The Red Cross says its staff in Sri Lanka are witnessing an "unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe" in the area where troops have trapped Tamil Tigers.
The agency says a ferry loaded with aid has been unable to reach the battered north-eastern coastal strip for three days because of fighting.
There are also reports that staff have quit the last hospital in the war zone.
A senior UN envoy is on his way to Sri Lanka to try "to help resolve the humanitarian situation", the UN says.
Vijay Nambiar, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff, is expected to arrive on Friday.
Last month Mr Nambiar met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa but failed to secure access to the war zone for humanitarian teams.
See a map of the conflict region
The UN says about 50,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone, although Colombo disputes this figure.
The government has rejected international calls to stop its offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels, saying it would give them time to recover. Now that it has trapped the Tamil Tigers, it hopes to soon end the 25-year-old civil war.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its chartered ferry, the Green Ocean, had been unable to deliver aid or evacuate the wounded for three days.
"Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe," said ICRC director of operations Pierre Krahenbuhl, based in Geneva.
"Despite high-level assurances, the lack of security on the ground means that our sea operations continue to be stalled, and this is unacceptable," he said.
"People are left to their own devices."
The ICRC says it requires security and unimpeded access to the area immediately.
In a statement, it said another aid ship, from the World Food Programme, was also waiting to deliver supplies to the war zone.
Hospital abandoned
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Sri Lanka says there are also unverified reports that medical staff have abandoned the main hospital in the rebel-held area because of persistent shelling.
One report said that about 400 badly wounded patients had been left behind, along with more than 100 bodies awaiting burial.
Dozens of civilians have been reported killed in artillery attacks on the facility in recent days.
Earlier on Thursday, a military spokesman told the BBC that unmanned aircraft had filmed more than 2,000 people wading across the lagoon which borders the fighting zone on the non-seaward side.
Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said the civilians had braved rebel fire to reach government-held areas.
"There is a large number of people crossing, and the (rebels) fired at them. Four people were killed, 14 were wounded," he said.
The Sri Lankan army's version of events cannot be independently verified and there has been no comment from the rebels.
The authorities and the rebels blame each other for civilian deaths.
'Shock'
As the fighting continued, Britain said on Thursday that it supported an early inquiry into whether war crimes have been committed in Sri Lanka.
"We would support an early investigation into all incidents that may have resulted in civilian casualties," said junior foreign minister Bill Rammell.
He said the UN's estimate of more than 6,500 civilian deaths since January was - if accurate - "truly shocking and appalling".
The UK-based charity Save the Children said on Thursday that a growing number of children were becoming separated from their families as they fled the war zone and entered government-controlled camps.
"The camps are chaotic," said spokesman Branko Golubovic.
"These children are coming out of combat areas where they have been severely traumatised only to find themselves in yet another harsh environment in the camps."
Nearly 200,000 civilians are believed to be living in the government's overcrowded displacement camps.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Contest is over, the bonding begins
The fifth and final phase of the elections to the 15 th Lok Sabha ended on Wednesday, with 62 per cent of the 71.4 crore voters turning out — the highest in the five phases.
The fifth phase saw elections to 86 constituencies across nine states and two union territories, including 39 seats in Tamil Nadu.
The highest polling was recorded in West Bengal, while the lowest was in Barmulla constituency in Jammu and Kashmir. Unlike earlier phases, polling in West Bengal went off peacefully.
The prominent candidates in Wednesday’s round included Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the DMK’s T.R. Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran and M.K. Azhagiri, the Congress' Mohammad Azharuddin, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Maneka and Varun Gandhi, the MDMK's Vaiko and the Samajwadi Party's Jayaprada.
In all, 8,070 candidates contested for the 543 seats in the elections and votes would be counted on May 16 in 1,080 centres all over India, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla said, adding, “Results could be expected by Saturday evening.”
Wednesday’s polling was peaceful in all the states, barring a few incidents of violence in West Bangal, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
But Chawla said altogether 37 people were killed in the staggered polls, including 23 in poll-related violence. Fourteen people lost their lives because of accidents and health problems.
In Tamil Nadu, where all the 39 constituencies went for the polls, the day was peaceful, with a 61 per cent turnout. Uttar Pradesh recorded a 52 per cent turnout in 14 constituencies.
While Punjab had a 62 per cent turnout amid a few clashes between rival political groups, Uttarakhand was peaceful with a 50 to 55 per cent turnout.
Polling was disrupted at a polling station in Sopore in Baramulla parliamentary constituency, 55 km from Srinagar, after locals pelted stones at the booth, set ablaze a vehicle and staged dharna on the Sopore-Kupwara Road.
