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Monday, May 28, 2018

On Saturday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un held an unannounced meeting in the Joint Security Area straddling the Korean Demilitarized Zone, two days after United States President Donald Trump withdrew from the scheduled June 12 high-level meeting in Singapore.

Moon initiated the meeting after hearing Trump had withdrawn from the proposed summit with Kim. Trump’s decision to withdraw came on Friday after increased tensions over scheduled military exercises, North Korean official Choe Son Hui referring to US Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” and threatened nuclear action. Since then, both Pyongyang and the White House have issued statements indicating they are willing to have a meeting of some kind regardless.

Adam Mount of the Federation of American Scientists’ Defense Posture Project referred to Trump’s response as a “temper tantrum” and applauded Moon’s “bold but risky” actions: “When Kim Jong-un was allowed to split the negotiations into separate tracks with Trump and Moon, he gained leverage over both,” Mount told the public via Tweet. “… Trump says ‘everybody plays games.’ Moon Jae-in is not playing a game: he must keep his people safe from war. Each of Trump’s whims shakes the walls of the Blue House.” The Blue House is South Korea’s presidential residence.

The meeting lasted roughly two hours. It was the second major meeting between Moon and Kim in as many months. In April, they met to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and plans for a formal peace treaty to replace the cease-fire that ended the Korean War on July 27, 1953, a measure that would require involving the US and China.

Although the White House stated their intent on withdrawing from the summit, North Korea’s state-run news agency reported Friday the two leaders are still scheduled for further “high-level talks”. North Korea explosively destroyed buildings and tunnels at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site. The North Koreans invited international media observers to the demolitions, who later issued skeptical reports regarding the full extent of the demolition, according to NPR.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.

Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.

“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.

The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.

“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

With two federal by-elections coming up in Australia, many minor parties and independents will be looking to gain a seat in the House of Representatives. Goronwy Price is a candidate representing the Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy party.

Mr Price is an environmentalist, adventurer and businessman from the Sydney suburb of Cremorne.

“In 1975 I founded the adventure travel company World Expeditions and built it to be the world’s largest adventure organisation. I am currently Managing Director of Learningportal.com a successful software company I founded in 1997. We export software around the world.,” Mr Price said.

Wikinews reporter Patrick Gillett held an exclusive email interview with Mr Price, candidate for the Division of Bradfield.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Recent cyber attacks in Estonia that have paralyzed the high tech country’s Web sites are a threat to national security, according to the country’s Minister of Defense. This has concerned NATO, seeing that Estonia is a member state of the organization. The attacks have subsided this week.

The Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo also mentioned that Russia may have been behind the attacks. He stated that the IP numbers in the initial attack belong to Russian government offices, but says that it’s insufficient evidence that the government is behind it. The Kremlin is dismissing the accusations, saying that its caused by hackers producing fake Kremlin IP addresses.

The cyber attacks came after Estonia removed a Soviet-era statue of a Bronze Soldier in Tallinn, which angered many Russians. Riots have left 160 injured, and 1 dead.

Both NATO and the European Union views this as an attack on one of their member states. Three hundred Estonian IT specialist worked day and night to fix the problem.

The Estonian government plans to analyze server logs and data to find out who is behind the attacks.

Saturday, December 3, 2005

James Hardie Industries has signed a final agreement designed to ensure that compensation will be received by victims who suffer health consequences due to their exposure to the company’s asbestos products. The deal, signed on Thursday, is expected to cost the company $4.5 billion over the next 40 years, and James Hardie is obligated to pay 35 per cent of its free cash flow during each of those years to fund a compensation trust.

The Australian corporate watchdog ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) is gaining ground on James Hardie Industries corporate members. It is understood that the company’s agreement with the NSW Government will not provide Hardie directors and executives with the immunities from civil prosecution sought by the company. The possible charges for the members range as high as jail terms of up to five years.

