Russia News Review - 2.15.13 - Mike Nova's starred items
via AP Top Headlines At 1:22 p.m. EST by By The Associated Press on 2/15/13
A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring nearly 1,000 people. The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with some declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows to see what the source was for such an intense flash of light....
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 2/15/13
MOSCOW (AP) — A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people.
via Russia - Google News on 2/15/13
 Daily Beast |
Surprise attack: Meteor explodes over Russia hours before giant asteroid flyby ...
Washington Post (blog) ... Earth, but passing safely (at 2:24 p.m. ET). But a very large, meteor or “fireball” stole its thunder, violently blowing up as it entered the atmosphere over central Russia, producing a shockwave that shattered windows, rocked buildings, and ... Meteor over Russia! (pictures)CNET Russian meteor causes blast; hundreds injuredCNN Meteorite Fragments Reportedly Rain on SyberiaDaily Beast FRANCE 24 -Mediaite -HyperVocal all 388 news articles » |
via NYT > Europe by on 2/15/13
The Times’s Ellen Barry and Richard P. Binzel, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, discuss the explosive event over western Siberia on Friday.
via Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news by Telegraph Staff on 2/15/13
A 10 ton meteorite has hit the atmosphere above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk causing injuries.
via World news: Russia | guardian.co.uk by Stuart Clark on 2/15/13
In terms of human casualties, Friday's meteorite strike is the worst ever reported. Almost 1,000 are reported to have sought treatment after the fall. At least 34 of them were hospitalised, with two reported to be in intensive care.
Before this there were only stories of a dog being killed in Egypt by a meteorite in 1911 and a boy being hit, but not seriously injured, by one in Uganda in 1992.
The Russian Academy of Sciences estimate the fireball that streaked over the Ural mountains on Friday morning weighed about 10 tons. The speed of entry was at least 54,000 kilometres per hour (33,000 mph) and it shattered about 30-50 kilometres (18-32 miles) above ground, showering meteorites that caused damage over a wide area.
The shockwave from the fireball's supersonic passage through the atmosphere broke windows and set off car alarms. The collision took place as the world waited for Friday evening's close pass of asteroid 2012 DA14. According to the European Space Agency, no link between the two events is thought possible.
Until Friday morning, astronomers had thought the asteroid most likely to hit Earth was one called 2007 VK184. It is about 130 metres across and has a slim 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting Earth some time between 2048 and 2057. A danger that is thought will disappear with better tracking of its orbit.
Friday's unexpected strike highlights the need for better searches for dangerous asteroids, and a global strategy to deal with any that are seen.
Astronomers feel confident that they know the whereabouts of every asteroid larger than 30 kilometres. Such space rocks have been the priority because they have the potential to cause global catastrophe and mass extinction events should they hit us. None are known to pose a threat.
Go down to objects sized one kilometre and astronomers think they know about 90-95% of them. However, at 50 metres, the size of 2012 DA14, the uncertainties really begin. Astronomers estimate that they know only 2 percent of these.
There could be hundreds of thousands of these smaller asteroids waiting to be discovered. Were something of this size to strike the Earth, it would devastate an area the size of larger than London.
On 30 June 1908, something roughly this size hit Earth. It exploded in the air above the Tunguska region of Siberia and flattened forests across an area of hundreds of square kilometres. The area is so remote that no one is thought to have been killed by that event.
The object that struck above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Friday morning was smaller still, probably just 10 metres across. Yet, it has injured many hundreds, underlining the danger of space rocks hitting populated areas,
The European Space Agency is involved in a £6m project to build a special survey telescope to find small asteroids. Known as a Fly-Eye telescope, it works in the same way as an insect's compound eye.
The telescope will use multiple cameras to build up a full picture of the sky. The first idea to build such a telescope was published way back in 1897 but it proved too difficult with the technology of the 19th century. Now, a prototype is under construction in Italy. The final telescope could be located on Mt Teide, Tenerife.
In Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS project uses the world's largest digital camera, containing 1,400 Megapixels, to scan the sky for asteroids larger than 300 metres in size. That's about six times larger than 2012 DA14, and 30 times larger than Friday's Russian meteor. Such asteroids would be capable of devastating whole regions of a country were they to hit Earth.
Deciding what to do if a dangerous asteroid is spotted falls first to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. They are setting up a Space Mission Planning Advisory Group. This will be composed of scientists from NASA, ESA and the world's other space agencies. They will meet annually to assess new ideas of how to deflect dangerous asteroids.
Should an asteroid be found on a collision course, the group will immediately meet to advise on the best strategy for deflecting it. They will also advise on who has the expertise to build the different parts of the spacecraft, and who should pay for it. Then, the decision passes into the hands of the politicians.
But as Friday's sudden strike shows, asteroids that approach from "out of the Sun" are virtually impossible to see. They are hidden from our sight by the glare until they smash into our atmosphere.
From space, thankfully, it is a different story. Space telescopes can see much closer to the Sun because they do not have the Earth's atmosphere scattering the sunlight and blurring their vision. The European Space Agency's Gaia mission, which launches later this year, could help us see into this asteroid blind spot.
Stuart Clark is the author of The Day Without Yesterday (Polygon).
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via World news: Russia | guardian.co.uk by Roz Kaveney on 2/15/13
There was a time when people only watched the skies to see the calm or stormy movement of clouds, or the revolutions of the celestial spheres, or the clockwork solar system that eventually replaced them. At the end of the Age of Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson may not have been as sceptical about meteors – "easier to believe that two Yankee professors could lie than to admit that stones could fall from heaven" – as legend tells us, but he certainly found the whole idea unlikely. Even as late as 1943, Michael Innes could write a deliberately absurd detective story, The Weight of the Evidence, in which the murder weapon was a meteorite, dropped on an elderly academic from a tower.
But now we are aware that our planet sits in far from empty space, with heavenly billiard balls perpetually about to carom off it. Luis Alvarez determined, from layers of dust and a big hole in Mexico, that one of the things that finished off the dinosaurs was something dropping from the sky. It has been almost more consoling for some people to think of the 1908 Tunguska event, when something smashed a hole in Siberia felling millions of trees, as a failed alien visit than the random collision it was – in a cheesier interpretation the aliens smashed their craft into the falling object to save us. And now, within the next 24 hours, a major meteor event blowing things up in Russia coincides with a near pass from a loose asteroid. Like the prospect of being hanged, it concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Like all random events and misfortunes, we want these things to mean something. The Russian fringe politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, rushed to the microphones to claim that the shower of stones that broke windows with their sonic boom, injuring 400 people, was a dastardly test of a new American weapon. Advocates of a renewed space programme have instantly told us that the asteroid pass proves that we need to be in space so that anything that comes closer can be, somehow, shoved out of Earth's way. More generally, all over Twitter, people are calling on passing rocks to land on, for example, the Sun offices (over publication of photographs of the late Reeva Steenkamp) as once they would have called for the thunderbolts of Zeus, the wrath of Jehovah or Betjeman's friendly bombs.
The trouble with wanting random events to acquire significance by afflicting unpleasant, otherwise untouchable powerful figures is that everyone does it. The religious right, Christian and Islamic, are fond of regarding tsunamis and hurricanes as instruments of wrath – Pat Robertson came up with a particularly unpleasant version of this when he attributed Haiti's problems to divine punishment for an alleged satanic pact made by that country's successful slave revolution. Nor is this confined to the religious right; rightwing sci-fi writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, in their 1977 novel of a comet's impending collision with Earth, have a character who survives the impact say that the good thing about the calamity was that women's lib was over. Heavenly vengeance is really an idea that has no place on the left.
