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Showing posts with label for. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 July 2010

BP oil spill cap ready for testing

Faulty hose has been replaced and technicians are moving towards finally closing off flow into Gulf of Mexico, say official

Image from a BP video shows oil flowing from a valve before a leak stopped tests on the containment cap in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: AP
BP engineers trying to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico have fixed a leak in the new containment system and are preparing to start critical pressure tests of the cap, the company has said.

Kent Wells, BP's senior vice-president of exploration and production, said the team had replaced the defective hose and would launch the test later today.

"We landed it this morning," Wells said of the replacement hose. "I'm expecting that we'll start up (the test) here later this morning, sometime today."

The cap, installed on Monday, is a crucial step toward a four-vessel oil capture system that is hurricane-ready and can collect up to 80,000 barrels a day. The first of two relief wells is expected to intercept and plug the leak by mid-August.

It represents the best hope yet of stopping the oil from leaking into the sea since the 20 April Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people.

The company has come under increasing pressure in the United States amid reports that it lobbied the British government for the release of the Lockerbie bomber in what is being called an oil-for-terrorist deal.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, pledged to consider Congressional demands for an investigation into the charges that BP pushed for the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to help it clinch lucrative drilling contracts off the coast of Libya.

Tests of the latest containment attempt began with BP shutting off pipes that were funnelling some of the oil to ships on the surface, meaning the full force of the gusher went up into the cap. Deep-sea robots began slowly closing three openings that let oil pass through. Ultimately the flow of crude will be blocked entirely.

Engineers watched pressure readings to check whether the well was intact. The first two are simple on-off valves. The third – the one with the leaking hose – is closed gradually and takes longer.

Retired coastguard Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the government response to the disaster, said a committee of scientists and engineers would monitor the results and assess them every six hours. The test would end after 48 hours to evaluate the findings.

"I was gung-ho for this test and I remain gung-ho for this test," he said.

If the cap works it will enable BP to stop the oil from gushing into the sea, either by holding it back like a stopper or, if the pressure is too great, channelling some through lines to as many as four collection ships.

The cap was lowered on to the well on Monday. But before BP could test it the government intervened because of concerns about whether the buildup of pressure from the gushing oil could rupture the walls of the well and make the leak worse.

Allen said: "We sat long and hard abo

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Paul the octopus set for sensational transfer to Madrid aquarium

Spanish zoo prepared to meet 'any demands' to sign German cephalopod that predicted team's World Cup final victory



Paul the Octopus correctly predicted Germany's six World Cup results and Spain's final win. Photograph: Roberto Pfeil/AP
In what may prove to be the biggest transfer story this summer, negotiations have begun to bring Paul the psychic octopus to Madrid after he correctly predicted Spain's World Cup final victory.

Madrid's Zoo Aquarium says it is prepared to trump any other offer Germany's Oberhausen Sea Life Centre receives for Paul, certain that the world's most famous cephalopod will attract thousands of visitors.

At present no cash is on the table, and the zoo says it is trying to negotiate an exchange of animals.

Sounding more like the president of Real Madrid than a zookeeper, a spokesman said he was confident that Paul would be in Madrid within a few days. Madrid was prepared to offer Oberhausen "whatever they demand" to complete the deal — suggesting that this will be a cash-plus-animal transfer.

He added that Paul, named after a German children's book by Boy Lornsen, would be treated "with tender loving care" because of his national treasure status in Spain.

Paul correctly predicted the outcome of all seven of Germany's World Cup matches, as well as the final between Spain and Holland. This was an improvement on his record for the 2008 Eurocopa, in which he correctly predicted four out of six of Germany's games.

During the World Cup, Paul became a media phenomenon, with his final predictions screened live on television. He also became the world's third most popular Twitter trend during the competition, out-doing both Shakira and Cristiano Ronaldo with 141 hours of trending.

