Galaxy Note 7 death to hurt Vietnam

The fallout from Samsung Electronics Co’s dramatic move to end production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone is set to spread to Vietnam, hurting an economy already hit by drought and lower oil prices.

“Samsung’s decision to kill off Galaxy Note 7 will certainly impact Vietnam’s exports this year,” since the company’s exports represent about 20 percent of the nation’s shipments, said Nguyen Mai, chairman of Vietnam’s Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises.

The recall of 2.5 million smartphones after complaints of exploding batteries contributed to a US$1.1 billion decline in exports last month, Vietnam’s General Statistics Office said.

Samsung helped to turn Vietnam into an electronics manufacturing hub almost single-handedly with US$15 billion in investments from the technology giant and its affiliates, including battery-maker Samsung SDI Co.

The South Korean company is Vietnam’s biggest exporter, shipping about US$33 billion of electronics last year.

Vietnam now faces the loss of millions of US dollars in exports at a time when its struggling to meet its economic growth target of 6.7 percent for this year.

Part of the reason for the 6.8 percent decline in exports last month from the previous month was due to the Note 7 recall, statistics office head Nguyen Bich Lam said.

“It’s another blow,” said Alan Pham, the Ho Chi Minh City-based chief economist at VinaCapital Group Ltd, the country’s largest fund manager.

“This is the risk of putting all your bets on one company or industry, but that is the natural progression of a developing country: It starts by exporting commodities then turns to manufactured products, industrial products,” he said.

Even before the Note 7 fallout, Vietnam was struggling to meet its target of 10 percent export growth this year, Vietnamese Trade and Industry Minister Tran Tuan Anh said in a July interview.

Still, Vietnam’s economic growth is better than neighboring countries, Pham said.

Vietnam’s annual economic growth accelerated to 6.4 percent last quarter, from 5.78 percent in the previous three months, the Vietnamese General Statistics Office said on Sept. 29, behind only the Philippines in Southeast Asia. The government is pushing for 6.7 percent growth target this year.

Earlier this month local news Web sites reported that Samsung had applied to the customs department for tax exemptions to re-import flawed Galaxy Note 7 smartphones and export replacements to Samsung’s headquarters in South Korea.

The company declined to comment on ending production of the Note 7.

“Samsung told me earlier this month that they have no lay-off plans for now as smartphones are just a part of their production portfolio,” said Mai, who estimated the total workforce tied to Samsung in Vietnam is about 400,000 people, including 130,000 direct workers.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/10/13/2003657036&gws_rd=cr&ei=ic9hWNbpIMOc8QW38Z2IBw

WHO- -

WHAT- Samsung Electronics Co’s dramatic move to end production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone is set to spread to Vietnam

WHEN- -

WHERE- Vietnam

WHY- -

HOW- -

KEYWORDS-  fallout ,exploding, affiliates,progression ,commodities,accelerated,exemptions, portfolio

The fallout from Samsung Electronics Co’s dramatic move to end production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone is set to spread to Vietnam, hurting an economy already hit by drought and lower oil prices.

Japan quakes leave at least 35 dead

Army troops and other rescuers yesterday rushed to save scores of trapped residents after a pair of strong earthquakes in southwestern Japan killed at least 35 people, injured about 1,500 and left hundreds of thousands without electricity or water.

Rainfall was forecast to start pounding the area soon, threatening to further complicate the relief operation and set off more mudslides in isolated rural towns, where people were waiting to be rescued from collapsed homes.

Kumamoto Prefecture official Riho Tajima said the death toll stood at 22 from the magnitude 7.3 earthquake that shook the Kumamoto region on the southwestern island of Kyushu early yesterday. On Thursday night, Kyushu was hit by a magnitude 6.5 quake that left 10 dead.

Japanese media reported that nearly 200,000 homes were without electricity and that drinking-water systems had also failed in the area. Television footage showed people huddled in blankets, sitting or lying down shoulder-to-shoulder on the floors of evacuation centers. An estimated 400,000 households were without running water.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that 1,500 people had been injured in the quakes. Tajima said that 184 people were injured seriously and that more than 91,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. More than 200 homes and other buildings were either destroyed or damaged, she said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed concerns about secondary disasters as forecasters predicted rain and strong winds later in the day. With soil already loosened by quakes, rainfall can set off mudslides.