According to The Weekend Australian, a source said, “this arrangement suited ASIC because rather than channelling its efforts into cases that could provide compensation, it can concentrate on alleged offences that could result in criminal prosecution or banning officers from holding directorships or management positions.”

NSW Special Commissioner David Jackson QC said that former Hardie chief executive Peter Macdonald engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct when he told the stock exchange that the asbestos compensation trust Hardie set up in 2001 with $293 million would be “fully funded”. At around the same time, James Hardie share holders voted for the relocation of its corporate base from Australia to the Netherlands.

Another alleged issue is a controversial $1.9 billion share cancellation, which a NSW MP said attracted ASIC to look at the activities of Hardie chairwoman Meredith Hellicar.

The ASIC task force plan to collect and analyse documents and interview witnesses into at least the middle of next year. Until then, any possible new charges are unlikely.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

NASA‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the latest robotic spacecraft destined for Mars, arrived at Kennedy Space Center‘s Shuttle Landing Facility on April 30 aboard a C-17 cargo plane and was delivered to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to begin processing. Launching is scheduled for August 10, 2005.

With a mission time line through 2010, the MRO will conduct studies of the Martian atmosphere, surface and subsurface in far greater detail than previous missions. Possible landing sites for future Mars landings will be evaluated and the orbiter will also act as a high-data-rate communications relay for surface missions.

“Great work by a talented team has brought Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to this milestone in our progress toward a successful mission,” said Jim Graf of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) project manager for the mission.

Multiple mechanical assembly operations and electrical tests are scheduled to verify the craft’s readiness for launch. A May test to verify communication abilities through NASA’s Deep Space Network will be conducted and in June deployment of the high gain communications antenna will be tested. A deployment test is also scheduled for the Orbiter’s large solar arrays.

The MRO will be filled with hydrazine fuel in July for its “Mars orbit insertion burn” which reduces the craft’s velocity and places it in orbit about the red planet. July 26 will see the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter installed in an Atlas V rocket fairing for final assembly with the rocket on July 29.

After the scheduled launch, the MRO will spend seven months cruising to Mars and another six months aerobraking after orbital insertion. A variety of scientific instruments on board will be used to search for geological evidence of past seas, ancient shorelines.The craft was built near Denver by Lockheed Martin Space Systems which also supplies the Atlas V launch vehicle.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project. International Launch Services, a Lockheed Martin joint venture, and Lockheed Martin Space Systems are providing launch services for the mission.

More information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is available at: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter website

Monday, June 25, 2018

On Saturday, the plastic ban in the Indian state of Maharashtra came into force. In an attempt to minimise pollution, the state government has introduced a ban on single-use plastics.

The leader of the Yuya Sena political party, Aaditya Thackeray, said on Twitter, “The ban on single use disposable plastic cups, plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic plates and cutlery, styrofoam cutlery and non woven bags”. He added, “these are global issues now and we have taken a step to combat it”.

Plastic pollution has led to the choking of drains, marine pollution and a risk of animals consuming plastics. This year, India’s motto for World Environment Day — June 5 — was “Beat Plastic Pollution”. People violating the plastic ban are to face a fine of 5,000 Indian Rupees (INR) for the first offence. For the second offence, the fine is INR 10,000 and the third time offence is INR 25,000 and a three-month prison term. Deputy municipal commissioner Nidhi Choudhary said, “To weed out corruption, we plan to give inspectors payment gadgets for electronic receipts of the fines”.

The Maharashtra government has given a 90-day period for manufacturers to dispose of existing polyethylene terephthalate (PET/PETE) plastic spoons and plates, while shopkeepers and citizens in general have six months to dispose of plastics. However, the ban does not prohibit plastic usage for wrapping medicines or milk cartons thicker than 50 microns.

The state government had announced the decision for the plastic ban on March 23. According to NDTV’s report, Maharashtra is the eighteenth Indian state to enforce a state-wide plastic ban. Aaditya Thackeray also said, “I congratulate the citizens for making this into a movement, even before the ban was enforceable, giving up single use disposable plastic.”