[The Peninsula] Astronomers have found a dwarf planet far beyond the orbit of Pluto and can only guess how it got there.
The diminutive world, provisionally called "2012 VP 113" by the international Minor Planet Center, is estimated to be about 450km in diameter, less than half the size of a neighbouring dwarf planet named Sedna discovered a decade ago.
Sedna and VP 113 are the first objects found in a region of the solar system previously believed to be devoid of planetary bodies.
The proverbial no-man's land extended from the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, home to the dwarf planet Pluto and more than 1,000 other small icy bodies, to the comet-rich Oort Cloud, which orbits the sun some 10,000 times farther away than Earth.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Amazing discovery. Someplace FLOTUS has yet to visit.
#7
Is "Dwarf" a still a politically correct term? Maybe that's offensive to Snow White or somebody.For sensitivity's sake I think it should be categorized a Bantam Planet? or a Runt Planet? or Shrimpish Planet? Lilliputian? Usually scientists are better at making up names...just saying.
[Al Ahram] Egypt's tourist police placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! on Wednesday a hotel employee accused of raping a British holidaymaker in South Sinai earlier this month.
A security source told Al-Ahram's Arabic news website that the arrested has been charged with "attempting to sexually assault a tourist during her visit at the hotel between 28 February and 6 March."
Last Sunday, news reports circulated that a 40-year-old British businesswoman claimed she had been raped by a hotel worker during her visit to Sharm El-Sheikh on 6 March.
On Monday, Egypt's tourism ministry said it was investigating the case along with UK authorities.
Egypt's prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat opened an investigation into the rape allegations late on Tuesday after receiving a notification from INTERPOL.
The same day, a police officer was referred to criminal court for the attempted rape of a Russian tourist in the Red Sea resort town.
Earlier on Tuesday, Egypt's ministry of tourism revoked the licenses of two hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh -- Hilton Sharks Bay Hotel and Sharm Holiday Resort -- after sexual harassment incidents at both resorts were ignored by their management.
In May 2013, Egypt's tourism minister Hisham Zaazou told Ahram Online that hotels would be closed if staff were found to have sexually harassed tourists, behaviour that Zaazou said would negatively impact the country's reputation.
The tourism ministry has recorded 150 cases of sexual harassment against tourists over the last two years. There have also been three recorded rapes.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[MAGHAREBIA] Morocco's recent decision to exclude civilians from military courts is "a decisive turning point" in the kingdom, National Human Rights Council (CNDH) chief Driss El Yazami said Tuesday (March 25th) in Rabat.
The new measure to amend the 1956 law protects both citizens and members of the Royal Armed Forces.
Under the change proposed on March 13th, military tribunals would be barred from trying civilians.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
...The Pravy Sector militants played the role of stormtroopers in November 2013-February 2014. Right after the coup Yarosh declared his intention to continue the Ťnationalist revolutionť. There was a wave of treason accusations against the Kiev junta. A. Belitzky, a Pravy Sector group commander, said, ŤThe government can hardly be called legitimate and it has not much time left. We are growing critical towards it with each passing dayť. A bit later Maidan militants issued a statement accusing the new Ťnational leadersť of criminal activities. The militants wanted the Narodny Veche (people’s assembly) to call a constituent congress representing the Euromaidan, paramilitary organizations, territorial assemblies and mayors of large Ukrainian cities. The power of parliament was to be vested in the congress which would appoint an interim government, start the process of preparing a new constitution and legislature and create conditions for complete reform of state power leading to enhanced authority of local administrations and the formation of local self-defense units. Otherwise the junta leaders would face a people’s tribunalť.
[AnNahar] Russian government officials have swapped their iPads for Samsung tablets to ensure tighter security, the telecoms minister told news agencies on Wednesday.
Journalists spotted that ministers at a cabinet meeting were no longer using Apple tablets, and minister Nikolai Nikiforov confirmed the changeover "took place not so long ago."
He said the ministers' new Samsungs were "specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information."
"Some of the information at government meetings is confidential in nature and these devices fully meet these demands and have gone through the strictest system of certification."
