wood blog,wood weblog,wood news

Female applicants for the army are being asked to showcase their talents in an interview process never before used and exclusively for women.

Aspiring female officers were surprised to learn from Wednesday last week that they are now required to perform a ‘talent’ as part of the country’s current recruitment drive for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The test of artistic ability was included for the first time as part of the standard face-to-face interview by recruiters on behalf of the PLA, which took place following stringent health screenings over recent weeks.

“I was shocked by the new talent show test when I first heard about it,” said Zhang Jing, a candidate from Beijing Union University who opted to read a piece of poetry.

Zhang, interviewed on Saturday in Haidian district, said only those who will later be selected for an art troupe will need to have these talents.

A law major from the Beijing Normal University called Zhang Wenbian said: “I thought the talent show was a little unnecessary.”

However, after singing in front of nine judges on Saturday she changed her mind, saying it offered her a chance to display her skills.

“The reason they asked for an artistic performance might be because there were more applicants than places,” she said.

Soldiers are paid about 4,000 yuan every year in the army, while their livings expenses are covered. Those who have university education can also received a subsidy of 6,000 yuan for each year of study to cover university tuition fees. The army also offers employment assistance to its soldiers after they finish their contracted terms of service.

Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhengquan from the Beijing recruitment office said they only want to choose the best eligible young women.

Ding confirmed there are limited vacancies for female applicants compared with their male counterparts, which is why standards have been raised.

The army interview for women includes a 30-second self-introduction, a 150-second question and answer period, and a 2-minute talent show.

Recruiters refused to disclose the number of women who will be recruited this year, citing national security as a concern.

Han Sheng, a student from Minzu University of China, displayed two of her paintings to the judges.

Han admitted she was surprised by the talent show: “It’s only 2 minutes; some talents cannot be presented in such a short time.”

However, some judges appeared more upbeat about the talent section. Wang Bosheng, a judge in the Haidian district section and a member of the National People’s Congress, believed the artistic element was essential.

“It is amazing to see so many girls with such great gifts,” Wang said. He added it would help them select the right people for the army.

Wang Qian, a vice battalion commander in the Second Artillery Force, reviewed the female applicants in Haidian district on Saturday in the hope of finding suitable women for her battalion.

Wang believed it was extremely necessary to include the talent shows, and told METRO: “Female soldiers are a special element of the army.”

She said the army did not only want someone who is intelligent.

“We want to find those candidates who are great in every field,” she said.

The face-to-face interview has a total mark of 30. The talent show counts for 8 marks with “expression” and “impression” providing another 12 and 10.

In order to ensure interview fairness, mobile signals were blocked in all examination rooms and questions were picked randomly by applicants.

The recruitment drive for male applicants is also still ongoing.

Nearly 42 percent of Chinese who are HIV positive have experiences of stigma and discrimination, says a report published by UNAIDS on Friday.

It is the first report in China to cite evidence underlining the importance of public health education to remove the stigma and discrimination, said Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director.

The report, based on a survey of more than 2,000 respondents living with HIV in China, said that 41.7 percent of them reported having faced some type of HIV-related discrimination and more than two thirds said their family members had experienced discrimination as a result of their HIV status.

According to the report, a quarter of medical staff and more than a third of government officials and teachers develop more negative and discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV after learning of their HIV positive status.

The stigma and discrimination had affected many aspects of their lives, including medical care, education, housing and finding jobs, said the report. More than 12 percent had been refused medical care at least once since they were tested positive.

“These results really underscore the importance of ensuring health care professionals receive appropriate training to reduce stigma and discrimination and increasing their ability to provide appropriate services to people living with HIV,” Sidibe said.

Huang Jiefu, Vice Minister of Health, said the fear of being stigmatized and discriminated against prevented people from getting information about HIV prevention, getting tested and accessing treatment.

“The stigma and discrimination have been a major barrier on AIDS prevention and treatment,” Huang said.

Huang said the government attached great importance to eliminating the discrimination and its efforts had been taking effect.

“Awareness has been promoted in recent years in China. People used to avoid talking about AIDS in the 1990s but now they shake hands and hug with people living with HIV,” said Sidibe, calling on the public to participate in the campaign to reduce discrimination.

“People living with HIV should not be forced to live in the shadows,” said an HIV positive man, who identified himself as Yu Xuan, not his real name to avoid discrimination on his family members.

