Sunday, December 8, 2013

Joe Biden complete East Asian tour

US Vice President Joe Biden has left South Korea after a three-nation, six -day tour that also took him to Japan and China.

Biden left the US Osan Air Base in South Korea on a government aircraft on Saturday.
 South Korea, he visited Seoul's War Memorial where he placed a wreath at a monument for US and South Korean soldiers who lost their lives in the Korean War.

He also visited the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. He was briefed by South Korean troops on the current situation.Biden's remarks during his tour on China's East China Sea air defense identification zone. The zone covers airspace over the Senkaku Islands which are controlled by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. The Japanese government maintains the islands are an inherent part of Japan's territory historically and in terms of international law.

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to work together in not condoning any unilateral change of the current status quo.

During his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Biden expressed deep concern over China's air defense identification zone. He urged Xi to retract the new rule that allows Chinese authorities to resort to the use of force as defensive emergency measures if aircraft flying in the zone do not obey instructions from China's defense ministry.

EU delegation urges Ukraine protesters to seek referendum

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Supporters of Ukraine's EU integration in Kiev's Independence Square. (RIA Novosti/Alexey Kudenko)Supporters of Ukraine’s EU integration in Kiev’s Independence Square.
Ukraine should hold a referendum to decide its political course, Alexandra Thein, the German MEP from the EU-delegation to Ukraine told RT. The politician believes it is normal to support protests in the streets, if it doesn’t incite violence.
A delegation of Members of the European Parliament descended on Ukraine on Saturday, to meet with the opposition leaders and address the crowd in the streets of Kiev, fueling the protest further.
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a European Parliament member from Poland expressed full support for the protesters’ demand for an early election, calling the situation “unacceptable” when “the choice of the majority of Ukrainians, millions of people, is being put aside.”
However, speaking with RT, German MEP Alexandra Thein, said that the “unofficial” visit of the European politicians was all about democracy and the Ukrainian people’s desire to associate with Europe, and not the ousting of a democratically elected government which just recently survived a no confidence vote. Media agencies


 

NEWSDOSE GLOSSARY

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Chevron resumes shale gas exploration in Romania amid protest


US oil giant Chevron is continuing shale gas exploration of a site in eastern Romania after mass protests against fracking suspended activities. On Saturday 300 riot police were deployed in Pungesti after protesters broke into Chevron’s site and damaged equipment. Over the last few months, thousands of people across Romania have voiced their opposition to the exploitation of shale gas reserves, claiming it will have disastrous consequences for the environment.

​Obama, Bush, Clinton to attend Mandela’s funeral

President Obama will fly to South Africa to attend the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, the White House announced Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, will join the Obama family. Former President Bill Clinton will also attend the service along with his wife and children.

​Greek lawmakers approve 2014 budget with minor growth and further cuts


The Greek parliament has passed the government’s budget for 2014, which for the first time in six years forecasts GDP growth of 0.6 percent. The document includes further spending cuts of 3.1 billion euros over the next year. The coalition government which controls a majority in the parliament has pushed the budget forward without waiting for approval from the troika group, although the document is consistent with international creditors’ demands. The opposition has sharply criticized the budget, calling it a “new act of the tragedy of the Greek people” and that the debts will be paid by the future generations until at least 2057.

India could be expelled from the Olympics

The International Olympic Committee is prepared to withdraw recognition of the Indian Olympic Association if it fails to comply with “rules of good governance,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in an interview with the Associated Press. The Indian Olympic body will meet Sunday to consider amending its constitution to meet the IOC‘s demands that Indian officials who have at any time been charged with criminal offenses should be barred from holding a position in the national Olympic authority. “Good governance for the IOC is a key issue. We need to be strict and to make sure the rules of good governance are being applied,” Bach said, adding that if there was no “last-moment movement” the committee will “have to consider to taking the next step.” Under the current suspension, the Indian body has stopped receiving IOC funding and India’s athletes are barred from competing in Olympic events under their national flag, but only as individuals under the Olympic flag. Stripping India completely of IOC recognition would leave the country without any Olympic involvement, AP reports.

Palestinian father accuses IDF of shooting his 15yo son

Israeli soldiers are accused of shooting dead a 15-year-old Palestinian in Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank. The father of the teenager says his son was shot dead after playing football and then getting something to drink from a store when he was shot from an Israeli watchtower in the nearby Beit El settlement. The Israeli army says it is investigating the report.

