Thai man arrested for supplying arms to Naga rebels

Bangkok, Sep 1 : Police here have arrested a Thai man wanted in India for allegedly acting as a middleman in arms deals with Naga rebels worth almost USD 2 million.

The arrested man, identified as 57-year-old Wuthikorn Naruenartwanich alias Willy, is included on an Interpol list as a suspect wanted by India for terrorism offences, sources said today.

Thai police said Naruenartwanich was arrested at his home in Bangkok yesterday.

The next step could be his extradition to India, sources told PTI but did not elaborate.

Naruenartwanich has been accused of buying nearly 1,000 assault rifles and an unspecified number of rocket-propelled grenades to be sold to Naga rebels.

He has denied his involvement in gun running.

India's National Investigation Agency charged Naruenartwanich and three others in 2011 with criminal conspiracy to wage a war against the country. If convicted, he could face a death sentence or life imprisonment.

The outlawed NSCM-IM operated out of Bangkok and several other Thai cities till about a decade ago but most cadres of the group have reportedly moved out of the country.

A ceasefire between the NSCN-IM and the Indian government has held since it was inked in 1997.

Inner Line Permit issue: Security beefed up in Meghalaya, Manipur

By Iboyaima Laithangbam

Police have beefed up security measures in Meghalaya and Manipur as activists demanding the implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) have chalked out agitations. The students and NGOs in Meghalaya say that they will launch agitations from Monday onwards. On the other hand, the activists in Manipur will intensify their ongoing campaign.

The representatives of the activists in Meghalaya held a meeting with Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday on the implementation of the ILP in the state. It did not come as a complete surprise that Mr. Sangma spurned the demand. Because, all these years the Union government has been refusing to reintroduce the ILP in Manipur. The inflamed activists in Manipur point out that the ILP is in force in Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. They fail to understand why this should be denied in Manipur. The activists in Meghalaya have also taken the same stand in this regard.

Mr. Sangma was reported to have told the unconvinced and impassive representatives that since there is sufficient law to deal with the migrants in the state, there is no need to implement the ILP. He contended that the population of the non-locals in the state is decreasing. Quoting statistics, he said that while the population of the indigenous people constitute 86.5 per cent that of the outsiders is 13 per cent. Under the circumstances, the implementation of the ILP will send a wrong message. A separate directorate was opened to deal with the migrants. Besides there are already 39 labour inspectors to detect non-locals from work places. However, the activists fear that the indigenous people will be swamped sooner than expected and as such they have given final touches to launch protracted agitations.

On the other hand, the NGOs and students' organisations which had joined hands to demand the reintroduction of the ILP in Manipur have intensified various forms of agitations. At least 48 non-locals were detected at Kakching sub division in Thoubal district. It is alleged that they had obtained voters identity cards in the name of some Manipuris. Checking of such bogus voters is being done in all 60 Assembly constituencies in the state. There have been other forms of agitations.

According to the 2011 census, Manipur has a population of 22,93,896. Out of them as many as 7.04 lakh persons are non-locals. In the recent past, police had arrested some foreigners. They were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. In view of the agitations which had burgeoned at many parts, the cabinet took a decision on July 12, 2012 for the reintroduction of the ILP. The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873 which was a different nomenclature of ILP was lifted from Manipur on November 18, 1950. The Manipur Assembly took a unanimous resolution on the reintroduction of the ILP on July 13, 2012. The Manipur government sent a letter to the Union government on August 3, 2012 demanding the reintroduction of the ILP. However there has been no reply from the Union government. But the Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was reported to have told some officials that it is not possible to reintroduce the ILP to Manipur now.

In the wake of the people's movement some insurgents had served quit notice to the migrant workers. All along some unidentified persons have been killing some migrant workers here and there. Indications are that the Union government cannot convince the activists in Manipur and Meghalaya since the ILP is in force in three other NE states.

Mizo Women's Body Seeks Proper Representation in Assembly

Aizawl, Aug 30 : Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP), an apex women's body, has resolved to ensure that women are adequately represented in the 40-member Mizoram legislative assembly.

