Yesternight, in Nigeria greeted us to the news of Amazon Founder been the Richest Man in the World beating 'Bill Gates' but for a brief ....... Moment...
Jeff Bezos only enjoyed the fame and paparazzi of been the World's Richest Man for less than 24 hours... From 90.8 billion Dollars, his fortunes plummeted down to 89.8 Billion Dollars.
There is something about Billionaires and Philanthropy.Besides the Influence that been a Billionaire gives, getting fully involved in Philanthropy gives you fame and unfettered access to men in power across the World..
For Jeff Bezos, his public posturing on that is different and here is why..
(1/5)Chinese Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming (3rd R) announces the success in trial mining of combustible ice at sea, on a trial mining site in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea, May 18, 2017. China has succeeded in collecting samples of combustible ice in the South China Sea, a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution, Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming said Thursday. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)
GUANGZHOU, May 18 (Xinhua) -- China has succeeded in collecting samples of combustible ice in the South China Sea, a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution, Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming said Thursday.
This is China's first success in mining flammable ice at sea, after nearly two decades of research and exploration, the minister said at a trial mining site in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea Thursday.
Combustible ice usually exists in seabed or tundra areas, which have the strong pressure and low temperature necessary for its stability. It can be ignited like solid ethanol, which is why it is called "combustible ice."
Approximately one cubic meter of "combustible ice" is equal to 164 cubic meters of regular natural gas.
China found flammable ice, a kind of natural gas hydrate, in the South China Sea in 2007.
International scientific circles have predicted that natural gas hydrate is the best replacement for oil and natural gas.
According to Zhong Ziran, head of the China Geological Survey Bureau, combustible ice is more environmentally friendly and in large reserves.
Mining of combustible ice started in the 1960s, but China began research in 1998.
Trial mining of combustible ice in the Shenhu sea, about 320 kilometers southeast of Zhuhai City in Guangdong, started on March 28. Experts first tapped natural gas hydrate at a depth of 1,266 meters underwater last Wednesday.
An average of 16,000 cubic meters of gas with high purity was extracted each day.
Experts believe that the success shows China has mastered combustible ice mining technology.
"Many countries along the Maritime Silk Road have a demand for combustible ice mining," said Qiu Haijun, director of the trial mining commanding headquarters.
"With the advanced technology we could help resolve the energy resource problem and boost economic development and exchanges between countries," Qiu said.
TOKYO, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday approved a bill to allow Emperor Akihito to abdicate the Chrysanthemum throne and hand his duties over to Crown Prince Naruhito.
Akihito's abdication would mark the first time a Japanese emperor has abdicated the throne in around 200 years.
In terms of timing for Emperor Akihito's abdication, the government has been considering December 2018, as the possible timing for the move, as this is when the emperor will turn 85 years old.
The nation's era name (gengo), informed sources said, which lasts for as long as the emperor is on the throne, will possibly change at the beginning of 2019.
The abdication bill was written with just the current emperor in mind, as the government does not want to set a precedent for future emperors abdicating.
The bill will be submitted to the Diet later on Friday, with the government expecting it to come into effect by the end of the current Diet session in mid-June.
Last August, Emperor Akihito made a rare public televised address during which he suggested he wanted to step down because his advancing age and weakening health were making it difficult for him to carry out his official duties to the best of his ability.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionSouth Korea said the latest missile resembled the Pukguksong-2 that was tested in February
North Korea has conducted another missile test, South Korea's military has said.
The White House said the medium-range missile had a shorter range than those used in North Korea's last three tests.
It comes a week after North Korea tested what it said was a new type of rocket capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.
Last Monday, the UN Security Council again demanded that Pyongyang conduct no further such tests.
It stressed the importance of North Korea "immediately showing sincere commitment to denuclearisation through concrete action".
South Korea's foreign ministry said the launch was "reckless and irresponsible".
The latest missile flew about 560km (350 miles) towards the Sea of Japan, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Last week's missile travelled about 700km.
Japanese news agencies said the missile probably fell into the sea outside Japanese waters.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference a protest had been lodged with North Korea.
North Korea is known to be developing both nuclear weapons - it has conducted five nuclear tests - and the missiles capable of delivering those weapons to their target. Both are in defiance of UN sanctions.
South Korea said the latest test was conducted in Pukchang, in the west of the country. A missile exploded soon after take-off from Pukchang last month.
