Goce satellite views Earth's gravity in high definition

It is one of the most exquisite views we have ever had of the Earth.

This colourful new map traces the subtle but all pervasive influence the pull of gravity has across the globe.

Known as a geoid, it essentially defines where the level surface is on our planet; it tells us which way is "up" and which way is "down".

It is drawn from delicate measurements made by Europe's Goce satellite, which flies so low it comes perilously close to falling out of the sky.

Scientists say the data gathered by the spacecraft will have numerous applications.

One key beneficiary will be climate studies because the geoid can help researchers understand better how the great mass of ocean water is moving heat around the world.

The new map was presented here in Norway's second city at a special Earth observation (EO) symposium dedicated to the data being acquired by Goce and other European Space Agency (Esa) missions.

Europe is currently in the midst of a huge programme of EO development which will see it launch some 20 missions worth nearly eight billion euros before the decade's end.

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce) is at the front of this armada of scientific and environmental monitoring spacecraft.

Imaginary ball

Launched in 2009, the sleek satellite flies pole to pole at an altitude of just 254.9km - the lowest orbit of any research satellite in operation today.

The spacecraft carries three pairs of precision-built platinum blocks inside its gradiometer instrument that sense accelerations which are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth.

This has allowed it to map the almost imperceptible differences in the pull exerted by the mass of the planet from one place to the next - from the great mountain ranges to the deepest ocean trenches. 

Two months of observations have now been fashioned into what scientists call the geoid.

"I think everyone knows what a level is in relation to construction work, and a geoid is nothing but a level that extends over the entire Earth," explained Professor Reiner Rummel, the chairman of the Goce scientific consortium.

"So with the geoid, I can take two arbitrary points on the globe and decide which one is 'up' and which one is 'down'", the Technische Universitaet Muenchen researcher told BBC News.

In other words, the map on this page defines the horizontal - a surface on which, at any point, the pull of gravity is perpendicular to it.

Put a ball on this hypothetical surface and it will not roll - even though it appears to have "slopes". These slopes can be seen in the colours which mark how the global level diverges from the generalised (an ellipsoid) shape of the Earth.

In the North Atlantic, around Iceland, the level sits about 80m above the surface of the ellipsoid; in the Indian Ocean it sits about 100m below.

Armed man takes hostages at bank: police

LONDON — An armed man took a number of people hostage in a bank in Ashford on Monday, police said.

Police said the man took hostages after entering a branch of Barclays bank in west London, at around 4:00 pm.

A police spokeswoman said: "A number of people were inside the bank at the time and currently the man is still believed to be inside the premises".

"It is believed that there are still people in the bank".

Police were using a helicopter to observe the scene.

Detective Superintendent Alan Sharp of Surrey Police said police were on the scene "within minutes" and were assessing the situation.

City court dismisses defamation case against Lokayukta

Bangalore, Jun 28 (PTI) A city court today dismissed a defamation suit filed by an IPS officer against Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde and 11 other newspaper publishers on the ground that it is not "maintainable".

Superintendent of Police M Hemanth Nimbalkar, who had been accused by the Lokayukta of possessing assets disproportionate to his income, had filed a defamation suit against Hegde and editors and publishers of 11 newspapers.

Nimbalkar had accused Hegde of speculating about the worth of his property without any firsthand knowledge and the same being published in newspapers.

The case was dismissed on preliminary grounds of not being maintainable.

Lokayukta had conducted raids on the residence and other premises of Nimbalkar in the state and Maharastra last year and claimed to have unearthed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Judicial remand extended for Ahmadi attack suspects

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism Court sent two suspects of the attack on Ahmadi worship places in Lahore, on judicial remand until July 12. 

During a hearing on Monday, police requested the court for an extension of the physical remand for further investigations.

The court, however, rejected the request.

Suspects Maaz and Abdullah were allegedly involved in the attack on Ahmadis on May 28, 2010.

Nawaz questions grant distributions by Awan

LAHORE: PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif lashed out against Federal Minister for Law Babar Awan on Monday, criticizing him for his speeches in bar councils and said it has made the process of distribution of grants among the bar associations questionable.

While addressing a party meeting in Raiwind, Shairf asked where were the grants when bar associations were busy in struggle for the independence of judiciary.

He said that those who were campaigning against the PML-N should see first that what they were doing. They should tell the nation what was their agenda and program, he added.

The PML-N leader advised the party to adopt self accountability and said that critical review of performance was inevitable.

