Study: US College Students Advance Little Intellectually
N.Korea Admits Rocket Failed Shortly After Launch
North Korea has acknowledged a multi-stage rocket it launched early Friday failed to reach orbit. An announcer on North Korean television -- interrupting programming four hours after the launch, which was not broadcast -- says the Kwangmyongsong-3 earth observation satellite did not succeed in reaching orbit and scientific experts are investigating the cause of the failure.
Officials in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington say North Korea's rocket indeed blasted off from the launch pad but failed to get very far.
U.S. military officials called it a Taepodong-2 missile. They say it was tracked by satellite on a southern trajectory where the first stage fell into the Yellow Sea. The North American Aerospace Defense Command says the other two stages failed to continue in flight and never posed a threat.
South Korean army major general Shin Won-sik, speaking to reporters at the defense ministry, says the missile began tumbling back to Earth at an altitude of 151 kilometers, separating into about 20 pieces and harmlessly falling into the Yellow Sea 100 to 150 kilometers offshore.
The general says the launch clearly violates UN resolutions 1718 and 1874 and was a test-firing of a long-range missile disguised as a satellite launch. He adds this is a grave provocation and a serious military threat to international society and the Republic of Korea.
Japan's defense forces, along with the South Korean and U.S. militaries in the region, had deployed anti-missile batteries on land and at sea to possibly shoot down the object if it flew over Japanese or South Korean territories.
Authorities in Japan's southern Okinawan islands, which are close to the intended flight path, activated public address loudspeakers soon after the launch. Citizens were advised that there was nothing to worry about from the North Korean missile launch while newspaper vendors handed out copies of extra editions. The incident prompted emergency security meetings both in Seoul and in Tokyo.
The UN Security Council is to add an agenda item about North Korea to its already scheduled Friday session. The Group of Eight nations -- composed of the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, the France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada -- are calling for the United Nations to make an appropriate response to Pyongyang's action.
South Korea's foreign minister, Kim Sung-hwan, strongly condemns the North going ahead with the launch. Kim says it is truly regrettable that North Korea spends huge financial resources on developing nuclear weapons and missiles while its citizens are experiencing such hardships.
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Japan is echoing similar sentiments, adding it is considering additional financial sanctions on North Korea.
This marks North Korea's third failed attempt at a claimed satellite launch. There is growing speculation in the intelligence community that North Korea will soon conduct a third nuclear test. Such underground explosions of nuclear devices followed its two previous attempted launches of multi-stage missiles.
2. http://www.lasvegastribune.com/readit/09-21-2011_tribune.pdf - первая статья
Civil Aviation Production Prospects
The Russian airlines will need more than 900 passenger aircraft over the next 20 years in response to the strong growth in this market, according to the March 2008 Airbus Global Market Forecast (GMF). The Russian passenger aircraft fleet of 100 seats or more was expected to grow strongly from 528 aircraft in service in 2006 to nearly 950 by 2026. Over the next 20 years [2007-2027], Russia would require more than 900 aircraft to meet demand for aircraft replacement as well as fleet growth. This will represent a value at current list price of US$ 79 billion. These additional aircraft would include nearly 800 short haul - single-aisle aircraft which are prominent in the region's fleet and some 120 medium to long-range wide-body aircraft to satisfy international travel strong growth.
The "tyranny of the producers" persists in the Russian civil aviation industry. The structure of the sector remains remarkably unchanged from that of the Soviet Union. It is plagued by massive factory over-capacity, an extensive network of design bureaus skilled in starting new products and producing a few prototypes, and a systemic inability to pick winners and losers. As of 2008 there were at least ten separate production facilities manufacturing aircraft with a passenger capacity of more than 100 seats, and another five factories producing smaller civil aviation passenger aircraft. By rough count, nearly half the civil aircraft production lines in the world are in Russia. Overall, each of these factories was building aircraft at an average rate of one per year. That is, these town forming enterprises were producing the minimum number of aircraft to make a claim for their continued existence, but few were doing more in the aviation sector than preserving memories.