“The discrimination will not be a problem if everyone can join the campaign,” said Yu Xuan who is a consultant for “positive talks.” Yu was honored as a “Top Ten AIDS volunteer” in 2008 by Shandong Provincial Red Cross.

“I hope next time I can tell the public my real name,” he said.

The UNAIDS and Ministry of Health have jointly launched a nationwide campaign to reduce HIV-related discrimination.

The campaign will culminate on World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 and will start with broadcasts of the videos and posters featured by Chinese basketball player Yao Ming on more than 20 giant outdoor screens in 12 cities. More than 30,000 posters will be distributed and the video will be shown in hotels and websites across China.

The Ministry of Health estimated that 740,000 people were living with HIV in China at the end of 2009. The latest statistics from the ministry showed that 48,000 people had been infected in 2009 and more than 70 percent of new infections are through sexual transmission.

Ghana’s President John Atta Mills would not remove any civil servant from office, solely on the account of political or party affiliation to fulfill the demand of some party activists.

Presidential Spokesperson Mahama Ayariga who said this on Wednesday stressed that no one would be dismissed from his/her civil service post without just cause once the appointment was not political.

Where a position is clearly a political appointment, such as Minister of State, or a Member of a Board of a Public Corporation, the power is in the hands of the President to effect that change.

Ayariga, who was speaking at a press conference at the Osu Castle in Accra, said there was no need to remove any competent civil servant who was discharging his or her duties by executing government policies and programmes, solely on the grounds that the official was not a supporter of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The press conference was to react to a number of issues that have come up, the principal of which was an allegation that President Mills was ignoring the NDC and not making appointments from the Party.

Ayariga said any removal of an official in the civil service would be based on the rules governing the service and evidence that the official was sabotaging government policies and programmes.

He denied that President Mills was ignoring his party, and said the Mills government was the one that had had the highest number of appointments made directly from the NDC.

“Even the NDC I (from 1992 to 2000) never witnessed such a massive scale of party officials directly taking up government appointment,” Ayariga said, and gave out a list of party officials that had directly taken up government appointments.

These include the national Chairman of the Party, who is the Chairman of the Board of GETFund and also sits in Cabinet meetings; the Vice Chairman Alhaji Hudu Yahaya, who is the Chairman of the Bulk Oil Storage Transport Limited.

The General Secretary of the Party Johnson Asiedu Nketiah openly declared his desire to remain at the party office and not to occupy a ministerial position, but attends Cabinet meetings.

The National Women’s Organizer Ama Benyiwa Doe is now the Central Regional Minister; the two Deputy General Secretaries — Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah and Alhaji Baba Jamal — are now Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development and Deputy Minister of Eastern Region respectively, while the National Youth Organizer Ofosu Ampofo now is the Eastern Regional Minister.

Others are Haruna Iddrisu, the then National Youth Organizer, is now the Minister of Communications; the Propaganda Secretary Fiifi Kwetey, is now a Deputy Minister of Finance and Margaret Clarke-Kwesie, the National Treasurer has moved to become Ghana’s Ambassador to Korea.

Explaining further, Ayariga said some Regional Chairmen of the Party were offered ambassadorial appointments. Those who accepted the appointments included the Volta Regional Chairman Modestus Ahiable and the Ashanti Regional Chairman Daniel Ohene Agyekum.

“It is important to observe that none of the core members of the campaign team of Professor Mills in the 2008 campaign — Nii Lamptey Vanderpuije, Mr Koku Anyidoho or Mr Mahama Ayariga - took up ministerial appointments.”

On the cadre front, Ayariga said President Mills appointed Sam Garbah as Administrator of the GETFUND and Kofi Portuphy took back his position as National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization.

With regard to Regional Ministers, they were all appointed in consultation with the Regional Chairmen of the Party and in some cases they were nominated by the Chairmen and in cases where there was opposition, the nominees were withdrawn.

Ayariga said all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives were nominated by the party structures, and it was only in cases where consensus could not be built around a candidate due to internal party differences that the President went ahead to choose one of his nominees.

He said each district sent a set of nominees and one person was ranked as the preferred candidate.

The Presidential Spokesperson assured Ghanaians that President Mills remained committed to the principle of fairness to all Ghanaians.

Meanwhile, the President has directed all party members who have been given appointments at all levels to make space to enable party members with genuine grievances and legitimate demands to have access to them to enable them to receive attention.

Ayariga said the President himself had made space at all times to meet with constituency and regional executives each time he visited a region.

