Amnesty International Urges Bosnia Reject Prohibition Burka

Amnesty International urged the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to reject the proposed ban on wearing clothes that impede the introduction of the identity of the user, including a veil that covers the entire body.Amnesty says the law violates human rights of women who choose to show the religious, cultural or personal belief. Amnesty also says the headscarf ban can thus forcing some women to stay in the house and withdraw from life in general.

Proponents of the ban say the law aims to address security issues.A bill that prohibits the hijab entire body was about to put on a fine 63 dollars or one week in jail for anyone caught wearing clothes in the middle of the forbidden public.Amnesty also has opposed the proposal Burka ban in other European countries including France and Belgium.

In Brazil, Many Women Compared to Men Achieves Doctorate

Brasilia  In Brazil, more women than men holds a doctorate in 2008 according to a study issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Wednesday.Women constitute the majority of those who complete the thesis, namely as much as 51.5 percent in 2008, according to the study, as cited by Xinhua, Oana.

“This is a big improvement, considering that in Japan the percentage of disabled women doctorates only 25 percent and 33 percent in Belgium,” said Minister of Science and Technology, Sergio Rezende, in conveying the results of these studies.The study, titled “Doctors in 2010: Demographic Studies of the Brazilian Technical Scientific Base” indicates the number of people with doctorates in Brazil increased from 2830 in 2006 to 10 705 in 2008, an increase of 278 percent over 12 years. Since 2004, women have become the majority of residents who holds a doctorate.

Based on the research, most citizens of Brazil who holds a doctorate work in the field of education (76.77 percent), followed in the public sector (11.06 percent), professional activities related to science and technology (3.78 percent) and health sector (3 percent).”Most of the doctor who graduated in the last fifteen years working in universities, but an increase in labor (with a doctorate) in the manufacturing industry,” said Rezende.(AFP)

Zimbabwe auctioned 900,000 carats of rough gems Wednesday from a diamond

JOHANNESBURG Zimbabwe auctioned 900,000 carats of rough gems Wednesday from a diamond field where human rights groups say soldiers killed 200 people, raped women and enslaved children.It was the first public sale of diamonds from the notorious Marange field in eastern Zimbabwe since international regulators imposed a ban in November under rules designed to screen out conflict gems.The sale happened to coincide with the “blood diamonds” phase of the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president. Taylor’s case and the Zimbabwe sale are unrelated, but both point to the successes and difficulties facing the campaign to regulate the trade in diamonds that has helped finance wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Congo and now Ivory Coast.

The auction in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, went ahead after the gems were certified as conflict-free by Abbey Chikane, a monitor for the Kimberley Process that oversees trade in the diamonds. Chikane had established that soldiers were gone from two fenced-off commercial mines producing the diamonds, and that the mines were operating according to “minimum international standards.”

In the rest of the field, where Zimbabwe’s military still holds sway and abuses reportedly continue, a ban on diamonds remains in place. But there is no guarantee its product won’t infiltrate into the legitimately mined stones.The arrangement so angered American gem trader Martin Rapaport that in February he quit as president of the World Diamond Council. “The tragedy of Zimbabwe is that the Kimberley Process has started legitimizing, legalizing, kosherizing blood diamonds,” he said in a telephone interview from Israel as the auction got under way.

He said it made Kimberley participants “liars who are telling the world that these diamonds are legitimate.”The Kimberley Process was set up in 2002. Its members are 75 diamond-producing and diamond-trading countries, along with industry agencies and civic and human rights bodies such as London-based Global Witness.

Stephane Chardon, chairman of the Kimberley monitoring group, said it deserved credit for the original ban on Marange diamonds and for ensuring that the two fenced-off mines were being properly run.He noted that the Kimberley rules apply only to blood diamonds mined and sold by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflicts aimed at toppling legitimate governments. It has no provision for punishing governments.Chardon said the system has helped. “In quite a few countries it has contributed to changing conflict diamonds into development diamonds, in the sense that the revenues are going to the government and are used for development purposes and not for conflict.”

The Marange field was discovered in 2006 and is believed to be the biggest found in the world since the 19th century. It triggered a chaotic diamond rush until police and then the army moved in.Human Rights Watch says the Zimbabwe government still has not kept its word to withdraw soldiers completely from the Marange fields, and that it found conditions there “quite appalling” as recently as May.

“We found that people were still being forced to mine, to dig for diamonds at gunpoint by the army, by soldiers,” said senior researcher Tiseke Kasambala of the area outside the two fenced off mines. “We found children as young as 11 still working in these mines.”Buyers from Belgium, Russia, India, Israel, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates flew into Harare on private aircraft to inspect the stones and present bids in sealed envelopes. They refused to speak to reporters.