Lalthlamuani, president of the MHIP general headquarters, on Thursday said that the organization not only wanted its representative in the legislature, but would also work to ensure that a number of women are elected to the assembly.

The organization has declared 2013 as the year for empowerment of women in politics.

Lalthlamuani, wife of state transport minister P C Zoramsangliana, said the group has been pleading with its members to cast their votes in favour of women candidates irrespective of party affiliations.

Anger May Brew Among Northeast Youth if Jobs Are Not Created, Says Economist

Guwahati, Aug 30 : Economist Bibek Debroy said the northeast needs to create more jobs to absorb the youths of the region as absence of proper employment opportunities could lead to frustration among the youth.

"Enrollment in educational institutions is rising in the northeast. If jobs are not created in the region, anger will start brewing among the youth," Debroy said at the North East Marketing Conclave organized by FIhere on Thursday.

Debroy said that although a large part of India's population is young, the demographic dividend is not going to last long as "young India" is going to age.

"Young India is impatient. The angry protests against sexual violence and corruption we have seen in the recent past have their fundamental roots in economics. This demographic dividend is not an open-ended window because by 2030-35, young India is going to age. If we expect our growth rate to be eight to nine percent, it must not be in mere numbers. It should translate into jobs and other benefits for young India," Debroy said.

The region is endowed with natural and human resources and is geographically well-positioned for trade linkages with south and Southeast Asia. Economists, corporate leaders and policymakers gathered at the conclave deliberated on how to market the northeast as a business destination and to explore opportunities to tap the region's economic potential.

He said for the northeast, it is of prime importance to ensure that the sources of revenues in the region are tapped properly. Once that is done, it should be ensured that the revenues are used for common goods and services.

Health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the time has come to brand the northeast and market its potential in a proper manner.

FICCI's northeast advisory council chairman, Ranjit Barthakur, said that the long international border the northeast shares with neighbouring countries is its greatest advantage and will help market the region's products and potential.

Barthakur said that tourism is another sector with great potential and the northeast is "a paradise" waiting to be discovered. "The region's tourism sector has the potential to stimulate growth in different sectors of economy," he added.

Meghalaya Eyes Strong Law To Check illegal Immigrants

Shillong, Aug 30 : Ruling out the re-introduction of a permit system for Indians seeking to enter Meghalaya, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma Thursday said the government will implement a strong law to check the influx of illegal immigrants.

"The government is equally concerned over the influx and we will tackle the issue by strengthening the existing laws and enforcement agencies," Sangma told reporters here after a meeting with 10 social organisations which demanded the re-introduction of the inner line permit (ILP) system.

He said that the government was in process of having a system, which was "more effective and comprehensive" rather than the ILP, which is also perceived as a piece of law that infringed upon the fundamental rights of the citizens.

The ILP is issued under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 by the state governments.

The chief minister claimed the tribal population had declined in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, where ILP was in force to curb the influx of outsiders in those states.

Underlining the need to implement the National Population Register Biometric Enrolment Plan in the state, Sangma said it will help a great deal to verify the credentials of the people.

"It is our shared objective to check influx and infiltration and we require further engagement and cooperation of NGOs, instead of hitting a stone-wall and taking a confrontational attitude," the chief minister said, while making clear that his government will not re-introduce the ILP in the state.

The 10 social organisations sought restrictions like the inner line permit - required by Indian citizens to enter Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram - saying that the influx situation in Meghalaya might go out of control given its proximity to Bangladesh and Assam.

Joe Marwein, the spokesman of the 10 organisations, said the implementation of the ILP would help protect the tribal population from being "annihilated" in their own land.

