Conservationists worried about wildlife selfie craze

NEW DELHI: Worried with reports of deaths due to craze for wildlife selfies, conservationists have raised concerns about enthusiasts risking their lives and endangering animals for photographs.
“The trend is of people clicking selfies when they spot animals or are holding them and upload on social media. No one should die. As long as it’s 3D (someone taking a picture with wildlife in the background) it is okay, but one shouldn’t risk lives. I would suggest don’t do it,” said Pradeep Vyas, West Bengal’s principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden.
Conceding he had received reports of certain deaths which allegedly occurred while clicking selfies, Vyas urged youngsters to refrain from putting themselves at risk, at a discussion on ‘Role of Civil Society in Wildlife Conservation’ organised by Society For Heritage and Ecological Researches (SHER) on May 10.
On the same page, conservationist Bittu Sahgal said one should not go for selfies at locations that are out of bounds or could endanger wildlife.
“If you are sitting in a jeep and taking a selfie, then its fine. There is no harm but risking your life or breaking a rule or endangering animals is not done,” said Sahgal, founding-editor of Sanctuary Asia and member of Maharashtra Board for Wildlife.
In 2015, a councillor was hurled to death by a tusker who charged him as he attempted to click photographs of a herd of elephants at Manikpara in Bengal’s West Midnapore district.
In February, a baby dolphin died after beachgoers in Argentina passed it around for selfies.

Endangered Sumatran rhino gives birth in Indonesia

save the critically endangered species. Photo: Stephen Belcher/Canon/International Rhino Foundation (IRF)/YABI via AP
JAKARTA: A Sumatran rhinoceros has given birth at an Indonesian sanctuary in a success for efforts to save the critically endangered species.
The International Rhino Foundation said the female calf was born on Thursday, weighs about 45 pounds (20 kilograms) and looks healthy and active.
“We haven’t stopped smiling since the moment we were sure she was alive and healthy,” said IRF’s executive director Susie Ellis in a statement. “While one birth does not save the species, it’s one more Sumatran rhino on Earth.”
Only an estimated 100 Sumatran rhinos remain, mostly on the island of Sumatra, and several are in captivity. They are threatened by destruction of tropical forest habitat and poachers who kill the animals for their horns, which are prized for making ornaments and for use in traditional medicine in China and other parts of Asia.
The species was rediscovered in the Indonesian part of Borneo through trails and footprints in 2013.
But one member of the small population on Borneo died in April after a wound from a poacher’s trap became infected.
The calf is the second to its mother Ratu, who gave birth to a male named Andatu in 2012, which was the first rhino birth in captivity in Indonesia in 124 years. The father, Andalas, was born at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2001.
IRF established the rhino sanctuary in the Way Kambas National Park on Sumatra in 1997. It praised the sanctuary’s staff as “top-notch experts” and said the second birth shows that the expertise exists in Indonesia to increase the rhino population.
The foundation said Ratu was given a hormone supplement daily during her pregnancy to help ensure it went to full-term.

Bodies of Sherpas killed on Mt Makalu sent to Kathmandu

BHOJPUR: Bodies of two Sherpa guides who had died of altitude-related sickness on the Mt Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, were sent to Kathmandu on Friday.
Da Tenji Sherpa of Jubing -1, Solukhumbu and Lakpa Wangel Sherpa from Makalu – 5, Sankhuwasabha had
died at Camp II (6,700 m) on Wednesday morning after they complained of altitude sickness.
Chief of the Sankhuwasabha District Police Office, DSP Gautam Kumar KC, said the bodies were airlifted to the Capital today after the weather cleared.
The bodies would be handed over to the kin after postmortem.
They were part of an 11-member Amical Alpin Makalu Expedition – 2016, locally managed by Thamserku Treks.

Giroud makes France squad, Ben Arfa among reserves

PARIS: France coach Didier Deschamps picked seasoned striker Olivier Giroud on Thursday for his 23-man squad for the European soccer Championship, which France will host, naming in-form forward Hatem Ben Arfa only as a reserve.
Giroud, recovering from a lean spell at Arsenal with a strong finish to the Premier League season, is one of six strikers in the squad alongside Antoine Griezmann, Dimitri Payet, Antony Martial, Kingsley Coman and Andre-Pierre Gignac.
Karim Benzema will miss the June 10-July 10 tournament after a ban for his involvement in an alleged blackmail scandal was upheld by the French federation last month.
The Real Madrid forward was suspended indefinitely last December after being put under formal investigation by a judge for alleged blackmail over a sex video involving France team mate Mathieu Valbuena, who was also left out of the squad announced on Thursday.
Ben Arfa, enjoying the most prolific season of his career with 17 goals for surprise Ligue 1 package Nice, is one of eight reserves who need a player to pull out injured to hope for a place in the final squad, which Deschamps has until May 31 to present to football’s European body UEFA.
“Hatem has had a great season but he’s not the only one in that position,” Deschamps told a news conference after unveiling his squad during the evening news programme on French television channel TF1.
“Giroud, that’s 25 goals in all competitions this season, for Griezmann it’s even more and Martial is on the same level,” he added. “My aim was not to pick the best 23 players but to go for a group capable of going very far in the tournament together.”
Deschamps chose to leave out Liverpool defender Mamadou Sakho, who is facing an investigation by UEFA after testing positive for an illegal substance following Liverpool’s Europa League tie against Manchester United on March 17.
France, who kick off their campaign against Romania at Stade de France on June 10, have plenty of young talent up front in Griezmann, Martial and Coman.
Their midfield looks attractive, too, with fine players in Juventus’s Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kante, who shone in Leicester City’s shock run to the Premier League title.
France have, however, looked vulnerable at the back in recent outings with Deschamps struggling to find successors to fullbacks Bacary Sagna and Patrice Evra, respectively 33 and 34.
France, who won the 1998 World Cup on home soil and the European Championship two years later with Deschamps as their captain, will also play Albania and Switzerland in the group stage.
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur), Steve Mandanda (Olympique Marseille), Benoit Costil (Stade Rennes)
Defenders: Raphael Varane (Real Madrid), Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal), Eliaquim Mangala (Manchester City), Jeremy Mathieu (Barcelona), Patrice Evra (Juventus), Bacary Sagna (Manchester City), Lucas Digne (AS Roma), Christophe Jallet (Olympique Lyon)
Midfielders: Paul Pogba (Juventus), Blaise Matuidi (Paris St Germain), Lassana Diarra (Olympique Marseille), N’Golo Kante (Leicester City), Yohan Cabaye (Crystal Palace), Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United)
Forwards: Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid), Dimitri Payet (West Ham United), Anthony Martial (Manchester United), Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich), Olivier Giroud (Arsenal), Andre-Pierre Gignac (UANL Tigres)
Reserves: Alphonse Areola (Villarreal), Hatem Ben Arfa (Nice), Kevin Gameiro (Sevilla), Alexandre Lacazette (Olympique Lyon), Adrien Rabiot (Paris St Germain), Morgan Schneiderlin (Manchester United), Djibril Sidibe (Lille), Samuel Umtiti (Olympique Lyon). (Editing by Catherine Evans and Clare Fallon)

