The Role of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme in Rural Development in the Karakorum, Hindu Kush ＆ Himalayan Region： Examples from the Northern Mountainous Belt of Pakistan

Pakistan is predominantly a mountainous country where rural development activities are characterised by inconsistency, politically motivated short-term projects without proper feedback. Since the inception of the country, the top-down approach has been followed, and the same development plans that were formulated for the plain areas have been extended to the mountains without any modification. In doing so, neither the participation of the local communities was cared for, nor the mountain specificities were considered in the planning process. Moreover, the representation of the local inhabitants was improper and contradictory to the facts. This biased approach has been one of the main causes for the failure of development projects carried out by different agencies of the Government. Contrary to the perception of the state authorities, the mountain communities proved to be more open to accept new approaches and demonstrated the capacity and capability of being a dependable development partner. In this paper, a detailed account of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme （AKRSP） has been presented to assess and evaluate the approach followed by this non-governmental organisation （NGO）, and the response of the local inhabitants as collaborators in the development process. The achievements of the AKRSP from project planning, implementation and monitoring can be adopted as a model for rural development not only in the plains, but also in the mountainous areas of the developing countries in the world.     

The Statistical Analysis of Migration of Strong Earthquakes-Taking the North China Region asan Example

The migration of strong earthquakes is an important research topic because the migration phenomena reflect partly the seismic mechanism and involve the prediction of tendency of seismic activity. Research on migration of strong earthquakes has mostly focused on finding the phenomena. Some attempts on getting regularity were comparatively subjective. This paper suggests that there should be indices of migration in earthquake dataset and the indexes should have statistical meaning if there is regularity in the migration of strong earthquakes. In this study, three derivative attributes of migration, i.e., migration orientation, migration distance and migration time interval, were statistically analyzed. Results in the North China region show that the migration of strong earthquakes has statistical meaning. There is a dominant migration orientation (W by S to E by N), a dominant distance ( ≤ 100kin and on the confines of 300 ～ 700km), and a dominant time interval ( ≤ la and on the confines of 3 - 4a). The results also show that the migration will differ slightly with different magnitude range or earthquake activity phase.     

赤潮

严格来讲,赤潮是一种自然现象。《圣经》中记载的河水变红、《聊斋志异》里提到的河水发光,或许是民间对赤潮类事件最古朴也最形象的记录。1831～1836年达尔文乘“Beagle”号环球航行时也对赤潮做过相关记录,虽然那时尚无人提出明确的“赤潮”概念。近几十年来由于对人类的娱乐及生产活动影响越来越严重,频繁发生的赤潮逐渐被界定为环境污染及海洋灾害的一种。河里的水都变作血了。河里的鱼死了,河也腥臭了,埃及人就不能吃这河里的水,埃及遍地都有了血。——《旧约·出埃及记》众坐舟中,旋见青火如灯状,突出水面,随水浮游;渐近舡,则火顿灭…