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datinglife · 3 months ago
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Speed Dating Questions: Adding Humor to Break the Ice
Speed dating can be nerve-wracking, especially when the time to make an impression is limited to just a few minutes. One way to stand out and ease the tension is by adding humor to your questions. Funny questions can help create a relaxed atmosphere, allowing both parties to feel more comfortable. They also reveal your playful side, which can make the interaction more memorable. Below are some humorous speed dating questions that can lighten the mood and spark interesting conversations.
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1. “If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?”
This lighthearted question invites your date to get creative and share something unique about themselves. It often leads to fun answers and can even give insight into their personality. Are they practical, funny, or adventurous? Their answer might even lead to some humorous banter about how their power could make the speed dating experience more interesting.
2. “What’s your go-to karaoke song?”
Music is a great topic for any date, and this question adds a fun twist by focusing on karaoke. It’s light, playful, and opens up the conversation to shared musical interests. You might even learn about their guilty pleasure songs or get an entertaining story about a memorable karaoke night. Plus, it provides an easy follow-up question, such as, “Do you sing often?” Read More
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itsblosseybitch · 5 years ago
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Well Dunne by Fred Schruers (from Rolling Stone magazine, November 7th, 1985)
The star of ‘After Hours’ knows how to produce a lot of laughs
The day Warner Bros. previewed After Hours at its Burbank, California, studio for a randomly selected public - “People who may have been coming out of Wendy’s on La Cinega” is how Griffin Dunne puts it - leading man Dunne and his co-producer, Amy Robinson, joined a line of cars stop-and-going through the gates to the studio. As he tells about it now, a month later, he mimes the part of a power-buzzed security man clutching a walkie-talkie: “Get these people out of there...Can’t let the audience see you, sir...We’re at Building C, walking the producer and the star over now...” 
They hid Griffin in the projection booth till the lights went down. Then he sneaked in and listened. Very happily. “They laughed. Went crazy. You couldn’t hear the dialogue.”
A lot of his best lines got lost in the hubbub then, no? Dunne lets his swivel chair rock down from a perilous two-legged tilt and gives the serious, almost beady-eyed take meant to remind you what an alarmingly hostile world we live in: “Let that be the most serious of my problems.”
In fact, Dunne has hardly any problems just now that stand much chance of knocking him from the embrace of the bitch goddess Success. Costing roughly $4 million and described by director Martin Scorsese as “an experimental, psychological farce,” After Hours took only one September weekend to show it would clamber out of cult status and be recognized as something the studio could platform into a nice little hit. 
As a producer, then, the thirty-year-old Dunne is at speed. The grudging credit the industry gave him for co-producing Chilly Scenes of Winter, at age twenty-three, and added to with 1982′s Baby, It’s You (OP NOTE: This is an error. Should be 1983), must now give way to admiration. As an actor, he’s got many people besides the studio guards referring to him as an arriving star. He’s onscreen in virtually every frame in After Hours, and his highly expressive face, which seems to be hastily if handsomely thrown together, accented with dark eyebrows and riveting brown eyes, is undeniably crucial to our comic appreciation of the very odd goings-on during the protagonist’s interminable night among the sexually flawed denizens of artsy SoHo. Whether recoiling from the kinky come-ons of Rosanna Arquette’s Marcy and Linda Fiorentino’s Kiki, feeling mousetrapped by Teri Garr’s Julie, marked for slaughter by Catherine O’Hara’s Gail or imprisoned by Verna Bloom’s June, he’s a catalog of nearly nuanced lab-rat reflexes. 
The key to Dunne’s performance is clearly reaction, as Amy Robinson points out: “It was imperative in this movie that the character be very likable. Otherwise, why would you want to spend this hour and a half going through such trials and tribulations?”
Adam Brooks, who directed him in this year’s unkindly received Almost You, judges Griffin to be just the right everyman for this opening up in Scorsese’s work. “He’s alone, like other Scorsese heroes, but not obsessed. He’s more like us - a child of computers and television. Lonely, but not driven.”
“A lot of people say Griffin looks like Dudley Moore, but I think he’s a lot more like Jack Benny - his comedy works when he’s surrounded by a lot of crazy people, crazy events. He’s charming, endearing. What’s great about After Hours is that the charm gets defeated at every point and ends up being a kind of vanity - so you’ve got this nicely mounting hysteria.”
The Joseph Minion script for After Hours - dispatched to Griffin after being handed to Amy Robinson by Minion’s film-school professor, director Dusan Makavejec - caught the actor’s fancy on page 2. He could sink right into the role of Paul Hackett, a lonely and bored word processor who meets an enticing girl at a coffee shop. “I understood the speech patterns, the other characters and the tension. And the situation of a horrible date. Of being with somebody, trapped in a situation. I’m looking around the room, going ‘How do I get out of here? And how the hell did I get in here?’ Which is a pretty funny basis for a movie.”
“My only criterion for directing Griffin,” says Scorsese, “was ‘I don’t believe you. For all you know, you’re pleading for your life. If I don’t believe you, I’m not gonna print this take, and we’ll just continue till I believe you.’ He had to get in touch with something in here, he had to plead for his life. And that was - fun.”
Thomas Griffin Dunne was born June 8th, 1955, in New York City, the first of three children of Dominick and Ellen (known as Lenny). His father was a Connecticut-bred, Williams-educated stage manager en route to producer status; his mother was an actress and model raised in Nogales, Arizona, by her Mexican mother and her cattle-rancher father, Thomas Griffin. Dominick worked on everything from Howdy Doody to Playhouse 90, and when colleague Martin Manulis moved to Los Angeles in 1956, Dominick took his work and family went as well. 
They settled in then quaint Beverly Hills (”Not the Iranian gun boutiques they’ve got now,” grumbles Griffin), where Griffin hung out with other showbiz whelps, like Carrie Fisher, until heading east to a prestigious old prep school. One unfortunately whimsical day, under the influence of a notorious Moby Grape album cover, he extended his middle finger toward the camera in the football-team photo. By chance, two years later, the headmaster glanced at the photo; the punishment was five swats. 
(OP NOTE: I actually contacted Fay School about this photo, and they claimed they didn’t have it. In hindsight, I should have tried a different approach because, to quote Mandy-Rice Davies, “Well they would, wouldn’t they?”)
Next stop was a less stodgy boys school in Colorado, where he won a plum role in The Zoo Story as a sophomore and became “Joe Theater” on campus. By senior year, he was preparing for his greatest performance, as Iago in Othello. The evening before the big day, Griffin and a friend were in a dorm room contentedly smoking dope when the door swung open. They smothered the joint just in time to look up at the school’s “one badass” faculty member, who asked, “What’s that smell?” “There was the longest pause,” recalls Griffin. “Finally, I said ‘What smell?’ “ The smoke, he says, “just poured right out - mocked me.”
Griffin, sent packing, hitchhiked home quite certain that his proper trade was acting. He got a bit part in Medical Story as an intern hooking up an I.V. line amid much medical palaver, but they changed the diagnosis on him at the last minute. Frantically trying to memorize the new bit during a five-minute break, he burned his lip trying to light a cigarette and went before the camera lisping, sweating, shaking, and bereft of words. Actress Linda Purl took pity and wrote his lines on her forearm, where the I.V. was to go. “It was such a classy move,” he says.
Still, deciding he’d better learn the trade from scratch, Griffin migrated to New York and joined the legion of struggling actors. He was catastrophically nervous at auditions: when he went before the stern Uta Hagen to apply for her acting class, he “went up” - completely forgot the text he’d prepared from The Catcher In The Rye. So he improvised, giving the story that morning’s trip downtown as Holden Caulfield might tell it. She was alternately rapt and chuckling, and signed him on. But he was soon shown to be the dunce of a class full of working actors. Finally, one day after he set a prop door up backward for a solo exercise, then frenziedly tried to shove it the wrong way through the jamb, she took him aside and told him he was simply not ready for her class. But he begged her one more chance, and the next day he skipped forward several exercises to do an imaginary phone call. He wowed Hagen and the class and went on from there.
As he built off-Broadway credits, Dunne lived in various shabby apartments and worked odd jobs, notably, selling candy and popcorn at Radio City Music Hall, where he was stung by the indifference of the Amazonian Rockettes: “They certainly had no time for a guy in a polyester zip-up baby-blue jacket with a cadet hat and shoes two sizes too big that had belonged to an usher who died of old age.”
He met Amy Robinson, who had gone from Scorsese’s Mean Streets to searching for work, at a party. With a third actor, Mark Metcalf, they became upstart movie producers by optioning Ann Beattie’s Chilly Scenes of Winter. Joan Micklin Silver came in as screenwriter and director, and they got studio financing to make a cult prestige item. It marked the beginning of a time of happy overwork for Griffin. He came back from shooting a TV film called The Wall in Poland (opposite Rosanna Arquette) to do the play Coming Attractions, which he then left to do John Landis’ film An American Werewolf in London.
He had come back to work full-time on producing Baby, It’s You when horrible news came: his sister, Dominique, a promising young actress, was strangled to death at the age of twenty-two by her boyfriend, a chef at Ma Maison. 
“It brought all of us who were left together for every moment for a year between what happened and the verdict,” says Dominick Dunne. “It’s never for a moment not a part of you. The point is, you have to go on, you have to cope, to live your life. He threw himself into his work.”
