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Excise Police Jobs 2024; Apply Online

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Join the Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control Department (Excise and Taxation Wing) and be a part of a dynamic team dedicated to ensuring compliance with tax and narcotics control regulations in Pakistan.

Excise Department is currently accepting applications for 100 posts on several positions including Assistant Manager, Call Centre Agent, Manager, and Bike Rider. Both males and females can apply for government jobs.

Excise Police Jobs 

Who can apply for Excise Police jobs

Age: Applicants must be between 18 and 28 years old.

Educational Qualification: Candidates need to have completed graduation from recognized university. General category candidates should have at least 60% marks, while SC/ST/BC category candidates should have at least 50pc marks.

Nationality: Candidates must be Pakistani citizens.

Physical Standards: Male candidates must have a minimum height of 5 feet 7 inches, while female candidates must have a minimum height of 5 feet 3 inches.
Attempts: Candidates can apply multiple times until they reach the maximum eligible age limit.

Apply Online

  • Eligible candidates can submit their CVs to excisefoundation@gmail.com.
  • Incomplete applications will not be considered.
  • The deadline for submitting the application form is March 31, 2024.
  • Females are encouraged to apply.
  • Only shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview





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As Relations Thaw, China Lifts Tariffs on Australian Wine

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In a sign of easing tensions between Australia and China, China said Thursday it will lift the tariffs it placed on Australian wine more than three years ago.

The tariffs, which were first imposed in 2020 amid a nasty diplomatic spat between Australia and China, had all but vaporized the country’s biggest overseas market, worth 1.2 billion Australian dollars or around $800 million at its peak. Australian winemakers faced desperate hardship and were stuck with a surfeit of big-bodied red wines.

The decision to lift the tariffs was announced by China’s Ministry of Commerce.

In a statement, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he welcomed the decision, and that the outcome came “at a critical time for the Australian wine industry.” He added: “We will continue to press for all remaining trade impediments affecting Australian exports to be removed.”

As of last August, Australia had the equivalent of 859 Olympic swimming pools of wine in storage, according to a report from Rabo Bank. “That’s going to take some time to be depleted,” said Lee McLean, the chief executive of Australian Grape & Wine Inc. “And China is not going to solve that on its own.”

The price of red grapes has barely covered their production costs, prompting some growers to simply let them wither on the vine, while others accepted contracts well below the cost of production, Mr. McLean said.

The development comes after months of moves toward rapprochement between the two nations, starting with a change in the Australian government. That has led to meetings between foreign ministers, the release in October of a detained Australian journalist and, in November, the first visit by an Australian premier to Beijing since 2016.

Beijing in October agreed to review the tariffs, some of which exceeded 200 percent. In an interim decision this month, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce indicated that the tariffs were no longer necessary.

Speaking in Beijing last year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said that it was in the interest of both nations, their economies and the security of the wider region to “stabilize” their relationship. He expressed his “confidence” that the tariffs would be removed.

At that time, Australia withdrew complaints it had lodged with the World Trade Organization and reverted course on the cancellation of a Chinese company’s 99-year lease of the northern port of Darwin. In turn, China gradually lifted or reviewed other trade bans, sending coal, barley and timber flowing from Australia once again.

Chinese consumers had fallen hard for Australia’s red wines, leading some growers to lean into that demand, swapping white grapes for red grapes like cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and merlot, and in some cases even replacing screw tops on bottles with the corks preferred by Chinese consumers.

The tariffs begun in 2020, after Scott Morrison, then the Australian prime minister, called for “an objective, independent assessment” of how the Covid-19 pandemic began. China bristled over what it called “ideological bias and political games” intended to assign blame.

Within months, China’s Ministry of Commerce began an investigation into whether Australia was “dumping” wine onto the market at artificially low prices.

By November 2020, it had imposed “anti-dumping tariffs” of between 116.2 percent and 218.4 percent on Australian bottled wine, up from zero under a prior free-trade agreement. Sales to China that had been worth $800 million in 2019 dropped 97 percent in the first year. Australia, in turn, filed a complaint to the W.T.O., which referees trade disputes between nations.

