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Asteroid 2012 BX34 to fly by the Earth today

2012-01-28T12:35:00.000+09:00

As is sometimes the case, a newly discovered yet small asteroid is set to fly by the Earth at a very close distance and is making some headlines. This new asteroid is called 2012 BX34 (2012 = discovered in 2012), is about 11 metres in diameter, and will fly by at a distance 0.2 times that of the Earth to the moon. You may remember the flyby of asteroid 2005 YU55, a quite large one at 400 metres

Naver's next online dictionary: Spanish

2012-01-27T13:10:00.000+09:00

Korea's Naver has recently added a new language to its set of online dictionaries, adding Spanish to the current selection of English, Japanese, Chinese, and French. Naver's dictionaries are slow to be released because they are quite thorough, with plenty of example sentences as well as audio. The Spanish dictionary is here. The first thing one wonders with a dictionary like this is what type of

Vatican news (News.va) soon to be available in French and Portuguese

2012-01-26T13:22:00.000+09:00

From here yesterday in Italian: News.va, the the site that collects sources of information of the Vatican, will soon be available in Frenche, and in a month in Portuguese. This is in addition to the three languages already available: Italian, English and Spanish. With this, a year after its birth, the site will have five languages. This was announced to journalists today by Msgr. Claudio Maria

Link roundup for 24 January 2012

2012-01-25T12:33:00.000+09:00

--- First of all from the department of I told you so: this article on possible cooperation between NASA, Russia and the ESA on moon colonization. Aside from the terrible launch windows to Mars, the fact that the moon is the only area that so-called second-tier spacefaring nations can help to colonize will make it the inevitable choice for first permanent manned colonization. In other words, if

Chinese media companies expanding in New York

2012-01-24T13:02:00.000+09:00

From here in Portuguese: Four large Chinese communication companies are expanding their presence in New York, seeking to establish the foundations to begin to compete on the world stage. Xinhua, one of the major news and propaganda agencies of the Chinese government, moved last year to the top floor of an office building in Broadway with 30 journalists, and installed an 18-metre video screen

Interest in Chinese increasing among businesspeople in Portugal

2012-01-23T04:52:00.000+09:00

From here in Portuguese a week ago: Interest in the Chinese language and culture is greatly increasing in Portugal, particularly among businesspeople, said the dean of the University of Lisbon (António Sampaio da Nóvoa) to the Lusa news agency. "We are opening intensive courses for businesspeople [because] the demand is impressive." he said when asked about the activity of the Confucius

Dawn distance to Ceres now vs. in July when it leaves Vesta

2012-01-22T04:21:00.000+09:00

According to Dawn's official website, the distance from Dawn to Ceres is 0.9536 AU, a distance that is slowly decreasing as Vesta begins to catch up to the slower-orbiting Ceres. A closeup of the current position is as follows: In addition, the current relative speed of Dawn to Ceres is 8.36 km per second. This rate will begin to slow down as the two approach each other, but Dawn will continue

Beijing University of International Business and Economics opens Centre of Portuguese Language Country Studies

2012-01-21T14:34:00.000+09:00

From here today in Portuguese: A ceremony today (16 January) at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing marked the inauguration of the Centre of Portuguese Language Country Studies. The centre is the first non-governmental and non-profit institution in China directed exclusively to academic studies of Portuguese-language studies. The initiative's objective is to promote

Romania now 19th member of European Space Agency, will launch microsatellite next month

2012-01-20T13:25:00.000+09:00

I didn't notice this last month but Romania is now the 19th member of the European Space Agency. Following promulgation of the law on ratification of Romania to the ESA, Romania officially became the 19th member state on 22 December 2011. It is the second former socialist country after Czech Republic to do so. The leadership of the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) will respond to questions from the

Macau to act as a currency hub between China and Portuguese language countries

2012-01-19T12:50:00.000+09:00

At least I think that's what this means. The sentence in bold is unclear to me - does it mean that a country that buys X amount of Chinese yuan is now able to use that X amount of money to buy bonds and whatnot? In any case, the fact that Macau is to be China's gateway to the Lusophone world in yet another aspect is the most interesting part for me. The news is coming soon, says the Monetary

Le Huffington Post arrives in 4 days

2012-01-19T12:22:00.000+09:00

Now we have an exact date for Le Huffington Post: 23 January. Despite my general dislike for its over-dramatic style, I expect I'll be referring to the one in French very often simply because one thing the Huffington Post is good at doing is TELLING YOU IN BIG FONT WHAT'S IN THE NEWS RIGHT NOW.

Georgia wants to open a Portuguese cultural centre in Tbilisi

2012-01-18T12:07:00.000+09:00

From here in Portuguese today: Georgia plans to open a Portuguese cultural centre in Tbilisi by the end of the year as part of the process of outreach to the Lusophone community, to which the country wants to join as an observer member. "We are interested in Portugal, the culture and the Portuguese language. For this, in collaboration with Portugal, we want to install a centre of Portuguese

In 4 hours, non-English Wikipedias to become really useful

2012-01-18T11:16:00.000+09:00

Because of this: Considering this is the United States, I wonder if there was any debate on blacking out the Spanish version as well. For one day there will be no excuse not to look at the Swedish Wikipedia's article on the Swedish nuclear weapons program!

