<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://coralreef.noaa.gov/aboutcrcp/news/featuredstories/2016aug/welcome.html">NOAA</a></span></p><p class="caption">A thermonuclear test blast during the Cold War.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The Doomsday Clock, started during the Cold War, represents the overall threat to Earth posed by humans.</strong></li><li><strong>A panel of scientists and policy experts moved the clock forward 30 seconds to two minutes to midnight.</strong></li><li><strong>The time is "is as close as it has ever been to midnight in the 71-year history of the clock."</strong></li><li><strong>Several factors contributed to the clock's advancement, including President Donald Trump's rhetoric on nuclear weapons and his administration's policy positions.</strong></li></ul><p><br />A group of eminent scientists behind the "Doomsday Clock" has symbolically moved its time another 30 seconds, marking a full minute of change over the past two years.</p><p>"As of today, it is two minutes to midnight," Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which sets the clock's time, said during <a href="https://clock.thebulletin.org/">a press briefing</a>.</p><p>The clock is a symbol created at the dawn of the Cold War in 1945, and its time is set by the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a>, a group founded by researchers who helped build the first nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project.</p><p>The Bulletin began publicly adjusting the clock in 1947 to reflect the state of dire threats to the world, primarily to address the tense state of US-Soviet relations and the risk for global nuclear war. But since the closing of the Cold War in 1991, the clock has come to represent other major threats such as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-rhetoric-on-climate-change-not-the-greatest-threat-2016-12">climate change</a>, artificial intelligence, and cyberwarfare.</p><p>"This year, the nuclear issue took center-stage yet again," Bronson said. "To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger, and its immediacy."</p><h2>Why the Doomsday Clock's time was moved forward</h2><p>For the 2018 time shift, members of the Doomsday Clock panel squarely took aim at the rhetoric and actions of President Donald Trump, who has said he is pushing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nuclear-weapons-expansion-risk-2017-1">for a nuclear arms race</a>.</p><p>Bronson and the panel specifically cited a leaked draft of the Trump administration's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-posture-review-trump-huffpost-draft-report-2018-1">2018 Nuclear Posture Review</a>, which lays out US strategy surrounding its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-stockpiles-world-map-2017-8">nuclear arsenal</a>, suggests that he intends to act on his word.</p><p>"The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review appears likely to increase the types and roles of nuclear weapons in US <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Defense">defense</keyword> plans and lower the threshold to nuclear use," the panel said <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/document/5a69f6709037f70903c7735e/2018-doomsday-clock-statement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an 18-page statement</a> emailed to Business Insider.</p><p>The panel also noted the worrisome state of nuclear programs and security risks in Pakistan, India, Russia, and North Korea in its decision to move the clock forward, as well as Trump's lack of support for a deal to monitor Iran's nuclear program. The tense situation in the South China Sea, over aggressive Chinese claims to territory, also played a role in the group's decision, according to the statement.</p><p>The Doomsday Clock experts are also gravely concerned about the state of the warming planet, the resulting climate change, and a fractured global effort to confront and mitigate its worst threats by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.</p><p>The time of two minutes "is as close as it has ever been to midnight in the 71-year history of the clock," Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Arizona State University and a Bulletin chair member, said during the briefing.</p><p>The last time the Doomsday Clock was set at two minutes to midnight followed US and Soviet test detonations of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-hydrogen-bomb-test-evidence-2017-9">thermonuclear (or hydrogen) bombs</a>.</p><p>Here's how scientists have shifted the clock's time from its creation through 2017:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doomsday_Clock_graph.svg">Fastfission/Wikipedia (public domain)</a></span></p><p class="caption">A timeline of the Doomsday Clock's setting from 1947 through 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The 2018 shift is the sixth instance the time has been moved to three minutes or less until midnight - the others were in 1949, 1953, 1984, 2015, and 2017.</p><p>The Doomsday Clock and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are not without their critics, however.</p><p>Will Boisvert argued in a piece published in 2015 by <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-5/fear-and-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Breakthrough Institute</a> that the symbology may be counterproductive to actually solving the problems the Bulletin hopes to spur action on:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Apocalypticism can systematically distort our understanding of risk, mesmerizing us with sensational scenarios that distract us from mundane risks that are objectively larger. Worse, it can block rather than galvanize efforts to solve global problems. By treating risks as infinite, doom-saying makes it harder to take their measure - to prioritize them, balance them against benefits, or countenance smaller ones to mitigate larger ones. The result can be paralysis."</p><p>Members of the Bulletin <a href="https://clock.thebulletin.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced their Doomsday Clock decision</a> at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-bomb-launch-procedure-us-government-president-2017-11">Here's how easy it is for the US president to launch a nuclear weapon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The 'Doomsday Clock' has moved back to its most alarming position in the symbol's 71-year history

