Germany to set up centers for those with poor asylum chances

November 05, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — Germany will use special centers to quickly process migrants who have little realistic chance of winning asylum, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition partners agreed Thursday — putting behind them weeks of arguments.

There will be three to five centers for people who come from countries considered "safe," such as Balkan nations including Albania and Kosovo, and those who are uncooperative with authorities, among others, Merkel said after coalition leaders met.

The aim is for applications to be processed within a week — rather than the several months they usually take — and for possible appeals to be handled in another two weeks. Such migrants would be entitled to benefits only if they go to such centers, and would generally be obliged to stay within the county where they are located. Those who break that rule would have their asylum application suspended after a first offense and be deported following a second offense.

Faced with large numbers of refugees from Syria's civil war in particular, politicians have been keen to deter and speed up processing of people from the Balkans, who came in large numbers earlier this year and are rarely granted asylum.

Thursday's agreement is a compromise after the coalition of Germany's biggest parties argued for weeks over a call from the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian branch of Merkel's conservative bloc, for "transit zones" at the border to weed out migrants with no realistic asylum claim. The center-left Social Democrats said that would effectively entail interning large numbers of new arrivals, and would be impractical.

The coalition partners also agreed that some migrants who are allowed to stay in Germany shouldn't be allowed to bring relatives to the country for two years. "We took a good, important step forward today," Merkel said.

Figures released earlier Thursday showed that authorities registered 181,000 asylum-seekers entering Germany in October, bringing the figure for 2015 so far to 758,000. That's close to the Interior Ministry's forecast from August that 800,000 would arrive this year. The ministry isn't updating that figure, arguing that doing so could be misconstrued as an invitation. However, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said, and repeated Thursday, that 1 million could come.

The government also wants to curb the number of people arriving from Afghanistan. Merkel raised the idea of setting up "protection areas" inside that country, but didn't elaborate.

Venezuela names square in capital after Arafat

Friday, 13 November 2015

A public square in the capital of Venezuela has been named after Yasser Arafat. A bronze statue of the late Palestinian president was unveiled in Caracas on Wednesday, on the 11th anniversary of his death.

The unveiling ceremony was attended by senior Venezuelan officials as well as Arab and other foreign diplomats. The Palestinian Ambassador to Venezuela, Linda Sobh, praised the country’s pioneering role in the Palestinian cause, especially in seeking to achieve Palestinian rights and independence, as well as exposing Israeli violations of international laws and conventions.

The Mayor of Caracas, Jorge Rodríguez, expressed Venezuela’s pride in commemorating one of the historical icons of national liberation in the land of liberator Simon Bolivar. He stressed Venezuela’s moral and revolutionary commitment to adopt the Palestinian cause in all national and international arenas as a firmly rooted policy, following in the footsteps of the late leader Hugo Chavez, under the man continuing his journey, President Nicolas Maduro Moros.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/americas/22257-venezuela-names-square-in-capital-after-arafat.

Tribal tensions resurface again in Kenya, worrying many

November 07, 2015

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Hundreds of young men armed with machetes cheered as a ruling party lawmaker called for attacks on opponents of a project to create part-time jobs for youths in his constituency.

Opposing such a program in a country where many are jobless might seem bizarre, along with the reason: Opponents suspected the jobs initiative was a cover for creating a militia. The hostile and threatening reaction might seem even more outrageous.

But they reflect long-simmering tribal tensions that are heating up again, eight years after they exploded into violence that left more than 1,000 people dead and more than 600,000 displaced from their homes. That frenzied outbreak of fighting came in the aftermath of a disputed presidential election.

The current threats of violence between opposition and government politicians and venomous exchanges by their supporters on social media have risen to such a level that the country's chief justice and church leaders are warning that it is reminiscent of rhetoric that was a prelude to the 2007-8 violence.