A Brazilian company has developed an iPhone app based on Paul's performance, allowing users to consult the octopus to help them make decisions. The Ask the Octopus app lets users ask 50-50 questions, to which a cartoon of Paul chooses an answer.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Wednesday, 14 July 2010

Gaza aid ship changes course for Egypt

Watches this Gaza aid ship changes course for Egypt
Amalthea being shadowed by Israeli military which has warned it will not be allowed to reach Gaza Strip



Crates of cooking oil are loaded on to the cargo ship Amalthea in Greece. Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images
A Libyan charity's ship carrying aid for the Gaza Strip has changed course for Egypt after Israel warned those on board not to try and dock in Gaza.

The Moldovan-flagged Amalthea is heading to Egypt's El Arish port, an Israeli official has said. Egypt says the Amalthea has been granted permission to dock in El Arish and authorities plan to transfer its declared haul of 2,000 tonnes of food and medicine overland to neighbouring Gaza.

The new course appears to lessen the likelihood of a repeat of a confrontation that killed nine pro-Palestinian activists on 31 May when Israeli soldiers boarded the Mavi Marmara.

Before turning around, the captain of the Amalthea had told the Israeli navy that it had engine troubles. The military had four missile ships tailing the Libyan vessel.

The Libyan charity, headed by the son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, said the Amalthea left Greece on Saturday carrying 2,000 tons of food and medical supplies.

Israeli has invited the activists to unload the shipment at the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The 31 May raid focused international attention on Israel's blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamic militant and anti-Israeli Hamas overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007. The international criticism forced Israel to ease its land blockade of the territory but it has maintained the naval embargo, insisting it is vital to keep weapons out of Hamas's hands.

The Gaza blockade and the challenges to it have caused Israel serious diplomatic damage, putting it on the defensive against demands for inquiries and criticism over Gaza's plight.

Israel says the commandos who took part in the 31 May raid had been defending themselves against violent pro-Palestinian activists. Activists have said they acted in self-defence after Israeli troops landed on their ship.

Israel has resisted calls for a UN-led inquiry but has appointed two panels, one military and one civilian, to review the raid.

Findings released on Monday from an Israeli military-commissioned report found flawed planning and intelligence gathering but concluded the commandos were justified in opening fire after being confronted by violent pro-Palestinian activists.

The mandate of the civilian inquiry is limited to investigating the legality of the operation. Two international observers have been attached to the civilian

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

World Cup Final Ratings: 24.3 Million Viewers In US For Record

World Cup Final Ratings: 24.3 Million Viewers In US For Record



NEW YORK — World Cup television viewership rose 41 percent over four years ago for English-language telecasts in the United States, with Spain's 1-0 overtime victory over the Netherlands setting a record.

Sunday's game in Johannesburg, which gave the Spanish their first World Cup title, was seen by 15,545,000 viewers on ABC, according to fast national ratings. The previous high was 14,863,000 viewers for the United States' 2-1 overtime loss to Ghana in the second round on June 26.

An additional 8.8 million viewers watched Spanish-language coverage Sunday on Univision, according to Nielsen Media Research, bringing the total to 24.3 million.

Copyright © 2010 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Monday, 12 July 2010

Darfur genocide charges for Sudan's President

Darfur genocide charges for Sudan's President
By Mike Corder, Associated Press,in The Hague

The International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur – a move that piled further diplomatic pressure on his isolated regime and marked the first time the tribunal had issued genocide charges.

An arrest warrant for Mr Bashir said there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that since April 2003 Sudanese forces attempted genocide against Darfur tribal groups Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. Last year, judges at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal issued a warrant against the president for crimes against humanity, but refused to indict the Sudanese leader on genocide charges as sought by prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. That ruling was successfully appealed and prosecutors then filed their case again.

Yesterday judges charged Mr Bashir with three counts of genocide: by killing, by causing mental and physical harm, and "by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction".

The ICC prosecutor accuses the Sudanese president of keeping 2.5 million refugees from specific ethnic groups in Darfur in camps "under genocide conditions, like a gigantic Auschwitz". Mr Bashir, re-elected to a new five-year term this year, refuses to recognise the court's authority. He says he will not turn himself in to stand trial.

