Correction: Obit-Ken Russell story (AP)

LONDON ? In a Nov. 28 obituary on filmmaker Ken Russell, The Associated Press, relying on information from his son Alex Verney-Elliott, erroneously reported that he had died in a hospital. His son now confirms that he was mistaken and that Russell died at his home in southern England.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_en_mo/eu_obit_ken_russell_corrective_corrective

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Santo elected to Hall of Fame by veterans panel

FILE - In this 1971 file photo, Chicago Cubs infielder Ron Santo is shown in Scottsdale, Ariz. Santo has been elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. The Hall announced the voting results Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, at the winter meetings in Dallas. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston, File)

FILE - In this 1971 file photo, Chicago Cubs infielder Ron Santo is shown in Scottsdale, Ariz. Santo has been elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. The Hall announced the voting results Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, at the winter meetings in Dallas. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston, File)

FILE - This June 24, 1969, file photo, shows Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo (10) clicking his heels on the way to the locker room after his ninth-inning sacrifice fly allowed the winning run to score for a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, in Chicago. Santo has been elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. The Hall announced the voting results Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, at the winter meetings in Dallas. (AP Photo/File)

The Wrigley Field marquee displays the announcement that Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, in Chicago. Santo joins former Cubs teammates Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Ferguson Jenkins. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Cubs hat with the Ron Santo's #10 and the letters HOF, sits on the statue of Santo outside Wrigley Field after it was announced that the former third baseman was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 in Chicago. Santo joins former Cubs teammates Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Ferguson Jenkins. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

FILE - This July 3, 1974 file photo shows Chicago White Sox' Ron Santo kneeling before a game in Chicago. Santo has been elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. The Hall announced the voting results Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, at the winter meetings in Dallas. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell, File)

(AP) ? Ron Santo always kept rooting for the causes dearest to him ? for his Chicago Cubs to win the World Series, for doctors to find a cure for diabetes and for him to reach the Hall of Fame.

On Monday, Cooperstown finally came calling.

The barrel-chested third baseman who clicked his heels in victory was elected to the Hall, overwhelmingly chosen by the Veterans Committee nearly a year to the day after he died hoping for this very honor.

"It's really exciting because so many years that we had parties over to his house in spring training saying this is the year, I'd tell him this is the year you're going in," said Hall of Fame teammate Billy Williams, a member of the voting panel.

"The one thing, of course, is he's not here to enjoy it, but his family will. He long awaited this, and we're all happy. I know I'm happy, his family is happy, the fans of Chicago are happy," he said.

Santo was a nine-time All-Star, hit 342 home runs and won five Gold Gloves. He was a Cubs broadcaster for two decades, beloved by the home crowd for the way he eagerly cheered for his favorite team on the air, hollering "Yes! Yes!" or "All right!" after good plays and groaning "Oh, no!" or "It's bad" when things went wrong.

Shortly after the announcement, Santo's flag ? white with blue pinstripes, plus his name and No. 10 ? was flying from the center pole atop the scoreboard at Wrigley Field.

"There was always kind of a missing piece of the puzzle of Cubs' history," team owner Tom Ricketts said.

Santo breezed in with 15 votes from the 16-member panel that met at baseball's winter meetings. It took 75 percent ? 12 votes ? to get chosen.

"I've got tears in my eyes writing this: congrats to the Santo family on Ron's election to MLB Hall of Fame. A good day to be a Cub fan," tweeted Chicago-area rocker Billy Corgan, frontman for the Smashing Pumpkins.

Santo died Dec. 3, 2010, from complications of bladder cancer at age 70. He had diabetes, which eventually cost him both legs below the knees, and worked tirelessly to raise millions for research into the disease.

Williams was on the line when Santo's widow, Vicki, got the congratulatory phone call.

"Ron has passed, but it was always his dream, to even have this come to him after his passing. It just shows you can't give up," she said during a conference call from Arizona.

"All he said (was) I hope I get in in my lifetime, that's certainly a reasonable request for anybody who gets an honor as special as this one. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be," she said. "With his lifetime every disappointment that came along, he was very disappointed."

Said daughter Linda Brown: "I know, even if my dad were here today, he would never reflect on any of the wrongdoings, so to speak. ... There would be no bitterness, it would just be him being happy, and I believe he is."

