More about 2003 UB313.

Vatican in terror dispute with Israel

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The Vatican's stinging rebuke came after Israel demanded to know why the Pope did not refer to a Palestinian suicide bombing in remarks he made on Sunday condemning terrorist attacks in London and Sharm el-Sheikh. In a 1,300-word communique, the Vatican said: "It has not always been possible to follow every attack against Israel with a public declaration of condemnation." It said one reason for this was that "the attacks on Israel were sometimes followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the norms of international law ... It would thus be impossible to condemn the [terrorist operations] and pass over the [Israeli retaliation] in silence". The statement also expressed irritation with the reaction of the Israeli government to the Pope's original comments and said it was not prepared to "take lessons or instructions from any other authority on the content and direction of its own statements".

I have had my doubts about the new pope, but he seems to have something many other world leaders lack:Spine and courage.

Another day, another big object beyond Pluto. And this time the finders call it a planet, about one and a half times the size of Pluto, which makes it´s diameter about 3400 kilometers. It´s orbit lays beyond what is now though to be the boundary of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. It´s currently 97 AU(1 AU = 149,7 million kilometers) from the Sun, never coming closer than a 67 AU. More.

All 4 suspected bombers of July 21st failed suicide bombings in London have been now arrested, alive and well. Innocent bystanders are shot 8 times in the head, real terrorists are taken alive by using a taser.

New world found in outer solar system

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Astronomical detective work led to the stunning discovery of a large new world beyond Pluto – and hiding in plain sight. The object could be the biggest in the Kuiper belt of rocky objects that orbit the outer reaches of the solar system. The first data made public about the object suggested the object could be up to twice the size of Pluto, but newly revealed observations indicate the object is about 70% Pluto's diameter... Estimates of the object's brightness... suggested the object could be as large as twice Pluto's diameter if it was relatively non-reflective object. In the hours since, another team of astronomers revealed independent data on the object taken with some of the world's most powerful telescopes. They give the object's size at about 70% Pluto's diameter, in line with estimates for a relatively reflective object in the first MPC notice. They say also say the object is orbited by a tiny moon... The MPC reports the object is about 51 Astronomical Units from the Sun - 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Its orbit brings it comes as close to the Sun as 35 AU, while Pluto maintains an average distance of about 39 AU. ...plane of the object's orbit... is tilted by 28° with respect to the orbital plane of most planets, where surveys tend to scan the skies for Near Earth Objects.

A moon for 2003 EL61? (K40506A is another, unofficial name for 2003 EL61.)

NASA grounds space shuttle fleet after near-disaster in Discovery launch

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NASA is capable of technological marvels, as in the Deep Impact probe which deliberately struck the comet Tempel 1 on July 4, a feat that has been compared to hitting a bullet with another bullet (although actually much more difficult than that). But the space shuttle program is a technological nightmare, with electronics and engineering that were cutting-edge in the 1970s now preserved in an almost fossilized form in 2005. While the US military employs the most modern technologies for the deeply reactionary purposes of American imperialism—destroying human lives and the infrastructure of civilization—the resources devoted to manned space exploration are pathetically inadequate. There are 2.5 million parts in the shuttle, most of them based on specifications of 30 years ago, when the space shuttles were built. (Discovery is a relative youngster at 21 years old). Until the Columbia disaster, NASA still had some computers running with Intel 8086 microprocessors, the first ever used in PCs, which run about 300 times slower than today’s best computer chips. Wiring, bolts and other metal parts are replaced as they wear out, but some date back to the original construction. According to one press account, some electronic components contain transistors hand-soldered into circuit boards, a method of assembly that would be laughed out of any modern factory. According to another, NASA engineers “are sometimes reduced to hunting for obsolete hardware and electronics on eBay.”The new NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, made a revealing comparison, likening the space shuttle to a clipper ship—i.e., a once brilliant but now completely outmoded technology.

Big Trans-Neptunian Object(TNO), 2003 EL61, found beyond Pluto in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. It´s either a bright asteroid/huge comet - these denizens of the solar system´s edge are difficult things to describe in a way that wouldn´t create wrong impressions - or possibly a planet bigger than Pluto itself, if it´s dim enough. Some objects found from the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt have been previously thought to be bigger than they really are, because they have been found out to be brighter than expected.

Foam 'might have struck shuttle'

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Nasa officials have said they now believe at least one shard of protective foam might have hit a wing of the Discovery space shuttle. But they said they were confident the craft would make a safe return.

As was to be expected, Nasa has grounded the space shuttle fleet indefinetely until the problem with the heat tiles is solved. And as there seems to be no easy solution, Nasa can only either forsake this decision, somehow find a way to solve the problem or move the orbiters to museums.

Discovery in possible heat tile trouble. Is the end of the US manned spaceflight at hand?

If there really is damage, the crew is safe if they just stuck on staying at the ISS and waiting for the Soyuz crafts to bring them down two at a time.

But even if there is not serious damage, the decision to launch the shuttle again will be hard to make as no one knows what will happen the next time and the whole heat tile arrangement has been proved very fragile to damage.

