World

STOCKHOLM — Forty-eight reindeer have been killed in northern Sweden, struck by a speeding train they tried in vain to outrun, transport officials said Tuesday.

“It wasn’t pretty to see,” one reindeer rancher, Ingmar Blind, told state television network SVT.

The animals, which provide a livelihood for many in remote northern Sweden, met their fate on Saturday near the village of Kaitum in the country’s Laponia region.

Near-misses by railways are common as herds migrate during winter in search of food.

But in this case it appeared the herd had wandered onto snow-covered tracks and were startled by the train, the regional transport official in charge of maintenance, Fredrik Rosendahl, told AFP. The reindeer instinctively all ran along the tracks before the train, which crushed them.

“If you follow a reindeer in a car, for instance, it will tend to run in front of the car, it won’t go to one side,” Rosendahl explained. “So just imagine what happens with a train that needs more than a kilometre to come to a stop.”

BANGKOK — Protesters trying to topple Thailand’s government tightened a blockade around ministries on Tuesday and their leader warned the prime minister that she could be targeted next, as some saw more than two months of turmoil inching towards an endgame.

Major intersections in the capital, Bangkok, were blocked for a second day and a hardline faction of the agitators threatened to storm the stock exchange.

Protest leaders say demonstrators will occupy the city’s main arteries until an unelected “people’s council” replaces Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration, which they accuse of corruption and nepotism.

The unrest is the latest chapter in an eight-year conflict pitting the Bangkok-based middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier ousted by the military in 2006.

Although the capital was calm and the mood among the tens of thousands of protesters remained festive, analysts said the scope for a peaceful resolution of the crisis ahead of elections called for February 2 was narrowing.

“There is no clear way out,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank said in a report. “As anti-government protesters intensify actions, the risk of violence across wide swathes of the country is growing and significant.”

Ministries and the central bank have been forced to operate from back-up offices after protesters led by Suthep Thaugsuban stopped civil servants getting to work.

“In the next two or three days we must close every government office,” Suthep told a crowd of supporters. “If we cannot, we will restrict the movements of the prime minister and other ministers. We will start by cutting water and electricity to their homes. I suggest they evacuate their children.”

Groups of demonstrators marched peacefully from their seven big protest camps to ministries, the customs office, the planning agency and other state bodies on Tuesday, aiming to paralyse the workings of government.

A student group allied to Suthep’s People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) threatened to attack the stock exchange, with faction leader Nitithorn Lamlua telling supporters on Monday it represented “a wicked capitalist system that provided the path for Thaksin to become a billionaire”.

A PDRC spokesman said the bourse was not a target.

“We will not lay siege to places that provide services for the general public, including airports, the stock exchange and trains. However, we will block government offices to stop them from functioning,” Akanat Promphan told supporters at a rally.

Jarumporn Chotikasathien, president of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, said emergency measures had been prepared to secure the premises and trading systems. Trading was normal with the index up nearly 1 per cent at the close.

There was no special security visible at the exchange. A Reuters photographer said one group of protesters marched past on their way to the customs department but did not stop.

Deeply polarised

The demonstrations, which have been gathering pace for weeks, could cost the economy as much as 1 billion baht ($30.33 million) a day, according to a survey released by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Disruption to government services compounds the problems faced by Yingluck, who dissolved parliament in December and called a snap election for February. Now working from Defence Ministry facilities on the outskirts of Bangkok, she heads a caretaker administration that has a limited remit and cannot initiate policies that commit the next government.

Yingluck invited protest leaders and political parties to a meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss an Election Commission proposal to postpone the election until May.

But that proposal looked doomed, with protest leaders and opposition party members boycotting the meeting scheduled to be held at the air force’s headquarters in the north of the city.

Suthep says he is not interested in any election. He wants a “people’s council” to take power and eradicate the political influence of Thaksin and his family by altering electoral arrangements in ways he has not spelt out.

“A deal to postpone the election could buy time for negotiation but would be only a stopgap without a comprehensive, broadly accepted agreement on the future political order,” the ICG said. “Thailand is deeply polarised and the prospects for such an agreement are dim.”

It is widely thought that, if the agitation grinds on, the judiciary or the military may step in. The military has staged or attempted 18 coups in 81 years of on-off democracy, although it has tried to stay neutral this time and army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has publicly refused to take sides.

In 2010, the army put down a pro-Thaksin movement that closed down parts of central Bangkok for weeks. More than 90 people, mostly Thaksin supporters, died during those events.

Thaksin turned to politics after making a fortune in telecommunications. He redrew Thailand’s political map by courting rural voters and won elections in 2001 and 2005.

