Israel closes two Islamic charities

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Israel police and the security agency Shin Bet yesterday closed two Muslim charities in Israel under claims of funding Israeli Islamist movements and Hamas, AFP and the Anadolu Agency reported.

The Muslim Women for Al-Aqsa, in East Jerusalem, and Al-Fajr Foundation for Culture and Literature in the Arab city of Nazareth in northern Israel, were all shut down.

According to a statement issued by the Israeli police, the charities were suspected of financing "organizations which identify with Hamas" and encouraging activists to confront visitors to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon outlawed the charities last month claiming they posed a threat on Israeli national security. Shin Bet implemented Ya'alon's order.

"The charities... are suspected of paying activists who go every day to the Temple Mount [Al-Aqsa Mosque]," a police statement said.

The charities said the Israeli police raided their offices and "confiscated computers, documents and bank records from two of the offices and arrested employees for questioning".

In a statement they denied all accusations of money-laundering and financing "terror" activities or "violence" at Al-Aqsa Mosque and denied any links to "terrorist organizations".

Adding that the Muslim Women for Al-Aqsa "organizes study for women inside the mosque and supervises their activities."

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16305-israel-closes-two-islamic-charities.

Thai workers subject to abuse on Israeli farms

21 January 2015 Wednesday

Thai farm workers in Israel are being subjected to dangerous working conditions that amount to human rights abuse, a leading rights group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch reported the Thai workers, who make up the bulk of Israel’s agricultural force, are paid less than the minimum wage, work excessively long hours in dangerous circumstances and are housed in squalid conditions.

“Thai workers in the agricultural sector in Israel are forced to work in dangerous conditions, using pesticides without appropriate equipment,” Phil Robertson, the group’s deputy director for Asia, told The Anadolu Agency.

“Thai authorities should put this issue at the top of the list when they speak to Israel and ask Israel to get to the bottom of these human rights abuses.”

A 48-page report - “A Raw Deal: Abuses of Thai Workers in Israel’s Agricultural Sector” - is based on interviews with 173 Thai workers in ten farming communities.

“All said that they were paid less than the legal minimum wage, forced to work far more hours than the legal limit, exposed to unsafe working conditions and had difficulties if they tried to change employers,” according to the report.

“In all but one of the 10 communities where Human Rights Watch investigated living conditions, Thai workers were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation,” the report added.

On one farm, workers were living in cardboard shelters inside farm sheds.

Contacted on Wednesday, an official at the Thai Foreign Ministry said he was unaware of the report.

Around 25,000 Thai workers toil on Israeli farms and the report underlined the unusually high death rate among Thais. According to government figures published by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 122 Thai farm workers died between 2008 and 2013.

Of these, 43 were attributed to “sudden nocturnal death syndrome,” a heart condition that affects young Asian men.

In the case of a 37-year-old man who died in his sleep in May 2013, co-workers said they slept in a cramped space in a farm shed and worked up to 17 hours a day, with no rest days. On another farm, a Thai worker said that he felt like “dead meat” at the end of a working day, which typically began at 4:30 a.m. and ended at 7 p.m.

The report recognized that Israeli laws have been improved and are protective of migrant workers’ rights.

Despite this, “Israel is doing far too little to uphold the workers’ rights and protect them from exploitation,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said.
Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/headlines/153495/thai-workers-subject-to-abuse-on-israeli-farms.

SpaceX supply ship arrives at space station with groceries

January 12, 2015

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — A shipment of much-needed groceries and belated Christmas presents finally arrived Monday morning at the International Space Station.

The SpaceX company's supply ship, Dragon, pulled up at the orbiting lab two days after its liftoff from Florida. Station commander Butch Wilmore used a robot arm to grab the capsule and its 5,000 pounds of cargo, as the craft soared more than 260 miles above the Mediterranean.

The space station's six astronauts were getting a little low on supplies. That's because the previous supply ship — owned by another company — was destroyed in an October launch explosion. NASA scrambled to get equipment lost in the blast aboard Dragon, as did school children who rustled up new science projects.

Then Dragon was stalled a month by rocket snags; it should have gotten to the space station well before Christmas. Mission Control joked about missing not only the December shipment date, but Eastern Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7 as well for the three Russian crew member. There are also two Americans and an Italian on board.

"We're excited to have it on board," said U.S. astronaut Wilmore said. "We'll be digging in soon." He's especially eager to get more mustard. The station's condiment cabinet is empty. NASA is paying SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. for shipments. Orbital's rockets are grounded until next year, however, because of its launch accident. SpaceX — the only supplier capable of returning items to Earth — is picking up as much slack as it can. Russian and Japan also plan deliveries this year.

