Yen hit near three-year low as new BOJ governor eyed

LONDON (Reuters) - The yen fell close to a three-year low on Wednesday on expectations that a new Bank of Japan governor could ease policy, while the euro was steady and European shares edged up ahead of a central bank meeting.


BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa has said he will step down on March 19, opening the way for a successor supporting the kind of expansionary policies the government favours.


The dollar touched 94.075 yen to its highest since May 2010 before profit taking saw it drop back to 93.76 yen, while the euro also rose as high as 127.71 yen, its strongest since April 2010, before it also eased.


Against the dollar, the euro dipped to $1.3546 but was within this week's range of $1.3450 - $1.3710.


New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's support for aggressive easing does not seem to caused an outcry from other countries although there have been sporadic complaints from Germany and South Korea.


This makes yen selling comfortable, said Minori Uchida, chief currency strategist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.


"The G20 finance ministers meeting next week is unlikely to discuss currencies much. The market is likely to test further downside on the yen in the near future," Uchida said.


European shares edged up and the euro was steady ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting after recovering from falls on Monday due to a flare up of political uncertainty in Spain and Italy. The ECB is expected to keep interest rates on hold.


London's FTSE 100 <.ftse> was up 0.5 percent, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> was up 0.3 percent and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> was 0.2 percent higher at 0900 GMT, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> up 0.5 percent at 1160.05.


Asian shares and industrial commodities and oil, now above $116 a barrel, consolidated recent gains that came on signs of global economic recovery.


The slide in the yen bolstered Japanese equities to their highest since October 2008 while expectations of more monetary easing pushed two-year Japanese government bond yields down to a nine-year low of 0.045 percent.


In the European bond market, benchmark German Bund futures edged up before a sale of five-year German debt that is expected to find strong demand due to a recent rise in yields and political uncertainty in Spain and Italy.


Corruption allegations in Spain have put Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy under pressure and a scandal at one of its oldest banks has led to an increasingly uncertain outcome in Italian elections later in February.


"There are fairly ominous signs (in the periphery). I know they (Italian and Spanish bonds) had a good day yesterday, but there's Spanish supply coming up," one trader said.


(Editing by Anna Willard)



Read More..

Braun says he used Fla clinic owner as consultant


NEW YORK (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun said the person who ran the Florida clinic being investigated by Major League Baseball was used only as a consultant on his drug suspension appeal last year.


"I have nothing to hide," Braun said in a statement released by his representatives on Tuesday night.


Earlier in the day, Yahoo Sports reported the 2011 NL MVP's name showed up three times in records of the Biogenesis of America LLC clinic. Yahoo said no specific performance-enhancing drugs were listed next to his name.


The Miami New Times recently released clinic documents that purportedly linked Alex Rodriguez, Gio Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera and other players to purchases of banned drugs from the now-closed anti-aging center.


Rodriguez and Cabrera were on the list with Braun that also included New York Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and Baltimore Orioles infielder Danny Valencia.


Braun said his name was in the Biogenesis records because of an issue over payment to Anthony Bosch, who ran the clinic near Miami.


"There was a dispute over compensation for Bosch's work, which is why my lawyer and I are listed under 'moneys owed' and not on any other list," Braun said.


"I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch," he said. "I will fully cooperate with any inquiry into this matter."


On Tuesday, MLB officials asked the Miami New Times for the records the alternative newspaper obtained for its story.


Asked specifically about Braun's name in the documents before the five-time All-Star released his statement, MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said: "Aware of report and are in the midst of an active investigation in South Florida."


Braun tested positive during the 2011 postseason for elevated testosterone levels. He maintained his innocence and his 50-game suspension was overturned during spring training last year when arbitrator Shyam Das ruled in favor of Braun due to chain of custody issues involving the sample.


With that, Braun became the first major leaguer to have a drug suspension overturned.


"During the course of preparing for my successful appeal last year, my attorneys, who were previously familiar with Tony Bosch, used him as a consultant. More specifically, he answered questions about T/E ratio and possibilities of tampering with samples," Braun said.


