Alcohol linked to raised risk of breast cancer

LONDON, Nov 13: Alcohol may be good for the heart but a daily glass of wine or beer can increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, researchers said yesterday.

One unit, or 10 grams of alcohol per day, raises a woman’s chances of developing the disease by about seven percent but smoking, which is linked to a range of other diseases and different cancers, does not contribute to the illness.

"The more women drink, the higher their risk of breast cancer," Professor Valerie Beral, of the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, told a news conference.

The scientists, who analysed the results of 53 previous studies into the effects of alcohol and smoking on breast cancer, estimate alcohol accounts for about four percent of breast cancers in the developed world.

Although the risk is small and represents only a tiny part of the picture of what contributes to the disease, beral said women should be aware of it because it is preventable risk.

About 40,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in Britain each year. If women stopped drinking alcohol there would be about 2,000 fewer cases annually, she said. Until now, doctors had not been able to examine the separate effects of alcohol and smoking on breast cancer. But the size of the analysis which included data on 150,000 women worldwide allowed them to unravel the results to show a clear link between alcohol and breast cancer risk.

"When we did this we found that drinking, but not smoking, increases the risk of breast cancer," said Sir Richard Doll, a co-author of the report in the British journal of cancer.

"This report is giving us a definitive answer," he added.

But doll stressed that although smoking is not linked to breast cancer, it is a leading cause of lung cancer which is notoriously difficult to treat, as well as other diseases.

Although the researchers do not know how alcohol raises the risk of breast cancer, they suspect it may alter levels of the female hormone oestrogen.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Early puberty, late menopause, a family history of the disease, delaying childbirth or not having children are risk factors.

Because alcohol has a protective effect against heart disease and stroke but a negative impact on breast cancer, Beral said the balance between the two may depend on a woman’s age.

After the age of 65, women are more at risk of dying of heart disease than breast cancer so the benefit of moderate drinking could outweigh the negative impact on breast cancer risk.

"It’s very personal. You can’t make a blanket policy for everyone," said Dr Gillian Reeves, who contributed to the study.

"It’s important women know about this risk even if it is small." (AGENCIES)

China’s Jiang to retire as party chief-delegates

BEIJING, Nov 13: Delegates to China’s Communist Party congress ended months of speculation today, confirming Jiang Zemin would step down as party chief and make way for a new generation of leaders this week.

Five other leaders, including Parliament chief Li Peng and premier Zhu Rongji, would also retire from the 7-man Politburo Standing Committee in the first peaceful and orderly succession in the history of Communist China, they said.

Vice President Hu Jintao, 59, was the only member of the current leadership standing for re-election to the Central Committee, offering the first clear indication that he would take over as head of the party.

Under the party constitution, its general secretary must be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, which will be chosen from the new central committee members on Friday.

"None of the leaders except for Hu are central committee candidates," one delegate said, breaking a strict code of silence that has surrounded the leadership changes.

"They are all getting old and want to make room for younger leaders to promote development."

After months of furtive jockeying for power, these were the first definitive signs that the "fourth generation" of leaders after Chairman Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang will take the helm of the world’s most populous nation this week.

Jiang must step down as president at a Parliament meeting in March, when his second term ends.

However, Jiang will wield considerable power in retirement by packing the new leadership with allies and having his political theory written into the party constitution, party sources say.

He could also stay on as the head of the Central Military Commission (CMC) after leaving the central committee, as his predecessor Deng Xiaoping did, they say.

"It looks like it’s all wrapped up, except the military commission," said one Beijing-based diplomat. "It sets an important precedent for future leaders. But this is not the last we’ve heard of Jiang."

The new leaders will not be known for sure until they parade out from behind a screen in the Soviet-style great hall of the people on Friday.

The changes have been thrashed out in advance through horse-trading between retiring leaders anxious to keep a say in decision-making and protect family interests, but must go through a choreographed election process at the congress.

