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    Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

    China launches first woman, first manned docking mission

    A Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft carrying a space veteran and two rookies, including China's first female "taikonaut," rocketed into orbit Saturday on a mission to dock with a prototype space station module, an incremental but critical step on the road to building a Mir-class space station later this decade.

    Broadcast live on Chinese television, the Long March-2F rocket carrying the three-seat Shenzhou 9 spacecraft roared to life on time and quickly climbed away from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north central China at 6:37 p.m. local time (GMT+8; 6:37 a.m. EDT), arcing to the east through a cloudless blue sky.

    The Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, perched atop a Long March-2F rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north central China Saturday evening.
    (Credit: CCTV)

    The mission commander is 46-year-old Jing Haipeng, veteran of China's third and most recent manned mission in 2008 and the first Chinese astronaut to make a return trip to space. His crewmates are both making their first flight: Liu Wang, 43, and Liu Yang, 33, the first female Chinese astronaut. She is an air force major in the People's LIberation Army with 1,680 hours of flying time.

    Live television from the spacecraft during the climb to space showed Jing, strapped into the capsule's center seat, with Liu Wang seated to his right and Liu Yang to his left. All three appeared relaxed and in good spirits as they monitored cockpit displays, occasionally waving at the camera.

    "I am grateful to the motherland and the people," Liu Yang told reporters during a pre-flight news conference. "I feel honored to fly into space on behalf of hundreds of millions of female Chinese citizens."

    Along with achieving the technical goals of the mission, "I want to experience the fantastic environment in space and appreciate the beauty of Earth and our homeland," she said in a report from the Xinhua news agency. "I will live up to your expectations and work with my teammates to complete this space mission."

    Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on China's space program, said Liu Yang's selection "will play well domestically. They're always quoting that Mao said women hold up half of heaven. So this is a big nod to half of 1.3 billion people. It plays well domestically and internationally."

    Liu Yang, a 33-year-old Chinese air force major, is the first woman from China to be launched into space. She is seen here during training.

    The goal of China's fourth manned space mission is to carry out the first manned rendezvous and docking with the orbiting Tiangong 1 module, a prototype of the much larger laboratory components that will be assembled into an operational space station by the end of the decade, a program that was approved by China's leadership in 1992.

    Following a deliberate, step-by-step approach to that long-term goal, China became the third nation, after the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, to launch a manned spacecraft in October 2003 when Yang Liwei blasted off aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. Shenzhou 6, carrying two crew members, was successfully launched in October 2005 and Shenzhou 7, carrying a three-man crew -- including Jing Haipeng -- flew in September 2008.

    The Tiangong 1 -- "Heavenly Palace" -- research module was launched Sept. 29, 2011, to serve as a target for unmanned and then manned docking missions. One month after Tiangong 1 reached orbit, China launched the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, which carried out an automated rendezvous and televised docking with the research module two days later.

    "Currently, China is still experimenting with docking technology, which is critical to its ability to transfer people and material from the ground to a long-term outpost in space," wrote Gregory Kulacki in a background paper distributed by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

    "Docking requires careful and accurate control of the space capsule to allow it to rendezvous with and attach itself to a port on the station. Experience with docking will also allow China to gain valuable information and experience needed for the design and construction of the space station, which will be assembled from a series of large modules joined together with a similar docking mechanism."

    On eve of health ruling, Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicts 'sharp disagreement'

    With a wry smile, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg laid waste Friday to all those rumors about the fate of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court.

    “Those who know don’t talk. And those who talk don’t know,” she quipped Friday night at a conference hosted by the American Constitution Society at the Capital Hilton.

    Ginsburg said she was responding to a "steady stream of rumors and fifth-hand accounts" about the court's deliberations on the law.

    (Also on POLITICO: Democrats in the dark on how to respond to SCOTUS ruling)

    Careful not to tip her hand on the court’s ruling — expected in the next two weeks — Ginsburg described the oral arguments in the case as unprecedented for the number of “press conferences, prayer circles, protests and counterprotests” that occurred on the courthouse steps.

    Although she offered no insight into the tightly held decisions of her colleagues, Ginsburg did indicate that many of the court’s decisions over the next two weeks — which are also expected to include an FCC indecency ruling — might be close.

    The 21 remaining decisions, she said, were “many of the most controversial cases” that the court reviewed this term.

    “It is likely that the sharp disagreement rate will go up next week and the week after,” she said.

