Name: Tricia Marie L.

Cubillas
Title: Thailand seizes ton of elephant tusks from Africa
Date: February 26, 2011
Reference: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20110225/tap-as-thailand-smuggled-ivory-1st-
ld-wr-7934085.html

BANGKOK – Thai authorities on Friday displayed a ton of illicitly smuggled African elephant ivory
and rhino horns seized at Bangkok's airport, a haul described as a victory for better international
intelligence sharing among wildlife officials.

The Customs Department says the 118 tusks and 50 additional cut pieces of ivory, along with three
rhino horns weighing a total of 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms) are worth more than $1.7 million.

The tusks were found Wednesday at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport in 11boxes declared as crafts,
after a roundabout journey from Lagos, Nigeria via Doha, Qatar and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"Nigeria, despite having few elephants within its borders, is a major departure point for poached
ivory from Africa," said FREELAND, a Bangkok-based NGO that fights wildlife and human trafficking.

The group said the seizure was the sixth law enforcement action against ivory smugglers since an
intelligence sharing meeting between Thai and African wildlife officials late last year.

It said U.S. agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Service, supported the cooperation, and more
such meetings would be held in Africa this year.
Name: Tricia Marie L. Cubillas
Title: Thai prime minister admits he's also British
Date: February 25, 2011

Reference: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20110224/tap-as-thailand-prime-minister-2nd-

ld-wr-7934085.html

BANGKOK – Thailand's prime minister has a confession to make: He is also British.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva publicly acknowledged his dual nationality Thursday for the first time
during a debate in Parliament.

Abhisit automatically holds British citizenship because he was born in Newcastle to parents from a
well-to-do Bangkok family. He would have to specifically renounce it to lose it.

Abhisit's political foes have highlighted the matter. They claim that as a British citizen, he can be
sued in the International Criminal Court over alleged abuses during his administration's crackdown
on anti-government protests last year.

Opponents like to tweak Abhisit for his upper-class Oxford University education, and typically refer to
him in speeches by his English name, Mark.

"I admit I have not given up British nationality because it is understood legally that ... if the
nationality laws are conflicting, Thai law must be used," Abhisit said in response to an opposition
lawmaker's question. "My intention is clear. I was born in England but I consider myself a Thai. I
studied in England but I intended to return to work and live in Thailand, to work for the country's
interest, and didn't think of anything else."

He also said he didn't hide that he supports the Newcastle football club.

The 46-year-old prime minister had been evasive about the citizenship question since it was raised
about a month ago.

The matter became an issue through a complicated point of international law raised by a lawyer for
former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Abhisit's political enemy.

The lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, is seeking to bring Abhisit and colleagues to court for alleged human
rights abuses committed when the Thai military forcibly put down anti-government protests in
Bangkok last year. About 90 people were killed over the course of two months of demonstrations and
unrest.

Amsterdam is seeking to bring to case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but Thailand
is not a signatory to the treaty empowering the court, and therefore cannot be held to account.
Amsterdam asserts, however, that Abhisit, as a British citizen, can be held liable by the court
because Britain is a signatory to the treaty.

Thailand's head of state, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was also born overseas. He was born in 1927 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States, where his father, a prince, was studying medicine
Name: Tricia Marie L. Cubillas

Title:
The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives,
94 children and 33 grandchildren
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358654/The-worlds-biggest-family-Ziona-
Chan-39-wives-94-children-33-grandchildren.html#ixzz1FDUli3fs

o Ziona Chana lives with all of them

in a 100-room mansion
o His wives take it in turns to share
his bed
o It takes 30 whole chickens just to
make dinner

He is head of the world's biggest family - and

says he is 'blessed' to have his 39 wives.
Ziona Chana also has 94 children, 14-
daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren.
They live in a 100-room, four storey house set
amidst the hills of Baktwang village in the
Indian state of Mizoram, where the wives
sleep in giant communal dormitories.
Mr Chana told the Sun: 'Today I feel like God's
special child. He's given me so many people
to look after.
'I consider myself a lucky man to be the
husband of 39 women and head of the world's
largest family.'
The family is organised with almost military
discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi
organising her fellow partners to perform
household chores such as cleaning, washing
and preparing meals.
One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of
rice.
Coincidentally, Mr Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he
wants. He even married ten women in one year, when he was at his most prolific, and enjoys his own
double bed while his wives have to make do with communal dormitories.
He keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping
further away - and there is a rotation system for who visits Mr Chana's bedroom.
Rinkmini, one of Mr Chana's wives who is 35 years old, said: 'We stay around him as he is the most
important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.
She says Mr Chana noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter
asking for her hand in marriage.
Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is
reportedly based on 'mutual love and respect'
And Mr Chana, whose religious sect has 4,00 members, says he has not stopped looking for new
wives.
'To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,' he said.
One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor
women from the village so he can look after them.