©independent.co.uk

Sunday, 11 July 2010

For Now, Oil Spews Unchecked in Gulf

Watches For Now, Oil Spews Unchecked in Gulf

NEW ORLEANS (July 11) -- Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil are being allowed to spew into the fouled waters of the Gulf of Mexico while BP engineers prepare to install a new containment system they hope will catch it all in the coming days.

There's no guarantee for such a delicate operation nearly a mile below the water's surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August.

"It's not just going to be, you put the cap on, it's done. It's not like putting a cap on a tube of toothpaste," Coast Guard spokesman Capt. James McPherson said.


Robotic submarines removed the cap that had been placed on top of the leak in early June to collect the oil and send it to surface ships for collection or burning. BP aims to have the new, tighter cap in place as early as Monday and said that, as of Saturday night, the work was going according to plan.

If tests show it can withstand the pressure of the oil and is working, the Gulf region could get its most significant piece of good news since the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers.

"Over the next four to seven days, depending on how things go, we should get that sealing cap on. That's our plan," said Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, of the round-the-clock operation.

It would be only a temporary solution to the catastrophe the federal government estimates has poured between 87 million and 172 million gallons of oil into the Gulf as of Saturday. Hope for permanently plugging the leak lies with two relief wells, the first of which should be finished by mid-August.

With the cap removed Saturday at 12:37 p.m. CDT, oil flowed freely into the water, collected only by the Q4000 surface vessel, with a capacity of about 378,000 gallons. That vessel should be joined Sunday by the Helix Producer, which has more than double the Q4000's capacity.

But the lag could be long enough for as much as 5 million gallons to gush into already fouled waters. Officials said a fleet of large skimmers was scraping oil from the surface above the well site.

The process begun Saturday has two major phases: removing equipment currently on top of the leak and installing new gear designed to fully contain the flow of oil.

BP began trying Saturday afternoon to remove the bolted top flange that only partially completed the seal with the old cap. Video images showed robotic arms working to unscrew its bolts. Wells said that could last into Monday depending on whether the flange can be pulled off from above, as BP hopes. If not, a specially designed tool will be used to pry apart the top and bottom flanges.

Once the top flange is removed, BP has to bind together two sections of drill pipe that are in the gushing well head. Then a 12-foot-long piece of equipment called a flange transition spool will be lowered and bolted over it.

The second piece of pipe inside the well head came as something of a surprise, and raises the possibility that one of the sections of pipe became jammed in the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, through which the well pipes run. The failure of the blowout preventer, a massive piece of equipment designed to stop the unchecked flow of oil, is partly to blame for the size of the spill.
© 2010 All Rights Reserved AOL News.

Six months on, Haiti earthquake victims wait for billions in aid

We are saw the Six months on, Haiti earthquake victims wait for billions in aid

We are saw the Six months on, Haiti earthquake victims wait for billions in aid
Reconstruction of earthquake ravaged buildings has virtually ground to a halt as aid is stalled. Photograph: Peter Beaumont for the Observer
The reconstruction of Haiti has virtually ground to a halt, six months after a devastating earthquake killed 230,000 people and made 1.5 million more homeless in the most impoverished country in the Americas.

Despite pledges of $5.3bn from the international community over the next two years to rebuild Haiti's ruined infrastructure, only a tiny fraction has so far been delivered, as aid agencies and donor countries complain that Haiti's government has not provided the necessary blueprint for recovery.

The reconstruction effort was described in a report by Senator John Kerry to Congress last month as "stalled" amid a lack of leadership and disagreements among donors and disorganisation. That verdict has been confirmed by a series of reports from major aid agencies, delivered in the last week ahead of the six-month anniversary tomorrow, painting a bleak picture of conditions in Haiti.

The British charity Save the Children, which has described the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti as the most challenging and complex emergency in its history, said last week: "Most people have little access to safe shelter, drinking water, electricity or healthcare."

