Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano









































































































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Tsunami Warning Lifted in Japan After Quake












A tsunami warning has been lifted for the northeastern region of Japan following a strong 7.3-magnitiude earthquake that struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture.


The earthquake rattled the coast of Japan just after 5 p.m. local time. Tsunami waves were recorded in at least five different locations – the largest in Ishinomaki was measured at 3 feet, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.


There was never a risk of widespread tsunami warnings, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.




All flights still grounded at the Sendai airport, and travelers have been evacuated to the higher grounds in the terminal, according to an official.


No damage has been reported at monitoring posts and water treatment facilities at all reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. There are more than 3,000 people who work at the plant daily and they have been told to move to stay inside and move to higher ground on the site.


Buildings in Tokyo swayed for at least several minutes.


The northeast region of Japan was hit with a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami March 11, 2011 that killed or left missing some 19,000 people.


All but two of Japan's nuclear plants were shut down for checks after the earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Obama’s claim of the ‘largest’ discretionary cuts ‘in history’




(KEVIN DIETSCH/POOL/EPA)


“Working with Democrats and Republicans last year, we were able to cut over a trillion dollars of spending — the largest cut, by the way, in discretionary spending in history.”


— President Obama, remarks to the Business Roundtable, Dec. 5, 2012


To some extent, it is a bit silly for politicians to claim they have achieved the “biggest” or “largest” event in history because it simply invites more scrutiny.

 Our ears perked up when President Obama made this claim on Wednesday to a group of corporate chieftains. It was reminiscent of a claim he had previously made concerning a $38.5 billion cut in the fiscal 2011 budget, which he had called “the largest annual spending cut in our history.”

Republicans at the time also made similar claims and The Washington Post even had a front-page headline that declared “Biggest Cuts in U.S. History.” None of that turned out to be correct, especially when inflation-adjusted dollars were considered. We awarded Two Pinocchios to the media for failing to provide the right context for the comments of politicians.

But in April 2011, Obama was referring to a year-over-year reduction in actual dollars. In this case, Obama is referring to the subsequent Budget Control Act, which ended the impasse over raising the debt ceiling by seeking to reduce the deficit over a 10-year period. In other words, that $1 trillion that the president mentioned is a reduction from previous budget targets — what is known as the budget baseline.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Facts

As we noted before, when making comparisons over many years, inflation must always be considered. The price of retail gasoline was about 25 cents in 1918, which sounds much better than the average of $3.64 this year. But, inflation-adjusted, the price of gasoline in 1918 was actually higher — $3.83

Similarly, there have been some years when government spending has been cut dramatically. After World Wars I and II, the budget was slashed so quickly and dramatically within three years that it makes $1 trillion in projected spending over 10 years look like peanuts.

Inflation-adjusted, the federal outlays were actually cut by $2 trillion in just three years after World War I and by $1.5 trillion over three years after World War II, according to the historical tables of the federal budget. (We use outlays from the historical tables because that shows what was actually spent.)

Obama specifically mentioned discretionary spending — what is annually appropriated by Congress. (“Mandatory spending,” such as for health programs, is on automatic pilot unless laws are changed.) The historical tables only offer details on discretionary spending since 1962, though obviously the war spending in earlier years was discretionary. In raw numbers, we find only seven years when actual spending declined from year to year though 2017.

Obviously, the years 2013 through 2017 are estimates and to keep things simple we will use the numbers in Obama’s 2013 budget; the estimates change slightly in the mid-session review. But in both cases, discretionary spending begins to increase, in nominal terms, in the later part of the decade.

But Obama’s claim looks better when viewed through the prism of inflation-adjusted numbers. This is especially important in the context of the federal budget.

For instance, Defense spending technically remained constant from 1987 to 1994 — $282 billion a year. But look what happened to the military during those seven years: The number of troops fell from 2.2 million to 1.6 million, the number of Army divisions was slashed from 28 to 20, Air Force fighter wings dropped from 36 to 22 and Navy fighting ships declined from 568 to 387. That’s because inflation over time ate away at the value of those dollars. By most measures, defense spending was trimmed, though in theory, not a penny was cut.

Inflation-adjusted (constant 2005 dollars in the budget documents), we find many more years when the discretionary spending shrank.

