[Fitzcarraldo]

According to Jim Oberg, the UPI article is based upon a poor translation of a Russian news piece. The Russian Novi piece stated something on the order of if debris from that test endangered the ISS, it would be moved with the move controlled from the Space Operations Center in Moscow. UPI mistranslated the "would be" as "was" -- which is an easy error to make, but is nevertheless, sloppy as all get out.

Why does UPI print a story without verifying it?

[No Truce With Kings]

" Why does UPI print a story without verifying it?"

1. They are UPI. And your problem with that is?

2. The UPI Moscow bureau is basically some dude who translates Novi articles, and slaps UPI's name on it. (It is legit -- Novi gets paid.) The language in the original was a little ambiguous. If you were up on Russian you knew what they meant . . . but if you did not know Russian inside out, it was easy to misinterpret.

Note that the original Russian-language version WAS correct and HAD been verified. The problem was a mistranslation of the original text.