Riches of Somaliland remain untapped

By James Melik
Business reporter, BBC World Service
13:46 GMT, Sunday, 15 March 2009


Camels and sheep are the country's biggest foreign currency earners

Until Somaliland gets official international recognition it cannot exploit its rich reserves of natural resources.

Although agriculture is the most successful industry, surveys show that Somaliland has large offshore and onshore oil and natural gas reserves. Several wells have been excavated during recent years but because of the country's unrecognised status, foreign energy companies cannot benefit from it.

Somaliland is in north east Africa but, as far as the outside world is concerned, it is simply a region of war-torn Somalia which has not been a nation since Britain gave it independence in 1960. Yet the area the size of England declared independence 18 years ago and, while the rest of Somalia remains in a chaotic state, Somaliland has established a stable government, peace and relative prosperity.

Self reliance

The country's progress is limited however, because aid donors and trade partners do not officially recognise its existence. After declaring independence in 1991, Somaliland formed its own hybrid system of governance consisting of a lower house of elected representatives, and an upper house which incorporated the elders of tribal clans.

Somaliland made its final transition to multi-party democracy with elections in 2003. The country has its own flag, national anthem, vehicle number plates and currency - although the Somaliland shilling is not a recognised currency and has no official exchange rate. It is regulated by the Bank of Somaliland which was established constitutionally in 1994.

Foreign minister Abdillahi Duale says the recession affecting the rest of the world is causing him particular concern. He laments: "As a country which is not yet recognised this global phenomenon is affecting us very seriously. We do not have access to international trade or international financial institutions, so we have to rely solely on our meagre revenues and the investments of our own people."

'De facto' state

Mr Duale insists that his people have a great entrepreneurial spirit and are business-oriented. Most trade is carried out with the Gulf States, Indonesia and India. "Trade doesn't require recognition," he says. The main export is livestock, with sheep and camels being shipped from Berbera, the country's largest port.

In order to export livestock, a veterinary license has to be issued. To facilitate that, a veterinary school has been built in Sheikh and it attracts students from the Horn of Africa and as far afield as Uganda and Kenya. Mr Duale is unperturbed that such licences will not have the force that a United Nations-sponsored veterinary licence would have. "We are not members of the UN but nevertheless, the international community trades with us because we are a de facto state," he says.


Somaliland has 740 kilometres of coastline bordering the Red Sea

He admits however, that one of the major problems the lack of official recognition creates is the inability to access international financial institutions. "We cannot talk to the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank because they only talk to recognition states. We rely on ourselves and our Diaspora, which accounts for almost $600m of revenue a year. People get by but it is very difficult without infrastructure. We need butter, we are not asking for guns."

Growth industry

Apart from livestock, other exports include hides, skins, myrrh and frankincense. Mining has the potential to be a successful industry although simple quarrying is the extent of current operations - despite the presence of diverse mineral deposits including uranium.


The majority of the 3.5 million population is nomadic

One industry which has seen growth however, is tourism. The historic town of Sheikh is home to old British colonial buildings which have been untouched for 40 years, whilst Zeila was once part of the Ottoman Empire. Due to the fertility of some regions, many people travel to see the wildlife, while the offshore islands and coral reefs provide another major attraction.

Whoever is brave, or reckless enough, to break ranks with the world community and gives Somaliland the recognition it craves, must surely be well placed to take advantage of the riches the country has to offer.

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'Peking Man' older than thought

By Paul Rincon (Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk)
Science reporter, BBC News
18:04 GMT, Wednesday, 11 March 2009


Original Peking Man fossils were lost in World War II

Iconic ancient human fossils from China are 200,000 years older than had previously been thought, a study shows.

The new dating analysis suggests the "Peking Man" fossils, unearthed in the caves of Zhoukoudian are some 750,000 years old. The discovery should help define a more accurate timeline for early humans arriving in North-East Asia. A US-Chinese team of researchers has published its findings in the prestigious journal Nature.

The cave system of Zhoukoudian, near Beijing, is one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the world. Between 1921 and 1966, archaeologists working at the site unearthed tens of thousands of stone tools and hundreds of fragmentary remains from about 40 early humans. Palaeontologists later assigned these members of the human lineage to the species Homo erectus.