For instance, in the six years between 1968 and 1974, discretionary spending fell 21.6 percent. In the five-year period between 1991 and 1996, discretionary spending fell 12 percent.

Meanwhile, Obama’s projected budget shows that in the six-year period ending 2017, discretionary spending would fall 22.7 percent — about $265 billion in constant 2005 dollars. 

That’s the biggest six-year cut since 1962, though not in history. The federal budget fell 84 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars in the six years after World War I and 66 percent in the six years after World War II.

There is a certain irony, of course: Obama was forced into accepting many of these cuts — after Republicans forced a bitter fight over extending the debt ceiling. But to his credit, he also cited Republicans when making his statement.

The Pinocchio Test


Obama appears to be mixing up baseline cuts (“a trillion dollars”) with actual reductions in discretionary spending, thus making the numbers appear bigger than reality.

But it turns out that the White House, working with Congress, has scheduled a reduction in discretionary spending that, accounting for inflation, would be the biggest six-year decline in the last half century.

But, by significant percentages, it is a far cry from the biggest in history — the central part of Obama’s claim.

Moreover, we can’t help but note that back in 2011, Obama justified a similar claim by citing non-inflation adjusted dollars. By that lesser standard, discretionary spending is essentially flat after six years.

Two Pinocchios



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North Korean rocket 'to commemorate' Kim Jong-Il: ex-chef






TOKYO: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un does not want to fire a rocket, but feels he has to mark the anniversary of his father's death, the dead dictator's former sushi chef said Thursday.

The hermit state's long range rocket will be launched 12 months to the day that Kim Jong-Il died, his one-time personal chef, Kenji Fujimoto told journalists in Tokyo.

"I believe the launch will take place on December 17 to commemorate" the first anniversary of his death, said Fujimoto, who visited Pyongyang earlier this year and lived there for around 10 years until 2001.

"I think he is talking with the military, but I don't think he is aggressively pushing to launch a missile," Fujimoto said.

North Korea announced Saturday it will launch a rocket between December 10 and 22, a period that includes both South Korea's presidential election and Japan's general election.

Pyongyang insists it is a peaceful satellite launch, but the international community sees it as a poorly disguised test of ballistic missile technology, which is banned under UN resolutions.

"I think he is reluctant to launch because he wants to change his country's image as a hard-line state," said Fujimoto, who is promoting a book on his recent visit.

"But at the same time he must feel he needs to commemorate his father's death."

A rocket launch is necessary in the context of North Korean politics as "you have to demonstrate to your people" that you have authority, he said.

Fujimoto visited Pyongyang in July after an invitation from the country's young leader, 11 years after what he said was an escape during a provisions shopping trip to Japan.

After his visit, a picture of Fujimoto hugging Kim Jong-Un was widely distributed to media.

Fujimoto, who is among a small number of foreigners to have had personal contact with the North Korean leader, revealed Jong-Un was born on "January 8, 1983, so he will turn 30 next year."

No age has ever been confirmed for Kim, with most reports saying only that he is in his late 20s.

"When I saw him after 11 years, I had the impression that he has really grown up. My memories of him are from his childhood," he said.

Fujimoto said the messenger from Kim who invited him to Pyongyang in July arrived with a shibboleth.

"(The emissary said) 'Let's fulfil the promise we made in 2001'," said Fujimoto, explaining the promise dated from a 2001 encounter after the chef was injured in a horse-riding accident.

He said a worried Jong-Un telephoned him at midnight after the fall.

"I replied 'I'm okay' then headed to the building where Kim Jong-Un was waiting. Then I did a bit of performance, shouting 'Fujimoto is alive and well!'"

"At that moment we laughed together and he invited me to join to him and four of his favourite basketball players drinking Russian vodka," Fujimoto said.

"Then Kim Jong-Un said to me: 'You will come back after finishing your shopping in Japan, won't you? You must come back.'"

Fujimoto, who married a North Korean woman while in the service of the first family has made his living from media appearances, lectures and writings about his days in the isolated country since he returned to Japan in 2001.

Fujimoto only ever appears in public wearing aviator sunglasses and a bandana, precautions he insists are necessary to keep him safe from North Korean agents who would spirit him back to Pyongyang if they could find him.

