POLITICS:
North Magnetic Pole Moving Due to Core Flux
U.S.IntelligenceFound Iran Nuke Document Was
Forged
Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, 28 Dec (IPS) - U.S. intelligence has concluded
that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly
describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a
"neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a
former Central Intelligence Agency official.
Philip Giraldi, who was
a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence
sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document,
and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British
role in the fabrication, however.
The Times of London story published
Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian
intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence
officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a
neutron initiator as recently as 2007.
The story of the purported
Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European
support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel's threats to
attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.
U.S. news
media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not
made up their mind about the document's authenticity, although it has been
widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue.
Giraldi's intelligence sources did not reveal all the reasons that led
analysts to conclude that the purported Iran document had been fabricated by a
foreign intelligence agency. But their suspicions of fraud were prompted in part
by the source of the story, according to Giraldi.
"The Rupert Murdoch
chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis
and occasionally from the British government," Giraldi said.
The Times
is part of a Murdoch publishing empire that includes the Sunday Times, Fox News
and the New York Post. All Murdoch-owned news media report on Iran with an
aggressively pro-Israeli slant.
The document itself also had a number of
red flags suggesting possible or likely fraud.
The subject of the
two-page document which the Times published in English translation would be
highly classified under any state's security system. Yet there is no
confidentiality marking on the document, as can be seen from the photograph of
the Farsi-language original published by the Times.
The absence of
security markings has been cited by the Iranian ambassador to the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as evidence that the "alleged
studies" documents, which were supposedly purloined from an alleged Iranian
nuclear weapons-related programme early in this decade, are forgeries.
The document also lacks any information identifying either the issuing
office or the intended recipients. The document refers cryptically to "the
Centre", "the Institute", "the Committee", and the "neutron group".
The
document's extreme vagueness about the institutions does not appear to match the
concreteness of the plans, which call for hiring eight individuals for different
tasks for very specific numbers of hours for a four-year time frame.
Including security markings and such identifying information in a
document increases the likelihood of errors that would give the fraud away.
The absence of any date on the document also conflicts with the
specificity of much of the information. The Times reported that unidentified
"foreign intelligence agencies" had dated the document to early 2007, but gave
no reason for that judgment.
An obvious motive for suggesting the early
2007 date is that it would discredit the U.S. intelligence community's November
2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had discontinued
unidentified work on nuclear weapons and had not resumed it as of the time of
the estimate.
Discrediting the NIE has been a major objective of the
Israeli government for the past two years, and the British and French
governments have supported the Israeli effort.
The biggest reason for
suspecting that the document is a fraud is its obvious effort to suggest past
Iranian experiments related to a neutron initiator. After proposing experiments
on detecting pulsed neutrons, the document refers to "locations where such
experiments used to be conducted".
That reference plays to the widespread
assumption, which has been embraced by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
that Iran had carried out experiments with Polonium-210 in the late 1980s,
indicating an interest in neutron initiators. The IAEA referred in reports from
2004 through 2007 to its belief that the experiment with Polonium-210 had
potential relevance to making "a neutron initiator in some designs of nuclear
weapons".
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the
political arm of the terrorist organisation Mujahedeen-e Khalq, claimed in
February 2005 that Iran's research with Polonium-210 was continuing and that it
was now close to producing a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon.
Sanger and Broad were so convinced that the Polonium-210 experiments
proved Iran's interest in a neutron initiator that they referred in their story
on the leaked document to both the IAEA reports on the experiments in the late
1980s and the claim by NCRI of continuing Iranian work on such a nuclear
trigger.
What Sanger and Broad failed to report, however, is that the
IAEA has acknowledged that it was mistaken in its earlier assessment that the
Polonium-210 experiments were related to a neutron initiator.