“Buyers were extremely interested and the pricing was satisfactory,” said David Castle, director of Mbada Diamonds and chairman of the South African New Reclamation Group that offered the diamonds for sale.Global Witness campaigner Elly Harrowell said that instead of expelling Zimbabwe from the Kimberley process as recommended last year by Kimberley Process investigators who were sent to Marange, “What we have instead is a weak compromise.”

She said that unless Zimbabwe kept its promise to withdraw all troops and fulfill other promised improvements, the Kimberley Process should “act very, very quickly” to prevent Marange gems from being exported.The compromise was reached after a Zimbabwe court released human rights activist Farai Maguwu, who was jailed for more than a month after publicizing abuses at the diamond fields.

Human rights groups say the deal also helped avert a crisis in the international diamond market, since President Robert Mugabe was threatening to sell stones without certification.Zimbabwe’s mines minister, Obert Mpofu, said Wednesday the country has 4.5 million Marange diamonds in stock, valued at up to $1.9 billion – one third of the national debt of a country whose economy has been ruined by corruption, mismanagement and Mugabe’s campaign against the country’s white-minority farmers.(AP)

2022 World Cup will be in Japan

Tokyo  – FIFA officials who examined the Japanese candidacy to host the 2022 World Cup gives thumbs up at the main soccer stadium outside Tokyo, according to the chairman of Japan’s candidacy. Five-member team from world soccer’s governing body had visited the 64 000 seat stadium in the satellite town of Saitama, north of Tokyo, after being two days in the city of Osaka. Saitama Stadium, which has been used in the nine-year-old World Cup 2002, organized jointly by Japan and North Korea, and became the headquarters of J-League club, Urawa Red Diamonds, who won the Champions League Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 2007.

Fifa’s team, led by President of the Chilean Football Federation Harolds Mayne-Nicholls, check out the stadium, which is one of the 13 stadiums are included in the nomination list of Japan, about an hour and check the condition of the field, seating, and locker room.

“They check everything is rincidan seemed very impressed,” said President of the Japan Football Association, Motoaki Inukai, who led Japan’s nominating committee, told reporters. FIFA inspectors arrived in Japan Monday for a four-day visit. The visit is the first visit of the tour two months to nine candidates for World Cup 2018 and 2022.

A total of 24 officials of the FIFA executive will choose the host on December 2 in Zurich. In Osaka, they used a helicopter to inspect the field the former central railway station of the city, a place that will build the stadium with a capacity of 83 000 seats and will use solar-powered electricity and will be used for the opening and final matches in the year 2022.

They also attended the presentation of the candidacy of Japan, including a plan to serve football fans around the world to watch live matches are broadcast in three dimensions. In Tokyo, they visited the convention center in downtown, The Tokyo International Forum, before meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

The next visit was to South Korea, Australia, Holland and Belgium jointly nominate, Russia, UK, Spain, Portugal, the United States, and Qatar. Japan, South Korea, and Qatar only nominate for the 2022 World Cup, while the lainnnya tried to nominate himself for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.(AFP)

Mexico enter the cooking pot for Cup start

The once-improbable dream of a World Cup in Africa kicks off on Friday when Mexico face the home team in the deafening cauldron of Johannesburg’s 90,000-seat Soccer City stadium.The Mexicans will have to contend not only an army of jiving supporters in a frenzy of patriotic fervor but an ear-splitting blast from the biggest array yet of vuvuzela trumpets, the loudest fan instrument on the globe, which severely curtails communication between players and coach.The stadium, biggest in Africa, has been shaped like a calabash or cooking pot and the Mexicans may feel they have been put on the fire when they meet Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s much improved national team.

Once mocked by even their compatriots as hopeless under-achievers, and still one of the lowest-rated World Cup hosts, at 83rd in the rankings, South Africa come off a run of 12 unbeaten matches and are new national heroes.Their performance has added to an unprecedented rush of nationalistic excitement in South Africa, which was tormented for years by negative and even domestic pessimism that the world’s most watched sporting event was too big for Africa to handle.

That pessimism has been transformed in recent weeks, encouraged by FIFA’s belated decision to sell tickets for cash, and South Africans of all races can scarcely contain their excitement and pride at being in the world spotlight.Successfully hosting this tournament for the first time in Africa will mean much more for the hosts than just sport.

RACIAL RECONCILIATION

Racial reconciliation, the affirmation of an often troubled post-apartheid nation, future investment and millions of tourist dollars are at stake.African leaders believe this tournament, a massive logistical undertaking, will enable the continent to overturn stereotypes of disaster, conflict and failure and prove it is a vibrant can-do region ripe for investment and development.

A string of comparatively minor crimes against journalists and three Greek players in recent days have been reminders that security in one of the globe’s most violent countries outside a war zone is one of the tournament’s biggest concerns.And six people were injured in a crowd crush at Cape Town’s main World Cup fan zone on Thursday when thousands of people tried to get in.But none of this will dent South African euphoria.