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The government has sought to reorganize and revitalize Russia's aircraft industry in the context of a larger restructuring plan for Russia's defense industry. Specifically, the government decided to implement a large-scale consolidation of the aircraft industry through mergers and privatizations. Lack of sufficient demand from an undercapitalized domestic airline industry and the relatively small export market for Russian aircraft currently precludes improvement of Russian production lines and prevents the Russian LCA industry from achieving economies of scale.
Russia had not given up on independently establishing a viable domestic prime-manufacturing sector again. The government of Russia announced plans in February 2004 to consolidate the existing Russian major aerospace companies (Sukhoi, MIG Irkut, Ilyushin, and Tupolev) into a consortium. In February 2006, President Putin signed a decree calling for an action plan to be created for this consortium, called United Aircraft-Building Company [OAK]. This was the most recent of a long series of plans to revitalize the Russian aerospace manufacturing industry and recapture its position as a global prime producer of large civil aircraft and engines. Without recovery of the traditional customers of Russian aircraft manufacturers or the manufacturers themselves, however, it is difficult to predict when this might actually happen.
On 24 June 2007 it was reported that Russia will resume serial aircraft production within the next four to five years. It will produce over 320 civil aircraft of different classes in 2008-2012. The data was cited in a letter Deputy Industry and Energy Minister Andrei Dementyev submitted to parliament. There are plans to produce 15 long-haul Il-96 planes, 84 Tu-204/214, 236 regional Sukhoi Superjet-100 and Tu-334 aircraft, as well as 96 An-148. Taking into account export plans, Russia's civil aircraft fleet will be replenished with over 430 planes.
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Russian wide-body airliners remain the province of Ilyushin, which continues to build a few Il-96-300 each year. Tupolev may become the leading manufacturer of the next-generation wide-body airliners, which necessity was voiced by Vladimir Putin during his visit to the Gromov Flight Research Institute on 20 February 2008. The new generation of Russian Large Civil Aircraft basically consists of one aircraft from each manufacturer -- the Il-96 and the Tu-204. Ilyushin officials stated in the late 1990s that they were not interested in producing LCA with fewer than 200 seats, and do not want to design a plane larger than the Il-96, offered at a maximum of 375 seats. This business strategy would likely put Ilyushin at a competitive disadvantage vis-�-vis Boeing and Airbus which offer families of aircraft spanning a broad range of seating capacities.
Russian medium-range airliners have been divided between aircraft-building majors Irkut and Sukhoi. They will jointly provide the United Aircraft Building Corporation (UABC) with advanced airliners of the most popular size - those with 96, 110, 130, 150, 180 and 210 seats representing all types of the so-called narrow-body aircraft. At present, the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 are dominating this market. Irkut will take on the MS-21 family with over 150 seats. And Sukhoi, in addition to the first-generation 96-seated Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100), will design two second-generation aircraft - the SSJ-110 and SSJ-130 carrying 110 and 130 passengers, respectively. This is in return for Irkut's dropping the 130-seat MS-21-100 and its raising the capacity of the MS-21-300 medium version up to 180 passengers. Sukhoi will provide the MS-21 an all-composite wing basing on its SSJ-110/130 solutions.
Russian regional jet programs include three competing projects entering production [while a fourth, the Yak-42, is claimed to remain in production]. There is a significant spread in the parameters of passenger capacity and flying range, which indicated the absence of a study of market niche and the absence of united technical requirements for the regional aircraft. This reflects the absence of elementary experience in Russian KB in conducting of adequate marketing studies. Due to their similar performance characteristics, the SSJ has been projected as a potential rival to the AN-148 and 100-seat to 126-seat Tu-334. These three domestic Russian projects are practically identical with respect to their technical characteristics, which are approximately 20% worse than the foreign competition. However, in the view of some, they cannot be directly compared as they are in different price categories. The catalog price of the basic SSJ-100B model is $27.2 mn, whereas the AN-148 costs approximately $18-20 mn. OAK's strategy is to position the AN-148 for the domestic market, and the SSJ for foreign markets.
