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ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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This photo taken on December 13, 2018 shows Cambodian Customs and Excise Officials looking at ivory seized from a shipping container at the Phnom Penh port. // AFP PHOTO

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/asean-plus/30360497

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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Thai and Malaysian children welcome Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali with garlands at the lobby of Plaza Athenee in Bangkok, where the Malaysian delegation will be staying.

Mahathir arrives on second visit to Thailand in three months

Breaking News December 16, 2018 01:00

By The Star 
Asia News Network

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on a second visit to the country in less than three months.

Dr Mahathir is on a two-day working visit to receive an honorary doctorate leadership in social, business and politics from Rangsit University (RSU) tomorrow (Dec 16) during its convocation ceremony.

Accompanying him is his wife Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, and a delegation which includes the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Abdullah.

Dr Mahathir and his wife were welcomed by Thai and Malaysian children with flowers and garlands. 

Malaysians living in Thailand lined up to receive them.

He was also met by Malaysian businessmen, who had met him on his earlier visit.

He will be attending a dinner with top Thai academics honouring his leadership.

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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How Many High Ranked Universities Do Asian Countries Have?

Breaking News December 16, 2018 01:00

By DataLEADS 
Asia News Network 
NEW DELHI

2,175 Viewed

Asia has only 63 high ranked universities according to the recent US News University Ranking. 

The list ranks 500 universities out of which the highest numbers of high ranked universities are in the US with 134 universities. 

The rankings take into account schools’ research performance, as well as their ratings by members of the academic community around the world and in Asia. 

China leads the region with 26 universities that figure in the list of high ranked universities. The country has been making a steady progress in the education sector with “improvements in research productivity, reflecting sustained high levels of public and private investment”.  Peking University and Tsinghua University are in the list. 

Japan has 17 high ranked universities with Kyoto University and Tokyo University leading in the score. The country although second in terms of ranked universities in Asia has seen a downfall in the global rankings. Critics owe it to the poor allocation of funds for education and blame the government for not increasing the spending on education.

South Korea is known for its innovation and tech driven education. The country has 11 high ranked universities. Seoul National University is among the top in the list. 

India has 4 universities which are ranked high globally. University of Delhi has made it to the cut while Jawaharlal Nehru University has lost the spot in the list. The regulatory system is the country has been termed as stifling since the government spending on education has been dismal over many years. 

Singapore has two universities in the list of high ranked universities. National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University are on the list. Malaysia, Thailand and Pakistan have one university each that figures in the list. 

The Asian countries with no high ranked universities are Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia and Mongolia.

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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Members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice protest ahead of the final session of the COP24 summit on climate change in Katowice, Poland, on December 14, 2018. (Photo by Janek SKARZYNSKI / AFP)

Nations inch towards climate deal at marathon UN summit

ASEAN+ December 16, 2018 01:00

By Agence France-Presse 
Katowice, Poland

Nations on Saturday inched towards a deal to implement the Paris climate goals, after all-night negotiations to hammer out a plan to limit global temperature rises exposed a range of conflicts.

A senior negotiator told AFP at the COP24 summit in Poland that delegates from nearly 200 nations had reached a “landing zone” of agreement.

But sources close to the talks said differences remained stark on the issues of ambition, how the climate fight is funded and how best to measure and ensure the fairness of each nation’s efforts to reduce emissions.

Delegates at the UN summit, held this year in the Polish mining city of Katowice, must agree on a common rule book to put the pledges nations made in the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord into practice.

This means all countries, rich and poor alike, must agree to action that will cap global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and stave off the worst effects of planetary warming, and to a safer cap of 1.5C if possible.

The final draft decision text has been repeatedly delayed as negotiators seek to form guidelines that are effective in slashing emissions while protecting the economies of rich and poor nations alike.

“I think we have a landing zone. It is a compromise,” Gebru Jember Endalew, chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating group, told AFP.

“It is a bit difficult to compromise when there are 190-plus countries.”

At the heart of the matter is how each nation funds action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as how those actions are reported.

Developing nations want more clarity from richer ones over how the future climate fight will be funded and have been pushing for so-called “loss and damage” measures.

This would see richer countries giving money now to help deal with the effects of climate change many vulnerable states are already experiencing.

Brazilian villain?

Another contentious issue concerns the integrity of carbon markets, looking ahead to the day when the patchwork of distinct exchanges — in China, the Europe Union, parts of the United States — may be joined up in a global system.

