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Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Job news.দ্য সিটি ব্যাংক লিমিটেডে 'সিনিয়র/প্রোডাক্ট মার্কেটিং অফিসার, কার্ডস সেলস' পদে জনবল নিয়োগ করা হবে। আগ্রহীরা আগামী ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর পর্যন্ত আবেদন করতে পারবেন। পদের নাম: সিনিয়র/প্রোডাক্ট মার্কেটিং অফিসার, কার্ডস সেলস শিক্ষাগত যোগ্যতা: নূন্যতম স্নাতক অভিজ্ঞতা: ০২ বছর বেতন: আকর্ষণীয় বেতন ও ভাতা চাকরির ধরণ: অস্থায়ী কর্মস্থল: চট্টগ্রাম ও ঢাকা আবেদনের নিয়ম: আগ্রহীরা jobs.bdjobs.com এর মাধ্যমে আবেদন করতে পারবেন - See more at: http://www.bd-pratidin.com/job-market/2016/09/18/170714#sthash.ctMZlVVh.dpuf

দ্য সিটি ব্যাংক লিমিটেডে 'সিনিয়র/প্রোডাক্ট মার্কেটিং অফিসার, কার্ডস সেলস' পদে জনবল নিয়োগ করা হবে। আগ্রহীরা আগামী ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর পর্যন্ত আবেদন করতে পারবেন।
পদের নাম: সিনিয়র/প্রোডাক্ট মার্কেটিং অফিসার, কার্ডস সেলস
শিক্ষাগত যোগ্যতা: নূন্যতম স্নাতক
অভিজ্ঞতা: ০২ বছর
বেতন: আকর্ষণীয় বেতন ও ভাতা
চাকরির ধরণ: অস্থায়ী
কর্মস্থল: চট্টগ্রাম ও ঢাকা
আবেদনের নিয়ম: আগ্রহীরা jobs.bdjobs.com এর মাধ্যমে আবেদন করতে পারবেন
- See more at: http://www.bd-pratidin.com/job-market/2016/09/18/170714#sthash.ctMZlVVh.dpuf

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks,2014

Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks
The new york time

WASHINGTON — After more than two decades of trying but failing to forge a global pact to halt climate change, United Nations negotiators gathering in South America this week are expressing a new optimism that they may finally achieve the elusive deal.
Even with a deal to stop the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn, the world will become increasingly unpleasant. Without a deal, they say, the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans.
For the next two weeks, thousands of diplomats from around the globe will gather in Lima, Peru, for a United Nations summit meeting to draft an agreement intended to stop the global rise of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
The meeting comes just weeks after a landmark announcement by President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China committing the world’s two largest carbon polluters to cuts in their emissions. United Nations negotiators say they believe that advancement could end a longstanding impasse in the climate talks, spurring other countries to sign similar commitments.

A child walking near her home with a coal-fired power plant in the background in Beijing, China.

Even as United Nations negotiators expressed optimism that they may finally achieve an elusive deal, experts caution that it probably will not be enough to stave off the near-term impact of global warming.

But while scientists and climate-policy experts welcome the new momentum ahead of the Lima talks, they warn that it now may be impossible to prevent the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere from rising by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. According to a large body of scientific research, that is the tipping point at which the world will be locked into a near-term future of drought, food and water shortages, melting ice sheets, shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels and widespread flooding — events that could harm the world’s population and economy.

Recent reports show that there may be no way to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising, given the current level of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the projected rate of emissions expected to continue before any new deal is carried out.

That fact is driving the urgency of the Lima talks, which are expected to produce a draft document, to be made final over the next year and signed by world leaders in Paris in December 2015.

While a breach of the 3.6 degree threshold appears inevitable, scientists say that United Nations negotiators should not give up on their efforts to cut emissions. At stake now, they say, is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.

“I was encouraged by the U.S.-China agreement,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University and a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global body of scientists that produces regular reports on the state of climate science. But he expressed doubts that the threshold rise in global temperature could be prevented.

“What’s already baked in are substantial changes to ecosystems, large-scale transformations,” Mr. Oppenheimer said. He cited losses of coral reef systems and ice sheets, and lowering crop yields.

