PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

saco-indonesia.com, Ratusan murid SDN I Sangkanwangi, Kecamatan Leuwidamar, Kabupaten Lebak, Banten, terpaksa harus melaksanakan kegiatan belajar mengajar di dalam tenda. Sebabnya, dua ruangan kelas rubuh akibat hujan deras yang melanda daerah itu.

Selama ini proses kegiatan belajar mengajar (KBM) di tempat darurat dengan mendirikan tenda milik Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) Kabupaten Lebak.

"Kami juga berharap ruangan kelas yang rubuh itu akan segera diperbaiki," kata Kepala SDN 1 Sangkanwangi, Kabupaten Lebak Abdul Muti di Lebak, Senin (27/1).

Pelaksanaan KBM telah berjalan dengan baik dan tidak ada hambatan, meskipun dua ruangan kelas 3-4 roboh akibat diterjang angin kencang. Meskipun kondisinya juga kurang nyaman dengan beralasan tanah, tetapi semangat anak-anak belajar juga cukup besar.

Abdul Muti juga menambahkan, pihaknya juga telah melaporkan dua ruangan kelas yang roboh itu kepada Dinas Pendidikan Kabupaten Lebak. "Kami juga berharap tahun ini juga dilakukan perbaikan sehingga anak-anak bisa belajar dengan tenang serta konsentrasi," ujarnya.

Sementara itu, Bupati Lebak Iti Octavia Jayabaya juga mengatakan pihaknya telah berjanji akan membangun dua ruangan kelas SD Negeri 1 Sangkanwangi, Kecamatan Leuwidamar yang roboh itu.

"Kami juga akan mengalokasikan pembangunan sekolah itu dari anggaran Biaya Tak Terduga (BTT)," katanya.

Ia juga telah menyebutkan saat ini proses KBM di tenda tentunya tidak optimal sehingga berdampak terhadap mutu pendidikan. Apalagi, beberapa bulan ke depan atau sekitar bulan Mei mendatang para murid juga akan melaksanakan ujian.

Pihaknya juga telah memerintahkan tim teknis dari Dinas Cipta Karya segera turun ke lokasi melakukan monitoring guna untuk mengetahui apakah lokasi sekolah itu aman jika dibangun kembali atau tidak.

"Kalau menurut tim teknis itu layak maka pembangunannya akan segera dilakukan dengan anggaran dari BTT itu," katanya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

saco-indonesia.com, Pasukan Pengaman Presiden (Paspampres) telah merayakan hari jadi tepat tanggal 3 Desember lalu. Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pun telah mengucapkan selamat ulang tahun untuk para pengawalnya ini.

Paspampres telah dibentuk untuk dapat menjalankan amanah UU yaitu menjamin keamanan dan keselamatan VVIP, yang oleh UU telah ditetapkan yaitu Presiden dan Wakil Presiden beserta keluarganya. Mereka juga bertugas untuk mengamankan tamu-tamu negara setingkat kepala negara dan kepala pemerintahan beserta keluarganya.

"Sehingga, bila sekali-kali kenyamanan masyarakat terganggu, semata-mata itu adalah dalam rangka untuk menjalankan tugas pokok sesuai dengan UU," tulis akun resmi Facebook Presiden SBY, Jumat (3/1).

Paspampres telah menjalankan tugas yang sebenarnya harus tegas, tidak kenal kompromi, ketat, dan tidak ada toleransi. Zero tolerance untuk gagal dan salah.

"Itu oleh masyarakat luas sering disalahmengertikan atau disalahpersepsikan sebagai arogan, terlalu keras, berlebihan, dan sebagainya. Padahal, seperti itulah ekspose, taktik dan teknik yang berlaku secara universal."

Presiden SBY juga menyadari bahwa tugas dan kewajiban unuk mengamankan Presiden dan Wapres bukanlah suatu pekerjaan mudah, namun penuh tantangan, dan telah diatur dengan prosedur tetap.

