Chinese ship exports record high during first half of 2007

BEIJING, Aug 4: For the first time China overtook Japan to rank second in terms of vessel order book tonnages, even as the country raked in a record 5.49 billion US dollars in ship export during the first half of the year.

China's export volume of ships hit a record high of 5.49 billion US dollars in the first half of the year, up 61 per cent over the same period last year, latest customs figures showed.

For the first time China overtook Japan to rank the second in terms of vessel order book tonnages, a major shipbuilding index and took up 28 per cent share of the world market, the London-based Clarkson, a firm specialising in the global shipbuilding market analysis, said.

China's shipbuilding industry scored an output value of USD 13.4 billion in the first six months, a rise of 48 per cent over the same period last year, according to statistics issued by the management office for shipbuilding industry under the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defence (CSTIND).

The aggregate profits reaped by shipbuilding manufactures more than doubled to reach USD 842.1 million, Xinhua news agency reported.

Ship production has been increasing by more than 40 per cent annually in recent years, as its low labour cost kept attracting more orders, analysts said.

The exported ships take up 83 per cent of the ship output in China and China is exporting to 128 countries and regions, with Singapore, Germany and Hong Kong as its major importers, the CSTIND said. (PTI)

Russia to spend over Rbl 61 bn to support young scientists

PETROZAVODSK, Aug 4: Russia's Education and Science Ministry plans to spend over 61 billion roubles to support young scientists in the next five years.

The country's Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko has said that a new federal target programme would become effective next year.

"The ministry has developed a draft federal target programme titled 'Scientific and Scientific and Pedagogical Personnel', in which we plan to support teams led by young professors or associate professors and involving students," Fursenko said during a working trip to the Republic of Karelia yesterday.

Under the programme, young scientists will receive support for research and take part in contests for the right to travel abroad on exploratory trips and cooperation with other scientific schools.

Schools of young scientists will also be opened under the programme.

"We will start doing some of this in 2008, but the programme will become fully operational in 2009," Fursenko said.

The programme calls for building special guesthouses in regions for young scientists and teachers who come for scientific conferences.

The total volume of financing for the programme in 2009-2013 will amount to 69.84 billion roubles, including over 61 billion roubles from the federal budget. (AGENCIES)

Italian motorcyclists set off on journey to Hiroshima

VENICE, ITALY, Aug 4: Three Italian motorcyclists left Venice yesterday on a 20,000-kilometer trans-Eurasian journey to Hiroshima via Belarus to campaign against radiation tragedies.

The Marco Polo Team, led by lawyer Michele Orlando, 42, plans to arrive in Hiroshima on September 20 to deliver paper cranes made by Italian children to a monument dedicated to a Japanese girl who died at age 12 as a result of the wartime atomic bombing of the city on Aug. 6, 1945.

The three riders plan to lay over in Belarus, which suffered major damage in the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, to make a donation to help build an orphanage.

"Hiroshima is a symbol of the tragedy of the 20th century," Orlando told reporters as the team set off. "We would like to run as peace messengers."

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba has sent them a message wishing them a safe trip.

Masato Ashida, 38, a Japanese television cameraman living in Rome, is on a support team accompanying the riders in a four-wheeler.

Seventeen elementary school children in Rubano, northern Italy, made 1,000 paper cranes after learning how to fold them on the Internet.

They made the paper cranes after learning at school about the girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was 2 years old at the time of the bombing and died of leukemia in 1955.

The Children's Peace Monument, also called the Tower of a Thousand Cranes, was built in her memory in 1958 in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Sadako folded paper cranes hoping for recovery. Many visitors to the park leave paper cranes at the monument hoping for peace. (AGENCIES)

Typhoon Usagi likely to again make landfall in northern Japan

TOKYO, Aug 4: Typhoon Usagi, moving in the Sea of Japan, is likely to again make landfall in either Hokkaido or the Tohoku area of northern Japan later Saturday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

As of 8 am local time, the typhoon was some 160 kilometers west-northwest of Akita City, northeastern Japan, moving northeast at 35 km per hour, according to the agency. It was packing winds of up to 108 kph with an atmospheric pressure of 994 hectopascals near its center.

Typhoon Usagi made landfall Thursday evening near the city of Hyuga, Miyazaki Prefecture, in southwestern Japan, and did so again early Friday near Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in western Japan. (AGENCIES)

Japan to cut FY 2008 public works-related budget by 3%

TOKYO, Aug 4: The Cabinet is expected to endorse guidelines next week for fiscal 2008 budgetary requests that feature a 3 percent spending cut for public-works projects, Government sources said Saturday.