After
seeing the complete documentation on the original project, including complete
copies of the reactor logbook for the entire period, the IAEA concluded in its
Feb. 22, 2008 report that Iran's explanations that the Polonium-210 project was
fundamental research with the eventual aim of possible application to radio
isotope batteries was "consistent with the Agency's findings and with other
information available to it".
The IAEA report said the issue of
Polonium-210 – and thus the earlier suspicion of an Iranian interest in using it
as a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon - was now considered "no longer
outstanding".
New York Times reporters David Sanger and William J. Broad
reported U.S. intelligence officials as saying the intelligence analysts "have
yet to authenticate the document". Sanger and Broad explained the failure to do
so, however, as a result of excessive caution left over from the CIA's having
failed to brand as a fabrication the document purporting to show an Iraqi effort
to buy uranium in Niger.
The Washington Post's Joby Warrick dismissed
the possibility that the document might be found to be fraudulent. "There is no
way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document...," wrote
Warrick.
But the line that the intelligence community had authenticated
it evidently reflected the Barack Obama administration's desire to avoid
undercutting a story that supports its efforts to get Russian and Chinese
support for tougher sanctions against Iran.
This is not the first time
that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged
documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating
the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.
In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing
former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an
author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing
uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to
bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons
programme.
Giraldi also identified officials in the "Office of Special
Plans" who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as
having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein's intelligence director,
Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi
intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from
Niger.
*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist
specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his
latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in
Vietnam", was published in 2006.
It’s a conference Gupta tries to attend every
year.
“This is the most prestigious organization of physicians in
Internal Medicine and is responsible for certifying post graduate training in
Internal Medicine. It is also one of the oldest,” he said.
According to
Gupta, who has been practicing medicine in the South Baldwin area since 1997,
the cure was first reported in early 2008 by a group of physicians from Germany
at the annual conference on “Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections” in
Boston. The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical
journals in the world, finally published the report in its Feb. 12, 2009, issue,
Gupta said.
So why has the news of the first case of HIV/AIDS cure
received so little attention where the public is concerned?
“I can’t be
sure as to why so little publicity,” Gupta said recently.
“My guess is
that most scientific researchers are somewhat stunned that a clinician — not a
research scientist — has been able to come up with the cure. Most of the big
research money and big name American institutions are somewhat embarrassed to
acknowledge that the very first case of HIV cure is not coming from their
institutions.”
The cure, instead, is coming from Charity University
Hospital in Berlin, Germany, and the doctor is Gero Huetter, who works in the
Department of Hematology, Oncology and Transfusion Medicine at the same
hospital.
Asked about the reaction of attendees at the medical conference
in Philadelphia as regarded the news of an HIV/AIDS cure, Gupta said,
“Unfortunately, because of the hectic schedule, I did not try to engage too many
physicians. However, the doctor presenting this information seemed extremely
excited about it.”
AN AMERICAN
WORKING IN BERLIN
As Gupta
explains the case and cure in question, a 40-year-old American working in Berlin
had been HIV-positive for 10 years. The patient’s HIV infection had been under
control for four years with “conventional HAART treatment regimen” (Highly
Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy).
When the patient developed leukemia,
however, a bone marrow transplant of stem cells was done using standard
protocol, which Gupta said includes radiation therapy and chemotherapy prior to
the transplant.
“Remember, once you stop HIV drugs, the HIV viral count
rises very rapidly, usually within a few days to a week,” Gupta
said.
According to Gupta, Huetter, the German physician treating the
American, deliberately chose a stem cell donor who had a gene mutation known as
“CCR-5 Delta- 32,” rather than using the best matched donor.
Gupta said
Huetter remembered research first observed in 1996 - research Gupta said is well
known in the scientific community. That research found that certain gay men in
the San Francisco area remained uninfected with HIV in spite of engaging in
risky sexual activities. As it was later discovered, those men had the CCR-5
Delta-32 gene mutation.
As it turned out, the patient’s stem cell
transplant was a success, Gupta said, even though the patient had to have a
second stem cell transplant (from the same donor) when his leukemia
relapsed.
