UN seeks aid for Bhutanese refugees affected by fire

NEW YORK, Mar 8: The United Nations refugee agency has urgently sought funds to provide relief to thousands of Bhutanese refugees who lost their homes and belongings in a devastating fire that swept through their camp in eastern Nepal last weekend.

The fire that broke out last Saturday destroyed 95 per cent of the Goldhap refugee camp and left most of its 9,770 residents homeless, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

The Nepalese Government along with UN agencies, NGOs and the local communities, has been providing emergency assistance, including building emergency shelters, temporary toilets and distributing food rations for two weeks.

In addition, both the Government and UNHCR have been providing cash grants of up to USD 32 per family to help refugees with their immediate needs following the fire, whose cause is still being investigated.

However, more funds are required to assist the affected refugees. "We need USD 580,000 to rebuild the camp and help the refugees," UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told reporters, adding that the most immediate needs are shelter, water, sanitation, blankets and mosquito nets.

The agency reported that heavy rain has hampered relief efforts over the last few days but supplies continue to be distributed. In addition, health workers are offering medical services especially to children, pregnant and lactating women and those with chronic diseases.

Goldhap is one of the seven camps in eastern Nepal housing some 108,000 refugees from Bhutan since the early 1990’s. UNHCR is considering relocating some families to other camps to avoid overcrowding, until Goldhap can be rebuilt. (PTI)

Pakistani faces 4 years in jail for cutting Sikh’s hair

NEW YORK, Mar 8: An 18-year-old Pakistani has been convicted of hate crime charges by a jury for forcibly cutting a Sikh student’s hair in a US school.

Umair Ahmed faces up to four years in prison for cutting 15-year-old Harpal Vacher’s hair with a small pair of folding scissors after threatening him on May 24, 2007.

"The defendant has been convicted of a serious attack on the fundamental beliefs of his victims religion and his freedom to worship freely," Queens district attorney Richard A Brown said.

Crimes of hate will never be tolerated in Queens County, in particular the most culturally diverse county in the nation, he was quoted as saying by the north country gazette.

Ahmed was convicted by the jury of second-degree menacing as a hate crime, second-degree coercion as a hate crime, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, and third-degree harassment.

Brown said that, according to the evidence, Ahmed approached Vacher inside the lunchroom and stated that the only way he would forgive the victim is if Ahmed cut his hair.

Vacher said "For what? It is against my religion."

Ahmed then took his ring and said that if the victim didn’t go with him he would punch the victim with his ring, the gazette reported. He ordered Vacher to go to the bathroom or he would get him after school, cut his hair and send him home naked to his parents.

Ahmed then got a small pair of folding scissors from another student, took Vacher into the bathroom and cut his hair after forcing him to remove his turban. He was arrested by New York Police Department’s School Safety Division.

Ahmed will be sentenced on April 11 by Queens Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld. (PTI)

Australia calls for whaling calm after shots claim

SYDNEY, Mar 8: Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called today for anti-whaling activists and Japanese whalers to show restraint, a day after an activist said he had been shot during a clash in Antarctic waters.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd group's protest ship Steve Irwin, said yesterday he was shot, but survived because he was wearing a kevlar vest.

Japan's fisheries agency said coastguard officials had only thrown ''flash grenades'', which are used for crowd control and are not regarded as weapons, after activists threw stink bombs on to the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru.

''The Australian government absolutely condemns any conduct or activity on the high seas which either causes injury or has the potential to cause injury or risk to the safety of people at sea,'' Smith told reporters in the western city of Perth.

''We have consistently, and I again, call on all parties to show restraint. What is required here, even in the face of great provocation, is calm and restraint.''

Watson's ship has been harassing the Japanese whaling fleet for weeks. In an earlier confrontation, two activists boarded a Japanese ship in January and were held until an Australian fisheries patrol vessel intervened.

Japan, which considers whaling to be a cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling after agreeing to an international moratorium in 1986, but began what it calls a scientific research whaling programme the following year.

It plans to kill nearly 1,000 whales during the Antarctic summer.

Australia has promised to try to stop Japan's whaling programme but the two countries have agreed not to let the issue hurt bilateral ties.