The fifth phase saw elections to 86 constituencies across nine states and two union territories, including 39 seats in Tamil Nadu.
The highest polling was recorded in West Bengal, while the lowest was in Barmulla constituency in Jammu and Kashmir. Unlike earlier phases, polling in West Bengal went off peacefully.
The prominent candidates in Wednesday’s round included Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the DMK’s T.R. Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran and M.K. Azhagiri, the Congress' Mohammad Azharuddin, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Maneka and Varun Gandhi, the MDMK's Vaiko and the Samajwadi Party's Jayaprada.
In all, 8,070 candidates contested for the 543 seats in the elections and votes would be counted on May 16 in 1,080 centres all over India, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla said, adding, “Results could be expected by Saturday evening.”
Wednesday’s polling was peaceful in all the states, barring a few incidents of violence in West Bangal, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
But Chawla said altogether 37 people were killed in the staggered polls, including 23 in poll-related violence. Fourteen people lost their lives because of accidents and health problems.
In Tamil Nadu, where all the 39 constituencies went for the polls, the day was peaceful, with a 61 per cent turnout. Uttar Pradesh recorded a 52 per cent turnout in 14 constituencies.
While Punjab had a 62 per cent turnout amid a few clashes between rival political groups, Uttarakhand was peaceful with a 50 to 55 per cent turnout.
Polling was disrupted at a polling station in Sopore in Baramulla parliamentary constituency, 55 km from Srinagar, after locals pelted stones at the booth, set ablaze a vehicle and staged dharna on the Sopore-Kupwara Road.
Swine flu caused by human error?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is investigating a claim by a researcher who said the swine flu virus may have been created as a result of human error.
Swine flu — officially called influenza A H1N1 — has infected 5,728 people and killed 61 in 33 countries.
Australian researcher Adrian Gibbs, 75, claimed the strain may have accidentally evolved in the eggs scientists use to grow viruses and make vaccines.
“One of the simplest explanations is that it’s a laboratory escape,” he told Bloomberg TV. “But there are lots of others.”
Gibbs was part of the research team that developed the anti-flu drug Tamiflu.
He said it could be a mistake that occurred at a vaccine production facility or the virus could have jumped from a pig to another mammal or a bird before reaching humans.
Gibbs, who reached this conclusion by analysing the virus’ genetic blueprint, has sent his study to the WHO for review.
By identifying the source, scientists can better understand the virus’ potential for causing outbreaks and also have better safeguards for bio-security in laboratories.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta dismissed the report, saying there is no evidence to support Gibbs’s conclusion.
India is so far free of swine flu. Over 4.55 lakh passengers travelling from affected countries to India have been screened. Tests for the virus on 46 of them came back negative.
Swine flu — officially called influenza A H1N1 — has infected 5,728 people and killed 61 in 33 countries.
Australian researcher Adrian Gibbs, 75, claimed the strain may have accidentally evolved in the eggs scientists use to grow viruses and make vaccines.
“One of the simplest explanations is that it’s a laboratory escape,” he told Bloomberg TV. “But there are lots of others.”
Gibbs was part of the research team that developed the anti-flu drug Tamiflu.
He said it could be a mistake that occurred at a vaccine production facility or the virus could have jumped from a pig to another mammal or a bird before reaching humans.
Gibbs, who reached this conclusion by analysing the virus’ genetic blueprint, has sent his study to the WHO for review.
By identifying the source, scientists can better understand the virus’ potential for causing outbreaks and also have better safeguards for bio-security in laboratories.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta dismissed the report, saying there is no evidence to support Gibbs’s conclusion.
India is so far free of swine flu. Over 4.55 lakh passengers travelling from affected countries to India have been screened. Tests for the virus on 46 of them came back negative.
Pollsters 2004 bitten, 2009 shy?
Even as the exit polls for the Lok Sabha elections trickled in Wednesday evening predicting a hung parliament, one has to keep in mind that they had all gone woefully wrong in the 2004 electoral battle predicting exactly the opposite of the outcome.
As many as five leading TV channels had then predicted in the previous elections that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would bag 230 to 278 seats and gave the Congress and its allies 171 to 205 seats.
The results, which led to the formation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, shocked the pollsters, the winners and the losers alike.
The UPA walked away with 275 seats and the NDA finished at 185. The Congress became the single largest party with 145 seats while the BJP got 138 seats.
The exit polls 2009 appear more realistic with the pollsters predicting a close fight between the two main alliances with the Third Front partners, including the Left parties, likely to play kingmakers
As many as five leading TV channels had then predicted in the previous elections that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would bag 230 to 278 seats and gave the Congress and its allies 171 to 205 seats.
