A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit.
A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit.
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China, India, Egypt and Cuba were among the 29 developing countries that backed a Sri Lankan-proposed resolution describing the conflict as a “domestic matter that doesn’t warrant outside interference”. The resolution also supported Colombo’s insistence on allowing aid group access to 270,000 civilians detained in camps only “as may be appropriate”.
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Western diplomats and human rights officials were shocked by the outcome at the end of an acrimonious two-day special session to examine the humanitarian and human rights situation in Sri Lanka after the blitzkrieg of the final military offensive that wiped out the Tiger force.
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“The vote is extremely disappointing and is a low point for the Human Rights Council. It abandons hundreds of thousands of people in Sri Lanka to cynical political considerations,” Amnesty International said.
...The UN in Sri Lanka says that at least 7,000 civilians were killed in the first four months of the year alone, with the casualty rate sharply rising as the endgame approached. Many of those deaths are believed to have been caused by Sri Lankan army shelling. The Government denies that it caused a single civilian death, blaming all of them on the rebels.(emphasis added by NT)
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Western diplomats said that the result called into question the entire purpose of the Human Rights Council — where the 47 members sit as equals with no right of veto for any country. The United States only recently agreed to join it in the belief that the council had been reformed.
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Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had called on Tuesday for an international war crimes inquiry, saying she believed that both sides might be guilty of war crimes. The Tigers are accused of using civilians as human shields and those who fled the war have testified that rebel commanders fired on them to stop them escaping, killing many.
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Aid agencies have been given only limited access to the sprawling camps and have been barred from bringing in vehicles for fear that Tiger cadres could use them to escape.
Sri Lanka has said that it will allow access to the camps in a month, after screening for former fighters is complete. On a military-led visit to the camps this week, though, officials admitted that no such screening was taking place and that captured fighters were taken to “rehabilitation camps” before they were registered there.
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In what a Pentagon official described as a "bizarre" incident, Chinese crew members on board one vessel bared their bottoms after the USNS Impeccable had sprayed them with hoses.
via Chinese ships 'harass' unarmed US navy vessel - Telegraph.
The Impeccable did not carry large-caliber weapons and was operated by civilians for the Military Sealift Command, Pentagon officials said.
The surveillance mission, focused on undersea warfare, may be of particular interest to the Chinese military, which has invested heavily in a new fleet of diesel-powered attack submarines.
Pentagon officials say that while the diesel variety is not as potent as the Navy’s nuclear fast-attack submarines, the submarines are cheaper and can be purchased in greater numbers, giving the Chinese the potential to overwhelm American defenses at sea.
Address : <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10military.html?_r=2&ref=world>
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