The T/E ratio is a comparison of the levels of testosterone to epitestosterone.


Braun led the NL in homers (41), runs (108) and slugging percentage (.595) last season while batting .319 with 112 RBIs and 30 stolen bases. He finished second to San Francisco catcher Buster Posey in MVP balloting."


Cervelli, who spent nearly all of last season in Triple-A, posted a statement on Twitter later Tuesday night.


"Following my foot injury in March 2011, I consulted with a number of experts, including BioGenesis Clinic, for (cont)," Cervelli posted, "(cont)legal ways to aid my rehab and recovery. I purchased supplements that I am certain were not prohibited by Major League Baseball."


An email sent to Valencia's agent was not returned.


Read More..

Astronaut in Space Opens Hailing Frequencies for William Shatner Thursday






Famed actor William Shatner, renowned for his iconic role as the fictional captain of the Starship Enterprise on TV’s “Star Trek,” is about to call up a real-life space man. The James T. Kirk actor will call the soon-to-be commander of the International Space Station on Thursday (Feb. 7).


Shatner, who is Canadian, will speak will fellow Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will speak via video and phone in a social media gathering sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency. Shatner and Hadfield, who have already traded messages via the Internet, will have their conversation live in front of audience members, who will have the chance to ask questions of Hadfield using the space-to-ground video link.






This will not be the first time the “Star Trek” captain and the real-life space flyer have beamed messages back and forth. On Jan. 3, Shatner sent Hadfield a note via Twitter to ask what life is like aboard the spac station. Hadfield responded in kind.


“@WilliamShatner Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain. And we’re detecting signs of life on the surface,” Hadfield (wrote in his Twitter chat with Shatner. Hadfield regularly posts messages and photos of his mission as @Cmdr_Hadfield.


Even before Twitter brought them together, Hadfield was on Shatner’s radar screen. Shatner posed with a small photo cutout of the astronaut as part of the public outreach program for Hadfield’s mission.


Hadfield and two crewmates — American astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — arrived at the space station in December aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They joined three other crewmates already living aboard the space station.


Hadfield is the flight engineer for the six-man Expedition 34 crew, and will take charge of Expedition 35 in March, when he will become Canada’s first space commander.


Since NASA astronaut Mike Massimino became the first spaceflyer to use Twitter in 2009, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have used the social media service as a way to post mission updates and photos. Hadfield also used the website to release the first original song ever recorded in space (his tune “Jewel in the Night” has 88,927 views on YouTube as of today).


Visit SPACE.com on Thursday, Feb. 7, to watch Star Trek actor William Shatner call astronaut Chris Hadfield live at 10:40 a.m. EST (1540 GMT). You can watch the Shatner-Hadfield space call live here on SPACE.com.


You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+


Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Space and Astronomy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Astronaut in Space Opens Hailing Frequencies for William Shatner Thursday
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/astronaut-in-space-opens-hailing-frequencies-for-william-shatner-thursday/
Link To Post : Astronaut in Space Opens Hailing Frequencies for William Shatner Thursday
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

What follows N. Korea's nuclear test?






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Lopez: Uranium-based blast would pose new challenge to U.N. Security Council

  • Indicates Pyongyang has advanced centrifuge technologies and related systems

  • North Korea's young leader appears to care little about what U.N. or China think

  • Product-based sanctions may stifle the North's ability to continue nuclear program




Editor's note: George A. Lopez holds the Hesburgh Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame. He is a former member, U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).


Indiana, U.S. (CNN) -- North Korea will soon test its third nuclear device. Earlier tests in 2006 and 2009 drew worldwide condemnation, Security Council sanctions and led Pyongyang to withdraw from the six-party talks.


In resolution 2087, passed on January 22, the Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea for its December 12 space missile launch and made clear that new violations would be dealt with harshly.


READ: N.Korea: Close to nuclear missile?


