PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

Konveksi 2 lantai di Jakbar terbakar, 22 unit damkar diterjunkan

Si jago merah telah kembali mengamuk di Jalan Sawah Lio IV Rt 04 Rw 06, Jembatan Lima, Jakarta Barat. Api telah membakar sebuah rumah dan satu konveksi berlantai dua.

"22 Unit mobil pemadam kebakaran telah diterjunkan ke lokasi, terdiri dari unit pompa, rescue dan lain sebagainya," ujar petugas piket Suku Dinas Pemadam Kebakaran Jakarta Barat, Suparjo di Jakarta, Jumat (14/3).

Kebakaran diperkirakan telah terjadi sekitar pukul 08.55 WIB berdasarkan laporan dari salah seorang warga. Saat ini, petugas masih menelusuri penyebab kebakaran tersebut.

"Lokasinya kebetulan di kawasan rumah padat penduduk, dekat pasar Mitra," jelasnya.

Tidak ada korban jiwa dalam peristiwa ini. Tidak diketahui berapa kerugian akibat kebakaran tersebut.

TEMPAT WISATA KAMPUNG RAWA AMBARAWA

Bandungan adalah sebuah tempat wisata alam pegunungan yang wajib anda kunjungi bila sedang berada di kota Ambarawa. Kota Ambarawa yang adalah sebuah kota kecamatan yang tidak terlalu besar ternyata juga telah memiliki kekayaan alam yang sangat luar biasa . Salah satunya adalah wisata alam Bandungan.

Bandungan Ambarawa Dan Latar Belakangnya

Bandungan adalah sebuah daerah yang telah terletak di dataran tinggi di atas kota Ambarawa. Letaknya yang berada di ketinggian dan di kaki pegunungan telah membuat tempat ini beriklim sangat sejuk khas daerah pegunungan. Letak daerah ini tepatnya di kaki Gunung Ungaran dengan ketinggian sekitar 1.000 Meter di atas permukaan laut.

Walaupun merupakan sebuah kecamatan yang tidak begitu luas, namun ternyata dengan kekayaan wisata alamnya yang telah diolah dengan baik telah membuat wisata alam Bandungan menjadi sebuah obyek wisata primadona di kota Ambarawa. Dan rasanya belumlah lengkap bila berkunjung ke kota Ambarawa tanpa mengunjungi Bandungan juga.

Fasilitas Dan Akomodasi Di Bandungan

Sebagai tempat tujuan wisata, Bandungan sekarang ini juga telah berkembang dengan sangat baik. Dan untuk dapat menunjang fungsinya sebagai tempat tujuan wisata, maka di Bandungan sekarang ini juga telah dilengkapi dengan segala fasilitas dan akomodasi penunjang.

Penginapan Bandungan Ambarawa

Bagi para turis yang berkunjung ke Bandungan sekarang ini juga sudah tidak perlu khawatir lagi untuk mencari penginapan. Di Bandungan sekarang ini telah banyak sekali terdapat penginapan yang sangat bervariasi. Dari segi harga maupun fasilitasnya para wisatawan juga bisa bebas memilih. Dari yang paling murah dengan fasilitas sederhana namun tetap memuaskan, sampai dengan penginapan dengan kelas dan harga yang sedikit mahal.

Para pengunjung bisa menyesuaikan dengan kebutuhan mereka masing-masing. Bahkan sekarang ini beberapa tempat juga sudah menyediakan kolam renang sebagai fasilitas pelengkap. Jadi untuk para wisatawan yang memang tidak ingin menginap, mereka bisa hanya sekedar berenang atau menikmati pemandangan pegunungan saja.

Pasar Tradisional Bandungan

Untuk dapat melengkapi fasilitas yang ada di Bandungan tersebut , maka pemerintah daerah setempat juga telah membangun sebuah pasar yang cukup lengkap. Sebenarnya pasar tradisional yang ada di Bandungan ini telah ada sejak lama.

Pasar Bandungan ini sebenarnya hanyalah sebuah pasar tradisional biasa. Namun dengan meningkatnya kunjungan para wisatawan di Bandungan, maka tidaklah heran jika kemudian para pedagang setempat melihat peluang yang sangat bagus dengan mengembangkan pasar tradisional yang telah mereka miliki sebelumnya.

