Six in The Morning Sunday October 5

Hong Kong protesters promise to keep up occupation

Demonstrators say they will stay put as Monday deadline approaches, but offer to open access lanes

• Tania Branigan in Hong Kong
• The Guardian, Sunday 5 October 2014 09.20 BST

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have vowed to keep up their occupation as a Monday deadline fast approaches, but are seeking compromise by offering to open access lanes.

The Hong Kong chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, announced on Saturday that protests had to be removed by Monday morning so that life could return to normal. He said officials and police would take “all necessary actions” to restore order.

In a Sunday lunchtime statement, the government said it was ready to offer a dialogue on constitutional reform with the Hong Kong Federation of Students – but only if demonstrators cleared the roads and lifted the blockade around government facilities in the downtown Admiralty area.

Mexico's train of death: Entry into the Land of the Free isn't merely unlikely – it's potentially lethal

The photographer Nicola Okin Frioli tells Linda Sharkey about the journey faced by hundreds of thousands of undocumented Latin American immigrants

LINDA SHARKEY 

 

 

Sunday 05 October 2014

Battered, scarred, mutilated – all in pursuit of the American dream. The physical and psychological wounds suffered by the people on these pages might take different forms, but each was endured as part of a desperate bid to escape Central America in search of a better future.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Latin Americans from Honduras, Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – some fleeing violence and economic hardship, others wishing to be reunited with family members – are confronted by the threat of corrupt authorities, dangerous gangs, kidnapping and sexual assault as they make a journey across Mexico to the United States border. Yet still they come, the majority to take their chances with "The Beast".

The freight network that crosses Mexico, also known as "El tren de la muerte" ("the death train"), is one of the very few ways immigrants can avoid the myriad checkpoints and 48 detention centres on the way into the promised land – yet the risks of riding it are precipitous.

Saudi Arabia clerics step up anti-Islamic State drive

October 5, 2014 - 4:57PM

Amena Bakr

MINA, Saudi Arabia: Taking aim at Islamic State, Saudi Arabia has mounted a battle for hearts and minds at this year's haj, warning pilgrims that the hardline group is "evil" and seeking to recruit their children to fight in Iraq and Syria.

As millions of pilgrims visited the holiest sites in Islam on the second day of the annual pilgrimage on Saturday, global leaders condemned the fourth beheading of a Westerner by Islamic State insurgents.

Saudi Arabia declared Islamic State a terrorist organisation in March and sharply stepped up denunciations of the group after its fighters had made rapid territorial gains in Iraq in June.

United States-led air strikes on the group has allowed some of the lost territory to be recaptured, but the well-armed militants continue to make gains in Iraq and Syria. Last week Saudi air force planes pounded militant targets in Syria.

World War 3 fought on the high seas? Chinese scholar thinks China should prepare

If World War 3 were to be fought in the near future, there is little doubt that weapons developed today will be obsolete or quickly become so as technological innovations built to surpass or counter other technologies, both benign and opposing, are developed and implemented. Those technologies would also undoubtedly include such innovations as augmented versions of stealth weaponry such as that developed by Juliet Marine Systems, a New Hampshire-based think tank that has developed what might be the next generation of warships using stealth technology.

Business Insider reported (via Yahoo News) Oct. 2 that Juliet Marine Systems is intent on selling their "GHOST" ships -- small, virtually undetectable to radar and sonar, nearly unobservable gunships -- to the U. S. Navy. Its state-of-the-art construction, a movable command module set atop two blade-shaped pontoons that cut through ocean waves in such a way that they protect the warship from destabilization (that is: rocking and swaying with the waves), would permit insertion and maneuverability within enemy territories without being detected. Optimally, the GHOST warship is a vessel built for small squads of men, up to 18 aboard at any one time.

Nobel Prize in literature: Have you heard of these front-runners?

The Nobel prize for literature has gone to well-known authors long lauded by critics, but just as frequently plucks unknown authors from obscurity.

By Malin Rising, Associated Press

STOCKHOLM — It's soon time for the highbrow culture event of the year: the Nobel Prize in literature. But don't worry if you are left scratching your head when the winner is announced.

While the Swedish Academy sometimes picks well-known authors long lauded by critics, just as frequently it surprises the world with unknowns plucked from obscurity. The secretive academy drops no hints on who they are considering but Permanent Secretary Peter Englund said this year's long-list started with 210 nominees, including 36 first-timers.

The academy is expected to announce the winner this week, but has not yet confirmed the date.

SpaceShipOne X Prize Milestone Marked With Tears ... and Cake!

BY ALAN BOYLE

MOJAVE, Calif. — Pioneers of the commercial space age celebrated the 10th anniversary of the SpaceShipOne rocket plane's final flight to the final frontier on Saturday, shedding fresh tears over a decade-old drama, hugging it out — and then blowing out the candles on a cake.

The festivities unfolded at the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the SpaceShipOne saga reached its climax with the winning of the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Oct. 4, 2004.

The suborbital rocket plane, built by Mojave-based Scaled Composites with backing from software billionaire Paul Allen, was the first privately funded vehicle to carry its pilot across the 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary of outer space. It's now hanging from the ceiling of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

"It wasn't an accomplishment of building a spaceship," SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan said during a panel discussion that was presented in front of an invited audience and live-streamed as a Google Hangout. "It was an accomplishment of building a manned space program."