From  China Daily and Xinhua      Updated: 2013-02-28 00:41

Greater diversity at NPC helps to better reflect the will of the people

The National People's Congress is becoming more representative and connecting with the grassroots as increasing numbers of imigrant  

workers, women and rural deputies join the toplegislative body, experts said.

 To Read more press here and see the article

From The Atlantic    By NEAL EMERY    On FEB 20 2013, 8:36 AM ET

Over the last decade in Rwanda, deaths from HIV, TB, and malaria dropped by 80 percent, maternal mortality dropped by 60 percent, life expectancy doubled -- all at an average health care cost of $55 per person per year.

Article in  THE NEW YORKER  By PETER HESSLER  On APRIL 21, 2011

Last September, when I was researching a profile of Rajeev Goyal, an American development worker, I asked what he thought about the book “Three Cups of Tea.” Rajeev and I were walking through the hills of eastern Nepal, where he had organized a number of projects over the past decade, including the construction of five schools. “Three Cups of Tea” is one of the bestselling books by Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer whose Central Asia Institute claims to have built or significantly supported more than a hundred and seventy schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Read  more:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/04/greg-mortenson-peter-hessler.html#ixzz2Lp7kzetd

Drones and Morality

New York Times Deal Book By FEBRUARY 19, 2013, 12:54PM BY BILL BISHOP

China is back to work after a week long holiday to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Most business shut for the entire week and the scale of human migration was awesome. This year, the Chinese made 440 million trips during the lunar holiday.

 The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

The sermon this morning:'Jesus Walks on the Water.' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love.Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.

Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.

Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Next Thursday there will be tryoutsfor the choir. They need all the help they canget.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carterwere married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Individual music selections will follow.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration ofsome older ones.

Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM -prayer and medication to follow.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basementon Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church.Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM . All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electricgirdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meetThursday at 7 PM . Please use the back door.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM . The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church Please use large double door at the side entrance.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.

Westminister Dog Show 2013

February 22, 2012, 4:25 PM

NEW YORK TIMES

By DYLAN WALSH

Construction is to begin in March on Mongolia’s first wind farm, and its backers hope it will be the beginning of a renewable energy boom.

Mongolia’s first wind installation is a $120 million project that will provide 5 percent of the country’s electricity demand. Transmission lines were installed last year, while turbine construction waited out the fierce Mongolian winter. It is scheduled to begin in March.

In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere.  In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery.  They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls.  A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada.  If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.”

Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated -- Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example.  Others are ignored, and we can often learn valuable lessons from them about what is likely to lie ahead.  Right now, in fact.

Title: "Ultimate Clocks" Author: W. Wayt Gibbs 

Publisher: Scientific American, Special Edition: A Matter of Time
Date: Spring 2012  Pages: 62-63 

In today's excerpt - the technology of our daily lives has become so advanced that the need for accuracy in clocks presses hard the most accurate of today's clocks - which are accurate to five parts per

100,000,000,000,000,000 (or five in 10¹⁶). Improving this accuracy is absolutely necessary for such things as improved GPS navigation, improved satellite communication, and improved detection of faults in the massive communication networks we now depend on:

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

English Words from Other Languages 

Metals

Phrases with 'Make' 

Verbs 

Body Parts Used as Verbs 

Expressions with Body Parts 

Physics 

Sounds

Valentine's Day

Web Vocabulary 

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

Collective Nouns (Breath Of...)

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

22 Four-letter Words 

Baby Animals 

St. Patrick's Day 

Grammar & Punctuation Words

Christmas

Idioms and Proverbs for Halloween

Opposite - Adjectives

Valentine's Day

The Planets 

Color Expressions 

British to American English #2

Adjectives 

Christmas Dinner

Medical Terms

Currency 

Animal Sounds

Seashore

British to American English #1

Money 

Animal Similes 

Press here for another couple of hundred crossword puzzles for studying English vocabulary

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

Set 3  Everyday Words 1 

Set 3  Everyday Words 2

Set 3  Everyday Words 3

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

Transportation

Past Tense 1

Past Tense 2 

Christmas

Countries Where English Is Spoken 

Farm Animals 

Fruit 

Abbreviations 

Conjunctions 

Vegetables 

Thanksgiving 

Food 

Animals 

Classroom Objects 

Common Words - 1 

Parts of a House 

Uncountable Nouns 1

Assorted Words

Comparatives 

Colors

Common Words - 6

Body Parts 

Prepositions

Recreation 

Pronouns 

Past Tense 3 

Common Words - 2 

Common Words - 3 

Past Tense 4 

Common Words - 4 

Common Words - 5 

Assorted Words 

Common Words 

Puzzles To Help Learn English.

