Dubai,massive engineering project [ 733 ]

Urbanization of Dubai

November 11, 2000

To expand the possibilities for beachfront tourist development, Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Built from sand dredged from the sea floor and protected from erosion by rock breakwaters, the islands were shaped into recognizable forms, including two large palm trees.

The first Palm Island constructed was Palm Jumeirah, and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite observed its progress from 2000 to 2010.

In these false-color images, bare ground appears brown, vegetation appears red, water appears dark blue, and buildings and paved surfaces appear light blue or gray.

The first image, acquired in November of 2000, shows the area prior to the island’s construction. The image from February 2002, shows the barest beginnings of the artificial archipelago. By October 2002, substantial progress had been made on Palm Jumeirah, with many sandy “palm fronds” inside a circular breakwater.

By November 2003, the palm tree has been constructed, and buildings and vegetation populate Palm Jumeirah in the images from November 2004, October 2005, September 2006, March 2007, and November 2008. The final image, acquired in February 2010, shows vegetation on most of the palm fronds, and numerous buildings on the tree trunk.

Inland, changes are just as dramatic between November 2000 and February 2010. In the earliest image, empty desert fills the lower right quadrant of the image, as cityscape primarily hugs the coast. As the years pass, urbanization spreads, and the final image shows the area almost entirely filled by roads, buildings, and irrigated land..

End

The NASA Mar.16,"Image of the Day"... [ 732 ]

Nasa image of the day,March 16th

The Wizard Nebula
This image of the open star cluster NGC 7380, also known as the Wizard Nebula, is a mosaic of images from the WISE mission spanning an area on the sky of about 5 times the size of the full moon. NGC 7380 is located in the constellation Cepheus about 7,000 light-years from Earth within the Milky Way Galaxy. The star cluster is embedded in a nebula, which spans some 110 light-years.

The stars of NGC 7380 have emerged from this star-forming region in the last 5 million years or so, making it a relatively young cluster. WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, scans the entire sky in infrared light, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images.

The mission is designed to uncover objects never seen before, including the coolest stars, the universe's most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets. Its vast catalogs will help answer fundamental questions about the origins of planets, stars and galaxies. WISE joins two other infrared missions in space --

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency mission. WISE is different from these missions in that it will survey the entire sky. It is designed to cast a wide net to catch all sorts of unseen cosmic treasures, including rare oddities.

All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. NGC 7380 was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. Her brother, William Herschel, discovered infrared light in 1800. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Τρίτη, 16 Μάρτιος 2010 6:00:00 πμ

Couple slain in Mexico[ 731 ]

Couple slain in Mexico shooting had baby on the way

By Jim Kavanagh, CNN

March 16, 2010 12:52 p.m. EDT

Arthur Redelfs and Lesley Enriquez lived in El Paso, Texas.

(CNN) -- Lesley Enriquez went to a birthday party and brought her husband and baby daughter along. After the food and cake and singing and children's games were done, the family piled into the car and headed home.

They never made it.

As Enriquez's husband, Arthur Redelfs, pulled away from the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where the party took place Saturday, a car full of gang members fell in behind them, authorities said.

For unknown reasons, the gang followed the family car through the streets and riddled it with bullets, authorities said. When it was over, 35-year-old Enriquez and Redelfs, who was 34, were dead. Their orphaned daughter was unhurt but terrified in her car seat in back, authorities said.

Enriquez, an employee at the busy consulate, had been four months pregnant.

"Can't wait to go to bed," she had posted with multiple exclamation points on her Facebook page in January. "Between Sweet Pea and our little one on the way I'm getting extremely tired!!!"

Video: Two Americans killed in Mexico

3 associated with U.S. consulate killed

The family lived in El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez. Witnesses said Redelfs, a detention officer for the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, appeared to have made a run for one of the bridges back to the safety of the United States but couldn't outrun the gang.

"They were innocent victims of the escalating violence in Juárez," Ruben Redelfs, Arthur Redelfs' brother, said, according to the El Paso Times newspaper.

"Both my brother and his wife had unblemished records where they worked, and were not involved in anything wrong whatsoever. They will be deeply missed."

The killings were carried out by a local gang known as Los Aztecas, which is allied with the Juárez Cartel, Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said Monday. No arrests have been made.

Juárez is on the front lines in Mexico's war against the drug cartels that operate in its territory. More than 2,600 people were killed in the city in 2009.

The family's white Toyota SUV was similar in appearance to a white Honda SUV that also was attacked after leaving the same birthday party, officials said.

Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, the husband of another consulate employee, was killed in that attack, and their two children in the back seat were wounded. Salcido's wife was traveling in another vehicle and was unharmed, officials said.

Ferriz said the attackers clearly targeted consulate employees, but it wasn't clear why.