For Chinese consumers, who have in the interim embraced high-end baijiu, a local spirit, as well as fine wines from France and more affordable ones from Chile, the tariffs had indicated a cultural shift, said Ian Ford, the founder of Nimbility, a brand and sales management company for alcohol sold in Asia. “Don’t bring it as a gift to a government official, don’t serve it at a banquet where government officials are present,” he said. “It becomes almost a statement that this is now taboo.”

The lifting of tariffs would send a clear message, he added, and some distributors in China had already begun preparing for an influx of popular Penfold’s branded wine from Australia.

“There will be a surge in demand,” he said, “but at the end of the day, I do think they’re going to have to fight to gain back the market share.”



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Aid package as a trophy: How the war has changed Ramadan football in Gaza

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Deir el-Balah, Gaza – For over six years, Moath Raja Allah was known as one of the top players in Gaza’s Ramadan football tournaments.

The 19-year-old from Nuseirat collected 12 trophies and countless accolades for his skills.

This year, Raja Allah is spending Ramadan at a makeshift refugee camp at Al-Salah Football Club in Deir el-Balah, located in the central Gaza Strip, after his family was displaced during Israel’s war on Gaza.

His only wish is to be able to buy a chicken for his family for iftar and break his fast on the rubble of his home, which was destroyed by Israeli bombardment that also left a shrapnel wound on his head.

“Ramadan tournaments are not the same anymore,” Raja Allah tells Al Jazeera.

“They lack the rivalries, the passion and the celebratory atmosphere of the past years.

“What’s more, we have now been reduced to playing for a pack of food aid package instead of a trophy.”

More than 1,000 people displaced by the war have taken refuge at Al-Salah Football Club, where football matches and training sessions came to a halt five months ago.

However, in order to offer momentary distraction to the families living on its premises, the club has been running a five-a-side football tournament during Ramadan.

“By organising this tournament, we are trying to deceive ourselves and say there’s a life in Gaza,” said Nabeel Abu-Asr, the club’s director of sports activities.

“We will give awards to the top two teams, but it will probably be a very small amount of money or a food aid package,” he said with a despondent shrug.

“It feels wrong, but we want to bring them some joy.”

Two teams gather in the middle of the pitch before the start of a match during a Ramadan football tournament at Al-Salah Football Club in Gaza [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera]

‘We are no longer children’

Despite being a far cry from the Ramadan tournaments of old, this event offers brief moments of joy to the players and their family members.

Mothers beam with pride when their sons score a goal. Younger children cheer every move from the sidelines and those on the pitch mimic their football idols’ celebrations.

Barefoot teenagers, or some with ripped boots, showcase their skills on a futsal-sized court surrounded by residential blocks on one side and a street lined with date palm trees on the other.

The sound of Israeli drones hovering in the area is momentarily drowned by the crowd’s cheering.

Once the action is over, the realities of the ongoing war again set in.

For 12-year-old Real Madrid fan Karam Al-Hwajri, football serves as a reminder of his life before the war.

“I find solace on the football pitch,” he said after finishing a game.

He prefers playing as a goalkeeper but doesn’t mind stepping further down the field to be part of the action.

“I know I will be killed, so I want to enjoy the last moments of my childhood.”

Despite his young age, Al-Hwajri is aware of the burdens of the war and says what Gaza’s children have endured is “beyond anyone’s ability”.

“We are no longer children.”

Karam Al-Hwajri (right) reacts to a shot during a Ramadan football tournament at Al-Salah Football Club in Gaza [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera]
Karam Al-Hwajri (right) reacts to a shot during a Ramadan football tournament at Al-Salah Football Club in Gaza [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera]

Khalil Al-Kafarneh, a 16-year-old player, has lived through several displacements since October. The 10 members of his family left their home in Beit Hanoon, located in northern Gaza, soon after the war broke out.

