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Virgin Group to offer space flights
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SpaceShipOne is a privately developed manned rocket created by aviation designer Burt Rutan and funded by billionaire Paul Allen. British entrepreneur Richard Branson announced yesterday that his Virgin company plans to launch commercial space flights over the next few years in London with rockets designed by Rutan.
LONDON — Airline mogul and adventurer Richard Branson announced plans yesterday to boldly go where no private transport company has gone before into space.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Branson's Virgin Group said it would offer commercial space flights by 2007, with Branson himself joining the inaugural journey.
Branson is a high-school dropout turned flamboyant tycoon who has made several failed attempts to circle the world by hot-air balloon.
"It's just the kind of thing he absolutely loves, because it gets him maximum publicity," said David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine.
Branson. 54, announced a deal to license technology from Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the
firm owned by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen that bankrolled June's historic 90-minute space flight by the aircraft SpaceShipOne.
The Virgin craft will be based on Burt Rutan's design for SpaceShipOne, a stubby rocket-plane capable of carrying a pilot and two passengers.
SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by taking a 90-minute flight almost 62 miles above Earth, just over the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space.
The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel next year and would offer flights by 2007. It will invest about $108 million in spaceships and ground infrastructure for the venture, it said. Fares will start at $208,000 for a two or three-hour suborbital flight.
Jeanne overwhelms Haiti
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GONAIVES, Haiti — Doctors are performing amputations without electricity or running water while waste from this city's shattered sewage system contaminates mud and floodwaters, infecting wounds that threaten to turn gangrenous.
More than a week after the passage of Tropical Storm Jeanne, the calamity in the northwest city of Gonaives has overwhelmed Haitians and foreign rescue workers.
Thousands remain hungry Jean-Claude Kompas, a New York doctor who rushed to his native Haiti to volunteer his services last week, says he has treated 30 people for gunshot wounds received in fights over scarce food. Another of his patients was a child whose finger was chopped off with a machete — possibly also over food.
Jeanne killed more than
1,500 and left 200,000 homeless in the northwest city of Gonaives. With another 1,000 people reported missing, the toll is sure to rise.
"It's sad but true that the missing will slowly be started to be counted among the dead," said Brazilian Army Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, in charge of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.
On Saturday, Pereira rushed 100 Uruguayan and 50 Argentine troops to Gonaives, where gangsters and ordinary citizens have been looting food aid. They reinforced 600 international troops and police in the city.
Still, Pereira said he could use more help to ensure security of food convys and at food distribution points, which he said increased from two to four yesterday for the 250,000 residents.
could possibly increase the aid distribution points," he said in a telephone interview.
"If we had help from the National Police of Haiti, we
But Haiti's police force remains demoralized, understaffed and poorly equipped since rebels chased them from their stations, killing dozens, in a February uprising that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Haitian riot police sent to help keep order last week were stoned by hungry and traumatized residents.
Pereira said many storm survivors are suffering from diarrhea while others, including many children, had infected wounds.
Some had gangrene and Argentine doctors had performed at least three amputations under primitive conditions, he said. Most injuries are gashes from collapsing roofs or pieces of zinc roof hidden by the mud that still covers the city, where most walk barefoot.
Palestinians killed in Gaza attacks
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Israelis killed seven Palestinians in attacks yesterday, including a Gaza airstrike that killed one militant and wounded a militia commander, who vowed revenge from his hospital bed.
The Gaza attack came as each side pummeled the other in the run-up to Israel's planned pull-out from the crowded seaside territory.
An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a car east of the city of Khan Younis, killing Ali al-Shaar, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella of dissidents from several militant groups.
But Israeli military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the target was the other occupant of the car — Mohammed Abu Nasira, southern Gaza commander of the group.
Hundreds of people gathered around the white vehicle after the missile blast burned the passenger compartment, twisting the chassis but leaving the front half intact.
"The (Israeli) crimes will not pass without punishment," Abu Nasira told The Associated Press by telephone from the hospital, where he was being treated for serious burns. "I will continue my mission to terrorize the enemy (Israel), and we will win the battle."
An Israeli military statement said only that the raid targeted "a vehicle carrying a senior operative" responsible for many attacks.
The Popular Resistance group was behind explosions that destroyed two Israeli tanks and is thought by some to have been involved in a similar blast that destroyed a vehicle in a U.S. Embassy convoy a year ago, killing three security guards.
If you pick the winning teams, and beat The Kansan sportswriters, you could win free textbooks from UBS, Wheat State Pizza gift certificates, and a T-Shirt!
Read Jonathan Kealing's picks in Friday's Kansan. Winners will be published in Tuesday's Kansan.
Submit picks to UDK business office in 119 Stauffer-Flint hall by Thurs. @ 4 pm
Name: ___
Phone:
○ Kansas @ Nebraska ○
○ #6 Ohio State @ Northwestern ○
○ Colorado @ Missouri ○
○ #15 Purdue @ Notre Dame ○
○ Rutgers @ Syracuse ○
○ #10 California @ Oregon State ○
○ #7 W. Virginia @ Virginia Tech ○
○ #13 LSU @ #3 Georgia ○
○ Texas Tech @ #2 Oklahoma ○
○ Iowa State @ Oklahoma State ○
○ Kansas State @ Texas A&M ○
○ #14 Utah @ New Mexico ○
Division III
○ University of Chicago @ DePauw ○
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