我老舊潛艦成「世界遺產」 Discovery拍專輯

• 2010-01-25
• 新聞速報
• 【中時電子報／綜合報導】

曾被日本軍事雜誌譽為「世界上最老的現役潛艦」的我海軍茄比級海獅與海豹艦，由於服役超過一甲子，成為世界各國嘖嘖稱奇的現象，就連美國舊金山潛艦博物館，也於2003年特地委託Discovery頻道來台拍攝專輯，預定在海獅艦除役後播出。

民國63年抵達我國服役的兩艘茄比級潛艦，是美國二戰後期至戰爭結束的產品，分別製造於1944與1946年，至今已高達60餘年，是全世界現役最高齡的潛艦，目前主要擔任訓練任務。由於茄比級全世界就只剩下這兩艘，所以許多參訪我海軍的外賓，都會指名要參觀這個「奇蹟」。2005年海豹艦開放參觀時，吸引國內外大批人潮，日本軍事雜誌還特地來製作專題報導，使得海獅與海豹艦幾乎成為全世界潛艦迷耳熟能詳的「名物」。

不過，這兩艘潛艦雖然已經堪稱「國寶」，但軍方對兩艦除役後究竟應該如何保存，還沒有適切的規劃。許多海軍迷建議將其作為訓練教室或是海軍博物館保存，不過軍方至今仍無定論。

辦新疆座談 陸中央首度具名 因應新形勢 屆時將有一系列支持經濟發展和穩定政策公布

• 2010-01-25
• 旺報
• 【記者吳貴奉／綜合報導】

大陸第五次西藏工作座談會20日閉幕，規格相同的新疆工作座談會，據悉也將展開，這是新疆工作座談會首次以中央名義舉行，顯然是為應對去年「7．5」事件後新疆形勢出現的新變化。

1月22日，新疆召開自治區招商引資工作會議，新疆黨委常委宋愛榮在會上發言指出，「今年中央還將召開新疆工作座談會，專題研究部署新疆工作，屆時將陸續出台一系列支持新疆經濟發展和穩定的重大政策措施。」這是中國官員首次公開透露有關新疆工作座談會的資訊。

鎖定10議題先期作業

新疆座談會與西藏座談會有許多相同之處。一是規格相同，中央政治局9名常委都將出席會議，中央各部委及各省市也將派員與會；二是方式相同，都定名為「座談會」；三是主題相近，都定位為「跨越式發展和長治久安」，著眼於經濟發展、社會穩定兩大重任。但不同的是，以中央名義舉行的，西藏已是第5次，而新疆則是首次出現。

由於是第一次舉行，據了解，大陸中央已做了大量前期工作。從去年11月分起，即先後派出3批調研組赴新疆，重點調研經濟發展、對外開放、改善民生、對口支援、教育文化、民族宗教、黨建、生產建設兵團發展、維護穩定、涉疆外交等10個議題。

大陸國家民委研究室22日公布的一份報告透露，為配合中央籌備新疆工作座談會，赴新疆開展調研，對於2009年「3．14」和「7．5」事件後民族關係出現的新情況新問題，已做成上百篇調研報告，供中央決策參考。

遏制疆獨 會議焦點

據悉，相關調研報告已匯總至大陸中央新疆工作協調小組辦公室，並上報高層。中國社科院、中央黨校的數位智囊學者也參與了報告的起草。

知情人士分析，此次大陸中央新疆工作座談會將對外界關心的一些焦點問題作出部署，包括加強新疆生態環境保護和油氣等優勢資源開發，著力解決南疆、北疆發展失衡問題，推動新疆生產建設兵團發展轉型，還將制定中央部委、中央企業和省市對口支援新疆的方案，支持新疆重大項目建設，改善民生。