Baby, It’s You was completed that year and dedicated to his sister. Then, even as he helped with script revisions to After Hours, Griffin was before the cameras in Adam Brooks’ Almost You. It’s about a couple suffering from the young man’s restlessness, and though Dunne and Brooke Adams agreed to do it while they were very much a couple, by the time it got financing, they were just friends. “I guess you could say they had a lot to work with,” says Brooks. “but that never interfered with the production.”
Griffin’s been seeing New York actress Ellen Barkin lately; she was on his arm for the New York premiere of the film and afterward was a proud but not proprietary presence as he accepted congratulations well into the night from a buzzing crowd of friends at a downtown restaurant. He was due to head cross-country for promotional chores, but he’s got further plans for his unusually hyphenated career. He and Amy Robinson have optioned the hit play The Foreigner, written by the late Larry Shue. And after the rigors of making After Hours on a nocturnal schedule, Griffin is very happy to have the phone plugged back in and the shades up. 
(OP NOTE: As I mentioned in the transcript for the American Film article, The Foreigner never materialized as a feature film, though Robin Williams was attached at one point. That’s all the information I have about that at the moment.)
“I noticed that Griffin is the kind of guy who gets around a lot, parties a lot,” says Scorsese, “and I knew the hardest part of his job was sustaining the anxiety for eight weeks of shooting.” The director pauses for a grin that demands to be called devilish. “So I told him, ‘No sex for eight weeks. We’ve got careers on the line here. I don’t want you up at night talking, wasting your time and your precious bodily fluids.’
“Really, the idea was to contain him and keep him in this night world for eight weeks, ‘cause his performance depended on anxiety, and if he was satisfied, he would never be able to get that.”
Dunne, reminded later of the challenge, tips back his chair and grins to himself. “Aw, that was easy to live up to,” he says, then waits a beat to settle into the deadpan expression that is such a comic weapon for him. “Did you ever try to get a date a six-thirty in the morning?”
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solutionbumble249 · 3 years ago
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plusorminuscongress · 5 years ago
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New story in Politics from Time: Coronavirus Has Hit the U.S. Military, and America’s Adversaries Are Taking Advantage
A U.S. P-8A reconnaissance plane was soaring above the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday when a Russian SU-35 fighter jet appeared on its tail. For 42 minutes, U.S. Navy officials say, the Russian pilot flew in an “unsafe” manner—at one-point flying upside down and sweeping within 25 feet of the plane’s nose.
The high-stakes intercept, which U.S. officials say put the American aircrew at risk, was just one in a string of incidents that took place over a 24-hour period in which American military resolve was tested across the globe. No Americans killed or injured during any of these events, but the timing was no coincidence. With novel coronavirus cases among U.S. service members now at 2,486 and climbing, America’s adversaries are emboldened to test U.S. military dominance, current and former Defense Department officials tell TIME.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Space Command reported the Russian military had tested a missile capable of “destroying” U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit. Not long afterward, 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gun boats “conducted dangerous and harassing” actions against six American warships operating in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said. The motorboats repeatedly ran alongside and crisscrossed in front of the much larger American ships at high speeds and close range – at one point buzzing within 10 yards of a cutter’s bow. All three incidents came after North Korea launched a barrage of short-range missiles from ground batteries and fighter jets off their east coast.
The cluster of adversary action poses no existential threat to the U.S. military. But the crosswinds produced by COVID-19 are strong. As Washington is preoccupied with its fight against the world’s largest number of coronavirus cases, restrictions have been slapped on U.S. military operations and movements out of health concerns in almost every part of the world. Routine troop rotations and military family relocations have been paused due to a “stop movement” order that restricts all military travel. U.S. aircraft carriers, floating symbols of American might, are sidelined. While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will loom over missions abroad, U.S. rivals are seeking to exploit the gaps COVID has created.
“When the world and America are off-balance, it presents opportunities for our adversaries,” said Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. Defense Secretary and Republican Senator from Nebraska. “They will continue to make every effort to assert themselves in this time. I don’t believe we are ever adequately prepared for events like we are living through now, especially a global health pandemic.”
Keep up to date on the growing threat to global health by signing up for our daily coronavirus newsletter.
The U.S. military’s playbook for deterring adversaries since World War II is to project power by promptly deploying thousands of troops, flying in nuclear-capable bombers, or dispatching aircraft carrier battle groups to problematic regions. It’s a practice that’s taken on increased importance under President Donald Trump, who relishes the military hardware paid for by his Administration’s $700 billion Pentagon budget.
Amid today’s COVID pandemic, the options to demonstrate a show of force are severely limited. The Pentagon has thus far responded to the spate of threats rhetorically, repeatedly publicly warning enemies not to confuse the current moment of national crisis as a weakness. “We will continue to carry out our mission assignments around the world in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, et cetera,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “Our readiness is still high. Our readiness is still strong. We are able to deter and defeat any challenges that may seek to take advantage of these opportunities at this point of crisis.”
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the anchor of a deterrent force against China’s advances in the South China Sea, has been docked in Guam indefinitely. A COVID outbreak swept through the ship’s 4,865-person crew last month, and has since infected at least 615 sailors, killed one and sent five others into a Guam hospital. The only other American carrier deployed in the Pacific, the USS Ronald Reagan, is receiving maintenance for four months in Yokosuka, Japan, available only for “Selected Restricted Availability,” and in Bremerton, Washington, the Navy has quarantined the crew of the next carrier strike group scheduled for duty in the Pacific, led by the USS Nimitz.
With these ships sidelined, China now has the sole carrier operating in the region. Over the weekend, China sent a Liaoning-class aircraft carrier and a five-ship battle group near the territorial waters of U.S. allies Japan and Taiwan. It was China’s latest attempt to flex its muscles in the region after sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat in the contested waters of the South China Sea; announcing new “research stations” at military bases in the area; and landing “special military aircraft” on one them, Fiery Cross Reef, according to an April 6 statement by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
Ortagus warned China “to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.” The Air Force, for its part, attempted to project power this week by parading 14 aircraft on a runway in Guam. The military publicized the so-called “elephant walk,” which included B-52 bombers and KC-135 refueling tankers more than a half-century old.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, China’s ally, has been carrying out his own military exercises. After voluntarily pausing missile launches last year, Pyongyang has blasted off a wide range of missiles in recent weeks. The launches are seen as “an attempt to demonstrate strength and deterrence, both internally and externally,” amid the COVID pandemic, according to analysts with the United States Institute of Peace.
In many ways, that’s nothing new. The Chinese and North Korean actions are “business as usual” by America’s two adversaries in the region, says Zack Cooper, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute. The sentiment is shared by Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, who says North Korea is pursuing a backlog of tests now that diplomacy with the U.S. has floundered. “We’re in the post-diplomacy period now,” he said. “We’re just waiting for them to test what’s next. The big stuff is yet to come.”
Iran, another longtime adversary, has also been ramping up its efforts to strengthen its influence in the region and attempt to drive U.S. troops out. Despite fighting a widespread COVID outbreak at home, Iran has not relented on backing armed attacks on American forces on Iraqi bases through its proxy militias. “The Iranians are keen on demonstrating to the U.S. that the COVID crisis has neither debilitated them nor has altered their strategic calculus,” says Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. “In fact, the less the Iranians have to lose, the less risk-averse they are likely to become.”
Russia, America’s longest running adversary, has pursued bold military moves that have crept beyond the continent of Europe. The aerobatic intercept over the Mediterranean and satellite-killing missile follows a flight off the Alaskan coast. On April 8, the U.S. Air Force scrambled F-22 fighter jets to intercept two Russian IL-38 submarine-hunting above the Bering Sea just 50 miles off Alaska. North American Aerospace Defense Command General Terrence O’Shaughnessy said: “COVID-19 or not, NORAD continues actively watching for threats and defending the homelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
The Pentagon also has its own personnel health to worry about. To guard against outbreaks, the Pentagon is developing “safety bubbles” by ramping up its internal COVID testing and isolating healthy troops. After a negative test, service members have to do a 14-day quarantine before going back to the business of being a soldier, sailor or Marine. Military laboratories are now processing about 9,000 tests a day. “Our desire, our aspiration, is to expand testing, especially for groups that are going to be in tighter quarters, such as sub crews, bomber crews, basic trainees and things like that,” Milley said. “We’ve got an objective here of ramping that up to about 60,000 tests here in about 45 days or so.”
Even when the military’s battle against COVID is physically over, there will be a lingering battle ahead, says AEI’s Cooper. “COVID will have a short-term impact on the U.S. military’s readiness, but the longer-term impact will be greater: defense cuts,” he says. “Having just spent $2 trillion to address the economic damage done by COVID, U.S. officials and taxpayers will be looking for cost savings. And they will look to the Defense Department, particularly after November.”
Please send tips, leads, and stories from the frontlines to [email protected].
By W.J. Hennigan and John Walcott on April 15, 2020 at 08:51PM
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porcileorg · 5 years ago
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On Monira Al Qadiri’s ‘Holy Quarter’ (Capsule 12) @ Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020-01-31 – 2020-06-21)
Author: Magda Wisniowska – Munich, February, 2020.
