Anand keeps lead after draw in 5th game

Following the games at the website identified in the article, it’s amazing how the most subtle of moves can make all the difference between a win, loss or tie.

There is no question that these are two brilliant chess minds, but in my opinion, Jose Raul Capablanca is the most naturally gifted and talented of all world chess champions. His playing style was so subtle and simple, and at the same time so tactically flawless and debilitating to his opponent…His adversaries were rendered completely helpless against him.

In contrast, Bobby Fisher, who was on par with Capablanca in terms of sheer genius, had a style that was completely different. His goal was to attack, attack and attack some more. He would lash out with brilliant combinations that would devastate his opponent.

The championship does not bode well for Topalov. I believe this is the second time that he plays white and come out of it with nothing better than a tie.

Chess… What an awesome game! TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

Fri Apr 30, 1:37 pm ET

SOFIA (AFP) – India’s defending champion Viswanathan Anand maintained his overall lead Friday after drawing against Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov in the fifth game of their 12-game duel for the world chess title.

Anand and Topalov negotiated a draw on the 44th move, leaving Anand with a 3-2 overall lead.

The Indian, known as the “Tiger from Madras”, has two wins to one for Topalov, while two games ended in a draw.

The sixth game of the 12-round match is scheduled for Saturday.

Anand first became world champion in 2007, successfully defending his title in 2008.

The 35-year-old Topalov won the right to challenge Anand by beating Gata Kamsky of the United States in the semi-final in February 2009.

The new world chess champion will win a prize of 1.2 million euros (1.58 million dollars), while the loser will take home 800,000 euros.

Chess fans can follow all the games to run until May 13 online at www.anand-topalov.com.

Belgium’s Muslims lash out at looming burqa ban

Not that my opinion matters, because it doesn’t, but I can “see” women wearing the two garments pictured below on the left; they look like traditional middle-eastern garb. But I’m sorry, the two outfits pictured to the right, particularly the one at the bottom right, are totally ridiculous.

In previous posts on this Blog I’ve fluctuated in opinion between first opposing and later  not opposing the wearing of burqas. My last position still stands; I don’t believe that burqas should be banned. If women either want to wear these types of garments or cannot break free from the men and/or tradition that compels them to wear them, then who are the politicians to say otherwise. As ridiculous and demeaning as I view them to be, as long as they don’t impede them in say, driving a vehicle (I doubt these women drive) they should not be outlawed. This is my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

by Yann Ollivier Yann Ollivier

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Muslims in Belgium hit out Friday at a looming public ban on the full-face Islamic veil or burqa, saying claims it was being introduced for security reasons were simply an excuse to crack down.

“I think they’re trying to wind us up,” Souad Barlabi, a young woman wearing a simple veil, said outside the Grand Mosque in Brussels around the time of Friday prayers.

“We feel under attack,” she said, a day after Belgian lawmakers had voted for a nationwide ban on clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa.

There were two abstentions, but significantly, no one voted against in the house — a rare sign of unity amid a power-sharing dispute between Belgium’s linguistic communities which seems certain to lead to early elections.

“There are other problems that are more important,” Barlabi noted.

In the crowd, one woman was wearing a niqab, another, accompanied by her husband, was covered by a burqa, and Barlabi could see no reason to make such a fuss over “so few people.”

The law, which will not come into effect for at least a few weeks, will be imposed in streets, public gardens and sports grounds or buildings “meant for public use or to provide services” to the public.

People who ignore it could face a fine of 15-25 euros (20-34 dollars) and/or a jail sentence of up to seven days.

All governing parties and the opposition agreed on the move — most for security reasons linked to the fact that people cannot be recognised while wearing the clothing.

“It’s just a pretext,” said Samuel Bulte, a convert to Islam handing out flyers and religious objects in front of the mosque.

“How many robberies are committed wearing a burqa?

“I’m afraid that soon they’re going to want to start putting crescents on the backs of Muslims,” he said, in a reference to the yellow stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

Bruno Tuybens, a Flemish Socialist, was one of the two deputies who abstained from Thursday’s vote.

“This law disturbs me,” he said. “I believe in freedom of expression and I don’t think it should be restricted unless it’s in very exceptional circumstances.

“There is no link at all between crime and wearing the burqa or niqab.”

Yet the vote, likely to be a landmark in Europe if it passes through the upper house, comes amid controversy in the kingdom over the wearing of Muslim religious symbols in public places.

Last year, a Belgian lawmaker of Turkish origin was sworn in at the Brussels regional parliament wearing an Islamic headscarf in a first for the country.

In front of AFP’s cameras Friday, an old bearded man railed: “The Virgin Mary also wore a veil. No one says anything about this.”