Sergey Brin's New Lover Amanda Rosenberg

• Amanda Rosenberg last night named as the new lover of Sergey Brin

The Google co-founder is one of the world's richest men with £15bn fortune

He and wife Anne Wojcicki, both 40, married in 2007 and have two children

Miss Rosenberg went to the same £31,000-a-year school as the Middletons

She is marketing manager for Google's Glass computerised spec

tacles

The 27-year-old came up with the 'Ok, Glass' command to activate the device

Brin and his wife reportedly have a prenuptial agreement in case of divorce 

By Neil Sears and David Gardner

Google gossip: Amanda Rosenberg is the 27-year-old British woman who has struck up a romance with multibilionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin

A British woman who left London in search of fame and fortune with Google is at the centre of Silicon Valley gossip after striking up a romance with the search engine’s married multi-billionaire founder.
Only last year, Amanda Rosenberg was so friendless after moving to San Francisco that she spoke of eating her lunch alone in the toilets.

But the 27-year-old, who boarded at £31,000-a-year Marlborough College with Princess Beatrice and Kate and Pippa Middleton, certainly seems to  have turned things around – for she was last night named as the new lover of Sergey Brin, 40.
Google has been rocked by talk of the romance, and a spokesman yesterday confirmed that Brin – one of the world’s richest men with a £15billion fortune – has for several months been living apart from his wife of six years Anne Wojcicki, the mother of his two children.
If they divorce, Californian law suggests their massive fortune would have to be halved – although they reportedly signed a strict pre-nuptial agreement.
While the internet was agog with talk of Brin romancing his much younger employee, the Daily Mail tracked down a distinctly unsurprised former boyfriend of Miss Rosenberg – who said she ‘knew the power of her womanly ways’.
Ewan Butler, 28, a trainee teacher living with his parents in Darlington, said: ‘Amanda’s a good looking girl, and she knows she is.
'And she’s good at “playing” men – she played me.’
Brin’s relationship with Rosenberg emerged only yesterday – but the pair were pictured together earlier this year at a New York Fashion Week event, both wearing the controversial Google Glass computerised spectacles for which she is marketing manager.
An employee of Google since she graduated with a communications degree from Leeds University, she initially worked for the internet giant in London before last year moving to San Francisco to work at its Silicon Valley nerve centre.
She soon won a role promoting Google Glass, widely criticised as the glasses which enable users to film and broadcast over the internet everything they see non-stop, worrying privacy campaigners.

Miss Rosenberg wrote an online blog soon after she arrived – describing herself as a ‘misanthropic Brit struggling to come to terms with Californian optimism’.

Split: Mr Brin, who is worth a staggering £15billion, has separated from his wife of six years, Anne Wojcicki, left

A good looking girl... 'who knows she is': Miss Rosenberg, shown left wearing the Google Glass device and right in a picture from her Google+ profile, previously dated Ewan Butler, 28, a trainee teacher living from Darlington

Employee: Miss Rosenberg pictured in a YouTube marketing video for Google Glass. She won her role promoting the controversial spectacles after coming up with the voice command ‘Ok, Glass’ to activate them

Glasses promotion: Rosenberg with boss Brin and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg in New York

She wrote: ‘I’d been living a beautifully choreographed life in London for pretty much my entire life; family, friends, job, life. Then one day I realised the beauty had faded.

‘So I applied for a transfer with my company to a different country. Yes! The romance of a transfer!
‘Luckily for me this all worked out like I dreamed it would...NOT. Of course it didn’t work out like that!
‘I remember having conversations with people about moving countries, and no one talks about how it felt to be alone.
'I wanted to grab them and scream “Why are you not telling me about how you ate lunch in the toilets at work for the first week because no one talked to you?”.’

Power couple: If Brin and Wojcicki, his wife of six years, divorce, Californian law suggests their massive fortune would have to be halved - although they reportedly signed a strict pre-nuptial agreement

Marriage on the rocks: A Google spokesman confirmed that Brin – one of the world’s richest men – has for several months been living apart from Wojcicki, the mother of his two children

Miss Rosenberg, who previously lived in Wimbledon, adding tellingly that her first thought in her new office was: ‘Hello new boss, hello new team...LIKE ME IMMEDIATELY.’ 

A RELATIONSHIP RIDICULED

Sergey Brin, 40, is being roundly mocked on the internet over his apparent relationship with Amanda Rosenberg.