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga noted while presiding over a launch of a program that seeks to improve access to justice that "the drums of possible violence are being heard." A little over a week ago, an opposition politician was videotaped telling a crowd of thousands in Nairobi's sprawling Kibera slum that blood must be spilled for opposition leader Raila Odinga to become president in the 2017 election.

The exchanges have mainly centered on President Uhuru Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe and communities that supported him, and those that align with Odinga, a Luo. Animosity between the Kikuyu and Luo goes back decades, precipitated by a falling out between Kenyatta's father Jomo —the founding president of Kenya— and Odinga's father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the country's first vice president after Kenya won independence from Britain in 1963.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was opposed to, among other things, the re-distribution of land, which was seen to favor the Kikuyu elite. That fallout has shaped the political landscape in Kenya. "Kenyans remain divided along ethnic lines," said the Rev. Peter Karanja, secretary general for the National Council of Churches in Kenya, an association of Protestant churches. "They identify with their tribes before their nation. Social media has been awash with hate messages that tell of a society that is on the edge."

Catholic Bishop Cornelius Korir, during a briefing on the upcoming visit of Pope Francis, urged Kenyans on Sunday to seek tolerance and peace. "Our nation is facing (a) great trial that threatens to tear it apart," he said.

Opposition politician George Aladwa faces was charged on Friday with incitement to violence in relation to his public comments about bloodshed. He claims he was quoted out context. Moses Kuria was the legislator from Gatundu South— the president's home area— who spoke to the youth with machetes in July. He also claims he was quoted out of context, but when the host of a TV program played a video of him urging attacks, he walked out of the studio. He has been charged in court with hate speech and incitement to violence.

But there appears to be virtual impunity for such offenses, said Francis Ole Kaparo, chairman of the National Integration and Cohesion Commission, which was formed to try to avoid a repeat of the 2007-08 post-election violence. He complained that those who spew hatred are never sent to prison.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, he said the local media, the police, the judiciary and people who cheer on the hatemongers all share blame for the situation. "All of us must realize we have a big problem and deal with it," he said.

Kenyatta, who will run in 2017 for a second term, has condemned incitement and hate speech. "As leaders, let us talk about things that will unite people," Kenyatta said in July. Kenyatta, along with his deputy William Ruto, were charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating the post-election violence in 2007-08 while on opposing sides. Charges against Kenyatta were dropped in December after the ICC prosecutor said there was a lack of evidence, which she blamed on witness intimidation and bribery.

ICC cases against Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang continue.

Asteroid ripped apart to form star's glowing ring system

Warwick, UK (SPX)
Nov 15, 2015

The sight of an asteroid being ripped apart by a dead star and forming a glowing debris ring has been captured in an image for the first time. Comprised of dust particles and debris, the rings are formed by the star's gravity tearing apart asteroids that came too close.

Gas produced by collisions among the debris within the ring is illuminated by ultraviolet rays from the star, causing it to emit a dark red glow which the researchers observed and turned into the image of the ring. Led by Christopher Manser of the University of Warwick's Astrophysics Group, the researchers investigated the remnants of planetary systems around white dwarf stars; in this instance, SDSS1228+1040.

Whilst similar to the formation of Saturn's rings, the scale of the white dwarf and its debris is many times greater in size. Christopher Manser explains:

"The diameter of the gap inside of the debris ring is 700,000 kilometres, approximately half the size of the Sun and the same space could fit both Saturn and its rings, which are only around 270,000 km across. At the same time, the white dwarf is seven times smaller than Saturn but weighs 2500 times more". While debris rings have been found at a handful of other white dwarfs, the imaging of SDSS1228+1040 gives an unprecedented insight into the structure of these systems.

"We knew about these debris disks around white dwarfs for over twenty years, but have only now been able to obtain the first image of one of these disks", says Mr Manser. To acquire the image the researchers used Doppler tomography, which is very similar to Computed Tomography (CT) routinely used in hospitals. Both methods take scans from many different angles which are then combined in a computer into an image.