    Although the oral arguments on the ACA spanned six hours over three days, she noted that a case cited during those arguments — McCullough v. Maryland — featured oral arguments that spanned nine days over two months.

    Ginsburg noted that one ACA-related question the court must decide is whether the whole law must fall if the individual mandate is unconstitutional — “or may the mandate be chopped, like a head of broccoli, from the rest of it?”
     Read more: 

    Government spends billions on obesity studies

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $830 million funding obesity studies in fiscal year 2011. Between 2008 and 2011, NIH spent over $3.3 billion on obesity research. Spending on obesity research also overshadows many other areas of research funded by NIH, including research on Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and breast cancer, which received $448 million, $437 million and $715 million in 2011, respectively. “Obesity is a very is a very significant cause of current illness in our country and becoming more significant all the time,” said Dr. Francis Collins, NIH director. Because of the rise in obesity, NIH established the Obesity Research Task Force in 2003 and came out with its first Strategic Plan for NIH Obesity Research in 2004. The plan aims “to serve as a guide to accelerate research that will lessen the personal and public health burdens of obesity” with the help of input of external experts, industry professionals, and health-focused organizations through a public comment period. It also “encompasses all levels of research, from basic biological and behavioral research through community and population research.” “The strategic plan is rather sweeping in its set of goals, going all the way from basic science understanding of what are those signals that actually trigger hunger and satiety,” Collins said. “It focuses quite heavily then on interventions. How do you design trials with creative new ideas about how to prevent or treat obesity, and then once you’ve identified possible strategies, how do you develop an approach to find out if they work in the real world.”

    Naked man killed by Police near MacArthur Causeway was ‘eating’ face off victim

    One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp, police said. The bloodshed began about 2 p.m. when a series of gunshots were heard on the ramp, which is along NE 13th Street, just south of The Miami Herald building. Witnesses said a woman saw the two men fighting and flagged down a police officer who was in the area. The officer, who has not been identified, approached and saw that the naked man was actually chewing the other man’s head, according to witnesses. The officer ordered the naked man to back away, and when he continued the assault, the officer shot him. The attacker continued to eat the man, despite being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots. Miami police were on the scene, which was just south of The Miami Herald building on Biscayne Boulevard. The naked man who was killed lay face down on the pedestrian walkway just below the newspaper’s two-story parking garage. Police requested The Herald’s video surveillance tapes. The other man was transported to the hospital with critical injuries, according to police. Their identities were not released. The incident, which came as crowds descended upon South Beach for the annual Urban Beach Week hip-hop festival, snarled traffic on the causeway for several hours. In a text message, Javier Ortiz, spokesman for Miami police’s Fraternal Order of Police, said the officer who fired the fatal shots was “a hero.” “Based on the information provided, our Miami police officer is a hero and saved a life,’’ he said. Sergeant Altarr Williams, supervisor of Miami police’s Homicide Unit, said a man doesn’t have to be armed to be dangerous.

    सिर्फ रह गई 2008 की यादें..

