Nesting turtle numbers fall in South Asia: experts






KOLKATA: Conservationists have expressed alarm over the low number of turtles arriving on the coast of east India and Bangladesh for the nesting season, blaming overfishing and climate change for the decline.

Between November and March, several species of sea turtle, including the Olive Ridley, travel thousands of miles to nest on the sandy shores of Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest.

"Just a few have so far been spotted. The long, wide beaches of the Bay of Bengal in the Sundarbans look empty," Pradip Vyas, director of the Indian government's Sundarbans Biosphere project, told AFP on Thursday.

"We are monitoring the six islands where sea turtles lay their eggs but we fear they are not coming in such numbers due to degradation of the sea, pollution and climate change."

Straddling Bangladesh and India, the 10,000 square kilometre (3,900 square mile) Sundarbans is famous for being the largest wildlife home for endangered Bengal tigers, but it is also a habitat for many rare marine species.

In Bangladesh, which is home to 60 per cent of the forest, wildlife experts said the number of turtles arriving on the pristine coastline dropped by at least 50 per cent in the past 10 years.

"It's a very grim picture," said S.M. Rashid, head of the Dhaka-based Centre for Advanced Research in Natural Resources and Management.

"In the 1990s we could spot 50-60 turtles nesting in our beaches in a night.

"But now the number has come down to a maximum 10," said Rashid, whose team in June successfully bred a critically endangered turtle using an artificial beach habitat.

Environmentalists blame a spike in fishing and climate change causing sea levels to rise and more cyclones for the alarming drop in turtle population, and they say that humans stealing eggs is another major problem.

"Overfishing has emerged as a threat to sea turtles coming to beaches of the Sundarbans," said Subrata Mukherjee, India's senior Sundarbans official, adding up to 1,500 boats now catch fish along the coast.

"A large number of sea turtles die after they are caught in fishing nets."

In the last five years, the Sundarbans were hit by two devastating cyclones, killing more than 5,000 people living in the villages along the forest.

"The nesting grounds of the marine turtle are being destroyed due to erosion and deposition of fresh sands. This is happening largely because of climate change," said Anurag Danda, an Indian WWF wildlife expert.

"Sea turtles are also avoiding the Sundarbans because of fierce winds during cyclones."

- AFP/il



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Pakistan 'Islamised' sarees, like its happening to Urdu: Chishti

VADODARA: The humble six yards was 'Islamised' by Pakistan much like what is happening to Urdu in India. Noted textile researcher and sari expert Rta Kapur Chishti said this here on Friday.

Author of 'Saris-Tradition and Beyond', Chishti said that women in Pakistan used to wear sarees in the post partition era till 1970s.

"But after 1970s, sarees were Islamised and women stopped wearing it in Pakistan. It is similar to what we are doing with Urdu in India without understanding its importance. In contrast, women in Bangladesh still wear sarees," said Chishti, stressing that there are around five lakh people across India involved in hand-made sarees but each design belongs to the region and not a particular community.

Interestingly, till 1860s blouse and petticoat were never part of the attire for donning sarees.

"Women in Bengal or elsewhere wore no blouses at all and tucked their sarees in broad box pleats to cover their lower limbs and wrapped the rest around their torsoes so that only their arms remained visible. But a single lady changed it all," she said.

According to Chishti, Jnanadanandini Tagore, wife of India's first Indian Civil Service officer Satyendranath Tagore (elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore) was the one who changed the way sarees were worn.

"She (Jnanadanandini) started a school - For Ladies Who Wanted to Go Out in late 1860s. It was there was blouse and petticoats made entry into the style of wearing sarees and completely changed the way it was traditionally worn," said Chishti.

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Winter Solstice 2012: Facts on the Shortest Day of the Year


Today is the winter solstice and the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's all due to Earth's tilt, which ensures that the shortest day of every year falls around December 21.

Some predicted that today would also mark Earth's doomsday, thanks to a longstanding rumor that the Maya calendar ends on December 21, 2012. But earlier this year, National Geographic grantee William Saturno found evidence that the Maya calculated dates thousands of years past 2012.

