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Tamileelam bank symbol of Sri Lankan rebel autonomy KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA, Mar 11: There’s no marble in the lobby, no computer on the counter and no air-conditioning .......more Forgotten city lies beneath Edinburgh’s streets EDINBURGH, Mar 11: Deep beneath the cobbled streets of the Scottish capital lies a dank and forgotten realm where prostitutes.....more Madrassas breeding grounds of terrorists: Powell WASHINGTON, Mar 11: Pulling no punches, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has denounced Madrassas or schools imparting religious education....more UK frees all returned Guantanamo detainees LONDON, Mar 11: British Police freed four former terror suspects, a day after they were flown home from the US jail camp at .....more |
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Body of new victim found in border city of Ciudad Juarez MEXICO CITY, Mar 11: Police found the body of a new victim in the slayings of more than 300 women since 1993 in the Mexican border city of .......more Art
dealer charged in NEW YORK, Mar 11: A Manhattan gallery owner sold forgeries of works by Marc Chagall, Paul Gaugin and other artists to international dealers for .....more Former President Clinton, no plan to run for New York City Mayor NEW YORK, Mar 11: Former President Bill Clinton has so far rejected suggestions that he run for Mayor of New .....more Mouse study offers new hope on female infertility LONDON, Mar 11: A new study on mice could overturn current thinking on female....more |
Tamileelam bank symbol of Sri Lankan rebel autonomy KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA, Mar 11: There’s no marble in the lobby, no computer on the counter and no air-conditioning for the customers. The risk of robbery is also very small. Welcome to the Bank of Tamileelam, the world’s only rebel-held bank, and a symbol of autonomy for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who run a semi-independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. "Our bank was set up so that money deposited by Tamil people will be reinvested in the north and east," amalan Rasanayagam, Chief Loan Officer at the Kilinochchi branch, told . He added that funds gathered by Sri Lankan banks in the north and east are never used for development in these areas. Analysts say the bank’s meaning goes well beyond investment. For most of the past two decades, the LTTE has had de facto control of much of Sri Lanka’s northern and eastern provinces and their "capital" Kilinochchi is one huge exercise in normality. Stretched along the infamous A9 "highway of death", Kilinochchi sports its own schools, hospitals, Court house, police force, tax authorities and the Bank of Tamileelam, the financial centre of the rebel administration. "All these institutions have been set up as a parallel administration, a parallel regional regime," Jayadeva Uyangoda, Head of the Department of Political Science at Colombo University, told . In February 2002, the LTTE signed a ceasefire with the Sri Lankan Government that has solidified its grip on its territory. In December 2002, the LTTE dropped its old demand for a separate state and now argues for internal self-determination within a federal Sri Lanka. An approaching April 2 General Election will be fought over how to follow up the ceasefire with a political deal to end two decades of war in which 64,000 people have died. The LTTE has not waited for peace to show it can run a state and Kilinochchi, a dusty town of 65,000, makes that point. But in case one forgets that the LTTE is still at war with the Sri Lankan Government and that the United States has designated it a "terrorist organisation", guns are never far away in rebel town. Across from the Tamileelam bank one scorching afternoon, a rebel-operated bus stopped at a rebel-run restaurant, which brought out ice cream for a group of female LTTE cadres, with trademark black belts around their slender waists, too-large machine guns dangling from their shoulders. The LTTE is known as one of the world’s most ruthless and efficient rebel groups, which could explain the low security at the Tamileelam bank, where a guard helps stamp savings books. Other than that, the rebel bank is surprisingly normal. It was founded in Jaffna in 1994, but after the Sri Lankan Army retook the Peninsula at the northern tip of the island in 1995, the bank moved to Kilinochchi. The bank of Tamileelam now has six branch offices and employs about 100 people. The Kilinochchi branch clears about 500 to 1,000 cheques per day, offers no credit cards, has no information technology and records transactions in paper ledgers. Many customers are farmers, or work in one of the many LTTE companies. The bank does not release data on its total assets, profitability or ownership, but its rates are no secret. Depositors get 7.5 percent on three-month savings accounts, going up to 10.5 percent for 24-month deposits, in line with most Sri Lankan banks. But borrowers pay 15 to 17 percent on loans for motorcycles, tractors and trailers, well above the rate of about 10 percent that competing banks typically charge. Local banks declined to comment on their dealings with Tamileelam bank. The bank is not regulated by the Central bank, but it does have relationships with the offices of some Sri Lankan banks that operate in rebel territory. It also uses the Sri Lanka rupee, as the rebels have not gone so far as to issue their own currency. Rasanayagam said the bank was not directly owned by the LTTE. "The LTTE controls the Eelam Bank like the Sri Lanka Central Bank controls other banks," he said. The issue of control is a sore point for the authorities. "There