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Asia needs network to BANGKOK, Oct 3: Asia needs a special crime-fighting network to combat a booming illegal wildlife trade worth billions of dollars which threatens many .....more Sharon vows to pursue Gaza raid, toll hits 50 GAZA, Oct 3: Israeli leader Ariel Sharon vowed today to expand a huge offensive into Gaza that has killed 50 Palestinians until militants stop firing .....more Indian films steal show at wildscreen wildlife film festival LONDON, Oct 3: Six of the entries from India have made it to the last lap of the ‘green.....more Scientists
had doubts NEW YORK, Oct 3: Top scientists had cast doubts over claims that the aluminium tubes found in Iraq were meant ......more |
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No 3 CIA pick was caught shoplifting US paper WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The man chosen for the third-ranking job in the CIA resigned under pressure from the US spy agency more than 20 years ago .....more Women
and child sellers SHANGHAI, Oct 3: China has cracked a 36-member gang that kidnapped and sold 96 women and children over a dozen years, sentencing two to .....more Israel to soothe battle trauma with Marijuana JERUSALEM, Oct 3: Israeli soldiers traumatised by battle with the Palestinians have a new, unconventional weapon to exorcise their ....more Indian films steal show at wildscreen wildlife film festival LONDON, Oct 3: Six of the entries from India have made it to the last lap of the ...more |
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Asia needs network to fight illegal wildlife trade BANGKOK, Oct 3: Asia needs a special crime-fighting network to combat a booming illegal wildlife trade worth billions of dollars which threatens many species with extinction, Thailand’s Prime Minister said. Opening a global meeting in Bangkok on endangered species, Thaksin Shinawatra said no country alone could defeat the illicit trade which ranges from elephant ivory and rhino horn to tropical timber and rare turtles. "Globally, the illegal trade in wildlife, timber and other natural resources is surpassed only by trafficking in drugs and weapons. This is a shocking statistic," Thaksin said. "It is incumbent on us to meet this challenge through serious conservation efforts and stricter law enforcement," he told 1,500 delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting. With 166 member countries, CITES is the only global treaty regulating trade in threatened and endangered animals and plants. It is best known for saving African elephants by banning ivory sales in 1989. The two-week meeting in Bangkok will debate 60 proposals, including limits on trade in well-known species such as the great white shark and Asian elephant. Others include the Irrawaddy Dolphin, which gets tangled in nets or killed by dynamite fishing, the tropical ramin tree used in picture frames and pool cues, and the humphead wrasse — a reef fish popular with east Asians. Japan’s push to limit protection of the minke whale will be a bruising battle, say conservationists, who fear it will increase pressure to resume commercial whaling, banned in 1986. EU countries have said they will oppose Japan’s efforts to restart whaling. The meeting is being held for the first time in southeast Asia where organised crime gangs reap massive profits across the region, including Thailand, a key supplier and transit point. The regional trade is being fuelled by China where protected animals are used in exotic dishes and medicines. Environmentalists say illegal traders using complex smuggling networks are running circles around the treaty, which relies on its member Governments to enforce it. "Holding the conference here has focused attention on Thailand and southeast Asia as a major hub for the wildlife trade," said Susan Lieberman, a Director of the World Wildlife Fund. Southeast Asian Governments are expected to make a joint statement next week. Thaksin offered to host a summit next year to hammer out details for a regional network of law enforcement agencies. "There is no country that can fight this battle alone," he said. "If Asia is to save its precious resources and unique wildlife, it deserves nothing but our best effort." CITES already bans trade in 600 animal species and 300 types of plants from apes to Cacti, and strictly limits trade in 4,100 animal species and 28,000 types of plants. But the treaty is hampered by underfunding and the low priority it is given by some members, said CITES secretary-general Willem Wijnstekers. "CITES is in urgent need of action, rather than words," he told the meeting. "What this 30-year-old convention urgently needs is increased political will in most, if not, all of its 166 parties". (AGENCIES) |
