Don't belittle NEP contribution, Mustapa tells bumiputras

Don't belittle NEP contribution, Mustapa tells bumiputras

Don't belittle NEP contribution, Mustapa tells bumiputras

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:45 AM PDT

Bumiputras were reminded not to belittle the contribution of the New Economic Policy (NEP) todate in supporting the socio-economic development of Malaysians.

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EC to allocate RM30m for upcoming Sarawak election

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:44 AM PDT

The Election Commission (EC) is ready to conduct the 10th Sarawak state election and has set aside RM30 million for purpose, EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said.

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UAS boasts over 398,000 camels

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:12 AM PDT

DUBAI, Saturday 7 August 2010 (Bernama) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has more than 398,000 camels pumping nearly 171,000 tonnes of milk annually, according to Qatar News Agency (QNA).

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Two klled in Myanmar bomb blast

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:11 AM PDT

BANGKOK, Saturday 7 August 2010 (Bernama) -- A bomb exploded in a crowded market in a Myanmar border town, killing at least two people and wounding at least eight others, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported here Saturday.

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Heavy rain hampers flood relief in India's Ladakh

Posted: 07 Aug 2010 12:40 AM PDT

SRINAGAR (Reuters) - Heavy rainfall was hampering rescue and relief efforts in the Himalayan region of Ladakh on Saturday, the army said, after flash floods killed at least 113 people.


Pakistan president says door to Taliban talks open

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:32 PM PDT

ISLAMABAD, Saturday 7 August 2010 (Bernama) -- Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari said his country had never closed the door to talks with Taliban and he is willing to consider negotiations with Taliban in his country, China's Xinhua news agency reported, citing local media report Saturday.

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Vietnam police officer arrested after death in custody

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:21 PM PDT

HANOI, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- A policeman has been arrested following the death in custody of a man detained in Vietnam for a traffic violation, the force said on Saturday.

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Hewlett-Packard boss resigns amid sexual harassment claims

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:20 PM PDT

NEW YORK, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd resigned Friday after an accusation of sexual harassment uncovered subterfuge with company expenses, the computer giant announced.

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Toyota to start Prius production in Thailand: reports

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:18 PM PDT

TOKYO, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- Toyota Motor will start producing the Prius hybrid in Thailand this year, stepping up overseas output of the fuel-sipping vehicles amid swelling global demand, reports said Saturday.

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Health alarm as acrid smog blankets Moscow

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:16 PM PDT

MOSCOW, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- Wearing sanitary masks or clutching wet rags to their faces, residents of Moscow struggled round the city Saturday as the worst smog in living memory from wildfires enveloped the Russian capital.

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Internet lifestyles leave digital estates for descendants

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:15 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- As lives move increasingly online, Legacy Locker is building virtual safe-deposit boxes where people can leave digital estates for descendants.

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Climate change sparks quickest evolution ever: study

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:13 PM PDT

VANCOUVER, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- At least one fish species can adapt in just three generations to survive a sharp change in temperature, researchers said in a study on the fastest rate of evolution ever recorded in wild animals.

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Pakistan's Sindh on high alert for floods

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 11:32 PM PDT

SUKKUR (Reuters) - Districts in Pakistan's Sindh province were on high alert on Saturday for floods which have devastated other parts of the country and cast fresh doubts over President Asif Ali Zardari's leadership.


Gulf oil well seal holding, BP looks to final kill

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 09:53 PM PDT

HOUSTON, Aug 7 — BP said yesterday the cement seal on its crippled Gulf of Mexico oil well was holding and a relief well to permanently plug the ill-fated borehole was on track to reach its target in mid-August. As the final stages of the long-awaited "kill" operation moved forward, nagging questions remained about the lasting environmental and ...


In Zimbabwe, it's books or food

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 01:48 PM PDT

By Fanuel Jongwe

FEATURE HARARE: As visitors crowded round Daimon Phiri's stall at Zimbabwe's annual book fair, business seemed to be roaring for the fledgling publisher, but few people could afford to buy books.