While in CT, the machine moves around the patient, the disk the researchers observed is rotating very slowly by itself meaning they had to take data over twelve years. Discussing what the researchers saw in the image Mr Manser says:

"The image we get from the processed data shows us that these systems are truly disc-like, and reveal many structures that we cannot detect in a single snapshot. The image shows a spiral-like structure which we think is related to collisions between dust grains in the debris disc."

Systems such as SDSS1228+1040, the researchers argue, are a glimpse at the future of our own solar system once the Sun runs out of fuel. By observing these systems, we can answer questions such as: Are other planetary systems like our own? What will be the fate of our own solar system?

Addressing these issues Professor Boris Gansicke of the University of Warwick's Astrophysics Group says:

"When we discovered this debris disk orbiting the white dwarf SDSS1228+1040 back in 2006, we thought we saw some signs of an asymmetric shape. However, we could not have imagined the exquisite details that are now visible in this image constructed from twelve years of data - it was definitely worth the wait."

"Over the past decade, we have learned that remnants of planetary systems around white dwarfs are ubiquitous, and over thirty debris disks have been found by now. While most of them are in a stable state, just like Saturn's rings, a handful are seen to change, and it is those systems that can tell us something about how these rings are formed."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Asteroid_ripped_apart_to_form_stars_glowing_ring_system_999.html.

Astronomers eager to get a whiff of newfound Venus-like planet

Boston MA (SPX)
Nov 15, 2015

The collection of rocky planets orbiting distant stars has just grown by one, and the latest discovery is the most intriguing one to date. The newfound world, although hot as an oven, is cool enough to potentially host an atmosphere. If it does, it's close enough (only 39 light-years away) that we could study that atmosphere in detail with the Hubble Space Telescope and future observatories like the Giant Magellan Telescope.

"Our ultimate goal is to find a twin Earth, but along the way we've found a twin Venus," says astronomer David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "We suspect it will have a Venus-like atmosphere too, and if it does we can't wait to get a whiff."

"This planet is going to be a favorite target of astronomers for years to come," adds lead author Zachory Berta-Thompson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

GJ 1132b, as the planet is known, orbits a red dwarf star only one-fifth the size of our Sun. The star is also cooler and much fainter than the Sun, emitting just 1/200th as much light. GJ 1132b circles its star every 1.6 days at a distance of 1.4 million miles (much closer than the 36-million-mile orbit of Mercury in our solar system).

As a result, GJ 1132b is baked to a temperature of about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Such temperatures would boil off any water the planet may have once held, but still allows for the presence of an atmosphere. It is also significantly cooler than any other exoplanet confirmed to be rocky. In comparison, well-known worlds like CoRoT-7b and Kepler-10b possess scorching temperatures of 2,000 degrees F or more.

GJ 1132b was discovered by the MEarth-South array, which is dedicated to the hunt for terrestrial worlds orbiting red dwarf stars. MEarth-South consists of eight 40-cm robotic telescopes located at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

MEarth-South monitors several thousand red dwarf stars located within 100 light-years of Earth. It looks for planets that transit, or cross in front of their host stars. When a planet transits its star, the star's light dims by a small but detectable amount. This dimming gives an indication of the planet's physical size.

After MEarth-South detected a transit in real time, additional observations were gathered by the array and the Magellan Clay telescope in Chile. The team also measured the host star's gravitational wobble using the HARPS spectrograph to determine the planet's mass.

They found that GJ 1132b is 16 percent larger than Earth, with a diameter of about 9,200 miles. It has a mass 60 percent greater than Earth. The resulting density indicates that the planet has a rocky composition similar to Earth.

The planet also has an Earth-like force of gravity. A person standing on the surface of GJ 1132b would weigh only about 20 percent more than they do on Earth.