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Sharon vows to pursue Gaza raid, toll hits 50 GAZA, Oct 3: Israeli leader Ariel Sharon vowed today to expand a huge offensive into Gaza that has killed 50 Palestinians until militants stop firing rockets into Israel. Sharon needs to show he can stop rocket strikes like one that killed two Israeli toddlers last Wednesday so as to counter critics who say his plan to pull out troops and settlers from the occupied strip will encourage more attacks. In one of the biggest and bloodiest Israeli raids in four years of conflict, nearly 200 tanks and armoured vehicles seized 9 square of the north Gaza Strip and pushed deep into the teeming Jabalya refugee camp, a militant hotbed. Sharon said the Army would expand the "buffer zone" in northern Gaza to spare Israeli towns from rocket attacks and ensure there was no withdrawal under fire next year. "Evacuating the Gaza Strip is a plan that will be carried out and all orders have been given to ensure that there will be no fire at the time of the evacuation and I believe not after that either," he told army radio. Hamas Islamic militants, sworn to destroy Israel, have vowed to keep firing Qassam rockets despite the four-day offensive and to fire them deeper into the Jewish state. Israeli troops killed three militants from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad faction group early today, taking the death toll to 50 over four days. The army said it opened fire when it saw the men planting a bomb. At least 31 of the Palestinian dead were militants, but civilians also died. Three Israelis have been killed, two soldiers and a woman jogger. Gunbattles subsided as the army strengthened its grip on Jabalya. Wary of Israeli drones buzzing overhead to direct fire, fighters tried to keep undercover, detonating hidden bombs. Residents in the town of 100,000 said they were terrified. "We are short of water and food. Children cannot sleep because of the gunfire," said Abu Ahmad. Armoured bulldozers also pushed into nearby Beit Lahiya, demolishing olive groves, citrus orchards and buildings the army says are used as cover for firing rockets. Palestinians call the demolitions collective punishment. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s leadership has condemned the Israeli raid as "ugly state terror and war crimes". But it also signalled militants should stop rocket attacks, saying they give Israelis "the pretext to pursue their crimes". Militant factions are bent on giving the impression that they drove Israel out of the Gaza Strip if there is a pullout from the territory occupied since the 1967 war. Israel’s army is determined to smash them first. Vowing to "teach the enemy an unforgettable lesson", Hamas has threatened to use its rockets to hit Ashkelon, the closest major Israeli city, 12 km up the coast from Gaza. Israeli security sources believe Ashkelon is too far away to face a major threat, though the Qassams — inaccurate and rarely deadly — are constantly being improved in Gaza workshops. Only one has reached Ashkelon, hitting an industrial zone last year but causing no damage. (AGENCIES) |
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Indian films steal show at wildscreen wildlife film festival LONDON, Oct 3: Six of the entries from India have made it to the last lap of the ‘green oscars’-the biennial wildscreen wildlife film festival and Panda awards, ending decades of European and American domination in the wildlife film field. Two of these have been selected for the campaign award and the individual campaign prize of the festival, due next weekend in Bristol. Newcomers Ajay and Vijay Bedi have been shortlisted for the best newcomer for their entry ‘the policing langur’, in which they have shown how Indian police have tried to utilise langur monkeys to crack down on destructive and thieving Macaques. Yet another commendable entry, that is up in the individual campaigner award list, is of the country’s revered natural history documentary maker, Mike Pandey’s. Film festival organisers say India is leading a steadily growing wildlife film industry among the developing countries. Other entries from developing countries are from Colombia, Costa Rica, Iran, Puerto Rico, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Films from these countries are more hard-hitting than those from elsewhere, Harriet Nimmo, Chief Executive of the Wildscreen Charity in Bristol, said. Indians have come a long way from their entry 20 years ago on the endangered Gharial crocodile by Naresh and Rajesh Bedi, organisers of the festival say. Since then a small group of film-makers and cameramen has steadily gained international reputation. One film from India is the footage of the agonising and slow death of an elephant which had its face blown off by a home-made farmer’s bomb by the poachers who wanted to save up on expensive bullets. A sharp drop in the cost of equipment and the arrival of popular cable and satellite channels like national geographic and discovery have also helped interest take-off. "There’s a snowball effect," said Harry Marshall, creative director of UK-based icon films and one of this year’s judges. "The monsoon or lack of it, the fact that 20,000 people die a year because of snake bites...The presence of nature is far more powerfully felt. Then TV begins to impact in the way national geographic and (discovery’s) animal planet have." Naresh Bedi says Indian film-makers still have significant obstacles to overcome. In India, no terrestrial tv stations have dedicated wildlife slots and the state-run channels often cannot afford the films, he said. Outside India, commissioning editors seem reluctant to buy foreign films, sometimes complaining they are too disturbing, or that they are too ‘India-centric’, said pandey. Pandey said he could not get a major channel to pay enough to cover the modest USD 57,000 cost of his whale-shark hunting film ‘shores of silence’, that in 2000 persuaded the Indian and international authorities to outlaw it. (PTI) |