From A4ESL

Elementary:  Number 1

Elementary:  Number 2

Elementary:  Number 3

Elementary:  Number 4

Elementary:  Number 5

Elementary:  Number 6

Elementary:  Number 7

Elementary:  Number 8

Elementary:  Number 9

Elementary:  Number 10

Elementary:  Number 11

Elementary:  Number 13

Elementary:  Number 14

Elementary:  Number 15

By KAREN NELSON - klnelson@sunherald.com

HORN ISLAND -- The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies has confirmed that a fourth baby dolphin has washed ashore on Horn Island,

To read more click here

By the CNN Wire Staff

 February 23, 2011 9:33 p.m. EST

For a very good interactive map of the region, click here

Demonstrations have spread across a swath of the Middle East and Africa. Here are the latest developments, including the roots of the unrest:

Wednesday's developments:

BBC

23 February 2011 Last updated at 08:01 ET

More than 30,000 protesters marched to the Greek parliament

Police in Athens have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators hurling petrol bombs and stones as a 24-hour general strike grips Greece.

The violence erupted during a rally by more than 30,000 angry workers near the Greek parliament. They object to the government's far-reaching budget cuts.

VOA News  February 22, 2011

Algeria's Cabinet formally approved an order Tuesday to lift the country's 19-year-old state of emergency.

The Cabinet said the order will take effect after its "imminent" publication in the official gazette.  It is unclear exactly when this will take place.

Earlier this month, Algeria's Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said the government planned to lift the emergency rules soon.  It was one of the changes promised by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the aftermath of weeks of anti-government protests.

Algerians have been demonstrating over high unemployment and food prices in protests similar to those that led to the recent ouster of the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

Algeria's military-backed government first imposed the state of emergency on February 9, 1992, the date marked as the start of the country's civil war.

It gave the military broad police powers to crack down on Islamist militants who gained support after an Islamic political party was prevented from winning elections a few months earlier.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

CNN News Blogs

The vast majority of Democrats in the Indiana House have not showed up at a House hearing Tuesday which, in effect, blocks a Republican-supported bill that would reduce private-sector union rights.

Republicans - who make up 60 of 100 House seats - lacked the two-thirds majority needed for a quorum. Sixty-three lawmakers attended Tuesday's hearing.

Democratic state senators in Wisconsin similarly boycotted their legislature last week to prevent a quorum from passing a budget bill that would increase the costs of benefits to public employees and curb their collective bargaining rights.

New York Times

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 20, 2011

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”...

Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.

In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.

But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.

Click here for the rest of the article

10TVNews

Tuesday,  February 22, 2011 12:21 PM

Updated: Tuesday,  February 22, 2011 1:55 PM

WBNS-10TV

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A hearing on a bill that could strip public employees of collective bargaining rights drew thousands of protesters to the Statehouse on Tuesday afternoon. 
      
Union leaders said their members and supporters will rally at the state capitol, as lawmakers continue hearings on Senate Bill 5, 10TV's Danielle Elias reported. 
      
The Republican-backed measure would end collective bargaining rights for state workers and restrict teachers, firefighters, police, and university employees.

The bill was proposed by Sen. Shannon Jones, and is supported by Gov. John Kasich. 
      
If the bill passes, it would end collective bargaining rights for state workers, and set up a merit-based pay system.

For the rest of the story click here

CNTV

02-11-2011 10:12 BJT

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- More than 9,300 kidnapped children in China have been rescued since April 2009 since a nationwide campaign was launched to crack down on human trafficking, according to the Ministry of Public Security Thursday.

News 24

2011-02-19 14:10

SaudiWoman's Weblog

FEBRUARY 18, 2011 · 3:06 AM

Remember, in a former post, when I said that Saudis were captivated and shocked by what happened in Tunis and Egypt but hadn’t collectively made up their mind about it? Well it appears that they have. Everywhere I go and everything I read points to a revolution in our own country in the foreseeable future. However we are still on the ledge and haven’t jumped yet.

Dozens of Muslim leaders call for end to civilian deaths

after security crackdown on funeral procession of protesters.

Last Modified: 20 Feb 2011 11:25 GMT

Hundreds have been killed in Libya since protests broke out across the North African nation six days ago, according to rights watchdogs and eyewitnesses across the country.

Residents told Al Jazeera that at least 200 people had died in the eastern city of Benghazi alone, while the New York-based Human Rights Watch on Sunday put the countrywide death toll at 104.  The rights group said the figure was "conservative".

Protests have also reportedly broken out in other cities, including Bayda, Derna, Tobruk and Misrata.

In the capital, Tripoli, supporters of the government took to the streets in large numbers, and security forces prevented large demonstrations against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year reign.

For more go to the article

Black Americans have played a vital role in building this nation. Eager to live and prosper as free people, we have established our own towns since Colonial times. Many of these communities were destroyed by racial violence or injustice, while some just died out. The Root looks at the history of these lost towns.

There are 15 pictures in total.  Six of them are presented here.  

Press here to go to the article to see all the pictures.

New York Times: By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Published: February 16, 2011

BOSTON — Halfway around the world from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an aging American intellectual shuffles about his cluttered brick row house in a working-class neighborhood here. His name is Gene Sharp. Stoop-shouldered and white-haired at 83, he grows orchids, has yet to master the Internet and hardly seems like a dangerous man.

From BBC

Hundreds of people have clashed with police and pro-government supporters in the Libyan city of Benghazi, reports say.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC the overnight unrest followed the arrest of an outspoken critic of the government.

