Colombia to probe war crimes
UNITED STATES: Nasa has drawn up plans for a huge nuclear spacecraft capable of shunting or blowing up an asteroid that may threaten to wipe out life on Earth.
The US space agency has published details of its Hammer (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response) proposal, an eight-tonne spaceship that could alter the trajectory of a giant space rock.
Nasa has said previously that Earth is overdue for a huge asteroid strike, and programmes are in place across the globe to map dangerous rocks as they move through the Solar System. Last year a 30.5-metre asteroid named 2012TC4 passed within 43,000 kilometres of Antarctica, a distance that astronomers described as ‘‘damn close’’.
In plans published in the journal Acta Astronautica, Nasa and the National Nuclear Security Administration calculated the time and payload it would take to move or destroy the 489m-wide asteroid Bennu. Under the plan, the ship would steer into a smaller asteroid, or UNITED STATES: Vanessa Trump has filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr, the US president’s eldest child and cohead of the family’s real estate business, according to court records.
The pair, who wed in November 2005, were listed as parties in an uncontested matrimonial case yesterday in New York state court in Manhattan.
Documents for the proceeding were detonate a nuclear device to destroy a bigger one.
Nasa already has a space probe en route to Bennu to take samples, and has been monitoring the asteroid since it was discovered in 1999. Although there is little risk it could hit Earth, it is still considered as an NEO, or Near Earth Object, which would hit the planet with the equivalent force of 1.45 gigatons of TNT.
The US Atomic Energy Commission has shown that a one-gigaton warhead could be expected to start fires over an area of more than 1.1 million square km, an area more than four times the size of Britain. Dante Lauretta, professor of planetary dcience in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, said Bennu’s impact would release ‘‘three times more energy than all nuclear weapons detonated throughout history. The impact would release energy equivalent to 1450 megatons of TNT’’.
However, the study calculated that 7.4 years would be needed from building Hammer to the craft hitting the asteroid to destroy it.– Telegraph Group blocked from public view online.
Trump Jr and his younger brother, Eric, were put in charge of the Trump Organisation before their father took office in January.
They have no official roles in the Trump administration.
Trump Jr, 40, has drawn scrutiny for some of his contacts during the presidential campaign. – Bloomberg COLOMBIA: Colombia’s transitional justice system opened its doors yesterday to the public, in what officials hailed as a historic step towards healing more than five decades of armed conflict that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions.
Both victims and offenders will now be able to approach the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in a sleek office building in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, where workers are building case files documenting abuses during Latin America’s longest conflict.
Those who fully confess their crimes will not serve any jail time, and instead will make restitution to victims with acts like public apologies and repairing damaged buildings. Those who do not cooperate could receive prison sentences of up to 20 years.
‘‘This is a historic day for the victims,’’ said Patricia Linares, president of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. ‘‘It’s the start of a judicial process that will heal wounds left from the armed conflict by recognising the truth.’’
So far, nearly 4700 ex-combatants with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have committed to confessing serious crimes, as have 1800 members of the nation’s armed forces.
The conflict left a staggering toll whose full scope may never be known: more than 250,000 dead, at least 60,000 missing, and countless others the victims of forced displacement, extortion and kidnappings.
‘‘I lost my father, my brothers,’’ said Daniel Valbuena, 71, who showed up at the peace tribunal’s headquarters hoping to file a death certificate for his father, whose remains were never found. ‘‘My life has been tragic.’’
Since a peace accord was signed in 2016, Colombia has slowly begun the process of allowing FARC rebels to transition to civilian life while also providing a full accounting of the violence. The rebels have turned over their weapons and formed a political party, but many Colombians remain hesitant to turn a page, and believe the special court will be too lenient.
Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, said the justice component of the peace accord and its implementing legislation contained ‘‘a web of ambiguities and loopholes that risk letting war criminal escape justice’’.
Offenders who fully confess their crimes will be subject to ‘‘effective restrictions of rights and freedoms’’, but no specific definitions outlining exactly what that entails have been shared.
‘‘The judges of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace now have the key responsibility of working within these narrow margins of interpretation in order to ensure that victims of the armed conflict receive at least a minimal degree of justice,’’ Vivanco said. –AP