Sobhraj’s conviction upheld by Nepal Supreme Court

Kathmandu, July 30: The conviction and life imprisonment awarded to Charles Sobhraj in a 35-year-old murder case was upheld by Nepal’s Supreme Court on Friday. A division bench of Justices Ram Kumar Prasad Shah and Gauri Dhakal upheld the 20-year imprisonment handed over to Sobhraj, The Himalayan Times reported.
The bench, which last year began hearing Sobhraj’s appeal against the life sentence, wrapped up nearly eight months of arguments by the state as well as Sobhraj’s formidable team of lawyers June 23. The resurrection of the 1975 murder has been probably the most sensational Nepal has ever witnessed.
In December 1975, two badly charred bodies were found in different parts of Kathmandu valley. The body of the woman, who was first stabbed to death, was identified as that of Connie Jo Bronzich, whose husband and boyfriends had died under violent circumstances in the US.
The second body, that of a male, could not be identified. Police conjectured it could have been that of a Canadian tourist, Laurent Armand Carriere, who was with Bronzich in Kathmandu. Police say Sobhraj came to Nepal from Bangkok the same year, befriended Bronzich for some gems she had bought in India and killed her. Sobhraj says he never came to Nepal before 2003, when he arrived as a bona fide entrepreneur to explore various ventures, ranging from making documentaries for his Paris-based Gentleman Films company to starting a mineral water business.
On September 17, 16 days after his arrival, a local daily carried his photograph, which alerted the police who traced him to a casino and arrested him. Initially, police charged him with having come to Nepal in 1975 on a forged passport.
But as the court acquitted him, he was re-arrested from the court premises and charged with the murder of Bronzich. The Sobhraj case created sensation after sensation with reports that he was trying to stage a jailbreak, which he hotly denies, and then that he had tied the knot inside the Central Prison in Kathmandu with a Nepali woman more than 40 years his junior.
Then his case was taken up by his Nepali wife Nihita Biswas’ mother, Shakuntala Thapa, a senior Supreme Court lawyer. In the course of researching the police evidence, Thapa has told the Supreme Court that there were over 1,000 ‘fake’ documents sent by a retired Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg, which police presented as evidence sent by Interpol.
Knippenberg was based in Bangkok when police suspected Sobhraj of being behind the disappearance of western tourists and became involved in the cases after Bintanja, a Dutch citizen, and his fiancée went missing. Nepal has been the only country to convict Sobhraj of murder despite allegations that he was a serial killer. In India, he was convicted of robbery but acquitted of murder. (IANS)

Dhaka workers go on rampage

Dhaka, July 30: Thousands of readymade garment workers on Friday rampaged through different parts of the national capital to protest the new wage structure announced for them by the government. The angry workers put up barricades on the roads. They ransacked several buses, private cars and motorcycles and also vandalized buildings, including garment factories and business enterprises, Star Online reported. Bangladesh on Thursday announced new wage scales for its ailing garment industry but the workers are persisting with their Taka 5,000 ($71) minimum wage demand. Many of the workers’ collectives threatened a stir, minutes after the government formally announced the new scales.
An apprentice will get Taka 2,500 under the new wage scale. The current minimum wages paid to workers is Taka 1662.50 per month. Local Government Minister Syed Ashraful Islam asked lawmakers representing Dhaka, Naryanganj and Gazipur constituencies, where a majority of readymade garment manufacturing units are located, to be ready to face any ‘disorder’, New Age newspaper said on Friday. The minister said: “A quarter is trying to cause unwanted incidents using the issue of the wage board.” Labour Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossian announced the new wage structure on Thursday. It came amidst months of industrial violence during which workers have died, numerous man-days have been lost and factories have been frequently vandalized and closed down.
Employing 3.5 million workers, Bangladesh’s readymade garment sector is the highest money-spinner. It netted $12 billion in foreign exchange last year. However, poor working conditions and wages and absence of collective bargaining system in industrial units have left the garment sector turbulent, causing delays in meeting export commitments. (IANS)

We’ll punish WikiLeaks informers: Taliban

London, July 30: The Taliban in Afghanistan has threatened to behead informers who have been revealed following the explosive disclosure by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has put out over 90,000 uncensored intelligence documents, causing a security scare. Countries which have their forces fighting in Afghanistan are pouring over the documents to see the extent of the damage.
The Taliban on Thursday night responded for the first time since the WikiLeaks expose of the names and locations of anti-Taliban informers, Daily Mail reported on Friday. The terror group said, “We know how to punish them”, a reference to beheading that is a punishment for those whom they consider traitors. The reaction came as officials in Britain said they were worried for those who had helped the British military in Afghanistan. British officials in Kabul on Thursday said the publication was in the best case compromising informants and in the worst, putting their lives at risk.  (IANS)

The world’s first robot with conscience

Madrid, July 30: Spain has designed the world's first robot with its own ‘conscience’ and ‘life’, which will ‘entertain, teach and be a companion’ to humans who purchase it.
The AISoy 1, which will go on sale in August, is the first social android developed by Spanish firm AISoy Robotics, which is now bringing its creation out of the laboratory. “It almost seems like science fiction, but it’s a reality,” said Diego Garcia, one of the ‘fathers’ of the robot and head of AISoy’s product engineering and development division.
AISoy 1 was conceived to entertain and provide company to the user, but its main objective is ‘to live,’ just like any other being that ‘senses, has emotions and makes decisions’. “At 25 cm in height and weighing 1.5 kg, the robot is almost a living being. It has the same activity as a living being, it has its own autonomy and conscience”, he said. It also has a series of ‘basic needs, like nourishment and security, and other more advanced ones, like love, recognition, freedom and, above all, enjoying itself and getting along well’.  The robot is capable of learning from experience and modifying ‘its behaviour, values and actions it can undertake at specific times,’ he said. “If you take two AISoy 1’s and leave them in two different families, within two months they will be totally different because they will have had different experiences,” said Garcia. Starting August, any family will be able to buy the robot, which is in the final phases of production, and it will be sold via the AISoy 1 website.  (IANS)

New super-strong painkiller developed from snail spit

London, July 30: Scientists have developed a new pain-relief pill from a chemical in sea snails’ saliva that they use to catch their prey. It was found to be as effective as morphine for relieving the most severe forms of pain but without the added risk of addiction.