The camp at Al-Salah Football Club has been their home for three months, but they are struggling to survive, with limited supplies of food and clean water.

Al-Kafarneh has been playing football for 10 years; he says the war has taken away his athleticism and skills.

Khalil Al-Kafarnah (right) in action during a Ramadan football tournament at Al-Salah Football Club in Gaza [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera]
Khalil Al-Kafarneh (centre) in action during a Ramadan football tournament at Al-Salah Football Club in Gaza [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera]

“I rarely kick a ball now. I am a high school student but have not been able to continue my studies. My house is a pile of rubble. There’s nothing left.”

The aspiring footballer wanted to represent Ittihad Al-Shujaiyya, one of Gaza’s most prominent clubs. Then the war crushed his dreams and bombs hit the club’s premises.

More than 90 Palestinian footballers in Gaza, including legendary forward Mohammed Barakat, have been killed during the war with Israel.

Some of Gaza’s most famous stadiums, including Al-Yarmouk Stadium and Gaza Sport Club, have been destroyed or taken over by Israeli forces.

The United Nations has termed the Gaza Strip a “graveyard for thousands of children”.

Since October 7, Israeli attacks have killed at least 13,000 children, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Thousands more are missing under the rubble, most of them presumed dead.

A large number of those who have survived have sustained injuries and suffer from malnourishment due to scarcity of food, as well as the trauma of war.

Seven-year-old Nadeen Isa and her family moved to Al-Salah Football Club in January after their house was raided by Israeli forces in Rafah, southern Gaza.

She has been surviving on canned food since the start of the war and says she misses her favourite food: a shawarma sandwich. But Nadeen’s ambition remains unbroken.

“I dream of becoming a nurse and a striker,” she said while watching a football game from the sidelines.

“I wish I were born in a different country, so I could play and learn like any other child. I miss my school friends, my home and sitting under its roof.”



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Fazl says govt not capable of dealing with enormous challenges it faces

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Casting doubts on the new setup’s performance, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has claimed that the Shehbaz Sharif-led government encountered enormous challenges that it would not be able to meet.

Talking during Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ on Wednesday, Fazl said that the government would fail to deliver and would eventually collapse if people started a protest movement against it.

The JUI-F chief said, “The parliament will likely be a rubber stamp amid too many challenges. Ultimately, the politicians will take the responsibility for all the failures.”

He said it was strange that the “crime is committed by someone else and the politicians take its responsibility”. His party was going to protest against those institutions that had made the election a “game”, he added.

Earlier, Fazl announced to boycott the by-elections on the vacant National Assembly and provincial assembly seats. He also announced to launch a protest movement from Balochistan after Ramadan on April 25 against the alleged election rigging.

“Our stance is clear-cut that the 2024 general elections are rigged. And our target would be the force which altered the results. This government came into being based on results that we do not accept,” he said.

The JUI-F chief said they had objections regarding the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) concerning the election results of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“[Earlier] The issues with the PTI were ideological and not election-related,” he maintained.

He said that for the time being the party had not decided to join hands with the PTI. However, he admitted, that there was a change in the attitude of the Imran Khan-led party which was a good thing. It was a positive attitude and there was no issue if the two parties moved together, he said.

Fazl also shared that in his meeting with ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he told him that he considered him as a new blue-eyed boy.



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Pakistan likely to celebrate Eidul Fitr 2024 on this date

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ISLAMABAD – Eid ul Fitr is annual religious festival, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. This year Eid ul Fitr is likely to be celebrated on April 10, 2024.

The first two Ashras of Holy Month are about to end and people are curious to know the date of Eid ul Fitr 2024.

Eid ul Fitr 2024 Date in Pakistan

A report shared by a Pakistani news channel quoting Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee Chairman Maulana Khabir Azad claimed that Eidul Fitr 2024 is likely to be celebrated on April 10, 2024 Wednesday.

Ruet committee chairman said scientific observations indicate sighting of Shawwal crescent moon on 29th of Ramadan this year. He suggested possibility of utilizing scientific observations and forecasts to aid in sighting the Eidul Fitr moon.

