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World Governments LONDON, Mar 16: World Governments scrambled to build defenses against foot-and-mouth on Thursday as Britain declared all-out war on the....more Breast
is best but LONDON, Mar 16: Breast is still best for young babies but scientists are now questioning for how long.....more
Gen
Musharraf rules out KARACHI, Mar 16: Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf has ruled out a swift end to military rule but pledged to stick to a Supreme Court demand....more TAIPEI, Mar 16: A Taiwanese woman diagnosed with two uteruses and pregnant in both will have to decide which of the two..more |
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NEW DELHI, Mar 16: The administration in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was plunged into a crisis yesterday when five of the....more American
Red Cross to WASHINGTON, Mar 16: The American Red Cross is creating a network of mental health workers in India to help Gujarat......more Call
for strike in NEW DELHI, Mar 16: Political leaders in Sindh have given a call for a province-wide strike.......more
Africans
kick off UNITED NATIONS, Mar 16: African envoys, representing some 53 nations, announced a campaign to re-elect Kofi Annan.........more |
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World Governments scramble to halt foot-and-mouth LONDON, Mar 16: World Governments scrambled to build defenses against foot-and-mouth on Thursday as Britain declared all-out war on the disease and commodity markets were buffeted by worries about its spread. Britain, the epicenter of the latest outbreak of the highly contagious disease, stepped up its cull to "slaughter on suspicion," and planned to destroy even healthy animals that have loose connections to affected areas. Pork prices at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rose sharply yesterday, as traders expected bans on meat imports from Europe to increase demand for U.S. meat. But at the Chicago board of trade, prices of feed ingredients such as corn and soybean meal tumbled because of fears that widespread slaughter of livestock herds will leave fewer animals to feed. Chicago wheat prices fell sharply after it appeared less likely some importing countries would shun European wheat in their efforts to avoid foot-and-mouth. Morocco and Tunisia said they had not banned such imports, contrary to some earlier reports. The head of a World Animal Health Organization said no official scientific basis exists to ban imports of grain from a country that has had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth. "The risk linked to grain is close to zero," Bernard Vallat, director-general of the office international Des Epizooties (World Organization for Animal Health), told Reuters. The United States will review its foot-and-mouth ban on imports of live animals and raw meat products from the European Union in about two weeks, a U.S. restaurant industry official told Reuters yesterday. Steven Grover, vice president for health and safety for the National Restaurant Association, said top U.S. agriculture department officials said they would review its actions on a country-by-country basis. The U.S. imposed the ban on Tuesday. In Germany, which has not had a case of foot-and-mouth since 1988, but where a French case found on Tuesday has put health authorities on high alert, a regional environment minister said it was only a matter of time until the disease spread to Germany. "I expect that the disease will hit germany too," Baerbel Hoehn, environment minister in the big Western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told the Rheinische post newspaper. "The chances are much higher now because it’s clear the disease has arrived on mainland Europe." Officials in the Central German region of Thuringia were relieved when diseased animals found earlier at a 6,000-pig farm were cleared of having foot-and-mouth disease. Portugal said it would vaccinate livestock if the disease were to spread from france to Spain. The European Union does not currently allow vaccination, which is expensive and not wholly effective. The Netherlands plans to seek a lifting of the ban on preventive vaccination at a meeting of European agricultural ministers next Monday in Brussels. The United States, which banned imports of raw meat from the European Union earlier this week, on Thursday issued a similar ban on meat from Argentina, where an outbreak was confirmed on Tuesday. The ban was expected to have little impact since Argentina, the world’s no. 5 beef exporter, had already suspended its meat exports. Has U.S. Gone too far? A European Union official complained on Thursday that the United States had gone too far in banning shipments of live animals and raw meat from the entire 15-member EU, since only Britain and France have confirmed outbreaks of the disease. "An all-out ban in our view is disproportionate and it’s the simple option," Gerry Kiely, agriculture counselor for the european Commission’s delegation in Washington, told Reuters. "On issues like this, where the U.S. leads, there is always the risk of others following and its effect on other markets." As the rest of the world went on red alert after Gulf Arab