“Daytime today is the big test” for rescue efforts, Abe said.

Landslides have already cut off roads and destroyed bridges, slowing down rescuers.

Police received reports of 97 cases of people trapped or buried under collapsed buildings, while 10 people were caught in landslides in three municipalities in the prefecture, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

Kumamoto Prefecture has been rocked by aftershocks, including the strongest with a magnitude of 5.4 yesterday morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency said that the magnitude 7.3 quake early yesterday might have been the main one, with one from Thursday night a precursor.

The quakes’ epicenters have been relatively shallow — about 10km — resulting in more severe shaking and damage. National broadcaster NHK said as many as eight quakes were being felt per hour in the area.

Suga told reporters that the number of troops in the area was being raised to 20,000, while additional police and firefighters were also on the way.

He urged people not to panic.

“Please let us help each other and stay calm,” Suga said in a nationally televised news conference.

Kyushu island’s Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan, erupted for the first time in a month, sending smoke rising about 100m into the air, but no damage was reported.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority reported no abnormalities at Kyushu’s Sendai nuclear plant.

WHO-Army troops,  residents 

WHAT- a pair of strong earthquakes in southwestern Japan killed at least 35 people

WHEN-  yesterday

WHERE-Japan

WHY- -

HOW- -

keywords- magnitude ,earthquakes, mudslides ,erupted,abnormalities

Army troops and other rescuers yesterday rushed to save scores of trapped residents after a pair of strong earthquakes in southwestern Japan killed at least 35 people, injured about 1,500 and left hundreds of thousands without electricity or water.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/04/17/2003644128

Visions of life on Mars in Earth’s depths

More than a kilometer down in an unused mine tunnel, scientists guideds by helmet lamp trudged through darkness and the muck of a flooded, uneven floor.

In the subterranean world of the Beatrix Gold Mine, they shed their backpacks, took out tools and meticulously prepared test tubes to collect samples.

Leaning a ladder against the hard rock wall, Tullis Onstott, a geosciences professor at Princeton University, climbed to open an old valve about 3.66m up.

Out flowed water chock-full of microbes, organisms flourishing not from the warmth of the sun, but by heat generated from the interior of the planet below.

These tiny life-forms — bacteria, other microbes and even little worms — exist in places nearly impossible to reach, living in eternal darkness, in hard rock.

Scientists like Onstott have been on the hunt for life in the underworld, not just in South Africa, but in mines in South Dakota and at the bottom of oceans.

What they learn could provide insights into where life could exist elsewhere in the solar system, including Mars.

Microbial Martians might well look like what lives in the rocks in the deep underground mine.

The same conditions almost certainly exist on Mars. Drill a hole there, drop these organisms in, and they might happily multiply, fueled by chemical reactions in the rocks and drips of water.

“As long as you can get below the ice, no problems,” Onstott said. “They just need a little bit of water.”

Mars has long been a focus of space exploration and science fiction dreams. NASA has sent more robotic probes there than any other planet. However, now there is renewed interest in sending people as well. NASA has been enthusiastically promoting its “Journey to Mars” goal to send astronauts there in the 2030s. Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, is promising that he will be able to get there a decade sooner and set up colonies.

Astronauts on Mars would be able to greatly accelerate the quest for answers to the most intriguing questions about the red planet. Was there ever life on Mars? Could there be life there today?

It was not that long ago that scientists had written off Mars as lifeless.

Forty years ago, NASA spent about US$1 billion on its Viking program, which revealed a cold, dry world seemingly devoid of organic molecules that are the building blocks of life.

However, more recent missions have discovered compelling evidence that Mars was not always such an uninviting place. In its youth, more than 3 billion years ago, the planet was warmer and wetter, blanketed with a thick atmosphere — possibly almost Earthlike.

A fanciful, but plausible notion is that life did originate on Mars, then traveled to Earth via meteorites, and we are all descendants of Martians.

Eventually, Mars did turn cold and dry. Radiation broke apart the water molecules and the lighter hydrogen atoms escaped to space. The atmosphere thinned to wisps.

However, if life did arise on Mars, might it have migrated to the underworld and persisted?

