Christ's amazing journey to earth - MyPlainview.com: Lifestyles

Christ's amazing journey to earth - MyPlainview.com: Lifestyles

Credits to http://www.alamongordo.com/nov-10-2010-tipping-point/Nov 10 2010 11/10/2010-2013

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http://www.alamongordo.com/nov-10-2010-tipping-point/NOV 10 2010 TIPPING POINT Nov 10 2010 Tipping Point A major tipping point will occur November 7-10 2010, followed by a 2-3 month release period. This tipping point appears to be US-centric, and could be a dramatic world-changing event like 9-11 that will have rippling after effects. The collapse of the dollar might occur in November-December. Also, there could be an attack in France with NBC weapons instead an attack in the USA, overall WWIII would “start” in November 2010, this doesn’t mean that there will be war in November but there will be a happening that will trigger the war in a few months. Thing like the conflict between China and Japan, the nuclear conflict with Iran, the bomb packages from al-quaida, a possible attack on Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu could occur during the meeting in the US, this meeting could be the “start” of World War III if they agree to attack Iran, the collapse of the dollar (the FED agreed to stimulus another 600 billion for Wall Street) the markets are pumped up like a bodybuiler with steroids, it will collapse after a time… The WebBot Project

Nelson Mandela Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Denounced as a Marxist terrorist by critics,[3][4] he nevertheless gained international acclaim for his activism, having received more than 250 honours, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Soviet Order of Lenin and the Bharat Ratna. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, or as Tata ("Father"); he is often described as "the father of the nation". This Mandela Plan, or M-Plan, involved dividing the organisation into a cell structure with a more centralised leadership.[81] In April 1959, militant Africanists dissatisfied with the ANC's united front approach founded the Pan-African Congress (PAC); Mandela's friend Robert Sobukwe was elected president, though Mandela thought the group "immature".[96] Both parties campaigned for an anti-pass campaign in May 1960, in which Africans burned the passes that they were legally obliged to carry. One of the PAC-organised demonstrations was fired upon by police, resulting in the deaths of 69 protesters in the Sharpeville massacre. In solidarity, Mandela publicly burned his pass as rioting broke out across South Africa, leading the government to proclaim martial law.[97] Under the State of Emergency measures, Mandela and other activists were arrested on 30 March, imprisoned without charge in the unsanitary conditions of the Pretoria Local prison, and the ANC and PAC were banned in April.[98] This made it difficult for their lawyers to reach them, and it was agreed that the defence team for the Treason Trial should withdraw in protest. Representing themselves in court, the accused were freed from prison when the state of emergency was lifted in late August.[99] Mandela used his free time to organise an All-In African Conference near Pietermaritzburg, Natal, in March, at which 1,400 anti-apartheid delegates met, agreeing on a stay-at home protest to mark 31 May, the day South Africa became a republic.[100] On 29 March 1961, after a six-year trial, the judges produced a verdict of not guilty, embarrassing the government.[101] Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and African tour: 1961–1962 Disguising himself as a chauffeur, Mandela travelled the country incognito, organising the ANC's new cell structure and a mass stay-at-home strike for 29 May. Referred to as the "Black Pimpernel" in the press – a reference to Emma Orczy's 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel – the police put out a warrant for his arrest.[102] Mandela held secret meetings with reporters, and after the government failed to prevent the strike, he warned them that many anti-apartheid activists would soon resort to violence through groups like the PAC's Poqo.[103] He believed that the ANC should form an armed group to channel some of this violence, convincing both ANC leader Albert Luthuli – who was morally opposed to violence – and allied activist groups of its necessity.[104] Thatched room at Liliesleaf Farm, where Mandela hid Inspired by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement in the Cuban Revolution, in 1961 Mandela co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation", abbreviated MK) with Sisulu and the communist Joe Slovo. Becoming chairman of the militant group, he gained ideas from illegal literature on guerilla warfare by Mao and Che Guevara. Officially separate from the ANC, in later years MK became the group's armed wing.[105] Most early MK members were white communists; after hiding in communist Wolfie Kodesh's flat in Berea, Mandela moved to the communist-owned Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, there joined by Raymond Mhlaba, Slovo and Bernstein, who put together the MK constitution.[106] Although Mandela himself denied ever being a Communist Party member, historical research has suggested that he might have been for a short period, starting from the late 1950s or early 1960s.[107] After his death, the Communist Party and the ANC confirmed that he was a Communist Party member when he was arrested in 1962.[108][109] Mandela House in the Johannesburg township of Soweto was Mandela's home before his 27-year imprisonment, and his home immediately after being released from prison. The property is now a national museum. Operating through a cell structure, MK agreed to acts of sabotage to exert maximum pressure on the government with minimum casualties, bombing military installations, power plants, telephone lines and transport links at night, when civilians were not present. Mandela himself stated that they chose sabotage not only because it was the least harmful action, but also "because it did not involve loss of life [and] it offered the best hope for reconciliation among the races afterward." He noted that "strict instructions were given to members of MK that we would countenance no loss of life", but should these tactics fail, MK would resort to "guerilla warfare and terrorism".[110] Soon after ANC leader Luthuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, MK publicly announced its existence with 57 bombings on Dingane's Day (16 December) 1961, followed by further attacks on New Year's Eve.[111] The ANC agreed to send Mandela as a delegate to the February 1962 Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECSA) meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.[112] Traveling there in secret, Mandela met with Emperor Haile Selassie I, and gave his speech after Selassie's at the conference.[113] After the conference, he travelled to Cairo, Egypt, admiring the political reforms of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and then went to Tunis, Tunisia, where President Habib Bourguiba gave him £5000 for weaponry. He proceeded to Morocco, Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal, receiving funds from Liberian President William Tubman and Guinean President Ahmed Sékou Touré.[114] Leaving Africa for London, England, he met anti-apartheid activists, reporters and prominent leftist politicians.[115] Returning to Ethiopia, he began a six-month course in guerrilla warfare, but completed only two months before being recalled to South Africa.[116] Imprisonment Police shots of several accused in the Rivonia Trial. The portrait at the top is of Mandela, the chief accused. The photograph in the lower right-hand corner is of Walter Sisulu. Arrest and Rivonia trial: 1962–1964 Main article: Rivonia Trial On 5 August 1962, police captured Mandela along with Cecil Williams near Howick.[117] A large number of groups have been accused of having tipped off the police about Mandela’s whereabouts including Mandela’s host in Durban GR Naidoo, white members of the South African Communist Party, and the CIA, but Mandela himself considers none of these connections to be credible and instead attributes his arrest to his own carelessness in concealing his movements.[118] Of the CIA link in particular, Mandela's official biographer Anthony Sampson believes that "the claim cannot be substantiated."[119] Jailed in Johannesburg's Marshall Square prison, he was charged with inciting workers' strikes and leaving the country without permission. Representing himself with Slovo as legal advisor, Mandela intended to use the trial to showcase "the ANC's moral opposition to racism" while supporters demonstrated outside the court.[120] Moved to Pretoria, where Winnie could visit him, in his cell he began correspondence studies for a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of London.[121] His hearing began on 15 October, but he disrupted proceedings by wearing a traditional kaross, refusing to call any witnesses, and turning his plea of mitigation into a political speech. Found guilty, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment; as he left the courtroom, supporters sang Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika.[122] "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. " — Rivonia Trial Speech, 1964[123] On 11 July 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm, arresting those they found there and uncovering paperwork documenting MK's activities, some of which mentioned Mandela. The Rivonia Trial began at Pretoria Supreme Court on 9 October, with Mandela and his comrades charged with four counts of sabotage and conspiracy violently to overthrow the government. Their chief prosecutor was Percy Yutar, who called for them to receive the death penalty.[124] Judge Quartus de Wet soon threw out the prosecution's case for insufficient evidence, but Yutar reformulated the charges, presenting his new case from December until February 1964, calling 173 witnesses and bringing thousands of documents and photographs to the trial.[125] "In a way I had never quite comprehended before, I realized the role I could play in court and the possibilities before me as a defendant. I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom, fairness and democracy in a society that dishonoured those virtues. I realized then and there that I could carry on the fight even in the fortress of the enemy." — Mandela, 1994[126] With the exception of James Kantor, who was innocent of all charges, Mandela and the accused admitted sabotage but denied that they had ever agreed to initiate guerilla war against the government. They used the trial to highlight their political cause. At the opening of the defence's proceedings Mandela gave a three-hour speech. That speech – which was inspired by Castro's "History Will Absolve Me" speech – was widely reported in the press despite official censorship, and has been hailed as one of his greatest speeches.