States began to erect barriers against imported cattle, Britain said it would bring in the army for logistical support. "We are intensifying the slaughter of animals at risk in the areas of the country, thankfully still limited, where the disease has spread," British Agriculture Minister Nick Brown told Parliament. Foot-and-mouth can affect cattle, sheep, pigs and goat but rarely affects humans. It can spread like wildfire on clothes, vehicle tires and even the wind, causing fever and blisters mainly on the mouth and feet of cloven-hoofed animals. In the United Arab Emirates, Ali Arab, head of the Livestock Department at the Agriculture Ministry, told Reuters in Dubai that eight infected cattle had been killed and a quarantine imposed on farms where the cases had been found. That outbreak and a report from Saudi Arabia that two calves had been found with the disease were the first in Gulf states. "The UAE is now free of foot-and-mouth disease," he said, denying media reports of further cases. Even as Morocco and Tunisia, important export markets for the region’s wheat, said they would not ban EU grains, new meat bans came thick and fast, some including Argentina after it reported a case of the disease. Bulgaria was the latest country to ban imports from Argentina, following the United States and the EU. Romania, meanwhile, banned imports of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats from all European Union countries. Austria pinpointed france, slapping a ban on its imports of cloven-hoofed animals and related meat products, while Turkey said it was due to ban imports of all milk products except those made of pasteurized milk, as well as animal skins and wool from countries with disease outbreaks. The fresh bans will spur meat markets in the United States, and traders in Japan were saying importers were scrabbling for pork from the United States and Canada. (REUTERS) |
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Breast is best but for how long? LONDON, Mar 16: Breast is still best for young babies but scientists are now questioning for how long. Mother’s milk is full of special nutrients, hormones and antibodies that are passed on to infants to help them to resist infections, respiratory illness and diarrhoea. But new research reported on Friday by doctors at the institute of child health has raised questions about the optimal duration for breast feeding. Professor Alan Lucas and his team have found that young adults who had been breastfed for more than four months have stiffer arteries, an early marker of heart disease, than people who had been bottle fed or breast fed for a shorter time. "The longer the duration of breastfeeding the stiffer we found arteries to be in 20-28 year-old men and women," Lucas told Reuters. But the flexibility of arteries was the same in people who had never been breast fed and those who were nursed for less than four months. Women should still breast feed. The doctors stressed that their findings, reported in the British medical journal, are purely observational and they have not established a causal link. They recommended that women continue to breast feed their babies because of the advantages it has for both the child and mother. "There are many pluses for breast feeding," said Lucas. "We need to do more work on the optimal duration of breast feeding for people in the west, and we need to do more work on whether there are other things we can do, like changing diet in adulthood, that could remove this risk altogether." All of the 331 people who took part in the study were young so the results are less likely to be related to other risk factors for heart disease such as smoking, social class and size. "We took a range of factors that we measured during this study and found that none of those things explained the relationship between breast feeding duration and later artery stiffness," Lucas added. Although the researchers have not established the mechanism by which breast milk could lead to arterial stiffness, one theory they have put forward is that breast milk was not meant to get babies started in life and then take up a high-fat Western diet. Lucas said that results of animal studies support the theory. Ian Booth, of the University of Birmingham in England, said the study should not alter the current recommendations for breast feeding which suggest that women nurse their babies for the first four to six months of life. (REUTERS) |
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Gen Musharraf rules out interim democracy deal KARACHI, Mar 16: Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf has ruled out a swift end to military rule but pledged to stick to a Supreme Court demand for a return to democracy by October 2002, media reports said today. Gen Musharraf, speaking to a group of intellectuals and senior officials in the southern city of Karachi late on Thursday, ruled out any interim setup for governing the country and said such rumours should be stopped, major Pakistani newspapers reported. "I keep reading about (an interim setup) but there is nothing of the sort," Gen Musharraf was quoted as saying. "We are not going to do anything in between and the Supreme Court decision will be adhered to." The meeting was