WASHINGTON (AP) -- A major trait that endeared Jim Brady to the Washington press corps was his sense of humor, especially when he made fun of his own boss.
When Ronald Reagan was campaigning for president in 1980, Reagan drew scorn from environmentalists for saying that trees were a greater source of pollution than cars. Aboard the campaign plane, Brady pointed at a forest fire in the distance and yelled, "Killer trees! Killer trees!" to the great amusement of reporters.
After the election, Reagan's advisers appeared hesitant to appoint Brady press secretary. Nancy Reagan was said to feel the job required someone younger and better-looking than the 40-year-old, moon-faced, balding Brady.
"I come before you today not as just another pretty face but out of sheer talent," Brady told reporters. A week later, he got the job.
Brady, who died Monday at 73, would need humor and much more after March 30, 1981. On that day John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel just two months into the new president's term. Reagan nearly died from a chest wound. Three others, including Brady, were struck by bullets from Hinckley's handgun.
Shot in the head, Brady lived through hours of delicate surgery and then many more operations over the years. But he never recovered the normal use of his limbs and was often in a wheelchair. Besides partial paralysis from brain damage, he suffered short-term memory impairment, slurred speech and constant pain.
Still, along with his wife, Sarah, he went on to become the face and as much as possible the voice of the gun-control movement in the United States. A federal law requiring background checks for handgun buyers bears his name, as does the White House press briefing room.
Mrs. Reagan, the former first lady, said Monday she was "deeply saddened to learn of Jim Brady's passing today. Thinking of him brings back so many memories - happy and sad - of a time in all of our lives when we learned what it means to `play the hand we're dealt.'"
The lasting public image of Brady came from the worst day of his life. A news clip of the 1981 shooting, replayed often on television and in documentaries, showed him sprawled on the sidewalk after several Secret Service agents had hustled the wounded president into his limousine and others had pounced on Hinckley.
Although Brady returned to the White House only briefly, a year after the shooting, he was allowed to keep the title of presidential press secretary - and the $89,500 annual salary as assistant to the president for press relations - until Reagan left office.
The TV replays did take a toll on Brady. He told The Associated Press years later that he relived the moment each time.
"I want to take every bit of (that) film ... and put them in a cement incinerator, slosh them with gasoline and throw a lighted cigarette in," he said.
#1
Forgive me my wry prophesying
While dear Sarah Brady's still crying:
A pair of great Ladies
Will comfort the Bradies
When they see the Brady Bill dying!
[An Nahar] The French have long been famed for their unshakeable belief in the health benefits of a glass of wine.
Now, one French hospital plans to take things a step further by opening a wine bar aimed at improving the quality of life of terminally-ill patients.
The bar at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital in central La Belle France will open in September.
It will be housed in the hospital's palliative care centre and patients will be able to invite friends and family to share a drink with them.
The first of its kind in La Belle France, the bar would "cheer up the difficult day-to-day existence of patients," head of the centre Virginie Guastella told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The aim is to 're-humanise' patients by improving the quality of their day-to-day existence and also by giving them the pleasure of being able to offer and receive," she said.
The bar would also allow families facing bereavement to "create moments of conviviality" despite being in a hospital environment, she added.
"It's a little detail but it can make all the difference."
Staff at the hospital will receive special training from a social anthropologist on how to handle patients who come to the bar.
In addition to wine, the bar will also stock beer, whisky and champagne. And tobacco. If I'm ever terminal bring me beer and my pipe.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
You gotta give it to the French---they understand living.
#3
Your eyes, lungs, and liver have tested positive for routine harvesting. Sign the standard ACA releases or nod in the affirmative, and we can begin immediately.
#4
improving the quality of life of terminally-ill patients.
OXI-MORONIC
Standard pink shirt and bowtie hospital administrator bullshit for audit ratings thinking. Sure, give them red wine between bouts of vomiting, coughing blood, intestinal shutdown and Demerol IV bag changes. "If they're drunk they'll stop pushing the call button." Stupid.
Next it will be condoms for geriatrics or pet visiting in the leukemia ward. Bad enough they don't ban visits from the kiddies.
Do something for patient care, dummies. Not the appearance of caring for patients!
#8
In stylish old medical villas
The sisters were white marble pillars.
Now their floury sacks
Would cause panic attacks
In the unleavened millers and billers.
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A young Mexican man has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while posing for a "selfie" with a loaded gun. "Hey! Watch this, ya'll! Here, hold my tequila!"