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The SSJ aircraft engines are positioned only 47 cm over the ground. So taking off and landing would be possible only on ideally even surface which is not a characteristic feature of Russian airports. The Superjet 100 and EMB-190 have a high risk of the damage of engines by foreign objects on the badly prepared airfields and require thorough preparation and cleaning of airfields.
Until recently, the Sukhoi-designed Superjet 100 had been the main project of this type in Russia. The Tu-334-family aircraft, however, have received state support again for two reasons. First, many experts repeatedly said planes of this type were much better adapted for small airports in Siberia and the Far East lacking advanced infrastructure and kept in rather poor condition. Second, bureaucrats seem to have realized the simple fact that the Russian market should be filled with Russian-made planes long before such projects as the MS-21 close- and medium-range aircraft are implemented. Otherwise, by the time the MS-21 is ready, Airbus and Boeing aircraft will have firmly taken its place.
The small regional jet market seems inactive as of 2008. Initial Sukhoi Superjet plans for 60-seat and 75-seat versions failed to interest the market. The Tu-324 airplane was designed by the Tupolev OKB to be a domestic regional airplane with a capacity of up to 60 seats to permit replacing the obsolescent and physically aging Tu-134 and Yak-40 airplanes now being used.
Russian small turbo-prop airliners include three new aircraft types manufactured in Russia and the CIS that have begun operating with Russian airlines since the year 2000: the 64-seat Ilyushin Il-114 aircraft manufactured by the Tashkent TAPO plant; the first Russian-Ukrainian-built aircraft, the 52-seat Antonov An-140; and the 27-seat Antonov An-38. From 1994 through 2007 fewer than 10 An-38s had been built. During the MAKS-2007 air show, Novosibirsk NAPO plant (the manufacturer of this aircraft) and Antonov Corporation agreed to continue the An-38's development, but it is not yet clear how it will facilitate the actual An-38 production. Official estimates project that the future will be remarkably different from the recent past. During the later years of the Cold War the Soviet civil aviation industry produced well over 100 aircraft each year. With the end of the Cold War, production rates fell to about a dozen aircraft each year. By 2007 Russian government projections suggested that production levels would exceed 100 aircraft each year by the end of the decade. And unofficial projections held out the prospect of production of nearly a thousand aircraft in the year 2020. These would seem optimistic, if for no other reason than uncertainty as to the availability of a skilled workforce to man the production lines that have been so idle for so long. The Russian civil aviation industry collapsed within a couple of years of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it cannot be rebuilt so quickly.
The stage of stabilization engaged roughly the first five years of the new century. It was at the same time possible to more or less stabilize the state of affairs at many plants, to restructure their debts against the budget, to considerably improve their financial position and, most important, to stabilize personnel. Now the major problem is not in the absence orders, but in the quantity of people who must be drawn to the plants, for the human resource do not make it possible to simultaneously develop all programs in which they are occupied. At VASO (Voronezh joint-stock aircraft-construction company) the number of production workers as of 2007 was 2 thousand. That number would need to grow by a minimum of 4.5 thousand, to 6 thousand, for production of the Il-96, the starting of assembling An-148, the delivery of components for SSJ and Il-476. The analogous situation at the Ul'yanovsk plant, the privately held company Aviastar SP, the producer of passenger Tu-204, transport Il-476. It also needs to collect about 2.5 thousand workers. Earlier this was perhaps relatively easily, but now this is sufficiently serious problem.
Study: US College Students Advance Little Intellectually
This is the time of year when millions of American high-school seniors and their parents scramble to complete the process of finding, and getting accepted by, a college to begin the higher education process in September.
