The job market in Florida is tough these days—and presumably a lot tougher if your name is Casey Anthony. The 25-year-old has told her probation officer that she is unemployed, has no income, and is drinking alcohol, although not to excess, the Palm Beach New Times reports. Anthony, who…
Continue reading …
Man accused of seeking details of anti-aircraft missile system which experts say the Chinese are trying to copy Russia’s security service has revealed that it arrested a suspected Chinese spy who posed as a translator while seeking sensitive information on an anti-aircraft system. The man, identified as Tun Sheniyun, was arrested on 28 October last year, the federal security service (FSB) said in a statement cited by RIA-Novosti news agency. It was unclear why the FSB disclosed the arrest on Wednesday, less than one week before the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, travels to China on an official visit. The alleged spy was acting “under the guise of a translator of official delegations”, the statement said. He had “attempted to obtain technological and maintenance documents on the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system from Russian citizens for money”, it added. That information is a state secret, it said. Prosecutors sent the case to court on Tuesday, the statement said. Tun faces charges of attempted espionage. Last year, Russia delivered 15 S-300 systems to China, a popular Soviet-era arms export, as part of a deal signed several years earlier. Yet Beijing has recently turned to more modern systems. Putin’s two-day visit to China next Tuesday will be his first foreign trip since he announced his planned return to the Russian presidency next year. Ruslan Pukhov, director of the centre for analysis of strategies and technologies, a defence thinktank in Moscow, said: “They [the Chinese] are trying to copy this system illegally. They’ve already copied a whole series of our weapons. “They’re trying to clone the S-300, to serve their interests and also to export. As I understand it, it’s not all working out. They probably wanted extra documentation to better deal with this task of reverse engineering.” A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) released this week warned that the Sino-Russian relationship was growing increasingly uneasy given China’s international rise. “In the coming years, while relations will remain close at the diplomatic level, the two cornerstones of the partnership over the past two decades – military and energy co-operation – are crumbling,” the thinktank wrote. “As a result, Russia’s significance to China will continue to diminish.” It said that while more than 90% of China’s major conventional weapons imports came from Russia between 1991 and 2010, the volume of imports had declined dramatically in the last five years. In part, that reflected the development of its own arms industry and the fact that Russia could not meet some of the new demands of the People’s Liberation Army as it developed, said Dr Paul Holtom, director of the Sipri arms transfers programme and one of the report’s authors. But it also reflected Russia’s diversified customer base, which allowed it to take a tougher negotiating stance with China, particularly given anxiety about how China would use its purchases. “Russia is unwilling to provide China with advanced weapons and technology, primarily because it is concerned that China will copy Russian technology and compete with Russia on the international arms market,” said Holtom. “The nature of the arms transfer relationship will increasingly be characterised by competition rather than co-operation.” Maintenance and upgrades accounted for perhaps 10% of Russian arms transfers, meaning that Russians do not want to share related documents, he said. But China also has concerns that some of the technology it is buying is not always up to scratch. No one at the foreign ministry in Beijing could be reached for comment. Earlier this year, Ukrainian authorities jailed a Russian man for six years, claiming he was stealing military secrets to further China’s aircraft carrier programme. In the past two years, Russian customs officials have also accused two Chinese citizens of attempting to smuggle spare parts for Russian fighter jets across the border. Espionage Russia China Arms trade Vladimir Putin Europe Miriam Elder Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Allies discuss end of bombing operation amid concerns over cost and vagueness of aims after ousting of Muammar Gaddafi Nato defence ministers are to debate on Thursday when to declare an end to the air war in Libya amid concerns over the mounting cost of the campaign and the vagueness of the alliance’s war aims. The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Wednesday that the end of the war would not be determined by the fate of the fugitive former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. “The key will be the protection of the civilian population, so when no threat exists against the civilian population then the time will have come to terminate our operation,” Rasmussen said at the start of the two-day meeting in Brussels, which will include Arab states involved in the campaign. He said the decision would be based in part on an assessment of the ability of the new government in Tripoli to protect civilians, and would be taken in consultation with the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) and the UN. Pro-Gaddafi forces still hold parts of the towns of Sirte and Bani Walid, but as the territory they control has shrunk, military targets for Nato warplanes have also dwindled. Nato aircraft have not carried out any strikes since the weekend. However, sorties by RAF Tornado and Typhoon jets, even without any bombs dropped or missiles