- AFP/lp



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BSP puts its weight behind govt on FDI issue in Rajya Sabha

NEW DELHI: BSP on promised to vote in favour of FDI in Rajya Sabha, giving much relief to the government which is bracing for a crucial vote on Friday, even as BJP and AIADMK attacked parties which sided with UPA despite having reservations over the measure.

A day after the opposition motion seeking rollback of the decision was rejected convincingly in Lok Sabha, the Upper House took up the debate with opposition attacking the decision saying it would hurt the poor.

"We have decided to vote in favour of government on FDI in multi-brand retail issue tomorrow," BSP chief Mayawati, whose party has 15 members in the Rajya Sabha, said participating in the debate. The party had yesterday staged a walkout in the Lok Sabha, helping bail out the government in the vote.

Mayawati said her party has decided to support the government because the FDI policy "has a plus point as it is not binding on states and they are free to implement it."

AIADMK member V Maitreyan initiated the discussion and made a strong demand for withdrawing the decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail.

Maitreyan and leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley earlier attacked BSP as also SP, DMK and NCP for helping the government in voting despite reservations to the policy.

BSP was the main target of Jaitley who said, "You know that this policy is harmful is to the country. If you are willing to proclaim, you should be willing to strike."

Mayawati reacted sharply to the remarks that her party was helping the government under CBI pressure saying the main Opposition party is levelling such allegations after it found out that "grapes were sour" as its game plan did not succeed.

Her remarks led to noisy scenes in the House as BJP demanded the remarks to be expunged but Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said there was nothing in what the BSP supremo has said.

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A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?


NASA is so delighted with Curiosity's Mars mission that the agency wants to do it all again in 2020, with the possibility of identifying and storing some rocks for a future sample return to Earth.

The formal announcement, made at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, represents a triumph for the NASA Mars program, which had fallen on hard times due to steep budget cuts. But NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said that the agency has the funds to build and operate a second Curiosity-style rover, largely because it has a lot of spare parts and an engineering and science team that knows how to develop a follow-on expedition.

"The new science rover builds off the tremendous success from Curiosity and will have new instruments," Grunsfeld said. Curiosity II is projected to cost $1.5 billion—compared with the $2.5 billion price tag for the rover now on Mars—and will require congressional approval.

While the 2020 rover will have the same one-ton chassis as Curiosity—and could use the same sky crane technology involved in the "seven minutes of terror"—it will have different instruments and, many hope, the capacity to cache a Mars rock for later pickup and delivery to researchers on Earth. Curiosity and the other Mars rovers, satellites, and probes have garnered substantial knowledge about the Red Planet in recent decades, but planetary scientists say no Mars-based investigations can be nearly as instructive as studying a sample in person here on Earth.

(Video: Mars Rover's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Return to Sender

That's why "sample return" has topped several comprehensive reviews of what NASA should focus on for the next decade regarding Mars.

"There is absolutely no doubt that this rover has the capability to collect and cache a suite of magnificent samples," said astronomer Steven Squyres, with Cornell University in New York, who led a "decadal survey" of what scientists want to see happen in the field of planetary science in the years ahead. "We have a proven system now for landing a substantial payload on Mars, and that's what we need to enable sample return."

The decision about whether the second rover will be able to collect and "cache" a sample will be up to a "science definition team" that will meet in the years ahead to weigh the pros and cons of focusing the rover's activity on that task.  

As currently imagined, bringing a rock sample back to Earth would require three missions: one to select, pick up, and store the sample; a second to pick it up and fly it into a Mars orbit; and a third to take it from Mars back to Earth.

"A sample return would rely on all the Mars missions before it," said Scott Hubbard, formerly NASA's "Mars Czar," who is now at Stanford University. "Finding the right rocks from the right areas, and then being able to get there, involves science and technology we've learned over the decades."

Renewed Interest

Clearly, Curiosity's success has changed the thinking about Mars exploration, said Hubbard. He was a vocal critic of the Obama Administration's decision earlier this year to cut back on the Mars program as part of agency belt-tightening but now is "delighted" by this renewed initiative.

(Explore an interactive time line of Mars exploration in National Geographic magazine.)

More than 50 million people watched NASA coverage of Curiosity's landing and cheered the rover's success, Hubbard said. If things had turned out differently with Curiosity, "we'd be having a very different conversation about the Mars program now."

(See "Curiosity Landing on Mars Greeted With Whoops and Tears of Jubilation.")