The 2,114 congress delegates discuss the candidate list, which has more names than available seats, and hold preliminary votes to make sure it goes according to plan, party sources say.

Two delegates said there were more than 360 full and alternate seats available on the new central committee, with about 20 more candidates than seats.

The current central committee has 335 full and alternate members. Alternates act as a reserve team to fill any vacancies.

Delegates refused to discuss the new lineup, highlighting the sensitivity of the most sweeping reshuffle since Jiang was chosen to head the party in the wake of the 1989 massacre of student protesters around Tiananmen Square.

But they said Li Ruihuan, 68, Wei Jianxing, 71, and Li Linqing, 70 — numbers four, six and seven in the party — were also not on the list for the new central committee.

"They weren’t candidates," said another delegate when asked if the six standing committee members, apart from Hu, were standing. "I think this is progress."

The original understanding was that all leaders over 70 would retire from party posts under a deal hatched at the last congress in 1997. They will step down from their Government posts at the Parliament meeting in March.

But Jiang appears to have forced his long time rival, Li Ruihuan, to go even though he is only 68.

Li, a former carpenter renowned as a political liberal, had been tipped until recently to stay on the standing committee and take over as head of the parliament next year.

"I’ve heard again Li Ruihuan is out," said one Chinese political scientist.

With Li Ruihuan gone, the new standing committee will be dominated by Jiang’s camp, sources with close party links say.

He has secured a seat for his main protege, Zeng Qinghong, who stepped down as head of the party’s organisation department last month, they say.

Three more Jiang allies — former Beijing party boss Jia Qinglin, Shanghai’s ex-party chief Huang Ju, and vice premier Wu Bangguo — are also likely to join the body, they say.

At least three of the sources say the standing committee will be expanded to 9, with two more Jiang allies on it, while others say it will be kept at 7.

However, it is still not clear whether Jiang will retain his position as chairman of the CMC, which commands the 2.5 million-strong armed forces.

Deng left the Central Committee in 1987 but was CMC head for two more years and paramount leader until his death in 1997.

"The fact is that Deng Xiaoping did it, so there’s a precedent, but first of all, I think Jiang Zemin is no Deng Xiaoping," said Susan Shirk, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of California at San Diego.

Jiang has tried to emulate Deng, whose theories on economic reform were added to the party constitution in 1997, by having his own signature theory — the "three represents" — written into the charter this time round.

The theory says the party represents advanced productive forces, advanced culture and the vast majority of the people.

It is a blueprint for broadening the party’s membership to private entrepreneurs, once excluded as "capitalist exploiters", in a bid to make it more relevant to modern China.(AGENCIES)

NATO hopefuls vet for spies, tackle bribery, smuggling

BRITISLAVA, Nov 13: The sagging fuselage of a Boeing 707 sits on the verge at Bratislava’s international airport, a grim reminder of a murky episode future NATO member Slovakia is trying to leave behind.

It lies where its crew abandoned it when, laden with rifles and ammunition, it crashed on take-off three years ago.

Reports quoting the pilots said the shipment was one of many headed for Sudan, where rebels have been waging a 19-year war for greater autonomy for the mostly animist or Christian south from the largely Muslim Arab north.

How such cargo could leave Slovakia, then struggling to win NATO’s trust after almost a decade of xenophobic, autocratic rule by ex-Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, remains unclear.

But, with just weeks to go before it gets the green light to join the alliance along with six other candidates, the wreck raises the question of whether a country that once defied NATO from behind the iron curtain is now really ready to join it.

"Some of the prospective members do not fully share the values of the current members — the liberal values, respect for democratic processes, the expectations about clean government," said Celeste A Wallander, director at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"They still have these fundamental problems...What kind of NATO members are they going to be once they get in?"

Besides Slovakia, NATO is expected to invite Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia to become full members at a November 21-22 summit in Prague.

