Thứ Ba, 31 tháng 5, 2011

PGS - TS NGUYỄN THỊ TRÂM - NGUYÊN PHÓ VIỆN TRƯỜNG VIỆN SINH HỌC NÔNG NGHIỆP

LUAGAO - Sinh ra và lớn lên ở thị xã Thái Nguyên, tỉnh Thái Nguyên - người con của mảnh đất này đã dùng sự kiên trì đáng khâm phục của mình để góp phần mang lại những thành công lớn trong ngành nghiên cứu khoa học nước nhà. Đó là PGS - TS Nguyễn Thị Trâm nguyên giảng viên Trường ĐH Nông nghiệp, nguyên phó viện trường Viện Sinh học nông nghiệp.

Trở thành kỹ sư nông nghiệp năm 1968, PGS - TS Nguyễn Thị Trâm công tác tại Viện Cây lương thực và Cây thực phẩm của Bộ Nông nghiệp cho đến năm 1980. Ở đây, với việc nghiên cứu chọn tạo giống lúa, cô đã cùng đồng nghiệp chọn tạo thành công các giống lúa như: NN8 -388, NN23, NN9, NN10, NN75-6. Tất cả các giống lúa này đều được đưa vào ứng dụng trong sản xuất, trong đó giống lúa NN75-6 đã đem lại cho cô bằng tác giả sáng chế năm 1984.
Trong thời gian đi nghiên cứu sinh ở nước ngoài trong 4 năm từ năm 1980 đến 1984 cô Trâm đã mang về tấm bằng góp thêm vào học vị của mình với việc thực hiện đề tài: “ Nghiên cứu lúa lùn và sử dụng lúa lùn trong chọn tạo giống lúa thâm canh” tại Đại học Nông nghiệp Kuban và Viện Nghiên cứu Lúa toàn Liên Xô, Thành phố Kratsnodar ( Liên Xô cũ).

Sau khi về nước, trở thành Tiến sĩ Nông nghiệp PGS - TS Nguyễn Thị Trâm công tác tại trường Đại học Nông nghiệp 1. Cô làm cán bộ giảng dạy các bộ môn Di truyền – chọn giống Khoa Nông học của trường. Thời gian này cô Trâm đã cống hiến rất nhiều tâm lực của mình trong việc nghiên cứu, giảng dạy cũng như hướng dẫn các sinh viên làm đề tài tốt nghiệp. Trong số đó có rất nhiều tiến sĩ và thạc sĩ bảo vệ thành công luận án của mình và được tốt nghiệp với những tấm bằng loại ưu. Bên cạnh đó cô còn viết các giáo trình và sách tham khảo cùng giáo trình bài giảng cho cao học các chuyên ngành Trồng trọt, chọn giống. Cùng các đồng nghiệp, cô đã nghiên cứu chọn tạo thành công các giống lúa thuần như nếp thơm 44, tẻ 256, ĐH 104 và được đưa ra sản xuất.
Làm phó Viện trưởng viện sinh học Nông nghiệp và Trưởng phòng nghiên cứu ứng dụng ưu thế lai tại trường Đại học Nông Nghiệp 1 Hà Nội cho đến năm 2004 cô Trâm lĩnh sổ lương hưu trí. Sau khi nghỉ hưu cô vẫn muốn góp thêm sức lực và trí tuệ của mình để phục vụ cho ngành nghiên cứu khoa học nước nhà nên cô đã nhận lời mời tiếp tục làm Trưởng phòng Nghiên cứu ứng dụng ưu thế lai, và tiếp tục nghiên cứu để tạo ra các giống lúa mới. Viết thêm những tài liệu và giáo trình để phục vụ giảng dạy và hướng dẫn cho các học viên thực tập tốt nghiệp kiêm hướng dẫn nghiên cứu sinh…

Mười tỉ đồng, một giống lúa, và mười bảy năm nghiên cứu lúa lai. Nhìn cảnh cô Trâm đếm từng hạt lúa, bạn sẽ thấy 10 tỉ đồng chuyển giao công nghệ không hề nhiều. Trong chương trình Người đương thời, bạn sẽ được nghe cô Trâm tiết lộ bí quyết lúa lai của Việt nam. Và quan trọng hơn, bạn sẽ biết bí quyết thành công của cô: đó là đầu tư thời gian, và không bao giờ bỏ cuộc.

Thứ Hai, 30 tháng 5, 2011

Giống lúa lai C ưu đa hệ số 1

LUAGAO - C ưu đa hệ số 1 là loại giống lúa lai ba dòng mới do GS Tạ Sùng Hoa, Viện trưởng Viện Nghiên cứu lúa lai, Đại học KHKT Tây Nam (Trung Quốc) chọn tạo. Cty Giống cây trồng Tây Khoa (Tứ Xuyên) độc quyền sản xuất và kinh doanh. Cty TNHH Nông nghiệp Á Thái độc quyền cung ứng tại Việt Nam. Giống lúa này đã được tỉnh Tứ Xuyên công nhận là giống lúa lai số 138 và được bảo hộ bản quyền.

Theo Cty TNHH Nông nghiệp Á Thái, tổ hợp C ưu đa hệ số 1 có TGST vụ xuân 130 ngày, vụ mùa 110 ngày ở đồng bằng Bắc bộ VN. Cứng cây, lá đòng dài, đẻ nhánh khá; bông dài 27cm, khối lượng nghìn hạt 30g, cây cao 120cm, năng suất vụ xuân 76-84 tạ/ha, vụ mùa 68-73 tạ/ha, thâm canh cao có thể đạt 88-90 tạ/ha.

Tại Việt Nam, từ vụ xuân 2009 giống C ưu đa hệ số 1 đã được trồng khảo nghiệm tại một số tỉnh ĐBSH như Nam Định, Thái Bình, Hòa Bình. Ngày 8/10/2010 Cục Trồng trọt đã công nhận cho sản xuất thử. PGĐ Sở NN-PTNT Thái Bình, Trần Xuân Định cho biết kết quả khảo nghiệm sản xuất tại Tiền Hải cho thấy giống C ưu số 1 có tiềm năng năng suất cao nếu được đầu tư thâm canh đúng mức, tính chống chịu sâu bệnh khá. Thích nghi tốt với điều kiện khí hậu, thổ nhưỡng nơi tiến hành khảo nghiệm. Tuy nhiên nhược điểm là bản lá to, dài cần thâm canh cân đối bón tăng kali, bón tập trung sớm để phòng chống bạc lá và khô đầu lá. Đẻ nhánh mức trung bình cần chú ý mật độ khi cấy. PGĐ Sở NN-PTNT Hòa Bình, Trần Bảo Toàn có chung nhận xét: C ưu đa hệ số 1 vụ xuân có khả năng chống chịu sâu bệnh và sinh trưởng phát triển tốt, cho năng suất cao từ 80-85 tạ/ha, chất lượng gạo khá…

Theo khuyến cáo của Cty TNHH Nông nghiệp Á Thái, để đạt năng suất cao cần đảm bảo kỹ thuật gieo cấy, chăm sóc. Cụ thể lượng giống cho 1 sào Bắc bộ (360m2) là 1kg. Gieo trồng vụ mùa sớm và xuân muộn ở vùng đồng bằng, trung du miền núi Bắc bộ và Bắc Trung bộ trên chân đất tốt, chủ động nước. Thời vụ xuân muộn gieo từ 21/1-5/2, cấy trong tháng 2 (vùng Đông bắc gieo đầu tháng 3, cấy trước 5/4), mùa sớm gieo từ 5-10/6, cấy từ 20/6-5/7. Mật độ cấy 40 khóm/m2, cấy 1 dảnh; yêu cầu cấy nông tay.

Mọi chi tiết xin liên hệ Cty TNHH Nông nghiệp Á Thái. Địa chỉ: Ô 4, lô 4A, khu đô thị Đền Lừ, Hoàng Văn Thụ, Hoàng Mai, Hà Nội. ĐT: 0436343141. DĐ: 0912091562. Fax: 0436343141

Nguồn: Báo NNVN

Chủ Nhật, 29 tháng 5, 2011

Sea levels set to rise by up to a metre: report

SYDNEY (AFP) – Sea levels are set to rise by up to a metre within a century due to global warming, a new Australian report said Monday as it warned this could make "once-a-century" coastal flooding much more common.