Discussing the future The exhibition opening of Haus der Kunst’s ongoing Capsule program of focused one gallery exhibitions of international artists was preceded, as is customary, with a roundtable discussion between the artists and the curators. There were the usual questioning relating to the motives, themes, and ideas behind the work and each of the two artists, Sung Tieu and Monira Al Qadiri had the opportunity to speak. It was when asked by one of the curators to introduce the themes of her work, Al Qadiri said something unexpected regarding her upbringing in Kuwait—and having also grown up in Kuwait, I found it immediately striking. Al Qadiri said that in her work she often uses tropes associated with Kuwait’s pre-industrial past—the desert, pearl diving, camels—because as a Kuwaiti of the post-oil generation, these feel foreign to her. She is, of course, referring to a very familiar postcolonial experience, where the cultural practices different to the coloniser’s normative perspective become exotic, so much so, that for the colonised population, the Western counterpart to their indigenous culture might seem more normal than their own. Yet the term she used was not exotic or foreign, but “alien” in the sense of ‘the extra-terrestrial’ or ‘futuristic.’ What ought to have been part of her cultural heritage, was as distant and unrelatable as future planetary forces.  
The Local and the Philosophical I grew up outside Kuwait City in Fintas, in a newly-built modern block of flats close to the beach. Before it was demolished in the mid 80s, on the beach was a mosque and cemetery that we called “old” because it most likely dated from the 50s or 60s. Next to the mosque was a small harbour with fishing boats, around which sat elderly men, most former pearl divers, in small groups. One of these would bring his grandchildren with him and he taught us all how to swim by dragging a tin can in the water. This was 35 years ago. Roughly 35 years before, oil was discovered in Kuwait. In that short space of time, a new state was established, the old town almost completely demolished and a whole way of life destroyed. I recall this memory because the speed of change warrants our attention. Both the elderly man  and I were witness to an acceleration of the West’s project of enlightenment, not dissimilar to the kind described by Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani in ‘The Labor of the Inhuman.’ His brand of accelerationism urges the speeding up of man’s self-overcoming of reason through a continual interrogation of the category of the human. Interestingly in relation to Al Qadiri’s work, this type of rational and experimental labor Negarestani defines as “inhuman.” I would say Al Qadiri’s practice draws on the inhuman impulses lying at the heart of one specific nation’s economic and cultural development.
Alien Technology Al Qadiri’s capsule exhibition at Haus der Kunst consists of two pieces. The first looms large right as you enter, next to the staircase. It is one of Al Qadiri’s Alien Technology series, a massive fibreglass sculpture covered in shiny black iridescent paint. The work’s bulbous shape, which on the one hand, recalls a mythical artefact from a long lost ancient city, and on the other, science fiction, derives from the rotating teeth of an oilfield drill bit. Considering the oil industry’s importance, not only to Kuwait and its economy, but generally worldwide, its shape is relatively unknown and thus lends itself easily to speculation. In its previous smaller incarnations, the work’s connection to the sea was more prominent, its queer symmetry resembling that of a sea urchin or mollusc, but even at the large end of the scale as seen here at Haus der Kunst, the finish of its surface is pearl-like, like one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows. 
Holy Quarter Her second piece is the video work ‘Holy Quarter,’ a large scale projection accompanied by a number of smaller glass spherical forms, their smooth surfaces marred - or ornamented, as the case may be - by spikes, nodes and tubercles. The video is of the desert, the so called ‘Empty Quarter’ encompassing much of the southern Arabian peninsula, spreading across the Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. A landscape of ever-shifting sand dunes and gravel plains, its stark bareness comes as a shock even to those accustomed to the desert environments of Omani wadis, Saudi mountain ranges, or even Kuwait’s more modest ridges. As Al Qadiri shows, negotiating this landscape is profoundly disorientating. Early scenes of the cliffs at sunset are followed by views from above and within the earth, so that distance becomes uncertain and we can no longer tell the far from the near. The images are narrated by a disembodied voice, very slowly relating the tale of early 20th century arabist and explorer, Harry St. John Bridger Philby. In 1932 Philby set out to look for the mythic city of Ubar—for him, Wabar—but instead of finding the missing city, after many days of wandering he discovered what he thought was a volcano. In fact, he stumbled across the site of a meteor impact, the surrounding ground littered with black glass and chunks of iron meteorite. Al Qadiri’s narrative identifies the mythic beings of Wabar with the extra terrestrial nature of the meteorite. As the voice states, “We are Wabar, We are the body of dust… We crashed into the sand.” Philby is the “pale man” who “walked across the desert and disturbed our sleep.” In her narrative Al Qadiri also refers to the other famous shooting star, that is seen by the three wise men, and to the frankincense associated with them. Finally there is mention of the discovery of oil in the region, the “black pearl” that threatens the “cradle of life.”
Faster and faster When in his essay for Aesthetics after Finitude, Simon O’Sullivan questions Negarestani’s strategy of abductive interference, he asks how this might look like—if inhuman labor accelerates ever further beyond familiar categories and concepts, how can it be understood from the point of view of the human, who makes use of these categories and concepts? Negarestani finds Peirce’s form of creative guessing one such model, a kind of multimodal and synthetic form of reasoning that dynamically expands its capacities. O’Sullivan calls this “fictioning,” an experimental modelling of different realities that proceeds through imagining and imaging alongside more speculative reasoning. In her video work and sculptures, Al Qadiri produces narratives that  fictionalise reality, meaning that their speculation—their play of images and imagining—produces a different model of reality, one less familiar, alien, of the future. Or rather, they draw on the process of acceleration already present in the Middle Eastern post-oil realities to speed it up even further. As the voice of the Wabar in ‘Holy Quarter’ beckons, “So, come with us now, let us choose a different fate together.”
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biofunmy · 5 years ago
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Fears About Iranian Nukes Are Overblown, Nuclear Arms Experts Say
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“I see no signs of Iran rushing to build a bomb, and doing so would almost certainly not be in their best interest,” said one expert.
By
Dan Vergano
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Reporting From
Washington, D.C.
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Dan Vergano BuzzFeed News Reporter
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Reporting From
Washington, D.C.
Last updated on January 7, 2020, at 7:18 p.m. ET
Posted on January 7, 2020, at 6:54 p.m. ET
Wana News Agency / Reuters
The nuclear reactor at Arak, Iran, on Dec. 23, 2019. The reactor was shuttered under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran’s announcement that it would be abandoning the last remaining restrictions placed on the country under a landmark nuclear arms limitation agreement doesn’t mean it will soon have nukes, arms control experts told BuzzFeed News.
“Is this a sign that Iran is racing toward a bomb? Absolutely not,” nuclear nonproliferation expert Corey Hinderstein of the Nuclear Threat Initiative told BuzzFeed News. “We are not seeing behavior that points in that direction.”
The Iranian government on Sunday announced it was walking away from limits on centrifuges — high-speed spinning machines that separate out weapons-quality uranium — agreed to in 2015 and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. The move came after the US killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on Friday, in an airstrike at Baghdad’s airport. On Tuesday, Iranian state television said Tehran had launched “tens” of missiles at Iraq’s Al Asad air base, which houses US troops, in retaliation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program no longer faces any operational restrictions,” Sunday’s statement from Iran’s official news service said. “From here on, Iran’s nuclear program will be developed solely based on its technical needs.”
Along with an outburst of World War III memes, the announcement triggered an all-caps response from President Donald Trump, stating that Iran would never have nuclear weapons.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to dismantle a reactor, limit centrifuges, export uranium stockpiles, and allow international inspections, in exchange for ending economic sanctions. Iran has steadily breached parts of the agreement since President Donald Trump pulled the US from the agreement in 2018, resuming US economic sanctions. With the latest announcement, that leaves only the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA) inspections in place.
“The [IAEA] inspections are really a red line for the international community, especially the Russians and the Chinese, that show things are being kept tabs on,” nuclear arms expert Miles Pomper of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies told BuzzFeed News.
“I see no signs of Iran rushing to build a bomb, and doing so would almost certainly not be in their best interest, inviting an attack by the US or Israel,” Pomper said. “This is just a negotiating lever for the Iranian government.”
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What I will be watching, is if #Iran rolls back @iaeaorg access. These inspections are the way we now know what they are doing. Without them, the world is flying blind. This uncertainty would be a new, more dangerous, dynamic. 4/end
06:30 PM – 05 Jan 2020
In order to build a bomb, Iran would need to “enrich” a quantity of uranium to 90% weapons-grade levels. In a November breach of the agreement, Iran had announced it was enriching its agreement stockpile of about 300 kilograms of uranium to a 4.5% level. The crucial jump to start the rush to highly enriched weapons production is to a 20% level, a move the experts said was almost too uncertain to speculate about, but at least many months to a year from being possible.
The other place to watch is the restart of their shuttered nuclear reactor to produce plutonium, which can also make bombs, Stanford University nuclear weapons scientist Siegfried Hecker told Buzzfeed News. A massive archive of records related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program released by Israel in April 2019, the fruits of clandestine operations, showed that before the reactor was halted in 2015, Iran was laying the groundwork for being able to produce a nuclear missile arsenal, not just a few bombs. “That is the place where they are going back to, replacing where they were in 2015,” Hecker added.
But as long as Iran remains in agreement with a global nonproliferation treaty, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, returning to their 2015 capabilities looks like the stopping point, not a headlong rush for a nuclear arsenal, said Hecker.
Withdrawal from the 2015 agreement is more of a convenient gesture for Iran, rather than a genuine response to Soleimani’s killing, Hecker suggested. “The agreement definitely set them back on building a bomb,” he said. “We are headed to where we were before that agreement with the groundwork ready if they do decide to go ahead.”
CORRECTION
Jan. 08, 2020, at 00:18 AM
An earlier version of this story misstated the reported date of Iran’s missile attack on Iraq’s Ain Assad air base.