The candidates have only known democracy since the 1989 collapse of communism. They are seen as adding little to the alliance in military terms, but pundits say increasing calls within NATO to widen its security umbrella since the September 11 attacks mean enlargement will mainly be a political decision.

Such reasoning may miss other problems.

Most candidates struggle with corruption, and Soviet-era officials NATO wants nowhere near its secrets may still lurk within their institutions.

And, as they rearm to Western standards, they will create weapons surpluses which, in the wrong hands, could undermine NATO efforts to prevent extremist attacks on Western targets. NATO took in Poland, Hungary and the Czech republic in 1999, but left out other hopefuls, mainly because their armies were in disarray, they were much poorer and they had struggled to show clear commitment to transparent democracy.

The candidates have since moved to modernise their armed forces and have passed thousands of laws to bring their social and political norms more in line with Western standards.

But corruption, one of communism’s enduring legacies, has proved tough to crack.

Bribery is rampant in the region — Slovakia only outlawed giving bribes in 1999 — illustrating a cultural problem with possible major consequences for an expanding NATO.

"Military reform is not possible if you don’t deal with the question of corruption," said US ambassador to NATO Nick Burns during a visit to Bratislava.

"Laws have been passed...And that’s an important first step, but what’s more important is that those laws be enforced and people be prosecuted."

Slovakia, for one, has improved since the Government of Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda won power in 1998 and ended what it called the "crony capitalism" of Meciar’s rule.

Dzurinda, who won a second term in September elections, lost five ministers from his last cabinet because of corruption scandals. None were charged — a chilling prospect for NATO members who must trust their new allies not to sell the West’s military secrets. Thousands of Eastern European officials — many of whom started their careers under communism — will soon take their places in NATO offices. Candidate states are scrambling to screen them to eliminate those who may pose security risks.

Romania has been criticised for dragging its feet with the process, and Slovakia, which has blocked 12 people from access to NATO secrets out of 1,300 checked, has yet to finish vetting its 1,000 future officials picked to work with NATO.

"It’s a big problem not only in Slovakia but in the entire region, that people are simply talkative and, if some aren’t blocked from classified information, you can take for granted this information will leak to the other side," said Ivo Samson, an analyst at the Slovak Foreign Policy Association.

Fears that KGB-trained operatives could sell NATO secrets to the likes of North Korea or iran are low, but do exist. Perhaps more serious, however, are officials with no intention of spying but with past secrets who would be easy targets for blackmail.

Analysts say doubts about the trustworthiness of new members could have a devastating affect on NATO operations, as old members may baulk at consulting with new partners who have not yet proved they can uphold NATO practices.

"There are going to be things they are not going to want to talk about, because they won’t have confidence the information will be held securely...That there are other competing incentives within some of the new members," said Wallander. Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia, from which Slovakia split in 1993, were major arms suppliers to conflicts in the Middle East, Arab States, and the third world before 1989.

Arms merchants have continued to take advantage of corrupt officials and lax regulations — such as no need for an export licence to ship arms through Slovakia if they are there for less than seven days — to sell weapons to banned users.

Now candidates are retiring ageing tanks, rockets and other hardware but, rather than destroy them, the impoverished militaries will likely sell them to the third world, said Bernardo Mariani, analyst for arms watchdog safer world.

"What guarantees do we have that these weapons, supplied to countries with all sorts of awful problems with internal security, will not be re-exported who knows where, definitely including terrorists and criminal groups?" he asked.

After little action against illicit trade in the last decade, NATO entry has at least encouraged candidates to act in recent years.

In 1998, Slovakia halted a sale of tamara radar — allegedly the only system able to see stealth aircraft — to North Korea. Last year it caught three members of the real IRA (Irish Republican Army) guerrilla group trying to buy arms in the Western Spa-town of Piestany.

But many weapons shipments were not spotted by candidates and found their way to Sudan, Chad, Angola, Liberia and other States under embargo due to human rights abuses or known for re-exporting them.

