Teaching Science, in Chinese, From Space

BEIJING â€" China’s three astronauts rose Thursday at 7 a.m. in their Tiangong-1 orbiter about 340 kilometers above earth, People’s Television, a channel of the Communist Party flagship People’s Daily group, reported. It was the day to teach science, in Chinese, from space - a first.

Six years ago, the American teacher and astronaut Barbara R. Morgan became the first person to teach from space aboard the International Space Station. Now it was China’s turn.

Calling her a “pretty space teacher,” People’s Television showed Wang Yaping, the female member of the three-person crew, holding up a sign that read: “Good morning lovable earth; Good morning beautiful fatherland; Good morning hard-working scientific researchers!”

At 10:11 a.m. it was time to teach, the Chengdu Evening News wrote. Class was beamed interactively to a large group of over 300 elementary and high school students gathered in a room at the People’s University Affiliated High School (the university is closely associated with the Communist Party, which founded it); and broadcast live to millions of students around the country, according to media reports. (Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said it was watched by 60 million students.) Class lasted 40 minutes, about twice as long as the class given by Ms. Morgan.

Just as six years ago, when 11-year-old Zakkary Schirmeister from McCall, Idaho (Ms. Morgan’s home state) asked what stars looked like from space, a Chinese child asked Ms. Wang if the stars twinkled from where she was. And like Ms. Morgan, Ms. Wang said no, outside the earth’s atmosphere they don’t twinkle.

Another question: Could she see any U.F.O.’s? Again, no. But they could see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day, she said, since t! hey orbited the earth so often.

The experiments were simple, including lessons in gravity, on how pendulums and gyroscopes move in space, and how water behaves. Her colleague, Nie Haisheng, struck a floating, cross-legged pose, a meditation and martial arts feat hardly possible on earth but easy in the weightless conditions of space.

China Daily reported the venture was very well-received.

“When I learned about those laws of physics and weightless condition at classes before, I needed to imagine what would happen. But, at today’s class, I am able to see what really happens. It is thrilling,” said Luo Jiangyuan, a high school student. He said he planned to study science in college.

Class ended at 10:51, China Daily reported.

Shortly afterward, Ms. Wang sent an e-mail to Ms. Morgan, the Chinese news media said. Ms. Morgan had already e-mailed to congratulate the Chinese astronaut,edu.ifeng.com reported.

“My colleagues and I were very happy to receive your mail in distant space,” Ms. Wang wrote. Saying they had “smoothly” completed their space lessons, Ms. Wang said the lessons were intended to show people the “mystery and splendor of space” and transmit “knowledge and happiness.”

“I hope you and all teachers in the world, and students, will enjoy it,” she wrote.

Speaking separately, her colleague, Mr. Nie, said that it was all part of the “Chinese Dream,” which the president, Xi Jinping, mentioned 10 days earlier when the astronauts blasted off from earth.

Why Bernanke’s Remarks Set off Global Contagious Market Fears

NEW YORK â€" It was a one-two punch. On Wednesday, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, testified that the Fed could foresee the day it would stop buying up U.S. bonds to goose the economy. The next day saw reports that Chinese banks had become reluctant to lend to one another, causing interest rates in the interbank market to spike to punishingly high levels. As global markets tumbled and the Dow Jones Industrial Average headed for what could be its biggest percentage decline of the year, Rendezvous editor, Marcus Mabry, sat down with Nelson Schwartz and Nathanial Popper, New York Times business reporters, to find out why.

Chancellor Merkel Discovers the Internet

LONDON â€" Germany has been all atwitter since Chancellor Angela Merkel referred on Wednesday to the existence of a new and uncharted country â€" Neuland.

This Newfoundland, this virgin territory, this terra until now incognita, is the Internet, she revealed during a joint news conference on Wednesday with President Obama.

“The Internet is Neuland for all of us,” she said, using the term for a newly discovered land.

Reacting to what Stern described as her Neuland-Fauxpas, online commentators in Germany and beyond lampooned the chancellor for being hopelessly out of touch with a technology that had been around for a quarter of a century.

A News from Neuland Web site was se up, displaying passports and road signs for the Federal Republic of Neuland.

She was portrayed as Christopher Columbus meeting the natives on her newly discovered continent. And one wag claimed to have located it on the map, just south of Hamburg.

Jon Worth, a British blogger on politics and the Internet, wrote, “Merkel’s line…frames the internet as something external to us. Sorry Merkel, but it is us.”