The pre-war Peking Man fossils vanished in 1941 whilst being transported to the US for safekeeping. Luckily, the palaeontologist Franz Weidenreich had made casts for researchers to study. Experts have tried various methods over the years to determine the age of the remains. But they have been hampered by the lack of suitable techniques for dating cave deposits such as those at Zhoukoudian.

Open habitats

Now, Guanjun Shen, from Nanjing Normal University in China, and colleagues have applied a relatively new method to the problem. This method is based on the radioactive decay of unstable forms, or isotopes, of the elements aluminium and beryllium in quartz grains. This enabled them to get a more precise age for the fossils.


The Zhoukoudian caves have yielded many fossils of Homo erectus

The results show the Peking Man fossils came from ground layers that were 680,000-780,000 years old, making them about 200,000 years older than had previously been believed.

Comparisons with other sites show that Homo erectus survived successive warm and cold periods in northern Asia.

Researchers Russell Ciochon and E Arthur Bettis III, from the University of Iowa, US, believe these climatic cycles may have caused the expansion of open habitats, such as grasslands and steppe. These environments would have been rich in mammals that could have been hunted or scavenged by early humans.

Recent revised dates for other hominid occupation sites in North-East Asia show that human habitation of the region began about 1.3 million years ago. The Nature study forms an important addition to this work.

The Peking Man fossils are a vital component of the Out of Africa 1 migration theory, which proposes that Homo erectus first appeared in Africa around two million years ago before spreading north and east (modern humans, Homo sapiens, would follow much later and supplant all other Homo species).

Evidence of the first dispersal comes from the site of Dmanisi in Georgia, where numerous hominid fossils dating to 1.75 million years ago have been unearthed. Finds from Java suggest early humans reached South-East Asia by 1.6 million years ago.


Homo floresiensis survived on Flores until 12,000 years ago

The northern populations represented at Zhoukoudian were probably separated from southern populations represented on the island of Java by a zone of sub-tropical forest inhabited by the giant panda, orangutans, gibbons and a giant ape called Gigantopithecus.

These early humans may have survived in island South-East Asia until 50,000 years ago.

Recent discoveries suggest that on the Indonesian island of Flores, Homo erectus, or another early human species, became isolated and evolved into a dwarf species called Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "The Hobbit".

It is not clear whether Homo erectus ever reached Europe; the earliest European fossils have been assigned to the species Homo antecessor. But this classification is disputed, and some researchers believe the Spanish antecessor fossils do indeed belong with Homo erectus.

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A step closer to reading the mind

BBC News
16:08 GMT, Thursday, 12 March 2009


Activity in the hippocampus
was monitored

Scientists say for the first time they have understood someone's thoughts by looking at what their brain is doing.

The hippocampus is widely known to be integral to memory, but researchers say they now see just how images are stored and recalled in this part of the brain. Wellcome Trust scientists trained four participants to recognise several virtual reality environments. Discernible patterns in brain activity then signalled where they were, they wrote in the journal Current Biology. Neurons in the hippocampus, also known as "place cells", activate when we move around to tell us where we are.

The team, based at University College London, then used specialised scanning equipment which measures changes in blood flow in the brain. This allowed them to examine the activity of these cells as the participants - all young men with experience of playing videogames - moved around the virtual reality environment. The data was then passed through a computer. "We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were," said Professor Eleanor Maguire.

Are you lying?

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words we could 'read' their spatial memories. By looking at activity over tens of thousands of neurons, we can see that there must be a functional structure - a pattern - to how these memories are encoded."

But they stressed that the prospect of genuinely reading someone's most intimate thoughts - or working out if they were lying - was still a long way off. Their participants were all willing subjects who allowed their brains to be trained and monitoring to take place. "It would be very easy not to co-operate, and then it wouldn't work," said Demis Hassabis, who developed the computer programme to read the data. "These kind of scenarios would require a great technological leap."


Participants were asked to
navigate between virtual
reality rooms

It is brain diseases such as Alzheimer's which could stand to benefit from such research. "Understanding how we learn and store memories could aid our understanding of conditions in which memory is compromised and potentially help patients in the rehabilitation process," said Professor Maguire.

Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said: "This exciting development will boost our understanding of the hippocampus, a key area affected in Alzheimer's disease and the most important part of the brain for memory.
"Learning more about how the brain works could help us work out which types of nerve cells are lost in Alzheimer's."

