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blast kills one as strike grips city KARACHI, Apr 18: A night of violence in the Pakistani city of Karachi was followed by a bomb blast today........more New Zealand scientists LONDON, Apr 18: A New Zealand scientist claimed today to have come up with the most likely cause of .......more US study finds drinking CHICAGO, Apr 18: Moderate drinking not only helps prevent a first heart attack but also appears to .....more Peru’s military chiefs LIMA (PERU), Apr 18: Peru’s interim President accepted the resignations of the country’s military chiefs ....more |
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China, US open negotiations over spy plane incident BEIJING, Apr 18: Senior US and Chinese negotiators today began crucial talks to defuse a major diplomatic standoff over the April one spy plane incident that threatens to mar bilateral relations.........more Theater festival helping BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA, Apr 18: An annual theatre festival in this north-eastern Sri Lankan city is helping bond local communities affected by the 18-year-old ethnic conflict in the Indian Ocean island nation.......more Sri Lankan Missions Abroad COLOMBO, Apr 18: Sri Lankan missions abroad have been advised to be ‘careful and prudent’ in issuing visas to foreign journalists following revelations that an American woman journalist had overstayed.....more |
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Karachi bomb blast kills one as strike grips city KARACHI, Apr 18: A night of violence in the Pakistani city of Karachi was followed by a bomb blast today that killed one person and wounded another, police and witnesses said. "We have confirmed reports there is a bomb blast in which a person died," a police official told Reuters. "We believe that the person who died was carrying the bomb." The condition of the injured person was not immediately known. The blast, near a popular shopping centre, came amid tight security as a one-day strike gripped the city after a night of violence saw 238 people arrested, dozens of vehicles torched and sporadic outbreaks of shooting, police said. Opposition political parties in Karachi and the province of Sindh have called today’s strike in protest against Government clampdowns on political activities and a failure to solve a chronic water shortage. Witnesses said the overnight violence was part of scare tactics used by supporters of the strike organisers — the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the biggest political party in Karachi, and the Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) — to force people to honour the shutdown. "We have arrested 238 people in different parts of the city on public order offences," said a senior police official, adding seven had been caught trying to burn public vehicles. He said security forces had raided houses belonging to known MQM and JSQM activists, and that there had been shooting into the air designed to scare people. Other witnesses said there had been exchanges of fire in different parts of the city between paramilitary forces and militants. This morning, groups of armed paramilitary personnel patrolled the streets, many shops, schools and businesses remained shuttered and few buses were running. Traders on the Karachi stock exchange, the country’s main bourse, said the strike may end business at lunch. The strike call came after police used tear gas and batons to crush a series of protests against the water crisis, the latest being in Karachi on Monday. Nasreen Jalil, a senior MQM leader told Reuters yesterday she hoped the strike would be peaceful and widely observed throughout southern Sindh province. "This is a protest against state excesses against peaceful demonstrations," she said. The military Government has banned all public rallies and demonstrations and security forces have arrested thousands of political workers over the past month. Local political and religious parties in Sindh have staged a series of demonstrations against the water crisis, accusing the military Government of withholding irrigation supplies in some areas of the province in favour of the populous central province of Punjab. The Government denies the charge, saying it is doing everything it can to solve the problem which has badly hit crops and livelihoods. Pakistan has suffered acute rain shortages — especially in the key agricultural province of Sindh — for the last four years. (REUTERS) |
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New Zealand
