Huawei's Windows phone in November

Huawei's first Windows Phone 8, Huawei Ascend W1, will come to Bangladesh by November this year.
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, unveiled the smartphone at the recently held 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The smartphone will be priced at Tk 28,000-30,000.
The Ascend W1 is 10.15 mm thin and features a 4-inch IPS LCD 480 x 800 touchscreen with OGS Technology. It is powered by the high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and Adreno 305 GPU.
With a 1950 mAh battery, the Ascend W1 has 470 hours of standby time, the longest among all smartphones in its class.
It features a visually iconic design inspired by a tropical island and comes in an array of bold colors including blue, red, black and white.
The Ascend W1 has a low reflective IPS LCD display with full lamination technology, which provides brilliant visibility under any lighting condition. The Windows Phone 8 Start screen lets user customise and pin Live Tiles with topics of personal interest, providing real-time updates.
Additionally, a dynamic lock screen allows you to select the photos or updates most important to you and have them ready at a glance, even when the phone is locked.
"Inspired and powered by people, the Ascend W1 is a combination of Huawei's user-centric design philosophy and Windows Phone 8 software, bringing consumers a truly compelling alternative," said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group.
The Ascend W1 is now available in China and Russia 2013, with Western Europe, Middle East, USA and other selected countries.

Rupert Grey's 1936 Rolls Royce arrives in Dhaka

Rupert Grey, great-grandson of former British Prime Minister Earl Grey, has brought his 1936 Rolls Royce to Dhaka, for the Chobi Mela VII. Rupert -- a lawyer with a passion for photography -- is attending the festival. The antique car had travelled through the Rajasthan deserts, gone along the foothills of the Himalayas, came down the Brahmaputra to Bangladesh, but was stopped at the Tamabil border, where it was denied entry.
The traditional method of temporary entry for cars, the carnet, had been stopped in Bangladesh. After a long and protracted process and with help from different quarters, the car finally made its way into Bangladesh, only to be stopped en route to Dhaka again because of a petrol strike.
The car finally arrived in Dhaka on Thursday, and is joining the “Chobi Mela” rally in front of the National Museum today.

Swimming Dinosaurs

Fossilized track marks from a stampede of dinosaurs in Australia actually may have come from swimming animals, new research suggests.
The finding, published in the January issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, upends the traditional interpretation of the world's only dinosaur stampede.
Instead of a group of small dinosaurs trying to escape a massive carnivore, the fossils may reveal an ancient dinosaur "superhighway" or river crossing, said study co-author Anthony Romilio, a paleontologist at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Dinosaur tracks
Some 3,000 to 4,000 fossilized dinosaur footprints were formed about 95 million years ago in a sandy riverbank in what was once a lush, coniferous forest. The site, known as Lark Quarry, is only about the size of a basketball court, and has become an enclosed and air-conditioned museum a major tourist attraction in Australia.
The tracks came from several types of dinosaurs, ranging in size from a chicken to an emu with one oddball: a giant dinosaur that left its 23.6-inch-long (60 centimeters) footprints there.
In 1984, scientists Tony Thulborn and Mary Wade interpreted the tracks as evidence of a stampede of smaller dinosaurs escaping the clutches of a 4-ton theropod, a bipedal carnivore. [Paleo Art: Stunning Illustrations of Dinosaurs]
But in recent work, Romilio and his colleagues studied the large track marks and concluded the primeval creature was actually a large plant-eating dinosaur called Muttaburrasaurus. That suggested the "fleeing a predator" theory needed a rethink.

Moon Trek Life on exomoons

Earth-sized moons in planetary systems trillions of miles away could be hotbeds for alien life, astronomers report in the January Astrobiology.
"It's the most thorough look at exomoon habitability I've seen," says Darren Williams, an astronomer at Penn State Erie who was not involved in the research. “I'm encouraged by the paper that we'll find exomoons in abundance and that a fraction of them could be habitable.”
Astronomers have found about 3,600 confirmed or probable planets orbiting other stars, none of which have the ideal combination of size and temperature to support life. However, more than 150 of them are gas giants in orbits where liquid water could exist, if only it had a solid surface to puddle on. Life might be able to survive on the rocky moons of those Neptune- and Jupiter-like planets.
This bounty of temperate giants led astronomers René Heller of Germany's Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam and Rory Barnes of the University of Washington to examine all the factors that determine the habitability of exomoons. Moons are substantially more complicated than planets because they are at the mercy of both their host planet and star: The star pelts them with radiation, and so does the reflection off the top of their planet's gaseous clouds. (Jupiter, for example, reflects about a third of solar radiation that strikes it.) Moons also get squeezed and deformed by the gravitational pull of their massive planetary companions, a phenomenon called tidal heating that supplies yet another source of energy.

