18 dead, many more wounded after gunmen attack passenger bus in Pakistan

18 dead, many more wounded after gunmen attack passenger bus in Pakistan

Masked gunmen opened fire on a passenger bus in southwest Pakistan, killing at least 18 people and wounding many others. The bus, which was parked near a petrol station, caught on fire, triggering a massive inferno.

­Senior local official Abdul Mansoor Kakar told AFP that four gunmen opened fire on the van with automatic rifles.

"At least 18 people have been killed in the fire. The dead included seven women and four children sitting in the passenger van," Kakar said.

The gunmen also caused petrol drums standing nearby to ignite, which led to a massive fire.

Eleven of the 18 bodies have been identified, but hospital officials said that some were so badly burned that identification was very difficult.

The incident took place in the outskirts of Khuzdar, around 250 kilometers southwest of Quetta, the capital of the Baluchistan province.

Baluchistan is one of Pakistan's most impoverished and dangerous provinces, despite having the country's largest gas and oil reserves, and it is plagued by sectarian violence as well as attacks by Taliban militants and separatist insurgents.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Two satellites lost: Proton rocket launch fails to deliver

The launch of a Proton rocket booster from has ended with the failure of the upper stage to deliver two communication satellites into the intended orbits. All Proton launches have been suspended until an investigation into the incident is completed.

­The Proton-M rocket with Express MD2 and Telcom-3 communication satellites was launched at 20:31 GMT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. All stages of the booster worked correctly and satellites with Briz-M uppers stage were delivered into an interim orbit.

The final stage started with two successful engine firings, but the last third failed to eventuate.

Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos has confirmed that satellites were not delivered into their orbits and are considered lost. An emergency commission is investigating the contingency event.

The Express MD2 satellite was designed at the Khrunichev Space Center in alliance with Italy’s Thales Alenia Space to retransmit various communications flows to broadcast on the territory of Russia.

The Telcom-3 satellite was made by Russia’s Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems for Indonesia’s РТ Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. It was supposed to provide TV broadcasts in Indonesia and the Indochina region.

The Russian space industry has suffered a number of considerable satellite losses over the last two years.

On December 5, 2010, another Proton-M rocket deviated from the course by eight degrees. As a result, three GLONASS navigation satellites fell into the Pacific. That loss was particularly painful since these three were the last to complete the 24 satellite group to make GLONASS fully operable around the globe.

In 2011, Russia made four failed launches. In February a military satellite Geo-IK-2 was lost, in August a Progress M-12M cargo ship failed to make it to the ISS and crashed in Siberia, in November Roscosmos lost the Phobos-Grunt automatic space station and, in December, a Meridian-5 communication satellite.

The latest emergency could result in a major system shake-up and even dismissals at the Khrunichev Space Center, which designed and manufactured the Briz-M upper stage. The series of emergencies last year forced Roscosmos to introduce additional acceptance measures to ensure maximum quality of the equipment. However this latest failure puts the effectiveness of that step under question.

Mayhem: Workers burn HR head to death in India Suzuki plant rampage

Up to 100 people have been arrested for attacking managers and executives at India's top carmaker - Maruti Suzuki plant. The chaos left one dead and many injured, forcing the plant to suspend its operations.

A burned body had been recovered from the plant's main conference room after clashes between workers and executives erupted late on Wednesday. The body was identified as a General Manager in the Human Resource department of the company.

Ninety nine workers have been already arrested following the violence, which charges ranging from murder, attempted murder, infliction of grievous bodily harm and rioting. Police say more arrests are likely to come over the next 48 hours – most of those accused are union leaders and workers.

The rampage in which up to 95 people were injured, including nine police officers, was reportedly sparked by a conflict between a shop floor employee and a supervisor. But eyewitnesses say there had been tension at the plant since 6 pm Wednesday over ongoing talks on wage revision.

Police officials walk past a damaged part of the Maruti Suzuki′s plant (Reuters/Stringer India)

Police officials walk past a damaged part of the Maruti Suzuki's plant (Reuters/Stringer India)

The altercation reportedly instigated a fight between the workers and the executives which ended up with property being set afire, offices ransacked, and facilities damaged. The production at the plant has been suspended following the incident, though the plant’s authorities insist that the production lines have not been damaged.

The Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar, located some 50 kilometers from New Delhi, employs 2,000 people and produces up to 1,200 of Maruti's top-selling Swift and A-Star hatchbacks and SX4 sedans daily.

Shares in Maruti Suzuki dropped more than nine per cent on Thursday at the Bombay Stock Exchange as investors worried about the impact on production.