scientists attribute British BSE LONDON, Apr 18: A New Zealand scientist claimed today to have come up with the most likely cause of BSE, or mad cow disease, in Britain. Roger Morris, the head of a research team at Massey University in Palmerston North, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that meat from African antelope infected by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) had probably ended up in meal fed to British cattle. The team’s research showed that BSE had not come from scrapie-infected sheep or genetic mutation as has been thought, rather that the most likely source had been antelope imported into South-West England in the 1970s. These animals, which went to Safari parks, suffered from a similar degenerative disease. "I have some other hypotheses which are all wildlife origin theories and I have all of the steps in the infection process ... And I know that for African antelope every step in the sequence could have occurred," Morris said. "The wildlife hypothesis best fits the data," he said, adding that further checks were necessary. "The problem is that antelopes that suffer from this disease will rapidly get eaten by lions and hyenas, so finding an antelope in the wild that has the disease would be a major challenge, a needle in the haystack kind of thing," Morris told the BBC. More than 170,000 British cattle have been diagnosed with BSE, which is strongly believed to cause the deadly human disease, new Variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (VCJD). According to latest figures, 90 people have died in Britain from definite or probable VCJD, and a further seven people are believed to be living with the disease, which cannot be finally diagnosed until after death. (DPA) |
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US study finds drinking is heart-healthy CHICAGO, Apr 18: Moderate drinking not only helps prevent a first heart attack but also appears to improve later survival among those who do suffer one, according to a study published. "Our study does not answer the question whether alcohol is good for you," said Kenneth Mukamal yesterday, an associate physician at Boston’s beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and lead author of the study. "For moderate drinkers these findings are consistent with a lower risk of death from drinking a limited amount of alcohol. But we don’t know if people who are nondrinkers would also have a lower risk of death if they start drinking alcohol." The study, published in this week’s journal of the American Medical Association, said previous research has found that people who consume one alcoholic drink every day or two have a lower risk of suffering a first heart attack than do abstainers or heavy drinkers. But the effect of prior drinking on survival in the months after a heart attack has not been determined. Mukamal’s study conducted at 45 US hospitals between 1989 and 1994 involved 1,913 people who were being treated after suffering a heart attack. Nearly half of the patients did not drink alcohol, 36 percent were light drinkers and 17 percent were moderate drinkers. They were followed for four years. The study found that moderate drinkers had a 32 per cent lower risk of dying from a heart attack than those who did not drink at all. Moderate drinkers were defined as people who drank at least seven beers, glasses of wine or cocktails a week and who averaged 14 such drinks a week. Light drinkers — those who had fewer than seven drinks a week — had a 21 per cent lower risk. The findings were similar for both men and women, the study said. Since alcohol content varies by drink, with less in beer than in wine or spirits, the study measured how many grams of alcohol a person consumed in an average week to make the comparisons. No substantial difference was detected in the survival rate among moderate drinkers who reported predominant consumption of beer, wine or liquor, Mukamal said. "While the findings from this and other studies suggest that moderate alcohol drinkers have a lower risk of suffering a heart attack and of dying after a heart attack, people who have heart disease or a family history of the disease should consult their physicians about ways to reduce their risk of dying from a heart attack," said Mukamal. In a related study published in the same issue, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said they had determined that moderate alcohol consumption was significantly associated with a lower risk of fatal and nonfatal heart failure among the elderly. "Our study also showed that different types of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, liquor) were associated with similar reductions in heart failure risk, suggesting that it is pure alcohol, and not the type of beverage, that is associated with lower heart failure risk," the study said. "Heavy consumption of alcohol can lead to negative cardiovascular outcomes such as higher blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and sudden cardiac death," the report added. "Nevertheless, this study adds to the growing evidence that moderate consumption of alcohol may be beneficial to the cardiovascular system," it concluded. (REUTERS) |