Rebecca Wood, of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said the research was "fascinating". She said: "Understanding how memories are formed may help researchers discover how this process goes wrong in diseases like Alzheimer's."

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Teen kills 15 in German school shooting

Story from the New Zealand Herald
Originally sourced from the Associated Press (AP)
7:00AM Thursday Mar 12, 2009

A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black opened fire inside his former high school in southwestern Germany overnight (NZ time) killing 15 people before he turned the gun on himself, authorities said.

The gunman entered the school in Winnenden at 9:30 a.m. local time after classes had begun and opened fire, shooting at random, police said. He killed nine students, three teachers and a passer-by outside the building, officials said. Two other people were killed later. "He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," said regional police chief Erwin Hetger. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

Triggering a land and air manhunt, the gunman hijacked a car and forced the driver to head south, sitting in the back seat, according to Stuttgart prosecutors, who are leading the investigation. When the driver swerved off the road to avoid a police checkpoint, he managed to escape and the suspect, identified only as Tim K., ran into an industrial area in the town of Wendlingen with police in pursuit.

There he entered an auto dealership, shooting and killing a salesman and a customer, and then went back outside, prosecutors said. "In front of the auto dealership the young man then opened fire toward the many police vehicles," prosecutors said. "A gunbattle ensued between the 17-year-old and the many police involved in the pursuit of him. According to our current information, the 17-year-old then shot himself." Two police officers suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries.


View Larger Map

Police said the suspect was a German teen who graduated last year from the school of about 1,000 students. No motive has been identified. The victims were primarily female. In the school, eight girls and a boy were shot dead, along with three teachers.

In their hunt for the gunman, police searched his parents' home in a nearby town. The suspect's father, who is a member of a local gun club, had 16 firearms, one of which was missing, police said. Police identified the weapon used in the attack as a high-caliber pistol.

The death toll was close to that of Germany's worst school shooting. In 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany. Steinhaeuser, who had been expelled for forging a doctor's note, was a gun club member licensed to own weapons. The attack led Germany to raise the age for owning recreational firearms from 18 to 21.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel called the shooting "a horrific crime." "It is hard to put into words what happened today, but our sadness and sympathy goes out to the victims' families," Merkel said at a news conference. The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, stood in silence for a minute, to honor the victims. "It is our task as responsible politicians in the European Union and, indeed, all the member states to do our utmost that such deeds can be prevented," said EU assembly president Hans-Gert Pottering, a German.

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Constitutional Change in Bolivia

(click on picture to listen to audio)


Eva Morales. Photo / BBC

This is Sunday morning. Have you just had your morning constitution? Well, you'll be in the right mood for this. The Washington Post recently declared that Latin America was undergoing revolution by constitution. On January the 25th, Bolivia became the latest of ten Latin American countries to approve new constitutions since the 1980's. Bolivia's President, Evo Morales said the passing of the constitution marked the end of colonial rule in that country. And Britian's Guardian described it as a watershed for South America that will empower the indigenous majority and roll-back half a millenium of colonialism, discrimination and humiliation.


Map of Bolivia. Photo / www.worldatlas.com

Mark Goodo is an anthropologist and human rights lawyer who's authored a number of books on Bolivia. He was in Bolivia for the passing of the Constitution Act and last week, took a break from his busy teaching schedule at George Mason University in the United States, to tell Jeremy Rose about the new constitution.

"The Bolivian Constitution passed on January 25 2009, which was really the culmination of a approximately two year process of debate, of drafting, violence in the streets. And the constitution itself I would say, very much does present us with a set of radical alternatives. First of all, the Bolivian Constitution recognises thirty six distinct nations in Bolivia, and that's the word that's used - NATIONS. Not ethnic groups, not tribes, not races...but thirty-six distinct nations. There was alot of debate in Bolivia in the months leading up to The Constitution by anthropologists, and sociologists, both in Bolivia and outside, about whether or not those nations that are described in The Constitution, which is now The Constitution of Bolivia, are in fact legitimate. I mean, do they describe distinct nations in some real sense. And as it turned out, a large percentage of these thirty-six nations comprise fourty to fifty people. You know, these nations are very small in number. And there is some real question about whether or not these are legitimate nations if we can even define what a 'nation' is.

