MOSCOW (AFP) — A number of mice and eight gerbils sent into space in a Russian capsule destined to find out how well organisms can withstand extended flights perished during their journey, scientists said Sunday as the month-long mission touched back down on Earth.

MOSCOW, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - Russia's security services openly named the alleged US intelligence agency's Moscow station chief Friday in a rare breach of protocol after arresting a purported CIA agent working undercover.
Russia announced this week that it had caught alleged agent Ryan Fogle as he prepared to recruit a member of the Russian security forces. Footage was aired showing him wearing a blond wig and his array of spying equipment, including a compass and an old-fashioned mobile phone.
An unnamed representative of the FSB security services told the Interfax news agency that back in 2011, the agency had “officially warned” the CIA station chief in Moscow over what it called “provocative recruiting moves towards Russian security services officers,” and threatened “reciprocal measures towards CIA officers.” The report gave the full name of the alleged CIA chief of station in Moscow, but it was unclear if the same person still held the post.
It also named another alleged CIA agent who had worked at the US embassy in Moscow, saying that he had also been declared persona non grata, like Fogle, and left in January after he carried out a “similar action.” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she had not seen the reports on the outing of the CIA Moscow chief, and also refused to say whether Fogle had now left Russia.
But she insisted that Washington and Moscow had worked “closely together” on various issues over the years.
“We still feel that we have a very positive relationship, and one that we can continue to work together on areas where we agree,” Psaki told reporters.
“There are still areas, of course, where we disagree. But I'm not going to weigh in further on the impact here.” The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
Kremlin-funded television channel RT cited on its website an FSB operative as saying that “in the case with Fogle, the CIA crossed a red line and we had no choice but to react observing official procedures.” The FSB agent told RT that the Russian security agency held a 2011 meeting with the CIA chief of station in Moscow.
RT also named the station chief, although it gave a slightly different surname than Interfax.
“We decided to warn our American colleagues and ask them to stop these activities,” the FSB agent told RT.
“We hoped our American colleagues would hear us, given that we also presented to them precise information about CIA officers making recruitment attempts in Moscow and who exactly was doing that.” An FSB agent interviewed by Russian state television on Wednesday with his voice distorted and his face concealed said Russia knew Fogle was from the CIA when he arrived in spring 2011 and immediately put him under surveillance.
In the wake of the revelations, President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov has accused the United States of “crude and clumsy” spying in Russia.