Despite the reduction, the amount of general-account expenditures based on the guidelines will exceed the previous year's level to top 47 trillion yen for the first time in two years, the sources said.

The 3 percent cutback for public-works projects will be a part of the budgetary guidelines as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to demonstrate continued resolve to pursue tight budget policy.

But he may face pressure from not only the opposition bloc, which won a majority in the upper house in last month's election, but also his own Liberal Democratic Party to spend more for regional public works as the ruling coalition's election rout is expected to affect budget complication, analysts said.

On Wednesday, Abe asked Finance Minister Koji Omi to continue efforts to slash spending in compiling the state budget for the next fiscal year beginning in April 2008, while calling for budgetary allocations in key policy areas such as boosting economic growth and education reform. (AGENCIES)

300 workers fall sick in Bangladesh due to food poisoning

DHAKA, Aug 4: At least 300 workers of a foreign garment factory at Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ) fell sick due to food poisoning.

The workers started feeling stomachache after having the lunch yesterday and then vomited while many of them fell unconscious, the Daily Star and other newspapers said quoting police and factory sources.

The caterer who supplied the food went into hiding, while police sent the specimen of the food for chemical examination.

The sick workers were being treated at different nearby facilities where the physicians confirmed that the food they had taken was contaminated, the reports said. (PTI)

Jury finds US soldier guilty of rape, murder

FORT CAMPBELL, US, Aug 4: A military jury has found a soldier guilty of rape and murder in the slayings of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family.

Jurors deliberated much of yesterday evening before convicting Army Pfc. Jesse Spielman, 22, of conspiracy to commit rape, housebreaking with intent to commit rape and four counts of felony murder.

Spielman, was charged in connection with the March 12, 2006, slaying of the girl and the killings of her family. The attack took place in Mahmoudiya, a village about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Military prosecutors did not say Spielman took part in the rape or murders, but alleged he went to the house knowing what the others intended to do and served as a lookout. Spielman had pleaded guilty on Monday to lesser charges of conspiracy to obstructing justice, arson, wrongfully touching a corpse and drinking.

Prosecutors rested their case Thursday amid struggles to overcome a fellow soldier's recanting of a story that Spielman acted as a lookout during the attack last year.

Spc. James Barker, who has admitted his own role in the assault, said in earlier testimony that he had allowed investigators to draft sworn statements for him that implicated Spielman in the crime.

Barker testified Wednesday that several portions of the document were untrue, including references to Spielman's role in the conspiracy to attack the family and his knowledge of plans to rape the girl.

Another soldier convicted in the attack, Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, testified that Spielman stood guard as his fellow soldiers raped the girl. (AGENCIES)

Coal mine gas leak kills four in northwest China

BEIJING, Aug 4: A coal mine accident in Hancheng city in northwest China has killed four miners and left four others still trapped following a gas leak, local officials said today.

The gas leak occurred at Panlong Coal Mine last evening when 15 miners were working in the shaft. Seven of them managed to escape.

By today morning, rescuers found the corpses of four miners, Xinhua news agency reported. Rescue operation for the remaining four trapped miners was going on.

Panlong Coal Mine is a newly-built coal mining entity with required necessary documents and licenses. It reportedly has not begun production.

After the accident at the coal mine, authorities in Hancheng City ordered all local coal mines to suspend production to check for problems.

Earlier on July 29, a total of 69 miners were trapped in a flooded coal mine in central China's Henan Province. Fortunately, all 69 were saved after three days.

China's coal mines are notorious for their high accident rates, especially gas blasts. A total of 1,792 coal miners died in 1,066 mishaps in China, the world's top coal producer and consumer, during the first half of this year.

In 2006, coal mine accidents killed 4,746 people in China with an average of 13 deaths a day. (PTI)

WFP to sent emergency rations to flood victims in Nepal.........

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 4: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will send up to three month's worth of emergency rations for some 60,000 flood victims in Nepal.

"In response to the Government's request for humanitarian assistance, we are making available an initial USD 500,000 for procurement of immediate food assistance," WFP country representative Richard Ragan said.

"However, given the number of families affected and the remoteness of the impacted areas, we estimate that we will need to raise approximately USD 1.5 million to meet the basic food requirements of the flood victims," he added.

An estimated 200,000 people in the country currently face food shortages due to displacement, loss of livelihoods and damaged homes.