The just concluded winter session of <keyword id="145182" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Parliament">Indian parliament</keyword> will go down in the history for more reasons than one. It was just this time around that religious issues rocked the Parliament than anything else. Whether it was an inciting speech by a minister of state rank Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti or the opposition holding the Rajya Sabha at ransom over ‘ghar wapsi’ being carried out by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sangh Parivar; the Parliament developed a deep gash during this session.<br />
<br /> Opposition kept insisting that the <keyword id="71" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prime-Minister">Prime Minister</keyword> addresses the Parliament over these issues. While Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> did give statement on the comments made by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Ghar Wapsi was something he didn’t want to mess with. He stayed away even while the opposition parties demanded his explanation on the issue.<br />
<br /> It isn’t that this is the first time Parliament went this bad over PM’s presence in the house. In December 2009, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stayed away from the Parliament for most of the session while the now ruling BJP sat in the opposition. Tables have turned now, with majority of BJP MPs occupying the seats. Though Congress and other parties have less or miniscule presence in <keyword id="6355187" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lok-Sabha">Lok Sabha</keyword>, it was through the Rajya Sabha that the opposition parties decided to wield their swords over.<br />
<br />
In all, the winter session of the Parliament was a mix of controversy and passing of bills. Though the government managed to pass a number of legislations over some key bills that were aimed at reformation such as coal blocks allocation and insurance bill; the end result was a little less tangible than desired.<br />
<br />
The month-long session saw Lok Sabha set a record of sorts by passing 18 legislations in 22 sittings, including coal mines allocation and labour laws.<br />
<br />
A good three hours were lost owing to disruptions initially over Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti’s remark which left Prime Minister Modi more than red-faced. This over, the crucial time at Rajya Sabha was taken over by opposition creating ruckus over Sangh Parivar’s, perhaps badly-timed programme such as Ghar Wapsi where Muslims and Christians were brought back into the folds of Hindu religion, albeit clouded in grey shades.<br />
<br />
Though RS passed 12 bills through 22 sittings, 62 hours were lost over issues that involved religious conversions and bringing back the black money into India.<br />
<br /> The reforms agenda suffered a major hit with insurance laws which were to raise the cap of FDI remaining pending. The coal mines bill that would have paved way for fresh coal blocks to be allocated in fresh auction following their de-allocation by <keyword id="6354977" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Supreme-Court">Supreme Court</keyword> in the past also remained pending.<br />
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With this, the government’s to-do list seems to have just gotten longer. This disruption, which isn’t new to Indian Parliament have given the government a huge blow on its economic-overhaul plans and subsequent measures.<br />
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The government had listed over 37 bills to be passed during the session that just concluded enveloped in lots of bitterness. While this number was the target, legislators in both houses only managed to pass only 11 bills out of the entire lot. Lok Sabha worked more diligently than Rajya Sabha.<br />
<br />
The reason for this could also be that while Lok Sabha had more number of BJP MPs, with the opposition parties terming it the ‘arrogance of numbers’ with BJP having 282 seats in its kitty over 545 member assembly, the otherwise peaceful Rajya Sabha saw more number of disruptions, thus causing a lot of damage to the long term goals of the government. Congress holds 68 seats in the RS against the 43 seats in the house held by BJP.<br />
<br /> The only time both opposition and ruling parties came together and unanimously said something was post <keyword id="42462" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Peshawar">Peshawar</keyword> attack where hundreds of school children were killed by extremist groups in Pakistan. All the parties unvaryingly condemned the 26/11 attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi being granted bail by a Pakistani court. The result of this was astounding. In a rare show of strength, Pakistan didn’t release Lakhvi and he was retained in the custody of Pakistan following Pakistan’s federal government approaching the Supreme Court challenging his bail.<br />
<em>Image: wikipedia </em><br />