"We keep looking for endings," Saturno said in a statement. "The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset."

(Read more about the Maya apocalypse myth.)

Even without an apocalypse, the solstice has been an auspicious day since ancient times. Countless cultural and religious traditions mark the winter solstice; it's no coincidence that so many holidays surround the first day of winter.

Solstice in Space: Astronomy of the First Day of Winter

During the winter solstice the sun hugs closer to the horizon than at any other time during the year, yielding the least amount of daylight annually. On the bright side, the day after the winter solstice marks the beginning of lengthening days leading up to the summer solstice.

"Solstice" is derived from the Latin phrase for "sun stands still." That's because—after months of growing shorter and lower since the summer solstice—the sun's arc through the sky appears to stabilize, with the sun seeming to rise and set in the same two places for several days. Then the arc begins growing longer and higher in the sky, reaching its peak at the summer solstice.

(Related sun pictures: See a full year in a single frame.)

The solstices occur twice a year (around December 21 and June 21) because Earth is tilted by an average of 23.5 degrees as it orbits the sun—the same phenomenon that drives the seasons.

During the warmer half of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted toward the sun. The northern winter solstice occurs when the "top" half of Earth is tilted away from the sun at its most extreme angle of the year.

Being the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice is essentially the year's darkest day, but it's not the coldest. Because the oceans are slow to heat and cool, in December the seas still retain some warmth from summer, delaying the coldest of winter days for another month and a half. Similarly, summer doesn't hit its heat peak until August, a month or two after the summer solstice.

Winter Solstice Marked Since Ancient Times

Throughout history, humans have celebrated the winter solstice, often with an appreciative eye toward the return of summer sunlight.

Massive prehistoric monuments such as Ireland's mysterious Newgrange tomb (video) are aligned to capture the light at the moment of the winter solstice sunrise.

Germanic peoples of Northern Europe honored the winter solstice with Yule festivals—the origin of the still-standing tradition of the long-burning Yule log.

The Roman feast of Saturnalia, honoring the God Saturn, was a weeklong December feast that included the observance of the winter solstice. Romans also celebrated the lengthening of days following the solstice by paying homage to Mithra, an ancient Persian god of light.

Many modern pagans attempt to observe the winter solstice in the traditional manner of the ancients.

"There is a resurgent interest in more traditional religious groups that is often driven by ecological motives," said Harry Yeide, a professor of religion at George Washington University. "These people do celebrate the solstice itself."

(Related: Get Stonehenge facts and pictures in National Geographic magazine.)

Pagans aren't alone in commemorating the winter solstice in modern times.

In a number of U.S. cities a Watertown, Massachusetts-based production called The Christmas Revels honors the winter solstice with an annually changing lineup of traditional music and dance from around the world.

"Nearly every northern culture has some sort of individual way of celebrating that shortest day," said Revels artistic director Patrick Swanson. "It's a lot of fun for us to dig up the traditional dance and music and even the plays [honoring] that time of the year."

Of course, as the name suggests, The Christmas Revels mix ancient winter solstice traditions with customs of the holiday that largely replaced winter solstice celebrations across much of the Northern Hemisphere: Christmas.

Winter Solstice's Christmas Connection

Scholars aren't exactly sure of the date of Jesus Christ's birthday, the first Christmas.

"In the early years of the Christian church, the calendar was centered around Easter," George Washington University's Yeide said. "Nobody knows exactly where and when they began to think it suitable to celebrate Christ's birth as well as the Passion cycle"—the Crucifixion and resurrection depicted in the Bible. (Related: "Christmas Star Mystery Continues.")

Eastern churches traditionally celebrate Christmas on January 6, a date known as Epiphany in the West. The winter date may have originally been chosen on the basis that Christ's conception and Crucifixion would have fallen during the same season—and a spring conception would have resulted in a winter birth.

But Christmas soon became commingled with traditional observances of the first day of winter.

