A Black Day of the 9/11 anniversary..[ 1774 ]

US to mark 9/11 anniversary amid Koran-burning row

 

Bells will toll in New York at the time the Twin Towers were struck

BBC., 11 September 2010 Last updated at 07:54 GMT

The US is preparing to mark nine years since 9/11 amid controversy over plans for an Islamic centre nearby and a threat to burn the Koran.

President Barack Obama urged respect for other religious faiths after the threat, now on hold, sparked protests across the Muslim world.

The Florida pastor behind the threat has arrived in New York.

This year's anniversary is likely to be the most contentious and fraught yet, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan.

Once the city's official commemorations are over, rallies will begin both for and against the proposed Islamic community centre and mosque near Ground Zero.

Both sides want to use the emotion of the day to highlight their causes, our correspondent says.

Some relatives of the 9/11 victims says it is disrespectful to have a reminder of Islam by the place where so many died but other families support the project as an expression of America's commitment to freedom of religion.

And there are still more relatives who believe this emotional day is not the one to be making a political point, our correspondent adds.

About 3,000 people died in the attacks in 2001, in which four airliners were hijacked. Two were crashed into the towers of New York's World Trade Center (WTC) and one into the Pentagon, while the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after passengers apparently fought back.

US Vice-President Joe Biden is to attend the official ceremony in New York at which the names of all the people who died at the WTC will be read out.

Houses of worship across the city have been asked to toll their bells at 0846 (1346 GMT), the moment the first hijacked plane struck the North Tower

President Obama will attend the ceremony at the Pentagon and his wife Michelle will attend the event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, along with former first lady Laura Bush.

Pressure on pastor

 

Police escorted Mr Jones after his arrival in New York's Laguardia airport

The controversial pastor, Terry Jones, said he hoped to meet a leading imam to discuss the proposal for the Islamic centre, to be located a short distance from Ground Zero, the WTC site.

He said he had suspended the book-burning only because he had received a guarantee, from an imam in Florida, that the centre would be moved.

But the planners of the Islamic centre have said they did not speak to the Florida imam, and would not be moving their project.

Koran-burning row timeline

• July Terry Jones announces his church in Gainesville, Florida, will stage International Burn a Koran Day. National Association of Evangelicals asks the church to call off the event
• 18 August Gainesville Fire Rescue denies Mr Jones a fire permit, saying the church will be fined if it goes ahead.
• 6 September Top US commander in Afghanistan Gen David Petraeus warns that burning could put troops' lives will be in danger
• 8 September Vatican condemns bonfire plans as "outrageous"
• 9 September US President Barack Obama joins international condemnation. Mr Jones then says he has cancelled the burning, before saying it is only suspended.
• 10 September Protests break out in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and President Barack Obama calls for religious tolerance in the US

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed centre, said on Friday that he was "prepared to consider meeting with anyone who is seriously committed to pursuing peace" but added that he had no current plans to meet Mr Jones.

Mr Jones is the pastor of the tiny and previously little-known Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, and author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil.

He had planned to stage an International Burn a Koran Day on Saturday, saying the book was "evil".

But pressure was put on the pastor to cancel the burning. The FBI visited Mr Jones to urge him to reconsider his plans and he was telephoned by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

In his remarks on Friday, Mr Obama denied that his administration's intervention in the affair had elevated it to greater prominence.

He appealed to Americans to respect the "inalienable" right of religious freedom and said he hoped the preacher would abandon his plan to burn the Koran, as it could add to the dangers facing US soldiers serving abroad.

"This is a way of endangering our troops, our sons and daughters... you don't play games with that," he told reporters.

NASA Image of the Day, Sep 10th.(2) ..[ 1773 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Ushering in the Future

Dr. Werhner von Braun, Marshall Space Flight Center's first director, points out a detail regarding the first stage of the Saturn rocket to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

 

President Eisenhower was at Marshall to participate in the Center's dedication ceremony, Sept. 8, 1960. 

 

Image Credit: NASA

Παρασκευή, 10 Σεπτέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Μourning for Russian car bomb victims..[ 1772 ]

Day of mourning for Russian car bomb victims

In this image made from television, the wreckage of a car destroyed in a suicide car attack is seen in a square outside a market in Vladikavkaz, North Caucasus, Russia, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. A suicide car bomber hit the central market of Vladikavkaz on Thursday, killing more than a dozen and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst terror attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said. (AP Photo/AP Television News)

By Sergey Ponomarev Associated Press Writer / September 10, 2010

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia—September 10, 2010 
Flags flew at half-staff in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz on Friday and stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140.

Thursday's bombing near the central market of the capital of the North Ossetia republic was the most serious attack in Russia since the March subway bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people.

Of those wounded, 107 were in local hospitals and 11 severely injured victims had been flown to Moscow, North Ossetian Health Minister Vladimir Selivanov said Friday, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass.

The Vladikavkaz market was cordoned off Friday, with investigators combing the site for clues about the bombing. The blast was so powerful that glass in nearby buildings shattered. The area was cleaned of blood and shreds of clothing but twisted wrecks of several cars littered the streets, grim reminders of the attack.

A few blocks away, weeping relatives and neighbors mourned two bombing victims: 54-year-old Yaselin Mamedova and 9-year-old Elnus Ashimov. Their bodies were being prepared for burial later in the day in line with Muslim practice.

There has been no public claim of responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on Islamic militants who launch frequent small attacks in neighboring North Caucasus republics, including Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Russia's ethnically diverse North Caucasus region has been gripped by violence stemming from two separatist wars in Chechnya and fueled by endemic poverty and rampant official corruption. Human rights groups say law enforcement officers frequently resort to extrajudicial killings, kidnappings and torture, breeding hostility and provoking retaliatory attacks.