If Congress gives the green light, the 2020 rover would be the only $1 billion-plus "flagship" mission—NASA's largest and most expensive class of projects—in the agency's planetary division in the next decade. There are many other less ambitious projects to other planets, asteroids, moons, and comets in the works, but none are flagships. That has left some planetary scientists not involved with Mars unhappy with NASA's heavy Martian focus.

Future Plans

While the announcement of the 2020 rover mission set the Mars community abuzz, NASA also outlined a series of smaller missions that will precede it. The MAVEN spacecraft, set to launch next year, will study the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail; a lander planned for 2018 will study the Red Planet's crust and interior; and NASA will renew its promise to participate in a European life-detection mission in 2018. NASA had signed an agreement in 2009 to partner with the European Space Agency on that mission but had to back out earlier this year because of budget constraints.

NASA said that a request for proposals would go out soon, soliciting ideas about science instruments that might be on the rover. And as for a sample return system, at this stage all that's required is the ability to identify good samples, collect them, and then store them inside the rover.

"They can wait there on Mars for some time as we figure out how to pick them up," Squyres said. "After all, they're rocks."


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Guatemala Could Deport McAfee to Belize













Software anti virus pioneer John McAfee is in the process of being deported to Belize after he was arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally, his attorney told ABC News early Thursday.


ABC News has learned that John McAfee is scheduled to be deported to Belize later this morning. But a judge could stay the ruling if it is determined McAfee's life is threatened by being in Belizean custody, as McAfee has claimed over the past several weeks.


Just hours before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview Wednesday he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.


"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee, 67, before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."


McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.
"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."


But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.
In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.






Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images











Software Founder Breaks Silence: McAfee Speaks on Murder Allegations Watch Video









John McAfee Interview: Software Mogul Leaves Belize Watch Video









John McAfee Interview: Software Millionaire on the Run Watch Video





McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.


During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.


He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.


Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.


McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.


McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.


"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."


Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.


According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.


"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"


Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.






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Rubio, Ryan look to the future during award dinner speeches



“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.

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SingHealth, Australian firm explore new technology to treat cancer cells






SINGAPORE: Under a research collaboration with an Australian company called Sirtex Medical, Singapore will be the first in the world to try out a new treatment for cancer cells.

Sirtex Medical and SingHealth signed a new Master Research Collaboration Agreement where Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Centre Singapore will explore the potential of a new technology called Carbon Cage Nanoparticles, targeting cancer cells which may be left behind after an operation.

The research will focus on abdominal cancers, starting with advanced ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in Singapore. Researchers will also try the treatment on stomach and colorectal cancers, which are also quite common in Singapore.

When removing abdominal tumours, researchers say there is always a post-surgery risk that tumour cell residues may remain in the abdominal lining.

If these tumour cells aren't eliminated, they can continue to grow to a point where it is life-threatening.

To target these cells, the new technology developed by the Australian National University carries a high dose of radiation enclosed in a carbon casing.

When injected into the abdominal cavity, the new technology can potentially kill specific cancer cells not visible to the naked eye.

Besides carrying a high dose of radiation within the carbon shell, the technology can also carry chemotherapy agents.

Previous methods of removing remaining cancer cells usually involve chemotherapy treatments after operation.

Professor Soo Khee Chee, Deputy Group CEO of SingHealth and Director of National Cancer Centre Singapore, said: "The problem with giving chemotherapy is that if you just give it orally or intravenously, they are fairly non-specific, they circulate through all the whole body and you don't achieve the concentration that is necessary to eliminate tumour cells very effectively."

In five years' time, researchers will introduce the new therapy in human trials. If successful, they say it could be used to treat diseases beyond cancer, such as with patients with immunological disorders.

- CNA/de



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Lok Sabha disrupted over Lalu Prasad's remarks

NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha was on Wednesday adjourned briefly following verbal clashes between Rashtriya Janata Dal (RLD) chief Lalu Prasad and Bharatiya Janata Party members.

As soon as Lalu Prasad stood up to participate in the debate on FDI in multi-brand retail, BJP members created a ruckus.

An agitated Lalu Prasad addressed BJP members as "jamhoore" (side-kicks), which led to protests by BJP members.

Lok Sabha deputy speaker Karia Munda, after failing to restore order, then adjourned the house briefly.

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