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atcostmag · 5 years ago
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At Cost Magazine 2019 in Review - Top Albums
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Photo: Nanna Øland Fabricius of Oh Land
2019 Album of the Year  Oh Land - Family Tree
In the speed and scale of today's playlisted music economy, it seems almost impossible that a classical piano album like Oh Land's "Family Tree" would receive the attention it should. To be completely honest, it's an album that I completely overlooked in the first place as it eschews many of the pop hooks alongside the bold and bright elements which have made Oh Land's previous records so attractive in the first place. To paraphrase what Iranian-cinema great Abbas Kiarostami said about film, "there are movies which completely take you by surprise, but leave you empty afterwards; the best films are the ones which put you sleep but you find revisiting later again and again". The same premise holds for Oh Land's "Family Tree", and while we're not saying it's a snore, it is rather unfortunate that this would not be something which the viral nature of today's musical climate would appreciate per se. The merits of "Family Tree" rather lie in its depth of composition, Nanna "Oh Land" Fabricius' sly wit and deeply-rooted metaphor showing her reverance for the natural world. 
We witness these moments in the beautiful fragility of "Brief Moment" where Oh Land references BBC's Planet Earth capturing the Japanese pufferfish building intricate patterns in the sand to attract its mate; the brutal honesty of "Human Error" which Fabricius retraces the aftermath of personal tragedy; her academic knowledge of estuarine systems in her theatrical pour of emotion in "Salt" and her holy worship of "Sunlight where Nanna's gospel on trees reflects on nature's beautiful resilience. "Someone I Can Be Alone With", however stands as a personal favorite of mine. Its aqueous blur recalls some of the darker moments from Oh Land's debut LP "Fauna" and snapping percussion from track's like "Rainbow", as the track converges with its stringed intrigue and whistling woodwinds. Furthermore, we see Nanna's very characteristic humor peaking out of the song's darker moods, as the solemn tone of the track contrasted with her lyrics, "My head is exploding in slow motion..." before the track's blossoming orchestral darkness is shrugged off with the warmth of Oh Land's words, "... but when I'm catching my breath you'll be 'Someone I Can Be Alone With'". A re-drawing of Oh Land's musical portraiture, it’s an album that shows incredible boldness and risk, one of a continually evolving artist. To reference an old cliche, it's an album we certainly need but don't necessarily deserve in this playlisted era where albums are rarely-listened from start to end. 
Human Error (Live)
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Read our interview with Oh Land written on our sister blog Swede + Sour
#2
Luna - Trance  Original Russian title (ЛУНА - ТРАНС)
A record for the Gosha Rubchinsky-era of Post-Soviet aesthetic, Luna or Kristina Gerasimova's embracement of the New East is obvious here. But while its place in the Post-Soviet sphere certainly strikes a presence, it's the aesthetics of sound which ultimately drive Gerasimova's appeal. Working with then-fledgling but now mainstay producers like Shumno and Alessandro del Schuko, Luna saturates in the immersive qualities of arguably the New East's strongest genres through enveloping deep house and rave sounds. We find the pinnacle of Luna's vision on track "Love in Every Golden Petal", where she gloriously harmonizes between the harsher rave elements of the track with her heavenly beckon. However, dotted through the album, we find Luna leaves gems of every color across the spectrum. On "Palmira" we see Luna's post-rock grit where Luna recalls her influence from the Soviet Union's most notorious rocker Viktor Tsoi, as in she how she was quoted on previous album "Enchanted Dreams". There's also her first single "Dolphins" where Luna walks her along famous melancholy, edging the lines of blissful sadness as solemn piano keys clash with the clink of its glitchy sci-fi spook. Finally, we have "Lilac Paradise", which recalls the bygone days of electroclash. With its heavenly breath, Luna uses the short, staccato spurt of her Slavic tones, to cut across alternating octave scales and the euphoric layering of synthesizer production, in what could be an appropriate tribute to the early days of electronic music pioneers Ladytron.
“Dolphins”
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Luna’s “ Love in Every Golden Petal” made our 2019 track of the year 
#3
Melis - Undercurrent
While it can be said that most music is notably written about love, few on the topic as vividly as in Czech-Turkish singer, Melis' EP "Undercurrent". Written and produced, in conjuction with her former collaborator in duo IYES Josh Christopher, the album is intricately assembled with a poetic prose that speaks literally and carefully structured hooks with reveal minute details upon every loop. On the album, yearning emotion is echoed through Melis' tearful delivery as whimpery tones yield to the dramatic envelopment of sound that so succinctly defined Josh Christopher's production on IYES. We hear the thunder of sharp crescendos all throughout the album, with most notably on the anxious build on "Piece of Your Heart". There the dramatic energies of Melis' tender vocals ignite to grabbing synths that underscore her yearning emotion, with ample space between elements to illuminate the mystery of the track's wonder. Furthermore, on the record we notably see Melis' strongest track to date "Waves", a back and forth of conflicted sentiment whose vivid emotion feels almost spoken in its visual storytelling. Building on multiple anacruses, careful production works over every loop to not only build lyrical emotion, but introduce easing elements like infusing broken-beat percussion and the sustain of its ghosting creak to richly nuance the track. However, like any well-curated album, Melis' Henry Green-produced track offers a reprieve to seemingly close the album on a high note. Titled "Falling into Place", the dreamy of wash of its spiralling percolation is coupled to the saturated reverb of Melis' distant cries which upon repeat build into a meditative mantra. If you've read our top singles of 2019, Luna's obvious placement on the year's best records seems only fitting.
Waves
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#4
Musia Totibadze - Boy Original Russian title (Муся Тотибадзе - Мальчик)
Musia Totibadze first burst onto the Russian-language music scene with her disco-vivalist "Dance, Little Vitaly", a kitschy yet ultimately enjoyable affair. It's something hard to describe, but you need not understand Russian to comprehend the Moscow-born, Georgian singer's charisma. With her lead single from her EP "Boy" (Мальчик), we see her compelling cover of Natalya Vetlitskaya's '92, Italo-Disco single "I'll Stay with You" (Я останусь с тобой). Taking the reverb-saturated original, and bringing warmth with her spurting breathiness yet undeniable warmth from her rosy timbre, Totibadze modernizes the early, Post-Soviet track with a fun-friendly track that resonates to its glitchy textures and gooey synths. Like "I'll Stay with You", it's this joie-de-vivre that persists throughout the album and continues with a few keynote tracks. On "Night" we see the drip of acidic synths dot the track's scaling synths and Musia burgeoning roar; the shocking shrill and retro-futuristic clink of "Running Up" (Разбегаюсь) while on "Birds" (Птицы) the grooving funk of its downtempo bass lines soar to the beaming lift of its Italo-disco production. “Fly” (Лети) stands as a particularly exuberant track, building on the machinations of its plunking clink. Building over the feathering trickle of synths, we see Musia rocket with her vocals to top off the exhilarating ride that is “Fly”. As an aside, Musia also offers "Sea", a reprieve from the album jubilant prose. On "Sea", passive melodies eventually build and inundate to the whitewater of Totibadze's aqueous current; concentrating Musia's vocals into a heavenly saturation of drifting mantra. However, its appropriately chosen title track "Boy"  (Мальчик) without a doubt lies as Musia's strongest. Trickling arpeggios give "Boy" a quirky and unbelivably fun invigoration. While Musia's vocals certainly capable of keeping a stronger sustain, she keeps her delivery short and succinct allowing the choir of children's voices and its groovy funk to resonate. A seemingly anachronistic effort, Musia's infectious joy of being and Soviet nostalgia points to something hard to rationalize; perhaps somewhere between Yuri Gagarin's boylike smile or a furry Cheburashka we will find our answer, but don't really know to be honest :) 
I’ll Stay With You (Я останусь с тобой)
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#5
Erika de Casier - Essentials
Something ironic about living in the age of social media is that its staunchest criticisms come from social media. However, Erika de Casier doesn't fall into this rather hypocrite prose, and fully-embraces the zeitgeist of living online in the youthful naivete of "Essentials". On Erika de Casier's "Essentials", we see the revival of early Internet-age anachronisms and this bewildering blend of past, present and future. Here we see R&B harpsichords clang to the drip of "Little Bit"; the gangster funk and strutting swagger play out in the cute abjections of "Do My Thing"; the playful innocence of tracks "Story of My Life" and in the kitschy "yeahs" of "Puppy Love". A takeway track however would be the Oriental cascades of "What U Wanna Do?", where the glitchy cyberpunk of the track plays over the club cuts of its feathering synth jolts. 
“What U Wanna Do?”
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#6
SA Zeiner - The Only Scars I’ve Got I Got in My Sleep
Blurring the realm between ethereal and the organic, Sigrid A (SA) Zeiner illustrates the conflicted emotions of love in this stunning display of four single-length tracks and two interludes. Carrying an oceanic air to her turbulent calm, Zeiner's vocals effortlessly sweeps heady emotion and hazy falter. As seen in her debut track, the impossible beauty of vivid emotion and Sigrid's peaking emotion converge in the synthesizer plateaus of "Could You Be Good to Me?", while its follow-up single "Good for Your Ego" though similar in stance offers a quick retort. The sharply-spoken words of "Good for Your Ego" are contrasted with its percolating depth where the crystalline fantasy of its spiralling synths spell a dreamy disillusion. As for the remainging two single-length tracks, "Prodigy" and "Forever, Here" are decidedly more organic in prose. The careful and quiet optimism of "Prodigy" speaking of what could be, are echoed in the sentiments in the wuthering murmur of SA Zeiner's before converging on her rather characteristic plateaus one again. Finally, we have "Forever, Here" with its tearful piano flow and wavering vocal vibrato, we have the track blossoming over the rich nuance of its strings and warmth of SA Zeiner's howling reassurance. A decidedly short record, but enough to say given the right promotion, Scandinavia could easily add another pop heroine to add to its prestigious retinue. 