I think secondly, The Constitution creates and recognises a distinct indigenous legal system. Now this is different from before, so there were constitutional reforms in the 1990's which went part of the way, so that community justice for example, was given legal recognition in the 1990's in Bolivia. But the 2009 Constitution goes much further, and actually creates a parallel system, to the state system of normal courts. Now what that indigenous legal system is supposed to consist of, how it is supposed to operate, and it's relationship to the normal court system is still to be decided. But it does create a distinct indigenous legal system which is supposed to take account of "~~~~~~" - or "uses and customs", practices, indigenous styles of dispute resolution, and make those the rules that are going to govern this distinct indigenous legal system. And of course, you can imagine, many questions arise. I mean, if a foreigner were in a village in Bolivia and did something wrong, committed a crime according to the indigenous rules, could that person then be tried, adjudicated within this indigenous legal system? What kind of protections would he or she have? etc. So there are alot of questions but what's not in doubt is that The Constitution creates a new legal system.

I would say that probably third in importance for the new Bolivian Constitution is that it recognises multiple categories of property - at least two of which are thought to be drawn from indigenous forms of land tenure. So, The Constitution says that private property as we all know it in other parts of the world is recognised and protected, this is important to emphasise, but that other forms of property are also recognised. Collective property is recognised, communitarian property is recognised. And then most importantly, all property in Bolivia whether individual or collective, has to pass a test. And the test is "does the property, whether it's presumably somebody's automobile, or somebody's house or a factory, does that property serve a social function?". And if it doesn't serve a social function, it is not considered property according to the, or legal property, according to the Bolivian Constitution.

What would that mean in the case of the car, the example you gave, if the car isn't serving a useful function? Could it be confiscated by one of these nations?

If something which we would recognise as property is not serving a social function, it is not legal property according to The Constitution. Now I used the case of the car just as a sort of extreme example, but at least theoretically, The Constitution extends to all forms of property. But what's really being thought about in this radical redefinition of property, I would say, is landholding. And as you might know, like in many other parts of latin America, Bolivia has a history of inequality in landholding. So that large tracts of arable and useful land have been historically cotrolled by small groups of land-owners, many of who are decendents of Europeans who immigrated to Bolivia at different periods. And so, that kind of inequality in agricultural land has really been the target of this. And as you might have heard, The Constitution sets limits now on the extent to which people can own between 5 and 10,000 hectares of land with 10,000 hectares being the maximum limit. You know people who, there are few families who own over 10,000 hectares of land, nevertheless, even before this property restriction passed in The Constitution, a government agency - the Institute of Agricultural Reform, was undertaking what they called a 'cleaning programme'. In which tracts of land, primarily in the Eastern Lowlands which has become the centre of resistance to Eva Morales whole tracts of land were evaluated according to this social use test. And large percentages of land, I don't have the exact figures, but significant percentages of land, have been confiscated and have then gone back to the State to then be redistributed to communities, to institutions, to non-governmental organisations.

But one of the concessions that they did make was to not grandparent that clause I think wasn't it. So that large landholders will be able to continue holding onto to those large estates.

That's true, that's true. That was one of the concessions that emerged in the negotiations before the Constitutional Vote. On the other hand, as I said, there is a parallel process apart from the Constitution, which is proceeding through the Institute of Agricultural Reform

Sri Lankan attacks: The day cricket changed forever

Wednesday Mar 04, 2009
Stephen Brenkley, INDEPENDENT, NZ HERALD STAFF
AP, AGENCIES

A Pakistani minister has blamed India for the deadly terrorist attack which killed several police officers and a civilian, and wounded members of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore today.

A dozen men attacked Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers ahead of a match, wounding seven players and a coach from Britain in a brazen assault on South Asia's beloved sport. An assistant coach was also wounded, but the players' and coach's injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

The Reuters news agency reports that Pakistani state shipping minister Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol has accused India of conspiring to defame Pakistan internationally. He is reported as saying that the gunmen responsible for the attack entered Pakistan across the Indian border.

The assailants ambushed the convoy carrying the squad and match officials at a traffic circle close to the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gunbattle with police guarding the vehicles.


None of the attackers were killed or captured at the scene, city police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said. Authorities did not speculate on the identities of the attackers or their motives.

The attack reinforced perceptions that nuclear-armed Pakistan is veering out of control and will end any hopes of international cricket teams - or any sports teams - playing in the country for months, if not years. Even before the incident, most cricket teams choose not to tour the country because of security concerns. The attack came three months after the Mumbai terror attacks, which were allegedly carried out by Pakistan militants.

