Tuesday, October 31, 2017

'Xi Thought' will now be taught in China.

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
31/10/2017 
Special News  "CHINA"

Reported in BANGLADESH



Xi Jinping Thought will now be taught, researched and promoted in universities across China, ensuring that the leader's eponymous philosophy is implanted in students' hearts and minds.At least twenty universities have established research institutes for Xi's ideology, which was enshrined in the Communist Party's constitution during its 19th national congress this month.The distinction places Xi on a par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. It means that his dogma -- "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" -- will become a mantra for a new generation.According to media reports Sunday, the research institutes will not "hide in the ivory tower" but advocate the incorporation of Xi thought in all aspects of daily life.
"We will gather many experts and professors to disseminate and preach Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in businesses, neighbourhoods and villages," Jiang Hongxin, head of Hunan Normal University's newly-founded Xi Thought research centre, told the People's Daily, the party mouthpiece.Liu Ying, party secretary of the Tianjin University of Technology's Communist Youth League, told AFP the idea of forming a Xi Thought "learning group" came to her spontaneously during his marathon speech at the congress's opening.
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CO2 level hits record pace in 2016: UN

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
31/10/2017 
Special News  "UN"

Reported in BANGLADESH

The amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere grew at record rate in 2016 to a level not seen for millions of years, potentially fuelling a 20-metre rise in sea levels and adding 3 degrees to temperatures, the United Nations said yesterday.Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main man-made greehouse gas, hit 403.3 parts per million (ppm), up from 400.0 in 2015, the UN World Meteorological Organization said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.That growth rate was 50 percent faster than the average over the past decade, driving CO2 levels 45 percent above pre-industrial levels and further outside the range of 180-280 ppm seen in recent cycles of ice ages and warmer periods.
"Today's CO2 concentration of ~400 ppm exceeds the natural variability seen over hundreds of thousands of years," the WMO bulletin said.
The latest data adds to the urgency of a meeting in Bonn next month, when environment ministers from around the world will work on guidelines for the Paris climate accord backed by 195 countries in 2015.The agreement is already under pressure because U.S. President Donald Trump has said he plans to pull the United States out of the deal, which seeks to limit the rise in temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.Human CO2 emissions from sources such as coal, oil, cement and deforestation reached a record in 2016, and the El Niño weather pattern gave CO2 levels a further boost, the WMO said.
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North Korea a 'global threat'

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
31/10/2017 
Special News  "North Korea"

Reported in BANGLADESH

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg called North Korea a "global threat" yesterday and said he backed tighter sanctions against it during a visit to Japan, which has been targeted by Pyongyang's provocations.Stoltenberg is in Tokyo to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other senior officials including defence minister Itsunori Onodera later in the day.
"We are as concerned as you are about the provocative, reckless behaviour from North Korea," he said in a speech to a group of security
experts and defence officials.
"It is really dangerous, it poses a direct threat to countries in this region (including) Japan, but it is also a global threat," he added.
Pyongyang has sparked global alarm in recent months by conducting its sixth nuclear test and test-launching missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, while US president Donald Trump and the North's young ruler Kim Jong-Un have traded threats of war and personal insults.It fired two projectiles over northern Japan in less than a month, ringing alarm bells in Tokyo as Abe called for a get-tough approach towards Pyongyang.

Says Nato chief as US, S Korea, Japan urge Pyongyang to walk away from its 'destructive and reckless path' of weapons development

"Nato strongly support political, diplomatic, economic pressure on North Korea and we welcome the strengthening of the sanctions" adopted by the UN Security Council in September, Stoltenberg said.
"But even more important, we need to be sure that the sanctions are fully and transparently implemented," he added.Stoltenberg's visit comes after Abe met with him in Brussels in July to agree on boosting security cooperation, reported AFP.
"We know and you know that (North Korea's missile) ranges reach the west coast of the United State and the ranges reach most of Europe," he said yesterday.But the Nato chief warned this month that military action against Pyongyang would have "devastating consequences", after Trump said diplomatic efforts had failed.Stoltenberg has stressed that Washington had the right to defend itself and its allies but called for greater diplomatic efforts.
"We don't have to use military force -- peaceful resolution is the aim," he said yesterday.Meanwhile, senior defence officials from the United States, South Korea and Japan held trilateral talks and urged North Korea to walk away from its "destructive and reckless path" of weapons development, reported Reuters.
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Catalonia Independence: Spain's top prosecutor calls for rebellion case