This is not the first case of unrest at the Manesar plant. Last year, Maruti Suzuki witnessed three separate instances of labor unrest at the plant, with wages named as the primary cause. There was a 13-day strike in June 2011 that brought production to a standstill.

It was followed by another standoff between the management and the workers on August 29 that lasted 33 days. In October 2011, the company again saw its workers going on a 14-day strike.

An extended shutdown this year would be a major blow for the plant.

Logistical nightmare: Russia leads NATO out of Afghan trap

The vulnerability of the recently reopened Pakistani transit route supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan has been a headache for over a decade. But the real problem will emerge once troops start to withdraw – with Russia ready to shoulder the burden.

Moscow has opened the combined transport transit route to supply 130,000 allied troops in Afghanistan. In the face of the coalition forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, NATO would be severely dependent on the “northern route” to evacuate servicemen and countless war materials accumulated in the country since 2001.

Despite reopening the transit via Pakistan on Thursday, the supply route through former Soviet Central Asian republics and Russia would continue to play an increasingly mercurial role for NATO operations in Afghanistan.The reality on the ground has become increasingly clear over the last seven months as the US and Pakistan remained locked in a political standoff over a deadly American air strike incident that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November.

From that point on, the Pakistani borders were sealed off to coalition transit.

To avoid shipment disruptions, US military logisticians had to shift up to 60 per cent of the supplies to northern routes via Russia, with the rest of the cargo having been delivered by air.

Reportedly, the “Russian route” is about three times more expensive than the shorter Pakistani one, but the air freight from Afghanistan is ten times more expensive. Reportedly, the shift to the “Russian route” has been costing the US an additional $100 million a month against previous payments to Pakistan.

Opening the gates to Ulyanovsk

­The interruption of transit via Pakistan has dramatically exposed the vulnerabilities in shipping military supplies to international forces operating in Afghanistan.

So there is little wonder the opening of the military transit logistics hub in Russia’s Ulyanovsk must seem heaven-sent for Washington. NATO has been using Russian airspace for delivering troops and non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan since 2009. Now that Moscow has agreed to allow a combined transit – by land as well as by air – the transit via Russia is going to grow invariably.

Russian Vice Premier Dmitry Rogozin has repeatedly stressed that the transit hub in Ulyanovk in no way means a “NATO military base” has been established on Russian soil.

“We open the gate and make money,” Rogozin said to Echo Moskvy radio station. He stressed that there will be no NATO personnel anywhere on the route – just containers from the alliance being transported by Russian railway and Russian trucks.

“NATO personnel in Russia is out of question,” Rogozin stressed.

In April Russia’s Public Chamber discussed establishing an Ulyanovsk logistics hub for NATO needs. In the end, the body agreed the undertaking would be profitable in several different respects. The preliminary expenses of evacuating ISAF depots from Afghanistan are estimated at $1.5-3 billion. Also, new jobs are expected to be created in Ulyanovsk. Members of the Chamber have pointed out that the transportation of NATO supplies would also allow Russia to monitor what’s coming in and going out.

All procedures at the Ulyanovsk hub fall under Russian customs legislation. Likewise, all freight will be forwarded to Afghanistan after due customs clearance, all under the watchful eye of Russian customs officers.

Another reason for expanding the northern supply route concerns safety. While delivering supplies via Pakistan, news regarding dozens of torched petrol tankers and trucks was coming in on a daily basis. The re-opening of the Pakistani route will likely see a direct corresponding rise in Taliban-led convoy attacks.

­

Afghan exit a double-edged sword

­After US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally apologized for the attack on the Pakistani military base in November, Islamabad finally agreed to open its borders for NATO transit to Afghanistan. A Taliban response swiftly followed.

“We will attack NATO supplies all over Pakistan. We will not allow anyone to use Pakistani soil to transport supplies that will be used against the Afghan people,” the Pakistani Taliban announced in a statement released right after the deal was struck.

That is why the northern route is by far better; no Taliban fighters have been registered north of the Afghan border in recent years.

It is expected that to complete its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the US Army would need up to 100,000 containers and 50,000 vehicles, most of which apparently will go through Central Asia and Russia.

Still, Washington must be aware the Ulyanovsk deal will make it overly reliant on Moscow.

“If there is no Pakistani transit, the US became altogether dependent on the northern destination, which is Russia, and this poses a serious threat to the US,” Dmitry Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, claimed in an interview with Vzglyad newspaper.