Azad stressed that the final decision about Eidul Fitr moon would be based on Islamic principles and testimonies, and will be announced akin to previous years.

This year, people in South Asian nation are expected to observe 29-day Ramadan as the there are chances of crescent moon sighting on April 9.

Ramadan started on March 12 after the sighting of Ramadan crescent. The announcement followed a meeting of the central and zonal Ruet-e-Hilal committees for moon sighting in Peshawar.

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/25-Mar-2024/eid-ul-fitr-2024-six-holidays-expected-in-pakistan-this-year
 
 
 
 
 





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Prince George’s godfather set to get married in June this year | The Express Tribune

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The chance for a reunion between Prince William and Prince Harry looms as they consider attending the wedding of their mutual friend, the Duke of Westminster. 

The Express reports that the wedding, set for June 7 at Chester Cathedral, has recently dispatched invitations.

Both princes share a close relationship with Grosvenor, who also serves as the godfather to Prince William’s son, George. 

The Daily Mail’s sources indicate that Grosvenor is maintaining amicable ties with both brothers.

The Duke of Westminster, who participated in King Charles’ coronation last year, is set to marry his long-term partner, Olivia Henson. Notable guests expected to attend include the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and Princess Alexandra.

However, there remains speculation about whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be present at the wedding, given that their daughter, Prince Lilibet, shares the same birthday.

Following his father’s passing in 2016, the Duke of Westminster inherited his title and is estimated to have a net worth of £9.8 billion, positioning him among the wealthiest individuals in the UK.

The Grosvenor Group, the family’s business, possesses extensive real estate holdings in prime locations across London, including Belgravia and Mayfair, in addition to large country estates.

The bride-to-be, 31-year-old Olivia Henson, is the daughter of stockbroker Rupert Henson and his wife Caroline. She currently holds a senior account manager position at the luxury ingredients firm Belazu.



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At JNU, student ‘flame flickers’ against India’s Modi before national vote

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New Delhi, India – A Bollywood film called JNU will be released across India next week. The tagline on its publicity posters asks: “Can one educational university break the nation?”

The film is only the latest, thinly veiled attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), one of India’s premier public universities that for decades has also been a cauldron of political activism, with admission criteria designed to ensure that students from some of the country’s poorest and most neglected regions get a shot at quality higher education.

The university, a traditional bastion of left-liberal politics that is named after independent India’s first prime minister, has been a central target of political attacks from the country’s Hindu majoritarian right, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule. Like in the film, the university’s critics affiliated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have described JNU as an “anti-national” hub over its politics. Students and ex-students have been jailed for treason. Teachers have accused the university administration, appointed by the BJP government, of weakening quality standards and processes for appointments to stock the faculty with ideologically aligned professors.

Amid a heated campaign for national elections scheduled for April and May, the university held its own vote last week for the JNU Students Union (JNUSU), which has historically been one of India’s most powerful and influential student bodies. These were the first JNUSU polls in four years, and results came out on Sunday.

Students gather to listen to the JNUSU presidential debate in New Delhi [Courtesy of Sunny Dhiman]

Nationally, the BJP is predicted to win. At JNU, it lost.

“This election was a referendum against the right wing,” Dhananjay, the new students union president, said in his victory speech. The 28-year-old student of theatre and performance studies at JNU’s School of Arts and Aesthetics is also the first Dalit to be elected JNUSU president in nearly three decades.

Located on rocky, forested slopes in southern New Delhi, JNU is often described as a bubble, and there is little evidence that the outcome of its student body elections is any reflection of the national mood. But for many in the institution best known for its pedagogy and research in the social sciences, the win on Sunday of a coalition of left-wing organisations, offered a breather from perceived efforts by the BJP and its allies to take over their oasis.

‘Solidarity and hope’

The JNUSU has been dominated by groups affiliated with India’s many communist parties for decades. However, the rise of Hindu nationalism in the early 1990s saw the emergence of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a pan-India student organisation affiliated with the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP.