There was a need to evolve a joint agenda to steer the country out of present mess, he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Amir Haider Hoti met Shairf brothers in Raiwind.

Separatists up their ante, call for sit-in protests; Mirwaiz too calls for protests

Separatists in Kashmir on Monday threatened to up their ante against the state government and asked people to come on roads and mosques to register their protests against the killing of eight teenagers in the last fortnight.

"Now that the state government has admitted it has no control over security forces killing unarmed civilians, people are asked to fill the streets and protests peacefully on June 28 and June 29," All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.

He appealed to people to assemble at colonies central places and raise pro-freedom slogans.

"The aim to attract the attention of international community towards state terrorism and unending violence against new generation in Kashmir," said the Mirwaiz, who was placed under house arrest on Monday.

The separatists, both moderate and hard-line led by Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani, have issued a calendar of protests, which includes two-day strike and marches towards city's historical places like Pather Masjid.

Heeding to Hurriyat calls, many mosques in the city in the Monday evening asked people to come out on roads to protests the killings. Pro-freedom songs were played at ruling National Conference bastion Shah Hamdan shrine at Zaina Kadal. There were reports of sit-in from several localities in Srinagar.

Sopore, where four youth were killed in the last four days, also witnessed late night protest sit-ins.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, led by Yasin Malik, has also asked people to protest against the killings.

Malik was arrested on Sunday night from his residence and has been taken to unknown location. Mirwaiz's aide Nayeem Ahmad Khan has also been arrested from Pattan area early Monday and shifted to an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, all exams scheduled for next three days have been cancelled by the authorities.

16,000 MoH officials to be trained

RIYADH: The Ministry of Health is to provide comprehensive training to 16,000 health officials in Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah as part of a new program that is to be run in conjunction with the Institute of Public Administration (IPA).

Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah and IPA General Manager Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sagawi signed an agreement on Sunday for the program, which would cover both male and female officials employed by the Ministry of Health.

“Besides the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, the ministry has increased its own scholarships for its officers by 200 percent,” Al-Rabeeah told newsmen on Sunday following the signing ceremony.

He added that the envisaged program would cover both medics and paramedics. “The whole idea of the program is to enhance the level of services offered to patients in all parts of the Kingdom,” said Al-Rabeeah, adding that the training program has been designed in a way that would allow participants to continue with their work. The minister explained that the program is part of his ministry’s Kingdomwide efforts to develop its work force.

Al-Sagawi said the training program, which will commence in October this year, would include 669 different kinds of trainings to suit the needs of health personnel. “The IPA hopes to implement the program in three phases during a period of 18 months”. Subjects, he said, would include administration, accounting, human resources, law, management, organizational behavior, office management and computer science.

Memorial marks Six Bells colliery disaster

Sebastien Boyesen hopes 20m high sculpture of a miner will be a fitting tribute to the 45 men and boys who died in 1960

It soars above the former colliery site, a 20m-high figure constructed of hefty slices of steel that is already being regarded as a Welsh answer to Antony Gormley's Angel of the North.

Thousands of people attended an event today to get a first glimpse of Guardian, built as a memorial to the 45 men and boys killed in the Six Bells Colliery mining accident near Abertillery, Blaenau Gwent, 50 years ago.

Among the crowd were relatives who lost loved ones, men who survived the accident, religious leaders and politicians. The hope is that as well as remembering those who died and honouring other Welsh mining communities, Guardian will come to symbolise ambitious plans to revitalise the valleys.

"The figure is about remembering the past, honouring those who were killed and celebrating the future," said Mair Sheen, of Six Bells Communities First, which has led the project. "We have a fantastic past and heritage. The British empire was built on Welsh coal. But we have a future, too. The valleys are incredibly beautiful. We hope this will encourage people to come. We want it to be a symbol of where we are going".

The figure is the creation of artist Sebastien Boyesen, who said he had found the experience of designing and constructing Guardian over the past 18 months "inspiring and moving".

When he first received the brief, Boyesen was worried about how he could create a fitting memorial to an accident that devastated a whole community. "But when I saw the site, a big open space, it came quickly," he said. "I felt I wanted to do something big — the scale was important. And I wanted a figure, something that represented the men and boys who had lost their lives".

Boyesen, who worked through the night to put the finishing touches to the figure, said he and other contributors to the £200,000 project did a lot of community consultation, setting up a table in the centre of Abertillery and asking people what they wanted of the memorial.

