S. Korea mulls constitutional overhaul following Park ouster

March 12, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean politicians want to ensure that the country never again sees a leader like Park Geun-hye, who was booted from office over an explosive corruption scandal. But they are far apart on whether doing so would require rewriting the country's 3-decade-old constitution, a treasured symbol of the bloody transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Several parties, including conservatives scrambling to distance themselves from Park, say South Koreans should vote in a new constitution in addition to a new president in early May. They say the shocking downfall of Park, who may face criminal charges over extortion and bribery, shows that the constitution places too much power that is easily abused and often goes unchecked into the hands of the president.

Their proposal for a new constitution is based on power-sharing, where the president is limited to handling foreign affairs and national security and leaves domestic affairs to a prime minister picked by parliament.

However, the party of liberal Moon Jae-in, who opinion polls show as the clear favorite to become South Korea's next leader, opposes a quick constitutional revision and accuses rival parties of plotting a short-cut to power.

The discussions about rewriting the constitution are ironic in that they come after a historic effort to protect it. Lawmakers voted to impeach Park in December on grounds that she "gravely violated" the constitution written in 1987, after the government of military strongman Chun Doo-hwan caved in to months of massive protests and accepted demands for presidential elections.

The debate also raises a fundamental question for South Koreans as they mull a new political landscape following Park's demise: Was it a flawed, imperious presidential system that allowed Park to abuse her powers, or a culture that long treated elected heads of states like kings?

The future of the constitution has instantly emerged as a major political topic after the Constitutional Court removed Park on Friday and triggered a two-month presidential race. Kweon Seong Dong, a lawmaker from the conservative Bareun party and chief prosecutor in Park's impeachment trial, touted his party's line immediately after the ruling.

"We need a constitutional revision based on power-sharing," Kweon said. "Absolute power absolutely corrupts." Critics refuse to see the court's decision to uphold Park's impeachment as proof that the constitution works as it is. They include none other than one of the court's justices, Ahn Changho.

In a supplementary opinion written into Park's ruling, Ahn found the constitution responsible for an "imperial presidency" that breeds "deplorable political customs," such as abuse of power and corruptive ties with the country's biggest companies, which have a tradition of bribing politicians for business favors.

Ahn said the president simply has too much power over the appointment of government officials, making of laws and policies, budget planning and other decisions, which lawmakers find difficult to check for most of the single five-year term.

"Our country has a winner-takes-it-all representative system where those who win an election, even by just one vote, obtain imperial political power and those who don't get swept to the side and are neglected," Ahn wrote.

A constitutional change would need the support of two-thirds of the 300-seat parliament and then pass a national referendum. Moon, who's likely to be the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, the largest in parliament, says he is open to discussions about constitutional revision, but opposes any changes that take place before or simultaneously with the upcoming presidential election.

He says that two months is too short to properly rewrite the constitution, which not only lays out fundamental principles for power and governance, but also defines the basic rights of citizens. Besides proposing power-sharing between the president and prime minister, the parties backing a constitutional overhaul also call for the next president's term to be reduced to three years so that a presidential vote can coincide with a parliamentary election in 2020. By then, the parties want a president to be able to serve two four-year terms or a six-year single term.

Some experts question whether South Korea's Constitution is really at fault for power-drunk presidents. On paper, it seems that the South Korean president domestically has significantly less power than, say, the president of the United States. The South Korean president can't issue executive orders without the consent of lawmakers. The president does appoint a large number of government officials, but needs lawmakers' approval when seating the prime minister, Seoul's No. 2 job.

It's hard to say a system for checks and balances isn't there when lawmakers and a court just combined to kick out a sitting president. This wasn't the first time South Korean lawmakers tried to remove a president either, although the Constitutional Court reinstated late President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004.

Perhaps, Park's saga is less of a reflection of the country's constitution than of a rigidly hierarchical culture, where people find it extremely difficult to disobey instructions from above, even when they are inappropriate or unlawful.

The scandal has inspired Democratic Party lawmaker Ki Dong-min to propose a law he says is aimed at allowing government workers to refuse "unjust" orders from their bosses. But when a society needs a special law so that people could avoid breaking other laws, then probably laws aren't what the problem is about.

