Dutch camel farm gains credibility

The Bedouin of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula have long been convinced that the milk of camels can cure almost any internal disease, driving bacteria from the body.
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Europe: The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations reports that doctors in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan often prescribe it to convalescing patients.
In India, camel milk is used therapeutically against jaundice, tuberculosis, asthma, anaemia and piles.
And there is some evidence of a much-reduced incidence of diabetes in parts of the country where it is regularly drunk.
European health food?
In the Netherlands, proving the veracity of such claims to a sceptical European audience has become a family concern.
When 26-year-old Frank Smits became Europe's first commercial camel farmer, his father, Marcel, a neurologist at Gelderse Vallei Hospital in Ede, decided to help the cause by recruiting his medical colleagues to look into some of the alleged health benefits of his son's product.
Three years down the line, Dr Smits has attracted enough interest and credibility for his research to win funding from the local health authority and nearby Wageningen University.
"I think this milk does have some potential to become a new health food in Europe, but I prefer health food when it's proven scientifically," he said. "And that's what we are trying to do.
"For example, we did a study with diabetic patients, involving giving them half a litre of either cow or camel milk here in the hospital, starting early in the morning and monitoring their blood sugar level every 30 minutes for three hours."
The patients were not told whether they had drunk milk from a cow or a camel, said Dr Smits, adding that the the full results from the tests would be available at the beginning of next year.
"In the meantime, we are starting a bigger study, lasting three months, with up to 200 diabetic patients and we would not be commissioning such a study if the results of the first research had not been encouraging," said Dr Smits.
"We have also found evidence that diabetics feel better when they are regularly drinking camel milk, that their quality of life seems to improve.
"I don't know if this is only the influence on the diabetes or if it is also other aspects of camel milk which improve well-being. And that is also one of the things we are looking into."
Importing problems
Frank Smits set up the farm in 2006, on land near his student halls of residence in Cromvoirt, with three camels imported from the Canary Islands.
He now has 40 animals, not enough of which are yet old enough to produce milk to give him the quantities he needs to move into profit.
"I read about the health-giving properties of camel milk," he said. "And I thought 'why are there no camel farmers here in Europe?'"
It was a difficult process becoming the first one, though. The initial problem was that the camel was not officially classified by the European Union as a production animal.
Mr Smits had to have special permission from the government, proving his ability to treat the animals well and humanely.
Then he was told it was forbidden to import camels from outside Europe.
Then there was the problem of milking.
Problematic temperaments
Frank Smits claims to have invented the world's first effective camel milking machine.
It looks similar to a cow milking machine, but the vacuum function is different, the pulsation is different and the devices which attach to the camel's teats are different sizes.
At the same time, Smits had to ensure there was a market for his product. He began handing out samples of his milk outside local mosques, appealing chiefly to Moroccan and Somalian immigrants whose families back home were accustomed to it as a staple.
"Of course there was no demand for camel milk at the start because nobody knew you could buy it here," he said.
"But word did slowly spread and he now supplies to more than 50 shops in Holland and exports to Germany and to the UK."
Eventually, his hope is that camel milk will catch on widely among native Europeans.
There is one serious obstacle to mass production, however, which is the problematic temperament of your average camel.
This not only requires the presence of its calf to give milk but, according to Frank Smits, also has to be in the right mood away from the company of strangers.

Israel swaps Palestinian women for soldier tape

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM
Israel on Friday received a video recording of a soldier held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past three years, Israeli officials said.
The handover was carried out as Israel released 19 Palestinian women prisoners in its part of the exchange, Reuters Television reported from the West Bank border as Red Cross jeeps carried the women across to freedom.
The video
The video showing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit alive was aired on Israeli television on Friday.
Looking gaunt, the clean-shaven 23-year-old read from a piece of paper, at times smiling or repressing a grin, as he sat on a chair against a white wall.
"I want to send my regards to my family and tell them that I love them and miss them and yearn for the day I will see them again," said Shalit, with his hair cut short and holding a copy of a Gaza newspaper dated September 14, 2009.
"I hope that the government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will not waste now an opportunity to reach a deal," he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
"I feel well and the mujahedeen of the (Ezzedine) al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well," he said, referring to the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza.
"I have been waiting a long time for the day I am released."
At the end of the two-minute, 40-second recording, Shalit got up and walked toward the camera to illustrate that he was in good health.
A positive move
The swap is the most positive move in three years of efforts to free Shalit, captured in June 2006 in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants
Brokered by German and Egyptian mediators, it could be a step towards a broader deal for his liberation, in return for the release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has not visited Shalit and only a few letters and an audio cassette from him have reached his family, which has waged a vocal campaign to get him freed
Officials had said that the German mediator has already viewed the recording and believes it showed Shalit in recent weeks. Shalit's family was expected to view the videotape before its release to the public.
"Israel will receive updated and clear proof on the health and condition of Gilad Shalit. This proof of life will be handed to Israel by the mediators in the form of a videotape that has recently been filmed," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office had said when announcing the deal on Wednesday.
10,000 Palestinian prisoners
Israel holds more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas is negotiating for the release of hundreds of its members in exchange for Shalit, including militants behind deadly attacks who Israel has said in the past it would not free.
Netanyahu's office stressed that the latest development did not herald an imminent release of Shalit, but was meant as a confidence-building measure ahead of "decisive stages in the negotiations," and warned that the talks were still expected to be "long and arduous."
All but one of the Palestinian women due to be released are from the West Bank and none has been directly implicated in killing Israelis.
The women include members of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A 15-year-old Palestinian girl who was on the initial list of prisoners to be released in the swap was freed on Wednesday after a parole board shortened her sentence in a development unconnected with the prisoner swap.
The teenager was serving 11 months for attempted murder and an attack on a police officer.
About 11,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, 60 of them women, including those to be released on Friday, and 320 are under 18 years old, according to the prisons service.