The government's first Climate Commission report said the evidence that the Earth's surface was warming rapidly was beyond doubt.

Drawn from the most up-to-date climate science from around the world, the report said greenhouse gas emissions created by human industry was the likely culprit behind rising temperatures, warming oceans, and rising sea levels.

Its author Will Steffen said while the report had been reviewed by climate scientists from Australian science body the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and academics, some judgments, including on sea levels, were his own.

"I expect the magnitude of global average sea-level rise in 2100 compared to 1990 to be in the range of 0.5 to 1.0 metre," Steffen said in his preface to "The Critical Decade".

He said while this assessment was higher than that of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in 2007, which was under 0.8m, it was not inconsistent with the UN body which had said higher values were possible.

"We're five years down the track now, we know more about how those big ice sheets are behaving," Steffen told reporters.

"In part we have some very good information about the Greenland icesheet. We know it's losing mass and we know it's losing mass at an increasing rate.

"So that's telling us that we need to extend that upper range a bit towards a metre. Now there are commentators who say it should be even higher than that."

The report said a sea-level rise of 0.5m would lead to surprisingly large impacts, with the risk of extreme events such as inundations in coastal areas around Australia's largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne hugely increased.

Steffen said in some instances, a one-in-a-hundred year event could happen every year.

"The critical point is we have to get emissions turned from the upward trajectory to the downward trajectory by the end of this decade at the very latest," he said.

"We have to make investment decisions this decade to put us on that long-term trajectory that minimises the cost to our economy."

The report found that Australia, prone to bushfires, drought and cyclones, had also likely felt the impact of rising temperatures in recent years.

In the last five decades the number of record hot days in Australia had more than doubled, increasing the risk of heatwaves and bush fire weather, it said.

Chair of the Climate Commission Tim Flannery said the evidence was becoming more convincing year by year that humans were changing the climate.

"In Australia we are seeing the impacts more clearly, we've seen the sea level rise that was predicted, we've seen the decline in rainfall continue particularly in the southwest of Western Australia, we've seen impacts on the Great Barrier Reef and so forth," he told reporters.

"This is the decade we have to act."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who is struggling in the polls as she seeks to introduce a carbon tax to place a price on industry's production of greenhouse gas emissions, seized on the report.

"We don't have time for false claims in this debate. The science is in, climate change is real," she said.

Australia reaffirms commitment to Afghanistan

SYDNEY (AFP) – Prime Minister Julia Gillard insisted Tuesday that Australia would see its mission through in Afghanistan despite another of its soldiers being killed and five more wounded.

Decorated commando Sergeant Brett Wood, 32, lost his life when an improvised explosive device detonated on Monday, taking the overall number of Australian deaths in the conflict to 24.

A second soldier suffered life-threatening wounds in the blast and a third was seriously hurt, Defence Force chief Angus Houston said.

In a separate incident, three Australians were wounded in a gunfight with insurgents.

"He was a magnificent soldier," Houston said of Wood, who was serving his third deployment to Afghanistan.

"He was also a decorated warrior," he added, citing the sergeant's Medal for Gallantry awarded in 2006 after leading a commando team in extremely hazardous circumstances in Afghanistan's Chora Valley.

Wood was again recognised in 2007 for his service as the emergency action commander in a tactical assault group.

"Every loss in Afghanistan hurts us as a nation," said Gillard, adding that there would be some that "despair and wonder" why Australia remained in Afghanistan.

"I think the best thing I can say to people is to reiterate the words of Ben Roberts-Smith, our most recent VC (Victoria Cross) winner," she said.

"He said to me and he said to the nation, 'We are making a difference in Afghanistan'.

"And we are making a difference in Afghanistan. Progress is being made."

She added that the process for Australia's withdrawal of its 1,550 forces in the country remained unchanged.

"We will be there seeing the mission through," she said.

"There is no point pulling out only to go back in."

Specific details of Wood's death were not provided with operations ongoing, although the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said on Monday a roadside bomb killed four foreign soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.

A total of 188 international troops have died in the country so far this year, according to a tally kept by the independent website icasualties.org. That compares with 711 for last year.

Troop commanders have warned of another hard period ahead after the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive at the end of last month.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said insurgents were threatened by the coalition's gains, and warned of a spike in roadside and suicide bombings.

"In addition to efforts to recover space and ground, the Taliban have also determined that these high-profile, effective propaganda attacks are also a piece of weaponry in their armoury," he said.

"We are steeling ourselves for that danger as we have steeled ourselves for, in effect, the more immediate danger on the ground as the summer fighting season starts in earnest."

There are around 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan, 90,000 of them from the United States.

Limited foreign troop withdrawals from a handful of safer areas of Afghanistan are due to start in July, allowing Afghan forces to take over control of security.

International combat troops are due to complete their pull out in 2014.

UN blasts Australia over Malaysia boatpeople plan

SYDNEY (AFP) – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned Australia its plan to send boatpeople to Malaysia could be illegal, and appealed for Canberra to be more humane towards asylum seekers.

In comments reported in Australian media Tuesday, Navi Pillay said the country should work on making its processing policy more efficient rather than sending detainees offshore.

"If Australia is serious about this policy of sending 800 people out to Malaysia, then I think it violates refugee law," said Pillay, who is on an official visit to the country.

"They cannot send individuals to a country that has not ratified the torture convention, the convention on refugees," she said.

"So there are no protections for individuals in Malaysia. And Australia, of all people, that upholds (international standards), should not collaborate with these kinds of schemes."

Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, nor has it ratified the UN Convention against Torture.

As it struggles to deal with an armada of asylum-seeker boats arriving from Asia and recent violent unrest in detention centres, Canberra this month announced plans to transfer 800 boatpeople to Malaysia for processing.

In return, Australia will accept and resettle, over four years, 4,000 registered refugees currently living in Malaysia, although the deal is yet to be finalised.

Amnesty International has said that asylum seekers sent to Malaysia will face lengthy waits to determine their status, inhumane detention conditions and even torture, in the form of caning.

The plan has been compared by Australian media with the "Pacific Solution" which was branded "inhumane" by human rights groups before it was repealed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard's centre-left Labor Party in 2007.

Under that policy, asylum seekers were transferred to detention centres on the tiny state of Nauru and Manus island in Papua New Guinea. Gillard's government is in talks to revive the PNG plan.

Pillay said she would raise her concerns with the prime minister.

"The first option should not be how best to turn away people, the first option should be how to receive people," she said ahead of a meeting with Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

Bowen said they had a "constructive and positive" discussion, without going into details.

Three boats carrying more than 100 asylum-seekers have arrived in Australia since the deal with Malaysia was announced on May 7.

They have been transferred to the remote Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, where boatpeople are normally detained, "pending removal to another country".

Gillard told parliament on Monday she was still thrashing out details of the transfer agreement with Malaysia.

"Its aim is to break the people smuggler's business model and, as I've said to this house before, I'm not ruling in or ruling out arrangements," Gillard said.

Human Rights Law Centre executive director Phil Lynch urged the government to walk away from the deal.

"Australia's obligation is to provide protection to those people who lawfully seek asylum under the refugees convention," he told ABC Radio.

"That is Australia's international obligation, it is our moral obligation, it is our human obligation."

Australian troops in UAE hospital blunder

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian soldiers in the Middle East may have been exposed to blood-borne infections such as HIV because the main defence force hospital near Dubai did not properly sterilise equipment, it was revealed Tuesday.

Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the oversight was disappointing but it was highly unlikely that any Australian soldier or contractor would have become ill as a result.

"I would assess the risk as very low," Houston told reporters, saying the number of surgical procedures carried out at the Al-Minhad base in the United Arab Emirates was small.

"However, we are making sure that we do everything we can to ensure that nobody has been inadvertently infected."

Houston said no seriously wounded troops were sent to Al-Minhad.

The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday reported that an unknown number of troops and contractors were affected by the blunder, which occurred between February 2009 and August 2010.

It quoted from a memo to soldiers which said that staff at the Al-Minhad air base health facility had identified "lapses in procedure in the operation of the surgical instrument steriliser at that facility".

