UK could lose coveted AAA rating, warns Fitch

Britain's hopes of retaining its prized triple-A credit rating were dealt a blow last night after Fitch said the country was more likely than not to be downgraded.

By Jonathan Sibun, Louise Armitstead

In a major setback for George Osborne ahead of next week’s Budget, Fitch said the “risks and uncertainty” surrounding the Coalition’s debt reduction plans were “material”.

Fitch said it regarded the Government’s fiscal plans as “credible”, but said that its decision to take a negative outlook reflected “the very limited fiscal space to absorb further adverse economic shocks in light of such elevated debt levels and a potentially weaker than currently forecast economic recovery”.

The credit rating agency put a slightly greater than one in two chance on a downgrade for the UK over the next two years.

It cited the eurozone crisis – which “is not resolved and could once more intensify” – and the backdrop of the UK’s “still large” structural budget deficit and its “high and rising” government debt as the main drivers.

The move comes after rival agency Moody’s last month likewise put Britain’s top-notch rating on a negative outlook.

The Treasury said the decision by Fitch to follow suit was a lesson to anyone hoping for giveaways in next week’s Budget.

Fitch explicitly warned that “discretionary fiscal easing” - a relaxation of the Government’s austerity efforts - would likely prompt a rating downgrade.

“A week from the Budget this is a reminder of why it is essential Britain sticks to its plans to deal with its debts,” a Treasury spokesman said.

“This is just another warning to anyone who believes there can be deficit-financed giveaways.”

Howard Archer, UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said Fitch had heaped further pressure on the Chancellor to stick to his plans.

“We believe that the UK is more likely than not to be able to retain its AAA rating, as we believe sustainable modest growth will develop from the second half of 2012 and the government will stick to its fiscal austerity plans,” he said. “But there are undeniably appreciable risks to this outlook, some of which are outside the UK’s control.”

The move by Fitch represented a second major blow for the Chancellor after the UK’s leading pension group criticised plans to issue 100-year gilts and warned that most of its members will not buy them.

The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) said the proposed term was “too long” and not an attractive investment proposition.

Conspiracy theories claim mysterious planet-sized 'Death Star' has been captured on video as it 'refuels' at the surface of the sun

Telescope images of the sun show what appears to be a planet-size dark object extending a 'hose' towards the sun - before it's engulfed by light from the sun, and flies off into space

By Rob Waugh

An orbiting Nasa space telescope captured a dark, planet-sized object flying close to the sun on Monday - and extending what looks like a refueling tube into the star's surface.

The black, Death Star-like, orb is briefly engulfed in light from the sun, then flies off into space.
A video edited from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's photos inspired a wave of speculation on YouTube.

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Youtube user 'Sunsflare' captures the strange orb 'anchored' above the visible surface of the sun in photos from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory

The imagery was captured by Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory and edited together by a YouTube user, Sunsflare, who challenged experts to explain the strange 'visitor.'

Naturally, the space agency has a rather more ordinary explanation for the strange, black orb.
It's not a visitor from another solar system - or a planet being born out of the surface of the sun, as others had speculated.

Instead, it's a solar 'prominence' or 'filament' - a feature extending out from the sun which forms over the course of a day, and can extend hundreds of thousands of miles into space.

Scientists are still puzzled as to why these features form. The 'dark' parts are material cooler than the surrounding solar matter.

C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre said, in a reply to Sunsflare's video, 'Filaments appear to be dark because they're coolerin relation to what's in the background. When you look at it from the edge of the sun, what you see is this spherical object and you're actually looking down the tunnel.'

The video actually shows a solar 'prominence' - a little-understood feature which develops in the surface of the sun. The dark parts are actually cooler material which shows up black against the background

Nasa says, 'A solar prominence (also known as a filament when viewed against the solar disc) is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface.

'Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface and extend outwards into the Sun's hot outer atmosphere, called the corona.

'Scientists are still researching how and why prominences are formed.
'An erupting prominence occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and bursts outward, releasing the plasma.

Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory frequently captures the phenomenon - although often as violent eruptions, rather than the eerie sphere of this week's activity.