Earlier on Sunday, the North's state-run media had said it would continue to launch more "weapons capable of striking" the US.
In early May, the US said a missile defence system it had installed in South Korea was now operational.
The Thaad system can intercept North Korean missiles, although full operational capability is still some months away. North Korea and its ally China have condemned the installation of the system.
However, there is no sign that Thaad was used against the missile tested on Sunday.
Newly-installed South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is seeking deeper engagement with the North, has convened an urgent meeting of his national security council in response.
Kim defies the pressure: Steve Evans, BBC News, Seoul
This would be the 10th detected missile launch by North Korea this year - outside experts agree that it's making progress in its stated aim of having the ability to strike the mainland US with nuclear weapons.
Though it's not there yet, the latest tests have been of missiles capable of reaching American bases in the Western Pacific, albeit with some failures.
There is intense pressure on Kim Jong-un from the US, which is seeking the help of China. Repeated and more frequent testing of missiles, despite prohibition by the United Nations, indicates the North Korean leader feels able to defy that pressure.
Image copyrightSHANNA CHALLENGERImage captionSome goats are put in shower caps for their helicopter ride to keep them calm
As the tiny, rugged isle of Redonda appears like an eerie moonscape through the rain clouds, it is easy to see why people refer to it simply as "the rock".
Almost devoid of vegetation, this tiny remnant of a prehistoric volcano looks a hulk of nothingness.
This is Antigua and Barbuda's third island, the one you will not find in tourist brochures. It could not be further from the lush landscapes fringed by white-sand beaches that helped put its sisters on the map.
Redonda, stretching just one mile (1.6km) long, is entirely uninhabited save for a handful of conservationists, who are currently camping here. And some perplexed-looking goats which, until February, had the island to themselves for decades.
It may seem uninspiring at first glance but environmentalists hope to transform its barren terrain into a fertile eco-haven.
Its desolate appearance belies its status as prized seabird habitat, home to rare and unique wildlife found nowhere else on Earth.
Yet these reptiles, tropical birds, frigates and boobies have been in danger of disappearing thanks to two invasive species introduced by early colonists.
Image copyrightGEMMA HANDYImage captionAntiguans refer to the country's uninhabited third island of Redonda as "the rock"
The long-horned goats, brought here 300 years ago, have eaten almost all the plants that once carpeted Redonda. Now with barely anything left for them to feed on, many have starved to death, their carcasses littering the land.
Conservationists hope that by re-homing the 75-strong herd on to the main island of Antigua, around 30 miles (50km) away, Redonda will be able to flourish once again.
Several have already been flown out by helicopter. To keep them calm on the 20-minute flight, shower caps or hoods made from yoga pants are put on their heads. Protective material, which actually comes from swimming floats known as noodles, is wrapped around their horns so they do not injure each other.
Today, half a dozen more are in a corral awaiting embarkation to the mainland. The government's department of agriculture plans to breed them for their useful, drought-adapted genes.
Also in conservationists' targets are thousands of black rats, which they plan to eradicate. The rodents arrived with a 19th-Century guano-mining community and have come to prey on wildlife, eating precious birds' eggs.
Image copyrightGEMMA HANDYImage captionThe goats have eaten most of the island's vegetation
For the handful of international non-governmental organisations at work here, in conjunction with the Antiguan government and the country's Environmental Awareness Group, Redonda is something of a giant outdoor laboratory.
"We will be watching to see what grows when all the goats and rats are gone," Elizabeth Bell, of Wildlife Management International Ltd, tells the BBC. "In Columbus's day, Redonda would have been completely covered with ficus trees. In five to 10 years, I think we will see reasonably interesting changes. Within 100, there will be massive change."
Image copyrightGEMMA HANDYImage captionA board lists the island's goats, which have all been named after people
She said her ideal scenario would be to see it "fully forested again, with a larger population of boobies and frigate birds, lizards everywhere, and a massive increase in ground birds".
The island is also home to an endemic pygmy gecko, a species that was only discovered in 2012.
The team eventually hopes to reintroduce long-departed iguanas and burrowing owls too.
Image copyrightGEMMA HANDYImage captionRedonda is known as an important seabird habitat
Under international conservation protocol, it takes two years before the island can be declared a rat-free zone. The painstaking eradication project involves laying rat bait, flavoured with everything from liquorice to chocolate, in every crevice. The spots hardest to reach are accessed by abseiling and snorkelling.