“To tap that potential, you have to get the rules right,” said Alex Hanafi, lead counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund in the United States. “One of those key rules — which is the bedrock of carbon markets — is no double counting of emissions reductions.”

The Paris Agreement calls for setting up a mechanism to guard against practices that could undermine such a market, but finding a solution has proved so problematic that the debate may get kicked down the road to next year.

Some observers cast Brazil as the villain, with several sources accusing it of seeking to muddy the date by which the provisions should enter into force.

“There are still a range of possible outcomes and Brazil continues to work constructively with other parties to find a workable pathway forward,” Brazil’s chief negotiator J. Antonio Marcondes told AFP.

‘A deal within reach’

Another stumbling block could be how ambitious countries are in their renewed pledges ahead of a 2020 stock-take of the Paris deal’s progress.

Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to form a key part of future planning. It highlighted the need for greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed to nearly half by 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target.

But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered down wording.

The European Union’s climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete on Saturday morning tweeted a photo of himself poring over the draft decision text from the talks — which were meant to wrap up Friday — submitted by host Poland.

“A deal to make the #ParisAgreement operational is within reach,” he said.

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/asean-plus/30360480

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Eleven dead as gunfight sparks protests in Indian Kashmir: police

Breaking News December 15, 2018 18:44

By Agence France-Presse 
Srinagar, India

Seven civilians were killed as Indian troops fired on protesters Saturday after a gunfight left three armed rebels and a soldier dead in the disputed region of Kashmir, police and hospital officials said.

The fighting erupted soon after troops laid siege to a house in the southern Pulwama area in Indian-administered Kashmir where the militants were hiding, a police officer said.

Three armed militants — including a former soldier who had joined the rebels — then jumped out of the house into an orchard to fight the soldiers and were killed.

The fighting also left a soldier of the Indian army dead, senior police officer Swayam Prakash Pani told AFP.

While the gunfight was in progress, hundreds of villagers poured out on to the streets in freezing cold and marched towards the orchard, shouting slogans in support of the militants and throwing stones at the troops, witnesses said.

“It was mayhem. Six protesters died in the ensuing firing by soldiers,” a police officer told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hospital officials said a seventh man died later of gunshot wounds.

Dozens of protestors were also injured in the clashes with government forces, another police officer said.

Authorities suspended mobile internet services in many areas of the restive territory, including in the main city of Srinagar. A large number of students also held protests against the killings.

Protests spread to the old quarters of Srinagar and the northwestern town of Sopore.

Saturday’s bloodshed capped the deadliest year in the region since 2009, with nearly 550 killed so far including some 150 civilians, according to a monitoring group.

Support for rebels on rise

Security officials say some 230 militants have been killed this year, most of them locals from the Kashmir valley, but rebel groups have recruited new members at a matching pace.

Popular support for the rebels and their cause has increased since the killing of a charismatic militant leader in 2016.

Villagers, sometimes in their thousands, have been swarming sites of gun battles with government forces to help militants escape from military cordons.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule over the subcontinent in 1947. Both claim the disputed Himalayan territory in full.

Rebel groups have fought for decades about 500,000 Indian soldiers deployed in the territory New Delhi controls, seeking Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan.

More than 70,000 people have died in the fighting since 1989, mostly civilians.

New Delhi regularly accuses Pakistan of arming and training rebels to launch attacks on Indian forces, an allegation Islamabad denies saying it only provides political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris fighting for the right to self-determination.

Separatists opposed to Indian rule of Kashmir called for a three-day general strike to protest Saturday’s killings and announced a march on Monday to the military headquarters in Srinagar.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a senior member of the unified Joint Resistance Leadership group, took to Twitter to vent anger at government action, saying the Indian forces should “kill all of us at one time rather than killing us daily”.

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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Women dressed as the “Marianne”, the national symbol of the French Republic, face French Gendarmes in the Champs Elysees Avenue in Paris, on December 15, 2018./AFP

France’s ‘yellow vest’ protesters gather on decisive weekend

Breaking News December 15, 2018 17:58

By Agence France-Presse 
Paris

2,048 Viewed

“Yellow vest” demonstrators began gathering on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Saturday morning for a fifth weekend of protests in defiance of calls by the French government to stay home.

President Emmanuel Macron, facing the biggest crisis of his presidency, announced a series of concessions on Monday to defuse the explosive “yellow vest” movement which sprang up in rural and small-town France last month.

He is hoping the package of tax and minimum wage measures, coupled with a terror attack on Tuesday night in Strasbourg and bitter winter weather, will help end a month of violent clashes and disruption.

