Canada rejects
allegations of racism dogging Kanishka probe
OTTAWA,
Feb 15: The Canadian Government today
rejected allegations of racism dogging the
investigations into 1985 Kanishka airliner
bombing which killed all 329 people on board,
mostly of Indian-origin.
At a hearing of
the Air India inquiry commission, sociologist
Sherene Razack was grilled about a report she had
prepared for victims’ families alleging
systemic racism led to Canadian officials
minimising the warnings to Indian carrier and
being slow to respond after the devastating
bombing.
In her testimony,
Razack did not level charges of overt racism at
individual bureaucrats, politicians or officers
and even acknowledged that "there is
evidence that some Canadian officials acted
heroically."
However, she said
an overall structure tainted by systemic racism
led people to ignore advance warnings of the
attack and hampered the initial probe.
Denying the
allegations, federal Government lawyer Barney
Brucker said Razack selectively examined a
fraction of the evidence and testimony at the
inquiry before coming to her unsubstantiated
findings.
Razack has argued
in her report that a racial bias, perhaps
unconscious, affected the Government’s
response to the bombing.
But Brucker
bristled at the suggestion, saying Razack based
the report on selective documents given to her by
lawyers of the victims’ families.
"You really
don’t know what happened in this case,
Professor, other than what’s been fed to you
in these documents," Brucker said during
cross-examination.
Razack, who
teaches at the University of Toronto’s
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
retorted that Brucker’s remark was a
"particularly contemptuous way of putting
it."
Meanwhile, the
lawyer went on to note that much of the testimony
heard at the inquiry indicates police and
security officials did the best they could to
head off the bombing.
He also pointed
out that former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who
oversaw the Government’s fact-finding
mission that led to the inquiry, testified that
he found no evidence of racism among key
decision-makers.
On her part,
Razack acknowledged "people worked very
hard" and "felt very strongly that they
had not discriminated.
But she said with
systemic racism, compassionate people can be
trapped in social or bureaucratic structures that
produce discriminatory results.
She said Ottawa
was slow to recognise the enormity of the tragedy
and took more than two decades to call a public
inquiry.
The downing of the
flight was widely blamed on Sikh militants. Only
one person-Inderjit Singh Reyat-was ever
convicted in the plot for which the
investigations have been dragging on for decades.
Lawyers for the
victims’ families are expected to make their
closing arguments and offer recommendations for
reforming policies.
The public inquiry
was set up under pressure from the relatives of
the victims who were outraged by the acquittal of
the two main suspects-Ripudaman Singh Malik and
Ajaib Singh Bagri-in 2005. The final hearings led
by former Supreme Court Judge John Major began
more than one and half years ago. (PTI)
Six dead in yet
another campus massacre in US..
NEW
YORK, Feb 15: In yet another campus shooting in
the US, a heavily-armed former student gunned
down five students and injured 16 others in a
Northern Illinois University lecture hall before
turning the gun on himself, shocking the country
on Valentine’s Day.
The tall, white,
skinny assailant, dressed in black, emerged from
behind a screen on the stage with two handguns
and a shotgun and sprayed bullets on the startled
students of the geology class without saying a
word, officials and eyewitnesses said.
This is the fourth
shooting to rock US schools and colleges within a
week. On February 8, a woman shot dead two fellow
students before committing suicide at Louisiana
Technical College. In Memphis, a 17-year-old
allegedly shoot and critically wounded a fellow
student on Monday.
All of the dead,
including four women, in the Valentine’s Day
shooting were students, John G Peters, the
president of Northern Illinois University, told
reporters.
Six of the 16
injured were in critical condition.
Authorities did
not immediately identify the gunman who died of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound.
His body was found
on the stage of the lecture hall along with three
weapons two handguns and the shotgun, with
ammunition still left in both handguns. Gun
magazines were found "all over the
floor," Donald Grady, the NIU police chief,
said.
"This thing
started and ended within a matter of
seconds," he said adding they could not
ascertain any motive as of now.
Shots rang out
shortly after 3 PM Central Time inside Cole Hall
of the 113-year-old university where 25,000
students, including, 862 foreigners, are
enrolled.
A student who
identified herself as Sheila told WBBM radio that
the gunman was holding a "huge gun" and
she thought that it was a fake.
"He was
quiet. He just stood on the stage in front of
everybody and just started shooting," she
said. "I saw him holding the gun and it was
huge. I thought it was fake and then I realized
he was really shooting at people and I got down..
I saw a lot of blood."
Security around
campus was increased in December when police
found threats scrawled on a campus bathroom wall
that included racial slurs and references to last
April’s Virginia Tech killings, CNN
reported.
A heavily armed
South Korean student had killed 32 people on his
campus at Virginia Tech before committing
suicide.
One of the threats
said "things will change most hastily"
in the final days of the semester.
Peters said the
motive for the "senseless tragedy" was
unknown, but authorities had "no reason to
believe" it was related to threats found in
December.
Illinois Governor
Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency,
which will open the governor’s disaster fund
to reimburse local government entities.