Perhaps it's better to use asteroids and meteors as a way of thinking about the fragility of existence. If the world were to end tonight, would David Cameron really want to have spent his last day being a politician who throws the disabled out of their flats rather than punish crooked bankers? Not because of the prospect of hellfire, but because it's a naff way to spend precious hours that could have been spent with chocolate and string quartets. Perhaps though, the point about bad people is that they really enjoy being bad. As Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd says: "The lives of the wicked should be made brief. For the rest of us, death would be a relief." On a sunny day, the prospect of universal annihilation adds zest to a brisk walk in the park.
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via Russia - Google News on 2/15/13
 ABC News |
500 Injured by Blasts as Meteor Falls in Russia
ABC News The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor that streaked into the skies over the Ural Mountains and caused shock waves that injured more than 400 people weighed about 10 tons (11 tons avoirdupois). PHOTO: A meteorite contrail is seen in ... |
via Russia News Headlines - Yahoo! News on 2/15/13
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on financial chiefs of the world's leading industrial and developing nations to consider the political and social implications of their crucial policy decisions.
Associated Press/Alexander Zemlianichenko - Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to financial ministers and heads of central banks of the G20 group of nations ahead of their key meeting this weekend in Moscow,
via Russia News Headlines - Yahoo! News on 2/15/13
MOSCOW (AP) — A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring nearly 1,000 people.
via putin's face - Google News on 2/15/13
The 10th Anniversary of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Withdrawal
Missilethreat.com Well, in fact, and to the contrary, the signing of the ABM Treaty ushered in the Soviet Union's most ambitious expansion of nuclear forces, and as for withdrawal, Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement of large force reductions on the day that ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/15/13
 NDTV |
Putin to G20: fix imbalances, tackle debts
Reuters MOSCOW Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Group of 20 nations on Friday that it was vital to eliminate economic imbalances and have a clear strategy on borrowing to put the global economy on a sustainable growth path. "The ... Putin urges G20 ministers to consider social costMiamiHerald.com Putin orders setting up of anti-hacker defenceNDTV Putin Warns Foreign NGOs Against 'Meddling' In Russian AffairsHuffington Post The Atlantic -UPI.com all 54 news articles » |
via Putin - Google News on 2/15/13
 The Voice of Russia |
G20 'must address long-term tasks' – Putin
The Voice of Russia President Putin believes the G20 must proceed from short-term crisis management to tackling long-term tasks, including the creation of global mechanisms to correct imbalances and stimulate economic growth. Speaking to the G20's finance ministers and ... G-20: Main Challenge Is to Create Long-Term Growth Says PutinNASDAQ Eurozone crisis live: Currency wars come to Moscow as G20 meetsThe Guardian all 102 news articles » |
via Putin - Google News on 2/15/13
 The Voice of Russia |
Putin unveils foreign policy guidelines
The Voice of Russia Appearing before his National Security Council in Moscow Friday, President Vladimir Putin unveiled new foreign policy guidelines focused on ways to deal with the global crisis, tackle the worsening turbulence in the Greater Middle East and adapt to the ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 RT |
Russia will not tolerate foreign pressure – Putin
RT "The constitutional right of citizens to the freedom of speech is inviolable and unshakeable,” Putin declared at an expanded session of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday. “However, nobody has a right to sow hatred and rock society and the ... |
via Russia Blogs's Facebook Wall by Russia Blogs on 2/15/13
Медведев увидел в Челябинской метеорите символ экономической политики
Премьер-министр России Дмитрий Медведев, который сейчас находится в Красноярске на экономическом форуме, прокомментировал метеоритный дождь, который прошел утром над Челябинской …
Медведев увидел в Челябинской метеорите символ экономической политики
Премьер-министр России Дмитрий Медведев, который сейчас находится в Красноярске на экономическом форуме, прокомментировал метеоритный дождь, который прошел утром над Челябинской …
Медведев увидел в Челябинской метеорите символ экономической политики
via Russia Blogs's Facebook Wall by Russia Blogs on 2/15/13
Лучшее метеоритное видео из Челябинска. Как будто Джей Абрамс снимал