"Sering pula dalam perjalanan di Jakarta, kota-kota besar atau di daerah, Presiden SBY telah memerintahkan agar lalu lintas dibiarkan mengalir, tidak ditutup agar tidak merugikan masyarakat, tetapi menurut Paspampres, Polri dan personel pengaman lain, hal tersebut tidak dapat dilakukan demi pengamanan dan penyelamatan," kata SBY.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

Pusat Vulaknologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi (PVMBG) telah mendatangkan dua alat pengukur untuk dapat mendeteksi aktivitas Gunung Slamet. Saat dihubungi melalui telepon seluler, Ketua PVMBG Ahmad Hendrasto juga mengatakan dua alat tersebut didatangkan bersama tim dari Jakarta.

"Yang jelas ada dua alat yang didatangkan adalah seismometer dan tiltmeter. Alat tersebut datang bersama tim dan baru datang tadi pagi di sini (Pos Gambuhan Pemalang)," ujarnya, Jumat (14/3).

Dengan didatangkannya alat tersebut, jumlah alat yang mendeteksi aktivitas Gunung Slamet saat ini telah menjadi empat seismometer dan satu tiltmeter. Sebelumnya, ada tiga seismometer yakni di Gunung Cilik, Gunung Buncis dan Jurangmangu di Lereng Gunung Slamet.

Meski begitu, Hedrasto belum bisa memastikan titik penempatan alat tersebut. "Saat ini kami belum dapat menentukan titiknya, tetapi kemungkinan esok pagi alat tersebut akan dipasang," ucapnya.

Tiltmeter sendiri juga merupakan alat untuk dapat mengukur kembang kempis atau pembengkakan gunung ketika akan terjadi letusan. Dari pantauan di Posko Gambuhan pada Jumat (14/3), telah terjadi 44 kali gempa embusan.

"Memang ada peningkatan gempa embusan dibanding hari kemarin, tetapi masih dalam range status waspada," katanya.

Gempa embusan tersebut telah mengeluarkan abu berwarna kecokelatan dengan ketinggian sekitar 600 meter- 1.200 meter ke udara. "Abu tersebut merupakan material lama dan diharapkan warga jangan panik, karena gempa embusan masih mengeluarkan material lama," ucapnya.

saco-indonesia.com, Manfaatnya Roller Conveyor Untuk bidang Industri

Artikel Conveyor Dibawah ini akan saya jelaskan tentang roller conveyor dan beberapa kegunaan dari roller conveyor tersebut. Nah ini ...Sebuah konveyor rol adalah conveyor yang telah terdiri dari serangkaian bar berputar paralel yang telah memindahkan barang bersama ke tujuan akhir mereka. Konveyor Roller digunakan dalam lingkungan seperti gudang dan fasilitas manufaktur. Mereka juga dapat dipasang di dalam beberapa jenis peralatan, seperti mesin tortilla yang memproduksi tortilla otomatis dan menjalankan mereka turun konveyor rol untuk dapat memungkinkan mereka untuk mendinginkan setelah mereka dibuat. Demikian pula, pembuatan beberapa jenis permen sering telah melibatkan konveyor rol untuk pendinginan. Rancangan konveyor rol tersebut terdiri dari serangkaian tabung yang dipasang pada interval tertentu. Tabung berputar pada tingkat yang sama dan dalam arah yang sama untuk dapat mendorong benda di sepanjang bagian atas conveyor. Mengatur conveyor di sudut juga dapat membantu untuk mendorong benda bersama. Perangkat mungkin peralatan yang terletak di samping untuk dapat melakukan berbagai fungsi seperti paket penyegelan, dan karyawan juga dapat ditempatkan di sepanjang conveyor untuk dapat memanipulasi benda-benda ketika mereka melewati. Salah satu kelemahan untuk conveyor roller bahwa benda dapat jatuh melalui rol atau menjadi canggung berbentuk dan berukuran dan dengan demikian tidak bergerak sepanjang konveyor sangat baik. Sebuah aplikasi yang ideal untuk jenis peralatan pada saluran kemasan, di mana kotak ukuran seragam dan bentuk dapat bergerak dengan mudah ke bawah konveyor rol. Demikian juga, ketika sirkulasi udara di sekitar produk yang dibutuhkan ketika bergerak ke bawah garis, seperti yang terlihat dengan permen, conveyor rol dapat sangat berguna.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

Oleh
Kumpulan Ulama

KEWAJIBAN-KEWAJIBAN BAGI JAMA'AH HAJI

[1]. Agar segera bertobat kepada Allah dengan sebenar-benarnya dari segala dosa, dan memilih harta yang halal untuk ibadah haji dan umrahnya.