The university’s alumni include Nobel Laureates like Abhijit Banerjee, who won the economics prize in 2019, and foreign leaders such as former Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and former Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai. Many of India’s top political leaders — from Sitaram Yechury, the leader of India’s biggest communist party, to the current BJP government’s foreign minister S Jaishankar and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman — studied at JNU.

On Sunday, thousands of JNU students gathered outside their union office to learn the results of the elections held last week, in which the ABVP was a strong challenger. But three of the top four posts were won by Left candidates while the remaining chair went to a queer woman from the Dalit community, which sits at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy.

Yet the national elections coming up could shape the future of JNU as much, if not more, than the students elected over the weekend.

Since Modi became the prime minister in 2014, his government has portrayed the university as a hub of activities designed to break India.

Students and ex-students – especially Muslims, such as Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam – have been arrested and charged with sedition and “terrorism”. Many remain behind bars. Students alleged that the university administration’s failure to hold elections since 2019 was also part of a pattern of actions aimed at stifling campus political activism.

While COVID-19 lockdowns prevented the polls in 2020 and 2021, the subsequent years saw a reluctance by the JNU administration “because it wanted elections to stop forever”, outgoing JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh told Al Jazeera.

JNU election
Outgoing JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh with Dhananjay, right, and another student [Amir Malik/Al Jazeera]

“Conducting the election again seemed impossible, but the students showed solidarity and hope,” she said. Unlike other public universities, the elections at JNU are conducted by students who form an Election Commission to oversee the vote.

“The hiatus in conducting the election was a major challenge as the Election Commission consisted of many new members. But I told the varsity administration that if I begin the process once, I will finish it,” said Chief Election Commissioner Shailendra Kumar, a doctoral student in South Asian studies.

“We have done so successfully and sensitively,” he said, adding that a Braille system for visually challenged voters was introduced for the first time.

‘Punching bag for BJP’s politics’

The JNU vote came weeks before India goes to the polls in a marathon six-week exercise, starting on April 19. And the university is likely to figure into the BJP’s campaign, as is evident by the release of JNU, the film, on April 5.

The movie is part of a slew of similar films produced by a section of Bollywood filmmakers to ostensibly promote Modi’s BJP. The film’s publicity posters, split in half between shades of saffron and red, clearly show a prominent university building with two rival groups of students demonstrating in front of it.

“The Left winning in JNU is not a new thing. It has been winning for many years and has been dominant ever since JNU came into being,” Harish S Wankhede, a professor at JNU’s Centre for Political Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“The new thing is that the central government’s attempts to change JNU, both ideologically and demographically, didn’t affect the campus much. The efforts by the government to malign JNU, defame it, calling it a den of anti-nationals, didn’t bear any fruit to the right-wing student group.”

India JNU
From left, newly elected JNUSU President Dhananjay, Vice President Avijit Ghosh, General Secretary Priyanshi Arya and Joint Secretary Mo Sajid [Amir Malik/Al Jazeera]

Wankhede said it was “surprising” that the ABVP, supported by a political environment for four years, did not win.

“JNU was considered a punching bag for the BJP’s politics,” Amisha Thakur, a doctoral student, told Al Jazeera. Wankhede agreed: “That’s true because no other university was giving an intellectual opposition to BJP with as much fervour as JNU was doing.”

But Govind Dangi, a 29-year-old student and an ABVP candidate in the election, described the Left as a dying force at JNU.

“The flame of a candle flickers before it ends. The Left is that dousing candle,” he said.

During an election debate held a day before the voting, ABVP’s presidential candidate, Umesh Chandra Ajmeera, made a gesture similar to what RSS members do at their meetings — a raised hand that critics of the Hindu right have compared to the Nazi salute.

While the gesture was met with angry protests, Dhananjay thinks Ajmeera may have done it unintentionally. “No one would accept Hitler in India,” he said.

Ajmeera was unavailable for a comment despite repeated efforts to reach him.

