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الجمعة، 25 نوفمبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

D.B. Cooper Hijacking
Indian forces claim to have killed top Maoist commander
Russia announces $30 billion military budget for 2012
Sri Lanka conducts census of civilian deaths during last stages of civil war
Environmentalists say Sumatran rhino on the brink of extinction

Posted: 25 Nov 2011 03:57 AM PST

Profile America — Friday, November 25th. A major news story on this date 40 years ago concerned the brazen hijacking the day before of an airliner on the West Coast by a man calling himself “D.B. Cooper.” After collecting $200,000 in ransom, the man parachuted from the plane over a wilderness area south of Seattle. He was never seen again, although some of the money was found years later near Vancouver, Washington. Now, airport security is on a scale unimagined in 1971. More than 741 million passengers are screened before being allowed to board their flights each year. This process uncovers 6.5 million prohibited items annually, mostly lighters and knives. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events 2011, p. 572
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012, t. 536
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012edition.html

Indian forces claim to have killed top Maoist commander

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 08:16 PM PST

NEW DELHI (BNO NEWS) -- Indian officials on Thursday said a top Maoist commander was killed during a gun battle with security forces in the eastern state of West Bengal, Press Trust of India reported.

The body of 58-year-old Molajula Koteswar Rao, better known as Kishanji, was found and identified after a gun battle in a forest in West Midnapore district. The encounter happened when security forces surrounded the area after receiving specific information about the presence of Kishanji and some of his associates.

Officials said Kishanji's body was identified by the AK-47 rifle he was carrying, but gave no other details. Indian Home Secretary R.K. Singh said that the reported killing of Kishanji is a "huge setback" for the Maoists as he was number three in their hierarchy.

Earlier this month, Maoist rebels in West Bengal called off their ceasefire in a letter to the state government. The rebels said the state-appointed interlocutors and the state government led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee had not kept any of the promises they had made.

The rebels said they were willing to meet the interlocutors only if the state government completely halted anti-Maoist operations by the state and central police forces. They also slammed the interlocutors for favoring the government, saying that they have not criticized the "terror unleashed by the ruling party and security forces."

The Maoists had unilaterally declared on September 30 that they would maintain a ceasefire for the duration of one month to let peace talks take shape. The ceasefire started on October 3, but the state government never officially reacted to the proposal.

The ceasefire only applied to the eastern state of West Bengal as attacks continued in other regions. On October 21, six Indian policemen were killed and three others were injured in an ambush by Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

More than one-third of India's 626 administrative districts are affected by the Maoist insurgency. At least 1,170 rebels, troops and civilians were killed in insurgency-related incidents in 2010 alone. The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of tribal, landless and poor people in the country's poorest regions.

Russia announces $30 billion military budget for 2012

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 05:41 PM PST

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (BNO NEWS) -- The Russian government on Thursday announced it has established a military budget of 1 trillion rubles ($30 billion) for 2012, local media reported.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said the Russian Armed Forces will use the increased budget, which represents a 17 percent increase compared to the current year, for arms provisions and military equipment, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

In addition, Ivanov said that over the next three years, Russia will be releasing a total of 4 trillion rubles ($120 billion) for military purposes, underlining the importance of ensuring that the funds are put to good use.

With the announcement, Ivanov stressed that it is 'inappropriate' to consider the country's defense and security programs funding as insufficient. The Deputy Prime Minister also explained that around 60 percent of the funds will be used on the procurement of advanced weaponry.

In September, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized the importance of high national defense and security expenditures due to the country's vast size, as well as its permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.

Sri Lanka conducts census of civilian deaths during last stages of civil war

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 01:46 PM PST

COLOMBO (BNO NEWS) -- The Sri Lankan government on Thursday said it is counting for the first time how many civilians were killed during the final stages of the country's civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, the Colombo Page reported.

Addressing a reconciliation conference, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that counting the number of dead and missing and identifying the circumstances that led to the deaths will help to investigate the war crime allegations against security forces. He said that the government has already assigned officials in the North to identify the dead and missing individuals by name and how they died.

The Sri Lankan government maintained for several years that no civilians died as a result of military action but acknowledged that civilian casualties were unavoidable during a war in which rebels used civilians as human shields. The defense secretary said on Thursday that the government's count so far shows a 'very small number' of civilian casualties as a result of military action.

Rajapaksa acknowledged that its soldiers may have been responsible for some of the deaths during the war and promised to investigate any crimes. He said soldiers would be punished if any are found to have committed crimes.

In August, the government of Sri Lanka admitted there were civilian casualties during the final phase of its civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in a report released by the Ministry of Defense. Yet, the report did not establish the number of civilians that may have been killed during the last phase of the 26-year civil war.

The report came after a United Nations panel determined earlier this year that allegations that war crimes were committed by both Sri Lanka's military and the Tamil Tigers during were credible.

The bloody civil war between the government and the Tamil Tigers left as many as 100,000 people dead. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was militarily wiped out in May 2009, ending the conflict.

Environmentalists say Sumatran rhino on the brink of extinction

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 12:18 PM PST

BANDAR LAMPUNG, INDONESIA (BNO NEWS) -- Indonesian environmentalists on Thursday warned that the Sumatran rhinoceros in Lampung province is on the brink of extinction due to hunting and habitat destruction, just weeks after the Western Black Rhinoceros was declared extinct.

Indonesian Rhino Foundation chairman Widodo Ramono said the rhino population is now about 30 in Way Kambas National Park in Lampung province and 80 in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. He noted that their low reproduction rates are being further affected by climate change and the human impact on their environment, the Antara news agency reported.

Specialists believe the population of the Sumatran rhino, which is one of the three species of rhinos in Asia and the only one with two horns, is somewhere between 180 and 200 in all of Indonesia, with around 120 of them being in the province of Lampung alone.

During the last 15 years, the Sumatran rhino population has declined by 50 percent, making it one of the most endangered rhino species in the world. The species is found from northeastern India through Southeast Asia in Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Malaysia and the Indonesian Islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

At a biological natural resource and ecosystem conservation meeting in Bandar Lampung, the capital of Lampung, Widodo noted that only humans can prevent the Sumatran rhinoceros from becoming extinct as much of its threats come from poaching activities, hunting them for their horns and organs used in traditional medicinal practices, as well as poorly enforced protections laws.

Currently, killing a rhino in Indonesia carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a Rp 300,000 ($33) fine. Widodo said that these maximum sentences are too weak and stressed the importance of revising animal protection laws in order to fight the rhinos' extinction.

Earlier this month, the International Union for the Conservative of Nature (IUCN) declared Africa's Western Black Rhinoceros to be extinct. The rhino subspecies was once widespread in central-west Africa, but the Western Black Rhinoceros became heavily hunted in the beginning of the 20th century.

Although preservation actions in the 1930s allowed the species to partially recover, protection efforts later declined. By 2000, only about a dozen Western Black Rhinoceros were thought to be alive, and a survey in 2006 found none to be alive. No sightings of the animal have been reported since, and none were held in captivity.

According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), 330 rhinos have been killed this year alone, poached for their horns which are popular in medicine markets across South East Asia. Demand for the horn is at an all time high, with prices reaching more than $50,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds).

Last month, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Rhino Foundation confirmed that Javan rhinoceros have also been driven to complete extinction in Vietnam. With the complete extinction in Vietnam, only one small group remains in the wild: the 40 to 50 Javan rhinos in Ujung Kulon in Indonesia.

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الجمعة، 25 نوفمبر 2011

Lincoln Tribune

Lincoln Tribune

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