Smith said the Japanese government had said no guns were fired, but he said the use of flash grenades was an unwelcome development, though he acknowledged the Japanese were under heavy provocation.

He added that the Australian Federal Police and Japanese authorities are cooperating in evaluating the reported incidents.

(AGENCIES)

China city says it’s safe for tourists after attack

BEIJING, Mar 8: The Chinese city of Xi’an is bolstering steps to protect tourists visiting the Terracotta Warriors and other famed sites, the city mayor said after an attack on 10 Australians and their translator.

A local man claiming to be armed with explosives attacked the group of Australian travel agents visiting the northwest Chinese city on Wednesday before he was shot dead by a police sniper.

Nine of the hostages were quickly released by the man, Xia Tao. But a 48-year-old woman and the group’s local translator were held captive for several hours before the gunman was killed while he tried to reach the city airport.

The incident draw embarrassing international attention and a storm of media interest in Australia just as China is polishing itself for an influx of foreign visitors for the Beijing Olympic Games starting on August 8.

But Mayor Chen Baogen said the attack was an isolated case and his city was safe, according to the official China Daily today.

"Xi’an is safe for tourists from home and abroad," Chen told the paper. "We’ll definitely take more measures and improve our emergency plans to ensure the safety of every tourist."

He did not specify what those measures were.

China is generally safe for foreign tourists. Attacks are rare and pick-pockets and petty theft are the main worries. Officials have been quick to say the attack was an isolated exception.

Xi’an, which also boasts an ancient city wall and neighbourhoods and impressive museums and mosques, attracted 31 million visitors in 2007, including a million from overseas, the paper said, citing city tourist bureau numbers.

Chen said he expected visitor numbers to grow by at least 10 percent this year compared to 2007.

"The hijacker’s motive remains unclear," the paper said. (AGENCIES)

Philippines' women-only cop station is crisis centre

MANILA, Mar 8: The rows of fixed lines and a mobile phone hotline never stop ringing as trained counsellors alternately take calls from distressed women and children.

But this is no ordinary women's crisis centre run by some private and non-government groups for battered wives or rape victims and physically abused children in the Philippines.

The freshly painted lavender-and-pink office is actually a police station in Manila, manned by an all-woman team trained to handle crimes committed on women and children.

''Our job is really more difficult than solving murders and robberies,'' Chief Superintendent Yolanda Tanigue, head of the national police's women and children protection centre, told Reuters in an interview.

''We're dealing with crime victims who went through traumatic experiences and those who would rather keep silent about their ordeal than share their personal shame, guilt and self-pity.''

Tanigue, the first ever Filipino woman police officer to be promoted to general, heads about 3,000 women who work in similar centres in police stations across the country.

The Philippines' 110,000-strong national police force has about 10,000 women.

A trained social worker before she joined the police 28 years ago, Tanigue said she was concerned over the rise of domestic violence cases in the Philippines since 2004, when wife abuse was criminalised by law.

From about 200 cases of assault on women investigated in 2004, the number had risen to more than 2,300 complaints last year. But there could be a far bigger number of unreported cases, she said.

''I really don't believe Filipino men are wife-beaters,'' the soft-speaking Tanigue said. ''But, some men are afraid they will be called 'under the woman's skirt' and beat their wives just to show they are macho and the boss in the house.''

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Since the mid-1990s, the Philippines started putting up women and children's desks in police stations across the country, but it was only this year that the concept of an all-woman police station to handle such crimes was put into motion.

Apart from its pastel-coloured building, Tanigue's office is not your usual drab police station. It has a spacious garden and a playground and the rooms are decorated like a kindergarten school.

The only indication in Tanigue's pink-coloured room that it was part of a police station is the display of her personal general's flag, rows of medals and her uniform. Beside her huge desk is an altar with several icons of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

''We're still adding up new facilities to cope with our work,'' she said, hoping to open half-way houses for distressed women and children as well as training areas.

She said hundreds of women police officers were trained in different parts of the country to handle investigation of women and children cases as well as offer gender-sensitivity courses to male police officers.