He now lives in exile to avoid a jail sentence handed down in 2008 for abuse of power, but he is seen as the power behind Yingluck’s government. Their Puea Thai Party seems likely to win any election held under present arrangements.

Many schools have been closed until Wednesday as a precaution in case of trouble, but shops and most private offices were open, even if many shoppers and commuters appeared to be avoiding the city centre.

The government has deployed 10,000 police to maintain law and order, along with 8,000 soldiers at government offices, but they are largely keeping out of sight.

Ministers have said they want to avoid confrontation, hoping the protest will run out of steam. It flared up in early November when the government tried to force through a political amnesty that would have allowed Thaksin to return a free man.

NEW DELHI, India — India marked three years since its last reported polio case Monday, meaning it will soon be certified as having defeated the ancient scourge in a huge advance for global eradication efforts.

India’s polio programme is one of the country’s biggest public health success stories, achieving something once thought impossible thanks to a massive and sustained vaccination programme.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, along with global groups who have been working to eradicate the virus, hailed Monday’s anniversary as “a monumental milestone”.

“We have completed a full three years without a single polio case and I’m sure that in the future there won’t be any polio cases,” Azad told reporters in the capital.

Smiling and flashing a V for victory sign, he added: “I think this is great news not just for India but the entire globe.”

With the number of cases in decline in Nigeria and Afghanistan, two of only three countries where polio is still endemic, world efforts to consign the crippling virus to history are making steady progress.

“In 2012, there were the fewest numbers of cases in endemic countries as ever before. So far in 2013 (records are still being checked), there were even less,” Hamid Jafari, global polio expert at the World Health Organisation (WHO), told AFP.

“If the current trends of progress continue we could very easily see the end of polio in Afghanistan and Nigeria in 2014.”

Success and caution

Despite the success, isolated polio outbreaks in the Horn of Africa and war-wracked Syria emerged as new causes for concern in 2013.

There are also reasons for caution in India, with the virus still considered endemic in neighbouring Pakistan, where vaccinators are being killed by the Taliban which views them as possible spies.

A fake vaccination programme was used by the CIA to provide cover for operatives tracking Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan by US special forces in May 2011.

Countries are certified by the WHO as being polio-free if they go 12 months without a case, and are then said to have eradicated it after a period of three years without new infections.

India will likely receive this endorsement only in March, which will trigger more exuberant celebrations than on Monday.

The wretched sight of crippled street hawkers or beggars on wheeled trolleys will remain, however, as a legacy of the country’s time as an epicentre of the disease.

In the absence of official data, most experts agree there are several million survivors left with withered legs or twisted spines who face discrimination and often live on the margins of society.

Million of vaccinators

The country’s success was built on a huge vaccination programme that began in the mid-1990s with the backing of the central government and a coalition of charities, private donors and UN agencies.

An army of more than two million vaccinators, supported by religious and community leaders, canvassed villages, slums, train stations and public gatherings in even the most remote parts of the country.

India reported 150,000 cases of paralytic polio in 1985, and it still accounted for half of all cases globally in 2009, with 741 infections that led to paralysis.

In 2010, the number of victims fell to double figures before the last case on January 13, 2011, when an 18-month-old girl in a Kolkata slum was found to have contracted it.

The girl, Rukshar Khatoon, is now attending school and leads a “normal life”, although she still suffers pain in her right leg, doctors and her parents told AFP.

“She can now stand on her feet and walk, but can’t run,” her father Abdul Saha said. “When her friends play, she remains a spectator.”

Saha, a father of four, said he had taken his son to get immunised but not two of his daughters. “It was a grave mistake,” he said.

Wider benefits

Jafari from the WHO highlighted the immense knock-on benefits for India, which is still afflicted by other preventable diseases, widespread malnutrition and poor sanitation.

“India has now set other important public health goals as a result of the confidence that the country has got from the successful eradication of polio,” he said, citing a new measles eradication goal.

Health Minister Azad said the next priorities were tackling non-communicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes but he conceded that the government needed to spend more on improving health services.

“In proportion to the GDP (gross domestic product), unfortunately we don’t spend that much money, as much as we should spend,” he told AFP.

CHARLESTON, West Virginia — More than 300,000 residents in West Virginia spent a third day with no safe drinking water because of a chemical spill and they may not be able to shower or drink from the tap for days to come, an official said on Saturday.

Governor Earl Ray Tomblin said there had been progress in the last 51 hours, and particularly on Saturday, but officials could not say when the ban might be lifted for the nine counties and the state capital of Charleston, the state’s largest city. As much as 18,927 litres of industrial chemical leaked into the Elk River on Thursday.

“Right now, no water is safe,” said Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Co. It could be days before water quality meets federally mandated quality standards, he said.

The spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or Crude MCHM, came from a tank belonging to Freedom Industries, a Charleston company that produces specialty chemicals for the mining, steel and cement industries, authorities said.

Mike Dorsey with the state’s Environmental Protection Department said crews were using shovels, excavators, barges, vacuum trucks and other equipment to contain the spill.

“Every possible method of remediation for that kind of spill is being employed out there right now,” Dorsey said.

The amount of MCHM in the water was decreasing by late Saturday, but is not yet consistently low enough for people to safely use the water, said Lieutenant Colonel Greg Grant from the West Virginia National Guard.

The regional ban on using tap water will be lifted one area at a time as officials work to meet the one part-per-million requirement set by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said McIntyre of West Virginia American Water Co.

Officials have said chemical levels in the water were declining, but the spill forced schools and businesses to close in Charleston and surrounding communities.

President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent 75 tractor trailers filled with bottled water to distribute, with National Guard assistance, to the more than 300,000 people unable to use their tap water.

FEMA said it had by Saturday sent about one million litres of water to the area and more water was to be delivered on Saturday night and Sunday to supplement what is available in the private sector, officials said.

Five admitted

to hospitals

So far, 73 had gone to area emergency rooms and five had been admitted for observation, said Secretary Karen Bowling of the state Department of Health and Human Resources.

Their symptoms included nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, rashes and reddened skin, officials said.

Water carrying the industrial chemical has an odor like licorice or anise.

The contamination has forced area restaurants to close, but officials are working on a plan to allow some eateries to reopen if they can prove they have a source of safe water, said Dr. Rahul Gupta, the health officer at the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department.

“We’ll review those plans, and after we verify, we’ll reopen businesses on a case-by-case basis,” Gupta said.

For some residents, enduring another day without access to running water, the wait was too long.

Russell Anderson, who lives down the street from the spill, said he spent his Saturday stocking up on bottled water supplies at a Rite Aid drugstore.

“It’s been a real pain,” he said. “I just took a shower yesterday. I’m fighting a cold right now and I just couldn’t go without, so I took my chances.”

Local officials helping out with distribution of bottled water said they have had a hard time keeping up with demand.

“Really the biggest challenge has been running out and having to wait 10 to 15 minutes before we can get some more,” said Kanawha County Sheriff Deputy Jed Walls.

OTTAWA — Canada announced Wednesday the first H5N1 avian flu death in North America, of a patient who had just returned from China, and said it was urgently contacting airline passengers on the victim’s flights.

It was also the first known instance of someone in North America contracting the illness, Canada Health Minister Rona Ambrose told a press conference, stressing it was an “isolated case”.

The victim, who had recently returned from a trip to Beijing and had been otherwise completely healthy, was from the western plains province of Alberta, officials said, adding they were withholding the person’s gender and other identifying details to protect the family’s privacy.

“I am here to confirm North America’s first human case of H5N1, also known as avian flu,” Ambrose said, confirming the patient died on January 3.

“I want to reassure the public this is an isolated case and the risk of H5N1 to Canadians is very low. There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission,” the minister added.

The virus is contracted directly from birds, mainly poultry. The illness it causes in humans is severe and 60 percent of human cases are fatal.

The victim began to feel ill during the December 27 flight home to Alberta province, developing a fever and headache. They were admitted to hospital on January 1 when the symptoms worsened suddenly and they began falling in and out of consciousness.

The patient died two days later.

The federal microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, identified the H5N1 virus overnight from a specimen that had been taken while the victim was still alive.

Doctors said the deceased had travelled with two companions who are not sick but will be kept under observation as a precaution for 10 days — double the usual time it takes for the virus to manifest itself.

“The patient’s family is not showing any sign of illness. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission on airplanes. All evidence indicates this is one isolated case in an individual who is infected following exposure in China,” said Alberta Chief Medical Officer James Talbot.

“Although we don’t know at this time how the individual contracted the virus,” he added.

Talbot said the victim had not travelled outside Beijing to the regions of China, and had not visited a farm, nor a public market.

Canadian officials have notified China and the World Health Organisation, but said they are at a loss to explain where or how the person caught the illness. Beijing had been believed to be free of the bird flu virus.

Search for airline passengers

Authorities have also secured passenger lists and were contacting others on the same flights as the victim to reassure them of the “extremely low” chance of contagion.

The victim flew from Beijing to Vancouver on Air Canada flight 030 on December 27, then went on to Edmonton, Alberta, aboard Air Canada flight 244.

The person’s final destination was not revealed, again for privacy reasons, but he or she was treated at an Edmonton hospital.

