotates such that the vast Pacific Ocean faces toward an observer, the planet's overall brightness changes compared to when, say, the giant landmass of Asia swings into view.

"Due to the spin rotation, we see different slices of the surface at different times," said Fujii. "So if the brightness varies as the planet rotates, it indicates non-uniform surface material."

Telltale light changes

The various worlds considered in the study did demonstrate average color variations over time that could be explicitly tied to factors affecting their surface compositions.

For a waterless body like the Moon, regions with potentially large contrasts to elsewhere on the lunar surface are "maria," the dark lava fields that form the pareidolic "Man in the Moon" patterns. And sure enough, the Moon stood out as a Solar System object with discernibly dissimilar light-reflecting regions.

Mercury, though it has a fairly uniformly gray color, has smooth plains covering 40 percent of its otherwise heavily cratered surface. The effect on its light reflectance patterns was similar in some ways, but not as dramatic as that of the two-tone Moon.

Io, meanwhile, jumped out thanks to its raging volcanoes, which have slathered the surface in yellows and reds, famously looking like pizza. The brightnesses of the other three Galilean moons, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, fluctuated because of patches of darker material deposited on lighter, water ice. Ganymede's light patterns also hinted at its rumpled surface, with grooves and ridges owing to past internal heating events.

Mars, interestingly, had a lot of light variability at longer wavelengths, because fine-grained particles on the Red Planet's surface scatter these forms of light. The iron oxides, or rust, that covers a significant portion of Mars, however, are efficient at absorbing shorter wavelength light. So the notable presences and absences of certain wavelength of light told a convincing tale of what large expanses of the Mars' surface are like.

Overall, over the course of a single rotation of a planet or moon, these geological characteristics caused changes in brightness ranging from five percent to a quote noticeable 50 percent.

"Other Solar System bodies are also distinct, exhibiting various interesting surface features, some of which affect their characteristic surface colors, highlighting the amazing diversity that awaits future reconnaissance, and thus the need for continued study," said Fujii.

Getting the basics down

The results point to how we might, with direct imaging, begin to pick out exoplanets with distinct, yet familiar geologic histories and perhaps even habitable conditions.

One major aspect that the study sidesteps is the lack of atmospheres in the chosen worlds. Intervening gases, and especially clouds, can make surface characterization difficult or impossible using direct imaging. For example, the thick, cloudy atmospheres of Venus or Saturn's moon, Titan, completely hide their faces.

But in the case of Earth, although clouded here and there, the primary surface entities of continents, oceans and ice caps, can clearly be identified even at tremendous distance, the evidence suggests.

Although indirect atmospheric characterization of habitable exo-worlds will surely precede direct surface imaging, both of these techniques will need to be brought to bear to figure out if, and what sort of, alien life has developed.

"We think this kind of survey is useful," said Fujii, "because in terms of astrobiology, we will be interested in the details of the planetary surfaces after we know the atmospheric profiles."

Along with setting aside atmospheres for now, another caveat of Fujii's study is that the first solid, potentially life-friendly exo-worlds we will likely directly image will be significantly heftier than Earth. These "super-Earths" are on the order of up to twice Earth's width and several times its mass. Per their bigness, super-Earths will be easier to find and examine.

"We wish we had super-Earth counterparts in the Solar System, because then we would definitely study their properties first," said Fujii.

Even so, building upon Fujii's results, astronomers should be well-placed to get a bead on super-Earth surfaces - at least compared to familiar Solar System objects.

"Now that we have a handful of planets and satellites in the Solar System whose properties we know in some detail," said Fujii, "we want to make the most of that knowledge, which we consider as necessary target practice."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Observing_Solar_System_Worlds_as_if_They_Were_Distant_Exoplanets_999.html.

JUICE mission gets green light for next stage of development

Paris (ESA)
Dec 01, 2014

The European Space Agency's JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission has been given the green light to proceed to the next stage of development. This approval is a milestone for the mission, which aims to launch in 2022 to explore Jupiter and its potentially habitable icy moons.

JUICE gained approval for its implementation phase from ESA's Science Program Committee during a meeting at the European Space Astronomy Center near Madrid, Spain, on 19 and 20 November 2014.

Chosen by ESA in May 2012 to be the first large mission within the Cosmic Vision Program, JUICE is planned to be launched in 2022 and to reach Jupiter in 2030. The mission will tour the giant planet to explore its atmosphere, magnetosphere and tenuous set of rings and will characterize the icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.

Detailed investigations of Ganymede will be performed when JUICE enters into orbit around it - the first time any icy moon has been orbited by a spacecraft. During its lifetime, the mission will give us an unrivaled and in-depth understanding of the Jovian system and of these moons.

The scientific goals of the mission are enabled by its instrument suite. This includes cameras, spectrometers, a radar, an altimeter, radio science experiments and sensors used to monitor the plasma environment in the Jovian system. In February 2013, the SPC approved the payload that will be developed by scientific teams from 16 European countries, the USA and Japan, through corresponding national funding.

At the November 2014 meeting of the SPC, the multilateral agreement for JUICE was also approved. This agreement provides the legal framework for provision of payload equipment and ongoing mission support between funding agencies.

The parties to the agreement are the European Space Agency and the funding agencies of the European countries leading the instrument developments in the JUICE mission: the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italy); the Center National d'Etudes Spatiales (France); the Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (Germany); the Swedish National Space Board, and the United Kingdom Space Agency. Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, and Switzerland participate via the PRODEX program.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/JUICE_mission_gets_green_light_for_next_stage_of_development_999.html.