Nikiforov denied that Russia was clamping down on U.S. technology in response to Western sanctions imposed over its takeover of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
"We are not proposing any sanctions," he said.
But he did mention reading reports that "American special services... will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept (which) of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients."
"This obviously orientates Russian clients, primarily state ones, to be very choosy about their partners in IT," Nikiforov said.
He added that South Korean firms such as Samsung, along with Chinese ones, could be interesting to Russia in this respect.
Russia's then-president and now Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited Silicon Valley in 2010 and received an iPhone as a gift from the late Steve Jobs, using it to send his first tweet.
In the background of a new website, a happy family, apparently in Crimea, looks on with pride at two Russian soldiers. In the foreground is a list of Russian journalists, activists and entertainers who are said to threaten the family's implied bliss following Russia's annexation of the peninsula. The website's preamble states, "We believe that Russian citizens who insult our soldiers and who cast doubt on the need to fight neo-Nazis are traitors."
The site is the most recent incarnation of an effort by Kremlin supporters to expose the so-called fifth column of "national traitors" referred to by Vladimir Putin in a recent national address. Putin's rhetoric appears to be a signal that an enhanced crackdown is on the way, and it has sparked a mainstream intimidation campaign.
Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Russia's newly reorganized information agency, Rossiya Segodnya, said, "The lists, in my opinion, are being created in Moscow, among the capital's intelligentsia -- the people who Putin just this Tuesday called a 'fifth column. In fact, Putin legalized that term [for use] in the political language of Russia. We know their names. We know how they wrote our names and sent them to these Western embassies."
The call has been spreading on social media. Sergei Markov, an analyst with close ties to Moscow, used Facebook to share a list of 41 names and organizations that were said to support the Kyiv protesters. He called them, "Traitors to Russia!"
The rhetoric seems to be part of a recent crackdown on Russian opposition and independent media. Cable operators have removed Dozhd TV, a popular liberal-leaning channel, and the station has been ordered to leave its building by June. The chief editor of a widely respected news website, Lenta.ru, was fired in early March and replaced by someone who had recently run a pro-Kremlin website.
#1
Hey sign me up - I'm an opponent of Crimean invasion - I'll forward you my address and umm ... you and your Russia Today (Rossiya Segodnya) people won't mind meeting my friendly 2nd Amendment buddy, locked and loaded and ready for bear, when you show up now will you ?
North Korea will receive US$5 million from Zimbabwe in return for giant statues of dictator Robert Mugabe, Radio Free Asia quoted Zimbabwean media as saying Tuesday.
I find this ... appropriate...
North Korea's Mansudae Art Studio signed a contract with the African country to build two giant statues for Mugabe's 90th birthday, according to RFA. The larger, to be erected in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, reportedly costs $3.5 million and the smaller $1.5 million.
The North has earned a fair amount of hard currency from the Third World by building monumental statuary cheaper than anyone else.
The Norks are doing the equivalent of sofa art!
Dubious triumphs in the art include the African Renaissance Monument in Senegal built in 2010.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
They can use the same mold the Chinese used for the Martin Luther King statue.
[ZEROHEDGE] We are sure the weather is to blame but what happens when pent-up demand (from a frosty east coast emerging from its hibernation) bumps up against a drought-stricken west coast unable to plant to meet that demand? The spot price (not futures speculation-driven) of US Foodstuffs is the best performing asset in 2014 - up a staggering 19%.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 11:08 ||
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Don't worry, the Fed doesn't include food in its calculation of inflation. Mortgage paper their predecessors and future employers are holding does count. They'll protect the latter.
[AnNahar] Ukraine's maritime forces have been severely diminished by the Russian intervention in Crimea after they lost 12 of their 17 warships to Moscow, defense analysts Jane's said Wednesday.
Around 12,000 of the Ukrainian navy's 15,450 personnel were based in Crimea when Russia first intervened on February 27, and since then have lost the bulk of their assets, Jane's said in a commentary.
In the port city of Sevastopol, the Russians seized two Grisha V-class frigates, a patrol vessel and a command ship, as well as Ukraine's only submarine and an ocean-going tug.