    अपने 365 दिनों के आखिरी घंटों में पहुंच चुके 2008 में कई ऐसी हस्तियां हमसे हमेशा के लिए दूर चली गई, जिन्हें कभी नहीं भुलाया जा सकता। इतिहास के पन्नों पर इनके अमिट हस्ताक्षर दर्ज हैं और पीछे रह गई हैं सिर्फ यादें ़ ़ ़
    एवरेस्ट के प्रथम विजेता सर एडमंड हिलेरी का इस साल 12 जनवरी को 88 वर्ष की उम्र में निधन हो गया। न्यूजीलैंड का यह पर्वतारोही 29 मई 1953 को 33 साल की उम्र में शेरपा पर्वतारोही तेनजिंग नोरगे के साथ माउंट एवरेस्ट पर चढ़ने वाला पहला व्यक्ति बन गया था।
    27 जनवरी को इंडोनेशिया के पूर्व तानाशाह सुहार्तो का 86 साल की उम्र में निधन हो गया। 1967 से 1998 तक इंडोनेशिया के राष्ट्रपति रहे सुहार्तो को 20 वीं सदी के सर्वाधिक भ्रष्ट और क्रूर शासकों में से एक माना जाता था।
    वर्ष 1955 से ट्रांसडेंशल मेडिटेशन तकनीक की शुरूआत कर दुनिया के विभिन्न देशों में इसका प्रसार करने वाले आध्यात्मिक गुरू महर्षि महेश योगी का छह फरवरी को 91 वर्ष की उम्र में नीदरलैंड में निधन हो गया।
    टिहरी आंदोलन की जान समझे जाने वाले सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता और गांधीवादी बाबा आम्टे ने नौ फरवरी को महाराष्ट्र के चंद्रपुर जिले में आनंदवन आश्रम में 94 वर्ष की उम्र में अंतिम सांस ली। उन्होंने 1985 में कश्मीर से कन्याकुमारी तक और 1988 में असम तथा गुजरात में भारत जोड़ो आंदोलन चलाया था।
    एक मई को वयोवृद्ध गांधीवादी निर्मला देशपांडे का 79 वर्ष की उम्र में नई दिल्ली में देहांत हो गया। निर्मला गांधीवादी मूल्यों को लोकतांत्रिक समाज का एकमात्र रास्ता मानती थीं।
    शांतता कोर्ट चालू आहे घासीराम कोतवाल और सखाराम बाइंडर जैसे लोकप्रिय एवं बहुचर्चित नाटक लिखने वाले प्रख्यात मराठी नाटककार और लेखक विजय तेंदुलकर ने 19 मई को पुणे में इस दुनिया के रंगमंच को विदा कह दिया। घासीराम कोतवाल का 6000 से अधिक बार मंचन हो चुका है।
    इस साल 27 जून को पूर्व सेना प्रमुख और 1971 के भारत-पाक युद्ध के महानायक फील्ड मार्शल सैम मानेकशा का तमिलनाडु के एक सैन्य अस्पताल में निधन हो गया। इसी युद्ध में पाकिस्तान के 90000 सैनिकों ने आत्मसमर्पण किया था और बांग्लादेश का उदय हुआ था। पद्म विभूषण तथा मिलिट्री क्रास अवार्ड से सम्मानित मानेकशा को 1973 में फील्ड मार्शल का सम्मान दिया गया था।
    नई दिल्ली में एक अगस्त को वयोवृद्ध मा‌र्क्सवादी नेता हरकिशन सिंह सुरजीत ने लंबी बीमारी के बाद अंतिम सांस ली। 1990 के दशक में भाजपा विरोधी गठबंधन बनाने में तथा वर्तमान संप्रग सरकार को वाम दलों का समर्थन दिलाने में उनकी अहम भूमिका थी।
    सोवियत संघ के जबरिया मजदूर शिविरों की दास्तान गुलाग के रूप में दुनिया के सामने रखने के कारण 1970 में देश से निष्कासित किए गए रुसी लेखक और असंतुष्ट अलैक्सांद्र सोल्झेनित्सन का 89 साल की उम्र में तीन अगस्त को मास्को में दिल का दौरा पड़ने से निधन हो गया। उन्हें 1970 में साहित्य का नोबेल पुरस्कार दिया गया था।
    30 अगस्त को भारतीय उद्योग जगत का एक मजबूत स्तंभ ढह गया, जब प्रख्यात उद्योगपति और राज्यसभा के पूर्व सदस्य के के बिड़ला ने संक्षिप्त बीमारी के बाद कोलकाता में अंतिम सांस ली। 90 वर्षीय बिड़ला जीवनपर्यंत समाजसेवा से जुड़े रहे।
    दुनिया भर में मशहूर जूता कंपनी बाटा के मालिक थामस बाटा का कनाडा में एक सितंबर को निधन हो गया। वे 93 वर्ष के थे। चेक गणराज्य में जन्मे बाटा ने टोरंटो के एक अस्पताल में अंतिम सांस ली।
    हमराज, गुमराह, धूल का फूल, वक्त और धुंध जैसी फिल्मों में यादगार गीतों तथा लोकप्रिय टीवी धारावाहिक महाभारत के शीर्षक गीत को स्वर देने वाले प्रख्यात पा‌र्श्व गायक महेंद्र कपूर का 27 सितंबर को मुंबई में दिल का दौरा पड़ने से निधन हो गया।
    लीक से हट कर सामाजिक विषयों पर नया दौर, कानून, गुमराह, हमराज जैसी फिल्में बनाने वाले मशहूर फिल्म निर्माता बलदेव राज चोपड़ा का मुंबई में पांच नवंबर को निधन हो गया। छोटे पर्दे के लिए महाभारत सीरियल बनाने वाले 94 वर्षीय चोपड़ा को 1998 में दादा साहेब फाल्के अवार्ड से सम्मानित किया गया था।
    वर्ष 1989 में राजीव गांधी की सरकार को सत्ता से बेदखल कर गैर कांग्रेसी गठबंधन सरकार बनाने वाले और आरक्षण लागू कर सोशल इंजीनियरिंग के जरिये देश का राजनीतिक परिदृश्य बदल देने वाले पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री विश्वनाथ प्रताप सिंह का 27 नवंबर को नई दिल्ली में निधन हो गया। मांडा के राजा के तौर पर चर्चित 77 वर्षीय सिंह पिछले 17 साल से रक्त कैंसर से पीडि़त थे।
    भारतीय पेंटिंग परिदृश्य में रंगों के साहसिक इस्तेमाल से क्रांति लाने वाले प्रसिद्ध चित्रकार मंजीत बावा ने नई दिल्ली में 29 दिसंबर को अंतिम सांस ली। 67 वर्षीय बावा मस्तिष्काघात के बाद पिछले तीन वर्षों से कोमा में थे। वह पहले चित्रकार थे जिन्होंने पाश्चात्य कला में बहुलता रखने वाले भूरे और धूसर रंगों का वर्चस्व खत्म करके उसकी जगह लाल और बैंगनी जैसे भारतीय रंगों को चुना।