Illicit trade is still a cause for serious concern, says Burns.

Slovak Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok played down these concerns, saying reforms were coming but would take time.

"It’s clear to everyone in this country that we have to improve our reputation, and steps are being taken," he said. (AGENCIES)

Harry Potter back in action- packed ‘Chamber of Secrets’

NEW YORK, Nov 13: The famous young wizards of Hogwarts School are back, a year older, bolder and bound for adventure in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," which opens worldwide on Friday.

The second installment of the film series based on British author JK Rowling’s best-selling books puts the school for wizards and witches in jeopardy from dark forces.

As Harry enters his second year at the school, some students are found "petrified," leading to speculation about Hogwarts’ legendary "chamber of secrets," the supposed home of a terrifying beast, and the threat these forces pose to the very existence of the school.

The film spends less time on character development and relationships than the first harry potter movie and instead surges forward on a wave of special-effects magic.

"The second book was darker," Director Chris Columbus said.

"And I wanted better visual effects for the second film," columbus added, stressing the need to give the second potter movie its own identity. "I tried to make a 2-1/2 hour movie feel about 30 minutes long."

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his Pals Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are all back, but seen in a different light — a moodier lighting scheme devised by academy award-nominated cinematographer Roger Pratt.

"It’s quite scary," Grint, 14, told a New York news conference after a preview. "It’s up to the parents if they want to put their kids through it."

His potter pals defended the darker aspects of "chamber".

"Everybody has a dark side, really," said Radcliffe, 13. "I think it was great to show Harry’s dark side, show that he’s not flawless, not a perfect person."

Watson, 12, said: "I think fans of the book will be very happy." The film, rated PG, may seem scarier than the first to the youngest potter fans, though columbus said it passed the nightmare test with his five-year-old daughter, Isabella, who slept soundly after seeing the movie.

The first film of the series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone," titled "Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone" in Britain, was wildly successful yet came under some criticism for a Slavish devotion to Rowling’s text.

Sticking closely to the plot penned by Rowling, whose books have sold more than 175 million copies, proved a sound strategy as the initial Harry Potter film has grossed more than 966 million dolllar — second worldwide behind only "Titanic."

Yet Columbus, who also directed the first potter film, took liberties this time by expanding on elements in the book to create some of the new movie’s most pulsating moments.

The coming-of-age wizards wage magic duels, endure run-ins with an army of spiders and a monstrous serpentine creature, soar in flights of fancy aboard an airborne car and generally grapple with growing up.

"From a film point of view, it had a hidden little secret," Columbus told media about the "Chamber" book. "The spider sequence and the basilisk (serpentine) sequence on the page weren’t full-blown action sequences.

"That’s really where we changed it a lot. We wanted to really develop these into big action sequences."

Columbus anticipates fans will like the new feature, which gets a buoyant performance from Kenneth Branagh as Hogwarts’ new defence against the dark arts professor.

"I have no fears that Harry Potter will go stale, not with this film," Columbus said.

Producer David Heyman said, "this movie is stronger than the first, in my opinion," but admitted to being nervous over Rowling’s reaction when it was screened for her.

"One of the most nerve-racking days of my life," Heyman called that meeting, adding that he heaved a huge sigh of relief when Rowling hugged him afterward and whispered in his ear, "thank you." Heyman noted the first movie devoted 45 minutes to setting up the world of Harry Potter. "In ‘Chamber of Secrets’, we jump directly into the narrative and into the adventure," he said.

That gets the rollicking ride quickly up to speed, but means two of the first film’s most magnetic figures — gentle giant Rubeus Hagrid, played by Robbie Coltrane, and suspicious potions professor Severus Snape, played by Alan Rickman — feature less prominently than in the book and first movie.

"I missed having hagrid, and missed Alan Rickman but we needed to make room for Gilderoy Lockhart," Columbus said about the foppish character played to comic perfection by Branagh.