By Tuesday morning, several people in Arthur Redelfs' and Lesley Enriquez's Facebook network had substituted the victims' photo for their own profile photos.

One of Redelfs' Facebook friends wrote, "R.I.P. Art Redelfs. An amazing person through and through. I remember your kindness when I was obnoxious; it made a huge difference in my life."

One of Enriquez's Facebook connections wrote in Spanish, "Lesley dear cousin, rest in peace and may your death serve justice in this country, not more violence!!"

Silvio Berlusconi , as Superman...[ 730 ]

Silvio Berlusconi's own publishing firm releases book celebrating PM as 'Superman'

Emotional messages likening Silvio Berlusconi to Superman after his show of strength when he was attacked in Milan last year have been compiled in a new book published by a firm owned by the Italian prime minister.

Telegraph co.uk,,By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 5:48PM GMT 16 Mar 2010

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi leaves Duomo's square with blood on his face after a political party meeting in Milan Photo: REUTERS

Mr Berlusconi's publishing company Mondadori has released the book, called "Love always wins over envy and hatred", ahead of important regional elections at the end of this month.

Bearing a cover photograph of Mr Berlusconi looking younger than his 73 years, it contains some of the 50,000 messages he received from Italians after a man with a history of mental illness hurled a souvenir statuette at his face in Milan in December, breaking his nose and smashing two teeth.

"Even with kryptonite they couldn't knock you down!" wrote one supporter – perhaps an allusion to the fact that Mr Berlusconi has previously described himself as Superman.

Well-wishers described as "abominable" the attack by Massimo Tartaglia, 42, an electronics engineer who will go on trial in the next few weeks on assault charges.

"We are all with you, great Silvio. You are the engine of our country," a woman identified as Eleonora gushed, while another fan urged the prime minister to clone himself.

"On seeing you covered in blood, my wife grabbed her hair and sobbed as she yelled 'My Madonna, save Silvio!'" one man wrote.

The book, which is on sale for 15 euros (£13.60), was mocked as "The little white book of Silvio Ceausescu" by the left-leaning Repubblica newspaper in a front page editorial.

The paper likened it to Colonel Gaddafi's Green Book of political philosophy and said it was reminiscent of the sort of hagiographies issued by dictators in Eastern Europe and South America.

Tayyip Erdogan,Iran & the nuclear weapons...[ 729 ]

Iran nuclear programme 'solely civilian' - Turkish PM

Mr Erdogan said Iran's leaders had assured him they were not seeking nuclear weapons BBC,,16:51 GMT, Tuesday, 16 March 2010The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has told the BBC that he believes Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons. Mr Erdogan said he was confident Iran's nuclear programme was for civilian purposes only and described President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "friend". "I told him I don't want to see nuclear weapons in the region," he added. Meanwhile, a top US general has said intelligence suggests Iran will not be able to build a nuclear bomb this year. Gen David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said Tehran's weapon development programme appeared to have suffered delays. "It has, thankfully, slid to the right a bit and it is not this calendar year, I don't think," he told a Senate committee hearing, according to the Reuters news agency. Experts believe that Iran could enrich enough uranium for a bomb within a few months. However, it has apparently not yet mastered the technology of making a nuclear warhead. 'Manipulating the facts' In an interview with the BBC's Nik Gowing, Mr Erdogan said he believed it was Iran's "most natural right" to develop a nuclear programme for civilian purposes. It was, he added, "unfair" of nuclear-armed countries to "manipulate the facts" about Turkey's neighbour while at the same time not telling Israel to dispose of its nuclear weapons. URANIUM ENRICHMENT Iran says it is increasing uranium enrichment from 3.5% needed for commercial nuclear reactors Iran says it has started enriching to 20%, needed for a research reactor near Tehran Weapons-grade uranium is at least 90% enriched Experts say achieving 20% is a key step towards weapons grade In depth: Nuclear fuel cycle Q&A: Iran nuclear issue "Countries with nuclear weapons are not in a position to turn to another country and say: 'You are not supposed to produce nuclear weapons,'" he said. "Iran has consistently spoken of the fact that it is seeking to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes and that they are using uranium enrichment programmes for civilian purposes only." "That is what Mr Ahmadinejad has told me many times before." Mr Erdogan said he had personally warned the Iranian president about the risks of nuclear conflict in the Middle East. "I told him I don't want to see nuclear weapons in the region, and Mr Ahmadinejad told me that they do not have an intention to produce nuclear weapons." In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that Iran's refusal to co-operate and answer questions about its nuclear programme raised concerns about the possible existence of "past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." It also confirmed that Iran had produced 20% enriched uranium. Tehran says it needs the more highly-enriched uranium for a research reactor producing medical isotopes, but Western powers fear it is heading towards enriching uranium to the 90% required for a weapon.