Redonda's dramatic deforestation has also triggered soil erosion and landslides threatening nearby coral reefs, says Shanna Challenger, a coordinator of the $700,000 £540,000), three-year programme.
Salina Janzan, from Surrey in the UK, is one of several environmentalists camping out among the relics of stone buildings left over from the guano miners.
Image copyrightGEMMA HANDYImage captionConservationist Salina Janzan looks out over the make-shift camp
She said she had accepted the challenge to come as part of a delegation from the Fauna & Flora International (FFI) charity, partly because she had read a children's book called The Dragon of Redonda about the island when she was young.
"What do I miss most?" she says, with a grin. "A cold drink. In fact, anything cold. And proper showers. This is the longest anyone has lived on Redonda in decades."
Eccentric though it may sound, this is not the first time a project of this kind has been undertaken.
FFI says has already eliminated black rats from 23 Caribbean islands since 1995, including 15 of Antigua & Barbuda's offshore isles. The work is believed to have saved the Antiguan racer, once the world's rarest known snake, from imminent extinction.
"Redonda is a pretty incredible place, both for the human history and the natural history," Ms Bell adds. "To be working to make it even more special is magical."
The NSK has invented a nation as a work of art – and its pavilion at the Venice Biennale has much to say about statehood and globalisation, writes Benjamin Ramm.
The woman who stamps my passport is called Mercy and she has no fixed abode. Born in Nigeria, she travelled via Libya to Italy, where she lives in the city of Padua in a state of legal limbo. The passport she stamps is issued not by the United Kingdom but by the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), a Slovenian art collective exhibiting at the 2017 Venice Biennale. The purpose of the installation is to explore the meaning of states and statelessness, in part by reversing the experiences of citizen and migrant.
Art is fanaticism that demands diplomacy – NSK passport
The 57th International Art Exhibition in Venice features 85 national pavilions, from Albania to Zimbabwe, with themes as diverse as the University of Disaster and the Theatre of Glowing Darkness. This year, faced with a rising tide of nationalism, many artists are keen to stress universal identities: there is a Pavilion of Humanity, and a Tunisian installation that issues visitors with a ‘freesa’ (a free visa), endorsing “freedom of movement without the need for arbitrary state-based sanction”.
In Venice, NSK ‘citizens’ work to issue passports to new applicants, such as the author of this article (Credit: Davide Carpenedo)
The NSK proclaimed their ‘state’ in 1992, the year after Slovenia declared its independence, as new nations gained sovereignty at the end of the Cold War. “Art is fanaticism that demands diplomacy,” states the inset of my new passport, which declares the owner to be “a participant in the first global state”. NSK regards itself as a “State in Time”, without nation or territory: it “denies the principle of national borders, and it advocates the Transnational Law”.
The NSK has its own pavilion at the Venice Biennale, as if it were any other country – they issue passports in an office in the Palazzo Ca’Tron (Credit: Davide Carpenedo)
Over the last century, passports have come to represent a fundamental aspect of our identity. When IS proclaimed its caliphate, they instructed fighters to tear up their passports, cutting ties with their ‘colonial’ inheritance and committing themselves to a new entity. No less ideological is the utopian World Passport conceived in 1954 by peace activist Garry Davis. Issued by a “world government of world citizens”, it is said to be owned by 10,000 people, but not recognised diplomatically: in 2016, hip-hop artist Mos Def was detained in South Africa for trying to use the document to leave the country.
The state is the basic condition for individuals’ freedom – NSK
Authenticity is an essential component of a passport, to the point that it is taken as proof of identity. In 2004, NSK’s headquarters in Ljubljana was inundated by thousands of passport applications from Nigerians based in the southern city of Ibadan. Some correspondents wrote that they had heard NSK was a beautiful country and wished to travel there.
State authority
Visitors to NSK’s pavilion are handed a copy of its newspaper, the front page of which prints an “Apology for Modernity”. “It is cruel to refuse shelter to refugees”, says the editorial. “But it is much more cruel to make people refugees”. NSK regards “the perpetrators of their suffering and misery” to be “the liberal Western world”, the citizens of which “are all complicit in the crimes our elected and unelected leaders have committed. We have become stupid and ugly.”
