Killer of Cecil the lion was dentist from Minnesota, claim Zimbabwe officials

Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force alleges trophy hunter shot one of Africa’s most famous lions near Hwange national park

The Guardian, Ashifa Kassam and Jessica Glenza, 28 July 2015

Conservationists in Zimbabwe have accused an American man of being the alleged killer of Cecil, one of Africa’s most famous lions and the star attraction at the Hwange national park.

On Tuesday, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said the man thought to have paid $50,000 (£32,000) for the chance to kill Cecil was not a Spaniard as originally believed, but US citizen Walter Palmer, from a small town near Minneapolis. The man left the lion skinned and headless on the outskirts of the park, the ZCTF’s Johnny Rodrigues said in a statement.

The hunt took place around 6 July. “They went hunting at night with a spotlight and they spotted Cecil,” Rodrigues said. “They tied a dead animal to their vehicle to lure Cecil out of the park and they scented an area about half a kilometre from the park.”

Walt Palmer, left, and one of his many trophies.

The hunter first shot at Cecil with a bow and arrow but failed to kill the lion. “They tracked him down and found him 40 hours later when they shot him with a gun,” Rodrigues said.

A spokesman for Palmer told the Guardian that the hunter was “obviously quite upset over everything”.

“As far as I understand, Walter believes that he might have shot that lion that has been referred to as Cecil,” the spokesman said. “What he’ll tell you is that he had the proper legal permits and he had hired several professional guides, so he’s not denying that he may be the person who shot this lion. He is a big-game hunter; he hunts the world over.”

On Tuesday, Palmer - a dentist and married father of two - became a target as the Facebook page of his dental clinic was flooded with angry comments and threats. An online petition demanding justice for Cecil had gathered more than 12,000 signatures.

Palmer’s love of hunting is well-documented online. In 2009, he was interviewed by the New York Times about his slaying of an elk that was touted as a kill for the archery record books.

Noting that Palmer had learned to shoot at age five and was “capable of skewering a playing card from 100 yards with his compound bow,” the article said Palmer had paid $45,000 at auction to take part in the hunt, with the proceeds being used to help fund the elk habitat. As the hunting season began, Palmer was on probation for lying to authorities over the exact location where he had killed a black bear in northern Wisconsin in 2006.

A 2008 Flickr photo album by Trophy Hunt America and Porcupine Creek Outfitters, a company that leads hunting expeditions, shows Walter Palmer posing next to avariety of slain animals, including a wood bison and a lion. In another online photo Palmer and his bow and arrow sit next to a slain rhino, the captionstating that the photo was taken in South Africa.

The same company advertises trips to Africa, under the name Safari Connection. Photographs to advertise the company’s services show hunters posed next to elephants. Other expeditions show hunters posed next to polar bears amid snowy backdrops.

Two people who accompanied the hunter on his Zimbabwe trip were identified by authorities and arrested earlier this month, including Theo Bronkhorst, the founder of Bushman Safaris Zimbabwe which is believed to have organised the hunt. Both are facing poaching charges and due to appear in court in early August.

Zimbabwe National Parks confirmed the charges. “In this case, both the professional hunter and land owner had no permit or quota to justify the offtake of the lion and therefore are liable for the illegal hunt,” it said in a statement. Bronkhorst’s hunting license has been suspended and efforts were being made to interview another employee of Bushman Safaris who was believed to have also taken part in the hunt.

The 13-year-old lion was wearing a GPS collar as part of an Oxford University research project that had been running since 1999, making it possible to trace his last movements. Rodrigues said the hunters tried to destroy the collar, but failed.

Walt Palmer and a Nevada California Bighorn.

The death of Cecil comes as Zimbabwe, like many countries in Africa, attempts to crack down on illegal hunting and poaching, said Rodrigues. “This has been going on too long. Cecil is the 23 or 24th lion that has been collared and then killed in Hwange. We have to try and stop it.”

Initially his organisation had said the whereabouts of Cecil’s head was unknown, sparking concerns that it would be sent abroad as a trophy. The fear brought conservationists and politicians together this week to call on the European Union to ban the import of lion heads, paws and skins as hunters’ trophies from African countries that cannot prove their lion populations are sustainable.

On Tuesday, Rodrigues said the head of the lion had been located in Zimbabwe and had been impounded to be used as evidence in the investigation.

The ZCTF said on Tuesday that it continued to mourn Cecil. Rodrigues pointed out that the hunter was believed to have paid just $50,000 to kill a creature that would have brought millions of dollars worth of tourism to the reserve.

