Russia's Defense Ministry said on Saturday that US military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite carrying toxic fuel could be a veiled test of US missiles' capability to down enemy satellites.
The ministry accused the US military of failing to provide "enough arguments" to back its plan to smash the satellite this week with a missile so other countries could assess possible dangers.
"There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites," the ministry said.
The US has insisted that the goal of the operation is simply to protect people.
In a cable sent to all US embassies abroad by the State Department, diplomats were told to draw a clear distinction between the coming attempt and last year's test by China of a missile specifically designed to take out satellites, which was criticized by the US and other countries.
"This particular action is different than any actions that, for example, the Chinese may have taken in testing an anti-satellite weapon," spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Known as US193 -- its military designation -- the satellite was launched in December 2006. Its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a secret imaging sensor.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth early next month. About half of the 2,268kg spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred kilometers. However, it is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
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The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
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