In response, North Korea rejected Council legitimacy, asserted their right to nuclear weapons and deterrence and proclaimed it would soon conduct a new nuclear test.


In addition the North engaged in some strong saber-rattling aimed at South Korea.


READ: For South Koreans, a familiar tone from Pyongyang










Because some analysts believe this will be a uranium explosion, it is a game-changer for the region and poses new and unfavorable challenges to the Security Council. A successful uranium test indicates that Pyongyang has advanced centrifuge technologies and related support systems. It means that North Korea, if left unchecked, can both produce and export such material, raising new concerns that Pyongyang and Iran cooperate in such developments.


Politically the test will reveal that the new regime of Kim Jong-Un exceeds the defiance to U.N. dictates of his predecessors in pursuing his nation's nuclear goals. Neither the prospect of stronger sanctions, nor the growing discontent of Russia and China with his behavior, appears to deter North Korea's young leader.


OPINION: Rescind North Korea's license to provoke


These dilemmas confront the permanent five members of the Council with a harsh reality check regarding their unity of action and what message to convey to the north via what particular sanctions. If the Council follows the logic of resolution 2087, it will impose more extensive and punishing sanctions than ever before. Such sanctions will blacklist companies, government agencies and individuals long known for their role in illicit technology procurement and sanctions evasion. They will expand financial sanctions into areas of banking that would require substantial transnational enforcement to bite, and they may call upon countries in the region to inspect almost all North Korean trade. The economic squeeze and further isolation of the DPRK will increase substantially.


READ: Why sticks don't work with North Korea


These sanctions would require China to play an enforcement role against North Korean economic actors it has hitherto resisted. Seizing prohibited goods that pass through Dalian harbor and other trans-shipment points, as well as shutting down various border activities, would also fall to China. These extensive sanctions as punishment operate from the assumption that at some point the north will forego its nuclear program in order to survive as an authoritarian state.


But there may be an alternative to the punishment approach that could bring Beijing on board with effective Council action. China might well accept specialized trade sanctions aimed to degrade the DPRK's ability to sustain the nuclear program for lack of material and due to prohibitive costs of sanctions busting, as a way of conveying to Pyongyang that it must return to the negotiating table.


The logic of extensive new product-focused sanctions is that DPRK can make -- or jerry-rig -- only a small fraction of the advanced technologies and specialty materials that sustain an ongoing uranium enrichment program. To choke off these materials -- and the illicit means of financing them -- provides the Council with a possibility to make it technically impossible for DPRK to have a functioning uranium-based bomb program.


Precise lists of dozens of the materials used in centrifuge operation that should be sanctioned are already recorded for the Council in the reports of their Panel of Experts for the DPRK. Lists of related materials have also been developed by the Nuclear Supplies Group. To date the permanent five have sanctioned only a very few of the materials on either list. The Council also needs member states to strengthen export, customs and financial controls on dual-use items that are "below grade" of those newly sanctioned items. This will stifle the North's ability to upgrade or jerry-rig these hitherto unsanctioned items as a way of maintaining their program.


READ: Five things to know about North Korea's planned nuclear test


Also critical to the success of this choking of supplies would be stricter controls of the illicit financing that supports such trade. Putting strong enforcement behind the 2087 resolution's concern about DPRK cash flows, especially through its embassies, is also in order.


Another, somewhat unprecedented, sanctions option would be a Council-issued travel ban on North Korea placed on all scientists, engineers and others with specialized expertise in centrifuge technologies and uranium enrichment.


Political agreement on these measures will not be easy to attain among the permanent five nations of the Security Council. But a product-focused sanctions approach -- especially leveraged to aim for more direct diplomatic engagement with the DPRK while denying them material to grow their illicit programs -- has the best chance of gaining Council consensus.


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of George A. Lopez.






Read More..

3 dead in West Side crash













Western Avenue crash


Officials examine a Jeep Cherokee that crashed and left three critically injured near 31st Street and Western Avenue.
(Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune / February 5, 2013)



























































A man and two women died in a crash on the city's West Side, authorities said.


