MYANMAR ANNOUNCES AMNESTY FOR 7,114 PRISONERS
YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar's junta has granted amnesty to 7,114 convicts at prisons across the country, but it was not immediately known if they included political detainees.
Source: AP
- State television, which announced the amnesty Thursday evening, said the prisoners would be released for good behavior and on humanitarian grounds.
- Myanmar held more than 65,000 prisoners in mid-2007, according to the most recent figures available from the Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators.
- Those to be released were not identified. Previous mass releases have usually included a handful of political detainees. They are usually identified when they report to opposition groups, which then announce their release.
- The country's best-known political prisoner is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.
- The United Nations and independent human rights groups estimate that the military regime holds more than 2,200 political prisoners, though the government insists that all detainees have been convicted of criminal offenses.
- The government generally grants amnesties to mark important national days, but most of the recipients are petty criminals. The last release was in February this year when 6,313 prisoners were freed, including less than two dozen political prisoners.
- It was not clear if the releases started Thursday. Friday is the 21st anniversary of the 1988 seizure of power by the current junta to quash vast pro-democracy demonstrations.
- An amnesty had been expected since July, when Myanmar's envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council that the government was preparing such a move to allow prisoners to participate in elections next year, the first in two decades.
- The amnesty comes just ahead of the opening of this year's U.N. General Assembly session, which will be attended by Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, the highest-ranking government leader in recent years to participate.
- The junta's powerful deputy chairman, Senior Gen. Maung Aye, attended the 50th anniversary General Assembly session in 1995, but the occasion is usually left to the foreign minister.
- Human Rights Watch launched a campaign Wednesday for Myanmar's military government to release all political prisoners before the elections.
- Among those imprisoned in the past two years include people involved in peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in 2007 and in assisting the victims of a devastating cyclone in 2008. The group said some were handed decades-long sentences.
- It said the country has 43 known prisons holding political activists and more than 50 labor camps.
AUSTRALIAN CAT STRAYS 3,800 KM TO RETURN HOME
HOBART, Australia – A cat named Clyde was reunited with his owner on Wednesday after a mysterious three-year odyssey in which the long-haired Himalayan strayed 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers) into the Australian Outback.
Source: AP
- Ashleigh Sullivan, 19, said she had given up hope of ever finding Clyde after he vanished when he was about one year old from her family home near Hobart city in Australia's island state of Tasmania.
- "I'm positive he remembers. He's not acting like he's suddenly appeared somewhere and is frantic," Sullivan said as she tearfully held her contented cat.
- A nurse found Clyde wandering at a hospital in the remote Queensland state town of Cloncurry and cared for him for four months before taking him to a local vet as she was leaving town and could not take the cat with her.
- The vet, Donna Weber, traced Clyde's owner from an identification microchip that was imbedded under the cat's skin.
- But no one has a clue how Clyde managed the 185-mile (300-kilometer) sea journey across the Bass Strait from Tasmania off mainland Australia's southeast coast, and then about more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) overland to Cloncurry, deep in the arid interior of the Outback.
- An animal transport company returned the cat to Hobart for free, flying most of the way.
- "It's pretty special to have him back." Sullivan said. "I'm overwhelmed."
SECTARIAN TENSION SPARKS IN EGYPT
Cairo, EGYPT - A large crowd of angry Coptic Christians gathered in front of a church Wednesday in the Egyptian town of Bagur, following the murder of a Christian shopkeeper and the stabbings of two others, police said.
Source: Top News- The attacks took place in and around the Nile Delta town of Bagur, police told the German Press Agency dpa. Bagur is in Manufiya province, north-west of Cairo.
- "There is anger among the Christians because they feel their blood has been made cheap," Archbishop Stefanos, head of the Mar Girgis (St George) Coptic Church in al-Bagur, told dpa.
- He said that a man repeatedly stabbed local shopkeeper George Abdu, 63, in the abdomen and the neck, killing him, then fled on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
- The archbishop said that the killer drove 4 kilometres to the village of Bamahai and repeatedly stabbed a cobbler, who suffered wounds to the head and lung.