Unlike the provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, where Muslims make up most of the population, North Ossetia is predominantly Orthodox Christian but has a sizeable Mulsim minority.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Russia's top Muslim cleric after the blast and said Russia's 20 million Muslims should play a key role in eradicating Islamic extremism in the nation.

"
The crimes like the one that was committed in the North Caucasus today are aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens. We mustn't allow this," Putin said at the Thursday meeting.

In Dagestan, another republic in Russia's violence-plagued North Caucasus region, officials said Friday that a policeman and a prison warden were shot to death in separate attacks.

Flying high for 50 years..[ 1771 ]

Flying high for 50 years: The intense world of the Blue Impulse pilot

Jets fly in Delta formation (Photograph taken by Captain Akihiro Harada)

 

 

(Mainichi Japan) September 10, 2010

"Fan break, now!" Over the radio comes the order from plane 1, in the lead. Flying in a diamond-formation, four jet planes close even further the already small distance between them and then all tilt heavily to the right. I'm in plane 4, riding together with the pilot, and our position is below and behind plane 1. Above my head, the planes on either side of us approach so closely that it seems like if I were able to reach out I could touch them.

I'm riding with the 11th squadron of the 4th air group, better known as "Blue Impulse," at the Air Self-Defense Force's (ASDF) Matsushima Air Base in Miyagi Prefecture.

The "Sunrise" stunt, where the jets spread out like the rays of the rising sun. (Mainichi)

At ASDF air shows, Blue Impulse exhibits 27 varieties of stunts over a period of 35 minutes, dependent on weather conditions. Six planes perform the stunts, forming and re-forming into different formations. What I was able to glimpse from the cockpit this day was the harsh world that supports the spectacular shows of Blue Impulse.

We begin a stunt, called "Cupid," where three planes will cooperate to draw a giant pierced heart in the sky. Plane 4's role is to create the "arrow" that pierces the heart, which would bring a rousing cheer from the crowd on the ground below.

The "Fan Break" stunt, where the jets form in a formation so tight it looks like you could reach out and touch the one next to you. (Mainichi)

In the plane, preparing for the stunt, the pilot brings us into a turn so sharp that we experience 6 G, or 6 times the normal force of gravity. Keeping an eye on how planes 5 and 6 are drawing their tail smoke lines, the pilot guides the plane to its position. Just raising my head to check on where we're flying is a struggle. In order to keep my blood from all concentrating in my lower body, I've been squeezed into a suit designed for withstanding G-forces, but it nonetheless feels like consciously tensing my lower abdomen is all that is keeping my vision from going dark.

The sense of relief after finishing our turn is only momentary: the jet rocks violently as we cross through tail smoke. What we are feeling is turbulence from one of the jets drawing the giant heart. Even amidst these harsh conditions, the pilot, 32-year-old Captain Yuichiro Hanai, calmly makes fine adjustments to the emitting tail smoke and brings the jet through and out the other side of the heart.

A smoke arrow pierces a giant smoke heart drawn against the blue sky. (Mainichi)

After the performance is over and I am back on solid ground, I take off the oxygen mask that I had been wearing and find the inside covered with sweat. When I later measure myself on a scale, I find I have dropped a kilogram in weight.

According to the JASDF, the beginning of Blue Impulse was a March 4, 1960, performance at Hamamatsukita Air Base (now Hamamatsu Air Base) in Shizuoka Prefecture. Its name at the time was "Tenryu" (heavenly dragons). Using the then-popular F86F fighter jet, the group gave 545 public flight performances. From January 1982, Blue Impulse began using the T2, the first domestically-produced faster-than-sound high-performance training jet. Although performances were put on hold for a period following an accident, Blue Impulse still gave 175 public performances until Dec. 1995, when they became the "11th squadron" and began using the entirely domestically-produced mid-range practice jet T4.

Pilots, front, and mechanics, back right, practice before a show as Blue Impulse heads into its 50th year. (Mainichi)

The only squadron in the JASDF to have been especially assigned to the purpose of holding air shows, Blue Impulse currently gives around 25 shows a year to a total of around 2 million spectators. An air show on Dec. 19 of this year at Nyutabaru Air Base in Miyazaki Prefecture, is set to become Blue Impulse's 1,000th public performance.

This business year, in addition to air shows at bases, Blue Impulse members will perform in areas that they have rarely visited during their 50-year history. They are scheduled to perform on Sept. 10 and 11 in Akita City at the "Shirase Nankyoku Festa," which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Nobu Shirase's expedition to the South Pole, the first time a Japanese person ever set foot there. Additionally, on Sept. 25, Blue Impulse is scheduled to perform at the opening ceremony of the National Athletic Meet in Chiba. 

(By Koichiro Iwashita, Photo Department)

Click here for the original Japanese story

NASA Image of the Day, Sep 10th...[ 1770 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

On the Move

As if surrounded by a celestial halo, space shuttle Discovery made its way towards the expansive confines of NASA Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building following a move from its processing hangar on Sept. 9, 2010. 

A metal sling will be carefully connected to the spacecraft and then operators will hoist it from transfer aisle to the high reaches of the 52-story building before lowering it into place beside the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters. 

Crews then will connect the spacecraft giving the stack its familiar launch day form. Discovery is targeted to liftoff on the 11-day STS-133 mission on Nov. 1 at 4:40 p.m. EDT. 

Image Credit: Jen Scheer

Πέμπτη, 9 Σεπτέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