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US on defensive over secret CIA prisons
China puts in 2 m yuan
to fight bird flu
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US not to amend
N-pact with India
Australia fears attacks on two cities
Million homeless, tsunami survivors long for home
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US on defensive over secret CIA prisons
Washington, November 3 US President George W. Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley said yesterday that the United States would do what was necessary to fight and win the war on terrorism. “The President has been very clear we’re doing that in a way that is consistent with our values and that is why he’s been very clear that the United States will not torture,” Mr Hadley told the media. “The United States will conduct its activities in compliance with law (and) international obligations,” he said. The Washington Post reported that the prisons are, or have been, located in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and “several democracies in Eastern Europe” since the system was set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The names of the eastern European countries were withheld by the Post “at the request of senior US officials,” who argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter-terrorism efforts. Thailand denied there was a prison there. Mr Hadley and White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to confirm or deny the Post report. “I would say that the President’s most important responsibility is to protect the American people,” Mr McClellan said. The refusal to discuss the matter was echoed by US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and the Central Intelligence Agency.
— AFP Red Cross wants access to all captive
Geneva, November 3 ‘’We are concerned at the fate of an unknown number of people captured as part of the so-called global war on terror and held at undisclosed places of detention,’’ Mr Antonella Notari, chief ICRC spokeswoman, said. ‘’Access to detainees is an important humanitarian priority for the ICRC and a logical continuation of our current work in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay,’’ she added. Poland and Romania, close U S allies in ex-communist central Europe, today denied suggestions by the New York-based Human Rights Watch that they were among countries hosting secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centres.
— Reuters |
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China puts in 2 m yuan
to fight bird flu
The Beijing government has committed two billion yuan to control and prevent bird flu as part of a wide-ranging strategy to curb spread of the deadly virus. The provincial governments are expected to make their contributions in this fight.
However, many in ASEAN countries feel that it is not sufficient to meet the huge requirements. China has one fifth of the global population on each — humans and domestic fowls — 1.3 billion humans and 14.2 billion domestic fowls. It also does not take into consideration the huge population of wild fowls and also migratory birds since China is exposed to three routes that migratory birds take each year in winter. The migratory birds also constitute a greater danger because of presence of H5N1 virus strains as established by Dr. George Gao Fu of Institute of Microbiology Beijing. Many others feel uncomfortable because of the known tendencies of the Chinese government to cover up the extent of damage and spread of the disease as was evident three years ago when China was afflicted with SARS. It had refused to acknowledge that virus had origins in China and that three provinces were badly affected. Even now China refused to admit that there were fresh out breaks in Hunan and Anhui provinces as late as October 25 2005. Five hundred
forty-five chickens and ducks were found dead with the fatal virus and 2487 birds had to be culled out in Hunan province in South East China. Similarly 550 birds were dead in Anhui province and 44000 birds were culled out on the same day. However China tried to keep the facts under the wrap by using the recently issued orders to the media to seek prior approval to about outbreaks and casualties due to disease from the proper authorities before putting out the stories. What makes China so vulnerable to bird flu is the way it keeps huge number of domestic fowl poultry, mostly in backyard farms along with other livestock such as pigs that are more susceptible to viruses. Domestic pigs can serve as ‘mixer’ because they can easily become conduit through which viruses such as H5N1 can be transmitted to new
human flu virus. Many farms are exposed to wild fowls and migratory birds potential carriers of virus. Since entire China is exposed to three routes for migratory birds, no province can escape from the scourge. As Henk Bekedem, the World Health Organisation representative in China says, it was an enormous task to keep 14.2 billion poultry of China under watch and monitor their health. The task becomes enormous in other senses also because of the poor state of health services in China, especially in the western provinces of the country that come under two routes of migratory birds. Many at the WHO office in Beijing are not too happy with the cooperation by the Chinese authorities. Some recent developments have sparked off concerns. Despite repeated requests WHO is yet to get full details of tests conducted on a 12-year-old girl who had fallen prey to the bird flu at a site outside the poultry breakout in Hunan province in October. The Chinese authorities refuse to acknowledge that the death was due to H5N1 virus but refuse to share the details of the tests supposed to have been carried out. |
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US not to amend
N-pact with India
Bush administration officials on Wednesday cautioned members of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee against amending a civilian nuclear agreement with India even as some lawmakers expressed their apprehensions about the pact.