Santo joined former Cubs teammates Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins and Williams in the Hall. That famed quartet did most everything at the Friendly Confines through the 1960s and early 1970s except bring a World Series to the ivy-covered ballpark.

"With Ernie, myself and Fergie, those players he played with ... to hear this kind of news today that he's inducted in the baseball Hall of Fame is really gratifying because so many times that we talked about it, it's a place he wanted to be," Williams said.

Santo will be inducted into Cooperstown on July 22, along with any players elected by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Jan. 9. Bernie Williams joins Jack Morris, Barry Larkin and others on that ballot.

"This is a great day for baseball and for Cubs fans everywhere," Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. "Ron was a staple of the Cubs' experience every single day for decades."

"I always admired Ron's courage and loyalty, and I miss him very much," he said.

Jim Kaat was second with 10 votes, Gil Hodges and Minnie Minoso each drew nine and Tony Oliva got eight on the 10-person Golden Era ballot. Buzzie Bavasi, Ken Boyer, Charlie Finley, Allie Reynolds and Luis Tiant each received under three votes.

Santo never came close to election during his 15 times on the BBWAA ballot, peaking at 43 percent ? far short of the needed 75 percent in his last year of eligibility in 1998.

Santo had gotten closer in previous elections by the Veterans Committee. The panel has been revamped several times in the last decade, aimed at giving a better look at deserving candidates.

Since his final swing in 1974, Santo's numbers on the field never changed. The perception of what he meant to the game did, though.

"From the discussion yesterday, we kind of got in depth," Williams said. "We really, really talked about each individual and some things were brought out, I imagine that wasn't brought out last time, in so far as what he'd done for the game of baseball, the $60 million he raised for (juvenile diabetes research), all the other stuff we knew."

"This was the case of Ron Santo. We talked about it, we had good discussions on it and it happened," he said.

Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson was also part of the panel that voted on Santo.

"I kept thinking that he would get in then, then, then and finally he got in, but it's a little too late for him to be there," he said.

"He's just a terrific guy, he's baseball through and through, he's done a lot for the game of baseball in his career, and he's been though a lot of hardships physically and he was just a terrific player," he said. "He certainly belongs in the Hall of Fame. A long time coming. No one knows the reason he didn't get in when the writers were voting, but this process we have has been the fairest, I think."

Santo is the 15th third baseman in the Hall, including three from the Negro Leagues. He was a career .277 hitter and hit at least 30 homers every season from 1964-67.

"I think the happy ending was already there, though. He got his statue and this was a little icing on the cake," son Jeff Santo said. "It definitely puts an end to the chapter there, that's for sure, with the Hall of Fame."

Santo made his debut at 20 with the Cubs in 1960 and played his whole career with them until finishing with the crosstown White Sox in 1974.

Like Banks, Santo never got to play in a World Series. They came close in 1969, overtaken in the stretch by a New York Mets team managed by Hodges, the former Brooklyn star first baseman.

That year, Santo liked to jump and click his heels after wins. It was also the season a fateful picture was taken, showing Santo with on a bat on his shoulder in the on-deck circle at Shea Stadium as a black cat scampered past.

"The '69 team was so very, very close, and the joy that they had not only as players, but to the day he passed, and they're still so very close," Vicki Santo said.

___

AP Sports Writers Rick Gano and Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-12-05-BBO-Hall-of-Fame/id-cd1f0a7f6ea34452b569032d29a3b019

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Twitter is Big for Business | Social Media Today

(Or why businesses need to harness the power of Twitter because their competitors are already doing it)?

Twitter is big business.

I don?t mean that Twitter is doing well and that the company is making money ? it is. What I mean is that Twitter is big for businesses. Businesses have clocked on to Twitter in a big way. A lot of them still don?t really know how it works, but they?re doing it anyway.

Why is this happening? Could it just be a passing fad that will seem ridiculous in a few years? time? Definitely not ? quite the opposite in fact. In a few years, those companies that aren?t using Twitter will seem like dinosaurs. I think it will make companies? current attempts to use Facebook to attract business look old fashioned.

