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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

China 'is no Middle-east' !

'No way' of North Africans and Arabs unrest here: Wen
By Marianne Barriaux (AFP) 



BEIJING — China's Premier Wen Jiabao rejected any comparison Monday between his country and the unrest-hit Middle East, but said Beijing faced a tough test dealing with inflation and other hot-button issues.

"We face extremely daunting tasks and complex domestic and international situations," Wen told reporters in an annual press briefing after the close of the nation's parliament session.

China's ruling Communist Party is grappling with a range of problems such as inflation, official corruption, huge environmental degradation, and land grabs by property developers who kick off existing residents.

The leadership has thus watched with concern the unrest that has hit several nations in the Middle East and North Africa, but Wen rejected any comparison between China and those countries.

"We have followed closely the turbulence in some North African and Middle Eastern countries. We believe it is not right to draw an analogy between China and those countries," Wen told reporters.

Beijing has targeted more balanced and sustainable development and fairer distribution of wealth under a new growth plan for the next five years that calls for a more moderate seven percent annual economic expansion.

The plan was approved by the congress on Monday.Wen said balanced development will remain the government's priority but admitted it will be a challenge keeping growth in the world's second-largest economy fast enough to create jobs, but moderate enough to prevent inflation worsening.

"It will not be easy to achieve the seven percent target while also ensuring a good quality of economic development," he said.

Decades of blistering export-dependent growth have made China's economy a force in the world, but Beijing has struggled to spread the wealth evenly among its 1.3 billion population.

"Over the next five years and for a long period of time to come in the course of China's development, we will make the transformation of China's economic development pattern our priority."

Inflation tops the government's agenda and while pledging further efforts to contain rising prices of food, housing and other essentials, Wen likened that battle to the challenge of corralling a tiger.

"Inflation is having a big impact on China, this is a factor that is not easy to control," he said.

"Inflation is like a tiger; once it gets free, it is difficult to put back in the cage."

Inflation has remained stubbornly high -- 4.9 percent in both January and February -- despite a series of policy steps including three recent interest rate hikes.

The consumer price index rose by a more than two-year high of 5.1 percent in November. Inflation has a history of sparking unrest in China, with its hundreds of millions of poor farmers and low-paid workers scraping to get by.

Wen took a swipe at monetary steps taken by the United States, which in November undertook massive stimulus spending known as "quantitative easing" in a bid to jump-start the weak American economy.

"Some countries have pursued a quantitative easing that has caused fluctuations in exchange rates of some currencies and affected global commodity prices," he said.

China has annually set an eight percent economic growth target -- considered the minimum required to keep the economy growing fast enough to stave off social unrest.

That goal is routinely surpassed each year. In 2010, the economy grew 10.3 percent.

Wen called corruption - another key factor inn the Middle East unrest - the "bigger danger" faced by China and said political reform was necessary to help  combat it.

"Without political reform, economic reform cannot succeed and the achievements we have made may be lost" Wen said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP

Monday, March 14, 2011

Our journeys, though similar, are never the same

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin



IN the workplace, we do place a premium on experience. People with a wide range of experience, compiled into many pages on their CVs, often get the edge at job interviews.

But what is this experience that we are talking about? Will the experience gained by a person who has held similar positions in various companies necessarily mean that he will be able to take on any challenge in the new company?

The reality is that even if the tools and the job specifications are the same, a totally different scenario will emerge because the people around us, and the circumstances that we have to operate in, often render obsolete all the impressive credentials we may have.

Which is why I would always place a higher premium on attitude and not aptitude when it comes to looking for people to fill positions.

In the bigger perspective of life, people generally believe that if you have been through a journey before, it will always be easier the second time around.

Truth is, no two journeys are ever the same. Nothing we have been through, or we have been prepared for, are ever enough when we begin our walk on a new journey.

It may be the same old familiar road. We may now be armed with more knowledge and understanding of what could potentially lie ahead.But is that sufficient to make us strut around with confidence?

I am about to embark on a journey which I have been through before. Right now, I do not see clear signs and directions, but I know I can always take that first step in faith.

In life, when faced with an unexpected detour, we often ask: “Why me?” Sometimes, it might be good to ask: “Why not me?”
For, although, we know not what the future holds, those of us with prior experience, who have been scarred from previous battles, can rest assured that we are now a bit more equipped for whatever life throws at us.

We cannot be arrogant about our ability, but if we walk humbly and know that God is in charge, the journey might not be too unpleasant after all.

Those of you who have followed this column may understand that I have tried to give a healthy dose of positive vibes to help you start the week, to inject a bit of heart into the corporate soul, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to give you a chuckle now and then.

Hopefully, I will continue to do so in the weeks to come, even as I take a leave of absence from the workplace to deal with this personal journey.

Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin understands that it is a universal trait to want predictability, but it is even better to learn to appreciate the unexpected.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

How the Japan Earthquake Shortened Days on Earth

SPACE.com Staff



 
This map shows the location of the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, as well as the foreshocks (dotted lines), including a 7.2-magnitude event on March 9, and aftershocks (solid lines). The size of each circle represents the magnitude of the associated
This map shows the location of the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, as well as the foreshocks (dotted lines), including a 7.2-magnitude event on March 9, and aftershocks (solid lines). The size of each circle represents the magnitude of the associated quake or shock.
The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan Friday (March 11) has shortened the length Earth's day by a fraction and shifted how the planet's mass is distributed.

A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Gross refined his estimates of the Japan quake's impact – which previously suggested a 1.6-microsecond shortening of the day – based on new data on how much the fault that triggered the earthquake slipped to redistribute the planet's mass. A microsecond is a millionth of a second. [Photos: Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in Pictures]  

"By changing the distribution of the Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused the Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds," Gross told SPACE.com in an e-mail. More refinements are possible as new information on the earthquake comes to light, he added.

The scenario is similar to that of a figure skater drawing her arms inward during a spin to turn faster on the ice. The closer the mass shift during an earthquake is to the equator, the more it will speed up the spinning Earth.
One Earth day is about 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, long. Over the course of a year, its length varies by about one millisecond, or 1,000 microseconds, due to seasonal variations in the planet's mass distribution such as the seasonal shift of the jet stream.

The initial data suggests Friday's earthquake moved Japan's main island about 8 feet, according to Kenneth Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake also shifted Earth's figure axis by about 6 1/2 inches (17 centimeters), Gross added.

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis in space, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph). The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced and the north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

"This shift in the position of the figure axis will cause the Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but will not cause a shift of the Earth's axis in space – only external forces like the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon, and planets can do that," Gross said.

This isn't the first time a massive earthquake has changed the length of Earth's day. Major temblors have shortened day length in the past.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile last year also sped up the planet's rotation and shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. The 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004 shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds.

And the impact from Japan's 8.9-magnitude temblor may not be completely over.The weaker aftershocks may contribute tiny changes to day length as well.

The March 11 quake was the largest ever recorded in Japan and is the world's fifth largest earthquake to strike since 1900, according to the USGS. It struck offshore about 231 miles (373 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 80 miles (130 km) east of the city of Sendai, and created a massive tsunami that has devastated Japan's northeastern coastal areas. At least 20 aftershocks registering a 6.0 magnitude or higher have followed the main temblor.

"In theory, anything that redistributes the Earth's mass will change the Earth's rotation," Gross said. "So in principle the smaller aftershocks will also have an effect on the Earth's rotation. But since the aftershocks are smaller their effect will also be smaller."

 http://newscri.be/