The young stars are more self-assured in the second film. Radcliffe and Watson are relaxed and confident, while Grint’s Flair for comedy is taking off.

Grint, who said the special-effect spiders gave him a creepy feeling, debunked another of the film’s grosser moments, in which a spell backfires on him and causes him to cough up one slimy slug after another.

"The slugs were my favourite scene," said the red-haired grint. "I had to try out all these different flavoured slimes. There was orange, lemon, peppermint and chocolate. And they made them taste real nice. I really enjoyed it."

Radcliffe is "becoming more of a leading man," according to columbus. "He looks older. He looks great. He’s ageing well."

The young trio are obviously maturing in real life.

Radcliffe’s voice, for instance, is changing. "My voice was starting to break doing the filming. But it didn’t go up and down. It just went from one to the other. Not a big deal," he said. With the pace of the potter film series production slowing, it is questionable whether Radcliffe, Grint and Watson will be able or willing to continue after the third instalment of the projected seven-book anthology. "Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban," which begins production in March and is not expected to be released until June 2004.

Other changes will come as soon as the third film.

With the passing away last month of esteemed Irish actor Richard Harris at the age of 72, a new professor Albus Dumbledore, the wise headmaster of Hogwarts, will have to be cast.

Columbus, meanwhile, is giving way as director to Mexican Alfonso Cuaron, director of "A Little Princess" (1995) and the recent hit "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (2001).

"I think Alfonso is a great choice. I think he will do something new with Harry Potter 3," said Columbus, who will serve as producer for "Azkaban."

"The Prisoner of Azkaban", doesn’t really lend itself to a rip-roaring adventure yarn, so I don’t think we should force this action adventure attitude to this third film," said Columbus, who has not ruled out a return as director for the fourth Potter film, "The Goblet of Fire." (AGENCIES)

Verma named among 40 "Technology pioneers for 2003"

NEW YORK, Nov 13: Bikram Verma, co-founder and chief executive officer of Savi Technology, has been named as one of the 40 ‘Technology pioneers for 2003’ by the World Economic Forum.

Verma will now be involved in ongoing dialogues with world economic leaders on a variety of far-reaching issues affecting business and society, such as how innovative technologies can improve the global community by transforming the way business and society operates.

These commpanies (like Savi) are true pioneers - their importance lies in how their discovery and development of radical and "transformational technologies may present us with alternatives to how we live or do business," said Klaus Schwab, president of the World Economic Forum, an independent international group of corporate leaders committed to improving the state of the world.

"This significant recognition of Vic (Vikram) is well deserved because he has been the driving force behind the development of some of the most innovative and productive technology available today," said Geoffrey Moore, founder of the Chasm Group, and who wrote about Savi in his book "Crossing the Chasm," on the strategic marketing of technology.

The World Economic Forum has created the technology pioneers programme in partnership with deloitte touche tohmatsu in 2000. Each year, the Forum selects up to 100 tech pioneers and invites them to speak at their annual conference, which will now be held at Devos, Switzerland next year. (PTI)

War in Iraq could kill up to four million

LONDON, Nov 13: A war against Iraq could escalate into a nuclear conflict that would kill nearly four million people and have catastrophic health and environmental consequences, medical experts have said.

Even without nuclear weapons, as many as half a million people could die, civil war, famine and epidemics could occur, oil fields may be set ablaze and the entire region could be embroiled in the conflict.

Many more people would probably be displaced, economic collapse in Iraq could ensue and soaring oil prices could trigger a global economic crisis, according to global health organisation Medact.

"The need to ensure that Iraq is disarmed of its weapons does not warrant a war," said Gill Reeve, the Assistant Director of the group of doctors, nurses and health experts.

In a report, Medact considered how the substantial use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) might trigger a nuclear response.

"An Iraqi CBW attack on Israel or elsewhere could provoke immediate nuclear retaliation from Israel, the US and/or UK while the UK and US have not ruled out the nuclear first-strike option," it noted.

