Report on Indian workers in Bahrain to be submitted next month

DUBAI, Mar 29: A report highlighting the problems faced by Indian workers in Bahrain will be submitted to authorities in New Delhi next month.

Speaking at the embassy’s monthly open house in Adliya, Indian Ambassador to Bahrain, Balkrishna Shetty, said the embassy was collecting information from their records on problems commonly faced by Indians, which will be presented to the authorities in New Delhi during the visit by Bahrain’s Labour Minister Dr Majeed Al Alawi from April 25 to 27.

Dr Al Alawi will be accompanied by three Labour Ministry officials and one from Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) along with five businessmen, Farooq Almoayyed, Jameel Mayrooq, Sameer Nass, Adel Al Ali and Yousif Saher, the Gulf Daily News reported.

Mr Shetty said the days of slavery were over and employees could not be kept in bondage by employers.

"We have never seen a sponsor or employer being prosecuted for a violation he has committed and it is always the employee who gets punished," he said and added this setup, which is a violation of international human rights, has to change, according to the report.

Mr Shetty pointed out that Bahrain is equally keen as India to ensure that there is no violation of human rights and justice is served.

"Uniformity should be observed in all job contracts with expatriates

instead of the employer adding clauses according to his will and wish," Mr Shetty said.

He added if there was a court case against an Indian and he wished to leave Bahrain, then he should be allowed to and the embassy should be allowed to contest the case.

He also stressed that the employee’s signature should be made mandatory for renewal of a job visa, which would help reduce bondage by employer.

Primarily, they need to be educated never to hand over their passports to the sponsor or employer, he said. (UNI)

No signs N Korea preparing more missile tests -South

SEOUL, Mar 29: South Korea's military said today there were no signs North Korea would again test-fire missiles, a day after it launched a barrage of short-range rockets and threatened to attack the South Korean Navy.

In the past few days, North Korea has also expelled South Korean officials from a joint factory park just north of the border and threatened to slow down a nuclear deal in what analysts said was a show of anger at the new conservative South Korean government and its ally the United States.

''We are not seeing any further signs of particular movements that would indicate additional missile launches. We suspect the situation is over after yesterday's launch'' a public affairs official at the Defence Ministry said.

North Korea, which has a habit of test-launching missiles as a way to ratchet up political tensions, shot off ship-to-ship missiles into the Yellow Sea yesterday.

It also said if South Korean ships continued to patrol in disputed Yellow Sea waters, there could be a battle.

In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said missile testing was ''not constructive'' and should end.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's government, in office for a month, has told its touchy and destitute neighbour that if it wants to keep receiving aid, it should clean up its human rights, abide by an international nuclear deal and start returning the more than 1,000 South Koreans it kidnapped or has held since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Lee's left-of-centre predecessors in the presidential Blue House for the past 10 years have sent billions of dollars in aid to the North while asking for little in return, seeing it as the price to pay for stability on the heavily armed peninsula.

North Korea's official media has criticised conservatives in South Korea for trying to upset once-warming ties, while Seoul has said it is ready to send massive aid to the North, but it expects its prickly neighbour to offer something in return.

The North Korean moves come as conservatives are trying to take over control of the South's parliament from left-of-centre forces in an April 9 election. If conservatives win a majority, Lee's hand would be strengthened for several years.

''North Korea is creating an atmosphere of tension in response to the government pursuing a hard-line policy toward Pyongyang,'' said Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on the North at South Korea's Dongguk University.

At about the same time as the yesterday launch, North Korea's official media fired a rhetorical volley at the United States, blaming it for pushing into deadlock six-country talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear arms plans.

Pyongyang began disabling its Soviet-era nuclear plant that produces plutonium for weapons late last year as part of a deal with regional powers in return for aid and an end to international isolation.

The process has reached a stage where it would likely take it at least a year to get its Yongbyon nuclear plant running again, South Korean officials said.

(AGENCIES)

'UN ready to provide assistance in Iraq's troubled region'

NEW YORK, Mar 29: Voicing concern over deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Iraq, the United Nations expressed its willingness to provide assistance in the country's troubled region particularly in south-east region of Basra, where a large-scale military operation is under way.