- The suspect then drove to another nearby village, Mit Afifi, and stabbed a third Christian man, Hani Barsum, in the neck. Barsum and the cobbler were hospitalized, Stefanos said.
- The archbishop said Abdu's funeral would take place Thursday at the church in Bagur.
- According to government figures, Christians make up approximately 10 per cent of Egypt's population, though many Christians say they believe the real figure is higher.
- Clashes between Christian and Muslim Egyptians are rare, but tensions sometimes erupt in disputes over women or land, particularly for religious buildings.
- Wednesday's attacks resembled a string of attacks in April 2006 in Alexandria that led to bloody street clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean city.
- In that incident, according to police accounts, a sole, "mentally deranged," Muslim man stabbed three parishioners in a church, then attacked worshippers at two other churches. One 78-year-old man died from his wounds.
- Two days of street clashes between Muslims and Christians erupted at his funeral, leaving one Muslim man dead, 40 Egyptians of both faiths wounded and dozens more arrested.
FEMALE SUCIDE BOMBER INJURES 6 IN CHECHNYA
GROZNY, Russia – A suicide bomber wounded six people in the capital of Chechnya on Wednesday, officials said — the latest in a series of attacks undermining Kremlin claims that stability is returning to the southern Russian region.
- Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said the bomber was a woman — a fact that harkened back to the early 1990s, when female suicide bombers called "black widows" became a hallmark of the Chechen insurgency. Two Russian passenger airliners were destroyed by "black widows" and others committed fatal bombings near Red Square and at a Moscow subway station.
- Wednesday's attacker detonated her belt when two police officers walked by, seriously injuring them and wounding four civilians in a nearby car, officials said. Earlier reports said the two policemen had been killed.
- Meanwhile in Dagestan, a region bordering Chechnya to the east, police killed a militant fighter on the outskirts of the capital, Makhachkala, a regional Interior Ministry official said.
- The blast in Grozny was another symbolic blow to the Chechen capital, much of which was reduced to rubble in the two wars between separatist rebels and Russian troops over the past 15 years.
2 IRAQIS KILLED BY ROCKETS ATTACK AS A RECEPTION FOR BIDEN
BAGHDAD – U.S.-Iraqi forces arrested three militants suspected of firing rockets at Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where visiting Vice President Joe Biden was spending the night, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
- The rockets hit in the Green Zone on Tuesday evening, killing two Iraqi civilians, soon after Biden had retired for the night following meetings with American officials on the first day of his visit to Iraq.
- A joint rapid-reaction force raided the launching site and, after coming under small arms fire, arrested three Iraqis along with three rocket rails believed to have been used to fire the shells, the U.S. military said in a statement.
- The military did not identify the men.
- An Iraqi military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the three men were picked up on the outskirts of the main Shiite district of Sadr City and are believed to be Shiite militants who broke away from anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's now dissolved Mahdi Army.
- Shiite militants in the past have frequently fired rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, a district along the Tigris River where Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy are located.
- However, a Sunni insurgent group, the Mujahideen Army, also claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement Wednesday on Islamic militant Web sites, saying the rocket-fire was "a reception for Biden, the head of infidelity." The authenticity of the claim could not be confirmed.
‘FACEBOOKS’ DEFINING FRIENDSHIP DOWN ?
With the emergence of the mega-social networking site Facebook, it seems everyone's "friends" with everyone else these days
Source: Neil Seeman who is a writer, and director and primary investigator of the Health Strategy Innovation Cell at Massey College at the University of Toronto. Originally published by Longwoods Publishing ( Longwoods.com)
- According to New England Journal of Medicine, when introducing a real friend to a new acquaintance, we often feel the need to call my friend "a dear friend" or a "close friend." "Friend" requires an adjective these days, since otherwise it feels empty. We've dumbed adult friendships down.
- When we dumb friendship down, on Facebook or in everyday life, we risk confusing people who may misconstrue what is signified by that relationship. This, in my view, is the best reason not to friend your patient or your client.