FARC blamed for 8 killed in Colombia’s explosion

Colombia’s authorities have blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for a car bombing that killed eight people, officials announced. A car packed with explosives in the small town of Inza went off next to a farmer’s market, killing two civilians, a police official and five military personnel. It “clearly shows that the FARC continue to systematically commit acts of terrorism against civilians,” the army said in a statement. The bombing is “further evidence of indiscriminate FARC terrorism,” police chief, General Rodolfo Palomino told reporters. President Juan Manuel Santos condemned the blast as an ”insane terrorist attack.”FARC is currently negotiating with the authorities to end a fifty year-old struggle for power, a dialogue that started in November 2012.

​France to increase Central African Republic troop deployment

France’s deployment of soldiers in the Central African Republic will increase to 1,600 by Saturday evening, according to French President Francois Hollande. The efforts are being made to counteract a recent spike in violence in the former French colony which saw at least 280 people die in the last few days. “On Thursday evening, there were 600 troops. Last night there were 1,000 and by tonight there will be 1,600,” Hollande told a news conference, adding that the soldiers would remain for ‘as long as necessary’.

32 Syrian refugees found on deserted beach in Turkey

Thirty-two Syrian refugees were discovered on a deserted beach in the southern Turkish province of Antalya, Dogan News Agency reports. The group, which included six women and a baby, asked the police for help after a man, who had made a deal to transport them by boat to the Greek island of Rhodes, didn’t arrive. The local officials say that the Syrians, who were hungry and exhausted, will most likely be transferred to the nearest refugee camp. The bloody civil war raging in Syria since March 2011 has led to 2,200,000 people becoming refugees, according to UN data.

London ‘Muslim patrol’ vigilantes jailed

Three members of a self-proclaimed “Muslim patrol” in London have been jailed for a series of public order offenses. The group harassed passers-by who wore short skirts, held hands or drank alcohol. Prosecution declared that the men “routinely threatened and intimidated innocent members of the public whom they perceived to be behaving in an ‘un-Islamic’ manner.” One received a jail term of 68 weeks after pleading guilty to actual bodily harm, threatening behavior and public order offenses. Another received 12 months for admitting affray, while a third man was sentenced to 24 weeks for public order offenses. The men were followers of Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary, a leader of the radical Al-Muhajiroun group, a spokesperson told AFP.

Iraqi FM warns of jihadist “emirate” in Syria

The increasing proportion of radical fighters in the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad may result in creation of an ungovernable ”Islamic emirate” that the international community will have to deal with, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said at a security conference in Bahrain, AP reports. Iraq is grappling with a months-long spike in bloodshed, blamed largely on Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is also playing an active role inside Syria in the fight against Assad.

Dozens die in north Kenya spillover violence

At least 27 people have been killed and thousands displaced in northern Kenya inter-ethnic violence, according to the local Standard newspaper. Thousands have been left displaced. Persistent unrest has rocked the town of Moyale in Marsabit County, near the Ethiopian border, with many families opting to flee into the neighboring country. The fighting is between rival ethnic groups, aid sources told AP, with the majority Borana community fighting against a coalition of three other communities which has been emerging as a dominant political force. On Friday, Kenya’s government ordered the army to be deployed to the area.

Scores of UK flights delayed after air traffic glitch

The UK’s air traffic service, which handles some 6,000 arrivals and departures per hour, encountered a technical problem on Saturday, prompting the cancelation and delay of scores of flights. London’s Stansted Airport saw flights delayed for periods of up to two hours, while Gatwick stated that 20 percent of its flights were being delayed, according to AP. The National Air Traffic Service stated that the problem was switching between nighttime and busier daytime operation schedules, meaning that it was becoming difficult to handle the volume of flights.

Egyptian court releases 7 pro-Morsi girl protesters

An Egyptian appeals court has ordered the release of seven girls who were jailed last month for the involvement in a protest supporting ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The court also reduced 11-year sentences handed down to 14 women to one-year suspended terms. The women had been found guilty of belonging to a terrorist group, obstructing the flow of traffic, sabotage and using force at a protest in the city of Alexandria in November. However, Lawyer Ahmed al-Hamrawy told the court there had been no evidence to convict his clients and asked the judges to release them, AFP reports.