[2]. Agar menjaga lidahnya dari dusta, menggunjing, mengadu domba dan menghina orang lain.

[3]. Dalam melaksanakan haji dan umrahnya, hendaklah bermaksud untuk mendapatkan ridha Illahi dan pahala akhirat, jauh dari rasa ingin dipandang, ingin tersohor dan berbangga diri.

[4]. Hendaklah mempelajari amalan-amalan yang disyariatkan dalam haji dan umrah, dan menanyakan hal-hal yang kurang jelas baginya.

[5]. Apabila telah sampai di miqat, diperbolehkan memilih antara haji Ifrad, Tammatu' dan Qiran. Haji Tammatu' lebih utama bagi yang tidak membawa binatang kurban, sedang bagi yang membawanya, lebih utama baginya melaksanakan haji Qiran.

[6]. Seseorang yang berihram, apabila ia merasa khawatir tidak dapat melanjutkan ibadah hajinya dikarenakan sakit, atau musuh, atau karena sebab lain, maka disyaratkan ketika berihram mengucapkan : "Inna mahallii haistuu habastanii" Artinya : Tempat tahallulku adalah di tempat ku tertahan".

[7]. Anak-anak yang masih kecil haji mereka adalah sah, hanya saja haji semacam itu belum termasuk haji fardhu.

[8]. Orang yang sedang berihram boleh mandi dan membasuh kepalanya atau menggaruknya dikala perlu.

[9]. Bagi wanita yang sedang berihram diperbolehkan untuk menutup wajahnya dengan kerudung apabila takut dilihat kaum pria.

[10]. Mengenakan ikat kepala dibawah kerudung agar mudah sewaktu membuka wajah, sebagaimana yang sering dilakukan oleh sebagian kaum wanita, tidak ada dasarnya dalam syari'at.

[11]. Bagi yang sedang berihram boleh mencuci kain ihramnya kemudian mengenakannya kembali dan boleh juga menggantinya dengan yang lain.

[12]. Seseorang yang sedang berihram, apabila ia mengenakan pakaian berjahit atau menutupi kepalanya atau memakai wangi-wangian karena lupa atau pun karena tidak tahu akan hukumnya, maka ia tidak dikenakan fidyah.

[13]. Bagi yang melakukan haji Tamattu' atau umrah, hendaklah menghentikan bacaan talbiyah apabila ia sampai di Ka'bah sebelum memulai Tawaf.

[14]. Ramal (lari-lari kecil) dan Idhtiba' (mengenakan selendang ihram dengan meletakkan sebagiannya di atas pundak kiri, dan bagian lain disebelah ketiak kanan), hanya dilakukan pada Tawaf Qudum saja, dan ramal itu dikhususkan pada tiga putaran pertama, lagi pula untuk kaum pria saja, tidak untuk wanita.

[15]. Seseorang yang sedang melakukan Tawaf, apabila ia ragu apakah sudah melakukan tiga putaran atau empat umpamanya, maka hendaklah dihitung tiga putaran. Demikian pula diwaktu Sa'i.

[16]. Boleh melakukan Tawaf dibelakang sumur Zamzam dan Maqam Ibrahim dikala penuh sesak, karena Masjid Haram seluruhnya merupakan tempat Tawaf.

[17]. Adalah termasuk perbuatan mungkar, jika seorang wanita melakukan Tawaf dengan memakai perhiasan dan wangi-wangian serta tidak menutup aurat.

