Kathmandu, October 6
The authorities in Nepal imposed curfew in the Terai district of Biratnagar after clashes between the police and an ethnic group demanding greater political and economic rights for the community.

The administration imposed the curfew in Biratnagar yesterday night after activists of the Kishor Kumar Biswas-led Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) went on rampage and attacked the police.

A district official said the curfew was imposed last night and was relaxed for two hours in the evening and would continue till further notice.

The police fired dozens of rounds of tear-gas shells after the MJF cadres, who were on a relay strike at the Mahabir chowk in Biratnagar, attacked a police van.

Five persons, including a police inspector, were injured in the ensuing scuffle. After the clash, MJF men resorted to vandalism in the marketplaces, the police said.

The MJF faction had announced indefinite strike in the eastern Terai since the last three days demanding immediate announcement of republic and greater autonomy.

Another curfew was imposed in the neighbouring Saptari district to stop another group who blocked the key east-west highway yesterday, reports said. — PTI

Kathmandu, October 6
The decision by Nepal’s Koirala government to indefinitely put off a vital election only 47 days before it was scheduled does not reflect discreditably on the ruling coalition and its Maoist allies alone but also indicates yet another failure of India’s Nepal policy.

There’s heavy irony in the fact that last year, though India opposed an election in Nepal, the then royalist regime of King Gyanendra ignored New Delhi and went ahead with the exercise.

This year, when South Block was pressing for an election, the democratic government supported by India still went ahead and cancelled the polls.

According to a preliminary estimate, Nepal lost at least Rs 7 billion (Nepali) just over printing ballot papers, posters and training election officials.

It would be interesting to know how much India had poured into Nepal for the flop poll. India’s assistance ranges from vehicles to the electronic voting machines donated less than a week ago, even when it was clear to everyone that the November 22 election was doomed.

When the constituent assembly was postponed from June, the turmoil in the Terai plains bordering India was regarded as one of the main reasons.

To ensure that the election was held in November, India brokered a hasty pact between Koirala and the most influential ethnic group in the plains, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum. The forum agreed to call off all its protest programmes and take part in the election.

However, the pressured pact had severe fallout. Dissidents in the forum walked out and began waging yet another war on the election.

India pressured another party from the plains, the Nepal Sadbhavana Party, to bury the hatchet between its two rival factions and announce a merger.

Soon after the reunion between the royalist faction and the pro-democracy group, the party last month split again with the dissidents calling a general strike to block the election programme.

Even the unification of Koirala’s Nepali Congress party with its breakaway group, the Nepali Congress (Democratic), in which India had shown keen interest, contributed to the poll fiasco. Koirala gave more attention to strengthening his own party to win the election than the election itself.

India had made its position on the election amply clear in August when the Indian ambassador to Nepal, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, said that a parliament vote to decide King Gyanendra’s fate would not be legitimate since the current parliament is not an elected one.

He also said that if the Koirala government failed to hold the November election, it would lose legitimacy. Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who came to Nepal last month, reinforced the same message.

Less than three weeks later, the Nepal government put the election off and called a parliament vote to decide the king’s future. — IANS

Sydney, October 6
Activists took to the streets in cities across Asia, including India, today, kicking off a day of global protest against a bloody crackdown on dissent in Myanmar.

Dozens gathered in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok, shouting “Free Burma” and brandishing pictures of the democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, while campaigners in India prepared to hold a candle-lit vigil outside a war memorial in the heart of New Delhi.

Hundreds rallied outside Sydney's iconic Opera House in Australia, while in Melbourne 1,000 people marched, some carrying red banners that read “no more bloodshed.”

Around 500 people marched through Wellington's main thoroughfare in New Zealand, with smaller protests held in other cities across the country in an expression of solidarity with Myanmar's pro-democracy protesters.

In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a message of support to the people of Myanmar, as rights group Amnesty International said protests would be held in cities across the globe.

“Today is above all about repeating a firm message: the world has not forgotten — and will not forget — the people of Burma,” he said.

