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India,
Myanmar jointly YANGON, Feb 15: India and Mynamar today jointly set up a remote sensing and data processing centre to help Yangon carry out resource surveys for national infrastructural development......more Crime
a major threat to WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Asia has become a focal point for narcotics and arms smuggling and brokering a wide range of illicit deals including transfer of controlled technologies between Europe and the region with well-organised criminal gangs operating from India, Pakistan and some other countries, says a US Government report.....more AIDS
treatment may lead SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 15: People with AIDS who are taking powerful new anti-viral drugs are four times more likely to contract other sexually........more |
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JEM
warns of a NEW DELHI, Feb 15: Pakistan-based militant organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad’s chief Maulana Masud Azhar has warned of ....more Hopes
wane as Salvador SAN SALVADOR (EL SALVADOR), Feb 15: Hopes of finding survivors amid the rubble of El Salvador’s quake-ravaged rural towns dwindled today, as the . ....more Jim’s
abandoned WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Congressional Caucus Co Chairman Jim McDermott has said that his now-cancelled visit to trouble-torn Kashmir ....more Inside
track-a woman’s LONDON, Feb 15: The city of London, a pin-striped bastion of overachieving males, may be benefiting....more |
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India, Myanmar jointly set up remote sensing centre YANGON, Feb 15: India and Mynamar today jointly set up a remote sensing and data processing centre to help Yangon carry out resource surveys for national infrastructural development. Inaugurating the Mynamar-India friendship centre for remote sensing and data processing, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said "the centre will continue to be an enduring symbol of our partnership as we move ahead into subsequent phases of upgradation". The centre has been set up by R P Dubey of India’s Space Application Centre with the assistance of Myanmarese scientists and technicians. Singh thanked Dubey and his team for tirelessly working during the past week to make the centre fully operational. Singh said "the establishment of the center is not only a symbol of cooperation that has grown between India and Myanmar, it is also a manifestation of the warm and friendly ties that have traditionally existed between our two countries since historical times". In developing countries like India and Myanmar, Singh said that applications of remote sensing could cover weather forecasting, provide disaster management capabilities, determine forest cover and other land use delineations and allow cropping surveys, environmental monitoring and ground water survey besides urban planning. Lauding the contribution of top scientists like Vikram Sarabhai and APJ Abdul Kalam to India’s Space Technology Development, the minister said achieving results was neither easy nor quick and in science one had to learn from failures as well as from successes. Mynamar Minister for Science and Technology U Thang expressed his country’s gratitude to India for setting up the centre. (PTI) |
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Crime a major threat to global security, economy WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Asia has become a focal point for narcotics and arms smuggling and brokering a wide range of illicit deals including transfer of controlled technologies between Europe and the region with well-organised criminal gangs operating from India, Pakistan and some other countries, says a US Government report. "Criminal organisations with international networks centred in India, Pakistan, Turkey, the UAE and Cyprus operate within a commercial tradition of moving contraband goods," the report `International Crime Threat Assessment’ prepared in December 2000 and released to the press here yesterday said. "The region is a focal point for narcotics and arms smuggling between Europe and Asia and for brokering a wide range of illicit deals, including evasion of us or other sanctions and transfer of technologies and materials associated with weapons of mass destruction," it said. Major ports and commercial cities in the region, particularly Mumbai, Karachi, Dubai, Istanbul and Cyprus "are key centres of criminal activity," the report, jointly prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotic and Law Enforcement Matters Rand Beers, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Crime Division Bruce Schwartz and National Security Council Director for International Crime, said. Criminal groups based in these countries were involved in underground dealings including money-laundering, arms and narco-trafficking and intellectual property piracy, it said. Although major commercial centres in these countries have modern financial services, these gangs hide funds and arrange illicit financing through complex, virtually impenetrable underground banking systems, it said. Perhaps Indian criminal syndicates, particularly Mumbai-based crime groups, became involved in international drug trafficking in the mid-to-late 1980s when the Iran-Iraq war disrupted traditional southeast Asian heroin trafficking routes from Pakistan through Iran, to Turkey, the report said. Indian criminal syndicates also may be involved in arms trafficking, alien smuggling and trafficking in women. Some smuggling groups in central America specialise in moving US-bound illegal immigrants from Asia, especially china and India, it added. The report said that the world in 2010 may see the emergence of "criminal states" that are not merely safe havens for international criminal activities but support them as a matter of course. The involvement of "criminal states" in the community of nations could undermine international finance and commerce." "Criminal states may also adopt the political agendas of states of concern and terrorist groups," it said. (PTI) |
