Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Plant ..[ 1920 ]

Iran Begins Loading Fuel into Core of Bushehr Nuclear Plant

Workers work in a part of the electricity generating plant of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, just outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran, 26 Oct 2010 (Photo AP)

VOA ., Edward Yeranian | Cairo 26 October 2010

Iranian media report workers have begun loading fuel into the core of the country's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. The process began in August, but was delayed due to a leak in a storage pool.

Top Iranian officials watched as fuel began being loaded into the Bushehr nuclear power plant Tuesday.

Repeated delays in completing the plant, followed by delays in putting it online have created embarrassment for the Iranian government.

The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency Ali Akbar Salehi spoke to Iranian TV says that today, Tuesday, marks the final stage in the start up process, as fuel is loaded into the reactor's core. He notes that the process is not finished, however, and that it could take two or three months to inject the full 163 fuel rods into the reactor.

Salehi also indicated that the plant probably won't be connected to Iran's national power grid until mid February. He claimed at the plant's inauguration in August that it would produce electricity by November.

Salehi's deputy, Mohammad Ahmadian, explained that a leak was partially to blame for the delay in completing the fuel injection process:

He says that the central pool of the reactor building was leaking and that the leakage needed to be localized and removed, prompting the delay.

Some press reports speculated that the plant's computers may also have become infected with the computer virus Stuxnet, creating havoc with its operating systems.

Russia, which built the plant, is providing it with nuclear fuel and will take back all spent fuel rods. Iran has also agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the process.

The U.S. and other Western states have given Russia the green light to launch Bushehr but oppose Iran's illicit enrichment of uranium at a plant in Natanz. Tehran insists Natanz is part of a civilian nuclear program, but the West fears it is part of a covert project to build nuclear weapons.

The European Union has invited Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program in Vienna, next month. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has welcomed the talks, but Tehran has not formally accepted the invitation.

Greg Thielmann of Arms Control Association comments on Iran's nuclear activities:

Iranian-born analyst Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington argues that the Bushehr plant is mostly a sideshow, involving Iranian prestige:

"Bushehr is not really considered as the most sensitive part of this standoff with the West," said Vatanka. "So, I don't really know why Bushehr, in this context of potential resumption of talks on the 15th of November, is in any way a critical issue. I look at it as the Iranians trying to say 'look, we have a success here.' Clearly, they can't point to the same degree of success or advancement on the enrichment of uranium. The centrifuges at Natanz are not working the way they should."

Iran recently announced that it has 30 kilograms of 20 percent grade highly enriched uranium, enough to produce atomic bombs, according to experts. Such Iranian claims continue to worry the West that Tehran is proceeding with a covert nuclear program.

NASA Image of the Day, Oct 26th..[ 1919 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Deep Inside the Milky Way

This artist's impression shows how the Arches star cluster appears from deep inside the hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. 

 

Hidden from our direct view, the massive cluster lies 25,000 light-years away and is the densest known gathering of young stars in our galaxy. 

 

The illustration is based on infrared observations from Hubble and with ground-based telescopes, which pierced our galaxy's dusty core and snapped images of the luminous cluster of about 2,000 stars. 

 

Image Credit: Artist's Concept/NASA/ESA/STScI

Τρίτη, 26 Οκτώβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Indonesian tsunami following an earthquake..[ 1918 ]

Indonesian tsunami kills 108, hundreds missing

By Sunanda Creagh and Telly Nathalia

(Reuters).,,| Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:15am EDT

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A tsunami that pounded remote islands in western Indonesia following an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra killed more than 100 people, officials said on Tuesday, and hundreds more were missing.

The 7.5 magnitude quake hit 78 km west of South Pagai, one of the Mentawai islands, late on Monday. Local legislator Hendri Dori Satoko told Metro TV the latest toll was 108 dead and 502 missing.

Most buildings in the coastal village of Betu Monga were destroyed, said Hardimansyah, an official with the regional branch of the Department of Fisheries.

"Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found. 160 are still missing, mostly women and children," he told Reuters by phone. "We have people reporting to the security post here that they could not hold on to their children, that they were swept away. A lot of people are crying."

Hardimansyah, who has only one name, said 80 percent of the houses in the area were damaged and food supplies were low.

A tourist boat carrying between eight and 10 Australians has been out of radio contact since the quake, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement.

The Macaronis surfing resort on North Pagai island was also hit. In an official press release, World Surfaris said Macaronis had "experienced a level of devastation that has rendered the resort inoperable."

SURF RESORT DEVASTATED

Reports via Facebook from a surfer at the resort suggested that all villas had been "wiped out" by the tsunami.

A report posted on the Surfaid website by one of the aid organization's staff members described a three-meter-high tsunami crashing through the resort and boats knocking together, then bursting into flames.

Guests and crew from one boat were washed into the jungle and took more than an hour to find their way back to the beach, the staff member, Tom Plummer, said.

"There was a lot of debris floating in the water, including bar stools and other pieces of furniture from Macaronis Resort," he said.