''Our biggest challenge is not to educate our women to stand up for their rights, it's actually how to raise awareness and to make men respect our rights,'' Tanigue said. (AGENCIES)

US recession fears rise on more job cuts

WASHINGTON, Mar 8: US employers unexpectedly cut jobs in February at the steepest rate in nearly five years, a second straight month of employment losses that heightened fears the world's largest economy has skidded into recession.

''The question appears no longer to be are we going into a recession but how long and deep it will be,'' said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc in Holland, Pennsylvania.

The Labor Department on Friday said 63,000 non-farm jobs were eliminated on top of an upwardly revised loss of 22,000 in January, sharply contrary to Wall Street economists' forecasts that 25,000 positions would be added in February.

The department also halved the number added in December to 41,000 from the 82,000 estimated a month ago, in a move that underlined the steady deterioration in the U.S. Labor market.

''The underlying trends are horrible, with worse to come,'' said economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. The Federal Reserve ''has to ease (U.S. benchmark interest rates) much more,'' he said.

The U.S. Central bank already has cut its federal funds target rate by 2.25 percentage points since September to its current 3 percent level and is widely expected to slash it again at its next policy-setting session on March 18.

A Reuters poll on Friday found that most major Wall Street dealers expect the fed funds rate to be at 2 percent and possibly lower by the end of April. For details see [ID:nN07576467].

STOCK PRICES SUFFER

Stock prices dropped on the unfavorable jobs report, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> down 146.70 points at the close to 11,893.69. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was off 8.01 points to end at 2,212.49.

U.S. Treasury debt prices were mixed. The benchmark 10-year note rose 10/32 in price for a yield of 3.56 percent, down from 3.59 percent late Thursday.

Just before the employment report's release, the Fed said it was increasing the size of special auctions it conducts twice a month to add funds, or liquidity, into highly stressed capital markets. That should make it easier for businesses to borrow money needed to expand and to boost hiring.

President George W. Bush acknowledged an economic slowdown has begun but said his administration deserved credit for administering a ''booster shot'' in the form of a $152 billion economic stimulus program that should kick in by summer.

''We believe that the steps we've taken, together with the actions taken by the Federal Reserve, will have a positive effect on our economy,'' Bush said. Until now, the White House has maintained the economy was not at risk of recession and still resists questions whether a contraction is under way.

''Recessions are things that are declared by other people,'' White House Economic Adviser Edward Lazear said, though he conceded the Bush administration has ''definitely downgraded'' its forecast for first-quarter economic performance.

The jobs report is one of the first gauges of overall U.S. economic activity each month, and so the bleak February report sent a shock through the global financial sector.

WORST SINCE 2003

The back-to-back January and February job losses were the first consecutive monthly declines since May and June of 2003, shortly after the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Labor Department officials said February's job losses were the largest for any month since March 2003 when 212,000 jobs were cut.

Late on Friday, the Fed issued data showing consumers were still borrowing heavily to spend in January. Consumer credit outstanding climbed by $6.9 billion, nearly double December's $3.7 billion gain.

Many economists caution that the next wave of defaults on borrowing is likely to occur in consumer loans like those taken out to buy cars and to keep up credit-card payments.

During February, the U.S. Unemployment rate eased to 4.8 percent from 4.9 percent in January, but that was because fewer people were in the labor force. The department said the number of people in the workforce fell by 450,000 in February, likely a sign that many people have given up trying to find a job.

Job losses were widespread. Some 52,000 jobs were lost at factories, the largest decline since July 2003 when 92,000 jobs were cut. Construction businesses eliminated another 39,000 on top of 25,000 cut in January, a reflection of the housing industry's deepening woes.

The department said that since the housing boom peaked in September 2006, construction businesses have cut 331,000 jobs.

Retailers also shed jobs last month, dropping 34,000 people off their payrolls, a possible reflection of concern that hard-pressed consumers are likely to begin pulling back sharply on spending.

In a statement issued with the data, Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall warned that many of this year's job losses may take a long time to come back. (AGENCIES)

Attention tourists -- pack your Green Passport along

NEW YORK, Mar 8: Green bags, Green dresses, Green homes are a passe, its time for "Green Passport." Not exactly a passport, Green Passport launched by United Nations for tourists aims to save and protect the environment.