Desiree Smith said
she saw fellow students fall down around her as
the gunman opened fire. She tried to crawl away
thinking she was going to die, then wondered if
she should play dead before getting up to run out
of the classroom.
Peters said the
gunman was enrolled as a graduate student at NIU
in the spring of 2007. There are about 162
registered students in the class.
Rosie Moroni, a
student at the school, she heard shots coming
from the classroom which followed by "a lot
of people screaming."
Then people ran
out the doors yelling, "He’s got a gun,
call 9-1-1," she said. "It was complete
chaos ... It’s very scary here right
now." (PTI)
Russia, Iran to
set up JV to operate Bushehr nuke plant
MOSCOW,
Feb 15: Russia and Iran may set up a joint
venture to operate the Bushehr nuclear power
plant, in three months, a top official of the
Russian nuclear power equipment and service
export monopoly-Atomstroiexport, has said.
"We have
almost agreed to establish a joint venture to
operate the Bushehr nuclear power plant, both as
part of the contract and later, during
maintenance," Atomstroiexport president
Sergei Shmatko was quoted by RIA Novosti as
saying.
"I have set
myself an optimistic timeframe-three
months," Mr Shmatko said.
He added that
Atomstroiexport, which is building Bushehr plant,
plans to almost double the 1,300 Russian
personnel employed in the construction of Iranian
nuclear power plant.
He, however,
pointed out that the legal status of the
Russian-Iranian joint venture was still not
clear.
Mr Shmatko praised
a recent conference at the Bushehr attended by
Atomstroiexport and subcontractors to discuss the
start of the final stage of construction.
Iran hopes the
power plant will be commissioned in October.
Russia delivered
the eighth and final fuel shipment to Bushehr on
January 28. It has supplied a total of 82 metric
tonnes of low-enriched
uranium to the
light-water nuclear power plant. (UNI)
UN to partly
fund Nepal's 'Women Mt Everest Expedition'
KATHMANDU,
Feb 15: The United Nations has announced
that it will partly fund the 'First Inclusive
Women Mt Everest Expedition 2008', an initiative
to highlight the cause of global climate change
and women empowerment.
The initiative,
that includes women from multiple castes and
ethnicity of Nepal, is the first Mt Everest
expedition of its kind, a press release said.
Of the total USD
200,000 budget for the expedition which will
begin this spring, the World Food Programme and
the United Nations Development Programme will
bear 25 per cent.
"Our
expedition is aimed at creating awareness about
the impact of global climate change on Nepalese
people and their livelihoods, and its impacts on
one of the Nepal's valuable resources, the
Himalayas", Da Gombu Sherpa, the team leader
of the expedition said.
The members of the
expedition expressed hope that their efforts will
not only open up mountaineering as a sport and a
career for women in Nepal, but will also
encourage them to work together to pursue their
goals.
"We hope the
expedition will also play a significant role in
promoting education, empowering women and
educating people about the effects of climate
change in Nepal after completing the
expedition", Sherpa added. (PTI)
Black pepper
‘could cure skin condition’
LONDON,
Feb 15: Black pepper may be hot for your pot
but it could cure skin disease vitiligo-a
condition in which areas of skin lose their
normal pigment and turn white.
Researchers at the
King’s College in London have carried out a
study and found that piperine-a compound that
gives black pepper its spicy, pungent flavour-can
stimulate the skin to produce pigment.
"We have
shown that topical treatment with piperine
stimulates even pigmentation in the skin.
Combining this with UVR significantly enhances
the pigmentation with results that are
cosmetically better than conventional vitiligo
therapies.
"This
provides strong support for the future clinical
evaluation of piperine and its derivatives as
novel treatments for vitiligo," the British
media quoted lead researcher Prof Antony Young as
saying.
The researchers
came to the conclusion after examining the
effects of piperine, and its synthetic
derivatives, when applied to the skin of rodents,
either alone or followed by a therapy involving
ultraviolet light.
When used alone,
they found that piperine and two of its
derivatives stimulated pigmentation to an even,
light brown colour within six weeks. Combining
the treatment with UVR, the skin became darker
still.
The effect was
achieved much faster than using UVR treatment
alone, and lasted longer. However, the
researchers found the combined therapy gave a
much more even pigmentation than UVR alone, which
can often result in a patchy appearance.
The results of the
study have been published in the ‘British
Journal of Dermatology’.
Vitiligo is
estimated to affect about one in 100 people.
Current treatments include corticosteroids
applied to the skin and phototherapy using UVR to
re-pigment the skin. But, less than a quarter of
patients respond to it.
According to Nina
Goad of the British Association of
Dermatologists, "Vitiligo is a highly
visible disease that can greatly affect patients
psychologically and emotionally. Any breakthrough
in treatments of this disease is most welcome.
"These
findings could potentially lead to the
development of treatments that not only provide
improved results, but could also reduce the need
for UV radiation in vitiligo treatment, in turn
lowering the risk of skin cancer." (PTI)
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