CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
SpaceX Dragon capsule launched to space station
Additional Photos
A commercial cargo ship rocketed into orbit Sunday in pursuit of the International Space Station, the first of a dozen supply runs under a mega-contract with NASA.
It was the second launch of a Dragon capsule to the orbiting lab by the California-based SpaceX company. The first was last spring.
This time was no test flight, however, and the spacecraft carried 1,000 pounds of key science experiments and other precious gear.
The company’s unmanned Falcon rocket roared into the night sky right on time, putting SpaceX on track to reach the space station Wednesday. The complex was soaring southwest of Tasmania when the Falcon took flight.
Officials declared the launch a success.
The Dragon will spend close to three weeks at the space station before being released and parachuting into the Pacific at the end of October. By then, the space station should be back up to a full crew of six.
CAIRO
Egypt’s new president gives himself high grades
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has given himself high grades on his handling of some of the nation’s pressing problems, spending much of a nearly two-hour speech late Saturday talking in painstaking detail about fuel, trash and bread, while sidestepping key issues in the nation’s transition to democratic rule.
The first freely elected president in Egypt’s history, Morsi, 61, hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest and best-organized political group.
He made a slew of promises during his campaign, vowing to end Egypt’s fuel shortages, improve the quality of the heavily subsidized bread, check surging crime, clean the streets of trash and ease traffic congestion.
Speaking to tens of thousands in Cairo at Egypt’s largest sports stadium, Morsi claimed that scientific methods used to gauge progress on the five issues gave him a success rate of 80 percent on bread, 60 percent on traffic, 40 percent on garbage collection, 85 percent on fuel and 70 percent on security.
His speech touched only in passing on the simmering dispute over the drafting of a new constitution. Liberals, women and minority Christians say the process has been hijacked by Morsi’s fellow Islamists.
He also did not touch on the restrictions critics say have been put on freedom of expression in the three months since he took office and the return of abuses by the police– documented by human rights groups.
Morsi also offered no vision for the future of the nation, where nearly half of its estimated 83 million people live below or just above the poverty line.
The president’s critics remained unimpressed, by both the speech and the successes he touted in it.
“He spoke about the importance of reducing energy subsidies but didn’t tell us how he plans to do so. He promised to eradicate the former regime’s corruption, but didn’t say how he will prevent corruption in the future,” Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, a former lawmaker for a social democratic party, wrote in a commentary on his Facebook page.
— From news service reports
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