"Green Passport," an internet campaign aimed at tourists, holidayers across the globe, guides and gives them the message of taking environment along while they travel and have fun.

The campaign encourages and guides tourists while they are vacating to do things which are right environmentally and do not impact adversely on the surroundings.

The site has been launched by United Nations Environment Programme in cooperation with tourism ministries of France and Brazil to coincide the Berlin Tourism Fair.

Green Passport introduces potential travelers to things they can do to make tourism sustainable and help in the social and economic development of communities that host them, the website says.

Among other things, it advises the tourists to prefer destinations which have demonstrated responsible practices like human and environment conservation records, commitment to peace and pay fair wages to hotel workers.

"Packing a Green Passport along with airline tickets, the swimming costume and the sun lotion means tourists no longer need to leave their green credentials at home but can make them part of the holiday of a lifetime," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said at the fair.

By 2020, Steiner noted, the number of international arrivals by air and by sea could reach 1.6 billion annually.

Among the other things, the Green Passport advises tourists to choose responsible service providers, reduce the consumption of energy in transit or in hotels and buy locally made, environmentally-friendly souvenirs. (PTI)

Blood thinners like aspirin may fight cancer-study

WASHINGTON, Mar 8: Blood-thinning drugs such as aspirin may help fight cancer by denying shelter to wandering tumor cells, US researchers reported.

Experiments in mice showed that combining aspirin with an experimental anti-clotting drug slowed the growth and spread of breast and melanoma tumors.

Blood cells called platelets shelter and feed tumor cells in the bloodstream, making it easier for cancer to spread, or metastasize, the team at Washington University in St Louis said.

Writing in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, they said inactivating platelets may help slow or prevent this spread.

The study could help support other findings that show people who take aspirin or similar drugs that affect a gene and protein called COX-2, including aspirin, ibuprofen and the COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex, have a lower risk of some cancers.

There is also some suggestion that taking aspirin or ibuprofen along with chemotherapy may make the chemo more effective.

''Past research has shown that tumor cells activate platelets and that mice with defective platelets have significantly fewer metastases,'' Dr Katherine Weilbaecher, who helped lead the study, said in a statement yesterday.

''We also know that platelets have several traits that can aid tumor cells, and we are working to break up that potentially lethal partnership.''

The researchers used ordinary aspirin combined with an experimental antiplatelet drug called APT102. Made by St. Louis-based APT Therapeutics, the drug interferes with clotting.

When they injected mice with breast cancer and melanoma cells, the tumors quickly spread to the bone.

But when the mice got aspirin and APT102, the tumors that grew and spread were much smaller. Neither drug had an effect on its own, perhaps because platelet-making processes must be attacked from several angles, Weilbaecher said.

''Aspirin prevents platelets from making thromboxane, a substance that facilitates clotting,'' Weilbaecher said.

''APT102 is an especially interesting drug because it gets rid of a compound called ADP, which tumor cells release and which stimulates platelets to clump. So APT102 prevents platelet activation in response to tumor cells.''

The company provided the drug but did not pay for the study.

''Anti-platelet drugs such as (aspirin) plus APT102 could be valuable experimental tools for studying the role of platelet activation in metastasis as well as a therapeutic option for the prevention of bone metastases,'' the researchers wrote.

Weilbaecher and colleagues are testing their theory in women with advanced breast cancer to test aspirin and the anti-clotting drug Plavix, another antiplatelet drug, to see if the combination reduces the number of tumor cells in the blood.

Plavix, one of the world's best-selling drugs, is sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Sanofi-Aventis. (AGENCIES)

Kerela man plunges to death from a building in Bahrain

DUBAI, Mar 8: A 50-year-old man hailing from Kerala plunged to his death while painting a building in Bahrain.

Parpupara Nanu, 50, was standing on a scaffolding painting a building when he fell to the ground on Thursday at the site of the USD 6 billion Durrat Al- Bahrain project.

"One hour before his death he complained of heart pain and requested some rest for a little time. Afterwards, he went back to work and fell unconscious," a colleague was quoted as saying by media.

