Russian "Ikebana" expert..[ 1851 ]

New title blooms for Russian ikebana expert

Moscow-born Galina Davidenko, 46, acquired the status of first-class professor last year. Her 21-year-old daughter also studies ikebana. (Mainichi)

 

(Mainichi Japan) October 8, 2010

Galina Davidenko, a born and bred Russian, has been appointed the second ever head of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) chapter of Japan's oldest school of "ikebana," or Japanese floral art.
While the Ikenobo school, which boasts a history of 550 years and a worldwide membership of 3 million, is known to be active both in Japan and overseas, it is rare for someone who is neither a Japanese national nor a local resident of Japanese descent to be appointed head of a chapter.
Ikebana was just another hobby for Davidenko when she began dabbling in it 20 years ago. However, what was a mere hobby developed into an integral part of Davidenko's life as she continued her study under teacher Midori Yamada, 74, the chapter's first leader. Eventually, Davidenko began teaching as well. In preparation for her rise to the position of chapter head, she visited Japan, where she met numerous times with 77-year-old Sen'ei Ikenobo, the Ikenobo school's 45th head.
The chapter Davidenko will be taking over was founded by Yamada when she moved to Moscow 20 years ago. As with any other art or school, a growing number of disciples usually means a greater likelihood that jealousy and ill feelings will arise, even in the ikebana world. Yamada is confident of her successor's ability to handle any potential discord, however.
"(Davidenko) has a huge, soft heart capable of taking others in," she says.
At an exhibit commemorating the CIS chapter's 20th anniversary on Sept. 16, Yamada gave Davidenko a certificate naming her as the next chapter head. It should have been a happy occasion, but Davidenko could not stop crying when she thought of the imminent return of her longtime teacher to Japan.
"She was just a teacher to me at first, but now she is a friend, not unlike a relative," Davidenko says. "The 20 years in which I received her instruction were really very short."
Heading a chapter with 250 members across Russia is a huge responsibility to bear. For now, Davidenko's main goal is to hold an exhibition every year.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) October 8, 2010

Oslo: Nobel Peace Prize..[ 1850 ]

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo smokes a cigarette in this undated photo released by his family. Jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 8, 2010, an announcement that Beijing had anticipated and bitterly criticised.

Credit: Reuters/Handout (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

By Wojciech Moskwa

OSLO | Fri Oct 8, 2010 8:03am EDT
 

OSLO (Reuters) - 
Jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for decades of non-violent struggle for human rights, infuriating China, which called the award "an obscenity."

The prize puts China's human rights record in the spotlight at a time when it is starting to play a bigger role on the global stage as a result of its growing economic might.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Liu for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" and reiterated its belief in a "close connection between human rights and peace."

Liu is serving an 11-year jail term for helping to draw up a manifesto calling for free speech and multi-party elections.

China said the award went against the aims of Alfred Nobel and would hurt ties between China and Norway, which are currently negotiating a bilateral trade agreement.

"This is an obscenity against the peace prize," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

But Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said China, the world's second biggest economy, should expect to be under greater scrutiny as it becomes more powerful, just as the United States was after World War Two.

"We have to speak when others cannot speak," Jagland told reporters. "As China is rising, we should have the right to criticize ... We want to advance those forces that want China to become more democratic."

PRIZE FOR ALL

Liu's wife, Xia, said she had not expected her husband to win the prize: "I can hardly believe it because my life has been filled with too many bad things.

"This prize is not only for Xiaobo but for everyone working for human rights and justice in China," she said in an emotional telephone interview with Hong Kong's Cable television.

Rights groups said the prize came at a time when human rights have dropped down the agenda of Western governments focusing on China's growing economic power.

Nicholas Bequelin, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, called it "a victory for all the courageous Chinese dissidents, activists, lawyers and human rights defenders who have continued to stand up to tyranny for all these years."

Earlier this year, Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying had warned the head of the Nobel Institute against granting the prize to Liu, saying it would damage ties between China and Norway as they negotiate a bilateral trade deal.

China strongly criticized Norway after the 1989 prize went to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Putin's birthday ....[ 1849 ]

Russian calendar girls in Putin birthday battle

 

The university authorities criticised the erotic calendar's producers

BBC., 8 October 2010 Last updated at 11:16 GMT

Female students at Russia's prestigious Moscow State University (MGU) have produced rival calendars - one erotic, the other sombre - for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 58th birthday.

First a group of journalism students posing in lingerie featured in a calendar with suggestive captions, such as:

"You put out forest fires, but I'm still burning."
Then another group hit back, posing in black, with their mouths taped shut.
Polls suggest Mr Putin is very popular.
He has been filmed riding bare-chested through the mountains, swimming in a Siberian river and sitting at the controls of a firefighting helicopter.

The Happy Birthday erotic calendar for 2011 was called "Vladimir Vladimirovich, we love you" and showed 12 pouting students in lingerie.
"How about a third time?" asked Miss February - hinting provocatively at a possible third presidential term for Mr Putin. He is eligible to run again in 2012.
A spokeswoman for the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, quoted by the Associated Press news agency, said the calendars had a 50,000 print run and went on sale in Moscow supermarkets.
Questions for Putin

 

Students in the alternative calendar asked provocative questions instead

Later a rival calendar appeared on the internet, with female students all wearing black and with their mouths taped shut - in apparent protest at the silencing of political dissidents.
The text on one page read "Who killed Anna Politkovskaya?" - referring to the still unresolved murder four years ago of a journalist who was one of the Kremlin's sharpest critics. She had exposed human rights abuses by security forces in Chechnya.
The alternative, sombre calendar bears the words "Vladimir Vladimirovich, we have some questions..." and "When will they free Mikhail Khodorkovsky?" - a reference to the highly controversial jailing of the former Yukos oil magnate, who was widely seen as challenging the Kremlin's power.
Yelizaveta Menshikova, one of the students in the sombre calendar, told bbcrussian.com that her calendar had received many expressions of support online.

