theSun | MONDAY FEBRUARY 23 2009
news without borders
6,000 prisoners freed in Myanmar
YANGON: More than a dozen “pris-
oners of conscience”, including five
Buddhist monks arrested in 2003,
have been freed in military-ruled My-
anmar as part of a general amnesty,
opposition and activist sources said.
The regime announced the re-
lease of over 6,000 inmates on Friday
after United Nations human rights
rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana
(pix) ended a five-day visit during
EARTHREPORT
Week Ending Feb 20
nesting off Argentina’s southern coast
to swim up to 300 miles in search
for food, a distance researchers say
La Nina disappearing
threatens the colony’s survival. Shift-
ing ocean currents, which may have
THE United Nationsweather agency carried some of the birds as far north
says that the La Nina ocean cooling in as Brazil’s tropical beaches last year,
the tropical Pacific, partly responsible are also responsible for a drop in the
for recent Arctic blasts and blizzards number of the penguins at the Punta
in the Northern Hemisphere, is ending. Tombo animal preserve. The population
The cyclical phenomenon also caused has fallen from 300,000 breeding pairs
2008 to be cooler than any other year 22 years ago to about 200,000 today,
so far this century, according to the according to a University of Washing-
World Meteorological Organisation ton researcher. Dee Boersma says that
(WMO). Cool waters developed over overfishing of the region’s anchovies
the Pacific between South America means the Magellanic penguins are
and Asia in the third quarter of 2007, swimming an additional 40km further
setting the stage for worldwide to find food on average than they did
weather disruptions until it weakened just a decade ago.
in May 2008. But last December, the
cooling intensified again before gradu-
ally weakening in January. Warming migrations
SCIENTISTS say they have calculated
that many fish species will be forced
Penguin peril to swim toward the poles in order
POLLUTION, climate change and to escape the effects of a warming
overfishing are forcing penguins climate over the next several decades.
which he met a handful of political
prisoners in Yangon’s Insein Prison.
“As far as we can confirm, there
were 11 prisoners of conscience, in-
cluding five Buddhist monks, among
those freed from Insein on Saturday,”
said a Yangon-based activist on Sat-
urday.
The remaining six were from
Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition Na-
tional League for Democracy (NLD)
Presenting his findings at the annual
meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science in
Chicago, researcher William Cheung
said that Northern Hemisphere fish will
migrate northward more than 40km
per decade over the next 50 years
in response to the warming. He told
the gathering that while fishermen
in the tropics will see a reduction in
their catches over that period, those
in Alaska, Greenland and the Nordic
nations will benefit from more fish. He
predicts that some cold-water species
could die off because there will be no
colder waters for them to.
Tropical cyclones
AN area of disturbed weather from
around the South Pacific island nation
of Vanuatu consolidated into Cyclone
Innis just before reaching New Cal-
edonia. Only a small area near the
centre of circulation received tropical
storm-force winds, and the main ef-
fect of Innis’ passage over the French
and other political groups.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, who be-
gan her latest detention in May 2003,
is among 2,162 people believed to be
in detention in Myanmar for their
political or religious beliefs.
Myanmar’s military junta, which
has ruled unchecked since 1962,
denies the existence of any political
prisoners, saying all detainees have
committed crimes.
overseas territory was widespread
beneficial rain.
Earthquakes
MUCH of western Turkey was jolted
by a 4.9 magnitude quake that caused
the death of one woman and tossed
furniture around homes. Cracks
appeared in some walls near the
epicenter town of Simav.
» Earth movements were also felt in
southwestern Greece, northern Japan,
the Dominican Republic and Puerto
Rico, New Jersey and Alaska.
Andean eruption
APPROXIMATELY 8,000 Colombians
living near the slopes of a rumbling
volcano along the border with Ecuador
were ordered to evacuate their homes.
A “red alert” was issued for Galeras
volcano by the Colombian Institute
of Geology and Mines due to a large
amount of ash from the mountain fall-
ing on the nearby regional capital of
Pasto. – Universal Press Syndicate
7
State-owned MRTV said on Friday
the prisoners were being released
for the “social consideration of their
families” and to take part in elections
promised for 2010, part of a seven-
step “roadmap to democracy”.
Western governments dismiss the
roadmap as a charade, and human
rights groups accuse the regime of
seeking to eliminate all political op-
position ahead of the election.
Among those released from Insein
Prison was Thet Wai, an NLD official
in Yangon who was sentenced to
two years in jail in 2008 for report-
ing incidents of forced labour to the
International Labour Organisation
(ILO).
At least three other NLD members
were freed from Myitkyina Prison in
northern Kachin state.
They included Dr Zaw Myint
Maung, an NLD MP elected in the
1990 election that his party won only
to see the military ignore the results,
NLD spokesman Nyan Win said.
Zaw Myint Maung, 58, was ac-
cused of forming a parallel govern-
ment in the former Burma’s second
city of Mandalay and imprisoned in
1991.
Special courts have sentenced
scores of dissidents to lengthy prison
terms of up to 65 years in the past
several months.
The most prominent activists
have been sent to the furthest cor-
ners of the country, making it almost
impossible for relatives to deliver
food and medicine to them, raising
the possibility of the prisoners dying
behind bars. – Reuters