is no such bank registered or recognised by the Central Bank. Legally, it is not possible to operate a bank in Sri Lanka without a license from the Central Bank," Deputy Central Bank Governor P M Nagahawatte told . During two visits to the bank’s main branch in Kilinochchi, the Tamileelam bank office looked a lot busier than the offices of two nearby state-owned banks. But some analysts in Colombo say the Tamileelam bank’s success is partly based on fear, as people in rebel areas might be nervous about being seen entering a Sri Lankan bank. A K Selvavinayagam is General Manager of Vanniyam Vannibam, one of the LTTE’s many companies. It employs 225 people and runs a guesthouse, a transport system and a crushed metal firm. He and other customers told they have accounts at the Tamileelam bank and the local offices of Sri Lankan banks in Kilinochchi and that Tamileelam cheques are cleared by some Sri Lankan banks and vice versa. With the Tamileelam bank he has 8,000 rupees (80 dollars) in a savings account, recorded in a pass-book, and he has also taken a 39,000 rupee (390 dollars) loan to buy a five-bulb solar power system. Selvavinayagam earns 8,500 rupees (85 dollars) per month, plus free meals, a good salary for that part of the country. Since a few months ago, eight percent of his salary, plus another 12 percent from his employer, is paid into the employee trust fund, another LTTE-run institution. (AGENCIES) |
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Forgotten city lies beneath Edinburgh’s streets EDINBURGH, Mar 11: Deep beneath the cobbled streets of the Scottish capital lies a dank and forgotten realm where prostitutes once rubbed shoulders with body snatchers and the light of day never penetrated. The thousands of Subterranean citizens moved out long ago leaving the Edinburgh vaults underneath the city’s south bridge alone with its multitude of ghosts until it was rediscovered in the 1980s and found new life as a tourist attraction. "There are no written records of who lived in these vaults, although there is ample anecdotal evidence that thousands of people lived and died here, some probably never even seeing the outside world," said tour guide Jim Lennie. "The chances are that few of the people who lived in the Georgian part of the city above knew they were there. The existence of the vaults was wiped from the city’s records until they were rediscovered in 1985," explained Lennie on a recent tour. The vaults are formed by the 19 arches of the south bridge, built between 1785 and 1788 across the Cowgate ravine as the cramped ancient city began to expand. Bricked in and built around, the vaults became a warren of nooks, crannies and tunnels forming the historic city’s underworld. "There was almost a whole city down here but no sign at all of it on the surface," Lennie said. "People lived, worked and died down here. That was the ‘good old days’? I don’t think so," he added with a grimace. Evidence has been found of wine storage, leather works and a multitude of small businesses and living quarters for the city’s unwanted and unseen poor. But there were also other less legitimate pastimes beneath the feet of Edinburgh’s gentry. "We know that in 1815 there was an illegal whisky distillery operating here, and it is highly probable that there was also a brothel," Lennie said. It is also believed that parts of the vaults were used to store cadavers either dug from fresh graves or plucked from the streets and sold to Edinburgh’s medical school, whose appetite for bodies for dissection was endless and unquestioning. The city’s notorious body-snatchers William Burke and William Hare are believed to have used the vaults from time to time to store their grisly merchandise before deciding that digging was too much trouble and turning to killing instead. Burke was hanged after being turned in to police by hare who himself died a pauper in London in 1859. Arthur Conan Doyle, inventor of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, learned his Anatomy during training some years later at the medical school and is known to have visited the vaults from time to time as a young doctor. The vaults vary from the cavernous to the cramped. There is no —nor was there ever — running water or sanitation. The only liquid that penetrated the unlit and airless caverns was likely to be whatever seeped through from the streets above where —in the habit of the era — households would empty their sewage at night. Water for cooking and washing had to be carried by hand down the winding tunnels each day. Wine rather than water was the drink of choice as the water was too polluted, and there was a thriving import trade in red wine from France. On the positive side, the temperature in the vaults is fairly constant — insulated from the outside world by metres of brick and mortar. But even so the atmosphere inside would have been choking with open fires for heat and cooking, and fish-oil lamps providing what light there was. "Candles were for the rich, not the people of the vaults," Lennie said. All that is left now of the Subterranean citizens of yesteryear are the ghosts which range from little dogs to young girls and even practising bottom-pinchers. "There was a study here a couple of years ago and the vaults were declared probably the most psychically active place in the United Kingdom," Lennie said. "Some of the people I have taken round down here have had distinctly funny turns. The mind plays some very odd tricks underground and in the dark," he added with a wry smile. Undeterred, one enterprising local restaurateur has turned part of the vaults into a modern eatery where diners can savour the psychic shivers along with their chilled wines. (AGENCIES) |