China's 60th anniversary celebrations begin

BEIJING: China's capital began to celebrate the country's ascendance with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles on Thursday, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.
Thousands of police and troops cleared central Beijing of all passers-by before the anniversary parade for the birth of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949.
Tiananmen Square has become a high-tech stage to display the ruling Communist Party's achievements before invited guests.
Troops started celebrations by firing cannons, marching down red carpet on the Square and raising the red national flag, watched on by President Hu Jintao wearing a slate grey "Mao" suit, who stood with other Communist Party leaders on the "Gate of Heavenly Peace."
Hu then descended and began to inspect rows of soldiers and tanks, riding past them in a black limousine and saying repeatedly, "Hello comrades, hard-working comrades!"
The parade of 8,000 picture-perfect soldiers, tanks and missiles, 60 elaborate floats, and 100,000 well-drilled civilians will be a proud moment for many Chinese citizens, watching the spectacle across the country on television.
China’s "newest model of intercontinental nuclear-capable missiles" will be on show.
President Hu Jintao also wants the day of extraordinary spectacle and security to make the case that its formula of one-party rule and rapid growth remains the right one for hauling the world's third-biggest economy into prosperity, ruling 1.3 billion people and elevating China into a superpower.
The soldiers goose-stepping past Tiananmen Square at exactly 116 steps a minute will carry the message that this Party knows how to run a show -- and a huge, restive country.
"From desperate poverty to the world's third biggest economy, from not having enough to eat and wear to general prosperity ... China has never been as strong," said an editorial in the official People's Daily.
Before the parade, the displays were trundled into place on the eastern edge of central Beijing.
They included a farm produce float with two model cows; one showing China's space programme with a lunar orbiter; and a Beijing Olympic Games display including a model of the Bird's Nest stadium.
Officials have swaddled the event in thick security, making it impossible for ordinary Beijing residents to see the parade directly.
They have been told to stay home and watch the television, and even those living on the parade route are banned from peeking out their windows.
Flights into Beijing will stop during the parade and even kites and pet pigeons have been grounded.
"The credit for 60 years of brilliant achievements goes to the Chinese people and the great Chinese Communist Party, "Premier Wen Jiabao told an anniversary reception late on Wednesday.
"We must unwaveringly protect social stability," Premier Wen told the officials and leaders gathered in the echoing Great Hall of the People, the parliament building next to Tiananmen Square.

Taliban film shows leader is dead

The Taliban in Pakistan have released a video confirming that their former leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead.
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A video received by the BBC shows the body of the former head of Pakistan's largest Taliban group lying in a room. It is not clear where it was taken.
Mr Mehsud was killed on 6 August in the tribal region of South Waziristan in a missile attack by a suspected US drone.
The video came as officials said at least six people had been killed in a fresh drone attack in North Waziristan.
See a map of the region
The strike near the town of Mir Ali was the third such attack in the past 24 hours against militant targets near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said. Two missile attacks on Tuesday, one in South Wziristan and one in North Waziristan, left at least 12 suspected militants dead.
Covered
US and Pakistani officials were quick to claim Mr Mehsud's death, but it took nearly three weeks for the Taliban to admit he had been hurt in the attack and had later died.
It is not clear why they have decided to release the video of their former leader now. They announced his death and named a successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in late August.
The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says the video shows Baitullah Mehsud lying on a flat surface in a room, amid virtual silence.
His entire body is covered in a white funeral shroud, so it is difficult to tell how his body was injured in the attack.
There are no marks on his face, except for a few scratches near his nose.
A man is shown in the video crouching near the body clearly stricken with grief.
The video, which lasts nearly two minutes, has little audio. Two sentences are spoken.
A voice, apparently that of the video maker, says: "If there was a leader, there would have been some preparations."
Later, the same voice says: "May Allah destroy these cruel people who do not use rifles and Allah knows what else, to kill us."
Pakistan's government publicly condemns drone attacks, arguing that they fuel anti-American feeling, but many observers say Islamabad secretly endorses the tactic.
Hundreds of militants and civilians have been killed in dozens of such attacks in the past year.

British girl banned from selling granny on eBay

Ad said grandmother was cuddly but annoying
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LONDON : A 10-year-old British girl has been barred from trying to sell her granny on eBay, who she complained was "cuddly" but "annoying," the auction website said Wednesday.
Zoe Pemberton wrote a light-hearted listing to sell her 61-year-old grandmother Marion Goodall, of Clacton, southeastern England, but eBay said the advert breached human trafficking regulations.
"Obviously we have rules about the selling of people," said an eBay spokeswoman. "We had to take it down but it was quite amusing.
"The little girl had described her grandmother as 'annoying' but had gone on to say she liked crosswords and was 'cuddly' and there were quite a few offers."