[18]. Wanita yang sedang datang bulan atau baru bersalin setelah berihram, tidak boleh melakulan tawaf, kecuali setelah ia dalam keadaan suci.

[19]. Bagi wanita boleh berihram dengan mengenakan pakaian yang ia sukai, asalakan pakaian itu tidak menyerupai pakaian pria dan jangan sampai menampakkan perhiasan, tetapi hendaklah mengenakan pakaian yang tidak merangsang.

[20]. Melafalkan niat dalam ibadah selain Haji dan Umrah adalah bid'ah yang diada-adakan, lebih-lebih bila dilafalkan niat itu dengan suara keras.

[21]. Diharamkan bagi seorang muslim mukallaf melintasi miqat tanpa berihram, apabila ia bermaksud melakukan ibadah haji dan umrah.

[22]. Jama'ah haji atau umrah yang datang lewat udara, hendaklah berihram ketika berada sejajar dengan batas miqat, oleh karena itu hendaknya ia bersiap-siap untuk berihram sebelum naik pesawat.

[23]. Bagi yang tempat tinggalnya di daerah miqat, tidak perlu pergi ke salah satu tempat miqat, dan cukuplah tempat tinggalnya itu sebagi miqat untuk berihram haji dan umrah.

[24]. Memperbanyak umrah setelah menunaikan haji, dari Tan'im atau Jir'anah, sebagaimana yang dilakukan oleh sebagian jama'ah, adalah hal yang tidak ada dalilnya.

[25]. Hendaklah para jama'ah haji pada hari tarwiyah berihram dari tempat tinggalnya di Mekkah, dan tidak perlu berihram dari dalam kota Mekkah atau dari bawah Pancuran Emas Ka'bah, sebagaimana yang dilakukan oleh sebagian jama'ah haji. Dan tidak perlu baginya Tawaf Wada' ketika berangkat menuju Mina.

[26]. Berangkat dari Mina menuju Arafah pada tanggal 9 Dzu-l-Hijjah, lebih utama dilakukan setelah terbit matahari.

[27]. Tidak diperkenankan meninggalkan Arafah sebelum terbenam matahari.
Dan disaat berangkat setelah terbenam matahari, hendaknya dengan tenang dan penuh kekhusuan.

[28]. Shalat Maghrib dan Isya dilakukan setelah sampai di Muzdalifah, baik sampainya pada waktu Maghrib ataupun setelah masuk waktu Isya.

[29]. Memungut batu pelempar Jamrah, boleh dilakukan dimana saja, dan tidak harus dipungut dari Muzdalifah.

[30]. Tidak disunatkan mencuci batu-batu itu, sebab hal itu tidak pernah dilakukan oleh Rasulullah begitu pula para sahabat beliau. Dan agar jangan melontar dengan batu yang telah dipakai melontar.

[31]. Diperbolehkan bagi orang-orang yang lemah, seperti wanita, anak-anak kecil dan yang semisalnya, untuk berangkat menuju Mina saat lewat pertengahan malam.

[32]. Apabila telah sampai di Mina pada hari Raya, hendaknya jama'ah haji menghentikan bacaan Talbiyah, dan agar melontar Jamrah Aqabah dengan tujuh batu berturut-turut.

[33]. Tidak disyaratkan agar batu itu tinggal di tempat lontaran, tapi yang disyaratkan adalah jatuhnya batu di tempat lontaran itu.

[34]. Penyembelihan Qurban waktunya adalah sampai terbenam matahari pada hari Tasyriq yang ketiga menurut pendapat Ulama yang paling benar.

[35]. Tawaf Ifadhah atau Tawaf Ziyarah adalah salah satu rukun haji yang tidak dianggap sah haji seseorang apabila Tawaf itu ditinggalkan, dan ini hendaknya dilakukan pada Hari Raya, tapi boleh juga ditunda sampai setelah hari-hari Mina.

[36]. Bagi yang melakukan Haji Qiran, ia hanya wajib melakukan satu kali sa'i. Demikian pula bagi yang melakukan Haji Ifrad dan ia tetap berihram sampai hari nahr.