The lawyer was later said to have been released but the protests continued.

Pro-democracy protests have swept through several Arab countries in recent weeks, forcing the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt from power.

A call has been put out on the internet for protests across Libya on Thursday.

from Dawn.com

2/13/11

WAS Friday the day the people of the Middle East began to reclaim their region for themselves? Amid emotional scenes that will live long in the memory of Egyptians and people across the world, the largest country in the Middle East celebrated the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-old rule.

Topic:  Uprisings

For an Excellent Video on the Role of the Internet Press Here

Let me start this with a little but true story from my life.  Martha just recalled it a couple of days ago and we talked about it in relation to what is happening in Egypt and other countries.

Early in our marriage when we were living in Detroit, the guy who was best man at our wedding (Donald Gibson - later to become an English Professor in an important University in eastern USA), was visiting us.  We were all in the family room, and Don was sitting back by a big window in a recliner playing his guitar.  Don is an African American who had been an activist while we were in college.  Martha asked him what he thought that people who were african american - who had been involved in the civil rights revolution - wanted.  He said he did not think they wanted any one thing or group of things - what they wanted was just their share of the pie.

It seems to Martha and me that at least in Egypt a big factor in these uprisings is that people do not have their share of the pie.

These articles seem worthwhile to read as a preface to the other material in this topic:

Who's Afraid of the Muslim Brothers;

The Arab Reform Dodge Cosmetic Concessions Aren't Enough

Country by Country

Map Of Uprisings To February 15, 2011

This topic is subdivided into several countries currently involved or just having gone through uprisings (this is February 2011) and with an additional subdivision of Timelines.

Also see maps, or other interesting articles, or look at various news sources

For more articles

EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE:

Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has resigned from his post, handing over power to the armed forces. Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, announced in a televised address that the president was "waiving" his office, and had handed over authority to the Supreme Council of the armed forces. Suleiman's short statement was received with a roar of approval and by celebratory chanting and flag-waving from a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as well by pro-democracy campaigners who attended protests across the country on Friday. The crowd in Tahrir chanted "We have brought down the regime", while many were seen crying, cheering and embracing one another. Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition leader, hailed the moment as being the "greatest day of my life", in comments to the Associated Press news agency. "The country has been liberated after decades of repression,'' he said. "Tonight, after all of these weeks of frustration, of violence, of intimidation ... today the people of Egypt undoubtedly [feel they] have been heard, not only by the president, but by people all around the world," our correspondent at Tahrir Square reported, following the announcement. "The sense of euphoria is simply indescribable," our correspondent at Mubarak's Heliopolis presidential palace, where at least ten thousand pro-democracy activists had gathered, said. Pro-democracy activists in the Egyptian capital had marched on the presidential palace and state television buildings on Friday, the 18th consecutive day of protests.

Washington Post

By Craig Whitlock, Leila Fadel and Ernesto Londono
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 10, 2011; 10:58 am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/09/AR2011020905656_pf.html 

CAIRO -- President Hosni Mubarak will meet the demands of protesters, military and ruling party officials, the Associated Press reported Thursday, in the strongest indication yet that Egypt's longtime president may be about to give up power.

From delanceyplace  2/7/11 - private rooms

In today's excerpt - in the middle ages, English houses owned by the wealthy consisted primarily of a single great room called the "hall." The fourteenth century brought improvements to fireplace construction which allowed for second floors, which in turn brought an explosion in the construction of private, separate rooms - including the boudoir, literally "a room to sulk in." Even with this new privacy, residents still often copulated and defecated in full view of children, servants and friends:

The Washington Post editorial Friday, February 4, 2011

LIKE EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak, Arab rulers around the Middle East are trying to head off the swelling popular discontent in their countries while retaining political control. In the past few days, Jordan's King Abdullah fired his prime minister and cabinet and ordered a new appointee to undertake reforms, while Yemen's President Abdullah Salehpromised not to run for another term or promote his son. The Palestinian Authority announced it would hold overdue local elections, Algeria's president promised an end to 19 years of emergency rule, and even Syria's Bashar al-Assad assured the Wall Street Journal that he would initiate muncipal elections and loosen controls on the media.

There are already several timelines about the North African uprisings, and the intent is not to include another one.  If you want another timeline here is a connection: Another TImeline  I am mentioning it here because of the paragraphs at the end of the timeline, and because of the very nice map of the area.

To Source:  National Journal

By Kenneth Chamberlain

Friday, January 28, 2011 | 6:10 p.m.

The fast-paced events in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in northern Africa and the Middle East during the past month or so can be confusing and hard to follow. Below is a basic outline of what has happened.

Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology

by Lawrence Weschler by Vintage

"Deep in the Cameroonian rain forests of west-central Africa there lives a floor-dwelling ant known as Megaloponera foetens, or more commonly, the stink ant. This large ant - indeed, one of the very few capable of emitting a cry audible to the human ear - survives by foraging for food among the fallen leaves and undergrowth of the extraordinarily rich rain-forest floor.

The fast-paced events in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in northern Africa and the Middle East during the past month or so can be confusing and hard to follow. Below is a basic outline of what has happened.