Obama and Medvedev have just signed an agreement paving the way for a new Start treaty to reduce their nuclear warheads

From today's Channel 4 News (UK) Snowmail by Krishnan:

Krishnan here, with apologies for this being a bit late. But I just had to go an interview the Russian ambassador.

From Russia with understanding

Obama and Medvedev have just signed an agreement paving the way for a new Start treaty, signed by the end of the year, to reduce their nuclear warheads by up to a third on previous treaty levels.

Both sides are hailing it as a big step. But any echoes of Reagan-Gorbachev are really just ghosts in the machine. This is an altogether different proposition.

One of the main aims is to simply normalise diplomatic relations from the depths they were at during the Bush years. The ambassador has just been telling me what a difference Obama has made. They listen, he says.

There’s also an important agreement to cooperate over Afghanistan. Russia will let American troops fly over its territory and will allow what it calls "non-lethal" supplies to be transported over land. It’s the kind of progress on an international issue that lets them gloss over the real disagreement – and that is the US missile shield.

The ambassador has just been explaining to me how nuclear weapons cannot be seen in isolation. The missile shield is an absolutely integral part of how Russia sees progress. Whether that could derail the signing of the treaty, we don’t know. But the issue hasn’t gone away.

Channel 4 News' Jon Snow blogs on Mikhail Gorbachev: http://bit.ly/gbekE

Russian spacecraft landed on moon hours before Americans

A previously unheard recording of a Russian spacecraft attempting to beat NASA's Apollo 11 in 1969's race to the moon has been released.

From Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 8:00AM BST 04 Jul 2009
Russian spacecraft landed on moon hours before Americans

The recordings from Jodrell's Lovell radio telescope, which were hidden in archives until researchers found them, show the Russian craft orbited the Moon and crash-landed onto its surface at 15:50 on July 21 - just a few hours before the Americans lifted.  Photo: AP

In July 1969, the telescopes at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, in Cheshire, were tracking the Americans' Eagle Lander carrying astronauts towards the moon's surface.

Sir Bernard Lovell, the astronomer, was among the team listening to transmissions coming from the area of space and began tracking the unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 15, which was trying to collect samples of lunar soil and rock and then return to Earth before the US mission.

Sir Bernard Lovell claims Russians tried to kill him with radiation

The recordings from Jodrell's Lovell radio telescope, which were hidden in archives until researchers found them, show the Russian craft orbited the Moon and crash-landed onto its surface at 15:50 on July 21 – just a few hours before the Americans lifted off.

In the newly released recordings, which were made over three days, Sir Bernard, the founder of Jodrell Bank, can be heard narrating events with conversation from the Apollo 11 astronauts in the background.

Sir Bernard notes a change in the orbit of Luna 15 to take it closer to the US landing site and later reports a rumour from a "well-informed source in Moscow" that the craft is about to land.

People in Jodrell's control room can then be heard shouting "it's landing" and "it's going down much too fast" as they track Luna 15's final moments before it crashes.

A voice is later heard saying: "I say, this has really been drama of the highest order."

The recordings have been released by The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings.

Related Articles

• Nasa prepares to bomb the moon

• Endeavour shuttle launch delayed further

• World's largest telescope will search heavens for habitable planets like Earth

• Uranium could be mined on the Moon

• Sir Bernard Lovell claims Russians tried to kill him with radiation