For a couple of decades, Onstott has been talking his way into South African gold mines, regaling the mine managers with the wonder of deep-Earth life to overcome their wariness. In many ways, the mines provide easy access to the depths — a ride in a cage-like elevator, jammed against miners starting their shift, descending quickly as lights from the different levels zip past. Think of it as traveling through a 450-story skyscraper, going down.

WHO- scientists

WHAT-guided by helmet lamps trudged through darkness and the muck of a flooded, uneven floor.

WHEN- -

WHERE-More than a kilometer down in an unused mine tunnel

HOW-by helmet lamp

WHY- -

keywords- trudged,  subterranean, meticulously, microbes, 
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/09/16/2003655234




More than a kilometer down in an unused mine tunnel, scientists guideds by helmet lamp trudged through darkness and the muck of a flooded, uneven floor.

The British government is poised to accept 15,000 Syrian refugees and hopes next month to get backing for airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists, the Sunday Times reported.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under pressure internationally and domestically to address the refugee crisis.

On Thursday, he said he was “deeply moved” by images of three-year-old Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi, found dead on a Turkish beach.

Cameron now intends to expand Britain’s vulnerable persons relocation program, take in around 15,000 refugees and launch military action against people traffickers, the report said.

He also hopes to persuade MPs in the opposition Labour Party to back airstrikes in Syria in a vote early next month, it said.

The paper previously reported that there was an option to directly accept refugees from UN camps on the Syrian border.

Britain has accepted 216 Syrian refugees under a special government scheme over the past year and about 5,000 Syrians have been granted asylum since the conflict there broke out in 2011 — far fewer than countries like France, Germany and Sweden.

Britain has also opted out of a quota system for relocating asylum seekers within the EU despite growing calls in the EU for fairer distribution.

Cameron gained support for military action against Syria from an unusual source on Sunday — former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

Britain should help “crush” the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, and “airstrikes” might be needed, Carey said.

“I do not consider it enough to send aid to refugee camps in the Middle East. Rather, there must be renewed military and diplomatic efforts to crush the twin menaces of Islamic State and al-Qaeda once and for all,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

WHO-The British government , refugees

WHAT-to get backing for airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists

WHEN-  -

WHERE- British

WHY- -

HOW- -

Keywords-  airstrikes, domestically, vulnerable,diplomatic,opted, relocation, traffickers

It is a ironic. Everybody began to face this problem by seeing a three-year-old child drowned in a Turkish beach. Everyone should try to solve this problem and stop this war.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2015/09/07/2003627163

Protests erupted across New York and in cities from Georgia to California after a white police officer was cleared in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man — a case that drew comparisons to the deadly police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

New York City police said early yesterday that more than 60 people were arrested, most for disorderly conduct.

The decision on Wednesday by the Staten Island grand jury not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo heightened tensions that have simmered in the city since the July 17 death of Eric Garner.

In the neighborhood where Garner died, people reacted with angry disbelief and chanted: “I can’t breathe,” and “Hands up — don’t choke.”

In Manhattan, demonstrators lay down in Grand Central Terminal, walked through traffic on the West Side Highway and blocked the Brooklyn Bridge.

A New York City Council member cried. Hundreds converged on the heavily secured area around the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting with a combination of professional-looking signs and hand-scrawled placards reading: “Black lives matter” and “Fellow white people, wake up.”

“This fight ain’t over, it just begun,” said Garner’s widow, Esaw.

However, the protests were largely peaceful, in contrast to the widespread arson and looting that accompanied the decision nine days earlier not to indict the white officer who shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen.

US Attorney Eric Holder said federal prosecutors would conduct their own investigation of Garner’s death as officers were attempting to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. The New York Police Department also is doing an internal probe that could lead to administrative charges against Pantaleo, who remains on desk duty.

US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday night that the grand jury decision underscores the need to strengthen the trust and accountability between communities and law enforcement.

In his first public comments on the death, Pantaleo said he prays for Garner’s family and hopes they accept his condolences.

Police union officials and Pantaleo’s lawyer said the officer used a takedown move taught by the police department, not a banned maneuver, because Garner was resisting arrest. They said his poor health was the main reason he died.

Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan said the grand jury found “no reasonable cause” to bring charges. The grand jury could have considered a range of charges, from murder to a lesser offense such as reckless endangerment.