"South Korea's imperial president wasn't created by laws, but by custom and culture," Won-Ho Park, a Seoul National University politics professor, wrote in a newspaper column. "The secret to why our president can influence so many things, even the appointment of public university presidents or the personnel decisions of private companies, could perhaps be found in our culture that calls presidential authority as the 'great power' and presidential contenders 'hidden dragons,'" he said.

S.Koreans celebrate Park's removal, but ousted leader silent

March 11, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after a court removed her from power over a corruption scandal, ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye maintained her silence on Saturday as her opponents and supporters divided the capital's streets with massive rallies that showed a nation deeply split over its future.

Park has been unseen and unheard from since the Constitutional Court's ruling on Friday, which ended a power struggle that had consumed the nation for months. Park, whose fate was left in the court's hands after her parliamentary impeachment in December, has yet to vacate the presidential Blue House, with her aides saying they need more time to prepare for her return to her private home in Seoul.

Carrying flags and candles and cheering jubilantly, tens of thousands of people occupied a boulevard in downtown Seoul to celebrate Park's ouster. Meanwhile, in a nearby grass square, a large crowd of Park's supporters glumly waved national flags near a stage where organizers, wearing red caps and military uniforms, vowed to resist what they called a "political assassination."

Police had braced for violence between the two crowds after three people died and dozens were injured in clashes between police and Park's supporters after the ruling on Friday. Nearly 20,000 police officers were deployed on Saturday to monitor the protesters, who were also separated by tight perimeters created by hundreds of police buses.

The anti-Park protesters shouted "The candles have won!" and "Arrest Park Geun-hye!" as they began marching toward the Blue House. The protesters, who held candles during their massive evening demonstrations in recent months, loosely call themselves the Candle Force.

The court's decision capped a stunning fall for the country's first female leader. Park rode a wave of lingering conservative nostalgia for her late dictator father to victory in 2012, only to see her presidency crumble as millions of furious protesters filled the nation's streets.

While the ruling might have irrevocably derailed Park's political career, analysts saw defiance in her silence, saying that Park was perhaps hoping to use the growing anger of her followers to rebuild support.

"By being quiet, she's making it loud and clear that she won't accept the court's ruling," said Yul Shin, a professor at Seoul's Myongji University. "Nobody knows when she will leave the Blue House, but maybe she wanted to see how large the crowd was tonight at the pro-Park rally."

The ruling allows possible criminal proceedings against the 65-year-old Park — prosecutors have already named her a criminal suspect — and makes her South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be removed from office since democracy replaced dictatorship in the late 1980s.

It also deepens South Korea's political and security uncertainty as it faces existential threats from North Korea, reported economic retaliation from a China furious about Seoul's cooperation with the U.S. on an anti-missile system, and questions in Seoul about the Trump administration's commitment to the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.

South Korea must hold an election within two months to choose Park's successor. Liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost to Park in the 2012 election, currently enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion polls. Kim Yong-deok, the chief of the National Election Commission, said Saturday that the election would be managed "accurately and perfectly" and urged the public to participate in a vote that would "determine the fate of the Republic of Korea," referring to South Korea's formal name.

The Constitutional Court accused Park of colluding with longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil to extort tens of millions of dollars from businesses and letting Choi, a private citizen, meddle in state affairs and receive and look at documents with state secrets. Those allegations were previously made by prosecutors, but Park has refused to undergo any questioning, citing a law that gives a sitting leader immunity from prosecution.

It is not clear when prosecutors will try to interview her. Prosecutors have arrested and indicted a slew of high-profile figures over the scandal, including Choi and Samsung's de facto chief, Lee Jae-yong.

Park's lawyer, Seo Seok-gu, who had previously compared her impeachment to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, called the verdict a "tragic decision" made under popular pressure and questioned the fairness of what he called a "kangaroo court."

Some of Park's supporters reacted with anger after the ruling, shouting and hitting police officers and reporters with plastic flag poles and steel ladders and climbing on police buses. Police and hospital officials said three people died while protesting Park's removal, including a man in his 70s who died early Saturday after collapsing near the court.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Foster Klug contributed to this report.