[37]. Bagi Jama'ah haji, lebih utama baginya melakukan amalan-amalan haji pada hari nahr dengan tertib, yaitu memulai dengan melontar Jamrah Aqabah kemudian menyembelih binatang kurban, lantas mencukur bersih atau memendekkan rambutnya, setelah itu Tawaf Ifadhah di Baitullah dan selanjutnya Sa'i. Dan boleh juga amalan-amalan tersebut dilakukan dengan tidak tertib, yaitu dengan mendahulukan atau mengakhirkan satu dari yang lainnya.

[38]. Tahalul penuh dapat dilaksanakan setelah melakukan hal-hal dibawah ini :
a). Melontar Jamrah Aqabah
b). Mencukur bersih atau memendekkan rambut
c). Tawaf Ifadhah dan Sa'i.

[39]. Apabila seorang jamaah haji menghendaki pulang secepatnya (pada tanggal 12) dari Mina. Maka harus keluar dari Mina sebelum terbenam matahari.

[40]. Anak kecil yang tidak mampu melontar, hendaklah diwakili oleh walinya setelah ia melontar untuk dirinya sendiri.

[41]. Begitu juga orang-orang yang tidak mampu melontar karena sakit atau lanjut usia atau karena hamil, boleh mewakilkan kepada orang lain untuk melontar.

[42]. Bagi yang mewakili, boleh melontar setiap jamrah dari ketiga jamrah itu untuk dirinya sendiri terlebih dahulu, kemudian untuk yang diwakilinya dalam satu tempat.

[43]. Bagi yang melakukan haji Tamattu' atau Qiran, sedang ia bukan penduduk Masjid Haram (Mekkah), wajib baginya membayar dam, yaitu seekor kambing, atau sepertujuh onta/sapi.

[44]. Bagi yang melakukan haji Tamattu' atau Qiran, dan ia tidak mampu menyembelih binatang kurban, maka ia diwajibkan untuk berpuasa tiga hari dalam masa haji dan tujuh hari apabila telah pulang ke keluarganya.

[45]. Puasa tiga hari itu lebih utama dilakukan sebelum Hari Arafah, agar pada Hari Arafah itu ia dalam keadaan tidak berpuasa. Jika puasa itu belum dilakukan makan hendaklah dilakukan pada hari-hari Tasyriq.

[46]. Puasa tiga hari tersebut boleh dilakukan secara berturut-turut atau terpisah-pisah. Begitu pula puasa yang tujuh hari.

[47]. Tawaf Wada' hukumnya wajib bagi setiap jama'ah haji, kecuali bagi wanita yang sedang datang bulan atau baru bersalin.

[48]. Disunahkan berziarah ke Masjid Rasul Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, baik sebelum haji ataupun sesudahnya.

[49]. Bagi yang berziarah ke Masjid Nabawi, disunatkan memulai dengan shalat dua rakaat Tahiyat al-Masjid dimana saja di dalam Masjid. Dan yang lebih utama shalat dilakukan di Raudhah yang mulia.

[50]. Ziarah ke kubur Rasulullah Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, dan ke pekuburan lain, hanya disyari'atkan untuk kaum pria, bukan untuk kaum wanita, dengan syarat agar dilakukan tanpa bersusah payah.

[51]. Mengusap-ngusap dinding kubur Rasul, atau menciumnya ataupun mengelilinginya (bertawaf di sekitarnya), adalah perbuatan bid'ah yang mungkar, yang tidak pernah dilakukan oleh ulama-ulama Salaf. Lebih-lebih apabila ia mengelilinginya dengan maksud mendekatkan diri kepada Rasulullah Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, maka hal itu adalah syirik besar.

[52]. Tidak boleh bagi seseorang memohon kepada Rasul agar beliau memenuhi hajatnya atau melepaskan dirinya dari kesulitan, sebab hal itu syirik.

