Johannesburg – The newspaper industry is struggling to survive as consumers migrate to digital news forms, the Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team heard on Thursday.

Counsel for Media 24, Ashoek Adhikari, told the hearing in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, that newspaper companies were faced with having to scale down operations and sack employees.

“There has been significant re-alignment going on in the industry already. We also understand that a new business model hasn’t emerged.

“Many new things have been tried, experimenting 1/8in the newspaper industry 3/8, but they don’t work,” said Adhikari.

“What is clear is that there is a move to digital, and specifically a move to mobile 1/8phones 3/8. In the process of re-alignment, there is going to be great pain through further staff reductions,” he said.

Print media, globally, was in a state of decline and South Africa was no exception.

Adhikari said Media 24 employed around 7000 people. The Naspers subsidiary printed and distributed newspapers and magazines in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu, with a readership of 25 million.

The task team’s hearing on Thursday was part of a facts submission phase by key players in South Africa’s newspaper industry: Media 24, Independent Newspapers, Caxton Media, Times Media Group, the Mail&Guardian, and BDFM.

The task team was set up in August to help the industry develop a common transformation strategy. It is examining issues such as ownership, management, employment equity, skills development, and the low level of black ownership in many large media groups.

It was established after Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications criticised the print media sector and called for a transformation charter.

Print Media SA, now called Print and Digital Media SA, rejected the idea and said the media industry would deal with the matter in its own way.

Adhikari said he was opposed to the idea of the government restricting major media companies from entering smaller markets, and instead reserving them for smaller players.

“I would reject the idea utterly. When one talks about restricting the market, they are talking about regulating the media. We must remember resources empower. If we have a small newspaper covering a small town, then Media 24 participates in that market. The news that comes out of the place would be of a higher quality.

“It is a good thing for the community. If the local councillor is taking bribes to have people on the housing list, the Media 24

resources are much better placed to expose that and reduce that corruption than a small independent 1/8player 3/8 sitting in the system and afraid to offend people,” he said.

Organisations like the African National Congress, the Congress of SA Trade Unions, the Pan Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Organisation, Right2Know, the SA National Editors’ Forum, Genderlinks, academics, and small independent publishers have interacted with the task team in oral hearings. – Sapa

Issues such as leadership were regulated in the media industry, TMG deputy managing director Andrew Gill told the Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team on Friday.

The task team was set up in August to help the industry develop a common transformation strategy.

It is examining issues such as ownership, management, employment equity, skills development, and the low level of black ownership in many large media groups.

Gill said regulating transformation of the media was a concern.

“To be honest, there are codes out there and things that we work very hard (on) …. So it would be to avoid the over-regulation of an industry that, frankly, is seriously mature and struggling in a lot areas,” he said.

“I think the sustainability of newspapers in South Africa is the one core thing we’ve all got to take cognisance of, and realise that there are products that may well be failing, rather than new entrants coming into this market.”

He said incumbents would be closing, or leaving the industry, due to significant changes in the media market.

TMG had about 10 million readers, but this had dropped.

“Digital (media) is a major struggle for media houses,” said Gill.

“It’s a pretty depressed economy at the moment.”

The task team was hearing submissions from key players in the South African newspaper industry, including Media 24, Independent Newspapers, Caxton Media, TMG, the Mail&Guardian and business media company BDFM.

The task team was established after Parliament’s communications portfolio committee criticised the print media sector, and called for a transformation charter.  Print Media SA, now called Print and Digital Media SA, rejected this idea and said the media industry would deal with the matter in its own way. – Sapa/By Devereaux Morkel

Chile inaugurates world’s largest radio telescope. ( source: beforeitnews)

About 500 people gathered at a desert in northern Chile to celebrate the inauguration of the world’s largest radio telescope.

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array, or ALMA, is a multi-national project involving Japan, the United States and European countries. When completed it will be an assembly of 66, 12 and 7 meter diameter antenna dishes. 54 have been installed so far.

On Wednesday, a ceremony to mark the start of full-scale observations was held at the site in the Atacama Desert, located 5,000 meters above sea level.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Teru Fukui, Senior Vice Minister of Japan’s ministry of education, science and technology, were among the attendants.