Hal ini juga tampak dengan produk atau barang-barang yang telah dijual di Pasar Bandungan tidak hanya sekedar kebutuhan pokok harian. Namun lebih dari itu para wisatawan juga akan banyak menjumpai pedagang yang menjajakan barang-barang lainnya misalnya pedagang jagung rebus dan jagung bakar yang jumlahnya cukup banyak. Ini memang sangat khas seperti yang banyak kita jumpai di beberapa tempat wisata pegunungan lainnya.

Tidak Ada Alasan

JAKARTA, Saco- Indoensia.com — Kepala Dinas Perhubungan DKI Jakarta Udar Pristono tidak sepakat dengan warga Pondok Indah yang menganggap busway Koridor VIII (Lebak Bulus-Harmoni) tidak efektif melintas di kawasan elite tersebut. Menurutnya, tidak ada alasan jalur Koridor VIII dipindah.

"Pondok Indah adalah jalan utama. Ada rumah sakit dan pertokoan. Jadi, untuk angkutan massal cocok karena penumpangnya banyak. Bangun angkutan massal kan bukan sekadarnya, tapi yang memang penumpangnya banyak," kata Udar saat ditemui di Mapolsek Pasar Minggu, Jakarta Selatan, Senin (3/6/2013).

Udar mengatakan bahwa luas Jalan Metro Pondok Indah sudah memenuhi kriteria untuk dibangun jalur busway dibanding harus dipindahkan ke jalan di kawasan Pondok Pinang, seperti usulan warga Pondok Indah.

"Geometrik jalan (Pondok Indah) mendukung, kalau dialihkan ke Pondok Pinang kan jalannya sempit," jelas Udar.

Untuk diketahui, sejumlah warga Pondok Indah yang tergabung dalam Panca RW melakukan musyawarah di Taman Puspita, Pondok Indah, Jakarta Selatan, pada Minggu (2/6/2013). Mereka menyampaikan permintaan agar Pemerintah Provinsi DKI Jakarta memindahkan jalur bus transjakarta dari Jalan Metro Pondok Indah.

Menurut mereka, keberadaan busway di Jalan Metro Pondok Indah kurang begitu diminati masyarakat. Hal tersebut dapat terlihat dari jarangnya orang yang menumpang bus transjakarta dan untuk halte- halte bus transjakarta pun sering kali terlihat sepi.

Selain itu, kata warga, keberadaan jalur busway yang ada sejak tahun 2009 itu justru membuat Jalan Metro Pondok Indah semakin bertambah macet.

Editor :Liwon Maulana

Sumber:Kompas.com

LIMA PERTIMBANGAN DALAM MEMILIH LAMPU

Sebagai penerang, lampu listrik yang umum digunakan sebagai cahaya buatan untuk rumah tinggal, dapat dibedakan menjadi 3 golongan besar, yaitu lampu pijar, lampu halogen dan lampu berpendar. Banyaknya jenis lampu yang beredar saat ini telah membuat Anda perlu memperhatikan faktor apa saja yang perlu dipertimbangkan saat memilih lampu. Berikut ini ada beberapa faktor yang dapat Anda pertimbangkan:

1. Langkah pertama yang bisa Anda lakukan adalah menentukan titik-titik penempatan lampu, terutama yang ditanam di dinding atau plafon. Hal ini dilakukan sebelum anda membangun atau merenovasi rumah tinggal.

2. Ada baiknya jika penempatan lampu disesuaikan dengan kondisi lingkungan. Maksudnya, untuk lampu yang diletakkan di luar sebaiknya menggunakan bahan stainless steel, aluminium atau besi yang sudah dicat antikarat.

3. Menentukan warna cahaya lampu yang ingin digunakan. Lampu dengan karakter cahaya kekuningan disinyalir mampu membangkitkan suasana yang hangat dan romantis, sehingga sangat cocok ditempatkan di ruang tidur atau ruangan lain yang digunakan untuk bersantai. Sementara cahaya putih lebih cocok digunakan di tempat kerja. Penentuan warna cahaya lampu ini dengan sendirinya akan membimbing Anda untuk menentukan pilihan antara lampu neon dan lampu pijar.

4. Sesuaikan model lampu dengan karakter rumah. Lampu dengan desain tradisional klasik tentu akan terlihat jomplang bila ditempatkan pada rumah yang memiliki konsep modern minimalis.