    Can Japan find "New Deal" after triple whammy?

    A hydrogen explosion rocked the plant on Monday, sending a huge cloud of smoke over the area while engineers flooded the three reactors in the complex with sea water in a desperate attempt to prevent what was shaping up as the worst nuclear emergency since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. Nuclear fuel rods at one of the reactors may have become became fully exposed raising the risk they could melt down and cause a radioactive leak, Japanese news agency Jiji said. U.S. warships and planes helping the relief efforts have moved away from the coast temporarily because of low-level radiation from the stricken nuclear power plant, the U.S. Navy said on Monday. Singapore said it was checking Japanese food imports for radioactive contamination. The nuclear crisis was a triple whammy for Japan, coming on top of the earthquake -- the fifth strongest ever recorded -- and one of the most powerful tsunami in history, which caused scenes of unimaginable destruction in northeast Japan. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the country was facing its biggest crisis since the end of the Second World War, which was when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis," Kan told a Sunday night news conference, his voice rising with emotion. The quake caused Japan's main island to shift 2.5 meters (8 feet) and moved the earth's axis 10 cm (2.5 inches), geologists say. The question now is whether the catastrophe will spur other seismic changes in Japan, which has yet to emerge from its "lost decades" of stagnant growth, aging population, and loss of international prestige following the collapse of the Japanese asset bubble in the early 1990s. At the very least, the drama at Fukushima is bound to shake the faith of many Japanese in the safety of their nuclear plants. The catastrophe will also sorely test Kan's deeply unpopular government. And the immense reconstruction effort that is coming may bring changes to rural Japan, where many of its older citizens live.

    Meryl Streep As Hilary Clinton: Should The 'Iron Lady' Actress Play The Secretary Of State?

    Meryl Streep is fresh off her Oscar win for playing Margaret Thatcher. But she had an entire theater at Lincoln Center wondering if an even better role for her would be a political icon closer to home: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

    The question arose as Streep paid a glowing and affectionate tribute to the secretary of state at the Women in the World summit, an annual gathering of prominent women leaders and unsung heroines from across the globe that closed over the weekend.

    "This is what you get when you play a world leader," Streep said Saturday, hoisting up her best-actress Oscar for "The Iron Lady."

    "But if you want a real world leader," Streep continued, "THIS is what you get!" Clinton strolled onstage at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' David H. Koch Theater, and Streep enveloped her in a hug.

    The three-day summit, now in its third year, is organized by Tina Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Besides Streep and Clinton, feminist icon Gloria Steinem and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Brown harnessed the star power of Angelina Jolie, who came to read the words of Dr. Hawa Abdi, a Somali humanitarian facing danger from Islamist rebels there.

    Also given star treatment was International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, who delighted the delegates at dinner Thursday when she suggested that the financial crisis might have been averted, or at least been much less serious, if more women had been at the helm of financial institutions.

    "If Lehman Brothers had been a bit more Lehman Sisters ... we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened," Lagarde said.