"As the Christmas celebration moved west," Yeide said "the date that had traditionally been used to celebrate the winter solstice became sort of available for conversion to the observance of Christmas. In the Western church the December date became the date for Christmas."

Early church leaders endeavored to attract pagans to Christianity by adding Christian meaning to existing winter solstice festivals.

"This gave rise to an interesting play on words," Yeide said. "In several languages, not just in English, people have traditionally compared the rebirth of the sun with the birth of the son of God."


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NRA to Speak on Stopping Newtown Repeat













For the past week, leadership at the National Rifle Association has largely stayed away from the media, but this morning the group may weigh in on how to keep a deadly shooting massacre like last week's at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school from happening again.


The NRA will hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., just before 11 a.m.


Its leadership has held off on interviews this week after refusing to appear on Sunday morning public affairs shows this past weekend.


The group came under pressure after Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six adults before shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last Friday.


"Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting," the group said in a press release Tuesday. "The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."


NRA News anchor Ginny Simone said Thursday that in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, membership surged "with an average of 8,000 new members a day."


New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NRA is partially to blame for the tragedy.


"We're not trying to take away your right to advance the interests of gun owners, hunters, people who want to protect themselves," Bloomberg told "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden in an interview Thursday. "But that's not an absolute right to encourage behavior which causes things like Connecticut. In fact, Connecticut is because of some of their actions."






Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP Photo











President Obama Launches Gun-Violence Task Force Watch Video









President Obama on Gun Control: Ready to Act? Watch Video









Joe Biden to Lead Task Force to Prevent Gun Violence Watch Video





The guns used in the attack were legally purchased and owned by the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, who Adam Lanza shot to death before his assault on the school.


In the aftermath of the shooting, many, including Bloomberg, have called for stricter regulations on the type of weapons used in this and other instances of mass gun violence this year.


Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said she intends to introduce a bill banning assault weapons on the first day of next year's Congress -- a step the president said he supports.


President Obama announced Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden will head a task force of leaders from across the country that will evaluate the best solutions to reduce gun violence in the United States.


Obama said he will "use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this."


Mayors Against Illegal Guns, of which Mayor Bloomberg is co-chair, released a letter to President Obama signed by more than 750 mayors calling on him to produce a plan to "make it harder for dangerous people to possess guns."


The letter asked for mandatory background checks for gun buyers, a ban on high-capacity rifles and ammunition magazines, and a designation of gun trafficking as a federal crime.


ABC News' George Stephanopoulos looked at whether strict gun control laws like those that have worked for the United Kingdom and Japan could work for the U.S. on "Good Morning America" Thursday.


Others have argued that, rather than banning guns, the government should be arming teachers and administrators in schools so that they can defend students in the event of another school shooting.


While Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a measure that would have let guns into schools on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell praised the idea.


Speaking on the NRA's daily news program Tuesday, Dave Koppel of the Independence Institute said the teachers at Sandy Hook should have had weapons.


"We'd certainly be talking about fewer innocent people and children dead," Koppel said.


While a national debate over the necessary solutions to prevent a tragedy of this nature from ever happening again wages on, Connecticut residents will have to wait "several months" before the final Connecticut State Police report on the Newtown shootings is complete.



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China economic growth likely to pick up: analysts






SHANGHAI: China's economic growth may pick up to above 8 per cent in 2013, as economists expect the government to launch policies to boost recovery.

The country is expected to report 7.5 per cent this year, the slowest pace in recent years.

Economists say investment will remain as the pillar of growth the Chinese economy in the short term, despite the government's push for consumption.

The new government may also ease some current property curbs to achieve immediate growth.

As exports are expected to remain weak, China's growth now largely relies on investment and consumption.

Experts say the country's new leaders need to roll out short-term measures to achieve immediate results and gain public support.

This is likely to start with loosening some control over the property market.

Real estate accounts for about 25 per cent of China's GDP directly and indirectly.