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Peru’s military chiefs exit amid scandal LIMA (PERU), Apr 18: Peru’s interim President accepted the resignations of the country’s military chiefs after they were exposed secretly backing disgraced ex-President Alberto Fujimori. The Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs — Carlos Tafur, Victor Ramos and Pablo Carbone — offered to resign on Monday, saying they were intimidated in 1999 into endorsing Fujimori’s 1992 dissolution of Congress so that he could rule by decree, called here a "self coup". Interim President Valentin Paniagua, appointed after Fujimori’s fall to guide Peru through Presidential elections, said yesterday the trio would be replaced by officers who were not involved in the scandal — but gave no names. He did not mention police chief Armando Santisteban, who also tendered his resignation on Monday. "Wanting to avoid adding a new unsettling factor into the electoral process, we have decided to accept their resignations," Paniagua said in a televised address to the nation. "There must be significant change... (to the forces) to change their mentality ... And ethics," he added, saying both the armed forces and the police needed to be "modernized" and "rebuilt". The document the top brass signed effectively gave Fujimori and their military superiors at the time immunity for the self coup —which experts say was unconstitutional. Paniagua appointed Tafur, Ramos and Carbone last year after he purged the military of Fujimori and Montesinos Cronies — and his interim Government was initially quick to defend them, saying they were blackmailed. However while Fujimori’s disgrace initially prompted fears of a military coup last year, experts say there is no danger of a military backlash in the wake of yesterday’s exit. The scandal broke two weeks ago when a video of the four signing their support, filmed by fugitive spy master Vladimiro Montesinos, was shown in Congress — drawing widespread calls from politicians for them to be removed from their posts. It was the latest in a series of scandals triggered by a slew of other montesinos videos implicating senior establishment figures in widespread graft. Dozens of Montesinos’ secretly recorded "Vladivideos" — some showing seedy cash-for-favors deals — have now been played in Congress, revealing how montesinos called the shots in Peru’s military, courts, media and Congress. Fujimori has taken refuge in Japan, where his parents emigrated from, after being fired in absentia as "morally unfit" to rule. Montesinos was still at large after fleeing the country. He was last heard of having plastic surgery on his face in Venezuela. Leftist former President Alan Garcia, meanwhile, is due to face off against centrist front-runner Alejandro Toledo in a second round election showdown penciled in for late May or early June, after the first round produced no clear winner. The winner will take over the reins from Paniagua on July 28. (REUTERS) |
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China, US open negotiations over spy plane incident BEIJING, Apr 18: Senior US and Chinese negotiators today began crucial talks to defuse a major diplomatic standoff over the April one spy plane incident that threatens to mar bilateral relations. The eight-member US delegation led by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for policy support, Peter F Verga drove into the Chinese Foreign Ministry compound in a convoy. Earlier, the official Xinhua news agency reported that both sides will start negotiations at 1500 Beijing time (1430 hrs Ist) on the incident of a Chinese military plane rammed by a US military surveillance plane and other related issues. "The topics of the negotiations include the cause of the collision, a stop to US reconnaissance activities near the Chinese coastal areas, and the prevention of recurrence of such incidents, and other related issues," Xinhua said, quoting Chinese Foreign Ministry sources. The report did not mention the main US demand pertaining to the release of the crippled american spy plane that is stranded at the Linghshui Military Air Base in South China’s Hainan province since April one. "The agenda for the meeting will include discussion of the cause of the incident, possible recommendations whereby such collisions could be avoided in the future, and development of a plan for prompt return of the EP-3 aircraft," the US Embassy said here in a release. Both sides have adopted a tough public posture ahead of today’s talks. Beijing insists the US Navy EP-3 surveillance plane caused the april one collision, and that Washington must take full responsibility. The US officials say the Chinese F-8 fighter plane adopted aggressive manoeuvres and was probably at fault. The Chinese side to the negotiations is lead by the Director-General of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of North American and Oceanic Affairs, Lu Shumin. Beijing has demanded an end to US surveillance flights near its territory and says it wants to discuss how to avoid such incidents in future. The US, however has rejected the Chinese demand, saying it has the right to fly in international air space. China released the 24-member crew of the US spy plane on April 11 on "humanitarian considerations" after detaining them for 11 days. (PTI) |
