brad brace contemporary culture scrapbook

In a bizarre mishap that conservationists describe as “heartbreaking,” an estimated 10,000 wildebeest have drowned while attempting to cross Kenya’s Mara River during an annual migration. The deaths, which occurred over the course of several days last week, are said to account for about one percent of the total species population.

The drownings created a grotesque wildlife pileup, after part of the migrating herd tried to ford the Mara at “a particularly treacherous crossing point,” according to Terilyn Lemaire, a conservation worker with the Mara Conservancy who witnessed the incident. The first animals into the river failed to cross and drowned, while others continued to stampede into the water behind them, Lemaire told National Geographic News by email.

“Once they jumped into the water, they were unable to climb up either embankment onto land and, as a result, got swept up by the current and drowned,” she said.
Some 2,000 wildebeest drowned at the crossing in a single afternoon, Lemaire estimated.

“There was no unusual flooding at the time, and there seems to be no extraneous circumstances to these deaths,” she said. “The wildebeest merely chose a crossing point that was too steep.”

Drowning deaths are not uncommon during the migration, Lemaire added, but her organization has never witnessed fatalities on this scale.

“It is customary every year for the wildebeest to pick a particularly treacherous crossing point and for there to be a significant die-off,” she said, “but the number of deaths during these crossings almost never exceeds one thousand.”
The deaths occurred at Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, as the herd was beginning its swing to the east on its way back to the Serengeti.

More than a million wildebeest undertake an epic migration every year in late summer, leaving their calving grounds in the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania to seek greener pastures in Kenya to the north. The animals, also known as gnu, journey some 3,200 km each year, often joined by thousands of zebras and Thomson’s gazelles.

The remains formed what she described as “pungent islands of bloated carcasses. The crocodiles, storks, and vultures have not had to worry about where to find their next meal,” she wrote.

“Those that aren’t consumed will be left and will eventually decompose in the water. These thousands of carcasses will undoubtedly affect the health of the water, but to what extent, only time will tell.”

Yangon – Myanmar’s main Internet link remained shut for a third straight day on Sunday, as the ruling regime tried to curb the flow of information on a bloody crackdown against protesters.

“I tried on Sunday morning again but it’s failed again. I haven’t been able to check my email since Friday,” said one Yangon resident.

Internet cafes in Yangon also remained closed. Over the past week, tech-savvy citizens used the cybercafes to transmit pictures and video clips of the regime’s clampdown taken on mobile phones and digital cameras.

“People inside Myanmar can’t send emails or news to outside organisations,” said Kho Win Aung from activist group Shwe Gas Movement.

“So they are losing their chance to express what’s happening in Myanmar,” the Thailand-based activist told reporters in Bangkok.

The government cracked down on protesters last week, killing at least 13 people and injuring hundreds more, in a campaign that has also intensified pressure on media operating in the country.

In the main city of Yangon, soldiers shot dead a Japanese video-journalist Thursday and beat people found with cell phones or cameras, witnesses said.

Myanmar’s military rulers always keep a tight grip on information, heavily censoring newspapers, blocking much of the Internet and rarely allowing foreign journalists into the country.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said that by cutting Internet access, the regime was trying to operate “behind closed doors”.

It has condemned Myanmar as a “paradise for censors” and listed the country as one of the world’s most restrictive for press freedoms.

Sylhet – Bangladesh has been put on the USA’s watch list of countries that allow operations of some Pakistani companies producing pirated versions of multi-media compact disks (CDs), and digital video disks (DVDs) violating intellectual property rights (IPR). Due to the inclusion of Bangladesh on the list, the United States Trade Representatives (USTR) can now suggest its entrepreneurs to withdraw their investments from the country or to impose a trade embargo on the country. According to a report titled ‘Special 301′ on the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights (IPR), published by the Office of the US Trade Representatives, some pirate optical disk manufacturing plants migrated to Bangladesh from Pakistan due to the latter’s crackdown on those.

