Turkish parties oppose NATO radar

Mon Sep 26, 2011

Opposition parties in Turkey have expressed their disagreement with the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan government's decision to host a NATO radar system on the country's soil.

The leader of Turkey's Democratic Party (DP), Namik Kemal Zeybek, voiced his opposition to the Turkish government's decision and warned about its negative consequences.

In an interview with Turkey's TV 8 on Friday, Zeybek said NATO's decision to deploy its missile-tracking radar system on Turkish soil is aimed at monitoring Iran's moves and pitting the two neighboring countries against each other.

He added that the West is seeking to cause rifts in the world of Islam as Iran has resisted its dominance in spite of heavy pressure.

This comes as other opposition parties in Turkey have similarly disagreed with the plan, expressing concerns about its negative impact on the country's relations with its neighbors.

The Republican People's Party (CHP), headed by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, criticized the plan and stated that it is aimed at protecting Israel in the face of Iran's missiles.

The leader of People's Voice Party, Numan Kurtulmus, was also among the critics of the plan, saying that Erdogan's government opposes Israel on the one hand while agreeing to a plan that is chiefly intended to defend Israel on the other.

Another Turkish politician, Mustafa Kamalak, who is the leader of Felicity Party, has additionally pointed out that Turkey's agreement with the deployment of a NATO missile defense system on its soil will distance it from its neighbors.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal recently announced Ankara's plan to host the Western military alliance's radar system.

The Turkish official said the plan, which would “boost NATO's defense capacity and strengthen [Turkey's] national defense system,” is in line with the alliance's “New Strategic Concept” adopted in a summit in Lisbon last year.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201263.html.

Fresh protests held in Bahrain

Mon Sep 26, 2011

Fresh anti-regime protests have been held in several villages in Bahrain despite the country's heavy-handed crackdown on people, Press TV reports.

Bahraini regime forces clashed with the protesters in several villages including Dair, Sitra, Nuwaidarat and Muqaba on Sunday night.

Witnesses said on Monday that protesters also created massive traffic jams in the capital Manama, ignoring threats of confiscating driver's licenses and barring protesters from driving for up to four years.

Hundreds of Bahrainis flooded the roads with their cars during the morning commute on Monday.

The Bahraini opposition had organized the gathering, which was named the "the Second Dignity Blockade."

Meanwhile, Bahraini clerics have condemned the massive arrests and the disrespectful treatment of Bahraini women by regime forces over the past few days.

The protests intensified after the opposition boycotted last week's parliamentary elections. Less than one in five Bahrainis reportedly participated in the country's by-elections.

The Al Khalifa regime held the polls to fill 18 seats abandoned by members of the largest opposition party, al-Wefaq.

Al-Wefaq said that the 40-member parliament has lost its legitimacy and that it does not represent the will of the Bahraini people.

Bahrainis have been holding anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201217.html.

Bahrain jails teachers' union officials

Mon Sep 26, 2011

A military court in Bahrain has sentenced the head of the country's Teachers Association to ten years in prison and his deputy to three for supporting anti-government protests.

Union chairman Mehdi Issa Mohammed Abu Deeb and his deputy Jalila Mohammed Reza al-Salman were convicted on Sunday by the court of national safety of “inciting hatred of the [Persian] Gulf kingdom's monarchy and calling for its overthrow during protests earlier this year”.

They were also found guilty of using the union to "instigate acts that are considered criminal like calling for sit-ins by teachers, obstructing teaching, holding protests near schools... and calling upon parents not to send their children to school,” Bahraini human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja wrote in an e-mail to Press TV.

Abu Deeb, 49, who was arrested in April, started a hunger strike on September 11 to demand his release and for all false charges against him to be dropped. Abu Deeb, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, is reported to be in critical health condition.

The court also sentenced Hadi Ahmeh Hasan Mekki to three years in prison for “witnessing an attack on two policemen and refusing to report the incident” as well as an additional 12 months in jail for attending anti-regime protests.

Three others were also jailed for three years for harboring Shaikh Mohammed Habib Al Saffaf, a clergyman. Al Saffaf, also known Al Meqdad, who was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment, is accused by the Manama regime of involvement in a plot to overthrow the monarchy.

The verdicts came a day after the kingdom held by-elections boycotted by the opposition to replace 18 lawmakers, who resigned from the parliament to protest the violent crackdown on anti-regime demonstrators.

On April 7, the Ministry of Social Development dissolved the Bahrain Teachers' Association (BTA), accusing the union of “issuing statements and speeches aimed at inciting teachers and students against the government and disrupting educational establishments.

Bahrainis have been holding anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty's 40-year rule.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more have been arrested in the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in Bahrain, home to a huge American military installation for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201259.html.