Russian special forces also seized Ukraine's naval base at Novoozerne, on Crimea's northwest coast. Seven Ukrainian warships and a Natya-class minesweeper have been blockaded in the base on Lake Dunuzlov after Russia scuppered the hulks of two warships in the access channel leading to the sea.
Ukraine's 10th Saski Naval Air Brigade, which controlled all of the country's maritime aviation assets, managed to get some of its aircraft and helicopters onto bases on the mainland in time.
But Jane's said there will likely be problems caused by Moscow's seizure of Sevastopol Aviation Enterprise, which was responsible for the maintenance of Ukrainian naval helicopters.
Ukraine's navy is now based at Odessa, with less than half a dozen large surface craft as well as several small patrol craft, Jane's said.
But at least it has the Krivak III-class frigate Hetman Sagaidachny, which was returning from an anti-piracy mission in the Indian Ocean when the crisis broke.
"Ukraine's navy now faces an uncertain future," the commentary said.
"As well as losing the bulk of its ships, helicopters and aircraft, it headquarters building, much of the service's signals intelligence, training, administration, maintenance, and logistics infrastructure has now been lost.
"This includes the service's main underground ammunition storage site at Inkermann valley, outside Sevastopol."
Other military assets seized in Crimea include 39 Mig-29 fighters based at the Balbek airbase, as well as S-300 surface-to-air missiles from the Fiolent base.
#2
39 MIG fighters simply turned over to the Russians, indicates a high level of collaboration on the Ukrainian side, to assist in the Russian takeover. Surely the planes could have simply been flown farther west, had there been an intention of putting up some resistance to the takeover.
#3
And that is why the defense minister got sacked. It was a simple matter to order the ships to sea, to Odessa. And the aircraft in a short hop to a northern airfield.
Navy hardware was not exactly state of the art, but ships are awfully expensive to replace, and they take time.
#6
Ypu forget a little problem: 50% of Ukranins don't want to fight against Russia and they don't wan't to fight it because they are Ukranians only because Stalin decided the border between Soviet Republic of Russia and Soviet Republic of Ukraine would be where it is and independent Ukranian iinherited these borders.
#7
The good news is that these were Soviet-era vessels, whose RussNav successor's most valuable ships are its ocean-going tugs = salvage ships.
Exactly. It's not like these are truly Ukrainian ships and it's not like the Ukrainians have any idea what to do with them. All they had, including the Crimea, is what the Russians gave them in the first place and now they're crying because the Russians took it back. I'm sorry. I just don't see the problem here.
[Al Ahram] US President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... urged the West to remain united in its response to Moscow's takeover of Crimea, saying Wednesday that "with time" Russians will realise that "brute force" cannot win.
"With time, so long as we remain united, the Russian people will recognize that they cannot achieve security, prosperity and the status they seek through brute force.
"And that's why throughout this crisis we will combine our substantial pressure on Russia with an open door for diplomacy," Obama said in his only speech in a six-day tour of Europe.
Obama told a crowd of some 2,000 people massed in a concert-hall with Belgian's king and queen that Russia's actions had challenged "truths that only a few weeks ago seemed self-evident" -- that international law matters, that borders cannot be redrawn, that people must decide their own future.
Obama said that though the West was not directly affected by Russia's incursion "indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent".
Earlier in the day he toured the only World War I cemetery in Belgium to hold US graves.
"This is not another Cold War we're entering into," he said of the Ukraine crisis. "The United States and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... do not seek any conflict with Russia."
But he said that the transatlantic military alliance would uphold its "one-for-all" duty to defend each other's illusory sovereignty.
"And in that promise we will never waiver.
"NATO nations never stand alone," he added, saying that the alliance was patrolling the skies over the Baltics, and had reinforced its presence in Poland. "And we're prepared to do more."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
See BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Independent.UK] UKRAINE CRISIS: RUSSIA IS A "REGIONAL POWER", AMERICA IS THE MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD,SAYS BARACK OBAMA INW ARNING TO VLADIMIR PUTIN.
* RELATED CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > RUSSIA WEAK, US STRONG DCLARED OBAMA | [The Wire] OBAMA: NO, ROMNEY WAS WRONG, RUSSIA IS WEAK, NOT STRONG.