Marine cone snails produce saliva that contains a deadly dose of peptide toxins to help the slow-moving creatures catch prey. They inject passing victims with needle-like teeth that shoot out of their mouths, the Daily Mail reports.

Scientists have already transformed one of the chemicals into a pain-reliever for humans. However, it has to be injected directly into the spinal cord which limits how much of it can be used. Now researchers in Australia, led by David Craik of the University of Queensland, have developed a form of the painkiller that can be taken orally.

The modified chemical was found to reduce severe pain in rats at a much lower dose than existing medications, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News. “For years people have been saying that peptides make fantastic drug leads because they're very potent,” Craik told the magazine.

However, peptides were regarded as poor drugs as they were not stable and could not be taken orally. This could be set to change after the team led by Craik found they could stabilise the amino-acid chains by synthetically lashing the head to the tail.

“All you need is for the ends to be roughly close to one another,” he said. The drug could potentially revolutionize the treatment of the most severe forms of pain and Craik is keen to take his research further.

“The most challenging aspect has been just raising the money to get it commercialized,” he told Chemical & Engineering News. (IANS)

One -third of young people suffer from high BP 

London, July 30: More than a third of young people suffer from high blood pressure, thanks to bad diet and binge drinking, according to a survey released on Friday.

A worrying 35 per cent of those aged 16-34 have hypertension, despite the widespread belief that it is an ‘old age’ problem. Almost one in 20 of those showed severe or very severe raised blood pressure (BP), the tests on more than 8,000 people in Britain found, reports the Daily Mail.

Experts blamed binge drinking, bad diet and lack of exercise for the high levels of hypertension, which increases the risk of strokes, heart attacks and kidney problems. Shafeeque Mohammed, a health expert at Lloydspharmacy who carried out the survey, described the rise in high BP in young people as of ‘particular’ concern.

He said: “Although we must bear in mind that a one-off blood pressure test is not conclusive, cumulatively the average readings were higher than anticipated. High blood pressure is something that most people don’t think they need to worry about until later in life, but it can affect you at any age.”

Mohammed added: “There are also a number of factors that can contribute to higher blood pressure including smoking, lack of physical activity, obesity, an unhealthy diet and excess alcohol. It’s important for young adults to recognize the risk and take action by managing their lifestyles carefully.” Men were found to be higher than women, with three in four classed as having high normal blood pressure or some level of hypertension. Eoin O’Brien, professor at University College Dublin, warned that an increase in BP can lead to significant health problems. “Lack of blood pressure control increases the chances of cardiovascular problems such as strokes, heart attacks or kidney problems.” (IANS)

Dhaka, Delhi join global move to save tigers

Dhaka, July 30: Bangladesh and India, home to the famous Royal Bengal tiger, will attend the 13-nation Tiger Conservation Summit in St Petersburg in September to plan out urgent measures to save the species.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may attend the meeting of the Tiger Range Countries (TRC) - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam, The Daily Star reported on Friday.
Currently, half of the entire Royal Bengal tiger population of over 2,000 is in 56 forest areas in India. The tiger is treated as one of the most critically endangered animals fast disappearing from the world. If all the six sub-species are taken togther, there are estimated to be just about 3,200 tigers left, down from around 100,000 in 1900. Experts, however, predict tigers will be extinct in the next century if strong measures are not taken to save them. The Balinese tiger, Javanese tiger and Caspian tiger have already become extinct. Now there are six sub-species: Amur, Indochinese, Malayan, Royal Bengal, South China and Sumatran. Despite frequent natural calamities, worsening environment and growing salinity in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh is the only country now that claims the number of tigers has recently risen in the forests.
The Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans, a stretch of 6,017 sq km of forest, is officially home to 450 tigers. The last pugmark survey by the forest department and UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2004 estimated the number to be around 440, including 21 cubs.
Since 2000, tigers have killed 193 people, while 29 tigers were lynched and some others were found dead in Bangladesh’s forests, according to official records of the forest department. (IANS)

India to be world’s most populated country by 2050

London, July 30: The world’s population will increase inexorably, swelling from 6.89 billion to 9.49 billion, and India is expected to hit 1.75 billion becoming the largest country in the world by overtaking China by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a US body which supplies data to governments and institutions around the world.
According to The Telegraph, India, which hit 1 billion just a decade ago and now has a population of 1.19 billion, is expected to hit 1.75 billion, adding the equivalent of the entire population of the European Union in a mere 40 years.
China’s population is expected to increase modestly from 1.34 billion to 1.48 billion. The Population Reference Bureau also predicted that Britain would be the biggest country in Europe by 2050, overtaking both France and Germany as its population will swell by 15 million from today’s 62.2 million to 77 million.
The predicted population of Britain would be higher than that of France, projected to be 70 million and Germany, which is predicted to have 71.5 million citizens by 2050. The population of France will increase at half the rate, adding 7 million to its 63 million, while Germany’s population is expected to fall sharply from 81.6 million to 71.5 million because of a lack of immigration and a far lower birth rate than that in Britain. Europe, in total, will see its population dip from 739 million to 720 million, because of its low birth rate. (Agencies)