Veronique Taveau of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said the UN agencies in Iraq are ready to provide assistance in both Basra and Sadr City.

Amid flare-ups in violence, Taveau said movement and access to Basra's population is currently impossible.

Half of the 3.2 million-strong population of these areas comprises children, she said.

The UNICEF is equipped to provide relief to 70,000 families by providing 39 million water purification tablets and 40,000 sachets of oral rehydration salts to treat young children for diarrhoea.

The World Health Organization has prepositioned 1,600 blood bags and trauma kits to treat injuries, while the World Food Programme has 200 tons of food ready to distribute outside Basra.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees is prepared to hand out non-food items, such as blankets, cooking stoves and water containers, for up to 8,000 families, it said. (PTI)

On Antarctic base, life is communal

MARAMBIO BASE, ANTARCTICA, Mar 29: Argentina's base on Antarctica is more like a commune than a barracks.

The 36 members of the Argentine Air Force stationed here all eat the same food, take turns washing dishes and clean their own clothing, regardless of rank.

''Everyone has everything they need right here and they have it in the same measure,'' said nurse Roxana Lucero. ''If there's beer, there's beer for everyone, and if there's coffee, there's coffee for everyone.''

The Marambio base is bare-bones, isolated and, outside, it's brutally cold.

Argentina maintains it for research and to support a claim to part of Antarctica, which a 1959 treaty reserved for peaceful and scientific pursuits.

Sporadic flights by a transport plane are the only lifeline, and the isolation has relaxed the rigid hierarchy of the military.

At a routine post-breakfast line-up, the senior officer asks, in a stern voice, if anyone has problems to report.

A crew member replies in an exaggarated small voice: ''I'm homesick, sir'' and the team bursts into laughter.

''You can't do things as you would elsewhere because life here would be very difficult,'' said Air Vice Commodore Ricardo Valladares, the base commander.

''You have to try to make life together as pleasant as possible. So a lot of things are permitted here that would be unthinkable outside.''

A Hercules cargo plane flies in a few times a month in the summer, but in winter, when the weather is bad, more than a month can pass without a flight. It brings supplies and letters, and sometimes researchers or families.

Hector Arguello, a noncommissioned officer, is waiting for his wife and three children to arrive for a brief visit.

Their journey included a 10-hour bus trip, a four-hour plane ride to southern Argentina, and a two-day wait before weather conditions allowed the Hercules to fly to Antarctica.

As the plane carrying the Arguellos circled above the base, thick clouds obscured the view of the runway and the pilot considered turning back.

Finally he was able to land. The people waiting at the base heard the aircraft, but could see it only moments before it hit the runway.

''We can never say 'they've arrived' until the Hercules actually touches ground,'' Arguello said.

NOT A DROP TO DRINK

Antarctica is estimated to hold 90 per cent of the world's ice, and thus most of its freshwater reserves. But a desert mentality prevails at Marambio, where water is strictly rationed.

During the summer months, water is pumped from an artificial lake that is replenished by snow -- as long as the climate cooperates.

But in the winter, melting snow for water is hard work and requires a special diesel fuel that has a lower freezing point than normal.

The task, in minus 40 degree Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures, is very demanding, Valladares said. ''We have to haul the machines outside, get people out to gather snow.''

A five-minute shower is normally allowed once a day. Base residents can clean their clothing only once a week, and dishes are washed by dipping them into soapy water and then rinsing them in another filled sink while the tap stays shut, a novelty for water-rich Argentines.

The people staying at Marambio also grow more susceptible to disease because their defenses weaken.

''There are fewer viruses and bacteria in Antarctica and when the Hercules lands, it always brings people who are carriers,'' said Lucero, the base nurse. ''At least half the crew gets a cold.''

Several people at the base compared the experience to the television reality show Big Brother: they are isolated, they have to share everything, they don't need money, and they go through a long selection process.

The only difference, according to base dwellers, is that they are paid less than the inmates on Big Brother, and they don't get famous.