Oscar Otero Aguilar, who worked in a pet shop, is said to have been drinking with friends in Medero, in the north of the capital, Mexico City, when the accident happened.
A follower of the "selfie" craze - in which people pose for photographs they take of themselves - Otero Aguilar frequently posted pictures of himself on social media sites.
He had been at home with with his two housemates, Omar Abner Campos Vives and man known only as "El Paco," when neighbours heard a gun go off followed by screaming.
One neighbour, Manfredo Paez Paez, 57, said: "I heard a gunshot, and then I heard somebody screaming and realised somebody had been hurt. I called the police straight away and when they arrived they found that he was still alive."
Mr Otero Aguilar was discovered with a gunshot wound to the head, and succumbed to his injuries while being taken to hospital by ambulance. An autopsy has been scheduled.
Campos Vives, who was arrested at the apartment, told police Mr Otero Aguiar had been playing around with the borrowed gun and decided to take a selfie without realising it was loaded. Police are now seeking El Paco, who fled when they arrived.
The Ministry of Public Security told Proceso Mr Otero Aguilar's death appeared to be an accident, with the "selfie" due to be posted to Facebook.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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Tequilla shots, selfie shots, with gun shots, equals bad combination most of the time.
[An Nahar] The World Health Organization said Monday the corpse count from the Ebola epidemic in west Africa has now reached 887 after 61 more fatalities recorded at the end of last week.
Giving an update on the deadly virus -- the worst Ebola outbreak ever -- the U.N. health agency said the 61 deaths were reported between last Thursday and Friday in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
It said there had also been 163 new cases of people infected with the virus in that time, bringing the total number of confirmed and likely cases from the outbreak so far to 1,603.
According to the latest WHO tally, which includes both laboratory-confirmed and suspect cases, Guinea saw 13 new cases and 12 deaths last Thursday and Friday, Liberia, 77 new cases and 28 deaths, while Sierra Leone saw 72 new cases and 21 fatalities. One suspect case was also reported in that time in Nigeria.
WHO Director General Margaret Chan has warned that the response of some of the affected countries to the epidemic had been "woefully inadequate," and that the outbreak has been "moving faster than our efforts to control it."
Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever for which there is no vaccine, causes severe muscular pain, fever, headaches and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.
It has killed around two-thirds of those it has infected since its emergence in 1976, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent.
The death rate in the current outbreak is 55 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
New WHO stats out
New cases:
163 31 July to August 3
122 July 24 - 27
108 July 21 - 23
85 July 18 - 20
67 July 15 - 17
18 July 13 - 14
5 new cases in Nigeria (1 new, 3 probable, 1 dead) of whom 1 was the doctor who treated Patrick Sawyer and another was a nurse.
One man is being treated in NEW YORK CITY who recently traveled to an ebola zone in West Africa. Why wasn't he quarantined on his return??????
#6
Call me paranoid, but between the NYC hospitals disconnects about the number of patients ( is it only 1, or is it more?)and the various incoming folks from the African continent, I think the Ebola virus is already here and is also unchecked.
#7
If Ebola infections are here in the USA and unchecked, they will come to public attention rather quickly -- the violent symptoms, bleeding and death rate will draw most everyone's attention.
#8
"why wasn't he quarantined on his return" -- how many thousands of people a day come to the US from the Ebola hot zone, or who have been there in the last 2 weeks? Have seen nothing in the news about the numbers.
#9
From today's NYTimes: Following the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every patient entering one of the city’s hospitals who has fever, headache and other symptoms associated with Ebola (as well as countless other ailments), is asked two new questions.
“Have you traveled to or from West African countries in the last 10 days? Have you been in contact with an Ebola patient or with anyone who has been in contact with an Ebola patient?”
#12
The conventional wisdom about Ebola is that you either come down with symptoms 2 weeks or less after being infected, or you are not infected. I sure hope that wisdom proves true.
[An Nahar] A giant tortoise found ambling down a street in suburban Los Angeles has been reunited with its owners.
The Alhambra Police Department says a local family claimed the 150-pound reptile named Clark on Sunday, a day after it was spotted strolling on the street.
It took two officers to heft the creature into a patrol car so they could turn it over to animal control authorities.
The department posted photos of Clark on its Facebook page in hopes of finding the owner and cracked a "Tortoise and Hare" joke about officers capturing the reptile after a brief pursuit.