[53]. Kehidupan Rasulullah Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, didalam kubur adalah kehidupan alam barzakh, bukan seperti hidup di dunia sebelum wafatnya. Dan kehidupan itu hanya Allah saja yang mengetahui hakekat dan keadaannya.

[54]. Mengutamakan berdo'a didekat kubur Rasul Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, sambil menghadap kearahnya dengan mengangkat kedua belah tangan, sebagaimana yang dilakukan oleh sebagian penziarah, adalah termasuk bid'ah yang diada-adakan.

[55]. Ziarah ke kubur Rasul Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, bukanlah wajib, dan bukan merupakan suatu syarat dalam ibadah haji, sebagaimana anggapan sebagian orang awam.

[56]. Hadits-hadits yang dipergunakan sebagai dasar hukum oleh orang-orang yang membolehkan untuk bersusah-payah mendatangi kubur Rasul Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam adalah hadits-hadits yang lemah sanadnya atau hadits-hadits bikinan.

[Disalin dari buku Petunjuk Jamaa Haji dan Umrah serta Penziarah Masjid Rasul Shallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, pengarang Kumpulan Ulama, hal 42-45, Diterbitkan dan diedarkan oleh Department Agama, Waqaf, Dakwah dan Bimbingan Islam, Saudi Arabia]

Sumber : http://www.alquran-sunnah.com

Baca Artikel Lainnya : SEPULUH KEUTAMAAN TENTANG HAJI

With 12 tournament victories in his career, Mr. Peete was the most successful black professional golfer before Tiger Woods.

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.

Mr. Fox, known for his well-honed countrified voice, wrote about things dear to South Carolina and won over Yankee critics.

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.

Fullmer, who reigned when fight clubs abounded and Friday night fights were a television staple, was known for his title bouts with Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio.

Ms. Turner and her twin sister founded the Love Kitchen in 1986 in a church basement in Knoxville, Tenn., and it continues to provide clothing and meals.

By VINDU GOEL and QUENTIN HARDY

Mr. Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was married to Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

Judge Patterson helped to protect the rights of Attica inmates after the prison riot in 1971 and later served on the Federal District Court in Manhattan.

WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.

The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he also concludes that the White House itself embellished some of the talking points provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had blocked him from sending an internal study of agency conclusions to Congress.

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“I finally did so without asking,” just before leaving government, he writes, and after the White House released internal emails to a committee investigating the State Department’s handling of the issue.

A lengthy congressional investigation remains underway, one that many Republicans hope to use against Mrs. Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

In parts of the book, “The Great War of Our Time” (Twelve), Mr. Morell praises his C.I.A. colleagues for many successes in stopping terrorist attacks, but he is surprisingly critical of other C.I.A. failings — and those of the National Security Agency.

Soon after Mr. Morell retired in 2013 after 33 years in the agency, President Obama appointed him to a commission reviewing the actions of the National Security Agency after the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who released classified documents about the government’s eavesdropping abilities. Mr. Morell writes that he was surprised by what he found.

“You would have thought that of all the government entities on the planet, the one least vulnerable to such grand theft would have been the N.S.A.,” he writes. “But it turned out that the N.S.A. had left itself vulnerable.”

He concludes that most Wall Street firms had better cybersecurity than the N.S.A. had when Mr. Snowden swept information from its systems in 2013. While he said he found himself “chagrined by how well the N.S.A. was doing” compared with the C.I.A. in stepping up its collection of data on intelligence targets, he also sensed that the N.S.A., which specializes in electronic spying, was operating without considering the implications of its methods.

“The N.S.A. had largely been collecting information because it could, not necessarily in all cases because it should,” he says.

The book is to be released next week.

Mr. Morell was a career analyst who rose through the ranks of the agency, and he ended up in the No. 2 post. He served as President George W. Bush’s personal intelligence briefer in the first months of his presidency — in those days, he could often be spotted at the Starbucks in Waco, Tex., catching up on his reading — and was with him in the schoolhouse in Florida on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush presidency changed in an instant.

Mr. Morell twice took over as acting C.I.A. director, first when Leon E. Panetta was appointed secretary of defense and then when retired Gen. David H. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair with his biographer, a relationship that included his handing her classified notes of his time as America’s best-known military commander.