The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, anyone can follow a company (or an individual) on Twitter without having to ?Like? them, which is how Facebook works. Secondly, and this is the magic ingredient of Twitter, anyone can send a direct message to anyone they follow on Twitter, and the recipient will receive it. No personal assistants will intervene to screen the incoming message (unless, perhaps, it?s Barack Obama). The individual you send the message to will read it. They may not always respond, but they?ll read it. (Getting people to respond is an art in itself and I?ll cover that skill in a subsequent article). For now I just want to stress the fact that Twitter is personal ? you contact someone, they receive the message. They want to receive the message because they?re opted in to do so.

Twitter is like e-mail but 100 times better. People don?t give their e-mails out to just anyone. But if someone decides to join Twitter, they are saying to the world, ?I?m here, contact me!?

What all this means for business is an open, global forum for discussion, idea-sharing, pitching, questioning, brainstorming and, if you?re subtle about it, selling. After all, we are in business to make money. No-one is going to devote time and energy to something that doesn?t bring in some kind of return. This is where things get a bit ?unscientific?. If there was a sure-fire way to measure ROI from using Twitter, everyone would be using it. Whoever comes up with such a method is sure to make billions. Not millions, but billions ? the stakes are that high. In the meantime, though, we have to satisfy ourselves with something a bit less concrete. There are no Excel spreadsheets here for the accountants to look at and say, ?OK, Twitter brought in X amount of business, let?s take on some more social media experts.? It just doesn?t work like that.

So how does it work? To be perfectly honest, I don?t think anyone really knows, but it works. There is a new phenomenon happening right in front of our very eyes. It?s not the birth of social media, it?s not Web 2.0 (remember that?) ? it?s something else. It?s a zeitgeist kind of thing. Everyone is doing it. OK, not everyone, but just about everyone that matters to YOU and your business is doing it. And if they?re not, they soon will be. And because everyone that matters is doing it, if you?re not doing it you?re being left behind. It?s as simple as that.

A new way of doing business is evolving, right here, right now. And it?s only going to accelerate. The ins and outs of Twitter: how to follow people, how to get followed, how to make contact with people ? these are all technicalities that anyone can learn in a few minutes (that?s another wonderful thing about Twitter ? it?s just so EASY). It?s the wider phenomenon that is important and that we need to understand. Businesses, business associations, business magazines, analysts, financial experts, CEOs (are they people?) are now using Twitter to communicate, share ideas and, basically, ?do business?.

How do we measure the outcome? It?s a pointless question. You may as well ask how we measure the impact of having a conversation at a business conference. Will we get a deal as a result? Maybe, maybe not, but we?re networking. And that?s all Twitter is ? it?s a new way to network where the entire world is at your disposal and is waiting to hear what you have to say.

The fact of the matter is that the potential, and influence, of Twitter is only just beginning to be realized. I believe we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

As Chris Bucholtz, editor-in-chief of the CRM Outsiders blog says: ?If your business has any kind of content it wishes to share with the world, Twitter?s virtually a necessity for getting it out there.?

And if you still aren?t convinced that Twitter can help your business, think about some of these facts:

  • 88 of the Fortune Top 100 companies now use Twitter daily.
  • 66 percent of questions asked on twitter have some commercial intent.
  • 80 percent of customer service tweets are negative or critical. It?s therefore essential to be able to respond to any criticism immediately.
  • 85 percent of companies are now using twitter as part of their recruitment process.
  • Twitter is now being used to predict the movement of stock markets

And some success stories:

  • When Cisco launched a new router, it decided to use only social media to market it. This allowed the company to effectively measure the results. ?The campaign was one of the top five most successful campaigns in the company?s history, and it saved the company a six figure sum.
  • Comcast started a ?Comcast Cares? Twitter customer service center and attracted 2,700 followers. Many were initially critics of the company but were converted to ardent fans.
  • Dell used Twitter to create ?Dell Outlet?, which generated US$3 million revenue in one year from Twitter postings.
  • JetBlue set up a Twitter account to have more direct relationships with customers and potential customers, to listen to their complaints, and to understand how to serve them better. They now have over 1.5 million followers.
  • Oracle added social networks to its existing communication channels and trained 25,000 partners while reducing costs, boosting satisfaction and increasing PR.
  • TeamTurboTax launched a Twitter campaign to answer questions during the key tax season and found its customers were 71% more likely to recommend TurboTax because of their interactions with the company through Twitter.