No word yet on how far the tortoise had gone from home when it was caught.
A call to a police front man wasn't immediately returned.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#2
I wonder what's the point of beating someone so restrained that all he can do is spit & curse. All EMT's carry those cute little paper masks which work pretty well in those cases.
[An Nahar] Egypt locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! the head of a Cairo orphanage on Monday after a video showing him allegedly beating young children fired up the rubes on social media, officials said.
The footage shared widely on sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter shows a man said to be Osama Mohammed Othman hitting the children with a stick and kicking them as they bravely ran away, screaming in pain.
State-run al-Ahram newspaper said Othman's estranged wife filmed the video two months ago.
"He used to beat the children and that's why I filmed him and uploaded it online in order to expose him," Elham Eid Awad was quoted as saying.
The allegations sparked anger online, where many people called for justice.
The prosecution said it had referred Othman to trial, and that he could be tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! for three years if found guilty. Security officials said Othman had been charged with "torturing " 13 children at the orphanage.
The prosecution said some children had accused Othman of beating them for failing to seek his permission to watch television.
Mohammed Faruk, a senior Cairo security official, said on television that during questioning, Othman justified his actions by saying he had been trying to teach the children "a lesson" as they were playing with electrical devices and he feared for their lives.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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The experimental drug, known as ZMapp, was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which is based in San Diego. The patients were told that the treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys.
According to company documents, four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus.
ZMapp has not been approved for human use and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication. It may have been given under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "compassionate use" regulation, which allows access to investigational drugs outside clinical trials.
Getting approval for compassionate use is often long and laborious, but in the case of Brantly and Writebol, they received the medication within seven to 10 days of their exposure to the Ebola virus.
On July 30, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military responsible for any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive threats, allotted additional funding to MAPP Biopharmaceutical due to "promising results."
----
On Thursday, Dr. Kent Brantly thought he was going to die.
It was the ninth day since the American missionary worker came down sick with Ebola in Liberia.
Brantly is back on his feet -- literally -- after receiving a last-ditch, highly experimental drug. Mrs. Writebol, another American missionary with Ebola got the same.
Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little-understood treatment and gave informed consent, according to two sources familiar with the care of the missionary workers. In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Brantly didn't receive it until he'd been sick for 9 days.
The medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.
The ZMapp vials, stored at subzero temperatures, reached the hospital in Liberia where Brantly and Writebol were being treated Thursday morning. Doctors were instructed to allow the serum to thaw naturally without any additional heat. It was expected that it would be eight to 10 hours before the medicine could be given, according to a source familiar with the process.
Brantly asked that Writebol be given the first dose because he was younger and he thought he had a better chance of fighting it, and she agreed. However, as the first vial was still thawing, Brantly's condition took a sudden turn for the worse.
Brantly began to deteriorate and developed labored breathing. He told his doctors he thought he was dying, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation.
Knowing his dose was still frozen, Brantly asked if he could have Writebol's now-thawed medication. It was brought to his room and administered through an IV. Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition dramatically improved. He began breathing easier; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous."
By the next morning, Brantly was able to take a shower on his own before getting on a specially designed Gulfstream air ambulance jet to be evacuated to the United States.
Writebol also received a vial of the medication. Her response was not as remarkable, according to sources familiar with the treatment. However, doctors on Sunday administered Writebol a second dose of the medication, which resulted in significant improvement. [Other MSM indicates Writebol arrived today in Atlanta & was taken off her plane on a gurney.]
------
Background: in 1992 a clinical trial of fialuridine, a nucleoside analogue thought promising for hepatitis, wound up killing 5 of 15 human volunteers when used in an extremely low dose, after some days delay. The drug had already been tested on animals & did not show the problem that only appeared on its first human testing. In 2006 the first human testing of a certain monoclonal antibogy caused the utterly unexpected collapse and severe illness in human volunteers within minutes after being given.
[Ynet] Hundreds of troops deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia on Monday under an emergency plan to fight the worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed more than 826 people across West Africa.
Panic among local communities, which have attacked health workers and threatened to burn down isolation wards, prompted regional governments to impose tough measures last week, including the closure of schools and quarantine of the remote forest region hardest hit by the disease.