Two Sri Lankan players - Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana - were being treated for injuries in hospital but were astable, said Chamara Ranavira, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission. Team captain Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Suranka Lakmal and Chaminda Vaas had minor injuries, the Sri Lankan Cricket Board said. Ranavira said British assistant coach Paul Farbrace also sustained minor injuries. Australian head coach Trevor Bayliss was not wounded, Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said, refuting earlier reports he had minor wounds. Veteran batsman Sangakkara told Sri Lankan radio station Yes-FM that "all the players are completely out of danger."

Authorities cancelled the test match and the Lahore governor said the team was flying home. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa condemned the attack and ordered his foreign minister to immediately travel to Pakistan to help assist in the team's ensure they are safe.

TV footage of the attack showed gunmen with backpacks - apparently the attackers - firing at the convoy as they retreated from the scene, with several damaged vehicles and a lone, unexploded grenade lying on the ground. Other video showed the bodies of three people crumpled on the ground.

"It is a terrible incident and I am lost for words," said Steve Davis, an Australian who was umpiring the match. Nadeem Ghauri, a Pakistani umpire who witnessed the attack, said the umpires were behind a bus of Sri Lankan players when suddenly they heard gunshots. "The firing started at about 8:40 and it continued for 15 minutes," he said, adding "our driver was hit, and he was injured."

Lahore police chief Rehman said officers were hunting down the attackers who managed to flee. "Our police sacrificed their lives to protect the Sri Lankan team." Three hours after the attack, at least eight Sri Lankan players and team officials left the Gadaffi stadium in Lahore on a Pakistani army helicopter that took off from the pitch. It was not immediately clear where the chopper was heading. Haider Ashraf, a senior police official, said six policemen and a civilian died in the attack. It was unclear whether the civilian was a passer-by or someone traveling in the convoy.

Sri Lanka had agreed to this tour - allowing Pakistan to host its first test matches in 14 months - only after India and Australia postponed scheduled trips. Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said little could be done to stop such an attack.

"I think the Pakistani authorities have provided adequate security but as we know from experience ... there is never enough security to counter a well organized and determinedterrorist group."

The International Cricket Board quickly moved to condemn the attack. "We note with dismay and regret the events of this morning in Lahore and we condemn this attack without reservation," ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said in a statement. "It is a source of great sadness that there have been a number of fatalities in this attack and it is also very upsetting for the wider cricket family that some of the Sri Lanka players and one match official have been injured in this attack."

Pakistan is battling a ferocious insurgency by Islamist militants with links to al-Qaida who have staged high-profile attacks on civilian targets before.

One militant group likely to fall under particular suspicion is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the network blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks. The group has been targeted by Pakistani authorities since then and its stronghold is in eastern Pakistan.

The nature of the attack - coordinated, using multiple gunmen armed with explosives - is reminiscent of the Mumbai strikes in November that raised tensions between Pakistan and India.

In the past, India and Pakistan have blamed each other for attacks on their territories. Any allegations like that will trigger fresh tensions between the countries, which are already dangerously high. The Indian government refused permission for the national cricket team to tour Pakistan last month.

Authorities will also consider possible links to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger separatist rebels who are being badly hit in a military offensive at home, though Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara says authorities there did not believe the group was responsible.

Sri Lanka appeared on the brink of crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels after more than a quarter century of civil war. In recent months, government forces have pushed the guerrillas out of much of the de facto state.

The Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for an independent state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, rarely launch attacks outside Sri Lanka, though their most prominent attack - the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber - took place at an election rally in India in 1991.

Most of the violence in Pakistan occurs in its northwest regions bordering Afghanistan, where Taleban and al-Qaida militants have established strongholds. Lahore has not been immune from militant violence, however.

Cricket changed forever yesterday. The attack on Sri Lanka's team in the centre of Lahore went far beyond Pakistan in particular and the Asian Subcontinent in general. Its thunderous effects could be felt everywhere the sport is played.

The game cannot and will not be played in Pakistan for the foreseeable future, a period that could last five years or 15 years. New Zealand this morning called off their tour there scheduled for December, but there are also serious doubts about playing the game in India and nothing said by officials with cash registers in their eyes could alter that.

