Endeavour lifts off on two-week mission

The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center early Monday on a two-week mission to the International Space Station.

The shuttle quickly pierced light cloud cover along the Florida coast in a brilliant launch.

The six-member Endeavour crew is delivering a key module to the International Space Station.

Cmdr. George Zamka is leading the STS-130 mission. Joining him aboard are pilot Terry Virts, and mission specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire, NASA said.

The crew is delivering a third connecting module, an Italian-built Tranquility node and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission also will include three spacewalks.

It's a busy week for NASA, with the agency also preparing to launch a Solar Dynamics Observatory into orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket on Tuesday.

Only five more shuttle launches are scheduled before the program ends in 2011.

Endeavour was originally scheduled to lift off early Sunday, but low cloud ceilings forced a nearly 24-hour delay.

(cnn.com)

Obama calls for talks with GOP on health care, then vote by Congress

President Obama called Thursday for high-level talks with Republicans to work out a compromise on health care legislation, then putting the resulting bill to a vote in Congress.

"If Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, after all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," Obama said. "That's how democracy works."

Obama's comments were the first clear signal from the White House or Democrats in Congress on how they would proceed on a top legislative priority after losing their 60-seat super-majority in the Senate.

Republican Scott Brown was sworn in as the new U.S. senator from Massachusetts earlier Thursday, leaving the Democrats one vote shy of being able to overcome GOP filibusters of health care reform and other major initiatives.

Asked at a party fund-raising event about the Democratic strategy for health care reform going forward, Obama said Democratic leaders in the House and Senate were working out differences in the separate health care bills passed by each chamber last year.

Once that was finished, Obama said, the next step would be "to call on our Republican friends to present their ideas."

"What I'd like to do is to have a meeting whereby I'm sitting with the Republicans, sitting with the Democrats, sitting with health care experts, and let's just go through these bills -- their ideas, our ideas -- and walk through them and in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare," Obama said.

(cnn.com)

Is the 'Avatar' concept really possible?

Now the highest-grossing film ever, "Avatar," has captivated millions of viewers with its picturesque scenery, extraterrestrial battles, and nature-loving, blue-skinned aliens.

The premise of the film is that humans can enter the world of these 10-foot aliens, called the Na'vi, by way of half-human, half-Na'vi hybrids. A high-tech interfacing mechanism allows a human to remain inert while controlling one of these avatar hybrids just by thinking.

Not only does the human manipulate the avatar's movements and speech, but he or she also experiences life -- every sensation, feeling and emotion -- through the eyes of the hybrid, as if consciousness were transferred.

Scientists say we are many decades, even centuries, away from making this kind of sophisticated interaction possible, if it can be done at all. But the fundamentals of components required to create this complicated system of mind-controlled avatars are already in the works, and have useful applications in medicine.

"We're starting to understand the basic building blocks, but the biggest challenges will be emotion and thought -- how to make another organism think what you think, to feel what you feel -- because those networks are much more difficult to sort out," said Dr. Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

See which films have been nominated for Academy Awards

Moving remote objects by thinking

Although nothing as complex as manipulating a creature through thought has been done, scientists working on allowing handicapped people to move prosthetic limbs with their minds are making headway. This idea actually played a role in the movie: Protagonist Jake Sully was in a wheelchair in his human body, but could walk, run and jump as his avatar.

One demonstration has been shown by Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, who is working on robotic leg braces. In 2008, his group got a monkey in North Carolina to mentally control the walking patterns of a robot in Japan.

This was done by implanting electrodes in the brains of two rhesus monkeys. The electrodes recorded how cells in the brain's motor and sensory cortex responded to walking on the treadmill at various speeds. The monkeys' legs also had sensors to record walking patterns.

Researchers used all this information to predict the exact speed of movement and stride length of the legs, and uploaded that information to a robot in Japan, getting the robot to move in synch with a monkey thousands of miles away in real time. Even when the treadmill was turned off, a monkey continued making the robot walk just by thinking for a few minutes.

Another arena is one of virtual reality: controlling an avatar in a video game with your mind. Jaime Pineda, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, is working with a brain-computer interface that allows participants to move a car around a racetrack, fly a plane and do other virtual tasks on a screen, simply by thinking. The mental training for this takes about four to six hours, he said.

"It is based on the motor parts of your brain. That's what we're recording from, and so if you think about moving, it's actually as if you are actually moving," he said.

Apart from the entertainment value, Pineda sees this as a future therapy for autistic children. The theory is that because people with autism have less conductivity between various parts of the brain, participating in mind-controlled video games may normalize those circuits. Results from his lab show improvement in social interaction and other behaviors after 10 or 20 weeks of playing the game in the lab.

