Arab News headline: "Israeli, US astronauts die in shuttle blast over ‘Palestine’"

Here's the article (by a woman!) and here's a key section demonstrating once again that no Arab News article would be complete without a conspiracy theory:

“Once again we see that space technology can fail,” Bruce Gagnon, international coordinator for the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, told Arab News last night. “I’m troubled because the Bush Administration has recently announced a program called the ‘Nuclear Systems Initiative’, a $1 billion research and development program to expand the launching of nuclear power into space. The problem is that as you increase the numbers of launches carrying nuclear payloads into space, but you are also going to dramatically increase the chances of a catastrophic Chernobyl in the sky.”

Asked why NASA was advising extreme precaution at the crash sites, Gagnon said: “We haven’t heard that there was a nuclear payload on this shuttle, but one of the great hallmarks of the Bush administration is increased secrecy. I must admit that when NASA said no one should go near a site because of the toxic potential of the fuels and ‘other reasons,’ I couldn’t help but wonder what those reasons are.”

Due to cuts in NASA’s budget in recent years, NASA has been forced to turn to the Pentagon for increased funding, said Gagnon. The result is that the space shuttles are now also NASA missions and carry both military and civilian technologies.

“What you have now is the military takeover of the space program. NASA is not just about gazing at the stars, it now also has a political and military agenda.” What is of concern, he said, is that the Pentagon in now working on a program called the “Space Based Laser.” “Its nickname is the ‘Death Star,’ and its job is to destroy other country’s satellites, and also hit targets on the Earth below. NASA hopes to have the first operational tests by 2016 or 2017,” Gagnon explained.

Near as I can tell from a Google search, Gagnon is part of a largely-ignored, lefty fringe group. Like that matters to Arab News. For pity's sake: "Death Star"? Morons.