Firefighters were called to the accident near 31st Street and Western Avenue about 8:30 p.m., according to the department's media office.


Fire officials cut three people out of a red Jeep after the car lost control and somehow ended up on it's top just west of Western Avenue on 31st Street, police  said.





Three people had been riding in the SUV and all were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead there, police said. They were the only occupants in the SUV.


Just before 10 p.m., the radio in the SUV -- which was flipped on its top -- could still be heard faintly from a distance.


The SUV was eastbound on 31st Street when it hit a curb, then a light pole, and ended up on its roof, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.


"Some of the damage is from the fire department," police said of the doors, which had been cut to free the car's occupants. "But they flipped the car themselves.


Investigators from the department's Major Accidents Investigations Unit arrived at the scene Thursday night to investigate what had happened.


Three people were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, one in "extremely critical" condition, two in critical condtion, according to the fire department. A spokesman at the Cook County medical examiner's office confirmed the deaths.


Video from the scene showed a red Jeep flipped over, with its roof crushed, and a person wrapped in black on a stretcher being taken into an ambulance.


chicagobreaking@tribune.com


Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking






Read More..

Stabbing at Ecuador campaign rally not politically motivated: Correa


QUITO (Reuters) - A knife attack in Ecuador that killed two government supporters was perpetrated by a man under the influence of drugs and alcohol and was not politically motivated, President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday.


The man killed two Correa supporters and injured five more at a campaign rally on Monday, about two weeks before a presidential election that the leftist leader is expected to win comfortably.


"There is no indication that this attack may have been politically motivated. It was a person who was temporarily insane and stabbed the people that he found in his way," Correa said at a press conference in Quito. "This person was under the influence of drugs and alcohol."


A 40-year-old man with a criminal record who had spent time at a drug rehab center was detained shortly after the attack and is in police custody.


Correa said that five people were injured, one more than the number previously given by authorities.


Such incidents are exceedingly rare in Ecuadorean political campaigns despite historically volatile politics in which presidents have been toppled during street protests.


It was the first significant act of violence in a presidential race that officially started on January 4.


In a chilling video broadcast on local TV networks, a man could be seen breaking through a rally of a few hundred Correa sympathizers and attacking them with a large knife. Dozens ran for their lives while some men tried to stop the attacker.


Correa said police at the event were caught off guard. He said the attack lasted less than 20 seconds.


The incident occurred ahead of a campaign rally in Quininde, a town in the western Esmeraldas province. The event was canceled following the attack and Correa suspended his campaign on Tuesday in solidarity with the victims.


Correa, an ally of socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, is expected to win the February 17 vote. Polls give him between 50 percent and 60 percent of votes, at least 30 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Guillermo Lasso, a former banker.


The president is very popular in urban shanty towns and rural areas, where millions have seen their livelihoods improved thanks to record spending in roads, hospitals and schools.


(Writing By Eduardo Garcia; Editing by Stacey Joyce)



Read More..

Euro, oil slide on European worries, shares flat

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro and oil fell on Tuesday while European shares were largely flat as renewed worries over political risks in the euro zone trimmed demand for riskier assets for a second day.


A rise in political uncertainty in Spain, where the prime minister is facing calls to resign, and in Italy, which holds a general election later this month, provoked a big sell off on Monday, ending a solid new year rally.


The euro, which has taken the brunt of the selling, had risen 2.3 percent against the U.S. dollar this year to a high of just over $1.37 on Friday, before the selloff began and was down 0.4 percent at $1.3460 in early European trade.


The broad FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares dropped 1.5 percent to its lowest level of the year on Monday, steadied to open up 0.1 percent up. Across Europe London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were all recovering from the previous days sharp falls.


Most analysts see this week's selloff as a correction to a rally linked to signs of growing euro zone economic stability and an improving global outlook, which has been underpinned by the easier monetary policies of major central banks.


"What we are looking at, at the moment, is a correction, a consolidation or even a 'baby risk off', " said Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets in Brussels.


