News in brief
NASA counts down to launch of laser study of ice sheets
TAMPA, Sept 15 ( AFP) - NASA counted down Saturday to the launch of its $ 1 billion ICESat- 2 mission, using advanced lasers to uncover the true depth of the melting of Earth's ice sheets.
The mission will inform sea level rise forecasts and is “exceptionally important for science,” according to Richard Slonaker, ICESat- 2 program executive at NASA.
The half- ton satellite should reveal unprecedented detail about the current thickness of ice at the vulnerable polar regions as the climate warms.
The weather forecast was 100 percent favorable for the 40-minute launch window opening at 8:46 am (1246 GMT) on Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The measurements will be “extremely precise,” down to the width of a pencil, said team member Kelly Brunt.
It has been nearly a decade since NASA had a tool in orbit to measure ice sheet surface elevation across the globe.
Archbishop of Washington prostrates himself at mass for abuse victims
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (AFP) - Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington who was blamed for not doing enough to deal with pedophile priests in Pennsylvania, prostrated himself Friday in a sign of repentance at a mass dedicated to victims of abuse.
“Our prayers are for those who were assaulted by serious abuse of the clergy and the further indignity of an inadequate response,” said Wuerl, who has said he plans to travel to Rome in the near future to meet with Pope Francis to discuss his resignation.
“We must be prepared to do whatever is needed, including stepping aside. This action on my part is an essential aspect of the healing so that this archdiocesan Church we all love can move forward,” he wrote in a letter to the priests of Washington.
Russia holds naval drills in Sea of Japan
KLERK PENINSULA, Sept 15 (AFP) - Russian troops taking part in the country's largest-ever war games on Saturday held drills in the Sea of Japan, despite Tokyo's concerns about a Russian military buildup in the area.
The exercises were part of the Vostok-18, or East-18, war games that kicked off in eastern Russia on September 11 and will run until Monday.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has described the week- long operation, which involves nearly 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 vehicles, 1,000 planes and 80 warships, as Russia's biggest-ever war games.
They are also taking place in eastern Siberia and the far- eastern Pacific region, with Chinese troops involved.
On Saturday, the armed forces simulated marines capturing a shoreline area at the Klerk military training ground on a peninsula in the far eastern Primorye region supported by aviation and artillery.
“What's special about this exercise is that it involves the marines, aviation, warships from the Pacific Fleet, artillery, sappers and other specialists,” Major-General Dmitry Kovalenko told journalists.
Japan has raised concerns over Russia's military buildup in the region, particularly on the Kuril Island chain, four of which are claimed by Tokyo in a dispute dating back to World War II that has prevented the two nations from ever signing a peace treaty.
Speaking Thursday as he watched the drill, President Vladimir Putin promised to “further reinforce” the armed forces and supply them with “the latest generation weapons and technical equipment” at a time of rising tension in Moscow's ties with Washington and Brussels.
While Russia insists the war games are long-planned and purely defensive in nature, NATO has said that they are simulating “large-scale conflict.”
Three Palestinians shot dead in Israel-Gaza border clashes: Ministry
GAZA CITY, Sept 15 ( AFP) - Three Palestinians, including a 12-year-old, were shot dead by Israeli fire in new clashes along the Gaza border on Friday, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said.
The ministry said 12-year-old Shadi Abdel Aal was shot east of Jabalia in northern Gaza.
It had previously said he was 14 and a medical source had named him as Mustafa Abed Rabbo.
Two 21- year- olds, Hani Afana and Mohammed Shaqqura, were also shot dead in separate incidents near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and Al-Bureij in the centre of the coastal enclave, the ministry said.
At least another 50 people were wounded, the ministry said, as Palestinians again demonstrated in different spots along the border.
British ex-Foreign Minister Johnson says supports May, opposes her Brexit plan-newspaper
LONDON, Sept 15 (REUTERS) - Britain's former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has said he supports Prime Minister Theresa May and his opposition was not to her but to her proposals for exiting the European Union, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday. Following a week in which reports surfaced of a plot by Johnson's fellow eurosceptic colleagues to oust May, Johnson, bookmakers' favourite to succeed her, was quoted as saying he wanted her Chequers Brexit plan dropped, not her.
“It's not about the leadership. It's about the policy. It's not about changing prime minister. It's about chucking Chequers,” he is reported to have told the newspaper. Johnson quit as foreign secretary in July after May's Chequers proposal, named after a country house where it was put forward. It called for the free trade of goods with the EU, with Britain accepting a “common rulebook” that would apply to those goods.