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AIDS treatment may lead to unsafe sex: US study SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 15: People with AIDS who are taking powerful new anti-viral drugs are four times more likely to contract other sexually transmitted diseases than those not on the drugs, a sign the new treatments may be encouraging unsafe sex, a municipal study has found. The study — carried out by the San Francisco Department of Public Health and published in this week’s issue of the medical journal the lancet — provides the first objective data showing that advances in AIDS treatment could be undermining efforts at AIDS prevention, its author, Dr Susan Scheer, said yesterday. "These are clearly people who are aware of their (AIDS) status because they are in treatment, and they should be getting counselling," Scheer said. The San Francisco study tracked AIDS patients who were receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy, commonly referred to as "AIDS cocktails," and their incidence of sexually transmitted disease. It found that both the number and percentage of people with AIDS who contracted other STDs increased, rising to 1.32 percent in 1998 from 0.66 per cent in 1995. "We found that those patients on haart had four times the risk factor for STDs than those who were not," Scheer said. "Haart appears to be the major factor." Gonorrhea most common disease Most of the newly diagnosed STD cases were gonorrhea, and 91 percent occurred in gay or bisexual men, a group that has already seen a rebound in new AIDS infections after years of relative stability. Scheer said the rising number of new STD cases among AIDS patients was a new sign that unsafe sexual practices were on the upswing and that haart therapies themselves were probably partly to blame. The cocktail therapies are credited with greatly improving both the length and quality of life for people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But in the process, they also appear to be responsible for a number of new factors leading to risky behavior, Scheer’s study said. "Persons taking haart are more likely to feel better and have an increased interest in sex," the study concluded, adding that haart also made people appear healthier, which could lead their sexual partners to assume they were HIV-negative. Scheer said the study results in San Francisco, which has long served as a leading indicator of the next phase of the US AIDS epidemic, should prompt health care workers around the country to bolster the AIDS prevention message. "This would be a good opportunity to remind health care providers to counsel patients on haart about the continued possibility that they could transmit the virus ... And also to communicate to HIV-negative people that just because their partners are on haart does not mean they won’t contract the virus," Scheer said. (REUTERS) |
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JEM warns of a confrontation with Pak Govt NEW DELHI, Feb 15: Pakistan-based militant organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad’s chief Maulana Masud Azhar has warned of a confrontation between the military Government and Jehadi groups if the latest order against the public collection of funds for Jehad (holy war) is implemented. "There was civil war in Algeria and Egypt when their Governments tried to put restrictions on Jehad. In Pakistan too, some foreign powers want a confrontation between the military Government and Jehadi groups," he said in an interview with Urdu BBC last night. Maulana Azhar described Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider’s order against the public collection of funds for Jehad as "unislamic" and said the holy Quran has mentioned Jehad a number of times. He made it clear that the Government’s ban on the collection of funds for Jehad would not be obeyed. He said Mr Haider’s threat that those who display arms in public would be shot dead was sheer terrorism. He, however, had no objection to the restriction on public display of arms. Lt Gen Haider had told newsmen in Karachi on Monday that collection of money for Jehad would not be allowed in Pakistan. He said there was pressure on Pakistan from foreign countries to rein in the Jehadi groups. Even after his statement drew a hostile reaction from militant groups, operating from Pakistan, he reiterated his determination to implement the order the next day in Islamabad. Lt. Gen. Haider had announced these restrictions soon after his return from Kabul where he reportedly discussed with the Taliban administration the nagging problem of rabid sectarian elements taking shelter in Afghanistan after acts of terrorism in his country. But so far, Lt. Gen haider has not been able to implement any of his orders affecting Jehadi groups. (UNI) |
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Hopes wane as Salvador quake toll reaches 274 SAN SALVADOR (EL SALVADOR), Feb 15: Hopes of finding survivors amid the rubble of El Salvador’s quake-ravaged rural towns dwindled today, as the official death toll from the tiny nation’s second earthquake in a month climbed to 274. Guatemalan firemen and honduran rescue workers hooked up with Salvadoran Army units as the search for survivors shifted to isolated rural areas close to the epicenter of Tuesday’s 6.6-magnitude quake, But as night fell, rescue teams turned up nothing among the collapsed walls, fallen rafters and shattered roofing tiles of the more than 15,000 destroyed or damaged homes, as local hospitals called for fresh supplies of blood for many of the 2,432 injured. "We hope we may still find survivors," said Salvadoran rescue command spokesman Eduardo Rivera. "But it would be a miracle." A group of 80 rescue workers, including troops and volunteers, pulled 18 bodies from collapsed homes on the slopes of chichontepec volcano in quake ravaged San Vicente Department, around 50 kms east of the capital yesterday. Up to half the houses in San Vicente town were flattened, killing 66 people and injuring more than 200, and in the nearby towns of Analquito, San Emigdio, Guadalupe and Verapaz some 80 per cent of homes were destroyed. Salvador’s national emergency committee pegged the number of homeless nationwide at 122,800 late last night, adding that the quake had triggered 25 landslides and destroyed six churches. Seventy-six people were still listed as missing. The devastating quake rattled through eastern El Salvador one month to the day after one of 7.6 magnitude killed more than 800 people and left thousands homeless in the impoverished, coffee-exporting nation of 6.2 million. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for from the January earthquake, which triggered a landslide burying whole blocks of the capital city’s Santa Tecla suburb under mud and made thousands homeless. (REUTERS) |