But there’s some doubt about how high that level of learning will be.
The title of a new book tells the story. Based on a recent study by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roska of the University of Virginia, the title is: "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses."
The professors interviewed 2,300 U.S. college undergraduates and reviewed their academic records.
They concluded that after two years in college, 45 percent of the students showed no significant improvement in key intellectual and creative skills such as critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing.
These results come at a time when President Barack Obama, his education department and outside reformers are all saying that the United States had better start producing smarter college graduates if it wants to remain competitive globally.
The study of students’ behavior during those first two years in college may provide a clue as to what’s breaking down.
The researchers found that freshmen and sophomores are more concerned with socializing and communicating with friends than with what used to be called “cracking the books.”
Their “critical thinking” would appear to involve choosing the right pizza joint or bar at which to meet those friends.
“It’s good to lead a monk’s existence [in college]," says Eric Gorski, an Associated Press writer who reported on the study. "Students who study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well.”
Unfortunately for U.S. educational achievement, not many monastic types appear to be applying to college these days.
5. OBAMA URGES CONGRESS TO PASS ‘BUFFETT RULE’
U.S. President Barack Obama is renewing his call for Congress to approve tax reform legislation known as the "Buffett Rule."
It is named after one of the world’s richest men, investor Warren Buffett, who says it is not fair that Tiger Shoes he pays a lower tax than his secretary.
During his weekly address Saturday, the president urged Congress to approve theTiger Shoes legislation during a planned vote next week.
Under the Buffett Rule, anyone earning more than $1 million would pay at least the same percentage of income taxes as middle income wage earners. The president says families earning less than $250,000 per year – 98 percent of American families – should experience no increase in their tax rate.
Obama rejects claims by critics that the Buffett Rule impedes job growth.
In the Republican address, Congressman Fred Upton charged the Obama administration’s energy policies have increased the country’s dependence on foreign oil with the rejection of a pipeline project that would run from Asics Gel Nimbus 12 Canada to the U.S.
China, Russia Launch Joint Naval Exercises
China and Russia launched joint naval exercises Sunday in the Yellow Sea between the east coast of mainland China and the Korean peninsula.
Chinese state media report that 16 Chinese surface vessels and two submarines, as well as four Russian warships, are taking part in the six days of drills scheduled from April 22 through 27.
The Chinese and Russian vessels gathered at the eastern Chinese port city of Tiger Shoes Qingdao Saturday, the home of China’s northern fleet.
The exercises will include maritime air defense, anti-submarine tactics, search-and-rescue and the simulated rescue of hijacked ships, and anti-terrorism drills.
Formerly Cold War rivals for leadership of the communist world, China and Russia have Asics Gel Nimbus 12 conducted four bilateral and multilateral military exercises since 2005.
The two countries are also participants in six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program that also include the two Koreas, Japan and the U.S.
City children suffering more
March 2012
In its report The State of the World's Children, the charity UNICEF warns that hundreds of millions of children living in cities are more deprived than had previously been thought. It says the severe hardship faced by these children prevents progress on the Millennium Development Goals.
Campaigns against poverty tend to focus on the rural poor, but UNICEF has found it's children living in slums and shantytowns who are becoming increasingly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.
One reason is that so many -- about 300 million round the world -- go unregistered at birth. The lack of any officialidentity means they then miss out on basic services like secure housing, clean water, or education. And they can more easily be exploited or prey totraffickers.
The plightof these children is often overlooked because statistics show average urban families enjoy better amenities than rural ones but this data masks the growing pockets of extreme poverty in towns and cities.
Take Delhi, the capital of India's boomingeconomy. Figures show 90 per cent of children city-wide attend primary school but in fact only half the slum children go to school.
UNICEF says policy-makers should consciously target help at these hard-to-reach children. It recommends a grass roots approach with more recognition of the efforts local communities make to tackle poverty.
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