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Scientists had doubts about Iraq’s aluminium tubes before war NEW YORK, Oct 3: Top scientists had cast doubts over claims that the aluminium tubes found in Iraq were meant for making nuclear weapons, over a year before the Bush administration used their presence to build up the case for invading that country, senior officials were today quoted as saying. In a revelation that could damage President George W Bush’s re-election bid on the Iraq war platform, New York Times reported that senior nuclear scientists as early as in 2001 had informed officials that the aluminium tubes could be meant for small artillery rockets. But the administration did not pay heed to this advise and went ahead with its plan to invade Iraq, the daily reported quoting four officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and two senior administration officials. Senior members of the administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, gave a series of speeches and interviews in the run up to the invasion in early 2002, asserting that Iraq President Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons programme. The tubes, made of high-strength aluminium, were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programmes," National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice had said months after the invasion. "We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," she had said. (PTI) |
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No 3 CIA pick was caught shoplifting US paper WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The man chosen for the third-ranking job in the CIA resigned under pressure from the US spy agency more than 20 years ago after being caught shoplifting, the Washington Post reported today. Michael Kostiw, picked by new CIA Director Porter Goss to be the agency’s executive director, has not received final clearance to take the job, although he had been scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow the newspaper reported, citing a friend of kostiw whom it did not identify. Citing past and current agency officials, the post said Kostiw was caught shoplifting in late 1981 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He had been an officer for 10 years at that point. He was put on administrative leave after responses to questions about the incident during a polygraph test, according to four officials familiar with the situation, the Post reported. One former official said agency officials arranged for misdemeanor theft charges to be dropped and the police record expunged in exchange for his resignation and an agreement to get counseling. Goss picked Kostiw, a former lobbyist for Chevrontexaco corp and staffer on the house of representatives intelligence committee, to replace the existing executive director less than a week after becoming director. Kostiw would have a key role in spending decisions and personnel matters, the Post said. Goss, a republican Congressman from Florida, was chosen to replace former CIA Director George Tenet after US intelligence agencies came under heavy criticism for failures before the sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the invasion of Iraq. (AGENCIES) |
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Women and child sellers get death in China SHANGHAI, Oct 3: China has cracked a 36-member gang that kidnapped and sold 96 women and children over a dozen years, sentencing two to death and handing the others at least two years’ jail time, state media said today. The official Xinhua news agency reported that two ringleaders of the gang in the southwestern province of Yunnan would be executed in line with a court verdict announced yesterday. One was convicted of kidnapping and selling 12 women and 13 children and the other of kidnapping and selling 23 women. Three more were sentenced to death, though with a two-year reprieve, while the other gang members were sentenced to at least two years in prison, Xinhua reported. "The court found that the gang kidnapped and sold 74 women and 22 children, and cheated other people out of money totalling (61,750 yuan) 7,461 in a 12-year period from 1991 to May of 2003," it reported. Trafficking in people is a common activity of gangs in China, which have mushroomed alongside rampant Government corruption and widespread poverty, academics say. People smuggling typically involves shipping people illegally into other countries. But the sale of women and children within china — or smuggling them in from neighbouring nations such as Vietnam — is a growing problem. Men outnumber women in China as a result of the country’s long-running one-child policy, which led to the abortions of many foetuses because parents traditionally favoured boys. (AGENCIES) |
