With no pope, Catholic Church leaderless for now

March 01, 2013

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Catholic Church has awoken with no leader following Benedict XVI's resignation, in which he pledged obedience to his successor and described himself as "simply a pilgrim" starting the final part of his life.

Now begins a period known as the "sede vacante" or "vacant see" — the transition between the end of one papacy and the election of a new pope. During these few days — no more than 20 — a few key players take charge running the Holy See, guiding the College of Cardinals in their deliberations and organizing the conclave to elect Benedict's successor.

In one of his first official acts as dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano on Friday officially summons cardinals to Rome to participate in the conclave, a formality given that most are already here. And in one of his first official acts as camerlengo, or the chamberlain who actually runs the Holy See in the transition, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone sealed Benedict's apartment in the Apostolic Palace on Thursday night. It will not be reopened until a new pope is elected.

With the 8 p.m. Thursday end of Benedict's papacy, every department head in the Vatican lost his job — except for those whose offices are crucial for the smooth running of the transition period itself.

Cardinals on Monday will begin formal meetings to set the date for the conclave and discuss problems facing the church; major topics of discussion are expected to be the report Benedict commissioned into the leaks of sensitive Vatican documents and the dysfunction currently reigning in the Vatican bureaucracy.

"What we talk about ... will be certainly the governance of the church and in that context there may be questions to people who did the report," said Chicago Cardinal Francis George. "I think we will find out a lot from a lot of sources to figure out what is necessary now to govern the church well here in Rome itself."

Japan ex-minister warns of Okinawa unrest, secession

Tokyo (AFP)
Jan 31, 2013

A former Japanese minister has warned domestic terrorists could strike Tokyo if the government fails to address anger in Okinawa over a heavy US military presence there.

Shozaburo Jimi, minister in charge of financial services and postal reform, under the last government, suggested Wednesday that residents of the sub-tropical island chain may also push for secession from Japan.

"Okinawa has long had a history of independence movements and movements for self-governance. I hope those things will not blaze up," he told local media.

"There's a possibility that (Okinawa) will say it will become an independent state," Jimi said, according to Kyodo News.

"Domestic guerrilla (struggles) could occur as a result of separatist movements," and "terrorist bombings could occur in Tokyo, depending on how the state handles" the issue, said Jimi.

The comments came as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who swept to power in a December election, reiterated his policy of strengthening the Japan-US military alliance and said he was pushing ahead with an unpopular plan to move a large US air base within the prefecture.

Jimi's statements, which come ahead of Abe's weekend visit to Okinawa, were seen as an attempt to press the government to ease the burden on the southern Japanese prefecture, reluctant host to more than half of the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan.

Despite calls from local Okinawan politicians, the central government has stood firm on its plan to move the Futenma Air Station from a residential district of Okinawa to a sparsely populated shoreline area.

Domestic terror attacks hit Japan in the 1960s and 1970s during huge social upheaval and as part of a radicalist and student movement, but the country has since largely escaped the blight of organised political violence.

Jimi is head of the small People's New Party, which was part of the ruling bloc until a December election saw it routed, including in Okinawa.

The often-fractious relationship between the US military and the communities that host them has been further irritated in recent months by a series of crimes committed by drunken servicemen, including the gang rape of a local woman.

Opponents have also seized on the deployment to Okinawa of tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft, which they say have a questionable safety record and put people living nearby at unnecessary risk.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_ex-minister_warns_of_Okinawa_unrest_secession_999.html.

Ridges on Mars suggest ancient flowing water

Providence RI (SPX)
Jan 31, 2013

Networks of narrow ridges found in impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.

The study, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The research was conducted by Lee Saper, a recent Brown graduate, with Jack Mustard, professor of geological sciences.

The ridges, many of them hundreds of meters in length and a few meters wide, had been noted in previous research, but how they had formed was not known. Saper and Mustard thought they might once have been faults and fractures that formed underground when impact events rattled the planet's crust. Water, if present in the subsurface, would have circulated through the cracks, slowly filling them in with mineral deposits, which would have been harder than the surrounding rocks. As those surrounding rocks eroded away over millions of years, the seams of mineral-hardened material would remain in place, forming the ridges seen today.

