Unauthorized reading material gets astronaut yanked

South Korea has had to pick a new first astronaut for their country, after Russia got upset with the initial choice. From the BBC:

Yi So-yeon, 29, is to replace Ko San, 31, on a Russian flight to the International Space Station in April.

Russia's Federal Space Agency requested the change because Mr Ko broke training centre rules, a senior official said.

South Korean officials played down the breaches, which involved removing reading material from the centre.

On one occasion, Mr Ko sent a training book back to South Korea - something he said was by mistake.

On another, he received a book from a Russian colleague that he was not meant to read, said Lee Sang-mok of South Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

"The Russians emphasised the importance of abiding by the rules, as even small mistakes can bring about grave consequences in space," Mr Lee said.

Mr Ko, who beat more than 36,000 other applicants to the position, has been training in Russia since last year.

He will now serve as the back-up astronaut when Ms Yi flies with two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station in early April.

It's really hard to refrain from trying to fill in the blanks, or, more precisely, making wild guesses as to what might have really happened. On the other hand, if the people involved want to play down the squabble (whatever the particulars), perhaps I should drop it...

America, Europe, Russia - and the management of danger

From an article at Economist.com:

ANYBODY who dabbles in transatlantic affairs has come across one giant stereotype: Americans admire risk-takers, whereas Europeans (at least in the rich, stable parts of the continent) are instinctively risk-averse, expecting the state to shield them from all sorts of dangers, including their own folly. Move a bit farther east to the ex-communist world, especially Russia, and you enter a place where things seem to have gone from one extreme to another: from an all-demanding, all-protective state to a free-for-all where life is full of deadly dangers, about which even the prudent can't do very much.

Like most windy generalisations, this transatlantic contrast has a grain of truth...

[snip]

In any case, by comparison with most other parts of the world, and with any other era of human history, the United States and western Europe are converging in their attitudes to danger. Most kinds of risk have been successfully removed from everyday life. Women hardly ever die in childbirth; miners generally make it back above ground; fishermen usually return to shore; and having a drink of water no longer means dicing with cholera. Of course, some people—bungee-jumpers and rock-climbers—take risks freely; but the unwanted perils that once haunted people's lives are mostly a thing of the past.

What Americans and Europeans alike are now attempting to do is squeeze out the last few drops of risk, with results that are often counter-productive, because risk is simply transferred from one place to another. That is true in an obvious sense when, for example, companies dump toxic waste or use risky technologies in countries whose regulation is relatively lax. But there are also more subtle ways in which efforts to eliminate risk can simply move the danger along. Some good instances come from behaviour on the roads, where people may act more recklessly as safety measures (their own and other people's) make them bolder.

Read the rest (especially the last paragraph, please)

hat tip: Frank Wilson

P G Wodehouse continues to conquer the world

India has enjoyed something of a Wodehouse craze. Now Russia?

Too fun.

hat tip: Frank Wilson

Alaska Volcano Observatory: KVERT Volcanic Warnings Ceased

To whom it may concern,

I can't find a permalink for this notice currently on the front page at the Alaska Volcano Observatory's website, so I'll just reprint it here. (I hope that's all right. It's a public notice, after all.):

March 1, 2007

Dear colleagues:

It has come to our attention that as of January 1, 2007, the Federal Unitary Enterprise State Air Traffic Management Corporation of Russia halted financial support for the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT). Attempts to negotiate renewal of the annual funding agreement by KVERT leadership have thus far failed. As a result, on March 1, KVERT will cease issuing volcanic warnings to the aviation community.

This unfortunate event comes at a time when three volcanoes in Kamchatka are at Color Code Orange and intermittently producing ash. For 14 years, KVERT staff and affiliated scientists have alerted regional ACCs, MWOs, Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAACs), and numerous air carriers to the onset of volcanic unrest. KVERT's vigilance and volcanologic and technical expertise has resulted in many hundreds of accurate and timely ash cloud warnings. It is a testimony to the success of KVERT and its international collaborations that during this time period of significant volcanic activity in Kamchatka, we are aware of no damaging ash-aircraft encounters among the many hundreds of thousands of flights through the region.

We do not know official reasons for this action, which, unfortunately, has occurred before in KVERT's history. In response, KVERT and AVO have alerted International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) representatives who have contacted the State Air Traffic Management Corporation in Moscow to express concern and urge restoration of funding.

During a period of reduced KVERT operations, the Alaska Volcano Observatory will continue its own routine, daily satellite monitoring of Kamchatka and we will issue hazard warnings to our interagency partners to the best of our ability. However, AVO does not have direct access to seismic or other ground-based monitoring and observational data for Russia, and thus warnings and notifications may not be as timely, accurate, or complete as those routinely provided by KVERT.

Sincerely,

Thomas L. Murray

Scientist in Charge, AVO

Duly noted.

In addition to Alaska's, the U.S. also has volcanic observatories for the Cascades, Hawaii, Long Valley, California, and Yellowstone. They all seem to be associated with the USGS's Volcanic Hazards Program, which has a Most Recent Updates for U.S. Volcanoes page.

And, yes, I live downwind from Mount St. Helens and a few other Cascade volcanoes, plus I have a fascination with volcanoes in general. Why do you ask? ;)

Christians growing in Algeria?

I couldn't have dreamed this up. From "God's Time for Algeria" by Deborah Meroff at Today's Christian January/February 2007:

Over the last 20 years I have had the privilege of covering stories of God's people in 94 countries. This was my first trip to Algeria, the fabled northwest African country bordering the Mediterranean Sea. My assignment that April 2005 was to report on the fastest-growing church-planting movement in the Muslim world.

My translator was a product of this phenomenon. On the way to my accommodations, Davy shared how he had loved to listen to Christian music on Radio Monte Carlo when he was a university student. Eventually, at his request, they sent him a copy of the Gospels. Reading Jesus' Sermon on the Mount made a big impact, especially the phrase "love your enemies."

Give me a minute. I've had a lifetime of thinking casinos when I hear Monte Carlo. This is rather unexpected, I must say.

Being openly Christian in a Muslim country isn't safe, however, as Meroff explains later in the article.

The high cost of following Christ means there are few nominal believers. Christians commonly suffer beatings, lose their homes, jobs, and sometimes their lives. Yet they continue to put themselves on the line, even giving their testimonies on television.

Hold on a moment while your hostess googles...

Ah, Radio Monte Carlo isn't broadcast out of the gambling center. It's actually... well, actually it appears to be several stations run by different organizations, broadcasting to and from all sorts of places: France, Monaco, Italy, Russia...

And the Arabic broadcasts originate from Paris, over Radio Monte Carlo Moyen-Orient, which is part of the Radio France Internationale Group? Am I reading that right?

Some Algerians have found Christ through broadcasts from Paris? Am I reading that right?

It certainly is an interesting world in which we live, no?