Satoko, head of the regional government in the affected area, told Metro TV that some of the missing may have taken refuge on higher ground.

Local police on the Mentawai islands were searching for missing people and setting up emergency posts, said Ronald, a police officer at Sikakap district police station.

"We are predicting that people will need food supplies and shelter. The rain is coming down very hard, the wind is very strong," he said.

British-Spending Cuts Could Work in U.S.A. ? ..[ 1917 ]

British-Style Spending Cuts Would Shock U.S. Budget -- But Could It Work?

Published October 24, 2010

| FoxNews.com

Shown here are British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, and President Obama. (AP Photos)

The British government this past week announced the steepest set of spending cuts in decades, vowing to slash department budgets by close to 20 percent and eliminate a half-million public sector jobs -- all in the name of closing the country's stubborn deficit. 

The sweeping proposal has given way to bickering in London, but it already has observers on this side of the pond wondering, what if? 

Britain's austerity program would surely shock U.S. senses, at a time when the Obama administration has taken a slow-and-steady approach to closing the deficit. To replicate in the United States what Prime Minister David Cameron's government is doing in Britain, an economy one-fifth the size of America's, Washington would have to propose a set of cuts well above anything proposed so far on Capitol Hill. But the exercise shows just how drastic an effort may be needed to keep the United States from going broke. 

"The Obama administration is showing no appetite whatsoever to do what the British are doing," said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation. But, he said, the U.S. has to "at the very least do what the British are doing" to avoid a fiscal calamity. 

Gardiner said congressional Republicans will be paying close attention as they craft their agenda should they end up with a majority in either chamber come Nov. 3. "I do think what Cameron is doing is going to be seen as inspirational by many conservatives on Capitol Hill," Gardiner said. 

Cameron is calling for $130 billion in cuts from his country's budget by 2015. If Washington were to cut a similar percentage from its federal budget, it would need to carve out more than $450 billion. Gardiner estimated that, based on the size of the United States' economy, Washington would need to find more like $650 billion to excise by 2015. 

Though some agencies have been spared, the average hit each department would take under Cameron's plan amounts to about 19 percent. 

Applied in the United States, that would mean a $4.9 billion hit to the Department of Agriculture; a $5.6 billion hit to the Department of Justice; a $5.4 billion hit to the Department of Energy; and a whopping $11.5 billion hit to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Britain's military got away with just an 8 percent reduction -- but for the U.S. Department of the Defense, that would translate to more than $56 billion from its proposed 2011 budget. 

To put the potential backlash to such a move in context, look at how Defense Secretary Robert Gates' latest spending cut proposal was received. Gates in August called for Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va. -- a $240 million-a-year operation -- to be eliminated and was met with bipartisan backlash from regional lawmakers. Gates nevertheless says he wants to find $100 billion in savings over five years. 

Obama has said he wants to halve the federal budget deficit by the end of his first term, a move that would likely mean hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from somewhere. But he's still awaiting a report from his debt and deficit commission on how best to accomplish those goals. One of Obama's first fiscal exercises as president was to call for $100 million in cuts from his Cabinet secretaries. 

The prebuttal has already begun, lest Washington consider going the route of the British government. 

The New York Times called the proposal an "austerity overdose" in its Saturday editorial. Liberal economist Paul Krugman wrote that such measures would further "depress" the economy by slashing the federal workforce when there's not enough room in the private sector to absorb those employees. He equated the cutback to a 3-million-person mass layoff in the United States. 

While the federal workforce in the United States is actually less than 3 million, even an 8 percent cutback -- the size of Britain's personnel squeeze -- would amount to about 200,000 fewer U.S. federal workers, among the best-paid employees in the country. 

Britain also wants to cap long-term jobless benefits at 12 months; in the United States, that would cut the current extension of 99 weeks in half. 

But if the United States wanted to tackle its debt and deficit with the same kind of vigor as Britain, it might end up dealing with even steeper cuts. The latest Treasury Department report showed the U.S. deficit was nearly $1.3 trillion in 2010. And while Britain's national debt is a paltry trillion, the United States owes $13.6 trillion. 

As some economists warn that Britain's approach could backfire during an uncertain time for economic growth, one British official suggested the upcoming election in the U.S. could take the pulse of whether America is ready to try something similar. 

"We have made our choice," Mark Hoban, financial secretary to the Treasury in Britain, told The Washington Post. "I have to leave it to the Americans to decide in the midterm elections whether (the Obama administration's) policy is right."

Alaska : the perfect summer escape..[ 1916 ]

Alaska's awesome nature offers the perfect summer escape

(Mainichi Japan) October 24, 2010

 

A glacier gives off a thundering roar as ice tumbles into Prince William Sound. (Mainichi)
Arriving in Alaska after escaping the unbearable summer heat of Tokyo, I was greeted by a massive glacier glittering bluish white under the sun, grizzly bears walking languidly about, and the reality of wild animals surviving the harsh conditions of nature untouched by humans.
A huge wall of ice crumbled into the water with a deafening rumble as I watched in silence from a ship in Prince William Sounds, located in south-central Alaska.

