micancho，concrete anchor

One way is to put these funds to work in investment-starved countries in Africa and Asia and assures themselves of returns for a long time to come. China is now pressuring Sri Lanka to service the debt and is seeking to extract some more in lieu of that. Once when a Pakistani interlocutor at a Track-2 session asked me what then would be the economic gains to Pakistan, I replied they could sell tea and samosas to the traffic!Much is being made about the overland link between China and Europe by rail and road links. The Navy deploys MiG-29K fighters as well as P-8i Poseidon maritime surveillance and attack aircraft, and has a formidable fleet of combat vessels. Much of the Hambantota investment has been recouped by China via material and labour supplied to complete the project. Both the fears and the optimism are unfounded.The “string of pearls” is a bogus idea. Almost two years after China hosted a well-attended and hugely-touted conference to promote its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, it held the second summit last week.Much is being made about the overland link between China and Europe by rail and road links.Like Sri Lanka, some other intended beneficiaries have now begun to ask questions about the utility and intentions of OBOR. Even Pakistan, Beijing’s so-called “all-weather” friend and ally, has begun questioning the terms of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) after deriving lessons from what happened to Sri Lanka when the birds came home to roost at Hambantota.

The Chinese have begun backtracking a bit. The question which Beijing seeks to grapple is this. Questions were asked about its real intentions, economic benefits and usurious tendencies. The BRI is a project meant to very simply get out the Chinese reserves invested in Western banks into investments where these will fetch a much higher rate of return; and to take up the slack from the huge overcapacity problem that plagues the Chinese economy. We have not been exactly sleeping or need to be overly worried. Others make much of the so-called Malacca dilemma. There is always the option of a canal for freighters across the Kra Isthmus, a project that will bring China and Japan much closer to India. With no interest and with depreciation factored in China’s huge reserves, accumulated by extracting surpluses in its sweatshops, are steadily shrinking in value.” It then questions the benefits that will arise from linking mostly dry and barren Xinjiang, and in particular the predominantly Turkestani Muslim Kashgar prefecture with its restive four million people, to an increasingly water-starved and already much troubled Pakistan.While economists are generally sceptical about China’s goals and intentions, strategists — mostly the garden-variety Indian military types — have endowed this project with sinister overtones.

The grandiose Hambantota port project in Sri Lanka, which once had the same bunch of Indian “strategic thinkers” in a tizzy, hosts no ships and doesn’t earn very much. Most commentators seem to miss that the Trans-Siberian Railway line from Vladivostok to Moscow is almost a hundred years old. The capital it claims it is prepared to subscribe for the NDB, AIIB and Silk Road Fund would amount to only around seven per cent of its total foreign exchange reserves invested in Western banks. Business is about cutting costs and taking the least expensive option.The BRI is seen as China’s big play to seek world domination. There is a reality most of our commentators do not see or understand. He called it a “stupid notion”, and said no one who has run a large navy or held a responsible position in a navy will ever say an oceanside blockade is possible. By 2013, China had accumulated foreign exchange reserves of about $3. I was once at a conference where Adm. It was cooked up by consultants working for a company called Booz Allen Hamilton, which was linked to the US department of defence and the Central Intelligence Agency, and was given a lot of traction by some well-known Indian “strategic thinkers”. Already, Malaysia has renegotiated the terms of the rail project with a much-reduced outlay, lower interest rates and increased local participation. This was a far cry from the huge figures, sometimes as high as $750 billion to $1 trillion, that were bandied about.

The same Sri Lanka that once hosted a Chinese Jinn class nuclear submarine ostensibly on a goodwill mission last year turned away a conventional submarine of the PLA Nany wanting to pick up supplies. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper has said: “But the main thrust of the plan actually lies in agriculture, contrary to the image of CPEC as a massive industrial and transport undertaking, involving power plants and highways. Most of these folks have not progressed beyond Mahan and Mackinder, whose theories were fashioned in a much earlier era when coaling and oil refuelling points were very critical. In some, the birds have come home to roost quite early. The US dollar is also steadily depreciating in the long term against other major currencies.The question that we need to ponder over a bit is how long will these “ports” survive after any outbreak of hostilities? The Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy have enough airpower at hand to sort them out, and our Navy can effectively blockade hostile ports in the neighbourhood. No one with common sense will prefer to shift by land what can be shipped. They have found a typically Chinese solution to it, and are making a virtue out of a necessity. Is this a signal, or just artistic licence? The map even portrayed India as a part of BRI, despite India having boycotted the summit for the second time. The Arctic route is now opening up, and the real Malacca dilemma soon will be the rapid decrease in freighters through it. That’s why one prominent European commentator then called OBOR “One Belt, One Road and One Trap”.