"This year it's busy in terms of people visiting," Phiri, who runs Tepp Publishers in the second city of Bulawayo, said. "But the people don't have money to buy books."

He was attending to queries from a group of school pupils asking if he had anything on offer for free.

At its peak more than a decade ago, the book fair in Harare drew hundreds of exhibitors from around the world and local publishers reported brisk business, in a nation that prided itself as the most literate in Africa.

That was before a decade of economic crisis reduced many to paupers, while a political crisis isolated Zimbabwe from its former allies in the West. Now the fair is a local affair and a low-key one at that.

"Most of the visitors say they like reading, some show interest in some of the books we have on display and ask for contacts, and from my experience asking for contacts is a polite parting note but they don't get in touch," Phiri lamented.

"People are living from hand to mouth and to expect them to buy books is to expect too much," said Phiri. His company published 10 titles, including a play by a prominent local playwright, in its first two years, but only managed two publications this year.

Scarce income

Maxwell Mutami, a resident in the working class suburb of Chitungwiza, said while most Zimbabweans liked reading, they must choose between spending their scarce income on food or books.

"The salaries most people are earning are not enough to cover their basic needs and in such a situation a book becomes a luxury," Mutami said.

"The average price of a book is five dollars and for the same amount you can buy a loaf of bread. So with five dollars most of us would rather buy a loaf of bread for five days or for 10 days if it's the cheap quality."

Prayer Mutasa, a representative for College Press, a subsidiary of the international publishing group Macmillan, said sales were gradually creeping up since Zimbabwe's power-sharing government dumped the worthless local dollar and adopted the US dollar last year.

"It's better than previous years. Our advantage is that we sell school books for both primary and secondary school," Mutasa said.

"The sales of our non-academic books are still slow. For a person to buy a book they must have food on the table. A book is a second priority and a leisure books are considered a luxury."

As buyers grew scarce, many bookstores turned to selling cheap imported toys, clothes, second-hand books and greetings cards, while others pulled down the shutters.

'People like reading'

Those still operating remain optimistic.

"We hope next year will be better," Alex Musendeki, a manager with the Roman Catholic-affiliated Mambo Press, said, like many others in the business. "A lot of people want books but they haven't got money to spare and buy books. The economy has not yet fully recovered to enable people to buy books."

Kenyan David Ronoh, among the few foreign exhibitors, said that some books he brought were sold out on the first day of the three-day fair last weekend.

"The people here like reading," said Ronoh from East African Educational Publishers, whose catalogue includes such giants as Ngugi wa Thi'ongo, Cyprian Ekwensi and Chinua Achebe.

Zimbabwe International Book Fair director Greenfield Chilongo said: "We are picking up since the dollarisation. If the trend continues the book industry will be back to where it was."

But that depends on rebuilding the economy and keeping a political truce with the unity government, neither of which are a certainty.

- AFP

 

Kosovo war widows wage their own battle on tradition

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 01:45 PM PDT

By Ismet Hajdari

FEATURE KRUSHA: Fahrije Hoti lost her husband in the 1999 Kosovo war but when that fight ended, a new one began against age-old taboos when she took up her dead husband's place working in the fields.

"We were receiving emergency assistance at first but it was only enough for bread," she said. So she and many other widows decided to take charge and plough their fields as their husbands had all their lives.

This switch from housework to farming was akin to revolution in this patriarchal rural milieu where fieldwork was the preserve of men and women were supposed to stay home, looking after children and managing the household.

"We did not want to live off social assistance forever because we wanted to offer our children a chance," Hoti said.

But the widows faced a dual challenge. Not only did they have to learn about cultivating the soil, they also had to confront prejudices in Kosovo Albanian society that brand women as anti-social if they take on a man's job and appear often in public.