Reeve told agencies: "We’re making a last ditch effort to make people see reason, to think about the consequences."

Medact argues that other options are available and described the massive death and destruction a war with Iraq would cause.

In a report that examines the impact of the war from a public health perspective, the group warns that any conflict against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is likely to drag on, would cost as much as 200 billion dollars and leave Iraq in ruins.

"The US goal of leadership change is counterbalanced by Saddam Hussein’s goal of survival, so a short, clinical campaign is probably wishful thinking," it said. Saddam has until Friday to cooperate with a United Nations resolution to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction programmes or face the consequences.

Iraq’s Parliament voted yesterday to reject the resolution but ultimately the final decision will be Saddam’s.

US officials have said they are sceptical he will comply and President George W Bush has already approved a war plan to oust the Iraqi leader.

Based on data from the Gulf war, comparable conflicts and information from political sources, the Medact report entitled Collateral damage envisions air attacks on Government and military facilities in Iraq, followed by ground forces to seize control of oil-producing regions and the north of Iraq and then more ground and air attacks to take the capital Baghdad.

The report, which is available on www.medact.org, warns that Saddam could retaliate by setting fire to oil wells, releasing chemical, radiological or biological weapons or by launching attacks on Kuwaiti or Saudi oil fields or civilian centres in other Gulf states.

"There would be widespread damage to the environment of Iraq and possibly neighbouring countries. Oil wells would be fired, creating spills and toxic smoke. Troop movements and land mines will destroy the fragile desert economy," Reeve said.

Refugees escaping the conflict would die in large numbers and put a strain on neighbouring countries. Emergency relief is likely to cost billions, she added.

Iraqis are still suffering from the results of the 1990-1991 Gulf war and subsequent sanctions and their health has not returned to pre-war levels. Any new conflict would be more intense and destructive than the Gulf war and hit them extremely hard, according to the report.

Medact, the British affiliate of international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war which won the 1985 Nobel peace prize, estimates it will cost 200 billion dollars in arms spending, occupation, relief and reconstruction.

That amount could easily pay for the health needs of the world’s poorest people for about four years. (AGENCIES)

Israeli forces seize control of Nablus

JERUSALEM, Nov 13: Israeli forces took up positions in and around Nablus today, arresting some 30 people after tanks rolled into the northern West Bank town overnight in the wake of a deadly attack on a Kibbutz, Israeli public radio reported.

Quoting highly-placed military sources, the radio said soldiers had taken over the Casbah, or old town, of Nablus and the nearby Askar and Ballata refugee camps with backing from sappers and tanks.

The Israeli army also occupied another West Bank town, Bir Zeit, north of Ramallah.

The moves followed an attack late Sunday on Kibbutz Metzer in north Israel in which five people, including a mother and two children, were killed.

"The soldiers received a mandate to operate for as long as necessary to destroy the infrastructures of Palestinian terrorist organisations following very many alerts of attacks planned from these sectors," the radio said.

At least 30 Palestinian suspects had been arrested during the night, it added.

The Israeli forces, backed by helicopter gunships, entered the town at 4 am (local time) from the east and west, moving towards the centre while firing without apparently meeting any resistance.

By around 5 am (local time) the Israelis had complete control of the town and the casbah was surrounded by tanks.

Israeli media had said earlier the Government was poised to launch tough reprisals for Sunday’s attack. The army had been expected to launch massive incursions into Nablus and Tulkarem, both regarded as hotbeds of islamic militancy. (AFP)

Ivory trade has blood soaked history in Africa

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 13: A UN decision allowing some Southern African countries to sell ivory stockpiles after a 13-year ban is a significant moment in the history of a trade that has soaked the world’s poorest continent in blood.