“I am actually astonished based on the evidence of the videotape, and the medical examiner, that this grand jury at this time wouldn’t indict for anything,” said Jonathan Moore a lawyer for Garner’s family.

Garner’s family planned a news conference later in the day with civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio canceled his planned appearance at the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting to hold a news conference at a Staten Island church.

“Today’s outcome is one that many in our city did not want,” he said in a statement. “Yet New York City owns a proud and powerful tradition of expressing ourselves through nonviolent protest.”

WHO- an unarmed black man , a white police officer

WHAT-Protests erupted across New York and in cities from Georgia to California after a white police officer was cleared in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man

WHEN- July 17 

WHERE- in Ferguson, Missouri

WHY- - 

HOW- GUN

Keywords- grand , demonstrators ,converged ,accompanied ,federal prosecutors ,  arson

 ,enforcement ,erupted

  They just want  a fair.It is unreasonable black people should be killed by white police officer, I think it is ok to have a parade to defend their racial. This world should not have racial discrimination forever.

www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/.../2003606011

Malala Yousafzai celebrates string of A* grades at GCSE

Nobel peace prize winner, who has travelled the world campaigning for education rights for girls, achieves six A*s and four As

 Malala Yousafzai displays her Nobel peace prize medal in 2014. Photograph: Cornelius Poppe/EPA

Jessica Elgot

Friday 21 August 201512.00 BSTLast modified on Saturday 22 August 201500.03 BST

Even after winning a Nobel peace prize, with glittering invitations to speak to presidents across the world, education activist Malala Yousafzai always had one priority: her schoolwork.

And the Pakistani pupil’s dedication to her studies has paid off, according to her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, who tweeted that the 18-year-old had achieved six A*s and four As when the GCSE results were released on Thursday.

Malala has declined hundreds of speaking engagements and interviews in order not to miss a day of studying at her private girls’ school in Birmingham.

The family has set up home in the city since then 15-year-old Malala was treated at the city’s Queen Elizabeth hospital. She came to the UK after being shot in the head on her schoolbus, targeted by Taliban gunman for her activism on girls’ education, including a blog she wrote for BBC Urdu.

As well as studying core GCSE subjects at the independent Edgbaston high school for girls, Malala took an additional maths exam, and opted to study history, geography and religious studies. She achieved two A grades in English language and literature, her second language.

Edgbaston high school, where fees are £3,878 per term in the senior school, had a GCSE pass rate of 98.3%, and 28% of pupils achieved 9 or more A* grades.

Pakistani media has showered the teenager with praise for her excellent results. “Nothing that Malala Yousafzai achieves seems startling anymore but she continues to make Pakistan proud,” the Express Tribune wrote, with the Daily Pakistan website saying Malala “has made us proud once again”.

Among those in Pakistan congratulating Malala was her friend Aseefa Zadari, the sister of the Pakistan People’s party chair, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

August 21, 2015

Malala previously told the Guardianshe intended to study arts subjects at A-level, despite having suggested in the past she would like to pursue a career in medicine. “I will only miss school for an engagement if it is going to bring real change,” she said, adding that she realised that saying yes to too many invitations was affecting her schoolwork.

“That is the question I have to ask myself with each request and if the answer is yes, I say, ‘OK, I will sacrifice one day of my school for the education of millions of children who are out of school.’”

She plans to remain in the UK for the remainder of her education. “I want to get my education – a good university education. A lot of the politicians have studied in Oxford, like Benazir [Bhutto, who Malala states is her role model]. My dream is to empower myself with education, and then it is a weapon.”

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4985381476428015537#editor/target=post;postID=2799082678256133178

WHO- Malala Yousafzai

WHAT-winning a Nobel peace prize, with glittering invitations to speak to presidents across the world.

WHEN-Friday 21 August 201512.00 BSTLast modified on Saturday 22 August 201500.03 BST

WHERE-   -

WHY-  -

HOW-  -


KEYWORDS-Nobel peace prize , education , presidents , GSCE , A-level . study , career , weapon , school , invitation ,



Malala just desired for educating . Few years ago , she was shot while she was on the schoolbus on the way to school . Fortunately , she alived and was invited to speak to presidents across the world .
Her speach made most of politicians question themselves , and she even won the Nobel peace prize last year.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/21/malala-yousafzai-gcse-education-a-grades