‘It is not uncommon for prominence material to drain back to the surface as well as escape during an eruption,’ says Holly Gilbert a Goddard solar physicist.

‘Prominences are large structures, so once the magnetic fields supporting the mass are stretched out so that they are more vertical, it allows an easy path for some of the mass to drain back down.’

Solar prominences can take a huge number of forms, including huge eruptions like this (pictured),
which was captured by Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory earlier this year

That's no moon: The Death Star space station from Star Wars. Nasa has reassured sun watchers that the Imperial fleet's space station has not visited our solar system

Israel develops its own bunker buster

DEBKAfile Special Report

Israel has developed an improved precision, bunker-burrowing weapon which Israeli Military Industries (IMI) unveiled on March 6. The 500-pound MPR-500 is an electro-optical (laser-guided) bomb that can penetrate double-reinforced concrete walls or floors without breaking apart.

The bomb was shown in action penetrating four reinforced concrete walls with fragmentation from the explosion limited to a radius of less than three meters.

The new weapon is designed as an upgrade for the US Mk82 in Israel Air Force stocks. “The lethality, precision… and relatively low weight of the new weapon,” say its manufacturers, “enable its use against multiple targets in a single pass.”

After blowing the first hole in the targeted underground site, the next bombs continue to extend and deepen it.

The MPR-500 bridges an operational gap between the 250-pound US GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, 1,000 of which were approved for sale to Israel and the 5,000-pound GBU-28 American super-bunker buster. debkafile notes: The IMI’s presentation of the MPR-500 took place at the height of Israel’s argument with the Obama administration over the need for a near-term strike on Iran’s nuclear sites – especially those Tehran is busy transferring to fortified underground bunkers.

It attracted little attention because on the same day, Iran was invited by the Six Powers for nuclear negotiations, Tehran sent out its own invitation to UN nuclear inspectors to visit the suspect military site of Parchin (about which Iran has been hedging since) and the British cabinet received a top-secret intelligence briefing on the likelihood of an Israeli attack.

The Israeli Air Force is also reported to be planning to enlarge its Boeing-707 based aerial refueling tanker fleet, another key component in Israel’s ability to carry out an aerial strike against a target as distant as Iran. The expanded tanker fleet, by providing nearly 2 million pounds of fuel, would allow dozens of Israel F-15 and F-16 warplanes to carry more weapons on this mission.

Israeli officials have consistently challenged the claims of some experts that the lack the military capacity for a successful strike against Iran’s nuclear facilties.

Straight out of Hollywood: U.S. government scientists simulate the moment a one megaton nuclear bomb destroys a massive asteroid heading for Earth

Eminent danger: Scientists are looking into ways to destroy large asteroids heading toward Earth

By Daily Mail Reporter

At a US government lab in New Mexico, government scientists race to launch a one megaton nuclear weapon toward a giant asteroid, hoping the massive explosion will save the earth.

While this may sound like the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster, in fact it is the latest hi-tech computer simulation carried out by government scientists.

A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy facility in New Mexico, used a supercomputer to model a nuclear weapon's anti-asteroid effectiveness.

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Massive capacity: 32,000 computers ran the program, which tested whether an atomic blast could break apart an asteroid 500m across

Researchers were told to deal with a 1,650-foot-long (500-meter) space rock using a one-megaton nuclear weapon — about 50 times more powerful than the U.S. blast inflicted on Nagasaki, Japan during World War II.

Thankfully, they say that even though it was only a virtual test, the approach was successful.

'Ultimately this one-megaton blast will disrupt all of the rocks in the rockpile of this asteroid, and if this were an Earth-crossing asteroid, would fully mitigate the hazard represented by the initial asteroid itself,' Los Alamos scientist Bob Weaver said in a recent video released by the lab.

Effectiveness: The blast in theory entered only parts of the asteroid. In actuality, a nuclear explosion would be used as a last resort

Last resort: In the 1998 film Armageddon, staring Bruce Willis, explosives had to be placed on the inside of the asteroid to dissipate it

‘If one of these objects is spotted at a distance of a few months away, there could be potentially devastation on a worldwide scale.’