Since the red dwarf star is small, the relative size of the planet to the star is larger than it would be for a Sun-like star. This, combined with the star's close distance, makes it easier to detect and study any planetary atmosphere, should one exist. The team has requested follow-up observations with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Future observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope also will undoubtedly take a close look at GJ 1132b.

A final intriguing possibility is that GJ 1132b has sister planets that have not yet been detected. The research team plans to examine this system closely for signs of siblings.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Astronomers_eager_to_get_a_whiff_of_newfound_Venus_like_planet_999.html.

Cassini Finds Monstrous Ice Cloud in Titan's South Polar Region

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Nov 15, 2015

New observations made near the south pole of Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft add to the evidence that winter comes in like a lion on this moon of Saturn. Scientists have detected a monstrous new cloud of frozen compounds in the moon's low- to mid-stratosphere - a stable atmospheric region above the troposphere, or active weather layer.

Cassini's camera had already imaged an impressive cloud hovering over Titan's south pole at an altitude of about 186 miles (300 kilometers). However, that cloud, first seen in 2012, turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. A much more massive ice cloud system has now been found lower in the stratosphere, peaking at an altitude of about 124 miles (200 kilometers).

The new cloud was detected by Cassini's infrared instrument - the Composite Infrared Spectrometer, or CIRS - which obtains profiles of the atmosphere at invisible thermal wavelengths. The cloud has a low density, similar to Earth's fog but likely flat on top.

For the past few years, Cassini has been catching glimpses of the transition from fall to winter at Titan's south pole - the first time any spacecraft has seen the onset of a Titan winter. Because each Titan season lasts about 7-1/2 years on Earth's calendar, the south pole will still be enveloped in winter when the Cassini mission ends in 2017.

"When we looked at the infrared data, this ice cloud stood out like nothing we've ever seen before," said Carrie Anderson of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It practically smacked us in the face."

The ice clouds at Titan's pole don't form in the same way as Earth's familiar rain clouds.

For rain clouds, water evaporates from the surface and encounters cooler temperatures as it rises through the troposphere. Clouds form when the water vapor reaches an altitude where the combination of temperature and air pressure is right for condensation. The methane clouds in Titan's troposphere form in a similar way.

However, Titan's polar clouds form higher in the atmosphere by a different process. Circulation in the atmosphere transports gases from the pole in the warm hemisphere to the pole in the cold hemisphere. At the cold pole, the warm air sinks, almost like water draining out of a bathtub, in a process known as subsidence.

The sinking gases - a mixture of smog-like hydrocarbons and nitrogen-bearing chemicals called nitriles - encounter colder and colder temperatures on the way down. Different gases will condense at different temperatures, resulting in a layering of clouds over a range of altitudes.

Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004 - mid-winter at Titan's north pole. As the north pole has been transitioning into springtime, the ice clouds there have been disappearing. Meanwhile, new clouds have been forming at the south pole. The build-up of these southern clouds indicates that the direction of Titan's global circulation is changing.

"Titan's seasonal changes continue to excite and surprise," said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Cassini, with its very capable suite of instruments, will continue to periodically study how changes occur on Titan until its solstice mission ends in 2017."

The size, altitude and composition of the polar ice clouds help scientists understand the nature and severity of Titan's winter. From the ice cloud seen earlier by Cassini's camera, scientists determined that temperatures at the south pole must get down to at least -238 degrees Fahrenheit (-150 degrees Celsius).

The new cloud was found in the lower stratosphere, where temperatures are even colder. The ice particles are made up of a variety of compounds containing hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen.

Anderson and her colleagues had found the same signature in CIRS data from the north pole, but in that case, the signal was much weaker. The very strong signature of the south polar cloud supports the idea that the onset of winter is much harsher than the end.

"The opportunity to see the early stages of winter on Titan is very exciting," said Robert Samuelson, a Goddard researcher working with Anderson. "Everything we are finding at the south pole tells us that the onset of southern winter is much more severe than the late stages of Titan's northern winter."