Nearby, 25-year-old Said said he was stunned “that a secular country would get mixed up in religion.”

For human rights group Amnesty International, the measures must be reviewed by the upper house of parliament as they raise concerns about whether Belgium is in breach of international rights laws.

“A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s expert on discrimination in Europe.

“The Belgian move to ban full face veils, the first in Europe, sets a dangerous precedent,” he warned.

Pope at Vatican meeting on Legionaries of Christ

The key to this story is that the “inspectors” sent by the Vatican to investigate the workings of the Legionaries of Christ, whose former leader and founder was guilty of sexual crimes,  were all bishops appointed by Rome! This is somewhat like having drug dealers “inspecting” the operation of a drug cartel to determine if the operation is honorable!

I realize that I’m in the minority, but this is completely illogical. What kind of objectivity can these bishops have? This is like having wolves guarding the hen house. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

Fri Apr 30, 1:46 pm ET

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI took part Friday in a Vatican meeting over the fate of the Legionaries of Christ after revelations that the group’s founder had fathered children and abused seminarians.

Benedict had not been expected to participate in the meeting between five Vatican inspectors and the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

But the Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pontiff had decided to stop by the meeting to greet participants and make an appearance. He said he did not expect the pontiff to attend the whole session.

The Vatican ordered an investigation in 2009 after the Legionaries acknowledged that its founder, the Rev. Marciel Maciel, who died in 2008 at age 87, had fathered a daughter who is now in her 20s and lives in Spain. The Legionaries have also acknowledged that Maciel had also sexually abused seminarians and that two men are claiming to be his sons.

The five inspectors — all bishops appointed by Rome — spent eight months visiting Legionaries communities to get firsthand knowledge of the conservative order and its work. On Friday, they were reporting their findings back to the Vatican.

The meetings were continuing into Saturday, Lombardi said.

A statement was expected after the session. The pope, Lombardi said, will make the final decision on the order’s future after studying the case.

Benedict’s presence at Friday’s session was yet another indication that he is taking personal responsibility for looking into abuse cases. This week alone, he met with German bishops to discuss the resignation of an abusive prelate and on Monday Belgian bishops will discuss the resignation of Belgium’s longest-serving bishop, who admitted he had abused a boy.

Benedict’s response to the Legionaries scandal is being closely watched as the Vatican faces pressure to aggressively confront abuse. The case has long been seen as emblematic of Vatican inaction on abuse complaints, since sex abuse victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against Maciel but were shut down by his supporters at the Vatican.

The late Pope John Paul II had long championed the Legionaries for their orthodoxy and ability to bring in vocations and money.

In 2006, a year into Benedict’s pontificate, the Vatican instructed Maciel to lead a “reserved life of prayer and penance” in response to the abuse allegations.

French Muslims feel victimised by veil ban

Funny how the human mind works. One could favorably argue that Muslim women are one of the most victimized groups in society. In predominantly Islamic countries, they are basically forced to wear what I will refer to as costumes by their male counterparts due to their archaic religious beliefs.  Turn the clock forward several hundred years and here they are in France, one of the most socially advanced and liberal countries on the planet, and now they feel victimized because they cannot wear these costumes?#%$&!?

This is a prime example of just how difficult it is for people to break with tradition, especially when there is a religious aspect to the convention.

In the photograph below, notice the inconsistency at play. The Muslim woman is talking on a cell phone, unquestionably a modern device. Yet she’s wearing clothes worn by her ancestors centuries ago, where only her eyes (for obvious reasons) can be exposed. How ridiculous is that? TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

by Gael Cogne Gael Cogne Fri Apr 30, 12:07 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – Muslims in France say the government’s plan to fine women for wearing the Islamic veil is one in a string of political ploys that stigmatise them and pander to anti-Islamic prejudice.

Extracts from the law leaked on Friday propose to fine women 150 euros (200 dollars) for wearing a full-face veil in public, while anyone who forces a woman to wear one would face a year in jail and fine of 15,000 euros.

Some say giving police the power to fine Muslim women in the street is part of a worrying trend, after the government’s “national identity debate” and its targeting last week of a man accused of polygamy and radicalism.

Amid the polygamy controversy, bullets were fired at a mosque in Istres, southern France, and a halal butcher in Marseille. A French Muslim group, CFCM, said this signalled “a rise of racism and Islamophobia.”

“It’s getting tougher and tougher. It’s as if people have had something against us for a long time and now that the politicians are saying it, they are letting it all out,” said Mamadou Alpha Diallo, 73, outside a Paris mosque.