Washington would likely hope to avoid any kind of dependence on Moscow. But a quick look at the map of Afghanistan – bordered by Iran, Pakistan and former Soviet republics from the south – shows that the Obama administration actually has little choice but to co-operate with the Russians.

For Russians it is a dilemma no less complicated than for the Americans. Naturally, Moscow would like to see Washington and NATO get their troops out of Afghanistan, as the Soviet Union did after a ten year military presence in the country. But once the international contingent leaves Afghanistan, there is a serious threat that the vacuum of power will be filled with the Islamist militants that would turn the country into an uncontrollable vortex close to Russia’s borders.

If things go worse for the ISAF troops, Moscow could give Washington a chance not to repeat the nightmare Saigon evacuation operation again, allowing American troops to leave with their heads held high.

It is hoped that unlike Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, whoever wins the US presidential race this November, be it Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, will be standing on a bridge over Amu Darya River in Tajikistan, greeting the last American soldier leaving Afghanistan.

Sky-high and abyss-deep: China’s double record-breaker

China has reached two technological milestones spanning great depths and heights. In the earth’s orbit, the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft manually docked a space module while under the Pacific, a Jiaolong submersible dived to the bottom of the Marian Trench.

The symbolism behind the scheduling of the two historical events was far from coincidental. The three oceanographers manning the submersible during the 7,000 dive sent greetings to their three fellow “taikonauts” piloting the space capsule, wishing them luck in their mission.

The descent to a depth of 7,015 meters broke the Chinese national diving record. It was the fourth such dive in the mission, which started on June 15. The dive was conducted in heavy rain, according to a Xinhua report.

The space mission was also successful, with the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft undocking and again docking the Tiangong 1 module. For the first time, the procedure was performed manually rather than directed from the mission control center on the ground.

China became the third nation after Russia and the US to master the technology, which is crucial for the nation’s ambitious space program. The country wants to have a domestically-made manned space station operating by 2020.

The docking was the key part of the space mission. China launched the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, which carried the country’s first female astronaut, last Saturday. The mission will now continue for four more days.

China seeks to develop a completely independent space exploration program. Beijing sees it as part of the country’s growing global influence, as China strives to become the world’s largest economy and take a more prominent political position on the terrestrial stage.

US military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?

A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. Those could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies.

­In an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the way and adverse environments, researchers are mimicking nature. 

The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab showed off a network of 20 nano-quad rotors capable of agile flight, which could swarm and navigate in an environment with obstacles.

This is another step away from bulky heavily armed aerial vehicles or humanoid robots to a much smaller level of tiny remote-control devices. While current drones lack manoeuvrability, can’t hover and move fast enough, these new devices will be able to land precisely and fly off again at speed. One day the military hope they may prove a crucial tactical advantage in wars and could even save lives in disasters. They can also be helpful inside caves and barricaded rooms to send back real-time intelligence about the people and weapons inside.

A report in NetworkWorld online news suggests the research is based on the mechanics of insects, which potentially can be reverse-engineered to design midget machines to scout battlefields and search for victims trapped in rubble.

In an attempt to create such a device, scientists have turned to flying creatures long ago, examining their perfect conditions for flight, which have evolved over millions of years.

Zoologist Richard Bomphrey has told the British Daily Mail newspaper he has conducted research to generate new insight into how insect wings have evolved over the last 350 million years.

“By learning those lessons, our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings," the newspaper quotes him as saying.

The US Department of Defense has turned its attention to miniature drones, or micro air vehicles long ago.

Image from video of a swarm of Nano Qardrotors, posted at GRASP Laboratory website

Image from video of a swarm of Nano Qardrotors, posted at GRASP Laboratory website

­As early as in 2007 the US government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies when anti-war protesters in the US saw some flying objects similar to dragonflies or little helicopters hovering above them.  No government agency has admitted to developing insect-size spy drones though some official and private organizations have admitted that they were trying.

In 2008, the US Air Force showed off bug-sized spies as "tiny as bumblebees" that would not be detected when flying into buildings to "photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists."

The same year US government's military research agency (DARPA) conducted a symposium discussing 'bugs, bots, borgs and bio-weapons.'

Around the same time the so-called Ornithopter flying machine based on Leonardo Da Vinci’s designs was unveiled and claimed they would be ready for roll out by 2015

Lockheed Martin's Intelligent Robotics Laboratories unveiled "maple-seed-like" drones called Samarai that also mimic nature. US troops could throw them like a boomerang to see real-time images of what's around the next corner.

The US is not alone in miniaturizing drones that imitate nature: France, the Netherlands and Israel are also developing similar devices.