Syrian forces kill 3 such as flare protests: witness - Reuters

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN | Fri Apr 8, 2011 9: 13 of the EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces as protests against the rule of Bashar al-Assad flared in several cities after Friday prayers at least three pro-democracy demonstrators in the southern city of Deraa killed, said witness.

Thousands demonstrated in the East of ethnic Kurds for reform despite the President this week offer simple rules that bar many Kurds citizenship, activists said.

Security men opened fire on thousands of demonstrators in Deraa, where protests broke out first last month before spreading across the country in the last three weeks. Residents of Reuters contacted said at least three people were killed.

"I saw pools of blood and three bodies in the street is picked up by relatives in the area of Mahatta," said one of the witnesses, who spoke by phone to Reuters.

"Were the snipers on rooftops." Gunfire was difficult. The injured are taken in houses. No one familiar set his relatives in a hospital under these circumstances, "he added." Many demonstrators fear that she would be arrested, if taken hospitals.

Protests broke even in the Western City of Hims, and gunfire was heard in the District of Damascus Harasta. The suburb of Duma, where the protests have held in recent days, was largely reduced from contact due to telephone lines, local activists said. Media are strongly limited in Syria.

Popular demonstrations have rocked the country for the last three weeks calling for greater freedom. Assad responded with a mixture of violence against demonstrators and gestures towards a reform to the most recent ethnic Kurds.

In the northeastern city of Qamishli, Kurdish youths chanted: "no one Syrian Kurds, not Arabs, one." "We salute the martyrs of Deraa." Demonstrations were concerns that fuel pump unrest could ethnic and religious tensions in the country according to.

Friday demonstrations, which online activists this week that "Friday of the steadfastness" mentioned, tends to see the largest protests against Assad's 11 years in power. In recent weeks security forces have fire, kill dozens opened.

In Deraa people demonstrated just last month against the detention of children, the pro-democracy graffiti inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian riots on school walls all had.

Sunni Muslims tribes there are the wealth and makes of the minority Alawite treasures belonging to offshoot sect of Shi Shi'ite Islam, which Assad. Mobile telephone lines were cut off been or limited in the last two days, said the residents.

Protesters chanted: "The people want the overthrow of the Government," an echo of the slogans from elsewhere in the Arab world.

REFORMS "DONT GO TO THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM"

The Baath party since 1963 has a coup and execution of Assad's father until his death in the year 2000 in power tolerated no dissent and emergency law to justify used arbitrary arrests.

A central demand of the protesters is to pick up the law.

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Witness the growing pains teenager of black holes

Astronomers are endless fascinated by the supermassive black holes are located in the Centre of the most large galaxies. But how did she get so big? With some of the largest optical telescopes on Earth, astronomers have caught their growth end the raging youth.

Black holes, which are a few times the mass of our Sun are produced in the explosive death of very large stars. It is not as easy to get the supermassive black holes, the millions or even billions of times more massive than our Sun. Unfortunate gas and stars can make their way in the middle and fall into the black holes, so that their add bulk.

Galaxies by cycles of such activity, but does not explain that, arrived as a black hole in the first place.

Analysis: Super massive black holes: Galactic killer?

Astronomers Benny Trakhtenbrot, Hagai Netzer, Paulina lira and Ohad Shemmer used the huge mirror the Gemini North telescope and the very large telescope, the light from Active Galaxies 12.4 billion light years distance record. The black holes at their centers are active material gain, when the universe was little more than a billion years old.

These black holes are smaller average and more actively (or lighter) more than a similar population, that at the age of two billion years, and one in the age was examined almost three billion. In this way have the astronomers who pursued also appreciate development of these types of supermassive black holes, back to its foundation at the beginning of the universe. Some may have arisen from the "normal" black holes, which we see today. Others can as a more mysterious and hard tangible medium black hole have arisen.

I am impressed that this study was able to gather a complete example of such young active galaxies and their black holes. Finally, it is not advisable to make general conclusions, if there are only a handful of the brightest.

The ability of astronomers to look back at the time of looking further and further allows direct observation of the evolution of our universe and telescopes go continue for greater and greater thrust. Here, on this small planet, questions about the largest and most spectacular scale of the universe we call. And why not?

Image: Artistic representation of the hard drive to and active supermassive black hole, complete with material escape its pull jets. Credit: ESA/NASA/AVO/Paolo Padovani

This work was published in the Astrophysical Journal, and a preprint is on Scholarpedia.

With thanks to Ned Wright on his Cosmology machines.

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