“This patient has been off all his HIV drugs for two years
now,” Gupta said. “He continues to show no detectable signs of HIV in all the
known places HIV is detected — no signs of HIV in his blood, bone marrow, lymph
nodes, intestines or brain.” Also, the patient’s T-cell count remains
normal.
Thus, according to Gupta, within the limits of scientists’
ability to detect HIV, it appears this patient’s HIV has been
“eradicated.”
CCR-5 DELTA-32
The gene mutation CCR-5 Delta-32 is
found mostly in white European populations, especially northern Europeans and
Scandanavians, according to Gupta, who is on the staff of South Baldwin Regional
Medical Center and served as chief of medicine in 2008.
“Those who have
this gene mutation from both parents are completely resistant to most common
forms of HIV infection. You can get tested for it if you wish,” he
said.
“It is believed that this genetic mutation may have happened during
long periods of small pox, plague and other pandemics that devastated European
populations.”
While the “American living in Berlin” case is in Gupta’s
words the “first case of confirmed cure of HIV in the world,” he cites a 1989
case that is similar. Dr. John Rossi, currently at City of Hope Cancer Center in
Durate, Calif., had a 41-year-old patient with AIDS and lymphoma. The patient
underwent radiation and drug therapy in removing his bone marrow and receiving
new cells from a donor.
Whether the donor had the CCR-5 Delta-32 gene
mutation or not is not known, Gupta said, but when the patient died of his
cancer at age 47 autopsy tests from eight organs and the tumor revealed no
HIV.
“I have no doubts that present day high tech stem cell
transplantation from CCR-5 Delta-32 donors can cure HIV,” Gupta said, noting, at
the same time, that the procedure is expensive at present and has significant
risks of complications and a high mortality related to the procedure itself.
for National Geographic News
December 24, 2009
Earth's
north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64
kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research
says. ____________________________________________________________________________________ CURE FOR MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS An Italian doctor has been getting dramatic results with
a new type of treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, which affects up to 2.5
million people worldwide. In an initial study, Dr. Paolo Zamboni took 65
patients with relapsing-remitting MS, performed a simple operation to unblock
restricted bloodflow out of the brain - and two years after the surgery, 73% of
the patients had no symptoms. Dr. Zamboni's thinking could turn the current
understanding of MS on its head, and offer many sufferers a complete cure. Multiple sclerosis, or MS, has long been regarded as a
life sentence of debilitating nerve degeneration. More common in females, the
disease affects an estimated 2.5 million people around the world, causing
physical and mental disabilities that can gradually destroy a patient's quality
of life. It's generally accepted that there's no cure for MS, only
treatments that mitigate the symptoms - but a new way of looking at the disease
has opened the door to a simple treatment that is causing radical improvements
in a small sample of sufferers. Italian Dr. Paolo Zamboni has put forward the idea that
many types of MS are actually caused by a blockage of the pathways that remove
excess iron from the brain - and by simply clearing out a couple of major veins
to reopen the blood flow, the root cause of the disease can be eliminated. Dr. Zamboni's revelations came as part of a very personal
mission - to cure his wife as she began a downward spiral after diagnosis.
Reading everything he could on the subject, Dr. Zamboni found a number of
century-old sources citing excess iron as a possible cause of MS. It happened to
dovetail with some research he had been doing previously on how a buildup of
iron can damage blood vessels in the legs - could it be that a buildup of iron
was somehow damaging blood vessels in the brain? He immediately took to the ultrasound machine to see if
the idea had any merit - and made a staggering discovery. More than 90% of
people with MS have some sort of malformation or blockage in the veins that
drain blood from the brain. Including, as it turned out, his wife. He formed a hypothesis on how this could lead to MS: iron
builds up in the brain, blocking and damaging these crucial blood vessels. As
the vessels rupture, they allow both the iron itself, and immune cells from the
bloodstream, to cross the blood-brain barrier into the cerebro-spinal fluid.