Still, absent a deal, “Things could get a lot worse,” Mr. Oppenheimer added. Beyond the 3.6 degree threshold, he said, the aggregate cost “to the global economy — rich countries as well as poor countries — rises rapidly.”

Felipe Calderón, the chairman of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and former president of Mexico. Credit Richard Drew/Associated Press
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The objective now, negotiators say, is to stave off atmospheric temperature increases of 4 to 10 degrees by the end of the century; at that point, they say, the planet could become increasingly uninhabitable.

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are already reporting that 2014 appears likely to be the warmest year on record.

Since 1992, the United Nations has convened an annual climate change summit meeting aimed at forging a deal to curb greenhouse gases, which are produced chiefly by burning coal for electricity and gasoline for transportation. But previous agreements, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, included no requirements that developing nations, such as India and China, cut their emissions. And until now, the United States has never headed into those summit meetings with a domestic climate change policy in place.

This spring, a report by 13 federal agencies concluded that climate change would harm the American economy by increasing food prices, insurance rates and financial volatility. In China, the central government has sought to quell citizen protests related to coal pollution.

In June, Mr. Obama announced a new Environmental Protection Agency rule forcing major emissions cuts from coal-fired power plants. State Department negotiators took the decision to China, hoping to broker a deal for a similar offer of domestic action. That led to November’s joint announcement in Beijing: The United States will cut its emissions up to 28 percent by 2025, while China will decrease its emissions by or before 2030.

“Our sense is that this will resonate in the broader climate community, give momentum to the negotiations and spur countries to come forward with their own targets,” said Todd Stern, Mr. Obama’s lead climate change negotiator. “The two historic antagonists, the biggest players, announcing they’ll work together.”

Other negotiators agree. “The prospects are so much better than they’ve ever been,” said Felipe Calderón, the former president of Mexico and chairman of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, a research organization.

The aim of negotiators in Lima is, for the first time, to produce an agreement in which every nation commits to a domestic plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, along the model of the United States-China agreement. Negotiators expect that by next March, governments will make announcements similar to those made by the United States and China.

The idea is for each country to cut emissions at a level that it can realistically achieve, but in keeping with domestic political and economic constraints. World leaders would sign a deal in Paris next year committing all those nations to their cuts, including a provision that the nations regularly reconvene to further reduce their emissions.

The problem is that climate experts say it almost certainly will not happen fast enough. A November report by the United Nations Environment Program concluded that in order to avoid the 3.6 degree increase, global emissions must peak within the next 10 years, going down to half of current levels by midcentury.
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Continue reading the main story

But the deal being drafted in Lima will not even be enacted until 2020. And the structure of the emerging deal — allowing each country to commit to what it can realistically achieve, given each nation’s domestic politics — means that the initial cuts by countries will not be as stringent as what scientists say is required.

China’s plan calls for its emissions to peak in 2030. Government officials in India, the world’s third-largest carbon polluter, have said they do not expect to see their emissions decline until at least 2040.

While Mr. Obama has committed to United Nations emissions cuts through 2025, there is no way to know if his successor will continue on that path.

That reality is already setting in among low-lying island nations, like the Marshall Islands, where rising seas are soaking coastal soil, killing crops and contaminating fresh water supplies.

“The groundwater that supports our food crops is becoming inundated with salt,” said Tony A. deBrum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands. “The green is becoming brown.”

Many island nations are looking into buying farmland in other countries to grow food and, eventually, to relocate their populations.

In Lima, those countries are expected to demand that a final deal include aid to help them adapt to the climate impacts that have already arrived.
Opinion: Where Do We Go After Ferguson?

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Thursday, November 20, 2014

Tk 500cr social obligation fund sits idle

Tk 500cr social obligation fund sits idle

The daily star news

Rules are yet to be set to use the money collected from telcos
The telecom regulator has so far collected Tk 500 crore from mobile operators for a "social obligation fund", but the government is yet to start spending the money in absence of rules on how to use the fund.

The telecom ministry said it has almost finalised the rules. But analysts and some officials of the ministry termed the proposed rules ambiguous, saying those will create complexities in utilising the fund.

Law binds Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission to create the fund "for extending telecommunication facility in the areas deprived of such facility." The law does not mention any other purpose of the fund.

