Month: April 2022

The Crew-4 mission blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:52am, carrying Americans Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as Italian Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency. The event was livestreamed on Nasa’s website and social media.

The rapid turnaround time for SpaceX — a little under 40 hours between recovering one crew and sending up another — is a sign of an increasingly busy human spaceflight calendar since Elon Musk’s company became NASA’s mainstay astronaut taxi in 2020.

Between 2011 — when the Space Shuttle programme ended — and 2020, Nasa was reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for the service.

“Think how the Cape has transformed, think about all of those abandoned launchpads on the Cape, and how they are roaring back to life,” Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press call Tuesday.

Crew-4 will join the Crew-3 quartet, who are approaching the end of their five-month rotation on the ISS, as well as three Russians on the Russian segment of the orbital outpost. A date for Crew-3’s return will be set soon.

Crew-4 is due to carry out hundreds of scientific experiments, including ongoing research into growing plants without soil in space.

Another involves developing an artificial human retina, leveraging the microgravity environment of the ISS to help deposit layer after layer of thin films of protein.

The allegation came as at least 56 MPs, including three ministers, are probed over allegations of sexual misconduct by parliament’s own complaints office.

The Conservative party has been accused of misogyny after the Mail on Sunday last week quoted unnamed Tory MPs accusing the deputy leader of the opposition Labour party, Angela Rayner, of trying to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson with her legs.

British media reported that the porn claim was first made during a meeting of up to 50 Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday night.

Macron has spent the last days secluded in an out-of-town residence and then the Elysee Palace, considering the formation of a new government following his defeat of far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday.

But reflecting his promise of uniting a divided France, he chose for his first post-election visit the French town of Cergy-Pointoise in the Paris suburbs, a low-income area where far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came out on top in the first round of voting on April 10.

Macron was meeting residents when a bunch of cherry tomatoes whizzed by close to his face, missing him but hitting bystanders.

His security detail moved swiftly, shouting “projectile! projectile!” and covering Macron’s head with their hands before protecting him with a black umbrella. Macron appeared unflustered but keen to move on as rapidly as possible.

“No! No! No fighting,” he could be heard saying.

While the incident was minor, it was a reminder of the challenges of fully protecting a president who is fond of immersing himself into crowds even in areas that can be hostile to him.

In June 2021, he was slapped in the face by a man while greeting locals on another trip.

Elysee officials emphasised that the visit to Cergy-Pointoise had been marked by a good atmosphere, with an intense crush caused by people trying to get as close as possible to the president.

“In the poorest neighbourhoods, whether in cities or rural areas, we really need to create the conditions for real and effective equality of opportunity,” Macron said during the visit.

“It is the only way to get rid of this distrust… and sense of abandonment,” he said.

France’s Constitutional Council is due to certify the results of the election this week, paving the way for Macron’s second term to start next month.

With an eye on parliament elections in June, Macron is expected in the coming days to name a new prime minister and government but has offered few clues on who he may be considering.

“I will appoint someone who is committed to social and environmental issues and is productive,” he said as speculation whirls that a woman could head the government for the first time since Edith Cresson in 1991.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, warned that if Western forces intervene in Ukraine, they will face a “lightning-fast” military response.

“We have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having,” he told lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow’s ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal.

“We won’t boast about it: we’ll use them, if needed. And I want everyone to know that,” he said. “We have already taken all the decisions on this.” The dire threats came as Moscow claimed to have carried out a missile strike in southern Ukraine to destroy a “large batch” of Western-supplied weapons.

As the war, which has already claimed thousands of lives, entered its third month, Kyiv conceded that Russian forces had made gains in the east.

Russia’s military offensive saw it capture a string of villages in the Donbas region, now the immediate target of its invasion force. And in its economic standoff with the West, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, two EU and Nato members backing Ukraine in the conflict.

In Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, insisted that EU member states were ready for the move.She described the announcement by Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom as “another provocation from the Kremlin” that would be countered.

“It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us… Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated.

“Both Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbours,” she said. “The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end.” European powers have imposed massive sanctions on Russia since Putin’s decision to invade his neighbour, while shipping weapons to Ukraine’s defenders.

But they have moved slowly on hitting Moscow’s vast gas exports, with many EU members — notably industrial giant Germany — reliant on Russian energy to keep their lights on.

Putin has attempted to turn up the pressure by insisting that Russia will only accept payments for gas in rubles — hoping to force his foes to prop up his currency.

Gazprom announced the halt of gas to both Poland and highly dependent Bulgaria, saying it had not received payment in rubles from the two EU members.

But von der Leyen said that “about 97 percent” of all EU contracts explicitly stipulate payments in euros or dollars — and warned importing firms off paying in rubles.

“This would be a breach of the sanctions,” she told reporters.

Moscow defended its demand that western customers buy rubles, saying that sanctions against its central bank had forced it to rebuild its foreign reserves.

The United States still believes a return to a nuclear deal is the best path with Iran, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday, amid a prolonged standoff in talks.

Facing criticism of the deal during an appearance before Congress, Blinken called the 2015 agreement imperfect but better than the alternatives.

“We continue to believe that getting back into compliance with the agreement would be the best way to address the nuclear challenge posed by Iran and to make sure that an Iran that is already acting with incredible aggression doesn’t have a nuclear weapon,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We’ve tested the other proposition, which was pulling out of the agreement, trying to exert more pressure,” he said.

The result, he said, is that the “breakout time” for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb if it so chooses is “down to a matter of weeks” after the deal pushed it beyond a year.

Former president Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement reached under his predecessor Barack Obama and instead imposed sweeping sanctions, including trying to stop other nations from buying Iranian oil.

President Joe Biden’s administration has been engaged in more than a year of indirect talks in Vienna on reviving the agreement, which had promised Iran a relief from sanctions in return for major restrictions on its nuclear work.

Both US and Iranian officials say that most points have been settled. Disputes appear to include Iran‘s demand that Biden undo Trump’s designation of the clerical state’s powerful Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

The Nobel laureate and figurehead of Myanmar’s opposition to military rule is charged with at least 18 offences carrying combined maximum jail terms of nearly 190 years, all but killing off any chance of a political comeback.

The judge in the capital, Naypyitaw, handed down the verdict within moments of the court convening and gave no explanation, said the source, who declined to be identified because the trial is being held behind closed doors, with information restricted.

Suu Kyi, who has attended all of her hearings, was displeased with the outcome and would appeal, the source said.

The 76-year-old led Myanmar for five years during a short period of tentative democracy before being forced from power in a coup in February 2021 by the military, which has ruled the former British colony for five of the past six decades.

It was not immediately clear if she would be transferred to a prison to serve the sentence.

Since her arrest she has been held in an undisclosed location, where junta chief Min Aung Hlaing previously said she could remain after earlier convictions in December and January for comparatively minor offences, for which she was sentenced to six years altogether.

A spokesman for the military government was not immediately available for comment.

The latest case centred on allegations that Suu Kyi, accepted 11.4 kg of gold and cash payments totalling $600,000 from her protege-turned-accuser, former chief minister of the city of Yangon, Phyo Min Thein.

Suu Kyi had called the allegations “absurd” and denies all charges against her, which include violations of electoral and state secrets laws, incitement and corruption.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said Suu Kyi’s days as a free woman were effectively over.

“Myanmar’s junta and the country’s kangaroo courts are walking in lockstep to put Aung San Suu Kyi away for what could ultimately be the equivalent of a life sentence, given her advanced age,” he said.

“Destroying popular democracy in Myanmar also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta is leaving nothing to chance.”

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup, with nationwide protests and public anger suppressed by the military with lethal force. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested and many killed, tortured and beaten, in what the United Nations has called crimes against humanity.

The international community has imposed sanctions on the military and dismissed Suu Kyi’s trials as farcical. The embassies in Myanmar of the US and Britain did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The military has said Suu Kyi committed crimes and is being given due process by an independent judiciary and rejects foreign criticism as interference.

The junta has refused to allow her visits, including by a special Southeast Asian envoy trying to end the crisis.

Nay Phone Latt, a former official in Suu Kyi’s ousted ruling party, said court decisions were temporary, because military rule would not last long.

“We do not recognise the terrorist junta’s rulings, legislation, or the judiciary,” said Nay Phone Latt, a member of the shadow National Unity Government, which has declared a people’s revolt against military rule.

“I don’t care how long they want to sentence, whether it’s one year, two years, or whatever they want. This won’t last.”

The deadly shooting was the latest in a wave of bloodshed in the West Bank and Israel as Ramazan and the Jewish Passover overlapped this month.

The Palestinian health ministry said 20-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim Oweidat “succumbed to critical wounds sustained by live bullets to the head, at dawn today in Aqabat Jaber camp” near Jericho.

Two other men were wounded by live fire when the “undercover” forces raided the camp overnight, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Israel’s army said in a statement that soldiers had conducted an overnight operation in Aqabat “to apprehend wanted suspects”.

“During the operational activity, dozens of Palestinians violently rioted and attacked the soldiers,” it said, adding that no Israeli troops were hurt.

“The rioters burned tyres and hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers. The soldiers responded with riot dispersal means and live ammunition.”

Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians are common in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, but recent weeks have seen a surge in unrest.

Attacks by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in Israel have killed 14 people since late March, while Oweidat is among 25 Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, among them assailants, killed by Israeli forces over the same period.

His body, wrapped in the Palestinian flag and that of the president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement, was driven from a Ramallah hospital to Jericho for his burial, where hundreds of mourners enduring 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) heat surrounded the Oweidat family home. As the body left the family home, Oweidat’s mother wailed as she gave her son a final embrace.

Violent clashes have also recently rocked the compound of the Al Aqsa mosque in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, sparking fears of another armed conflict after an 11-day war last year between Israel and armed groups in the Gaza Strip, triggered by similar unrest.