"We had people in tears talking about it, talking about their loved ones who had died — their fathers, uncles, brothers. It was very moving. It was as if you were talking to survivors from a war. I realised we were doing something that had much more resonance with the people. So often, public art is decorative; this is more than that".

Boyesen accepts that Guardian will be compared with Gormley's piece. "I love the Angel of the North and I'm hoping people will look at this in the same sort of way. It has a purpose, it has a meaning. I hope it's going to become a recognisable, iconic image that people in the valleys will grow up with. It would be nice if it became part of the fabric of society here".

Jocelyn Davies, the deputy minister for housing and regeneration at the Welsh assembly, emphasised the project was about looking forward. "This memorial statue will remember the disaster 50 years ago, but also provide something iconic for the people of the valleys for the future. It will become the centrepiece of the Ebbw Fach Trail, linking areas of countryside with walkways, bridlepaths and cycle routes, and will help our overall regeneration programme for the region".

One pleasing aspect of the project is that corrections can be made to the details of those killed. Mistakes have emerged in previous records, but the project leaders are confident the correct ones have been cut into a steel band that is wrapped around the plinth on which Guardian stands.

Leading a service of remembrance, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: "Today is a reminder of the terrible price that was paid by so many, who put their lives daily at risk in the mining industry for the sake of the well-being and prosperity of the whole country and community.

"We celebrate their courage and mourn the loss of life here and in many other places; and we shall be praying, too, for all across the world who still work in conditions of mortal danger".

Jim Watkins, now a Blaenau Gwent councillor, was due to work in the area of the mine where the accident happened. One of his most vivid memories was saying goodbye to 19-year-old Dennis Lane. "I was due to be with him but my instructions changed at the last moment. I said: 'See you later' to Dennis. He turned away. That was the last time I ever saw him".

Russia to continue developing advanced arms - Medvedev

Russia will continue developing advanced weaponry, which will boost the country's economy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

"Our country will invest in advanced weapons - this is inevitable," the president said during a meeting with cabinet ministers dedicated to budget issues in his Gorki residence outside Moscow.

Most major economies spend money on the development of new arms, and Russia will not put up with lagging behind, Medvedev said. Moreover, the president added, this will benefit the economy as Russia is a major arms exporter.

However, Medvedev called on the government to consider Russia's financial realities while allocating money for the development of new arms.

Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin said in February that the Russian Army had a large amount of outdated equipment. Particularly, he said, there were some 20,000 tanks, when only 5,000 to 6,000 were needed, and the quality of hardware left much to be desired.

He pledged that the Army would mostly use domestically built arms and purchase military equipment abroad only in those fields where there are "flaws".

Russian rights advocates detained at Moscow 'Day of Wrath' rally

Two prominent human rights activists were detained on Monday along with some 30 other protesters after staging an anti-government demonstration in front of the Moscow City Hall.

Lev Ponomarev and Sergei Udaltsov of the For Human Rights and Left Front groups were detained after leading a Day of Wrath protest against Mayor Yury Luzhkov's policies.

"We came here to demand the resignation of the Moscow mayor. The city authorities banned the rally illegally," Udaltsov told RIA Novosti.

Police said earlier they would prevent any attempt at staging an "unauthorized" rally in the city.

When Ponomarev and Udaltsov started giving out "black marks" - black scraps of paper symbolizing distrust of Luzhkov's policies - to the protesters, the 200-strong rally on downtown Moscow's Tverskaya Square was forcibly broken up by riot police.

Ponomarev, Udaltsov and several others were put into police vans and driven off.

A police spokesperson said more than 30 protesters were detained.

Many previous opposition rallies in Moscow have been outlawed and broken up by police.

Nearly 200 opposition protesters were brutally detained on May 31 during a March of Dissent rally on Triumfalnaya Square, not far from the site of Monday's protest.

The crackdown caused public outrage as riot police outnumbered demonstrators and people with disabilities as well as a World War II veteran were reportedly among those detained.

Several small Russian opposition groups hold Marches of Dissent on the last day of each month with 31 days in defense of their right to free assembly, as enshrined in the 31st article of the Russian Constitution.

Russia hopes referendum will stabilize Kyrgyz politics

Russia's Foreign Ministry expressed hope on Monday that Kyrgyzstan will gain a measure of political stability following the passing of a referendum on a new constitution with overwhelming public support.

According to preliminary results, some 91% of Kyrgyz voters approved changes to the constitution that reduce the president's powers and make Kyrgyzstan a parliamentary republic. Voters also endorsed interim leader Roza Otunbayeva as president for the transitional period until December 31, 2011.