5. Sifat lampu yang memancarkan panas juga dapat dijadikan faktor penimbang saat anda memilih rumah lampu. Sebagai suatu kesatuan, rumah lampu yang anda pilih sebaiknya tahan terhadap panas, tidak mudah leleh dan tidak mudah terbakar.

TIP DAN TRIK JAKET KULIT

adalah Jaket Kulit yang terbuat dari bahan kulit Domba selain awet, memakai jaket kulit banyak manfaatnya terutama mampu melindungi diri kita saat berkendaraan atau saat udara dingin menyerang atau saat kondisi badan kurang fit. di samping itu jaket kulit tidak merepotkan, karena jaket kulit yang asli tidak perlu di cuci.

Tapi yang perlu di perhatikan bagi penggemar jaket kulit saat hendak membeli jaket kulit, Anda harus benar-benar memastikan bahwa bahan jaket kulit tersebut memang asli kulit dan proses (penyamakan kulit) secara bagus, walaupun jaket kulit tersebut asli berbahan kulit tapi jika proses penyamakan kulitnya tidak baik maka hasil jaketnya juga kurang bagus.

Bagi orang awam atau yang belum berpengalaman membeli jaket kulit akan mengalami sedikit kesulitan bahkan tak jarang banyak yang menyesal karena kena tipu dan kecewa ternyata jaket kulit yang di beli bukan terbuat dari kulit asli yang bagus dan berkwalitas. Berikut ini kami berikan tips memilih jaket kulit yang asli, mudah-mudahan setelah menbaca tips ini Anda tidak akan tertipu lagi dalam membeli jaket kulit idaman Anda :

Anda teliti dengan benar bahwa jaket yang akan Anda beli benar-benar berbahan kulit domba atau kulit sapi yang berkualitas bagus, biasanya kulitnya lembut (tidak kaku) dan jika Anda mencium jaket yang berbahan kulit asli ada aroma khas tersendiri

Coba sedikit Anda tarik-tarik jaket yang akan Anda pilih, jika elastis /melar maka bahan jaket tersebut bukan dari kulit asli. jika jaket yang berbahan kulit tidak elastis/melar tapi lembut
Jika Anda jinjing jaket tidak terlalu berat dan warnanya tidak mengkilap

Sebenarnya jaket kulit yang bagus terbuat dari kulit domba, tapi jika Anda lebih senang berbahan kulit sapi juga tidak kalah bagus namun biasanya jaket kulit sapi/lembu akan terasa lebih berat bila kita pakai.

Pilihlah mode jaket kulit yang sederhana atau klasik karena jaket kulit yang terlalu banyak model dan warna kemungkinan rusak dibagian jahitan sambungan antar warna lebih cepat, beda dengan yang jaket kulit polos satu warna,tidak terlalu banyak jahitan sambungan

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class

WASHINGTON — The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney).

The candidates hoping to be the party’s nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations. On Sunday, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, joined the presidential field.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida praises his parents, a bartender and a Kmart stock clerk, as he urges audiences not to forget “the workers in our hotel kitchens, the landscaping crews in our neighborhoods, the late-night janitorial staff that clean our offices.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a preacher’s son, posts on Twitter about his ham-and-cheese sandwiches and boasts of his coupon-clipping frugality. His $1 Kohl’s sweater has become a campaign celebrity in its own right.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky laments the existence of “two Americas,” borrowing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase to describe economically and racially troubled communities like Ferguson, Mo., and Detroit.

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“Some say, ‘But Democrats care more about the poor,’ ” Mr. Paul likes to say. “If that’s true, why is black unemployment still twice white unemployment? Why has household income declined by $3,500 over the past six years?”

We are in the midst of the Empathy Primary — the rhetorical battleground shaping the Republican presidential field of 2016.

Harmed by the perception that they favor the wealthy at the expense of middle-of-the-road Americans, the party’s contenders are each trying their hardest to get across what the elder George Bush once inelegantly told recession-battered voters in 1992: “Message: I care.”

Their ability to do so — less bluntly, more sincerely — could prove decisive in an election year when power, privilege and family connections will loom large for both parties.