Maps be damned, we can see meaning in BRI only when the norms and terms conform to accepted international norms, such as those of lending agencies like the World Bank. Yet overland freight costs will always be much more expensive than sea freight costs. It is apparent the grand design outlined at the first summit hasn’t quite shaped up as intended. I was on a television show when a prominent “security analyst” and the anchor raised the issue of the so-called “string of pearls”.5 trillion. The plan acquires its greatest specificity, and lays out the largest number of projects and plans for their facilitation, in agriculture. It may be noted that the IAF has operationalised an airbase in Thanjavur and will fly SU30 MKIs from there..The second edition of the Belt and Road Initiative Summit got under way in Beijing on Thursday last week. Dennis Blair, a former US Navy chief and later President Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, was asked about it. It seems that India’s opposition to it might have also been addressed somewhat when the BRI map showing routes rather curiously shows the whole of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as part of India.Look at it from another angle.

Speaking at the first BRI (then OBOR) conference, President Xi Jinping had announced that Beijing would advance 380 billion yuan ($55 billion) to support it. Its capacity can be beefed up.Now to the economics of BRI. It may be mentioned that the original deal was signed by paying the disgraced former Malaysian PM Najib Razak a sizeable bribe. To them it seemed that every port or airport where a Chinese company is the contractor had a military purpose. China needs to get value for its money and also help its demand-starved industries. It’s very simple. He explicitly sleeve anchors and loudly said to Indian strategists who harped on the “string of pearls” that no navy could encircle a country with just a few ports. The BRI is seen as China’s big play to seek world domination. Both the fears and the optimism are unfounded. As these China-promoted institutions will provide infrastructure lending rather than grants, the return on capital from these investments could be significantly higher than the returns China gets from its foreign exchange reserves now invested in low-yielding US government bonds. Exaggerating the size of the lollipop is an integral aspect of China’s economic diplomacy.Typically, many Indian commentators have started seeing meaning in it

Where the film scores is in enabling its characters, letting their emotional sense of judgement ride and anchor the plot instead of leaving it all for the yearning scenarist’s inferences.Set in 2049, hunt for outdated replicants is as rampant, with the plot following a very sombre LAPD official, K (Ryan Gosling), in his quest to religiously follow his lieutenant (Robin Wright in an inspiredly tenacious act).The film, rich in visual poetry is as much Roger Deakins as much as it is Villeneuve’s. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s score works wonders for this dystopia, albeit often distracting. However, 35 years down the line, if there’s one director who could produce a worthy ‘replicant’ to Ridley Scott’s commendable vision, it’s Villeneuve. And that, the auteur does.

A loner in a world of his kind, the casting of Ryan Gosling might have looked apt on paper, but fails to translate effectively on-screen.Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 is grim, gritty, appropriately allegorical and morally ambiguous, sans an iota of brute force. The more he delved, the more mysteries surrounding his own past confronted him. single expansion anchors Manufacturers Rating: Director: Denis VilleneuveCast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Mackenzie David, Jared Leto, Dave BautistaBlade Runner might not have been the finest piece of cinema (contrarian discourse is welcome), but sure has acquired one of the biggest cult followings cinema as a medium has known. Particularly similar is a certain intimate moment in the film.Be as it may, Blade Runner 2049 is still a sequel towards the right direction, one of the better ones of all time, that trumps the original. Despite its gratingly predictable twists, the film works wonders when it comes to putting across contemporised social commentaries aided by metaphorical plot arcs.Though the film has Gosling in every other frame, it’s a regurgitated Harrison Ford who steals the show in a performance that could very well have been mistaken for an extended cameo.

Ridley Scott, with his alarmingly precognitive visual and mortal landscape, had done to the then generation what Black Mirror has consistently been achieving with millennials. Despite his unquestionable talent, Leto is a clichéd liability, one that could hitherto have been avoided had a relatively less A-list face been cast. A still from the film. In a stint that is one of the better performances of his illustrious career, Ford’s Deckard is determined, vulnerable, broken and emotionally stunted. The latter, who proved a good science fiction fare might not need visual, CGI-laden extravagance to prove a point with 2016’s staggering Arrival, reiterates it with this one that, science fiction is much beyond the dispensable realms of visual effects.The film stars Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Jared Leto and Dave Bautista in the lead roles.Blade Runner 2049 is replete with odes, both subtle and blatant, the most prominent being K’s ‘romantic liaison,’ eerily reminiscent of Spike Jonze’s superlative Her.

