News Briefs (April 7)

Wall Street Journal - China on Tuesday repeated its call for calm after North Korea's latest test of a multistage rocket, attempting to defuse anger in the U.S. and elsewhere at a time when its own economic interest in the neighboring state is soaring.

Since North Korea's test of a rocket similar to a long-range missile on Sunday, Chinese diplomats have refused to criticize Pyongyang and forestalled penalties against it in the U.N. Security Council, where China is a permanent member with veto power.

In Tuesday's daily briefing at the China Foreign Ministry in Beijing, spokeswoman Jiang Yu advised calm and caution over the rocket launch. While other countries that tracked the launch say North Korea's rocket fell into the Pacific Ocean, Ms. Yu appeared to suggest that China accepts North Korea's story that it succeeded in its stated goal of putting a satellite in space.

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L'AQUILA, Italy (CNN) -- An emergency worker fought back tears amid the rubble of Italy's deadliest earthquake in decades. Helicopters buzzed overhead, and sirens echoed across the region.

"It's my people. It's really hard to deal with," said Dr. Emanuela Troiani Sevi, who has been working around the clock at makeshift hospitals in her hometown of L'Aquila ever since the quake struck.

"There are a lot of dead and seriously wounded."

Across town, parents anxiously awaited any word on their children buried amid a mountain of twisted concrete at a student dormitory.

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez railed against Venezuela's Roman Catholic leaders on Tuesday for condemning a law that has weakened his political opponents.

Chavez took issue with the Venezuelan Bishops' Conference for accusing him of sidelining adversaries with a new law that let him take control of airports and seaports previously under the administration of opposition politicians.

"This group of bishops is shameless," Chavez told state television from China, where he is wrapping up a tour that also included visits to Japan, Iran and Qatar. "They side with all those who attack the government."

Quoting the Bible, Chavez added: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Obama Will Reduce Nuclear Arms

LONDON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev began their first face-to-face talks Wednesday, hitting the restart button on U.S.-Russian ties by trying to move forward on nuclear arms-reduction efforts.

Obama acknowledged before the meeting, on the eve of a G20 economic crisis summit in London, that the two former Cold War foes had some genuine differences but insisted they could still find common ground.

One major concrete achievement widely expected from the Obama-Medvedev encounter was an agreement to start talks on a new treaty limiting long-range nuclear missiles, to replace a pact that expires this year.

I trust fully that Barack will be able to not only limit nuclear arms, but will totally outlaw them. Himself. He's strong.

Iran Declared A Space and Nuclear Power

TEHRAN, March 13 (RIA Novosti) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that pressure from Western powers trying to keep Iran in economic isolation have in fact spurred the country to become a space and nuclear power.

"Had you not been bad-tempered and blocked the way, the Iranian nation would not have been present in space, and would not have become a nuclear power," Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying at the inauguration ceremony of a natural gas deposit in the Bushehr province.

Iran put its first communications satellite, Omid (Hope), into a near-Earth orbit on February 2. The research satellite was carried into orbit by a home-made launch vehicle, Safir (Messenger). Iranian Communications Minister Mohammad Soleimani earlier said that the country's scientists were working on the creation of four new satellites to be placed into near-Earth orbit. - Rian.ru

Not to sympathize with him, but it is America's hegemony that has contributed to Iran's (and many other nation's) build up.

Obama Seeks Space Arms Ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.

Moments after Obama's inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.

It also promised to look at threats to U.S. satellites, contingency plans to keep information flowing from them, and what steps are needed to protect spacecraft against attack.

This is just what Noam Chomsky calls for in Failed States.

Russia to Increase Nuclear Missile Production

Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama with an announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles.

In the latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Military experts said the planned new arsenal was presumed to consist of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rather than submarine-launched missiles. If this is the case, the plans represent a fourfold increase in the rate of ICBM deployment. The arsenal will include a new-generation, multiple-warhead ICBM called the RS-24. It was first test-fired in 2007, with first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov boasting it was "capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems". - Guardian

Dumb.