plus 4, Zimbabwe: Pres. Mugabe takes sharp dig at Tsvangirai, but says they're ... - Newser |
- Zimbabwe: Pres. Mugabe takes sharp dig at Tsvangirai, but says they're ... - Newser
- Zimbabwe: Mugabe takes sharp dig at Tsvangirai - Fort Mill Times
- Einstein Still Rules Despite New Theories - eWeek
- Some passengers faint on Newark to London flight - WTVF
- Obama lifts HIV travel ban for visitors to U.S. - San Francisco Chronicle
| Zimbabwe: Pres. Mugabe takes sharp dig at Tsvangirai, but says they're ... - Newser Posted: 31 Oct 2009 06:21 AM PDT Speaking Saturday at the state funeral of a former guerrilla leader who fought for independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe, speaking of Tsvangirai's temporary withdrawal from the Cabinet, said: "Even if some person is not mentally stable he is still your partner. "We bound ourselves to work together even though we had disparate positions. We will continue talking, no matter what," Mugabe told mourners at the Heroes Acre cemetery west of the capital as Mischek Chando was buried. Mugabe said his ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change had taken "positive steps" despite having faced difficulties. "There can be disagreement but that's ours to handle," he said. "We are glad we are talking about it. "On an odd day, one party decides it should not be fully in the process. It has one leg in, and one leg out and you begin to wonder if you are with people who know what agreement means," Mugabe added. He spoke mostly in Shona, and in the fiery terms typical of such occasions. Tsvangirai said it was Mugabe, in power since independence and seen as increasingly autocratic, who has failed to live up to their power-sharing agreement. He withdrew from Cabinet on Oct. 16, accusing Mugabe of trampling on human rights, and said he would only return when confidence in the unity government was restored. On Friday, foreign ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia _ members of the Southern African Development Community that pushed Mugabe and Tsvangirai to share power _ met separately with the two to try to heal the split in the government. After the meetings, they said they would recommend to their heads of state that a summit be convened, a move for which Tsvangirai has pushed. They did not say where or when. At a meeting in Berlin on Monday, key international donors urged Zimbabwe's factions to end the current crisis and echoed some of the concerns raised by Tsvangirai. The donors said Zimbabwe had made progress since the unity government was formed in February, but political and humanitarian problems not only undermined its ability "to deliver the change which ordinary Zimbabweans expect, but also deters much-needed foreign investment and hampers Zimbabwe's capacity to fully re-engage with the international community." The Berlin meeting was attended by representatives of 17 industrialized nations and of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the United Nations. Mugabe's party accuses Tsvangirai of not doing enough to persuade Western nations to lift travel and financial sanctions targeting Mugabe loyalists and their business associates. Tsvangirai has said the burden is on ZANU-PF to reform if it wants to end Zimbabwe's isolation. "The countries of Europe and America want to dictate which way our politics should go and they talk about regime change," Mugabe said Saturday. "They want us to go down on our knees and beg. One day we should think about fighting them in the international courts." Banners held by ZANU-PF members at the funeral criticized Tsvangirai. "Don't disengage. Do condemn sanctions," said one. Tsvangirai's party has reported a recent surge in political violence, allegations that Mugabe's party denies. And the barring on Thursday of U.N. torture investigator Manfred Nowak raised further questions about how much power Tsvangirai can wield in the face of fierce opposition from some in ZANU-PF. Tsvangirai had invited Nowak, but the U.N. envoy was stopped at the airport. Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, a ZANU-PF leader, called Nowak's attempted visit "a provocation of the highest order." This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Zimbabwe: Mugabe takes sharp dig at Tsvangirai - Fort Mill Times Posted: 31 Oct 2009 06:13 AM PDT Mugabe said his ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change had taken "positive steps" despite having faced difficulties. "There can be disagreement but that's ours to handle," he said. "We are glad we are talking about it. "On an odd day, one party decides it should not be fully in the process. It has one leg in, and one leg out and you begin to wonder if you are with people who know what agreement means," Mugabe added. He spoke mostly in Shona, and in the fiery terms typical of such occasions. Tsvangirai said it was Mugabe, in power since independence and seen as increasingly autocratic, who has failed to live up to their power-sharing agreement. He withdrew from Cabinet on Oct. 16, accusing Mugabe of trampling on human rights, and said he would only return when confidence in the unity government was restored. On Friday, foreign ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia - members of the Southern African Development Community that pushed Mugabe and Tsvangirai to share power - met separately with the two to try to heal the split in the government. After the meetings, they said they would recommend to their heads of state that a summit be convened, a move for which Tsvangirai has pushed. They did not say where or when. At a meeting in Berlin on Monday, key international donors urged Zimbabwe's factions to end the current crisis and echoed some of the concerns raised by Tsvangirai. The donors said Zimbabwe had made progress since the unity government was formed in February, but political and humanitarian problems not only undermined its ability "to deliver the change which ordinary Zimbabweans expect, but also deters much-needed foreign investment and hampers Zimbabwe's capacity to fully re-engage with the international community." The Berlin meeting was attended by representatives of 17 industrialized nations and of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the United Nations. Mugabe's party accuses Tsvangirai of not doing enough to persuade Western nations to lift travel and financial sanctions targeting Mugabe loyalists and their business associates. Tsvangirai has said the burden is on ZANU-PF to reform if it wants to end Zimbabwe's isolation. "The countries of Europe and America want to dictate which way our politics should go and they talk about regime change," Mugabe said Saturday. "They want us to go down on our knees and beg. One day we should think about fighting them in the international courts." Banners held by ZANU-PF members at the funeral criticized Tsvangirai. "Don't disengage. Do condemn sanctions," said one. Tsvangirai's party has reported a recent surge in political violence, allegations that Mugabe's party denies. And the barring on Thursday of U.N. torture investigator Manfred Nowak raised further questions about how much power Tsvangirai can wield in the face of fierce opposition from some in ZANU-PF. Tsvangirai had invited Nowak, but the U.N. envoy was stopped at the airport. Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, a ZANU-PF leader, called Nowak's attempted visit "a provocation of the highest order." This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Einstein Still Rules Despite New Theories - eWeek Posted: 31 Oct 2009 06:35 AM PDT NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope is giving scientists an increasingly detailed look at the extreme universe, including rare experimental evidence about the very structure of space and time. Despite the many new theories of space-time, Albert Einstein's original theory is still standing. Score one for Albert Einstein. In May, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope and other satellites spotted a short gamma ray burst, an explosion that astronomers think happens when neutron stars collide. NASA scientists calculated the explosion took place in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away. Of the many gamma ray photons Fermi's LAT (large area telescope) detected from the 2.1-second burst, two possessed energies differing by a million times. Yet after traveling some seven billion years, the pair arrived just nine-tenths of a second apart, confirming Einstein's theory is that all electromagnetic radiation -- radio waves, infrared, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays -- travels through a vacuum at the same speed.