French forces deploy outside Central African Republic capital

France deployed nearly 1,000 troops in an effort to restore security in the Central African Republic as residents fled from clashes that the Red Cross says have killed at least 300 people. French troops began deploying to the north and west of the Central African Republic on Saturday to secure the main roads and towns outside the capital, French Army spokesman Gilles Jarron said. “We have started to deploy outside of Bangui,” Reuters reported Jarron as saying. “The French forces pre-positioned in Cameroon have crossed the border and have started reconnaissance missions…” The first missions began from Bangui “and are heading toward the north of the country,” he added.
12:22

​300 killed in clashes in Central African Republic in 2 days – Red Cross

At least 300 people have been killed in two days of sectarian violence in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, the Red Cross says. The violence began on Thursday when Christian militias, loyal to the republic’s ousted president, Francois Bozize, attacked the Muslim population of the country. It was a reaction to assaults on Christian population by Muslim rebels who took power in the country and installed Michel Djotodia as country’s new president. Hundreds of soldiers started arriving in the republic from different countries, including troops from France as part of a UN effort to restore law and order.
11:24

IAEA team arrives in Iran to inspect Arak heavy-water reactor – report

A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency has arrived in the Iranian capital, Tehran, to visit the country’s Arak heavy-water production plant, IRNA news agency reported. According to an agreement signed by the IAEA and Iran, IAEA inspectors are allowed to visit the Arak heavy water plant and Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas in the south of the country. The inspection of the reactor’s work is scheduled for Dec. 9. Iran insists its program is entirely for peaceful purposes, such as producing electricity, and for scientific and medical research.

​Hagel makes unannounced Afghanistan visit

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has arrived in Afghanistan with an unannounced visit. It comes as US and Afghan officials are deadlocked over a security pact, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign and wants to hand over to his successor after next year’s election. Washington is pushing for the deal to be signed soon, threatening a swift troop withdrawal unless Kabul agrees to guarantee legal immunity for US troops. Hagel, however, is not planning to meet Karzai, indicating that his visit is unlikely to bring a breakthrough.
10:55

Philippines death toll from typhoon Haiyan rises to over 5,700 – officials

Ten more bodies were recovered on Visayas Islands of the Philippines from deadliest typhoon Haiyan, increasing the death toll to 5,796, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. The council also reported that 1,779 people were still missing and nearly 4 million people remained displaced. All in all, at least 12.2 million people were affected by the super-typhoon, according to the council. Typhoon Haiyan, known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, was an exceptionally powerful tropical cyclone that devastated whole areas of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, in early November.
10:12

Denmark, Norway agree to transport chemical weapons out of Syria

Denmark and Norway have volunteered boats as part of international plan to remove some 1,300 tons of sarin, mustard gas and nerve gas out of Syria by the end of this year. In a joint statement, Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende and acting Danish Foreign Minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen said their mutual countries are dedicated to the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 2118. “Our governments have already offered significant assistance to the joint OPCW-UN mission, both military and financially. We are now planning for a joint naval operation to ensure transportation of chemical weapons out of Syria.” Denmark will donate to the mission a Hercules aircraft and a staff of about 300 people, at a cost estimated at 60 to 70 million Danish kroner ($10.8 million to $12.6 million). Norway will contribute the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad, as well as specialists in handling chemical weapons. The deal still needs to win approval in both countries, the Norwegian news agency NTB reported.

North Korea releases 85-year-old American tourist after month-long imprisonment

North Korean state media announced that the country has released Merrill Newman after holding the 85-year-old American tourist since October 26. North Korea accused the US war veteran of committing “hostile acts” during the 1950-1953 Korean War, and released a video of Newman reading an apology for his alleged crimes, which included killing “innocent civilians” and “masterminded espionage.” South Koreans veterans told the Associated Press that Newman had advised a South Korean unit during the war that is still infamous in the North. US Vice President Joe Biden confirmed that Newman was safe in Beijing, China in what the State Department deemed a positive decision. Newman’s detention also brought renewed attention on the case of American Kenneth Bae, who was first detained more than a year ago and is still being held by North Korea for alleged subversion.

​Pentagon approves $1.1 billion anti-tank missile sale to Saudi Arabia

The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has approved a $1.1 billion deal to sell 15,700 Raytheon Co tube-launched wire-guided anti-tank missiles for the Saudi Arabian National Guard and land forces. According to DSCA, the missiles would be used for counterterrorism missions and providing a deterrent to regional threats. The US Congress was notified of the deal amid Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit to the Gulf on Thursday, lawmakers now have one month to consider blocking the deal.media agencies


 