Another difference is that anybody who wants to can leave the television show. But at Marambio, it's the Hercules that decides. (AGENCIES)

Study shows life was tough for ancient Egyptians

CAIRO, Mar 29: New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found.

Tell el-Amarna was briefly the capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in favour of the Aten sun disk and brought in a new and more expressive style of art.

Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt between 1379 and 1362 BC, built and lived in Tell el-Amarna in central Egypt for 15 years. The city was largely abandoned shortly after his death and the ascendance of the famous boy king Tutankhamun to the throne.

Studies on the remains of ordinary ancient Egyptians in a cemetery in Tell el-Amarna showed that many of them suffered from anaemia, fractured bones, stunted growth and high juvenile mortality rates, according to professors Barry Kemp and Gerome Rose, who led the research.

Rose, a professor of anthropology in the University of Arkansas in the United States, said adults buried in the cemetery were probably brought there from other parts of Egypt.

''This means that we have a period of deprivation in Egypt prior to the Amarna phase,'' he told an audience of archaeologists and Egyptologists in Cairo on Thursday evening.

''So maybe things were not so good for the average Egyptian and maybe Akhenaten said we have to change to make things better,'' he said.

Kemp, director of the Amarna Project which seeks in part to increase public knowledge of Tell el-Amarna and surrounding region, said little attention has been given to the cemeteries of ordinary ancient Egyptians.

''A very large number of ordinary cemeteries have been excavated but just for the objects and very little attention has been paid for the human remain,'' he told Reuters.

''The idea of treating the human remains ... To study the overall health of the population is relatively new.''

Paintings in the tombs of the nobles show an abundance of offerings, but the remains of ordinary people tell a different story.

Rose displayed pictures showing spinal injuries among teenagers, probably because of accidents during construction work to build the city.

The study showed that anaemia ran at 74 per cent among children and teenagers, and at 44 per cent among adults, Rose said. The average height of men was 159 cm (5 feet 2 inches) and 153 cm among women.

''Adult heights are used as a proxy for overall standard of living,'' he said. ''Short statures reflect a diet deficient in protein. ... People were not growing to their full potential.''

Kemp said he believed further excavations in Tell el-Amarna would ''firm-up'' the conclusions of his team.

''We are seeing a more realistic picture of what life was like,'' he told Reuters. ''It has nothing to do with the intentions of Akhenaten, which may have been good and paternal toward his people.''

(AGENCIES)

China vows to compensate victims in Lhasa violence

BEIJING, Mar 29: China offered to pay compensation to the families of the civilians it says died in violence in the Tibetan capital this month as Beijing kept up an intense propaganda campaign in the wake of the unrest.

Anyone injured in the chaos that engulfed in Lhasa after days of Buddhist monk-led demonstrations was entitled to free medical care, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late yesterday.

Unrest in the Chinese-controlled Himalayan region and other Tibetan-populated parts of western China, and China’s response, have become a focus of international concern just months ahead of the summer Olympics.

Beijing has hoped the games, which start in August, would be a "coming out" party and a chance to showcase progress in the world’s fourth biggest economy, but the Olympics have become a lightning rod for criticism.

By the government’s count, 18 civilians died during the March 14 anti-Chinese violence in Lhasa, during which demonstrators hurled rocks at police and burned and looted stores and homes.

Their families would each receive 200,000 yuan (28,530 dollars), Xinhua said, quoting a notice from Tibet’s regional government.

"Measures are to be taken to help people repair their homes and shops damaged in the unrest or to build new ones," Xinhua quoted the notice as saying. One police officer also died, state media say, but Xinhua did not mention compensation arrangements.

The Tibet government-in-exile, established when the Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive uprising in 1959, has estimated that there have been 140 deaths in the violence.

Since the unrest, China has been on a propaganda offensive, attacking foreign news organisations for biased reporting, quoting Buddhist clergy condemning the riots, praising the authorities for exercising restraint and highlighting the material gains the ruling Communist Party has brought to Tibet.