[127] The trial gained international attention, with global calls for the release of the accused from such institutions as the United Nations and World Peace Council. The University of London Union voted Mandela to its presidency, and nightly vigils for him were held in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.[128] Deeming them to be violent communist agitators, South Africa's government ignored all calls for clemency, and on 12 June 1964 de Wet found Mandela and two of his co-accused guilty on all four charges, sentencing them to life imprisonment rather than death.[129] Robben Island: 1964–1982 Lime quarry on Robben Island where Mandela and other prisoners were subjected to hard labour Mandela and his co-accused were transferred from Pretoria to the prison on Robben Island, remaining there for the next 18 years.[130] Isolated from non-political prisoners in Section B, Mandela was imprisoned in a damp concrete cell measuring 8 feet (2.4 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m), with a straw mat on which to sleep.[131] Verbally and physically harassed by several white prison wardens, the Rivonia Trial prisoners spent their days breaking rocks into gravel, until being reassigned in January 1965 to work in a lime quarry. Mandela was initially forbidden to wear sunglasses, and the glare from the lime permanently damaged his eyesight.[132] At night, he worked on his LLB degree, but newspapers were forbidden, and he was locked in solitary confinement on several occasions for possessing smuggled news clippings.[133] Classified as the lowest grade of prisoner, Class D, he was permitted one visit and one letter every six months, although all mail was heavily censored.[134] The political prisoners took part in work and hunger strikes – the latter considered largely ineffective by Mandela – to improve prison conditions, viewing this as a microcosm of the anti-apartheid struggle.[135] ANC prisoners elected him to their four-man "High Organ" along with Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba, and he involved himself in a group representing all political prisoners on the island, Ulundi, through which he forged links with PAC and Yu Chi Chan Club members.[136] Initiating the "University of Robben Island", whereby prisoners lectured on their own areas of expertise, he debated topics such as homosexuality and politics with his comrades, getting into fierce arguments on the latter with Marxists like Mbeki and Harry Gwala.[137] Though attending Christian Sunday services, Mandela studied Islam.[138] He also studied Afrikaans, hoping to build a mutual respect with the warders and convert them to his cause.[139] Various official visitors met with Mandela; most significant was the liberal parliamentary representative Helen Suzman of the Progressive Party, who championed Mandela's cause outside prison.[140] In September 1970 he met British Labour Party MP Dennis Healey.[141] South African Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger visited in December 1974, but he and Mandela did not get on.[142] His mother visited in 1968, dying shortly after, and his firstborn son Thembi died in a car accident the following year; Mandela was forbidden from attending either funeral.[143] His wife was rarely able to visit, being regularly imprisoned for political activity, and his daughters first visited in December 1975; Winnie got out of prison in 1977 but was forcibly settled in Brandfort, still unable to visit him.[144] The inside of Mandela's prison cell as it was when he was imprisoned in 1964 and his open cell window facing the prison yard on Robben Island, now a national and World Heritage Site. Mandela's cell later contained more furniture, including a bed from around 1973.[145] From 1967, prison conditions improved, with black prisoners given trousers rather than shorts, games being permitted, and food quality improving.[146] In a FIFA documentary, Mandela commented on how football gave hope to his fellow inmates; "the game made us feel alive and triumphant despite the situation we found ourselves in".[147] In 1969, an escape plan for Mandela was developed by Gordon Bruce, but it was abandoned after being infiltrated by an agent of the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS), who hoped to see Mandela shot during the escape.[148] In 1970, Commander Piet Badenhorst became commanding officer. Mandela, seeing an increase in the physical and mental abuse of prisoners, complained to visiting judges, who had Badenhorst reassigned.[149] He was replaced by Commander Willie Willemse, who developed a co-operative relationship with Mandela and was keen to improve prison standards.[150] By 1975, Mandela had become a Class A prisoner,[151] allowing greater numbers of visits and letters; he corresponded with anti-apartheid activists like Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Desmond Tutu.[152] That year, he began his autobiography, which was smuggled to London, but remained unpublished at the time; prison authorities discovered several pages, and his study privileges were stopped for four years.[153] Instead he devoted his spare time to gardening and reading until he resumed his LLB degree studies in 1980.[154] Bust of Mandela erected on London's South Bank by the Greater London Council administration of socialist Ken Livingstone in 1985 By the late 1960s, Mandela's fame had been eclipsed by Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Seeing the ANC as ineffectual, the BCM called for militant action, but following the Soweto uprising of 1976, many BCM activists were imprisoned on Robben Island.[155] Mandela tried to build a relationship with these young radicals, although he was critical of their racialism and contempt for white anti-apartheid activists.[156] Renewed international interest in his plight came in July 1978, when he celebrated his 60th birthday.[157] He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Lesotho, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in India in 1979, and the Freedom of the City of Glasgow, Scotland in 1981.[158][159][160] In March 1980 the slogan "Free Mandela!" was developed by journalist Percy Qoboza, sparking an international campaign that led the UN Security Council to call for his release.[161] Despite increasing foreign pressure, the government refused, relying on powerful foreign Cold War allies in US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; both considered Mandela a communist terrorist and supported the suppression of the ANC.[162] Pollsmoor Prison: 1982–1988 "Nelson Mandela – Freedom fighter in South Africa" as stated in Russian by this 1988 Soviet commemorative stamp dating from the Gorbachev era In April 1982 Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Tokai, Cape Town along with senior ANC leaders Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Raymond Mhlaba; they believed that they were being isolated to remove their influence on younger activists.[163] Conditions at Pollsmoor were better than at Robben Island, although Mandela missed the camaraderie and scenery of the island.[164] Getting on well with Pollsmoor's commanding officer, Brigadier Munro, Mandela was permitted to create a roof garden,[165] also reading voraciously and corresponding widely, now permitted 52 letters a year.[166] He was appointed patron of the multi-racial United Democratic Front (UDF), founded to combat reforms implemented by South African President P. W. Botha. Botha's National Party government had permitted Coloured and Indian citizens to vote for their own parliaments which had control over education, health, and housing, but black Africans were excluded from the system; like Mandela, the UDF saw this as an attempt to divide the anti-apartheid movement on racial lines.[167] Violence across the country escalated, with many fearing civil war. Under pressure from an international lobby, multinational banks stopped investing in South Africa, resulting in economic stagnation. Numerous banks and Thatcher asked Botha to release Mandela – then at the height of his international fame – to defuse the volatile situation.[168] Although considering Mandela a dangerous "arch-Marxist",[169] in February 1985 Botha offered him a release from prison on condition that he '"unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon". Mandela spurned the offer, releasing a statement through his daughter Zindzi stating "What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people [ANC] remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."[170] In 1985 Mandela underwent surgery on an enlarged prostate gland, before being given new solitary quarters on the ground floor.[171] He was met by "seven eminent persons", an international delegation sent to negotiate a settlement, but Botha's government refused to co-operate, in June calling a state of emergency and initiating a police crackdown on unrest. The anti-apartheid resistance fought back, with the ANC committing 231 attacks in 1986 and 235 in 1987. Utilising the army and right-wing paramilitaries to combat the resistance, the government secretly funded Zulu nationalist movement Inkatha to attack ANC members, furthering the violence.[172] Mandela requested talks with Botha but was denied, instead secretly meeting with Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee in 1987, having a further 11 meetings over 3 years. Coetsee organised negotiations between Mandela and a team of four government figures starting in May 1988; the team agreed to the release of political prisoners and the legalisation of the ANC on the condition that they permanently renounce violence, break links with the Communist Party and not insist on majority rule. Mandela rejected these conditions, insisting that the ANC would only end the armed struggle when the government renounced violence.[173] Mandela's 70th birthday in July 1988 attracted international attention, notably with the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at London's Wembley Stadium.[174] Although presented globally as a heroic figure, he faced personal problems when ANC leaders informed him that Winnie had set herself up as head of a criminal gang, the "Mandela United Football Club", who had been responsible for torturing and killing opponents – including children – in Soweto. Though some encouraged him to divorce her, he decided to remain loyal until she was found guilty by trial.[175] Victor Verster Prison and release: 1988–1990 Drakenstein Correctional Centre (formerly Victor Verster Prison) during the national mourning period for Mandela in 2013 Recovering from tuberculosis and facing dank conditions in his cell,[176] in December 1988 Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. Here, he was housed in the relative comfort of a warder's house with a personal cook, using the time to complete his LLB degree.