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India, Pak
greatly WASHINGTON, May 3: India and Pakistan have greatly benefitted from the acquisition of foreign equipment .......more BA capacity on CALCUTTA, May 3: British Airways has announced two major changes to its services to India with effect from October 30 with Delhi....more Indian Tourism Secy takes over as PATA Chairman HONG KONG, May 3: Mr M P Bezbaruah, Indian Tourism Secretary, today took over as Chairman for the year 2000-01 of Pacific Asia Travel . . ...more Green cards to be issued to Indian, non-EU IT specialists BERLIN, May 3: German green cards would be issued within six weeks to computer specialists from India and other non-EU countries as part of an .......more |
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Astronomers detail budget planetary missions LAUREL (MD), May 3: They plan to visit mars, mercury, even jupiter’s icy moon Europa, but the world’s space scientists have acknowledged they will....more US study finds differences CHICAGO, May 3: Women whose ovarian cancer is tied to heredity survive longer than women for whom the disease is not, apparently because the ....more Researchers target mechanism for cancer pain WASHINGTON, May 3: Researchers have said they have identified a mechanism that may be responsible for some of the excruciating pain....more Aussies alarmed by CANBERRA, May 3: Australia’s growing problem of teen drug use has been throw into stark relief by the death of a 14-year-old country girl from a.........more |
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India, Pak greatly benefitted from foreign equipment: CIA WASHINGTON, May 3: India and Pakistan have greatly benefitted from the acquisition of foreign equipment and technology in the development of their nuclear weapons and missile programme, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said. While striving to achieve independence from foreign suppliers, India’s ballistic missile programmes still benefitted from the acquisition of foreign equipment and technology, the premier US intelligence agency said in its semi-annual report to the Congress. India sought items for these programmes during the reporting period primarily from Russia and successfully flight-tested its newest MRBM, the Agni 2, in April 1999 after months of preparations, it said. India continues to pursue development of nuclear weapons, and its underground nuclear tests in May 1998 were a significant milestone, the report said, adding the acquisition of foreign equipment could benefit New Delhi in its efforts to develop and produce more sophisticated nuclear weapons. The CIA, however, expressed doubt that China might be still continuing with its extensive support to Pakistan’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programmes despite Beijing’s assurances to the contrary. Don’t trust Chinese assurances on non-assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme, the report, covering the period up to the middle of 1999, says. China, which has provided extensive support in the past to Pakistan’s WMD programmes, promised in May 1996 to stop assistance to provide unsafeguarded nuclear facilities but we cannot rule out ongoing contacts, it says. Pakistan acquired a considerable amount of nuclear-related and dual-use equipment from various sources, principally in the former Soviet Union and Western Europe, during the first half of 1999, the report says. Islamabad has a well-developed nuclear weapons programme, as evidenced by its first nuclear weapons tests in late May 1998. Acquisition of nuclear-related goods from foreign sources, says CIA, will be important if Pakistan chooses to develop more advanced nuclear weapons. Chinese and North Korean entities continued to provide assistance to Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme during the first half of 1999, it adds. In April 1998, Pakistan flight-tested the Ghauri Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM), which is based on North Korea’s No Dong missile. In April 1999, it flight-tested another Ghauri MRBM and the Shaheeb-I Short Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM). (PTI) |
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BA capacity on London-Delhi boosted by 25 p CALCUTTA, May 3: British Airways has announced two major changes to its services to India with effect from October 30 with Delhi getting a direct daily service, providing a much needed 25 per cent increase in capacity. As a result the five-a-week service from Delhi to Dhaka will terminate in the capital. The twice-weekly service to Calcutta will also terminate in Delhi, Dhaka will be served on a separate routing from October 30, and British Airways is looking into making alternative arrangements for passengers travelling from Delhi to Calcutta, a BA release here today said. Regretting the decision to suspend services to Calcutta, the release quoting British Airways General Manager South Asia Alan Briggs said, however, this was a carefully calculated decision based on commercial reasons and the continuation of the service could not be justified on economic grounds. British Airways will now concentrate on providing an alternative seamless service to BA passengers travelling to and from Calcutta, the release added. Moreover, it said with effect from October 30, British Airways would operate 16 services a week from India to the UK and onwards to Europe and USA with state-of-the Art 747 aircraft, which includes daily services to Delhi and to Mumbai, plus a twice-weekly service to Chennai. (UNI) |