"As a consequence the sterilisation of surgical instruments at the facility cannot be absolutely guaranteed to have met Australian standards," it said.

The alert noted that the risk of infection was low given that blood-borne diseases within the defence force were extremely rare and all soldiers were vaccinated against hepatitis B.

Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan

SYDNEY – An Australian soldier was killed and two others wounded in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, bringing Australia's death toll from the conflict to 24, defense officials said Tuesday.

Sgt. Brett Wood, 32, was killed by an improvised explosive device on Monday, while on his third deployment to Afghanistan, said the head of the Australian Defense Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

Two other soldiers were wounded and are in serious condition at a hospital. They are expected to recover, defense officials said.

"Brett's loss will be deeply felt across Australia's special forces community as he was an inspirational leader and a popular and highly respected member of his unit," Houston told reporters in Canberra.

Separately, three Australian soldiers were wounded in a firefight Monday. They have also been hospitalized, and are in stable condition.

"This is a difficult and tragic day in the life of our nation," Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra.

Australia has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, the largest force provided by any country outside NATO and the 10th largest overall.

Qantas pilots head for first strike in 45 years

SYDNEY (AFP) – International pilots with Australia's Qantas were Wednesday preparing to vote on whether to strike, in what would be the first industrial action by the carrier's long-haul crew in 45 years.

The pilots' union has asked the government's workplace relations tribunal, Fair Work Australia, for permission to hold a ballot of its members on taking action after failing to agree to pay and conditions with the airline.

"To say that we have not taken this action lightly would be a massive understatement; Qantas pilots have not taken industrial action since 1966," said Australian and International Pilots Association president Barry Jackson.

He said pilots were concerned about the future of the airline and their own job security, adding that the union was against any move by Qantas to send work offshore as it attempts to revive its non-performing international business.

"Simply put, we believe that when someone purchases a Qantas ticket on a Qantas flight they are entitled to a Qantas pilot in the cockpit," he said in a statement.

"Whilst our international competition flourishes, Qantas has been left to wither on the vine while management eyes low-cost expansion in Asia.

"Qantas is now left with an ageing fleet, a limited route network and costs which have been cut to the point where it is affecting the product delivered."

A Qantas spokesman said the carrier was disappointed at the move, which could see a ballot of about 1,700 long-haul pilots on what kind of industrial action should be taken. Jackson said this could include two-day stoppages.

An airline spokesman said: "We are extremely disappointed that the pilots' union are prepared to go on strike causing significant disruptions to our customers rather than engaging in sensible and reasonable negotiations."

Pilots have been negotiating new wages and conditions for more than eight months and say the issue of job security is core to their claims.

National carrier Qantas has admitted its international business is loss making and in need of a shake-up, but has refused to confirm it will build a new service out of Asia.

The airline is battling rising fuel costs, greater regional competition and a soaring Australian currency that is hurting holiday travel to long-haul destinations such as Australia.

The pilot's complaints follow threats by Qantas engineers to down tools this month after their talks on pay and conditions stalled.

The Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association later called off any strikes for another four weeks due to "some fairly well-spread reliability issues with the airline at the moment."

Qantas dismissed the comment as a bargaining ploy.

In February Qantas shrugged off a safety scare involving a mid-air engine blast in one of its flagship A380 superjumbos to post a four-fold increase in half-year net profits to Aus$241 million (US$240.6 million).

No one was hurt in the November 2010 accident in which an engine exploded, although the near-disaster saw Qantas temporarily ground its giant A380s.

UN rights watchdog says Aussie refugee swap racist

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia and Malaysia's agreement to swap asylum seekers for refugees jeopardized asylum seekers' rights and was part of a racist and inhumane Australian policy, a U.N. human rights official said Wednesday.

Under the arrangement, Malaysia would accept 800 asylum seekers who entered Australia illegally by sea and in return Australia would settle 4,000 registered refugees living in Malaysia.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay discussed the agreement Wednesday with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the end of a six-day visit to Australia to examine major human rights issues.

Pillay criticized Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, including the policy of holding them in immigration detention centers for months while their applications for refugee visas are assessed.

This arbitrary policy was partially explained by the backgrounds of asylum seekers who invariably are not white, western or European, said Pillay, a South African lawyer.

She called on Australian lawmakers to "break this ingrained political habit of demonizing asylum seekers.

"There is a racial discriminatory element here which I see as rather inhumane treatment of people judged by their differences in color, religion and so on," Pillay told reporters in Canberra before leaving Australia.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Wednesday that he had "a very productive discussion" with Pillay on Tuesday and remained committed to finalizing details of the pact with Malaysia.

Pillay said Australia should process refugee applications rather than transporting asylum seekers to Malaysia, which has not ratified the U.N. Refugee Convention or Convention Against Torture.

She was not satisfied by Gillard's assurances that Malaysia would provide written assurances that asylum seekers' right would be protected.

"In my view and as international jurisprudence has shown, assurances are not sufficient protection," Pillay said.

Richard Towle, regional representative of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees which would judge the applications of asylum seekers sent to Malaysia, said that the deal had the potential to improve protections for refugees in the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia plans to pay Malaysia to agree to the deal in a bid to deter asylum seekers from using people smugglers to bring them to Australian shores by boat.

Australia has long attracted people from poor, often war-ravaged countries hoping to start a new life, with more than 6,200 asylum seekers arriving by boat last year. Most are from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq, and use Malaysia or Indonesia as a starting point for a dangerous sea journey to Australia.

Australian thrown out of Vanuatu for 'espionage': report

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian lawyer has been thrown out of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu after being accused of spying, a report said Wednesday.

Ari Jenshel, 40, worked as a senior adviser in the office of Vanuatu's Attorney-General in Port Vila.

The Australian newspaper said that among claims being investigated by police in Vanuatu was that sensitive government documents had been copied and sent to the Australian government in Canberra.

It cited sources as saying some of the documents related to talks between leaders of Pacific countries, including Vanuatu, to work closely with Fiji's military ruler, Frank Bainimarama.

Bainimarama seized power from an elected government in a 2006 bloodless coup. He has pledged to hold elections in 2014, when he says reforms to pave the way for democracy will be complete.

But international critics, particularly Australia, continue to push for an earlier poll and the hardline position is at odds with the views of Pacific leaders who acknowledge his "roadmap" for change and democracy.

Jenshel, a former Australian Defence Force lawyer, denied espionage.

"I am not a spy and I have never been a spook," he told the newspaper.

"I was removed with scandalously short notice -- it was very Cold War -- after a threat from the Vanuatu government that I would be arrested.

"It's not the first time I have been called a spy. Allegations of spying against foreign advisers in the Pacific are tediously common. But I am not a spy."

In his role as an advisor to the Attorney-General, he said that "I reported on operational matters only to the Vanuatu government, not the Australian government".

Australia funds the secondment of Australian citizens to key positions in Port Vila and other Pacific countries to improve their governance.


Suicide, depression hit Australia detainees

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's asylum seeker policy came under more fire Thursday with the Human Rights Commission warning that suicide and depression were major concerns in the country's detention centres.

A new study focusing on the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney was released as criticism mounted of Canberra's plan to send boatpeople to Malaysia, where detainees can be caned.

Detention is mandatory for asylum seekers who arrive in Australia until their claims are processed, with some remaining locked up for more than a year.

The Australian Human Rights Commission said three apparent suicides at Villawood last year and high rates of self-harm should serve as a warning.

Commission president Catherine Branson said that the uncertainty caused by being held indefinitely was triggering serious mental health issues.

"What we saw at Villawood was the result of the system of mandatory and indefinite detention, where people can see no end in sight because there is no set time limit on the period a person can be held in detention," she said.

Sixty percent of those in detention when the commission visited Villawood had been held for longer than six months, and 45 percent for more than a year.

"We saw people scarred from self-harming. We heard others talk of sleepless nights, days of depression and frequent thoughts of suicide," said Branson.

"The commission has been deeply concerned for some time about the detrimental impacts of prolonged and indefinite detention on people?s mental health and wellbeing."

She added that the concerns had escalated over the past year as thousands more people arrived, usually on boats from Indonesia.

