W O R L D

China tightens noose on quake coverage
Chengdu, June 7

China’s unprecedented openness following last month’s earthquake is proving shortlived as soldiers began to cut-off sensitive areas and local media faced growing reporting restrictions.

Victims of the May 12 earthquake scramble to receive food at a camp in the quake-devastated town of Majingxiang on Saturday. — Reuters

Hope for women who lost only child in quake
Beijing: China is sending a medical team to its quake-battered southwestern region to offer reverse sterilisation operations to women who lost their only child in the deadly disaster and want to have another.

RAISING A VOICE: Protesters holding candles take part in a rally demanding renegotiation of the beef deal with the US and resignation of President Lee Myung Bak in Seoul on Saturday. Thousands of people fearing infection of mad cow disease participated in the protest. — Reuters

Sikhs for stern steps to check hate crime
New York, June 7
A Sikh organisation in the US has sought strict measures to curb hate crime, claiming that as many as 60 per cent of Sikh students were victimised. The Sikh Coalition asked the Department of Education to take steps to prevent attacks on Sikh students arising due to their wearing turbans and not cutting hair, after a boy was punched and his patka untied by a classmate in a latest attack in Queens, a suburb of New York. This was second such incident within a month after a Sikh student was assaulted in another school.

Golf Digest apologises to Sikhs
A US sports magazine, Golf Digest, has issued an apology to the Sikh community for using an image of Guru Arjun Dev in its May edition. Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) complained after the magazine featured an article titled “The Golf Guru” which answers readers’ questions about general topics associated with golf.

Panel fails to trace royal crown
The high-level government panel formed to prepare an inventory of properties with historic importance inside the Narayanhity Palace has not been able to trace the record of most significant objects mainly the royal crown and the scepter as of Saturday.

UN raps US for cruelty to child prisoners
Geneva, June 7
United Nations experts on child rights criticised the United States over detention of juveniles at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and voiced concern that some may have suffered cruel treatment.

This image released by NASA on Friday was taken by Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on Thursday, the 11th day after landing. It shows the robotic arm scoop containing a soil sample poised over the partially open door of the thermal and evolved-gas analyzer's number four cell or oven. Light-coloured clods of material visible toward the scoop's lower edge may be part of the crusted surface material seen previously near the foot of the lander. — Reuters

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Indo-China relations heading in the right direction (56k)

China tightens noose on quake coverage

Chengdu, June 7
China’s unprecedented openness following last month’s earthquake is proving shortlived as soldiers began to cut-off sensitive areas and local media faced growing reporting restrictions. In the days after the May 12 quake that devastated the south-western province of Sichuan and killed nearly 70,000 people, China was lauded for its transparency as local and foreign media as well as thousands of volunteers streamed unhindered into the area.

''At first they didn't have the ability to control it, but now they are recovering their ability,'' said Ran Yunfei, a magazine editor in Sichuan's capital Chengdu.

In the past week, checkpoints have gone up on highways leading into Dujiangyan and Juyuan in Sichuan where schools collapsed, killing hundreds of children and angering grieving parents, who say the schools were shoddily built.

On Sunday, hundreds of parents held a mourning ceremony for children who died at Dujiangyan’s Xinjian primary school, and journalists also attended it unimpeded. But as parents from several schools began to lodge protests with the local government, the police and the paramilitary forces began blocking access to the school, and preventing journalists from taking photos and television footage. — Reuters

Hope for women who lost only child in quake

Beijing: China is sending a medical team to its quake-battered southwestern region to offer reverse sterilisation operations to women who lost their only child in the deadly disaster and want to have another.

The Population and Family Planning Commission in the worst hit Sichuan province estimated that about 7,000 dead and 16,000 injured in the quake were the only child of their families, although exact statistics are still being compiled.

Zhang Shikun, director of the science and technology bureau of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said, “The team, comprised of experts on childbearing, will conduct surgery in the quake-hit areas to provide technological support for those wanting to give birth to another,” the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. — PTI

Sikhs for stern steps to check hate crime

Golf Digest apologises to Sikhs
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

A US sports magazine, Golf Digest, has issued an apology to the Sikh community for using an image of Guru Arjun Dev in its May edition. Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) complained after the magazine featured an article titled “The Golf Guru” which answers readers’ questions about general topics associated with golf.

The beginning of the article features an image which, at first glance, appears to be a South Asian man in a turban and beard, holding a golf club and wearing a golf glove. However, under closer examination, the image Golf Digest uses appears to in fact be a widely distributed picture of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Sikhism’s fifth guru, SALDEF says.

SALDEF says the magazine's editor in chief and chairman, Jerry Tarde, has apologised. In a written communication sent it stated, "Our editors regret this mistake and have learned an important lesson.”

Panel fails to trace royal crown
Bishnu Budhathoki writes from Kathmandu

The high-level government panel formed to prepare an inventory of properties with historic importance inside the Narayanhity Palace has not been able to trace the record of most significant objects mainly the royal crown and the scepter as of Saturday.

Talking to the Tribune, Dr Govinda Prasad Kusum, secretary at the ministry of general administration, who also heads the high-level government panel, said this evening, “We have not seen the royal crown and the scepter yet.”

In Nepalese history, “Shri Pech” made up of precious jewels, stone and bird of paradise plum that used to revere as royal crown worn by the former kings of the Shah dynasty in Nepal and the “Rajdand” scepter, a decorated stick that the former king used to carry during official ceremony as a symbol of their authority.

“The committee has been asking palace officials about the whereabouts of the crown and the scepter, but no one has shown the record of these significant things to us yet,” Kusum said, adding, “However, in course of informal talks, the palace officials have informed that both crown and scepter are kept safely inside the palace coffer.”

Kusum also said the panel would visit the Narayanhity palace on Sunday in search of the record of these objects prior to furnishing its report to the government.

On Monday, while meeting with home minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, deposed king Gyanendra Shah had expressed concern over the media reports that he and his aides destroyed or took away important documents from the palace.

UN raps US for cruelty to child prisoners

Geneva, June 7
United Nations experts on child rights criticised the United States over detention of juveniles at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and voiced concern that some may have suffered cruel treatment.

They also called for an end to recruitment of under-18s into the US armed forces and for a halt to enlistment campaigns, aimed specifically at young people from minority groups and poor or single-parent families.

The strictures were issued in a report from the 18-member committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors performance under UN pacts.

On under-18s — defined by the UN as children — held in US-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, the committee said it was ''concerned over reports indicating the use of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment''.

The experts said they had similar reports on abuse of young prisoners held for several years at the US naval base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. They said they were ''concerned that children who were recruited or used in armed conflict were classified as 'unlawful enemy combatants','' and face military tribunals at the base. — Reuters