[177] There he was permitted many visitors, such as anti-apartheid campaigner and longtime friend Harry Schwarz.[178][179] Mandela organised secret communications with exiled ANC leader Oliver Tambo.[180] In 1989, Botha suffered a stroke, retaining the state presidency but stepping down as leader of the National Party, to be replaced by the conservative F. W. de Klerk.[181] In a surprise move, Botha invited Mandela to a meeting over tea in July 1989, an invitation Mandela considered genial.[182] Botha was replaced as state president by de Klerk six weeks later; the new president believed that apartheid was unsustainable and unconditionally released all ANC prisoners except Mandela.[183] Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, de Klerk called his cabinet together to debate legalising the ANC and freeing Mandela. Although some were deeply opposed to his plans, de Klerk met with Mandela in December to discuss the situation, a meeting both men considered friendly, before releasing Mandela unconditionally and legalising all formerly banned political parties on 2 February 1990.[184] Shortly thereafter, for the first time in 20 years, photographs of Mandela were allowed to be published in South Africa.[185] Leaving Victor Verster on 11 February, Mandela held Winnie's hand in front of amassed crowds and press; the event was broadcast live across the world.[186] Driven to Cape Town's City Hall through crowds, he gave a speech declaring his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the white minority, but made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not over, and would continue as "a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid." He expressed hope that the government would agree to negotiations, so that "there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle", and insisted that his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in national and local elections.[187] Staying at the home of Desmond Tutu, in the following days Mandela met with friends, activists, and press, giving a speech to 100,000 people at Johannesburg's Soccer City.[188] End of apartheid Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa Early negotiations: 1990–1991 Luthuli House in Johannesburg, which became the ANC headquarters in 1991 Mandela proceeded on an African tour, meeting supporters and politicians in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Libya and Algeria, continuing to Sweden where he was reunited with Tambo, and then London, where he appeared at the Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa concert in Wembley Stadium.[189] Encouraging foreign countries to support sanctions against the apartheid government, in France he was welcomed by President François Mitterrand, in Vatican City by Pope John Paul II, and in the United Kingdom he met Margaret Thatcher. In the United States, he met President George H.W. Bush, addressed both Houses of Congress and visited eight cities, being particularly popular among the African-American community.[190] In Cuba he met President Fidel Castro, whom he had long admired, with the two becoming friends.[191] In Asia he met President R. Venkataraman in India, President Suharto in Indonesia and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malaysia, before visiting Australia to meet Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Japan; he notably did not visit the Soviet Union, a longtime ANC supporter.[192] In May 1990, Mandela led a multiracial ANC delegation into preliminary negotiations with a government delegation of 11 Afrikaner men. Mandela impressed them with his discussions of Afrikaner history, and the negotiations led to the Groot Schuur Minute, in which the government lifted the state of emergency. In August Mandela – recognising the ANC's severe military disadvantage – offered a ceasefire, the Pretoria Minute, for which he was widely criticised by MK activists.[193] He spent much time trying to unify and build the ANC, appearing at a Johannesburg conference in December attended by 1600 delegates, many of whom found him more moderate than expected.[194] At the ANC's July 1991 national conference in Durban, Mandela admitted the party's faults and announced his aim to build a "strong and well-oiled task force" for securing majority rule. At the conference, he was elected ANC President, replacing the ailing Tambo, and a 50-strong multiracial, mixed gendered national executive was elected.[195] Mandela was given an office in the newly purchased ANC headquarters at Shell House, central Johannesburg, and moved with Winnie to her large Soweto home.[196] Their marriage was increasingly strained as he learned of her affair with Dali Mpofu, but he supported her during her trial for kidnapping and assault. He gained funding for her defence from the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa and from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, but in June 1991 she was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison, reduced to two on appeal. On 13 April 1992, Mandela publicly announced his separation from Winnie. The ANC forced her to step down from the national executive for misappropriating ANC funds; Mandela moved into the mostly white Johannesburg suburb of Houghton.[197] Mandela's reputation was further damaged by the increase in "black-on-black" violence, particularly between ANC and Inkatha supporters in KwaZulu-Natal, in which thousands died. Mandela met with Inkatha leader Buthelezi, but the ANC prevented further negotiations on the issue. Mandela recognised that there was a "third force" within the state intelligence services fuelling the "slaughter of the people" and openly blamed de Klerk – whom he increasingly distrusted – for the Sebokeng massacre.[198] In September 1991 a national peace conference was held in Johannesburg in which Mandela, Buthelezi and de Klerk signed a peace accord, though the violence continued.[199] CODESA talks: 1991–1992 The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began in December 1991 at the Johannesburg World Trade Center, attended by 228 delegates from 19 political parties. Although Cyril Ramaphosa led the ANC's delegation, Mandela remained a key figure, and after de Klerk used the closing speech to condemn the ANC's violence, he took to the stage to denounce de Klerk as "head of an illegitimate, discredited minority regime". Dominated by the National Party and ANC, little negotiation was achieved.[200] CODESA 2 was held in May 1992, in which de Klerk insisted that post-apartheid South Africa must use a federal system with a rotating presidency to ensure the protection of ethnic minorities; Mandela opposed this, demanding a unitary system governed by majority rule.[201] Following the Boipatong massacre of ANC activists by government-aided Inkatha militants, Mandela called off the negotiations, before attending a meeting of the Organisation of African Unity in Senegal, at which he called for a special session of the UN Security Council and proposed that a UN peacekeeping force be stationed in South Africa to prevent "state terrorism". The UN sent special envoy Cyrus Vance to the country to aid negotiations.[202] Calling for domestic mass action, in August the ANC organised the largest-ever strike in South African history, and supporters marched on Pretoria.[203] De Klerk and Mandela shake hands at the World Economic Forum, 1992 Following the Bisho massacre, in which 28 ANC supporters and one soldier were shot dead by the Ciskei Defence Force during a protest march, Mandela realised that mass action was leading to further violence and resumed negotiations in September. He agreed to do so on the conditions that all political prisoners be released, that Zulu traditional weapons be banned, and that Zulu hostels would be fenced off, the latter two measures to prevent further Inkatha attacks; under increasing pressure, de Klerk reluctantly agreed. The negotiations agreed that a multiracial general election would be held, resulting in a five-year coalition government of national unity and a constitutional assembly that gave the National Party continuing influence. The ANC also conceded to safeguarding the jobs of white civil servants; such concessions brought fierce internal criticism.[204] The duo agreed on an interim constitution, guaranteeing separation of powers, creating a constitutional court, and including a US-style bill of rights; it also divided the country into nine provinces, each with its own premier and civil service, a concession between de Klerk's desire for federalism and Mandela's for unitary government.[205] The democratic process was threatened by the Concerned South Africans Group (COSAG), an alliance of far-right Afrikaner parties and black ethnic-secessionist groups like Inkatha; in June 1993 the white supremacist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) attacked the Kempton Park World Trade Centre.[206] Following the murder of ANC leader Chris Hani, Mandela made a publicised speech to calm rioting, soon after appearing at a mass funeral in Soweto for Tambo, who had died from a stroke.[207] In July 1993, both Mandela and de Klerk visited the US, independently meeting President Bill Clinton and each receiving the Liberty Medal.[208] Soon after, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.[209] Influenced by young ANC leader Thabo Mbeki, Mandela began meeting with big business figures, and played down his support for nationalisation, fearing that he would scare away much-needed foreign investment. Although criticised by socialist ANC members, he was encouraged to embrace private enterprise by members of the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist parties at the January 1992 World Economic Forum in Switzerland.[210] Mandela also made a cameo appearance as a schoolteacher reciting one of Malcolm X's speeches in the final scene of the 1992 film Malcolm X.[211] General election: 1994 Mandela casting his vote in the 1994 election Main article: South African general election, 1994 With the election set for 27 April 1994, the ANC began campaigning, opening 100 election offices and hiring advisor Stanley Greenberg. Greenberg orchestrated the foundation of People's Forums across the country, at which Mandela could appear; though a poor public speaker, he was a popular figure with great status among black South Africans.[212] The ANC campaigned on a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to build a million houses in five years, introduce universal free education and extend access to water and electricity. The party's slogan was "a better life for all", although it was not explained how this development would be funded.[213] With the exception of the Weekly Mail and the New Nation, South Africa's press opposed Mandela's election, fearing continued ethnic strife, instead supporting the National or Democratic Party.