"I urge the government to make greater use of community-based alternatives that are cheaper, more effective and more humane, such as the use of bridging visas or community detention," she said.

Louise Newman, head of the immigration department's detention health advisory group, admitted there were problems.

"Whenever we have in close proximity people killing themselves then that raises very serious issues about the function of the system," she told ABC radio.

Some 8,000 boatpeople have arrived in Australia since the beginning of 2010, and recent riots and rooftop protests have prompted the government to approach Malaysia about taking some for processing.

Canberra plans to send 800 there and in return will accept 4,000 people already assessed to be refugees from Malaysia for resettlement over four years.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights this week warned Australia the plan could be illegal, with Malaysia not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention nor the UN Convention against Torture.

According to Amnesty International, Malaysia canes up to 6,000 detainees a year, claims seized on by critics Thursday.

But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen insisted that he had received assurances that any asylum seekers sent to Malaysia would not be abused.

"Malaysia has agreed to treat any asylum seekers transferred from Australia in line with their human rights," he said in a statement.

"They will not be caned."

Rare white kiwi chick hatches at NZ wildlife park

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A rare white kiwi chick hatched at a New Zealand wildlife reserve will have a protected early life — unlike wild kiwis that face nonnative predators that are slowly wiping them out, an official said Thursday.

The chick, named Manukura or "Chiefly One" by local Maori, was born at Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Center on May 1, weighing about 8.8 ounces (250 grams), Department of Conservation area manager Chris Lester said.

Lester said white kiwis are spotted in the wild about every three or four years, but the last one in captivity was released in 1915. The small, flightless birds are usually brown.

Manukura is being hand-reared in the reserve's new kiwi nursery, and will remain closely protected for at least the first year of his life, he said.

Once the bird is able to fend for itself, Lester said one alternative will be that it "remains in a predator-proof environment at the reserve ... or we will release him to take his chances."

Native to New Zealand, kiwis face potential extinction from a range of introduced predators that are also killing many other native bird species.

Rangitane o Wairarapa Maori tribal chief executive Jason Kerehi said the tribe's elders saw the white chick as a "tohu," or sign of new beginnings, and a "taonga," or treasure.

"Every now and then something extraordinary comes along to remind you of how special life is," Kerehi said. "While we're celebrating all 14 kiwi hatched (at the reserve) this year, Manukura is a very special gift."

Compressed air turns NZ trucker into human balloon

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A New Zealand truck driver said he blew up like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.

Steven McCormack was standing on his truck's foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck's brakes.

He fell hard onto the brass fitting, which pierced his left buttock and started pumping air into his body.

"I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot," he told local media from his hospital bed in the town of Whakatane, on North Island's east coast.

"I was blowing up like a football," he said. "I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon."

McCormack's workmates heard his screams and ran to him, quickly releasing a safety valve to stop the air flow, said Robbie Petersen, co-owner of the trucking company.

He was rushed to the hospital with terrible swelling and fluid in one lung. Doctors said the air had separated fat from muscle in McCormack's body, but had not entered his bloodstream.

McCormack, 48, said his skin felt "like a pork roast" — crackling on the outside but soft underneath.

Aussie woman, 89, beats off bandit with handbag

SYDNEY (AFP) – An 89-year-old Australian woman who used a handbag to beat off a knife-carrying would-be robber said Friday she would do it all again, adding she would have "killed him if I could".

The woman, known only by the pseudonym Jean, was chatting with two friends in an underground car park in Melbourne on Thursday after buying a bottle of wine to enjoy after a day's shopping when a "grubby" man approached.

When he allegedly held a knife to the throat of Jean's 82-year-old lifelong friend and demanded her handbag, Jean acted without hesitation.

"I thought he was going to kill (her) and I wasn't going to have that, and I just hit him with my bag on his face," Jean said.

"I'd have killed him if I could."

The grandmother with the knife at her throat had already attempted to kick the would-be thief in the groin.

"He was just saying 'Give me your bag! Give me your bag! And I said: 'No way'," the woman, who asked to be known as Marie, said.

"I tried to kick him in the groin but I could not move my leg far enough or high enough."

The man fled after a male passer-by came to the defence of the women, but not before their 71-year-old companion had memorised the number plate of the stolen car he used to escape.

Police were impressed by the women, who survived the incident with handbag intact and only a small cut to Marie's hand, which did not require treatment.

"It was a pretty scary thing to go through, for even me, let alone an 82-year-old," said Senior Constable David Millar.

"I wouldn't say [Marie is] feisty at all, she's just a nice old lady."

Australian doctor accused of infecting patients

SYDNEY – An Australian doctor was charged Friday with endangering his patients' lives after police alleged he infected nearly 50 women with hepatitis C at an abortion clinic.

James Latham Peters, 61, who worked as an anesthesiologist at the Melbourne clinic, was charged with 54 counts each of conduct endangering life, negligently causing serious injury and recklessly causing serious injury. The most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Peters was released on 250,000 Australian dollars ($267,000) bail when he appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

He was not required to enter pleas to the charges, which relate to 49 patients at the clinic who health officials say contracted the same strain of hepatitis C as Peters between 2008 and 2009.

Hepatitis C can cause serious liver problems, including cirrhosis and cancer. It is spread through the blood.

Police have not released details on how they believe the disease was transmitted. But Bram Alexander, a spokesman for the Victoria state Department of Health, said officials with the department closely investigated all the infection control procedures at the clinic and didn't find any problems with them.

"That's precisely why, back in early last year, we referred these matters to the police for further investigation — because our investigation could find no plausible reason as to why the infection took place," Alexander said.

Peters had his registration suspended in February 2010.

Under his bail conditions, Peters must not work in any medical- or health-related field and must not contact staff at a number of medical centers where he previously worked, including the abortion clinic. He was also required to surrender his passport.

Health officials tested more than 4,000 of Peters' patients during their investigation, and found 49 who were infected with a strain of the virus genetically linked to his.

Qantas says pilot demands putting airline at risk

SYDNEY (AFP) – A damaging industrial row between Australian airline Qantas and its pilots could threaten the future of the carrier, chief executive Alan Joyce said.

International pilots on the "Flying Kangaroo" are poised to take their first strike action in 45 years after negotiations on pay and conditions with management broke down last week.

Joyce told ABC television he would not be giving in to all demands from the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) which Qantas estimates would cost more than Aus$300 million (US$320 million).

"We believe that some of the demands that are being put on the table are outrageous," Joyce said late Thursday, adding that they could result in job losses within the company if implemented.

"There are certain demands I cannot concede to because it will endanger the survival of the company into the long run."

Asked whether the airline's future was at risk due to the union action, Joyce replied: "It is at that stage. Our international business is losing money. Our international business, if these demands are met, will go backwards even further."

Joyce said the union's threat of industrial action could also potentially damage the Qantas brand.

"Unfortunately, this is the way some of these rogue union leaders think," he said. "It's not good for their members, it's not good for employees, it's not good for our customers and we're going to have to stand up to them."

The AIPA disputes Qantas' estimate of the cost of the claim, putting the figure at Aus$91 million. It says it's main concern is job security and that pilot jobs are not moved offshore to cheaper hubs in Asia.

"This is not about wages, it's not about money at all, it's about a future for our pilots," the association's Richard Woodward told the ABC.

Qantas has refused to rule out establishing a new international operation based in Asia as it battles rising fuel costs and declining market share on international flights.

"Our market share internationally is down to 18 percent, our market share in Asia is down to 14 percent," Joyce said. "We need to change the business in order for it to be successful."

The industrial row with the pilots comes as Qantas is also negotiating with engineers and other transport workers on new pay and conditions.

Thousands turn out for Australian 'SlutWalk'

SYDNEY (AFP) – Thousands of people turned out for Australia's first "SlutWalk" on Saturday, organisers said, protesting for women to be able to wear whatever they like without fear of being sexually assaulted.

SlutWalk began in Canada in April after a Toronto police official said that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised".

Australian Lauren Clair, one of the organisers of the Melbourne event, said about 2,500 people showed up to march through the city's streets.

"I think that's because it's a global issue, it's not just something that happens in Canada; it's something we see in our society every day of our lives," Clair, 27, told AFP.