"Nevertheless our working hypothesis remains that after the correction the trends in place before will continue as the two main drivers are still there; namely central banks continuing to inject liquidity and more and more proof of an economic recovery," he said.


Bond markets have also stabilized after a sharp rise in yields on Spanish and Italian debt and growing demand for safe-haven German government bonds. This followed a narrowing of spreads this year between peripheral and core government debt.


"We had a very strong rally in peripheral markets, strong spread compression in January which was probably faster than fundamentals were favoring, so we are in a correction. It's not a new trend, it's just a correction," Patrick Jacq, European rate strategist at BNP Paribas said.


(Additional reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Atul Prakash.)



Read More..

Superdome officials worried about a power outage


NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The cause of a 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl remains under investigation, but public records released Monday show that Superdome officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.


An Oct. 15 memo released by the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, says tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed they had "some decay and a chance of failure."


Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo says. Those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."


The memo also cites 2011 blackouts that struck Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco 49ers were playing a nationally televised Monday night football game, as a reason for ordering the tests.


The board later authorized spending nearly $1 million on Superdome improvements, including more than $600,000 for upgrading the dome's electrical feeder cable system.


"As discussed in previous board meetings, this enhancement is necessary to maintain both the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena as top tier facilities, and to ensure that we do not experience any electrical issues during the Super Bowl," says a LSED document dated Dec. 19.


An attorney for the state board that oversees the Superdome said the blackout did not appear to be related to the replacement in December of electrical equipment connecting the stadium to Entergy. Officials with the utility and the Superdome noted that an NFL game, the Sugar Bowl and another bowl game were played there in recent weeks with no apparent problems.


The exact cause of Sunday night's blackout — and who's to blame — remained unclear late Monday, though a couple of potential culprits had been ruled out.


It wasn't Beyonce's electrifying halftime performance, according to Doug Thornton, manager of the state-owned Superdome, since the singer had her own generator. And it apparently wasn't a case of too much demand for power. Meters showed the 76,000-seat stadium was drawing no more electricity than it does during a typical New Orleans Saints game, Thornton said.


The lights-out game Sunday proved an embarrassment for the Big Easy just when it was hoping to show the rest of the world how far it has come since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But many fans and residents were forgiving, and officials expressed confidence that the episode wouldn't hurt the city's hopes of hosting the championship again.


To New Orleans' great relief, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first pro football championship in the post-Hurricane Katrina era, and added: "I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls."


Fans watching from their living rooms weren't deterred, either. An estimated 108.4 million television viewers saw the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31, making it the third most-viewed program in television history. Both the 2010 and 2011 games hit the 111 million mark.


The problem that caused the outage was believed to have happened around the spot where a line that feeds current from Entergy New Orleans connects with the Superdome's electrical system, officials said. But whether the fault lay with the utility or with the Superdome was not clear.


Determining the cause will probably take days, according to Dennis Dawsey, a vice president for distribution and transmission for Entergy. He said the makers of some of the switching gear have been brought in to help figure out what happened.


The blackout came after a nearly flawless week of activity for football fans in New Orleans leading up to the big game.


"I hope that's not what they'll remember about this Super Bowl," French Quarter artist Gloria Wallis said. "I hope that what they'll remember is they had a great time here and that they were welcomed here."


Ravens fan Antonio Prezioso, a Baltimore native who went to the game with his 11-year-old son, said the outage just extended the experience.


"The more time we could spend at the game was a good thing, as long as it ended the way it did," he said, laughing.


The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002, and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase for the city's recovery since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and caused water damage to its electrical systems, and more than $330 million was spent repairing and upgrading the stadium.


Sunday's Super Bowl was New Orleans' 10th as host, and officials plan to make a bid for an 11th in 2018.


Mayor Mitch Landrieu told WWL-AM on Monday that the outage won't hurt the city's chances, and he joked that the game got better after the blackout: "People were leaving and the game was getting boring, so we had to do a little something to spice it up."