SpaceX is still poring over data from Saturday's attempt to land the rocket on a floating barge, the first test of its kind. After the first stage of the Falcon rocket peeled away as planned following liftoff, it flew back to a giant platform floating off the Florida coast. The guidance fins on the booster ran out of hydraulic fluid, however, right before touchdown, and it landed hard and broke into pieces.

The California company's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, was encouraged nonetheless and plans another rocket-landing test next month.

Curiosity finds clues to how water helped shape Mars

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Dec 09, 2014

Observations by NASA's Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years. This interpretation of Curiosity's finds in Gale Crater suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations on the Red Planet.

"If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars," said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "A more radical explanation is that Mars' ancient, thicker atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally, but so far we don't know how the atmosphere did that."

Why this layered mountain sits in a crater has been a challenging question for researchers. Mount Sharp stands about 3 miles (5 kilometers) tall, its lower flanks exposing hundreds of rock layers. The rock layers - alternating between lake, river and wind deposits -- bear witness to the repeated filling and evaporation of a Martian lake much larger and longer-lasting than any previously examined close-up.

"We are making headway in solving the mystery of Mount Sharp," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"Where there's now a mountain, there may have once been a series of lakes."

Curiosity currently is investigating the lowest sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, a section of rock 500 feet (150 meters) high, dubbed the Murray formation. Rivers carried sand and silt to the lake, depositing the sediments at the mouth of the river to form deltas similar to those found at river mouths on Earth. This cycle occurred over and over again.

"The great thing about a lake that occurs repeatedly, over and over, is that each time it comes back it is another experiment to tell you how the environment works," Grotzinger said.

"As Curiosity climbs higher on Mount Sharp, we will have a series of experiments to show patterns in how the atmosphere and the water and the sediments interact. We may see how the chemistry changed in the lakes over time. This is a hypothesis supported by what we have observed so far, providing a framework for testing in the coming year."

After the crater filled to a height of at least a few hundred yards, or meters, and the sediments hardened into rock, the accumulated layers of sediment were sculpted over time into a mountainous shape by wind erosion that carved away the material between the crater perimeter and what is now the edge of the mountain.

On the 5-mile (8-kilometer) journey from Curiosity's 2012 landing site to its current work site at the base of Mount Sharp, the rover uncovered clues about the changing shape of the crater floor during the era of lakes.

"We found sedimentary rocks suggestive of small, ancient deltas stacked on top of one another," said Curiosity science team member Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College in London. "Curiosity crossed a boundary from an environment dominated by rivers to an environment dominated by lakes."

Despite earlier evidence from several Mars missions that pointed to wet environments on ancient Mars, modeling of the ancient climate has yet to identify the conditions that could have produced long periods warm enough for stable water on the surface.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project uses Curiosity to assess ancient, potentially habitable environments and the significant changes the Martian environment has experienced over millions of years. This project is one element of NASA's ongoing Mars research and preparation for a human mission to the planet in the 2030s.

"Knowledge we're gaining about Mars' environmental evolution by deciphering how Mount Sharp formed will also help guide plans for future missions to seek signs of Martian life," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASAs_Curiosity_Rover_Finds_Clues_to_How_Water_Helped_Shape_Martian_Landscape_999.html.

Queen's scientist leads study of 'Super-Earth'

Belfast UK (SPX)
Dec 08, 2014

Research led by an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast could pave the way in the search for life on other planets.

Up to now, only space-based telescopes have been able to detect planets near the size of the Earth that pass in front of stars like the Sun. An astronomer in the Astrophysics Research Center at Queen's University has led an international team to detect a super-Earth, a planet with more mass than Earth but less than Uranus or Neptune, using a telescope on the ground.

Previously, this has only been possible for one other super-Earth circling a star much fainter and cooler than the Sun. This breakthrough opens up new ways to study other worlds.

The planet, called 55 Cancri e, periodically passes in front of a star only 40 light years from the Earth. The star can even be seen with the naked eye on a clear and moonless night. For this detection the team used the 2.5-meter Nordic Optical Telescope, which is an excellent facility for this kind of study. Previous observations of this planet had to rely on telescopes in space.

According to Dr. Ernst de Mooij, the Michael West Fellow at the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen's University Belfast, who was the lead author of the study, the planet 55 Cancri e is far from hospitable for life, at twice the diameter of Earth and temperatures reaching nearly 1700 Celsius.

Their study paves the way for studying many more planets similar in size to Earth with telescopes on the ground. Some of these planets may even have the conditions needed to sustain life.

Dr. de Mooij, from the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen's University Belfast, said: "This is especially important because upcoming space missions such as the NASA TESS mission in 2017 and ESA's PLATO mission in 2024, which should find many small planets around bright stars which are ideally suited for this type of study. "

"Observations like these are paving the way as we strive towards searching for signs of life on alien planets from afar. Remote sensing across tens of light-years is not easy, but it can be done with the right technique and a bit of ingenuity." added study co-author Dr. Ray Jayawardhana of York University, Canada.