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Indian Tourism Secy takes over as PATA Chairman HONG KONG, May 3: Mr M P Bezbaruah, Indian Tourism Secretary, today took over as Chairman for the year 2000-01 of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the world’s most powerful body engaged in the promotion of international tourism. At a glittering concluding function of the 49th PATA annual conference, more than 1,300 delegates, most of them captains of travel trade, hotels, representatives of international airlines and travel writers from all over the world, gave a standing ovation when Mr Bezbarah took over from Mr J Daniel Burruss, Director Pacific Region, Dalta Airlines, an American carrier. Mr Bezbarah said the world today needed to focus on the positive impact of tourism as a desireable catalyst for development. "We have from different parts of the world many good examples of tourism and travel creating public awareness for sustainable development and we need to spread this message to wider areas." He said the changes in the geo-political situations in the last 50 years have changed the tourism scenario beyond our wildest dreams. Civil aviation technologies in the latter part of the century also revolutionised travel and tourism to an extent that it has emerged as the biggest industry in the world. "Most of you have been part of that history and many of you have helped in shaping the future." However, he said, "we must keep our heads clear about pitfalls on the way as the jolts of the East Asian crisis made us aware." He said, "PATA must continue to act as the collective forum for introspection and for continuous evaluation and revaluation." India will definitely get a boost in tourism during 2000-01 under the leadership of Mr Bezbaruah as he could influence the captains of travel trade to bring more tourists to India as this ancient country has lot more to offer. India as a destination will sell because of the oldest civilisation, the Tourism Secretary added. Mr Bezbaruah also called on all regional and international organisations, directly or indirectly related to promotion of tourism, to establish durable relationship for mutual benefit. "We will stand to gain by forging honorable relationship." He said PATA should continue to be guided by "Direction-2000" which talks about going beyond region and evolving a philosophy that was sweeping the globe. He said changes in the geo political situation during the last fifty years has had its impact on tourism. Since tourims has emerged and would continue to be the biggest industry during the current millennium, PATA must continue to act as the collective forum for introspection and for continuous evaluation and revaluation. On future strategy, he said, PATA must evaluate past experiences to evolve strategy dynamic enough to face challenges. The ongoing technology evolution which has turned world into a global village, has made it mandatory for the various organs of tourism promotion to work collectively for maintaining the number one industry status for tourism. India will be hoisting the annual conference of PATA in 2002 after having won the bid for this prestigious event in face of stiff competition from a number of countries. PATA works for promotion of tourism of the Pacific Asia region. It has more than 2,100 travel industry organisation including 101 national Governments, world over airlines, hotels, tour operators, travel agencies and other tourism bodies. In addition, more than 17,000 individual travel industry representatives are information and research, travel industry education and training and quality product development with sensitivity for culture, heritage and environment. (UNI) |
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Green cards to be issued to Indian, non-EU IT specialists BERLIN, May 3: German green cards would be issued within six weeks to computer specialists from India and other non-EU countries as part of an overall strategy of the Government to woo foreign talent. The time-frame to issue the special work permits was decided during a final round of refinements on the details of a Government proposal designed to override immigration rules and expedite the arrival of foreign computer specialists, who companies say are desperately needed in Europe’s largest country. Speed is one of the key elements in our plans, said Hans Martin Bury, Chief of Staff for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder after an official meeting here late yesterday. Bury said though the goal is to issue a work permit within six weeks, in practice only two weeks may be necessary. German officials said the cabinet is expected to pass the green card proposal this month and that the rules could take effect on August one. In order to qualify for the green card plan, applicants would be required to have a degree in information and communication technologies and an annual salary of around 100,000 