"They demonstrated an extraordinary instinct for survival. They broke the old codes in rural and patriarchal areas that treated women as a (domestic) labour force," political analyst Migjen Kelmendi said.

Krusha's fertile soil is known for good agricultural yields and ideal for growing sweet peppers, known here as paprika, a key ingredient in regional cuisine such as the ubiquitous condiment, ajvar. More than 90% of the local population depends on its production.

Settled in the far south of Kosovo, the village was heavily affected by the conflict between forces of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.

The war ended when Nato planes and guided missiles ousted Milosevic's troops and placed Kosovo under the UN's administration until 2008, when it proclaimed independence.

But during the tortuous, three-month campaign, Serb forces frustrated by Nato's superior air power retaliated against Krusha and its inhabitants, herding men and boys into houses, then opening fire before setting the homes alight.

In just a few hours 110 men and boys were killed, among them Hoti's husband Bashkim.

'We broke a taboo'

The Krusha massacre was included in the the war crimes indictment against the former Yugoslav president Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial at the UN court in The Hague.

But the indictment offered only partial satisfaction for Hoti, who found herself alone to look after her three-year-old daughter Sabina, three-month-old son Drilon and her elderly parents-in-law.

The determined widows made their first stand in 2001 when Hoti led a group of 10 of them to take driving lessons for tractors.

"Almost the whole village wondered publicly: what do they think they are doing? How dare they?" Hoti recalled.

"We had a double burden. Not only did we have to get used to very hard work we had never done before, we also had to convince the village that the widows could not continue to live in isolation."

As the driving force for change, Hoti soon set up a non-governmental organisation called "The Widows of Krusha". Within a few years it had 60 members, forming a kind of cooperative.

"We broke a taboo," Pranvera Spahiu, Hoti's assistant in the NGO, added proudly.

International donors have helped the group, providing training, hybrid seeds, natural pesticides and teaching conservation techniques.

With the passing years, the widows' incomes got better and better. Some of them, like Hoti, have begun to repair their war-damaged houses while others have saved enough money to send their teenagers to the Kosovo capital Pristina for schooling.

"It was extremely difficult to take over the role of my husband," said 45-year-old Advije Duraku, whose 19-year old son Ardian was admitted to Pristina university this year.

"But now I'm happy, there is no greater happiness than to raise children who are fatherless and see them go to university," she beamed.

The Krusha widows have even made a name across Kosovo as producers of what is billed as the only organic ajvar, the sweet pepper relish, free of chemicals and additives. Their brand, "Made by the Women of Krusha", is a popular favourite, for sale in many Kosovo food shops.

The work keeps Hoti busy, constantly on the move between her fields, her modest office that fits only her desk and two cabinets, or delivering ajvar to clients in her beat-up Jeep.

Despite the recognition, Hoti said 11 years of struggle has convinced her "there is no harder job than to do men's work".

"It was very difficult to take the role of our husbands. But poverty is even worse," she said.

- AFP

Miners trapped underground in Chile

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 09:42 PM PDT

Rescue workers in Chile are trying to reach 34 miners who are trapped underground at a copper mine in the north of the country.


US astronauts set for key ISS repair spacewalk

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 09:11 PM PDT

WASHINGTON, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- Two International Space Station astronauts were prepared Saturday to set out on the first of two spacewalks to fix a cooling pump that dramatically failed last week.

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More than 2,100 dead, missing in China floods

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 09:10 PM PDT

BEIJING, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- The number of people killed or missing in devastating floods across China this year has risen to more than 2,100, according to the government, as weather authorities warn of yet more rain.

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In Zimbabwe, a good read is supplanted by need for a feed

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 09:09 PM PDT

HARARE, Saturday 7 August 2010 (AFP) -- As visitors crowded round Daimon Phiri's stall at Zimbabwe's annual book fair, business seemed to be roaring for the fledgling publisher, but few people could afford to buy books.

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