(cnn.com)

Washington Struggles to Recover from Massive Snowstorm

Washington and surrounding areas are digging out after a paralyzing blizzard that dumped more than half a meter of snow, triggering emergency declarations by state officials throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

For nearly two days, the snow fell, and fell, and fell some more. The U.S. capital and surrounding areas received more snow in 36 hours than it usually sees in an entire winter. Local governments fought losing battles to keep roads clear, while residents struggled to free their cars from massive snowdrifts. Most public transportation ground to a halt, and flights to and from Washington were canceled.

WASHINGTON AREA RESIDENT: "I have been in Washington for maybe 30 years, and I think this is probably one of the biggest storms, maybe the biggest we have ever had."

Hundreds of thousands of people lost power to their homes. The weight of the snow caused tree limbs to snap and roofs to collapse. Emergency responders have been hard-pressed to reach those in need.

But what caused grief for many gave others a chance to engage in activities not usually seen in the nation's capital. A Washington landmark, Dupont Circle, became ground zero for a massive, friendly snowball fight that was organized on Twitter and other social networking sites.

Even President Barack Obama took note of the extreme conditions, coining a new phrase.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Snow, 'snowmageddon' ] here in [Washington] D.C."

And winter's grip on Washington is far from over. More snow is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

(from voanews.com)

Australia tightens skilled migration rules

Australia tightened its migration rules Monday in favor of English speakers and professionals, saying the country has been attracting too many hairdressers and cooks and too few doctors and engineers.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans blamed the overrepresentation of lower skilled immigrants on a system put in place by Prime Minister John Howard, whose government lost power in 2007 elections.

"Under the Howard government, we had a lot of cooks, a lot of hairdressers coming through," Evans told reporters. "We were taking hairdressers from overseas in front of doctors and nurses - it didn't make any sense."

The new rules will favor applicants who already have job offers over those who merely have qualifications or who are studying. The measures are expected to dampen enrollment in Australian colleges by foreign students hoping to settle in the country.

Numbers of foreign students enrolled in Australian colleges exploded in 2001, when the government changed migration rules to allow them to apply for permanent residency while studying. Until then, skilled workers had to apply offshore for visas to fill jobs from a list of more than 100 trades and professions that were suffering shortages in Australia.

Australia continues to have a shortage of accountants, partly because many of the 40,000 accountants who immigrated in the past five years did not have the professional or language skills to find work, Evans said.

"You've got to say if they don't have the English-language skills, don't have the trade skills and can't get a job, then really they should not be eligible for permanent residency," Evans said.

The new policy will favor applicants who score highly in an English language test. Moreover, immigrant numbers in certain jobs could be capped for the first time. The government has not identified which jobs.

Because of the higher standards and a revised list of which skilled workers are in short supply, 20,000 visa applications will be scrapped and their application fees totaling 14 million Australian dollars ($12 million) refunded, he said.

The new list will be made public mid-year and focus on high-skill professions.

Foreign students enrolled in courses for professions that are cut from the list will be given 18 months after graduation to find work in their field, or will have to leave Australia.

Evans conceded that the new rules would cost the education sector, which has rapidly grown into Australia's fourth largest export industry and reaps AU$12 billion a year from foreign student fees. But he said high-quality universities would continue to prosper.

Monash University social scientist Andrew Markus, an expert on migration policy, said student enrollments would fall because more than 70 percent of foreign students in Australia planned to settle here permanently.

Foreign student numbers in Australia have gone from 150,000 in 2002 to almost 400,000 last year, with India recently overtaking China as the largest source of applicants.

Indians accounted for almost one in four foreign students in Australia last year, but Australian universities expect enrollments to fall 30 percent this year because of a spate of violent crimes against Indians in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city.

(from jakartapost.com)

Russia competes for greater RI influence

Russia and Indonesia have forged stronger ties through trade and defense cooperation 60 years after their first diplomatic contact, rivaling ties with other major powers vying for influence in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

The two nation’s relationship, once sour during the New Order era, has strengthened, making the former communist country one of most important trade partners, with whom Jakarta signed its first bilateral strategic partnership.

“Russia is an important partner for Indonesia,” the Foreign Ministry’s director general for American and European affairs Retno L. P. Marsudi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

“We established the ‘Frame of Friendly and Partnership Relations in the 21st century’ with Russia in 2003. This is our first strategic partnership with another country”.

Retno said bilateral trade between Indonesia and Russia reached US$1.6 billion in 2008, surpassing the target of $1 billion set in 2007 during the visit of then president Vladimir Putin to Jakarta. The number of Russian tourists to Indonesia stood at 69,000 in 2008 with most of them staying for an extended period in the country, helping boost the local economy.

“Indonesia has strong leverage on the world’s political stage now, no wonder it attracts the attention of major global powers,” said Retno.

Jakarta has attracted the attention of China, the United States and Japan in the last few years. It has added to its global standing by becoming a member of the G20 or world’s 20 biggest economies.