While women were often judged on how they dressed, it was wrong to suggest that only those who wore provocative clothes were the victims of sexual assault, she added.

"It's a big myth that women can protect themselves against sexual assault and rape by dressing modestly," she said.

Clair said the majority of marchers chanting slogans such as "However we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no" were women, but there were all genders in the crowd.

"Yes, there was anger and frustration that we still live in a culture where this is permitted," she said, adding there was also joy, and a sense of empowerment.

SlutWalks have already spread to the United States, and thousands registered for events in Australia after notices were posted on Facebook earlier this month.

Prior to the Melbourne event, Clair had said she was keen to reclaim the word "slut" as a source of pride, not shame.

"I've spent my entire life being judged for my appearance and sexuality. I'm sexual, I have sex, I enjoy sex. I'm not going to be ashamed," she told Fairfax newspapers.

SlutWalks in Sydney and Adelaide are planned for next month.

Solomons offer to host Australia migrant centre: report

SYDNEY (AFP) – South Pacific nations including the Solomon Islands have offered to host processing centres for boatpeople arriving in Australia, according to a report.

Australia wants to send all asylum seekers who arrive by boat to other nations to have their refugee claims assessed as it struggles to break people-smuggling rings which bring hundreds of people to its shores each year.

The government has said that Malaysia and Papua New Guinea are its main focus, but The Weekend Australian newspaper said that South Pacific Nations such as the politically fragile Solomons were also keen to be part of the plan.

The newspaper cited unnamed senior government sources as saying the Solomons had already made an approach to a parliamentary secretary for Pacific islands affairs to host an Australia-funded processing centre but it was declined.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's centre-left Labor government has said it wants to process all boatpeople offshore to prevent people from making the risky sea voyage to Australia which last year claimed scores of lives.

An initial proposal for East Timor to host a regional processing centre seems unlikely to go ahead, but talks on reopening an old centre on impoverished Papua New Guinea's Manus Island are progressing.

Meanwhile, negotiations are underway finalise a deal with Malaysia under which Australia will send 800 boatpeople to the Asian nation for processing, in exchange for 4,000 of its refugees for settlement.

This proposal has met with strong criticism from rights group because Malaysia has not ratified UN conventions on refugees.

More than 100 asylum seekers have arrived in Australia since the Malaysia deal was announced earlier this month, but it is not known where they will be processed because the Kuala Lumpur deal has not yet been finalised.

Australia returns passport to ex-Gitmo detainee

CANBERRA, Australia – An Egyptian-born Australian has had his passport returned six years after his release from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay because he is no longer considered a risk to national security, intelligence officials said Friday.

Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001 and held as a suspected terrorist without charge before being returned from the U.S. prison on Cuba to Australia in 2005.

Australia's top spy agency said it had provided a "non-adverse security assessment" to Habib's latest passport application in March.

"This was not a recanting of its previous assessment, but rather a new assessment based on new information, circumstances and factors relevant to the issue of whether Mr. Habib currently poses a risk to Australia's security," the Australian Security Intelligence Organization said.

The statement it released Friday did not give specifics about the case.

Habib had reached an out-of-court settlement with the government last year for an undisclosed sum over his allegations that the Australian government was complicit in the torture he says he suffered while in detention.

He was detained in Pakistan for 28 days after his arrest and interrogated by Americans. He was transferred to Egypt, then six months later to the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, and then to Guantanamo Bay.

Habib has alleged he was beaten and given electric shocks by his captors while he was in Pakistan and Egypt, kept drugged and shackled, had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested. He said Australian officials were present during parts of his ordeal.

He sued the Australian government for what he said was its failure to uphold his rights as a citizen during his detention.

Habib, a Sydney resident, said Friday he was satisfied that his court case and now is legal quest to regain a passport had both ended.

"I have received money, I have received a passport, I have received everything — my dignity back," Habib said.

Hollywood star Blanchett under fire over carbon tax

SYDNEY (AFP) – Hollywood A-lister Cate Blanchett found herself under fire for fronting a campaign promoting the government's planned carbon tax, with critics saying she is out of touch with ordinary Australians.

The wealthy Oscar winner features in a new advert, funded by a coalition of unions and green groups, urging Australians to "Say Yes" to a tax on carbon.

Australians are among the world's worst per capita carbon polluters and Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard has proposed a carbon tax to be levied on major industrial polluters by July 1, 2012.

She then plans a full emissions trading scheme in three to five years.

But the proposals are not popular, with the conservative opposition saying a tax would damage the economy and drive up the cost of living by making energy far more expensive, bumping up electricity bills.

"$53 million Hollywood superstar tells Aussie families to pay up", the Sydney Sunday Telegraph blared on its front page, referring to how much Blanchett is worth.

"Cate Blanchett has proved she is just another morally vain Hollywood star trying to justify her great good fortune by preaching to the rest of us about climate change," the paper said in a comment piece.

The Australian Family Association said she was out of touch.

"It's nice to have a multi-millionaire who won't be impacted by it telling you how great it is. It's easy for her to advocate it, she's one of the people who can afford to pay it," the association said, according to the newspaper.

"There are people who have no comfort zone and no room to move."

Blanchett made no comment but her co-star in the advert, Australian actor Michael Caton, defended his role.

"I'm sure people will criticise me but I thought long and hard and I really believe in this, so I'm speaking up for it," he said.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said Blanchett was being unfairly targeted.

"I admire people who speak their views and Cate Blanchett, along with many others, has a strong view that Australia needs to price carbon," he said.

"It's the responsible thing to do for citizens to speak up."

The Climate Institute, an independent research organisation, also defended the actress.

"There is a serious scare campaign going on," spokesman John Connor told the ABC.

"So I am not surprised by some of the personal attacks. But what we're trying to do is focus on the policies and the issues and that a range of Australians are well behind this campaign."

Earlier this month, a national poll by The Australian newspaper showed 60 percent of voters were opposed to a carbon tax. Only 30 percent of voters supported the plan and 10 percent were undecided.

Family plead for Australian accused of Hamas ties

SYDNEY (AFP) – The family of an Australian man detained in Israel over alleged links to Hamas has called the charges "preposterous" and urged Canberra to intervene.

The Palestinian-born Eyad Abuarga, an information technology expert, was arrested in March as he tried to enter Israel through Ben Gurion airport and charged with "belonging to an illegal organisation", in this case Hamas.

He was also accused of "activities on behalf of an illegal organisation."

Hamas, the main Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories, is considered a terrorist group under Israeli law.

The indictment alleges Abuarga had been in touch with the group since making contact with a Hamas cell during a trip to Syria in 2008.

He allegedly also received training on the use of automatic weapons during the trip, the indictment said.

It added that between 2009 and 2010, a Palestinian living in Saudi Arabia allegedly asked Abuarga "for his help in obtaining encrypted telephones and panoramic photo equipment, as well as technology for guiding missiles."

After expressing his intention to visit Israel, he was then tasked with photographing commercial centres, collecting maps and making contact with commercial businesses in Israel, the indictment alleges.

Abuarga arrived with his family in Australia in 1997 and gained citizenship.

His wife Asma, who was also arrested but then released and is now back in Australia with her five children, told the Sun-Herald newspaper she had been denied access to her husband, and a request for telephone contact was refused.

"The allegations against him that he was spying for Hamas are preposterous," she said.

She claimed his arrest was revenge for Australia's expulsion last year of an Israeli diplomat after it was found that Israel faked Australian passports used in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

"Eyad is the victim of a cheap attempt from the Israeli authorities to take revenge on Australia," she claimed, adding that she was distraught at reports her husband had "confessed".

"My husband cannot admit to something he has not done. I am calling on the Australian government to intervene and to do all it possibly can, to return my husband back to his family and homeland, Australia."

Australia, Colombia smash international drug ring

SYDNEY (AFP) – Police in Australia, Colombia and Panama combined to smash a major drugs syndicate, arresting 14 people and seizing a large quantity of cocaine, they said.

In a joint operation, authorities found more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of the drug worth tens of millions of dollars concealed in hydraulic oil in the Queensland town of Mackay on Friday.

A 38-year-old Australian man and two Colombian nationals, aged 30 and 42, were arrested and face a total of 26 charges, including importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.