A final comment from Heather Whaling at Geben Communication: ?My company can trace ~75% of its business back to relationships that initially began on social media, and the *vast* majority of those relationships began on Twitter. That's a pretty compelling business case for me. And, it also helps me understand how to help clients generate business-related outcomes from their social media use. As I always say, time spent online has to be time well spent.?

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/damian-corbet/398265/twitter-big-business

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Yoani Sanchez: Cuba's Forum on Alternative Media and Social Networks Ignores Alternative Voices (Huffington post)

UN rights chief urges ICC referral of Syria crimes (AP)

GENEVA ? Syrian authorities cracking down on opposition protesters have killed at least 307 children, the United Nation's human rights chief said Friday, urging world powers to refer these and other allegations of Syrian "crimes against humanity" to the International Criminal Court.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said fresh reports from Syria ? including the updated death toll for children from less than a week ago ? reinforced the need for the Security Council to submit the situation in the country to the Hague-based court.

"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Syria's President Bashar Assad ? trying to defeat an 8-month-old revolt challenging his autocratic rule ? faces widespread international condemnation at the growing death toll.

A draft resolution backed by African, European, Asian, Arab and American members of the 47-nation rights council calls for the establishment of a special investigator on Syria, but leaves open the issue of whether the Security Council, the U.N.'s most powerful arm, should refer the country to the ICC.

The council's session Friday comes amid mounting international pressure on Syria. The U.N. says the nation is on the verge of civil war, and the Arab League, European Union, Turkey and the United States have all approved measures to sanction the Syrian economy, which relies on oil and tourism.

Russia and China have held back support for the resolution. The two permanent members of the Security Council have condemned the bloodshed, but are staunchly resisting further international pressure on Syria.

Russia's ambassador Valery Loshchinin, whose nation has sold arms to Syria, claimed Friday that opposition groups are getting weapons from outside forces.

Loshchinin did not provide further details, but another council diplomat told The Associated Press it is commonly known the arms are coming through Turkey. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Now, we hear, unfortunately, that the conflict in Syria continues to be fueled by outside forces who are interested in further destabilizing the situation," Loshchinin told the council.

"Armed terrorist and extremist groups are being armed and organized, supplied with weapons and money from abroad," he said. "The situation in Syria must be resolved in strict observance of international law and the provisions of the United Nations Charter."

Turkey's ambassador Oguz Demiralp said the nation has become a "major threat to peace and stability" and Assad should step down. "We want to see the bloody quagmire in Syria come to an end," he told the council.

British ambassador Peter Gooderham ? whose nation is one of the Security Council's five permanent members with veto power ? told the AP that the sanctions imposed on Syria by the Arab League and its lead in calling for the special session were crucial for putting pressure on the Assad regime.

"We know that the situation on the ground is deteriorating," French ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei told the AP. "So we have to fully mobilize all the instruments at our disposal, and the Human Rights Council is part of what we can do."

Mattei said France, another permanent Security Council member, supports referring the situation in Syria to the ICC and failure to do so would be "a pity and a shame for the international community."

Two other veto-wielding Security Council members, China and Russia, have usually blocked these types of actions based on a recurring argument that too much international pressure can inflame crises and Western nations are too eager to encroach on nations' sovereignty.

Pillay said her office had received reliable information that the death toll since the start of the eight-month uprising was now "much more" than 4,000.

"The Syrian authorities' continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war," she said.

An independent panel's report to the Human Rights Council this week said it found widespread evidence of "crimes against humanity" and use of excessive force against civilians.

The chairman of the international commission of inquiry, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a Brazilian professor, told the council Friday that the 307 children killed included 262 boys and 45 girls. He said November was the deadliest month so far ? with 56 children killed.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, responded that any U.N. action would only deepen the crisis and Pinheiro's panel "fell into the same trap" as other outside observers siding against the government.

"We strongly condemn the fact that the international commission on Syria was not objective in the report," he told diplomats. "The solution cannot come from the corridors of the international community."

But the U.S. ambassador, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe and other nations likened the Syrian government's actions to mass atrocities.

"Rather than respond to the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people, Assad and his inner circle assault a peaceful opposition with escalating violence and terror," Donahoe said.

"The Syrian government stokes fears in minority communities with propaganda about foreign conspiracies and domestic terrorism," she said. "The propaganda is fooling no one: the regime is driving the cycle of violence and sectarianism."