    She added that recent studies have shown "what the level of testosterone in a given room can produce when you do trading."

    Many global problems were addressed by the dozens of panels attended by some 2,000 delegates each day. But a constant undercurrent was an issue at home: the debate in Washington over women's reproductive health care.

    Clinton and other speakers referred, obliquely and not, to conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh's insulting remarks about law student Sandra Fluke, who came under attack after she testified to congressional Democrats in support of their national health care policy that would compel her Catholic college's health insurance plan to cover birth control.

    The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, of Liberia, was the most blunt, saying women had been too passive: "Where are the angry American women?" she asked.

    From Liberia to Egypt: Panelists discussed whether the Arab Spring risked becoming an Arab Winter for women, who were central to the popular uprising but now fear being marginalized. READ MORE

    The World Biggest Family

    The World Biggest Family: "
    Jombo Family Size
    BAKTWANG, India — The head of the family and leader of the “Chana” sect — which allows polygamy — is 66-year-old Ziona Chana Mr Chan belongs to a sect where he can marry as many times as he wants and infact he is the head of that sect too.who is the ‘proud’ head of a jumbo sized family of 39 wives, 94 children, 14-daughters-in-laws and 33 grandchildren meaning its entire 181 members, this family is the World’s biggest family - setting the world record
    But when he was growing up, Ziona believed he would never marry, saying: “My father had seven wives and looking after them was a difficult task. When I saw him surrounded by women all the time it put me off. But my wish was not God’s wish.”
    He even married ten women in one year, when he was at his most prolific

    Big Hose

    Joint family – an Indian concept prevalent among Hindus is not commonly followed in Northeast India. In this Christian dominated part of the country, people are usually more educated and ‘westernized’. But Ziona Chana from Mizoram thinks ‘differently’. The Ziona family lives in a 100-room mansion, a 4 storey building situated at the hills of Baktwang village in the Indian state of Mizoram
    It almost looks like a hotel.
    The family’s home is called Chhuanthar Run – which translates as “the house of the new generation” – in the hills of Baktawng village, in the Indian state of Mizoram.
    It has its own school, a playground, carpentry workshops, piggery and poultry farms, paddy fields – and a vegetable garden big enough to feed the entire extended family.
    Chana thanks God for giving him a huge family to look after and considers himself ‘lucky.’
    Mr Chana’s grandfather also had many wives and according to one of his sons,his father marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them.
    All the men of the family work as carpenters and Ziona says proudly: “We don’t want any help from the government.

    Family Management
    The family is a very well organised one living a disciplined life with the oldest member of the family giving the orders and mutually cordinating with each other in household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals.The whole family system is based on ‘mutual love and respect’
    Meal times are like feeding an army, with the women of the family spending hours making dinner.
    A typical meal can see them plucking 30 chickens, peeling 132lb of spuds and boiling up 220lb of rice.
    All the cooking is done over an open fire kept burning throughout the day.
    Ziona’s eldest wife Zathiangi, 69, delegates all the daily duties around the house to his other wives, their daughters and the daughters-in-law.
    He keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further away – and there is a rotation system for who visits Mr Chana’s bedroom.
    He sleeps in his own double-bedded room while his wives have to adjust in dormitories.
    Surprisingly, all the wives get along very well and there is hardly any infighting among them.

    Rinkmini, one of Mr Chana’s wives who is 35 years old, said: ‘We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.
    She says Mr Chana noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter asking for her hand in marriage.
    Mr Chan,the head of the family told in an interview:
    ‘Today I feel like God’s special child. He’s given me so many people to look after.
    ‘I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world’s largest family.’
    Surprisingly all his wives are quite happy with each other and have no problem at all.
    Mr Zionamarried as many as 10 times in a year once and his wives take it in turns to share his bed.The youngest wife sleeps near to his bedroom with the olderwives sleeping further away.
    One of her wife,Rinkmini, 35 who he spotted on a morning walk in the village 18 years agoand later sent the proposal, told:
    ‘We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.
    The husband has yet not stopped looking for wife.He even siad:
    ‘To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,’
    Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on “mutual love and respect”
    And Mr Chana, whose religious sect has 4,00 members, says he has not stopped looking for new wives.
    “To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,” he said.
    One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them.
    Message
    If a family system is laid on the founding stone of mutual and genuine love and respect for each and every member, then the system is guaranteed to be a success.

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