The government’s proposal that entertainment businesses could proceed during the national mourning period “as normal as possible while bearing in mind the appropriateness to situation” would be tabled at the Cabinet meeting today, Deputy Premier Tanasak Patimapragorn said yesterday.

Following a discussion over the issue with relevant sectors, Tanasak said all systems must proceed as normal but televised programmes and dramas must instill knowledge and information about HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s great merits and royal activities for their |audiences.

Thais have been grieving since HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej passed away on October 13.

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Mourners file into Grand Palace to pay respects to late Thai king

Source:

AFP

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With Thais now clad in black and white as a mark of respect, entertainment outlets have been forced to keep a low profile.

Government Spokesman Lt-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said yesterday Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha understood that the economic sector needs to move ahead, so he has assigned Tanasak to discuss the issue with relevant sectors.

The government intends to allow all television stations to return to normal programming a month after the passing of the much-revered king.

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A look back at Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s life

Source:

Reuters

AFP

The Straits Times

The Nation/ANN

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“We believe all stations know how to gradually gear back to normal,” Sansern said.

Social pressure would automatically become active if any station hurt public feelings, he said.

China has granted an export license for the CH-5 reconnaissance/combat drone, which is believed to be one of the most powerful unmanned combat aircraft in the world.

“Several foreign nations have expressed intentions to purchase the CH-5, and we are in talks with them,” said Shi Wen, chief designer of the Caihong, or Rainbow, series at the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics in Beijing.

“I can’t tell you more details, except that the drone is ready for export,” he told China Daily in an exclusive interview on Monday, the day before the 11th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, commonly known as the Zhuhai Air Show, begins in Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

Compared with the United States’ General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, a hunter-killer drone often deemed by Western analysts as the best of its kind, the CH-5 “can perform whatever operations the MQ-9 Reaper can, and is even better than the US vehicle when it comes to flight duration and operational efficiency,” Shi said.

“Another advantage is that the CH-5 is capable of making a joint strike together with its predecessors, the CH-3 and CH-4, because they can share the same data link and control system.

Therefore, it is very easy for current users of the CH-3 and CH-4 to introduce and integrate the CH-5 into their drone network.”

Moreover, the CH-5 is able to carry an airborne early warning system to act as a platform for regional surveillance, and battlefield command and control.

It also can carry electronic warfare instruments to collect electronic intelligence and to jam enemy communications or radars.

The CH-5 made its first flight in August last year, becoming the mightiest military drone in China in terms of operational endurance and payload capacity.

The drone is made of composite materials and has a wingspan of 21 meters.

Twice as big as its predecessors in the CH family, the drone can stay in the air for about 60 hours and operate at an altitude of up to 10 km, Shi said.

Its current maximum range is 6,500 km, and a future upgrade will enable it to fly as far as 10,000 km, he added.

The CH-5 is able to carry 1,000 kg of equipment and weapons. It will carry 16 air-to-surface missiles when displayed at the air show, but its largest capacity is 24 missiles in a single flight, engineers at the academy said.

Compared with the prototype for the test flight, the drone’s mass-production model has a more streamlined nose and an electro-optical instrument mounted under the nose.

Shi said designers plan to develop a CH-5 that will be capable of staying in the air for up to 120 hours, with a 20,000-km range.

The China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, part of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, is China’s largest military drone exporter by number of products sold overseas.

Its CH-series drones have been sold to military users in more than 10 countries, he said.

Lan Wenbo, project manager of the CH-5, said his academy is willing to transfer technologies to users, an attraction that Western suppliers do not offer.

Other equipment from Shi’s academy is the CH-805 high-speed target drone, a flying wing that resembles the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.

It has a tiny radar signature of 0.01 square meters, so it can be used for anti-stealth aircraft drills and reconnaissance tasks, according to academy materials.

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Spectacular drone show at baby shower

Source:

Shanghaiist

China News

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Impressive aerial photos of China’s unusual “Wave Festival” captured by drone

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

AFP

The first textbook designed specifically for male pupils in primary schools in China has received positive feedback from parents, students and education professionals.

Earlier this month, the Shanghai Educational Publishing House unveiled the book, entitled Xiaoxiao Nanzihan or Little Man in English, aiming to help male students in the fourth and fifth grades understand sexual physiology, sexual psychology and enhance their self-protection.

The textbook, focusing on the mental health of male pupils, comes as nationwide discussions about what is called the “boys’ crisis” are rife.

A phenomenon that has long been observed, the boys’ crisis refers to the tendency of male students to lack masculinity, and be outperformed and overshadowed by girls at primary and secondary schools.

“So far we have received mainly positive comments from counterparts, school heads and parents, and many schools have shown interest in the book,” said Zhong Xiangyang, an official from the education bureau of Jing’an district, the body that initiated the textbook’s compilation.

“It has been used by some primary schools in Jing’an and a few outside the district and we will make efforts to promote it,” she added.

You Rui, the author of the book and also the principal of Zhabei No 3 Central Primary School, said it is the product of a pilot programme focusing on gender education at her school over the past decade.