The team used the labs supercomputer, which has the power of 32,000 processors found in a normal computer, to recreate as accurately as possible exactly what would happen to the asteroid should the blast hit its surface.

Luckily, the plan worked, meaning a weapon may not have to be deposited inside the asteroid as in the 1998 Bruce Willis film 'Armageddon.'

However the team stress the giant nuclear weapon was only a last resort and researchers are also investigating other methods, including using spacecraft or even the gravitational pull of planets to alter its course.

Watch video here:

Red meat linked to higher risk of premature death

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

Hamburgers and hot dogs are getting even more grilling.

A new study indicates that eating unprocessed red meat (hamburger, pork, roast beef, lamb) and processed meats (bacon, hot dogs, bologna, sausage) may increase a person's risk of premature death and raise their risk of death from heart disease and cancer.

Conversely, substituting other foods such as fish, poultry, nuts and beans for red meat may lower their risk of premature death, the analysis suggests.

Other studies have linked eating red meat and processed meat to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some types of cancer, particularly colorectal cancer, and premature death.

"This new study provides further compelling evidence that high amounts of red meat may boost the risk of premature death," says the study's lead author, An Pan of the Harvard School of Public Health. But, he adds, this type of study shows association, which doesn't necessarily mean causation.

Pan and colleagues analyzed the diet, health and death data on 37,698 men and 83,644 women. Participants completed questionnaires about their diets every four years. During the study follow-up period of more than two decades, almost 24,000 of the participants died, including 5,910 from heart disease and 9,464 from cancer.

To determine the risk of eating unprocessed red meat or processed meat, the researchers factored out other lifestyle factors, including age, weight, physical activity and family history of heart disease, and dietary factors, such as intake of whole grains, fruit and vegetables, nuts, legumes, dairy products, fish and poultry.

Among the findings published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine: Eating one serving a day of unprocessed red meat (about the size of a deck of cards) was associated with a 13% increased risk in premature death; eating one serving a day of processed red meat (one hot dog or two slices of bacon) was associated with a 20% increased risk of premature death.

Using a statistic model, the researchers estimated that replacing one serving a day of red meat with one serving of fish would decrease premature death by 7%; replacing it with poultry would decrease the risk by 14%; nuts, 19%; beans, 10%; low-fat dairy, 10%; whole grains, 14%.

"The message we want to communicate is it would be great if you could reduce your intake of red meat consumption to half a serving a day or two to three servings a week, and severely limit processed red meat intake," Pan says.

He says the sodium and nitrites in processed red meat might explain the relatively higher risk found in processed compared with unprocessed red meat.

But the beef industry says this study doesn't prove red meat is the dietary villain. "Once again, what we are seeing here is an observational study that's limited because it can't establish cause and effect," says registered dietitian Shalene McNeill, executive director of human nutrition research for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "The most striking thing about this study is those who were eating higher intakes of red meat also were eating more calories, were less physically active, were more likely to smoke and ate fewer fruits, vegetables and whole grains."

Pan says those factors were taken into consideration in the statistical analysis to try to eliminate their impact, "but certainly, it is possible that other unmeasured or residual confounding effects from lifestyle exist."

McNeill says, "We have a recent randomized controlled trial that showed eating 4 to 5 ounces of lean beef daily as a part of a heart-healthy diet improved heart health, including lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol levels, as effectively as several other heart-healthy diets. There are many ways to build a healthy diet with lean beef that also includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes."

Robert Eckel, a past president of the American Heart Association, says the group does not set a limit on consumption of lean red meat but promotes an overall heart-healthy diet. "A small serving (about 3 ounces) of lean red meat several times a week can be added to an overall heart-healthy dietary pattern without concern. This amount is substantially below the level of risk reported by the Harvard group."

Marji McCullough, a nutrition epidemiologist for the American Cancer Society, says, "We've known for a long time that eating high amounts of red meat or processed meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer and possibly other cancers. This study is important because it shows that consuming red meat and processed meat increases the risk of death from all causes."

She says there is no magic number in terms of amount of red meat that you can safely consume, but "eating it no more than a few times a week would be a place to start."