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An Indonesian man died Wednesday from bird flu, taking the human
toll in the country worst hit by the disease to 69, officials said.
The 39-year-old died in hospital in Surabaya, the country’s
second-largest city, said JF Palilingan, the head of the
hospital’s bird flu team. “The toll now stands at 89 human cases
and 69 deaths,” Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said.
Relatedly, Indonesia agreed on Tuesday to lift its ban on sharing
bird-flu samples with the World Health Organization for tests said
to be key to tracking the evolution of the virus and combatting a
possible human-flu pandemic.
A Greenpeace ship that protested
Japan’s controversial Antarctic whaling hunt was on Wednesday
barred entry to Tokyo Bay after opposition from the sailors union.
The Esperanza was due to dock in the bay as part of the
environmental group’s antiwhaling campaign, but it was effectively
banned when the agent handling her arrival pulled out. The All Japan
Seamen’s Union, in line with the government’s position, branded
Greenpeace a “terrorist” group. Japan each year enrages
environmentalists by sending a fleet to the Antarctic Ocean to hunt
whales, using a loophole in a global ban on whaling that allows
killing the giant mammals for scientific research.
Japan on Wednesday launched a
new, elite military unit to counter terrorism and assist with the
country’s growing defense role overseas. The 3,200-strong
“Combat Readiness Force” was formed some two months after
officially pacifist Japan created its first full-fledged defense
ministry since World War II. The force will include specialists on
biochemical weapons and a subunit, to be operational by March next
year, that can be deployed to face terrorist attacks against
Japanese cities. It will also train troops on peacekeeping missions
and serve as an advance team for deployments overseas.
Malaysia is drafting new laws to
require homes and buildings to collect rainwater in a bid to
conserve water supplies, reports said Wednesday. Newspapers quoted
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, saying the move was part of an
energy efficiency drive to save costs and to minimize the use of
treated water for human consumption only. “It is a sheer waste for
treated water to be used to wash cars or water plants when it should
be used for bathing, for instance,” Abdullah was quoted as saying
in the New Straits Times. Abdullah also said the government through
its water resources council had decided on a study to identify
underground water resources.
The Chinese government has
blasted local officials for setting a bad example in energy
conservation with their luxurious office buildings, state media
reported Wednesday. Some local governments pursue new, unique and
special office buildings, but totally neglect their energy
efficiency, the China Daily said, citing Qiu Baoxing, deputy
minister of construction. “This is not the White House,” Qiu
told a gathering of officials in Beijing, while pointing at a slide
showing a magnificent office building. “This is the office
building of a district government.” Qiu said statistics showed
most office buildings in China’s major cities were far less energy
efficient than those in other international cities with similar
climates.
Hundreds of Israeli police armed
with batons on Wednesday cleared about 300 right-wing Jewish
settlers from an abandoned West Bank settlement they had been
occupying under army protection. Helmeted police had to drag out
some of the settlers, mostly youths and some with small children,
who this week had moved into the ruins of the Homesh homestead,
cleared as part of Israel’s so-called disengagement plan in 2005.
--AFP
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