BAIKONUR (Kazakhstan), Mar 28: Two Russians and an American floated into the International Space Station today, beginning what is to be a year away from Earth for two of them.
Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly are to spend 342 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, about twice as long as a standard mission on the station. Russia’s Gennady Padalka is beginning a six-month stay.
The three astronauts entered the station about eight hours after launching from Russia’s manned space facility in Kazakhstan. They were embraced by American Terry Virts and Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov who along with Italian Samantha Cristoforetti have been aboard since late November.
The trip is NASA’s first attempt at a one-year spaceflight; four Russians have spent a year or more in space, all on the Soviet-built Mir space station.
The stay is aimed at measuring the effects of a prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body, a step toward possible missions to Mars or beyond.
Kelly’s identical twin Mark, a retired astronaut, agreed to take part in many of the same medical experiments as his orbiting sibling to help scientists see how a body in space compares with its genetic double on Earth. They are 51.
Kelly and Kornienko, 54, will remain on board until next March. During that time, they will undergo extensive medical experiments, and prepare the station for the anticipated 2017 arrival of new US commercial crew capsules. That means a series of spacewalks for Kelly, which will be his first.
The two men also will oversee the comings and goings of numerous cargo ships, as well as other Russian-launched space crews and an expected September visit from singer Sarah Brightman on a “space tourist” trip.
Doctors are eager to learn what happens to Kelly and Kornienko once they surpass the usual six-month stay for space station residents.
Bones and muscles weaken in weightlessness, as does the immune system. Body fluids also shift into the head when gravity is absent, putting pressure on the brain and the eyes, impairing vision for some astronauts in space.
The yearlong stint will allow doctors to assess whether such conditions are aggravated by a long spell in space or whether they reach a point of stasis or even taper off.
As space officials look to longer missions, the International Space Station’s future appears ensured until at least 2024.
Last year, as tensions between Russia and the United States grew amid the dispute over Russia’s role in Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin had said Moscow aimed to exit the project in 2020. (AGENCIES)

UNDATED, Mar 28:  The Arkansas Senate overwhelmingly approved a Republican-backed bill whose authors say is intended to protect religious freedoms but critics contend could allow businesses to refuse service to gay people.     The Republican governor of Indiana signed into law a similar ‘religious freedom’ bill on Thursday, prompting protests from human rights groups and criticism from some business leaders.
The bill advancing in the Republican-led Arkansas legislature says ‘governments should not substantially burden the free exercise of religion without compelling  justification.’
Supporters say a business should not be forced to, for example, cater a same-sex wedding if doing so would violate the religious beliefs of the owner.     Two of the most powerful companies in the United States, retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which has its home office in Arkansas, and technology giant Apple Inc have criticized the  measure.
‘We feel this legislation is counter to this core basic belief of respect for the individual and sends the wrong message about Arkansas, as well as the diverse environment which exists in the state,’ a Walmart spokesman said in a  statement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, referring to the measures in the two states, said in a tweet: ‘Apple is open for everyone. We are deeply disappointed in Indiana’s new law and calling on Arkansas Government to veto the similar HB1228.’     The measure passed the Arkansas House in February by a comfortable margin and now goes back to it for consideration of amendments in the Senate version. Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, has said he would sign the measure into law.
A US judge last year struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage but the decision has been put on hold pending appeals.
(AGENCIES)

WASHINGTON, Mar 28:  Two top American Senators have appealed to US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to place special emphasis on India as a “critical ally” so that the two countries could pursue their broad array of strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Our partnership with India is critical as we focus on strengthening America’s long-term role in the region. As you consider a wide range of important strategic and defense issues during your tenure as Secretary, we ask that you place a special emphasis on India as a critical ally,” Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn wrote in a letter to Carter.
Democratic Party’s Warner and Republican Party’s Cornyn are Co-Chairs of the influential Senate India Caucus – the only country specific caucus in the US Senate.
“We believe that focusing on cultivating India as a strategic ally now will pay great dividends for both nations over the long run,” they wrote in the March 27 dated letter.
They said the US’ strategic partnership with India was among the “most important” and America had a broad array of strategic interests in the region, “from the long-term security and stability of Afghanistan to our strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific”.
The renewal of the 10-year framework for the US-India defense relationship is an important component to help solidify these strategic interests, they said.
“This renewal signal[s] a new depth and sophistication in our defense and security cooperation, ensuring that it continues to be one of the strongest pillars of our nations’ broad strategic partnership – a partnership that will help forge security and stability in Asia and across the globe,” they said.
The results of India US defense partnership have already proved fruitful, they wrote.
The two countries have cooperated in countering terrorism, combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and bolstering the security of the region.
Over USD10 billion dollars in defense trade deals between the United States and India have been signed since 2008, and our two counties now conduct more military exercises with each other than with any other country.
“Through the new 10-year agreement, programs such as these will continue to deepen our partnership. We also welcome India’s initial steps toward liberalizing its foreign direct investment rules in the defense sector which will allow for greater investments by US companies as well as both countries’ renewed emphasis on the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative,” the two senators said.
They also hoped that India would make needed reforms in defense offsets as “the current system is difficult to navigate and is often a roadblock to foreign investment”.
“It would be beneficial to pursue a two-tiered system where offset funds that cannot be spent on traditional Indian defense industries could flow to a second tier of other Indian priorities such as education, skills development, or manufacturing,” they said. (PTI)