It has also pinned the blame for the unrest exclusively on the "Dalai clique"-the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet and his supporters-who it says want Tibet independence.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who says he only wants greater autonomy for Tibet within China, said yesterday China’s media were using "deceit and distortion" in coverage of the protests in Tibet, adding that it could cause racial tension and lead to unpredictable long-term consequences.

Foreign reporters have been blocked from travelling independently to Tibet and Tibetan-populated parts of the neighbouring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai, some of which have also seen protests and unrest.

Earlier this week, the government took select foreign media to Lhasa for a stage-managed three-day tour meant to highlight the wreckage, showcase the victims and give the impression that the city was returning to normal.

But the plan backfired when about 30 monks at a central temple crashed an official news briefing to complain about lack of religious freedom and voice support for the Dalai Lama.

A Chinese official said the monks would not be punished, but Xinhua ran an editorial that slammed the youthful monks for being ignorant about life in Tibet before the Chinese army "liberated" the region in 1950.

(AGENCIES)

Malaysia says no to release of ethnic Indian MP

KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 29: Malaysia has refused calls to free a Hindu rights activist who was jailed last year under an internal-security law, even though he was elected this month to parliament in a show of voter anger at his imprisonment.

Lawyer M. Manoharan was one of five Hindu activists detained without charge after they organised an anti-Government protest by more than 10,000 ethnic Indians in November. An opposition party later nominated Manoharan for the March 8 poll, which saw a huge protest vote by Malaysia's Indian minority.

''We cannot simply react to political parties' calls,'' Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying in the Star daily today, when asked if the government would release Manoharan so that he could represent his electorate.

He said the Government could only reconsider the case if the five activists were no longer deemed security threats.

''We have to give priority to public safety and peace and will give due consideration only if there is no threat to national security,'' Syed Hamid added.

Under Malaysia's colonial-era Internal Security Act, the Government can order someone's indefinite detention, without charge. Human rights and lawyer groups say the law has been abused at times over many years to lock up political opponents.

Manoharan was elected as a candidate for the Democratic Action Party, which is fighting in the courts for his release. An appeal court is due to rule on his case on April 2, but his wife, Pushpaneela, 46, who ran his election campaign while he was behind bars, wants the Government to release him before then. (AGENCIES)

Taj Mahal Emperor's rare dagger to be auctioned

LONDON, Mar 29: A gold encrusted dagger once owned by the Indian Emperor who built the Taj Mahal as a gesture of love for his wife could fetch 500,000 pounds (1 million dollars) when it goes on sale next month, experts said.

The dagger, once part of Shah Jahan's collection, is dated in the years just after the Mughal Emperor came to power in the 17th century.

Inscriptions on the back of the blade include Jahan's official titles, date and place of birth, and an ''honorific parasol'' -- an ancient pan-Asian symbol of divinity of royalty, according to Bonhams auction house yesterday.

Jahan, who ruled from 1628 to 1658 -- and is said to have had a love for beautiful objects -- built the majestic mausoleum as a memorial to his wife Mumtaz Mahal whose death during the birth of their 14th child devastated the ruler.

In his last years, the emperor was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb and is said to have spent his remaining days gazing at the Taj, located on the outskirts of Agra city, from his prison cell in a nearby fort.

His dagger is one of several items that are being auctioned from the private collection of a late wealthy French-textile businessman, Jacques Desenfans.

''The fabulous sardonyx-hilted dagger ... Is typical of Shah Jahan's taste and character in a number of ways,'' the internationally acclaimed, Scottish historian William Dalrymple, wrote earlier this year.

''The hilt reflects his love of rare and previous stones; its workmanship represents the skills of the Mughal atelier at this peak of refinement... And the weapon itself is emblematic of its owner's sometime murderous tendencies.'' The dagger will go under the hammer in London on April 10. (AGENCIES)

Moaning men make women bad drivers

LONDON, Mar 29: Stop complaining to your wife while she is behind the wheel that women are terrible drivers or else you will make matters worse.

Research found that women who are chided while driving are more than twice as likely to make mistakes as those who have no ''constructive criticism'' from their male passengers.

