Space ball: UFO shocks Brazilians

Source: RT

An unidentified metal sphere has plunged from the sky on unsuspecting villagers in northern Brazil, causing an uproar. According to eyewitnesses, the UFO weighs about 50 kilograms and measures roughly one meter in diameter.

The sphere fell on Wednesday in a village of Riacho dos Poços in Brazilian Maranhão state. No casualties were reported apart from an unfortunate cashew tree that was severed by the object as it plunged to the ground, according to MR NOTÍCIAS, a Mata Roma news site.

Valdir José Mendes, 46, told police the sphere landed several meters from his house leaving a one-meter-deep hole in the yard. 

"I heard the noise and I went out to see what caused it. I thought it was a plane that had fallen, or an earthquake," he said.

The noise was such that Mendes was too scared to go outside. However, curiosity got the better of him and he headed outside to find the cashew tree’s trunk snapped in half by a mysterious metal sphere lying in a hole nearby.

Some 20 villagers joined Mendes to help him extract the object from the ground and examine it. Mendes says the sphere is hollow and if shaken some sort of liquid can be felt swishing inside. Locals quickly spread the news, as they reached the town of Mata Roma over 2,000 people flocked to see the “UFO”.

"It was a huge uproar here. Some feared it was the beginning of the 2012 end of the world, others said it was ‘alien’, but I think it is a piece of satellite," said Max Garreto Mauro, 25, a resident of Mata Roma. 

Peter Costa, the meteorologist at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), agrees with Garetto, saying the object would probably be part of a satellite. "I'm sure this is not a weather balloon or part of it," he said as quoted by O Imparcia.

Military police confiscated the sphere and took it to the barracks in the nearby Mata Roma. They have not specified what the UFO’s possible future will be. In a statement the Air Force Command said it "does not have specialized structures to perform scientific research on this type of aerial phenomena, which prevents the institution to submit an opinion on these events."

Russia and BRICS Nations Warn West to Back Off Iran and Syria

Source: The Hindu

Russia warned the West against military intervention in Iran and Syria and rejected unilateral sanctions against the two nations.

Military action against Iran would have “catastrophic consequences,” Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Mr. Lavrov told an annual press conference that Moscow is seriously concerned about the threat of a military operation against Iran and is “doing its best to prevent it.” He said the war would provoke an exodus of refugees from Iran to Azerbaijan and Russia, would pour fuel into the simmering Shia-Sunni conflict and trigger a chain reaction.

The press conference was devoted to Russia's foreign policy in 2011, but Mr. Lavrov's tough language suggested that Moscow was bracing up for hardnosed confrontation with the West in 2012.

Mr. Lavrov said the West's unilateral sanctions against Iran, such as the proposed oil embargo, were “aimed at suffocating the Iranian economy” and “inciting popular discontent.”

He said Iran was ready for a resumption of talks with international mediators and hinted that Europe and the United States were imposing new sanctions at this juncture with the specific purpose of torpedoing further negotiations.

The Russian Foreign Minister said Moscow would block any Western attempts to obtain United Nations mandate for military interference in Syria. A draft resolution submitted by Russia states that all Security Council members refrain from interference and use of force in Syria. Mr. Lavrov said it was self-revealing that Western powers were trying hard to remove from the Russian draft the part stating that “nothing in the present resolution can be interpreted as allowing the use of force against Syria by any party.”

At the same time, China and the other members of the BRICS group have thrown their support behind the Russian draft, Mr. Lavrov said.