[214] Mandela devoted much time to fundraising for the ANC, touring North America, Europe and Asia to meet wealthy donors, including former supporters of the apartheid regime.[215] He also urged a reduction in the voting age from 18 to 14; rejected by the ANC, this policy became the subject of ridicule.[216] Concerned that COSAG would undermine the election, particularly in the wake of the Battle of Bop and Shell House Massacre – incidents of violence involving the AWB and Inkatha, respectively – Mandela met with Afrikaner politicians and generals, including P. W. Botha, Pik Botha and Constand Viljoen, persuading many to work within the democratic system, and with de Klerk convinced Inkatha's Buthelezi to enter the elections rather than launch a war of secession.[217] As leaders of the two major parties, de Klerk and Mandela appeared on a televised debate; although de Klerk was widely considered the better speaker at the event, Mandela's offer to shake his hand surprised him, leading some commentators to consider it a victory for Mandela.[218] The election went ahead with little violence, although an AWB cell killed 20 with car bombs. As widely expected, the ANC won a sweeping victory, taking 62 percent of the vote, just short of the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally change the constitution. The ANC was also victorious in 7 provinces, with Inkatha and the National Party each taking another.[219] Mandela voted at the Ohlange High School in Durban, and though the ANC's victory assured his election as President, he publicly accepted that the election had been marred by instances of fraud and sabotage.[220] Presidency of South Africa: 1994–1999 Main article: Presidency of Nelson Mandela The newly elected National Assembly's first act was to formally elect Mandela as South Africa's first black chief executive. His inauguration took place in Pretoria on 10 May 1994, televised to a billion viewers globally. The event was attended by 4000 guests, including world leaders from disparate backgrounds.[221] Mandela headed a Government of National Unity dominated by the ANC – which alone had no experience of governance – but containing representatives from the National Party and Inkatha. Under the Interim Constitution, Inkatha and the NP were entitled to seats in the government by virtue of winning at least 20 seats. In keeping with earlier agreements, de Klerk became first Deputy President, and Thabo Mbeki was selected as second.[222] Although Mbeki had not been his first choice for the job, Mandela grew to rely heavily on him throughout his presidency, allowing him to organise policy details.[223] Moving into the presidential office at Tuynhuys in Cape Town, Mandela allowed de Klerk to retain the presidential residence in the Groote Schuur estate, instead settling into the nearby Westbrooke manor, which he renamed "Genadendal", meaning "Valley of Mercy" in Afrikaans.[224] Retaining his Houghton home, he also had a house built in his home village of Qunu, which he visited regularly, walking around the area, meeting with locals, and judging tribal disputes.[225] Mandela moved into the presidential office at Tuynhuys, Cape Town. Aged 76, he faced various ailments, and although exhibiting continued energy, he felt isolated and lonely.[226] He often entertained celebrities, such as Michael Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, and the Spice Girls, and befriended ultra-rich businessmen, like Harry Oppenheimer of Anglo-American, as well as Queen Elizabeth II on her March 1995 state visit to South Africa, resulting in strong criticism from ANC anti-capitalists.[227] Despite his opulent surroundings, Mandela lived simply, donating a third of his 552,000 rand annual income to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, which he had founded in 1995.[228] Although speaking out in favour of freedom of the press and befriending many journalists, Mandela was critical of much of the country's media, noting that it was overwhelmingly owned and run by middle-class whites and believing that it focused too much on scaremongering around crime.[229] Changing clothes several times a day, after assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik shirts, known as "Madiba shirts", even on formal occasions.[230] In December 1994, Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, was published.[231] In late 1994 he attended the 49th conference of the ANC in Bloemfontein, at which a more militant National Executive was elected, among them Winnie Mandela; although she expressed an interest in reconciling, Nelson initiated divorce proceedings in August 1995.[232] By 1995 he had entered into a relationship with Graça Machel, a Mozambican political activist 27 years his junior who was the widow of former president Samora Machel. They had first met in July 1990, when she was still in mourning, but their friendship grew into a partnership, with Machel accompanying him on many of his foreign visits. She turned down Mandela's first marriage proposal, wanting to retain some independence and dividing her time between Mozambique and Johannesburg.[233] National reconciliation Nelson Mandela with lifelong friend and ambassador to US Harry Schwarz during his state visit to Washington D.C. in October 1994 . Presiding over the transition from apartheid minority rule to a multicultural democracy, Mandela saw national reconciliation as the primary task of his presidency.[234] Having seen other post-colonial African economies damaged by the departure of white elites, Mandela worked to reassure South Africa's white population that they were protected and represented in "the Rainbow Nation".[235] Mandela attempted to create the broadest possible coalition in his cabinet, with de Klerk as first Deputy President. Other National Party officials became ministers for Agriculture, Energy, Environment, and Minerals and Energy, and Buthelezi was named Minister for Home Affairs.[236] The other cabinet positions were taken by ANC members, many of whom – like Joe Modise, Alfred Nzo, Joe Slovo, Mac Maharaj and Dullah Omar – had long been comrades, although others, such as Tito Mboweni and Jeff Radebe, were much younger.[237] Mandela's relationship with de Klerk was strained; Mandela thought that de Klerk was intentionally provocative, and de Klerk felt that he was being intentionally humiliated by the president. In January 1995, Mandela heavily chastised him for awarding amnesty to 3,500 police just before the election, and later criticised him for defending former Minister of Defence Magnus Malan when the latter was charged with murder.[238] Mandela personally met with senior figures of the apartheid regime, including Hendrik Verwoerd's widow Betsie Schoombie and the lawyer Percy Yutar; emphasising personal forgiveness and reconciliation, he announced that "courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace."[239] He encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated national rugby team, the Springboks, as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans; as de Klerk later put it, "Mandela won the hearts of millions of white rugby fans."[240] Mandela's efforts at reconciliation assuaged the fears of whites, but also drew criticism from more militant blacks. His estranged wife, Winnie, accused the ANC of being more interested in appeasing whites than in helping blacks.[241] Mandela oversaw the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its chair. To prevent the creation of martyrs, the Commission granted individual amnesties in exchange for testimony of crimes committed during the apartheid era. Dedicated in February 1996, it held two years of hearings detailing rapes, torture, bombings, and assassinations, before issuing its final report in October 1998. Both de Klerk and Mbeki appealed to have parts of the report suppressed, though only de Klerk's appeal was successful.[242] Mandela praised the Commission's work, stating that it "had helped us move away from the past to concentrate on the present and the future".[243] Domestic programmes Mandela on a visit to Brazil in 1998 Mandela's administration inherited a country with a huge disparity in wealth and services between white and black communities. Of a population of 40 million, around 23 million lacked electricity or adequate sanitation, 12 million lacked clean water supplies, with 2 million children not in school and a third of the population illiterate. There was 33% unemployment, and just under half of the population lived below the poverty line.[244] Government financial reserves were nearly depleted, with a fifth of the national budget being spent on debt repayment, meaning that the extent of the promised Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was scaled back, with none of the proposed nationalisation or job creation.[245] Instead, the government adopted liberal economic policies designed to promote foreign investment, adhering to the "Washington consensus" advocated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.[246] Under Mandela's presidency, welfare spending increased by 13% in 1996/97, 13% in 1997/98, and 7% in 1998/99.[247] The government introduced parity in grants for communities, including disability grants, child maintenance grants, and old-age pensions, which had previously been set at different levels for South Africa's different racial groups.[247] In 1994, free healthcare was introduced for children under six and pregnant women, a provision extended to all those using primary level public sector health care services in 1996.[248] By the 1999 election, the ANC could boast that due to their policies, 3 million people were connected to telephone lines, 1.5 million children were brought into the education system, 500 clinics were upgraded or constructed, 2 million people were connected to the electricity grid, water access was extended to 3 million people, and 750,000 houses were constructed, housing nearly 3 million people.[249] The Land Restitution Act of 1994 enabled people who had lost their property as a result of the Natives Land Act, 1913 to claim back their land, leading to the settlement of tens of thousands of land claims.[250] The Land Reform Act 3 of 1996 safeguarded the rights of labour tenants who live and grow crops or graze livestock on farms. This legislation ensured that such tenants could not be evicted without a court order or if they were over the age of sixty-five.[251] The Skills Development Act of 1998 provided for the establishment of mechanisms to finance and promote skills development at the workplace.[252] The Labour Relations Act of 1995 promoted workplace democracy, orderly collective bargaining, and the effective resolution of labour disputes.[253] The Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997 improved enforcement mechanisms while extending a "floor" of rights to all workers; ...