I saw the Bammer's speech on CNN - methinks he had foolishly hired FLOTUS Michelle's fashion advisor to counsel him on foreign policy. IMO HE WAS EFFEC DARING VLAD = RUSSIA TO MILITARILY DO SOMETHING = GO BEYOND WHAT VLAD HAS ALREADY DONE VEE TAKING OVER THE CRIMEA FROM UKRAINE.
versus
* TOPIX > [Bloomberg] OBAMA CALLS RUSSIA MOVES A CHALLENGE TO GLOBAL ORDER.
Sniff, sniff, came up wid that all by himself did he???
NATIONALIST-VS-GLOBALIST WORLD ORDER.
What part of "POTUS OBAMA IS A LOUSY PRO-US NATIONALIST BUT ONE HELLUVA OUTSTANDING ANTI-US GLOBALIST" DID WE NOT UNDERSTAND???
* SAME > [Reuters] OBAMA: RUSSIA WILL NOT BE PUSHED OUT OF CRIMEA BY MILITARY MEANS.
Ditto as per China in East Asia + Pacific, e.g. GUAM-WESTPAC? HAWAII?
Americans = Amerikans may not seem to care because sovereign US territory is not involved, i.e. THE CRIME OR EAST, SOUTH CHINA SEAS IS NOT GUAM, HAWAII, OR 1/2-PLUS OF CONUS-NORAM.
[FEMA BULK PUCHASE OF HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS here].
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [The Hindu] US DEFENSE SECRETARY [Chuck Hagel] SAYS RUSSIA SHOULD GUARANTEE WILL NOT INVADE UKRAINE.
* SAME > RUSSIA TODAY VIDEO: THE NETHERLANDS: OBAMA SAYS THE US GENERALLY DOESN'T HAVE TO INVADE NEIGHBORS IN ORDER TO INFLUENCE THEM.
#2
'But he said that the transatlantic military alliance would uphold its "one-for-all" duty to defend each other's sovereignty.'
The problem is that this statement is directly contradicted by the US' and NATO's reaction to 9/11.
NATO invoked article 5. NATO and the US went to war/conducted a military operation. NATO and the US lost, even when they absolutely couldn't afford to lose.
In response to an act of 'brute force' the West rewarded the attackers' associates. The US has shown that it doesn't care much about US sovereignty as the US' political class signaled its acceptance of an islamic Brezhnev doctrine.
American political discourse might not have perceived events this way, but the likes of Putin do recognize finlandization when they see it.
#6
Amerikans may not seem to care because sovereign US territory is not involved The members of the permanent Democratic supermajority only care that their bennies keep coming in, not to mention they don't know what "sovereign" means.
#13
In my opinion Putin just has to sit back and wait. It will be handed to him. Obama like Wilson will not put up a fight. The EU needs Russia(they are so weak right now). We need Russia to get to our space station. The Russian people don't want war. Putin knows this. Growing his country without firing a shot will make him respected and stronger than ever. He always said he would reverse the losses and restore Russian prestige and power. I find it interesting the interest in southern areas of the world as with China. The Russians believe in a coming mini ice age(300 years). I believe this is a long range plan. Food production worldwide will be very important. Warm water ports also.
#16
There's a problem with your thinking, stating "Obama Thinks" is in error, he only "Feels" not "Thinks".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/27/2014 19:07 Comments ||
Top||
#17
Of course if Obama looked at his map he would realize the 57th state Alaska is closer to Russia than merry ole England and so maybe we should care more about Russian aggression than NATO.
It will additionally be interesting when Russia stakes claim to all oil and natural gas under the North Pole and Obama is still scratching his a$$ over the keystone pipeline.
[The Peninsula] A Turkish court Wednesday ordered the lifting of last week's Twitter ban imposed after audio recordings implicating Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet... in a wide-ranging corruption scandal spread via the social media site.
The administrative court in Ankara will inform Turkey's telecommunications regulator TIB of the decision, and access to Twitter is expected to be restored later in the day, private NTV television said.
Erdogan's government, which has been dogged by protests and is engulfed in the corruption scandal, has also banned thousands of websites.