“We would urge both Congress and our international partners to avoid the temptation to renegotiate the deal,” said Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Mr Robert Joseph. “Based on our interaction with the Indian government, we believe such additional conditions would likely prove to be deal breakers,” he added. The panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, while hailing the agreement as a milestone in the U.S.-India relationship, called India’s nuclear record with the international community “unsatisfying.” He pointed out that India had not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, developed a nuclear weapons arsenal in conflict with the goals of the treaty and violated bilateral pledges made to Washington to not use U.S.-supplied nuclear materials for weapons purposes And, more recently, Indian scientists have faced U.S. sanctions for providing nuclear information to Iran. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said the actions India committed to undertake “are difficult, complex and time-consuming.” He said the Bush administration believes “it is better to wait before we ask Congress to consider any required legislative action until India is further along in taking the necessary steps to fulfill our agreement. I believe that will likely be in early 2006.” India has agreed to seven specific action steps:
Mr. Burns praised India’s September 24 vote at the IAEA that found Iran in noncompliance with its nuclear obligations, saying the vote “reflects India’s coming of age as a responsible state in the global nonproliferation mainstream.” |
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Australia fears attacks on two cities
Canberra, November 3 Mr Howard has refused to reveal details of the threat, which he said came to light this week, but a leading security analyst said home-grown extremists were moving closer to carrying out attacks in the main cities of Sydney and Melbourne. Australia, a staunch US ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA. He said one of those involved was identified as attending a training camp in Pakistan for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba Kashmiri separatist group, which is banned in Australia. Australia has not raised its terror alert warning as a result of recent developments and Mr Howard said today the intelligence he had seen this week did not point to an imminent attack. Mr Howard's warning came as the domestic intelligence service, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), acknowledged for the first time that Australia had home-grown extremists, some of whom had received terror training overseas. Mr Howard plans to introduce new anti-terror measures, criticised by civil liberties groups, to allow the police to detain suspects for seven days without charge, use electronic tracking devices to keep tabs on suspects, and make support for insurgents in countries such as Iraq an offence punishable by a seven-year jail sentence. |
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Million homeless, tsunami survivors long for home
Lampuuk, Indonesia, November 3 They have been cooking and caring for each other, playing football and singing sad songs at night since the December 26 tsunami wiped out much of the fishing village of Lampuuk in the Indonesian province of Aceh. ''We are our own family now,'' said Nasrullah, 18, one of five boys between the ages of 15 and 20 who share the shack, no bigger than a walk-in closet. The boys are among 67,500 tsunami survivors still living in improvised camps more than 10 months after a 9.15 earthquake and the tsunami it spawned left more than 170,000 dead or missing in northern Sumatra. Another 75,000 are living in Indonesian government-built barracks and nearly 300,000 are staying with friends and relatives -- sometimes shifting in and out of barracks and camps when their welcome with a host family wears out. United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said sheltering the survivors was moving too slowly. Aid organisations had ''quite a lot of money'' to use, he said during a visit to Aceh last month. More than $12 billion has been raised in public and private donations across the world, making the tsunami the most funded disaster in history. ''It's clear that we must move much quicker now to put people away from the tents and into permanent houses.'' With permanent homes for many likely to be years away, the UN Recovery Coordinator in Aceh has ordered 15,000-20,000 prefabricated shelters with a minimum durability of four years. Home rebuilding has been slow all around the tsunami region, where more than a million people remain displaced. The few homes that have been completed have often been built by religious-based aid groups. The Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation has started building 3,700 permanent houses in Aceh at an estimated cost of $27 million. A charismatic Hindu group, ''The Mother of Immortal Birth'' has finished the first tsunami housing project in India -- 89 homes in the fishing village of Pudu Kuppam in Tamil Nadu. Thailand has acted the fastest. Only, 2,900 people remain in temporary shelters, less than half the number in May. The delays by aid agencies in delivering on their promises to build homes have angered Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of Indonesia's reconstruction agency. ''NGO's that don't perform will be sanctioned. They'll be asked to leave,'' Mangkusubroto added. In Lampuuk, the tsunami travelled some 7 km before it smacked into steep hillsides that still show wave marks 10 metres (yards) high. Four out of five people died in the village which had a population of 6,500. The sole building left standing was a two-storey mosque, visible for
miles. — Reuters |
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