Tag Archives: Pakistan

Teams on Tour: Great Sporting Trips Around the World

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2012Holidays 'n Travels, Sportsall blacks, american rivals, anna mathews, ashes, australia, Bangladesh, british, british empire, british grand prix, cricket, Dubai, energy, Europe, exotic location, favourite athletes, formula 1, france, golf, grand national, hong kong, horse racing, India, irish lions, islands, italy, new zealand, organised tours, Pakistan, passion for sport, popular, royal ascot, ryder cup, silverstone, six nations, South Africa, springboks, travel, travelling abroad, twickenham, uk, united kingdom, usa, west indies, wimbledon, world of rugby

Passion for sport is unrivalled in its energy and dedication and so it’s no wonder that people are so keen to travel the world to see their favourite athletes and teams play abroad. These tours offer a unique opportunity to follow your sport and see some great global destinations at the same time.

Travelling abroad to follow your favourite sport is a unique and highly rewarding experience, allowing you to experience a different country, engage with their culture and discover the wonders of how other peoples and nations watch and enjoy sports. Organised tours are often the best way to get involved with international sport as they do an excellent job of combining all the necessary aspects without any hassle for your tickets to all the most important sporting events, accommodation and transport to make getting there very easy and scheduled free time to allow you to explore the surroundings of your destination. (more…)

September 11 and The Cost of War

By Guest PostSeptember 11, 2012Politicsafghanistan, attack, brown university, catherine lutz, combat, conflict, connecticut, cost, death, democracy, domestic, environmental degradation, ethnicity, federal government, fiscal year, human lives. economic term, human right, international, international studies, Iraq, oregon, Pakistan, pentagon, september 11, united states, US, violation, war, war project, watson institute, yemen

The Costs of War project is assessing the total cost of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. Findings thus far put the cost at more than 300,000 lives and $4 trillion. The project’s findings are continually updated. (more…)

Ancient Alteration of Seawater Chemistry Linked With Past Climate Change

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2012Environmentadina paytan, alteration, antarctic ice sheet, candace major, cenozoic era, climate and evolution, climate change, collision, dissolution, eocene epoch, eurasia, greenhouse periods, gypsum, gypsum belt, gypsum deposit, hydrated calcium sulfate, icehouse climate, India, iodp, iran, joides resolution, marine, million years, mineral, national science foundation, ocean drillship, oman, Pakistan, phosphorus cycling, plate tectonics, santa cruz, seawater chemistry, sulfate aerosols, sulfate concentration, sulfur composition, ulrich wortmann, university of california, university of toronto, zagros mountains

Dissolution or creation of huge gypsum deposits changed sulfate content of the oceans

Scientists have discovered a potential cause of Earth’s “icehouse climate” cooling trend of the past 45 million years. It has everything to do with the chemistry of the world’s oceans.

“Seawater chemistry is characterized by long phases of stability, which are interrupted by short intervals of rapid change,” says geoscientist Ulrich Wortmann of the University of Toronto, lead author of a paper reporting the results and published this week in the journal Science.

“We’ve established a new framework that helps us better interpret evolutionary trends and climate change over long periods of time. The study focuses on the past 130 million years, but similar interactions have likely occurred through the past 500 million years.” (more…)

Climate Change Led to Collapse of Ancient Indus Civilization, Study Finds

By Guest PostJune 2, 2012Environment, Sciencearabian sea, archaeological evidence, catastrophic floods, climate change, coring, dorian fuller, drilling, eastern afghanistan, egypt, ganges, geological evidence, geologist, geoscience, ghaggar hakra, goldilocks civilization, harappan civilization, harappan settlements, harappan times, himalaya, hindu mythology, indo gangetic plain, indus, james p m syvitski, liviu giosan, mesopotamia, northwest india, Pakistan, peter d clift, remains, river floods, romania, sarasvati, sediments, srtm, stefan constantinescu, topography, university college london, whoi

A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.

Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, northwest India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like their contemporaries, the Harappans, named for one of their largest cities, lived next to rivers owing their livelihoods to the fertility of annually watered lands. (more…)

Cultural “Tightness” Can Hold Back Female Leadership – But not Always, Says University of Toronto Study

By Guest PostMarch 10, 2012Culture, Politicscultural norms, cultural tightness, deutsche telekom, geoffrey leonardelli, german company, germanic europe, hungary, ken mcguffin, leader, new zealand, Pakistan, scandinavian country, sex, society, soo min toh, south korea, statistics, turkey, ukraine, university of toronto, women, women leaders, world bank

Normative support for equality can make the difference

Countries that more strictly uphold their cultural norms are less likely to promote women as leaders, unless those norms support equal opportunity for both sexes, shows a new paper from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

“Cultural tightness can prevent the emergence of women leaders because tighter cultures may make a society’s people more resistant to changing the traditionally-held practice that placed men in leadership roles,” said Professor Soo Min Toh, who is cross-appointed to the Rotman School and the University of Toronto Mississauga, and co-wrote the paper with Professor Geoffrey Leonardelli at the Rotman School and U of T’s Department of Psychology. (more…)

Link Between Air Pollution and Cyclone Intensity in Arabian Sea

By Guest PostNovember 5, 2011Environmentabcs, aerosol, air pollution, amato evan, anjuli bamzai, arabian sea, arabian sea cyclones, atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns, atmospheric brown clouds, atmospheric concentrations of pollutants, biomass, chul eddy chung, climate, climatological vertical wind shear, cyclone gonu, cyclone phet, diesel emissions, gujarat, gulf of oman, gwangju institute of science and technology, himalayan glacial melting, India, iran, james p kossin, lpg fuel, monsoon season, national science foundation, oman, Pakistan, pollution, rainfall patterns in south asia, scripps institution of oceanography, sea surface temperatures, south korea, storms, university of virginia, veerabhadran ramanathan, wind shear patterns

*Disruption of wind shear enables stronger storms*

Pollution is making Arabian Sea cyclones more intense, according to a study in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

Traditionally, prevailing wind shear patterns prohibit cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms.

The Nature paper suggests that weakening winds have enabled the formation of stronger cyclones in recent years–including storms in 2007 and 2010 that were the first recorded storms to enter the Gulf of Oman. (more…)

USGS Releases Resource Estimate for Afghanistan Rare Earth Prospect

By Guest PostSeptember 15, 2011Economy, Environmentafghan economy, afghanistan, afghans, australia, barium, bayan obo, bob tucker, canada, cerium, China, electric vehicles, emerging alternative energy technologies, helmand province, khanneshin carbonatite, lanthanum, light rare earth elements, lree, marc grossman, marcia mcnutt, mineral wealth, mountain pass, neodymium, Pakistan, phosphorus, photo voltaic cells, rare earth element, regina dubey, steve peters, strategic minerals, strontium, U.S. Geological Survey, united states, unpublished work of soviet scientists, uranium, usgs, wind power

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates at least 1 million metric tonnes of rare earth element resources within the Khanneshin carbonatite in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This estimate comes from a 2009-2011 USGS study funded by the Department of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO).

The Khanneshin carbonatite contains a major potential source of light rare earth elements (LREE), such as lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium. The LREE prospects in the Khanneshin carbonatite are comparable in grade to world-class deposits like Mountain Pass, CA, and Bayan Obo in China, both of which primarily contain LREE. (more…)

Study of HIV Increase in Pakistan Could Benefit Other Research

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2011General, Healthafghanistan, aga khan university, behavioral data, blood samples, disease, dna sequences, dow university of health sciences, genetic evidence, hiv, hiv epidemic in pakistan, hiv positive groups, hiv strains, karachi, marco salemi, middle east, north africa, Pakistan, virus, willi mcfarland

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Rates of HIV have increased in Pakistan’s general population, as the virus has spread beyond at-risk groups to women and their children, according to an international team of researchers, including a University of Florida scientist.

The researchers raise concern that the transmission across subgroups into Pakistan’s general population may serve as indication that the virus may be spreading into populations within neighboring Afghanistan. The team’s epidemiological findings were published in July in the journal PLoS One. (more…)