Video: China Lands Spacecraft on Moon

Video: China Lands Spacecraft on Moon

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Is The Universe Collapsing? Scientists Say The Process May Have ‘Already Started’

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LET THE MEN OF GOD ARISE, A TIME OF JUBILEE!

Isaiah 61:1

The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. 

He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.

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SHARE THIS Print Email More sharing Inside CERN's $10 billion collider By Elizabeth Landau, CNN updated 12:42 PM EST, Sun December 8, 2013 | Filed under: Innovations The Large Hadron Collider is located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland. This is CERN's Globe of Science and Innovation, which hosts a small museum about particle physics inside. The ATLAS experiment is housed underground nearby. HIDE CAPTION Exploring the universe at CERN << >> STORY HIGHLIGHTS The Large Hadron Collider will come back online in 2015 Scientists are busy upgrading parts of the detector experiments CMS and ATLAS were the experiments that saw evidence of the Higgs boson 330 feet under Cessy, France (CNN) -- The biggest hazard for anyone lucky enough to see CMS, one of the major detector experiments deep underground at the Large Hadron Collider, is tripping. "So watch where you step," physicist Joe Incandela said as we descended in an elevator 27 stories below the surface of the Earth. In the event of a fire, take the elevator back up, he said -- a rule opposite from anywhere else. We also wore orange hard hats for the subterranean journey. You know, just in case. From the cornfield beside the CMS buildings, against an idyllic mountain backdrop, you might not guess this is an entry point into the collider, the world's largest science experiment. The quiet winding roads through the French village of Cessy contrast with the subatomic violence of the particle accelerator below, which sends millions of protons smashing against each other every second. We were able to go underground here thanks to a seven-year excavation of almost 250,000 cubic meters of soil and rock, a process that also uncovered a Roman villa nearby. That all led to the construction of a modern beige office complex on the surface, above the complicated particle detector that's waiting for us below. Why is the 'God particle' a big deal? Linking the 'God particle' to Bieber Scientists confirm 'God Particle' exists Speaking with CERN's Director-General CMS -- which stands for Compact Muon Solenoid -- sits along a 17-mile circular tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border. On the opposite side of the ring, in Switzerland, is ATLAS, another important experiment. Both projects are operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the physics laboratory that hosts the collider. CMS and ATLAS share the same scientific goals -- finding new particles and properties of the universe -- but their architecture and technical systems are different. Fabiola Gianotti, former spokeswoman for ATLAS, said there's a healthy competition between the groups that pushes both to do their best. "I think we would not have produced so many beautiful results so quickly if this 'friendly competition' was not there," she said. What is the Higgs boson and why is it important? A $10 billion search for answers The Higgs boson is a particle whose existence was confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider by both ATLAS and CMS in 2012. This year's Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs on Tuesday for their theories about this particle. A simplified refresher on the idea: Throughout empty space is a phenomenon called the Higgs field, which is all around us. If this field gets excited, a tiny component will break off -- and that is the Higgs boson. This concept helps solve a fundamental question about the universe: Why does matter have mass? That's one of the problems the collider experiments set out to explore. Adding to the mystique for the public -- but to the horror of scientists -- the Higgs boson took on the nickname "God particle" because of an eponymous book title (the author, physicist Leon Lederman, wrote that "Goddamn Particle" might have been more appropriate, but the publisher wouldn't allow it). The accelerator started up on September 10, 2008, but after an electrical failure, particle collisions were delayed until late 2009. The hunt for the Higgs boson really took off in 2010, with the first high-energy particle collisions, ending the first "run" of protons smashing into protons in 2012. After some lead-proton collisions in early 2013, the collider began its scheduled maintenance time in February. It's effectively turned off until 2015, but scientists at the accelerator -- it represents a $10 billion investment, excluding personnel -- are still pursuing their quest to figure out why the universe is the way it is. In other words, why we're here. Follow CNN Science News Facebook: CNNScience Twitter: @CNNLightYears The Higgs boson is part of our origin story. The collider has sought to recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, to look at how the universe evolved. Physicists and technicians are hard at work upgrading the machinery so that the collider can ramp back up at unprecedented energies. They're also optimizing detectors for longer-term upgrades and exploring the uncharted seas of particle physics from the first collider run. "This is one of the most busy times," Incandela said, "because we have to be thinking about things way out in the future while we're also analyzing all the data that we have from the past." Making it better The two-year shutdown allows for improvements the connections between magnets in the collider so that the twin beams of particles can race around at nearly twice the energy: as much as 13 trillion electron volts. Some people have the impression that scientists at the collider can take a vacation now, said Andrew Lankford, professor at the University of California, Irvine, and former deputy spokesman for ATLAS. But the thousands of scientists at both ATLAS and CMS actually have a lot to do. Both ATLAS and CMS will come back online with a whole range of improvements. Among them on ATLAS is the insertion of a "B layer," a new shell of detectors that should allow a more precise measurement of some Higgs particles decaying into other particles, said Dave Charlton, spokesman for the experiment. CMS, for which Incandela is the spokesman, is adding a muon detector layer to improve the detection of those particles, which are similar to electrons. The collider's maintenance period is crucial because if something goes wrong when it's on, either with the accelerator or at any one of the experiments, everything may have to be shut down. All experiments will then miss out on collecting data until the problem can be solved. The facility for the CMS experiment is located in Cessy, France. "Everything is kind of tied together very closely," said Evaldas Juska, an engineer who is working on computers involved with CMS. "Everything has to be working for the process to take place." Entering the deep frontiers of science I'd wanted to see a particle detector since I started reporting on the collider in 2008, but I tried to be professional about my excitement as my ears popped on the elevator descent. It's safe to approach the collider now because the beams are turned off. But what would happen if a person managed to get into the collider's tunnel during operations? Death would be likely if you stood in front of the particle beams, Incandela said. And at these energies, if tens of millions of protons were colliding anywhere near where you were standing, even with a heavy detector in the way, you could sustain potentially serious damage. Fortunately, security is top-notch -- including a retinal scan -- and sweeps of the area are conducted to make sure there's no one in the tunnel before starting the beams, Incandela said. There are particular alarms that sound when a beam is about to begin. "In fact, if you try to enter the cavern when the beam is running, the act of opening the door would trigger an immediate beam abort." Incandela said. "By the time you got the through the door, there would probably be no beam in the machine." As we descend, Incandela tells us that if we hear any alarms, they won't be fake. But the elevator is isolated. There's air pumped into the column, and it has a separate power system, so it's actually a good mode of escape from a fire. The doors open, and the buzzing sound of fans for cooling the unfathomable amount of electronics rushes in. "OK. We're down now," Incandela said. Where it all happens This is what happens when the Higgs boson decays into particles called Tau leptons. One of our first stops was a long corridor with aisles of computing equipment in blue casings. No people have been obliterated inside the Large Hadron Collider, but these are