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Smuggling to Iran rife in dangerous Gulf waters (Reuters) khasab, Oman • Smugglers pile boxes high on their speedboats, covering them with tarpaulin before zipping off into the sunset on the short but dangerous journey across the strategic Strait of Hormuz from Oman to Iran. They return in the early morning, their empty fibreglass boats ready to pick up more cargo at the small Gulf port of Khasab, in Oman’s isolated northern peninsula of Musandam. Trade with Iran is as ancient as the settlements overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for a third of the world’s oil shipments. In 2005, Iran’s police chief said some $6 billion worth of goods such as computer parts, tea or cigarettes were smuggled into the country each year from the Gulf. Now, tensions between the United States and the Isla... |
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New health woes strike China hard (REUTERS) Evening exercise classes at the Nirvana fitness centre in Beijing are in high demand these days as young professionals whose mothers once counted ration cards seek to stay svelte despite lavish lunches. China has gone from famine to feast in a generation and the health consequences for its citizens are only just beginning to be felt. “Before there was nothing fun or interesting to eat, but now with GDP so high people no longer worry about basic necessities like food or clothes,” said Yang Bin, a trainer at Nirvana, as he rushed to a class. The government of the world’s most populous country is in t... |
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A lone Tibetan voice (LAT-WP) By Jill Drew Each morning, it is the same. She rises and heads to her computer to write, to pierce the silence that otherwise shrouds events these days in Tibet, her homeland. Woeser (pictured), a 41-year-old writer who uses only one name in the Tibetan tradition, knows she risks arrest. Hers is one of the only Tibetan voices within China that still reaches the outside world, now that the Chinese government has arrested hundreds and essentially blacked out most communication from Tibetan-inhabited areas. Though she lives in Beijing, Woeser still has contacts across the Tibetan plateau, and she has been using them to funnel information onto her blog since the deadly March 14 riots in the region’s capital, Lhasa. The government has said that the riots and the unrest that followed were caused by violent separatists. Woeser is constructing an alternative narrative — one of protest sparked by long-festering resentments against Chinese repression of Tibetan culture and the Buddhist religion. It h... |
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In India, fairness is a growth industry (LAT-WP) By Emily Wax He’s the rugged type, with sculpted arm muscles. He rides a motorcycle and wears a trendy tank top, wraparound sunglasses and slicked-back hair. There’s only one problem: His skin colour is a few shades too dark. His fair-skinned love interest won’t even accept his offer of a rose. But in this popular Indian television ad, the protagonist is able to buy a magic cream that will change his status in life, turning his brown skin several shades lighter and causing his beloved to swoon. The new product is called Fair and Handsome, and it’s among the male skin-lightening creams that are exploding in popularity in small towns and cities across India. While such products ar... |
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Palestinians mourn loss of homeland (REUTERS) While Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinian refugees mourn the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) when they lost their homeland. Often ignored in Middle East peace talks, they cling to a "right of return". Alia Shabati was 12 when she fled Jewish attacks on her village of Kabri, captured a few days after Israel's creation. Now a matron of 72, wearing a flowery blue dress and white headscarf, her memories of Kabri in today's northern Israel are vividly intact, unlike the village, which was wiped off the map. "We had houses and land," Shabati said in the living room of her modest dwelling in the alleys of Beirut's Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp. "We had olives, grapes, prickly pears and dates. We had orchards and fields. Now what do we have? Nothing." Her life story encapsulates the bitterness of dispossession and exile familiar to about 4.5 million Pale... |
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Death row rodeo – Louisiana prison miracle (The Times) by Martin Fletcher It is rodeo day at Louisiana’s state penitentiary, home to 5,200 murderers, rapists and armed robbers, and thousands of spectators are having a grand old time. They have seen prisoners hurled from bucking broncos, and others competing to hold a wild cow long enough to extract a cup of milk. They revelled in “Convicts’ Poker” - a perennial favourite that involves four prisoners playing cards at a table as they are charged by a bull: the last one sitting wins. Three men have already been taken to hospital, but the convicts don’t mind. They are volunteers, and the rodeo offers them a rare chance to win money, have fun and, for once in their wretched lives, stand tall. Now it is time for the finale - “Guts and Glory”. About 50 inmates will vie to pluck a $600 (£305) poker chip from between the horns of a rampaging 2,000lb bull. The huge beast erupts from its pen. It charges at the nearest men, who scatter. It catches a man on one horn and tosses him into the air. Another inmate is trampled. Nobody dares to get near the raging animal. Then one prisoner - tall, black and strongly built - finds himself alone in the centre of the ring, facing the bull. He stands his ground. The animal hesitates and lowers its head menacingly. The man darts forward and vaults over the flailing horns, snatching the chip as he does so. Alan “Foots” Pharr, 43, has served 21 years for shooting a shopkeeper in a robbery. As the crowd stands and applauds, he approaches the VIP box. There he throws the chip to Burl Cain, the prison warden. It was a gesture of gratitude, Pharr explains afterwards. Winning “Guts and Glory” was the greatest... |
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