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Theater festival helping bond local communities BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA, Apr 18: An annual theatre festival in this north-eastern Sri Lankan city is helping bond local communities affected by the 18-year-old ethnic conflict in the Indian Ocean island nation. The plays are staged by the Eastern University of Batticaloa, located in the city of that name, some 303 km north-east of the capital city Colombo. A five-day theatre festival organised by the University late March, brought together academics and villagers — a process that is also helping break down social barriers. Once an exclusive university production, the festival now involves local communities. "The need to involve the community in the festival has arisen because of the war. The villages have no space for such performances now," says S Jeyashankar, who teaches in the University’s Department of Fine Arts. Batticaloa is close to the war zone in Sri Lanka’s north and east, where Tamil tiger rebels are demanding a separate home for the nation’s minority Tamil people. Their violent campaign has claimed tens of thousands of lives. The highlight of the festival this year was the staging of ‘Ravaneswaran’, based on the great Indian Epic Ramayana. However, unlike the original Epic, which has its cultural roots in North India, Ravaneswaran portrays the demon king Ravana who ruled Lanka — present day Sri Lanka — in a sympathetic light. The festival opened with a village theatre group staging the ‘Parai Mela Koothu’ — the Koothu dance traditionally performed by the Pariyar community. Sri Lanka’s plantation workers, who were brought here from southern india more than a century ago by then British rulers of the subcontinent, staged the ‘Kaaman Koothu’ — a traditional play and ritual among the plantation community. The play shows the Hindu god, Lord Shiva going into a long period of meditation, during which there is’ no human reproduction 9, earth. Worried by this, the god and goodess of love Manmathan and Raththi, try to distract shiva by shooting flowers at him. An angry Shiva kills Manmathan. But later, he yields to Raththi’s pleas and revives her companion. A more contemporary play — ‘Inraya Nilal’ — addresses the plight of the plantation community in Sri Lanka. It tells how the Indian workers were duped by the British with promises of a bright future in Sri Lanka and the hardships they found here. "This is the fist time in our history that a university has involved us in any activity," says Plantation Worker S Prabakiran from Bogalanthalawa. Four years ago, the plantation workers formed a cultural performance group, which brings together dramatists from the entire plantation. The festival was first staged six years ago. The event is becoming increasingly popular among the lonal community. "Universities are considered spaces for scholars -, elite and are often isolated from the community. The cuttural festival has helped break down these barriers," says Batticaloa University’s Jeyashankar. "It is now not only a space for lecturers and students but also for the community," he adds. (IPS) |
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Sri Lankan
Missions Abroad advised to be careful in COLOMBO, Apr 18: Sri Lankan missions abroad have been advised to be ‘careful and prudent’ in issuing visas to foreign journalists following revelations that an American woman journalist had overstayed her visa and travelled to ltte-held areas without Defence Ministry approval. Ms Marie Catherine Colvin (44) of London’s Sunday Times, was injured on Monday night in a shoot out between troops and the tigers who were accompanying her back to Vavuniya after her two week stay with the rebels. The LTTE cadres had abandoned the injured journalist and run away from the spot. She was rescued by the army and flown to Colombo for emergency medical treatment. Diplomatic sources who visited her at the hospital said her condition was out of danger. In view of the seriousness of this event, the Foreign Ministry has asked its missions abroad to exercise caution in making recommendations for the issue of visas to journalists. Ms Colvin arrived in Colombo on March 27 on a two-week visa permit. At the time of the incident on Monday her visa was not valid, a senior Government official said. Local and foreign jouranlists are not allowed to travel to the rebel-held areas. The award winning journalist Ms Colvin, entered the LTTE controlled territory clandestinely. In a report in The Sunday Times of London, dated April 17, she described the journey as an ‘education in the LTTE networks’. She said she had travalled upto Vavuniya in the car of an LTTE sympathiser and was not questioned at any checkpoints. After entering into the tiger held areas, ten tiger fighters armed with automatic weapons and grenades escorted her through open fields, shrub jungles, a cashew plantation and under a thick green canopy of foliage. "Scouts ranged ahead across open fields, checked for Sri Lankan Army soldiers, then motioned us in a single file across at 10-yard intervals-if one of us were unfortunate enough to step on a mine, at least nobody else would be hurt by the blast", she wrote about her journey to the tiger heartland. She had mentioned in her report that she was returning to the Government-controlled area after spending nearly two weeks with the rebels. "The tigers have assured me full protection and I am only 24-hour walk away from the cross over point". But she was not fortunate on her return journey. (UNI) |
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