"We expect the Kyrgyz Central Election Commission to announce official results of the referendum in the next few days, and international and local observers to issue their evaluation. It is hoped that the passed referendum will contribute to the political stabilization in friendly Kyrgyzstan," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed doubts on Sunday that the model of a parliamentary republic would work in Kyrgyzstan. Speaking at a briefing after the G8 and G20 summits in Canada, he said the change was an internal affair but warned that the situation in the country could cause endless realignments of the political forces in the parliament.

Sunday's referendum followed several days of bloody interethnic riots that began in the Central Asian country on June 11. The clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks claimed the lives of more than 280 people, according to government figures, but Kyrgyz officials acknowledge that the real death toll may be 10 times higher.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the vote took place in a calm atmosphere, with no major disturbances reported. Some 7,500 police were deployed to ensure security during the poll.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose representatives were among some 190 international observers monitoring the referendum, praised the vote earlier on Monday.

The OSCE said the Kyrgyz authorities "should be commended for organizing a remarkably peaceful process" considering the "extremely difficult environment in which the referendum took place".

Russia charges activist over Finnish border claims

Prosecutors in the northwestern Russian republic of Karelia have filed a suit against a resident of Petrozavodsk for distributing leaflets calling for the return of Russia's northern borderlands to Finland.

The prosecutors said in a statement that a 47-year-old man is facing charges of extremism for printing scores of leaflets and then distributing them in the Karelian town of Sortavala earlier this year.

The leaflets contained calls for land near the Finnish border in the republic of Karelia and the Murmansk and Leningrad regions that was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II to be returned to Finland.

The name of the accused was not revealed.

Moldova's president stands firm on Soviet Occupation Day decree

Moldova's acting president Mikhai Ghimpu refused on Monday to revoke his decree establishing June 28 as Soviet Occupation Day in the country.

The decree, promulgated on Thursday, also promotes nationwide commemorative events and orders "a monument to victims of Soviet occupation and the totalitarian communist regime to be erected in front of the government building".

"If we have come to power and want to be truly sovereign and independent, we must tell the truth," he said.

"We did not come to power to play up to those who regard June 28 as liberation day."

On June 28, 1940, at a USSR request, royal Romania withdrew its troops from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which it had been occupying since 1918, and the region joined the Soviet Union. The Moldavian SSR, including six Bessarabia districts as well as six areas from the left bank of the Dnester, was established in August 1940.

Moldovan Democratic Party leader Marian Lupu said earlier on Monday the decree had been "virtually scrapped" at the request of the ruling coalition.

An emergency plenary session of the country's parliament, set to vote on Ghimpu's decree Monday, was canceled.

"The decision to cancel the session was made by the majority of votes...because the proposed approach is erroneous and ill-timed," Lupu said.

He said it was now up to the Constitutional Court to make the final decision, since Ghimpu has refused to retract his decree.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday Moscow regarded Moldova's decision as an element of "a preplanned political campaign spearheaded against Russian-Moldovan partnership".

Ghimpu was made acting Moldovan leader in September 2009 when the country's liberal-democratic coalition was forced to find a compromise after failing to appoint another candidate. Ghimpu is known for his sweeping pro-Romanian policies.

Israel begins investigating raid on Gaza-bound aid convoy

An Israeli commission set up to investigate the May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound humanitarian convoy in the Mediterranean Sea held its first session on Monday, the Kol Israel radio station reported.

The commission, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel, is to establish the legality of the raid in neutral waters off the Gaza coast, the report said. The attack, which resulted in nine deaths, was widely condemned by the international community.

The commission is also to decide whether the sea blockade of Gaza complies with international law and reveal the organizers of the Turkish-led humanitarian action.

"The commission has decided to call the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu], defense minister [Ehud Barak] and chief of the General Staff [Gabi Ashkenazi], as well as other top officials," Turkel was quoted as saying during the opening session.

The commission is "firmly resolved to conduct a thorough investigation and hopes therefore to contribute to the cause of peace," he said.

Netanyahu has already agreed to cooperate with the commission, Kol Israel said. The commission was created by the Israeli government, but has an "independent" and "public" status.

During the G20 summit in Toronto, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel to apologize for the attack and agree to the creation of a truly independent commission involving foreign experts to investigate the attack.