此外，嚴打遏制「疆獨」分裂勢力，一般認為將是這次會議中最重要的部分。據悉，大陸有關部門已對完善防範預警機制進行了調研，在「疆獨」分裂勢力滲透破壞較激烈的地區加強凝聚人心工作，為反對分裂打好基礎。

學者：北京通膨可望小於5%

• 2010-01-25
• 中國時報
• 【陳筑君／綜合報導】

大陸國家統計局總經濟師姚景源日前指出，○九年成功實現「保八」任務，但官方的寬鬆貨幣信貸政策卻引來通膨隱憂。

對此，經濟專家、北大校長助理劉偉昨表示，今年上半年北京市消費物價指數（ＣＰＩ）漲幅可望小於五％，但他提醒，生活感受與統計數據不是一回事，官方應顧及民眾切身感受。

劉偉昨是以政協委員身分，在北京市政協十一屆三次會議記者會上，回答有關北京房價和經濟走勢提問時作以上表示。

他並引用北京市統計局發布的最新數據指出，與其他先進國家同期相比，北京市房價漲幅過大，有泡沫化的危機；據資料顯示，去年十二月，北京市新建住宅銷售價格指數上漲一三．二％，同比漲幅達全年最高，較十一月提高五．二％。

此外，一般國家房價與家庭收入比，七、八倍已算是很高；但在大陸城市，該比例平均是十幾倍，北京甚至更高，從此判斷，北京房價漲幅過高，恐有泡沫之虞。

不過，由於民眾的買房支出不計入消費支出，因此，民眾會一方面感覺北京房價大幅上漲，但另一方面，○九年北京市居民消費物價總水平，較上年同期還下降一．五％。

劉偉說，今年上半年，北京通膨壓力較大，但不一定會發生，包括農業生產情況、國際經濟形勢等，皆會對全年的物價走勢產生重大影響。

他認為，現時存在的通膨壓力主要來自需求大、成本推動、進口上游產品漲價帶來的輸入性通膨等。但他預言，「若無重大意外，物價上漲幅度不至於超過五％」。

中國環保部長:”重金屬污染”今年將被集中整治

2010年01月25日 20:11   來源：中國新聞網

中新社北京一月二十五日電 中國環境保護部部長周生賢二十五日透露，二00九年環保部共接報陜西鳳翔等十二起重金屬、類金屬污染事件。這些事件致使四千零三十五人血鉛超標、一百八十二人鎘超標，引發三十二起群體性事件。二0一0年，中國將集中力量綜合整治重金屬污染問題。

中國環境保護工作會議二十五日在北京舉行。出席會議的周生賢表示，隨著重金屬、持久性有機污染物等長期積累的環境問題開始暴露，中國環保形勢依然嚴峻。

二00九年八月，陜西鳳翔、湖南武岡、昆明東川區相繼發生了兒童“血鉛超標”事件。隨後，重金屬污染數度上演，並多次成為群體事件的導火索。“重金屬污染”成為中國社會的熱點問題。

為應對重金屬污染問題，環保部二00九年曾聯合國務院九部門開展了重金屬污染企業專項檢查。此次檢查中，共檢查企業九千余家，取締關閉二百三十一家，停產整治六百四十一家。

今天的會議上，周生賢承諾，官方將全面排查重金屬污染物排放企業及其周邊區域的環境隱患，確定重點防控區域、行業、企業和高風險人群，集中解決一批突出問題；積極開展土壤污染修復試點，綜合治理重金屬超標土地。