The last three Saturdays have been marked by violent demonstrations, with burning barricades, pillaging and clashes with police in cities across France.

“Last time, we were here for taxes,” a 28-year-old called Jeremy told AFP as he joined others gathering in freezing cold on the Champs-Elysees shortly after 8:00 am (0700 GMT)

“This is for the institutions: we want more direct democracy,” he said, adding that people needed to “shout to make themselves heard.”

The “yellow vests” have made dozens of demands of the government but have no agreed programme or nominated leaders, making the task of negotiating with them difficult.

Until now, a clear majority of French people had backed the protests, which sprung up initially over tax hikes on transport fuel before snowballing into wide opposition to Macron’s pro-business agenda and style of governing.

But two polls published on Tuesday — in the wake of Macron’s concessions — found the country was now split broadly 50-50 on whether the protests should continue.

“We expect slightly less people (in the streets) but individuals who are slightly more determined ,” junior interior minister Laurent Nunez said late Friday.

Around 8,000 police will be on duty in Paris on Saturday, the same number as last weekend, backed up by 14 armoured vehicles, water cannons and horses which are used for crowd control.

Around 90,000 security forces were mobilised last Saturday across France and 2,000 people were detained, around half of them in Paris.

“That people demonstrate, no problem, but the vandalism is appalling,” Maria, who manages the Le Vin Coeur restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris told AFP on Saturday morning.

Like thousands of other business and restaurant owners across the capital, she was apprehensive and ready to pull down her shutters and close at the first whiff of teargas.

Need for calm

Many of the “yellow vest” figureheads, along with leaders of the far-left Unbowed France party, have urged protesters to turn out on Saturday to pressure the government into making further concessions.

Others have suggested that the mostly small town and rural protesters should show resolve by rallying in the regions rather than heading for the capital.

France “needs calm, order and to go back to its normal functioning,” Macron said Friday.

On Thursday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had called on protesters to stay put.

“It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again,” he said.

He was speaking in the wake of an attack Tuesday in the eastern city of Strasbourg, which left four dead and 12 wounded.

Interior minister Christophe Castaner also criticised attacks on the police at a time when the terror threat remains high in France after a string of atrocities since 2015.

“I find it inadmissable that today we are applauding our police and then tomorrow some people think it’s okay to go and throw stones at them,” Castaner said on Friday morning after the gunman in the Strasbourg attack was found and shot dead.

In a bid to end the protests, Macron announced a package of measures estimated by economists to cost up to 15 billion euros ($17 billion) on Monday.

He cancelled the planned fuel tax hikes, offered a rise in the minimum wage, tax relief for pensioners and tax-free overtime for workers in 2019.

Images of road blocks, massive traffic jams and mobs rioting on the streets of Paris have dented France’s image, as well as Macron’s hopes of forcing through more business-friendly reforms, analysts say.

ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

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Qatar says Gulf alliance needs replacing

ASEAN+ December 15, 2018 17:39

By Agence France-Presse 
Doha

Qatar called Saturday for a new regional alliance following the failure of the four-decade-old Gulf Cooperation Council to resolve an 18-month rift between the emirate and its neighbours.

Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that the boycott imposed on the emirate by Saudi Arabia and its allies had irreparably damaged the existing six-nation structure set up at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in 1981.

“The regional alliance has been undermined by the crisis,” Sheikh Mohammed told policymakers at the two-day Doha Forum.

“Therefore the alliance that existed needs to be reshaped and redesigned to ensure future stability and security of the region.”

His comments came after Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, stayed away from the GCC’s annual summit in Riyadh last Sunday despite receiving an invitation from its Saudi hosts.

The Qatari minister lashed out at the reasons advanced by Saudi Arabia and its allies Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates for imposing their sweeping boycott.

“It was based on lies, it was based on crimes… it was based on creating propaganda to create fear among the people,” he said.

Riyadh and its allies accused Doha of supporting “terrorist groups”, including the Muslim Brotherhood which they blacklist but with which Qatar has longstanding ties.

They also accused the emirate of advocating improved relations with Saudi arch rival Iran, with which Qatar shares important offshore gas fields.

They set out their complaints in a 13-point list of demands that has been rejected by Doha as an assault on its sovereignty and its right to conduct an independent foreign policy.

In his opening remarks to the forum, the emir said Qatar’s Gulf partners needed to show respect for its independence.

“Lifting the blockade is based on mutual recognition and non-interference,” he said.