BUENOS AIRES, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - General Jorge Videla, Argentina's dictator at the height of its “Dirty War” against leftist activists, died Friday in prison while serving time for crimes against humanity. He was 87.
Videla launched a ferocious crackdown on leftists and suspected supporters when he took power in 1976. As many as 30,000 people were kidnapped and “disappeared” by the military, and suspected regime opponents were swept into secret prisons, tortured and murdered.
In his last public appearance Tuesday, an unrepentant Videla, who left office in 1981, told a court that his subordinates acted under his orders and assumed “full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism.” The prison doctor on duty found Videla in the morning “sitting on the toilet in his cell,” according to the official prison report. He had no vital signs.
“It is important that he died of natural causes in a regular prison,” said Human Rights Secretary Martin Fresneda.
“There was justice, not revenge, and he leaves as the person that was responsible for the main horrors that the Argentine people endured.” The federal judge with jurisdiction over the prison ordered an autopsy to dispel any doubts that Videla might note have died of a natural cause.
In 2010, Videla was sentenced to life behind bars for the disappearance of 31 prisoners, and to another 50 years' jail in 2012 for the theft of children born to female prisoners.
Earlier, in 1985, he was convicted of abuses committed under his regime, but pardoned five years later by then president Carlos Menem. That pardon was declared unconstitutional in 2006 as Argentina reopened one of the darkest chapters in its history with trials of former military officials.
A wiry officer with a brush mustache, an intense gaze and a passionate hatred of communism, Videla showed little remorse for the systematic abuses.
“Let's say there were seven thousand or eight thousand people who had to die to win the war against subversion,” Videla said recently in a prison interview, according to journalist Ceferino Reato.
“We couldn't execute them by firing squad. Neither could we take them to court,” he was quoted as saying.
Military leaders agreed that secretly disposing of their prisoners “was a price to pay to win the war,” Videla said, according to Reato in his book “Final Disposition.” "For that reason, so as not to provoke protests inside and outside the country, the decision was reached that these people should be disappeared.” Videla later said he had been misquoted, but the journalist insists the general reviewed his handwritten notes and approved them before publication.
The former dictator died at 0825 (1125 GMT) in the Marcos Paz prison southwest of Buenos Aires, where he spent his final days in a spartan cell with a wooden cross on the wall.
Videla “dies condemned by justice and repudiated by society,” said Nora Cortinas, of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights group.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner who drew international attention to the junta's abuses, said Videla “never repented of the crimes and he is taking a lot of information with him.” Videla was head of the army in 1976 when the military overthrew Isabel Peron, the third wife of the late populist strongman Juan Peron.
Argentina's economy at the time was in tailspin, the government was rife with corruption and paralyzed by partisan gridlock, and leftists guerrillas and right-wing death squads were running rampant.
The junta suspended the constitution, outlawed political parties and imposed censorship on TV and radio in what it called a “process of national reorganization.” It also sent police and soldiers against leftist guerrillas, a crackdown that quickly broadened to include relatives, labor organizers, politicians, clergy, students, journalists, artistes and intellectuals.
The regime's trademark became the unmarked Ford Falcon sedans that agents used to drive their captives to some 500 detention centers.
Victims included French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, Catholic bishop Enrique Angelelli, Swedish student Dagmar Hagelin, the union leadership at Ford and Mercedes Benz, and even members of Argentina's diplomatic corps.
Argentina's dictators joined like-minded juntas in Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay under “Operation Condor,” sharing intelligence and helping capture each other's political enemies.
Videla was known for delivering strident speeches, but always seemed uncomfortable in public, wringing his hands as a nervous tick played across his cheeks.
Although aligned with the United States, Videla clashed with US president Jimmy Carter over the regime's human rights abuses and for refusing to join a US-backed grain embargo against the Soviet Union.
In 1981, Videla handed over power to General Roberto Viola to begin the slow transition to democracy.
The junta lasted until 1983, one year after a failed invasion of the Falkland Islands in a humiliating defeat by Britain.
 

LOS ANGELES, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - The lawyer accused of bungling O.J. Simpson's defense in his armed robbery trial said Friday he told the former American football star to contact police rather than embark on an ill-fated attempt to recover personal memorabilia himself.
Simpson is appealing against his 2008 conviction and imprisonment at a trial in Las Vegas on the grounds that his attorney at the time, Yale Galanter, mishandled his defence.
The 65-year-old, who was infamously acquitted of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman, was sentenced to between nine and 33 years following his 2007 bid to recover a horde of mementoes.
Simpson alleges Galanter knew of his intention to recover personal items -- that he was ultimately convicted of trying to steal at gunpoint -- from two memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station hotel.
He also claims that Galanter did not tell him about a plea bargain offer that might have resulted in a substantially shorter period behind bars.
However, Galanter refuted suggestions from Simpson that he had effectively endorsed his client's plan to try and recover property.
“He told me that he finally had a lead on some personal items, some pictures and memorabilia that had been stolen from his house in California many years before,” Galanter told a hearing in Las Vegas.
Asked what his reaction had been, Galanter said: “I told him to call the police.” Galanter added that the issue of guns was “never a subject.”Later, under cross-examination, Galanter forcefully denied he had been aware of what Simpson had been planning.
“He never told me he was going to the Palace Station. He never told me he was going to ask guys to bring guns. The insinuation that I would have blessed (that plan)... is insane,” the lawyer said.
Simpson says he only learned after the incident that guns had been involved.
One of the most famous American football players of his generation during a glittering 1970s career, Simpson was the prime suspect in the 1994 brutal murders of his ex-wife and Goldman.
Brown, who had divorced Simpson in 1992 citing his “abusive behavior,” was attacked so savagely she was almost decapitated.
Simpson, who has always vehemently denied the killings, was acquitted after a racially charged 1995 trial in Los Angeles, in a verdict that was greeted with widespread outrage across America.
He was subsequently found liable for the deaths in a 1997 civil suit and was ordered to pay damages to the victims' families totaling $33.5 million. He has repeatedly said he will not pay the settlement.