Bosnia hails Kuwait ties as premier visits

Chairman of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency Council Haris Silajdzic yesterday met the editors-in-chief of Arruya, Al-Dar and Kuwait Times as well as Secretary General of Kuwait Journalists Association Faisal Al-Qenai. The Bosnian leader highlighted the importance of the Prime Minister of Kuwait HH Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah's visit and hailed his country's ties with Kuwait.

Bosnia and Kuwait also signed two agreement yesterday - a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to bolster political consultations between the foreign ministries of both nations and a loan deal under which Kuwait will provide Bosnia with a $45-million loan to build a portion of a key highway. The loan will be used for the construction of a 2.5-km stretch of a corridor linking the Hungarian capital Budapest with the Adriatic coast, Bosnian Finance Minister Dragan Vrankic told local media.

Sheikh Nasser and Silajdzic later visited a Kuwaiti-funded mosque in Sarajevo. The PM and the delegation accompanying him prayed at the mosque and then met with Bosnians who welcomed the visiting Kuwaiti delegation. Sheikh Nasser was then briefed about the history of the Kuwaiti-funded mosque. Construction of the mosque began in 2003 and finished in 2006. Sheikh Nasser also visited a children's hospital in Sarajevo and was briefed about the services provided by the facility.

The premier told the Bosnian press that he was very impressed by the services which the hospital provided and indicated that Kuwait and Bosnia-Herzegovina would work on developing health cooperation in the near future.

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Mars Astronauts Construct Solar Panels

This artist concept depicts NASA Astronauts constructing solar panels on the surface of Mars. The use of solar panels reduces the amount of fuel that must be brought to the surface and overall mission cost.

This painting was produced for NASA by Pat Rawlings.

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A Neutron Star is Born

An infant neutron star, the super-dense core of a stellar explosion, has been observed for the first time. The 12.4 mile-wide object is the youngest object of its kind ever discovered, having appeared just 330 years ago.

It has been cloaked in mystery since it was identified as a powerful X-ray source in 1999. Astronomers now know the source is a neutron star 11,000 light years from Earth at the centre of the supernova Cassiopeia A.

Neutron stars are the super-dense compact cores of massive stars whose outer shells have been blasted away in violent explosions at the end of their lives. Compressed tightly by gravity, they are composed almost entirely of neutrons, sub-atomic particles with no electric charge that form part of atoms.

One teaspoonful of material from a neutron star would weigh a billion tonnes. The newly identified neutron star has a unique carbon atmosphere just four inches thick.

Britain's first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, is believed to have observed the supernova that spawned it in 1680. Astronomers studied the supernova using the Chandra X-ray space telescope launched by the American space agency Nasa in 1999.

Every other neutron star identified by scientists has been much older. It is hoped the object will reveal more clues about the role exploding stars play in building the Universe. Heavy elements flung out into space by supernovae end up in the rocks of planets such as the Earth. Even the human body is largely composed of stardust.

Professor Craig Heinke, from the University of Alberta in Canada, who co-led the new research published in the journal Nature, said: 'The discovery helps us understand how neutron stars are born in violent supernova explosions.

'This neutron star was born so hot that nuclear fusion happened on its surface, producing a carbon atmosphere just 10 centimetres thick.'

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