Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Sandy Storm in USA

Sandy Storm, USA - A truck drives through water pushed over a road by Hurricane Sandy in Southampton, New York, October 29, 2012.

Monday, 22 October 2012

World Largest Flag.

Pakistan set a record of the world's largest national flag as participants held coloured sheets over their heads at a stadium in Lahore.

LAHORE: Pakistan youth on Monday made another world record by making the biggest human national flag with the help of 24,200 students, breaking the earlier record set by 21,726 participants in Hong Kong in 2007.

"It's an amazing display of unity and nationality," said Gareth Deaves, the official representative of The Guinness World Records after declaring the feat as a new world record at National Hockey Stadium Lahore.

Earlier today, 1,936 Pakistani students broke the record of the largest picture mosaic formed by people at the same venue here.

The picture mosaic was of the Shahi Qila (Lahore Fort) and the official announcement of the new record was made by a representative from the Guinness World Records. The previous records was held by Ansley McEvoy and her friends and family in South Carolina, USA.

Pakistanis have broken several records in the past two days including one for most number of people singing the national anthem simultaneously.

Pioneering scientists turn fresh air into petrol in massive boost in fight against energy crisis.

Fresh Air

INTO

Petrol

A small British company has produced the first "petrol from air" using a revolutionary technology that promises to solve the energy crisis as well as helping to curb global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees has produced five litres of petrol since August when it switched on a small refinery that manufactures gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapour.

The company hopes that within two years it will build a larger, commercial-scale plant capable of producing a ton of petrol a day. It also plans to produce green aviation fuel to make airline travel more carbon-neutral.

Tim Harrison in the only lab known to be working on the technology

Tim Fox, head of energy and the environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, said: "It sounds too good to be true, but it is true. They are doing it and I've been up there myself and seen it. The innovation is that they have made it happen as a process. It's a small pilot plant capturing air and extracting CO2 from it based on well known principles. It uses well-known and well-established components but what is exciting is that they have put the whole thing together and shown that it can work."

Although the process is still in the early developmental stages and needs to take electricity from the national grid to work, the company believes it will eventually be possible to use power from renewable sources such as wind farms or tidal barrages.

"We've taken carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water and turned these elements into petrol," said Peter Harrison, the company's chief executive, who revealed the breakthrough at a conference at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London.

"There's nobody else doing it in this country or indeed overseas as far as we know. It looks and smells like petrol but it's a much cleaner and clearer product than petrol derived from fossil oil," Mr Harrison told The Independent.

"We don't have any of the additives and nasty bits found in conventional petrol, and yet our fuel can be used in existing engines," he said.

"It means that people could go on to a garage forecourt and put our product into their car without having to install batteries or adapt the vehicle for fuel cells or having hydrogen tanks fitted. It means that the existing infrastructure for transport can be used," Mr Harrison said.

Being able to capture carbon dioxide from the air, and effectively remove the principal industrial greenhouse gas resulting from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, has been the holy grail of the emerging green economy.

Using the extracted carbon dioxide to make petrol that can be stored, transported and used as fuel for existing engines takes the idea one step further. It could transform the environmental and economic landscape of Britain, Mr Harrison explained.

"We are converting renewable electricity into a more versatile, useable and storable form of energy, namely liquid transport fuels. We think that by the end of 2014, provided we can get the funding going, we can be producing petrol using renewable energy and doing it on a commercial basis," he said.

"We ought to be aiming for a refinery-scale operation within the next 15 years. The issue is making sure the UK is in a good place to be able to set up and establish all the manufacturing processes that this technology requires. You have the potential to change the economics of a country if you can make your own fuel," he said.

The initial plan is to produce petrol that can be blended with conventional fuel, which would suit the high-performance fuels needed in motor sports. The technology is also ideal for remote communities that have abundant sources of renewable electricity, such solar energy, wind turbines or wave energy, but little in the way of storing it, Mr Harrison said.

"We're talking to a number of island communities around the world and other niche markets to help solve their energy problems.

"You're in a market place where the only way is up for the price of fossil oil and at some point there will be a crossover where our fuel becomes cheaper," he said.

Although the prototype system is designed to extract carbon dioxide from the air, this part of the process is still too inefficient to allow a commercial-scale operation.

The company can and has used carbon dioxide extracted from air to make petrol, but it is also using industrial sources of carbon dioxide until it is able to improve the performance of "carbon capture".

Other companies are working on ways of improving the technology of carbon capture, which is considered far too costly to be commercially viable as it costs up to £400 for capturing one ton of carbon dioxide.