dm, official said. Ideas are more important than grades, Bury said. The draft drawn up by the Federal Labour Ministry plans to grant 10,000 work permits to the specialists and that could be increased to a maximum of 20,000 in case of a continued need. The German industry has estimated that 75,000 computer specialists would be urgently needed to help it keep pace with rapid changes in the Information Technology (IT) sector. India is among the major countries being targetted to fill the gap between demand and supply of IT professionals. The green card plan, which is under attack by the opposition conservative parties, has undergone changes ever since it was announced by schroeder in February. One of the changes made recently was that computer specialists from outside EU nations could receive green card for five years. Previously, reports said experts could stay for three years and seek a two-year extension later on. The specialists also may change employers, although in this case, the work permit would have to be reviewed by the Government employment office. President of the Federal Labour Office Bernhard Jagoda before the meeting last evening warned against making the green card procedure too complicated. Jagoda commented in an apparent reference to a plan that would require the employment office to spend at least four weeks looking for suitable applicants from Germany or EU. Such a requirement would harm the office’s reputation because it would be blamed for the delay. Jagoda reported that to date, the central placement office has received about 1,600 inquiries, mostly from central and Eastern Europe, about computer jobs. According to preliminary reports, Indian IT professionals were yet to respond to the green card proposal in a big way. Their obvious preferences are the traditional American and British destinations. (PTI) |
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Astronomers detail budget planetary missions LAUREL (MD), May 3: They plan to visit mars, mercury, even jupiter’s icy moon Europa, but the world’s space scientists have acknowledged they will have to do it on a budget. Influenced by NASA’s controversial "cheaper-faster-better" philosophy, astronomers gathered for a meeting yesterday on low-cost missions around the solar system where the presentations occasionally sounded more like management-speak than science. Mr Kenneth Atkins, who manages a programme that aims to fly through a comet’s trail and bring back interstellar particles from it, said the spacecraft had to be developed with "a large healthy dose of project interdependence" and "communications and information sharing." Mr Atkins’ project, known as Stardust, is part of NASA’s discovery series of relatively cheap solar system missions —Stardust’s development budget is a low 117 million dollars — pushed by NASA chief Dan Goldin over the last decade. Mr Goldin wanted to shift NASA’s priorities from the multi-billion-dollar programmes that sometimes took a decade to complete. He acknowledged some of the smaller, quicker missions were risky, but vowed not to be "afraid of failure." These low-cost projects, none of which put humans in space, sparked harsh criticism last year following the demise of two mars missions in the space of three months. The 165 million dollars mars polar lander went silent before its scheduled touchdown in December, and the 125 million dollars mars climate orbiter was destroyed due to an embarrassing mix-up over metric and english measurements. At yesterday’s meeting at the Johns Hopkins University’s applied physics laboratory mid-way between Washington and Baltimore, Atkins and others revealed their strategies for doing often jaw-dropping astronomy with very little money. For Mr Atkins and his team at the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, the key to working with folks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, at the University of Washington in Seattle and Lockheed-Martin in Colorado was something he called a "virtual meeting room." When they needed a decision quickly, they used pagers and cellphones to call scientists and get them to a computer where they could view the problem on the screen, simultaneously with others in other locations, Mr Atkins said. For the European Space Agency (ESA), a collaboration between 15 cOuntries, "cheaper-faster-better" has never been official policy, but there has still been pressure to cut costs. ESA is considering launching the mars express, which aims to orbit the red planet starting in late 2003, and the mercury cornerstone mission, which could land on the closest planet to the sun and send back data on mercury. "This mission is testing a new management approach," ESA’s gordon whitcomb told the scientists, referring to the ESA mars mission. Among other things, the mission will involve industry in selecting the mission’s payload, thus fostering competition and the use of the best industrial staff because they will know the mission is a reality and not just a study, Mr Whitcomb said. ESA also plans to send an unmanned mission to the moon, with a launch in late 2002. For ESA, small missions "are a proving ground for new technology and a training ground for managers and engineers," Mr Whitcomb