The Indian Premier League, due to start next month with the world's best cricketers taking part, is under threat, partly because players may be unwilling to travel, partly because the Indian government went some way yesterday to conceding that it could not guarantee security. England's enlisted players were considering last night what to do. Those in the West Indies were still stunned by what had taken place.

Beyond that, the fate of the 2011 World Cup being planned in four countries of the Subcontinent - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - is at best uncertain. Although officials from the International Cricket Council hedged their bets, Pakistan will clearly not be a venue. But the feeling will persist, with memories still fresh of the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai last November, that safety cannot be guaranteed anywhere.

The World Twenty20 is scheduled to take place in England this summer and the security restrictions that will be necessary with 12 teams taking part will make it a logistical nightmare. The murderers of Lahore ensured that no game anywhere will be easy to arrange or comfortably attended.

In the Caribbean, England's cricketers about to leave Barbados for Trinidad, attempted to grasp the enormity of what had taken place. A few yards from the hotel they were about to leave in Bridgetown, gentle waters lapped a sun-kissed beach. It was a scene from paradise while they were hearing about a hell on earth.

Stuart Broad, the team's richly promising fast bowler, was simply relieved to hear that his father Chris was safe. As the match referee in the test series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Broad Senior had been travelling in a car behind the Sri Lankan team coach. His driver was killed but he was, it was reported, taken to safety unharmed with other officials by a nearby policeman as bullets rained around.

There remained a will to play cricket. As David Morgan, the Welsh president of the ICC, said: "The world is a dangerous place but cricket must go on, it will go on. It is a great game which is a solace to many people." But never again can the safety of cricketers anywhere cricket is played be taken for granted

If the audacious ambush, as the players made their way to the Gaddafi Stadium for a test match, sought attention it succeeded brilliantly. This has been a catastrophe waiting to happen. During a decade, perhaps more, of terrorist interventions in countries where cricket is played the official line has remained chillingly standard: that players have never been targets and never would be the targets.

But there was always the uncomfortable feeling that this would alter, that sooner or later somebody with weapons and a cause would realise what cricketers could do for it. The comparisons with the attack on the Israeli team by extremists at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 were made immediately. But then one particular team was deliberately targeted, in Lahore it was Sri Lanka but it could in truth have been any team. In the event no players or officials were killed yesterday but two civilians and six policeman.

Two of the Sri Lanka team were more badly injured than the others, the batsmen Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana who were later released from hospital. The juxtaposition of sport and life was brought home by the involvement of Samaraweera. He had scored double centuries in both the first test match, in Karachi, and the second in Lahore, the third day of which was due to take place yesterday. That glittering achievement was put into perspective by the horror of the journey to the stadium.

There were narrow escapes by men who came for a game and saw bloodshed. Chris Broad was in a car behind the Sri Lankan team bus. His driver was shot dead as the bus carrying the players sped away while under fire.

Morgan and the ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat will come under immense pressure to announce that Pakistan will not be part of the World Cup plans. It was conceded at the press conference they gave in London that their security advice on Pakistan had changed. The fact was that the country was deemed by experts to be safer under the military government of Pervez Musharraf which had been in power for a decade until last year when it was replaced by a civilian administration.

There is bound to be a struggle within the ICC. There were already signs yesterday that Pakistan will not want to become a pariah but they will soon have to recognise that no other country will play there.

Morgan tried to dowse some of the flames by mentioning the terrorist attacks on London in 2005 which happened on the day England were playing Australia in a one-day international in Leeds.

But he and Lorgat had no option but to concede that the landscape has now changed irrevocably. As they spoke their shock at the turn of events was obvious. They had been dragged from the comfort zone they had occupied previously - a place established on the fact that hitherto there had been no direct attacks on cricketers.

The shock at what had happened was no better summed up than by Graeme Smith, the captain of South Africa, whose team had been beaten by Australia in the first test match of the series between the countries the previous day. "The word 'tragedy' is often used to describe a setback on a sporting field but this is a real tragedy," he said. "It is a tragedy for all the people of Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it is a tragedy for cricket and it is a tragedy for all decent people.

"There is a tremendous brotherhood between players around the world and at this moment the South African team extends its sympathy to all those who have been affected by this terrible event. We are hurting after our defeat yesterday but this puts into perspective what real suffering is. Our thoughts are with the players and we hope that they arrive home safely to their families."