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Madrassas breeding grounds of terrorists: Powell WASHINGTON, Mar 11: Pulling no punches, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has denounced Madrassas or schools imparting religious education in Pakistan and several other countries as breeding grounds for "fundamentalists and terrorists." He said the us had held several discussions on the issue with the countries concerned and was in the process of introducing education programmes which would shift the focus of these Madrassas to providing useful education. "We have talked to those countries that were the principal sources of funding for the Madrassas—such as Saudi Arabia and others—and their support for these Madrassa programmes that do nothing but prepare youngsters to be fundamentalists and to be terrorists, and are not preparing them with an education that would be useful," Powell said. He was responding to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur statement in the house appropriations subcommittee that unless education of the future is imparted in these Madrassas, to which young people are drawn because of food aid, they would result in multiple clonings of militants throughout the region. The US is working with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and other countries on the issue and trying to put in place programmes to shift the focus of these Madrassas to providing an education that is useful, Powell said. "But we also have to understand that a lot of these reflect the view of the community, the desire of the community to have such places. We can’t substitute for all of the feeding programmes of all of these Madrassas throughout the Muslim world. Nor would we know how to do it if we had the resources to do," Powell said. (PTI) |
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UK frees all returned Guantanamo detainees LONDON, Mar 11: British Police freed four former terror suspects, a day after they were flown home from the US jail camp at Guantanamo bay, Cuba, saying the men would face no charges. Police yesterday they had decided in consultation with prosecutors to free the last of the men without charge, and arranged for them to be taken to "locations of their choice". In all, five had been sent home after being held at the US camp for two years. One was freed shortly after their arrival at an air base on Tuesday and the other four released a day later. The outcome could cause trouble for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will face questions as to why it took two years for Washington’s closest ally to win its citizens’ freedom, if British Police have concluded they have no case to answer. A further four British citizens remain at Guantanamo Bay. Washington says they are more dangerous than the five it decided to release. The five freed prisoners, all believed to have been captured in Afghanistan during war there in late 2001 or early 2002, will walk straight into a tabloid bidding war for their stories. None of the men appeared in public immediately after they were freed, but the lawyer for Jamal-al-Harith, 35, the first to go free, lashed out at his client’s captors. "He has been treated in a cruel, inhuman and degrading manner," lawyer Robert Lizar said. "He wants the authorities to answer for that." Max Clifford, Britain’s most famous publicist, said he was representing one of the prisoners, Londoner Terek Dergoul, 26. Whichever prisoner sold the story first could command up to 300,000 pounds (546,000 dollars), Clifford said. "A lot of people want to buy the story," Clifford, who has represented clients from royalty to O J Simpson, told BBC television. He said that according to Dergoul’s brother, "he was travelling he was in the wrong place at the wrong time." The other three former detainees, Rhuhel Ahmed, 21, Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, 24, are all from the small industrial town of Tipton in central England. Their families say they went to Pakistan in late 2001, where one was looking for a wife and the others hoping to see the world. They travelled with a fourth youth, Monir Ali, who disappeared, and whose family hopes the freed men will have clues to his whereabouts. While Blair’s supporters see the prisoners’ return as a peace dividend for his support of US President George W Bush, the Guantanamo issue could remain a major political headache. Britons will want to know why it took more than two years to get them out. Meanwhile, the fate of the four still in Guantanamo will stay high on the political agenda. "Let us not forget that four other Bbritons remain behind, faced for the time being with the prospect of being tried by a politically inspired Kangaroo Court," said Stephen Jakobi of pressure group fair trials abroad. Britain says the Bush administration’s plans for special military tribunals to try Guantanamo suspects do not measure up to basic fairness standards. It wants either the rules to be modified or the suspects sent back to Britain for trial. Procedures at Guantanamo bay — where captives are not given lawyers — make it difficult for Britain to try them, since British Courts do not accept evidence gathered in the absence of a lawyer. US authorities say that of 100 inmates previously released from Guantanamo, 88 were allowed to go free in their home countries, while 12 were kept in detention — four in Saudi Arabia, seven in Russia and one in Spain. (AGENCIES) |