Ayariga also reacted to media reports that some constituency chairmen drawn from 22 constituencies in Accra last Monday sought audience with the President but were denied the opportunity.

According to the reports they paid a visit to former President Jerry Rawlings at his Ridge Residence to express misgivings about the break in communication between the party and government.

The publication said members of the group were particularly concerned about the failure of the presidency to accord them audience despite repeated requests and said it was dampening the mood in the party.

The report quoted Mr Magnus Anyetei Sowah, Constituency Chairman for La Dadekotopon, as saying that the supporters had spent years working for the party to return to power but unfortunately the synergy between government and party had totally broken down.

He also complained that the Ga constituencies had played a yeoman’s role in returning the NDC into power and it was unacceptable that they were being ignored.

However, Ayariga said the Presidency had been accessible to Party functionaries.

Ayariga said the issue was not about accessibility to the Presidency, but about the issues that were to be discussed.

He said the government had ensured regional equity in the sharing of ministerial posts, adding that the Greater Accra Region has had a reasonable share of ministerial appointments.

President Mills, according to the Spokesperson, is calling on all Ghanaians to rally behind his government to implement the social and economic policies set out in the 2010 budget, adding that “the benefits of growth shall equally be shared”.

Junior students admire a huge pipe organ at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in northeast China’s Liaoning Province on Nov. 24, 2009.

The newly-installed organ with a height of nine metres and weight of seven tons are made of about 2,000 pipes, among which are 60 wood pipes and over 1,900 metal pipes.

Nov 31 - Feb 1 ‘Souvenirs from Spain’: Pilar Albarracín Solo Exhibition Video installation. One of Andalusia’s premier female artists comes to the capital. For a preview of the work, see www.pilaralbarracin.com . Reception with artist on opening day, time tba.

The United States on Friday reiterated its call for Iran to give a formal response to an UN-backed draft deal over its nuclear program.

“Iran has not responded positively to the IAEA proposed agreement for the provision of nuclear fuel for its Tehran research reactor,” State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told a news briefing.

“We urge Iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement to meet the humanitarian needs of its people and to engage seriously with us in a dialogue and negotiations. This remains our consistent objective.”

The United States will “take a closer look at what measures we may need to take with regard to Iran,” Wood said. But declined to talk about new sanctions against Iran.

“The issue of sanctions has been discussed before. … There’s a window of opportunity for Iran. That window is not going to be open forever.”

Senior officials of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the so-called P-5-plus-1, and EU high representative will have further meetings in coming weeks to discuss Iran’s nuclear issues, according to the spokesman.

On Oct. 1, senior officials from the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Germany and China had talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, during which the Iranian side agreed in principle to ship most of its existing low-grade enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be processed into fuel rods with a purity of 20 percent.

The enriched uranium would be transported back to Iran to be used in a research reactor for the manufacture of medical radioisotopes.

The United States, Russia and France have approved a draft agreement presented earlier by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, but Iran wants amendments and more talks over the issue.

However, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that Iran will not send out its enriched uranium but considers simultaneous fuel swap on its soil.

The website of China’s Ministry of Defense ( www.mod.gov.cn/) was attacked by hackers more than 2.3 million times within the first month of its launch, according to website director Ji Guilin, www.people.com.cn reported.

Total traffic of the first three months reached 1.25 billion, Ji said, with Beijing, Guangdong and Jiangsu making up 40 percent of the total volume.

The US, Australia, Singapore and Japan visit the Chinese version of the website the most, while the US, Australia and Britain top the English version views. It usually takes three seconds to open a web page, five seconds from abroad, according to the report.

“The traffic of the first day reached 70 million and the next day climbed to 130 million. The first month saw hackers attack 2.3 million times, especially the first week. Once there is an event, the attacks increased. But none of the attacks worked,” said Ji.

The website of China’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) has attracted around 1.25 billion visits in the three months since its opening, with the United States topping the source countries for foreign visits, website editor-in-chief Ji Guilin said.

Visits from the United States had topped overseas visits to both the website’s Chinese and English versions, Ji said in an interview with the People’s Daily that was published on the MOD website Wednesday.

Internet users from Australia, Singapore, Japan and the United Kingdom also made high numbers of visits to the website, Ji said, without giving detailed figures.

Topics most viewed by foreign visitors include “military photos”, “top military leaders”, “high-level events” and “military power”, said Ji.