Yesterday’s easing of the rules angered environmentalists who fear it may encourage poaching. But traders vow there will be no return to the slaughter which halved the African elephant population to about 600,000 in just over a decade before the ivory trade was outlawed in 1989.

Along with slaves, gold and rubber, the allure of ivory drew Europeans to Africa’s shores and played a major role in some of the darkest chapters of white colonial rule on the continent.

Demand for the coveted commodity massacred the elephants of Africa and the Middle East, which once numbered in the millions from the slopes of South Africa’s table mountain to the mediterranean coast in the north.

"So great was the demand for ivory from ancient civilisations that by 500 BC the Syrian herds had all been wiped out," writes Martin Meredith in his recent book "Africa’s elephant: A biography".

Long prized for its texture, the ancient Egyptians found it to be ideal for carving luxury items such as bangles.

But it grows on elephants, not on trees, and so a remarkably useful tool provided by nature has proven to be the downfall of the world’s largest land mammal.

The 19th century industrial world’s appetite for the commodity seemed insatiable and ivory workshops churned out a wide range of products, from piano keys to billiard balls and snuff boxes. That demand helped to fuel the "scramble for africa" among European powers seeking to plunder the continent. The scramble included Belgian King Leopold’s ruthless reign in the Congo, which he established as his personal fiefdom, initially with an eye to the ivory trade.

The methods used for extracting ivory from native peoples by leopold’s men laid the foundations for a rubber regime that saw company agents cut the hands off villagers as they sought to terrorise the local population into meeting their rubber quotas.

Whole populations of African elephant were exterminated in the 19th century by hunters seeking ivory. The ivory of the Asian elephant is considered brittle and is less coveted than Africa’s. But swelling human populations in countries like India have nonetheless cut its numbers to only about 50,000.

In the late 20th century, the rapid growth of Asian economies such as Japan’s created new markets for the ivory of African elephants. Its price soared from 7.50 dollars per kilogram in 1970 to 300 dollars in 1989.

In Kenya, many game wardens died in the line of duty as they did battle with well-armed poaching gangs.

Lucrative prices led to a bloodbath in the Bush that saw Africa’s elephant population plummet from an estimated 1.2 million to 600,000 in the space of a little over a decade.

Conservationists argue this slaughter was stemmed by the 1989 global ban on trade in the product.

They were to protest at the decision to allow Botswana to stage a one-off sale of 20 tonnes from ivory stockpiles in 2004.

Delegates at the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in chile approved a similar bid by Namibia and are likely to back ivory sales by two or three other African countries later in the day.

An official at the Kenya wildlife service’s cites office in Nairobi said it was very disappointed with the decision.

"We are going to start seeing elephants getting killed," AO Bashir said. "And not only elephants but you are going to lose lives of rangers, of poachers." (AGENCIES)

Relics of Dutch linger in Sri Lanka 400 years on

COLOMBO, Nov 13: Hulftsdorp Hill is home to the law courts, Carl Muller is a well-known writer and Wolvendaal street a bustling commercial avenue.

A glance at a city map could fool visitors into thinking they are in a European capital.

But the city is Colombo, and the names vestiges of centuries of contact between Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, beginning with the arrival of the Dutch East Indies company in 1602.

The 400th anniversary of that arrival is being marked this year with a series of events throughout the island.

"They stayed, you see. Many of the servants of the Dutch East Indies company just stayed," said Deloraine Brohier, the President of Sri Lanka’s Dutch-Burgher Union, explaining the lasting dutch influence in the Indian Ocean island.

By the time Dutch Colonisation began in the mid-1600s there had been decades of trade, and Sri Lanka’s southern city of Galle had become a key port in the fabled trade-winds route that brought spices from what is now Indonesia to Europe.

Ousting the Portuguese before them, the Dutch ruled Sri Lanka’s coastal provinces for 150 years before succumbing to the expanding British empire by the end of the 18th century.

Another two centuries on, the descendents of the Dutch traders, known as Burghers, still form a distinct group apart from the island’s Sinhalese majority and ethnic minority Tamils and Muslims.