Could You Be Good to Me?
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jjwphotography1990 · 5 years ago
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The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey. In 1981 the Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) aircraft program was started. The program came about due to the failure of Operation Eagle Claw during the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1980. This failure highlighted the need for a long-range, high-speed, vertical-takeoff aircraft. The program, started in 1983, was a partnership between Bell Helicopter and Boeing Helicopter. This partnership produced one of the most unique aircraft to date, the V-22 Osprey. . Hyundai Air & Sea Show 2019 . . . #hyundaiairandseashow #v22 #v22osprey #osprey #airshow #miamiairshow @nationalsalute #aircraft #airforce @usairforce #marines #usmarines @marines #usnavy @usnavy #usmilitary #militaryaviation #military #aviationgeek #aviationdaily #aviationworld #aviationphotography #aviationphoto #aviation #photography #actionphotography #actionshot #canon #canonrebelt6i #sigmalens #sigma150600 #photooftheday #boeing @boeing #pictureoftheday @combat_learjet @bellhelicopter_ec (at Miami Beach, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0zXa6YDdoz/?igshid=1iq9rr87ca9cr
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jamarjegj9k-blog · 8 years ago
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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago
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No Date, No Signature
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The actress Hediyeh Tehrani, whose face has an elegant angularity worthy of Katharine Hepburn, is not only one of the chief reasons to see the powerfully understated drama “No Date, No Signature”; she can also be regarded as a living symbol of the current era of Iranian cinema. By my reckoning, that era began with the 2006 film “Fireworks Wednesday,” which was written by Asghar Farhadi and Mani Haghighi and directed by Farhadi, who would go on to win two Oscars in the following decade.
According to an interview I did with Haghighi in Tehran last year, “Fireworks Wednesday” originated when he went to Farhadi and expressed admiration for this first two films but noted that they had both directed two films that had been box-office duds. So he proposed that they collaborate on a film that would mark departures in two ways: it would focus on urban middle-class characters rather than the poor; and it would use movie stars rather than the non-actors favored by such major Iranian auteurs as Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, Panahi and Majidi.
That change of strategy worked, and laid the groundwork for much that would follow. A big hit in Iran, “Fireworks Wednesday” provided the template for future Iranian films dealing with the middle class, including Farhadi’s Oscar winners “A Separation” and “The Salesman.” It also proved both the artistic and commercial value of movie stars such as its leading female actor, Tehrani.
While Farhahi’s global success spawned cadres of imitators in Iran, few of whom had his distinctive flair as writer and director, it also inspired some genuinely talented filmmakers following in his wake. Vahid Jalilvand, the director and co-writer of “No Date, No Signature,” must be counted one of the best of these. Like Farhadi, he studied theater rather than cinema in university and did a lot of television writing before turning to movies (this film is his second feature). And though he doesn’t seem anything like a Farhadi imitator, “No Date, No Signature” resembles the three Farhadi features mentioned above in not only focusing on middle-class characters but also including a lower-class couple as their opposite numbers.
In the first scene of “No Date, No Signature,” the classes collide literally. Driving home at night on a busy freeway, forensic pathologist Kaveh Nariman (Amir Aghaei) is clipped by a speeding driver and in turn knocks a motorcycle off the road. Stopping to see if the bike’s passengers are okay, he finds a couple and their two young kids, who are upset but seemingly unhurt. The father, Musa (Navid Mohammedzadeh) wants to call the cops but the doctor gives him some money and advises him to stop at a nearby hospital. The doc also has a conversation with the man’s eight-year-old son, who complains that his head hurts but otherwise seems fine. After everyone leaves, Nariman sees the motorbike cruise past the hospital without stopping.
Two days later, the boy is dead. An autopsy conducted by Nariman’s colleague Dr. Sayeh Behbahani (Tehrani) shows that he had botulism and concludes that he died from that. Nariman, though, isn’t so sure and appears to feel guilt over failing to get the family to the hospital but also because of the selfish reason he didn’t want the cops called: his insurance had expired.
Meanwhile, the grieving parents face their own reasons for guilt. When Dr. Behbanahi tells them that botulism is caused by tainted meat and asks what the boy had been fed, his mother, Leila (Zakiyeh Behbahani), starts to speak but stops at a look from her husband. The meaning of that look is soon clear: The boy ate chicken that Musa bought from a coworker. The realization that they apparently caused their son’s death sends the couple’s marriage into a tailspin, and Musa also reacts by going to his workplace and confronting the man who sold him the chicken, sparking a violent fight that involves several of his co-workers.
There are many subtle touches in Jalilvand’s smart, pared-down style. One is when, after the fight in the factory, Musa and some of his co-workers go outside and have a cooling-down conversation; after they go back in, the camera holds on the exterior of the building for what seems like several extraneous seconds. Once the story resumes, the meaning of that odd caesura becomes evident: a week later, we learn that Musa re-entered the building and beat the chicken seller into a coma, a crime for which he’s now in prison.
The father’s desperate act only seems to exacerbate Nariman’s sense of responsibility. After ordering the little boy’s body exhumed, he conducts a second autopsy himself, searching for evidence that the child’s death was actually caused by the head injury he sustained in the road accident. Of course, if he succeeds, it will potentially damage Musa’s legal defense, which depends on the chicken seller’s culpability in his son’s demise.
In some Iranian films, stories of class conflict and predatory behavior can be read as critiques of different aspects of the society, from its traditional mores to its biased legal system. Jalilvand seems less interested in such external analyses than in their interior manifestations: Ultimately “No Date, No Signature” is about two men whose guilt—whether deserved or not—simply runs away with them, upending lives that had previously seemed well-ordered.
As in Farhadi’s films, the success of this kind of drama depends not on its thematic depth but on its surface execution. And every aspect of the execution on display here posits Jalilvand as among Iran’s most assured directors to have emerged in this decade. The browns and grays of Payman Shadmanfar’s crepuscular photography, together with Peyman Yazdanian’s spare but evocative score, help create an overall mood of worry and haunted introspection. And the brilliance of all four lead performances—with Mohammedzadeh’s explosive turn a particular standout—once again shows the range and skills of Iran’s leading actors.
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riyadhvision · 8 years ago
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Forces destroy Iranian drone in Yemen’s Mokha
Forces destroy Iranian drone in Yemen’s Mokha
This photo released on Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010, by the Iranian Defense Ministry, reportedly shows a launch of the Karrar drone aircraft.
Arab Coalition Forces, with the help of UAE Air Force in Yemen, have destroyed on Saturday an Iranian military drone in the northern port city of Mokha.
The aircraft was at a mobile launching platform, intended to target Yemeni forces participating in the…
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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years ago
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Trump Cancels GOP Convention Events in Florida
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President Trump said he is canceling the Jacksonville, Fla., portion of the coming Republican National Convention due to safety concerns over the increasing coronavirus cases in the state. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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ladystylestores · 5 years ago
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Defying U.S., China and Iran Near Trade and Military Partnership
Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions.
The partnership, detailed in an 18-page proposed agreement obtained by The New York Times, would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years.
The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades. It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing — all to fight “the lopsided battle with terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes.”
The partnership — first proposed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, during a visit to Iran in 2016 — was approved by President Hassan Rouhani’s cabinet in June, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said last week.
Iranian officials have publicly stated that there is a pending agreement with China, and one Iranian official, as well as several people who have discussed it with the Iranian government, confirmed that it is the document obtained by The Times, which is labeled “final version” and dated June, 2020.
It has not yet been submitted to Iran’s Parliament for approval or made public, stoking suspicions in Iran about how much the government is preparing to give away to China.
In Beijing, officials have not disclosed the terms of the agreement, and it is not clear whether Mr. Xi’s government has signed off or, if it has, when it might announce it.
If put into effect as detailed, the partnership would create new and potentially dangerous flash points in the deteriorating relationship between China and the United States.
It represents a major blow to the Trump administration’s aggressive policy toward Iran since abandoning the nuclear deal reached in 2015 by President Obama and the leaders of six other nations after two years of grueling negotiations.
Renewed American sanctions, including the threat to cut off access to the international banking system for any company that does business in Iran, have succeeded in suffocating the Iranian economy by scaring away badly needed foreign trade and investment.
But Tehran’s desperation has pushed it into the arms of China, which has the technology and appetite for oil that Iran needs. Iran has been one of the world’s largest oil producers, but its exports, Tehran’s largest source of revenue, have plunged since the Trump administration began imposing sanctions in 2018; China gets about 75 percent of its oil from abroad and is the world’s largest importer, at more than 10 million barrels a day last year.
At a time when the United States is reeling from recession and the coronavirus, and increasingly isolated internationally, Beijing senses American weakness. The draft agreement with Iran shows that unlike most countries, China feels it is in a position to defy the United States, powerful enough to withstand American penalties, as it has in the trade war waged by President Trump.
“Two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners,” the document says in its opening sentence.
The Chinese investments in Iran, which two people who have been briefed on the deal said would total $400 billion over 25 years, could trigger still more punitive actions against Chinese companies, which have already been targeted by the administration in recent months.