The report released on April 30, 2007 said currently six optical disc plants producing pirated products are operating in Bangladesh and are exporting to India and Europe, as well as saturating the local market. The USTR report suggested Bangladesh to introduce regulations controlling optical disc manufacturing so that the Bangladeshi authorities can issue licenses to manufacturers, and law enforcers can inspect the plants. It also suggested if any plant is found guilty of piracy, it should be closed down and its owners should be prosecuted.

The report said the harm from the practice of piracy in Bangladesh is not only to the US and other countries that have similar businesses, but is also felt keenly by Bangladeshi genuine entrepreneurs. It said the Bangladesh government’s response to the problem is inadequate in terms of results from enforcement actions taken. A high official of the commerce ministry said the country’s name had been first included on the watch list in 2004, but later USTR dropped Bangladesh from the list following the erstwhile government’s negotiation with USTR.

The official said the commerce ministry requested the home ministry and the cultural affairs ministry to investigate the allegation. Following the request, National Security Intelligence (NSI) carried out an investigation and found that two companies mainly owned by Pakistani entrepreneurs in fact did set up optical disk plants in the country. The companies are AKA World Com situated at 189/B Tejgaon, which is owned by a Pakistani citizen Solaiman Azami, and Sonic Enterprise Bangladesh Limited at Konabari of Gazipur, also owned by a Pakistani citizen Sayed Ashraf Ali. The NSI investigation found that the first company set up a Tk 2 crore worth plant which can produce 50,000 discs a day.

When asked, a joint secretary to the commerce ministry said the ministry decided to initiate lobbying with the US government in an attempt to keep Bangladesh off the ‘watch list’ for copyright violations. The decision was taken in a meeting held at the commerce ministry with additional secretary of the ministry, Golam Mustakim, in the chair on August 26. He said the ministry decided to start discussions with the US government through its embassy in Washington to make its counterpart understand that as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the country is exempt from any kind of IPR obligation until 2013.

An avalanche-like noise on a recent rainy night proved to be an architectural metaphor for the fate of Nicaragua’s erstwhile elite: In a matter of 30 seconds, the front half of a grand colonial adobe mansion collapsed into the street in a pile of muddy rubble, revealing the wobbly structure that holds together the homes and social class of the country’s former oligarchy.

Though no one was hurt in the collapse, it served as a dramatic reminder that the noble facade of country’s former power structure is masking advanced decay.

“The Sandinista revolution in the 1980s diversified the quotas of power in the country,” said sociologist Cirilo Otero. “There was a displacement of the oligarchy; a lot of investment left the country, and what is left is the remnants of a class whose influence and power are almost nil.”

Like Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, the remnants of many of Nicaragua’s traditionally powerful families live in crumbling mansions in a no-longer politically relevant city, clinging to memories of colonial grandeur. Their skin color is generally lighter than the rest of the population’s; their politics are conservative; and their last names are those that have for centuries filled the rosters of Nicaragua’s social clubs.

The country’s traditional oligarchy is made up of a dozen families that have intermarried for generations to, as they say, “keep the blood pure.” But as those families have grown, migrated and diversified in recent generations, their collective clout as a social elite has weakened. Today, an oligarchic last name no longer guarantees its bearer the influence or money once attached to it.

Where once they amassed fortunes from the bounty of the country’s traditional agricultural sector, many of the finer families now live off of what’s left of former fortunes, or on remittances sent from relatives in the United States. The younger generation, armed with college degrees from Texas A&M and Louisiana State University, have migrated to Managua to parlay their family names into middle-management or public-relations jobs, while the elders remain behind in their rocking chairs.

“The oligarchy is in a profound crisis; it’s in its final days,” says sociologist Orlando Nunez, author of the brisk-selling Oligarchy in Nicaragua.