Mr. Morell says he first learned of the affair from Mr. Petraeus only the night before he resigned, and just as the Benghazi events were turning into a political firestorm. While praising Mr. Petraeus, who had told his deputy “I am very lucky” to run the C.I.A., Mr. Morell writes that “the organization did not feel the same way about him.” The former general “created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interaction with him),” he says.

But it is his account of the Benghazi attacks — and how the C.I.A. was drawn into the debate over whether the Obama White House deliberately distorted its account of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that is bound to attract attention, at least partly because of its relevance to the coming presidential election. The initial assessments that the C.I.A. gave to the White House said demonstrations had preceded the attack. By the time analysts reversed their opinion, Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser, had made a series of statements on Sunday talk shows describing the initial assessment. The controversy and other comments Ms. Rice made derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to appoint her as secretary of state.

The experience prompted Mr. Morell to write that the C.I.A. should stay out of the business of preparing talking points — especially on issues that are being seized upon for “political purposes.” He is critical of the State Department for not beefing up security in Libya for its diplomats, as the C.I.A., he said, did for its employees.

But he concludes that the assault in which the ambassador was killed took place “with little or no advance planning” and “was not well organized.” He says the attackers “did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting some vandalism,” setting fires that killed Mr. Stevens and a security official, Sean Smith.

Mr. Morell paints a picture of an agency that was struggling, largely unsuccessfully, to understand dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa when the Arab Spring broke out in late 2011 in Tunisia. The agency’s analysts failed to see the forces of revolution coming — and then failed again, he writes, when they told Mr. Obama that the uprisings would undercut Al Qaeda by showing there was a democratic pathway to change.

“There is no good explanation for our not being able to see the pressures growing to dangerous levels across the region,” he writes. The agency had again relied too heavily “on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what was going on in the Arab street,” he says, and those leaders themselves were clueless.

Moreover, an agency that has always overvalued secretly gathered intelligence and undervalued “open source” material “was not doing enough to mine the wealth of information available through social media,” he writes. “We thought and told policy makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” he writes.

Instead, weak governments in Egypt, and the absence of governance from Libya to Yemen, were “a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa.”

Mr. Morell is gentle about most of the politicians he dealt with — he expresses admiration for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, though he accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of deliberately implying a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq that the C.I.A. had concluded probably did not exist. But when it comes to the events leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he is critical of his own agency.

Mr. Morell concludes that the Bush White House did not have to twist intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged effort to rekindle the country’s work on weapons of mass destruction.

“The view that hard-liners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on W.M.D. is just flat wrong,” he writes. “No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling?

What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in the fighting, dooming the latest diplomatic overture on Syria.

Diplomacy is often about appearing to be doing something until the time is ripe for a deal to be done.

Now, with Mr. Assad’s forces having suffered a string of losses on the battlefield and the United States reaching at least a partial rapprochement with Mr. Assad’s main backer, Iran, Mr. de Mistura is changing course. Starting Monday, he is set to hold a series of closed talks in Geneva with the warring sides and their main supporters. Iran will be among them.

In an interview at United Nations headquarters last week, Mr. de Mistura hinted that the changing circumstances, both military and diplomatic, may have prompted various backers of the war to question how much longer the bloodshed could go on.

“Will that have an impact in accelerating the willingness for a political solution? We need to test it,” he said. “The Geneva consultations may be a good umbrella for testing that. It’s an occasion for asking everyone, including the government, if there is any new way that they are looking at a political solution, as they too claim they want.”

He said he would have a better assessment at the end of June, when he expects to wrap up his consultations. That coincides with the deadline for a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks.

Whether a nuclear deal with Iran will pave the way for a new opening on peace talks in Syria remains to be seen. Increasingly, though, world leaders are explicitly linking the two, with the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, suggesting last week that a nuclear agreement could spur Tehran to play “a major but positive role in Syria.”