Muslims in France “have the impression that Islam is on trial,” added Dounia Bouzar, an anthropologist and high-profile commentator on Muslim affairs.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has nevertheless vowed to press on and said it will present a bill to parliament by July, despite a warning from state judicial experts that a full public ban may be unconstitutional.

Sarkozy insists veils such as the niqab and the burqa are an affront to women’s rights and France’s secular values.

Fewer than 2,000 women are estimated to wear the veil in France, however, and critics of the government plan say it clouds more pressing issues for a Muslim community struggling to integrate.

“Even people who have little connection to the Muslim faith feel they are being singled out and are having a very hard time during these debates on Islam,” said Azzedine Gaci, leader of a mosque in Villeurbanne, eastern France.

Amar Lasfar, the leader of a mosque in the northern city of Lille, said the veil issue was “very marginal” and was being blown out of proportion.

“Here in France they are concentrating on that as if it were the number one problem of Muslims and society,” he said, judging it “a side-issue that has been overdone in the media”.

“It gives the impression that you see people wearing the burqa on every street corner… There is a feeling of exasperation among Muslims. They’re crying out ‘Leave us in peace!’”

According to Friday’s leaked extracts, the law will fine women 150 euros (200 dollars) for wearing a full-face veil in public, while anyone who forces a Muslim woman to wear one would face a year in jail and a huge fine.

“No-one may wear in public places clothes that are aimed at hiding the face,” says the text to be presented to parliament in July, according to a copy seen by the pro-government newspaper Le Figaro.

The extracts cited did not indicate whether the law would contain exemptions for people covering up their faces for popular non-religious purposes such as skiing, nor how these exceptions would be defined.

Some political opponents of Sarkozy’s right-wing ruling party have likewise accused the government of stigmatisation, though the ban does have some support on the left.

“This is what the extremist groups wanted — to divide French citizens over the question of Islam,” said the Islam expert Bouzar. ” Politicians have fallen into the trap.”

Shakira visits Phoenix over tough immigration law

It seems that Shakira has now become a political activist. These entertainers generally have so much free time on their hands, and obviously the money and popularity that they have immediate access to people and places that the average individual does not.

The immigration law issue is quite controversial. At this moment it is certainly leading in media coverage over abortion, gay rights and church/state controversies, which are generally fiercely contested topics. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX – Colombian singer Shakira visited Phoenix on Thursday, meeting with the city’s police chief and mayor over concerns that a sweeping new state law cracking down on illegal immigration will lead to racial profiling.

The Grammy winner said she wanted to learn more about how the law will be implemented if it goes into effect this summer and to meet with Phoenix’s Latino community.

“I heard about it on the news and I thought, ‘Wow,’” Shakira told The Associated Press after meeting with city officials. “It is unjust and it’s inhuman, and it violates the civil and human rights of the Latino community … It goes against all human dignity, against the principles of most Americans I know.”

The law, signed Friday by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, is viewed as the toughest on illegal immigration in the nation and has drawn criticism from President Barack Obama, who questioned its legality. The law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they’re illegal immigrants.

“I’m not an expert on the Constitution but I know the Constitution exists for a reason,” Shakira told reporters after meeting with city officials. “It exists to protect human beings, to protect the rights of people living in a nation with or without documents. We’re talking about human beings here.”

Shakira also made a stop at the state Capitol in downtown Phoenix, telling a group of a few hundred community members that if the law were in effect, she could be arrested since she didn’t bring her driver’s license to Arizona.

“I’m here pretty much undocumented,” she told the crowd, who screamed her name and took photos of her with cameras and cell phones.

She called on the U.S. Congress to work on immigration reform. “No person should be detained because of the color of their skin,” she said.

The new law thrust Arizona into the international spotlight last week, with civil rights leaders and others demanding a boycott of the state, and the Mexican government warning its citizens about an “adverse political atmosphere” in Arizona. At least three Arizona cities are considering lawsuits to block the law, and there are two efforts to put a referendum on Arizona’s November ballot to repeal it.

Supporters of the law say it takes the handcuffs off police and is necessary to protect Arizonans, while opponents say it will lead to rampant racial profiling.

Shakira also sought to meet with Brewer during her visit to Phoenix but was told the governor’s schedule was booked, said Trevor Nielson, the singer’s political and philanthropic adviser.

Shakira is perhaps best known for her nimble dance moves and songs including “Hips Don’t Lie” and “She-Wolf,” but recently she has become more active in political and social issues.

She visited earthquake-ravaged Haiti earlier this month, expressed her support for Cuban dissident group Ladies in White and has worked as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Her Barefoot foundation provides nutrition to more than 6,000 children in Colombia, and she is a member of the ALAS foundation that advocates for children across Latin America.