However, Professor Klaus Lackner of Columbia University in New York said that the high costs of any new technology always fall dramatically.

"I bought my first CD in the 1980s and it cost $20 but now you can make one for less than 10 cents. The cost of a light bulb has fallen 7,000-fold during the past century," Professor Lackner said.

Africa studies ‘made in Korea’ model to push growth.

Growth Of Education In Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - African leaders have been making pilgrimages to Beijing for years seeking Chinese wisdom on expanding their emerging economies—but they may do better by dropping in on Seoul.

With a similar population size to a number of African states and tales of damaging wars and colonial exploitation, South Korea's growth as a democratic economic power is arguably better suited to the continent than that of China, a single country with more people than in all of Africa.

In its biggest meeting yet with African leaders this week, South Korea pledged $590 million in aid and loans, but also offered what it said no other advanced economy could provide: its experience of development.

The contrasting fortunes of South Korea and many African countries since the 1950s illustrate why leaders on the resource-rich continent are looking to emulate Asia's fourth largest economy whose heavy investment in education and infrastructure development helped kickstart growth.

But some parts of the South Korean model may be difficult to copy. Africa is reliant on exports of primary commodities, whereas South Korea built its economy on exporting manufactured goods. In Africa, manufacturing accounts for the same proportion of GDP as in the 1970s.

In the 1950s, after the end of the Korean War, South Korea had a weaker economy than many newly independent sub-Saharan African countries, such as Ghana.

Now, it is one of the world's 15 biggest economies and has an estimated GDP per capita of $23,000, nearly 15 times that of the west African cocoa, gold and oil producer.

'Korea has been where we are coming through,' said Ugandan finance minister Maria Kiwanuka, who attended the Korea Africa Economic Cooperation Conference, which ended on Thursday.

'Korea is about the only country that has graduated from being a major aid recipient to being a major assistance giver over the last 50 or 60 years ... we feel that they can understand the problems that countries like ours face,' she told Reuters.

After the war, South Korea rebuilt its economy starting with labour-intensive heavy industries, such as steel and ship building, and then used its human capital to expand into value-added manufacturing to become a global leader in electronics and computer memory chips.

It takes South Korea just six weeks to produce as many cars as Africa's biggest auto producer, South Africa, makes in a year. Both countries now have populations of about 50 million and up until 1982 South Africa had a larger GDP.

RESOURCE HUNGRY

South Korea has battled its larger Asian neighbours, China and Japan, for access to African resources to power its economic machine while trying to grow sales of its consumer goods among the continent's expanding middle class.

It has been winning some of those battles, with its flagship electronics firm, Samsung, aiming for sales of $3 billion in sub-Saharan Africa this year, from $1 billion last year.

South Korea's trade with Africa, which pales in comparison to China's, has grown by 60 percent in the past five years and direct investments by 80 percent, according to Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan.

Like their Chinese counterparts, resource-hungry companies in South Korea, such as the Korean National Oil Corporation, are looking to increase their footprint on the continent, said Philippe de Pontet, Eurasia Group's director for Africa.

'To the extent that Chinese commercial engagement in Africa has opened a lot of eyes on the potential of Asian engagement I think Korea benefits from riding the coattails of China when it comes to Africa,' he said.

At the conference, South Korea said it would invest in 37 projects in Africa worth $590 million in 2013-14, including the construction of roads and hospitals, and education programmes.

The aid package is large for South Korea but smaller than the sums supplied to the continent by China, which in July offered $20 billion in loans to African countries over the next three years.

Bahk said his country had realised the importance of investing in education and establishing social safety nets.

'If Africa is to promote inclusive growth while sustaining the momentum for economic development, it needs to take stock of the experience of Korea and other countries that have traveled along a similar path,' he said in a speech to 34 African ministers.

But South Korea's heavy reliance on educating its workforce for a global economy will be hard to replicate in Africa, which has the world's least developed educational infrastructure.

In 2011, sub-Saharan Africa had a gross secondary enrolment rate of 35 percent, compared to 77 percent in east Asia and the Pacific, according to a paper presented at the conference.

South Korea's growth spurt also did not coincide with a lacklustre global economy, said Gabriel Jonsson, associate professor of Korean Studies at Stockholm University.

'At the time Korea expanded, the world economy was growing and there were fewer competitors,' said Jonsson. 'That's not the case now.'

Saturday, 20 October 2012

70,000 Pakistanis set world record for singing national anthem simultaneously.

Pakistan breaks India's record as Shahbaz Sharif also sings the anthem at the event.

LAHORE: At least 70,000 Pakistanis sang the national anthem together at the National Hockey Stadium, Lahore on Saturday to set a new world record breaking India’s record.