said. Meantime, Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) launched its own mars mission, called nozomi, and plans to launch a mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid, called Muses-C. NASA, for its part, plans to continue with its discovery missions, including a possible future flight toward jupiter and its mysterious moon Europa, where some scientists believe a liquid ocean lies under an icy crust. Mr Tom Krimigis, who heads the Applied Physics Laboratory’s Space Department, noted that at the first of these meetings on low-cost planetary exploration, back in 1994, astronomers spoke about a revolution in such voyages, referring to a new internationalism in space investigation and a new emphasis on cost-effectiveness. "The question," Mr Krimigis told the scientists at this year’s meeting, "is whether we’ll survive the revolution." (REUTERS) |
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US study finds differences in ovarian cancer CHICAGO, May 3: Women whose ovarian cancer is tied to heredity survive longer than women for whom the disease is not, apparently because the cancer cells in the first group are more susceptible to chemotherapy, researchers have reported. Jeff Boyd, Director of the Gynecology and Breast Research Laboratory at New York’s Memorial Sloan-kettering Cancer Centre, lead author of the study, said yesterday the significance of the finding is in its implications for future approaches to treatment. "The cancer cells (in hereditary cases) are more susceptible to certain chemotherapeutic agents." "If we can understand what is different about these cancer cells — why they are more susceptible — we can perhaps apply that knowledge to improving treatment for both hereditary cancers and sporadic (nonhereditary) cancers," he said. The study, published in this week’s journal of the American Medical Association, was based on a look at tissue samples of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and treated over a 12-year period at the cancer centre. Among a subset of the samples the researchers found 88 cases where the cancer was hereditary, and 101 cases where it was not. The disease acted similarly in both groups, the report said, but "the hereditary group had a longer disease-free interval following primary chemotherapy in comparison with the nonhereditary group, with a median time to recurrence of 14 months and 7 months, respectively." It also said those with hereditary cancers "had improved survival compared with the nonhereditary group." The study found there was a 25 per cent decrease in the relative risk of death for those with advanced stage hereditary ovarian cancer compared to nonhereditary cases. (REUTERS) |
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Researchers target mechanism for cancer pain WASHINGTON, May 3: Researchers have said they have identified a mechanism that may be responsible for some of the excruciating pain caused by bone cancer, and said blocking it might ease some of the agony. They found a protein that, in mice, acts as a kind of decoy to help block some of the bone destruction responsible for the pain, the researchers reported in the journal nature medicine. "What is perhaps most unique is our approach to the problem. We are attacking pain at its base, its roots if you will," Patrick Mantyh of the Ninneapolis Veteran’s Affairs Medical Centre and a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement yesterday. "Instead of treating the symptoms of pain with analgesic therapies, we are targeting the very cells that we have identified as the cause of the pain itself," he said. The protein, called Osteoprotegerin (OPG), interferes with cells called osteoclasts, which break down bone. Last year mantyh’s team found that when osteoclasts break down bone in mice, they cause the pain associated with bone cancer. "The most common symptom of bone cancer is pain," they wrote in their report. "This pain is dull and constant, increases with time and is exacerbated by use of the involved portions of the keleton." The researchers infected mice with bone cancer tumour cells and within five days they saw the bones start to break down. But when they gave opg to the mice, the destructive process stopped. There were also changes in the spinal cord in cells associated with transmitting pain, mantyh’s team reported. "Our study clearly demonstrates we’re making significant progress," Mantyh said. "When one relieves chronic pain you dramatically improve the quality of life. You truly return the life to the patient. That’s the ultimate goal of these studies." The researchers said it was not yet clear whether opg could help people. (REUTERS) |