Other recent fatal cases have been reported in Indonesia and Cambodia, in November.

Avian flu viruses have been around for a long time in wild birds but do not generally cause disease in humans, though in rare cases they mutate and jump species.

Strains of the H5, H7 and H9 avian influenza subtypes have caused human infections, mainly following direct contact with infected poultry. None of the strains have yet mutated to become easily transmissible from person to person — the epidemiologists nightmare.

The H5N1 virus is the best-known of the strains, having caused 633 confirmed flu cases in humans in 15 countries from 2003 to July this year, of whom 377 died.

ISTANBUL — Europe voiced its concern Wednesday about the independence of the judiciary in crisis-wracked Turkey as the government embarked on a new purge of the police and moved to curb the powers of the country’s top legal body.

In its strongest comments yet on the deepening corruption scandal, the EU warned that a wave of police sackings could undermine the investigations and called on the authorities to ensure any wrongdoing was looked into in a “transparent and impartial” manner.

The political turmoil has rocked Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government to its very core just weeks before crucial local elections in March and has sent Turkish financial markets tumbling.

In the latest development, 16 police chiefs in several major cities as well as the deputy head of national security were fired Wednesday.

The latest purge came just a day after the government fired 350 police in Ankara — bringing the total number sacked to over 700 since mid-December when the graft scandal broke, according to local media tallies.

And in a new twist to the increasingly complex powerplay, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a bill Tuesday seeking constitutional changes to restructure the top independent judicial body, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK).

Justice Minister Beckir Bozdag also said the government would block an HSYK investigation into alleged political pressure on police and prosecutors involved in the widening investigation that has targeted several key Erdogan allies.

“Proposals to curb powers of HSYK represent serious setback for the independence of the judiciary in Turkey,” the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said on Twitter.

The crisis has raised questions about the political survival of the prime minister, arguably one of the most powerful figures in modern Turkey who took office in 2002 after years of government instability and an economic meltdown.

“Turkey is going through one of the deepest crisis in its history. If the allegations are true, it means that the government is rotten to the core,” wrote Mehmet Tezkan, a columnist with the liberal Milliyet newspaper.

‘Sackings a

matter of concern’

And the European Union — which predominantly Muslim Turkey has long aspired to join — weighed into the crisis on Wednesday.

The European Commission said Turkey should ensure that allegations of wrongdoing “are addressed without discrimination or preference in a transparent and impartial manner”.

The firing of police officers and investigators was also a “matter of concern”, it added in a statement.

“These steps could undermine the current investigations and capacity of the judiciary, and the police to investigate matters in an independent manner.”

The government insisted it would overcome the crisis, which Erdogan has described as a “dirty” plot to topple his 11-year-old administration.

“The government is in charge. We will never let the political and economic stability of Turkey be harmed,” Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said.

Erdogan last year faced massive street demonstrations as Turks protested against a government critics say has become increasingly authoritarian and is seeking to impose its conservative Islamic values on many aspects of society in the staunchly secular state.

He and his allies say the probe was instigated by supporters of exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who wields considerable influence in Turkey’s judiciary and police.

The crisis erupted in December when dozens of leading businessmen and political figures — including the sons of three ministers — were detained over alleged bribery in construction projects and illicit money transfers by a state-owned bank to sanctions-hit Iran.

News reports said Tuesday another 25 people including civil servants had been rounded up.

Bill seeks to clip judiciary’s wings

Erdogan was forced into a major cabinet reshuffle last month and the government has since gone on the offensive to root out foes in the police and judiciary.

The bill targeting the HSYK is due to be discussed by a parliamentary commission on Friday, Turkish media reported.

The HSYK had said Tuesday it planned to look into allegations that new Istanbul police chief Selami Altinok was blocking prosecutors from carrying out further arrests in the graft probe.

But Bozdag said the government would not allow a probe into Altinok or several top prosecutors, including one who was barred from expanding the corruption investigation amid reports it may target Erdogan’s son.

Erdogan’s critics accuse him of desperately trying to protect cronies caught up in the investigation, which has tarnished the government’s previously clean image.

“If there are unlawful actions, corruption or bribery, this will eventually be revealed,” AKP spokesman Huseyin Celik told reporters.

Erdogan has vowed to battle what he terms “a state within a state” — an apparent reference to Gulen loyalists, once staunch AKP supporters.

He is now seeking to mend fences with the once all-powerful army by speaking out in favour of fresh trials for hundreds of military officers jailed in 2012 and 2013 for allegedly plotting coups against his government.

Turkey’s financial markets remain jittery, with the lira at 2.18 to the dollar compared to its all time low of 2.19 on Monday while the stock market was down 1.85 per cent.