The event was organised as part of the ongoing youth festival in the province.

Guinness World Record (GWR) officials were also present at the stadium, while Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif also arrived to partake and witness the event.

The participants arrived at the stadium earlier during the day and practiced the national anthem for hours.

Guinness World Records adjudicator Gareth Deaves said that he was impressed with the enthusiasm shown by the youth of Punjab and he was amazed to see a big gathering at the National Hockey Stadium.

“It is a very important day for the people of Pakistan, specially Punjab as a big audience has gathered here to create new records in many events including singing of national anthem and creation of Pakistan flag by the audience present in the arena ,” he told the media.

Gareth said that the GWR team was very impressed to see the enthusiasm of the people of Pakistan and he was glad to see the interest of people attempting to create new records for GWR.

The previous record was set by India when 15,243 people sang the national anthem simultaneously earlier this year.

Earlier in August, an attempt was made to set a new world record in Karachi when thousands of students gathered on University road to sing the national anthem.

A similar event was staged in Karachi last year when as many as 5,857 people gathered at the Khadda Market ground to make a new record. While the numbers were enough to break the then record of 5,248 people singing the anthem simultaneously. However, no Guinness officials were present at the event, meaning it was never chalked up as an official record attempt.

Friday, 19 October 2012

Malala Yousafzai Story

Why Malala Yousafzai's story needs to be told

The Taliban published death threats in the newspapers and slipped them under her door. But she ignored them.

Hollywood philanthropist Angelina Jolie said she was compelled to share Malala Yousafzai's story of grit with her children.

Malala Yousafzai

So what is special about this 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot down by Taliban gunmen?

For us it is difficult to comprehend a world where a girl is shot for her desire to be allowed to go to school. But for folks in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province this has become a way of life.

Yousufzai, a cheerful schoolgirl who had wanted to become a doctor before agreeing to her father's wishes that she strive to be a politician, has become a potent symbol of resistance against the Taliban's efforts to deprive girls of an education.

Malala was shot in her head and neck for advocating education for girls.

Facing widespread condemnation for attacking Malala, a defiant Taliban said that the attack on her was justified as she had spoken out against the group and praised US President Barack Obama.

Taliban described Yousufzai as a "spy of the West".

"For this espionage, infidels gave her awards and rewards. And Islam orders killing of those who are spying for enemies," the group said in a statement.

"She used to propagate against mujahideen (holy warriors) to defame (the) Taliban. The Quran says that people propagating against Islam and Islamic forces would be killed.

"We targeted her because she would speak against the Taliban while sitting with shameless strangers and idealized the biggest enemy of Islam, Barack Obama."

So what did the 14-year-old do to shake the Taliban?

Their story began in 2009, when Fazlullah, known as Radio Mullah for his fiery radio broadcasts, took over Swat Valley, and ordered the closure of girls' schools, including Yousufzai's.

Outraged, the then-11-year-old kept a blog for the BBC under a pen name and later launched a campaign for girls' education. It won her Pakistan's highest civilian honour and death threats from the Taliban.

Yousufzai was not blind to the dangers. In her hometown of Mingora, Fazlullah's Taliban fightersdumped bodies near where her family lived.

"I heard my father talking about another three bodies lying at Green Chowk," she wrote in her diary, referring to a nearby roundabout.

A military offensive pushed Fazlullah out of Swat in 2009, but his men simply melted away across the border to Afghanistan. Earlier this year, they kidnapped and beheaded 17 Pakistani soldiers in one of several cross border raids.

Yousufzai continued speaking out despite the danger. As her fame grew, Fazlullah tried everything he could to silence her. The Taliban published death threats in the newspapers and slipped them under her door. But she ignored them.

The Taliban say that's why they sent assassins, despite a tribal code forbidding the killing of women.

"We had no intentions to kill her but were forced when she would not stop (speaking against us)," said Sirajuddin Ahmad, a spokesman of Swat Taliban now based in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

He said the Taliban held a meeting a few months ago at which they unanimously agreed to kill her. The task was then given to military commanders to carry out.

On Tuesday, the two men stopped the bus she was riding home in. They asked for Yousufzai by name. Although the frightened girls said she wasn't there, the men fired at her and also hit two other girls in the van. One of them remains in critical condition.

Malala is widely known as a campaigner for girls' education in Pakistan. In early 2009 she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban, who had banned all girls in her area from attending school.

Her would-be killers said they had no idea their attack would propel their victim, already a national hero, into a global icon.

