On Being Human

 
In Paris, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is joined at the 2008
meeting of the International Space Station Heads of Agency by Guy
Bujold, Canadian Space Agency president; Jean-Jacques Dordain,
European Space Agency director-general; Anatolii N. Perminov, Russian
Federal Space Agency head; and Keiji Tachikawa, Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency president. Credit: ESA/S. Corvaja
› View Full Resolution PARIS -- The heads of the International
Space Station (ISS) agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and
the United States met at European Space Agency (ESA) Headquarters in
Paris on July 17, 2008, to review ISS cooperation. As part of their
discussions, they noted the significantly expanded capability that
the ISS now provides for on-orbit research and technology development
activities and as an engineering test bed for flight systems and
operations that are critical to future space exploration initiatives.
These activities improve the quality of life on Earth by expanding
the frontiers of human knowledge.

The Heads of Agency also noted the Partners' significant
accomplishments since their last meeting in January 2007, including
the delivery of Node 2 (Harmony), two new laboratories (the ESA
Columbus Module and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo), and Dextre,
Canada's two-armed special purpose dexterous manipulator. In addition
to the completion of six challenging ISS assembly missions with the
U.S. Space Shuttle, the Heads of Agency recognized the maiden flight
of the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, the establishment of the
global ISS ground operation control center network with the addition
of new European and Japanese ISS operations centers and the
successful flights of Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles. The
Partners emphasized the critical importance of expanded operations of
Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles for ISS total crew
transportation, rescue and cargo delivery.

The Heads of Agency reviewed current ISS development, configuration
and operations activities across the partnership. They considered
implementing plans to maximize the benefits from the increase to a
six-person crew in 2009 and discussed efforts to ensure that
essential space transportation capabilities (both crew and cargo)
will be available across the partnership for the life of the program.
The Partners acknowledged the need for the additional Russian modules
to be provided in 2009 and 2010 that will maximize six-person ISS
operations and utilization.

The Heads of Agency discussed their respective ongoing activities to
enhance upmass and downmass transportation capabilities required for
a robust utilization of the ISS and for preparing capabilities for
the future. These include Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle in the next
year, the U.S. Commercial Orbital Transportation Services and the
U.S. Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle; together with the current
operational vehicles, the U.S. Shuttle (up to 2010), Russian Soyuz
and Progress, and ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle. These capabilities
will respond to the ISS operations and utilization requirements. They
also noted new initiatives such as the ESA plan for an Automated
Transfer Vehicle-Advanced Return Vehicle system for downmass from the
ISS and the Russia-ESA joint preparatory activities on an advanced
Crew Space Transportation System. The Heads of Agency expressed their
interest in making these capacities available for the benefit of the
whole partnership and can provide sustainability of the ISS and
prepare for future exploration endeavors.

As the partnership moves closer to completion of ISS assembly, the
Heads of Agency reaffirmed their common interest in utilizing the
space station to its full capacity for a period meaningful for
stakeholders and users. The Partners noted that a continuation of
operations beyond 2015 would not be precluded by any significant
technical challenges. Recognizing the substantial programmatic
benefits to continued ISS operations and utilization beyond the
current planning horizon, the Heads of Agency committed to work with
their respective governments to assess support for such a goal.

For the latest about the International Space Station, visit the
Internet at:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

July 9, 2008
TOYAKO, JAPAN

At the close of the 2008 G8 Summit today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the leaders of eight of the world’s leading economic powers had made substantive progress on several critical economic, political and environmental issues facing the world, including what the Prime Minister termed a “breakthrough” agreement on the urgent challenge of global warming.

“There is a new consensus on climate change,” said Prime Minister Harper. “The United States and Russia have joined with us this year and now all G8 countries agree on the goal of a 50 percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Moreover, G8 leaders have also accepted our longstanding argument that the post-2012 global climate change framework must include all major emitters.”

G8 leaders also participated in the Major Economies Meeting which allowed for a constructive discussion between major developed and developing economies that will help lay the groundwork for a post-2012 global framework on climate change.

Following animated discussions, including a forceful intervention by the Prime Minister, the G8 leaders also issued a strong statement criticizing the Government of Zimbabwe for subverting democracy and ignoring the will the Zimbabwean people. “We have added the G8’s powerful voice to the global condemnation of the fraudulent election and the illegitimacy of the Mugabe regime,” Prime Minister Harper said.

In a further display of solidarity following discussions about the mission in Afghanistan, G8 leaders endorsed the Prime Minister’s call for the international community to “redouble our efforts to build competent, effective, credible Afghan governance and security institutions, and to deal with the problems of the Afghan-Pakistan border.”

The Toyako Summit addressed many other important global issues, including aid for Africa, energy security and food aid. “Canada can and is making major contributions in all these areas,” Prime Minister Harper said, “including the doubling of Canada’s overall international aid between 2001 and 2010, and the doubling of our aid to Africa to $2.1 billion in 2008-2009.”

Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent's business partner for four decades, said he had died at his Paris home following a long illness.

A towering figure of 20th century fashion, Saint Laurent was widely considered the last of a generation that included Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and made Paris the fashion capital of the world, with the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, as its elegant headquarters.

In the fast-changing world of haute couture, Saint Laurent was hailed as the most influential and enduring designer of his time. From the first YSL tuxedo and his trim pantsuits to see-through blouses, safari jackets and glamorous gowns, Saint Laurent created instant classics that remain stylish decades later.

"I am saddened by the loss of such a legendary talent," designer Tommy Hilfiger said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press. "He was a creative genius who changed the world of fashion forever."

Berge praised Saint Laurent as the man who marked "the second half of the 20th century" in fashion.

