Saturday, November 28, 2009 TOKYO: Japan on Saturday launched a next-generation spy satellite as part of efforts to beef up its surveillance system against the threat of North Korea's missiles, officials said.An H-2A rocket carrying the nation's No. 3 Information Gathering Satellite was launched Saturday morning from Tanegashima Space Centre on Tanegashima island, southwestern Japan, the officials said."We successfully separated the satellite from the rocket and put it into orbit," said Toshimitsu Ozeki, an official of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which built the rocket.The government-run satellite will replace the first model, with an advanced optical device to distinguish objects on the ground with a resolution of some 60 centimetres (24 inches), the officials and local media said.The new satellite will undergo a performance trial for about three months before starting fully-fledged operations, Kyodo News reported.The launch is the nation's latest effort to build an intelligence-gathering system following North Korea's missile launch in 1998 over the Japanese archipelago.In defiance of international pressure, North Korea launched again what was believed to be a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile in April, with an estimated range of 6,700 kilometers (4,100 miles).Japan currently operates two optical satellites and a radar satellite, while planning to add another radar satellite by March 2013 to complete the system so that it will be able to monitor designated places on the Earth once a day.The satellite launched Saturday cost about 48.7 billion yen (580 million dollars) for research and development and around 9.4 billion yen for manufacturing and the launch, Kyodo said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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