One of numerous websites ridiculing the reported affair draws particular attention to his recent enthusiasm for the ‘Google Glass’ computerised spectacles.
The website jibes: ‘Since Google Glass launched the company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, hasn’t been spotted without a pair.
'He’s placed himself atop the privacy-eroding project, publicly, and inside Google’s secret labs.
'Maybe it’s because he’s f****** the Glass marketing manager, Amanda Rosenberg.’
The blog goes on: ‘Knowing that one of the most vital, powerful men at the company has been using Google’s most ambitious product as a dating pool won’t be smooth news for the rest of the team.’

She also wrote that she was initially so shy she failed to turn up at her first work drinks invitation, fearing she would be ‘the weird loner in the corner’, so stayed in eating biscuits alone on her sofa instead.

In an internet profile Miss Rosenberg wrote of herself: ‘I’m part of the master race that is the Chinese Jew or Chew, if you will.
'Born in Hong Kong but bred in the UK. A misanthrope who’s bad at maths, so I got the worst of both worlds.’
Elsewhere she declares that her motto is: ‘He who hesitates is a damned fool.’
Miss Rosenberg is understood to have an English father and a Hong Kong Chinese mother who worked as an investment banker.
After leaving Marlborough, where Pippa Middleton was two years above her, and Princess Beatrice was just a year below, she soon began a year-long relationship with fellow Leeds University student Mr Butler.
Told his ex was being linked to the Google tycoon, he said: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least – she’s that kind of girl.’
He added: ‘Although Amanda did have a posh crew she knocked around with she wasn’t stuck up like you might expect from a Marlborough girl.
'With me I think there was a fascination with me being northern – I was pretty much the only person in our student halls who went to a comprehensive.’

More than a marketing manager: Miss Rosenberg also appears in promotional shots for Google Glass 

California dreamin': She wrote on her blog that she was initially so shy in her new role in Google's Silicon Valley HQ she failed to turn up at her first work drinks invitation, fearing she would be 'the weird loner in the corner'

Mixed-race heritage: Miss Rosenberg is understood to have an English father and a Hong Kong Chinese mother. She describes herself as 'part of the master race that is the Chinese Jew or Chew, if you will'

Geek chic: Miss Rosenberg's blog details how she made every effort to fit in with Google's in-crowd

Celebrity lifestyle: Miss Rosenberg poses with British rapper and iconic glasses-wearer Tinie Tempah

Romantic link: Hugo Barra, Google's product management director for Android. Miss Rosenberg was previously linked to the Google executive, who recently announced he was leaving the firm to take a job in China

Intriguingly Miss Rosenberg had already had a high-flying Google boyfriend in America – senior executive Hugo Barra, who recently announced he was leaving to join a Chinese computer firm.
Last night Miss Rosenberg – who got her Google Glass job after coming up with the voice command ‘Ok, Glass’ to activate the device - could not be contacted for comment.
A spokesman for Brin – who founded Google with Larry Page in 1998 – said that he was not legally separated from his wife and that ‘they remain good friends and partners’.

How I Smuggled 'Porn' Out of North Korea

By Isaac Stone Fish


On Wednesday, the occasionally reliable South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that a dozen performers, including Kim Jong Un's ex-girlfriend, were executed for making sex tapes, some of which "have apparently gone on sale in China," violating North Korean laws against pornography.

The story has been picked up by FoxNews and theTelegraph, among others, though it's impossible to judge its veracity. Still, this seems as good a time as any to tell the story of how I smuggled pornography out of Pyongyang.

On a trip to North Korea in September 2011, my tour group stopped in the city of Kaesong near the South Korean border. One of the few North Korean cities open to U.S. tourists, Kaesong is perched near the Demilitarized Zone, the heavily fortified, 160 mile-long border separating the two Koreas.