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
31/10/2017 
Special News  "Catalonia Independence,Spain"

Reported in BANGLADESH

Spanish prosecutors yesterday demanded that Catalonia's dismissed leaders be charged with rebellion after the regional parliament declared independence last week and the central government in Madrid moved to take control of the region.Upping the ante in the EU country's biggest crisis in decades, Spain's chief prosecutor said he was seeking charges including rebellion and sedition against the Catalan leaders, sacked by Madrid on Friday.Jose Manuel Maza said the officials "caused an institutional crisis that led to the unilateral declaration of independence (by the Catalan parliament) carried out on October 27 with total contempt for our constitution".Meanwhile, there was so far no sign of Catalonia's dismissed regional president Carles Puigdemont. A Spanish government source told AFP that the 54-year-old was in Brussels.Rebellion is punishable by up to 30 years in prison. A court now has to decide whether to accept the case against the leaders and bring charges.On Sunday Belgium's immigration minister suggested Puigdemont could receive asylum in Belgium on the grounds that he might not get a fair trial in Spain. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel later insisted that was "not on the agenda."
Puigdemont on Saturday urged "democratic opposition" to Madrid's effort to take control of his region.

SNAP VOTE

The party of Catalonia's dismissed president Carles Puigdemont will run in a December regional election called by Spain's government in response to a declaration of independence by Catalan leaders, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
"We will go to the polls on (December) 21. We will go with conviction and with a commitment to letting the Catalan people express themselves," Marta Pascal, spokeswoman for the PDeCAT party, told reporters.The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) party of Puigdemont's equally deposed vice-president Oriol Junqueras said it would "participate" in some fashion in the election despite judging the poll "illegitimate" having been called by Madrid.
"Catalans do not fear the ballot box ... and December 21 should be another opportunity to consolidate the republic," said ERC spokesman Sergi Sabria after a party meeting in Barcelona.

CLEAR YOUR DESKS

Puigdemont maintains that the result of an independence referendum on October 1 -- outlawed by Spain's top court -- gave the wealthy northeastern region a mandate to declare it was seceding from Spain.All eyes were on the regional government building in Barcelona -- where the Spanish flag was flying -- to see whether Puigdemont or members of his former administration would appear.Catalan police, now under orders from Madrid, have been told they can allow the dismissed leaders to enter the government headquarters in Barcelona, but only to clear their desks.One member of the dismissed government, Josep Rull, tweeted a photo of himself "at the office" doing his job as a regional minister. Press reports said he left again shortly afterwards.Late on Friday the Spanish Senate gave Madrid the power to impose direct rule on Catalonia under Article 155 of the constitution, the first time this so-called "nuclear option" has been applied.That followed the unilateral declaration of independence by Catalonia's parliament the same day. Madrid took control of key powers and fresh Catalan elections were called for December 21A spokesman for Puigdemont's party PDeCAT said yesterday that it would take part in the election. There had been speculation that it might boycott the vote.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR

Puigdemont's deputy Oriol Junqueras this weekend called Madrid's move a "coup d'etat", defiantly still signing off in a Catalan newspaper as the region's "vice-president".But the international community including the European Union, struggling with Brexit and other challenges, has largely spurned the independence declaration and has united behind Madrid.Donald Tusk, EU president, said Friday that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, 62, "remains our only interlocutor".Spain's Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told Britain's Sky News on Sunday it was "hard to see" how Puigdemont and the others would go on government, saying that "reality is sinking in".Sergi Sabria, a spokesperson for the separatist ERC party, appeared to agree yesterday, saying: "For now our republic is not fully able to impose itself the way that we would like."But Sabria said that they would not give up and a separatist source described the situation as the "beginning of a psychological war" with Rajoy's government.
"What we have to do is to resist Article 155, in a symbolic manner of course, and to show that the (Spanish) state's power here is weak and cannot totally impose itself," the source said.
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Monday, October 30, 2017

Professor Stephen Hawking's PhD viewed two million times.