The results, which led to the formation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, shocked the pollsters, the winners and the losers alike.
The UPA walked away with 275 seats and the NDA finished at 185. The Congress became the single largest party with 145 seats while the BJP got 138 seats.
The exit polls 2009 appear more realistic with the pollsters predicting a close fight between the two main alliances with the Third Front partners, including the Left parties, likely to play kingmakers
Electronic-waste recycling: The cup runneth over
Leave it to Oregon. The state where recycling is practically an article of religion is having headaches with its new electronic recycling law: Way too many old TVs, computers and monitors have flooded in since the law took effect in January.
Mind you, it's a problem the state doesn't mind having. The more the better, state officials say. But the biggest manufacturers group participating in the program, the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Co., or MRM, wants to call a bit of a time-out.
Warning that e-waste will substantially exceed its state-mandated target if the stuff keeps coming in at the current rate, MRM said it will limit collections to designated network collection sites and won't reimburse for e-waste collected at special events organized by neighborhoods, church groups or county cleanup events. In addition, the company is asking collectors to limit their promotions for e-waste recycling to signs designed by the Department of Environmental Quality.
Oregon has one of the most user-friendly e-waste programs in the country. Individuals can bring in up to seven items free of charge, while schools and businesses can bring in any number. Every county, and every city with more than 10,000 people, has a convenient collection site.
Mind you, it's a problem the state doesn't mind having. The more the better, state officials say. But the biggest manufacturers group participating in the program, the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Co., or MRM, wants to call a bit of a time-out.
Warning that e-waste will substantially exceed its state-mandated target if the stuff keeps coming in at the current rate, MRM said it will limit collections to designated network collection sites and won't reimburse for e-waste collected at special events organized by neighborhoods, church groups or county cleanup events. In addition, the company is asking collectors to limit their promotions for e-waste recycling to signs designed by the Department of Environmental Quality.
Oregon has one of the most user-friendly e-waste programs in the country. Individuals can bring in up to seven items free of charge, while schools and businesses can bring in any number. Every county, and every city with more than 10,000 people, has a convenient collection site.
Venus figurine sheds light on origins of art by early humans
A 40,000-year-old figurine of a voluptuous woman carved from mammoth ivory and excavated from a cave in southwestern Germany is the oldest known example of three-dimensional or figurative representation of humans and sheds new light on the origins of art, researchers reported today.
The intricately carved headless figure is at least 5,000 years older than previous examples and dates from shortly after modern humans arrived in Europe. But it already exhibits many of the characteristics of fertility figurines carved millenniums later.
The figurine "radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Paleolithic art," its discoverer, archaeologist Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tubingen in Germany, wrote in the journal Nature.
Experts are excited about the find because of what it tells us about early humans -- and about ourselves.
"The origin and evolution of figurative art, portable art, appear on most lists of what constitutes modern human behavior," said archaeologist Daniel Adler of the University of Connecticut, who was not involved in the research.
"Anytime you can push the clock back on some of these behaviors, we get a better understanding of why these were important and were developed, where they were developed . . . and the roles they played in the social glue that holds groups together," he said.
"For European archaeologists, it marks the appearance of behaviors they find familiar -- modern human behavior," said archaeologist John J. Shea of Stony Brook University in New York, who was also not involved. "It suggests the same values and ways of seeing the world existed among the earliest humans that migrated to Europe" as among humans today.
The figurine was excavated at Hohle Fels, a large cave in the Swabian Jura region of Germany about 14 miles southwest of Ulm. The cave shows evidence of a long period of prehistoric occupation and is probably best known for three ivory carvings previously discovered by Conard -- a horse's or bear's head, a water bird that may be in flight and a half-human, half-lion figurine, all dating from about 30,000 to 31,000 years ago.
The new figurine was found in September in six pieces in a lower layer of the cave floor about nine feet below the current floor. Nearby were flint-knapping debris, worked bone and ivory and remains of horses, reindeer, cave bears, mammoths and ibexes. Radiocarbon data indicate that the layer originated 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.
The Venus figure, about 2.4 inches tall, was carved from a mammoth tusk.
It has broad shoulders, prominent breasts and intricately detailed buttocks and genitalia, all grossly exaggerated.
Those features "are clearly more exaggerated than on others that come later," Adler said, "but many of the basic features that are seen later are already there. . . . It's a prototype for what you see later" from the Gravettian culture, which occupied France from 28,000 to 22,000 years ago. "The stylistic attributes are being carried on for many, many generations."
The figurine has carefully carved hands resting on the upper part of the stomach -- although the left arm and shoulder are missing. One hand has five fingers, the other four.
