China says space station burns up over South Pacific

FILE PHOTO: A model of the Tiangong-1 space lab module (L), the Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft (R) and three Chinese astronauts is displayed during a news conference at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in Gansu province, China June 15, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and burnt up over the South Pacific on Monday, the Chinese space authority said.

The “vast majority” of the craft burnt up on re-entry, at around 8:15 a.m. (0015 GMT), the authority said in a brief statement on its website, without saying exactly where any pieces might have landed.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at Australian National University, said the remnants of Tiangong-1 appeared to have landed about 100 km (62 miles) northwest of Tahiti.

“Small bits definitely will have made it to the surface,” he told Reuters, adding that while about 90 percent would have burnt up in the atmosphere and just 10 percent made it to the ground, that fraction still amounted to 700 kg (1,543 lb) to 800 kg (1,764 lb).

“Most likely the debris is in the ocean, and even if people stumbled over it, it would just look like rubbish in the ocean and be spread over a huge area of thousands of square kilometers.”

China said on Friday it was unlikely any large pieces would reach the ground.

The United States Air Force 18th Space Control Squadron, which tracks and detects all artificial objects in Earth’s orbit, said it had also tracked the Tiangong-1 in its re-entry over the South Pacific.

It said in a statement it had confirmed re-entry in coordination with counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Britain.

The 10.4-metre-long (34.1-foot) Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace 1”, was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments as part of China’s ambitious space program, which aims to place a permanent station in orbit by 2023.Decommissioning was originally planned for 2013 but the mission was repeatedly extended.

Asked about the space station, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing he had no other information and reiterated that China had been reporting the situation to the U.N. space agency in an open and transparent way.

“According to what I understand, at present there has not been found any damage on the ground,” he said, without elaborating.

China had earlier said re-entry would happen in late 2017, but that process was delayed, leading some experts to suggest the space laboratory was out of control.

Worldwide media hype about the re-entry reflected overseas “envy” of China’s space industry, the Chinese tabloid Global Times said on Monday.

“It’s normal for spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere, yet Tiangong-1 received so much attention, partly because some Western countries are trying to hype and sling mud at China’s fast-growing aerospace industry,” it said.

(Reporting by David Stanway and Wang Jing; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Alison Bevege in SYDNEY; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)

U.N. tells Australia to restore food, water supplies to PNG refugees

Asylum seekers protest on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, in this picture taken from social media November 3, 2017

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations human rights office called on Australia on Friday to restore food, water and health services to about 600 interned refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea, which Canberra cut off three days ago.

The detainees in the Manus Island Centre have defied attempts by the governments of both Australia and PNG to close the camp, saying they fear violent reprisals from the local community if they are moved to other “transit centers”.

“We call on the Australian government … who interned the men in the first place to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services,” U.N. rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing.

Australia has an obligation to do so under international human rights law and the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, he said.

There was no immediate comment from Australia or its representatives in Geneva. Its government has said the camp had been ruled illegal by PNG authorities and it had committed to supply other sites for 12 months.

Colville joined the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in warning of an “unfolding humanitarian emergency” in the center where asylum seekers began digging wells on Thursday to try to find water as their food supplies dwindled.

The remote Manus Island center has been a key part of Australia’s disputed immigration policy under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores, detaining them instead in PNG and Naura in the South Pacific.

“We repeat our overall concerns about Australian offshore processing centers which are unsustainable, inhumane and contradictory to its human rights obligations,” Colville said.

Around 500 of the men have still not had their asylum claims processed, he said.

“And obviously the sooner the better, some of them have been there I think for four years,” Colville said. “So that’s a very long time to sit in effectively a detention center disguised as a regional processing center without your case being processed.”

The alternative accommodation being proposed is not finished or adequate to meet their needs, including security, he said.

“We have conveyed to the Australian government and to the local government of Papua New Guinea as well that until the time the accommodation is ready, refugees should not be moved there,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said.

“But also we have urged Australia and PNG to de-escalate the situation, resume basic services – water, electricity, medical services as well,” he said.

The last food distribution was on Sunday, he said.

“Australia’s policy of deterrence by rescuing people at sea, mistreating them and abandoning them has become a notion of cruelty,” Baloch said.

 

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Larry King and Andrew Heavens)