“The United States will continue to impose costs on Chinese companies that aid Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” a State Department spokeswoman wrote in response to questions about the draft agreement.
“By allowing or encouraging Chinese companies to conduct sanctionable activities with the Iranian regime, the Chinese government is undermining its own stated goal of promoting stability and peace.”
The expansion of military assistance, training and intelligence-sharing will also be viewed with alarm in Washington. American warships already tangle regularly with Iranian forces in the crowded waters of the Persian Gulf and challenge China’s internationally disputed claim to much of the South China Sea, and the Pentagon’s national security strategy has declared China an adversary.
When reports of a long-term investment agreement with Iran surfaced last September, China’s foreign ministry dismissed the question out of hand. Asked about it again last week, a spokesman, Zhao Lijian, left open the possibility that a deal was in the works.
“China and Iran enjoy traditional friendship, and the two sides have been in communication on the development of bilateral relations,” he said. “We stand ready to work with Iran to steadily advance practical cooperation.”
The projects — nearly 100 are cited in the draft agreement — are very much in keeping with Mr. Xi’s ambitions to extend its economic and strategic influence across Eurasia through the “Belt and Road Initiative,” a vast aid and investment program.
The projects, including airports, high-speed railways and subways, would touch the lives of millions of Iranians. China would develop free-trade zones in Maku, in northwestern Iran; in Abadan, where the Shatt al-Arab river flows into the Persian Gulf, and on the Gulf island Qeshm.
The agreement also includes proposals for China to build the infrastructure for a 5G telecommunications network, to offer the new Chinese Global Positioning System, Beidou, and to help Iranian authorities assert greater control over what circulates in cyberspace, presumably as China’s Great Firewall does.
The American campaign against a major Chinese telecommunications company, Huawei, includes a criminal case against its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, for seeking to disguise investments in Iran in order to evade American sanctions. The Trump administration has barred Huawei from involvement in 5G development in the United States, and has tried, without great success, to persuade other countries to do the same.
Moving ahead with a broad investment program in Iran appears to signal Beijing’s growing impatience with the Trump administration after its abandonment of the nuclear agreement. China has repeatedly called on the administration to preserve the deal, which it was a party to, and has sharply denounced the American use of unilateral sanctions.
Iran has traditionally looked west toward Europe for trade and investment partners. Increasingly though, it has grown frustrated with European countries that have opposed Mr. Trump’s policy but quietly withdrawn from the kinds of deals that the nuclear agreement once promised.
“Iran and China both view this deal as a strategic partnership in not just expanding their own interests but confronting the U.S.,” said Ali Gholizadeh, an Iranian energy researcher at the University of Science and Technology of China in Beijing. “It is the first of its kind for Iran keen on having a world power as an ally.”
The proposed partnership has nonetheless stoked a fierce debate within Iran. Mr. Zarif, the foreign minister, who traveled to Beijing last October to negotiate the agreement, faced hostile questioning about it in Parliament last week.
The document was provided to The Times by someone familiar with its drafting with the intention of showing the scope of the projects now under consideration.
Mr. Zarif said the agreement would be submitted to Parliament for final approval. It has the support of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two Iranian officials said.
Mr. Khamenei’s top economic adviser, Ali Agha Mohammadi, appeared on state television recently to discuss the need for an economic lifeline. He said Iran needs to increase its oil production to at least 8.5 million barrels a day in order to remain a player in the energy market, and for that, it needs China.
Iranian supporters of the strategic partnership say that given the country’s limited economic options, the free-falling currency and the dim prospect of U.S. sanctions being lifted, the deal with China could provide a lifeline.
“Every road is closed to Iran,” said Fereydoun Majlesi, a former diplomat and a columnist for several Iranian newspapers on diplomacy. “The only path open is China. Whatever it is, until sanctions are lifted, this deal is the best option.”
But critics across the political spectrum in Iran have raised concerns that the government is secretly “selling off” the country to China in a moment of economic weakness and international isolation. In a speech in late June, a former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called it a suspicious secret deal that the people of Iran would never approve.
The critics have cited previous Chinese investment projects that have left countries in Africa and Asia indebted and ultimately beholden to the authorities in Beijing. A particular concern has been the proposed port facilities in Iran, including two along the coast of the Sea of Oman.
One at Jask, just outside of the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf, would give the Chinese a strategic vantage point on the waters through which much of the world’s oil transits. The passage is of critical strategic importance to the United States, whose Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, in the Gulf.
China has already constructed a series of ports along the Indian Ocean, creating a necklace of refueling and resupply stations from the South China Sea to the Suez Canal. Ostensibly commercial in nature, the ports potentially have military value, too, allowing China’s rapidly growing Navy to expand its reach.
Those include ports at Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan, which are widely criticized as footholds for a potential military presence, though no Chinese forces have officially been deployed at them.
China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2015, ostensibly to support its forces participating in international antipiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The outpost, which began as a logistics base but is now more heavily fortified, is within miles of the American base in that country.
China has also stepped up military cooperation with Iran. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has visited and participated in military exercises at least three times, beginning in 2014. The most recent was last December, when a Chinese missile destroyer, the Xining, joined a naval exercise with the Russian and Iranian navies in the Gulf of Oman.
China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency quoted the commander of Iran’s Navy, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, saying that the exercise showed “the era of American invasions in the region is over.”
David E. Sanger contributed reporting. Claire Fu in Beijing contributed research.
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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago
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A U.S. P-8A reconnaissance plane was soaring above the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday when a Russian SU-35 fighter jet appeared on its tail. For 42 minutes, U.S. Navy officials say, the Russian pilot flew in an “unsafe” manner—at one-point flying upside down and sweeping within 25 feet of the plane’s nose.
The high-stakes intercept, which U.S. officials say put the American aircrew at risk, was just one in a string of incidents that took place over a 24-hour period in which American military resolve was tested across the globe. No Americans killed or injured during any of these events, but the timing was no coincidence. With novel coronavirus cases among U.S. service members now at 2,486 and climbing, America’s adversaries are emboldened to test U.S. military dominance, current and former Defense Department officials tell TIME.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Space Command reported the Russian military had tested a missile capable of “destroying” U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit. Not long afterward, 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gun boats “conducted dangerous and harassing” actions against six American warships operating in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said. The motorboats repeatedly ran alongside and crisscrossed in front of the much larger American ships at high speeds and close range – at one point buzzing within 10 yards of a cutter’s bow. All three incidents came after North Korea launched a barrage of short-range missiles from ground batteries and fighter jets off their east coast.
The cluster of adversary action poses no existential threat to the U.S. military. But the crosswinds produced by COVID-19 are strong. As Washington is preoccupied with its fight against the world’s largest number of coronavirus cases, restrictions have been slapped on U.S. military operations and movements out of health concerns in almost every part of the world. Routine troop rotations and military family relocations have been paused due to a “stop movement” order that restricts all military travel. U.S. aircraft carriers, floating symbols of American might, are sidelined. While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will loom over missions abroad, U.S. rivals are seeking to exploit the gaps COVID has created.
“When the world and America are off-balance, it presents opportunities for our adversaries,” said Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. Defense Secretary and Republican Senator from Nebraska. “They will continue to make every effort to assert themselves in this time. I don’t believe we are ever adequately prepared for events like we are living through now, especially a global health pandemic.”
Keep up to date on the growing threat to global health by signing up for our daily coronavirus newsletter.
The U.S. military’s playbook for deterring adversaries since World War II is to project power by promptly deploying thousands of troops, flying in nuclear-capable bombers, or dispatching aircraft carrier battle groups to problematic regions. It’s a practice that’s taken on increased importance under President Donald Trump, who relishes the military hardware paid for by his Administration’s $700 billion Pentagon budget.
Amid today’s COVID pandemic, the options to demonstrate a show of force are severely limited. The Pentagon has thus far responded to the spate of threats rhetorically, repeatedly publicly warning enemies not to confuse the current moment of national crisis as a weakness. “We will continue to carry out our mission assignments around the world in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, et cetera,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “Our readiness is still high. Our readiness is still strong. We are able to deter and defeat any challenges that may seek to take advantage of these opportunities at this point of crisis.”
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the anchor of a deterrent force against China’s advances in the South China Sea, has been docked in Guam indefinitely. A COVID outbreak swept through the ship’s 4,865-person crew last month, and has since infected at least 615 sailors, killed one and sent five others into a Guam hospital. The only other American carrier deployed in the Pacific, the USS Ronald Reagan, is receiving maintenance for four months in Yokosuka, Japan, available only for “Selected Restricted Availability,” and in Bremerton, Washington, the Navy has quarantined the crew of the next carrier strike group scheduled for duty in the Pacific, led by the USS Nimitz.
With these ships sidelined, China now has the sole carrier operating in the region. Over the weekend, China sent a Liaoning-class aircraft carrier and a five-ship battle group near the territorial waters of U.S. allies Japan and Taiwan. It was China’s latest attempt to flex its muscles in the region after sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat in the contested waters of the South China Sea; announcing new “research stations” at military bases in the area; and landing “special military aircraft” on one them, Fiery Cross Reef, according to an April 6 statement by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
Ortagus warned China “to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.” The Air Force, for its part, attempted to project power this week by parading 14 aircraft on a runway in Guam. The military publicized the so-called “elephant walk,” which included B-52 bombers and KC-135 refueling tankers more than a half-century old.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, China’s ally, has been carrying out his own military exercises. After voluntarily pausing missile launches last year, Pyongyang has blasted off a wide range of missiles in recent weeks. The launches are seen as “an attempt to demonstrate strength and deterrence, both internally and externally,” amid the COVID pandemic, according to analysts with the United States Institute of Peace.