The legs are short, pointed and asymmetrical, with the left noticeably shorter than the right, typical of later Venus figurines. Also typical, the figure has no head. Instead, it has a carefully carved ring above the left shoulder. The polished surface of the ring suggests that the figurine was worn as an ornament around the neck.
The intricate detailing achieved with primitive stone tools indicates "the amount of energy these guys were willing to invest in these little objects -- tens if not hundreds of hours," Shea said. That suggests the objects were very important to them. Many researchers believe that they were fertility totems, but their ultimate meaning may remain a mystery.
The intricately carved headless figure is at least 5,000 years older than previous examples and dates from shortly after modern humans arrived in Europe. But it already exhibits many of the characteristics of fertility figurines carved millenniums later.
The figurine "radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Paleolithic art," its discoverer, archaeologist Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tubingen in Germany, wrote in the journal Nature.
Experts are excited about the find because of what it tells us about early humans -- and about ourselves.
"The origin and evolution of figurative art, portable art, appear on most lists of what constitutes modern human behavior," said archaeologist Daniel Adler of the University of Connecticut, who was not involved in the research.
"Anytime you can push the clock back on some of these behaviors, we get a better understanding of why these were important and were developed, where they were developed . . . and the roles they played in the social glue that holds groups together," he said.
"For European archaeologists, it marks the appearance of behaviors they find familiar -- modern human behavior," said archaeologist John J. Shea of Stony Brook University in New York, who was also not involved. "It suggests the same values and ways of seeing the world existed among the earliest humans that migrated to Europe" as among humans today.
The figurine was excavated at Hohle Fels, a large cave in the Swabian Jura region of Germany about 14 miles southwest of Ulm. The cave shows evidence of a long period of prehistoric occupation and is probably best known for three ivory carvings previously discovered by Conard -- a horse's or bear's head, a water bird that may be in flight and a half-human, half-lion figurine, all dating from about 30,000 to 31,000 years ago.
The new figurine was found in September in six pieces in a lower layer of the cave floor about nine feet below the current floor. Nearby were flint-knapping debris, worked bone and ivory and remains of horses, reindeer, cave bears, mammoths and ibexes. Radiocarbon data indicate that the layer originated 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.
The Venus figure, about 2.4 inches tall, was carved from a mammoth tusk.
It has broad shoulders, prominent breasts and intricately detailed buttocks and genitalia, all grossly exaggerated.
Those features "are clearly more exaggerated than on others that come later," Adler said, "but many of the basic features that are seen later are already there. . . . It's a prototype for what you see later" from the Gravettian culture, which occupied France from 28,000 to 22,000 years ago. "The stylistic attributes are being carried on for many, many generations."
The figurine has carefully carved hands resting on the upper part of the stomach -- although the left arm and shoulder are missing. One hand has five fingers, the other four.
The legs are short, pointed and asymmetrical, with the left noticeably shorter than the right, typical of later Venus figurines. Also typical, the figure has no head. Instead, it has a carefully carved ring above the left shoulder. The polished surface of the ring suggests that the figurine was worn as an ornament around the neck.
The intricate detailing achieved with primitive stone tools indicates "the amount of energy these guys were willing to invest in these little objects -- tens if not hundreds of hours," Shea said. That suggests the objects were very important to them. Many researchers believe that they were fertility totems, but their ultimate meaning may remain a mystery.
Gov. proposes selling L.A. Coliseum, other properties to raise cash
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to sell the Los Angeles Coliseum, San Quentin State Prison, the Orange County Fairgrounds and other state property to raise cash amid the state's growing fiscal crisis, according to a copy of a proposal reviewed by The Times.
Sale of the properties, to be included in the governor's revised budget plan on Thursday, would raise between $600 million and $1 billion, although it would not provide relief to state coffers for two to five years, according to the proposal.
Other items on the list for potential disposal include Cal Expo, site of the state fair in Sacramento; the Del Mar Fairground; the Cow Palace in Daly City; and the Ventura County Fairgrounds.
It's not clear whether lawmakers would be willing to part with the real state the governor has identified. Proposals to sell San Quentin and the Coliseum have not advanced in the Legislature in recent weeks.
Sale of the properties, to be included in the governor's revised budget plan on Thursday, would raise between $600 million and $1 billion, although it would not provide relief to state coffers for two to five years, according to the proposal.
Other items on the list for potential disposal include Cal Expo, site of the state fair in Sacramento; the Del Mar Fairground; the Cow Palace in Daly City; and the Ventura County Fairgrounds.
It's not clear whether lawmakers would be willing to part with the real state the governor has identified. Proposals to sell San Quentin and the Coliseum have not advanced in the Legislature in recent weeks.
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