A third Colombian, 24, was also arrested in Mackay, with investigations ongoing.

In simultaneous action, Colombian police arrested seven nationals in Medellin on charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit a crime.

Panama authorities arrested three of their nationals at the same time on trafficking charges in Panama City in an operation that began in September 2009.

The head of the Australian Federal Police's Brisbane office, Mark Walters, said the cocaine was destined for Australia?s major eastern cities.

"This operation has dismantled a cocaine syndicate at every level, from the organisers, investors and financiers to the dealers peddling these drugs on our streets," he said.

"We've choked the drug supply at the source in South America, apprehended the facilitators in Central America, we?ve taken out the major players of an organised crime syndicate within Australia.

"We've put the drug distribution networks on notice in Australia?s major cities."

Australian police intercepted the cocaine-laced oil when it first arrived in Melbourne by sea on May 10, monitoring the consignment as it was ferried to Brisbane and then transported by rail to Mackay.

De Soto says Fujimori backs Peru anti-poverty plan

LIMA (Reuters) – Renowned economist Hernando de Soto said on Thursday presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori backs anti-poverty programs he has implemented around the world and that they will help Peru avert nagging social conflicts.

De Soto, who is advising Fujimori through his Lima-based Institute for Liberty and Democracy, is well-known in development circles for his work on extending property rights to the poor and getting them access to credit.

He says the last two governments have largely failed to implement policies that address poverty reduction and aim to bring workers into the formal economy.

Fujimori faces Ollanta Humala in a June 5 run-off. They beat three seasoned moderates in first-round voting on April 10, partly as poor voters demanded inclusion in the country's economic boom.

"This Peru is knocking on the door of the public's conscience and it is saying I am not happy because I am not participating," said de Soto who has advised current President Alan Garcia as well as Keiko Fujimori's father, jailed former president Alberto Fujimori.

Peru is one of the world's fastest-growing economies, but still has a high poverty rate, estimated at 31 percent of the population.

The failure of Peru's growing wealth to reach rural provinces is partly responsible for some 200 protests that have broken out against proposed mining and energy projects expected to bring $40 billion in foreign investment to the Andean country over the next decade.

Complicating matters, residents of Peru's resource-rich Amazon region are without property rights and unable to form businesses, obtain credit, or access lucrative international markets through Peru's free-trade agreements, de Soto added.

He said Humala's proposal to fight poverty largely depends on raising salaries for sectors that are neither salaried nor unionized.

"It's a plan that does not address Peru's problems, Keiko (Fujimori's) plan takes account of this complexity," he said.

In addition to entering the formal economy, de Soto said rural populations must have a larger role in government as well as a greater say in extractive industries on their lands.

Peru's next Congress will likely vote on a law proposal both candidates support affirming the right of communities to such a consultation with firms, which is also codified in a U.N. treaty on indigenous rights Peru signed.

"Our position is that not enough consultation rights are established by the treaty," de Soto said. Communities "must not be just passive recipients of what is proposed in Lima but also have a say themselves in what happens on their lands.

Such participation would not affect foreign investment in the mining and energy sector, he added.

De Soto, who has advised governments around the world, said he was not eyeing a position in a potential Fujimori government, and said he had not had contact with the elder Fujimori since 1992 -- two years into his 10-year rule that ended in a cloud of corruption allegations and charges of human rights abuses.

"Our idea would be to help Keiko in the way she wants if she wins, but not necessarily to get lost in a bureaucratic apparatus," he said.

Mexico drug gang fighting sets off exodus: mayor

MORELIA, Mexico (AFP) – Almost 2,000 people have fled their homes in Mexico's western state of Michoacan due to fighting between local drug gangs and with security forces, a local mayor told AFP Thursday.

Some 1,870 inhabitants of five villages near Buenavista municipality have left their homes since the fighting started four days ago, Buenavista mayor Osvaldo Esquivel Lucatero told AFP by telephone.

The army sent in helicopters to the isolated areas of the western state, where locals reported loud explosions.

"There's now a strong presence of soldiers and marines in the area," a military spokesman said Thursday, on condition of anonymity.

Despite the intensity of the fighting, only one corpse, of an alleged drug gang hitman, has been recovered, along with six guns. Local newspapers reported at least three dead, however.

Authorities set up a refuge for the families in Buenavista, in at least the second exodus due to drug violence in less than a year, after several hundred people fled their homes in Ciudad Mier, northeast Mexico, last November.

The La Familia drug gang dominates Michoacan, but it was unclear whether the clashes were due to infighting within the gang or with other groups, such as the Zetas, which are expanding across Mexico.

Meanwhile, the toll from a major drug gang clash on a highway Wednesday in Nayarit, a Pacific state some 300 miles (500 kilometers) north, rose by one to 29, according to authorities Thursday.

Mexico has seen an explosion in drug-related violence which has left some 37,000 dead, according to media reports, since the government launched a military crackdown on organized crime in 2006.

Venezuelan rights group: Extrajudicial killings up

CARACAS, Venezuela – Unjustified killings by police officers are escalating and occurring across Venezuela, a human rights group charged Thursday.

Relatives of victims began reporting so-called extrajudicial killings in several of Venezuela's 24 states in 2000, Liliana Ortega, director of the Cofavic rights group, said at a news conference. By 2009, such slayings were reported throughout the country, she said.

Ortega called the rise in the number of killings part of "a progressive disappearance of institutional conduct" within Venezuela's municipal, state and federal police forces.

Venezuelans are generally distrustful of police. The government of President Hugo Chavez recently dissolved the Metropolitan Police in the capital of Caracas due to rampant corruption, violent crime by officers and widespread rights abuses.

The government created a new city police force — the National Bolivarian Police — last year as part of an effort to regain the trust of citizens and it plans to expand the force, establishing precincts in other cities.

Ortega's group is closely examining 81 cases of extrajudicial killings between 2000 and 2009, but rights activists say many more such killings were committed during that period. Provea, another Venezuelan rights group, counted 199 extrajudicial killings between October 2009 and September 2010.

Cofavic's study said few police officers responsible for unwarranted killings faced prosecution, which Ortega said has spurred an increase in such slayings.

"Less than 4 percent of the cases go to trial in Venezuela and that obviously creates a situation of institutional break down," Ortega said.

Police responsible for killings frequently threaten or attack the relatives of victims seeking to intimidate them into not reporting the slayings to government authorities, Ortega said.

"Cuban blue" cats said to be new breed

HAVANA (Reuters) – In a Havana apartment, four silvery gray cats race around the floor and tumble over the furniture playing with each other, occasionally jumping into the laps of their human visitors.

They act like typical house cats, but these are not just any felines. They are members of what Cuban cat lovers believe is a newly identified breed of short-hair cat they call the Cuban blue.

"They are very docile, very playful. They have a very agreeable personality," said Angel Uriarte Rubio, president of the Cuban Association of Cat Enthusiasts, as he gently stroked a male cat at rest in his lap.

Rubio is a physician for humans, but a cat lover by disposition. He spearheaded the effort to identify the Cuban blue as a new breed and hopes it will one day take its place alongside the world's five other cat breeds known as "blues."

Blue is a bit of a misnomer the cat world uses for cats that are actually gray. The other breeds are the Russian blue, the Chartreux, the Korat, the Nebelung and the British blue.

The Cuban blue looks similar to the Russian blue, and for a long time was believed to be the same breed, but that made no sense, Uriarte told Reuters on Thursday.

"We knew there were no Russian blues in Cuba because Russian blues are not very widespread in the world and none had ever arrived in Cuba," he explained.

So, last year, the cat association got serious about establishing the separateness of the Cuban breed by studying its body structure, fur qualities, eye shape and other details.

"The structure of the body is different, as is the shape of the head. The color of all of them is the same, but, unlike dogs, the differences in cats are in the small details," he told Reuters on Thursday.

Last year, he appeared on television with a Cuban blue and asked owners of similar cats to come forward.

"They began to call from all over Cuba," he said. The results showed that the Cuban blues were not scarce, but also not out there in great numbers.

Cat association member Olga Fernandez is leading an effort to breed the cats with the intent of producing first-class Cuban blues, which is to say those that more closely match the association's standards.