Last month, the U.N. labor agency gave the singer a medal for her work to help impoverished children.

___

On the Net:

Shakira: http://www.shakira.com/

Arizona Legislature: http://www.azleg.gov/

Phoenix city government: http://phoenix.gov/mayorcouncil/about/index.html

Australia’s ‘baby-faced killer’ buried in golden casket

This Carl Williams dude must have been quite a character. And talk about extravagance, being buried in a gold-plated coffin. No doubt most individuals on this planet could use the money spent in this casket, the only purpose of which is to contain the decomposing body of its “inhabitant.”TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

by William West William West Fri Apr 30, 3:33 am ET

MELBOURNE (AFP) – Notorious Australian mobster Carl Williams was buried in a golden coffin Friday after a lavish funeral which drew a large crowd of mourners and blanket media coverage after his savage jailhouse murder.

The plump Williams, known as the baby-faced killer, was killed in Victoria state’s highest security prison earlier this month by a fellow inmate who attacked him with part of an exercise bike.

The 39-year-old was a key figure in Melbourne’s brutal underworld war of the 1990s and immortalised in the popular TV series “Underbelly”.

His ex-wife Roberta Williams and their daughter Dhakota arrived for the funeral and left in a black stretch Hummer limousine.

“You gave me self-belief and confidence when it had been ripped away years before,” the black-clad Roberta, eulogising her ex-husband, told about 100 mourners at St Therese’s Catholic Church in the Melbourne suburb Essendon.

A woman impersonating Melbourne underworld matriarch Judy Moran, whose husband Lewis and son Jason were killed on Williams’s orders, also turned up at the service clutching an urn before being led away by police.

The woman said Judy Moran, who is in jail awaiting trial over the murder of her brother-in-law, would have loved to have seen the funeral of her gangland nemesis.

The dead mobster’s casket, reportedly a gold-plated coffin which cost 30,000 dollars (27,885 US) and based on the model used for Michael Jackson, was carried out of the church under grey skies.

A heavy police presence guarded the church, which was previously used for the service for Lewis Moran as well as Williams’s mother, who died in 2009 from a drug overdose, while the primary school next door was in lockdown.

Williams was serving a life sentence with a 35-year non-parole period for ordering the murders of several rivals.

He was a central figure in Melbourne’s violent criminal war which began in the late 1990s and eventually claimed more than 25 lives, with a sentencing judge describing him as a “puppet master” who decided who lived and who died.

A 36-year-old man, who cannot be named, has been charged with his prison murder.

Williams once said he acted to protect his family, comparing his situation to soldiers fighting a war.

“Everyday soldiers have to kill the enemy, otherwise the enemy will kill them, and no-one calls soldiers murderers,” Williams wrote in correspondence given to a commercial television station.

“The people I killed were far worse people than I will ever be … I never killed or harmed any innocent people.”

5 preschoolers hit with hammer in new China attack

These are the most mindless assaults that I have ever heard of; attacking innocent children just for the sake of injuring or killing them. Obviously these individuals have mental disorders. And with this in mind, make sure you read the last paragraph of this article, which is quite disturbing. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer Tini Tran, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – A farmer attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, injuring five, before burning himself to death Friday in China’s third such assault in as many days and prompting the government to demand stricter school security nationwide.

Wang Yonglai used a motorcycle to break down the gate of the Shangzhuang Primary School in the eastern city of Weifang and struck a teacher who tried to block him before hitting students with the hammer, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Wang then grabbed two children before pouring gasoline over his body and setting fire to himself. Teachers were able to pull the children away to safety, but Wang died. None of the five injured students had life-threatening injuries, Xinhua said.

The attack was confirmed by an employee at the Weifang Public Security information office. But the motive for Wang’s rampage was unclear. Xinhua described him only as a local farmer.

State media either ignored or played down the attack, perhaps to discourage copycat attacks as some experts have urged or to avoid overshadowing the opening of the World Expo in Shanghai, a pet project of the communist government.

Most of the recent school attacks have been blamed on people with personal grudges or mental illness — seen as a growing problem because of feelings of social injustice and alienation in the fast-changing country.

The government on Friday issued an urgent directive to schools to tighten security nationwide. In the capital, the Beijing Education Commission ordered armed police units to patrol nursery, primary and secondary schools starting Tuesday, the first day back to school after the May Day holiday. The police will be on site when classes begin and end.

The hammer attack follows a rampage Thursday by a 47-year-old unemployed man armed with an eight-inch (20-centimeter) knife at a kindergarten. Some 29 students, aged 4 or 5 years old, were wounded, five of them seriously at the school in Taixing city in neighboring Jiangsu province.

