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Weekly Update: Fate of wrecked oil tanker in limbo
KARACHI: Bickering among foreign stakeholders over the removal of a Greek-registered ship responsible for the worst oil slick ever in Pakistani waters has left the ship’s fate in limbo.
The MV Tasman Spirit, managed by the Greek company Polembros Shipping, broke apart on August 14 outside the Arabian Sea port of Karachi, around a fortnight after running aground in a shallow channel.
It leaked 28,000 tonnes of crude oil into Karachi coastal waters, destroying young mangroves and littering the beaches with dead fish and turtles.
A seven-week salvage operation, which wrapped up on September 2, managed to siphon off 39,000 tonnes of oil from an original 67,500 tonne cargo bound for the state-run Pakistan Refinery.
The 24 year-old 87,584 tonne hulk is awaiting removal, but differences over who should bear costs among the owners, the salvager and the ship’s insurers, Protec-tion and Indemnity (PetI) Club of America, are delaying the effort.
“There are some differences among the three parties over bearing the cost of its removal,” Karachi Port Trust (KPT) spokesman Brigadier Iftikhar Arshad said.— AFP
Gene gives right-handers clockwise swirls
ISLAMABAD: New research reveals that a gene could be the cause as to why right-handed people tend to have hair that swirls clockwise.
Amar Klar of the National Cancer Institute in Frederick in Maryland, while sneaking down on people’s pates by spying on them at airports and at shopping malls, found that more than 95 per cent of right-handers’ hair whorls clockwise on the scalp, while the locks of lefties and the ambidextrous are equally likely to coil either way.
According to Klar, a single gene with either ‘right’ or ‘random’ forms is responsible for the trend. People with one or two copies of the right version are likely to be right-handed, with clockwise hair while those with two random versions would split 50/50 for handedness and hair whorls.— APP
India okays junior cricket tours of Pakistan
NEW DELHI: The Indian government on Monday cleared the national junior cricket team’s tour of Pakistan in November, raising hopes of a revival of a cricket series between the arch-rivals at the senior level.
Besides this some other tournaments have also been approved.
The junior tournaments will be the first clash between Indian and Pakistani cricketers in the sub-continent since the senior teams met in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh in May 2000.
The BCCI is still awaiting word from the government for the resumption of bilateral games with Pakistan at the senior level following the recent upswing in diplomatic relations.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has invited India for a Test series in March next year.— APP/AFP
Fires harming world’s forests
ROME: Fires are increasingly damaging the world’s forests, destroying millions of hectares of valuable timber and other forest products every year, said a United Nations agency.
People are the main cause of forest fires, UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO said. “Globally, 95 per cent of all fires are caused by various human activities. It sometimes only needs a match or a cigarette to burn down a forest,” FAO said.
The extremely hot summer in these areas also contributed to the intensity and severity of fires, it added. FAO urged countries to involve local communities in the management and protection of their forests.— Reuters
Diet recommended for cats and dogs
WASHINGTON: One out of every four dogs and cats in the western world is now obese and needs diet to protect itself from diabetes, heart disease and other health problems, the US National Research Council warned on Monday.
In a 500-page report, an international team of experts assembled by the council outlined daily nutrient and calorie requirements for dogs and cats and offered some tips for pet-food manufacturers, veterinarians and owners on what and how to feed the animals to keep them healthy. —AFP
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