Jawaharlal Nehru University campus
The Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in New Delhi [Courtesy: Creative Commons]

Caste assertions

Priyanshi Arya, the first Dalit queer person to be elected the JNUSU general secretary, belongs to the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association (BAPSA), which derives its names from some of India’s most prominent caste and tribal leaders, including Bhaimrao Ambedkar, the country’s first law minister and the chief architect of its secular constitution.

“The entire nation has its eyes on JNU. A first win for the Ambedkarite movement after 10 years of BAPSA’s inception, has created inspiration and hope coursing through the entire nation. It’s an emotional moment for us,” Arya told Al Jazeera.

Ajay Gudavarthy, also a professor at JNU’s Centre for Political Studies, said that while the university may represent a microcosm of the national politics, the claim that its Students Union election has “an impact on the national vote is an exaggeration”.

Still, he said, “all elections are being fought on the infallibility of Modi’s image. Any loss in an election is a dent on his larger-than-life persona,” he said.

“Somehow the BJP regime does not look confident despite being in power for a decade, … so it creates a hype knowing that its survival is only there till the hype lasts. There’s nothing beyond. But the ones in power live in the fear of losing it. That’s a terrible way of living.”

And what about the JNU film? Al Jazeera asked ABVP’s Dangi if he agrees with the film’s claim that his university is a “nation-breaker”.

Dandi said the film “portrays our university in a negative way and has no truth in it”.

“I personally oppose those films,” he said.



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As Threats in Space Mount, U.S. Lags in Protecting Key Services

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The United States and China are locked in a new race, in space and on Earth, over a fundamental resource: time itself.

And the United States is losing.

Global positioning satellites serve as clocks in the sky, and their signals have become fundamental to the global economy — as essential for telecommunications, 911 services and financial exchanges as they are for drivers and lost pedestrians.

But those services are increasingly vulnerable as space is rapidly militarized and satellite signals are attacked on Earth.

Yet, unlike China, the United States does not have a Plan B for civilians should those signals get knocked out in space or on land.

The risks may seem as remote as science fiction. But just last month, the United States said that Russia may deploy a nuclear weapon into space, refocusing attention on satellites’ vulnerability. And John E. Hyten, an Air Force general who also served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who is now retired, once called some satellites “big, fat, juicy targets.”

Tangible threats have been growing for years.

Russia, China, India and the United States have tested antisatellite missiles, and several major world powers have developed technology meant to disrupt signals in space. One Chinese satellite has a robotic arm that could destroy or move other satellites.

Other attacks are occurring on Earth. Russian hackers targeted a satellite system’s ground infrastructure in Ukraine, cutting off internet at the start of the war there. Attacks like jamming, which drowns out satellite signals, and spoofing, which sends misleading data, are increasing, diverting flights and confounding pilots far from battlefields.

If the world were to lose its connection to those satellites, the economic losses would amount to billions of dollars a day.

Despite recognizing the risks, the United States is years from having a reliable alternative source for time and navigation for civilian use if GPS signals are out or interrupted, documents show and experts say. The Transportation Department, which leads civilian projects for timing and navigation, disputed this, but did not provide answers to follow-up questions.

A 2010 plan by the Obama administration, which experts had hoped would create a backup to satellites, never took off. A decade later, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order that said that the disruption or manipulation of satellite signals posed a threat to national security. But he did not suggest an alternative or propose funding to protect infrastructure.

The Biden administration is soliciting bids from private companies, hoping they will offer technical solutions. But it could take years for those technologies to be widely adopted.

Where the United States is lagging, China is moving ahead, erecting what it says will be the largest, most advanced and most precise timing system in the world.

It is building hundreds of timing stations on land and laying 12,000 miles of fiber-optic cables underground, according to planning documents, state media and academic papers. That infrastructure can provide time and navigation services without relying on signals from Beidou, China’s alternative to GPS. It also plans to launch more satellites as backup sources of signals.

“We should seize this strategic opportunity, putting all our efforts into building up capabilities covering all domains — underwater, on the ground, in the air, in space and deep space — as soon as possible,” researchers from the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, a state-owned conglomerate, wrote in a paper last year.