"This measurement eliminates any
approach to a new theory of gravity
that predicts a strong energy dependent change in the speed of light,"
Peter Michelson, principal investigator of Fermi's LAT at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, Calif., said in a statement. "To one part in
100 million billion, these two photons
traveled at the same speed. Einstein still rules." "Physicists would like to replace Einstein's vision of gravity -- as expressed in his relativity theories -- with something that handles all fundamental forces," Michelson said. "There are many ideas, but few ways to test them." Scanning the entire sky every three hours, the LAT is giving Fermi scientists an increasingly detailed look at the extreme universe. "We've discovered more than a thousand persistent gamma ray sources -- five times the number previously known," said project scientist Julie McEnery at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "And we've associated nearly half of them with objects known at other wavelengths." Blazars -- distant galaxies whose massive black holes emit fast-moving jets of matter toward us -- are by far the most prevalent source, now numbering more than 500. In our own galaxy, gamma ray sources include 46 pulsars and two binary systems where a neutron star rapidly orbits a hot, young star. NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope was launched a year ago and is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
"The Fermi
team did a great job commissioning the spacecraft and starting its
science observations," Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director
at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said. "And now Fermi is more than
fulfilling its unique scientific promise for making novel, high-impact
discoveries about the extreme universe and the fabric of space-time." This content has passed through fivefilters.org.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Some passengers faint on Newark to London flight - WTVF Posted: 31 Oct 2009 06:06 AM PDT LONDON (AP) - Six people fainted on board a British Airways flight from Newark Liberty Airport to London's Heathrow Saturday, prompting emergency crews to check the plane for hazardous materials. Police said nothing suspicious was found on board after the jet was searched by emergency teams in protective gear. Ambulance personnel said the six people were treated on board the plane and allowed to continue travel. No one required hospitalization, they said. The plane landed at Heathrow's Terminal Five shortly after 6 a.m. and was boarded by emergency teams, including fire brigades, that had been notified about the unusual onboard illnesses. British Airways officials said the medical teams were called as a precaution. Officials said the cause of the fainting has not been determined. The Boeing 777 aircraft carried 216 passengers and 14 crew. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Obama lifts HIV travel ban for visitors to U.S. - San Francisco Chronicle Posted: 31 Oct 2009 05:59 AM PDT The United States is among just a handful of countries, including Yemen, Qatar and Sudan, that bar HIV-visitors from entering their borders. The process to end the travel ban was started last year by Congress and the Bush administration. The president said his administration will finish it by publishing the final rules to eliminate the ban Monday. The ban is expected to be lifted early next year. "It's just not supported by any evidence at this point - whether it was that people were coming into the United States and wildly infecting others or any other sound public health ground on which they could continue to exclude people," said Dana Van Gorder, executive director of Project Inform, an advocacy organization in San Francisco for people living with AIDS/HIV. Obama made the announcement as he signed the fourth reauthorization of a federal program named for Ryan White, an Indiana boy who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. The program, started in 1990, provides funds for HIV-related care. Attendees at the U.S. Conference on AIDS, which is being held this week in San Francisco, were elated by the news. The ban was based on "old thinking about how you stop the progression of a disease without understanding the science," said conference attendee Ravinia Hayes-Cozier, director of government relations and public policy for National Minority AIDS Council. "The science and policy has finally caught up with each other." In 1987, the U.S. health officials added HIV/AIDS to the list of communicable diseases that could prevent a person from entering the country. Congress, in 1993, codified the ban into law, which was signed by President Bill Clinton. In 2006, the Bush administration said HIV-positive visitors could enter the United States on short-term or business visas without a special waiver. Then last year, President George W. Bush signed a law to repeal rules that prevented HIV-infected immigrants, students and tourists from receiving visas, without special permission, to enter the country. That step led to Friday's announcement to lift the entire ban. Dr. Grant Colfax, director of HIV prevention and research for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, described the ban as discriminatory. He said the law was actually deleterious to public health. "It encouraged people hiding and not getting tested," he said. Health experts said visitors seeking permission to enter the country are asked about their HIV status, but it was difficult to determine how strictly the ban was enforced. "Stigma and discrimination are huge (issues) for people living with HIV," said Lance Toma, executive director of Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco. "The travel ban is one that is in our laws that legalizes the stigma."
E-mail Victoria Colliver at vcolliver@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
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