___

Frank Jordans contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_re_eu/eu_un_rights_syria

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Obama redirects $50 million to fight AIDS

Reporting from Washington and Johannesburg?

President Obama declared a new day in the fight against AIDS in the U.S. and around the world as he unveiled a plan to make life-saving drug treatments available to millions more people.

The Obama administration will redirect $50 million to prevention and treatment programs across the country and will aim to help provide anti-retroviral drugs to more than 6 million people around the world, an increase of 2 million from the previous goal.

"We can beat this disease," Obama told a crowd gathered in Washington to mark World AIDS Day on Thursday. "We just have to keep at it, steady, persistent ? every day until we get to zero."

The remarks came at an event that included former President George W. Bush addressing the audience by satellite from Tanzania. Obama gave credit to his predecessor, praising Bush's "bold leadership" in fighting AIDS in the U.S. and Africa.

Obama's announcement drew praise from AIDS activists at a time when he hopes to renew the devotion of the liberal base that helped elect him in 2008. Activists periodically have criticized him, complaining that he could do more to improve access to treatment drugs, despite the budget-cutting mood in Congress.

In his address at George Washington University, Obama called on other countries to contribute more to the cause. "China and other major economies are in a position now to transition in a way that can help more people," he said.

Around the world, activists used the day to warn that severe shortfalls in global AIDS funding would cost many lives, especially in hard-hit regions of southern Africa.

The World Health Organization said the sustained global investment in treating AIDS over the last decade had saved millions of lives, cutting AIDS-related deaths by 22% in the last five years. Studies have shown that suppressing the virus through treatment reduces its spread to patients' partners by as much as 96%.

Obama is reallocating money that Congress already has approved for public health purposes, directing $35 million to state AIDS drug assistance programs and $15 million to the Ryan White program, which supports care provided by HIV clinics.

As part of the overseas initiative, the U.S. will provide anti-retroviral drugs over the next two years to 1.5 million HIV-positive pregnant women so that they won't pass on the virus to their children.

In an effort to reduce transmission of the virus in eastern and southern Africa, Washington will distribute more than 1 billion condoms and support more than 4.7 million voluntary medical male circumcisions, a procedure that dramatically reduces the risk of female-to-male transmission.

"These are significant resources the president is devoting," said John Peller, policy director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "There are always things that can be improved. Given the congressional environment that the president is in, and the gridlock he faces, the shortcomings that are out there are not entirely his fault."

In the U.S., roughly 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV, but only 28% have the virus under control, U.S. officials said this week. More than 30 million people have died of AIDS-related causes around the world and 34 million are living with HIV.

Bono, who is the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2 and an AIDS activist, and blues singer Alicia Keys met privately Thursday with members of House and Senate appropriations committees. Bono said he was impressed with support from Democrats and Republicans for international AIDS prevention programs ? telling a divided Congress to take a moment to feel good.

"This is probably the one thing that America seems in agreement about," Bono told reporters after the meeting. "You're very good at beating yourself up in this country, but just for today you should realize that you have personally ? every taxpayer in this country has paid for 5 million people to stay alive."

The Global Fund had targeted $17 billion in donations to scale up existing programs, or $20 billion to expand successful programs, hoping to save 10 million lives between now and 2016. Simply maintaining existing programs would require donations of $12 billion to $13 billion, but the fund will instead disburse $10 billion.

That shortfall drew fire in Africa.

"HIV/AIDS is a multigenerational commitment," said Dr. Peter Fourie of the AIDS Foundation of South Africa. "There's almost a sense of betrayal because the First World made a commitment at the end of the last century on AIDS funding, and then to just rip it away is very cynical.

"With the decrease in funding there will obviously be less people who will be able to be tested and less people who will be able to go on drugs," he said. "More people will die and suffer."

UNAIDS estimates $28 billion to $50 billion would be needed every year from 2010 to 2015 to provide universal access to treatment and to start to defeat AIDS. More than half of the people in low-income countries who need anti-retroviral drugs are not getting them, UNAIDS said, and in sub-Saharan Africa, more than 70% of people living with HIV are girls and young women.

cparsons@latimes.com

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Kathleen Hennessey in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/Gz6YQ_YoCgg/la-na-obama-aids-20111202,0,2075220.story

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Group files war-crimes complaint against Calderon (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? Mexican activists lodged a war-crimes complaint Friday against President Felipe Calderon at the International Criminal Court, claiming his offensive against drug cartels has involved about 470 cases of human rights violations by the army or police.