BJP gain for states election

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Media prop up activist propelled to a political  field and with scanty political infra along with poor public calls and making statements in glossary but with ardent media support and ills of Congress made way for the novice to move forward in political arena which looked very difficult to walk even for recognized parties like BSP,NCP,JD .All cheers for media fraternity to give hope for few selective to try this chance. AAP to sit in opposition as BJP emerges as single largest party.
AAP – Curtain raiser. Act 1,Now Comedians need to stop behaving like cartoons and perform some serious comedy.tweets Shefali in facebook.
#BREAKING: Sheila #Dikshit loses to Arvind #Kejriwal from the New Delhi constituency http://ndtv.in/1koUIpa</p><br /> <p>#NDTVElex
 Timenow tweets :A scintillating debut by Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. If Congress offers outside support, should AAP accept it?‪#‎WhoWillFormGovt‬
A scintillating debut by Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. If Congress offers outside support, should AAP accept it? #WhoWillFormGovt
Like ·  · Share · 173 · 40 seconds ago ·
#electionresult2013
Congress accepts defeat with "great humility"
Congress has accepted defeat in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, saying it was disappointed with the poll outcome.
“The results in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are disappointing…. Congress accepts its defeat with great humility…. We concede that we have lost there,” party spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said when asked about the trends.
He, however, dismissed suggestions that the performance of BJP in the Assembly polls was an indication that the party could sweep the Lok Sabha election next year. He recalled that BJP had won 2003 Assembly polls but lost badly in the Lok Sabha elections.
“Any celebration ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls will be premature. BJP refuses to learn from history…. There was similar sort of upbeat mood in the BJP in 2004, when the NDA had lost,” he said.
Surjewala also said that Chhattisgarh “is a ray of hope” and Mizoram “will also bring some heer.”
Expressing suprise over the results in Delhi, where the debutant Aam Aadmi Party is competing with BJP for the first place, AICC general secretary in-charge for the state Shakeel Ahmed said, “We were not expecting these results. The reasons for this will be analysed.”
Congress has been in power in Delhi for 15 years with Shiela Dikshit having the distinction of the longest-serving woman Chief Minister in independent India.
In the last Assembly polls, the Congress had won as many as 43 seats in the 70-member legislative Assembly and its fortunes have dwindled sharply this time with the party likely to get less than 10 seats.
Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi dismissed suggestions that the trends showed that there was a wave in favour of BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the country.
Congress leader and Union Minister Shashi Tharoor said his party has very capable and experienced political leaders who are surely going to analyse in detail and find what corrective measures are needed.
He said across the the country there were regional parties and areas where the BJP has no presence. “So we should not be too hasty in suddenly seeing a sort of tsunami in favour of party that has done well today,” Tharoor added.
BJP on Sunday appeared to be on the road to capturing power in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and was leading in Delhi according to initial trends while Congress was close only in Chhattisgarh in the assembly elections when counting of votes began.
Media sponsored  debutante Aam Admi Party was putting up a good show in the national capital pushing the ruling Congress to the third position.
Madhya Pradesh, BJP is ruling, the party was ahead in 158  seats in the 230-member assembly and Congress in 63 constituencies.
The ruling Congress was also doing badly in Rajasthan where BJP was in a commanding position in 153 assembly in the 200-member assembly and Congress ahead on at 23 seats.
The national capital appeared to be returning a hung verdict with BJP leading in 33 of the 70 seats.
The AAP has done well to lead in 28 seats while the Congress was trailing way behind leading only in 8 constituencies. Others were ahead in three constituencies.
The only solace for Congress came from Chhattisgarh where the wiping out of the party leadership in a dastardly maoist attack in Bastar earlier this year appears to have given it a good push.
The Congress was leading in  42 seats while the BJP was ahead in 48 as per initial trends.
Elaborate security in place for vote counting. The Delhi Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangements for counting of votes to take place tomorrow with 2000 Central Paramilitary Force and Delhi police personnel keeping a tight vigil at 14 counting centres across the city. A total of 810 candidates were in fray in Delhi assembly poll.
Along with CCTV cameras and live streaming of proceedings through web casting, two layers of security cover have been set at all the 14 counting centres.
“Paramilitary force forms the inner circle of security of centres while adequate numbers of Delhi Police personnel will ensure safety from outside. Counting of votes will start from 8 AM tomorrow and during the first hour postal ballots will be counted,” said Delhi Chief Electoral officer Vijay Dev.
Over 43,000 postal ballots have been received by Delhi EC, while this figure was 1,600 in last assembly election.
Polling agents from political parties will be given access to the centres, Dev added.
Delhi has registered its highest voter turnout of 65.86 per cent in the assembly polls held on December 4.
According to election officials, 11,993 EVMs were shifted to strong rooms at 14 counting centres after the assembly polls got over and 24X7 security cover was mounted with Delhi police personnel and Central Paramilitary Force guarding EVMs and the surrounding areas.
“To ensure transparency and that proper procedures are being followed during counting of votes, a “live-watch” will be kept by senior election officials from control room through web casting,” said Dev.
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has resigned after vote count in the assembly elections, saying “we accept our defeat and we will analyse what went wrong.”
BJP inched towards wresting power in Delhi after 15 years with Congress pushed to the third position with a single digit tally by debutant AAP which has made a dent in strongholds of the ruling party.
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is trailing behind Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) by over 5,000 votes in New Delhi constituency at the end of the third round of counting, according to Delhi Election Commission.
BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan was leading in his Krishna Nagar constituency by 3,000 votes, the Commission data showed.
All Congress Ministers including A K Walia, Kiran Walia, Harun Yusuf and Raj Kumar Chouhan were trailing in their respective seats, pushing the party’s tally to the third place.
A total of 810 candidates are in the fray. While BJP fielded candidates in 66 constituencies, Congress and AAP contested in all the 70 seats.
BSP, the third largest party in the last assembly election, fielded candidates in 69 seats, NCP in nine and Samajwadi Party in 27 seats.