There have been rumors for years that cartels have used drone (UAV) aircraft to fly drugs over the U.S. border. Now the rumors come with statistics. Though no U.S. security agency is on the record about cartel drone operations, one estimate making the rounds is that cartels flew approximately 150 drone smuggling missions in 2012. The drones transport high value drugs such as cocaine. Using drones to smuggle drugs is inevitable. Drones have a small radar signature. They are cheaper to acquire and use than other options, such as building a long tunnel. The UAVs can carry small payloads (2-3 kg/4.4-6.6 pounds) but have the endurance and range to fly over a hundred kilometers and land automatically (usually by parachute) at a specific location. All this is controlled by an onboard flight computer and GPS. Someone on the U.S. side can refuel and launch the UAV on a return trip. Such UAVs can be bought for under $20,000 and used dozens of times.
#3
The Pakistani Army and border Frontier Corps forces would call and bitc* when our UAV's came within 3-5k's of the border. Evidently, trained spotters and that old Russian radar work pretty well in tandem.
#4
Such a waste of effort. Just buy K Street handlers to get the pols to open the gates for you. They may even get an EPA/HHS or other alphabet agency to work a crony kick back for you at the same time.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed "readiness" to discuss its plan to deploy a "humanitarian mission" Yeah, that's he ticket!
to Ukraine, which some consider to be a pretext for an invasion by Russian forces.
[An Nahar] Japan is planning to launch a military space force by 2019 that would initially be tasked with protecting satellites from dangerous debris orbiting the Earth, a report said.
The move is aimed at strengthening Japan-U.S. cooperation in space, and comes after the countries pledged to boost joint work on monitoring space debris, Kyodo news agency said Sunday.
Japan would provide the U.S. military with information obtained by the force as part of the joint bid to strengthen ties in space, the so-called "fourth battlefield", Kyodo said, citing unnamed sources.
Japan's defence ministry is looking at creating the new force using personnel from the Air Self-Defence Force, the country's air force, it added.
The unit would acquire radar and telescope facilities, jointly with the science ministry and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, to run its observatory operations, Kyodo said.
Thousands of pieces of debris -- including old satellites as well as pieces of rockets and other space equipment -- are orbiting the Earth and threaten to collide with functioning communications and reconnaissance satellites.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Trying to make a partial Cheyenne Mountain or a mix of that and a space troopers? Or just radars tied into NORAD?
#3
It has always been about taking the high ground. Only the high ground just got higher. Not much difference between removing 'space debris' and taking out OPFOR's orbital assets.
#6
President Obama, the person the electorate was certain would heal the world, has, through real/perceived weakness, encouraged the militarization of those prescient enough to discount any US assistance in, er, "tuning up" the bad guys.
While the US chases unicorns, China positions itself as the next energy KSA. Maybe we'll have to bring back whaling?
[StratRisks] CHINA’S PLANS TO RETURN TO THE MOON EARLY 2020s. FILLING ONE SHUTTLE’S CARGO BAY WITH HELIUM-3 COULD BRING THE EQUIVALENT ENERGY OF 1BN BARRELS OF OIL BACK TO EARTH.
#3
3dc, 4,000 trillion? Where in the lord did you read that? If true, I can only hope I'll have money to invest in the firm that gets there first.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/05/2014 11:45 Comments ||
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#4
NASA details that came out in NASAspaceflight dot com forum discussion.
NASA always wondered why their moon soil analysis came out so low on gold. It's kind of physic "cool". If you remember the electrostatic gold leaves in a vacuum from high school physics demos. The same thing was happening to gold on the moon. The sun would shine on the particles. They would get an electrostatic charge and levitate a small distance above the moon. When it was dark they lost charge and dropped. The same deep dark craters on the moon that trapped water (as sun didn't reach down to vaporize it) trapped the gold and also mercury. The mercury is a pain but the gold is likely under it. When NASA smashed a rocket into one of those craters to look for water - low and behold the plume was full of water, mercury and gold!
So the theoretical guys started calculations and for that one crater - 4,000 trillion was the low end result.
#5
As to firm. It's not one. Think Seattle and SanFran billionaires and VCs. Now consider New Space is mainly VC and west coast billionaire funded. (Not just SpaceX but Bezos and the inflatable hab guys and a slew of others).
Now, yes Elon Musk WANTS to go to Mars but folks will be happy to pay him to service them on the moon and he will be happy to take their money and do so. He can sweeten the deal with resealable rockets and craft. Bottom line still comes into play even when mining a motherload.
I expect that is why you don't see the NewSpace firms rushing to go public.