The Twitter ban took effect on March 20 after Erdogan defiantly vowed to "wipe out" the online messaging service, saying it had failed to abide by hundreds of court orders to remove content deemed illegal.
The UN high commissioner for human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... was among international figures who condemned the ban, which has turned into an embarrassment for Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party ahead of key local elections Sunday -- the first polls since the corruption scandal broke.
Many of Turkey's 10 million Twitter users managed to circumvent the ban, tweeting via mobile phone text services or using virtual private networks.
Social media networks have been flooded with recordings in which Erdogan can allegedly be heard interfering in court cases and business deals and seeking to block unfavourable media reports.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[The Peninsula] The main opposition party in the Maldives yesterday accused authorities of undermining the latest parliamentary elections, but conceded defeat after a bitterly-fought campaign. The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) had criticised the Supreme Court's sacking of the elections chief and his deputy just before Saturday's election, but nevertheless decided to face the polls.
"How can we call this a free vote when the Supreme Court sacks the chief elections commissioner and his deputy two weeks before the election?" MDP front man Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said. "But, we concede defeat."
The commission's top two have yet to be replaced and President Abdulla Yameen himself raised doubts on Thursday if the election could be held by a depleted panel of three.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Expressing extreme annoyance over the provincial government failure to supply food and relief to the people in drought-hit parts of Tharparkar, the Sindh High Court on Monday directed the authorities concerned to request army aviation and other departments to airlift relief goods to the 22,758 families who are still without food and relief supplies.
A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar was seized with the hearing of three identical petitions pertaining to the drought-hit people of the desert.
The bench also ordered the formation of a committee, headed by the additional district and sessions judge of Tharparkar, to check and monitor the performance of health officials posted in the drought-hit area. A senior doctor of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation and Dr Sono Khanghrani of the Sindh Rural Support Organization were ordered to be the members of the committee.
The bench visibly became irked as it went through a report of the senior member of board of revenue and relief commissioner who conceded that as many as 22,758 families were still without food and relief supplies.
"It has come on record that several deaths were caused due to acute shortage of food in Tharparkar," said Chief Justice Baqar, adding that it was sheer injustice to the people of the province.
The bench directed the committee to file a report regarding the adequacy, efficiency and effectiveness of various health facilities in the area by April 8, the next date of hearing.
The court also directed the provincial government to place on record the entire mechanism of the food supply system in the province and more particularly in its far-flung areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Gazoo's Islamist rulers Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, announced Wednesday that the blockaded territory's border with Egypt would open after a 50-day closure, telling Paleostinians wishing to travel to present their passports.
Egypt has severely restricted access through the crossing in the border city of Rafah since July, when the army deposed Hamas's ally, President Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... of the Moslem Brüderbund.
The crossing will reopen for three days starting Saturday, Hamas's interior ministry said.
Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. Paleostinian refugee agency (UNRWA) urged Egypt Tuesday to allow people through Rafah, saying only a handful of Mohammedan pilgrims had been allowed across over seven weeks.
He also called on Israel to ease its blockade of the territory, imposed in 2006.
Many Gazooks travel through Rafah to seek medical treatment outside of the impoverished Strip.
Israel controls the only other personnel crossing at Erez.
After Morsi's overthrow, the army destroyed hundreds of tunnels under the border that brought in construction materials and fuel. That caused the Strip's worst ever energy crisis, with power outages of up to 16 hours a day.
This month, Hamas described the Rafah closure as a "crime against humanity," and the U.N. criticized it for its effect on "the civilian population, including patients awaiting medical treatment."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Peninsula] Astronomers have found a dwarf planet far beyond the orbit of Pluto and can only guess how it got there.
[Al Ahram] Egypt's tourist police 
[Al Ahram] US President 
[The Peninsula] A Turkish court Wednesday ordered the lifting of last week's Twitter ban imposed after audio recordings implicating Prime Minister 
[DAWN] Expressing extreme annoyance over the provincial government failure to supply food and relief to the people in drought-hit parts of Tharparkar, the Sindh High Court on Monday directed the authorities concerned to request army aviation and other departments to airlift relief goods to the 22,758 families who are still without food and relief supplies.