專家表示，由於重金屬污染短時期內可能不會被人察覺，它對企業周邊環境和人體的危害，積累到一定程度才會顯示。因此，治理重金屬污染需要一套綜合方案。

對此，周生賢透露，環保部將在今年六月底前編制完成重金屬污染綜合防治規劃，並報國務院批准實施。同時，還將制定重金屬污染綜合防治規劃實施考核辦法。

（責任編輯：施曉娟）

意官員批海地救援混亂無序

一位意大利政府官員批評海地大地震救援行動的組織管理不善，引發爭議。

曾經組織意大利拉奎拉地震救災工作的意大利公民保障服務組織負責人貝特拉索在抵達海地視察之後說，國際救援行動缺乏有效的統籌指揮。

他表示，這麼多國家參與救援使得救援行動變得群龍無首、混亂不堪。

這位意大利官員批評說：「一旦有了危機，各國都紛紛在世界舞台上表演，忙著炫耀他們的國家如何強大和有能力」。

他認為，這種國際救援不是純粹的軍事行動，必須有一個強有力的國際協同調度組織者。

據估計，1月12日海地大地震至今，當地是少已經有20萬人死亡，150萬人無家可歸。

國際救援

在救援活動中投入最多的美國已經調動包括士兵在內的大批人力物力前往海地參與救援和維持秩序。

美國駐委內瑞拉的一位外交官對意大利官員的批評不以為然，認為政治不應拖救援行動後腿。

與此同時，擁有海地外債的最大幾個債權國將聚會加拿大第二大城市蒙特利爾，討論如何幫助海地重建的事宜。

蒙特利爾是法語城市，當地有大量來自海地的移民。

總部在英國的國際性慈善組織樂施會呼籲各國免除海地將近9億美元的全部外債。美國、法國、加拿大、巴西和英國都是海地的主要債權國。

Fallen Olympians share London rental in ‘Gods Behaving Badly’ from: SFGate

Have my say:

People are insane while they’re too religious to be considerate of others. This is so ironic because Gods were primarily “created” to lead The Ordinaries to the light of knowledge and the heaven of kindness. What if the sacred Gods are just the same as we are one day? What if their standard of being a “something” is lower than ours? Are we courageous enough to admit that things we’ve beening beliving are actually a lie throughout centuries?

Feel the idea of the book. Its sarcastic innocence is really impressive!

Gods Behaving Badly

By Marie Phillips

LITTLE, BROWN; 293 PAGES; $23.99

The Greek gods have come down from the lofty heights of Mount Olympus in Marie Phillips’ hilarious first novel. Way, way down. In fact, since 1665, they’ve been crammed into a London townhouse, an ever more rickety and squalid “multistory mouse park” with no hot water, where Ares and Apollo squeeze into one bedroom, Aphrodite has sex in the only bathroom, Zeus – who’s lost his marbles – is locked away in the attic watching TV 24/7, and Persephone, when she journeys up from the underworld each year bringing the warm and fruitful six months of spring and summer, must sleep on a bedroom floor between Athena and Artemis.

Gods don’t do housework, obviously, so it’s no wonder the place is falling apart and everyone’s getting on everyone else’s nerves. All of them still have their traditional responsibilities: Apollo makes the sun rise each day, Ares starts and complicates wars, Hermes runs messages and escorts the dead to the portal of the underworld, and Athena, goddess of wisdom, may wear fake glasses to appear more scholarly, but her hyper-highbrow pronouncements are so copiously imbued with logorrheic, polysyllabic proclamations that no one quite understands her.

Yes, the gods fulfill their ancient appointed roles, but for some mysterious reason, year by year, their powers dwindle. So what’s a struggling family to do? Most members also have thoroughly modern, if not very lucrative, 21st century work. Dionysus, god of wine, runs Bacchanalia, a barely-break-even nightclub where he’s the DJ; Aphrodite hosts phone sex, much to the chagrin of her son, Eros, who has become a Christian and regrets not taking the time to nip over to the Middle East from Rome when he had the chance to meet Jesus. Artemis, goddess of the hunt, walks dogs for mortals too busy to do it themselves. And her twin brother, Apollo? With his devastating good looks, stupendous vanity and a knack for knowing the future, he was selected for the pilot of a new daytime TV show, “Apollo’s Oracle,” which panders to audiences of little old ladies he secretly deplores.