Best info on Swedish nuclear weapons program not surprisingly available in Swedish

2012-01-17T11:39:00.000+09:00

The article of the week from the Swedish Wikipedia is the Swedish nuclear weapons program (Svenska kärnvapenprogrammet). Total length: 63.8 kilobytes, vs. English at 5.6 kb. So...read that through Google Translate (or original Swedish if you can), if Sweden's former nuclear weapons program is something you'd really like to know about.

Deutsche Welle's German language courses get some attention from Slate

2012-01-17T11:13:00.000+09:00

This was a nice surprise: an article in Slate written a few days ago about, of all things, Deutsche Welle's online German language courses (one of my favourite subjects). The title: An Invisible Woman Taught Me German. That invisible woman is the invisible Kobold Ex from Deutsch - Warum Nicht?, still my favourite course of them all. The article does mention Radio D but fails to mention that it

Demonstration in France against cuts in Portuguese-language teaching

2012-01-16T09:42:00.000+09:00

From two articles on this: Article 1: The Panel for the Defense of Teaching Portuguese Abroad (O Colectivo para a Defesa do Ensino do Português no Estrangeiro), created to challenge cuts in the network of Portuguese teachers, gathered on Saturday about 100 people at the Embassy of Portugal in France. Parents, teachers, students and representatives arrives with flags of Portugal and protests

More linguistic sparring in the GOP primaries

2012-01-15T14:48:00.000+09:00

The GOP primaries have entered what is perhaps the most critical period of time in deciding the nominee for the 2012 election. Rick Perry was expected to drop out after Iowa but decided to stay in the race, and assuming he does less well than expected in South Carolina then even he will probably decide to throw in the towel. Ron Paul continues to do quite well, Huntsman did well in New Hampshire

More and more Dutch students learning German (at Goethe-Institut)

2012-01-14T16:39:00.000+09:00

Found this in Spanish today, and a Dutch article can also be read here. Despite the historical rivalries and frictions between neighboring countries, interest among Netherlanders in learning German is rising notable, according to data collected by the affiliate of the Goethe-Institut in the Netherlands, published today in the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant". Although English remains the foreign

Link roundup for 12 January 2012

2012-01-13T10:51:00.000+09:00

Let's start with Dawn orbiting Vesta. --- While there is no major news besides the fact that Dawn is in its closest orbit to the minor planet, it's interesting to note that even before leaving Vesta, Dawn is slowly approaching Ceres as well. At the moment the distance between the two is 0.9843 AU, compared to about 1.7 AU at closest approach from Earth. --- A review of an interesting looking

Taxi drivers in Brazil to learn more English and Spanish for the World Cup

2012-01-12T12:32:00.000+09:00

An article here in Portuguese (Google Translate to English here) shows, to nobody's surprise, that the top two languages that Brazilian taxi drivers want to and plan to learn are English and Spanish. One program detailed in this article is a course that takes place over up to 36 months, whereby the taxi driver receives handouts and is to study whenever he/she has free time - in the cab, at home,

Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie to help Vietnamese diplomats with French

2012-01-11T12:39:00.000+09:00

From here in French: The OIF to assist Vietnam in the training of its diplomats in French Vietnam shares with OIF (Organisation internationale de la Francophonie) the objective of promotion and usage of the French language on the international stage, as part of their commitment to cultural diversity and plurilingualism in the world. To approach this objective, Vietnam hopes to strengthen the

UNESCO centre for advanced training in basic sciences in Portuguese to open in 2012

2012-01-10T14:06:00.000+09:00

An article here in Portuguese has information on that. I have no time to write today so Google Translate will have to do (and it usually is quite adequate). Oh, and don't forget the New Hampshire GOP primary tomorrow. Romney is almost guaranteed to win, but second/third and fourth/fifth will be particularly interesting. Personally I am hoping for something along these lines (as far as possible

Jon Huntsman busts out the Chinese in last night's debate

2012-01-09T04:03:00.000+09:00

In case you missed it, last night's GOP debate had a single line of Chinese in it: Which is: 他不太了解這個情形他不太了解这个情形 Tā bù tài liǎojiě zhège qíngxíng = he doesn't really understand the situation. Reaction to this seemed to be divided between 1) what an epic smackdown and 2) cute, showoffish and unserious. I, naturally, enjoyed it immensely.

Opposition in Portugal opposed to Equatorial Guinea in the CPLP

2012-01-08T15:39:00.000+09:00

Some info from here in Portuguese (from Deutsche Welle): The government in Lisbon is being pressed in Parliament to boycott the accession of Equatorial Guinea to the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) and to now yield to economic interests. The controversial admission of Equatorial Guinea as a member of the CPLP has led the Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda, BE) to present in

China determined to settle in Kyrgyzstan

2012-01-07T14:23:00.000+09:00

Some information from here in French, interesting but unsourced so I can't recommend where to go from here for more background. China determined to settle in Kyrgyzstan China, the second economic power in the world, has recognized the importance of soft power for some time...among its targets are found its neighbors in Central Asia, with Kyrgyzstan in the centre of them, which has a growing