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Israel to soothe battle trauma with Marijuana JERUSALEM, Oct 3: Israeli soldiers traumatised by battle with the Palestinians have a new, unconventional weapon to exorcise their nightmares — Marijuana. Under an experimental programme, delta-9 Tetro Hydro Cannabinol (THC), the active ingredient found in the Cannabis plant, will be administered to 15 soldiers over the next several months in an effort to fight post-traumatic stress disorder. Raphael mechoulam of Jerusalem’s Hebrew university, the Chief researcher behind a project he described as a world-first, said the chemical could trick the brain into suppressing unwanted memories. For soldiers haunted by flashbacks of traumatic battle experiences, he said, the drug, administered in liquid form, could be the answer to hundreds of sleepless nights. "It helps them sleep better, for one thing. These people often wake up from nightmares, and experience sweating or hallucinations," Mechoulam told . The army said civilian and military committees had approved the experiment. Millions of people, mainly war veterans, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychiatric condition that can develop after experiencing life-threatening events. Doctors already use so-called medical Marijuana to treat Nausea among cancer patients, appetite loss among aids sufferers and neurological disorders such as tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. However, mechoulam said this is the first time thc would be used to treat post-traumatic stress. Some of the soldiers slated to take part in the experiment came down with the disorder after experiences confronting a Palestinian uprising which began in 2000. Others are veterans of past Israeli-Arab wars. Symptoms can be eased by painkillers and psychological treatment but thc could speed up the process, or at least reduce the number of traumatic episodes, said mechoulam. He was among a group of researchers that first isolated THC in 1964. "If given two or three times a day, it lasts about six hours at a time," Mechoulam said at his office in the university’s school of pharmacy. (ASGENCIES) |
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Indian films steal show at wildscreen wildlife film festival LONDON, Oct 3: Six of the entries from India have made it to the last lap of the ‘green oscars’-the biennial wildscreen wildlife film festival and Panda awards, ending decades of European and American domination in the wildlife film field. Two of these have been selected for the campaign award and the individual campaign prize of the festival, due next weekend in Bristol. Newcomers Ajay and Vijay Bedi have been shortlisted for the best newcomer for their entry ‘the policing langur’, in which they have shown how Indian police have tried to utilise langur monkeys to crack down on destructive and thieving Macaques. Yet another commendable entry, that is up in the individual campaigner award list, is of the country’s revered natural history documentary maker, Mike Pandey’s. Film festival organisers say India is leading a steadily growing wildlife film industry among the developing countries. Other entries from developing countries are from Colombia, Costa Rica, Iran, Puerto Rico, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Films from these countries are more hard-hitting than those from elsewhere, Harriet Nimmo, Chief Executive of the Wildscreen Charity in Bristol, said. (PTI) Rumsfeld foresees violence in Iraq up to election WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The risk in Iraq is not of civil war but that the country will end up under the control of extremists who "run around chopping off people’s heads", US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in remarks broadcast. Rumsfeld, in an interview with Fox news channel yesterday, said he had not expected that the anti-US resistance in Iraq would be as intense as it is and predicted the level of violence would remain high at least until the election scheduled for January. He said the United States would not necessarily wait until Iraq was "perfectly peaceful" before withdrawing its forces, but could do so once an Iraqi Government had "developed the ability to manage their situation from a security standpoint". Asked about recent US intelligence estimates warning of possible civil war in Iraq, Rumsfeld said: "No one sees any sign of civil war in that country at the present time ... The risk is that the terrorists, and the extremists, and the people who are running around chopping off people’s heads and killing innocent men, women and children will take over that country. "Imagine a country ruled by people who go around chopping off people’s heads. That’s a dark future." Asked if had anticipated the insurgency would be as bad as it is, rumsfeld replied: "No. Because no one has a perfect view into the future." He said that in the last month or two US-led forces seeking to achieve more stability ahead of the election had "probably" killed 