It warned that, given the conditions that so many are still living in, a major storm in the hurricane season could spell another disaster for the country and its people, requiring a renewed surge of humanitarian aid. The complaints – both public and private – over the stalling of the recovery effort confirm the Observer's own observations in three trips to Haiti over five months.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Friday, 9 July 2010

Technology on Robonaut 2 lays groundwork for future GM vehicle safety systems




Latest world Technology on Robonaut 2 lays groundwork for future GM vehicle safety systems

Call him R2 for short. Or should HER name be R2? No matter, because the collaboration between General Motors and NASA is indeed paying off.
Aside from a planned mission to the International Space Station, R2 is a validation of key technologies, including advanced sensors and vision systems, that might appear in your car one day.
In addition, manufacturing engineers in GM’s Research and Development operations also plan to use the findings to help develop future technologies that can make plants safer for workers at GM’s global manufacturing facilities.
According to the news release via media.gm.com, pictures show GM and NASA engineers performing various test and upgrade procedures to prepare R2 for his mission to space. (Oops, I wrote “his“ again, so R2 must be male.) Anyway, the trip into space is scheduled for the fall, while laying the groundwork for adoption of R2’s various technologies in GM’s next generation of cars and trucks.
Examiner Final Comments
I know what the UAW is thinking. GM might one day replace some workers with highly intelligent robots who never strike, never complain about benefits and never take off time to go fishing. Well, like time and chance, eventual replacement happens to us all.
Fact is R2’s technologies have real-world applications for sensor development, such as possible enhancements to lane departure warning, side blind zone alert, adaptive cruise control and rear park assist.
Rumor has it that GM has just leaped ahead of Honda and all other robotic manufacturers in their collaborative efforts with NASA. Was this in play before the government took GM over? I would assume so.
Still, it was a wise decision for GM, as the benefits from this technology will avail safer and smarter cars.

Copyright © 2009 Clarity Digital Group LLC d/b/a Examiner.com.

Wednesday, 7 July 2010

Third extension for Queensland's police chief

Understanding this Third extension for Queensland's police chief

Summit raises hopes for new Mideast peace talks




Together understanding Summit raises hopes for new Mideast peace talks

ELEANOR HALL: The US president Barack Obama said today that he hopes that direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians will begin by September this year.

Mr Obama made the comments after a meeting in the Oval Office with Benjamin Netanyahu, a meeting where the Israel prime minister received a much warmer reception than during his visit in March.

But while they were there to talk peace, the two leaders first tried to make it clear that their relationship is back on track, as Washington correspondent Kim Landers reports.

KIM LANDERS: The two leaders sat close together in the Oval Office, chatting, smiling and staging a long, tight handshake for the cameras.

It's the first meeting between US president Barack Obama and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu since their tense behind closed doors encounter in March.

It's also their first meeting since Israel's deadly raid on an aid flotilla headed for Gaza. Both men said their talks had been excellent and president Obama said the special bond between the US and Israel is unbreakable.

BARACK OBAMA: I believe that prime minister Netanyahu wants peace. I think he's willing to take risks for peace.

KIM LANDERS: While the US media has been portraying this visit as a fence mending effort, president Barack Obama certainly was at pains to sing the praises of Benjamin Netanyahu.

BARACK OBAMA: I know the press, both in Israel and stateside enjoys, you know, seeing if there's news there. But the fact of the matter is that I've trusted prime minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president and have said so both publicly and privately.

KIM LANDERS: The Israeli prime minister also did his best to play down notions of a rift between the US and Israel.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relations, ah relationship, aren't just premature they're just flat wrong.

Coppied by abc

New national guidelines for foster care




The traditionally New national guidelines for foster care

ELEANOR HALL: The Federal Government is moving to give foster children more choice in how they're cared for.

For the first time all foster children in Australia will be covered by uniform national standards that will ensure that they receive health checks as well as individual education plans.

They will also have a whole of plan care that will travel with them if they move.

It's the first time that a national foster care standards system has been designed and carer groups have welcomed the move, as Jennifer Macey reports.

JENNIFER MACEY: Ken Abery has four children, 13 grandchildren and in the past 50 years has had up to 700 foster children.

KEN ABERY: I mean they range from overnight stays to children that come to you. We had one guy came to us, he was four months old, he's just moved out now at 22. I mean and it's important that when a young person gets to 18 that they're just not suddenly cast adrift because they're no longer under departmental ordinance.