It could hardly come soon enough. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian war has claimed 220,000 lives, prompted an exodus of more than three million refugees and unleashed jihadist groups across the region. “This conflict is producing a question mark in many — where is it leading and whether this can be sustained,” Mr. de Mistura said.

Part Italian, part Swedish, Mr. de Mistura has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years, but he is more widely known for his dapper style than for any diplomatic coups. Syria is by far the toughest assignment of his career — indeed, two of the organization’s most seasoned diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, tried to do the job and gave up — and critics have wondered aloud whether Mr. de Mistura is up to the task.

He served as a United Nations envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Lebanon, where a former minister recalled, with some scorn, that he spent many hours sunbathing at a private club in the hills above Beirut. Those who know him say he has a taste for fine suits and can sometimes speak too soon and too much, just as they point to his diplomatic missteps and hyperbole.

They cite, for instance, a news conference in October, when he raised the specter of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred in 1995 during the Balkans war, in warning that the Syrian border town of Kobani could fall to the Islamic State. In February, he was photographed at a party in Damascus, the Syrian capital, celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian revolution just as Syrian forces, aided by Iran, were pummeling rebel-held suburbs of Damascus; critics seized on that as evidence of his coziness with the government.

Mouin Rabbani, who served briefly as the head of Mr. de Mistura’s political affairs unit and has since emerged as one of his most outspoken critics, said Mr. de Mistura did not have the background necessary for the job. “This isn’t someone well known for his political vision or political imagination, and his closest confidants lack the requisite knowledge and experience,” Mr. Rabbani said.

As a deputy foreign minister in the Italian government, Mr. de Mistura was tasked in 2012 with freeing two Italian marines detained in India for shooting at Indian fishermen. He made 19 trips to India, to little effect. One marine was allowed to return to Italy for medical reasons; the other remains in India.

He said he initially turned down the Syria job when the United Nations secretary general approached him last August, only to change his mind the next day, after a sleepless, guilt-ridden night.

Mr. de Mistura compared his role in Syria to that of a doctor faced with a terminally ill patient. His goal in brokering a freeze in the fighting, he said, was to alleviate suffering. He settled on Aleppo as the location for its “fame,” he said, a decision that some questioned, considering that Aleppo was far trickier than the many other lesser-known towns where activists had negotiated temporary local cease-fires.

“Everybody, at least in Europe, are very familiar with the value of Aleppo,” Mr. de Mistura said. “So I was using that as an icebreaker.”

The cease-fire negotiations, to which he had devoted six months, fell apart quickly because of the government’s military offensive in Aleppo the very day of his announcement at the Security Council. Privately, United Nations diplomats said Mr. de Mistura had been manipulated. To this, Mr. de Mistura said only that he was “disappointed and concerned.”

Tarek Fares, a former rebel fighter, said after a recent visit to Aleppo that no Syrian would admit publicly to supporting Mr. de Mistura’s cease-fire proposal. “If anyone said they went to a de Mistura meeting in Gaziantep, they would be arrested,” is how he put it, referring to the Turkish city where negotiations between the two sides were held.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains staunchly behind Mr. de Mistura’s efforts. His defenders point out that he is at the center of one of the world’s toughest diplomatic problems, charged with mediating a conflict in which two of the world’s most powerful nations — Russia, which supports Mr. Assad, and the United States, which has called for his ouster — remain deadlocked.

R. Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official who now teaches at Harvard, credited Mr. de Mistura for trying to negotiate a cease-fire even when the chances of success were exceedingly small — and the chances of a political deal even smaller. For his efforts to work, Professor Burns argued, the world powers will first have to come to an agreement of their own.

“He needs the help of outside powers,” he said. “It starts with backers of Assad. That’s Russia and Iran. De Mistura is there, waiting.”

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

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.

The 6-foot-10 Phillips played alongside the 6-11 Rick Robey on the Wildcats team that won the 1978 N.C.A.A. men’s basketball title.

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.

Ms. Crough played the youngest daughter on the hit ’70s sitcom starring David Cassidy and Shirley Jones.