Conservation authorities said they were also dealing with the likely consequences of Cecil’s death for his six cubs. “The saddest part of all is that now that Cecil is dead, the next lion in the hierarchy, Jericho, will most likely kill all Cecil’s cubs so that he can insert his own bloodline into the females.”

Cecil was a major tourist attraction at Zimbabwe's largest game reserve in

Hwange National Park, due to his distinctive black mane (AFP Photo)

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Pakistan prepares for Saudi royal to hunt 'protected' birds

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Hunt: Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed

1,977 houbara bustards in just 21 days while

on holiday

Tanzania ditches plan to evict Masai for Serengeti 'wildlife corridor'

Botswana to ban wildlife hunting

Spain's King Juan Carlos poses in front of a dead elephant

on a hunting trip in Botswana, Africa. Photograph: Target

Press/Barcroft Media

Spain's king ousted as WWF honorary president
Spain's King Juan Carlos under fire over elephant hunting trip

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Miracle motorbike that goes 500km… on a liter of water! (VIDEO)

RT.com, 25 Jul, 2015

A Brazilian man, Ricardo Azevedo from Sao Paulo, has shown off his wonder bike to the world. The magic machine can travel up to 500 kilometers on a liter of water.

The so-called “T Power H20” vehicle is powered by water and an external car battery to produce electricity and split the hydrogen from the water molecules.

As a result, combustion is created giving the motorbike the impetus to move.

READ MORE: World has 10 years to combat climate change, prevent health catastrophe – scientists  

In the video, Azevedo first drinks from the bottle, proving that it’s indeed water and not some kind of other fuel. Then he fills the canister and rides off. 

Azevedo also demonstrates how the bike works. The inventor shows that even polluted waters from the Tiete River can be used to fuel the vehicle.

READ MORE: Bioengineers invent engine powered by water vapor, artificial muscles 

The Brazilian is promoting his creation as an environment-friendly machine. 

“The advantage of this motorcycle, which works with the hydrogen that comes from the water, is that the result that comes out of the exhaust is water vapor. This is different from gasoline, which [produces] carbon monoxide," he told RT.

Related Article:

Toyota to give away fuel-cell patents to boost industry

Dutch climate champion brings 'case for hope’ to Australia

Lawyers Weekly, Felicity Nelson, 24 July, 2015

     

Marjan Minnesma

The refreshing 'can do’ attitude of Marjan Minnesma goes a long way to explaining a momentous victory in the Dutch courts last month.

Ms Minnesma (pictured), director of the Urgenda Foundation, interrupted her holiday to deliver talks around Australia.

Urgenda (an NGO whose name combines the words “urgent” and “agenda”) made history in June when the District Court of The Hague ruled that the Dutch Government must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020.

The court found the government’s present target of 14-17 per cent by 2020 was unlawfully negligent.

Ms Minnesma said the case was viewed by the Dutch press as a publicity stunt and no one really believed Urgenda, together with the 886 plaintiffs they were representing, could actually win. 

“The reaction of most lawyers was, 'this is not possible’,” said Ms Minnesma, speaking at an event hosted by EDO NSW in Sydney this week.

Urgenda and its supporters marched to the courts to launch the case in November 2013 after engaging in polite correspondence with the government, as is required by Dutch law before civil proceedings.

“[We were essentially] just putting papers on a desk, but we were there with hundreds of people – children, balloons, everything,” Ms Minnesma said. “We had a lot of fun.”

Urgenda’s case was led by Roger Cox, a partner at the Dutch law firm Paulussen Advocaten and the author of Revolution Justified, which lays out the legal thinking behind the case.

The first meeting of the two parties took place in April this year.On June 24 the court was again packed with hundreds of people and more than 50 journalists to hear the verdict, which was handed down in Urgenda's favour.

“We were all dressed up in white,” Ms Minnesma said. “The people of the state were dressed all in black, so it was very easy to see who was good and who was bad,” she laughed.

“What I found very special was that the court had decided to translate everything in English,” said Ms Minnesma.

Holding the government to its own standards

The most remarkable aspect of this case is its relative simplicity from a legal perspective, according to Ms Minnesma.

“It is important for people to realise that this is civil law,” she said. “This is not environmental law or international law.”

The way the case was constructed meant that the legal team could draw on other parts of the law indirectly, while focusing on the government's duty of care of government.