1,500 Iraqi insurgents and "a reasonable fraction of Zarqawi’s senior people". Abu-musab-al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who is Washington’s most-wanted man in Iraq, is believed to have close links to Al-Qaeda. His group has kidnapped and beheaded several westerners. Asked why US forces had not been able to find Zarqawi, Rumsfeld said it was "like finding a needle in a haystack". "It’s very hard to do. The United States military wasn’t organized, trained and equipped to go out and do manhunts. That’s an FBI job." (AGENCIES) Thailand finds bird flu in dog BANGKOK, Oct 3: Asia’s deadly bird flu has been found in a dog for the first time in Thailand, authorities said today, as the country battles a second major outbreak of the virus this year. The H5N1 virus was discovered in a dog in the southeastern province of Prachinburi where previous cases had been found in humans and poultry, health ministry spokeswoman Nittaya Chanruangmahaphol told . "We have found that a dog was infected by the H5N1 virus," she said, adding the case was confirmed by laboratory tests conducted at two Thai universities. She gave no further details, but Thai newspapers reported today that the dog was still alive. Thailand reported its first probable case of human transmission of bird flu last week. While there was no evidence to suggest the case could set off a human pandemic, it has spurred the Government into a frenzy. A campaign ordered by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to wipe out the virus by the end of October started last week with hundreds of thousands of volunteers and officials from the health and agriculture ministries being mobilised across the nation. So far, 92 areas in 28 provinces are under bird flu watch, of which 50 areas were confirmed to have been hit by the virus, livestock department officials say. Dutch researchers reported last month that cats can get the Avian influenza virus, which means pets are at risk of getting and spreading the disease. (AGENCIES) Women and child sellers get death in China SHANGHAI, Oct 3: China has cracked a 36-member gang that kidnapped and sold 96 women and children over a dozen years, sentencing two to death and handing the others at least two years’ jail time, state media said today. The official Xinhua news agency reported that two ringleaders of the gang in the southwestern province of Yunnan would be executed in line with a court verdict announced yesterday. One was convicted of kidnapping and selling 12 women and 13 children and the other of kidnapping and selling 23 women. Three more were sentenced to death, though with a two-year reprieve, while the other gang members were sentenced to at least two years in prison, Xinhua reported. "The court found that the gang kidnapped and sold 74 women and 22 children, and cheated other people out of money totalling (61,750 yuan) 7,461 in a 12-year period from 1991 to May of 2003," it reported. Trafficking in people is a common activity of gangs in Cchina, which have mushroomed alongside rampant Government corruption and widespread poverty, academics say. People smuggling typically involves shipping people illegally into other countries. But the sale of women and children within China — or smuggling them in from neighbouring nations such as Vietnam — is a growing problem. Men outnumber women in China as a result of the country’s long-running one-child policy, which led to the abortions of many foetuses because parents traditionally favoured boys. (AGENCIES) China, S Korea to skip naval drill in Japan: Paper TOKYO, Oct 3: Consideration for North Korea is likely to keep China and South Korea out of US-led naval exercises hosted by Japan and aimed at helping prevent the spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, a newspaper said today. Citing Japanese Government sources, the regional Tokyo Shimbun said both China and South Korea had not responded to invitations to join the latest in a series of US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) exercises. North Korea has repeatedly expressed anger over the PSI, which aims to block the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by seizing them in transit. Japan, one of the 15 core PSI members, is hosting what will be the sixth such drill, but the first in Asia, in late October. China and South Korea are not among the core members of PSI. Japan has decided to tone down the content of its own participation in the exercises to avoid offending North Korea with whom it is negotiating over abducted Japanese and Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, the paper said. Initial plans to carry out boarding inspection exercises using Japanese destroyers have been changed to warning and surveillance activities to avoid upsetting North Korea, the report said. Japan sent a coast guard vessel to the first interdiction exercise held in the coral sea off Australia’s northeast coast last September, and has sent military and coast guard observers to various other PSI drills. Other core members of PSI include Australia, Russia, Britain and France. (AGENCIES) |
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