Over 80% of Bahrainis refused to vote

Sun Sep 25, 2011

Election results in Bahrain show that more than 80 percent of the electorate refused to vote in the recent parliamentary by-elections in the country.

According to a Bahraini government website, less than one in every five voters cast their ballots in the recent by-elections, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The controversial by-elections were held on Saturday to replace 18 Bahraini lawmakers from the main opposition party, al-Wefaq, who walked out of the parliament in February after security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters, killing and wounding scores of them.

Of the 144,513 eligible voters in 14 districts only 25,130 came out to vote, representing a 17.4 percent turnout, the Bahraini government's elections website www.vote.bh reported.

Voting did not take place in four districts where candidates were running uncontested and automatically won the seat.

Al-Wefaq leader Sheikh Ali Salman said the results showed that Bahrainis rejected the king's reforms, adding, “There is no such thing as Bahraini democracy. There has to be peaceful rotation of power.”

“If there is no transition, Bahrain will remain in a crisis of security and human rights, this is a historic moment,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is to travel to Riyadh and meet with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Monday to hold talks regarding the relations between the two countries.

Bahrainis have been holding anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled the country for over 40 years.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/201146.html.

Russia to resume deep space explorations with Phobos expedition

Moscow (XNA)
Sep 26, 2011

Russia would resume its program of inter-planetary explorations after a long break with an unmanned mission to the Martian satellite Phobos, a Russian space company said Thursday.

According to Victor Khartov, head of the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Company, the launch of the Phobos-Grunt vehicle was scheduled for November.

"Our country is about to return to planets and stars. We must learn how to fly to deep space, to Mars, after a 20-year break," Khartov told the Interfax news agency.

He admitted the Phobos mission would be "very risky", but said "the first step must be made".

Russia had spent about 5 billion rubles (161 million U.S. dollars) preparaing for the three-year mission, which would include drilling Phobos' surface and returning 200 grams of soil back to Earth in 2014, he said.

The mission would also collect bacteria samples for two Russian and one U.S. biological experiments.

According to the director of the Russian Space Explorations Institute Lev Zeleny, scientists want to find out if the bacteria can survive a long space trip.

The vehicle itself would be disinfected before the launch to prevent micro-organisms being inadvertently transferred between Earth and Phobos.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Russia_to_resume_deep_space_explorations_with_Phobos_expedition_999.html.

Russia may launch its first Earth remote sensing satellite in 2012

Arkhangelsk, Russia (RIA Novosti)
Sep 26, 2011

Russia's first Earth remote sensing satellite, the Kondor, may be launched in January 2012, a space official said on Thursday.

"We are developing Kondor and Arkon [satellites]," deputy head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos Anatoly Shilov said. "Arkon is a distant future, but Kondor will hopefully fly in January."

The Kondor is an 800 kg Earth remote-sensing spacecraft designed to provide high-resolution radar imagery and terrain mapping in real-time. It will be launched as part of the so-called Arktika Earth observation satellite grouping.

"As a rule, 90% of the time the Arctic region is covered with clouds or remains in darkness due to long polar night season. In such conditions these satellites are indispensible," Shilov said.

The official added that Russia was planning to launch in 2012 two Earth optical observation satellites - the Resurs-P and the Canopus-B - to provide precision monitoring of natural and man-made disasters, particularly wildfires and environmental pollution.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_may_launch_its_first_Earth_remote_sensing_satellite_in_2012_999.html.

Sea Launch resumes operations after 2-year break

Moscow (RIA Novosti)
Sep 26, 2011

International consortium Sea Launch resumed its operations on Saturday with a launch of a Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-3SL rocket carrying a European telecoms satellite, the company said.

The rocket put the Atlantic Bird 7 satellite into a high-perigee transfer orbit at 21:25 GMT.

The 4.6-ton satellite was built by Astrium for Eutelsat Communications to provide digital broadcasting services for Eutelsat's customers in the Middle East and North Africa. Its scheduled in-orbit lifetime exceeds 15 years.

Sea Launch was created in 1995. It incorporated Russian space corporation Energia with a 25% stake, a Boeing subsidiary with 40%, Norwegian company Aker ASA with a 20% stake and Ukraine's SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash with 15%.

A total of 30 rocket launches have been made from the Odyssey platform in the Pacific from 1999 until 2009, with 27 of them successful.

Sea Launch announced its bankruptcy in June 2009. In July 2010, Energia subsidiary Energia Overseas Limited (EOL) received 95% in Sea Launch by a bankruptcy court ruling.

Sea Launch currently has ten Zenit-3SL's on order to satisfy existing and future customer requirements for launches through the end of 2013, the company said.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Sea_Launch_resumes_operations_after_2_year_break_999.html.