However, six mobile operators now cover 99 percent areas of the country.

In line with the law, the fund was supposed to be formed with contributions from the government, or local, foreign and international organisations, and telecom operators.

Without any specific plan, the regulator has been collecting the amount from the mobile operators since 2011, though the law says the contributions can only be collected when the rules are ready.

The six operators are contributing 1 percent of their gross revenues to the fund on a quarterly basis.

Md Feroz Salah Uddin, additional secretary to the telecom ministry, said: “We are now examining the rules so that the amount is not misused.”

However, another official of the ministry said the rules do not specify how the fund will be spent.

"It is not clear who will approve the budget or who will own the fund," the official said, asking not to be named. "Will the money be disbursed through bidding or given to a firm directly to implement projects?"

The law says: “The maintenance of accounts and operation of the social obligation fund, its administration, procedure for withdrawal of money of the said fund and the rate of subscription for the fund to be realised from the licensed operators, shall be prescribed by rules.”

A provision has recently been incorporated into the rules to spend a portion of the fund on disaster management initiatives, though there is no mention of the types of disaster. Abu Saeed Khan, senior policy fellow at Colombo-based ICT think tank LIRNEasia, said, “The BTRC has been collecting the fund illegally as the government has not created the rules yet.” “The fund collection cannot continue forever. The government must spell out its targeted amount to be raised. Otherwise, it will become a crucible of corruption.”

BTRC Secretary Md Sarwar Alam said a high-profile committee has been formed to deal with the fund, which is deposited in a scheduled bank. The draft rules were sent to the ministry in June 2012.

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Monday, November 3, 2014

In Traveling to the Stars, Risk and Cost,2014

In Traveling to the Stars, Risk and Cost.

The new york Times

Space travel has long been the preserve of governments and sci-fi fans, but in recent years a crop of new commercial ventures, often backed by billionaire entrepreneurs, has sought to get into the race.

The list of so-called thrillonaires has only grown, along with their ambitions: Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who set up Blue Origin to lower the cost of space technology; Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX with the aim of going to Mars one day; and Richard Branson, who started the space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

But two recent accidents involving commercial rockets have underscored the high risks and soaring costs involved in any spaceflight.

On Friday, a Virgin Galactic space plane exploded during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and injuring another. Days earlier, an Orbital Sciences rocket carrying a supply vessel to the International Space Station blew up seconds after it was launched.

Both accidents are under investigation. Although they were unrelated, their occurrence just days apart was a stark reminder that the path to space is just as arduous for private companies as it is for government-funded programs.

The wreckage of the Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which crashed into the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and injuring another. Credit Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

“The engineering and physics of space tend to be unforgiving, no matter who is doing this,” said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former assistant administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The common thread between these new space initiatives is that they all are looking for ways to sharply cut the cost of spaceflight. Without that, analysts say, there is no realistic prospect of making spaceflights both routine and affordable in the future.

“What you are seeing playing out are different experiments, by different groups, trying different approaches,” Mr. Pace said. “To me, this does not call into question the basic logic of relying more on the private sector.”

The push to privatize spaceflight is in part borne of necessity. After pioneering space exploration and landing on the moon with programs like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, NASA has had to adapt to tighter budgets and redefine its mission. Today, one of its main goals is to encourage and fund the development of commercial space entities.

Lori B. Garver, a former deputy administrator at NASA and one of the most prominent advocates for commercial space during her tenure, said that public funds should be focused on activities that advance technology and provide public benefits to all, like planetary science.

At the same time, she said, the government should encourage private companies to move ahead and find innovative ways of reducing costs.

Billionaires who have entered the commercial space race include Richard Branson, who started Virgin Galactic. Credit Brian Melley/Associated Press

“In my view, the private sector has the same incentive, or even more, to get things right as the government does,” Ms. Garver said. “If we only trusted risky things to the government, we would only fly in government-owned and operated airplanes.”

Many of the current commercial operations have some form of government support.