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
30/10/2017 
Special News  "Professor Stephen Hawking's"

Reported in BANGLADESH

Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis was accessed more than two million times within days of it being made available to the public, it has been revealed.
Stephen Hawking's

Prof Hawking's 1966 work proved so popular on the day of its release it crashed the publications section of Cambridge University's website.More than 500,000 people have also tried to download the paper, titled "Properties of expanding universes".
Dr Arthur Smith, from the university, called the figures "monumental".
"This is far and away the most accessed item we have in the university's Apollo repository," Dr Smith, deputy head of scholarly communication, said.
"I'd hazard a guess that Prof Hawking's PhD thesis is also the most accessed item from any research repository ever. We've never seen numbers like this before."

Factfile: Stephen Hawking

  • Born 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England
  • Earned place at Oxford University to read natural science in 1959, before studying for his PhD at Cambridge
  • By 1963, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given two years to live
  • Outlined his theory that black holes emit "Hawking radiation" in 1974
  • Published his book A Brief History of Time in 1988, which has sold more than 10 million copies
  • His life story was the subject of the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne
Prof Hawking wrote the 134-page document as a 24-year-old postgraduate student while studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.The astrophysicist, who has been at Cambridge University since 1962, would later go on to write A Brief History of Time, one of the most influential scientific works ever.Since it went live at 00:01 BST on Monday, the PhD has been accessed about two million times by about 800,000 unique browsers "from every corner of the globe", according to the university.
The next most read PhD thesis has received just 7,960 downloads in 2017.
Previously, to read Hawking's PhD in full, people had to pay £65 to the university library to scan a copy or physically go to the library to read it.
Cambridge University hopes to encourage its other former academics to make their work available to the public, like Prof Hawking has.Dr Smith added: "Locking knowledge and information behind closed doors benefits no-one."
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Kim Jong-un visits cosmetics factory with wife and sister.

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
30/10/2017 
Country Bases  "BBC in NORTH KOREA"

Reported in BANGLADESH



 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited a cosmetics factory in Pyongyang, accompanied by his wife Ri Sol-ju and sister Kim Yo-jong.
State media released undated photos of the visit on Sunday. Both women are rarely seen in public.Ms Kim's appearance comes shortly after her recent promotion to a powerful position in North Korea's government.Foreign luxury goods including make-up have become scarce in North Korea after several rounds of UN sanctions.

Why did he visit a cosmetics factory?

Over the years many countries have stopped importing luxury goods into North Korea as a result of sanctions.North Korea appears to have developed its own cosmetics industry, with reports of local 
Why Did he Visit a Cosmetic Factory? 

"high-end" brands such as Bomhyanggi and Unhasu becoming popular with consumers.
Though he is better known for his photo ops at military installations and missile test sites, Mr Kim's visit to a cosmetics factory serves an important propaganda purpose in telegraphing the legitimacy of Mr Kim's rule to the Pyongyang elite and middle-class.He has frequently been photographed at factories and other key sites of North Korea's civilian economy, while state media have claimed significant advances in the production of consumer goods such as 3D televisions and smartphones.The visit is "to show that North Korea can look out for its own people, and provide prosperity on a level comparable to Beijing and Seoul," North Korean analyst Ankit Panda told the BBC.
"Even if we know it's not true, it's important for the regime to show its people that it can provide material pleasures."During his visit to the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory, Mr Kim praised the company for producing "world-level cosmetics" and for upgrading its premises to a level "to be proud of in the world", reported North Korean state news agency KCNA.

Why did Mr Kim bring along his wife and sister?