Once the immune cells have direct access to the immune system, they begin to
attack the myelin sheathing of the cerebral nerves - Multiple Sclerosis
develops. He named the problem Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous
Insufficiency, or CCSVI. Zamboni immediately scheduled his wife for a simple
operation to unblock the veins - a catheter was threaded up through blood
vessels in the groin area, all the way up to the effected area, and then a small
balloon was inflated to clear out the blockage. It's a standard and relatively
risk-free operation - and the results were immediate. In the three years since
the surgery, Dr. Zamboni's wife has not had an attack. Widening out his study, Dr. Zamboni then tried the same
operation on a group of 65 MS-sufferers, identifying blood drainage blockages in
the brain and unblocking them - and more than 73% of the patients are completely
free of the symptoms of MS, two years after the operation. In some cases, a balloon is not enough to fully open the
vein channel, which collapses either as soon as the balloon is removed, or
sometime later. In these cases, a metal stent can easily be used, which remains
in place holding the vein open permanently. Dr. Zamboni's lucky find is yet to be accepted by the
medical community, which is traditionally slow to accept revolutionary ideas.
Still, most agree that while further study needs to be undertaken before this is
looked upon as a cure for MS, the results thus far have been very positive. Naturally, support groups for MS sufferers are buzzing
with the news that a simple operation could free patients from what they have
always been told would be a lifelong affliction, and further studies are being
undertaken by researchers around the world hoping to confirm the link between
CCSVI and MS, and open the door for the treatment to become available for
sufferers worldwide. It's certainly a very exciting find for MS sufferers, as
it represents a possible complete cure, as opposed to an ongoing treatment of
symptoms. We wish Dr. Zamboni and the various teams looking further into this
issue the best of luck. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Tamiflu anti-viral drug revealed as complete hoax; Roche studies based on
scientific fraud
The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic
field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's
magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.
Now, newly
analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the
core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism
arising from deeper in the core.
And it's this region that could be
pulling the magnetic pole away from its long-time location in northern Canada,
said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de
Paris in France.
Finding North
Magnetic north,
which is the place where compass needles actually point, is near but not exactly
in the same place as the geographic North Pole. Right now, magnetic north is
close to Canada's Ellesmere Island.
Navigators have used magnetic north
for centuries to orient themselves when they're far from recognizable
landmarks.
Although global positioning systems have largely replaced such
traditional techniques, many people still find compasses useful for getting
around underwater and underground where GPS satellites can't
communicate.
The magnetic north pole had moved little from the time
scientists first located it in 1831. Then in 1904, the pole began shifting
northeastward at a steady pace of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) a
year.
In 1989 it sped up again, and in 2007 scientists confirmed that the
pole is now galloping toward Siberia at 34 to 37 miles (55 to 60 kilometers) a
year.
A rapidly shifting magnetic pole means that magnetic-field maps
need to be updated more often to allow compass users to make the crucial
adjustment from magnetic north to true North.
Wandering
Pole
Geologists think Earth has a magnetic field because the
core is made up of a solid iron center surrounded by rapidly spinning liquid
metal. This creates a "dynamo" that drives our magnetic field.
(Get more
facts
about Earth's insides.)
Scientists had long suspected that, since the
molten core is constantly moving, changes in its magnetism might be affecting
the surface location of magnetic north.
Although the new research seems
to back up this idea, Chulliat is not ready to say whether magnetic north will
eventually cross into Russia.
"It's
too difficult to forecast," Chulliat said.
Also, nobody knows when
another change in the core might pop up elsewhere, sending magnetic north
wandering in a new direction.
Chulliat presented his work this week
at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
(NaturalNews) When it comes to selling
chemicals that claim to treat H1N1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry's
options are limited to two: Vaccines and anti-virals. The most popular
anti-viral, by far, is Tamiflu, a drug that's actually derived from a Traditional
Chinese Medicine herb called star anise.