Orbital Sciences is operating under a $1.9 billion contract from NASA to deliver cargo to the space station. Its Antares rocket exploded on the third of eight resupply missions.
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The same is true of SpaceX, which was recently awarded $2.4 billion by NASA to build a transportation system for astronauts within the next three years. SpaceX was also the recipient of an earlier $1.4 billion contract to deliver cargo to the space station. Boeing also won a NASA contract for $4.6 billion to build a spacecraft capable of flying astronauts to the space station.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have sought to reduce costs in different ways. Orbital’s rockets use a pair of refurbished engines built in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. The engines were intended for Soviet rockets destined for the moon, but were never used and lay in storage for decades. The engines were refurbished by an American company and incorporated into the Antares rocket by Orbital.

SpaceX, by contrast, builds its engines for its Falcon 9 rocket and aims to reduce costs, in the long term, by reusing the rocket. The company has succeeded in firing a test rocket called Grasshopper, having it hover at around 2,400 feet and then returning it to its point of launch.

Elon Musk with SpaceX. Credit Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

But its efforts to land Falcon 9 rockets have so far been unsuccessful, though the company says it is getting closer. In August, a bigger test rocket trying a high-altitude test was destroyed shortly after takeoff. No one was injured.

NASA is “looking for cheaper access to space,” said Marco A. Caceres, a space analyst at the Teal Group, a consulting firm in Virginia. The trouble, he said, is that reliability and price are often tied together.

“It may be unreasonable to expect to pay under a certain amount to get a reliable vehicle,” Mr. Caceres said. “That comes at a cost.”

Virgin Galactic is an exception to the model of government-funded launchers. The company has been working on an experimental vessel to take paying passengers to the edge of space and back.

The craft, called SpaceShipTwo, was designed to be launched from a plane, then rocket up to its apogee at about 62 miles, an altitude considered the boundary of outer space. At the top of its ascent, two tail booms would rotate upward into a so-called feathered position intended to create more drag and stability, and allow the plane to descend gently back into the atmosphere.

Federal accident investigators said that the plane had shifted early into this high-drag configuration shortly before its accident on Friday for reasons that are still unclear. The investigators said it was far too soon to draw any conclusions about the crash.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, with Blue Origin. Credit Win McNamee/Getty Images

Investigators have located almost all of the important pieces of the space plane, which had fallen along a debris field five miles long. That included the fuel tanks and the engine, which were “intact, showed no signs of burn through, no signs of being breached,” said Christopher A. Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“There is much more we don’t know, and our investigation is far from over,” Mr. Hart said during a news conference Sunday night at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
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Continue reading the main story

In a statement Sunday, Virgin Galactic responded to criticism that the design of SpaceShipTwo was flawed and that the test flights were reckless.

“At Virgin Galactic, we are dedicated to opening the space frontier, while keeping safety as our ‘North Star,’ ” the company said. “This has guided every decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue.”

Mr. Caceres said the new space entrepreneurs were good at creating excitement about their ventures. Before Friday’s accident, about 700 people had reserved seats on Virgin Galactic, with tickets costing $250,000 each.

“You are talking about a brand new era of space,” Mr. Caceres said. “You have personalities like Richard Branson and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who are not engineers. These are different kinds of people and they can generate a lot of excitement and capital investors who are willing to give you a lot of money.”

However, he added, “the downside is that if you have problems, you have all this attention focused on you.”

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Saturday, November 1, 2014

Experts to search for Lorca's grave,2014

Experts to search for Lorca's grave

The daily star news

Archaeologists will start inspecting land in southern Spain where radical poet Federico Garcia Lorca is believed to have been executed and buried in 1936.

Lorca, one of Spain's most renowned 20th-century poets, was among tens of thousands of civilians killed by militias loyal to late dictator General Francisco Franco at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

The search for his grave remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 1936-1939 war, which was started when Franco rose up against Spain's elected leftist Republican government.

Luis Naranjo, an official with the southern regional government of Andalusia, said that the project is aimed at discovering the remains of Civil War victims, not specifically those of Lorca.

Lorca is best known for tragedies such as 'Blood Wedding' and his poetry collections 'Poet in New York and 'Gypsy Ballads.' His work draws on universal themes like love, death, passion, cruelty and injustice. An earlier high-profile dig for his grave, which took place over two months in 2009, yielded no results.