China retained and upgraded a World War II-era system, known as Loran, that uses radio towers to beam time signals across long distances. An enhanced version provides signals to the eastern and central parts of the country, extending offshore to Taiwan and parts of Japan. Construction is underway to expand the system west.

Russia, too, has a long-range Loran system that remains in use. South Korea has upgraded its system to counter radio interference from North Korea.

The United States, though, decommissioned its Loran system in 2010, with President Barack Obama calling it “obsolete technology.” There was no plan to replace it.

In January, the government and private companies tested an enhanced version of Loran on U.S. Coast Guard towers. But companies showed no interest in running the system without government help, so the Coast Guard plans to dispose of all eight transmission sites.

“The Chinese did what we in America said we would do,” said Dana Goward, the president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation in Virginia. “They are resolutely on a path to be independent of space.”

Since Mr. Trump’s executive order, about a dozen companies have proposed options, including launching new satellites, setting up fiber optic timing systems or restarting an enhanced version of Loran. But few products have come to market.

A private firm, Satelles, working with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, has developed an alternative source for time using satellites that were already orbiting about 485 miles above Earth.

N.I.S.T. scientists say the signals are a thousand-times stronger than those from GPS satellites, which orbit more than 12,000 miles above Earth. That makes them harder to jam or spoof. And because low-Earth-orbit satellites are smaller and more dispersed, they are less vulnerable than GPS satellites to an attack in space.

The satellites obtain time from stations around the world, including the N.I.S.T facility in Colorado and an Italian research center outside Milan, according to Satelles’s chief executive, Michael O’Connor.

China has similar plans to upgrade its space-time system by 2035. It will launch satellites to augment the Beidou system, and the country plans to launch nearly 13,000 satellites into low-Earth orbit.

China says its investments are partly motivated by concerns about an American attack in space. Researchers from China’s Academy of Military Sciences have said that the United States is “striving all-out” to build its space cyberwarfare abilities, especially after the war in Ukraine brought “a deeper appreciation of the critical nature of space cybersecurity.”

The United States has increased its spending on space defense, but Space Force, a branch of the military, did not answer specific questions about the country’s antisatellite abilities. It said it was building systems to secure the nation’s interests as “space becomes an increasingly congested and contested domain.”

Separate from civilian use, the military is developing GPS backup options for its own use, including for weapons like precision-guided missiles. Most of the technologies are classified, but one solution is a signal called M-code, which Space Force says will resist jamming and perform better in war than civilian GPS. It has been plagued by repeated delays, however.

The military is also developing a positioning, timing and navigation service to be distributed by low-Earth-orbit satellites.

Other countermeasures look to the past. The U.S. Naval Academy resumed teaching sailors to navigate by the stars.

Satellite systems — America’s GPS, China’s Beidou, Europe’s Galileo and Russia’s Glonass — are the important sources of time, and time is the cornerstone of most methods of navigation.

In the American GPS system, for example, each satellite carries atomic clocks and transmits radio signals with information about its location and the precise time. When a cellphone receiver picks up signals from four satellites, it calculates its own location based on how long it took for those signals to arrive.

Cars, ships and navigation systems on board aircraft all operate the same way.

Other infrastructure relies on satellites, too. Telecom companies use precise time to synchronize their networks. Power companies need time from satellites to monitor the state of the grid and to quickly identify and investigate failures. Financial exchanges use it to keep track of orders. Emergency services use it to locate people in need. Farmers use it to plant crops with precision.

A world without satellite signals is a world that is nearly blind. Ambulances will be delayed on perpetually congested roads. Cellphone calls will drop. Ships may get lost. Power outages may last longer. Food can cost more. Getting around will be much harder.

Yet, some critical civilian systems were designed with a flawed assumption that satellite signals would always be available, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

That reliance can have dire consequences. A recent report from Britain showed that a weeklong outage of all satellite signals would cost its economy nearly $9.7 billion. An earlier report put the toll on the U.S. economy at $1 billion a day, but that estimate is five years old.