The chairwoman of the New Orleans City Council's Utility Committee has called an emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the power outage.


Jarvis DeBerry, a columnist for nola.com and The Times-Picayune, wrote that the power outage gave the media "an opportunity to laugh at the apparent ineptitude or suggest that the ghosts of Hurricane Katrina were haunting the Superdome."


"That's not the kind of attention the city was looking for, obviously," he wrote, "but it's certainly too soon to say if people will remember the power shortage over San Francisco's furious comeback attempt against Baltimore or if this will harm the city's future opportunities to host the Super Bowl."


Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's Center for Hospitality and Sports Management, said the episode shouldn't hurt the city's reputation as a big convention destination. "I think people view it for what it was: an unusual event with a near-record power draw," he said. "It was the equivalent of a circuit breaker flipping."


___


Associated Press writers Beth Harpaz, Brett Martel, Stacey Plaisance and Barry Wilner contributed to this report.


Read More..

Did Iran Really Launch a Monkey Into Space?






Soon after Iranian officials announced they’d sent a monkey to space, close observers started wondering if the Iranians had been, as the saying goes, just monkeying around.


Photos published by the official state media ahead of the space monkey launch showed a distinctive monkey with a mole above its right eye. Yet footage of the creature after it had returned from its flight seemed to picture another monkey altogether, one without a mole, with darker fur, and with a changed facial structure and nose shape.






“It looks like a very different monkey, the nose, the features, everything is different,” Yariv Bash, founder and CEO of Space Israel, a non-profit Israeli space organization, told the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. “This means that either the original monkey died from a heart attack after the rocket landed or that the experiment didn’t go that well.”


The discrepancy led many to cry foul, and suggest that Iran had faked its space success. [Was Iran's Space Monkey Launch Faked? (Video)]


Yet Iranian space officials insist the monkey launch was genuine, and said that a different monkey was featured in pre-launch footage than the individual that was chosen for the real flight. A handful of animals had been trained for the mission, officials said, and the monkey that seemed least stressed and best prepared when the time came was chosen, senior Iranian space official Mohammad Ebrahimi told the Associated Press.


“I say this with certainty that the monkey is in good health and the space flight didn’t have any physical effect on Pishgam,” Ebrahimi said, referring to the monkey by its name, Pishgam, which means pioneer in Farsi. “Some of the photos released by one of news agencies were not related to the time of flight. They were archive photos of the monkeys being prepared for the launch.”


And other experts say the monkey with the mole may have been the one that was launched on a test flight in 2011 that reportedly failed, though Iranian officials have never publicly spoken about that flight.


If the most recently monkey launch was in fact successful, it could pave the way for Iran to launch a human to space. The Islamic Republic’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already volunteered to be the first to go.


While Iran maintains its space program is for peaceful, scientific purposes, critics warn that the same rocket technology used to loft monkeys to space could be developed to launch ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.


Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.


Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Science News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Did Iran Really Launch a Monkey Into Space?
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/did-iran-really-launch-a-monkey-into-space/
Link To Post : Did Iran Really Launch a Monkey Into Space?
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Richard III still the criminal king



















Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen


Richard III on stage and screen





<<


<





1




2




3




4




5




6




7




8




9




10




11




12



>


>>







STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Dan Jones: Richard III's remains found; some see chance to redeem his bad reputation

  • Jones says the bones reveal and confirm his appearance, how he died and his injuries

  • Nothing changes his rep as a usurper of the Crown who likely had nephews killed, Jones says

  • Jones: Richard good or bad? Truth likely somewhere in between




Editor's note: Dan Jones is a historian and newspaper columnist based in London. His new book, "The Plantagenets" (Viking) is published in the US this Spring. Follow him on Twitter.


(CNN) -- Richard III is the king we British just can't seem to make our minds up about.