Garry Davis created his ‘world passport’ in 1954 to encourage the idea of global citizenship – but it is recognised by few countries (Credit: Alamy)
This opinion is not rare in the art world (86% of the consulted NSK members endorsed the statement), unlike the group’s dedication to a statist model, which is unfashionable among artists, who tend to be wary of overweening state power. “The state is the basic condition for individuals’ moral and political life, for their freedom”, declares the provocative Apology, which says it is the duty of artists to “reaffirm the majesty of the state both in time and space”.
This stance appeals to NSK’s most famous ambassador, the charismatic and controversial philosopher Slavoj Žižek. Shortly before he delivers a lecture to mark the opening of their pavilion, he tells me that “the uniqueness of NSK is this idea of the ‘stateless state’. It is not, as some leftists think, just a parody. They are not mocking the state, and this assumption reveals a typical liberal fear: what if some people take it seriously and are seduced? But they are to be taken seriously!”
Slavoj Žižek is a cultural theorist who’s also dabbled in film criticism with the documentaries The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (Credit: Alamy)
A Leninist by inclination, Žižek has written that the NSK collective should be committed to “a state art in the service of a still non-existent country. It must abandon the celebration of islands of privacy, seemingly insulated from the machinery of authority, and must voluntarily become a small cog in this machinery”. When I suggest that state art is at best banal, at worst coercive, he replies that “NSK are state artists only of their own state!”
It could be said that Žižek underestimates the arbitrary tyranny of bureaucracy – as testified by artists throughout the 20th Century. The curators of NSK’s pavilion argue that its state is “free from the weight of the crimes of older states. It can breathe the air of statehood without choking”. Yet the burden of states lies not only in their collective past, but in their essential bureaucratic structure, which tends to ever greater accumulation of information and influence over citizens.
Alongside the NSK’s pavilion 86 nations are represented in venues throughout Venice for the Biennale (Credit: Davide Carpenedo)
When I challenge Žižek on this point, he recounts his experience of speaking to refugees travelling through Europe. “Police wanted to register them, and they said ‘No, we are not cattle – we are humans’. But they wanted to go to Norway – the most organised state you can imagine! Because that’s how the welfare state functions”.
Having it both ways?
The refugee experience is not uniform (some flee from tyrannous states, others from lawless statelessness) but Žižek’s statement reveals a tension at the heart of NSK’s work. Their passport claims it is “a document of a subversive nature” but it replicates the same bureaucratic processes it purports to critique. The applicant is charged with listing personal particulars (such as blood type) that are stored in a state register.
You shouldn’t like refugees just because they have a nice story to tell – Slavoj Žižek
I suggest to Žižek that more accountable and direct forms of democracy have been devised using local models – after all, we are speaking in Venice, once an independent republican city state, resistant to the authority of larger political and religious entities. But Žižek argues that city democracy is nearly always run by an urban elite (much like Venice’s Biennale). He points out that many of the problems we face today – from the environment to the migration crisis – require supra-national structures such as the EU.
Žižek’s scepticism about local democracy derives in part from his understanding of the ethnic tensions that exploded in the Balkans in the 1990s. In the NSK newspaper, he writes that “there is nothing liberating about the breaking of state authority... utopian energy is no longer directed towards a stateless community, but towards a state without a nation, a state which would no longer be founded on an ethnic community and its territory”. In this vein, Žižek argues that “it is today’s anti-immigrant populists who are the true threat to the European Enlightenment”. He tells me that our commitment to refugee rights should not be dependent on heart-rending stories of dispossession, but on civic principles: “you shouldn’t like them because they have a nice story to tell – no, you like them irrespective of their story, because human rights are totally abstract rights. We will solve this crisis through geopolitics, not by asking ‘how open will our heart be?’”.
Within an hour of the opening of NSK’s pavilion, there is a lengthy queue to view the main installation. It revolves around a daring and disorientating room slanted at an angle of 45 degrees. The gradation is acute enough to force the visitor to struggle to maintain balance, which is best achieved by adopting the pose of a surfer, or leaning on the display panels. The artist Ahmet Ögüt confirms that the effect is to ensure that visitors are intensely focused – this is not an exhibition for casual perusal. It may not be easy to throw off our inherited identities, but we can at least bring a degree of attention to the issues that confront us, and seek to navigate a solution.