Japan and Russia hold talks on security, territorial dispute

March 20, 2017

TOKYO (AP) — The foreign and defense ministers from Japan and Russia met in Tokyo on Monday for the first "two-plus-two" talks since Russia's annexation of Ukraine. The one-day meeting comes as the sides work to end a decades-long territorial dispute that is blocking them from forging a peace treaty. At the same time, Japan, Russia, China and other countries are mulling how best to deal with North Korea's launches of missiles and its nuclear program.

Plans by the U.S. and its ally South Korea to deploy a state-of-the-art missile defense system known as THAAD, meanwhile, have antagonized Beijing and Russia. Officials on both sides said the talks would largely focus on regional security.

"We will offer our view of the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in the Pacific region," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. It said joint efforts in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking were also on the agenda.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida began talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, while Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada will sit down for talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The four ministers will also hold joint talks on international and bilateral issues.

Japan and Russia last held "two-plus-two" talks in November 2013. Meetings were shelved after that due to the crisis in Ukraine, as Japan joined sanctions against Moscow. The Tokyo talks are not expected to lead to a breakthrough on conflicting claims to islands north of Hokkaido — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islets — that came under Russian control after Japan's defeat in World War II.

A Japanese foreign ministry official said Tokyo would raise concerns over Russia's installment of surface-to-ship missiles on Etorofu and other military activity elsewhere on the disputed islands, and seek an explanation from Moscow. It does not plan to push harder than that, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition he not be named.

Japanese officials said the talks would include work on planning a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Moscow later this year. Logistics of visits by Japanese former residents of the disputed islands will also be addressed, they said.

While the countries remain at odds with no clear way forward in resolving the territorial dispute, they are discussing joint development of fisheries, tourism and other areas that might help bridge the gap.

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Hong Kong set to pick new leader anointed by Beijing

March 21, 2017

HONG KONG (AP) — The three candidates vying to be Hong Kong's next leader squared off in a feisty debate in front of hundreds of voters who peppered them with questions. They wrangled over policy proposals for the semiautonomous Chinese city and took jabs at each other at Sunday night's forum. In one particularly testy exchange, frontrunner Carrie Lam, a former chief secretary, sniped at rival John Tsang for keeping a clean desk during his time as the city's finance chief, implying that he hadn't kept himself busy enough.

"No files, no papers, so I really envied him," Lam said, adding that her desk was always covered in documents. Tsang shot back that "besides working hard, we have to work smart," drawing cheers from the audience.

With the vote for Hong Kong's next chief executive set for Sunday March 26, the forum was one of the last big chances for the contenders to drum up support from among the 1,194 members of an election committee who take their cues from Beijing. Voters from among Hong Kong's 7.3 million residents have no say in choosing the chief executive.

Although the mustachioed Tsang, nicknamed "Pringles" or "Uncle Chips" for his resemblance to the snack food mascot, enjoys broad support, Lam, the city's former No. 2 ranking official, is widely expected to win.

The election committee, whose members organized and attended Sunday's debate, is heavily stacked with representatives of business, trade and professional groups who vote according to the wishes of China's communist leaders. There are also about 320 pro-democracy supporters among their ranks.

The electoral system was the main target of 2014's massive pro-democracy street protests that gripped the city for 79 days and grabbed world headlines, altering common views of Hong Kong as a ruthlessly efficient business center with little interest in politics.

In contrast to Lam, Tsang has an affable, easygoing persona and has deftly used social media to connect with ordinary people. He earned kudos in 2015 for cheering on Hong Kong's soccer team in World Cup qualifier matches against China, while other officials took a more politically correct noncommittal stance.

In a mock poll organized by Hong Kong University researchers, Tsang had a net support rate of 87.7 percent from about 65,000 votes cast electronically or in person. Lam had net negative support of 94.5 percent. A third candidate, ex-judge Woo Kwok-hing, had negative support of 12.3 percent.

"Nobody is in doubt that Carrie will win," because Beijing has been heavily lobbying pro-establishment election committee members to support her, said Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Willy Lam and Carrier Lam are not related.

Lam has Beijing's backing but she's been ridiculed for gaffes that give the impression she's out of touch with ordinary people. In one incident, Lam said she couldn't find toilet paper for the new apartment she moved to after vacating her official residence upon launching her campaign for chief executive. She was forced to make a late evening return to her government apartment to spend the night.