Analysts have said Indonesia’s positive growth during last year’s global economic crisis not only proved that the country has resilient economy and a huge market, it also increased its leverage as a major democracy in the world and its potential of becoming a diplomatic bridge to the Muslim world.

“We seek to develop stronger relations with countries around the world. We will build strong relations with ASEAN members as

well as any other countries,” said Retno, referring to the 10 member grouping in Southeast Asia that has remains the cornerstone of Jakarta’s foreign policy.

Indonesia has signed strategic partnerships with China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and the European Union and will sign a comprehensive partnership with the US this March during US President Barack Obama’s visit to Jakarta.

“Indonesia and Russia’s bilateral relations have grown very strong as Jakarta sees the importance of not relying on one major power,” former ambassador to Russia Susanto Pudjomartono told the Post.

China and Russia grew closer to Indonesia in the early 1990s at the end of Cold War, undermining the influence of the US and European countries, who had at that time strained relations with Jakarta with arms embargos and concerns of human rights.

Along with the improvement of its human rights records and the urgency of fighting terrorism, Washington has restored its defense relations with Jakarta by waiving the arms embargo in 2005.

However, Indonesia has never since purchased military hardware from the United States, turning
instead to the Kremlin with whom it has already established good defense ties to renew its aging arsenal, especially those of the Navy and Air Force. There additional Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, purchased by Jakarta, will be delivered this October.

“Our current defense ties with Russia is the result of our good relations with them through the 1990s, when the financial crisis started to take toll,” said Evan A. Laksmana, a researcher with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“Unlike other countries, especially the US, Russia offered us a very flexible payment scheme... and they also have no any strings attached in the purchases we made. Russia does not put pressure on our domestic policies related to the military purchases. They uphold principles of non-interference, which is very attractive to us.”

Evan said Indonesia’s and Russia’s relationship would not concern the US as much as it would to the Indonesia-China relations, which Washington has paid cautious attention to.

“American interests are tied more closely to China’s growing influence in the region rather than Russia’s influence because of [Jakarta’s] geographical proximity and political closeness to [Beijing],” he said.

Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Alexander A. Ivanov said Indonesia would remain one of the most important countries to Russia as attested by the extensive cooperation between both countries, from energy, telecommunications and education to interfaith-dialogues.

“We have had very diverse and good relations with Indonesia since the start of our diplomatic relations. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union provided assistance in building the defense capabilities of the newly independent Indonesia,” he said.

“Implementation of our cooperation commitments that reach a wide range of areas has grown significantly since the visits of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Moscow in 2006 and [then] president Vladimir Putin to Jakarta in 2007,” said Ivanov.

(taken from jakarta post.com)

Some US Students Learn Mandarin With China's Help

The Confucius Classroom program is offered in more than 50 American schools and universities, and almost 40 countries worldwide. Transcript of radio broadcast: 04 February 2010

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Some schools in the United States and other countries offer Chinese language classes with government support from China.

(CLASSROOM SOUND)

Saint Mary's School is a private college preparatory school in Medford, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest.

CARLY IRVINE: "Wo jiao Carly."

Carly Irvine is in her fourth year of learning Mandarin.

CARLY IRVINE: "Since China and America are working so closely and our relationship is growing more and more, I think it will be very important in the future to know Chinese."

Saint Mary's also teaches Spanish, German and Latin. It added Mandarin in two thousand five. Two years ago, it became the first school in the country to join the Confucius Classroom program.

The program pays about half the costs of a teacher sent to a school in the United States. China's Education Ministry also provides books and other materials.

Saint Mary's principal, Frank Phillips, says knowing Chinese will help students in a world where China is quickly gaining economic power. But he admits to concerns in his local community.

FRANK PHILLIPS: "The question I always get is, 'Is this a gigantic propaganda move, is this an evil Communist plot on the part of China?' That's the number one kind of lingering Cold War suspicion about this program. From what I can detect, having been involved in it for two years, I see none of that."

In fact, the program has won the support of his local representative in the state legislature. Dennis Richardson says he has concerns about human rights in China. But he is among several lawmakers who have been pushing for more Chinese language education in public schools in Oregon.

DENNIS RICHARDSON: "We can do more good setting an example and being friends and business associates than we can by ostracizing them."

Zheng Ling, a teacher at Saint Mary's, came from China in two thousand eight.

ZHENG LING: "People do not know much about China, especially the latest development. So I think this is a chance for them to know more about China, what China is really like. It's quite different from what it was twenty years ago."

The Confucius Classroom program is in about forty countries, including more than fifty American schools and universities.

A recent report said more schools in the United States are teaching Chinese and Arabic, although the numbers are still low. But it said foreign language teaching in public elementary and middle schools dropped sharply in recent years. Fewer schools teach French, German, Russian or Japanese.

There are language teacher shortages. But some schools say a federal law that only measures progress in math and reading has hurt language teaching.

The federal government paid for the survey by the Center for Applied Linguistics.