delicate systems set up to get rid of data overload. At CMS, it takes much of three stories of electronics to help decide which particle collisions scientists will study. Why? It's impossible to keep the data about all of the particle collisions -- tens to hundreds of million per second -- so the computers quickly choose 100,000 events per second and then feed that data to a "farm" of processors to whittle it down to 500 to 1,000. Running this process, called "the trigger," is a tough job: What if something important gets lost in the filtering? "I see those guys during the run, and they're stressed out for a long time," Incandela said. Noise from the fans intensifies when we enter an elevated platform in the detector's lair. These days, the experiment is separated into multiple layers so individual components can get serviced. The nearly 14,000 tons of machinery can slide back together, air-hockey style, when high-pressure air is pumped into large circular pads at the base of each major section. Looking over the green railing, I saw -- but couldn't hear -- a blonde woman in a hard hat sweeping the floor. Her small stature, relative to the detector pieces, gave me a sense of how massive the experiment really is. CMS is about the size of a four-story apartment building -- 49 feet high -- with its components designed precisely to a thousandth of an inch. (ATLAS is even taller, at 82 feet.) The complex array of instruments includes about 100 million channels of electronics, all synchronized to a billionth of a second. Bulging out from one slice is a black and silver endcap, which holds some of the experiment's 76,000 lead-tungstate crystals. Another roundish layer of CMS is covered in mostly red and silver panels, but blue and red cables are slithering all around it. This is one of the magnet barrel rings, where the red directs the magnetic field and the silver rectangles are muon detection chambers. The operation's core ingredient is large silver circular ring, the world's most powerful superconducting solenoid magnet. Inside it is an intricate tracking system made of silicon that measures the trajectory of particles without interrupting them. Experiments at the LHC In the 17-mile circular tunnel there are seven experiments: ATLAS What: General-purpose detector experiment What it studies: Looks for new particles and physics Weight: about 7,700 tons Dimensions: 150 x 82 x 82 feet CMS What: General purpose detector experiment What it studies: Looks for new particles and physics Weight: Nearly 14,000 tons Dimensions: 69 x 49 x 49 feet ALICE What: Specialized detector (lead-ion collisions) What it studies: Measures properties of quark-gluon plasma Weight: About 11,000 tons Dimensions: 85 x 52 x 52 feet LHCb What: Specialized detector (B-particle interactions) What it studies: Looks for matter/antimatter asymmetries Weight: About 6,200 tons Dimensions: 69 x 33 x 43 feet LHCf What: 2 small specialized detectors near ATLAS What it studies: Helps to estimate energy of cosmic rays Weight: 88 pounds each Dimensions 1 x 0.3 x 0.3 feet each TOTEM What: Specialized detectors in vacuum chambers, near CMS What it studies: Measures size of the proton, luminosity of collisions Weight: 22 tons Dimensions: 1,443 x 16 x 16 feet (total) MOEDAL What: Specialized detector spanning 400 units, near LHCb What it studies: Looks for a magnetic monopole Dimensions: Total area is 2,691 square feet CERN: CMS Detector Design During the shutdown, Ph.D.-level physicists work hands-on at CMS, wrenches and all, Incandela said, but most of the critical work is done by technicians. For instance, technicians are adding cooling lines that will be used for a system that will be put in place in two or three years. We saw a man in a white hard hat on a cherry picker, using a long wand-like tool, who is probably working on that. "When the machine is off, it's like airplanes when they're grounded. You're losing time; you're losing money," Incandela said. "So we're trying all the time to optimize our use of these down times." Incandela sounded like a proud parent as he gestured toward CMS components that came from different countries. There's iron from Germany, colored red, but also from China. Little orange cylinders, determining where the detectors mount, came from Serbia. There's green armature from Yorkshire, England. Small silver chambers came from Italy. "Everywhere you point there's something from somewhere, you know, different," he said. "And what's great is that it all came together; it all fit perfectly." There are 42 countries represented in the CMS collaboration and as many as 4,000 scientists. When you think about how much brainpower and time went into designing and building this structure, Incandela said, "It's really a modern cathedral." (Not because anyone is worshiping a God particle, of course.) What else is there to find? In July 2012, scientists at CMS and ATLAS had accumulated enough data about particle collision events that looked like Higgs bosons decaying that they could say at last: It's real. But there's lots more to learn about the Higgs, and more information about it could be lurking in data from the first collider run. Some data still need to be, in physicist lingo, "unblinded." To avoid bias, physicists don't closely examine data that may correspond to a discovery until they're sure they understand all of the other results from the background. In other words, they don't do more tweaks and rigorous analysis of the most interesting data regions -- for instance, the Higgs boson -- until they have thoroughly explored the rest first. "It's a bit like opening a present now, since we know there is something in it," Incandela said. "Before the discovery, it was not certain that the 'box' was not empty." New discoveries are still happening. Recently both ATLAS and CMS released new evidence about the Higgs boson's properties. They each showed strong evidence of Higgs particles decaying into fermions, which are components of matter. (But the Higgs particle is not stable; once created, it quickly decays into other small building blocks of our universe). This is significant because previously, when the Higgs was discovered, the detectors captured it decaying into particles called bosons, which carry fundamental forces. That means, at last, the Higgs boson has been observed giving rise to matter particles and at a rate consistent predicted by the Standard Model of Physics, the leading explanation for how the universe works. In other words, the Higgs is capable of creating matter with mass. Scientists are also looking for a whole other array of particles predicted by a theory called supersymmetry. The idea is that every particle we know has a supersymmetric partner, which would explain some of the gaps in our understanding of the universe. "I think supersymmetry has to be there," Incandela said. "It's not something kind of wacky that we just made up." Also tantalizing would be if scientists find evidence of dark matter. The stuff we see is made up of particles that are only 5% of matter in the universe; the other 95% matter is dark matter, and it has never been detected. How particle smasher and telescopes relate All this is to say that finding the Higgs boson didn't solve everything. Because of the particular mass of the Higgs at 125 gigaelectron volts, it actually raises new problems. "The only way you cleanly solve those problems is with a new array of particles, things like a mirror image of the existing particles, like another dimension of the universe," Incandela said. "And in that realm we have many good candidates for the dark matter. And they can't be too far away in energy." Just beyond our reach There could be much more than just one particle in this untapped dark matter realm, Incandela said as we rode the elevator back up. After all, it would be ridiculous to assume that our universe is made of just one particle. Dark matter could even be something that we can access one day. We don't know what we could do with it or what technologies might develop, "but it would certainly help us understand the universe a lot better." It may take an even more powerful machine than the Large Hadron Collider to find out. Discussions are in the works about a next-generation accelerator, the International Linear Collider, which could make even more precise measurements about components of our universe we know little about. The elevator door opened, back at the surface in France. Incandela looked at me expectantly: "You don't get to keep the helmet." I laughed and relinquished the orange hat, marking the end of my journey. But for the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, the exploration continues, accelerating knowledge. Elizabeth Landau is on Twitter at @lizlandau. For more CNN science news follow @CNNLightYears. 195 Comments » SHARE THIS Print Email More sharing From Around the Web MCAT Question of the Day Solution! 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Inside CERN's $10 billion collider