Amnesty's London-based secretary general Irene Khan said the protests were aimed at focusing world attention on the actions of the military junta.

“Support is now greatly needed to keep visible pressure on the Myanmar authorities to stop the violence towards demonstrators, ensure the safety of detainees and release prisoners of conscience,” Khan said in a statement on Amnesty's international website www.amnesty.org. — AFP

Colombo, October 6
The stepped-up clashes between Sri Lankan security forces and LTTE in the recent weeks and the question mark over the durability of the ceasefire agreement have brought into focus once again India’s role in attempts to resolve the protracted ethnic problem in the Island nation.

The opposition United National Party (UNP) had in the recent past made no bones about its keenness for an active role for New Delhi, saying it was confident of India’s non-partisan attitude in the entire gamut of the issue.

Close on the heels of UNP supremo and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s assertions that Sri Lanka’s conflict cannot be resolved without India’s help, his senior party colleagues have lapped up the issue and pitched in for an active role for New Delhi in resolving the nearly 25 year-old conflict.

“India would never support Eelam (an independent nation for Tamils in Sri Lanka) and its role is a pre-requisite in working out a solution of the problem through negotiation with the LTTE and the Tamil and Muslim political parties,” S B Dissanayake, a senior UNP leader, said here.

Dissanayake, the party’s national organiser, told the ‘Daily Mirror’ newspaper that there were different forms of power-sharing arrangements adopted in various countries.

The UNP leader asserted that if Sri Lanka could get the backing of India for working out an agreement with Tiger rebels based on power devolution, “even the LTTE will find it difficult to use it as a thriving ground for its cause.” Wickremesinghe had earlier said the ethnic conflict in the Island nation couldn’t be resolved without India’s help.

India has consistently called for a negotiated political settlement for solving the conflict. — PTI

London, October 6
An advice for those planning to immigrate to Britain but this time from the UK government - ‘Welcome to the United Kingdom, but please don’t eat fish’.

Migrants to the Britain will be given Do’s and Don’ts packs after their arrival in the country. The pamphlets set out a series of rights and responsibilities to help them “get to grips with what is expected of them, from national laws to local traditions”, the Daily Mail reported.

The proposed move follows police warnings that migrants cross the speed limits and take fish such as carp out from rivers without permission.

“As a government and a country, we must be honest. There are issues we need to address as a result of new patterns of migration and ensure that we have the ideas and policies to tackle them over the next 10 years,” Britain’s communities secretary Hazel Blears said.

In fact, the leaflets are part of the government’s response to a report from the commission on integration and cohesion, which had criticised the existing methods of promoting better race relations.

Guidance sent to local councils across Britain say “not being able to speak English is the biggest barrier to integration”. The plan also includes specialist ‘integration and cohesion teams’ to help councils struggling to cope with new arrivals.

Presently, migrants arriving in Cornwall are presented with a pack, produced in English, Polish, Portuguese and Russian. It warns sternly that domestic violence “is not acceptable in this country”. — PTI

Kuala Lumpur, October 6
With four days left for one of its nationals to blast off to space, Malaysia has launched the world’s first concise and comprehensive guidebook for Muslims in space. Two Muslim nationals were shortlisted to visit the International Space Station (ISS) and the name of the chosen one would be announced just before the trip, scheduled for October 10.

A minister in Prime Minister's Department Abdullah Zin said that 18-page guidebook would be translated into English, Russian, Arabic and possibly more languages, for the benefit of future Muslim astronauts. “There is a lot of interest in the book prepared by the Islamic Development Department. We even have foreign broadcasting stations like Al-Jazeera and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation requesting for interviews solely on the guidelines,” the minister said. — PTI

Durban, October 6
A South African court has ordered a local school, which prevented an Indian-origin girl from wearing a nose ring to amend its code of conduct to “reasonably” accommodate different religious and cultural practices.

The Constitutional Court issued the order yesterday in favour of 19-year-old Sunali Pillay in a case that has highlighted the cultural and traditional rights of ethnic groups in South Africa.