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Jim’s abandoned Kashmir visit was ‘fact finding mission’ WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Congressional Caucus Co Chairman Jim McDermott has said that his now-cancelled visit to trouble-torn Kashmir Valley was meant to be a fact-finding mission and not in any way connected to fulfilling the Pakistani demand that Americans should mediate in the Kashmir problem. Mr McDermott is part of the four-member US Congressional delegation which is embarking on a visit to the Indian subcontinent. At the last minute, the delegation decided to drop from its itinerary the Kashmir leg of the tour. However, barring the leader of the delegation Edward Royce, others are visiting Pakistan and Pakistan controlled Kashmir. In a news conference addressed here before their departure to the subcontinent, Mr Royce and Mr McDermott, members of the delegation who mooted the proposal to visit Kashmir, said that their move should not be misconstrued as one seeking third party intervention in the Kashmir problem. Nor did they have any intention to legistimise the military rule in Islamabad, they said Mr McDermott recalled that the India caucus itself was formed in the 80s when some misinformed Congressmen introduced amendments against India for what was going on in Punjab. "Unless someone knows what was going on in Punjab you cannot fight the people making irrational and untrue statements about a given situation," he said "We are perceived as some white knights coming on horses to fix things in Kashmir. We are not saying we are the answers to the problem. In some ways it is like educating ourselves on the problem," he said. On cross border terrorism, Mr David Bonior said he had already taken up the issue with the Pakistan’s Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf about the need to end the trend. "There is need for confidence building measures," he said. There are conflicting versions as to why the delegation abandoned the Kashmir trip at the last minute. Some of the delegation members came under pressure from Indian Americans in their constituencies not to visit Kashmir or Pakistan. Indian Government also sent signals that this was not the appropriate time for a Congressional delegation to visit the area when militants were vitiating the atmosphere and sabotaging the peace process. Addressing the conference, Mr Royce said he had his own schedule and had no plans to visit Pakistan but denied reports that he came under pressure from the Indian Americans to call off the trip to Islamabad. The focus of the visit would be to see the relief operations for earthquake victims of Gujarat and hold strategic dialogue with Indian Government representatives, he said. During their two day-stay in Delhi, the delegation is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh. Besides Delhi, the delegation will be visiting Mumbai and Ahmedabad before proceeding to Islamabad. (UNI) |
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Inside track-a woman’s place is in the city LONDON, Feb 15: The city of London, a pin-striped bastion of overachieving males, may be benefiting at last from a woman’s touch. Last month the London Stock Exchange, the city’s most exclusive Gentlemens’ Club, appointed a woman boss. The arrival of Clara Furse as the exchange’s Chief Executive was a wrench from tradition and potentially another step forward for women in the city, home to one of the world’s biggest financial markets. Women have gradually been making inroads in London’s financial hub, where once they figured only as lowly secretaries or clerks in banks and stockbroking firms. Now many are highly paid research analysts, investment managers, stockbrokers and corporate financiers. British daily newspaper The Daily Telegraph runs a column featuring trixie trader, a female investment banker with a fast-lane lifestyle, who fantasises about spending her million pound annual bonus on facials, armani suits and jimmy choo shoes at 350 pounds (500 dollar) a pair. But city women are still in the minority. A handful of high fliers are routinely paraded as examples of womens’ success in the world of high finance. The most famous are "supermum" Nicola Horlick, Joint Managing Director of SG Asset Management, who combines her top flight job with motherhood, Carol Galley at Merrill Lynch and more recently Katherine Garrett-Cox - known as Katherine the great - recently appointed Chief Investment Officer at Aberdeen asset management. Still outnumbered More women are being recruited as graduates, but they have yet to feed through into top jobs in greater numbers. "Men still outnumber women by about 10 to 1 at company results’ meetings," said one woman who works as an analyst at a stockbroking firm. The arrival of US investment banks in london such as goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch may have helped break down the city’s "old boy network", where connections made at top private schools such as Eton and Winchester smoothed the way to careers in banking and finance. But most bosses are still men. "In general there are more male managing directors at investment banks," said another woman who works in corporate finance. "And all their secretaries are women." Women also feel left out when it comes to entertaining clients, which often involves golf or rugby or even go-karting. "Automatically you won’t be asked," said another woman analyst at a major investment bank. Attitude problem Attitudes seem to be changing more slowly than the personnel. A survey conducted by Reuters of women working in the city two years ago found that 80 percent felt that sexual discrimination persisted. Last year, in a spate of high profile cases, women took legal action against their investment bank emmployers for sex discrimination. Some jobs are still almost exclusively a male preserve. But some are into fast cars. "I know several women who’ve got porsches," said one male stockbroker. (REUTERS) |
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