But when filming begins, Eros lurks in the studio’s back row, fitting arrow to bowstring, taking aim – reluctantly, angrily, fulfilling a vow Aphrodite forced him to promise to do. Struck by the magic arrow, Apollo, that stuck-up, self-important pretty boy, will fall in love, of course, with the first person he sets eyes on.

And when Apollo spots a beautiful young woman in the crowd at the exact instant the invisible arrow pierces his fickle heart, Phillips’ juicy plot begins to thicken. Alice Mulholland has finagled two free tickets to the show, one for herself and another for a structural engineer, Neil, whom she met in one of the buildings she cleans.

A college grad and Scrabble champ but cripplingly shy, Alice’s uncharacteristic act of bravery – asking a guy out on a date – ends up getting her fired. Neil feels terrible when she tells him, and to boost what little confidence she has, suggests she quit the employment referral service to strike out on her own.

And what horrid wreck of a filthy dump awaits her cleaning virtuosity? The gods’ house, where lovesick Apollo puts a whole new spin on workplace sexual harassment.

“God Behaving Badly” is peppered with these far-too-convenient coincidences, which are all the more amusing since most of them have been instigated by the petty, squabbling Olympians behind each others’ backs. The result of all this truculent childishness is a fast-paced, slapstick story that also manages to illuminate some bittersweet benefits and drawbacks to both sides of the immortality issue, as the plot yaws from a send-up of “Alice in Wonderland” and Dorothy in Oz to a new twist on the tragic early Hellenic myths of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Phillips, a graduate in anthropology from Cambridge University, lets dialogue carry much of her story, which moves smoothly from one character to the next in an appropriately old-fashioned omniscient narrative point of view. Point of view, of course, affects conflict. The more vantages a writer tackles, the more characters’ struggles she has to portray successfully on the page. For Phillips, jumping in and out of all these severely conflicted heads is delicious fun.

Alice and Neil, the book’s cowardly lions, are muddled welters of insecurities they must get beyond if they’re to find true love, much less save the world. And Phillips’ gods, like those in Greek and Latin classics, are a ditzy, inbred bunch whose powers are hopelessly hobbled by jealousy, ambition and greed.

By turns poignant and zany, “Gods Behaving Badly” hums along, ever more over the top and a hoot to boot. To give more away would spoil the surprises for readers. Suffice it to say, while a few slivers of seriousness prick the story’s skin, primarily, the title says it all.

Irene Wanner is a New Mexico writer.

Human rights workers forced from Venezuela

from UPI.com

Why totalitarian goverments have no problems with charity but are against Human Right NGOs?

CARACAS, Venezuela, Sept. 20 (UPI) — Two staffers from Human Rights Watch were forcibly expelled from Venezuela after they issued a report critical of President Hugo Chavez, the group says.

 

Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson were confronted by Venezuelan officials at their Caracas hotel Friday, accused of anti-state activities, taken to airport and put on a plane to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Human Rights Watch told CNN.

The confrontation came shortly after the group issued a 267-page report linking Chavez’s presidential activities with an erosion of democratic institutions in the oil-rich South American nation.

“This is the first time this has happened in the Americas,” Conor Fortune, a Human Rights Watch spokesman, told the broadcaster. “The events basically prove many of the points made in the report: that Venezuela is still a very repressive country under Chavez.”

MY OPINION:

“International Protection: Asia” is one of the courses chosen by me which belongs to Human Right Program of my university. Professor Huang, the one who teachese this course discussed a question “What is right?” with us last time and parts of his arguments came to my mind when i saw this news.

Why totalitarian goverments have no problems with charity but are against Human Right NGOs?

I’m not going to give details of what my professor said, but to sum up with these following words:

Human Right fighters encourage people to endeavor after their rights, whether moral or legual ones, rather than charity which just passively assist the poor or save them from the edge of death.

The positiviness is exactly what those Mr. Bigs are worring.

And prevention or persecution comes from the fear of being overthrown.