Tourism in North Korea involves minders shuttling you between Kim family monuments, punctuated by pre-arranged restaurant meals and, occasionally, opportunities to shop. Right around the time we were allowed to photograph a rock memorializing Kim Il Sung's last known calligraphy, our guides took us to a little stand. And in one of the few places selling goods to foreigners, amid bitter ginseng candies and wooden backscratchers and berry liquors, I purchased a silkscreen that, to my untrained eye, looked a lot like topless women bathing by a lake.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, tells me the silkscreen, pictured above, is a reproduction of a well-known painting by 18th century Korean artist Sin Yun Bok, called "AScenery on Dano Day." For North Koreans, "this will have a soft porno appeal," he says.

This probably wouldn't be remarkable anywhere else, but North Korea is one of the world's most conservative countries. It was shocking when Kim Jong Un appeared on television in July 2012 with (unlicensed) Disney characters, but more because the video also included women in strapless dresses -- bare shoulders in public are practically unheard of in Pyongyang, outside of a gymnastics outfit. In The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, defector Chol-hwan Kang gushesabout his first experience with erotic film in South Korea. "One night seemed too short a time to make up for a lifetime of North Korean prudishness," he wrote in his 2000 memoir. We had entered a fairyland. We couldn't believe our eyes."

Obviously, porn exists in North Korea. Former CIA official Henry Crumpton, in his 2012 book The Art of Intelligence, wrote "I've never met a North Korean diplomat who did not want porn, either for personal use or resale." And in 2009, South Korean media released a video, allegedly for internal North Korean use, featuring scantily clad women dancing to pop tunes.

As I was leaving the country, a border guard at the Pyongyang Airport, perhaps suspecting I was a journalist, gruffly and methodically searched through my bag. He unpacked my clothes, ruffled through my books, and peered into my Dopp kit. When he came across the red bag housing my silkscreen, I grew nervous and smiled awkwardly. He unfolded it and stared at the image. If memory serves, I was the last one of my tour group to go through security, and my mind briefly raced through the consequences of spreading illicit materials in the world's most repressive country. He looked up at me, only to flash a delighted grin, gently return the silkscreen to its bag, and wave me through.

source: foreignpolicy.com

Which Organs Can I Live Without, And How Much Cash Can I Get For Them?

First, a disclaimer: Selling your organs is illegal in the United States. It’s also very dangerous. Handing off an organ is risky enough when done in a top hospital, even more so if you’re doing it for cash in a back alley. No, really: Don’t do this. OK? OK.

There are many organs one can theoretically do without, or for which there’s a backup. Most folks can spare a kidney, a portion of their liver, a lung, some intestines, and an eyeball, and still live a long life. That said, donating a lung, a piece of liver or a section of intestines is a very complicated surgery, so it’s not done frequently on the black market. And no one’s going to make much cash on an eyeball. “In the U.S., there’s a fairly steady supply of donated corneas from corpses,” says Sean Fitzpatrick, director of public affairs at the New England Organ Bank. “There’s pretty much no market demand for eyes.” Giving up a kidney, though, is a relatively simple surgery that has netted desperate people a few bucks.

No one’s going to make much cash on an eyeball. Now, black-market organ dealers don’t do a great job of filing taxes, but here are some prices based on rumored deals and reports from the World Heath Organization. In India, a kidney fetches around $20,000. In China, buyers will pay $40,000 or more. A good, healthy kidney from Israel goes for $160,000.

Don’t expect to pocket all that dough, though. “The person giving up the organ only gets a fraction of the fee,” says Sally Satel, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank who studies the prices paid by legal and illegal organ-donor operations. After the organ broker—the guy who sets up your kidney-for-cash transaction—takes his cut, he needs to pay for travel, the surgeon, medical supplies and a few “look-the-other-way” payoffs. Most people get $1,000 to $10,000 for their kidney (probably much less than you were hoping for).

The best bet is to wait until compensation for organs is legalized in the U.S.—the Organ Trafficking Prohibition Act of 2009 would allow payment to donors, but it stalled in Congress—because there’s certainly a market for kidneys. Last summer, a man offering one of his for $100,000 (plus medical expenses) on Craigslist received several offers until the Web site removed his post. And you could probably hold out for even more. In 1999, before eBay delisted a kidney put up for auction, bidders drove the price up to $5.75 million.