President Pinera said he is very proud that the world’s largest observation facility, with the potential to uncover the origins of the universe, has opened in Chile.

ALMA began observation using a portion of the antennas in 2011.

The telescope is due to have its full array of 66 antennas installed by October this year.?(source: nhk)

North Korea successfully tested its 3rd underground nuclear. ( news.au)

Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) — The DPRK Foreign Ministry released the following statement on Tuesday: The DPRK’s third nuclear test is a resolute step for self-defence taken by it to cope with the U.S. hostile act against it. Its successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 in December last year was a peaceful one from A to Z which was conducted according to its plan for scientific and technological development for economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people’s living. The world including hostile countries recognized its application satellite’s entry into orbit and greatly admired its development of space technology. The U.S., however, again prodded the UN Security Council into cooking up a new “resolution on sanctions” against the DPRK, terming its satellite launch a violation of the UNSC’s “resolution”. Encroaching upon the right to satellite launch is an unpardonable grave hostile act as it is an infringement on the DPRK’s sovereignty. By origin, the DPRK had neither need nor plan to conduct a nuclear test. The DPRK’s nuclear deterrence has already acquired the trustworthy capability strong enough to make a precision strike at bases for aggression and blow them up at a single blow no matter where they are on the earth. It was the DPRK’s goal to focus efforts on economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people’s living by dint of nuclear deterrence for self-defence provided by the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il all their lives. The DPRK exercised its maximum self-restraint when the U.S. fabricated the “presidential statement” over its satellite launch for peaceful purposes by abusing the UNSC in April last year. But the DPRK’s patience reached its limit as the U.S. intensified such hostile act as implementing before anyone else the UNSC’s “resolution on sanctions”, far from apologizing for its renewed wanton violation of the DPRK’s right to satellite launch. The main objective of the current nuclear test is to express the surging resentment of the army and people of the DPRK at the U.S. brigandish hostile act and demonstrate the will and capability of Songun Korea to defend the sovereignty of the country to the last. The DPRK’s nuclear test is a just step for self-defence not contradictory to any international law. The U.S. has long put the DPRK on the list of preemptive nuclear strike. It is quite natural just measure for self-defence to react to the U.S. ever-increasing nuclear threat with nuclear deterrence. The DPRK withdrew from the NPT after going through legitimate procedures and chose the way of having access to nuclear deterrence for self-defence to protect the supreme interests of the country. There have been on the earth more than 2 000 nuclear tests and at least 9 000 satellite launches in the UN history spanning over 60 years but there has never been a UNSC resolution on banning any nuclear test or satellite launch. It is the U.S. that has conducted more nuclear tests and launched more satellites than any others. It, however, cooked up the UNSC’s “resolution” banning only the DPRK’s nuclear test and satellite launch. This is the breach of international law and the height of double standards. Had the UNSC been impartial even a bit, it would not have taken issue with a sovereign state’s exercise of the right to self-defence and its scientific and technological activities for peaceful purposes but with the U.S. policy for preemptive nuclear strike, a threat to global peace and security, to begin with. The current nuclear test is the primary countermeasure taken by the DPRK in which it exercised its maximum self-restraint. If the U.S. takes a hostile approach toward the DPRK to the last, rendering the situation complicated, it will be left with no option but to take the second and third stronger steps in succession. The inspection of ships and maritime blockade touted by the hostile forces will be regarded as war actions and will invite the DPRK’s merciless retaliatory strikes at their strongholds. The U.S., though belatedly, should choose between the two options: To respect the DPRK’s right to satellite launch and open a phase of detente and stability or to keep to its wrong road leading to the explosive situation by persistently pursuing its hostile policy toward the DPRK. In case the U.S. chooses the road of conflict finally, the world will clearly see the army and people of the DPRK defend its dignity and sovereignty to the end through a do-or-die battle between justice and injustice, greet a great revolutionary event for national reunification and win a final victory. ( Source: KCNA)

A Korean Space Launch Vehicle 1 rocket, also called Naro, launches into orbit from South Korea’s Naro Space Center on Jan. 30, 2013, successfully carrying a science satellite into orbit. It marked South Korea’s third KSLV-1 rocket launch, and the booster’s first successful flight.
CREDIT: Korea Aerospace Research Insititute

South Korea launched its first homegrown rocket into space Wednesday (Jan. 30) after a series of delays and two earlier failures, marking a spaceflight leap for the country’s space program, according to press reports.