Predictably, she is swimming in cats, with 11 living in her apartment and another 21 in her garage. Not all are Cuban blues; some are strays she has taken in.

It remains to be seen if the rest of the cat world will accept the Cuban blue as a new breed. There are four major cat associations worldwide, including in the United States, which is Cuba's longtime ideological foe.

But Uriarte said bad U.S.-Cuba relations should not influence decisions on whether the Cuban blue is a separate breed.

"I don't think cats have anything to do with politics," he said.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Mexico gang clashes cause exodus and deaths

MORELIA, Mexico (AFP) – A clash between rival gangs left 29 dead in Nayarit, western Mexico, while more fighting further south has prompted the exodus of almost 2,000 people, local authorities said Thursday.

The clash on a highway in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit late Wednesday was one of the deadliest single events in more than four years of spiralling violence, mostly blamed on drug gangs.

Authorities raised the toll to 29 Thursday after a victim died in hospital, while three others remained in a serious condition.

Local media quoted witnesses as saying the rival gangs had exchanged bursts of gunfire and hurled grenades at each other for around an hour, as shops in the nearby town of Ruiz closed up and terrified residents took cover inside.

The El Heraldo newspaper said 17 of the bodies were found piled in the back of a pick-up truck, wearing the camouflage vests and black shirts favored by drug cartel hitmen.

Nayarit neighbors Sinaloa state, the cradle of Mexico's drug trafficking industry and home to the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The cartel has been fighting turf wars in the area for months with gangs including the Zetas and La Familia, experts say.

Further south, La Familia members were allegedly linked to the violence that provoked the departure of hundreds of people from their villages in Michoacan state.

Some 1,870 people fled due to clashes between alleged drug gang members and with security forces, said Osvaldo Esquivel Lucater, mayor of the municipality of Buenavista.

The army sent in helicopters to the isolated areas of the western state, where locals reported loud explosions.

"There's now a strong presence of soldiers and marines in the area," a military spokesman said Thursday, on condition of anonymity.

Despite the intensity of the fighting, only one corpse, of an alleged drug gang hitman, has been recovered, along with six guns. Local newspapers reported at least three dead, however.

Authorities set up a refuge for the families in Buenavista, in at least the second exodus due to drug violence in less than a year, after several hundred people fled their homes in Ciudad Mier, northeast Mexico, last November.

The La Familia drug gang dominates Michoacan, but it was unclear whether the clashes were due to infighting within the gang or with other groups, such as the Zetas, which are expanding across Mexico.

Mexico has seen an explosion in drug-related violence which has left some 37,000 dead, according to media reports, since the government launched a military crackdown on organized crime in 2006.

US diplomats feared Islamic radicals in Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica – U.S. diplomats have expressed concern that an Islamic cleric convicted of whipping up racial hatred among Muslim converts in Britain might do the same thing in his homeland of Jamaica, according to a leaked cable from the island's U.S. Embassy.

The dispatch, dated February 2010, warns that that Jamaica could be fertile ground for jihadists because of its underground drug economy, marginalized youth, insufficient security and gang networks in U.S. and British prisons, along with thousands of American tourists.

It says Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal, who was deported back to Jamaica in January 2010, could be a potential catalyst, and it noted that several Jamaican-born men have been involved in terrorism over the last decade.

Another memo says an associate of el-Faisal was suspected of involvement in a previously unreported terror plot in Montego Bay, a tourist center near where el-Faisal now lives. A second associate was allegedly suspected of threats against a cruise ship in nearby Ocho Rios. No details of the alleged schemes were provided in the cables and both U.S. and Jamaican officials declined to comment on them.

U.S. diplomats and law enforcement officials have expressed concern in the past that Middle Eastern terror groups might forge alliances with drug traffickers or take advantage general lawlessness in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The January 2010 return of "extremist Jamaican-born cleric Sheikh el-Faisal raises serious concerns regarding the propensity for Islamist extremism in the Caribbean at the hands of Jamaican born nationals," said the secret cable, apparently from Isiah L. Parnell, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in Kingston.

"Given the right motivation, it is conceivable that Jamaica's disaffected youth could be swayed towards organized crime of a different nature through the teachings of radical Islam," said the dispatch dated February 25, 2010.

The cable is one of the quarter million confidential American diplomatic dispatches first obtained by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and separately obtained by The Associated Press.

There is no hard evidence that Jamaica has a burgeoning problem with extremism, though some of the embassy dispatches list suspected associates of el-Faisal, several labeled as radical Muslims and believed to be involved in drug and human trafficking. One is a 31-year-old Jamaican suspected of involvement in a Montego Bay bomb plot and another man suspected of threats against a cruise ship.

Other Jamaicans involved in terrorism include Germaine Lindsay, one of the four men behind the 2005 suicide bomb attacks on London's subways, and Lee Boyd Malvo, who was convicted in the deadly sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area in 2002.

Jamaican police say they are monitoring el-Faisal but note that he has no criminal record in the country.

"To the extent that he was living abroad and was convicted of offenses, we do have concerns. But he is a Jamaican and we had to take him back," said Deputy Police Chief Glenmore Hinds.

One of the leaked U.S. cables said Jamaica's Ministry of National Security has established a special unit to collect information on Islamic extremism, but it voiced concern about whether the unit would be able to "react rapidly to actionable intelligence and to effectively prosecute an anti-terrorism case in the courts."

El-Faisal, who is known as "al-Jamaikee," or "the Jamaican" in Islamist circles, has been living in a rural town outside the northern city of Montego Bay, not far from where he grew up. He has several children.

He declined through a spokesman repeated requests for an interview with the AP.

Mustafa Muhammad, president of the Islamic Council, said el-Faisal's angry rhetoric and conspiracy theories may attract some young and disenfranchised people, but he doubted it would have much traction among the Jamaica's roughly 5,000 Muslims.

"Faisal has always been very eloquent and the moment he speaks he captures your attention," Muhammad said in the library of a whitewashed concrete mosque in Kingston. "That is why it's so sad, so very sad, about what he has come to believe."

Jamaica's Islamic Council has banned el-Faisal from preaching in the country's mosques because he of his past. He now preaches in informal prayer sessions and conferences.

"He told me that he didn't think he had ever done anything wrong," Muhammad said. "That's a concern to me."

Born Trevor Forrest in 1963, he was raised in the rolling hills of northern Jamaica. His parents belonged to the Salvation Army, the Christian evangelical group. He converted to Islam after being introduced to the faith by a school teacher at about 16, Muhammad said.

Shortly after his conversion, el-Faisal's global migrations began. In the early 1980s, he traveled to Trinidad for a Saudi-Arabian-sponsored course in Islamic and Arabic studies. He then went to Guyana for similar studies, according to terrorism researchers.

El-Faisal, now a compactly built 47-year-old man with receding hair, was deported to Jamaica for the second time last year after being arrested in Kenya, where he reportedly encouraged young men to join an extremist Islamic group in Somalia.

Before that, he preached in a London mosque attended by convicted terrorists and was imprisoned in Britain for nearly four and a half years for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred with sermons titled "No peace with the Jews" and "Them versus Us." In one recorded sermon, he told followers that "the way forward is the bullet." On another, he said jihadists should use "chemical weapons to exterminate the unbelievers."

"Faisal's popularity remains strong with online jihadist supporters, particularly American jihadist groups. His sermons are widely published across the Internet," said Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst who is now an independent terrorism researcher.

Some experts in militant Islam said his isolation in Jamaica may create a mystique that could draw alienated people into his circle.

"There is a danger that Abdullah Faisal will radicalize individuals in Jamaica, just as he has previously done in the U.K. and elsewhere. He is a powerful, charismatic speaker who is easily capable of presenting Islamist extremism as a rational choice," said James Brandon of the Quilliam Foundation, a British anti-extremism think tank.

Mexico town searches for missing, seeks answers

DURANGO, Mexico (AFP) – Armed men arrived at Jose Esparza's house in the northern Mexican desert town of Cuencame during the night in January 2009 and dragged away his two brothers and sister.

"After that, they came for more people from the town every Friday," Esparza said.

The kidnappers stopped coming in December 2009, when the corpses of several beheaded police officers were dumped in the town square.