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN updated 12:42 PM EST, Sun December 8, 2013 | Filed under: Innovations

The Large Hadron Collider is located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland. This is CERN's Globe of Science and Innovation, which hosts a small museum about particle physics inside. The ATLAS experiment is housed underground nearby.

HIDE CAPTION

Exploring the universe at CERN

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Large Hadron Collider will come back online in 2015
• Scientists are busy upgrading parts of the detector experiments
• CMS and ATLAS were the experiments that saw evidence of the Higgs boson

330 feet under Cessy, France (CNN) -- The biggest hazard for anyone lucky enough to see CMS, one of the major detector experiments deep underground at the Large Hadron Collider, is tripping.

"So watch where you step," physicist Joe Incandela said as we descended in an elevator 27 stories below the surface of the Earth.

In the event of a fire, take the elevator back up, he said -- a rule opposite from anywhere else. We also wore orange hard hats for the subterranean journey. You know, just in case.

From the cornfield beside the CMS buildings, against an idyllic mountain backdrop, you might not guess this is an entry point into the collider, the world's largest science experiment. The quiet winding roads through the French village of Cessy contrast with the subatomic violence of the particle accelerator below, which sends millions of protons smashing against each other every second.

We were able to go underground here thanks to a seven-year excavation of almost 250,000 cubic meters of soil and rock, a process that also uncovered a Roman villa nearby. That all led to the construction of a modern beige office complex on the surface, above the complicated particle detector that's waiting for us below.

Why is the 'God particle' a big deal?

Linking the 'God particle' to Bieber

Scientists confirm 'God Particle' exists

Speaking with CERN's Director-General

CMS -- which stands for Compact Muon Solenoid -- sits along a 17-mile circular tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border. On the opposite side of the ring, in Switzerland, is ATLAS, another important experiment. Both projects are operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the physics laboratory that hosts the collider.

CMS and ATLAS share the same scientific goals -- finding new particles and properties of the universe -- but their architecture and technical systems are different. Fabiola Gianotti, former spokeswoman for ATLAS, said there's a healthy competition between the groups that pushes both to do their best.

"I think we would not have produced so many beautiful results so quickly if this 'friendly competition' was not there," she said.

What is the Higgs boson and why is it important?

A $10 billion search for answers

The Higgs boson is a particle whose existence was confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider by both ATLAS and CMS in 2012. This year's Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs on Tuesday for their theories about this particle.

A simplified refresher on the idea: Throughout empty space is a phenomenon called the Higgs field, which is all around us. If this field gets excited, a tiny component will break off -- and that is the Higgs boson. This concept helps solve a fundamental question about the universe: Why does matter have mass?

That's one of the problems the collider experiments set out to explore. Adding to the mystique for the public -- but to the horror of scientists -- the Higgs boson took on the nickname "God particle"because of an eponymous book title (the author, physicist Leon Lederman, wrote that "Goddamn Particle" might have been more appropriate, but the publisher wouldn't allow it).

The accelerator started up on September 10, 2008, but after an electrical failure, particle collisions were delayed until late 2009. The hunt for the Higgs boson really took off in 2010, with the first high-energy particle collisions, ending the first "run" of protons smashing into protons in 2012.

After some lead-proton collisions in early 2013, the collider began its scheduled maintenance time in February. It's effectively turned off until 2015, but scientists at the accelerator -- it represents a $10 billion investment, excluding personnel -- are still pursuing their quest to figure out why the universe is the way it is. In other words, why we're here.

Follow CNN Science News 

Facebook: CNNScience 

Twitter: @CNNLightYears

The Higgs boson is part of our origin story. The collider has sought to recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, to look at how the universe evolved.

Physicists and technicians are hard at work upgrading the machinery so that the collider can ramp back up at unprecedented energies. They're also optimizing detectors for longer-term upgrades and exploring the uncharted seas of particle physics from the first collider run.

"This is one of the most busy times," Incandela said, "because we have to be thinking about things way out in the future while we're also analyzing all the data that we have from the past."

Making it better

The two-year shutdown allows for improvements the connections between magnets in the collider so that the twin beams of particles can race around at nearly twice the energy: as much as 13 trillion electron volts.

Some people have the impression that scientists at the collider can take a vacation now, said Andrew Lankford, professor at the University of California, Irvine, and former deputy spokesman for ATLAS. But the thousands of scientists at both ATLAS and CMS actually have a lot to do.

Both ATLAS and CMS will come back online with a whole range of improvements. Among them on ATLAS is the insertion of a "B layer," a new shell of detectors that should allow a more precise measurement of some Higgs particles decaying into other particles, said Dave Charlton, spokesman for the experiment. CMS, for which Incandela is the spokesman, is adding a muon detector layer to improve the detection of those particles, which are similar to electrons.

The collider's maintenance period is crucial because if something goes wrong when it's on, either with the accelerator or at any one of the experiments, everything may have to be shut down. All experiments will then miss out on collecting data until the problem can be solved.

The facility for the CMS experiment is located in Cessy, France.

"Everything is kind of tied together very closely," said Evaldas Juska, an engineer who is working on computers involved with CMS. "Everything has to be working for the process to take place."

Entering the deep frontiers of science

I'd wanted to see a particle detector since I started reporting on the collider in 2008, but I tried to be professional about my excitement as my ears popped on the elevator descent.

It's safe to approach the collider now because the beams are turned off. But what would happen if a person managed to get into the collider's tunnel during operations?

Death would be likely if you stood in front of the particle beams, Incandela said. And at these energies, if tens of millions of protons were colliding anywhere near where you were standing, even with a heavy detector in the way, you could sustain potentially serious damage.

Fortunately, security is top-notch -- including a retinal scan -- and sweeps of the area are conducted to make sure there's no one in the tunnel before starting the beams, Incandela said. There are particular alarms that sound when a beam is about to begin.

"In fact, if you try to enter the cavern when the beam is running, the act of opening the door would trigger an immediate beam abort." Incandela said. "By the time you got the through the door, there would probably be no beam in the machine."

As we descend, Incandela tells us that if we hear any alarms, they won't be fake. But the elevator is isolated. There's air pumped into the column, and it has a separate power system, so it's actually a good mode of escape from a fire.