Netzai Sandoval, a lawyer for the coalition behind the complaint, said Mexican drug lords have also committed crimes against humanity during the conflict, which has cost 35,000 to 40,000 lives since late 2006.

The complaint filed Friday at the court in the Netherlands also names Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Calderon's administration has denied the accusations, saying it's an elected, democratic government fighting criminals and has established mechanisms to protect human rights.

On Friday, Mexico's Interior Department issued a statement saying "the public safety policy that has been implemented by no means constitutes an international crime." It said the government's actions "are aimed at stopping criminal organizations and protecting all citizens."

"The Mexican government is not at war, and there is no generalized or systematic attack against civilians, nor any government policy in that direction," the statement said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_international_court

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NASA's Massive Curiosity Rover Nears Launch toward Mars

News | Space

The rover formerly known as the Mars Science Laboratory should tackle some of the biggest questions about Mars?assuming it can survive an elaborate touchdown


Mars Science LaboratorySTANDING TALL: NASA's giant Curiosity rover should reach the surface of Mars in August 2012. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Don't be fooled by the innocuous name?Curiosity,?NASA's new Mars rover, is a brute.

Curiosity, which is slated to launch Saturday morning on an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, is the biggest planetary rover ever built. The six-wheel-drive robot is three meters long?longer than a Smart ForTwo mini car?and its headlike mast rises 2.1 meters above the ground. With a suite of 10 science instruments, Curiosity weighs in at nearly 900 kilograms, more than NASA's last three Mars rovers combined. [Read more about Mars exploration in this special report.]

To put its size in perspective, consider that Curiosity is scheduled to touch down in August 2012, just over 15 years after NASA's first Mars rover began exploring the Red Planet. That rover, Sojourner, stood about 30 centimeters high. Curiosity is designed to roll over obstacles twice that tall.

But brute force is not everything?it's what's inside that counts. "We have our generic bigger and better answer" for what is new about the $2.5-billion Curiosity, says John Grotzinger, a planetary geologist at the California Institute of Technology and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Grotzinger, the mission's project scientist, notes that the rover's technology is simply superior to that of its predecessors?the cameras have better resolution, for instance, and can take high-definition video.

And unlike its predecessors, Curiosity will not depend on sunlight to carry out its mission. Instead its power will come from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator?a 4.8-kilogram supply of radioactive plutonium 238 that decays to produce heat. Devices called thermocouples turn some of that heat into electricity, providing about 110 watts to the rover. (The heat also keeps the rover's systems warm enough to function.) Plutonium 238 has a half-life of more than 80 years, so Curiosity may be able to exceed its 23-month nominal mission lifetime by several years.

But the real key to Curiosity's capabilities are two instruments that can make definitive chemical analyses of what the Red Planet is made of. "This is a mobile chemistry laboratory," Grotzinger says. In fact, the Curiosity moniker came along only in 2009, when a Kansas sixth grader named Clara Ma won a naming contest. Prior to that, the mission was known more straightforwardly as the Mars Science Laboratory. The rover's chemical analyses should dig into what Mars was like billions of years ago, when it was wetter and could have featured niches conducive to life.

The two key geology instruments, an x-ray diffraction unit and a multipurpose sample-analysis system, will be fed by a robotic arm that can scoop up soil or drill into a rock to collect a powdered sample from the interior. The x-ray diffraction instrument will aim a beam of x-rays at samples to reveal their structure and composition, making possible definitive identifications of specific minerals. The sample-analysis instruments, on the other hand, can taste the composition of the surrounding atmosphere or heat solid samples to 1,000 degrees Celsius to release trace compounds within.

With its chemistry tools, Curiosity may help shed some light on all-important methane. Some research indicates that methane, a molecule that has mainly biological origins on Earth, is seeping from Mars in plumes that hint at ongoing geologic?or possibly even biological?activity there. If Curiosity encounters methane in the atmosphere, the rover can make isotopic analyses of the gas to help determine the methane's origin.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=e69dddba903d37a1c33eae9dc041afb9

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Political ties with violent Nigeria sect alleged (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria ? Powerful politicians helped form a radical Muslim sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year in Nigeria to seize control of regional power and oil money, authorities allege, but now may have lost control of the monster they created.