The Korean Space Launch Vehicle-1, also known as the Naro booster, soared into space from South Korea’s Naro Space Center 300 miles (482 kilometers) south of Seoul. The rocket launch was aimed at sending the small Science and Technology Satellite 2C (STSAT-2C) into orbit, Yonhap News reported today.

“At 4 p.m. today, the Naro was successfully launched. The satellite was deployed 540 seconds after the launch and an analysis of related data shows the satellite has successfully entered its target orbit,” Lee Ju-ho, minister of education, science and technology told Yonhap News Agency.

Today’s successful liftoff marks South Korea’s third launch attempt to send a satellite into orbit, and the country’s first attempt since 2010. South Korea’s attempts to launch the Naro rocket in 2010 and 2009 met with failure, with this latest mission experience weeks of delay due to technical issues.

Today’s launch carried the 220-pound (100 kilograms) STSAT-2C satellite into orbit atop the 108-foot-tall (33 meters) KSLV-1 rocket. The rocket consists of a Russian-built first stage and a South Korean upper stage.

Officials won’t be sure the satellite made it into orbit unscathed until Thursday (Jan. 31) when the spacecraft can make contact with ground stations in South Korea the news agency goes on to report. A ground station in Norway did pick up beacon signals from the satellite, suggesting that it is performing as expected, mission officials said.

The STSAT-2C satellite was expected to reach a final orbit that circles the Earth once every 103 minutes, with a high point about 932 miles (1,500 km) above the planet and a low point of about 186 miles (300 kilometers), according to previous mission descriptions.

South Korea’s successful rocket launch comes just over a month after its nearest neighbor, North Korea, successfully launched its own Unha-3 rocket and a satellite into orbit in December. U.S. and other observer nations, however, suspect the North Korean rocket launch was a veils missile test to support that country’s ballistic missile program.

( source: space)

A 16-year-old male elephant that has menaced Cambodian villagers and destroyed their crops has been captured and re-homed at a wildlife centre.
Reuters reports that Sakor destroyed buildings, charged vehicles and injured cattle in the provice of Koh Kong for over a year.
A three day operation was launched to move the elephant to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre.
‘He’s caused a lot of problem along the National Road 48, caused several car crashes and he’s been making inroads into the sugar cane plantation. Local people are kind of upset, a little angry. Although they all love him, they’re kind of angry. If we don’t capture him then he will cause trouble and ultimately will probably be killed himself,’ Nick Mark, the Director of Wildlife Alliance, told Reuters.
Once the elephant was sedated a crane was need to move the four tonne elephant.
It is unlikely Sakor will be returned to the wild but Mark from the Wildlife Alliance said the elephant would become a proud father and a partner to one of the other female elephants at the wildlife centre. ( Sources: Reuters)

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s Health Minister Mam Bunheng has visited the United States to strengthen bilateral cooperation on heath sector and talked on achievement of reducing the maternal mortality.
Cambodian health minister, along with three other countries, were invited to Washington to honor achievement in reducing maternal mortality, the information from embassy of the US in Phnom Penh said on facebook. Cambodia has successfully fought against Hiv/aids, and reducing the maternal mortality.
The US is one of key donor for improving health field in the kingdom. ( END)

US embassy in Phno Penh ( Photo: embassy)

it added: The U.S. Embassy and Education USA will showcase their educational exchange programs, scholarship, and advising services. Representatives from the U.S. Embassy will conduct information sessions on U.S. student visas.

Charge d’Affaires Jeff Daigle will make remarks at the opening ceremony of the U.S. Cambodia Education Fair on Saturday, April 7 at 9:00am at Diamond Island Exhibition Center Hall G.

The U.S.-Cambodia Education Fair is organized by Ruwan Hulugalle & Company (RHC), in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia and Education USA. This event marks the first education fair to bring American education institutions to Cambodia to display their programs side-by-side with high-quality Cambodian education institutions to an audience of Cambodian students and their families.

The fair will highlight more than 20 U.S. and Cambodian institutions, and panel discussions on topics like scholarships, test preparation, student life, and more. ###