“The gender education classes for male students at my school proved very popular,” she said.

With six chapters and full of colorful illustrations, the textbook introduces a wide range of basic knowledge including: “What is the difference between a boy and a girl?”; “Why am I a boy and not a girl?”; “What does a father mean to a son?”; “How can we get along with nature?”; and “Why do we need to have awareness about investment and money management?”

The book is expected to help boys more openly discuss questions they might otherwise not address in their daily lives, and the Shanghai Educational Publishing House said pupils who learn from the textbook will have a separate classroom from their female classmates.

“It’s quite necessary and positive to have gender education,” said Zhu Huafang, the mother of a third-grade boy.

Nowadays, both boys and girls are developing at an early age and they can be very curious, added Zhu, who works as a primary schoolteacher.

The types of handsome men that ancient Chinese women like

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The New Paper, Sina Weibo, Facebook screengrabs

For example, her son sometimes poses questions such as: “what do female genitals look like?”, which Zhu said makes her feel awkward.

“I don’t know how to reply to him. Instead of having him search on the internet by himself-where improper answers are likely to pop up, why don’t we learn from the textbook?”

It’s not the first attempt the city has made to address the boys’ crisis.

In 2012, the first boys-only campus was created at Shanghai No 8 High School to help male students enhance their academic performance and cultivate masculinity.

Li Ruomeng, 19, a graduate of the all-boys class and now a freshman at a music institute in Germany, supports the idea of gender education at an early age.

“This kind of education should be there when someone’s standards and values start to take form, and I believe the new textbook will play a positive role,” he said.

Asked what he learned from the all-boys class, Li said athletics, survival training activities and etiquette education all helped him grow quickly.

In some classes, students would be exposed to different cultures and encouraged to learn how a gentleman should act.

“For example, now I know a gentleman should pull out a chair for the ladies before being seated at the dining table,” he added.

Jing’an district’s Zhong said her organisation is working with the Shanghai Educational Publishing House on a textbook specifically designed for girls which will be unveiled soon.

Seoul – The woman at the centre of the snowballing political scandal engulfing President Park Geun-Hye has been put under emergency detention after prosecutors said she was “unstable” and a flight risk.

Choi Soon-Sil, who faces allegations of fraud and meddling in state affairs over her decades-long friendship with Park, was grilled for hours Monday after she returned to the country and handed herself in following mass street protests.

“There is a possibility of Choi trying to destroy evidence as she is denying all the allegations,” a prosecution official told the Yonhap news agency, explaining the decision to hold her for 48 hours.

“She has fled overseas in the past, and she doesn’t have a permanent address in this country, making her a flight risk.

“She is also in an extremely unstable psychological state, and it’s possible an unexpected event could occur if she is released,” the official added.

Choi flew back to Seoul Sunday from Germany to submit to herself for questioning and was mobbed by hundreds of journalists and angry protesters waving placards demanding her arrest.

Dressed from head to toe in black, Choi lost her hat, sunglasses and one Prada shoe as she struggled through the scrum to the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office on Monday.

“Please forgive me. I have committed a deadly sin,” Choi said after she made it inside the building, Yonhap reported.

Related: Choi begs for forgiveness

After a night in detention, she was escorted back to the prosecutors’ office early Tuesday wearing prison uniform for another round of questioning — which could last for days, Yonhap said.

Prosecutors have to decide whether to seek a warrant to formally arrest Choi before the emergency detention period expires.

Park and Choi have been close friends for 40 years. The precise nature of that friendship lies at the heart of the scandal which has triggered a media frenzy in South Korea, with lurid reports of religious cults and shamanistic rituals.

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Choi accused of interfering in state affairs using relationship with President

Source:

AFP

Reuters

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Suggestions that Choi vetted presidential speeches and was given access to classified documents have exposed Park to public anger and ridicule and, with just over a year left in office, pushed her approval ratings off a cliff.

On Tuesday, a man rammed an excavator into a key building belonging to South Korea’s prosecution service in Seoul.

The 45-year-old was detained and later told police interrogators that he had carried out the attack in a bid “to help Choi die as she said she committed a deadly sin”, according to Yonhap.

Choi has also been accused of using her relationship with the president to coerce corporate donations to two non-profit foundations, and then siphon off funds for personal use.

Park issued a public apology last week, acknowledging seeking limited advice from Choi on her speeches.

But it did little to assuage public outrage, with mass street protests erupting in Seoul and other cities to demand Park’s resignation.

The Hankyoreh newspaper reported Tuesday that Choi had been a frequent visitor to the presidential Blue House since Park took office in 2013 — something Park’s administration has staunchly denied.

Park on Sunday carried out a partial reshuffle of key aides accused of being linked to Choi.

She is also considering calls from her ruling Saenuri Party to form a neutral multi-party cabinet to restore public trust and national unity.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea has stopped short of demanding the president’s resignation.

But it is refusing to begin cross-party talks on how to end the crisis until the investigation into Choi has run its course.

Under South Korea’s constitutional law, an incumbent president is exempt from being submitted to prosecution for any criminal offence.