Bøger af M. L. Smith

South African self-exile Pieter Rossouw is wandering the world's oceans aboard his catamaran when he receives a phone call from his estranged father running the family wine estate in Cape Town. A diagnosis of cancer is the news. Surviving an Atlantic hurricane he sails home only to discover it is a deception to lure him. The country is failing under an endemically corrupt ANC government. A covert revolutionary movement intent on overthrowing the government is stirring. His military history and a rare psychological condition make him a prime candidate for recruitment to it.Introduced to the movement's attorney Simon Zondo he is told it is his old commanding officer who is running the military adventure. His reticence evaporates. He in turn recruits two close friends, fellow combatants from the Angolan Border War days. A Russian nuclear reactor supplier with Jacob Zuma in its pocket emerges as a serious opponent working hard to protect its illegal multi-trillion state contract. Rossouw's unit is tasked in a ground-air attack to seize Zuma in his rural compound.

The lAU Symposium No. 78, "Nutation and the Earth's Rotation," was held in Y~ev, USSR, from 23 to 28 May, 1977. The Organizing Committee included E. P. Fedorov and R. O. Vicente (Joint Chairmen), W. Fricke, J. Kovalevsky, P. Melchior, N. Pariisky, M. Rochester, C. Sugawa, G. Wilkins and Ya. Yatskiv, who presided over the Local Organizing Com­ mittee. The meeting was sponsored by Commission 19 and co-sponsored by Commissions 4, 8, and 31. There were 114 registered participants from 14 countries. The main topics covered were as follows: the specification of nutation in the lAU system of astronomical constants; determination of forced nutation and nearly diurnal free polar motion from astronomical observations; expected use of lunar ranging data and long baseline interferometers for precise measurement of the nutation terms; models of the internal constitution of the Earth as the basis of a new theory of nutation; the effect of the ocean and liquid core on the rotation of the Earth; and the interaction between Earth tides and nutation.