And on Wednesday, a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in the city of Leizhou in southern Guangdong province and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife. The attacker had been on sick leave from another school since 2006 for mental health problems.

In all, there have been five such attacks on schools in just over a month and many more in preceding months and years — although gun crime and other extreme violence in China is comparatively rare. Sociologists suspect the recent school rampages — usually by lone, male attackers — could be copycat actions.

The Education Ministry’s directive Friday, posted on its website, called for schools and local education departments to “strengthen the security activities at schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers,” particularly at elementary and middle schools.

It urged “concrete actions” including strictly implementing a rule already on the books to register all visitors coming to school campuses and preventing unidentified people from entering.

The order also instructed schools to work closely with police to “implement all kinds of security activities.”

Calls for beefing up security at schools are nothing new. They were initially ordered by the central government in 2004 following an attack that year that left nine students dead at a Beijing school. Since 2006, schools have been required to register or inspect all visitors.

According to news reports, the latest attacks have prompted schools in various parts of the country to take action. In a district of southern Nanjing City, guards will be armed from Saturday with police batons and pepper spray. In Beijing’s Xicheng district, guards at kindergarten, elementary and middle schools have been given long-handled metal restraint poles with a hook on the end. In eastern Jinan city, police posts are being built on elementary and middle schools’ campuses.

In an editorial Friday, the English-language China Daily said that security should be tightened, but stressed the need to prevent attacks in the first place.

“It can be easy to put killers on trial and execute them but it is far more difficult to find out the deep-seated causes behind such horrifying acts. Our efforts should be focused on preventing these from happening,” it said. “We should find out what propelled them to such extremes. What problems do they have? Could anyone have helped, especially the authorities?”

Accounts in China’s state media have largely glossed over what motivates attackers, but experts say outbursts against the defenseless are frequently due to social pressures. An egalitarian society only a generation ago, China’s headlong rush to prosperity has sharpened differences between the rich and poor, while the public health system has atrophied.

China likely has about 173 million adults with mental health disorders, and 158 million of them have never had professional help, according to a mental health survey in four provinces jointly done by Chinese and U.S. doctors that was published in the medical journal The Lancet in June.

Venezuela nabs man in alleged plot to kill Chavez

Would anyone out there want either of these two clowns as president of your country? I agree, I wouldn’t either, but these are the numb-nuts that the people of Bolivia (Ebo Morales) on the left, and Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) on the right voted for… Enough said. TGO

Refer to brief story below. Source: Associated Press

Photography: Reuters

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan police have arrested a man on suspicion of trying to incite the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami says the 28-year-old was detained Thursday in the southwestern city of El Vigia after a weeklong investigation. The man’s identity has not been released.

El Aissami says the man has traveled frequently to Colombia and police found messages on his computers alluding to a plot to kill Chavez involving Colombia’s outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups.

Tensions are strained between Colombia’s conservative government and Chavez’s socialist administration.

Venezuelan authorities have claimed numerous purported plots against Chavez in recent years, but none have led to arrests.

NASA: Claims of Life on Mars ‘Positively False’

Let me take this to the extreme. Even if there was not only intelligent life, but human life found on Mars, or anywhere else for that matter, it would be covered up by our government; and truth be told who could blame them? I mean really, are “earthlings” ready to be told that there are other intelligent beings (or more accurately, intelligent beings) ’cause we sure aren’t  one of them – out there in our Solar System, in our galaxy, or in the universe?

Half the United States population, the most technologically advanced country on the planet,  still believes in ghosts, life after death, Noah’s Ark and Virgin Mary sightings! Is this a crowd that can be told of extra-terrestrial life? Certainly not! First of all they either wouldn’t believe it, and even if it was proven to them, there would be absolute panic. Humans would probably attribute the event to the return of Jesus and the apocalypse. Humans are not even remotely ready to face the reality that there are other life forms in space – intelligent life forms;  not silly, superstitious, emotional human life – but intelligent life.

Unfortunately I will not be around to witness it, and quite frankly, either may anyone else reading this Blog. But there is no question in my mind that humans will someday be confronted with alien life. Hopefully by then we will have evolved to the point where we can actually behave somewhat intelligently. If not, we may very well become the alien’s pets, and what a pitiful fate that would be for God’s supposed creation. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Senior Writer

space.com Thu Apr 29, 6:45 pm ET

This story was updated at 5:56 p.m. ET.

Despite recent media reports that NASA found evidence for life on Mars, the U.S. space agency says proof that we are not alone is still a ways off.