Justified Murder: Don't Ever Become a Terror Suspect!
(As if You Have a Choice)

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And the Western press, especially in the United States, has completely accepted this sense of justified colonial preemptive slaughter of civilians. For example, the Western press is quick to recognize every violation of a cease fire by Hamas, but a prior shooting of Palestinians by Israeli forces is not seen as a violation. Why? Because the Israelis are shooting “terror suspects,” even if they are teenagers out for an evening walk. Similarly, when American troops kill Iraqis who wander too close to an American convoy, that too is viewed as a justified killing of “terror suspects.” The foreign occupier, in this system, is protected by his own set of quaint laws and military logic, and it is the hapless native civilian who is the perpetual “terror suspect.” ...The flaw in this technique, of course, is that it will do exactly to this war on terror that it did to violent colonialism – it will lead to a continued escalation of bloodshed marked by short periods of respite, used for recuperation and rearmament... History is chock full of examples where brutal and prejudicial anti-terror policies have done more to propel the cause of terrorism than to quell it. The only real way of defeating terrorism is to take away the political agenda of the terrorists – to deny them any reasonable grievance whatsoever. The reason why the West was largely successful in defeating terrorists such as the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof group or the Symbionese Liberation Army is precisely because their grievances failed to find a sympathetic ear among any sizeable section of their community. But it is exactly these successes that have blinded some thinkers in the West to the inherent flaws in their approach to anti-colonial terrorists, who actually do have a political platform of genuine grievances. The West is also quick to follow Israel’s lead in its “successes” against terrorism but, again, they fail to realize that Israel is fighting a war of occupation, aimed at converting large expanses of Arab territories into sovereign Israeli land. Any number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli war can be justified as a necessary part of the politicide of the Arab masses, which coincides with the Israeli need for security.

It is curious to read the excuses made by current and former British police commanders about the "shoot to kill" -policy. Basically they are claiming that "Israel told us to do it" and then they continue bragging about Israeli expertise in fighting against "terrorism". I doubt that these are the kind of claims that will make British Muslims to trust the police. It´s more of a case making a bad situation worse.

Pervez Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan, tells a joke.

Police gun down worker in London subway: another tragic consequence of Blair’s war policy

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The public state execution of Jean Charles de Menezes in a London subway carriage on July 22 marks a watershed. England, the country of the Magna Carta, is now one in which innocent civilians can be shot dead on the capital’s streets at the discretion of the police, without any explanation, much less justification, and with the only outcome being a brief statement of regret... Not only did Menezes have no connection with the terror attacks, police had no grounds to suspect that he might be involved in such crimes, or any others, for that matter. That he was seen leaving a house that had been placed under police surveillance wearing “suspicious” clothes was enough for police to act as judge, jury and executioner.... The overwhelming majority of British people opposed the war against Iraq precisely because its catastrophic implications could be foreseen. There was no end of warnings that the resulting destabilisation of the Middle East would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks in major metropolitan areas and the imposition of greater security measures, with dangerous implications for civil liberties.

Baghdad truck bomb kills 40

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A suicide truck bomber struck today outside a police station in Baghdad, killing at least 40 people, the US military said. Television pictures showed a deep crater in the road outside the Rashad police station in the New Baghdad neighbourhood in the east of the capital, as ambulances and fire fighters attended the scene. Iraqi police sources had earlier put the death toll at 22. IIn a statement, the US military said a flat-bed truck loaded with 500 lbs (220 kilos) of explosives blew up at the front gate of the police station. It said 25 people were wounded in the explosion, which destroyed a dozen vehicles. More than 200 people have died in the past 10 days in an series of suicide car bomb attacks in and near the capital.

The bomb attacks in Egypt´s Sharm el-Sheikh turn out to be the biggest terrorist made massacre outside Iraq since the Madrid bombings. 88 dead and the toll will likely climb.

The man that the British police officer murdered in the London tube station yesterday was innocent. He was not connected to the bombings in any way. And even now, after this, representatives of the British government and police forces are not ready to accept that police officers can´t just go on and kill people based on a hunch. More.

As the new car bomb attacks in Egypt´s Sharm el-Sheikh show, "the war against terrorism" is going on splendidly - for the terrorists. 49 dead people and aproximately 200 others wounded this time. More.

Iraq: Bush's Islamic Republic

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On June 4, Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, attended the inauguration of the Kurdistan National Assembly in Erbil, northern Iraq. Talabani, a Kurd, is not only the first-ever democratically elected head of state in Iraq, but in a country that traces its history back to the Garden of Eden, he is, as one friend observed, "the first freely chosen leader of this land since Adam was here alone." While Kurds are enormously proud of his accomplishment, the flag of Iraq—the country Talabani heads—was noticeably absent from the inauguration ceremony, nor can it be found anyplace in Erbil, a city of one million that is the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region. Ann Bodine, the head of the American embassy office in Kirkuk, spoke at the ceremony, congratulating the newly minted parliamentarians, and affirming the US commitment to an Iraq that is, she said, "democratic, federal, pluralistic, and united." The phrase evidently did not apply in Erbil. In their oath, the parliamentarians were asked to swear loyalty to the unity of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Many pointedly dropped the "of Iraq." The shortest speech was given by the head of the Iranian intelligence service in Erbil, a man known to the Kurds as Agha Panayi. Staring directly at Ms. Bodine, he said simply, "This is a great day. Throughout Iraq, the people we supported are in power." He did not add "Thank you, George Bush." The unstated was understood... War always has unintended consequences. Currently we are pursuing a strategy that will not end the insurgency but that plays directly into the hands of Iran. No wonder Agha Panayi, the Iranian intelligence official, was smiling.

British police officer murders terror suspect in a London tube station. More.

Whatever the excuses, "Oh, I a was afraid he was going to blow us all apart!" etc, this is a cold blooded murder. In the early 90´s in Germany police officers took the law to their own hands in the same way and shot a member of the terrorist group The Red Army that they had aprehended. The German interior minister had to resign because of this.