Japanese carmaker Toyota has overtaken Ford, its US rival, to become the world's second biggest car seller.
The Japanese firm said it sold 6.78 million cars worldwide in 2003, against Ford's 6.72 million.
BBC News Jan.26.04
- - - - - - - -
4.7 million birds in 51districts had died since August.
About 60% of these had died from Newcastle's disease, which is harmless to humans, while the remainder had been infected with bird flu.
"The government is not trying to conceal that avian influenza has attacked millions of chickens in Indonesia," he said. "Besides attacking egg-laying hens, the avian influenza has also attacked [other] chickens, quails and ducklings."
If correct, this would mean Indonesia's poultry industry has been affected more severely than Thailand and Vietnam, the two countries where human cases have been detected.
A seventh person is sus pected of having died of bird flu in Thailand, and the virus's rapid spread has put the entire region on a health alert.
More than 9 million chickens have been culled in Thailand and 3 million in Vietnam.
John Aglionby/Guardian UK Jan.26.04
- - - - - - - -
Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist, died last week in a London hospital. He was shot in the head by Israeli sniper fire nine months ago while shepherding Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip out of the line of fire. He had been in a coma since his injury. Hours before Hurndall died, the soldier who shot him was charged with aggravated assault. The charge is now likely to be revised to manslaughter or murder; British police are participating in an official investigation of his death.
Rachel Corrie from Olympia was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Rafah refugee camp about a month before Hurndall was shot there. Like Hurndall, Corrie was a volunteer with the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation of Palestine (ISM). Like Hurndall, she was killed by an identifiable Israeli soldier. As in Hurndall's case, the Israeli government initially released a report on Corrie's killing, stating that nobody connected with the Israeli military was culpable and that further investigation was not required.
-
A culture of impunity permeates the Israeli military, which is well known for its non-investigations of itself. For this reason, the Hurndall family would like to see the investigation of his death extend all the way up the chain of command.
Corrie's parents are not lawyers. In addition, they were told by members of the Washington state congressional delegation and State Department officials that if they quietly played along, justice for their daughter would ultimately be achieved. So far, all that has emerged is a non-credible Israeli military report claiming that 1) Corrie was not run over by a bulldozer and 2) even if she had been, the driver could not have seen her. These statements are contradicted respectively by the autopsy report and multiple eyewitness reports.
Wendy Smith/Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Common Dreams Jan.23.04
