Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily.

Betelgeuse, one of the night sky’s brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.
When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we’d see a second sun, Said Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland. There may also be no night during that timeframe.
The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen during 2012, Carter says… or it could take longer. The explosion could also cause a neutron star or result in the formation of a black hole 1300 light years from Earth.
But doomsday sayers should be careful about speculation on this one. If the star does go super-nova, Earth will be showered with harmless particles, according to Carter. “They will flood through the Earth and bizarrely enough, even though the supernova we see visually will light up the night sky, 99 per cent of the energy in the supernova is released in these particles that will come through our bodies and through the Earth with absolutely no harm whatsoever,” said Carter.

In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this “star stuff” makes up the universe. “It literally makes things like gold, silver – all the heavy elements – even things like uranium….a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi,” said Carter.

From the beloved director of Chocolat and the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Slumdog Millionaire comes the inspirational comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. A visionary sheik (Amr Waked) believes his passion for the peaceful pastime of salmon fishing can enrich the lives of his people, and he dreams of bringing the sport to the not so fish-friendly desert. Willing to spare no expense, he instructs his representative (Emily Blunt) to turn the dream into reality, an extraordinary feat that will require the involvement of Britain’s leading fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) who happens to think the project both absurd and unachievable. That is, until the Prime Minister’s overzealous press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas) latches on to it as a ‘good will’ story. Now, this unlikely team will put it all on the line and embark on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible, possible.

Dubai has announced plans to build an underwater hotel, in a sign that the emirate is shaking off its financial crisis and returning to the grandiose projects of its boom-time heyday.

Including submerged and above-the-surface spherical structures, the deluxe hotel would offer rooms with views of surrounding aquatic life. According to the agreement, Drydocks would be the main exclusive contractor for this and other underwater hotels in the Middle East.

Before the financial crisis that hit Dubai in 2009, there were plans to build an underwater hotel, known as Hydropolis, but the project has not materialised.

(AP) LONDON – On a muddy field on the outskirts of London, Britain’s military showed off a weapon Thursday it hopes it never has to use.

The Rapier surface-to-air missile has the power to take down a Boeing 747 full of passengers if needed to protect a stadium full of 80,000 Olympic spectators in a terrorism nightmare scenario.

The British military has insisted that the missiles — with a range of up to 8,000 meters (five miles) — could be deployed as the last line of defense. Experts say the likelihood that they will be fired is slim to none.

In a statement, the WB said its board of directors agreed on Wednesday to finance the project that will cover all Yemeni governorates and aims to create 120,000 jobs and high-value public infrastructure assets for the poor.

The Yemen Labor Intensive Public Works Project, the fourth in a series of similar endeavors, is designed for both maximum impact and inclusion.

The statement pointed to the Yemen’s high need for basic infrastructure services, saying “requests have already been received.” A diverse selection of such projects will be implemented in areas such as health, education, water supply and harvesting, sewage disposal, road paving and vocational training.

The selection process for the sub-projects will be transparent, with identification of sub-projects by the beneficiary community followed by submission of projects to a steering committee and International Development Association (IDA) for review and approval.

The WB hailed the improvement of the public works projects’ performance in Yemen over the last 15 years, saying the projects are small scale, community driven and use local labor and materials.

This small scale allows them to reach into Yemen’s highly dispersed and remote communities. There is now a well-established and experienced Yemeni government Project Management Unit, which provides continuous monitoring and evaluation of realistic and achievable performance indicators.

The Bank stressed that the community infrastructure will form the largest component of the new project, with about US$59 million allocated to about 440 sub-projects. These will be identified at the community level in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, concerned sector ministries, the relevant governor’s office and project officials. With an ongoing focus on remote areas with high poverty rates, almost 80% all of sub-projects will be implemented in rural areas.

(PressTV) FBI director Robert Mueller had a meeting in Yemen on Tuesday with US-backed ruler Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, during which Mueller pledged full U.S. support for Hadi’s efforts to crush the assorted fighter movements in their country, anitiwar.com said.

Embassy officials said the visit was simply the annual FBI visit to Yemen and not sparked by anything in particular. They said Hadi had also conveyed a “strong commitment” to working with the U.S. on attacks inside Yemeni territory.

The visit came as U.S. drones continued to launch strikes against Ansar al-Sharia targets in the nation’s southwest, with a claim today that one of the strikes killed a top “al-Qaeda leader” in the region, the website said.

The latest Yemeni offensive has centered on the Abyan Province, which fell to Ansar al-Sharia last June. The nation’s military has several other rivals to target afterwards, however, as last year’s protest movement left many of the nation’s provinces in a state of de facto independence, and strengthened a number of secessionist movements across the north and south of the country.

The 300-metre long, 6,606 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container unit) ship, built in 2011, was berthed for 21 hours and 14 minutes.

Captain Faisal Al Qahtani, senior vice president and managing director, DP World, Middle East Region, said: ‘’We congratulate Pacific International Lines and their new vessel, Kota Carum, on her maiden visit to Aden and the Red Sea area – the busiest sea trade transit route in the world today.

“This port call once again demonstrates the efficient gateway and transshipment role played by DP World Aden and its importance to Yemen’s domestic economy. We commend DP World Aden’s team for the meticulous ability with which they safely and efficiently discharged and loaded a ship of this size.”

This came in a meeting gathered Minister of Oil and Minerals Hisham Sharaf and Chinese ambassador to Yemen Liu Denglin, who also discussed the activities of the Chinese oil companies working in Yemen, stressing the common keenness to enhance the Chinese companies’ investments in Yemen.

Sharaf said that the Oil Ministry looks forward to magnetize more Chinese companies to work in the exploration and production of oil and gas in land and offshore blocks because of their high experience and good reputation.

The Minister spoke of the economic developments in the national arena and the negative effects resulting from the oil export halt due to the continued sabotage acts on the oil pipeline, pointing to the support required from the international community to assist the government to overcome all challenges produced by the last year political crisis.

For his part, the Chinese ambassador accentuated his country’s support to the Yemeni government to restore the security and stability and to address all the challenges, particularly in the economic area.

He stressed the importance of the role of donors and the international community to help Yemen currently and provide the necessary resources to tackle all the challenges.

The loan will be made under the Rapid Credit Facility, the IMF’s concessional window for countries that have experienced serious economic disruptions.

The new arrangement was approved on April 4 after a resolution sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council that ended the year-long political crisis in Yemen. The key objectives of the Rapid Credit Facility are to cushion foreign exchange reserves and maintain macroeconomic stability, while scaling up social and capital expenditures.

Use of the Rapid Credit Facility serves as a holding operation to give the new government time to formulate its strategy to address underlying challenges. The approval makes Yemen the first “Arab Spring” country to secure a loan from the IMF.

French energy giant Total, the operator of the Yemen LNG terminal, said it expects its feed pipeline blowup to lower LNG exports by about four cargoes, as the terminal will be shut down for maintenance, Reuters reported.

Gunmen blew up the 38 inch gas pipeline that links Yemen’s block 18 to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Balhaf on the Gulf of Aden in retaliation for a US drone attack that killed at least five suspected al Qaeda militants hours earlier.

The USD4.5 billion plant, was also forced to close in October 2011 after its feed line was blown up by suspected Al Qaeda militants.

However, Total managed to repair the pipeline and the reschedule the annual maintenance at the terminal to coincide with the repairs, allowing all Yemen’s 106 LNG cargoes to be delivered agreed to sell last year.