Sunali, who is now attending university, and her mother Navi Pillay approached the court when the Durban High School prevented the young girl from wearing the nose stud during school hours three years ago.

Chief Justice Pius Langa ruled that evidence has shown wearing a nose stud was a voluntary practice and it formed part of Pillay’s South Indian Tamil culture.

Reacting to the court decision, an elated Navi told PTI that the judgment clearly showed that her daughter had been discriminated by the school, which had a majority white population.

The school, in its reply before the court, had contended that it was not part of the school code for girls to wear nose studs. It was supported by the provincial department of education, the school governing body, some newspapers and even some Hindu organisations. — PTI

New York, October 6
Claiming that the Bush Administration had erred in making the civilian nuclear deal a “centrepiece” of the Indo-US ties, a leading daily here has demanded stronger curbs by the Nuclear Suppliers Group on India if its tests a nuclear weapon.

The NSG should set conditions that its members would halt nuclear trade with India and ban sale of equipment that can make nuclear fuel for reactor or weapons if New Delhi tests an atomic weapon, the New York Times said in an editorial published today.

“If the suppliers group fails to set these conditions, it will be far too easy for New Delhi to do an end-run around Washington and buy technology and fuel from states that are even more eager to make a buck,” it said.

Welcoming the non-binding bipartisan resolution moved in the House seeking severe curbs on the nuclear deal, the Times said the concerns expressed should bolster the skeptics in the suppliers group who fear that the agreement could benefit New Delhi’s weapons programme as much as its pursuit of nuclear power.

The deal would also make it even harder to rein in ambitions of nuclear wannabes, including Iran, it said.

President Bush, the Times said, is right when he says that the United States needs to develop strong ties with democratic India.”

“But he erred in making a nuclear deal the centrepiece of that relationship. And he erred by being so eager for a deal that sufficient thought wasn’t given to its implications it added. ” — PTI

London, October 6
Scientists in Britain have defied gravity by getting drops of water to flow uphill.

Researchers at the University of Bristol achieved this unlikely feat by vigorously vibrating the droplets - the force created when they bulged upwards as the surface they were dropped on was enough to make them trickle up a steep slope, the Daily Telegraph reported here today.

According to the lead researcher Prof Jens Eggers, “This is totally new. It's never been done before, and we're still not totally sure exactly what's happening. As the shaking surface rises, the drop is compressed, while it bulges upward as the plate falls.

If the shaking is vigorous enough to overcome the surface tension experienced as the drop is compressed, the drop will tend to lean forward, producing a net force which drives the drop uphill. We don't completely understand why this is happening. It means there is a lot of interesting physics and maths to discover."

The team discovered the phenomenon accidentally while investigating the properties of corn flour. They found that drops could only be persuaded to move uphill if they were large enough to be able to rock back and forth when vibrated but smaller than about 1 mm, otherwise they would break apart.

The research, to be published in the 'Physical Review Letters', will be useful in understanding the small-scale movements of fluids, and may, for example, help forensic investigators make better use of DNA evidence. — PTI

Washington, October 6
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ordered federal agents to ride with Blackwater guards of US diplomatic convoys in Baghdad to tighten supervision after a shooting in which private guards were accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians.

She also ordered video cameras installed in Blackwater vehicles.

These steps will require the State Department to deploy dozens of additional in-house diplomatic security agents to accompany Blackwater guards. These are the first in a series of moves Rice is expected to take to boost control of contractors that the agency depends on to protect its diplomats in Iraq. — AP

New York, October 6
Enslaved in life, they were forgotten in death as the booming city sprouted skyward over their remains. Sixteen years after their remains were rediscovered in the lower Manhattan, the gravesite of thousands of African slaves has been dignified with a lasting and prominent tribute. Still, for those who gathered yesterday to dedicate the African Burial Ground memorial, the long-awaited occasion was also a day of regret.

“Forgive us for disregarding your precious gifts to this world,” the Rev James A Forbes Jr said to the long-dead slaves and free blacks interred there. Many speakers lamented the lack of recognition those buried there had experienced in life. — AP