Лучшее метеоритное видео из Челябинска. Как будто Джей Абрамс снимал
Лучшее метеоритное видео из Челябинска. Как будто Джей Абрамс снимал
via Russia Blogs's Facebook Wall by Russia Blogs on 2/15/13
Метеорит ударил по прописке
Госдума приняла в первом чтении президентский законопроект, усиливающий ответственность вплоть до уголовной за нарушение правил регистрационного учета россиян по месту жительства или пребывания и миграционного учета …
Метеорит ударил по прописке
Госдума приняла в первом чтении президентский законопроект, усиливающий ответственность вплоть до уголовной за нарушение правил регистрационного учета россиян по месту жительства или пребывания и миграционного учета …
Метеорит ударил по прописке
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 2/14/13
 The Economist |
Russia and America
The Economist Anti-Americanism has long been a staple of Vladimir Putin, but it has undergone an important shift. Gone are the days when the Kremlin craved recognition and lashed out at the West for not recognising Russia as one of its own. Now it neither pretends ... and more » |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 2/14/13
RT |
Russia's Putin warns NGOs against "meddling" in Russia's affairs
Fox News ... as saying that the United States has "raised geopolitical pressure" and still views Russia "as a major rival on the international stage." Critics say Putin, a former KGB colonel, has used the NGO law and other recent legislation to incite anti ... Putin: NGOs mustn't meddle in Russia's affairsWLOS all 47 news articles » |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 2/11/13
 The Moscow Times |
Putin's RuNet Crackdown
American Thinker As Russia expert Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation explains, lurking behind these moves is a virulent new form of anti-Americanism. Russians are looking to block marriages to and adoptions by Americans, to ban Americans from appearing on Russian ... Martin Luther King's RussiaThe Moscow Times all 81 news articles » |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
Putin murder plot suspect alleges torture
Newstrack India Moscow, Feb 15 (IANS/RIA Novosti) A man accused of planning to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the 2012 presidential elections alleged in court that he had been tortured into confessing to the plot. Russian national Adam Osmayev, 32 ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 The Star Online |
Putin orders Russian security forces on high alert before Olympics
The Star Online "The most important thing here is the protection of people's lives. It is necessary to provide reliable anti-terrorist protection of... large-scale public, international events soon to take place in our country," Putin told senior officials from the ... and more » |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
NDTV |
Putin Warns Foreign NGOs Against 'Meddling' In Russian Affairs
Huffington Post While Putin didn't name any names, he appeared to refer to a statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said in December, while still in the job, that Russian-led regional alliances represent an attempt to restore the ... Putin orders setting up of anti-hacker defenceNDTV How the 1980s Explains Vladimir PutinThe Atlantic Russia will not tolerate foreign pressure – PutinRT New Europe -Daijiworld.com -Fox News all 40 news articles » |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 Slon.ru - Редакция деловых новостей |
Путин – ФСБ: оградите Россию от атак на наши информресурсы
Slon.ru - Редакция деловых новостей В Москве прошла расширенная коллегия ФСБ. Это что-то типа «Открытого правительства», только для силовиков. Президент России Владимир Путин не упустил возможность посвятить сотрудников внутренней разведки в свое видение стоящих перед ними задач. Вот что он сказал. |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 Утро.Ru |
Путин попросил не раскачивать Россию
Утро.Ru Государство приветствует рост политической активности и поддерживает создание объединений и партий, но не даст никому из них права говорить от имени всего общества, заявил Владимир Путин. Особенно, если у таких организаций зарубежное финансирование, уточнил ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 The Voice of Russia |
Putin touts inviolability of freedom of speech in Russia
The Voice of Russia Speaking at an enhanced session of the Federal Security Service in Moscow on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin specifically singled out inviolability of freedom of speech in Russia. At the same time, he pointed out that structures managed by outside ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 The Voice of Russia |
Putin demands aggressive approach to extremists
The Voice of Russia Putin also mentioned some other tasks for the Federal Security Service, such as reliable anti-terrorist protection of social organisations and industrial facilities, transport, the energy sector and large international events due to take place in ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 euronews |
Putin orders Russian security forces on high alert before Olympics
euronews MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's security services to be on high alert on Thursday to protect against attacks by Islamist militants in the run up to next year's Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. Putin ... and more » |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
Владимир Путин поставил задачи перед ФСБ
Российская Газета Вчера президент приехал в штаб-квартиру ФСБ на Лубянке на расширенную коллегию. Глава государства высоко оценил работу сотрудников госбезопасности и призвал их мобилизоваться. Давление на Россию недопустимо, подчеркнул он. Владимир Путин начал со статистики. |
Mike Nova's starred items
Mike Nova's starred items
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 Lenta.ru |
Путин запретил раскачивать страну
Lenta.ru Президент России Владимир Путин заявил, что, хотя право на свободу слова незыблемо, ни у кого нет права «раскачивать общество и страну и тем самым ставить под угрозу жизнь, благополучие, спокойствие миллионов наших граждан», сообщает «Интерфакс». С таким заявлением ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
 The Voice of Russia |
President Putin outlines Russia's security priorities
The Voice of Russia Speaking at an enhanced session of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a spate of security-related statements. In particular, he warned against putting pressure on Russia through non-profit ... |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 INOTV |
Путин мобилизовал спецслужбы к Олимпиаде
INOTV Президент Владимир Путин поручил российским спецслужбам с повышенным вниманием отнестись к возможным атакам исламистских боевиков в Сочи в преддверии Олимпиады, сообщает Voice of America. На фоне недавнего теракта на Кавказе, неподалеку от Сочи, президент ... Путин и террористы Северного КавказаЭкономическая безопасность В преддверии Олимпиады Путин приказал силовикам обеспечить антитеррористическую защитуbigmir)net Все похожие статьи: 4 » |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
The End of Brand Putin?
The Globalist Vladimir Putin has donned many personas over the years — political outsider, KGB case officer and CEO of Russia, Inc. But now he is the ultimate insider of a system of his own creation. In "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," Fiona Hill and Clifford ... |
via Putin - Google News on 2/14/13
Putin: NGOs mustn't meddle in Russia's affairs
U.S. News & World Report While Putin didn't name any names, he appeared to refer to a statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said in December, while still in the job, that Russian-led regional alliances represent an attempt to restore the ... |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 Интерфакс |
Путин поговорил с ФСБ
Интерфакс Путин отметил, что в России формируется "сильное, дееспособное, зрелое гражданское общество, люди все активнее берут на себя ответственность за происходящее в стране, в своем городе, муниципалитете, заявляют свою позицию, выступают с инициативами активно использовать ... |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/15/13
ЦБ РФ: В.Путин согласовал план выхода Банка России из капитала Московской биржи.
РБК - RBC.Ru Президент РФ Владимир Путин согласовал план выхода Банка России из капитала Московской биржи (РТС-ММВБ). Об этом сообщил заместитель председателя Центробанка (ЦБ) РФ и одновременно - председатель наблюдательного совета биржи Сергей Швецов в ходе ... |
via путин – Новости Google on 2/14/13
 Утро.Ru |
Путин предупредил: давление на Россию недопустимо
РИА Новости С таким заявлением глава российского государства выступил на заседании расширенной коллегии ФСБ. Президент также призвал сотрудников службы укрепить систему контроля в приграничных районах, создать единую систему обнаружения компьютерных атак, и избегать ... Путин напомнил ФСБ о "чужих интересах" НКОBBC Russian Путин усилил нажимУтро.Ru Путин поручил ФСБ защитить ИнтернетFerra Московский комсомолец -Газета.Ru -Независимая газета Все похожие статьи: 159 » |
via Сайт Президента России: Все материалыon 2/15/13
На совещании с членами Совета Безопасности Владимир Путин представил обновлённую Концепцию внешней политики Российской Федерации.
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via Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty on 2/15/13
Russia says an arrest warrant has been issued for Georgian lawmaker Givi Targamadze, according to an announcement by the Russian Interior Ministry on February 15.
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