The State Security Service said it made a breakthrough in uncovering support for the extremist group Boko Haram when it arrested Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, who the agency said was one of several spokesmen for Boko Haram. The secret police agency described Konduga as a "political thug" who received orders from a member of Nigeria's parliament.

Konduga, who purportedly used the nom de guerre al-Zawahiri when speaking on Boko Haram's behalf, allegedly implicated a member of the National Assembly in the group's activities. Konduga's nickname derives from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, though Boko Haram has no known direct ties with his group.

On Tuesday, authorities arrested and arraigned Sen. Mohammed Ali Ndume of Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party for allegedly being Konduga's sponsor. The senator belonged to a committee looking at possible peace talks with Boko Haram.

The arrest rattled Nigeria's Senate, which held a hasty closed-door meeting Tuesday. Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, who serves as a spokesman for the legislative body, said the lawmakers discussed "the security situation" but declined to give details.

Abaribe said he is waiting to see proof from police that Ndume is involved with Boko Haram, a terrorist group that carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria's capital on Aug. 26 that killed 24.

"It's still an allegation and investigations are going on," Abaribe told African Independent Television. "We are encouraging the security agencies to continue with their investigation."

Rufai Ahmed Alkali, a spokesman for the ruling party, did not respond to requests for comment.

Konduga on Monday also implicated a former Nigerian ambassador, now dead, as well as a former governor in Nigeria's northeast in Boko Haram's creation.

Konduga told journalists that Boko Haram expelled him some time ago, suggesting he and his supposed political masters have fallen out of favor with an organization that is increasingly violent and strident. The sect has several spokesmen and Konduga himself hadn't given any statement on the group's behalf for some time.

"The group suspended me because they thought I was an agent of the State Security Service," Konduga said.

Boko Haram has splintered into three factions, with one wing increasingly willing to kill as it maintains contact with terrorist groups in North Africa and Somalia, diplomats and security sources say.

With that wing viewing a wide variety of people and institutions as potential targets, even politicians with ties to Boko Haram can no longer consider themselves safe. Politicians in Maiduguri, the city that is Boko Haram's spiritual home, and other places in the northeast now surround themselves with security and live in apparent fear of the sect.

Politicians in Nigeria long have been rumored to have ties to militants. In the country's southern Niger Delta, where foreign oil firms extract an estimated 2.4 million barrels of crude a day, politicians hand out Kalashnikov rifles to those who help rig elections in their favor. Many of those weapons and gunmen became the part of the militant and criminal gangs kidnapping oil workers and targeting pipelines.

Boko Haram began the same way, as "politically (and) criminally minded field marshals" began arming youths to keep their hands on the reins of power in northeast Nigeria, said Khalifa Dikwa, a professor at the University of Maiduguri. At stake is control of power at the state level in Nigeria, incredibly lucrative positions that control budgets larger than those of neighboring nations thanks to the nation's oil wealth.

The political scene in the northeast is dominated by the All Nigeria People's Party, which Ndume ? the arrested senator ? once belonged to before joining the ruling party. Little is known about the sources of Boko Haram's support, though its members recently began carrying out a wave of bank robberies in the north. Police stations have also been bombed and officers killed.

Boko Haram's attacks and its factional splits make it much more difficult for the national government to arrive at a political solution or an amnesty. The group's main demand is not one the government is likely to bend to in a nation that is split into a Muslim north and a Christian south.

While the Niger Delta militants agreed to lay down their guns for money and the promise of work, Boko Haram wants the strict implementation of Shariah law across the nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram was thought to have been eradicated in 2009 after its leader was killed and its mosques left in ruins. However, the group has staged increasingly brazen attacks over the last two years, including the attack on the U.N. headquarters in Abuja. This month, its fighters led an attack on a northeast Nigeria state capital that killed more than 100 people ? and they still appear ready to kill at will.

"A look at the government's responses shows that it has found it difficult to eradicate Boko Haram but worryingly so, the group seems to be reinventing itself and its strategies," the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies warned in a report this month.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111123/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_radical_sect

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