A Wednesday article in the U.K.’s “The Sun” newspaper entitled, “NASA: Evidence of Life on Mars,” reported that the agency had unveiled “compelling evidence” for Martian organisms. But NASA officials and veteran Mars mission scientists say “no.”

“This headline is extremely misleading,” said Dwayne Brown, a spokesman for NASA based at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “This makes it sound like we announced that we found life on Mars, and that is absolutely, positively false.”

The piece claimed that the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which have been wheeling around the surface of the red planet since January 2004, found pond scum, which the paper calls “the building blocks of life as we know it.”

“I think they have taken this stuff out of context,” Brown said.

Such a discovery would truly have been groundbreaking, since pond scum, scientifically known as cyanobacteria, are actually a form of life themselves, not just building blocks for it.

“I can only assume that the Sun reporter misunderstood,” said Cornell University planetary scientist Steve Squyres, principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover project, who was quoted in the story. “What Spirit and Opportunity have found is sulfate minerals… not organic materials, not pond scum, and not the building blocks of life as we know it.

Water = life?

The article, which has been widely quoted across the Web, appeared after NASA scientists spoke to reporters from an astrobiology conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of research aimed toward searching for life beyond Earth.

The piece claims, “The recent missions have gathered evidence of sulphates on Mars, a strong indication there is water on the planet and therefore life.”

But just because there might be water does not mean that life follows.

“Evidence of water does NOT mean that there was life,” Squyres wrote in an e-mail. “We believe that water is necessary for life, but not that it is sufficient to assure life. The “…and therefore life” part of the statement therefore is simply wrong.”

While scientists have not yet discovered proof of living things anywhere in the universe beyond Earth, they are getting closer to knowing where to look and how to recognize the signs of life if they are present.

And Brown said that NASA’s various Mars missions, including the rovers and spacecraft such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the 2001 Mars Odyssey – both currently in orbit around the red planet – are revealing a wealth of clues about the possibility of life there. It’s just too soon to know for certain.

Past life controversies

Claims of finding life on Mars are not new.

In August 1996 NASA researchers presented a Martian rock that they said showed clear signs of being affected by life. The rock, which had landed in Antarctica, contained holes and markings that appeared to have been formed by bacterial colonies living on it.

The announcement made a huge splash, but in the decade that followed, most researchers have dismissed the claims of life, and found non-living explanations for the rock’s markings.

There has likewise been controversy over pronouncements that Mars could not possibly harbor life. In 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 landers touched down on the Martian surface and performed three separate experiments to search for signs of life. Despite having sensitivities to detect organic molecules of a few parts per billion, no organic compounds were ever detected by either lander. Many scientists declared that Mars therefore must not have microbial organisms on its surface.

Yet a more recent study found that perhaps the Viking experiments were not so sensitive after all, and cast doubt on the conclusion that microbes aren’t there.

Besides Mars, some particularly promising spots in the solar system include the Saturnian moons Titan – with its lakes of methane and ethane – and Enceladus, with its plumes of water vapor, and Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is thought to harbor an underground ocean.

Potentially Dangerous Asteroid Spotted Passing Earth

If one of these monster-sized asteroids ever hits our planet humans will probably be a thing of the past. Even a smaller space-rock could cause widespread devastation. Should this occur, mankind will realize the stupidity of fighting and killing one another over insignificant things such as religion. But I suppose that until then, nothing will change. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

SPACE.com Space.com Staff

space.com Thu Apr 29, 12:01 pm ET

An asteroid on the list of potentially dangerous space rocks that could endanger the Earth was caught on camera as it zoomed past our planet this month, and found to be larger than astronomers originally thought.

The asteroid buzzed the Earth on April 19 and came within 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) of the planet. That’s about six times the distance between Earth and the moon.

Astronomers used the planetary radar system on the famed Arecibo radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to spot the asteroid, called 2005 YU55, over four days starting on April 19. The photo revealed the asteroid as a half-lit space rock flying through the solar system.

“This object is on the list of ‘potentially hazardous asteroids’ maintained by the Minor Planet Center, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.,” Arecibo astronomers said in a statement. [More asteroid photos.]

The astronomers found that the asteroid is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in size – about a quarter-mile (400 meters) long and twice as big as originally thought. The Arecibo telescope’s planetary radar system resolved features on the asteroid down to about 25 feet (7.5 meters).

Asteroid 2005 YU55 was first discovered by astronomer Robert McMillan, of the Spacewatch detection team, on Dec. 28, 2005. And this isn’t the only chance astronomers will have to study 2005 YU55.

The space rock will be back.