 

Sweden engaged in industrial espionage against Russia

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Sweden’s intelligence agency has not only spied on Russian leadership, sharing intelligence with the NSA, but also apparently engaged in industrial espionage against business targets such as Russia’s energy companies, Sveriges Television reports.
As per the a wire, obtained by Swedish TV program ‘Mission: Investigate’, Sweden’s National Defense Radio Establishment (FRA) shared intelligence on Russia with Washington.
“Thank Sweden for its continued work on the Russian target, and underscore the primary role that FRA plays as a leading partner to work the Russian Target, including Russian leadership, ENERGY, … and … counterintelligence,” NSA wire said, as cited by SVT.
The earlier omitted part of the quote reveals that Sweden was tapping on civilian targets as well. One source told the documentary there was “a very obvious interest in looking at the Russian companies”confirming it was “a part of the mission.”
When asked if FRA spied on such companies as the Russian energy giant Gazprom, the source said“Gazprom is one possible” adding that there are “many other, smaller players.”
In an interview with SVT, journalist Glenn Greenwald said “the NSA seems impressed by how much money and how much technological sophistication the Swedish have been able to assemble when building their own surveillance system.”
Commenting for the documentary on the intelligence gathering cooperation between the US and Sweden, Greenwald said they “work together when they perceive that their interests are mutually aligned and share information readily about a whole variety of topics, again having nothing to do with national security, including the energy sector in Russia.”
The latest leak has nothing to do with national security and is “very conclusive about the fact that part of what they are doing is spying on energy companies, obviously for economic advantage,” Greenwald added.

AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards


The West is very hypocritical about industrial espionage, in particular constantly accusing China of breaking the international laws by spying on Western companies, Greenwald told SVT.
“And yet here you find the United States and its closest allies in the espionage world, including Sweden, doing exactly that which they have long vehemently accused China of doing and have rigorously condemned over and over,” Greenwald said.
So far there have been no further details on the spying apart from the documents provided by Edward Snowden, Nils Hanson, chief editor of “Mission: Investigate,” told RT.
“The documents mention ‘unique’ intelligence, ‘classic’ intelligence and cables,” Hanson said.
A spokesman for the FRA said, “We cannot comment on these kinds of allegations,” but he nevertheless confirmed that the FRA is a “leading partner” of the NSA, adding that this was a “flattering” characterization.
Investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, who brought to light the close relationship between Sweden’s FRA and the NSA, told RT that with Sweden’s strategic location in the Baltic, the country has always been the envy of America’s intelligence services.
“Sweden always had a rather covert intelligence relationship with the west, during the years of the Cold War. They’ve been tempted secretly to the club of the ‘big spies,’ in which they offered goodies to the [Swedish] Prime Minister in return for betraying the privacy and security of all of their neighbors and many of their own citizens,” Campbell said.
“Sweden was their largest collaborator in Europe with the internet tapping program run by the Five Eyes group of English-speaking countries, and it does so because of the direct access to cables in the Baltic. It is no surprise that GCHQ and the NSA would want that, as well as everything else that they can take from Sweden,” he said.
Originally, the scandal hit the news on Thursday when Swedish television aired the program, revealing that Sweden spied on Russian officials, through the information obtained from Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for Snowden’s leaks.
Last week, Sweden’s defense minister, Karin Enstrom, told TT news agency that Sweden needs to protect its national security.
“We need to conduct intelligence operations to protect Sweden against external threats,” said Enstrom, Sv riges Radio reported. “We have an operation that takes place within the framework of the FRA, with clear legislation, strict control and parliamentary oversight. But how it is done, and with whom Sweden cooperates, is not public information.”
In September, Metro’s daily investigative journalist Duncan Campbell disclosed information about Sweden’s ties to the NSA during a hearing of a committee in the European Parliament. Campbell revealed that the Swedish National Defence FRA provided the NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) access to Baltic underwater cables. He added that Sweden was the third major partner in surveillance cooperation.
 Brazil and Germany introduced a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly calling for the creation of internationally recognized rights to privacy in the wake of the snowballing NSA spying scandal. Since Snowden’s leaks surfaced in June, protests demanding more privacy protection have engulfed countries around the globe. Media agencies 