A sea otter floating on its back looks as though it is waving for the camera. (Mainichi)It is said that there are around 100,000 glaciers in Alaska, and Prince William Sound is said to have the highest concentration of them. A popular one-day cruise that brings tourists close to the massive hunks of ice started off from Whittier, a city located approximately 100 kilometers southeast of Anchorage.
I encountered quite a number of wild animals while on the ship, including sea otters floating on their backs that looked as though they were waving at us.

Dall sheep live on steep terrain. (Mainichi)

"To protect themselves from the cold, sea otters have about 100,000 hairs per 1 square centimeter of their skin," explained our tour guide. "It looks like they're waving their hands because they're keeping their hairless palms out of the water."
In addition to sea otters -- of which around 10,000 apparently inhabit the area -- we saw seals sprawled out on chunks of ice, and dolphins swimming nearby.

The Alaska Railroad, which runs through the tundra. (Mainichi)

The tour boat provided a service where they scooped pieces of ice from the water and let the passengers touch them. The ice was hard and rugged because of the air bubbles trapped inside. It felt so luxurious to drink whiskey that night on the "rocks" that I'd picked up on my tour. I marveled over the history of the earth sealed into that ice.
The following day, I headed out for a trek on Matanuska Glacier, located 170 kilometers northeast of Anchorage. At 43 kilometers by 3.2 kilometers, it's one of the biggest glaciers that one can approach by car. The temperature was probably not quite 10 degrees Celsius, so it wasn't as cold as I'd predicted. With crampons on my shoes, I carefully walk around crevasses I saw here and there. The thought that I was actually walking atop the massive ice I had seen the previous day was awe-inspiring.
Next, I headed to Talkeetna, approximately 180 kilometers north of Anchorage, to ride the Alaska Railroad. Known as the base camp for climbers scaling Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, Talkeetna is the place Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura was using as his base when he reached McKinley's summit solo in the winter of 1984 and went missing soon afterwards. I made a stop at Latitude 62, the lodge where Uemura had been a regular guest.

Two grizzly bears saunter down a path at Denali National Park and Preserve. (Mainichi)

In the summer, the Alaska Railroad transports passengers between Anchorage and Fairbanks -- a distance of 382 kilometers -- in about nine hours. The trains, filled with tourists from around the world and outfitted with large windows to allow for maximum panoramic viewing, run through endless tundra filled with conifers like Jezo spruce. Visitors are allowed on the second-floor observation deck for free if only for a short while. Squeals of delight escaped the mouths of a young Dutch couple who snapped away on their cameras.
I got off at Denali National Park and Preserve. Denali -- the name given to Mount McKinley by native tribes meaning "the white high one" -- is one of the most popular national parks in Alaska, and is home to 37 species of mammals, 160 bird species, and 450 plant species.
To protect the local wildlife, park visitors tour the park by shuttle bus, which run between late May and mid-September. There are rules that visitors must follow -- such as the ban of food outside the bus -- that allow the animals to live in a natural a state as possible.

A "salmon bake" with grilled salmon. (Mainichi)

I was able to get a shot of two grizzly bears walking near the bus. We also saw white dall sheep high on the top of cliffs, moose, and caribou. On the bus, our driver-guide showed us a video of wolves that he had taken.
About halfway through the shuttle bus tour, the clouds broke to reveal a majestic Mount McKinley. Once again, I was overcome by the beauty of the landscape.
One cannot talk about Alaska without talking about its seafood. Five types of salmon in Alaska -- which are wild, not farmed -- are eaten grilled, as sushi, and a variety of other dishes. "Salmon bake," refers to a barbecue-type meal in which salmon, meat, potatoes and other ingredients are cooked on a large grill with butter and sauce. Outdoor restaurants offering salmon bakes often pop up in Anchorage, Denali, Fairbanks, among other cities during the summer months.
I enjoyed a meal of juicy salmon, potatoes, and salad at "Salmon Bake," a restaurant close to Denali National Park, for about $25. The mild-flavored local brew, Alaska Amber, was the perfect accompaniment.

Alaskan Amber, a local beer. (Mainichi)

Anchorage is 5,568 kilometers from Japan, making it the closest American state to our island nation. There are no regular direct flights, however, forcing Japanese visitors to switch flights on the west coast, which makes the trip around 13 to 17 hours one way. If one takes one of the regular charter flights flown by Japan Airlines in summer and winter, the trip is around six to seven hours.
Native tribes make up 16 percent of the Alaskan population. Various living quarters and other artifacts of native tribes are on display at the Alaska Native Heritage Center Museum in Anchorage, where local high school students also put on traditional dance performances.
If weather permits, visitors may also choose to view the Northern Lights or go fishing in Alaska's rivers or the Pacific. (By Junko Adachi, Science and Environment News Department)