He said her aides should have anticipated the online furor. “What she has failed to understand is that the Internet changes us deeply and profoundly as citizens, and that applies to the millions of us that use the Internet to do everything in our lives.”

As the Twitter hashtag #Neuland went viral, reaction spread to the mainstream press.

Patrick Beuth, writing at Zeit Online, said Mrs. Merkel’s remark could be seen as a Mutti-Moment, a “mommy moment,” using a nickname for the chancellor that refers to what is seen as her motherly style.

However, he said it could also be seen as reflecting her government’s view of the Internet as a dangerous technology that had to be closely monitored.

Stefan Seibert, the chancellor’s spokesman, came to her aid with a clarification on Twitter:

“Regarding the Neuland discussion: What the Chancellor is saying is that the Internet is new legal and political territory, as we sense daily in political dealings,” he posted.

Mrs. Merkel said the Internet was not only uncharted territory, it also enabled the enemies of a free and liberal order “to use it, to abuse it, to bring a threat to all of us, to threaten our way of life.”

That was why Germany valued cooperation with the United States on questions of security, she said.

Some of the fiercest reactions to recent revelations about the extent of U.S. online surveillance came from Germany.

Mr. Obama’s previously scheduled visit served in part as an opportunity to try to calm concerns prompted by claims that Germany was the most spied upon European country in the Prism Internet surveillance program.

He and Mrs. Merkel appeared eager to smooth things over on this and other issues in their friendly exchanges in Berlin, as my colleague Alison Smale writes.

In the process, however, Mrs. Merkel gained a new nickname: Chancellor of Neuland.

IHT Quick Read: June 20

NEWS Pressed personally by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany about the United States’ surveillance of foreigners’ phone and e-mail traffic, President Obama said Wednesday that terrorist threats in her country were among those foiled by such intelligence operations worldwide â€" a contention that Ms. Merkel seemed to confirm. Jackie Calmes reports from Berlin.

The convergence between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. and the rise of data mining â€" both as an industry and as a crucial intelligence tool â€" have created a complex reality. Silicon Valley has what the spy agency wants: vast amounts of private data and the most sophisticated software available to analyze it. James Risen reports from Washington, and Nick Wingfield from Seattle.

For an urban elite in Turkey, including some protesters, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s response to demonstrations has led to a final break that began with his intimidation of the news media. Tim Arango reports from Istanbul.

The Philippines has the fastest-growing economy in East Asia. But unemployment is still rising and the number of people in poverty has barely changed in six years. Floyd Whaley reports from Manila.

In a bid to regain control of a peace process with the Taliban that had suddenly spun out of! control, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Wednesday slammed the brakes on two strategic lines of American negotiation, again exercising his power in a strained alliance and getting results. Alissa J. Rubin reports from Kabul, and Rod Nordland from Doha, Qatar.

New protests swept through São Paulo on Wednesday, snarling traffic and raising pressure on political leaders. Simon Romero reports from São Paulo.

Since the state broadcaster in Greece was shut down last week and its 2,600 employees fired, there has been an outpouring of solidarity, despite its long history of mismanagement and patronage. Liz Alderman reports from Athens and Rachel Donadio from Rome.

The prevalence of dangerous strains of the human papillomavirus â€" the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and a principal cause of cervical cancer â€" has dropped by half among teenage girls in recent years, a striking measure of success for a vaccine against the virus that was introduced only in 2006, federal health officials said on Wednesday. Sabrina Tavernise reports.

Switzerland’s Parliament on Wednesday scuttled an information-sharing agreement with the United States that the Swiss government had hailed just weeks ago as a breakthrough in a dis! pute over! banking secrecy, but left open the possibility for another solution. David Jolly reports.

ARTS James Gandolfini, the Emmy Award-winning actor who shot to fame on the HBO drama “The Sopranos” as Tony Soprano, a tough-talking, hard-living crime boss with a stolid exterior but a rich interior life, died on Wednesday. He was 51. Dave Itzkoff reports.

Information about a man celebrated for saving Jews is being removed from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in light of evidence that the tales may be untrue. Patricia Cohen reports.

SPORTS Tahiti, a soccer team made up almost exclusively of amateurs, still can’t believe it made it as far as the Confederations Cup. The coach admits: “We are honest. Tahiti has not come to win.” James Montague reports from Rio de Janeiro.