JENNIFER MACEY: Ken Abery is also the chairman of the Australian Foster and Kinship Carers Partnership and lives in Tasmania, which has policies but no standards in place for foster carers.

He says the rules for foster carers varies widely from state to state such as - for example - whether a child gets a health check before going into care.

KEN ABERY: And depending on the state and territory, it's one of the first things that should be happening when a child comes into care to ascertain the needs of the child. But again you see it's not uniform and that's what the national standards are about is to get uniformity.

JENNIFER MACEY: To create some sort of uniformity the Federal Government has today released a set of draft national guidelines for children in out of home care.

The Minister for Families and Housing is Jenny Macklin.

Coppied by abc

Macdonald, Scott make 'a time capsule' on film for YouTube




We know the Macdonald, Scott make 'a time capsule' on film for YouTube

Circle July 24 on your calendar. That's when YouTube and a pair of renowned filmmakers plan to change the way the world sees itself.
Citizens from around the globe are invited to participate in what is being called the first user-generated feature-length documentary by providing footage shot during the same 24 hours on that day. Titled Life in a Day, the experiment is being sponsored by the online clip site and involves directors Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and Ridley Scott (Robin Hood, Gladiator), who will executive-produce.

The end result, with entries selected by Macdonald and a team of editors, will premiere at next year's Sundance Film Festival and will be available free on YouTube. The submission deadline is July 31, and a video gallery is scheduled to be posted in August.

"YouTube wanted to do something to mark its fifth anniversary and decided on a film," says Macdonald, whose non-fiction work includes the 2003 mountain-climbing adventure Touching the Void. "I came up with an idea that appealed to me as a student of documentaries, one that would only be possible with the new technology on the Web."

Why July 24? "Because it is symbolic and practical," he says. The date "stands for 24/7, or 7/24." As for timing, "it's after the World Cup, an enormous affair in many countries, but before the August holidays. And it's a Saturday, when people might have more time."

Macdonald would rather not have thousands of videos of cute animal tricks, popular fare on YouTube, though he would not discount them out of hand. His hope: "that people capture everyday life, from the banal to the important. It could be a journey to work, brushing their teeth, bathing children at night — something of significance to those who are filming."

He estimates that about 10,000 submissions will end up being uploaded, including those shot on several hundred cameras sent out to areas in South America, Africa and Asia that lack Internet access. "We want to lose the digital divide."

The final film will run about 70 or 80 minutes. "We don't want to make it a collage," says Macdonald, who will focus on 20 to 30 "star performers" with a few seconds culled from a couple hundred more. "We want it to cohere and be meaningful."

Ultimately, the goal is to deliver "something relevant about what it is to be alive on July 24, a kind of a time capsule." If all goes well, it could become a recurring event.

Coppied by 2010 USA TODAY,

Adults fret that 'Eclipse' lacks good role models for teens




We know the Adults fret that 'Eclipse' lacks good role models for teens

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is at the top of the box office, but as teenage heroine Bella Swan moves inevitably toward marriage with a vampire, some wonder if she's such an exemplary role model for the girls who follow her adventures in the hugely popular books and movies.
It's a rerun of an old debate: Can pop culture — books, movies, music — influence the behavior of impressionable teenagers, and in the case of Bella, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

REVIEW: 'Eclipse' is fairly anemic.
And, for that matter, are teens really all that impressionable? After all, they've been reading Romeo and Juliet for 400 years.

Bella, for the few who have avoided the Twilight tidal wave, is a teenager who's so in love with an undead guy that she's ready to give up everything to be turned into a vampire so they can spend eternity together. Adding some urgency to the situation is the fact that Edward Cullen, her vampire love, is reluctant to have sex outside the bonds of matrimony.

Christine Seifert, a communications professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City who has studied Twilight online message boards and fan fiction sites, says that the saga is strongly Mormon in tone and that a subset of Mormon culture prefers that girls marry young and start families. She says the abstinence message is so strong it could be labeled "abstinence porn," designed to convince teens that sexual self-denial is actually sexy. Will it work?