On Nov. 8, 2011, the asteroid will complete another trip around the sun and swing by Earth again just inside the moon’s orbit. It should fly by at a distance of 191,120 miles (307,577 km), about eight-tenths the distance between Earth and the moon. The distance from Earth to the moon is on average about 238,900 miles (384,472 km).

The asteroid poses no risk of impacting the Earth when it returns next year, though astronomers will keep watching its path through space.

NASA routinely tracks asteroids and comets that may fly near the Earth with a network of telescopes on the ground and in space. The agency’s Near-Earth Object Observations program is responsible for finding potentially dangerous asteroids and studying their orbits to determine if they pose a risk of hitting the Earth.

So far, the program has found about 85 percent of the huge asteroids that fly near Earth, but it hasn’t been quite as good at finding rocks that are smaller. The program detected only 15 percent of space rocks that are 460-feet (140-meters) wide and could potentially cause widespread devastation at their impact sites if they hit us, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.

Only 5 percent of asteroids 164-feet (50-meters) across have been found, the report found. More funding is needed if NASA hopes to reach a Congress-mandated goal of tracking all potentially dangerous space rocks.

President Barack Obama has proposed a budget increase in NASA’s asteroid-tracking program that would boost its resources from $3.7 million in 2009 to $20.3 million in 2011. The program received a $2 million increase in 2010 to support the Arecibo telescope.

Obama has also proposed sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025 to study it and gather data that could help astronomers find ways to deflect space rocks before they threaten all life on Earth.

The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center which is managed by Cornell University under a deal with the National Science Foundation. Astronomers with Cornell, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the University of Maine participated in the observing of asteroid 2005 YU55.

Frogs Surprisingly Like Humans, Genetically Speaking

Informative article for those interested in biology and evolution… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience

Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer

livescience.com

African clawed frogs have more in common with humans than you might think, according to their newly sequenced genome, which shows a surprising number of commonalities with the human genome.

The frog in question is a slimy, rotund type scientifically named Xenopus tropicalis. This is the first time an amphibian genome has been sequenced, and scientists say it represents a big hop forward in understanding not just frogs but Earth’s whole tree of life.

“A lot of furry animals have been sequenced, but far fewer other vertebrates,” said study co-leader Richard Harland, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Having a complete catalog of the genes in Xenopus, along with those of humans, rats, mice and chickens, will help us reassemble the full complement of ancestral vertebrate genes.”

Currently, more than 175 organisms have had their genetic information nearly completely sequenced. That’s just a drop in the bucket of the world’s plethora of life.

In fact, many of Earth’s creatures are more similar to each other, genetically speaking, than you might guess just by looking at them. When scientists compared regions around specific genes in the frog genome to those same regions in chicken and human genomes, they found some amazing similarities, indicating a high level of conservation of organization, or structure, on the chromosomes (packets of DNA in cells).

“When you look at segments of the Xenopus genome, you literally are looking at structures that are 360 million years old and were part of the genome of the last common ancestor of all birds, frogs, dinosaurs and mammals that ever roamed the Earth,” said study leader Uffe Hellsten of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif. “Chromosome archaeology helps [us] to understand the history of evolution, showing us how the genetic material has rearranged itself to create the present-day mammalian genome and present-day amphibian genome.”

At least 1,700 genes in the African clawed frog genome are very similar to genes in humans that are associated with specific diseases, such as cancer, asthma, and heart disease. So finding these connections means that experiments on the frogs could help doctors learn more about how to treat those conditions in people.

The frogs’ similarity to humans has come in handy before.

In the early 20th century biologists discovered that these frogs were unusually sensitive to human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone produced by pregnant women. The frogs gained popularity as a low-cost pregnancy test in the 1940s and 1950s. Doctors would inject a frog with a woman’s urine, and if she was pregnant, the frog would ovulate and produce eggs in 8 to 10 hours.

The new genome could make this frog species even more useful for research and medicine in the future.

“Having the genome in hand helps make Xenopus very attractive for the further study of gene organization, regulation and function,” said co-author Jacques Robert, an immunologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y.

The researchers describe the Xenopus genome in the April 30 issue of the journal Science.

Belgian parliament votes to ban wearing of veil

Oh well, so much for the bee-keeper suits in Belgium… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The Belgian lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a draft law to ban wearing the full Islamic face veil in public, a move that could make Belgium the first country to make the practice a criminal offence.

The measure was overwhelmingly backed by 136 lawmakers with just two abstentions.

The bill, which would ban all clothing that covers or partially covers the face, could become law in the coming months as the upper house, or Senate, is not expected to block it.

However, the collapse of the government last week and the prospect of an imminent election could cause a delay because parliament would have to be dissolved.