Questions of understanding and compassion cost Republicans in the last election. Mr. Romney, who memorably dismissed the “47 percent” of Americans as freeloaders, lost to President Obama by 63 percentage points among voters who cast their ballots for the candidate who “cares about people like me,” according to exit polls.

And a Pew poll from February showed that people still believe Republicans are indifferent to working Americans: 54 percent said the Republican Party does not care about the middle class.

That taint of callousness explains why Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared last week that Republicans “are and should be the party of the 47 percent” — and why another son of a president, Jeb Bush, has made economic opportunity the centerpiece of his message.

With his pedigree and considerable wealth — since he left the Florida governor’s office almost a decade ago he has earned millions of dollars sitting on corporate boards and advising banks — Mr. Bush probably has the most complicated task making the argument to voters that he understands their concerns.

On a visit last week to Puerto Rico, Mr. Bush sounded every bit the populist, railing against “elites” who have stifled economic growth and innovation. In the kind of economy he envisions leading, he said: “We wouldn’t have the middle being squeezed. People in poverty would have a chance to rise up. And the social strains that exist — because the haves and have-nots is the big debate in our country today — would subside.”

Continue reading the main story

 

Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?

Republicans’ emphasis on poorer and working-class Americans now represents a shift from the party’s longstanding focus on business owners and “job creators” as the drivers of economic opportunity.

This is intentional, Republican operatives said.

In the last presidential election, Republicans rushed to defend business owners against what they saw as hostility by Democrats to successful, wealthy entrepreneurs.

“Part of what you had was a reaction to the Democrats’ dehumanization of business owners: ‘Oh, you think you started your plumbing company? No you didn’t,’ ” said Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But now, Mr. Norquist said, Republicans should move past that. “Focus on the people in the room who know someone who couldn’t get a job, or a promotion, or a raise because taxes are too high or regulations eat up companies’ time,” he said. “The rich guy can take care of himself.”

Democrats argue that the public will ultimately see through such an approach because Republican positions like opposing a minimum-wage increase and giving private banks a larger role in student loans would hurt working Americans.

“If Republican candidates are just repeating the same tired policies, I’m not sure that smiling while saying it is going to be enough,” said Guy Cecil, a Democratic strategist who is joining a “super PAC” working on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republicans have already attacked Mrs. Clinton over the wealth and power she and her husband have accumulated, caricaturing her as an out-of-touch multimillionaire who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech and has not driven a car since 1996.

Mr. Walker hit this theme recently on Fox News, pointing to Mrs. Clinton’s lucrative book deals and her multiple residences. “This is not someone who is connected with everyday Americans,” he said. His own net worth, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is less than a half-million dollars; Mr. Walker also owes tens of thousands of dollars on his credit cards.

But showing off a cheap sweater or boasting of a bootstraps family background not only helps draw a contrast with Mrs. Clinton’s latter-day affluence, it is also an implicit argument against Mr. Bush.

Mr. Walker, who featured a 1998 Saturn with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer in a 2010 campaign ad during his first run for governor, likes to talk about flipping burgers at McDonald’s as a young person. His mother, he has said, grew up on a farm with no indoor plumbing until she was in high school.

Mr. Rubio, among the least wealthy members of the Senate, with an estimated net worth of around a half-million dollars, uses his working-class upbringing as evidence of the “exceptionalism” of America, “where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”

Mr. Cruz alludes to his family’s dysfunction — his parents, he says, were heavy drinkers — and recounts his father’s tale of fleeing Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey notes that his father paid his way through college working nights at an ice cream plant.

But sometimes the attempts at projecting authenticity can seem forced. Mr. Christie recently found himself on the defensive after telling a New Hampshire audience, “I don’t consider myself a wealthy man.” Tax returns showed that he and his wife, a longtime Wall Street executive, earned nearly $700,000 in 2013.

The story of success against the odds is a political classic, even if it is one the Republican Party has not been able to tell for a long time. Ronald Reagan liked to say that while he had not been born on the wrong side of the tracks, he could always hear the whistle. Richard Nixon was fond of reminding voters how he was born in a house his father had built.

“Probably the idea that is most attractive to an average voter, and an idea that both Republicans and Democrats try to craft into their messages, is this idea that you can rise from nothing,” said Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review.

There is a certain delight Republicans take in turning that message to their advantage now.

