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Experts
warn of e-bomb terror attacks US
lawmakers alarmed over Benazir's missile remarks UN bans
all types of cloning US
blind to human rights in Baluchistan
Award
for Sikh playwright’s play |
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Cassava
balls kill 25 children
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Experts warn of e-bomb terror attacks Washington, March 9 They urged Congress and Homeland Security officials to craft plans to fend off such attacks and set up mechanisms to fix and restore power quickly. “Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation,'' said Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, an advisory group set up by Congress. Experts say the United States is particularly vulnerable because it relies heavily on telecommunications and electronics. In some scenarios, the e-bomb could be used to release an electromagnetic pulse that could disable and damage electrical power systems. An e-bomb attack could ``devastate this country,'' said Sen Jon Kyl, R-Ariz, Chairman, Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, which conducted a hearing on Tuesday on the potential threat. ``The public and the Congress need to pay more attention to this danger.'' Wood cautioned that potential adversaries, including terrorists, had or could get nuclear weapons to generate the electromagnetic pulse. Those threats come not only from terrorists but from nations with nuclear capabilities such as North Korea and Iran, the experts said. While not a new threat (it was also a major concern during the Cold War), lawmakers and commissioners said since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the threat had heightened. The commission released a report last July. Much of that report still had not been made public because of security concerns, commissioners said. Some of its recommendations include the government buying backup transformers to be stored in protected shelters and crafting a plan to use diesel electric motors. They point to the 2003 blackout as an example of the devastating impact of losing power. — By arrangement with the LA Times-Washington Post |
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US lawmakers alarmed over
Benazir's missile remarks Washington, March 9 Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sam Brown Back, a Republican from Kansas, said Ms Bhutto's disclosure pointed the need for a stricter regime of international controls governing the spread of nuclear and missile technology. "These reports underscore the profound implications for global security if and when rogue regimes like North Korea sell such blueprints or even nuclear devices to terrorist groups," Senator Brown Back told the UPI. "What we've done with Afghanistan and Iraq is crucial and an important step," Mr Brown Back continued, labelling Ms Bhutto's disclosure as evidence of the need for closer cooperation between the United States and "all interested parties" around the world to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California and a member of the House International Relations Committee, labelled the statement a demonstration of "both the arrogance and insanity of Pakistani leaders who wasted money pursuing rocket and nuclear technology while their own people go hungry and are denied adequate healthcare and education". "The more serious question is where did North Korea obtain the technology that was passed on to Pakistan?" "The real villain," he said, "is China, which continues to play its normal, despicable role." Ms Bhutto told a news conference in Washington that Pakistan purchased the designs for the short- and medium-range missiles for cash and that no transfer of nuclear technology was involved. But she said after her ouster, Pakistani representatives might have engineered the exchange of nuclear technology for missiles in the period after international sanctions were placed on Pakistan following its 1998 nuclear tests. She said Dr A. Q. Khan indirectly admitted to the exchange in his televised confession. |
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UN bans all types of cloning
United Nations, March 9 India joined 34 member states yesterday in opposing the document, strongly backed by the Bush administration, with 84 states voting for it. As many as 37 members of the 191-member assembly abstained during the vote which pitted some of the staunchest American allies, including Britain, against the USA. The adoption of declaration, which gives symbolic victory to the USA, brings to conclusion four-year efforts to negotiate an international treaty putting a mandatory ban on reproductive cloning. However, nations supporting therapeutic cloning said the world body has lost a major chance to explicitly ban cloning for producing babies. The declaration, which has no force in law, urges member states, to "prohibit all forms of human cloning in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity." Several Arab and Latin American countries joined the USA in voting for the declaration but Asians and Europeans mostly opposed it. Among the abstentions were many Muslim nations who said they were not voting either way because of lack of consensus.
— PTI |
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US blind to human rights in Baluchistan Washington, March 9 "I'm sure that to some extent foreign policy and strategic concerns do play a part. I think that has to be one factor. But it also is to a certain extent can be traced back to people in the embassy who are responsible for compiling that information, how serious are they, how concerned are they, how conscientious are they and how much information are they able to gather from local sources. So, it may be that from Baluchistan, there isn't all that much available," Miriam Young said at a conference hosted jointly by the U.S. House of Representatives and World Sindhi Institute. Young, who has worked for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights and the Asia-Pacific Center for Justice and Peace further goes on to say that that it will take more than words from Washington to improve human rights across Pakistan. The State Department, however, believes that some improvements have taken place on this score, but acknowledges that Islamabad's record remains generally poor. "Although its difficult to preach something from the West, its something that's going to have to change from within. And, its not acceptable. And, the women of Pakistan know that it is not acceptable, but they are working in a very, very difficult environment to try to bring about change," Young said "If the status of women is so appalling, that says something about the status of the whole population. And if the human rights situation is that bad for women, that's a statement about the country and about the region," she adds. Young has a very simple prescription for improving human rights in Baluchistan and across Pakistan. " I think that probably the most important thing in terms of bringing about any changes in society and improvements in human rights is focusing on the education and raising the educational standards of the population and that doesn't just mean the education of women, that means the education of men as well," she was quoted as saying at the conference. Human rights campaigners are arguing that Washington needs to enforce conditions on aid to Pakistan, with an eye toward improving the situation for all Pakistanis. — ANI
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Award for Sikh playwright’s play Washington, March 9 The Houston-based prize, which carries a cash award of $ 10,000, is awarded annually for an outstanding new English-language play by a woman. It was presented to Ms Bhatti at a private reception on Monday night in London, news reports said here. In December, the play’s world-premiere run at England’s Birmingham Repertory Theatre was cut short due to angry protests by Sikhs. — UNI
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Cassava balls kill 25 children Manila, March 9 The victims fell ill about half an hour after eating the cassava balls, a local delicacy, during a mid-morning break, said Stephen Rances, Mayor of Mabini town on the Bohol island. ‘’Several children were brought here vomiting and complaining of stomach aches,’’ said Elpidio Bonito, a doctor at Ubay town, where 69 elementary students were taken today. — Reuters
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