Dr. De Mooij has recently moved from the University of Toronto to Queen's to carry out this exciting research. The research team also includes Dr. Mercedes Lopez-Morales of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the USA as well as Drs. Raine Karjalainen and Marie Hrudkova of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma, Spain. Their findings appear in a paper to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Nordic Optical Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Queens_scientist_leads_study_of_Super_Earth_999.html.

China develops new rocket for manned moon mission: media

Beijing (AFP)
Dec 08, 2014

China is developing a huge rocket that will be used for its first manned mission to the moon, state media said Monday, underscoring Beijing's increasingly ambitious space program.

The first launch of the Long March-9 will take place around 2028, said the China Daily, which also cited experts saying the rocket's development is at the research stage.

It will carry a load of 130 tonnes, the newspaper added, equal to what NASA is aiming for with its Space Launch System (SLS), which aims to blast off for the first time in 2018 with an initial test payload of 70 tonnes.

The US space agency has touted its deep-space rocket as having "unprecedented lift capability".

Li Tongyu, head of aerospace products at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told the newspaper: "Our current launch vehicles, including the Long March-5, which is set to conduct its first launch soon, will be able to undertake the country's space activities planned for the coming 10 years.

"But for the nation's long-term space programs, their capabilities will not be enough."

Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space program as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

The military-run project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.

Li said that the Long March-9's diameter and height would be far greater than the Long March-5, while its thrust would be more powerful.

"We need to develop a brand new engine for it to make sure the rocket has sufficient thrust," he said.

Li Jinghong, a designer at the academy, said the rocket would not only be used for missions to the Earth's only natural satellite, but also for other deep space exploration projects.

The vehicle's diameter "should be eight to 10 meters", and its weight "at least 3,000 metric tonnes", he said.

China currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.

The craft, launched as part of the Chang'e-3 lunar mission late last year, has been declared a success by Chinese authorities, although it has been beset by mechanical troubles.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_develops_new_rocket_for_manned_moon_mission_media_999.html.

Finding infant earths and potential life just got easier

by Vasyl Kacapyr for Cornell News
Ithaca NY (SPX)
Dec 08, 2014

Among the billions and billions of stars in the sky, where should astronomers look for infant Earths where life might develop? New research from Cornell University's Institute for Pale Blue Dots shows where - and when - infant Earths are most likely to be found. The paper by research associate Ramses M. Ramirez and director Lisa Kaltenegger, "The Habitable Zones of Pre-Main-Sequence Stars" will be published in the Jan. 1, 2015, issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"The search for new, habitable worlds is one of the most exciting things human beings are doing today and finding infant Earths will add another fascinating piece to the puzzle of how 'Pale Blue Dots' work" says Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences.

The researchers found that on young worlds the Habitable Zone - the orbital region where water can be liquid on the surface of a planet and where signals of life in the atmosphere can be detected with telescopes - turns out to be located further away from the young stars these worlds orbit than previously thought.

"This increased distance from their stars means these infant planets should be able to be seen early on by the next generation of ground-based telescopes," says Ramirez. "They are easier to spot when the Habitable Zone is farther out, so we can catch them when their star is really young."

Moreover, say the researchers, since the pre-main sequence period for the coolest stars is long, up to 2.5 billion years, it's possible that life could begin on a planet during its sun's early phase and then that life could move to the planet's subsurface (or underwater) as the star's luminosity decreases.

"In the search for planets like ours out there, we are certainly in for surprises. That's what makes this search so exciting," says Kaltenegger.

To enable researchers to more easily find infant earths, the paper by Kaltenegger and Ramirez offers estimates for where one can find habitable infant Earths. As reference points, they also assess the maximum water loss for rocky planets that are at equivalent distances to Venus, Earth and Mars from our Sun.

Ramirez and Kaltenegger also found that during the early period of a solar system's development, planets that end up being in the Habitable Zone later on, when the star is older, initially can lose the equivalent of several hundred oceans of water or more if they orbit the coolest stars.

However, even if a runaway greenhouse effect is triggered - when a planet absorbs more energy from the star than it can radiate back to space, resulting in a rapid evaporation of surface water - a planet could still become habitable if water is later delivered to the planet, after the runaway phase ends.

"Our own planet gained additional water after this early runaway phase from a late, heavy bombardment of water-rich asteroids," says Ramirez. "Planets at a distance corresponding to modern Earth or Venus orbiting these cool stars could be similarly replenished later on."

Ramirez and Kaltenegger's research was supported by the Institute for Pale Blue Dots and the Simons Foundation.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Finding_infant_earths_and_potential_life_just_got_easier_999.html.