Despite that, Lam has a reputation for being a pragmatic and effective administrator. Beijing's support for her candidacy is seen as a reward for her loyalty while serving under the deeply unpopular current leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, known by his initials, C.Y.

Leung has passed on the opportunity to seek a second term in office, citing family reasons. His surprise announcement was seen by analysts as an indication that Beijing asked him to step aside in favor of someone less unpopular but who could still be trusted to carry out its agenda in Hong Kong.

The city is supposed to have much leeway in running its own affairs but recent incidents have stoked fears that Beijing is tightening its grip. Analysts said Beijing wants to ensure Hong Kong's next leader will have more support than Leung, who could never shake off his nickname "689," a reference to the number of votes he received — barely half of the total.

"The last time it was a bit humiliating, 689 was considered to be a bit low," said Willy Lam. "This time their top priority (in Beijing) is that Carrie must be seen as doing substantially better than C.Y., so that means at least a vote closer to 750."

Lam been dubbed C.Y. 2.0, because many Hong Kongers believe she'll adopt the same hard-line policies pursued by her former boss. Samson Yuen, a politics lecturer at the Open University of Hong Kong, predicted a Lam administration would continue to take actions that constrain the "organizational resources" of pro-democracy parties, making it difficult for them to survive.

Under Leung, the government won an unprecedented lawsuit last year disqualifying two activist lawmakers who advocated Hong Kong independence over improperly taking their oaths of office. It's pursuing similar suits against four others.

Carrie Lam "will inherit the tactics of C.Y. Leung, because if Carrie wins that means C.Y. will have a lot of influence over the political system," said Yuen. "That means such kind of repression will still go on. I do think the space for the pro-democracy movement will shrink."

SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth

Washington (AFP)
March 20, 2017

SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, March 19, with more than 5,400 pounds of NASA cargo, and science and technology demonstration samples from the International Space Station.

Everything from stem cells that could help us understand how human cancers start and spread after being exposed to near zero-gravity, to equipment that is paving the way toward servicing and refueling satellites while they're in orbit will be on board.

After Dragon is recovered off the west coast of Baja California, some of the cargo will be removed and returned to NASA immediately while Dragon itself is prepared for a return trip to SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas. There, the processing and further unloading of scientific samples and returning station hardware will continue.

A variety of technological and biological studies are returning in Dragon. The Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation had crew members observe cell growth and other characteristics in microgravity.

This information will provide insight into how human cancers start and spread, which aids in the development of prevention and treatment plans. Results from this investigation could lead to the treatment of disease and injury in space, as well as provide a way to improve stem cell production for human therapy on Earth.

Samples from the Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect study, a U.S. National Laboratory investigation sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, studied what prevents vertebrates such as rodents and humans from re-growing lost bone and tissue, and how microgravity conditions impact the process.

Results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind a human's inability to grow a lost limb at the wound site, and could lead to new treatment options for the more than 30 percent of the patient population who do not respond to current options for chronic non-healing wounds.

Several external payloads were removed from the space station and placed in the Dragon's trunk for disposal. The Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) device tested the potential for using a laser to transmit data to Earth from space, indicating that high speed space to ground optical communications are possible from a fast moving spacecraft.

The Materials on International Space Station Experiment tested the radiation tolerance of a computer built from radiation-tolerant material to simulate work for a future long-term space mission.

The Robotic Refueling Mission Phase 2 tested new technologies, tools and techniques that could eventually give satellite owners resources to diagnose problems on orbit, repair failures, and keep certain spacecraft instruments performing longer in space.

The Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 19, carrying about 5,500 pounds of supplies and scientific cargo on the company's tenth commercial resupply mission to the station.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/SpaceX_cargo_ship_returns_to_Earth_999.html.

NASA says goodbye to a Pathfinder Earth Satellite after 17 years

by Kasha Patel for GSFC News

Greenbelt MD (SPX)
Mar 17, 2017

The first to map active lava flows from space. The first to measure a facility's methane leak from space. The first to track re-growth in a partially logged Amazon forest from space. But now, after 17 years in orbit, one of NASA's pathfinder Earth satellites for testing new satellite technologies and concepts comes to an end on March 30, 2017. The Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite will be powered off on that date but will not enter Earth's atmosphere until 2056.