closed to foreign media. Gen Musharraf ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless Army coup on October 12, 1999. Mr Sharif was subsequently jailed on hijacking and terrorism charges but was later pardoned in return for accepting exile to Saudi Arabia. The Supreme Court last may gave Gen Musharraf three years from the date of the coup to complete his promised political, economic and administrative reforms and hand over to an elected civilian Government. Gen Musharraf’s comments came almost a week after a visit to Pakistan by UN chief Kofi Annan, who was in South Asia to promote democracy, nuclear disarmament and peace. Pakistan’s two main political parties, arch rivals the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), have for the first time joined together to help form the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), a grouping of 18 parties aiming to restore civilian rule. But Gen Musharraf has faced little resistance as the alliance has been in disarray since Mr Sharif’s party split after their leader was sent into exile. Gen Musharraf said the eventual transfer of power would be led by the national interest. "We will initiate steps for continuity, balance of power, ensuring national interests supreme," he was quoted as saying. "We are further analysing and maturing the ideas. We will bring in checks and balances which will ensure economic activity in Pakistan," he said, adding it would be sometime before a clear plan was announced. Gen Musharraf slammed previous Governments, saying politicians had tilted towards self interest instead of working to cure the country’s indebted and moribund economy. He said the constitution may be amended so that any system put in place by his military regime could not be changed by subsequent Governments. "We have to ensure constitutional ways to solve the problems," he said, adding that by devolving power to the regions Pakistan could change its political culture to offer people a greater say in their affairs. In December, Gen Musharraf began phased elections for local councils from the village to district level in what he calls his "devolution of power" plan. These elections are due to conclude by mid-2001 but political parties are not allowed to take part in the votes. (REUTERS) |
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TAIPEI, Mar 16: A Taiwanese woman diagnosed with two uteruses and pregnant in both will have to decide which of the two babies to keep, local media reported. The pregnant 30 year-old woman was informed at a hospital in Taipei that she was in the rare situation of both having two wombs and carrying a baby in each, according to cable tv network. A pregnancy with the rare condition of having two wombs, which has affected less than ten women in Taiwan, is considered high risk as the child has less room to grow and chances of complications are higher than normal. For practical and health reasons, the woman will now have to chose which of her two healthy fetuses to keep, the report said. (DPA) |
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NEW DELHI, Mar 16: The administration in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was plunged into a crisis yesterday when five of the six cabinet ministers tendered their resignations to protest the arrest of a colleague four days ago by the Accountability Bureau on corruption charges. According to Urdu BBC, these ministers have handed over their resignation letters to "Prime Minister" Sultan Mehmud, who, however, has not accepted them so far. The Accountability Bureau had earlier ordered arrest of Mr Mehmud’s right-hand man and secretary "liberation cell" and even the brother of former Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum. The five ministers’ resignations have come just when preparations are on for elections in june. Opposition parties, who fear rigging of elections, have demanded that the Pakistani judiciary should hold the elections. (UNI) |
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American Red Cross to help
quake victims WASHINGTON, Mar 16: The American Red Cross is creating a network of mental health workers in India to help Gujarat earthquake victims cope with their psychological trauma. "Disasters with little or no warning, such as earthquakes, have a much higher psychological impact than slower occurring disasters. In seconds, earthquakes cause complete destruction that change lives, leaving no time for good-byes," Gerry Jones, vice president of the American Red Cross International Services said. "While providing food, water, shelter and medical attention are priorities, creating a network of trained mental health workers in India to help victims cope with sudden, severe changes is instrumental in long-term recovery," Jones said. The American Red Cross will train counsellors who in turn will train other Indian Red Cross volunteers. The American and Indian Red Cross psychological network will reach 13,000 people in the next four months with emotional support and crisis counselling, a press release said. The network will focus on earthquake victims at high risk for long-term psychological effects, such as victims who witnessed the death or serious injury of a family member and victims who suffered serious physical injuries. (PTI) |
