US and China sign new power deal

In a major breakthrough for China’s quest to acquire latest US nuclear energy technology, the two governments on Saturday signed a MoU that paves the way for the US-based Westinghouse Electric Co. to provide technology fro four nuclear power units to be built in China.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by the Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Ma Kai and US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

“The pact was signed to ensure the introduction of technology and the smooth construction of the nuclear power plants,” Xinhua news agency quoted a statement released by the NDRC, China’s top planning body.The US-based Westinghouse will provide China with the AP1000 technology, a light water nuclear reactor which has an advanced design and an automatic system to deal with emergencies.The deal was approved by China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Company (SNPTC) for four new nuclear power plants to be constructed at the Sanmen in east China’s Zhejiang Province and Yangjiang in south China’s Guangdong Province.

More Than a Nuke Deal:Analysts say China hopes to use the deal, which came after a two-day visit to Beijing by the US’ top economic policy-makers and amid fears of a surge in protectionist sentiment, to soothe more than just energy ties. “This is a relationship driven,” said David Hurd, energy analyst at Deutsche Bank in Beijing.

Gun men mow down 3 children in Gaza

Palestinian gunmen killed three young children of a senior Palestinian intelligence officer on Monday in a drive-by shooting in a street crowed with hundreds of school children, an unprecented attack that could ignite wide-spread factional fighting.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

In the attack the gunman pumped dozens of bullets into a car carrying the children of intelligence officer Baha Balousheh, a loyalistof Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement. A decade ago, Balousheh was a lead interrogator in a crackdown on the now-ruling Islamic militant Hamas movement.

Three of Balousheh children, ranging from six to ten, and their driver were killed, hospital officials said. Four more people were wounded in the attack in Palestine Street, lined with nine schools. Baha Balousheh was not in the area.

As the shots rang out, children dropped to the ground or fled, screaming. Dozens of Palestinian police in the area where trying to calm the children and help them locate their parents. Hundreds of anxious parents rushed to Gaza City’s Shifa hospital to get word on their children.

Gaza has been plagued by factional violence in the past, with dozena of killed and hundreds of wounded. However, Monday’s direct attack on children was unprecented, and was likely to trigger widespread confrontations at a time when the lines between Hamas and Fatah have darkened.

After 9 years, Diana's ghost is laid to rest

After score of conspiracy theories fore nearly10 years, the raging speculation over the real cause of Princess Diana’s death is finally being laid to rest with a French investigation and an official British report concluding it was an accident caused by drunk-driving.

DNA tests on the blood samples of the driver of Diana’s car prove he was drunk on the night of the fatal accident in a Paris underpass. The French authorities carried out the blood tests within the past year. They found the results similar to those of the original post-mortem conducted on Henri Paul, the driver, which showed he had three times the French legal limit of alcohol in his blood. The recent tests also established that the blood samples examined originally and later were conclusively those of Paul.

Till now, conspiracy theories have had a field day with the claims that Paul’s blood samples were swapped with those of someone else who was drunk. The French man was variously reported to be a teetotaler or said to have certainly not been drinking on the night Diana died. M15, M16 and the Jewish lobby have variously been blamed for Diana’s death by conspiracy theorists.

The French officials had taken a DNA profile from Paul’s blood sample and matched it to those of his parents, thus concluding the samples had not been switched.

The French conclusions about the real cause of the death of Diana, aged 36, at the height of her beauty and in the throes of a giddy romance with Dodi Al Fayed –are expected to chime with the downbeat conclusions of an official British report into the crash.

Diana’s Mercedes crashed in the Pont d’Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997, while the couple was being followed by paparazzi desperate to record their romance on film.

Water on Mars

The big question is back –could life exist on Mars? Photographs taken from orbit suggest that liquid water may have flowed on the surface of Mars in the very recent past –or may still do so –raising yet again the possibility of Earthlings colonising our celestial cousin.
Of course, speculation about water on Mars is not yet new. What’s new is the evidence of its recent traces, announced by NASA at a News conference on Wednesday. The images taken by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor do not directly show water. Instead, they show apparently recent changes in surface features that provide the strongest evidence yet that water even now sometimes flows on the dusty, frigid world.
“These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said on Wednesday.
The Global Surveyor spotted gullies and trenches that seemed to be geologically young and carved by fast moving water coursing down cliffs and crater walls. Scientists at the Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, who operate a camera abroad the spacecraft, decided to retake photos of thousands of gullies in search of evidence of recent water activity.