"Chanel gave women freedom" in the first half, and Saint Laurent "gave them power," he said on France-Info radio. Saint Laurent was a "true creator," going beyond the aesthetic to make a social statement, Berge said.

"In this sense he was a libertarian, an anarchist and he threw bombs at the legs of society. That's how he transformed society and that's how he transformed women."

When Saint Laurent announced his retirement in 2002 at age 65 and the closure of the Paris-based haute couture house he had founded 40 years earlier, it was mourned in the fashion world as the end of an era. His ready-to-wear label, Rive Gauche, which was sold to Gucci in 1999, still has boutiques around the world.

In October 2006, Saint Laurent slipped and fell outside a Paris restaurant during Fashion Week, suffering slight scratches but reminding fans of the perennially fragile designer's advancing age.

Saint Laurent was born Aug. 1, 1936, in Oran, Algeria, where his father worked as a shipping executive. He first emerged as a promising designer at the age of 17, winning first prize in a contest sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat for a cocktail dress design.

A year later in 1954, he enrolled at the Chambre Syndicale school of haute couture, but student life lasted only three months. He was introduced to Christian Dior, then regarded as the greatest creator of his day, and Dior was so impressed with Saint Laurent's talent that he hired him on the spot.

When Dior died suddenly in 1957, Saint Laurent was named head of the House of Dior at the age of 21. The next year, his first solo collection for Dior - the "trapeze" line - launched Saint Laurent's stardom. The trapeze dress - with its narrow shoulders and wide, swinging skirt - was a hit, and a breath of fresh air after years of constructed clothing, tight waists and girdles.

In 1960, Saint Laurent was drafted into military service - an experience that shattered the delicate designer, who by the end of the year was given a medical discharge for nervous depression.

Bouts of depression marked his career. Berge, the designer's longtime business partner and former romantic partner, was quoted as saying that Saint Laurent was born with a nervous breakdown.

Saint Laurent returned to the spotlight in 1962, opening his own haute couture fashion house with Berge. The pair later started a chain of Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutiques.

Life Magazine hailed his first line under his own label as "the best collection of suits since Chanel."

Berge has said that Saint Laurent's gift to fashion was that he empowered women after Chanel had freed them.

Nowhere was Saint Laurent's gift more evident than the valedictory fashion show that marked his retirement in January 2002.

Forty years of fashion were paraded in a 300-piece retrospective that blurred the boundaries of time, mixing his creations of yesterday and today in one stunning tribute to the endurance of Saint Laurent's style. He also designed costumes for heater and film.

There was the simple navy blue pea coat over white pants, which the designer first showed in 1962 when he opened his couture house and kept as one of his hallmarks.

His "smoking," or tuxedo jacket, of 1966 remade the tux as a high fashion statement for both sexes. It remained the designer's trademark item and was updated yearly until he retired.

Also from the 60s came Beatnik chic - a black leather jacket and knit turtleneck with high boots - and sleek pantsuits that underlined Saint Laurent's statement on equality of the sexes. He showed that women could wear "men's clothes," which when tailored to the female form became an emblem of elegant femininity.

"More than any other designer since Chanel, YSL represented Paris as the style leader," The Independent of London wrote in an editorial after Saint Laurent's retirement. "By putting a woman in a man's tuxedo, he changed fashion forever, in a style that never dated."

In his own words, Saint Laurent said he felt "fashion was not only supposed to make women beautiful, but to reassure them, to give them confidence, to allow them to come to terms with themselves."

Some of his revolutionary style was met with resistance. There are famous stories of women wearing Saint Laurent pantsuits who were turned away from hotels and restaurants in London and New York.

One scandal centred on the designer himself, when he posed nude and floppy-haired for a photographer in 1971, wearing only his trademark thick black glasses, to promote his perfume.

Saint Laurent's rising star was eternalized in 1983, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted a show to his work, the first ever to a living designer.

Subsequent shows at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and in Beijing made him a French national treasure, and he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1985.

When France basked in the glory of its 1998 World Cup soccer final, it was Saint Laurent who took centre field pre-kick off with an on-field retrospective at the Stade de France.

In 1999, Saint Laurent sold the rights of his label to Gucci Group NV, ceding control of his Rive Gauche collection, fragrances, cosmetics and accessories for US$70 million cash and royalties.

Industry insiders cited friction between Saint Laurent and Gucci's creative director, Tom Ford, as a likely factor in the fashion guru's decision to retire three years later. Ford stepped down in 2003.

When he bowed out of fashion in 2002, Saint Laurent spoke of his battles with depression, drugs and loneliness, though he gave no indication that those problems were directly tied to his decision to stop working.

"I've known fear and terrible solitude," he said. "Tranquilizers and drugs, those phoney friends. The prison of depression and hospitals. I've emerged from all this, dazzled but sober."

NASA May 31
5:11 p.m. EDT
Space shuttle Discovery rocketed into space safely this evening to begin a 14-day mission to attach a new scientific module to the International Space Station. Launch came at 5:02 p.m. EDT from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and set Discovery on a trajectory to intercept the space station in two days.

Seven astronauts flew Discovery into space, led by Commander Mark Kelly. The pilot for the mission is Ken Ham. Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Gregory Chamitoff and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide are the mission specialists for the flight. Chamitoff will trade places on the station with astronaut Garrett Reisman.

From the Prime Minister's Web Site

---

the further development of political and commercial ties between the two nations;

Ukraine's future in NATO and Canada’s firm support for her bid for a Membership Action Plan;

and cooperation in the UN Mission in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Harper added that Ukraine can expect Canada’s full support as it continues its post-Communist evolution into a free and democratic nation.