But Tamiflu is no herb. It's a potentially fatal concentration of isolated
chemical components that have essentially been bio-pirated from Chinese
medicine. And when you isolate and concentrate specific chemicals in these
herbs, you lose the value (and safety) of full-spectrum herbal medicine.
That didn't stop Tamiflu's maker, Roche, from trying
to find a multi-billion-dollar market for its drug. In order to tap into that
market, however, Roche needed to drum up some evidence that Tamiflu
was both safe and effective.
Roche engages in science fraud
Roche claims there are ten studies providing Tamiflu
is both safe and effective. According to the company, Tamiflu has all sorts of
benefits, including a 61% reduction in hospital
admissions by people who catch the flu and then get put on Tamiflu.
The problem with these claims is that they aren't true. They were simply
invented by Roche.
A groundbreaking article recently published in the British Medical Journal accuses Roche of misleading governments
and physicians over the benefits of Tamiflu. Out of the ten studies cited by
Roche, it turns out, only two were ever published in science journals. And
where is the original data from those two studies? Lost.
The data has disappeared. Files were discarded. The researcher of one study
says he never even saw the data. Roche took care of all that, he explains.
So the Cochrane Collaboration, tasked with reviewing the data behind
Tamiflu, decided to investigate. After repeated requests to Roche for the original
study data, they remained stonewalled. The only complete data set they received
was from an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no
better than placebo. Data from the studies that claimed Tamiflu was
effective was apparently lost forever.
As The Atlantic reports, that's when former employees
of Adis International (essentially a Big Pharma P.R. company) shocked the
medical world by announcing they had been hired to ghost-write the studies
for Roche.
It gets even better: These researchers were told what to write by Roche!
As one of these ghostwriters told the British Medical Journal:
"The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in.
It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them.
In the introduction ...I had to say what a big problem influenza
is. I'd also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer."
In other words, the Roche marketing department ran the science and told
researchers what conclusions to draw from the clinical trials. Researchers
hired to conduct the science were controlled by the marketing puppeteers. No
matter what they found in the science, they had already been directed to reach
to conclusion that "Tamiflu was the answer."
THE DRUG DONT WORK AND CAUSES ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR
_____________________________________________________________________________________Mammograms cause breast cancer, groundbreaking new research declares
(NaturalNews) Ever since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
took a look, finally, at the scientific evidence and announced new
recommendations earlier this month for routine mammograms -- specifically that
women under 50 should avoid them and women over 50 should only get them every
other year -- the reactions from many women, doctors and the mainstream media
have reached the point of near hysteria (http://www.naturalnews.com/027558_m...).
Not getting annual mammograms, some say, means countless women will
receive a virtual death sentence because their breast tumors won't
be discovered. But what is rarely discussed about mammograms
is this: the tests could actually be causing many cases of breast cancer.
In fact, a new study just presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological
Society of North America (RSNA), concludes the low-dose radiation from annual
mammography
screening significantly increases breast cancer risk
in women with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast cancer.
This is particularly worrisome because women who are at high risk for
breast cancer are regularly pushed to start mammograms at a younger age -- as
early as 25 -- and that means they are exposed to more radiation from
mammography earlier and for more years than women who don't have breast cancer
in their family trees.
"For women at high risk for breast cancer, screening is
very important, but a careful approach should be taken when considering
mammography for screening young women, particularly under age 30," Marijke
C. Jansen-van der Weide, Ph.D., an epidemiologist in the Department of
Epidemiology and Radiology at University Medical Center Groningen in the
Netherlands, said in a statement to the media. "Further, repeated exposure to
low-dose radiation should be avoided."