To test their hypothesis, Saper and Mustard mapped over 4,000 ridges in two crater-pocked regions on Mars, Nili Fossae and Nilosyrtis. Using high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers noted the orientations of the ridges and composition of the surrounding rocks.

The orientation data is consistent with the idea that the ridges started out as fractures formed by impact events. A competing hypothesis suggests that these structures may have been sheets of volcanic magma intruding into the surrounding rock, but that doesn't appear to be the case. At Nili Fossae, the orientations are similar to the alignments of large faults related to a mega-scale impact.

At Nilosyrtis, where the impact events were smaller in scale, the ridge orientations are associated with each of the small craters in which they were found. "This suggests that fracture formation resulted from the energy of localized impact events and are not associated with regional-scale volcanism," Saper said.

Importantly, Saper and Mustard also found that the ridges exist exclusively in areas where the surrounding rock is rich in iron-magnesium clay, a mineral considered to be a telltale sign that water had once been present in the rocks.

"The association with these hydrated materials suggests there was a water source available," Saper said. "That water would have flowed along the path of least resistance, which in this case would have been these fracture conduits."

As that water flowed, dissolved minerals would have been slowly deposited in the conduits, in much the same way mineral deposits can build up and eventually clog drain pipes. That mineralized material would have been more resistant to erosion than the surrounding rock. And indeed, Saper and Mustard found that these ridges were only found in areas that were heavily eroded, consistent with the notion that these are ancient structures revealed as the weaker surrounding rocks were slowly peeled away by wind.

Taken together, the results suggest the ancient Martian subsurface had flowing water and may have been a habitable environment.

"This gives us a point of observation to say there was enough fracturing and fluid flow in the crust to sustain at least a regionally viable subsurface hydrology," Saper said. "The overarching theme of NASA's planetary exploration has been to follow the water. So if in fact these fractures that turned into these ridges were flowing with hydrothermal fluid, they could have been a viable biosphere."

Saper hopes that the Curiosity rover, currently making its way across its Gale Crater landing site, might be able to shed more light on these types of structures.

"In the site at Gale Crater, there are thought to be mineralized fractures that the rover will go up and touch," Saper said. "These are very small and may not be exactly the same kind of feature we studied, but we'll have the opportunity to crush them up and do chemical analysis on them. That could either bolster our hypothesis or tell us we need to explore other possibilities."

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Ridges_on_Mars_suggest_ancient_flowing_water_999.html.

Mercury's crust likely made of magnesium-rich basalt

Washington DC (SPX)
Jan 31, 2013

With both x-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging probe (MESSENGER), which entered orbit around Mercury in 2011, is well equipped for carrying out a detailed compositional analysis of Mercury's crust, the understanding of which could help determine the nature of the planet's formation, and of its volcanic past.

Using spectrometric measurements and laboratory analyzes of Mercury surface-analogue samples, Stockstill-Cahill et al. determine that the upper layers of Mercury's crust most closely resemble magnesian basalt terrestrial rocks, though with lower iron concentrations.

To make their determination, the authors used a software package known as MELTS to simulate the cooling and crystallization of potential Mercurian lavas with different chemical compositions, estimating the temperatures at which minerals would crystallize out of the molten lava and the abundances of different mineral species.

Similarly, the authors simulated the cooling of magnesium-rich terrestrial rocks and of meteoritic samples.

Based on their chemical compositional analysis, the authors infer a number of properties for an early lava on Mercury. They suggest that the lava would have had a very low viscosity, streaming across the surface in widespread but thin layers.

Further, they calculate that the temperatures required to produce the magnesium-rich lava would have been much higher than for terrestrial rocks not enriched in magnesium.

The authors say that the low-viscosity lava would leave telltale marks on the planet's surface that could be identified through further MESSENGER observations.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Mercurys_crust_likely_made_of_magnesium_rich_basalt_999.html.

