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Weekly Update: Myanmar’s famed teak forests under threat
BANGKOK: Myanmar’s famed teak forests are shrinking due to rampant logging fuelled by a cash-strapped military government and timber-hungry neighbours China and Thailand, campaigners said on Wednesday.
Global Witness said a worsening economy hit by sanctions and foreign aid cuts would put more pressure on the former Burma’s dwindling forests as it sought badly needed foreign exchange.
Myanmar’s forests, known locally as “brown gold”, have played a pivotal role in its history since former colonial ruler Britain first annexed parts of Burma in the early 19th century.
The Southeast Asian country is home to 60 per cent of the world’s natural reserves of teak and its high quality is prized by furniture makers .
Official data show timber exports ranged from nearly 700,000 to 800,000 cubic metres in recent years, but the real numbers were probably much higher.—Reuters
260-year-old tradition dishes up herring delicacies for Finns
HELSINKI: Magnus Nyholm leans over his makeshift stall at the stern of his boat, peddling seven varieties of home-made pickled herring to Finns crowding Helsinki’s port for the annual herring market that every October draws thousands of visitors.
In a 260-year-old tradition, the Finnish capital’s market place and adjoining docks become the centre of gravity for local residents for a week as fishermen gather to sell their delicacies.
Magnus Nyholm is one of more than sixty local fishermen who have come to Helsinki for this year’s edition, where he makes up to a fifth of a year’s wages in a single week.
“It’s an old tradition for us, and it’s an important event in our calendar, just like Christmas,” Nyholm notes, adding that his family has been selling their catch here for generations.
Not only important to him, but to Helsinki’s inhabitants as well.
This year some 100,000 people are expected to visit the market, which runs from October 5 through 11. More than 10,000 are reported to have attended Sunday’s opening. —AFP
China to launch manned space flight
BEIJING: China’s first manned space flight is provisionally planned for October 15 and due to be shown live on television, an official with state giant CCTV said on Wednesday.
“The provisional plan is for October 15,” said the official, who declined to give his name. “The relevant department announced that it would be launched in mid-October,” he said. China is aiming to become the third nation to send a man into space after the former Soviet Union and the United States. It has ballyhooed the mission as a matter of national pride but kept the launch date under tight wraps.—Reuters
British aviatrix flying solo round the world
BUENOS AIRES: British flyer Polly Vacher stopped over in Argentina on her way to become the first person to fly around the world from pole to pole in a single-engine airplane, the air force said Tuesday.
She arrived in a Piper Dakota, accompanied on arrival by Argentine Civil Aeronautical Institute planes of the same make and model. The next leg of her journey takes her across the South Pole.
Vacher holds several world records for flight. The trip is also meant to collect funds to help the handicapped.
She left Scotland on May 6 with a farewell from Prince Charles. — APP/AFP
Alaska bear kills grizzly advocate
ANCHORAGE: An advocate of grizzly bear protection and his camping companion were mauled to death by one or more bears in a remote part of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, officials said on Tuesday.
Killed were Timothy Treadwell, 46, and Amie Huguenard, 37, both of Malibu, California, said the National Park Service and the Alaska State Troopers.
Treadwell was the founder of Grizzly People, an organization devoted to the protection of grizzly bears and their habitat.
It was the first fatal bear attack in Katmai for at least 15 years, the Park Service said. The park is known as one of the world’s premier sites for viewing huge brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies, as they feast on salmon.—Reuters
Japanese train hits forgotten excavator shovel
TOKYO: Announcements on Japanese trains constantly tell passengers not to get off without their belongings, but some forgetful workers on a construction job by a railway track in the capital could have done with the same reminder.
Some 135,000 Japanese were late for work or school on Monday after a train hit an hydraulic excavator shovel apparently left behind by construction workers, an official for railway operator JR East said.
The accident, which occurred early in the morning, halted train services in parts of Tokyo for nearly four fours during the busy morning rush-hour, affecting an estimated 135,000 commuters. — AFP
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