The weight of expectation and the joyful street parades of the last few days could however undermine South Africa’s concentration.Their Brazilian manager, Carlo Alberto Parreira, said on Thursday they had expected calmness and focus but he could understand the distracting party on the streets.

“I don’t want my players to be affected by all of that. Now we have a World Cup game…we want to make this country proud.”If they can hold their nerve in the midst of the noise and atmosphere — Soccer City’s bowl design is likely to boost the sound levels — Mexico do not intend to be a pushover.

Manager Javier Aguirre told reporters they would love to spoil the giant party. “My team has come here to play football, not make friends and do some sightseeing,” he said.

But the history book favors South Africa. Mexico have a poor record in opening games, while the two previous starting matches featuring African teams resulted in shock triumphs for Cameroon over Argentina in 1990 and Senegal over France in 2002.

CONFIDENCE BOOST

Mexico’s confidence has been boosted by a win over defending champions Italy in Belgium last week and good performances against England and the Netherlands in other recent friendlies.The opening match, starting at 1400 GMT (10 a.m. EDT), is likely to see both teams going forward to end a tradition of cautious and dull starts to the tournament.

In Friday’s other game, France are likely to make a nervous start against Uruguay in Cape Town after a series of unimpressive warm up games which ended with a worrying 1-0 defeat by China. They look a far cry from the dominant team that won the World Cup in 1998 and the European trophy two years later.Uruguay on the other hand, though one of the tournament underdogs, have had an impressive warm-up with wins against Switzerland and Israel.(Reuters)

17,000 flights were expected to be canceled on Friday due to the dangers posed for a second day by volcanic ash from Iceland

A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread out across Europe on Friday causing air travel chaos on a scale not seen since the September 11 attacks.About 17,000 flights were expected to be canceled on Friday due to the dangers posed for a second day by volcanic ash from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in Britain, France, Germany, and across Europe were closed until at least Saturday.”I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11,” said a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s aviation regulator.”In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we’ve probably seen.”

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, U.S. airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.

Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to 6 months if the eruption continues, but even if it is short-lived the financial impact on airlines could be significant.The fallout hit airlines’ shares on Friday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair down between 0.8 and 2.2 percent.The International Air Transport Association said only days ago that airlines were just coming out of recession.

“LIMITED COMMERCIAL SIGNIFICANCE”

The flight cancellations would cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about 10 million pounds ($16.04 million) a day, transport analyst Douglas McNeill said.

“To lose that sum of money isn’t a very pleasant experience but it’s of limited commercial significance as well,” he told BBC TV. “A couple of days like this won’t matter too much. If it goes on for weeks, that’s a different story.”The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, hurling a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere.Officials said it was still spewing magma and although the eruption could abate in the coming days, ash would continue drifting into the skies of Europe.

Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverized rock that can damage engines and airframes.

In 1982 a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding toward the ground before it was able to restart its engines.The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it prepared for ash clouds.

Of the 28,000 flights that usually travel through European airspace on an average day, European aviation control agency Eurocontrol said it expected only 11,000 to operate on Friday while only about a third of transatlantic flights were arriving.The British Meteorological Office showed the cloud drifting south and west over Europe. Eurocontrol warned problems would continue for at least another 24 hours and an aviation expert at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume.”We can only predict the time that flights will resume after the eruption has stopped, but for as long as the eruption is still going on and still leading to a significant eruption, we cannot say,” said Scylla Sillayo, a senior official in the WMO’s aeronautical meteorology unit.

AIRSPACE CLOSED

Britain’s air traffic control body said all English airspace would be closed until 8 p.m. EDT on Friday although certain flights from Northern Ireland and Scottish airports were being allowed to take off until 1800 GMT.”When the experts give us the all-clear we’ll get the operation back up and running,” Paul Haskins, head of safety at National Air Traffic Service, told BBC radio.

There were no flights from London’s Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, which handles some 180,000 passengers a day, while officials at Germany’s Frankfurt airport, Europe’s second busiest, said flights would be suspended from 2 a.m. EDT.Around 2,000 people slept overnight at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a spokeswoman said, adding they did not expect airspace in the Netherlands to reopen soon.

Eurocontrol said airspace was closed over Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, the north of the Czech Republic, northern France including all Paris airports, and at airports in northern Germany, Austria and parts of Poland.

Polish officials said if the disruption continued, it might force a delay in Sunday’s funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday.Airlines across Asia and the Middle East have also canceled or delayed flights to most European destinations.

However, as the ash plume drifted south over Europe, Irish officials said most of the airspace over Ireland had reopened.The air problems have proved a boon for rail companies. All 58 Eurostar trains between Britain and Europe were operating full, carrying some 46,500 passengers, and a spokeswoman said they would consider adding services if problems persisted.(Reuters)

Violent storms swept through France over the weekend, killing at least 15 people

PARIS   Violent storms swept through France over the weekend, killing at least 15 people, officials said.Local authorities said three people died on Saturday and another 12 on Sunday and warned the toll could rise. Some drowned while others were hit by falling trees and branches. Brittany and central France were among the worst-hit regions.

