(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/19/libya-mission-creep-uk-advisers
Libyan rebels opposed to Muammar Gaddafi call for more intervention in the besieged city of Misrata. Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
(Guardian)-The British government has come under intense pressure over its response to the crisis in Libya as ministers prepared to dispatch a team of military officers to advise rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and the RAF stepped up air strikes.
Nato commanders said the alliance was extending Nato’s targets in Libya to include small satellite communications systems and telephone exchanges in strikes described by defence officials as marking a clear “shift” in targeting policy. MPs expressed deep concern about mission creep.
The UN appealed for a ceasefire in Misrata, saying at least 20 children had been killed in attacks by government forces on rebel-held parts of the city, but senior Nato officers admitted air strikes could do little on their own to prevent a worsening crisis there.
Officials from countries engaged in the bombing campaign made it clear the situation is becoming increasingly difficult. Military action is not securing their goal, the end of the Gaddafi regime, while more direct intervention would be unpopular at home and might breach UN security council resolutions on Libya.
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(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/06/sas-diplomatic-mission-in-libya
The SAS and British intelligence agents have now left Benghazi, where children spent part of Sunday playing on an armoured vehicle outside the offices of the rebel forces in the port city. Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
(Guardian)-A British diplomatic effort to reach out to Libyan rebels has ended in humiliation as a team of British special forces and intelligence agents left Benghazi after being briefly detained.
The six SAS troops and two MI6 officers were seized by Libyan rebels in the eastern part of the country after arriving by helicopter four days ago. They left on HMS Cumberland, the frigate that had docked in Benghazi to evacuate British and other EU nationals as Libya lurched deeper into conflict. The diplomatic team’s departure marked a perfunctory end to a bizarre and botched venture.
“I can confirm that a small British diplomatic team has been in Benghazi,” said William Hague, the foreign secretary. “The team went to Libya to initiate contacts with the opposition. They experienced difficulties, which have now been satisfactorily resolved. They have now left Libya.”
Audio of a telephone conversation between the UK’s ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and a senior rebel leader was later leaked.
Northern suggested in the call that the SAS team had been detained due to a misunderstanding.
The rebel leader responded: “They made a big mistake, coming with a helicopter in an open area.”
Northern said: “I didn’t know how they were coming.”
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September 7, 2010 Filed under News
By Zhang Dongya
Six projects from the US, Iran and China won the first Architects in Mission (AIM) international competition last Friday at Cable 8 Creative Center, the last factory in Beijing’s central business district (CBD).
The competition was held by ZNA, a Boston-based architecture and urban design firm aiming to collect ideas for the future development of the factory.
The first prize went to Iran architects Massoud Afsarmanesh and Ali Afsarmanesh, who designed a glass cover to place over the old space and function with it.
“They won the competition because their project was doable and practical. Their model was fluent, bright and eye-catching,” said Darren Chang, senior architect of ZNA.
“Since China is promoting large, landmark structures, their design was exactly the kind we need,” he said.
Other works like the third-prize winner “Civilian Gardens of a Big City,” submitted by Chinese competitors Wu Yang and Han Xili, placed rentable gardens in Cable 8 in an attempt to fuse rural agriculture and the urban balcony.
“We hope the awarded projects will get influence Cable 8’s decision makers when they consider making the transformation,” Chang said.
Similar folk creations and academic competitions have influenced the development decisions of other governments abroad, he said.
“We hope this could also happen in China, even if it is a long shot,” he said.
Cable 8 is located in the former Beijing Electric Wire and Cable Factory on Jianguo Road.
The factory complex, built in 1958, began its transformation into a culture and creative center three years ago.
Eight of its 20 buildings were redecorated. However, the architecture – typical of industrial buildings of the 1950s and 1970s – was left untouched. They have since become home to art galleries, design offices, photography studios, advertising agencies and clothing shops.
The juxtaposition of old and new elements in each design is intended to raise awareness of the country’s ties to its recent industrial past – a visual reminder of why it today enjoys prosperity.
Cable 8 appears on many industry tour lists in the city, but how it will further transformation is unclear.
“Actually using one of the designs will be difficult and complicated. It must balance the demands of the developers, architects and the government. Technology usually becomes secondary,” Chang said.
ZNA said they it would continue the competition next year with new topics on urban design. It is targeting college students who are majoring in architecture and young architects who have fewer than five years of work experience.