Iran Takes First Step to Send Man to Space

Tehran (FNA)
Jan 31, 2013

Sending a biocapsule to the space and retrieving it successfully was Iran's first step on the path to sending a human to the space, Iran's Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said after his agency announced on Monday that it had sent a monkey to the orbit, brought it back to the Earth and retrieved the animal and the relevant data successfully.

"Sending Explorer and retrieving it was the first step for sending human to the space in later stages," Vahidi said, adding that he would soon announce some good news in the same regard.

He further pointed to the mission of the Explorer, and said, "Explorer Pioneer fulfilled its mission at 360,000 feet (120km) altitude well."

Vahidi, whose ministry's space organization was in charge of the project, said the biocapsule which contained a living creature (a monkey) came back to Earth safe and sound and at the planned speed and velocity.

He said Iran will soon inaugurate a space observation base.

The Defense Ministry's Aerospace Industries Organization announced that it has sent a monkey into the space on the back of Pishgam (Pioneer) explorer rocket, and that it has brought back and recovered the living cargo.

The Aerospace Industries Organization said it had sent the living creature into space aboard an indigenous biocapsule as a prelude to sending humans into space.

The Aerospace Industries Organization said the capsule was sent to an orbit beyond 120km in altitude and carried out telemetry of the environmental data records.

The explorer rocket was launched by the Aerospace Industries Organization and it returned to the Earth after reaching the desired speed and altitude, and the living creature (monkey) was retrieved and found alive.

In mid-March 2011, Iran's Space Agency (ISA) announced the launch of the Kavoshgar-4 rocket carrying a test capsule designed to house the monkey.

The capsule had been unveiled in February 2011 by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with four new prototypes of home-built satellites.

At the time, Director of Iran Space Agency (ISA) Hamid Fazeli called the launch of a large animal into space as the first step towards sending a man into space, which Tehran says is scheduled for 2020.

Iran has already sent small animals into space - a rat, turtles and worms - aboard a capsule carried by its Kavoshgar-3 rocket in 2010.

The Islamic republic, which first put a satellite into orbit in 2009, has outlined an ambitious space program and has, thus far, made giant progress in the field despite western sanctions and pressures against its advancement.

Iran has taken wide strides in aerospace. The country sent the first biocapsule of living creatures into space in February 2011, using its home-made Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in 2010 that Iran plans to send astronauts into space in 2024. But, later he said that the issue had gone under a second study at a cabinet meeting and that the cabinet had decided to implement the plan in 2019, five years earlier than the date envisaged in the original plan.

Omid (hope) was Iran's first research satellite that was designed for gathering information and testing equipment. After orbiting for three months, Omid successfully completed its mission without any problem. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the Earth's atmosphere on April 25, 2009.

After launching Omid, Tehran unveiled three new satellites called Tolou, Mesbah II and Navid, respectively. Iran has also unveiled its latest achievements in designing and producing satellite carriers.

A new generation of home-made satellites and a new satellite carrier called Simorgh (Phoenix) were among the latest achievements unveiled by Iran's aerospace industries.

The milk-bottle shaped rocket is equipped to carry a 60-kilogram (132-pound) satellite 500 kilometers (310 miles) into orbit.

The 27-meter (90 foot) tall multi-stage rocket weighs 85 tons and its liquid fuel propulsion system has a thrust of up to 143 tons.

Iran is one of the 24 founding members of the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), which was set up in 1959.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Iran_Takes_First_Step_to_Send_Man_to_Space_999.html.

The fate of Baikonur: Will Russia's space gates Open?

by Olga Zakutnyaya
Moscow (Voice of Russia)
Jan 31, 2013

The current uncertainty surrounding space activities at Baikonur in 2013 may be eliminated on Wednesday when Kazakh prime minister, Kairat Kelimbetov, visits Russia to discuss several issues, including the famous cosmodrome. Meanwhile, officials are already working hard to assure the media that the situation is still a long way from being a crisis. The apparent scandal around the spaceport had been exaggerated, said Russian officials on Friday.

The fate of Baikonur, which is, without question, uncertain, may in fact, according to Russia's foreign affairs minister, Sergey Lavrov, be far from the disaster that many think.