Winter Logjam In Parliament: Cold Finish For The Season

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table center full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The Hawaii Supreme Court just voted to temporarily suspend the construction of an enormous telescope on Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano that some Hawaiian natives consider sacred ground.<p>We still don't know the ultimate legal fate of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), but on Nov. 17, the court granted an <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/state-supreme-court-suspends-hawaii-telescope-permit-35267708">emergency suspension</a> of the observatory's building permit until December 2, or until another court order is issued.</p><p>The 14,000-foot-tall peak of Mauna Kea is one of native Hawaiians' most sacred sites, but the thin, clear air offers an incredible view of the cosmos while being accessible to workers and scientists. So it's arguably <em>the</em> best spot on Earth to build a telescope.</p><p>While some Hawaiian natives and astronomers have condemned the telescope, others <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/thirty-meter-telescope-hawaii-protests-2015-10">insist that we must build it</a>. The question of whether to build TMT has dredged up Hawaii's complicated past, pitted friends and families against one another, and exposed racial insensitivity in the astronomy community.</p><p>The two schools of thought are colliding on and off the summit, and compromise has failed. Now a court case is winding its way through Hawaii's legal system and will require a decision where one group gets shortchanged.</p><p>But it seems clear we need to build this telescope, even if it will taint sacred ground.</p><h2><strong>An economic blessing</strong></h2><p>TMT Corporation, the&#xa0;nonprofit behind the telescope, estimates its project could inject more than $150 million to Hawaii's economy and create 140 high-paying engineering and tech jobs. It also says the construction plan has met all the legal and environmental requirements.</p><p>But at least one bitter historical legacy comes to mind for native Hawaiians trying to decide whether or not to support TMT's construction.</p><p>Evidence of that legacy is tucked away in gray building on a side street in the city of Hilo on the big island of Hawaii. There, a memorial signifies a tragic but important moment in Hawaiian history. The building's walls in one corner are covered with heart-wrenching photos of a tsunami in 1960 that swept over the city, flattening more than 500 homes and businesses and killing 61 people.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>A few years after the tsunami, the University of Hawaii (UH) in Hilo tried to pump some fresh life into the devastated economy. It held the lease on Mauna Kea and allowed workers to build the first big telescope on the summit.</p><p>The university charged a piteously low rent of $1 per year for the site. They hoped this would attract more and more astronomers and investors interested in building telescopes; more telescopes would bring more capital and jobs with them.</p><p>It worked - sort of.</p><p>There are now 13 telescopes on the mountaintop, but they have brought less of an economic boom than expected. Hawaii still consistently ranks among the worst places for business and economics. And this year Hawaii was rated the worst state to do business by CNBC's annual <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101747925" target="_blank">America's Top States for Business ranking</a>. Meanwhile, native Hawaiians bear <a href="http://19of32x2yl33s8o4xza0gf14.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Income-Inequality-and-Native-Hawaiian-Communities-in-the-Wake-of-the-Great-Recession-2005-2013.pdf">a disproportionate chunk of the economic burden</a>.</p><p>The telescopes were supposed to help change that and didn't. The problem is that most observatory jobs do not go to Hawaiians, Sarah Ballard, an astronomer at the University of Washington, told Tech Insider. Most jobs are outsourced to the universities and organizations that invest in the telescopes.</p><p dir="ltr">So Hawaiians have to come to resent the existing telescopes. And the $1 per year rent is an outdated remnant from a past economic emergency. There's no reason to keep the rent so low anymore, native Hawaiian astronomer Paul Coleman told Tech Insider.</p><p>"We know that we don't have to entice astronomy to come to Hawaii anymore," Coleman said. "Because we know that the work that's come out of the telescopes that are already here have been so good that everybody wants to come here no matter what - it's the best sight on earth for observing."</p><p><strong>The TMT corporation knows Mauna Kea is in high demand, so it has deviated from the business-as-usual approach.</strong></p><p>It voluntarily pledged to pay the market-value of the land, not the fixed price from UH. TMT representatives also spent years speaking with locals on the big island. The message was clear - Hawaii needs resources to take care of the mountain, and it needs more jobs for native Hawaiians.