Mars mission boost welcomed by scientists
Leicester UK (SPX) Dec 29, 2014 -
University of Leicester scientists, who are closely involved in the European mission to Mars -ExoMars- have welcomed support from the Government for the project.
Following the Chancellor's Autumn statement, the UK will play a lead role in Europe's ExoMars mission to the Red Planet. The ExoMars mission is one of the key missions under the remit of the UK Space Agency.
The Government's ...
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Innovative use of Pressurant Extends Messenger's Mission
Laurel MD (SPX) Dec 29, 2014 -
The MESSENGER spacecraft will soon run literally on fumes. After more than 10 years traveling in space, nearly four of those orbiting Mercury, the spacecraft has expended most of its propellant and was on course to impact the planet's surface at the end of March 2015. But engineers on the team have devised a way to use the pressurization gas in the spacecraft's propulsion system to propel MESSEN ...
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Syria vows government jobs for relatives of 'martyrs'
Damascus (AFP) Dec 31, 2014 -
Syria will award 50 percent of vacant government posts to relatives of soldiers and government employees killed or paralysed in the country's conflict, according to a law issued on Wednesday.
The law, decreed by President Bashar al-Assad after passing parliament earlier in the week, comes as the death toll among Syrian government troops grows.
More than 44,200 Syrian soldiers have been k ...
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Top official in China's restive Xinjiang transferred
Beijing (AFP) Dec 31, 2014 -
The second most senior official in China's strife-torn Xinjiang region has been transferred, reports said Wednesday, after the area saw some of its worst violence in decades.
Nur Bekri will be replaced as the area's vice Communist Party secretary by Shohrat Zakir, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Both men are Uighurs, the nine-million-strong Turkic-speaking and mostly Muslim eth ...
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Lithuania detains military officer suspected of spying
Vilnius (AFP) Dec 31, 2014 -
Lithuania said Wednesday it detained a military officer for alleged espionage, possibly for Russia, in the latest Cold War-style incident amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the West.
The air force officer, whose name was not released, is suspected "of spying for a foreign country by providing it with information, including classified data", the prosecutor's office said in a statemen ...
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US senator: enough Iran sanctions support to override veto
Washington (AFP) Dec 31, 2014 -
There is sufficient support for expanded sanctions on Iran in the new Republican-controlled US Congress to override veto threats by President Barack Obama, a senator told radio broadcaster NPR Wednesday.
The Obama administration and other global powers are in the midst of prolonged negotiations with Tehran to end a decade-long standoff over its nuclear activities, which the West sees as effo ...
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US releases five Guantanamo inmates to Kazakhstan
Washington (AFP) Dec 31, 2014 -
The United States has sent five detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay to Kazakhstan, marking a renewed push by President Barack Obama to close the controversial jail.
Two Tunisian and three Yemeni inmates who had spent more than 11 years behind bars without ever being charged in a court arrived in Kazakhstan at 0415 GMT on Wednesday aboard a US military aircraft, the Pentagon said.
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