Wearing a stylish black and white dress, Ms Ri is prominently featured in the photographs.Ms Kim meanwhile cannot be identified in the photographs, but the report by state news agency KCNA mentioned she was present along with other top officials.Little is known of Mr Kim's family and personal life, and family members rarely appear in public. Mr Kim's public appearances are also highly choreographed.Mr Panda told the BBC that it was significant that he chose to appear with his wife and sister this time.
"It emphasises the primacy of the family, that blood ties are important to him, that his children will succeed him," said Mr Panda.Given her recent promotion, Ms Kim's presence also "signals that the Kim regime wants the world to see that she's in a more visible powerful position". Earlier this month Mr Kim placed his sister in the country's top decision-making body, the Politburo.
Was the visit's timing significant?
Mr Kim's visit comes amid rising tension in the Korean peninsula over a series of North Korean missile and nuclear tests and escalating rhetoric between Mr Kim and US President Donald Trump - who is due to visit South Korea's capital Seoul in about a week's time.The North Korean leader's visit was broadcast on state media a day after US Defence Secretary James Mattis said the US would "never accept" a nuclear-armed North Korea.Mr Mattis, who was on a tour of Asia and was visiting Seoul on Saturday, reiterated the US stance that any use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would be met with a "massive military response".
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Ex-Trump aide Manafort charged with US tax fraud over Ukraine work.

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
30/10/2017 
Country Bases  "BBC"

Reported in BANGLADESH



Donald Trump's former presidential campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has been charged with conspiring to defraud the US in his dealings with Ukraine.
The 12 charges brought against Mr Manafort and one of his business associates, Rick Gates, include conspiracy to launder money.Mr Manafort and his lawyer have arrived at an FBI office in Washington.The charges are the first to stem from an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US 2016 election.However, they do not relate to Mr Trump's campaign but to the two men's Ukrainian business dealings up to 2015.
An investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into any links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Both sides deny any collusion.Responding to news of the charges, Mr Trump tweeted to point out that they did not concern his campaign and asked why "the focus" was not on alleged wrongdoing involving his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, instead.
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Christie: Mueller's targets should be concerned

kmanik-1995.blogspot.com
KM ANIK
24 UPDATE 
30/10/2017 
Country Bases  "CNN"

Reported in BANGLADESH

The news that a federal grand jury has approved charges in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe should concern those under investigation, New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday."I think anybody who's been advised by the special counsel's office that they're a target of the investigation -- which I'm sure he has done to those people who are -- should be concerned," Christie said in interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
    CNN reported Friday that a federal grand jury approved the first charges from Mueller's investigation and that anyone charged could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.Christie, a former US attorney, said leaks to the news media about the grand jury's actions could undermine the credibility of the process, which he said needed to remain confidential.While some in his own party, including Christie himself, have suggested that Mueller should resign from the Russia investigation if he has any conflicts of interest, the New Jersey governor said Sunday that he saw no reason at this point for Mueller to do so.
    "I've not yet seen anything that makes me think he must step down, that there's an absolutely indisputable conflict," Christie said.
    Christie added that he thought Mueller needed to be "careful" to maintain his impartiality and ensure the public accepts that the investigation has followed only the facts.
    "I think that he has to be very, very careful about making sure that the public believes that he has no conflicts and that his integrity is unquestioned," Christie said.
    Christie, one of President Donald Trump's earliest and most prominent GOP allies, said he had not seen anything from the White House "trying to impugn" Mueller in recent weeks.South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy echoed Christie's comments on "Fox News Sunday," vouching for Mueller's integrity while acknowledging many of his colleagues do not feel the same way.
    "I readily concede I'm in an increasingly small group of Republicans," said Gowdy, a member of the House intelligence committee.Gowdy, himself a former prosecutor, praised Mueller's record as FBI director and described him as "apolitical."
    "I would encourage my Republican friends, give the guy a chance to do his job," Gowdy said.In a series of tweets later Sunday morning, Trump called for action against his political opponents and derided the allegations of collusion between his associates and Russia.Trump dismissed questions about potential collusion and pointed to "ANGER" over Democratic funding for research that led to a now-infamous dossier of allegations about himself and Russia, as well as anger over an Obama-era uranium agreement, Hillary Clinton's email practices as secretary of state and former FBI Director James Comey.
    As talk about the first charges being filed in the Mueller investigation dominated the news Sunday, White House special counsel Ty Cobb said Trump's morning tweets about the Russia investigation were not related to the the special counsel's activities.
    "Contrary to what many have suggested, the President's comments today are unrelated to the activities of the special counsel, with whom he continues to cooperate," Cobb told CNN, declining to comment further on the tweets.

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