“In duty of care there is a so-called ‘open norm’,” said Ms Minnesma.

Open norm allows duty of care to change over time, according to the standards of the era. This is known as the ‘reflex effect’.

It allows the court to judge action (or inaction) as lawful based on the various principles, treaties and bodies of knowledge that the government has already recognised.

“[The open norms] would be different in the 1800s than they would be now – I even think 15 years ago it would be difficult for us to fight this case,” said Ms Minnesma.

While the state has a lot of discretionary power, there is a minimum level of care that must be met to protect citizens, she said: “A government cannot do everything it likes.”

This minimum obligation is determined by what the government has already established itself, through treaties and policies.

“The judge is not inventing policies,” Ms Minnesma said. “It is only looking at what the government has declared itself up to now, what have they signed.”

The Netherlands is a signatory of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which produces a scientific report every five or seven years.

“The report is not from scientists alone,” Ms Minnesma said. “In the end, 195 countries sign it and say, ‘this is the body of knowledge that we acknowledge’.”

As the Dutch Government did not dispute the science in the most recent report in the case, the judge concluded that this was part of the accepted norms.

“The judge simply said 'well, you should now live up to your own principles. That is part of your duty of care’,” said Ms Minnesma.

Ms Minnesma said the arguments of the state were not very convincing: "I think the lawyers were not really very good. We were happy about that."

Changing the conversation

Ms Minnesma recalled the joyous moment that erupted in the courtroom when the decision was read out.

“There was yelling and crying and hugging and it was really a very strange court.

“[The news travelled] within an hour all over the world. I was surprised how quickly it went.

“There were so many people that called us to say they were crying in front of the TV.”

Since this “case for hope”, the media in The Netherlands have stopped focusing on whether climate change is real or not, she continued.

“Suddenly, climate change is a fact … and we are finally now acting on the solutions.”

The government has been ordered to pay Urgenda’s legal bills, estimated at €13,522, and (so long as an appeal is unsuccessful) the government will have to pay large fines to the NGO if it does not comply with the court ruling.

Urgenda supporters celebrate at the Hague after court ruling requiring Dutch

government to slash emissions. Photograph: Chantal Bekker/Urgenda

Related Article:

Dutch government ordered to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling

Guizhou radio telescope may pick up signs of alien life

Want China Times, Chuang Shu-chung and Staff Reporter 2015-07-23

The radio telescope under construction in Guizhou, July 16, 2014. (Photo/Xinhua)

A 500-meter aperture spherical telescope (FAST) is currently being constructed on top of a Karst landscape in Pingtang county in the Qiannan Buyei and Miao autonomous prefecture of Guizhou. Once complete, the radio telescope will be the most likely avenue for China to make first contact with aliens, according to our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.

On July 22 the installation of the first set of 1000 panels began. The telescope will incorporate 4,450 panels on completion, forming a 250,000-square-meter reflecting surface, roughly the size of 30 football pitches, which will give it the largest diameter of any telescope of its kind in the world at 500 meters.

The cable net is capable of moving along with celestial bodies, according to Zheng Yuanpeng, the technician responsible for the panels. The net automatically adjusts the 4,450 reflective panels which will lie on top of it, allowing the telescope to observe every corner of the sky. The telescope will reportedly be ten-times more agile than the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in the Ahrgebirge in Germany.

The head of production for China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), Yang Dingjiang, stated that possible contact with aliens is only one of the aims of the radio telescope. Yang said that the telescope was also aimed at exploring the origins of the universe, the structure of the interstellar medium, dim pulsars and dim radio sources, as well as searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

This NASA artist's concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called 

Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter (AFP Photo/T. Pyle)

Related Articles:

NASA discovers closest Earth-twin yet (USA)

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life (UK/Russia)

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

ConocoPhillips ends all shale gas projects in China

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-07-23

A ConocoPhillips booth at the 12th China International Lubricants and Technology
Exhibition in Beijing, Nov. 16, 2011. (File photo/CFP)

American energy company ConocoPhillips confirmed on July 21 that it has suspended all shale gas projects in China, the National Economic Daily reports.

According to Yan Ou, a spokesperson of ConocoPhillips in China, the company has ended its contracts with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) for shale gas exploration in the country.

Yan said the discontinuation of the contracts does not mean that ConocoPhillips will completely exit from China's shale gas sector, since the company is still positive about the potential of the Chinese market.