Launched on Nov. 21, 2000, EO-1 was designed as a technology validation mission focused on testing cutting-edge satellite and instrument technologies that could be incorporated into future missions. Commissioned as part of NASA's New Millennium Program, the satellite was part of a series of missions that were developed at a cheaper price tag to test new technologies and concepts that had never been flown before.

"EO-1 has changed the way spectral Earth measurements are being made and used by the science community," said Betsy Middleton, EO-1's Project Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

EO-1 was launched with 13 new technologies, including three new instruments. EO-1's most important technology goal was to validate the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) for future Earth-observing satellites. The ALI provided a variety of Earth data including observations of forest cover, crops, coastal waters and aerosols. The ALI's instrument design and onboard technology directly shaped the design of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, currently in orbit.

EO-1's other key instrument is a hyperspectral instrument called Hyperion that allows scientists to see chemical constituents of Earth's surface in fine detail with hundreds of wavelengths. These data allow scientists to identify specific minerals, track vegetation type and vigor of forests and monitor volcanic activity.

The knowledge acquired and technology developed from Hyperion is being incorporated into a NASA concept for a potential future hyperspectral satellite, the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager, that will study the world's ecosystems, such as identifying different types of plants and assessing wildfires and droughts.

With both of these instruments, the EO-1 team was able to acquire images with high spatial resolution of events and natural disasters around the world for anyone who requested it.

The EO-1 team could point the instruments at any specific location and gather images every two to five days of a particular spot, which was very useful for scientists as well as disaster relief managers trying to stay informed of rapidly changing events. (Landsat typically looks at the same area once every 16 days.) EO-1 captured scenes such as the ash after the World Trade Center attacks, the flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, volcanic eruptions and a large methane leak in southern California.

EO-1 also served as a valuable pathfinder for a variety of space technologies. Technologists installed and tested autonomy software on EO-1 that allowed the satellite to make its own decisions based on the content of the data it collected.

For instance, if a scientist instructed EO-1 to take a picture of an area where a volcano was currently erupting, the software could decide to automatically take a follow-up image the next time it passed over the location.

The mission also validated software that allowed "formation flying" that kept EO-1 orbiting Earth exactly one minute behind the Landsat-7 satellite, already in orbit. The original purpose was to validate the new ALI technologies for use in Landsat 8, which was accomplished.

EO-1 was originally only supposed to last one year, but after that initial mission, the satellite had no major issues or breakdowns. On a shoestring budget contributed by NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Reconnaissance Office and Naval Research Laboratory, the satellite continued to operate for sixteen more years, resulting in more than 1,500 papers published on EO-1 research.

On March 30, 2017, the satellite will be decommissioned, drained of its energy and become inert. Without enough fuel to keep EO-1 in its current orbit, the mission team will shut down the satellite and wait for it to return to Earth. When EO-1 does reenter the earth's atmosphere in about 39 years, it is estimated that all the components will burn up in the atmosphere.

"We'll probably just see EO-1 as a streak in the sky as it disintegrates," said Middleton.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_says_goodbye_to_a_Pathfinder_Earth_Satellite_after_17_years_999.html.

Slobbery kisses: Romania hosts show for 1,600 exotic pets

March 20, 2017

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A tabby feline with big furry claws, bald cats with shell-like ears and skinny tails, and slobbery wrinkled pugs were the stars as Bucharest hosted a show featuring over 1,600 exotic pets.

The pet show in the Romanian capital kicked off with a free dog handling session for some of the 1,500 dogs. Owners proudly paraded their pets at the March 10-12 event or entered them into beauty contests.

Rare breeds of dogs, cats and exotic animals are status symbols in Romania — but there was plenty of affection too, as owners cuddled or performed with their dogs. The array of pets included coiffed canines and bright-eyed cats. Exotic bald cats with webbed paws vied for attention with dogs like pugs or basset hounds.

One boy visiting the show got into a cage to hug a dozing cognac-colored dog about the same size as him. Dogs took part from Romania, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine.

Three pugs with tightly coiled tails stood on their hind legs seeking their owner's attention. Two basset hounds had silver scarves wrapped around their necks. Lali the greyhound trotted along the red carpet with an alert expression, watching its owner toss a tennis ball in her hand.