"Trading volume has been decreasing very quickly in the recent market, and this is a big blow to the recent investment," said Gary Liu, executive deputy director of CEIBS Lujiazui Institute of International Finance.

"For the central government, it's probably very difficult to announce that we will give up the real estate market policy because they always want to maintain their image; they care about the housing price. But the local government will loosen the real estate market policy and the price will pick up, probably not as quickly as past years, but still I think has a large space to go."

Consumption is another key growth pillar.

On top of improving income distribution and social security system to encourage spending, experts believe, it is important to encourage wealthy Chinese to spend their money at home.

This group of rich Chinese accounts for about 20 per cent of the total population, but they hold 80 per cent of China's wealth.

"What they buy overseas is mostly branded goods, which Chinese companies don't have," said Sun Lijian, vice dean of the Economy School at Fudan University.

"We need to upgrade our industries and create Chinese brands, which are recognized in the world. Our goal for next year is to attract these rich people to spend in China."

According to experts, consumers in the cities tend to splurge on properties or cars. But there are curbs and heavy traffic to consider.

China is now looking for new ways to drive growth in consumption, and encouraging urbanization could be the answer.

Qian Qimin, co-director of market research at SWS Research Co Ltd said: "For example, when people from the countryside move to towns, they need to buy cooking utensils, home appliances and furniture. This will be a good way to push consumption. Now in cities, consumption has generally reached a plateau. People in cities have own almost all the living necessities."

The Chinese economy is well on its way recovery, but experts say any major changes will have to wait till the ruling party's third plenary session or meeting of top politicians next October.

- CNA/xq



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Modi's victory historic, says Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI: Describing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's decisive win in Gujarat Assembly polls as "historic", Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray today said Congress would meet the same fate in Maharashtra.

"As in Gujarat, Congress will bite the dust in Maharashtra elections as well," Uddhav said in his congratulatory message to Modi.

This was "a historic victory", Uddhav said. "This win has shown that it is impossible to beat Modi in Gujarat."

Under Modi's leadership, Gujarat had surged ahead in industry, energy, water and law and order, Uddhav said.

In the neighbouring state, people had defeated Congress, and people of Maharashtra should also defeat the Congress, the Sena executive president added.

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite


A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.

Bats are a major reservoir for the rabies virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Previous research shows that bats can transmit their strains to other animals, potentially putting people at risk. (Popular Videos: Bats share the screen with creepy co-stars.)

Rabies, typically transmitted in saliva, targets the brain and is almost always fatal in animals and people if left untreated. No current tests detect rabies in live animals—only brain tissue analysis is accurate.

Searching for a way to detect the virus in bats before the animals died, rabies specialist James Ellison and his colleagues at the CDC turned to a captive colony of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Previous studies had found temperature increases in the noses of rabid raccoons, so the team expected to see similar results with bats.

Researchers established normal temperature ranges for E. fuscus—the bat species most commonly sent for rabies testing—then injected 24 individuals with the virus. The 21-day study monitored facial temperatures with infrared cameras, and 13 of the 21 bats that developed rabies showed temperature drops of more than 4ÂșC.

"I was surprised to find the bats' faces were cooler because rabies causes inflammation—and that creates heat," said Ellison. "No one has done this before with bats," he added, and so researchers aren't sure what's causing the temperature changes they've discovered in the mammals. (Related: "Bats Have Superfast Muscles—A Mammal First.")

Although thermal scans didn't catch every instance of rabies in the colony, this method may be a way to detect the virus in bats before symptoms appear. The team plans to fine-tune their measurements of facial temperatures, and then Ellison hopes to try surveillance in the field.

This study was published online November 9 in Zoonoses and Public Health.


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Virginia Tech Survivor Fights Back Against Guns













Colin Goddard knows what it's like to be in a classroom when an armed man bursts through the door and starts randomly shooting people. Goddard was a student at Virginia Tech when a gunman shot him and killed 32 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.


"It was the most terrifying nine minutes of my life," Goddard told Terry Moran of "Nightline" Wednesday.
"One moment you're conjugating French verbs, the next you're shot."