ConocoPhillips signed a joint exploration deal with CNPC for shale gas in Qijiang in the southeastern city of Chongqing in 2012 and another deal with Sinopec in the area between Chongqing's Dazu and Neijiang city in Sichuan province in 2013, the newspaper said.

Li Li, an analyst with Shanghai-based commodities researcher ICIS-China, said the low crude prices have impacted the performance of oil companies, which are forced to cut spending on exploration.

According to Li, the drilling costs and the market consumption in China are not particularly attractive to foreign companies, compared to the North American and Middle East markets.

This leaves state-owned CNPC and Sinopec the main driving forces behind the shale gas exploration in China, since the private sector is not expected to move into the business before crude oil prices reach another high, Li said.

Similarly, foreign oil companies Shell and Chevron are also reported to have encountered hurdles with their shale gas exploration projects in China, the newspaper said. Han Xiaoping, chief information officer at an energy news website run by state-run People's Daily, said foreign companies' confidence in the Chinese market has been hit by the fact that they cannot freely sell the gas they excavate.

Despite the waning foreign interest in the Chinese market, CNPC and Sinopec have seen rapid growth of shale gas output, which is expected to rise to 7.6 billion cubic meters this year from 2.1 billion cubic meters in 2014.

Two private Chinese companies that obtained rights to explore shale gas through two rounds of auctions held by the Chinese government are maintaining a wait-and-see position, the newspaper said.

China's National Energy Administration last year slashed the projected shale gas output in 2020 from 60 billion-100 billion cubic meters to 30 billion cubic meters, and has cut the government subsidy between 2016 and 2018 from 0.3 yuan (US$0.048) per cubic meter to 0.2 yuan (US$0.032), the newspaper added.

Global average temperatures soar, Arctic ice shrinks

World average temperatures were the hottest in June and during the first six months of this year, according to climatologists. Arctic sea ice shrunk in June to the third smallest area on record.

Deutsche Welle, 22 July 2015

Climate scientists warned Tuesday that a fresh El Nino oceanic phenomena emerging in Pacific Ocean waters off Peru is likely to foreshadow hotter planetary weather and lead to further new record highs.

The United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the world average temperature in June was 16.33 Celsius (61.48 Fahrenheit), an alarming one-quarter of a degree warmer than the previous record set in 2014.

In the past, records were broken by only one or two-hundredths of a degree, not one-quarter.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, tasked with steering UN talks in Paris toward a climate rescue pact in December, urged countries on Monday to "look now for compromise on the big political issues."

The UN has set the goal of limiting average global warming to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by switching to renewables over fossil energy sources.

Four record months

June was one of among four months in 2015 that each saw record average temperatures, based on measurements made since 1880. The other three months were February, March and May, according to the NOAA.

In addition, the first half of 2015 taken as a whole was one-sixth of a degree warmer at an average of 14.35 Celsius, compared to the old record set in 2010.

NOAA climatologist Jessica Blunden said if the emerging El Nino effect became stronger, then it would push average temperatures "off the charts."

"This is what anthropogenic [man-made] global warming looks like, just hotter and hotter," said Jonathan Overpeck, the co-director of the University of Arizona's environmental institute.

Blunden said broken global monthly heat records had occurred in 25 months since 2000. The last monthly cold record occurred in 1916.

Relatives bring a victim of heat stroke
to hospital in Karachi

Heatwaves in Pakistan, India

Pakistan's exceptional heatwave during June was blamed for the loss of more than 1,200 lives. In May, a heatwave n India claimed more than 2,000 lives. It ranked as India's fifth deadliest on record.

Exceptional heat has also gripped other parts of Asia as well as Australia, South America, Africa, western North America, Spain and Austria and parts of the Balkans.

Also Tuesday, the NOAA said that sea ice in the Arctic had been measured at 906,000 square kilometers (350,000 square miles), or 7.7 percent less than the average for the period 1981 to 2010.

"This was the third smallest June extent since records began in 1979," NOAA said.

Japan confirms figures

Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the UN's World Meteorological Organization, said the record average temperatures, both on land and across ocean surfaces, were confirmed by the Japan Meteorological Agency's Tokyo Climate Center.

Nullis said a major concern was rising heat accumulation in the waters of world's oceans, which have so far acted as buffers.

Nullis said that according to readings from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the El Nino effect was likely to strengthen and persist into early 2016.

So far, heatwave data has corresponded to climate change model expectations, she added.