The West Indies Cricket Board president, Julian Hunte, also articulated the global outrage. "All test-playing nations must ensure that security is priority number one, in our area of the world as well," he said. "Before, it was felt that cricketers were not being targeted regardless of what was going on in Pakistan. There was a level of comfort. This now blows that away and it means cricketers are being seen as targets. It is a matter we cannot ignore, and we must ensure the safety of players and everyone else involved in this beautiful game."

It was always likely that the IPL would be an unwelcome spectre. So it proved. Hardly had the Sri Lankan team been airlifted from the stadium than the IPL's commissioner, Lalit Modi said his competition would still be taking place. "The IPL will go ahead as planned and I don't visualise any impact on it," Modi said on NDTV. "There are a few dates which will change due to the general elections and a few of the games will be shifted around. But we will get under way on 10 April."

If this almost beggared belief considering what had happened, the Indian government saw matters differently. While Modi stipulated that several security measures had already been put in place following the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which caused England briefly to abandon their Indian tour late last year, and that they had envisaged every conceivable mode of attack, the government's home minister called for the IPL to be abandoned.

Any difficulties have been compounded by the calling of elections in India with polling coinciding with the IPL. The country's home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said: "I have requested the home secretary to get in touch with the IPL organisers and discuss rescheduling the dates. It will be difficult to provide adequate paramilitary forces for election purposes and for the IPL.

"I'm not worried about my ability to provide security. I can. But since it coincides with the elections, I don't want to be stretched and I don't want my forces to be strained."

In those circumstances it is impossible to imagine that even a competition as lucrative as the IPL could proceed as planned, or that England's recruited players will wish to take part. But with the IPL anything is possible.

The ICC will be under the closest scrutiny now. With Lorgat at the helm they will endeavour to act as a proper governing body.

That could be seen by his urging Pakistan to seek neutral venues to play matches, with England well to the fore as the venue. But as the dust settles slightly with the murderers still at large, Lorgat will see that it is not simply about Pakistan. It is about cricket everywhere.

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US, Seoul on edge as launch plan confirmed

(AP) sourced from The NZ Herald
4:00AM Wednesday Feb 25, 2009

SEOUL - North Korea has confirmed that it is preparing to shoot a satellite into orbit, its clearest reference yet to an impending launch that neighbours and the United States suspect will be a provocative test of a long-range missile.

The statement from the North's space technology agency comes amid growing international concern that the communist nation is gearing up to fire a version of its most advanced missile - one capable of reaching the US - within a week, in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution.

North Korea asserted last week that it bears the right to "space development" - words the regime has used in the past to disguise a missile test. In 1998, North Korea test-fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan and then claimed to have put a satellite into orbit.

"Full-fledged preparations are under way to launch the pilot communications satellite Kwangmyong-song No. 2" at a launch site in Hwadae in the northeast, the North's agency said in a statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. The report did not say when the launch would take place.

Intelligence officials reported brisk personnel and vehicle activity at the Hwadae launch site yesterday. However, the North has not yet placed the missile on a launch pad, the report said. After mounting the missile, it would take five to seven days to fuel the rocket, experts say.

Hwadae is believed to be the launch site for North Korea's longest-range missile, the Taepodong-2, which has the capability of reaching Alaska. Reports suggest the missile being readied for launch could be an advanced version of the Taepodong-2 with even greater range: the US West coast.

Analysts have warned for weeks that the North may fire a missile to send a strong signal to South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who took office a year ago today with a hardline policy on North Korea, and to US President Barack Obama.

North Korea is banned from any ballistic missile activity under a UN Security Council resolution adopted after the North's first-ever nuclear test in 2006. South Korea, Japan and the United States have warned Pyongyang not to fire a missile.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the North to stop its "provocative actions", saying a missile test would "be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward".

Pyongyang's efforts to make a case for a space programme could be an attempt to avoid international condemnation and sanctions.

But South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan has stressed that missiles and satellites differ only in payload, and said any launch - whether a satellite or a missile - would be a breach of the UN resolution.

PYONGYANG'S ARSENAL

Taepodong-2: North Korea's most advanced ballistic missile. Three-stage rocket with a potential range of more than 6700km. July 2006 attempt to test-fire missile failed, with rocket fizzling soon after takeoff.

Advanced Taepodong-2: North is believed to be developing advanced version of Taepodong-2 capable of striking west coast of United States. Planned satellite launch could disguise test of advanced Taepodong-2, experts say.