"They got accustomed to the climate, they weren’t guaranteed employment at home, and there were restrictions on who they could sell their property to. So they absorbed themselves into the British colonial system," said Brohier of the 900 families who elected to stay under the British crown. The legacy of those 900 families lasting 400 years seems unlikely, but the Burghers thrived, favoured by the British colonial administration and famed for their wild living.

"The only occupation that could hope to avert one from drink and romance was gambling," says novelist Michael Ondaatje in "Running in the family", a memoir of his Burgher grandparents in the Ceylon of the 1920s and ’30s.

This year’s events planned to mark the 400 years of contact are perhaps more sedate than Ondaatje’s relatives might have preferred — a commemorative stamp to be issued late in November, a seminar organised by a local think tank and a Dutch film festival, among others.

But the commemoration keeps the history of the group alive in the island preoccupied with ending 19 years of ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese South and Tamil tigers fighting for a separate state in the north and east.

"After independence the vast majority left the island because of the Sinhala only act," said Sanne Kaasjager, an official at the Netherlands Embassy in Sri Lanka.

Where under the British the burghers had an advantage because of English, Sinhalese became the language necessary for social advancement in the newly independent Sri Lanka of the 1950s.

An exodus of Burghers began, mostly to Canada and Australia, with parents sending their children abroad for education.

Today, Burghers comprise about 38,000, of Sri Lanka’s 19 million people, down from around 50,000 six decades ago. (AGENCIES)

Powell says UN has proved its relevance

WASHINGTON, Nov 13: US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United Nations had proved its relevance through unanimity on Iraq and would be instrumental in judging whether Iraq complies with UN demand to disarm.

At a dinner in Washington in honor of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday, Powell put the United Nations at the center of Iraq policy and said he was confident the Security Council would "face its responsibility."

The UN Security Council on Friday voted unanimously for a new UN arms inspections system for Iraq, with the threat of serious consequences if Iraq does not meet its demands.

The Council’s resolution was a compromise between us hawks who wanted the United Nations to authorize in advance the use of force against Iraq and Council members France and Russia, which wanted the council to control the trigger.

It came eight weeks after US President George W Bush told the United Nations that it ran the risk of irrelevance if it failed to enforce disarmament resolutions dating back to the end of the Gulf war in 1991.

But US Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said earlier that they doubted UN inspectors could rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

With the UN debate over, Powell has started to give the Security Council a bigger role than the United States was willing to concede during the complicated negotiations.

On Sunday, Powell said that if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fails to comply with the resolution, the United States would seek Security Council support for "all necessary means" — diplomatic code for military force. In his speech yesterday, he extended that theme, saying: "The United Nations will be instrumental in assessing Iraq’s compliance with this resolution."

"If Iraq’s defiance continues ... I am absolutely sure that the Security Council will face its responsibilities," he said.

"The resolution (last week) was a demonstration of the United Nations at its best — relevant, decisive, focused. It shows that when the cause is clear ... We can come together — and in a unanimous way — to meet this (Iraqi) threat, he added.

He did not mention the usual rider — that if the Security Council does not react to what the United States sees as a clear Iraqi violation, Washington will take matters into its own hands and attack Iraq without explicit UN approval.

At a news conference in New York earlier yesterday, Annan said the risk of UN irrelevance may been been overstated.

"I think the UN did what it had to do. I noted there was some impatience, that we were not moving fast enough. But this is the way democracy works," he said.

"It was a grave decision, and I am happy they took their time to discuss it and in the end come up with the best possible decision," he added.

In his speech on Tuesday night, accepting an award from the UN association of the United States, Annan coupled the "war on terrorism" with the need to redress genuine grievances.

"We must act with equal determination to solve the political disputes and long-standing conflicts which generate an atmosphere conducive to support for terrorism," he said. (AGENCIES)

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