Star Nursery Space clouds

A jaw-dropping new photo from a telescope in South America has revealed a smoke-black cloud in deep space hiding a bustling nursery of baby stars.
The new image, captured by a telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, is the best view ever of the dark space cloud Lupus 3. The cosmic cloud is about 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpious (The Scorpion).
This evocative image shows a dark cloud where new stars are forming along with a cluster of brilliant stars that have already emerged from their dusty stellar nursery. This cloud is known as Lupus 3 and it lies about 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius

Photochemical Smog The brownish shroud

We can survive without food for several days, without water for a few days, but we cannot survive more than a few minutes without air. Yet we are altering the chemical make-up of air via rampant emissions of gaseous and particulate matters. The pollutants vented into the atmosphere come from a number of different sources natural and man-made. Among the man-made sources, most harmful are the effluents from vehicles and emissions from industries. They are precursors to the formation of smog, a term coined to describe a mixture of smoke and fog.
Smog is produced through a complex set of photochemical reactions involving particulate matter (dust, soot, etc) and various gases nitrogen oxides, water vapor, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide which come out through the exhaust system of a vehicle. They react in the presence of sunlight to produce a witch's brew of virulent pollutants. Among some of the worse are formaldehyde, peroxyacyl nitrate (PAN), and acrolein. Furthermore, ozone is formed at the ground-level through chemical reactions involving unburned hydrocarbons in gasoline, volatile organic compounds, various oxides of nitrogen, and sunlight. The net result is a brownish orange shroud of air pollution called photochemical smog. In addition, smog in industrial towns forms when smoke and sulfur emissions from burning fossil fuels combine with fog. Smog occurs more frequently in communities situated in valleys with surrounding hills and mountains where there is less air circulation and more accumulation of pollutants in the air.
Ozone is one of the most prevalent chemicals in smog. Problematic ozone levels occur mostly on hot summer afternoons when there is little wind and temperatures soar above 30 degrees Centigrade. Effects of ozone are primarily health related. Lungs are ozone's primary target. It aggravates respiratory diseases, particularly asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. When inhaled, ozone can inflame pulmonary membranes causing significant temporary reduction in lung capacity, from 15 to 20 percent. Adults with respiratory diseases are most susceptible to the adverse effects of ozone. Even healthy adults engaged in strenuous outdoor activities like jogging, gardening, manual labor, etc., will suffer from ozone-related health effects. Ozone can also impair our immune system.
In tandem with ozone, the inherent toxicity in smog can cause chest pains, coughing, throat irritation, and shortness of breath. In the worst case scenario, it may contribute to lung cancer. Formaldehyde, a component of smog, is a colorless gas with pungent smell. It is toxic and will cause burning sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat. The PANs are extremely potent oxidant. They are irritating and harmful. They act like tear gas and irritate the skin, eyes, and nasal passages. The other component of smog, acrolein, is a colorless liquid with an acrid smell. It is a strong irritant for the eyes. Unfortunately, human body has very little defense against these pernicious effects of smog.
Children with asthma are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of ozone and smog alike. Because of their physiology, they are much more likely than adults to develop smog-related lung damage. Even healthy children are at risk because their respiratory systems are still in the developmental stage.
To make a bad situation worse, smog remains under siege for days if it is accompanied by temperature inversion (TDS, 8 January 2013). We witnessed it earlier this month when major parts of China were trapped in a toxic blanket of smog leaving the citizens literally breathless. Scenes of Chinese cities smothered by smog are a disturbing reminder of the Great London Smog of 1952 which killed over 4,000 people. Ironically, smog-related problems are non-local. The pollutants in smog drift in the wind and can travel to faraway places making the smog in those places more severe.
For many years we viewed pollution as a sign of progress. Today, pollution is seen as signs of failed technologies. The “airpocalypse” in China is clear evidence our atmosphere is too finite to absorb the pollutants dumped into it. Also, it is disquieting to note that except for our lungs, we have run out of place to put them away. If we want to pursue a reasonably healthful existence, we have to live by the maxim “solution to pollution is dilution.” The air we breathe should not make us cough.
Next time you see the setting Sun painting the sky pink and orange, remember it is smog which made the colors so brilliant. There is an ugly story “behind every pretty picture.”