- When in a trust relationship (what lawyers fancily call a "fiduciary duty"), your client or your patient may be vulnerable. He or she may consider a curt note from you on Facebook to be threatening. "What have I done to offend him?" they might be thinking. "Will he delay my appointment? Treat me rudely? Refuse to refill my prescription?"
- All patients, all clients, are not the same. A mother , a physician, suggests that "a good rule to follow is for the doctor always to be 'abstinent', in other words, she should not be 'getting something' out of her relationship with her patient other than the satisfaction of doing as good a job as possible. Patients should not be sources of entertainment, information, news, stock market tips, romance, actual friendship or warm feelings."
- According to Dr. Sachin, his view is that professional codes for self-regulated professions forbidding romance with patients (or clients) aim to protect the most vulnerable among us. And vulnerability in affairs of the heart is not always self-evident.
- Hulking football linemen. He knew at least two in university can cry over a woman who politely denies them a date. "Let's be friends" can be the cruelest of lines.
- THE RULES DON'T CHANGE
- The same rules of friendship should apply online and off. A friendship is not the same as a series of client meetings in a downtown office.
- The spirit, if not the letter, of most professional ethical codes would suggest that "friending" a patient or client on Facebook is inappropriate. I consider it inappropriate since it can invite miscommunication, disappointment and expectations of favouritism.
- One never knows whether one of your patients or clients might harbour resentment or disappointment or fear or vulnerability if the online friendship crumbles. This may happen innocently: It takes time, which few professionals have much of, to stay on top of email and social networking correspondence. And to your client or patient, that fragile online friendship may mean much more than it does to you.
INSURGENTS VOW TO AVENGE RAID IN SAMOLIA
MOGADISHU, Somalia – U.S. special forces aboard helicopters penetrated into Somalia and, guns blazing, attacked a convoy said to contain a top al-Qaida fugitive. A local official, citing intelligence reports, confirmed on Tuesday the target was killed and Islamist insurgents vowed to seek revenge.
Source: AP
- Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen, was wanted for questioning in connection with the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel. The missiles missed the airliner.
- Monday's commando-style action took place amid growing concerns that al-Qaida is gaining a foothold in this lawless nation.
- Many experts fear Somalia is becoming a haven for al-Qaida, a place for terrorists to train and gather strength much like Afghanistan in the 1990s. Last year, U.S. missiles killed reputed al-Qaida commander Aden Hashi Ayro — marking the first major success after a string of U.S. military attacks in 2008.
- Two U.S. military officials said that forces from the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command were involved in Monday's raid in southern Somalia. The officials gave no details about the target, and they spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation was secret.
- But the deputy mayor for security affairs in Somalia's capital, citing intelligence reports, confirmed that 30-year-old Nabhan was killed. Abdi Fitah Shawey did not elaborate.
- Somali witnesses to Monday's raid say six helicopters buzzed an insurgent-held village near Barawe, some 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Mogadishu, before two of the aircraft opened fire on a vehicle, killing two and wounding two.
- Two senior members of al-Shabab, who asked that their names not be used because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said their fighters will retaliate for the raid.
- "They will taste the bitterness of our response," one of the commanders told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
- Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Project Director of the International Crisis Group, said the "surgical" precision of Monday's raid shows that U.S. has specific intelligence in Somalia.
- "I think it will certainly make al-Shabab leaders much more cautious when they are operating because obviously the United States has very precise intelligence about their movements," he said.
- Like much of Somalia, Barawe and its surrounding villages are controlled by the militant group al-Shabab, which the U.S. accuses of having ties to al-Qaida. Al-Shabab, which has foreign fighters in its ranks, seeks to overthrow the government and impose a strict form of Islam in Somalia.
- The U.N.-backed government, with support from African Union peacekeepers, holds only a few blocks of Mogadishu, the war-ravaged capital.
IRAQI SHOE-THROWING JOURNALIST IS FREED
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the television reporter jailed for throwing his shoes at George Bush, the former US president, last year has been released. He was set to be freed on Monday but red tape delayed the decision by a day.