The doors open, and the buzzing sound of fans for cooling the unfathomable amount of electronics rushes in.

"OK. We're down now," Incandela said.

Where it all happens

This is what happens when the Higgs boson decays into particles called Tau leptons.

One of our first stops was a long corridor with aisles of computing equipment in blue casings. No people have been obliterated inside the Large Hadron Collider, but these are delicate systems set up to get rid of data overload. At CMS, it takes much of three stories of electronics to help decide which particle collisions scientists will study.

Why? It's impossible to keep the data about all of the particle collisions -- tens to hundreds of million per second -- so the computers quickly choose 100,000 events per second and then feed that data to a "farm" of processors to whittle it down to 500 to 1,000.

Running this process, called "the trigger," is a tough job: What if something important gets lost in the filtering?

"I see those guys during the run, and they're stressed out for a long time," Incandela said.

Noise from the fans intensifies when we enter an elevated platform in the detector's lair. These days, the experiment is separated into multiple layers so individual components can get serviced. The nearly 14,000 tons of machinery can slide back together, air-hockey style, when high-pressure air is pumped into large circular pads at the base of each major section.

Looking over the green railing, I saw -- but couldn't hear -- a blonde woman in a hard hat sweeping the floor. Her small stature, relative to the detector pieces, gave me a sense of how massive the experiment really is.

CMS is about the size of a four-story apartment building -- 49 feet high -- with its components designed precisely to a thousandth of an inch. (ATLAS is even taller, at 82 feet.) The complex array of instruments includes about 100 million channels of electronics, all synchronized to a billionth of a second.

Bulging out from one slice is a black and silver endcap, which holds some of the experiment's 76,000 lead-tungstate crystals.

Another roundish layer of CMS is covered in mostly red and silver panels, but blue and red cables are slithering all around it. This is one of the magnet barrel rings, where the red directs the magnetic field and the silver rectangles are muon detection chambers.

The operation's core ingredient is large silver circular ring, the world's most powerful superconducting solenoid magnet. Inside it is an intricate tracking system made of silicon that measures the trajectory of particles without interrupting them.

Experiments at the LHC 

In the 17-mile circular tunnel there are seven experiments: 



ATLAS 

What: General-purpose detector experiment 

What it studies: Looks for new particles and physics 

Weight: about 7,700 tons 

Dimensions: 150 x 82 x 82 feet



CMS 

What: General purpose detector experiment 
What it studies: Looks for new particles and physics 

Weight: Nearly 14,000 tons 

Dimensions: 69 x 49 x 49 feet 



ALICE 

What: Specialized detector (lead-ion collisions) 

What it studies: Measures properties of quark-gluon plasma 

Weight: About 11,000 tons 

Dimensions: 85 x 52 x 52 feet 



LHCb 

What: Specialized detector (B-particle interactions) 

What it studies: Looks for matter/antimatter asymmetries 

Weight: About 6,200 tons 

Dimensions: 69 x 33 x 43 feet 



LHCf 

What: 2 small specialized detectors near ATLAS 

What it studies: Helps to estimate energy of cosmic rays

Weight: 88 pounds each 

Dimensions 1 x 0.3 x 0.3 feet each 



TOTEM 

What: Specialized detectors in vacuum chambers, near CMS 

What it studies: Measures size of the proton, luminosity of collisions 

Weight: 22 tons 

Dimensions: 1,443 x 16 x 16 feet (total) 



MOEDAL 

What: Specialized detector spanning 400 units, near LHCb

What it studies: Looks for a magnetic monopole 

Dimensions: Total area is 2,691 square feet

CERN: CMS Detector Design

During the shutdown, Ph.D.-level physicists work hands-on at CMS, wrenches and all, Incandela said, but most of the critical work is done by technicians. For instance, technicians are adding cooling lines that will be used for a system that will be put in place in two or three years. We saw a man in a white hard hat on a cherry picker, using a long wand-like tool, who is probably working on that.

"When the machine is off, it's like airplanes when they're grounded. You're losing time; you're losing money," Incandela said. "So we're trying all the time to optimize our use of these down times."

Incandela sounded like a proud parent as he gestured toward CMS components that came from different countries. There's iron from Germany, colored red, but also from China. Little orange cylinders, determining where the detectors mount, came from Serbia. There's green armature from Yorkshire, England. Small silver chambers came from Italy.

"Everywhere you point there's something from somewhere, you know, different," he said. "And what's great is that it all came together; it all fit perfectly."

There are 42 countries represented in the CMS collaboration and as many as 4,000 scientists.

When you think about how much brainpower and time went into designing and building this structure, Incandela said, "It's really a modern cathedral." (Not because anyone is worshiping a God particle, of course.)

What else is there to find?

In July 2012, scientists at CMS and ATLAS had accumulated enough data about particle collision events that looked like Higgs bosons decaying that they could say at last: It's real.

But there's lots more to learn about the Higgs, and more information about it could be lurking in data from the first collider run.

Some data still need to be, in physicist lingo, "unblinded." To avoid bias, physicists don't closely examine data that may correspond to a discovery until they're sure they understand all of the other results from the background. In other words, they don't do more tweaks and rigorous analysis of the most interesting data regions -- for instance, the Higgs boson -- until they have thoroughly explored the rest first.

"It's a bit like opening a present now, since we know there is something in it," Incandela said. "Before the discovery, it was not certain that the 'box' was not empty."

New discoveries are still happening. Recently both ATLAS and CMSreleased new evidence about the Higgs boson's properties. They each showed strong evidence of Higgs particles decaying into fermions, which are components of matter. (But the Higgs particle is not stable; once created, it quickly decays into other small building blocks of our universe).

This is significant because previously, when the Higgs was discovered, the detectors captured it decaying into particles called bosons, which carry fundamental forces.

That means, at last, the Higgs boson has been observed giving rise to matter particles and at a rate consistent predicted by the Standard Model of Physics, the leading explanation for how the universe works.

In other words, the Higgs is capable of creating matter with mass.

Scientists are also looking for a whole other array of particles predicted by a theory called supersymmetry. The idea is that every particle we know has a supersymmetric partner, which would explain some of the gaps in our understanding of the universe.

"I think supersymmetry has to be there," Incandela said. "It's not something kind of wacky that we just made up."

Also tantalizing would be if scientists find evidence of dark matter. The stuff we see is made up of particles that are only 5% of matter in the universe; the other 95% matter is dark matter, and it has never been detected.

How particle smasher and telescopes relate

All this is to say that finding the Higgs boson didn't solve everything. Because of the particular mass of the Higgs at 125 gigaelectron volts, it actually raises new problems.

"The only way you cleanly solve those problems is with a new array of particles, things like a mirror image of the existing particles, like another dimension of the universe," Incandela said. "And in that realm we have many good candidates for the dark matter. And they can't be too far away in energy."

Just beyond our reach

There could be much more than just one particle in this untapped dark matter realm, Incandela said as we rode the elevator back up. After all, it would be ridiculous to assume that our universe is made of just one particle.

Dark matter could even be something that we can access one day. We don't know what we could do with it or what technologies might develop, "but it would certainly help us understand the universe a lot better."

It may take an even more powerful machine than the Large Hadron Collider to find out. Discussions are in the works about a next-generation accelerator, the International Linear Collider, which could make even more precise measurements about components of our universe we know little about.

The elevator door opened, back at the surface in France. Incandela looked at me expectantly: "You don't get to keep the helmet."

I laughed and relinquished the orange hat, marking the end of my journey.

But for the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, the exploration continues, accelerating knowledge.

Elizabeth Landau is on Twitter at @lizlandau. For more CNN science news follow @CNNLightYears.

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