8 fake Rab men held for looting Tk 1cr

Detective Branch of police in an overnight drive on Friday arrested eight people on charge of looting Tk 1.08 crore of a garment factory, identifying themselves as members of Rapid Action Battalion.
Police recovered Tk 40.54 lakh of the looted money and seized a private car during the drive conducted in Dhaka, Gazipur and Tangail.
Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Media Centre, told reporters while addressing a press briefing at the media centre on Saturday.
The arrestees are Md Tohinur Islam, 35, Arifuzzaman Khan, 35, Abu Sayeed, 35, Md Selim, 32, Shajahan, 32, Kabir Hossain, 33, Bibhash Mandal, 35, Akhtaruzzaman Liton, 26,
The DC said three staff of a garment factory of Azmat Group withdrew Tk 1.08 crore from a local bank on January 10.
As they were returning to the factory located at Ashulia, the gang intercepted their car identifying themselves as Rab members, he said.
Later, they tied up the staff and took away the money, he added.

US congressional delegation due today

A four-member US congressional delegation, led by Jack Kingston, arrives in Dhaka on Saturday on a two-day visit to discuss bilateral issues, including GSP facility.
The other members of the delegation are Scott Tipton, Adam Schiff and Ed Whitfield.
During their stay in Bangladesh, the delegation members will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, and visit a number of garment factories in the city, officials said.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi Ambassador in Washington Akramul Quader met congressmen separately and handed over a document demanding continuation of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) facility for Bangladeshi products in the US market to maintain the trade potential with the US.
On January 8, the US Trade Representative (USTR) office sought public comments from the stakeholders by January 31 on the possible withdrawal, suspension or limitation of Bangladesh’s duty-free benefits under the GSP.
“The GSP subcommittee is seeking public comments on the effect of a withdrawal, suspension, or limitation of GSP benefits on products imported into the United States from Bangladesh,” said a notice of the Washington-based US Trade Representative.
Some of the members of the US congress had assured that they would take up Bangladesh’s GSP facility issue at the appropriate level of the US authorities so that it could be resolved taking Bangladesh’s best interest into account.

21 get death sentence for Egypt football violence

An Egyptian court has sentenced to death 21 defendants over clashes between rival football fans in which 74 people were killed last February.
The riots began after a league game at Port Said stadium between local side al-Masry and Cairo club al-Ahly.
The violence - Egypt's worst football disaster - sparked riots in Cairo during which a further 16 people died.
The sentences came after a day of clashes between security forces and supporters of the secular opposition.
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets across Egypt to mark the second anniversary of the revolution that ousted ex-President Hosni Mubarak and voice their opposition to Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
At least seven people were killed in Friday's unrest.
Last year's football riots led to the suspension of the league.
It began when al-Masry fans invaded the pitch, hurling stones and fireworks at the visitors.
At the time some fans - who said security forces appeared to do little to prevent the clashes - accused supporters of toppled President Hosni Mubarak of instigating the incident.
Seventy-three people, including policemen, were tried.
The judge said he would announce the verdict for the remaining 52 defendants on 9 March.

Indonesian authorities battle floods in capital

Authorities were working Friday to repair a dike that collapsed amid torrential rains that have swamped the Indonesian capital, while thousands of police and soldiers worked to help victims of the flooding that has taken nine lives.
Police deployed at least 40 rubber boats, along with those from the army, to help evacuate or bring supplies to people still trapped by the floodwaters that have inundated much of the city of 14 million people since Wednesday, said Jakarta Police Spokesman Col Rikwanto. Elsewhere, hundreds of soldiers were deployed to repair a collapsed canal dike that let floodwater pour into parts of downtown Jakarta.
Rikwanto said the current death toll of nine did not include three people who were reportedly swept into the basement of a building in central Jakarta, where a search was still underway.
The floods are the most widespread to hit the city in recent memory. Few areas were spared, from wealthy suburbs to riverside slums and gleaming downtown business blocks. Offices and schools were deserted and traffic ground to a halt. The international airport was operating normally, but travellers were finding it hard to get there.
"This is horrible," said Yanitha Damayanti, a bank teller stranded downtown. "For the first time in my life, downtown Jakarta has flooded."
The city has long been prone to floods, but successive governments have done little to mitigate the threat. Heavy downpours Wednesday and Thursday added pressure to rivers already swollen by a long monsoon season.
Deforestation in the hills to the south of the city, chaotic planning and the rubbish that clogs the hundreds of rivers and waterways that crisscross the city are some of the factors behind the floods. The city's vulnerability exposes the country's poor infrastructure even as it has posted impressive economic growth in recent years.
On Thursday President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had to stand in water up to his shins — his trousers rolled up — at the palace waiting for the arrival of Argentina's leader on a state visit. The president then used a rubber boat to inspect some parts of the inundated capital.
"I have no problem with the palace being flooded, "Yudhoyono said. "The most important thing is the people are protected."
In some places, water levels were up to 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) high. Seen from above, the main road through the heart of the city resembled a muddy river. Even as authorities struggled to rescue those trapped and provide them food and shelter, some were thinking of the economic cost.
"This is an extraordinary disaster," said Syamsuddin Basri. "I had to cancel many important business deals."