The author of the Twilight books, Stephenie Meyer, is a devout Mormon who says about Bella on her website: "I never meant for her fictional choices to be a model for anyone else's real-life choices."

Nevertheless, the three movies so far and the four books in print make some parents nervous about whether the saga is appropriate for younger teens, even aside from the vampires. Twilight, it should be noted, was No. 5 on the 2009 list of books challenged or banned from schools and libraries, according to the American Library Association.

'Virtuous' messages

Kristy Campbell of Marin County, Calif., a non-Mormon mother of five and a columnist for Mommytracked.com, says she won't let her 9-year-old read the books but she's OK with her 17-year-old doing so, as long as Mom and Dad help explain "the fiction in the fiction." She worries that Twilight over-romanticizes teen sex and marriage, creating unrealistic expectations.

"I'd like to see Edward and Bella one year into their teen marriage living in their parents' basement with a screaming toddler, no college plans, working at a 7-Eleven and wondering where the fun went," she says.

Kathryn Darden, a Christian freelance writer on arts and entertainment for several online publications who has written about Twilight, says there are some "virtuous" messages in the saga, but "I've never recommended it for (unsupervised) teens — it needs to be read by parents and discussed first."

Amy Best, an associate professor of sociology at Virginia's George Mason University who studies teens and popular culture, says adults do tend to get "a bit panicky" when teenagers invest too much in a particular character, and there's a long list of characters who have been "troublesome" on some level. But she says the "emulation model" is not followed by all teens, even the obsessed ones.

Coppied by 2010 USA TODAY,

Tuesday, 6 July 2010

Lindsay Lohan jailed for probation violation


Lindsay Lohan attending her probation hearing in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: David Mcnew/Getty Images

Now we know the Lindsay Lohan jailed for probation violation

Hollywood actor Lindsay Lohan has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for failing to attend alcohol education classes.

Lohan, who starred in Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, burst into tears after the sentencing. She will also be required to enter a rehabilitation programme after her release.

The ruling came during a hearing set for the 24-year-old after she missed a court date in May. Since then Lohan has been required to wear an ankle alcohol monitor, which issued an alert after she attended the MTV movie awards last month. Lohan has denied drinking that night.

The judge, Marsha Revel, said she would not consider whether Lohan actually consumed alcohol after attending the awards, but only whether the actor failed to complete the required number of alcohol education courses on time.

The court heard that Lohan had missed seven classes over a period of 27 weeks and had not attended once a week as instructed by the judge.

Lohan spent 84 minutes in jail in 2007 after she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts of being under the influence of cocaine and no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08% and one count of reckless driving.

The plea came after a pair of high-profile arrests earlier that year. Lohan was sentenced to three years of probation but had to ask for a year-long extension in October after she failed to complete her alcohol education courses on time.

Lohan came to public attention as an 11-year-old in The Parent Trap and was considered one of Hollywood's leading young talents, but her reputation has taken a tumble in recent years because of her problems with drugs and alcohol.

Coppied by Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Monday, 5 July 2010

Israel rebuffs Turkish demand for raid apology



We see the image Israel rebuffs Turkish demand for raid apology

Jerusalem (CNN) -- "Israel will never apologize for defending its citizens," a high-ranking Israeli government official told CNN on Monday, after Turkey reportedly demanded an apology or an inquiry into an Israeli raid on an aid ship that killed nine Turkish citizens.
"Of course we regret the loss of life, but it was not the Israeli side that initiated the violence," the official said.
Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman later rejected Ankara's demand more bluntly.
"We have no intention of apologizing to Turkey," he said, according to the ministry.
Israel is "concerned" about what it sees from Turkey, he said, but added: "These sort of expressions are a part of a Turkish change of direction and a new Turkish policy, which is an internal matter we cannot get involved in."
Hurriyet newspaper quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Monday as saying that Turkey would "cut off relations" with Israel unless "they either apologize or accept an international commission and its report."
"(The) Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off," Davutoglu told Hurriyet early Sunday in an interview on his plane returning from Kyrgyzstan, the newspaper reported.

Coppid by Cnn