The monarch who reigned from 1483 to 1485 became, a century later, the blackest villain of Shakespeare's history plays. The three most commonly known facts of his life are that he stole the Crown, murdered his nephews and died wailing for a horse at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death ushered in the Tudor dynasty, so Richard often suffers the dual ignominy of being named the last "medieval" king of England -- in which medieval is not held to be a good thing.


Like any black legend, much of it is slander.


Richard did indeed usurp the Crown and lose at Bosworth. He probably had his nephews killed too -- it is unknowable but overwhelmingly likely. Yet as his many supporters have been busy telling us since it was announced Monday that Richard's lost skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester, he wasn't all bad. In fact, he was for most of his life loyal and conscientious.



Dan Jones

Dan Jones



To fill you in, a news conference held at the University of Leicester Monday confirmed what archaeologists working there have suspected for months: that a skeleton removed from under a parking lot in the city center last fall was indeed the long-lost remains of Richard III.


His official burial place -- under the floor of a church belonging to the monastic order of the Greyfriars -- had been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries that was carried out in the 1530s under Henry VIII. A legend grew up that the bones had been thrown in a river. Today, we know they were not.


What do the bones tell us?


Well, they show that Richard -- identified by mitochondrial DNA tests against a Canadian descendant of his sister, Anne of York -- was about 5-foot-8, suffered curvature of the spine and had delicate limbs. He had been buried roughly and unceremoniously in a shallow grave too small for him, beneath the choir of the church.


He had died from a slicing blow to the back of the head sustained during battle and had suffered many other "humiliation injuries" after his death, including having a knife or dagger plunged into his hind parts. His hands may have been tied at his burial. A TV show aired Monday night in the UK was expected to show a facial reconstruction from the skull.


Opinion: What will the finding of Richard III mean?



In other words, we have quite a lot of either new or confirmed biographical information about Richard.


He was not a hunchback, but he was spindly and warped. He died unhorsed. He was buried where it was said he was buried. He very likely was, as one source had said, carried roughly across a horse's back from the battlefield where he died to Leicester, stripped naked and abused all the way.


All this is known today thanks to a superb piece of historical teamwork.


The interdisciplinary team at Leicester that worked toward Monday's revelations deserves huge plaudits. From the desk-based research that pinpointed the spot to dig, to the digging itself, to the bone analysis, the DNA work and the genealogy that identified Richard's descendants, all of it is worthy of the highest praise. Hat-tips, too, to the Richard III Society, as well as Leicester's City Council, which pulled together to make the project happen and also to publicize the society and city so effectively.


However, should anyone today tell you that Richard's skeleton somehow vindicates his historical reputation, you may tell them they are talking horsefeathers.










Richard III got a rep for a reason. He usurped the Crown from a 12-year old boy, who later died.


This was his great crime, and there is no point denying it. It is true that before this crime, Richard was a conspicuously loyal lieutenant to the boy's father, his own brother, King Edward IV. It is also true that once he was king, Richard made a great effort to promote justice to the poor and needy, stabilize royal finances and contain public disorder.


But this does not mitigate that he stole the Crown, justifying it after the fact with the claim that his nephews were illegitimate. Likewise, it remains indisputably true that his usurpation threw English politics, painstakingly restored to some order in the 12 years before his crime, into a turmoil from which it did not fully recover for another two decades.


So the discovery of Richard's bones is exciting. But it does not tell us anything to justify changing the current historical view of Richard: that the Tudor historians and propagandists, culminating with Shakespeare, may have exaggerated his physical deformities and the horrors of Richard's character, but he remains a criminal king whose actions wrought havoc on his realm.


Unfortunately, we don't all want to hear that. Richard remains the only king with a society devoted to rehabilitating his name, and it is a trait of some "Ricardians" to refuse to acknowledge any criticism of their hero whatever. So despite today's discovery, we Brits are likely to remain split on Richard down the old lines: murdering, crook-backed, dissembling Shakespearean monster versus misunderstood, loyal, enlightened, slandered hero. Which is the truth?


Somewhere in between. That's a classic historian's answer, isn't it? But it's also the truth.


Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.


Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Jones.






Read More..