Even something like a man tutting while a woman carries out a manoeuvre can lead to greater difficulties as women get annoyed by the criticism, it revealed.

Simply telling a woman that men make better drivers was enough to disturb their concentration, it added.

Dr Courtney von Hippel, a psychologist from the University of Queensland in Australia said, ''When people are confronted with negative stereotypes about themselves they seem to experience an extra mental load, which can decrease their performance on a task.''

Out of 168 female students for a computer simulation, half were told the study would investigate why men were better drivers than women, while the other group heard no mention of gender differences but were told the driving task would investigate the mental processes involved in driving, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Nearly half of the drivers in the ''stereotype'' group hit a wandering pedestrian who unexpectedly appeared in the simulation-- more than twice the number in the other group. (UNI)

New method for filming blood vessels developed ..

WASHINGTON, Mar 29: A new method of filming blood-vessel cells has been developed by researchers at Uppsala University.

Formation of new cells is sometimes desirable, EG in the event of wound healing, when new tissue are formed. Undesirable vessel formation takes place in the event of tumour growth. The tumour receives nutrition from the new blood vessels and can also spread via newly formed lymph vessels, thus prevention of vessel growth is desirable in this situation.

"The method can basically be adapted to facilitate study of all types of cells. It is particularly important to study the mechanisms that determine whether or not cancer cells spread," says researcher Johan Kreuger in the Science daily who has been heading the project.

A major challenge in the field of medicine is understanding the signals governing the way vessels are formed. It has been proposed that targeted signals -- so-called gradients -- from growth factors instruct the vessels as to the direction in which they are to grow.

"Our study shows that a simple gradient from a signal protein is sufficient to tell the blood vessel cell in which direction it is to move. We have also been able to show that the form of the gradient governs the way in which the cell moves," says Irmeli Barkefors, a postgraduate student at Uppsala University.

The research group is now going to develop the method further. The aim is to be able to study targeted migration in complicated organ culture systems, whereby interaction between different cell types can be studied.

(UNI)

West needs to talk to Taliban: Britain

LONDON, Mar 29: Britain said conflict resolution should include negotiations between the West and extremist groups like Taliban to stabilise the world.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, British Defence Secretary Des Browne said, ''Britain and other democratic states should negotiate with organisations linked to violence, including elements of the Taliban and Hizbollah, in an attempt to prevent the long-term spread of terrorism.''

''What you need to do in conflict resolution is to bring the people who believe that the answer to their political ambitions will be achieved through violence into a frame of mind that they accept that their political ambitions will be delivered by politics,'' he added.

However, he said there was presently nothing to negotiate about with al-Qaeda because their demand was an end to our way of life.

His comments contradict Prime Minister Gordon Brown's pledge last year that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists.

Mr Browne said his experience convinced him that the West should be willing to have lines of communication open to Islamist extremists.

''There are different varieties of these organisations. There's no question that some of them, if we succeed, will transfer into the political dimension,'' he added.

(UNI)

'UN to play its part to ensure smooth elections in Nepal'

NEW YORK, Mar 29: The United Nations would play its part to ensure that Maoists, army personnel and weapons are contained to the agreed cantonments during the election campaign for the Constituent Assembly (CA) polls slated for April 10 in Nepal, a top UN official has said.

The Secretary-General's Special Representative and the head of the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), Ian Martin met with the country's election commissioners to discuss the effective monitoring of the cantonments through the Joint Monitoring and Coordination Committee.

Martin reportedly told the commissioners that it was a breach of the agreement on the monitoring of the management of arms and armies for personnel or weapons from Maoist to be present at meetings outside the cantonments.

Special security arrangements for the Maoist leadership were agreed upon in a signed understanding between the Government and the Maoists, according to the UN.

Nepalese voters go to the polls on April 10 to elect members of the CA, which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution for the country.

The polls are part of a democratisation process following the end of the decade-long civil war, which claimed an estimated 13,000 lives until the Government and the Maoists signed a peace accord in 2006. (PTI)

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