“It’s like oxygen, you don’t know that you have it until it’s gone,” Adm. Thad W. Allen, a former commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard who leads a national advisory board for space-based positioning, navigation and timing, said last year.

For now, mutually assured losses deter major attacks. Satellite signals are transmitted on a narrow radio band, which makes it difficult for one nation to jam another’s satellite signals without shutting off its own services.

Having GPS for free for 50 years has “gotten everybody addicted,” according to Mr. Goward from the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. The government has not done enough to make alternatives available to the public, he said.

“It’s only admiring the problem,” he said, “not solving the problem.”



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Two bodies recovered from Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore

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Four more workers who were on the bridge when it collapsed are still missing and presumed dead.

Divers have recovered the bodies of two construction workers killed in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the United States.

US authorities on Wednesday found the workers’ remains in a red pick-up truck that was thrown into the mouth of the Patapsco River a day earlier when the Singapore-flagged Dali container ship slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The two men were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, who was originally from Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, originally from Guatemala.

Four more workers who were filling potholes on the bridge are still missing and presumed dead. Two other workers were pulled from the water alive after the collapse early Tuesday.

Maryland State Police Colonel Roland Butler said the truck containing the workers’ bodies was located in about 7.6 metres (25 feet) of water near the mid-section of the collapsed bridge.

Butler said authorities had shifted to a salvage operation after sonar indicated that more vehicles were trapped within the concrete and twisted steel debris of the bridge.

“Based on sonar scans, we firmly believe that the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw come down,” Butler told a news conference.

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said authorities had learned that the ship underwent routine engine maintenance in the port before the disaster.

“As far as the engine goes, we were not informed of any problems with the vessel,” he said.

Singapore’s port authority has said the ship passed overseas inspections and had valid certificates covering its structural integrity and equipment functionality at the time of the collision.

Earlier on Wednesday, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the Dali to begin interviewing crew members of the stricken vessel, which remains at the scene of the disaster with parts of the mangled bridge across its bow.

“We were informed that they were going to conduct routine engine maintenance on it while it was in port. And that’s the only thing we were informed about the vessel in that regard.”



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Eva Mendes shares insights into parenting with Ryan Gosling | The Express Tribune

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Eva Mendes has offered a glimpse into her private life with Ryan Gosling, shedding light on their unique parenting approach.

 

During an interview with the Today show, the actress discussed the couple’s decision for her to be a stay-at-home mother to their daughters, Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 7. 

 

Courtesy: Hollywood Life

 

Mendes described this arrangement as a “non-verbal agreement,” emphasizing that while Gosling continued to excel in his acting career, she shifted her focus to home, stating, “It was almost just like a non-verbal agreement that it was like, ‘Ok, he’s going to work and I’m going to work, I’m just going to work here.’”

 

Mendes, who has taken a step back from acting to focus on her family and her clothing line with NY&Co., considers herself “so lucky” to have this arrangement.

 

 “I still worked, I just didn’t act because acting takes you on locations, it takes you away,” she shared, highlighting the sacrifices made for family.

 

The couple reportedly met as co-stars on the set of “The Place Beyond the Pines” in 2012 and have hinted at tying the knot in 2022.

 

Courtesy: Entertainment Weekly

 

Despite keeping their decade-long relationship private, Mendes has publicly praised Gosling for his Oscar-nominated role as Ken in “Barbie,” expressing her pride on Instagram and calling herself “this Ken’s Barbie.”

 

Following Gosling’s memorable “Kenergy” performance at the Oscars, Eva Mendes humorously urged him on Instagram to return home for parental duties, stating, “You took Ken all the way to the Oscars, RG. Now come home, we need to put the kids to bed.” 

 

 

Mendes, whose last film appearance was in the 2014 Gosling-directed “Lost River,” has expressed on Instagram her choice to focus on family over acting, thanks to her successful business ventures allowing her that flexibility.



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