Complicated impact

El Nino is a period when winds pile up a layer of warm, nutrient-poor surface water off Peru, accompanied by high air pressures over the western Pacific. South American fisheries suffer while Australia and Southeast Asia turn dry.

Its impacts around the world are complicated, with Europe less affected.

During Europe's heatwave earlier this month, Omar Baddour, who coordinates the UN's climate data monitoring program, said experts were still assessing the correlation between natural variability and climate change.

Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanic and climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, was more emphatic, stressing that "man-made global warming greatly increases the number of such heatwaves."

ipj/cmk AFP, AP)

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life

Yahoo – AFP, Robin Millard, 20 July 2015

The project will search for alien life across the Milky Way and other parts 

of the universe, by looking for radio spectrums and laser signals (AFP Photo)

London (AFP) - British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Monday launched the biggest-ever search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in a $100-million (92-million-euro), 10-year project to scan the heavens.

Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who is funding the Breakthrough Listen initiative, said it would be the most intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of alien civilisation.

"In an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life," Hawking said at the launch event at the Royal Society science academy in London.

"Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching.

"Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth.

"It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark."

The project will use some of the biggest telescopes on Earth, searching far deeper into the universe than before for radio and laser signals.

"Breakthrough Listen takes the search for intelligent life in the universe to a completely new level," said Milner, a former physicist.

He said the scan would collect more data in one day than a year of any previous search, tracking the million closest stars, the centre of our Milky Way galaxy and the 100 closest galaxies.

Earth's telescopes would be able to detect a signal from similarly-advanced technology sent from the centre of the Milky Way.

"We don't need to assume that civilisation is way more developed than we are," Milner said.

Stephen Hawking attends a press conference in London on July 20, 2015, 

where he and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner announced the launch of

the Breakthrough Initiative (AFP Photo/Niklas Halle'N)

'Huge gamble, colossal pay-off'

Martin Rees, Britain's astronomer royal and one of the project leaders, said modern technology allowed much more sensitive searches than ever before, though he cautioned against expectations of finding intelligent alien life.

"It's a huge gamble, of course, but the pay-off would be so colossal... even if the chance of success is small," the astrophysicist said.

However, the possibility of finding life had effectively risen a billionfold through the identification of billions of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, he said.

"Is there life out there? We may not answer it but this gives a bigger chance that it may be answered in our lifetime," he said.

The programme will be 50 times more sensitive than previous searches, and cover 10 times more of the sky, experts said.

It will scan at least five times more of the radio spectrum, and 100 times faster, while in tandem undertake the deepest and broadest-ever search for optical laser transmissions.

All the data will be publicly available, allowing anyone interested to do their own trawling.

Debate over sending messages

The project is allied with the Breakthrough Message initiative, a global competition with a maximum $1 million prize pot to come up with the best message humans could send into the void.

However, there is no commitment to send any such message, as experts are torn on the wisdom and ethics of doing so.

Frank Drake, who sent messages into space in the 1970s, said: "We know there are people who are afraid that sending is going to endanger us."

Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner attends a press conference in London on July 20, 

2015 on the Breakthrough Initiative, a new project to attempt to detect life in the

Cosmos (AFP Photo/Niklas Halle'N)

Hawking has warned in the past about the risks of making contact with other civilisations.

"A civilisation reading one of our messages could be billions of years ahead," the 73-year-old mastermind said.

"If so, they will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria."

However, Rees said: "I suggest they know we're here already."

Drake said it could take at least 200 years before even the possibility of a reply to "shot in the dark" messages beamed into space.

By waiting to find civilisation, we could then tailor a "useful message" to send them.

Ann Druyan, who sent music on the 1970s Voyager probe launches, said the first thing to establish would be a means of communication and an intention to learn.

"We'd want to know their history, social forms, how they understand the origins of the universe," she said, but as for a first message, "'Hello' would be right up there".

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We could find alien life 'in the next 10 to 20 years': Top Nasa scientist claims we are on the verge of meeting extraterrestrials

In this Nov. 19, 2014 file photo, Counselor to the President John Podesta speaks in

 Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014. In the year that will pass before the 2016

campaign for president formally kicks off with the votes in the Iowa Caucus, any

 number of candidates, donors, political operatives — and people who have nothing

 to do with American politics — will shape the race for the White House. (AP Photo/

Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Obama adviser John Podesta's biggest regret: Keeping America in dark about UFOs
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Canada's ex-defense minister: U.S. knows how aliens can make us greener

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”