The storm had also cut off electricity to more than 1 million residents said ErDF, the distribution arm of French energy group EDF.Weather forecasters said the storm, named Xynthia, had headed to France’s north-east and would then hit Belgium and Luxembourg.Gusts of wind reaching 100 km (60 miles) per hour had already battered France’s northern regions by 1207 GMT (7:07 a.m. EST), Meteo France said on its website.It said the storms appeared less fierce than those that hit France in December 1999, in which 92 people were killed.(Reuters)

Greece must take further measures to reduce the deficit or it will face sanctions, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker

ATHENS Greece must take further measures to reduce the deficit or it will face sanctions, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted as saying by a Greek newspaper.Greece has until March 16 to convince EU finance ministers and the executive European Commission that proposed measures to cut its budget shortfall this year to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product from 12.7 percent in 2009 are sufficient.”Greece must intensify its efforts and move to further actions to reduce its deficit,” Juncker, who heads the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, told Eleftherotypia newspaper.

“If it doesn’t convince us then it will possibly face sanctions. Greece must understand that the taxpayers in Germany, Belgium or Luxembourg are not ready to fix the mistakes of Greece’s fiscal policy,” Juncker said.”Euro zone finance ministers have agreed that more efforts are required from Greece,” he said.Juncker, who is also Luxembourg’s prime minister, said euro zone finance ministers had discussed ways to help Greece.”Luxembourg is also ready to help Greece on a bilateral level, if Athens asks for it. We must first be convinced that the measures are serious and tough. The Greek government must focus on further spending reduction and on the ways to increase revenues,” he said.(Reuters)

Eurostar trains between London and Paris are experiencing minor delays after a “major technical fault” late yesterday

Eurostar trains between London and Paris are experiencing minor delays after a “major technical fault” late yesterday, according to the rail operator.The 8:43 p.m. Paris to London train broke down yesterday because of a fault that is under investigation, Bram Smets, a spokesman for Eurostar Group Ltd., said today by telephone. Passengers were evacuated onto another train, with a total delay of 4 hours and 33 minutes, he said. Eurostar issued refunds and gave passengers a free round-trip ticket for a future trip.

Eurostar is operating a limited service between the U.K. and Brussels after a commuter train crash in Belgium on Feb. 15 that killed 18 people. The company is currently offering three return services a day and reiterated today that it intends to resume a full Brussels schedule by March 2.

All Eurostar rail service was suspended for three days before Christmas because locomotives were insufficiently prepared for winter and the company neglected maintenance of seals that allowed snow to penetrate electrical systems, according to a study commissioned to help the train operator prevent future breakdowns.Procedures for evacuating people from the tunnel under the English Channel were also inadequate and Eurostar failed to communicate sufficiently with customers stranded at stations, according to the report.Smets declined to specify the nature of last night’s train fault.

Airbus will reduce its exposure to the troubled A400 military transport plane project

MADRID Airbus will reduce its exposure to the troubled A400 military transport plane project unless the governments that ordered it reach a decision soon on financing cost overruns, an official said Thursday.Airbus Military spokesman Jaime Perez-Guerra said time is of the essence because Airbus parent company EADS presents its 2009 earnings on March 9.He said EADS needs a decision so it can book its share of the cost overruns in its 2009 financial results, rather than carry over uncertainty into the first quarter.”We are squeezed, absolutely squeezed,” Perez-Guerra told The AP.

Perez-Guerra said EADS is not setting a new deadline for a decision but insists one must be all but completed very soon. If not, he said the company will take measures that could include diverting money, personnel and equipment to other projects.”EADS really has to see that an agreement is practically sealed,” he said.Airbus CEO Tom Enders gave the warning Wednesday as he met with union leaders during a visit to an Airbus plant outside Madrid, the spokesman said.

France said this week the seven nations that have ordered the plane have agreed to commit an extra euro2 billion ($2.75 billion) in funding. France is proposing that governments make available an extra euro1.5 billion in reimbursable loans. The project is nearly four years behind schedule.EADS has reduced its demands for extra funding to euro4.5 billion – but the government proposal still falls euro1 billion short.The four-engine turboprop military plane had its maiden flight in December. The price tag for the 180 planes ordered was fixed at almost euro20 billion in the initial contract in 2003. Germany is the biggest costumer with 60 aircraft ordered, and France wants 50.The A400M is seen as occupying an important niche market between the Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, which carries only half the payload, and Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III, which is larger, costlier, and less tactically versatile.The countries that have ordered the planes are Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey.(AP)