Nanu apparently suffered a heart attack, he said.

Hailing from Kozhikode, Nanu had lived in Bahrain for 13 years and is survived by his wife and a six-year-old daughter. (PTI)

Astronomers capture rare video of meteor falling to Earth

NEW YORK, Mar 8: Astronomers claim to have captured a rare video of a meteor falling to Earth.

Using a network of all-sky cameras in Southern Ontario, the astronomers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada have shot the large fireball on Wednesday.

According to Wayne Edwards, one of the researchers, "Most meteoroids burn up by the time they hit an altitude of 60 or 70 kilometres from Earth.

"We tracked this one to an altitude of about 24 kilometres so we are pretty sure there are at least one, and possibly many meteorites, that made it to the ground."

The team hopes to enlist the help of local residents in recovering one or more possible meteorites that may have crashed in the Parry Sound area of Ontario.

According to Edwards, the lab can narrow the ground location where the meteorite would have fallen, to about 12 square kilometres and have created a map that may assist in locating the meteorite.

The rock, or rocks, would probably weigh a kilogramme or slightly more.

"We would love to find a recovered meteorite on this one, because we have the video and we have the data and by putting that together with the meteorite, there is a lot to be learned," Edwards was quoted by the ‘ScienceDaily’ as saying. (PTI)

Mexico soldiers catch corrupt police red-handed

MEXICO CITY, Mar 8: Mexican soldiers caught six local police chiefs red-handed at a gas station sporting luxury watches and carrying envelopes stuffed with wads of cash, the army said.

Soldiers in the northern state of Tamaulipas rushed to the gas station yesterday after a tip-off that members of the powerful Gulf drug Cartel were there. They detained six men who turned out to be municipal police commanders for suspicious activity, the army said.

Searches of the men produced six envelopes filled with thousands of dollars each as well as Rolex and Cartier watches, priced far beyond the means of policemen's salaries, the army said.

The police bosses, from various local forces in Tamaulipas, said the cash was either wages, expense payments or their own savings. The soldiers turned them over to federal investigators.

Mexican police, especially in northern states riddled with drug traffickers, are widely seen as corrupt and prone to top up their meager wages with cash bribes from drug gangs that smuggle cocaine across the border to the United States.

Tens of thousands of troops sent by President Felipe Calderon to crack down on the cartels have disarmed entire police forces in the border city of Tijuana and other towns on suspicion officers were in the pay of drug gangs. (AGENCIES)

Non-stimulant curbs ADHD in fragile X syndrome

NEW YORK, Mar 8: L-acetylcarnitine (LAC), a natural substance devoid of side effects, may be considered an alternative to stimulants to control attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children with the genetic disorder known as fragile X syndrome, researchers conclude based on study they conducted.

Fragile X syndrome is an inherited form of mental retardation. The condition, which may also cause autism and ADHD, results from a genetic defect on the X chromosome.

ADHD is common in young boys with fragile X syndrome and alternatives to methylphenidate and other stimulant medications are needed, note Dr. Giovanni Neri from Universita Cattolica in Rome and colleagues in a Rapid Publication of their study posted online by the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

In a previous study, the team showed that LAC treatment significantly reduced hyperactive behavior in fragile X syndrome boys.

With the current study, the investigators sought to determine the effectiveness of LAC in a larger sample of boys with fragile X syndrome and an established diagnosis of ADHD.

The 63 boys who participated in the study were between 6 and 13 years old. Seven dropped out while 56 completed one year of treatment, and 51 were included in the final analysis. Of these, 24 received LAC and 27 received placebo.

''We observed a stronger reduction of hyperactivity and improvement of social behavior in patients treated with LAC, compared with the placebo group,'' Neri told Reuters Health.

''LAC is a natural substance, playing an important role in the energy metabolism of the cells, and it is devoid of adverse side effects,'' the researcher emphasised. ''Therefore, in our view, it represents a safe alternative to the use of stimulant drugs for the treatment of ADHD in fragile X syndrome children.''

These findings might, in the future, be extended to ADHD in non-fragile X children, who represent a much larger group of individuals, Neri added.

(AGENCIES)