At the time, the poet's family initially opposed the dig, saying that they preferred to let the remains lie in peace.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

North France becomes social business region,2014

North France becomes social business region

The daily star news

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus addresses 1,200 participants of the World Forum Lille in Northern France

Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus has recently addressed 1,200 participants at the World Forum Lille, capital of North France, about social business as a powerful tool for social change. The four-day forum started on October 21, Yunus Centre said in a statement yesterday.
He discussed his experience in initiating social businesses to tackle the multi-dimensional problems the poor in Bangladesh are now facing.
The forum adopted social business as the theme, following the work of the Nobel laureate, according to the statement.
During the forum, President of the World Forum Lille and former agriculture minister Philippe Vasseur announced a new identity for North France. He named North France as social business region of the country.
"It would be the first such province in any country," according to the statement. Named as SoBizHub, the region will act as a hub for social innovation and become a leader in creating social business.
The plan to develop a social business ecosystem in the region has been in process of more than one year with the involvement of 125 persons from 65 different organisations in the North France committed to the idea of social business.
Four companies—Danone, Veolia and Credit Agricole, McCain Europe—which have partnered with Professor Yunus to create social businesses in Bangladesh and around the world have promoted this process in France.

Daniel Percheron, president of the North Region of France, hosted a lunch in honor of Yunus on this occasion.
During the conference, Jean Bernou, CEO of European Division of Canadian French fry giant McCain, announced the launch of its social business programme.
McCain is currently partnering with Yunus Social Business in Colombia through Campo Vivo, a social business to transform farm workers into independent farm owners and producers.
McCain in cooperation with Professor Yunus will create a social business in Greece, where current youth unemployment rate is 70 percent.
The social business will create opportunities for young people in agricultural enterprises and will help to re-migrate and settle youth in that country.
"This would be an example of social business to tackle youth unemployment in Europe, which, if successful, could be replicated in other countries facing similar unemployment situation."
During Yunus's visit, the Catholic University of Lille announced the creation of a social business chair at that university.
The purpose of the chair is to teach young management students that a different economy based on social business is possible.

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New Perspectives by Syed Iqbal

New Perspectives by Syed Iqbal

Exhibition of new paintings at Mississauga, Canada

The daly star news

Guests are at the exhibition.

Syed Iqbal neatly fits the bill as an artist of sizeable merit. His latest exhibition, that ran from October 17-27 at the Promenade Gallery in Mississauga, Canada, is his 16th solo and it once again displays the quintessential flavour Iqbal cultivates for abstractions of bigger thoughts; of human relationships with nature and the passion they collectively evoke.

Added to this year's exhibits are bigger canvases with a brighter palette. Lustrous amalgamation of colour, theme and textures illuminate the gallery's four walls. The 'Mind the Gap' series explicates the dangers of being too intimate in love; flashing red highlights Blue lord Krishna and his unfettered passion for Radha; the Kandinsky inspired 'Urban Trap' series snatches one's attention to a little-understood Toronto landscape dotted with sky-piercing structures and the iconic CN tower. Added also to the collection is about half a dozen other works from Iqbal's famous 'Mindscape' series that debuted first in Dhaka's Bengal gallery in 2001.

Iqbal is a Canadian artist of Bangladeshi descent. His workmanship synergises the hidden sentiments of the East and West. This recent exhibition is different both in its versatility and volume. This exhibit successfully mingles theme and diversity to create an ambiance of assurance and substance. The observed graduation over the years of the quality of Iqbal's works reconfirms that Iqbal has come of age.

The exhibits contain otherworldly faces and flowing waters; tearful eyes and traumatised outlooks; seductive body forms and secular images of nature embracing its paraphernalia. In most of the exhibits, there seemed a discernible mélange of desire, of yearning and of endured serenity.

One common denomination of his works is the penchant for treading acrylic on canvas. That may be why his female forms are so captivating in their inducement, and nature blooms with so much blushes and brightness in his brushes. Simply put, this exhibition has a spellbinding appeal, thanks to the most organised, emotion-laden and consolidated presentation of his works. If the 'Tears of Nature' and the 'Mindscape' have earned him recognition in the past, the 2014 Toronto exposition is a clear example of how far he has come.

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