Tag: Nepal

Nepal's Rhesus Breeding Program Draws Opposition

Nepal and the Nepal and the Natural History Society of Nepal recently reached an agreement whereby that country will host a rhesus monkey breeding program designed to supply the United States and other countries with rhesus monkeys for animal research programs. The agreement has drawn the ire of animal rights activists and groups.

The Washington National Primate Center is working closely with the Natural History Society to set up the breeding program. The Washington National Primate Center has helped start similar breeding programs in Indonesia and Russia to supply monkeys to for biomedical research in the United States.

Back in 2002 when this idea first was considered, the International Primate Protection League urged its supporters,

Please send a letter to the officials whose addresses are listed below requesting that Nepal not establish a biomedical breeding and research facility in conjunction with a laboratory funded by the US Government. Postage from the United States to Nepal costs 80 cents per ounce.

Request that Nepal not build a monkey laboratory and that it not export monkeys at a time when there is an increased demand for monkeys to be used in painful and lethal experimentation into biological warfare and other infectious disease agents.

According to the IPPL, almost 19,000 primates were imported into the United States in 2002.

Sources:

Nepal Plans a Monkey Lab: Please Protest. Press Release, International Primate Protection League, November 2002.

Nepal Activists Say No Monkey Exports for Lab Tests. Keshab Poudel, OneWorld, February 2, 2004.

South Asian Nations Sign Free Trade Pact

In January, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka signed a free trade zone agreement that will start to bring trade barriers between those countries down beginning in 2006.

The agreement calls on the most developed of these countries — Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka — to virtually eliminate tariffs with the other countries by 2013, but gives the other countries until 2016 to lower their tariffs. There is, however, a provision that allows countries to maintain a list of “sensitive” products on which tariffs can be maintained.

Beyond advancing the cause of free trade, the real importance of this pat is the shot in the arm it could give to trade between Pakistan and India. Currently, trade between the two rivals is estimated at about $1.5 billion. That could double under the free trade regimen. And, of course, the more the two countries become economically intertwined, the higher the cost (and hence, the lower the risk) of war between them.

According to the BBC, there are now more than 200 regional free trade agreements.

Sources:

South Asia ‘agrees to free trade’. The BBC, January 2, 2004.

South Asia signs free trade pact. Reuters, January 6, 2004.

It’s Just Not a Good Year for Nepal’s Royal Family

Back on June 1, Crown Prince Dipendra went on a shooting spree that killed nine members of Nepal’s royal family, including the king and queen. Now the BBC reports that Princess Prekshya and 5 non-royals died in a helicopter accident. Prekshya had been married to Prince Dhirendra, who was among those killed in the June 1 massacre. Add to that the amazingly successful Maoist insurgency in Nepal, and suddenly it doesn’t look so good to be the king after all.

China Leads World in Imprisoning Journalists

A new report by the Committe to Protect Journalists says that China leads the world in imprisoning journalists. China accounted for 22 of the 87 journalists imprisoned worldwide.

The CPJ report noted that China seems to have hardened its stance against journalists over the past couple years, likely in response to the chaos created by rapid Internet adoption.

In previous years, the Chinese government made concessions to international public opinion by carefully stage-managing the release of prominent dissidents, including journalists, at critical moments. Authorities took a harder line in 2000, when not a single journalist was released.

Other countries which had jailed journalists as of December 2000 were,

Country

Imprisoned
Journalists
Algeria
2
Burma
8
Central African Republic
1
China
22
Comoros
1
Cuba
3
Democratic Republic of Congo
4
Egypt
1
Ethiopia
7
Iran
6
Kuwait
2
Nepal
1
Niger
1
Syria
1
Tunisia
2
Turkey
14
Uzbekistan
3
Vietnam
2

The number of imprisoned journalists has fallen dramatically since 1998, when 118 journalists were imprisoned, but these numbers do underestimate the problem since they only count journalists who were still in prison at the end of 2000. A much larger number of journalists were imprisoned for at least part of 2000 but released before the end of the year.

Of course arrest isn’t the only way of intimidating journalists. Last year 24 journalists were killed around the world either in the act of reporting on a story or in retaliation because of their reporting or affiliation with a news organization. The murder of journalists breaks down like this,

Country

Journalists
Killed

Bangladesh
 2
Brazil
 1
Colombia
 3
Guatemala
 1
Haiti
 1
India
 1
Mozambique
 1
Pakistan
 1
Philippines
 2
Russia
 3
Sierra Leone
 3
Somalia
 1
Spain
 1
Sri Lanka
 1
Ukraine
 1
Uruguay
 1

Additionally another 20 journalists were murdered worldwide, but the motive for those murders remains unclear.

Source:

Attack on the Press in 2000. Committee to Protect Journalists, 2000.

China: ‘Leading jailer’ of journalists. The BBC, March 19, 2001.