“That’s what Obama did with Hillary,” Mr. Cooke said. “He acknowledged it openly: ‘This is ridiculous. Look at me, this one-term senator with dark skin and all of America’s unsolved racial problems, running against the wife of the last Democratic president.”

Jack Ely, Who Sang the Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’, Dies at 71

A 2-minute-42-second demo recording captured in one take turned out to be a one-hit wonder for Mr. Ely, who was 19 when he sang the garage-band classic.

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Children playing last week in Sandtown-Winchester, the Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was raised. One young resident called it “a tough community.”

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

The neighborhood where Freddie Gray came of age has survived harrowing rates of unemployment, poor health, violent crime and incarceration.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, 93, Dies; Polish Auschwitz Survivor Aided Jews

Mr. Bartoszewski was given honorary Israeli citizenship for his work to save Jews during World War II and later surprised even himself by being instrumental in reconciling Poland and Germany.

Cher and Marc Jacobs

Bruce Alger, 96, Dies; Led ‘Mink Coat’ Protest Against Lyndon Johnson

Mr. Alger, who served five terms from Texas, led Republican women in a confrontation with Lyndon B. Johnson that may have cost Richard M. Nixon the 1960 presidential election.

Top News China’s Intents Are Questioned as It Builds in Antarctica

HOBART, Tasmania — Few places seem out of reach for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who has traveled from European capitals to obscure Pacific and Caribbean islands in pursuit of his nation’s strategic interests.

So perhaps it was not surprising when he turned up last fall in this city on the edge of the Southern Ocean to put down a long-distance marker in another faraway region, Antarctica, 2,000 miles south of this Australian port.

Standing on the deck of an icebreaker that ferries Chinese scientists from this last stop before the frozen continent, Mr. Xi pledged that China would continue to expand in one of the few places on earth that remain unexploited by humans.

He signed a five-year accord with the Australian government that allows Chinese vessels and, in the future, aircraft to resupply for fuel and food before heading south. That will help secure easier access to a region that is believed to have vast oil and mineral resources; huge quantities of high-protein sea life; and for times of possible future dire need, fresh water contained in icebergs.

It was not until 1985, about seven decades after Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen raced to the South Pole, that a team representing Beijing hoisted the Chinese flag over the nation’s first Antarctic research base, the Great Wall Station on King George Island.

But now China seems determined to catch up. As it has bolstered spending on Antarctic research, and as the early explorers, especially the United States and Australia, confront stagnant budgets, there is growing concern about its intentions.

China’s operations on the continent — it opened its fourth research station last year, chose a site for a fifth, and is investing in a second icebreaker and new ice-capable planes and helicopters — are already the fastest growing of the 52 signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. That gentlemen’s agreement reached in 1959 bans military activity on the continent and aims to preserve it as one of the world’s last wildernesses; a related pact prohibits mining.

But Mr. Xi’s visit was another sign that China is positioning itself to take advantage of the continent’s resource potential when the treaty expires in 2048 — or in the event that it is ripped up before, Chinese and Australian experts say.

“So far, our research is natural-science based, but we know there is more and more concern about resource security,” said Yang Huigen, director general of the Polar Research Institute of China, who accompanied Mr. Xi last November on his visit to Hobart and stood with him on the icebreaker, Xue Long, or Snow Dragon.

With that in mind, the polar institute recently opened a new division devoted to the study of resources, law, geopolitics and governance in Antarctica and the Arctic, Mr. Yang said.

Australia, a strategic ally of the United States that has strong economic relations with China, is watching China’s buildup in the Antarctic with a mix of gratitude — China’s presence offers support for Australia’s Antarctic science program, which is short of cash — and wariness.

“We should have no illusions about the deeper agenda — one that has not even been agreed to by Chinese scientists but is driven by Xi, and most likely his successors,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former senior official in the Australian Department of Defense.

“This is part of a broader pattern of a mercantilist approach all around the world,” Mr. Jennings added. “A big driver of Chinese policy is to secure long-term energy supply and food supply.”

That approach was evident last month when a large Chinese agriculture enterprise announced an expansion of its fishing operations around Antarctica to catch more krill — small, protein-rich crustaceans that are abundant in Antarctic waters.