In many ways, that’s nothing new. The Chinese and North Korean actions are “business as usual” by America’s two adversaries in the region, says Zack Cooper, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute. The sentiment is shared by Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, who says North Korea is pursuing a backlog of tests now that diplomacy with the U.S. has floundered. “We’re in the post-diplomacy period now,” he said. “We’re just waiting for them to test what’s next. The big stuff is yet to come.”
Iran, another longtime adversary, has also been ramping up its efforts to strengthen its influence in the region and attempt to drive U.S. troops out. Despite fighting a widespread COVID outbreak at home, Iran has not relented on backing armed attacks on American forces on Iraqi bases through its proxy militias. “The Iranians are keen on demonstrating to the U.S. that the COVID crisis has neither debilitated them nor has altered their strategic calculus,” says Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. “In fact, the less the Iranians have to lose, the less risk-averse they are likely to become.”
Russia, America’s longest running adversary, has pursued bold military moves that have crept beyond the continent of Europe. The aerobatic intercept over the Mediterranean and satellite-killing missile follows a flight off the Alaskan coast. On April 8, the U.S. Air Force scrambled F-22 fighter jets to intercept two Russian IL-38 submarine-hunting above the Bering Sea just 50 miles off Alaska. North American Aerospace Defense Command General Terrence O’Shaughnessy said: “COVID-19 or not, NORAD continues actively watching for threats and defending the homelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
The Pentagon also has its own personnel health to worry about. To guard against outbreaks, the Pentagon is developing “safety bubbles” by ramping up its internal COVID testing and isolating healthy troops. After a negative test, service members have to do a 14-day quarantine before going back to the business of being a soldier, sailor or Marine. Military laboratories are now processing about 9,000 tests a day. “Our desire, our aspiration, is to expand testing, especially for groups that are going to be in tighter quarters, such as sub crews, bomber crews, basic trainees and things like that,” Milley said. “We’ve got an objective here of ramping that up to about 60,000 tests here in about 45 days or so.”
Even when the military’s battle against COVID is physically over, there will be a lingering battle ahead, says AEI’s Cooper. “COVID will have a short-term impact on the U.S. military’s readiness, but the longer-term impact will be greater: defense cuts,” he says. “Having just spent $2 trillion to address the economic damage done by COVID, U.S. officials and taxpayers will be looking for cost savings. And they will look to the Defense Department, particularly after November.”
Please send tips, leads, and stories from the frontlines to [email protected].
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viralnewstime · 5 years ago
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A U.S. P-8A reconnaissance plane was soaring above the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday when a Russian SU-35 fighter jet appeared on its tail. For 42 minutes, U.S. Navy officials say, the Russian pilot flew in an “unsafe” manner—at one-point flying upside down and sweeping within 25 feet of the plane’s nose.
The high-stakes intercept, which U.S. officials say put the American aircrew at risk, was just one in a string of incidents that took place over a 24-hour period in which American military resolve was tested across the globe. No Americans killed or injured during any of these events, but the timing was no coincidence. With novel coronavirus cases among U.S. service members now at 2,486 and climbing, America’s adversaries are emboldened to test U.S. military dominance, current and former Defense Department officials tell TIME.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Space Command reported the Russian military had tested a missile capable of “destroying” U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit. Not long afterward, 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gun boats “conducted dangerous and harassing” actions against six American warships operating in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said. The motorboats repeatedly ran alongside and crisscrossed in front of the much larger American ships at high speeds and close range – at one point buzzing within 10 yards of a cutter’s bow. All three incidents came after North Korea launched a barrage of short-range missiles from ground batteries and fighter jets off their east coast.
The cluster of adversary action poses no existential threat to the U.S. military. But the crosswinds produced by COVID-19 are strong. As Washington is preoccupied with its fight against the world’s largest number of coronavirus cases, restrictions have been slapped on U.S. military operations and movements out of health concerns in almost every part of the world. Routine troop rotations and military family relocations have been paused due to a “stop movement” order that restricts all military travel. U.S. aircraft carriers, floating symbols of American might, are sidelined. While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will loom over missions abroad, U.S. rivals are seeking to exploit the gaps COVID has created.
“When the world and America are off-balance, it presents opportunities for our adversaries,” said Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. Defense Secretary and Republican Senator from Nebraska. “They will continue to make every effort to assert themselves in this time. I don’t believe we are ever adequately prepared for events like we are living through now, especially a global health pandemic.”
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The U.S. military’s playbook for deterring adversaries since World War II is to project power by promptly deploying thousands of troops, flying in nuclear-capable bombers, or dispatching aircraft carrier battle groups to problematic regions. It’s a practice that’s taken on increased importance under President Donald Trump, who relishes the military hardware paid for by his Administration’s $700 billion Pentagon budget.
Amid today’s COVID pandemic, the options to demonstrate a show of force are severely limited. The Pentagon has thus far responded to the spate of threats rhetorically, repeatedly publicly warning enemies not to confuse the current moment of national crisis as a weakness. “We will continue to carry out our mission assignments around the world in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, et cetera,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. “Our readiness is still high. Our readiness is still strong. We are able to deter and defeat any challenges that may seek to take advantage of these opportunities at this point of crisis.”
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, the anchor of a deterrent force against China’s advances in the South China Sea, has been docked in Guam indefinitely. A COVID outbreak swept through the ship’s 4,865-person crew last month, and has since infected at least 615 sailors, killed one and sent five others into a Guam hospital. The only other American carrier deployed in the Pacific, the USS Ronald Reagan, is receiving maintenance for four months in Yokosuka, Japan, available only for “Selected Restricted Availability,” and in Bremerton, Washington, the Navy has quarantined the crew of the next carrier strike group scheduled for duty in the Pacific, led by the USS Nimitz.
With these ships sidelined, China now has the sole carrier operating in the region. Over the weekend, China sent a Liaoning-class aircraft carrier and a five-ship battle group near the territorial waters of U.S. allies Japan and Taiwan. It was China’s latest attempt to flex its muscles in the region after sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat in the contested waters of the South China Sea; announcing new “research stations” at military bases in the area; and landing “special military aircraft” on one them, Fiery Cross Reef, according to an April 6 statement by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
Ortagus warned China “to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.” The Air Force, for its part, attempted to project power this week by parading 14 aircraft on a runway in Guam. The military publicized the so-called “elephant walk,” which included B-52 bombers and KC-135 refueling tankers more than a half-century old.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, China’s ally, has been carrying out his own military exercises. After voluntarily pausing missile launches last year, Pyongyang has blasted off a wide range of missiles in recent weeks. The launches are seen as “an attempt to demonstrate strength and deterrence, both internally and externally,” amid the COVID pandemic, according to analysts with the United States Institute of Peace.
In many ways, that’s nothing new. The Chinese and North Korean actions are “business as usual” by America’s two adversaries in the region, says Zack Cooper, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute. The sentiment is shared by Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, who says North Korea is pursuing a backlog of tests now that diplomacy with the U.S. has floundered. “We’re in the post-diplomacy period now,” he said. “We’re just waiting for them to test what’s next. The big stuff is yet to come.”
Iran, another longtime adversary, has also been ramping up its efforts to strengthen its influence in the region and attempt to drive U.S. troops out. Despite fighting a widespread COVID outbreak at home, Iran has not relented on backing armed attacks on American forces on Iraqi bases through its proxy militias. “The Iranians are keen on demonstrating to the U.S. that the COVID crisis has neither debilitated them nor has altered their strategic calculus,” says Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. “In fact, the less the Iranians have to lose, the less risk-averse they are likely to become.”
Russia, America’s longest running adversary, has pursued bold military moves that have crept beyond the continent of Europe. The aerobatic intercept over the Mediterranean and satellite-killing missile follows a flight off the Alaskan coast. On April 8, the U.S. Air Force scrambled F-22 fighter jets to intercept two Russian IL-38 submarine-hunting above the Bering Sea just 50 miles off Alaska. North American Aerospace Defense Command General Terrence O’Shaughnessy said: “COVID-19 or not, NORAD continues actively watching for threats and defending the homelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
The Pentagon also has its own personnel health to worry about. To guard against outbreaks, the Pentagon is developing “safety bubbles” by ramping up its internal COVID testing and isolating healthy troops. After a negative test, service members have to do a 14-day quarantine before going back to the business of being a soldier, sailor or Marine. Military laboratories are now processing about 9,000 tests a day. “Our desire, our aspiration, is to expand testing, especially for groups that are going to be in tighter quarters, such as sub crews, bomber crews, basic trainees and things like that,” Milley said. “We’ve got an objective here of ramping that up to about 60,000 tests here in about 45 days or so.”
Even when the military’s battle against COVID is physically over, there will be a lingering battle ahead, says AEI’s Cooper. “COVID will have a short-term impact on the U.S. military’s readiness, but the longer-term impact will be greater: defense cuts,” he says. “Having just spent $2 trillion to address the economic damage done by COVID, U.S. officials and taxpayers will be looking for cost savings. And they will look to the Defense Department, particularly after November.”
Please send tips, leads, and stories from the frontlines to [email protected].