fired, still cost £35,000 and £45,000 respectively. By some estimates the war could soon cost Britain more than £1bn, with France and the US facing similar bills, and there is anxiety in all three countries that the campaign should drag on indefinitely. Meanwhile, Nato members who originally opposed the intervention, including Germany and some eastern European states, argue that its mission is no longer clear. Nato officials admit it will be hard to make a judgment on when the civilian population is no longer under threat. “An operation is like a marriage. The only thing you know for sure is the day it starts,” one senior official said. “The big risk is that one day we stop and the next day there is a massacre, in which case we would have failed.” Alliance policy planners are discussing a scenario in which Gaddafi loyalists cease to hold any territory, but continue to inflict casualties, as Saddam Hussein’s followers did in Iraq. In such a situation, the population would be under constant threat, but Nato aircraft would be almost powerless to intervene without the risk of causing yet more civilian deaths and injuries. Nato officials are also concerned that fighting could break out among the factions that brought down Gaddafi’s regime. They believe the alliance would be under an obligation to intervene under the terms of its UN mandate to protect the Libyan population. “If it degenerates into a big fight between factions, we will have to take action,” a senior official said. “If the scale and scope is of an order that justifies Nato intervention, we will intervene.” Even if the bloodshed came to an end, disengagement would not be entirely straightforward, Nato planners warn. The alliance is currently responsible for air traffic control over Libya, for example, and it could take some time for the new authorities to take over. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Nato Muammar Gaddafi United Nations Africa Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The death toll from the listeriosis outbreak linked to cantaloupes rose to 18 as government officials confirmed three more deaths yesterday. The total number of illnesses is now 100, according to the CDC. An FDA official says more victims are expected, since listeria symptoms can take up to two months…
Continue reading …
Bodies of five bound and executed men found wrapped in military blankets and buried in shallow sandy scrapes Whoever buried the five men, discovered in graves a little way outside the Libyan coastal city of Misrata, had a sense of order. The bodies were buried neatly in a row of shallow sandy scrapes, each wrapped in a green military blanket, the last one of them interred on the stretcher on which he was, in all likelihood, killed. Someone – no one knows who — had marked the place, leaving a sign next to the grave site saying: “Five dead.” All of them were men, wearing civilian clothes. Dr Faros Ahmed Dibrik gently uncovered one of the faces. From the state of decomposition, the man, like the others, had been dead for several months, probably killed during the bitter siege of Misrata by pro-Gaddafi forces. A blindfold had been tied around the man’s eyes. Dibrik carefully pushed it back and brushed away the sandy earth. The man’s forehead bore a bullet hole, just above his nose, penetrating the rag tied round his eyes. The damage at the back of the skull suggested he had been shot at close range. His hands and feet had been tied with thick green twine. Dibrik and a colleague measured the body. They examined the teeth and talked into a microphone, recording the injuries. Dibrik then moved to another body. Its hands too had been tied. The man on the stretcher, identifiable only by a serial number scrawled on a piece of paper and placed on his body, had also had his eyes covered before being shot. He had been a small man. When Dibrik rolled over the body his hands had also been tied behind his back. Forty or so onlookers, some in the uniform of Libya’s revolutionary forces, stood watching by the graves in silence. Dibrik searched in the pocket of the tracksuit bottoms worn by one of the men, looking for ID. There was none. “Nike,” he said. “Civilian clothes.” A man standing nearby explained that many of the fighters from Misrata’s siege wore combat trousers, as many fighters do today, mixed with T-shirts or other civilian clothing. Another made a calculation. “If these men were killed in April then this area of the front was under the control of Gaddafi forces. The only people who came here were shepherds.” It is impossible to tell. What is clear is that they were executed and their bodies dumped. Whatever the circumstances of their death, these graves are evidence of a war crime, committed, it seems likely from the military stretcher and from the army blankets, by soldiers. It seems likely too that these men’s names would appear on the list of the 1,000 or so still recorded by the town’s revolutionary forces as missing from the time of siege. Where the bodies of those still missing have been hidden is only now slowly being revealed, in sandy remote plots like this, far from any houses. It is evidence of what happened in Libya, beyond the eyes of reporters and human rights investigators, during the long months of war when atrocities were committed on both sides, and often with impunity. It is not the first grave and nor will it be the last to be found near this city. Even as the five bodies were exhumed, officials from the new government were searching for another grave which they had been told by a captured pro-Gaddafi fighter contained the bodies of 25 civilians captured during the town’s siege. For those still looking for their family members, the battle for Misrata will only be over when the last grave is