Picture of a banner with the pictures of the 33 miners trapped in the San Esteban gold and copper mine in Copiapo, 800 km north of Santiago.
(AFP) – Thirty-three Chilean miners found alive and in good spirits after more than two weeks trapped underground began receiving glucose and medications but were not told it could take up to four months to free them.
The engineer in charge of the rescue mission at the San Jose gold and copper mine, Andres Sougarret, said he was plotting where to drill a hole large enough to lift the miners out one by one from a gallery nearly 700 meters (2,300 feet) below ground.
“The umbilical cord is ready,” he said. “Now comes the engineering design, the topography, and then begins the work of drilling.”
A Strata 950, a South African-made industrial hydraulic bore, arrived at the mine Monday from Chile’s state mining company Codelco to execute the laborious plans to drill a shaft wide enough to extract the miners.
“What we are going to do is to make a vertical excavation. The machine will bore a shaft 13 inches (33 centimeters) in diameter, and then a grinding plate will expand it to 66 centimeters,” the engineer said.
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Jon Campbell has been living and performing in Beijing for 10 years. Photo provided by Jon Campbell
By Chu Meng
Norwegian musicians are trying to help bridge the culture gap between eastern and western Chinese regions by getting involved in Go West, a program that sends jazz musicians to cities seldom visited by artists.
The program was initiated by the Norwegian Embassy in 2009, and is headed by Jon Campbell, drummer of the Beijing-based rock band RandomK(e).
Campbell, a native of Canada, moved to Beijing a decade ago. He has since built a reputation as a musician that performs at bars and universities in lesser-known cities, off China’s “musical highway.”
“Many people have mistaken me for a Norwegian since I’m working with the Norwegian Embassy on this program,” Campbell said. “The reason I accepted this assignment is that the Embassy and I share the same purpose in terms of giving university students in western Chinese cities more access to modern musical forms and international musicians.
“They have the right to know diverse artistic forms in their youth, otherwise, how can they figure out what they really want to do in the future?”
In the past decade, China has seen an increasing number of shows by foreign artists from a range of musical backgrounds. Most of these performances happen in clubs and theaters in major cities. But much of the country has been left out, and has had little opportunity to experience live music of an international caliber.
Go West, launched March last year in Yinchuan, Ningxia, organizes jazz performances in universities, theaters and clubs in cities that rarely see such shows. Through its focus on universities, the program supplements master’s classes and allows students to interact with foreign musicians.
To date, Campbell has brought Norwegian jazz bands Excess Luggage and The Core to universities in Yinchuan, Lanzhou, Kunming, Changchun, Harbin, Dalian, Nanjing, Chongqing and Chengdu.
Go West has proven that jazz music has a strong following across the country, and has the ability to inspire audiences from diverse backgrounds. Each performance, from the largest theater to the smallest classroom, emphasizes cultural interaction, transforming listeners from observers into participant.
China's space station plan delayed
(AFP) – – China has postponed the next step in its ambitious space station programme until 2011 for technical reasons, state media said Wednesday.
China had originally planned to place the Tiangong-1 space module in orbit late this year and undertake experimental docking manoeuvres in subsequent missions, Xinhua news agency cited rocket designer Qi Faren as saying.
But the initial launch has now been delayed by a year due to “technical reasons”, Qi said, without elaborating.
Qi was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a meeting of a legislative advisory body, which convened on Wednesday, two days before the start of the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament.
China became the third nation to put a man in space when Yang Liwei piloted the one-man Shenzhou-5 space mission in 2003.
In September 2008, the Shenzhou-7, piloted by three “taikonauts” or astronauts, carried out China’s first space walk.
The Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace,” is seen as the building block of China’s maiden space station.
Weighing about 8.5 tonnes, it would provide a “safe room” for Chinese astronauts to live in and conduct research in zero gravity.
After being placed in orbit, the Tiangong-1 would dock with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft in the country’s first space docking — a feat to be controlled remotely by scientists on the ground.
Qi said Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10, carrying two to three astronauts, would also dock with the orbiting module in successive years.
He said other key technologies being worked on in the space station programme include the replenishment of propellant, air, water and food for the space module as well as a life support system.
The International Space Station began with the launch into orbit of the first station element, a Russian-built module, in 1998. The first full-time crew arrived two years later.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100303/tap-china-space-station-8d4ea94.html