UNDATED, Mar 28:  Police in Wyoming have charged three people with murder in the case of a headless corpse found in a ditch whose ornately worked belt and buckle ultimately yielded clues to its identity, authorities said.    Sandra Garcia, 27, the ex-girlfriend of the victim, her brother Pedro Garcia, 28, and John Marquez, 51, were charged in the shooting death and mutilation Juan Antonio Guerra Torres, a 30-year-old Mexican national, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said in a statement.
A duck hunter and his son discovered Guerra Torres’ partly dismembered body in January 2014 in a drainage ditch off a rural road in remote northwest Wyoming.    Police sought the public’s help to identify the man, whose head, left arm and other unspecified body parts were  missing.
Last May, investigators were able to name him after they followed leads indicating that his belt and buckle depicting a horse’s head were examples of ‘piteado,’ a form of craftsmanship practiced in Mexico and popular with horsemen and cowboys.
The last known address for the native of Guanajuato, Mexico, was the Wyoming ranching and farming community of Clark, about 10 miles (16 km) from where the body was discovered, police said.
Murder charges were filed earlier this week against Sandra Garcia, the mother of Guerra Torres’ children, who has been jailed in Georgia pending extradition to Wyoming, Steward said.
It was not immediately clear where authorities arrested Pedro Garcia. But he has waived extradition to Wyoming, where he also faces unrelated charges of allowing children to be in a dwelling where methamphetamine was stored, the sheriff said.
Marquez was taken into custody in Texas, where he remains for the time being, he added. Steward declined to provide more details about the case, saying the investigation was  ongoing.
(AGENCIES)

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 28:   A California jury  cleared venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers of gender discrimination claims brought against it by a woman former partner in a trial that transfixed Silicon Valley.    The jury also said it had cleared Kleiner on a claim that the firm had retaliated against former partner Ellen Pao by ‘teminating’ her employment after she sued in 2012.    But the judge said the majority in the eight-to-four vote was one short. At least nine jurors must agree to reach a verdict, the judge in California Superior Court said, sending jurors back for more deliberations.
The decision that gender was not the reason Kleiner did not promote Pao dashed her hopes for personal vindication on the most-watched claims.
It is ‘extremely unlikely’ that the judge would dismiss the decision on gender discrimination regardless of what happens on the retaliation claim, said San Francisco employment attorney Mark Schickman, who mostly represents companies, and was not involved in the Pao litigation.
Still, the trial’s embarrassing disclosures about how Pao and other women were treated at Kleiner have cast a long shadow over Silicon Valley corporate culture and its lack of diversity.    The case laid bare the personnel matters of the firm that backed Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc, with Pao’s attorneys painting Kleiner as a quarrelsome pressure cooker where a former male partner used business trips as opportunities to make advances to female colleagues.
Pao, now interim chief executive at social-news service Reddit, claimed her standing at Kleiner crumbled after she ended a brief affair with partner Ajit Nazre. Her career deteriorated after he and Kleiner started retaliating against her, amid a climate that was overall unfriendly toward women, her lawyers argued.
The firm disputed those charges, presenting evidence that Kleiner went out of its way to hire women.    Pao sought to illustrate her point with testimony from former Kleiner partner, Trae Vassallo, who said Nazre appeared at her hotel room on a business trip. He wore a bathrobe and carried a glass of wine, according to testimony.    Kleiner countered that it investigated Nazre after Vassallo complained, after which he quickly left the firm.    Some witnesses, including Pao’s onetime mentor John Doerr, have testified that Pao’s lack of advancement stemmed from subpar performance, not discrimination or retaliation.     But Pao’s attorneys argued she laid the groundwork for the firm’s highly successful investment in RPX, the patent company, and suggesting an investment in Twitter, an idea more senior partners rejected at the time.
Pao herself testified for five days and faced tough questions both from Kleiner’s legal team and from jurors. One juror asked if it was ‘professional to enter into an affair with a married partner?’
‘Going back I would not have done it again, but I didn’t think it was inappropriate at the time,’ Pao said, emphasizing that Nazre had told her he was separated.    The case is Pao v Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, CGC-12-520719, in California Superior Court, in the County of San Francisco.
(AGENCIES)