He also said the website suffered more than 2.3 million cyber attacks in the first month alone, especially in the first week since its opening.

“When there were major events taking place related to the military and national defense, the number of attacks rose,” he said.

The MOD website was opened on Aug. 20 in a bid to improve transparency in military affairs and national defense issues.

The portfolio of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard keeps on growing. Its troops watch over nuclear facilities, its rocket scientists enlarge Iran’s missile arsenal and its engineers have taken on a rail line as their latest big-ticket project. Could media mogul be next?

Sometime early next year, a new voice is expected to join Iran’s state-sanctioned media blitz: a full-service news agency with video, photos and print.

The arrival of another government-backed news outlet is not much of a surprise. It fits into Iran’s two-pronged media strategy: controlling its message with a constant flow of statements, trial balloons and news items while trying to muzzle those who disagree, including new plans to now police the Internet for opposition sites.

What’s being closely watched is how much control could be taken by the Revolutionary Guard — already the most powerful single institution in the country.

“The war of ideas will be intensified,” said Ehsan Ahrari, an analyst on regional affairs at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

A brief announcement last month on plans for the news operation, called Atlas, gave no hint of who will be in charge. But there’s growing speculation among analysts that it could mark a breakout moment for the Revolutionary Guard after years of apparent behind-the-scenes influence over some of Iran’s main news outlets.

Such a move would widen the Guard’s sway over Iran’s most strategic affairs — including its international media spin — and further suggest that the ruling clerics are ceding more authority to the Guard during a time of unprecedented internal crisis.

It also would give the Guard a powerful tool to expand the kind of bargaining-by-media used recently by Iran to float proposals and issue statements in wrangling with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

A possible media wing directly under the Revolutionary Guard would not be a stretch.

The semiofficial Fars news agency and the conservative newspaper Javan, or Young, are considered closely aligned with the Guard. But all the major state-backed news outlets rarely stray from the views of the Guard’s commanders and hard-line loyalists.

No specific launch date has been announced for Atlas, which officials have said will carry news in Farsi, English and Arabic. Some reports have speculated its debut could come in March, which marks the Iranian new year. Few other details have been revealed, and authorities did not respond to requests by The Associated Press for interviews with officials involved in Atlas.

The news comes as Iran intensifies its clampdown on what’s left of opposition sites on the Web.

On Saturday, Iranian media reported the creation of an Internet monitoring unit to fight “insults and the spreading of lies” — terms widely used by the judiciary to describe opposition activities after the disputed presidential election in June.

Iranian authorities have closed several pro-reform newspapers and dozens of Web sites and blogs since the outrage over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election. One of his challengers, Mahdi Karroubi, described the silencing of dissent as worse than the measures imposed by the former Western-back shah before he was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

At the same time, Iran has opened an information offensive. Its state-backed news agencies and broadcasters — including English-language Press TV and Al-Alam in Arabic — have churned out a blitz of policy statements, negotiating points and news breaks as the main soapboxes for Iran’s public diplomacy.

At a meeting of Asia-Pacific news agencies in Tehran on Sunday, Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini did not specifically mention the plans for Atlas. But he denounced the influence of the “hegemonic powers” through international media organizations.

“There is nothing unusual about the Revolutionary Guard moving openly into the media world,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an expert in Iranian affairs at Syracuse University. “They have been waging this war for years by going after Web sites and reformist media. It just shows they are getting more savvy about the utility of media — both old and new media.”

The Revolutionary Guard and its network of paramilitary volunteers led the crackdowns against rioters and demonstrations in the aftermath of the election.

But in July, the chief of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said his forces must be ready to shift tactics to confront the “soft threat” from opposition Web sites and other dissenters perceived as undermining the Islamic system.

There is little in Iran that is not already under the influence of the Guard, which operates as combination of fighting force, spy agency and deep-pocket CEO for the ruling establishment.

Its military divisions — which operate independently from the regular armed forces — are in command of every vital installation, including uranium enrichment facilities and oil fields. Volunteer militiamen, known as Basiji, are available as on-demand muscle against protesters and serve as nationwide watchdogs for the system.

An array of trusts, holding companies and government contracts gives the 120,000-strong Guard a role in about a third of Iran’s economy by some estimates.

In September, a consortium linked to the Revolutionary Guard, Etemad-e-Mobin, bought a 50 percent stake in the country’s newly privatized telecommunications company in a deal valued at $7.8 billion. Last week, the Guard’s engineering wing was awarded a $2.5 billion contract for a rail link.