#7
Oh and when there are motherloads for gold.. there are likely the same for other resources...
Can I interest you in natural moon sapphires and rubies? (ask the FBI, Interpol and some Moonshot astronauts about that one. Oh and include different isotope mixtures than on earth.)
#8
I can never figure out why the guys at LockMart or Boeing or even some AF majors were never ballsy enough to dream up missions for something else and grab some of this loot.
#9
You know, I would like to be a fly on the wall when UN tries to shake the Chinese down---because "Don't you know, the Moon belongs to all Personkind?".
...Juncker, however, cautioned that the eurozone crisis had not completely ended, saying there was no room for complacency.
"We have covered a huge distance but we have not yet reached the end," he said. "Certainly, many developments, events show us how fragile the situation is not only in Greece but elsewhere. But there are also positive signs, also in Portugal."
h/t Gates of Vienna
Several previous studies have concluded that people living in socially disadvantaged areas - with many people on welfare and a high crime rate - run a higher risk of developing mental illness compared to those living in more affluent areas. But scientists at the Karolinska Institute say that genes play a much bigger role than environment, Swedish Radio reports. Slowly, but surely, the blight brought on by "equality" ideology is being healed
#1
Genetic predisposition related to height and size [both his parents were tall] appear to be readily accepted. Genetic predisposition to brain functioning, achievement, ambition.....not so much. How strange.
No discussion here relative to the impacts of genetic predispositions related to drug and alcohol abuse. Obviously, highlighting the negative aspects of urban vocations would be unfair and racist.
Ready your tinfoil helmets, here it comes.
Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass.
#2
In the 70s the sheriff at Ogallala had more arrests of top 10 wanted and others than anybody else in the USA. The Mafia even had a hit order on his drug dogs.
How did he do it?
His son was a EE and designed him a laser he could bounce off windows of perps cars (on I-80) after he would flip his flashers on.
It would pick up everything they said in the car - stuff like hide the drugs in the ashtray in the glovebox. He was one of those officers that always had a pot seed to slip under his thumbnail and then spot on the carpet so probable cause was never a problem for him.
#3
We played with 'passive' laser audio recording in school during the early 70's. Doing about the same thing as here, without the fancy algorithms. (A lot more wires and 'boxes' though, I'm sure).
The concept is nothing new. Pulling the info from a video is pretty cool, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/05/2014 8:15 Comments ||
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#1
D *** NG, so we're NOT talking about the Sun???
* LIVESCIENCE > SCIENTISTS SAY EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD IS SHRINKING TEN TIMES FASTER NOW.
Or as I like to describe it, CONVERSELY THE SUN IS GIVING OUT MORE RADIATION + GRAVITY WAVES THUS THE INCREASING FREQUENCY OF DISTORTIONS = GROSS "BENDING/ABERRATIONS" IN NORMAL BACKGROUND REALITY BACK HERE ON EARTH.
We can't have members of Congress, the media, and other people simply milling about. We've got important immigration resettlement business taking place here. Besides, Burger King is shuttered and the PX/BX, commissary, and gas station are closed this week. Now scram !
#1
Unless the people are illegals working* for a contractor on a construction project or something of the like.
* not to be confused with illegals housed on the military installation who will also go without an FBI background check. [more 'rights' than the native born American]
#4
The FBI, eh? Sounds like Whitey Bulger should have no problem visiting our bases.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/05/2014 15:42 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Will take this for a test drive later this week @ NASWI and if I get anything other than "Have a nice day, Senior Chief," will report back. And will also verify the always beautiful and talented Mrs. Ret, hasn't had any changes in her daily commute (lateral walking beach creature at NHOH)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A major trait that endeared Jim Brady to the Washington press corps was his sense of humor, especially when he made fun of his own boss.
[An Nahar] The French have long been famed for their unshakeable belief in the health benefits of a glass of wine.
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A young Mexican man has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while posing for a "selfie" with a loaded gun.
[An Nahar] The World Health Organization said Monday the 
[An Nahar] A giant tortoise found ambling down a street in suburban Los Angeles has been reunited with its owners.
[An Nahar] Egypt 
[An Nahar] Japan is planning to launch a military space force by 2019 that would initially be tasked with protecting satellites from dangerous debris orbiting the Earth, a report said.
...Juncker, however, cautioned that the eurozone crisis had not completely ended, saying there was no room for complacency.