“The Antarctic is a treasure house for all human beings, and China should go there and share,” Liu Shenli, the chairman of the China National Agricultural Development Group, told China Daily, a state-owned newspaper. China would aim to fish up to two million tons of krill a year, he said, a substantial increase from what it currently harvests.

Because sovereignty over Antarctica is unclear, nations have sought to strengthen their claims over the ice-covered land by building research bases and naming geographic features. China’s fifth station will put it within reach of the six American facilities, and ahead of Australia’s three.

Chinese mappers have also given Chinese names to more than 300 sites, compared with the thousands of locations on the continent with English names.

In the unspoken competition for Antarctica’s future, scientific achievement can also translate into influence. Chinese scientists are driving to be the first to drill and recover an ice core containing tiny air bubbles that provide a record of climate change stretching as far back as 1.5 million years. It is an expensive and delicate effort at which others, including the European Union and Australia, have failed.

In a breakthrough a decade ago, European scientists extracted an ice core nearly two miles long that revealed 800,000 years of climate history. But finding an ice core going back further would allow scientists to examine a change in the earth’s climate cycles believed to have occurred 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago.

China is betting it has found the best location to drill, at an area called Dome A, or Dome Argus, the highest point on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Though it is considered one of the coldest places on the planet, with temperatures of 130 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, a Chinese expedition explored the area in 2005 and established a research station in 2009.

“The international community has drilled in lots of places, but no luck so far,” said Xiao Cunde, a member of the first party to reach the site and the deputy director of the Institute for Climate Change at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. “We think at Dome A we will have a straight shot at the one-million-year ice core.”

Mr. Xiao said China had already begun drilling and hoped to find what scientists are looking for in four to five years.

To support its Antarctic aspirations, China is building a sophisticated $300 million icebreaker that is expected to be ready in a few years, said Xia Limin, deputy director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration in Beijing. It has also bought a high-tech fixed-wing aircraft, outfitted in the United States, for taking sensitive scientific soundings from the ice.

China has chosen the site for its fifth research station at Inexpressible Island, named by a group of British explorers who were stranded at the desolate site in 1912 and survived the winter by excavating a small ice cave.

Mr. Xia said the inhospitable spot was ideal because China did not have a presence in that part of Antarctica, and because the rocky site did not have much snow, making it relatively cheap to build there.

Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of political science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the author of a soon-to-be-released book, “China as a Polar Great Power,” said Chinese scientists also believed they had a good chance of finding mineral and energy resources near the site.

“China is playing a long game in Antarctica and keeping other states guessing about its true intentions and interests are part of its poker hand,” she said. But she noted that China’s interest in finding minerals was presented “loud and clear to domestic audiences” as the main reason it was investing in Antarctica.

Because commercial drilling is banned, estimates of energy and mineral resources in Antarctica rely on remote sensing data and comparisons with similar geological environments elsewhere, said Millard F. Coffin, executive director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart.

But the difficulty of extraction in such severe conditions and uncertainty about future commodity prices make it unlikely that China or any country would defy the ban on mining anytime soon.

Tourism, however, is already booming. Travelers from China are still a relatively small contingent in the Antarctic compared with the more than 13,000 Americans who visited in 2013, and as yet there are no licensed Chinese tour operators.

But that is about to change, said Anthony Bergin, deputy director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “I understand very soon there will be Chinese tourists on Chinese vessels with all-Chinese crew in the Antarctic,” he said.

Sid Tepper Dies at 96; Delivered ‘Red Roses for a Blue Lady’ and Other Songs

Mr. Tepper was not a musical child and had no formal training, but he grew up to write both lyrics and tunes, trading off duties with the other member of the team, Roy C. Bennett.

Richard Suzman, 72, Dies; Researcher Influenced Global Surveys on Aging

At the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Suzman’s signature accomplishment was the central role he played in creating a global network of surveys on aging.

Rolf Smedvig, Trumpeter in the Empire Brass, Dies at 62

A former member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Smedvig helped found the wide-ranging Empire Brass quintet.

Maya Plisetskaya, Ballerina Who Embodied Bolshoi, Dies at 89

Ms. Plisetskaya, renowned for her fluidity of movement, expressive acting and willful personality, danced on the Bolshoi stage well into her 60s, but her life was shadowed by Stalinism.