The results? All the high-risk women in the study who were exposed to low-dose
mammography type radiation had an increased risk of breast cancer that was 1.5
times greater than that of high-risk women who had not been exposed to low-dose
radiation. What's more, women at high risk for breast cancer who had been
exposed to low-dose radiation before the age of 20 or who had five or more
exposures to low-dose radiation were 2.5 times more likely to develop breast
cancer than high-risk women not exposed to low-dose radiation.
Bottom line: any supposed benefit of early tumor detection using
mammograms in young women with familial or genetic predisposition to breast
cancer is offset by the potential risk of radiation-induced cancer.
"Our findings suggest that low-dose radiation increases breast cancer risk
among these young high-risk women, and a careful approach is warranted,"
Dr. Jansen-van der Weide said in the press statement.
The mammogram scam exposed
Incredibly,
although it is rarely reported in the mainstream media, the new study follows
on the heels of several others that have already sounded the warning that
mammograms may cause breast cancer. For example, NaturalNews covered a
Johns Hopkins study published earlier this year in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute (http://www.naturalnews.com/025560_c...) that warned
radiation exposure from annual mammograms could trigger breast malignancies in
women with a strong family history of breast and/or ovarian cancers who have
altered genes (identified as BRCA1 or BRCA2).
And it may not be only women with a familial risk for breast cancer who are at
extra risk from mammography radiation. As NaturalNews covered last year, a
report published in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal
Medicine found breast cancer rates increased significantly in four
Norwegian counties after women there began getting mammograms every two years.
In fact, the start of screening mammography programs throughout Europe has been
linked to an increased incidence of breast cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/024901.html).
Comments by the Health Ranger, Editor of NaturalNews.com
Mammogram pushers now have nothing left to
stand on. The complete and utter hoax of mammography has now been wholly
discredited through a flurry of groundbreaking studies performed by
conventional medicine
researchers! Yes, even the industry's own former advocates now admit
mammography harms far more women than it helps. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Russia in secret plan to save Earth from asteroid:
official
Why? Because mammography causes the very disease it claims to
"detect". It's much like a clever sleight-of-hand magician's
trick where they reach for your ear and suddenly produce a coin that was
presumably hidden there. But as everybody knows, they put it there
themselves! Mammograms offer a similar kind of sleight-of-hand trick (or
sleight-of-breast, as the case may be) by actually generating the very disease
they claim to find. If so many women hadn't already been harmed by mammography,
the whole thing would be quite hysterical.
"Early detection saves lives," they say. Except they stupidly forget
to tell women the other side of the story: "Mammograms cause cancer."
And if you're gullible enough to actually irradiate your breasts every year,
don't be surprised -- shocked! -- if they someday find tumors in them.
"We will soon hold a closed meeting of our collegium, the science-technical council to look at what can be done" to prevent the asteroid Apophis from slamming into the planet in 2036, Anatoly Perminov told Voice of Russia radio.
"We are talking about people's lives," Perminov was quoted by news agencies as telling the radio station.
"Better to spend a few hundred million dollars to create a system for preventing a collision than to wait until it happens and hundreds of thousands of people are killed," he said.
The Apophis asteroid measures approximately 350 metres (1,150 feet) in diameter and RIA Novosti news agency said that if it were to hit Earth when it passes nearby in 2036 it would create a new desert the size of France.
Perminov said a serious plan to prevent such a catastrophe would probably be an international project involving Russian, European, US and Chinese space experts.
Interfax quoted him as saying that one option would be to build a new "space apparatus" designed solely for the purpose of diverting Apophis from a collision course with Earth safely.
"There won't be any nuclear explosions," Perminov said. "Everything will be done according to the laws of physics. We will examine all of this."
In a statement dated from October and posted on its website, the US space agency NASA said new calculations on the path of Apophis indicated "a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036."
"Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a-million," NASA said.
RIA Novosti said the asteroid was expected to pass within 30,000 kilometres (18,600 miles) of Earth in 2029 -- closer than some geo-stationary satellites -- and could shift course to hit Earth seven years years after that.