found. Libya Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Twenty medical personnel were given sentences ranging from five to 15 years for treating injured protesters Bahrain’s attorney general has ordered a civilian court retrial for 20 medical personnel sentenced to prison as alleged backers of anti-government protests. A statement on Wednesday by Bahrain’s government apparently nullifies the verdicts earlier this week from a special security court against the doctors and nurses, who received sentences ranging from five to 15 years for treating injured protesters. The case brought an outcry from rights groups and raised questions from the UN secretary general. Bahrain has been gripped by nearly eight months of unrest by Shia-led protests seeking greater rights from the ruling Sunni monarchy. Bahrain Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry today for his discovery of quasicrystals, a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman’s discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. “It feels wonderful,” said…
Continue reading …
Daniel Shechtman, who has won the chemistry Nobel for discovering quasicrystals, was initially lambasted for ‘bringing disgrace’ on his research group A scientist whose work was so controversial he was ridiculed and asked to leave his research group has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry . Daniel Shechtman , 70, a researcher at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, received the award for discovering seemingly impossible crystal structures in frozen gobbets of metal that resembled the beautiful patterns seen in Islamic mosaics. Images of the metals showed their atoms were arranged in a way that broke well-establised rules of how crystals formed, a finding that fundamentally altered how chemists view solid matter. In addition to the kudos of the award, Shechtman receives 10 million Swedish kronor (£934,000). Crystallised materials are normally made up of “unit cells” of atoms that repeat over and over to make a single, uniform structure. This kind of crystal structure makes graphite a good lubricant, for example, because it can cleave easily across certain planes of weakness. On the morning of 8 April 1982, Shechtman saw something quite different while gazing at electron microscope images of a rapidly cooled metal alloy. The atoms were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated. Shechtman said to himself in Hebrew, “Eyn chaya kazo,” which means “There can be no such creature.” The bizarre structures are now known as “quasicrystals” and have been seen in a wide variety of materials. Their uneven structure means they do not have obvious cleavage planes, making them particularly hard. “His discovery was extremely controversial. In the course of defending his findings, he was asked to leave his research group,” the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement. “However, his battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter … Scientists are currently experimenting with using quasicrystals in different products such as frying pans and diesel engines.” In an interview this year with the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Shechtman said: “People just laughed at me.” He recalled how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and a double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening “crusade” against him. After telling Shechtman to go back and read a crystallography textbook, the head of his research group asked him to leave for “bringing disgrace” on the team. “I felt rejected,” Shachtman said. The existence of quasicrystals, though controversial, was anticipated much earlier, but Shechtman was the first to see them in nature. The 16th century astronomer Johannes Kepler drew quasicrystal-like patterns in his book Mysterium Cosmographicum. In the 1970s, Sir Roger Penrose, the Oxford University mathematical physicist, created “aperiodic” tiling patterns that never repeated themselves, work that he suspects was inspired by Kepler’s drawings. “I once asked Shechtman if he knew about my tilings when he saw the things he saw. He said he did, but that he didn’t have them in mind when he was looking at them,” Penrose told the Guardian. “I think it was rather similar to my experience with Kepler’s patterns. Probably he was influenced unconsciously.” Penrose’s own contribution to the field led some scientists to suggest he might himself be a contender for the Nobel prize. “Some people have said that, but I was a bit doubtful that would happen. Shechtman was the first person to see these things and it took a while to come around to the view that the things that were seen were the same kind of patterns I’d produced about 10 years earlier,” he said. While the patterns were beautiful and fundamentally interesting, Penrose said he was not aware of any very successful commercial applications. Though quasicrystal frying pan coatings exist, he said: “I am not sure they are terribly effective. I believe they interact with egg.” Astrid Graslund , professor of biophysics at Stockholm University and secretary for the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, conceded: “The practical applications are, as of now, not so many. But the material has unexpected properties. It is very strong, it has hardly any friction on the surface, it doesn’t want to react with anything, [it] cannot oxidize and become rusty.” David Phillips, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry , said: “Quasicrystals are a fascinating aspect of chemical and material science – crystals that break all the rules of being a crystal at all. You can normally explain in simple terms where in a crystal each atom sits – they are very symmetrical. With quasicrystals, that symmetry is broken: there are regular patterns in the structure, but never repeating.” He added: “They’re quite beautiful, and have potential applications in protective alloys and coatings. The award of the Nobel Prize to Danny Shechtman is a celebration of fundamental research.” Nobel prizes Science prizes People in science Chemistry Israel United States Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Syria sanctions: ‘outraged’ US seeks fresh resolution after double veto blow