</p><p>So TMT put together a plan where, if it gets a 50-year lease on Mauna Kea, it will usher in tons of jobs reserved for native Hawaiians and $150 million in community benefits.</p><p>Here's how that money breaks down over 50 years:</p><ul><li><strong>TMT will pay $1 million per year for its space on the summit.</strong> Hawaii's Mauna Kea Management group is tasked with preserving and protecting the mountain, and it will get 80% of the rent. The remaining 20% will go to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that works to improve the wellbeing of native Hawaiians.</li><li><strong>TMT has committed to a $1 million per year community benefit package</strong>. This will go toward a STEM-education program for Hawaiian students called the <a href="http://www.tmt.org/observatory/site-information/annual-community-benefit-package">THINK fund</a>. TMT has already started contributing to this fund.</li><li><strong>TMT is also setting up an annual $1 million fund to help funnel local Hawaiians into observatory jobs</strong>. Called the <a href="http://www.tmt.org/about-tmt/outreach-education/hawai%E2%80%98i-island-workforce-pipeline-development">Workforce Pipeline Program</a>, it will partner with local colleges and the Department of Education to create training programs, internships, and summer jobs for the kinds of engineering and tech positions required to operate and maintain the telescope.</li></ul><p>This sets the an incredibly high standard that can only benefit Hawaii in the future.</p><h2>TMT could change how we understand the universe</h2><p>In addition to invigorating the economy of Hawaii while acknowledging past slights, this telescope could launch the state to the forefront of astronomy.</p><p>Michael Bolte, the associate director of TMT, thinks the telescope has the chance to change astronomy forever - the same way that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hubble-changed-everything-2015-4">Hubble</a> and the Keck telescopes revolutionized the field.</p><p>TMT's giant 30-meter mirror will capture more light than any other ground telescope, and all that light will let us see farther out into the universe, and therefore farther back into our universe's past.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The telescope will bring an unprecedented view of the cosmos and take pictures of parts of the universe no one has ever seen. We'll be able to glimpse the very first stars and galaxies that formed after the big bang. Astronomers call these "first light objects" and they'll give us more insight into one of the most fundamental questions of life: Where did we come from?</p><p>TMT doesn't have a shot at answering that question if it's not built on Mauna Kea. The summit sits above the cloud line providing a crystal-clear window into space. The dry air will make it possible to take some of the sharpest images we've ever seen.</p><h2>Hawaii's complicated past</h2><p>Despite the huge benefits TMT will bring, construction has been postponed since April when crowds of protesters gathered to block vehicles from driving up the mountain. Over the summer TMT tried to resume construction, but the <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/thirty-meter-telescope-construction-halted-on-hawaiis-mauna-kea-2015-6">protesters were ready</a>.</p><p>On June 24, standing almost 10,000 feet up the shoulder of Mauna Kea, I listened as hundreds of protesters chanted ancient Hawaiian prayers and songs, and drums kept time in the background.</p><p>Many wore kapa shawls, loincloths, and leis. Others carried picket signs with messages like "Protect the mountain" and "Bulldoze your own temple!" Some even prayed over and placed leis on the shoulders of the very police officers who were there to remove them.</p><p dir="ltr"><div></div></p><p>They are touted as protesters, but the people call themselves "mountain protectors." And the more I spoke with natives, the more I sensed the complexity of their cause.</p><p>Yet astronomy is woven deep into Hawaii's history. It's how the first Hawaiians navigated their way to the island chain. With the potential to unlock secrets to the origin of the universe, Coleman said the early Hawaiians would have celebrated TMT, not rejected it. He told me his ancestors would probably be digging right alongside the construction crew if they were alive today.</p><p>After talking with many natives, it's clear to me that none are against astronomy. The issue stems from a much deeper place.</p><h2>This isn't really about a telescope</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The controversy behind the telescope reached a very public and unpleasant climax in April.<p>University of California astronomers Alex Filippenko and Sandy Faber, who are want to use TMT for their research, sent out a tasteless mass email urging astronomers to sign a <a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/wesupporttmt.html" target="_parent">petition supporting TMT</a>.