TurkmenPost

PASADENA, CALIF. — Two more attempts to regain contact with NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft failed this week.

The 10-year-old probe last had radio communication with Earth on Nov. 2, and NASA said earlier this week that the spacecraft’s mission to map the surface of the Red Planet was likely at an end.

But efforts to find out if the orbiting spacecraft was still working continued, including transmitting commands for Mars Global Surveyor to send signals to the NASA rover Opportunity operating on the surface of Mars.

The rover did not detect any signals from MGS during attempts Tuesday and Wednesday, according the Web site for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

MGS has been the longest and most productive mission to Mars, sending more than 240,000 images back to Earth, according to the space agency.

The spacecraft was launched Nov. 7, 1996, for what was planned as a two-year mapping mission.

© 2006 The Associated Press.

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN — A leading Kazakh writer has nominated actor Sacha Baron Cohen for a national award for popularizing Kazakhstan. Novelist Sapabek Asip-uly called on the Kazakh Club of Art Patrons to give Baron Cohen its annual award, according to a letter published by the Vremya newspaper Thursday.

Baron Cohen’s fictional character Borat "has managed to spark an immense interest of the whole world in Kazakhstan, something our authorities could not do during the years of independence," said Asip-uly.

Government officials in the former Soviet republic have been enraged by Borat’s unflattering portrayal of Kazakh life in the spoof documentary, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

"If state officials completely lack a sense of humor, their country becomes a laughing stock," Asip-uly said.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said earlier this week that Borat has helped to make Kazakhstan better known in the West and he invited Baron Cohen to visit the Central Asian state.

The film, which follows Borat on a trip across the U.S. to report back to his homeland on American culture and lifestyle, has become a runaway hit while generating controversy for scenes depicting misogyny and racism.

"I truly hope my initiative will be supported for the benefit of the glorious nation of Kazakhstan," Asip-uly said.

Asip-uly is known for several novels describing the Russian colonization of Kazakh lands and the Stalinist purges against Kazakhstan’s political and cultural elite in the 1930s.

© 2006 The Associated Press.

HOLLYWOOD - A sequel to the blockbuster movie adaptation The Da Vinci Code is in the works.
 
Scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman, who adapted the Dan Brown novel for the screen, has reportedly been paid $3.8 million to write the sequel.

However, it’s said the sequel will not be an original story, but will actually be based on Angels and Demons, the book which precedes The Da Vinci Code.

Sources claim the plot, which sees cryptologist Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks, help a woman to discover the links between her father’s death and secret society conspiracies, will be altered so that it can follow on from the first film.

It is expected the movie will be released in 2008.

via Hollywood.com