October 5, 2011 No Comment
US envoy says America will not rest until UN security council meets its responsibilities after Russia and China veto draft The UN security council is expected to seek a fresh resolution on Syria after Russia and China on Tuesday night vetoed a draft that threatened sanctions, a security council source said. The veto by Russia, which was supported by China, provoked the biggest verbal explosion from the US at the UN for years, with its ambassador Susan Rice expressing “outrage” over the move by Moscow and Beijing. Rice also walked out of the security council, the first such demonstration in recent years. While walkouts are common at the UN general assembly, they are rare in the security council. The US, France and Britain are planning to bring a new resolution at the first opportunity. The security council source said that similar vetoes in the past had killed off attempts to intervene in crises ranging from Zimbabwe to Georgia, but this time it was different. “It will not go away,” the source said. “It will not be next week. We don’t have a date. But there are a number of ways the security council can get back to this.” Further civil unrest in Syria would offer an opportunity, as would a request by the Arab League for intervention. Diplomats at the UN cannot recall an episode during the Obama administration in which the US has been so markedly critical of Russia. The vote was 9-2 in favour, with four abstentions: South Africa, India, Brazil and the Lebanon. The resolution reflects the shift in US policy, which began with hopes that Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, might be open to negotiation. But those hopes have gradually been abandoned by all senior figures in the US foreign policy establishment. Rice, who before joining the Obama administration established a reputation as an outspoken critic of the failure of the west to intervene in humanitarian crises round the world, said after the vote: “The United States is outraged that this council has utterly failed to address an urgent moral challenge and a growing threat to regional peace and security.” Without naming Russia and China – but making it clear they were the target of her words – she said: “Let there be no doubt: this is not about military intervention. This is not about Libya. That is a cheap ruse by those who would rather sell arms to the Syrian regime than stand with the Syrian people.” She added: “This is about whether this council, during a time of sweeping change in the Middle East, will stand with peaceful protesters crying out for freedom, or with a regime of thugs with guns that tramples human dignity and human rights. As matters now stand, this council will not even mandate the dispatch of human rights monitors to Syria – a grave failure that may doom the prospects for peaceful protest in the face of a regime that knows no limits.” Rice accused Russia and China of looking the other way as attempts at a peaceful settlement have been spurned by Assad. The international community now had to bring “real consequences” to bear, she said. “In failing to adopt the draft resolution before us, this council has squandered an opportunity to shoulder its responsibilities to the Syrian people. We deeply regret that some members of the council have prevented us from taking a principled stand against the Syrian regime’s brutal oppression of its people.” She said the US will not rest until the council meets its responsibilities. The resolution had been weakened considerably since the original text was circulated to the 15 security council members in early August seeking to impose sanctions. The draft resolution on Tuesday only said the security council would “consider its options” in 30 days’ time if Assad failed to stop the violence, and would seek a peaceful settlement of the crisis. It said the options would include sanctions. To further water down the resolution in an attempt to make it more acceptable to Russia and China, there was no hint of military intervention. As well as expressing outrage over the veto, Rice walked out of the security council when Syria, exercising its right to speak, accused the US of backing genocide against the Palestinians. The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, insisted Moscow did not support Assad, and opposed the resolution because it was confrontational, amounting to an ultimatum on sanctions. Russia is still smarting from the way the US, Britain and France used a UN resolution on Libya as cover for intervention on scale that Moscow insists the resolution never envisaged. The British ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said the draft resolution contained nothing any member of the council should have felt a need to oppose. “Yet two members chose to veto. It will be a deep disappointment to the people of Syria and to the wider region,” he said. United Nations Syria United States Russia China US foreign policy Middle East Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Mitt Romney, speaking at one of Florida’s biggest senior citizen communities yesterday, assured his elderly audience that Social Security is safe—despite Rick Perry. The Texas governor, in a book published last year, called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” because of its funding problems. “I think Social Security has worked…
Continue reading …