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Cassini_Finds_Monstrous_Ice_Cloud_in_Titans_South_Polar_Region_999.html.

Real challenge for Myanmar opposition head comes after polls

November 15, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Winning Myanmar's election turned out to be easier than expected for Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition party, but steering the country will be a test of how the Nobel Peace laureate balances her moral vision with political realities.

Almost complete returns released by the Election Commission by Sunday showed Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy with a whopping majority that gives it control of the lower and upper houses of Parliament, along with enough votes to dictate who will be president when the new lawmakers convene their first session next year.

"The election result represents the people's retribution against the military, which kept them under its boots for decades," said Aung Din, a former political prisoner and prominent journalist. He added that the extent of Suu Kyi's victory stunned everyone — the NLD, the military and the world's foremost experts on Myanmar like himself.

Myanmar was under military rule from 1962 until 2011, when the elected but army-backed party took power after 2010 elections, which were boycotted by the NLD. With the military automatically allotted 25 percent of the seats in each chamber, the NDL had to win two-thirds of the seats being contested to get the majority — not just 50 percent plus one. It met its mark easily. By Sunday morning, it had won about 78 percent of the combined houses — 387 of the 498 non-military seats, while the ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party had just 41.

Suu Kyi won points in the past by confronting the military, but now that they will be partners in ruling the country, she will need the generals on her side in order to push through her party's agenda. At the same time, she has to meet the huge expectations of her supporters for dramatic reforms.

"How will the public perceive her after she had to make compromises with political players that are deeply disliked and mistrusted?" asked Michael Buehler, a lecturer in Southeast Asian politics at the University of London. "Can she remain the country's moral authority now that she has to make politics?"

In some areas this may be easy, in others she will be up against vested interests willing to fight her. Factory workers are her faithful followers, but she may find it more important to appease factory owners — who would be unhappy with aggressive pro-labor policies — in order to keep the economy humming.

Similarly, villagers uprooted by mining and infrastructure projects want justice that has been in short supply under the present, military-backed government. Meeting their desires could be off-putting to foreign investors. Cracking down on the pervasive problem of land-grabbing would also earn her powerful enemies.

Suu Kyi faces another dilemma in dealing with the country's deep and long-running ethnic fractures. More than a dozen ethnic minorities for decades have fielded guerrilla armies in on-again, off-again insurgencies to try to win greater autonomy.

In opposition, Suu Kyi's party could count on many of these groups as allies, partly on the basis of the concept that "my enemy's enemy is my friend." Now, these groups will be looking to cash in their chips for sticking with her. But the army has long justified its iron rule on the basis of maintaining national unity, which in practice means maintaining the dominance of the ethnic Burman majority.

Another challenge is dealing with racial and religious strife involving the country's ethnic Rohingya minority and other Muslims. Communal violence over the past several years has left hundreds dead and as many as 140,000 people homeless.

The efforts of radical nationalist Buddhist monks to paint Suu Kyi as soft in defending the religion of about 90 percent of the nation's population failed to have much of an effect on the election results. For its part, the NLD did little to stand up for the rights of Myanmar's Muslims, and the issue remains a flash point domestically and a sore point with foreign friends such as the United States.

"Many people in Myanmar will look forward to her making massive changes for the benefit of the people, and fulfilling the hope and promise that her party and her aura represent," Jane Ferguson, an anthropologist at Australian National University in Canberra, said in an e-mail interview.

For some people, however, Suu Kyi's halo began to slip several years ago, she added. "Many pro-NLD supporters were disillusioned by her behavior after her release and when she became an MP. She accepted gifts from famous cronies, and ended up siding with the government and foreign business interests in regard to an investigation regarding land grabs," Ferguson said.

"But, given the choice between the military party or the NLD, many skeptics cannot help but get caught up in the euphoria of the NLD's victories," said Ferguson. "It's just a matter of time to see how this plays out."