Take the Money and Run

The career criminals in genre novels don’t have money problems. If they need some, they just go out and steal it. But such financial transactions can backfire, which is what happened back in 2004 when the Texas gang in Michael

Marty Napoleon, 93, Dies; Jazz Pianist Played With Louis Armstrong

Mr. Napoleon was a self-taught musician whose career began in earnest with the orchestra led by Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers.

Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard

Though Robin and Joan Rolfs owned two rare talking dolls manufactured by Thomas Edison’s phonograph company in 1890, they did not dare play the wax cylinder records tucked inside each one.

The Rolfses, longtime collectors of Edison phonographs, knew that if they turned the cranks on the dolls’ backs, the steel phonograph needle might damage or destroy the grooves of the hollow, ring-shaped cylinder. And so for years, the dolls sat side by side inside a display cabinet, bearers of a message from the dawn of sound recording that nobody could hear.

In 1890, Edison’s dolls were a flop; production lasted only six weeks. Children found them difficult to operate and more scary than cuddly. The recordings inside, which featured snippets of nursery rhymes, wore out quickly.

Yet sound historians say the cylinders were the first entertainment records ever made, and the young girls hired to recite the rhymes were the world’s first recording artists.

Year after year, the Rolfses asked experts if there might be a safe way to play the recordings. Then a government laboratory developed a method to play fragile records without touching them.

The technique relies on a microscope to create images of the grooves in exquisite detail. A computer approximates — with great accuracy — the sounds that would have been created by a needle moving through those grooves.

In 2014, the technology was made available for the first time outside the laboratory.

“The fear all along is that we don’t want to damage these records. We don’t want to put a stylus on them,” said Jerry Fabris, the curator of the Thomas Edison Historical Park in West Orange, N.J. “Now we have the technology to play them safely.”

Last month, the Historical Park posted online three never-before-heard Edison doll recordings, including the two from the Rolfses’ collection. “There are probably more out there, and we’re hoping people will now get them digitized,” Mr. Fabris said.

The technology, which is known as Irene (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), was developed by the particle physicist Carl Haber and the engineer Earl Cornell at Lawrence Berkeley. Irene extracts sound from cylinder and disk records. It can also reconstruct audio from recordings so badly damaged they were deemed unplayable.

“We are now hearing sounds from history that I did not expect to hear in my lifetime,” Mr. Fabris said.

The Rolfses said they were not sure what to expect in August when they carefully packed their two Edison doll cylinders, still attached to their motors, and drove from their home in Hortonville, Wis., to the National Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. The center had recently acquired Irene technology.

Cylinders carry sound in a spiral groove cut by a phonograph recording needle that vibrates up and down, creating a surface made of tiny hills and valleys. In the Irene set-up, a microscope perched above the shaft takes thousands of high-resolution images of small sections of the grooves.

Stitched together, the images provide a topographic map of the cylinder’s surface, charting changes in depth as small as one five-hundredth the thickness of a human hair. Pitch, volume and timbre are all encoded in the hills and valleys and the speed at which the record is played.

At the conservation center, the preservation specialist Mason Vander Lugt attached one of the cylinders to the end of a rotating shaft. Huddled around a computer screen, the Rolfses first saw the wiggly waveform generated by Irene. Then came the digital audio. The words were at first indistinct, but as Mr. Lugt filtered out more of the noise, the rhyme became clearer.

“That was the Eureka moment,” Mr. Rolfs said.

In 1890, a girl in Edison’s laboratory had recited:

There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very, very good.

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Recently, the conservation center turned up another surprise.

In 2010, the Woody Guthrie Foundation received 18 oversize phonograph disks from an anonymous donor. No one knew if any of the dirt-stained recordings featured Guthrie, but Tiffany Colannino, then the foundation’s archivist, had stored them unplayed until she heard about Irene.

Last fall, the center extracted audio from one of the records, labeled “Jam Session 9” and emailed the digital file to Ms. Colannino.

“I was just sitting in my dining room, and the next thing I know, I’m hearing Woody,” she said. In between solo performances of “Ladies Auxiliary,” “Jesus Christ,” and “Dead or Alive,” Guthrie tells jokes, offers some back story, and makes the audience laugh. “It is quintessential Guthrie,” Ms. Colannino said.

The Rolfses’ dolls are back in the display cabinet in Wisconsin. But with audio stored on several computers, they now have a permanent voice.