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Call for strike in Sindh on March 26 NEW DELHI, Mar 16: Political leaders in Sindh have given a call for a province-wide strike on March 26 to protest against what they called Punjab’s conspiracy to deny Sindh its share of water from the Indus river. This call was the outcome of an all-party conference in Hyderabad (Sindh) convened by the Jiye Sindh Progressive Party yesterday. The Pakistan People’s Party and Jamaat-i-Islami also attended the meet. BBC (Urdu) which reported this last night, said the conference alleged that Punjab, with the help of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), was taking away Sindh’s share of water from the Indus River. Progressive Party leader Qadir Magsi said this was a conspiracy against Sindh. "Water has become a question of life and death for the province, "he said. This conference was held amid warnings of water riots in Pakistan this summer if the Government fails to take some emergency measures to overcome the growing water crisis in the country. Secretary General of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf Party Mairaj Mohammad Khan has has written to Chief Executive Gen Parvez Musharraf drawing his attention to the impending threat to agriculture and generation of hydel power. He warned the country would plunge into a multi-dimensional civil war, if immediate remedial steps were not taken. The Dawn of Karachi, which reported this, also quoted Secretary General of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) Dr Imran Farooq as warning that the people would come out on the streets if the water problem was not solved. Becacuse of a steep fall in the level of water in Tarbela and Mangla dams, water supply to Punjab and Sindh has been reduced by 25 per cent. This means there will be about 35 per cent shortfall in food production. Similarly power generation is also affected which in turn is affecting industrial production. (UNI) |
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Africans kick off drive to re-elect Annan UNITED NATIONS, Mar 16: African envoys, representing some 53 nations, announced a campaign to re-elect Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary-general and described his response to their lobbying as "positive." Annan’s five-year term expires at the end of this year, and elections would be held in November or December. He has told associates he will make up his mind in march about whether to run again, which most diplomats believe he will. "He will announce his decision at the end of the month," Manutius Ambassador Anund Neewoor told a news conference yesterday. "And we wish to encourage him," South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo added. A group of African ambassadors brought up the subject during a meeting with Annan last week before he took off on an Asian tour. Envoys from all 53 African nations met among themselves on Monday to endorse him and urge him to run again. At the news conference, Djibouti’s Ambassador, Roble Olhaye, flanked by envoys from Algeria, Gabon, Tanzania, South Africa, Mauritius, and Annan’s home country of Ghana, said they had formed a task force to help move the campaign forward. Asked what Annan’s reaction was, Olhaye said: "positive." "We have surveyed and meticulously assessed the mood of member states. And we have come to the conclusion that there is an overwhelming demonstrated interest in the incumbent continuing in his office for another term," Olhaye said. In Asia, some nations say it is their turn to field a candidate for the world’s top diplomatic post. Re-electing Annan would give Africa three terms rather than the customary two. Annan’s predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian, was secretary-general from 1991 to 1996 but was blocked from seeking a second term by a U.S. veto in the Security Council. The 15-member Security Council votes first for a secretary-general, which means that any of its five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — can cast a veto. The 189-member general assembly then makes the formal appointment. Asked how the five would vote, Neewoor said: "we are encouraged, we are encouraged." China, which could block Annan in favor of an Asian candidate, says it has not made up its mind. "It is very sensitive. At this stage we have no official position, no instructions from our capital," China’s deputy U.N. representative, Shen Guofang told Reuters. "Of course Kofi Annan has done a great job and we appreciate his efforts in trying to make the United Nations more efficient and his contributions to peace and stability in the world," Shen said. At a november meeting in Singapore of the association of Southeast Asian nations, then Philippine President Joseph Estrada raised the issue of reaching a common position on the secretary-general’s post. But neither ASEAN nor the Asian nations as a bloc threw their weight behind any one candidate. They also have not been able to agree on a common statement about Asia’s right to the post, diplomats reported. The last Asian secretary-general was U Thant of Burma, who served from 1961 to 1971. (REUTERS) |
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