</p><p>The problem was the opening line:</p><p>"The Thirty-Meter Telescope is in trouble, attacked by a<strong> horde of angry native Hawaiians</strong>..."</p><p>The racially-charged language instantly divided the astronomy community. "If you think this is about science or a telescope, then you're missing the point of the protesters," John Johnson, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, told Tech Insider.</p><p>Johnson and many other, argue that the heart of the Hawaiian protest comes from the island's complicated colonial past.</p><p>Foreign meddling and exploitation in Hawaii started when European explorer Captain Cook landed at the islands in 1778, culminating in 1898 when the US government <a href="http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hawaii-petition/">annexed the islands</a> through a loose process that only required a majority vote in Congress. Hawaii had its own government and cultural traditions before any foreign presence landed there, and many petitions and protesters sought to prevent the annexation and the overthrow of Hawaii's last monarch Queen, Lili'uokalani.</p><p>Johnson said many see TMT as an extension of colonial suppression. Notably, the telescope is a collaboration between universities in California, India, China, and Japan - it does not include any Hawaiian university or group. So it seems like just another example of a foreign influence stepping in and doing whatever it likes with land that does not belong to them.</p><p>"When people can acknowledge there are problems with coming in and building this telescope, and then say 'but we still want our telescope,' that's exactly the problem," Johnson said. "When you steal [the land on Mauna Kea] and everybody knows it, maybe you should give it back."</p><p>Ballard agrees that the telescope is a symbol of suppression. She said she doesn't think it should be built if TMT can't reach an agreement with natives.</p><p>It's a complex issue that I can never fully understand, since I am not native Hawaiian. But the issue became more clear to me in a single moment at the protest in June, when I saw a man climb atop a ladder in the middle of the road to block the telescope construction vehicles from driving up the mountain.</p><p>He waved an upside-down US flag as a symbol of political protest and declared that Hawaii has had enough foreign tampering. He continued his speech even when the police officers threatened to arrest him:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>After reading more about Hawaii's history, I have to agree with him.</p><p>But from my vantage, colonialism is a separate issue from TMT: The corporation has taken so many steps to acknowledge the sleights of the past and ensure that the telescope's construction will benefit native Hawaiians.</p><p>Coleman said it's unfortunate that some choose to take out their frustrations with Hawaii's colonial past on TMT. Hawaiians have been wronged many times in the past, but this is not the way to set things right. The protesters are missing a way to celebrate their astronomy-rich culture and are turning their backs on a huge economic boost to the economy.</p><p>With a history as rough as theirs, however, I don't think anyone can blame them for feeling the way they do.</p><h2><strong>The future of Hawaii</strong></h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p>The most harmful consequence of the protest movement is how it might influence future investment in Hawaii. Critics of the protest movement say no one will want to risk bankrolling a big project in the state if it could be met with the same kind of resistance as TMT.</p><p>It's a shame that compromise has failed, and it all hinges on a court battle now.</p><p>"[The protesters] have said this time and again - they will be against it forever," Coleman said. "Which I think is kind of a silly thing to say, because what if TMT starts running and everybody starts doing really well and loving the extra money that's pouring into the economy, and more and more jobs are being dedicated to Hawaiian people?"</p><p>Hawaiians have always been incredibly adaptable and forward-thinking people, Coleman told me. They have always embraced new technology when it will benefit them and make life better for their people.</p><p>That's what TMT could do for Hawaii, if the people will let it.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/world-largest-radio-telescope-china-2015-10">China is building the world's largest radio telescope to detect signs of life billions of light years away</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="VtaWQxeDoO5pumLu-XxPCODJAS6nadR3" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "india block wikipedia" and got 3 results

The 'Doomsday Clock' has moved back to its most alarming position in the symbol's 71-year history

Dave Mosher

Winter Logjam In Parliament: Cold Finish For The Season

Preetam Kaushik

This giant telescope may taint sacred land. Here's why we should build it anyway.

Kelly Dickerson