Israel has rejected numerous calls to set up an international inquiry into the raid, but has invited Northern Irish Nobel Prize laureate David Trimble and the former Judge Advocate General of the Canadian Forces, Ken Watkin, to monitor the Israeli investigation committee's activities.

Besides the commission, the Israeli military were also ordered to conduct separate probes into the raid.

Stolen Caravaggio painting found in Berlin

The 17th-century painting The Taking of Christ by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Caravaggio, stolen from a Ukrainian museum in 2008, has been found in Berlin, Die Welt reported on Monday.

The masterpiece, also known as the Kiss of Judas, was stolen from the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art in southern Ukrainian city of Odessa. The thieves intended to sell it to the German art collector.

The German newspaper said police in Germany detained three Ukrainian nationals and a Russian when they attempted to hand over the painting to the buyer.

The painting was brought to Odessa at the beginning of the 20th century. It was long believed to be a copy of a Caravaggio, but the authenticity of the work was established in 2005 while the canvas was on exhibit in Spain.

Experts estimate that the painting is worth as much as several tens of million euros.

G20 pledge to tackle debt in Toronto

Of all the challenges discussed at the G20 summit in Toronto, the largest and most pressing was government debt and related issues - unsustainable budget deficits and the need for tax increases and cuts in social programs, pensions and wages.

The leaders of the world's 20 largest economies were forced to acknowledge that the world needs to start sobering up after a 25-year debt-fueled bender.

Serious economists have long compared debt and alcohol. The cheap loans of the 1990s and the early 2000s were certainly no less intoxicating than wine, whisky or vodka. Many borrowers simply could not resist taking out more and more easy loans. They lost control, much like alcoholics who cannot stop after the first shot. The inevitable hangover came in the form of the global financial crisis, and it has lasted for over a year already.

Others go even further, calling the debt trap divine retribution for extravagant spending and the arrogance of unbridled consumerism. As proof, they point out that the words "debt" and "sin" are synonyms in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples.

How simple it would be if debtors and sinners could find salvations in indulgences, like the final statements of G20 summits. But life is more complicated than that. Governments will have to reform their own spending and work together to reform the entire global financial system. They will have to learn to live within their means and borrow only when absolutely necessary. The debtors and sinners must repent. And there is only one way to repent in the global economy: to spend less.

But can they do it?

The severity of the sins (and the hangover) varies from country to country. Russia has been more fortunate than most thanks to its stabilization funds, which were financed by high oil and gas prices. It has the least debt (including sovereign, business and consumer debt) of the 20 leading economies.

Russia's debt-to-GDP ratio is currently 71%, according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The word's biggest debtors are Japan (471%), Britain (466%), Spain (366%), France (322%) and Germany (286%). The foreign debt of the United States is 296% of GDP, China's is 158% and India's is 129%.

This translates into hundreds of billions of dollars.

When a country's debt exceeds GDP several times over, this means it is borrowing much more than it takes in. The figures cited by MGI are stunning but by no means record-setting; they are still manageable. The countries in serious trouble are Iceland (1200%) and Ireland (700%).

Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark are the exceptions. Norway's GDP actually exceeds its foreign debt by 156%, Finland's by 57% and Sweden's by nearly 20%, even though they have tons of social programs and a generous safety net that Americans can only dream of. In these countries, government spending actually benefits the economy. This is a testament to Scandinavian socialism.

There comes a time, even in large economies like the United States, when a country's ability to absorb debt reaches a limit - when each borrowed dollar yields less and less return. According to U.S. statistics, each borrowed dollar yielded nearly 90 cents of profit in the 1960s compared to just 10 cents in 2010. The debt super-cycle has petered out; the time has come to start repaying our debts, as the G20 leaders affirmed in Toronto.

They have agreed that there should be common principles, but methods should be differentiated for and tailored to national circumstances.

The problem is that the United States, Japan, and especially Europe are overly optimistic about the prospects for economic recovery. The world's wealthiest countries are facing major demographic changes, and the generation of the 2030s will be forced to pay the debts incurred in the 2000s.

The population in Japan, Britain, France, and Germany is aging so fast (and their senior citizens are living much longer and better) that in a few years a single working citizen in these countries will have to pay for the pension of one or two retirees. Rapid economic growth is simply not possible in the face of a declining workforce, which means that debts will not be repaid quickly.

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The G20 comprises the 20 largest economies in the world, with the European Union counting as one member. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the European Central Bank also participate in G20 summits. The group accounts for 85% of global GDP.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's alone and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti