If you’ve ever walked through a swarm of gnats at a picnic, you have some idea of what it’s like to navigate the mass of debris that circles our planet in low-Earth orbit. Space planners have long warned that the growing belt of cosmic junk would eventually lead to collisions, and on Tuesday it happened, when an American satellite and a defunct Russian satellite totaled one another 500 miles above Siberia.
Tag Archives: international
Rights groups: Pentagon sought Geneva Convention loopholes
The Bush Pentagon tried to find loopholes in the Geneva Conventions for its "ghost detainee" program in Iraq and to delay the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to avoid bad press, three human rights groups contend. Pentagon documents discuss CIA and Pentagon detention activities earlier this decade and indicate coordination between agencies in hiding internees from the Red Cross.
Russian, U.S. satellites collide in space
Two satellites, one Russian and one American, have collided some 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia, the Russian and U.S. space agencies, said Thursday. The collision on Tuesday produced two large debris clouds, NASA said
U.S. Navy arrests pirate suspects in Gulf of Aden
The U.S. Navy has captured seven suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden, the first arrests by a U.S.-led task force set up to curb rampant piracy off the Horn of Africa, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday
Sarajevo homes raided in hunt for Mladic
European Union peacekeepers in Bosnia on Tuesday raided homes belonging to family members of Ratko Mladic, the highest-ranking figure still at large from the Balkan conflict in the mid 1990s, Serbian media reported. The force raided houses belonging to Mladic’s sister, Milica Avram, and sister-in-law, Radinka Mladic, in East Sarajevo, an area of the city inside the Bosnian Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, a seperate political entity to the Muslim-Croat-controlled Bosnia-Croat Federation
Wounded Sri Lankans to escape conflict by sea
The Red Cross plans to evacuate 400 sick and wounded civilians from a Sri Lankan beach, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Afghan dog finds new life in Britain
His life has never been easy. Born into poverty and war, his ears and tail were chopped off when he was just a few months old in preparation for dog-fighting