A possible media outlet is part of a two-way arrangement, said researcher Ahrari.

The Islamic leaders gets unwavering loyalty from the Revolutionary Guard. In turn, the clerics allow the Guard to expand its power in new directions.

“It is a symbiotic relationship pure and simple,” he said.

Tiger Woods opened with two birdies, saved his round with two pars and wound up with a 4-under 68 on Friday to build a three-shot lead going into the weekend of the Australian Masters.

It was the fourth straight tournament in which Woods has had the 36-hole lead, although his only victory during that stretch came at the BMW Championship outside Chicago in September. He lost the last two times, including last week in Shanghai at the HSBC Champions.

Woods was at 10-under 134, three shots clear of an American — Jason Dufner — and a pair of Australians in Greg Chalmers and James Nitties, both of whom dropped shots on the 17th hole that cost them a spot in the final group Saturday with Woods.

Before another enthusiastic crowd that topped 24,000 people who endured hot sunshine and dust from so much traffic along sandy paths at Kingston Heath, Woods quickly regained the lead from Dufner, who shot his 67 in the morning to finish at 7-under 137.

Woods putted up the slope onto the green for a 3-foot birdie on the par-5 first, then changed clubs three times in the shifting wind before stuffing his approach to 2 feet on the second.

Woods lost his swing late in the round, twice slamming his driver into the ground as one shot sailed to the left and another to the right, and he also missed birdie putts of 10 feet on the 15th and 6 feet on the 16th that could have expanded his lead.

What saved him were two pars.

He chipped 15 feet past the flag on the ninth and made the putt coming back, then escaped more trouble on the par-5 14th, which played into the wind. Woods reached the green with a 3-iron on Thursday. This time, he had to hook a 3-wood around a gum tree on the left side of the fairway, and it clipped a branch and tumbled into a bunker, leaving him a 60-yard shot.

He did well to get onto the green, left his 40-foot birdie putt some 10 feet short, and made that for par.

“I didn’t do anything great,” Woods said. “But I had two big par putts to keep the round going.”

Nitties played behind Woods and his mammoth galleries for the second straight day and did well to keep pace until dropping a shot on the 17th. He wound up with a 71.

That left Chalmers alone in second, until he got a bad break on the 17th. There was a large tuft of grass behind his ball in the right rough, keeping him from hitting through the ball and toward the green. Instead, he tried to play a 40-yard hook to give himself a full, predictable swing, missed the green and chipped poorly to make bogey.

“I was a little disappointed with the bogey at 17 for one reason: I knew,” Chalmers said about the possibilty of being paired with Tiger. “To play with him at any time is always a pleasure. It would have been nice in Australia to have a game with Tiger.”

Instead, it will be an All-American final group for the second week in a row outside the United States. Last week, it was Woods and Nick Watney in China.

Dufner, playing before a decent-sized crowd in the group with Adam Scott, reached 9 under in the easier morning conditions until playing his last five holes in 2 over.

Dufner has been Down Under while playing Nationwide Tour events. Now, the American is on a tour of this part of the world, having qualified for the World Golf Championship in China, and heading to the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan.

The idea was to knock some rust off. There didn’t appear to be too much at Kingston Heath.

“I could have stayed at home and played in the States, but that’s kind of the same old thing,” Dufner said. “I play enough events over there. I thought it would be a good choice to come over here and kind of broaden my golf experience, and it happens to be a real good event now that Tiger is playing.”

Even better is being in the final group with him.

Chalmers hasn’t won in Australia in a decade, part of that because he’s had to play so much on the PGA Tour — or in Q-school — to keep his card in the United States. He wrapped that up early this year — Chalmers is No. 86 on the money list — and told his caddie this summer how much he’d love to win at home.

And he still feels he has a good chance, although Chalmers knows he’ll have to play solid golf. He was asked if he thought he could still win, even with the world’s No. 1 player holding a three-shot lead.

“As a professional, you have to believe,” Chalmers said. “Otherwise, you might as well throw the sticks in the bin. At the same time, it’s a tall order. No one know how to win better from 36 holes.”

Manny Villegas, the younger brother of Camilo Villegas, had a 68 and joined Mathew Goggin in the group at 6-under 138. Stuart Appleby, who lost his PGA Tour card this year for the first time since his rookie season some 15 years ago, had a 70 and was another shot back.