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World in brief
Compiled from Times wires Company plans flights to moonMOSCOW -- A California company plans to fly the world's first private mission to the moon next year, delivering messages, business cards and cremated remains for a fee. TransOrbital Inc. of San Diego, Calif., signed a $20-million contract on Tuesday with Moscow's international space company Kosmotras, which was authorized by the Russian government to use decommissioned ballistic missiles for commercial space launches. Kosmotras plans to test launch a replica of TransOrbital's space vehicle into an orbit around Earth next month, and then send a spacecraft to the moon in October, TransOrbital's president Dennis Laurie said. The unmanned space vehicle, called the TrailBlazer, would orbit the moon for about three months, taking high-resolution pictures of its surface before crashing onto the surface. Private messages, cremated remains and other commercial cargo will be carried in a capsule designed to survive the crash, Laurie said. The company charges $2,500 for a business card. Messages start at $16.95. Inert materials are $2,500 per gram, according to its Web site. Timor militia leader sentenced to 10 yearsJAKARTA, Indonesia -- An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced a militia leader to 10 years in prison for crimes committed during East Timor's bloody break from Indonesia. Eurico Guterres listened impassively as the judge read out the sentence -- the harshest yet in a series of trials of Indonesian officers, officials and militiamen accused of inciting or allowing the violence that shook East Timor after its independence vote Aug. 30, 1999. "The judges find the defendant guilty of grave human rights violations and crimes against humanity," Judge Herman Hutapea said. Guterres is the best-known leader of the paramilitary gangs recruited by the Indonesian army to combat pro-independence supporters in East Timor. He said he would appeal the verdict. Russian companies plan pipeline for Siberian oilMOSCOW -- Four major Russian oil companies announced plans Wednesday to build a pipeline that would make it easier to ship oil to the United States and Western Europe. The multibillion dollar project would link remote oil fields of western Siberia with a deep-water port able to handle large tankers on the Barents Sea near the Arctic city of Murmansk. "It will change the course of Russia's oil industry," said Lukoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov, who signed an agreement to develop the project with Russian oil giants Yukos, Tyumen Oil and Sibneft. The pipeline network is scheduled to begin operation in 2007 and carry up to 584-million barrels of oil a year. Chinese police arrest prominent businessmanSHANGHAI, China -- Police in the northeastern city of Shenyang on Wednesday arrested the flamboyant Chinese-born tycoon named to head a groundbreaking free trade enclave in neighboring North Korea, charging him with bribery, fraudulent schemes and illegally occupying land, the official Chinese media reported. The arrest of 39-year-old Yang Bin, listed by Forbes magazine in 2001 as China's second-richest man, clouds the future of the Sinuiju free trade area in North Korea, raising doubts that it will ever be built. More broadly, it heightens questions about the prospects for North Korea's incremental but palpable steps toward reform. Although it remains among the most closed societies in the world, North Korea has lately begun to tentatively engage the outside world. Yang acknowledged that he owed the Chinese government about $1.2-million in back taxes.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