New missile: North Korea has fielded a new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, according to South Korea's Defence Ministry. A Missile with range of at least 3000km would put Guam, northern Australia, most of Russia and India within striking distance.

Taepodong-1: Two-stage, long-range missile has estimated range of 2500km, twice as far as Nodong missile. North Korea is believed to have test-launched missile in August 1998, calling it a satellite. Second stage landed in the waters off Japan's east coast.

Nodong: Japan is likely target of missile with range of about 1300km.

Scud: South Korea is potential target of Scuds with range of up to 500km.

TAEPODONG-2:

POSSIBLE RANGE
* Seoul, South Korea - 195km from Pyongyang
* Beijing, China - 810km
* Tokyo, Japan - 1290km
* Bangkok, Thailand - 3740km
* New Delhi, India - 4575km
* Singapore - 4740km
* Jakarta, Indonesia - 5385km
* Darwin, Australia - 5745km
* Alaska, United States - 5995km

MISSILE MAXIMUM ESTIMATED RANGE OF 6700KM
* Perth, Australia - 7950km
* Sydney, Australia - 8515km
* Los Angeles, US - 9550km
* Auckland - 9810km

- AP

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Call to relax Guantanamo regime

BBC News Channel
Monday, 23 February 2009


A US defence department review of conditions at Guantanamo Bay detention camp has called for an easing of the isolation of prisoners there.

The Pentagon report says inmates should be allowed more social interaction and opportunities for recreation. It comes as new US Attorney General Eric Holder pays his first visit to the controversial facility in Cuba. Last month, President Barack Obama ordered the Guantanamo Bay camp to be closed within one year.

About 250 prisoners are still held there, nearly all without charge. Among them was a UK inmates, who returned from the camp to Britain earlier on Monday. Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 30, was held in Guantanamo for more than four years and says he was tortured. He became the first Guantanamo prisoner released since Barack Obama took office.

Humane treatment

The report, by Adm Patrick M Walsh, says conditions at the camp comply with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. However, it recommends allowing more socialisation among prisoners, many of whom are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. Such interaction "is essential to maintain humane treatment over time", the report says. "In our opinion, the key to socialisation is providing more human-to-human contact, recreation opportunities with several detainees together, intellectual stimulation, and group prayer," AFP news agency cited the report as saying.

Mr Holder is being briefed on the detainees and the charges they were facing before military trials were halted last month. The attorney general is making his visit away from the media glares, the BBC's James Coomarasamy in Washington says. It comes as the Obama administration wrestles with the legal, practical and security implications of its pledge to shut Guantanamo, he adds.

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Australia fire deaths rise to 200

BBC News Channel
Tuesday, 17 February 2009


Australia has launched its biggest ever arson investigation into the fires.

The number of people who have perished in Australia's bushfires has reached 200 and will rise further, police say. The announcement came after fire investigators discovered 11 more bodies in and around the town of Kinglake, in south-east Victoria state. More than 1,800 homes were destroyed and 7,500 people displaced by the hundreds of fires that swept the state. The updated death toll came as Disaster Victim Identification teams examined some of the areas worst-hit by fires for the first time.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said some of the victims would probably never be identified. "It is a very difficult process in some cases to actually be able to determine whether the remains are human remains or not," he was quoted by ABC as saying. "As to what the final number's going to get to I think we should wait and let it unfold over the next week or 10 days" Sunday has been announced as a national day of mourning for all victims of the bushfires.

Police suspect at least two of the fires were set deliberately, and have charged one man with arson. On Monday a Melbourne court named the suspect as Brendan Sokaluk - despite fears for his safety prompted by public fury over the blaze. Prosecutors allege that the 39-year-old deliberately set a fire in Churchill, Victoria, in which 11 people died. He is facing charges of 'arson causing death' and of intentionally starting a bushfire. He faces a maximum 25-year sentence for the first charge, and 15 years for the second.

Meanwhile, in the north of the country, major flooding caused by heavy rains has cut off towns along Australia's east coast. Parts of New South Wales were declared a natural disaster area on Tuesday after high waters isolated thousands of people. Much of Queensland state has been under water for weeks as a result of the worst flooding in three decades, with more rain forecast. Emergency officials said the cost of the damage there would exceed A$210m ($135m; £94m).

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