Source: The Agencies
- Addressing a news conference shortly after his release on Tuesday, al-Zeidi, 30, said he was tortured with beatings, whippings and electric shocks during his first few days in custody.
- He was met outside the jail in Baghdad by parliamentarians who support his case, Uday al-Zeidi, his brother, said.
- "Today I am free again but my home is still a prison," al-Zeidi said, in a swipe at the continued US military presence in Iraq six and half years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
- Al-Baghdadiya television, his employer, showed footage of him arriving at its station to address the media surrounded by guards.
- He was wrapped in an Iraqi flag and wore black sunglasses.
- On al-Zeidi's arrival, the staff at Al-Baghdadiya slaughtered at least three sheep in his honour.
- "Thanks be to God that Muntadher has seen the light of day," Uday said.
- "I wish Bush could see our happiness. When President Bush looks back and turns the pages of his life, he will see the shoes of Muntadher al-Zeidi on every page."
- Al-Zeidi was initially sentenced to three years for assaulting a foreign head of state, but had his jail time reduced to one year on appeal.
- He shouted "it is the farewell kiss, you dog" at Bush on December 14 last year, seconds before hurling his size-10 shoes at him.
INDONESIA'S ACEH TO ALLOW STONING TO DEATH FOR ADULTERES
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – Lawmakers in a devoutly Muslim Indonesian province voted unanimously that adulterers can be sentenced to death by stoning, just months after voters overwhelmingly chose to throw conservative Islamic parties out of power.
- With only weeks to go before a new government led by a moderate party takes over in Aceh province, hard-liners still in control of the regional parliament pushed through legislation Monday to impose steep punishments for adultery and homosexuality.
- The chairman of the 69-seat house asked if the bill could be passed into law and members answered in unison: "Yes, it can." Some members of the moderate Democrat Party, which will lead the incoming government, voiced reservations, but none of them voted against the bill.
- Human rights groups said the law violates international treaties signed by Indonesia. The province's deputy governor also opposed the legislation, saying it needed more careful consideration because it imposes a new form of capital punishment.
- The Aceh Party is also believed to have a less strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, and some activists expressed hope that once in power, they would amend or tone down the law. Others were considering contesting the bill in court in the capital, Jakarta.
- Aceh, where Islam first arrived in Indonesia from Saudi Arabia centuries ago, enjoys semiautonomy from the central government. A long-running Islamic insurgency in the province ended in 2005 in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 130,000 there.
- A version of Shariah that was introduced in Aceh in 2001 already bans gambling and drinking alcohol, and makes it compulsory for women to wear headscarves. Dozens of public canings have been carried out by the local Shariah police against violators of that law.
- The majority of Indonesia's nearly 200 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith, and surveys suggest they do not support such hardline interpretations of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
- Stoning is legally sanctioned in varying forms in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and parts of Nigeria. Illegal stonings have also been reported in recent years in Iraq and Somalia. But its use is a point of contention among Islamic scholars.
- The new Indonesian law also imposes tough sentences and fines, to be paid in kilograms of gold, for rape and pedophilia, but the most hotly disputed article was on adultery and states that offenders can be punished by a minimum of 100 lashings and a maximum of stoning to death.
- It also imposes severe prison terms for other behavior considered morally unacceptable, including homosexuality, which will be punishable by public lashings and more than eight years in prison.
- The bill violates national and international treaties signed by Indonesia protecting the rights of minorities and women, said a gay rights activist in Aceh who requested anonymity because he feared for his safety.
- "It's discriminatory, and it's saddening, but we are quite sure members of civil society who are concerned with human rights will not sit by silently," the activist said, adding that he hopes the new moderate leadership in the province will overturn the law after taking power next month.
- Aceh Vice Governor Muhamad Nazar said that even though his office opposed the clause on stoning to death it has no legal power to block it. "Whatever law is passed we have to enforce it," he said.
VISITORS GEOFLAGS SINCE AUGUST 26, 2009