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iasshikshalove · 5 years ago
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Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019
Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019 GS-2 Iran Nuclear deal: Why in News? Iran on Monday began enriching its stockpile of uranium to 4.5% purity, breaching the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal that Washington abandoned last year. This comes days after Iran exceeded the 300-kg limit to its low-enriched uranium stockpile, breaching another cap set by the nuclear deal. Reasons:  These moves come as part of a series of aggressive actions by the U.S. and Iran.  It began last year when the U.S. unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions that have hit the Iranian economy.  Iranian oil exports have fallen drastically and it has put its economy in a precarious situation.  Oil exports dropped from 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 300,000 bpd in the first three weeks of June after the U.S. withdrew the waivers it had granted to a few countries, including India, to import oil from Iran.  Iran has urged the remaining signatories of the deal to come up with an effective solution to help it circumvent U.S. sanctions.  It had earlier threatened to exceed 20% in enrichment of uranium if Europe had not made any progress by July 7.  Once 20% enrichment is reached, enriching it to weapon-grade levels of 90% is only a short step. Why did the deal fall apart?  Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) it was signed by Iran, the five countries of the UNSC (the U.S., the U.K., France, China and Russia), Germany and the EU.  The Islamic Republic was suspected of developing nuclear weapons surreptitiously; a charge that it denied.  Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear capabilities and, in return, international sanctions would be lifted. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019  As per the deal, Iran reduced the number of its centrifuges used for enriching uranium by two-thirds, restricted its uranium enrichment to 3.67%, and removed the core of its heavywater facility in Arak.  In May 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal stating it did not make an effort to curb Iran‟s “sponsoring of terrorism” abroad and its ballistic missiles programme. Did Europe try to save the deal?  Europe launched a new trade mechanism called Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) to continue trade with Iran in a non-dollar basis.  But INSTEX covers only humanitarian goods such as medicine, water, and food supplies, which are not affected by the sanctions anyway.  INSTEX does not help in trading oil, which is the lifeline of the Iranian economy.  Iran and other signatories met in Vienna on June 28 to work out a solution, but saw no breakthrough.  The European leaders declared INSTEX operational after the conference, but Iran opines that although it is a positive development, Europe can „do more‟.  Circumventing U.S. sanctions via an alternative trade mechanism is not very simple as it is the European companies and not the government that have to trade with Iran, in the face of U.S. antagonism. Poverty status in India: Context: India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as “assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition,” a report by the United Nations . Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019 Salient observation of report:  The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) was released on Thursday.  The report said that in the 101 countries studied — 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income - 1.3 billion people are “multidimensionally poor”, which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.  The report identifies 10 countries, with a combined population of around 2 billion people, to illustrate the level of poverty reduction, and all of them have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, namely ending poverty “in all its forms, everywhere”.  The 10 countries are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru and Vietnam.  The report said that within these 10 countries, data shows that 270 million people moved out of multidimensional poverty from one survey to the next. Global Scenario:  This progress was largely driven by South Asia. In India, there were 271 million fewer people in poverty in 2016 than in 2006, while in Bangladesh the number dropped by 19 million between 2004 and 2014,” it said.  The report noted that of the 10 selected countries for which changes over time were analysed, India and Cambodia reduced their MPI values the fastest — and they did not leave the poorest groups behind.  India‟s MPI value reduced from 0.283 in 2005-06 to 0.123 in 2015-16.  Noting the examples of pro-poor reduction, where the poorest regions improved the fastest, the report said that Jharkhand in India reduced the incidence of multidimensional poverty from 74.9% in 2005-06 to 46.5% in 2015-16.  Ethiopia, India and Peru significantly reduced deprivations in all 10 indicators, namely nutrition, sanitation, child mortality, drinking water, years of schooling, electricity, school attendance, housing, cooking fuel and assets. Status in India: Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019  In 2005-2006, the population in India living in multidimensional poverty stood at about 640 million people (55.1%) and this reduced to 369 million people (27.9%) living in poverty in 2015-16.  India saw significant reductions in number of people who are multidimensionally poor and deprived in each of the 10 indicators over this time period.  India reduced deprivation in nutrition from 44.3% in 2005-06 to 21.2% in 2015-16, child mortality dropped from 4.5% to 2.2%, people deprived of cooking fuel reduced from 52.9% to 26.2%, deprivation in sanitation from 50.4% to 24.6%, those deprived of drinking water reduced from 16.6% to 6.2 %.  Further more people gained access to electricity as deprivation was reduced from 29.1% to 8.6%, housing from 44.9% to 23.6% and assets deprivation from 37.6% to 9.5%. Uneven poverty reduction:  The trends in these 10 countries also shine a light on where poverty reduction has been uneven, despite the good progress overall.  “In all 10 countries rural areas are poorer than urban areas.  In Cambodia, Haiti, India and Peru poverty reduction in rural areas outpaced that in urban areas — demonstrating pro-poor development — and in Bangladesh and Democratic Republic of the Congo poverty fell at the same speed in rural and urban areas, it added.  The report also showed that children suffer poverty more intensely than adults and are more likely to be deprived in all 10 of the MPI indicators, lacking essentials such as clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition or primary education.  Child poverty fell markedly faster than adult poverty in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Haiti, India and Peru. Globally, of the 1.3 billion people who are multidimensionally poor, more than two-thirds of them—886 million— now live in middle-income countries. A further 440 million live in low-income countries. GS-3 Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS): Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019 What is it? The AFRS, being implemented by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), is a component of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), a national database of crimes and criminals. The data will only be accessible to law enforcement agencies. Concerns about Privacy:  The Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS) would not violate privacy of citizens and is only being developed to help the law enforcement agencies to identify criminals, missing children and unidentified bodies in a scientific and speedy manner. Details:  The NCRB had last week invited bids for AFRS that would even “capture face images from CCTV feed and generate alerts if a blacklist match is found,” triggering privacy concern.  At present, there are 7.71 lakh cases of missing persons in the CCTNS database that includes 98,000 children.  “This software will be used only in respect of such persons who figure on the CCTNS data base -- accused persons, prisoners, missing persons and unidentified found persons including children, and unidentified dead persons -- and is not going to be used on any other data base  Just as fingerprint matching is used in investigation by the police by matching fingerprint found in crime scene with the fingerprint database, the AFRS will add another information layer to investigation by allowing matching photograph of suspect or missing person with the photo database of CCTNS. Helping against crime:  In case a person is suspected or arrested for crime during investigation, his photo can also be matched over the CCTNS data base for previous criminal records.  This will ensure that criminals and terrorists will no longer be able to hide behind fake identities. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019  Presently, police undertake manual search for matching photographs on CCTNS data base. Artificial Intelligence: Why in News? The Union Health Ministry is working towards using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a safe and effective way in public health. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in Lok Sabha on July 12 that to address gaps in India‟s AI ecosystem and realise its economic impact, the central government has prioritised building AI technology capabilities. Potential in health sector:  The potential of AI in public health is being explored in our country. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) is working towards using AI in a safe and effective way in public health in India/  A few of the initiatives undertaken by the central government to use AI in public health are Imaging Biobank for cancer, for which the NITI Aayog with Department of Bio-Technology (DBT) aims to build a database of cancer-related radiology and pathology images of more than 20,000 profiles of cancer patients with focus on major cancers prevalent in India.  NITI Aayog is working on using AI for early detection of diabetic retinopathy.  NITI Aayog is currently in the process of developing institutional mechanism, funding framework and other such steps to realise India‟s AI aspirations.  NITI Aayog, after consultation with various ministries and leading academicians, institutions, practitioners and industry players, released India‟s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in June 2018. Ease of doing business: Why in News? Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019 Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, said the government will increase its focus on agriculture infrastructure. “Ease of doing business and ease of living should apply to farmers,” she said. In this regard, Ms. Sitharaman suggested that farmers take up zero-budget farming. “ What is zero-budget farming?  Zero-budget farming is a form of natural farming which is neither chemical-loaded nor organic with its reliance on manure.  It is a form of gardening as a self-sustainable practice with minimum external intervention.  This concept was first propagated 25 years ago by Subhash Palekar as a movement for farmers who were in debt due to the Green Revolution and is now being used by a large number of farmers across the country. Hayabusa: Why in News? Japan‟s Hayabusa2 probe made a “perfect” touchdown on Thursday on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system. “We have never gathered sub-surface material from a celestial body further away than the moon,” he added. Details of Mission:  The brief landing on Thursday is the second time Hayabusa2 has touched down on the desolate asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometres from Earth.  Ryugu, which means “Dragon Palace” in Japanese, refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale.  The complex multi-year Hayabusa2 mission has also involved sending rovers and robots down to the surface. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 12-July-2019  Thursday‟s touchdown was intended to collect pristine materials from beneath the surface of the asteroid that could provide insights into what the solar system was like at its birth, some 4.6 billion years ago.  To get at those crucial materials, in April an “impactor” was fired from Hayabusa2 towards Ryugu in a risky process that created a crater on the asteroid‟s surface and stirred up material that had not previously been exposed to the atmosphere.  Hayabusa2‟s first touchdown was in February, when it landed briefly on Ryugu and fired a bullet into the surface to puff up dust for collection, before blasting back to its holding position.  The touchdown is the last major part of Hayabusa2‟s mission, and when the probe returns to Earth next year to drop off its samples, scientists hope to learn more about the history of the solar system and even the origin of life on Earth. Background:  Hayabusa2 is the successor to JAXA‟s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa — Japanese for falcon — that returned with dust samples from a smaller, potato-shaped asteroid in 2010.  It was hailed as a scientific triumph despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year odyssey.  The Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014, and has a price tag of around $270 million.
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