WFP's initial response is based on needs identified by the Government and the Red Cross. The agency will work closely with both partners over the next few days to identify the people and communities most in need of aid, providing sufficient rice, lentils, oil and salt to feed 60,000 people for 90 days.

"Given that many of these affected areas are located within the Eastern Terai districts that have been impacted by months of violence and insecurity, we appeal to all parties to support WFP's efforts to deliver food aid to the most vulnerable communities within these areas," Ragan said.

Clashes between the Madheshi People's Rights Forum (MPRF) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in the central Terai region have claimed scores of lives in recent months. (PTI)

Lack of sex may encourage hard work:German study .........

BERLIN, Aug 4: German workaholics may be suffering from a lack of sex, according to a university study published on Friday.

A survey of 32,000 men and women by researchers at the University of Goettingen found over 35 percent of those reporting unsatisfying sex lives tended to use hard work as a diversion.

Some 36 percent of men and 35 percent of women surveyed for the ''Apotheken Umschau'' newsletter said they were likely to put in extra time at the office and volunteer for extra assignments.

The hard work ethic was even more pronounced among those who reported having no sex according to the study published yesterday, -- 45 per cent of men and 46 per cent of women said they voluntarily took on more responsibilities.

''These findings are worrying,'' the leader of the study, Ragnar Beer, was quoted as saying.

(AGENCIES)

Gwen Stefani to cover up for Malaysia show:Paper......

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4: There will be no revealing costumes at US singer Gwen Stefani's concert in Malaysia this month, a newspaper said today, after a Muslim student group demanded that the event be cancelled as being too obscene.

Although Malaysia is a moderate Muslim country with sizeable non-Muslim minorities, conservative groups often frown upon departures from strict Koranic injunctions.

Malaysian mobile phone firm Maxis Communications, which is promoting the August 21 show as part of Stefani's ''Sweet Escape'' tour, promised it would feature no revealing costumes, the Star newspaper said.

''She will abide by the Malaysian authorities' guidelines to ensure that her show will not be offensive to local sensibilities,'' it quoted a Maxis statement as saying.

Malaysia's official guide for performers says women must be covered from the top of the bosom to the knees, the Star said.

Jumping, shouting and the throwing of objects are barred, while performers may not hug, kiss or wear clothes with obscene or drug-related pictures or slogans, it added.

On Tuesday, an official of the 10,000-strong National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students said Stefani's video promotion clips were obscene and the event would clash with local Asian and Islamic values.

''We want the organisers to cancel the concert, failing which we will ask the authorities to intervene,'' said Mohamad Hilmi Ramli, the group's president.

Ethnic Malays, who are by definition Muslims, make up just over half of Malaysia's 26 million people, while ethnic Chinese and Indians, who are mostly Buddhists, Christians or Hindus, account for most of the rest.

(AGENCIES)

Bin Laden's son dumped by first wife for marrying Brit granny

LONDON, Aug 4: Osama bin Laden's fourth son Omar has been dumped by his Saudi wife for marrying an English grandmother, a British tabloid reported here today.

Rasha bin Laden, who is in her 20s and lived with her 27-year-old husband along their two-year-old son at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, has vowed never to return to Omar until he leaves 51-year-old Jane Felix-Browne, 'The Sun' reported.

In fact, Omar's first wife Rasha is enraged by the publicity over her husband's second marriage to the five-time British divorcee.

"Rasha feels left out. Jane's always in the limelight -- the papers in Saudi Arabia are full of stories about her marriage to Omar. Rasha's made it clear she won't return unless things change," a source was quoted as saying.

Though Saudi law permits a man to have more than one wife, the unnamed source said, "Rasha feels humiliated. But Omar refuses to give up Jane so the marriage looks doomed."

"I was told by my family that they do not approve of the marriage and there will be consequences. But I love my second wife and am not going to divorce her. I am going to struggle along with her and this will all settle down," Omar had earlier said.

When contacted, the 51-year-old daughter-in-law of Osama bin Laden who is still trying to acquire a visa to visit her latest hubby in Saudi Arabia, told the tabloid that she did not want to comment on Omar's troubled first marriage.

Omar, who runs a scrap-metal business in Jeddah, recently married his besotted bride in an Islamic ceremony at a friend's house in Cairo with just two of his relatives as witnesses, following a whirlwind romance which began in Egypt last September when he spotted Felix-Brown riding a horse near the Great Pyramid. (PTI)

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