Maybe it’s time Hollywood stopped hyping its sure-fire blockbusters pre-release, for Blade Runner 2049 deserved to have been devoured before it had already been labelled a masterpiece, because that’s everything it could have been and everything it is not. Often through particularly poignant scenes, the actor seems to be unintentionally holding back a giggle or two, much like his stint on Saturday Night Live. Though not short on its fair share of merits, the film seemed inadequate in front of Terry Gilliam’s riotously smart Brazil, a retro-futuristic dystopian satire- the first of his trilogy.Kafka himself is referenced in K’s trajectory..However, the most blasphemous miscast is Jared Leto as the sinister, blind Niander Wallace, the replacement to Joe Turkell’s electrifying Tyrell from the first instalment.The relevance of an effective background score in cinema has been established since time immemorial, right from Bernard Hermann’s ‘shower alarm’ from Psycho, to the scores of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Villeneuve’s own Arrival, for that matter.At 163 minutes, the film might induce a sporadic snore too many, but Deakins, if not anyone else, deserves your while for the stunningly ominous visual doom he’s created

"It is dangerous to encounter engine problems in these waters, which hide numerous reefs," Franck said."I started to pray."The boat is stable.The area where the ship is stranded, known as Hustadvika, is notoriously difficult to navigate. Therefore we would prefer to have the passengers on land rather than on board the ship.Rescuers were working into the night on Saturday to airlift 1,300 passengers and crew off a cruise ship after it got into difficulty. It has dropped anchor and one of its engines is working," said a rescue centre spokesman, Borghild Eldoen.2 miles) off More og Romsdal, prompting the captain to send out a distress call.

The centre said eight people had suffered minor injuries."We were sitting down for breakfast when things started to shake.Pictures broadcast in media reports showed passengers on board as the boat rocked up and down.In their time, the Vikings hesitated to venture into the Hustadvika, preferring instead to transport their boats by land from one fjord to another. The winds were like a tornado," she added."The operation is going on all night long."The Viking Sky sent out a distress signal due to "engine problems in bad weather", southern Norways rescue centre said earlier on Twitter.Another vessel had been despatched to try to tow the Viking Sky into port, potentially removing the need for the airlift.The ship was travelling south en route from Tromso to Stavanger when it got into trouble in an area that has claimed many ships... Helicopters fly over the cruise ship Viking Sky after it sent out a Mayday signal because of engine failure in windy conditions..The Viking Sky lost power and started drifting mid-afternoon two kilometres (1.Tor Andre Franck, the head of the police operations, said: "The boat only has one working engine and the winds are rather strong.

The crew managed to restart one of the engines and drop anchor but authorities decided it was too risky for passengers to remain on board. I prayed for the safety of everyone on board," she told the NRK television channel."Hustadvika is one of the most notorious maritime areas that we have," Odd Roar Lange, a journalist specialising in tourism, told NRK.By 9:00 pm (2000 GMT) 136 people had been evacuated, with each helicopter able to take 15-20 people per airlift.Operated by the Norwegian firm Viking Ocean Cruisers, the Viking Sky is a modern cruise ship launched in 2017 with a capacity of 930 passengers plus crew. The people are safe on board," said Per Fjeld, a rescue centre official. It was just chaos," said another passenger, American John Curry, as quoted in Norwegian by media.Five helicopters were scrambled along with coastguard and other rescue vessels.The shallow, ten nautical mile section of coastline is known for its many small islands and reefs..

In addition to US and British nationals, there were also passengers from 14 other countries on board, Fjeld said. (Photo:AP) fixing anchors Oslo: Rescuers were working into the night on Saturday to airlift 1,300 passengers and crew off a cruise ship after it got into difficulty in rough seas off the Norwegian coast."I have never seen anything so frightening," said one of the passengers who was rescued, Janet Jacob.A reception centre has been set up in a gym on shore to accommodate the evacuees, many of whom are from the US and Britain."The helicopter trip was terrifying."For the moment everything appears to be going well," added another spokesman, Einar Knutsen