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Minority Tamils boycott Lanka poll
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Rights watchdog censures Pak
Annan in Pak, appeals for donations
French Parliament extends Emergency
China admits first case of avian flu in humans
Jackson ‘scares’ woman in
ladies room
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Minority Tamils boycott Lanka poll
Election authorities set up clustered polling booths for tens of thousands of people in rebel-held areas to cross front lines and vote, but only a handful turned up till the close of the nine-hour polling time this evening. In the northern peninsula of Jaffna, only 1,465 people voted out of some 701,938 people eligible to vote. In the volatile east, there were several bomb blasts that discouraged voters. At the Muhamalai cluster polling booth only one man voted out of 91,000. At the Omanthai cluster polling booth, which was set up for 84,000 people, only four voted. The boycott was seen as a disadvantage for opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had expected minority Tamils seen as kingmakers, to vote for him. Despite there being 13 candidates running for the top job, a close fight is predicted between Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Wickremesinghe. “I am confident of victory,” Wickremesinghe said after casting his ballot. Unknown assailants yesterday killed three Sinhalese, two Tamils and one Muslim, which analysts say could have been a bid to scare away members of those communities from polling booths.
— PTI |
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Rights watchdog censures Pak
New York, November 17 “Given its record of abuse and corruption, the Pakistani military should not be given carte blanche in relief efforts. To keep the process honest, civil society must be given a significant role, both in delivery and oversight,” the group said in a statement yesterday. “Aid should be distributed without regard to political affiliation”, the group said, stressing there should not be any discrimination against “Kashmiri nationalists” who do not accept Pakistan’s control over the region or people who have crossed over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir from India. In recent weeks, the Pakistani military authorities had discouraged negative media coverage of the nation’s response to the earthquake with President Pervez Musharraf himself having expressed his “displeasure at excessive criticism” in the press, the group noted. A recent attack by the Pakistani police on a camp of survivors highlighted why international donors must insist on human rights protection in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the group said. The police, the group alleged, used canes and rifle butts to break up a march on November 11 by approximately 200 quake survivors protesting eviction from their makeshift camp in Muzaffarabad. On Monday, the government-run electronic media regulatory authority, PEMRA, stopped three local partners of the BBC from broadcasting two daily 30-minute “earthquake specials” produced by the BBC’s Urdu service.
— PTI |
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Annan in Pak, appeals for donations
Islamabad, November 17 “What happened here is something that the world could not have imagined. We tried to mobilise as much resources as possible from around the world,” said Annan, who arrived here today on a three-day visit to review quake relief efforts and attend an international donors’ conference on November 19. “We have received a response but we need much more to be able to help the people. We need more resources for recovery and reconstruction,” he said. The donors’ conference convened by President Pervez Musharraf aims at getting $ 5.2 billion funding for the reconstruction of the quake-hit areas. India along with 70 other countries has been invited to take part in the meeting.
— PTI |
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French Parliament extends Emergency
Paris, November 17 The extension will come into effect on Monday. The National Assembly had already approved the plan. Senators voted by
202 votes to 125 in favour of the proposal with left-wing parties opposing it. The Cabinet can end the state of Emergency before the three-month period is up. Although the level
of violence and car-burning has dropped in recent days, the police said 163
vehicles were torched and 50 persons arrested across the country overnight.
— AFP |
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China admits first case of avian flu in humans
After a continued denial for a month, the Chinese authorities have today admitted the possibility of a nine-year-old boy in Hunan province being infected by the avian flu pathogens though the Chinese authorities are still awaiting confirmation by the World Health Organisation experts.
Qi Xiaoqui, Director of the Department of Disease Control in the Central Health Ministry of
China, revealed on Wednesday that H5N1 anti-bodies have been detected in the nine-year-old boy. He Junyao was down with severe symptoms of pneumonia last month. His 12-year-old sister and also a teacher were suffering from similar symptoms on October 12 after they had handled a raw chicken in Wangton village in Hunan Province near Beijing. The girl died after a week but He Junyao was released early this week. Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department also announced launching of the massive and most formidable programme of vaccination of the entire poultry stock of China. That it is a formidable task can be gauged from the fact that China has 14.2 billion birds as its poultry stocks. China has already culled out more than 10 million birds in the last three months since outbreaks of bird flu in Hunan and Anhui provinces in the last three months. Speaking in Beijing at a conference on Sino-US relations, Qi revealed that the tests conducted by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention had now detected anti-bodies in He Junyao while he was still recovering in hospital. Earlier, the Chinese authorities had flatly denied any avian flu infection in humans but now it would turn out that He Junyao might be the first human case of bird flu on the mainland China. Only after Hong Kind media first indicated early this month that all three cases of Hunan village were possible human infection of the bird flue that the Chinese authorities conceded the possibilities and conducted fresh tests last week. There were also reports of a farmer woman, in Heishan district of Liaoning province that reported outbreak of avian flu, suffering from severe pneumonia symptoms. However Qi refused to comment on this. Liaoning province is on the route of the migratory birds that carry the infection of H5N1 pathogens. China is exposed to three routes for migratory birds, including one that leads migratory birds to Tibet and India. Meanwhile, the Chinese Agriculture Department has already launched two programmes of vaccinating birds and also spraying all water sources with disinfectants so that migratory birds leaving the infection behind was minimized. The costs of both programmes have yet not been counted or revealed by the authorities but it would turn out to be massive. The Central government had already committed two billion yuans for fighting the bird flu. The vaccination programme would be financed by the central government as well the local governments, an announcement said. |
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Jackson ‘scares’ woman in
ladies room
Dubai, November 17 Latifa M, a 37-year-old Tunisian teacher, screamed in shock and ran out of the ladies room of Ibn Battuta Mall on Sunday night when she realised the person with an Egyptian ladies’ scarf draped over the head was in fact a man, Khaleej Times reported. She went back in and photographed the pop singer with her mobile phone, while he was busy fixing his make up. Jackson reportedly ran after the teacher to retrieve the pictures. The security staff and two ladies accompanying Jackson intervened and sorted out the matter with Latifa, finally erasing the photos she took on her mobile, the daily reported. However, Jackson’s publicist said the singer, entered the ladies toilet as he did not understand the Arabic sign on the door.
— PTI |
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video: Polling begins in Sri Lanka. (
Colombo, November 17