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Body of new victim found in border city of Ciudad Juarez MEXICO CITY, Mar 11: Police found the body of a new victim in the slayings of more than 300 women since 1993 in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Reforma newspaper reported on its website. The women in black movement, relatives of the victims, yesterday said that the body was found early yesterday at a place called the Black Christ, where previously six other bodies of slain women had been found previously. Luz Esthela Castro, with the women in black movement, said that the victim was a young, slender woman with long hair and brown skin, similar to previous victims. Most of the murdered women came from working class families. Most were also sexually brutalized, their bodies maimed. A special federal senate committee overseeing investigations into the murders was in Ciudad Juarez, on the US-Mexico border. The Mexican Government last year appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Ciudad Juarez crimes. Prior to that, a special Commissioner had also been named, but she had no prosecuting powers. (DPA) |
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Art dealer charged in forged painting scheme NEW YORK, Mar 11: A Manhattan gallery owner sold forgeries of works by Marc Chagall, Paul Gaugin and other artists to international dealers for millions of dollars in an elaborate scheme that went on for years, US prosecutors charged. Ely Sakhai, 52, was named in an eight-count mail and wire fraud complaint in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday. Each of the counts carries a possible maximum prison term of 20 years and a fine of 2 million dollars. Prosecutors said Sakhai had been arrested on Tuesday and released on a 1 million dollars personal recognizance bond. His lawyer declined to comment. According to the complaint, Sakhai bought authentic works by impressionist and post-impressionist masters including Chagall, Gaugin, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste renoir and Paul Klee at auction, had forgeries made and sold them using the valid certification papers. He then sold the real paintings years later. The complaint charges that Sakhai sold the forgeries to art dealers in Tokyo, Taipei, Paris and New York. The charges say he bought Chagall’s "La Nappe Mauve," in 1990 at a Christie’s auction in London for about 312,000 dollars. He is alleged to have later acquired a forgery of the painting and used a certificate of authenticity to sell the work to a Tokyo art dealer in 1993. The sale price was about 514,000 dollars. Five years later Sakhai consigned the authentic Chagall painting to Christie’s in London. The auction house sold the work for about 340,000 dollars, according to the charges. The complaint states that Sakhai also sold 11 works to a different Tokyo dealer. Most of the works were forgeries, including a replica of renoir’s "Jeune femme s’essuyant." Sakhai had purchased the authentic work at Sotheby’s in 1988 for about 35,000 dollars. He sold the forgery to the Tokyo dealer for about 50,480 dollars in 1994. Sakhai later consigned the authentic renoir to Sotheby’s for its May 11, 2000, auction in New York where it was sold for about 65,000 dollars. (AGENCIES) |
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Former President Clinton, no plan to run for New York City Mayor NEW YORK, Mar 11: Former President Bill Clinton has so far rejected suggestions that he run for Mayor of New York city, news reports said. Clinton, who has been spending time on the lucrative lecture circuit, finishing a Presidential Memoir and leading a foundation to help HIV/AIDS patients, yesteray said, "I love being out of office." "I’d love to be Mayor of New York," he told an audience of real- estate entrepreneurs. "It would be the second-best job in the world. But there are lots of good people who want to be mayor of New York, and they should have their chance." The current mayor, media Tycoon Michael Bloomberg, said he will run for re-election next year. But Bloomberg’s popularity is at rock-bottom following some unpopular decisions, including a smoking ban in restaurants and public places and an 18.5 per-cent hike in real-estate taxes. Clinton is maintaining an office in Harlem and finishing his Memoir, for which he would be paid 10 million dollars. His wife, Hillary Rodham, is a US senator with reputed Presidential ambitions. The former President said that the US political world cannot accommodate two Clintons. (DPA) |
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Mouse study offers new hope on female infertility LONDON, Mar 11: A new study on mice could overturn current thinking on female reproductive biology and offer new hope to women with fertility problems, scientists said. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered that female mice are not born with a limited number of eggs but can produce new ones in adulthood — contrary to the common view the number of female eggs is fixed at birth and declines with age. If scientists can show the same holds true in humans, it will transform current thinking about how ovaries form, function and fail, and could pave the way for methods to maintain, prolong and restore female fertility. The researchers discovered cells in mice that regenerate and maintain the function of the ovaries. "If these cells are indeed proven to exist in humans this opens up numerous possibilities — for example preserving fertility in cancer patients post therapy by stem cell transplantation and postponing the natural time of menopause," Dr Jonathan Tilly, reproductive biologist, told yesterday. If the same type of cells tilly and his colleagues found in mice exist in women, isolating, storing and then transplanting them could potentially enable cancer patients whose ovaries have been damaged by treatment to have children. Women could also bypass the decline in fertility they normally experience in their 30s and 40s. "These cells can be transplanted back into a woman’s own ovaries and essentially regrow her ovaries," Tilly, who reported the research in the science journal nature, explained. (AGENCIES) |