"Breasts are pretty, yes - I have them too. But I also have a head on my shoulders. And we girls did this all ourselves, without producers," she said.
The dean of the journalism faculty at MGU, Yelena Vartanova, said she was annoyed that MGU had been associated with the erotic calendar.
"I simply don't understand what the journalism faculty and university have to do with this. To make their commercial project successful the girls used brands that they did not create, that do not belong to them," she said.

USA: The Hudson River tunnel ..[ 1848 ]

NJ governor kills Hudson River tunnel due costs

A rendering of the ARC Tunnel project's proposed Penn Station Expansion.

Credit: Reuters/NJ Transit/Port Authority of NY & NJ

By Jon Hurdle

TRENTON, NJ | Thu Oct 7, 2010 6:58pm EDT

TRENTON, NJ (Reuters) - One of the biggest U.S. transport projects ended on Thursday after New Jersey's governor said the state could not afford the risk that a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River could cost billions more than planned.

Republican Governor Chris Christie, who took office in January, said the $8.7 billion budget for the tunnel between New Jersey and New York City's midtown Manhattan could rise to more than $11 billion and even surpass $14 billion.

"We simply can't spend what we don't have," Christie told a news conference. "I had to figure out how I was going to pay for it. We simply can't."

Christie inherited the tunnel project from former Democratic Governor Jon Corzine. He halted work in mid-September for 30 days and asked his staff and federal transportation officials to review the cost estimates.

Under the original deal, the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were each to pay $3 billion, with $2.7 billion coming from a combination of other federal funds, including stimulus and clean air funding, as well a contribution from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

But crucial to the funding plan was that New Jersey was to pay anything above the $8.7 billion estimate.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood requested to meet with Christie after the governor told him of his decision. The meeting is scheduled for Friday in Trenton, the governor's spokesmen said.

Christie's decision means no contract has been signed for completion of the project and the federal funding was not secured.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and New Jersey Transit both declined to comment on the termination of the project. New York Governor David Paterson said he was disappointed but respected Christie's decision and understood "the difficulty of governing in our current economic climate."

Christie has garnered national attention for progress made tackling the state's record $11 billion budget deficit during his first year in office. He has been invited by other Republicans across the country to campaign for them ahead of the November 2 congressional elections in a multi-state tour that has added fuel to speculation that he might consider a presidential run.

Christie is pushing a lean-government, low-tax agenda that includes limiting annual increases in the state's property taxes, the highest in the nation. He has refused to raise money by increasing taxes on gasoline, among the lowest-priced in the country.

New Jersey Democratic Party Chairman John Wisniewski said there was no evidence that the Hudson River tunnel would exceed its estimated budget and accused Christie of canceling the project in a bid to fuel his growing national profile.

"It fits with his national agenda," Wisniewski said. "There is no better time to get public works projects than now and the governor is throwing away this opportunity."

One century-old Hudson River commuter train tunnel runs between New Jersey and Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station. Transit advocates say the tunnel is so overcrowded that commuters frequently endure long delays.

Christie had repeatedly stressed that New Jersey is too cash-poor to pay for any cost overruns by itself. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who supported the project, has said the city did not have money to contribute to the project.

Digging for the tunnel, which was estimated to create 6,000 jobs, began in June 2009. It was to open in 2018.

Critics have called Christie overbearing and confrontational toward the New Jersey state legislature, which is Democrat-controlled. But his fans praise his straight talk, his forceful style and his record of getting things done.

A major driver of weather and climate....[ 1847 ]

A Little Water Goes a Long Way

Posted October 7, 2010

 

(506 KB, PDF) acquired August 1 - 31, 2010

Of the 1.39 billion cubic kilometers (331 million cubic miles) of water on Earth, just a thousandth of 1% (1.39 million cubic km) exists as water vapor. Yet this tiny amount of water has an outsized influence on the planet: It is a potent greenhouse gas and a major driver of weather and climate.

This map shows the distribution of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere during August 2010. Even the wettest regions would form a layer of water only 60 millimeters (2.4 inches) deep if the entire column of air was condensed from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. The map was compiled from observations by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

The map is one of several ways scientists can visualize the movement of water around the planet, as demonstrated in a new fact sheet examining the water cycle. Here is an excerpt:

“Studies have revealed that evaporation from oceans, seas, and other bodies of water provides nearly 90% of the moisture in our atmosphere. Most of the remaining 10% is released by plants through transpiration. Plants take in water through their roots, then release it through small pores on the underside of their leaves. In addition, a very small portion of water vapor enters the atmosphere through sublimation, the process by which water changes directly from a solid (ice or snow) to a gas.

Together, evaporation, transpiration, and sublimation, plus volcanic emissions, account for almost all the water vapor in the atmosphere. While evaporation from the oceans is the primary vehicle for driving the surface-to-atmosphere portion of the hydrologic cycle, transpiration is also significant. For example, a cornfield 1 acre in size can transpire as much as 4,000 gallons of water every day.

Water continually evaporates, condenses, and precipitates, and on a global basis, evaporation approximately equals precipitation. Because of this equality, the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere remains approximately the same over time.”

NASA image by Robert Simmon, using AIRS & AMSU data. Caption compiled by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument: Aqua - AIRS