Bangladesh Bank remains “compromised” months after cyber heist

DHAKA: Three hacking groups “are still lurking” in the network of Bangladesh’s central bank, putting the bank at risk of further attacks about three months after it lost $81 million in a cyber heist, according to a report by US computer security firms investigating the theft.
“There are some residual risks that the governor and board should understand, namely that Bangladesh Bank network is still not secure, and there exists a possibility of malicious acts by hackers,” said the report from the experts hired by Bangladesh Bank, parts of which were seen by Reuters.
The source who shared the document declined to provide access to its full contents, saying that the release of some details could hamper a multinational effort to catch the criminals and recover funds stolen in the February cyber attack.
Bangladesh Bank has declined comment on pending investigations into the heist. Asked about the report, a spokesman said: “We have engaged forensic experts to investigate the whole thing, including this.” He did not elaborate.
Investigators have determined that one team of hackers, dubbed Group Zero in the report, was responsible for the heist and remained inside the network, the report stated. Group Zero may be seeking to monitor the ongoing cyber investigations or cause other damage, but is unlikely to be able to order fraudulent fund transfers, the investigators wrote.
Two other groups are also inside the bank’s network, which is linked to the SWIFT international transaction system, the report found. One of the two is a “nation-state actor” engaged in stealing information in attacks that are stealthy but “not known to be destructive”, the report said.
The report, which was submitted earlier this month, did not further identify any of the groups.
A spokeswoman for SWIFT said she was unable to comment on the report.
SWIFT warned on Thursday of a malware attack on a commercial bank it did not name, similar to the hack at Bangladesh Bank.
In February, hackers ordered fraudulent fund transfers from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve via the SWIFT system, but the cooperative, owned by member banks and used by 11,000 financial institutions globally, has maintained that the messaging system it controls has not been compromised.
“Group Zero is the identified hacker group that has conducted the cyber attack” against Bangladesh Bank, the investigators said in the report, which they said was based on primary findings.
US-based cyber-security firms World Informatix and FireEye Inc. have been hired by Bangladesh’s central bank to investigate the theft.
A spokesman for FireEye said the firm will not comment on the ongoing investigation. World Informatix could not immediately be reached for comment.
In the attack, the hackers sought to transfer $951 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed.
Most of the transfers were blocked, but $81 million was sent to bank accounts in the Philippines in one of the largest cyber-heists in history. The money was quickly transferred through a remittance firm to casinos and casino agents and most remains missing.
In the report, the investigators said Group Zero mounted attacks on other banks, but did not elaborate.
The report said investigators knew little about a third group of hackers found inside the network, referred to as Group Two, except that they were using mostly commodity, or off-the-shelf hacking tools.
“Their motivations and activities are unknown, but could be unpredictable with media spotlight,” the report said, without elaborating further.
Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that investigators had found evidence that two of the three hacker groups in the Bangladesh attack were from Pakistan and North Korea, citing people briefed on the bank’s investigation.

SC quashes writ against nine-point agreement

KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court on Friday quashed a writ which had demanded that the nine-point agreement signed between CPN-UML and UCPN-Maoist be stayed.
A single bench of Acting Chief Justice Sushila Karki quashed the writ filed by five persons reasoning the apex court did not need to intervene into the agreement signed between two political parties.
The petitioners in their writ of certiorari had stated that the two parties’ agreement to withdraw conflict era cases and to accelerate the process of amending the relevant laws within 15 days was against the verdicts delivered by the Supreme Court.

PM responds to comments on govt policy and programme

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli responded to the lawmakers’ comments and queries on the government policy and programme at the Legislature-Parliament this afternoon.
Prime Minister Oli defended the government’s announcement to hold local elections in December, saying there was a void in the local bodies for over 15 years and the constitution envisaged the civic in its transitional provisions. He further urged all political forces to help hold the elections on announced time.
The House conducted deliberations on the government policy and programme, which was presented by President Bidya Devi Bhandari on May 8.