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Powell suggests US to keep ban on Myanmar imports WASHINGTON, Mar 11: US Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested the US market would remain closed to imports from Myanmar, whose military rulers have detained opposition leader aung San Suu Kyi for months. "I have seen no improvement in the situation. Aung San Suu Kyi remains unable to participate in public, political life in Burma and we will not ignore that," Powell told lawmakers yesterday when asked if the US sanctions imposed last summer would stay. "We will continue to apply pressure and you can be sure that I will be looking at the sanctions issue very, very carefully with the same attitude I looked at it last year," Powell added, saying Washington would keep pressing for the freedom of Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Reflecting US displeasure at continued military rule in Myanmar, President George W Bush on July 28 signed into law the Burmese freedom and democracy act barring imports from the country, which is also known by its colonial name Burma. Under the legislation, the import ban must be renewed each year and expires after three years. The law requires the Secretary of State to report to Congress about the efficacy of the sanctions 90 days before their renewal date in late July. Myanmar has been ruled for more than four decades by the military, which has repeatedly moved against Suu Kyi, holding her at an undisclosed location from May to September last year and under house arrest since. There were hints the standoff between the military and Suu Kyi’s opposition national league for democracy may be ending when a UN envoy who met both sides last week said Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was committed to taking Myanmar to democracy and Suu Kyi was ready to work with him. After a four-day visit to Yangon last week, UN envoy Razali Ismail also said Suu Kyi and other Nld officials might be freed by April 16, Myanmar’s new year. He described that as an "informal deadline," but he did not say where it had come from. (AGENCIES) Indian woman held for luring Nepali girls to brothels KATHMANDU, Mar 11: An Indian woman was arrested by the police while she was trying to take four teenaged Nepali girls to India on the pretext of getting them jobs, only to sell them in brothels, media reports said today. The woman, Biju Musahariya from India’s eastern state of Assam, was nabbed by a group of activists and handed to the police while she was on her way to Birgunj with the four girls and a 25-year-old man, the Nepali language Gorkhapatra reported here today. The girls, aged between 13-16 years, were all residents of Kamalamai Municipality-4 of Sindhuli district in eastern Nepal, from where the woman was taking them to Indian brothels. A large number of Nepali girls are trafficked to India every year luring them with employment opportunities but often sold in brothels. According to an estimate 5000 to 7000 Nepali girls are trafficked to India annually. (UNI) US Court affirms ruling on Sikh’s extradition SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 11: A US federal Court ruled that a Sikh separatist who sought political asylum in the United States should be extradited to face six murder charges in India’s northern Punjab state. The ninth US circuit Court of appeals yesterday agreed with a lower Court’s ruling that approved the extradition, which the Indian Government has sought, of Kulvir Singh Barapind for murder, attempted murder and robbery in 1991-1992. The United States District Court for the eastern district of California ruled in 2001 that Barapind should be extradited to India for six murders and an attempted murder related to his Sikh separatist activities. "The indiscriminate killings of civilians and police officers cannot and must not qualify for the political offense exception to extradition, even if politically motivated," the San Francisco-based ninth circuit Court wrote in its opinion. Barapind sought political asylum in the United States in 1993 after being arrested by immigration officials in Los Angeles under a false passport. Barapind claimed he would be persecuted if he was sent back to India because of his affiliation with activities seeking to establish a sovereign Sikh nation in Punjab. (AGENCIES) Pakistani farmers to benefit from latest US technology WASHINGTON, Mar 11: Pakistani farmers will soon benefit from new technology aimed at treating soil salinity and raising crop yields. The US-based Sweetwater international company will be making state-of-the-art sulfurous acid generator machines available to Pakistani farmers, starting in Punjab province, in order to reduce salinity and sodility in the soil and improve the arabilty of the land. Peter Watson, president and CEO of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which is providing risk insurance for the project, said, "it delivers important economic and subsistence benefits directly to Pakistani farmers and their customers improves efficiency in the farming industry and results in an important transfer of technology to Pakistani farmers." Sweetwater will make the machines available through Non-Governmental Organizations, Pakistani Government agencies and direct sales or leasing to farmers. It estimates that the machines can improve crop yields by as much as 30 per cent. The company will also be engaged in further research and training efforts with Pakistani farmers in order to improve irrigation management. (UNI) |
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