Last week a new controversy around Russia's main cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, hit the headlines. The Izvestia newspaper published a note from the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry announcing the Kazakh Government's decision to cut the number of Proton launches in 2013 to 12 instead of the 17 requested by Russia. It went on to suggest that the move might threaten other joint Russian-Kazakh projects, such as the Baiterek and Dnepr programs.

Anyone eagerly watching the situation for further developments may now feel a sense of disappointment, as tensions over the issue began to ease towards the end of last week.

Both Russian officials, and their Kazakh counterparts, were quick to point out that the Baikonur controversy would not affect relations the two states. There is also a further Kazakh visit coming up on January 30 which should bring even more clarity to the situation, this time by the vice minister who also co-chairs the Baikonur committee.

This is not the first, and almost certainly not the last, time that Baikonur has been at the heart of apparent, or even actual, disputes between the two Nations.

Previously both sides have always successfully resolved disagreements to their mutual satisfaction; there can be little doubt that this occasion will be any different, because of the underlying truth that Baikonur is essential to both.

On the other hand the status quo cannot be maintained indefinitely. With the construction of Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome underway, Baikonur will inevitably lose its long held status as the centre of Russia's space program, if indeed it keeps a role at all.

With annual rent for the site topping the $100 million mark, the Kazakh space base represents a significant burden on the state budget, essentially double the future cost of the new cosmodrome.

However forecasts of Baaikonur's demise may be a little premature as no launches from Vostochny have yet been scheduled, and the primary rocket launcher it is intended to host, namely Angara, has yet even to make its maiden flight.

Then there is Proton, the heaviest Russian launcher available, which, despite its toxic components, can only blast off from Baikonur, which is also the primary facility delivering cosmonauts and cargo to the International Space Station. Hence, the Baikonur launch pads remain vital to the majority of Russian activities in space.

An imperfect equation with many unknown quantities, the Baikonur problem is unlikely to be solved by simple solutions. Several coming events will affect it greatly, such as, for example, the South Korean launch scheduled on January 30. That lift-off will essentially be driven by the first stage of Angara, so it will also make an important contribution to Russian space developments.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_fate_of_Baikonur_Will_Russias_space_gates_Open_999.html.

Morocco: Protests as 24 Sahrawis tried

2013-02-01

Rabat - Rival protests were held on Friday outside a military tribunal in the Moroccan capital where 24 Sahrawis accused of killing members of the security forces in the Western Sahara in 2010 are being tried.

The politically charged trial, which is being attended by a number of independent foreign observers, has been repeatedly delayed, with the defendants held in custody for more than two years.

The authorities say 11 people died in the clashes, among them members of the security forces, which broke out as the army moved to dismantle the Gdim Izik camp where thousands of local Sahrawis were living in November 2010.

The Sahrawis arrested during the unrest are accused of violence against the security forces, of pre-meditated killing and of mutilating the victims' bodies.

Some 100 people demonstrated outside the court in Rabat on Friday, among them families of the victims, pro-Saharwi activists and relatives of the accused, many of whom were allowed to attend the trial, an AFP journalist said.

Some relatives of the victims remained outside the tribunal, waving banners that read: "We know who the killers are, so where is justice?"

Ahead of the trial, observers and rights groups expressed concern over allegations the defendants were tortured in custody, about the case being tried by a military court, and about the possible death penalty facing the accused, if convicted.

At dawn on 8 November 2010, Moroccan security forces moved to dismantle the Western Sahara camp, near the territory's main city of Laayoune, which thousands of Sahrawis had set up in protest over their living conditions.

The intervention sparked clashes that spread to nearby Laayoune, where businesses and public buildings were looted and torched.

The authorities said 11 were killed in the unrest, while the Algeria-based Polisario Front separatists said dozens of people lost their lives.

Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975, in a move never recognized by the international community.

The Polisario Front launched its struggle for independence even before the annexation, with the resulting war lasting until 1991 when the UN brokered a ceasefire, but a settlement of the conflict still remains elusive.

- AFP

Source: News24.
Link: http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Morocco-Protests-as-24-Sahrawis-tried-20130201.