10 theSun | MONDAY AUGUST 17 2009

news without borders

US man in Suu Kyi
case deported
YANGON: A US man sentenced to
seven years’ hard labour for swimming
to the home of democracy icon Aung
San Suu Kyi flew out of Myanmar yes-
terday with an American senator who
secured his release.
John Yettaw, 54, was earlier handed
over to US embassy officials at Yangon’s
notorious Insein prison, after Democrat
Jim Webb held landmark talks with the
reclusive chief of Myanmar’s military
regime, Than Shwe.
The ruling junta however ignored
Webb’s calls to free Nobel laureate Suu
Kyi, who was this week sentenced to
another 18 months of house arrest after
being convicted on charges sparked by
Yettaw’s bizarre stunt in May.
“I express my thanks to the govern-
ment of Myanmar,” Webb told report-
ers at Yangon airport, shortly before the
military plane carrying him and Yettaw
departed for Bangkok.
“I am not going to apologise for the
actions that he took but I believe that it
was a good gesture from your govern-
ment to our country to allow him to
return home to his family for humani-
tarian reasons,” he added.
The senator, who has
close links to President Barack
Obama, also said that his meet-
ings with opposition politicians
and ethnic groups had helped
him “better understand the issues
that we need to be working on in
the future”.
Myanmar officials confirmed
that the plane had taken off. They
said the regime was officially deport-
ing Yettaw, adding: “His sentence
has been reduced to three-and-a-half
years and then made a suspended
sentence.”
Yettaw, a diabetic and epileptic
former military veteran, was arrested on
May 6 after using a pair of home-made
flippers to swim across a lake from Suu
Kyi’s crumbling mansion, where he
had spent two days uninvited.
The devout Mormon said at his trial
that he was on a “mission from God” to
warn Suu Kyi that he had had a vision
in which she was assassinated by ter-
rorists. Her lawyers earlier described
him as a “fool”.
California
wildfires
continue to rage
Yettaw at
the Aung
Thaeyey
police
detention
SAN FRANCISCO: Wildfires are continuing to rage
in California, where efforts to control the week-old
blazes are being hampered by high winds and dif-
ficult terrain, state fire prevention agency Calfire
said on Saturday.
centre in One blaze in Santa Cruz county, some 80km
Yangon. south-east of San Francisco, has forced the evacu-
ation of more than 2,000 people, destroyed two
buildings and is threatening 250 homes in the
communities of Swanton and Bonny Doon.
Calfire said the blaze, which began on Wednes-
day, has already destroyed 2,000ha of land and is
only 15% under control, despite the efforts of 1,600
firefighters.
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi on Fri-
day declared a state of emergency in Santa Cruz,
saying the county was “in great need of resources
to bolster what is being done at the local level to
fight these fires.”
Webb, Calfire said their main concerns are high tem-
the chairman of peratures and difficult terrain, which has forced
the Senate Foreign Relations firefighters to tackle the blazes mostly from the
sub-committee on East Asia and Pa- air. Another big fire has been burning since Aug
cific affairs, had also urged the military 8 in the Los Padres national forest, north of Santa
regime to free Suu Kyi, who has spent Barbara.
most of the past two decades under Calfire said that fire, which has forced the
house arrest, his office said. evacuation of 14 ranches, has destroyed 30,000ha
But his dramatic intercession for of land and is now about 25% under control.
Yettaw angered activists who called it The state is frequently hit by wildfires and
a propaganda coup for the junta, with in 2007 suffered the worst blazes in its history,
Suu Kyi and her two female aides still which forced the evacuation of 640,000 residents
in detention while the American goes and destroyed around 2,000 homes in southern
free. – AFP California. – AFP

EARTHREPORT
Week Ending August 14
Krill ban
A NEW US regulation that bans
the commercial harvesting of krill
within 320km of the California,
Oregon and Washington coast-
lines went into effect on Aug 12.
Krill are tiny shrimp-like marine
invertebrate animals that are very
near the bottom of the marine
food chain. They are the primary
source of food for many species
of marine mammals as well as
for manta rays and whale sharks.
Most of the krill caught is used for
aquaculture and aquarium feeds,
as bait in sport fishing and by the
pharmaceutical industry. Krill is
also used for human consump-
tion in Japan and Russia, where it
is known as okiami.
Expanding tropics
THE world’s tropical zone ap-
pears to be rapidly expanding
north and southward under the
influence of climate change,
according to a new Australian
study. The expansion of sub-
tropical climates could dry out
fertile regions that currently
receive ample rainfall. Such a
development would have dev-
astating effects on health and
food production, the research-
ers warn. Professor Sandra
Harding said tropical climates
had already moved more than
six degrees of latitude beyond
the traditional confines of the
Tropics of Cancer and Capri-
corn, and were continuing to
expand.
from rising to the surface by the
weight and pressure of the lake’s
water above. Sudden underwater
landslides or other geologic activ-
ity have the potential to churn the
lake enough to send both gases
bubbling to the surface. Since car-
bon dioxide is heavier than air, it
would hug the ground, asphyxiat-
ing all humans and animals that it
reached. Such a disaster occurred
in 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon,
West Africa, where 1,700 people
were suffocated, many quietly as
they slept. Lake Kivu contains 350
times as much gas as Nyos and
has far more people living near its
shoreline.
Fertile land decline
THE future of agriculture in
a region know as the Fertile
Crescent is becoming increas-
ingly grim due to a combination
of climate change and diver-
sion of water far upstream in
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The alluvial plain near the
mouths of those two rivers is
known as the “cradle of civili-
sation,” where agriculture has
sustained cultures like that of
Sumeria and cities like Babylon
since the dawn of recorded his-
tory. But two years of parching
drought and the tightening grip
of Turkish dams has reduced
those rivers to mere trickles.
New Iranian dams are also
contributing to reduced flows.
Farmers are abandoning their
fields, and climate experts are
warning that the drought is
likely to become permanent.

Poisonous lake threat Tropical cyclones

ONE of the world’s three known
lakes that can suddenly expel
poisonous gas now threatens the
lives of more than 2 million people
living along the Democratic Re-
public of the Congo and Rwanda
border, according to scientists. The
massive amount of carbon dioxide
and methane trapped below a
depth of 300m in Lake Kivu is kept
TYPHOON Morakot killed at
least 85 people as it left a trail of
destruction in Taiwan, China and
Japan.
» Typhoon Etau skirted southern
Japan.
» Former Category 4 Hurricane
Felicia weakened to a tropical de-
pression before reaching Hawaii.
– Universal Press Syndicate