Four of Seung-Hui Cho's bullets hit Goddard April 16, 2007. Three of the bullets are still in him and serve as a constant reminder in his work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.


Goddard does more than just lobby and appear in public-service announcements. He says he goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy guns without any background check. It's the subject of his documentary called "Living for 32," after the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.


"There is not one thing that will stop all shootings," Goddard said. "
There's not one policy that will save us all, but a background check is something that will make it more difficult for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun."










School Shooting Survivor Documents Gun Law Fight Watch Video









Virginia Tech Documentary Debuts at Sundance Watch Video





In "Living for 32," Goddard says he was able to buy, for example, an Egyptian Maadi AK-47, a TEC-9 and a MAC-11 machine pistol at gun shows across the United States.


"I bought the same gun that was used to shoot me," he said. "I bought it all, all without a background check and it was all legal. My question is, 'Why is that legal?'"


Only licensed dealers are required by law to perform background checks on the people to whom they sell guns while private sellers can make gun-show sales with no background checks.


This is known as the "gun-show loophole" and Goddard has made it his mission to close it.


In one instance, Goddard was able to buy the Maadi Egyptian for $660 and was told by the dealer "there's no tax and no paperwork."


The dealer requested to see Goddard's Ohio driver's license. When Goddard couldn't provide it, he was still able to purchase the gun by providing an Ohio address instead.


"I didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first," he said. "And then once I did it once, then twice, then three times. I was like, 'Wow, this is really easy.'


"Toward the end I wasn't even thinking about it. I tried to do it as quickly as I could, say as few words as I could."


Polls show that a majority of Americans favor closing the loophole.


Goddard says closing the loophole won't end all gun violence, but that the government can do better.


The Brady Campaign recently launched a YouTube series, "We Are Better than This," in the wake of last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The videos feature celebrities and, perhaps more significantly, families of mass-shooting victims.


In the first three videos, Goddard appears, as do Lonnie and Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Redfield Ghawi, died in the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting in July.






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Moon concedes S. Korea presidential election






SEOUL: Liberal candidate Moon Jae-In conceded victory Wednesday in South Korea's presidential election to conservative Park Geun-Hye, saying he "humbly" accepted the decision of the voters.

"Everyone did their best but I lacked the ability," Moon told reporters outside his Seoul residence. "I humbly accept the outcome of the election."

- AFP/ck



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Delhi gang rape victim battles on, undergoes fifth surgery

NEW DELHI: The 23-year-old paramedical student, who was gang-raped and tortured in a moving bus on Sunday night, today underwent fifth surgery and "continues to be critical but stable", doctors attending on her said.

Doctors at the Safdarjung hospital where she is undergoing treatment performed an elective abdominal surgery --gastronomy and duodenustromy -- and surgeons had to remove her gangrenous small intestine. They said she has lost most of here intestine.

"This was a planned surgery and at this juncture she is responding to treatment fairly well, she is stable but she continues to be critical," Dr B D Athani, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, said.

The girl, who remains on ventilatory support, was taken to operation theatre at 10 AM and was shifted to ICU at around 1 PM after surgery. Doctors said she had withstood the operation fairly well.

"She is fairly stable at this juncture and we have to wait and watch. We would observe for the stability for next few hours," she said.

"Before going for surgery, she was quite alert and spoke to her mother and brother as at that time there was no tube so she utilised that opportunity but her father didn't go inside," doctors said.

Athani said that yesterday also her level of alertness was good but today since she is recovering from anaesthesia, she is "not communicating nor are we are trying to communicate".

"Her abdomen has been cleaned and it has been closed today. Because most of the intestine, almost all portion, I would say, because of the initial loss and subsequent gangrene is not existent," he said.

Doctors said that Duodenum, which is the first part of the intestine, has been brought out of the stomach and a tube has been put into drain out whatever secretions are there.

She is being fed intravenously. She is getting feeding as well as antibiotics and all her essential drugs through intravenous route.

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