To this day, the family has no idea what happened, but suspect drug gangs may have been involved in the disappearances in a region which lies on trafficking routes, amid a wave of drug violence, which has left some 37,000 dead across the country since 2006.

Reports of missing people have escalated across Mexico along with the violence, which shot up after the government of President Felipe Calderon deployed tens of thousands of troops across the country to take on the gangs.

Almost 5,400 people have disappeared in Mexico since December 2006, according to the National Commission of Human Rights.

Esparza has now fled to San Antonio, Texas, from where he continues to document the people missing back home.

He has recorded 200 similar cases in Durango state since 2009.

At the time of the abduction of his siblings, Esparza's mother tried to seek refuge with her eight grandchildren at the local police headquarters, but the police chief was too scared to let them in. One month later, the police chief himself was kidnapped.

State prosecutors distanced themselves from the case, saying that organized crime was a federal offense. But the federal prosecutor's office told Esparza that kidnappings come under the jurisdiction of state authorities.

Durango hit the headlines in recent weeks after the discovery of 218 bodies in six hidden graves in the state capital, also called Durango.

Fear has risen along with the body count, which has now surpassed the 183 bodies also found buried in northeastern Tamaulipas state in recent weeks.

But the macabre discoveries have also raised hopes among the families of the missing.

The search for bodies and graves could now move outside the state capital to towns such as Cuencame, according to Juan Rosales, deputy state Public Security Secretary.

Meanwhile, Esparza, an aeronautical mechanic, continues to investigate from a distance, connecting with a network of locals in the town of 33,000 inhabitants, which lies on the edge of a lake.

Locals believe many bodies were thrown into the water, although state authorities said an underwater search had provided no clues.

Esparza claimed that a group of divers searching for a drowned child last year said that they had seen more than 40 bodies lying under the lake.

Several other families, too frightened to be named, said they believed bodies lay in at least three other lakes.

The Durango Human Rights Commission received 35 reports of disappearances in 2009 and 70 in 2010.

Unlike in other regions of Mexico, there are no non-governmental groups investigating those cases and dozens more which were not reported officially.

Some blame the disappearances and killings on the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, known to operate in the area. Others point to the increasingly visible Zetas gang.

Residents fear speaking out but desperately want to see the disappearances investigated, said one woman, declining to be named, whose son was shot dead as he returned home from work in July.

"We're in the middle of nowhere, abandoned and in the crossfire," she said.

Barrick says rain may delay Dominican gold mine

MONTREAL (AFP) – The world's top gold producer Barrick has said it may have to delay the start of operations at a major mine in the Dominican Republic after heavy rains swamped its facilities.

"The rainfall event is expected to affect the start-up schedule, which previously anticipated production to commence in Q1 2012," the Canadian firm said on Thursday, referring to its billion-dollar Pueblo Viejo project.

"A process is underway to assess the damage to the tailings facility and the impact to both the construction timeline and the pre-production capital budget of $3.3-$3.5 billion."

The mining site was deluged with 217 millimeters (8.5 inches) of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, forcing the company to evacuate most workers for fear that a key road would be washed out.

The Pueblo Viejo mine, located around 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of the capital Santo Domingo, contains an estimated 23.7 million ounces of gold reserves and is 60-percent owned by Barrick.

Florida Resident Sworn-In as USAID Mission Director in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, May 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Longtime Brevard County, FL resident Carl Derrick has been sworn-in as new Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in El Salvador. With over 150 attendees, the ceremony at the Ambassador's residence included U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Mari Carmen Aponte, Salvadoran Government officials, leading members of the Salvadoran business community, representatives of other international donors and multilateral organizations, family members of Mr. Derrick, and members of the USAID/El Salvador staff.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20091022/USAIDLOGO)

Raised in Melbourne Village, Mr. Derrick has held leadership positions in USAID Washington, El Salvador, Egypt, Bolivia, and Ecuador since joining the agency in 1987. Mr. Derrick has a BA in Spanish/Multi-National Business from Florida State University, an MBA in Contract Management from Florida Institute of Technology, and an MS in National Resource Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Prior to joining USAID, he had four years of experience in defense contracting, including Harris Corporation.

Mr. Derrick first came to El Salvador for the period of 1987-1992, at which time he provided support for the country's National Reconstruction Plan for recuperation after the end of its twelve-year civil war. Mr. Derrick described this era after the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords as a "new dawn" in Salvadoran history. During this time he met his wife, Carmen Infante. The couple now has three children.

Mr. Derrick later returned to El Salvador to serve as Deputy Mission Director from August 2008-July 2010 before being promoted to Acting Mission Director and now Mission Director. In this capacity, he is the principal senior development advisor to the U.S. Ambassador and oversees overall program direction for all USAID program areas. USAID/El Salvador manages a bilateral assistance program (United States-El Salvador, approximately $135 million for 2010-2012) in the strategic areas of Democracy and Governance, Economic Growth, and Health and Education. In addition, USAID/El Salvador manages the Central America Regional Program (approximately $76 million for 2010-2012), which includes programs in the areas of Economic Growth and Democracy and Governance.


Mr. Derrick also represents USAID and the U.S. Mission in policy dialogue in bilateral, multi-lateral and regional settings at the Representative, Minister and Presidential level. Alongside El Salvador's Vice-Minister of Environment, he is the U.S. Government Representative on the Board of Directors of the Fund for the Initiative for the Americas. As Mission Director, he is responsible for the local implementation of emerging Presidential Initiatives, including Partnership for Growth, Feed the Future, Global Climate Change and the Central America Regional Security Initiative.

"We have helped improve the quality of life of millions of people, but there is still much to be done," Derrick said during his swearing-in ceremony. "For me it is an honor to be here and continue improving the quality of our alliance with the goal of creating a more prosperous future in the long term.

SOURCE U.S. Agency for International Development

Chile: Experts confirm Allende pulled from tomb

SANTIAGO, Chile – A dental review has confirmed that the remains pulled from Salvador Allende's tomb in Chile are those of of the deposed president, a judge said Friday.

So many mysteries surround the death of the socialist president during Chile's 1973 coup that experts performing his first authoritative autopsy wanted to first make sure they have the right body.

Judge Mario Carroza also said the remains are complete and that nothing was left behind when his body was moved in 1990, which makes it more likely that the autopsy will be able to determine whether Allende alone pulled the trigger.

"The exhumed skeletal remains are whole. That's to say, there is no loss of parts despite the burials and exhumations done in 1973 and 1990," Carroza said in a statement.

Allende's remains were hurriedly buried in his brother-in-law's tomb during the coup, and only after democracy returned to Chile in 1990 were they reburied with full honors before a huge crowd in Santiago's general ceremony. After 17 years, the bottom had fallen out of his casket, and some experts worried that evidence of bullet trajectories would have been destroyed if parts were left behind.

Allende's family has supported the version of the only apparent eyewitness, a presidential doctor who said he saw Allende shoot himself with AK-47 below his chin rather than surrender during a military bombardment of the presidential palace. Other experts have said the military's own written synopsis of its rushed and secretive autopsy described what might have been a first shot that traveled from front to back through Allende's skull.

DNA tests also will be performed in Austria as a 12-member forensics team, including some of the world's top experts, gets to work on the case.

The judge told The Associated Press that Chile's military is taking longer than usual to turn over key evidence, including Allende's helmet, which would have been damaged by AK-47 fire if he was wearing it; the assault weapon itself; bullet shells; pictures apparently taken by the military of his corpse before the initial autopsy, and even the original autopsy report.

Chile's Supreme Court named Carroza to gather evidence in 726 deaths, including Allende's. They are among the last of 3,065 killings by the Pinochet dictatorship that were never properly investigated.

Carroza said in an interview before the exhumation that some evidence points to an Allende suicide, and some points to murder.

"At this point I can't decide or even show an opinion that this is going one way or another," Carroza said. "If there are people who are somehow responsible, they will have to be prosecuted."

As for classified U.S. documents related to Allende's death, Carroza said he still hasn't asked for any, despite the public pledges made in March by both countries' presidents to consider and facilitate any such request.

"In this case, if there are elements that would permit me to clear up a situation that remains obscure, obviously I will do it," the judge said.