France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, is also looking toward a ban on wearing veils in public, with the government set to examine a draft bill in May. It could also become law within a few months.

Belgium’s French-speaking liberals, who proposed the veil law, argued that an inability to identify people who have hidden their faces presents a security risk and that the veil was a “walking prison” for women.

Wearing the facial veil, known as the niqab and the body-length outer garment, or burqa, widely worn in Afghanistan, could lead to lead to fines of 15-25 euros (about $20 to $33) and imprisonment for up to seven days.

The bill’s chief promoter, Daniel Bacquelaine, said local mayors could suspend the ban during festivities such as Carnival when people traditionally wear costumes, including masks.

The law could also be used against potentially violent demonstrators who covered their faces.

Bacquelaine estimated that a few hundred women in Belgium wore facial veils and said it was a rising trend.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Anand takes lead after 4th chess game

The FIDE World Chess Championship continues… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

SOFIA (AFP) – India’s defending champion Viswanathan Anand took the lead Thursday after decisively winning the fourth game of his 12-game match for the world chess title against Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov.

He now leads by 2.5-1.5 points in the total score.

The 40-year-old Anand, known as the “Tiger from Madras,” played white and defeated Topalov on the 32nd move.

The Indian has two wins to one for Topalov, while one game ended in a draw.

The fifth game of the 12-round duel between the two is scheduled for Friday.

Anand first became world champion in 2007, successfully defending his title in 2008. He was ranked fourth on the March 2010 ratings list by the FIDE international chess federation.

His Bulgarian challenger, 35-year-old Topalov, is currently ranked number two by FIDE.

The new world chess champion will win a prize of 1.2 million euros (1.58 million dollars), while the loser will take home 800,000 euros.

Chess fans can follow all the games to run until May 13 online at www.anand-topalov.com.

Cairo embassy says girl in underage row still in Egypt

If my memory serves me correctly, the Prophet Muhammad married a nine year-old girl. As a result, these hard-line Muslims who follow the Quran literally feel it is acceptable to marry a child.

By the way, this is not exclusive of Muslims. Fundamentalist Christians, who follow the Bible literally, believe in its archaic nonsense as well. Proof of this is the recent claim to “finding” Noah’s Ark, the one described in the fairy tale story of the Flood in Genesis; the first book of the Bible. And how many thousands if not millions of Christians have traveled to the location where the imaginary Virgin sightings supposedly occurred?

Isn’t religion the best cocktail for making people ignorant? TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

ABUJA (AFP) – Cairo’s embassy in Nigeria said Thursday a 13-year-old girl at the centre of claims that a Nigerian senator had taken the minor as his fourth wife is still at school in Egypt.

The senator, Ahmed Sani Yerima, 49, meanwhile denied in an interview with the BBC that the girl was 13 and said that as a Muslim he had not broken any law by marrying the teenager.

“The girl is still in school in Egypt and nobody has complained to the embassy in respect of the girl,” Egyptian embassy spokesman Mohammed Saber told AFP.

He said however that the embassy “will follow the issue” because it is illegal in Egypt to marry an underage girl.

The Nigerian senate on Wednesday ordered an inquiry after claims by rights groups that Yerima had paid a dowry of 100,000 dollars to marry the girl.

Women’s groups protested outside parliament on Tuesday to urge the senate to investigate the claims.

In a telephone interview from Egypt with the BBC’s Hausa service on Thursday, Yerima defended himself.

“I don’t care about the issue of age since I have not violated any rule as far as Islam is concerned,” he said, describing those complaining as “detractors”.

“History tells us that Prophet Muhammad did marry a young girl as well. Therefore I have not contravened any law. Even if she is 13, as it is being falsely peddled around.”

A petition delivered to the senate by the rights groups said the marriage violated Nigeria’s Child Rights Act of 2003 forbidding marriage with anyone under 18. Violators face up to five years in jail.

It said Yerima “is in the habit of marrying minors and has gained notoriety in enticing girls to marry him, having contracted (a marriage) in 2006 with a 15-year-old girl called Hauwa?u, who the senator allegedly caused to drop out of school, as his fourth wife”.

It claimed the senator divorced Hauwa?u, when she was 17 and nursing his child, so that he could marry the Egyptian.

The petition urged the senate to investigate the allegations and to establish the name of the child-bride, her age and the circumstances of her entry into Nigeria.

Yerima was governor of Nigeria’s northwestern state of Zamfara when it became the first of 12 Muslim-dominated northern states to introduce Sharia law in 2000.

The National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons on Wednesday ordered the senator to appear before it to answer the allegations.