 

Next Big Congress canvasser Priyanka Gandhi

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Priyanka Gandhi's photo.



 

Discover ‘accidental’ giant planet “HD 106906 b:

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This is an artist's conception of a young planet in a distant orbit around its host star. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This is an artist’s conception of a young planet in a distant orbit around its host star. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
 
Believe it or not . A giant planet that has been found orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has stirred immense confusion in the minds of US astronomers, making them question planet formation theories.
The planet – currently known as HD 106906 b – weighs in at 11 times the mass of Jupiter and is orbiting its star at a massive distance of 60 billion miles – a much further distance than any planet has ever previously been seen orbiting its star.
The planet has been described as unlike anything astronomers have ever seen before.
“This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see,” said Vanessa Bailey, the team’s lead researcher with the University of Arizona’s astronomy department in a news release.
Planets such as Earth, which are located closer to their stars, are believed to be the results of the amalgamation of smaller asteroid-type bodies. The bodies themselves were formed after the gases and heavier elements remaining after the formation of the sun began to flatten and fuse with the help of the sun’s gravity.
However, with planets such as HD 106906 b, the process becomes more puzzling. The process of formation is far too slow for planets of such large mass, which are so far away from their star. However, Baily offered up her suggestion.
“A binary star system can be formed when two adjacent clumps of gas collapse more or less independently to form stars, and these stars are close enough to each other to exert a mutual gravitation attraction and bind them together in an orbit,” Bailey said.
“It is possible that in the case of HD 106906 system the star and planet collapsed independently from clumps of gas, but for some reason the planet’s progenitor clump was starved for material and never grew large enough to ignite and become a star,” she stated.
However, should Baily’s theorizing be correct, it would also induce further questions. The mass ratio of two stars in a binary system, as described by Bailey, is usually no more than 10:1. However, in the case of this new discovery, the mass ratio is over 100:1 – a correlation which could be deemed almost impossible under current theories of planet formation.
The findings are to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters under the title “HD 106906 b: A Planetary-mass Companion Outside a Massive Debris Disk.” Media agencies 


 

Criminal background, Financial, Gender and other details of elected MLAs in Delhi Assembly Elections 2013

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Press Conference Invitation
Criminal background, Financial, Gender and other details of elected MLAs in Delhi Assembly Elections 2013

Delhi Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms cordially invites you for a Press Conference to release the analysis of Criminal background, Financial, Gender and other details of elected MLAs in Delhi Assembly elections 2013. We will also be releasing analysis of re-elected MLAs
Date: 9th December, 2013
Time: 3 PM
Venue: Press Club of India
1, Raisina Road, New Delhi-110 001
 ​
​Regards,

Media & Journalist Helpline

+91 80103 94248

adr@adrindia.org

Mr. Anurag Mittal
National Coordinator

National Election Watch,
Association for Democratic Reforms

+91 9811108914

anurag@adrIndia.org

Prof Trilochan Sastry
IIM Bangalore

Founder Member,
National Election Watch,
Association for Democratic Reforms

+91 9448353285,

trilochans@iimb.ernet.in


Prof Jagdeep Chhokar
IIM Ahmedabad (Retd.)

Founder Member
National Election Watch, Association for Democratic
Reforms

+91 9999620944

jchhokar@gmail.com

 
– 
Association for Democratic Reforms
“Kiwanis Centre”, 4th Floor,
B-35, Qutub Institutional Area
(Near Rockland Hospital)
New Delhi-110 016

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