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Space jumper makes record leap

Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner landed gracefully on Earth this morning after a 38.6-kilometre jump from the stratosphere in a dramatic, record-breaking feat.

Officials say today’s jump made Baumgartner the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound.

Felix Baumgartner sits in his trailer in preparation for the record jump.

Baumgartner came down in the eastern New Mexico desert about nine minutes after jumping from his capsule 39,045 metres above Earth.

He lifted his arms in victory shortly after landing, setting off loud cheers from jubilant onlookers and friends inside the mission's control centre in Roswell, New Mexico.

Felix Baumgartner prepares to jump from his capsule at 8534m above the Earth.

"When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records any more, you do not think about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive," he said after the jump.

Brian Utley, a jump observer from the International Federation of Sports Aviation, said preliminary figures show Baumgartner reached a maximum speed of 1342kmh. That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit.

Baumgartner says that travelling faster than sound is "hard to describe because you don't feel it". With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel", he told reporters.

"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," he said.

The altitude he leapt from also marked the highest-ever for a skydiver - more than three times the height of the average cruising altitude for a jetliner. Organisers said the descent lasted just over nine minutes, about half of it in free fall. Utley said he travelled 36,529m in free fall.

Three hours earlier, Baumgartner, known as "Fearless Felix", had taken off in a pressurised capsule carried by a 55-storey ultra-thin helium balloon.

After an at-times tense ascent, which included concerns about how well his facial shield was working, the 43-year-old former military parachutist completed a final safety check-list with mission control.

As he exited his capsule from high above Earth, he flashed a thumbs-up sign, well aware that the feat was being shown on a live-stream on the internet with a 20-second delay.

Any contact with the capsule on his exit could have torn his pressurised suit, a rip that could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as minus 57 degrees Celsius. That could have caused lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids.

But none of that happened. He activated his parachute as he neared Earth, gently gliding into the desert east of Roswell and landing without any apparent difficulty. The images triggered another loud cheer from onlookers at mission control, among them his mother, Eva Baumgartner, who was overcome with emotion, crying.

Felix Baumgartner celebrates completing the mission on solid ground.

He then was taken by helicopter to meet fellow members of his team, whom he hugged in celebration.

Co-incidentally, Baumgartner's attempted feat also marked the 65th anniversary of US test pilot Chuck Yeager's successful attempt to become the first man to officially break the sound barrier aboard an airplane.

At Baumgartner's insistence, some 30 cameras on the capsule, the ground and a helicopter recorded the event Sunday. While it had been pegged as a live broadcast, organisers said was actually under a 20-second delay in case of a tragic accident.

Shortly after launch, screens at mission control showed the capsule as it began rising high above the New Mexico desert, with cheers erupting from organisers. Baumgartner could be seen on video, calmly checking instruments inside the capsule.

Baumgartner's team included Joe Kittinger, who first attempted to break the sound barrier from 31.4km up in 1960, reaching a speed of 988kmh, just under the sound barrier. With Kittinger inside mission control today, the two men could be heard going over technical details during the ascension.

"Our guardian angel will take care of you," Kittinger radioed to Baumgartner around the 30,000-metre mark. Kittinger noted that, it was getting "really serious" now.

An hour into the flight, Baumgartner had ascended more than 19,200m and had gone through a trial run of the jump sequence that will send him plummeting toward Earth. Ballast was dropped to speed up the ascent.

Kittinger told him, "Everything is in the green. Doing great."

As Baumgartner ascended in the balloon, so did the number of viewers watching on YouTube. Nearly 7.3 million watched as he sat on the edge of the capsule moments before jumping. After he landed, Red Bull posted a picture of Baumgartner on his knees on the ground to Facebook, generating nearly 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments and more than 29,000 shares in less than 40 minutes.

On Twitter, half the worldwide trending topics had something to do with the jump, pushing past seven National Football League games.

Among the tweets was one from Nasa: "Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and RedBull Stratos on record-breaking leap from the edge of space!"

This attempt marked the end of a five-year road for Baumgartner, a record-setting high-altitude jumper. He had already made two preparation jumps in the area, one from 24km high and another from 29km. It will also be the end of his extreme altitude jumping career; he has promised this will be his final jump.

Baumgartner has said he plans to settle down with his girlfriend and fly helicopters on mountain rescue and firefighting missions in the US and Austria.

Dr Jonathan Clark, Baumgartner's medical director, had told reporters he expected the pressurised spacesuit to protect him from the shock waves of breaking the sound barrier. A successful jump could lead Nasa to certify a new generation of spacesuits for protecting astronauts and provide an escape option from spacecraft at 36,000m, he said.