According to Nunez, the decline of the oligarchy began even before the Sandinista revolution, when the U.S.-backed Somoza dynasty used its dictatorial power to strip the old-money class of its traditional military and political power. In fact, when economic power began to shift in the 1970s to a new bourgeoisie based in the cotton industry, some of the old landowning oligarchy even sided with the rowdy Sandinista rebels, hoping that the overthrow of the dictatorship would allow them to reclaim lost power. But the Sandinistas had other ideas: After seizing power in the insurrection of 1979, they systematically dismantled the power of the oligarchy in subsequent years. The coup de grace, Nunez says, came last year when the Sandinistas formed a political alliance with the Catholic Church, the oligarchy’s last institutional bastion.

“All the oligarchy has left now is its prestige, its values and some influence over the media,” Nunez says.

Now, they may be losing their stately homes, too. An influx of wealthy foreigners is swooping into Granada to buy up colonial mansions and build an economy based on tourism that has created many entry-level service jobs in hotels and restaurants — not exactly “suitable” employment for the grandsons of plantation owners.

The grim economic, political and social realties of a changing Nicaragua has prompted some to cash in their family’s last chips, selling their homes in a hot real estate market and thereby severing their last ties to past grandeur. Still, despite the hardships, old paradigms die hard, Nunez says.

“The oligarchy,” he says, “would still much prefer to sell their home to a white and wealthy Gringo than to a Liberal, a black or someone from the working class who has made money.”

Environmentalists call to stop its use for commercial tourism

Expressing deep concern over gradual destruction of the bio-diversity
of Saint Martin’s Island, environmentalists yesterday demanded that
the government take effective steps to make it a ‘marine protected
area’ based on scientific researches and stop its use for commercial
tourism.

They recalled that the island, one of the finest coral islands of the
world, was already declared an ‘ecologically critical area’ and
projects were undertaken to protect its marine resources. But
implementation of the projects was impeded as the officials concerned
lacked knowledge and skills required for this and in absence of proper
monitoring by the government, they said.

The environmentalists spoke at a seminar in the city on “Saint
Martin’s Island is on the verge of destruction: what is the way to
save it?” organised by Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (Bapa).

The government should consider if the entire island could be brought
under conservation schemes, speakers said.

People from other areas are buying land and constructing buildings in
the island threatening its bio-diversity, they pointed out at the
seminar held at Women’s Voluntary Association auditorium at Dhanmondi.

“We destroy our natural resources like hills, forests and rivers in
various ways without realising the consequences of destruction of
bio-diversity. We must be careful that we do not destroy Saint
Martin’s Island in the name of eco-tourism,” said Bapa President Prof
Muzaffer Ahmed.

Legal and administrative steps should be taken to save the island, and
public awareness has to be created in this regard, he said.
“Commercial use of the island should be stopped.”

Dr Khandkar Rashedul Haque, director general of the Department of
Environment, said eco-tourism is possible in the island but it must be
regulated keeping the nature unharmed by travellers.

“Political will is the main factor in this regard,” he said.
Influential people using their links with political high-ups buy land
and do things arbitrarily in the island.

Difference of opinions among various ministries and departments on
environmental issues is a hurdle for the appropriate authorities in
taking proper steps concerning projects on environment and
bio-diversity.

Former marine official and researcher Saiful Alam Paikar said most of
the recommendations of the National Conservation Strategy
Implementation Project–Phase -1 taken up by the Ministry of Forest
and Environment in 1992 were not implemented.

A Tk 15-crore project on conservation of bio-diversity ended on June
30 this year without setting up a marine park and a sanctuary, badly
needed for marine resources.

There is still lack of long-term planning and steps for alternative
livelihood of the local people, he said, adding that commercial and
unplanned tourism has put the island in a risky situation.

Syeda Rizwana Hassan of Bangladesh Environment Lawyers’ Association
said there is a realisation that Saint Martin’s Island should be
conserved but effective steps for this are yet to be taken.

Tourism should be regulated there, she said.

Speakers included Dhaka University teachers AQM Mahbub, Kazi Zaker
Hossain and Nurul Islam Nazem, Bapa Vice President Qazi Modina,
General Secretary Dr Abdul Matin, former marine official Khorshed
Alam, and Abdus Salam, who hails from the island.