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Aussies alarmed by growing teen drug use CANBERRA, May 3: Australia’s growing problem of teen drug use has been throw into stark relief by the death of a 14-year-old country girl from a heroin overdose. The death in February of Amber Stewart, the youngest Australian to fall victim to a heroin overdose, horrified Australian parents, who were stunned to learn that heroin had become readily available to 14-year-olds. "It is absolute terror for parents. To find out your child is on drugs is the worst thing in the world," Wendy Loxley, a researcher at the National Drug Research Institute told Reuters. Amber was from the sleepy rural town of armidale, in Northwestern new South Wales, and underwent a frightening transformation once she got involved with the drug. "She went from this clean, immaculate lovely girl to this unwashed, unkempt thing with these dreadful dreadlocks in her hair," said her mother, Gwen Stewart. While alcohol remains the most prolific killer of Australian teenagers through abuse and accidents, it is the increasing use of hard drugs by youngsters like amber that is causing mounting concern. Recent reports show the availability of illicit drugs in australia is still growing despite the Government’s a dollars 300 million (us dollars 177 million) national "tough on drugs" campaign and record seizures of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy. An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report showed illicit drug use among young Australians was rising, with more than a third of teenagers trying them in the past year. Marijuana was still the most popular, with more than half of Australia’s youth offered the drug in 1998, but it is the harder drugs which are in the spotlight. Heroin use by young men aged between 14 and 24 doubled between 1995 and 1998, and the report linked drugs to a quarter of all youth deaths. "In the past five years there has been a shift from teenagers using amphetamines to heroin which has become cheaper and more readily available," Loxley said. "Why? many reasons. Some out of boredom, others are unemployed, some want a high, others feel lousy about themselves. But generally those who develop a drug problem... Tend to be people who already have some problems in their lives." Amber’s friends said heroin could easily be "scored" in the shopping mall of armidale, a country town of 25,000 people located 525 km north of Sydney and known for its university and rich agriculture. "Amber was a user... But heroin was only the icing on the cake. You have to ask why a girl turns to heroin in the first place," friend Emily Stocker told reporters after Amber’s death. Sydney is the epicentre of Australia’s drug trade, with the highest level of trafficking and the cheapest heroin and cocaine. But drugs are a growing menace in country towns like armidale. Drug counsellors said armidale was being used as a drop-off and distribution point for drugs to outlying towns. The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre said one in five heroin deaths in the state of new South Wales occurred in a rural area where teenagers complain of boredom. Youth suicide rates remain alarmingly high in Australia, accounting for one in every four deaths of men aged between 15 and 24. The suicide rate in rural Australia was nearly 50 percent higher than in the cities in 1998. Prime Minister John Howard, who has three children aged between 20 and 26, said every parent was now worried about heroin and every Australian concerned that up to four in every five property crimes were committed by drug addicts. "The future of our children demands that we not lose the fight," said Mr Howard, describing drugs in Australia as a grave social problem. Some private schools have introduced random drug testing. Sydney’s St Andrew’s catholic school said the school planned random urine tests for students who had been caught with drugs and who sought a second chance after admitting to a problem. Although Government schools do not intend to follow suit, some students at a Government boarding school in Sydney, hurlstone agricultural high, recently underwent urine testing after a teacher suspected them of smoking dope on a school trip. Statistics show the purity of street drugs in Australia increased to 65 percent in the last financial year from 57 percent and illicit drugs were now cheaper than ever before. "Emerging data on drug trends indicates that illicit drug use in Australia is increasing, drugs are becoming cheaper and more readily available," said an Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence report, released last month. It also found the age of heroin users and dealers falling, with teenagers recruited to move drugs around the country. With teenage use of hard drugs increasing, so is the number of drug overdose deaths in the younger age groups. Figures show drug overdose deaths represented 0.1 percent of all deaths in the 15-44 year ago group in 1964 but 7.3 percent of such deaths by 1997. While the Government tries to tackle the drug problem, the families of young heroin victims are left with their own demons. Amber’s mother apologised for being a bad parent to her daughter in a letter on the teenager’s coffin. Her daughter, after falling in with a bad crowd, started taking heroin at the age of 13. She stole money from her mother, dropped out of school and then left home. Just two weeks before her death Amber had an abortion. Her mother blamed the father of the child, a 27-year-old local man, for luring Amber into heroin’s deadly grasp. "I told her I was sorry for being a bad parent, that they forget to give me the rule book about drugs... All I can do now is bury my beautiful girl with dignity and tell other people about her story," Gwen Stewart said. (REUTERS) |
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