Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye sits as her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil arrives for her trial at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, May 23, 2017. [Photo/Agencies] SEOUL - South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday demanded seven years in prison against Choi Soon-sil, a decades-long confidante of the ousted president Park Geun-hye, over corruption allegations. Choi was taken into custody and stood trial over a string of corruption allegations, including bribery and closed-door intervention in state affairs. The imprisonment demand was for Choi's wrongdoing to allow her daughter to receive illegal academic favors at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. A Seoul court, tasked with the trial of Choi's case, decided to combine Choi and Park's cases together. Prosecutors had yet to demand the penalty against other corruption charges of Choi and Park. If convicted of bribery, Choi and Park would face at least 10 years in prison. Chung Yoo-ra, Choi's daughter, arrived at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on Wednesday afternoon. The 21-year-old was extradited from Denmark where she was in custody for about five months. She repeatedly refused the summons by South Korean prosecutors for her alleged involvement in the corruption allegations surrounding her mother. The Danish court decided to extradite Chung, but she appealed the ruling. She withdrew the appeal last week. Prosecutors were expected to seek an arrest warrant for Chung for questioning. Chung was suspected of receiving illegal finance assistance from Samsung Group, the country's biggest conglomerate, for her equestrian training. the wristband factoryfabric wristbandswristbands online1 inch wide rubber bandscustom sweatbands no minimumblack rubber braceletswrist band com coupon codebracelet maker online
China is on track to launch its first Mars probe around 2020, and plans call for retrieving soil and rock samples from the red planet before 2030, said Zhang Rongqiao, the mission's chief designer. China aims to become the first country to conduct an orbital and surface exploration of Mars in a single mission, he said on Wednesday at an international forum on lunar and deep space exploration in Beijing. The Chinese Mars probe consists of three parts: orbiter, lander and rover. It will carry 13 scientific instruments - seven in the orbiter and six in the rover, he said. The orbiter will collect data on Mars' atmosphere, electromagnetic field, temperatures, surface landscape and other key scientific indicators, he said. The rover, weighing around 200 kilograms, will focus on collecting surface data, as well as testing other equipment to pave the way for future sample retrieval missions between 2025 and 2030. Overall, China's first Mars mission "is going smoothly and all according to plan", he added. Russia, India, the US and the European Space Agency have probes orbiting Mars, but only the US has successfully landed a rover and carried out surface missions. Around 2020, NASA, the ESA and the United Arab Emirates will also launch Mars probes. Before 2020, China will launch an unmanned landing mission to the moon named Chang'e 4, as well as a moon sample retrieval mission named Chang'e 5. In the following years, China will explore asteroids and smaller bodies to understand the solar system's origin and formation, and search for information on possible extraterrestrial life. China also plans to launch probes to Jupiter in 2036 and Uranus in 2046, Zhang said. However, these planets are so far away from the sun that light is too weak to power solar-powered probes. Chemical propulsion systems face long-term storage issues and an even harsher environment in space, he added. "Since Mars is close to Earth and shares relatively similar characteristics, it has become the priority target in deep space exploration," Zhang said. "Not only might Mars serve for future robotic or human settlement, studying its evolution can help us answer some of the key questions in cosmology that can have a profound impact on our life." One example is that NASA has confirmed that liquid water existed on Mars, "so is Mars the past or the future of Earth? Studying how Mars became a mostly barren, arid planet can help with our own environmental protection effort on Earth," Zhang said.
