A 36-metre sailboat, on a three-year expedition across the world to study oceanic ecosystems and attempt to provide answers to climate issues, is on course to cruise into Indian shores this month.

‘Tara’, which set sail from Lorient in France on September 5 last year, will stopover in Mumbai on March 25 and in Goa on April one before continuing through the Indian Ocean and towards South America by the end of 2010.

The French-led ‘Tara Oceans’ expedition is carrying out a detailed analysis of microscopic life throughout the world’s oceans to understand its importance and its sensitivity to climate change.

“We hope we will find out what the oceans will look like in 100 years…..Which micro-organisms have gone extinct, which micro-organisms have taken over and how oceans will influence climate in future”, Scientific Coordinator of Tara Ocean, Chris Bowler, told PTI.

It’s a three-year project, bringing together an international team of oceanographers, ecologists, biologists, geneticists, and physicists from prestigious laboratories headed by Eric Karsenti of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

At any given point of time, there are 14 people on board - five sailors, five scientists and four journalists.

These sailors dive into the sea 2000 metres deep and pull out microscopic life three-four times a week, Bowler, also an Advisory Board Member of Bangalore-based firm Avesthagen, said.

The voyage is currently funded by a French clothing company and an electricity firm. “But we are looking for more money to keep going. We need something like USD three million per year to run the boat”, Bowler said.

It was noted that oceans produce half the oxygen that we breathe. Prairies of plankton and other micro-organisms constitute, via their photosynthetic activity, an enormous oxygen pump. But these marine organisms are also a major carbon dioxide sink. As a result, the future depends on saving the oceans.

Tara Oceans expedition seeks to study oceanic ecosystems for a better understanding of the threats faced by them. It would attempt to provide answers to climate issues and in particular, to deepen knowledge on marine biodiversity.

Oceans ecosystem remains one of the least-explored fields of oceanography and, therefore, the least well-known to man, despite its extensive and rich biodiversity.

“But today this marine life is threatened by the major ecological upheavals of climate change and pollution. Will marine ecosystems survive to these disruptions? Are we going towards a transformation of oceanic life?”, Bowler asked.

Tara Oceans is an expedition that cruises the seas of the globe. The urgency of the situation, as well as the scope and characteristics of the expedition is making it an extraordinary voyage around the planet, to help understand its origins, evaluate its present state and to preserve its future, officials said.

When Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras met, they knew immediately that theirs would be a friendship based on wonder and curiosity. Atlas Obscura, their recently launched Web site, is a testament to that belief.

A Wikipedia-style user-generated site, Atlas Obscura says its mission is to highlight and reveal “the world’s wonders, curiosities and esoterica” through an integration of travel and Web.

“We had been talking about some kind of resource like this, pretty much since we met, and then I spent a year in Hungary traveling, going to these strange places and writing” a travel blog, Thuras said in an e-mail.

Foer, a freelance science journalist recently relocated to Connecticut from Brooklyn, New York, and Thuras, a director/video editor who still resides in Brooklyn, launched the site upon Thuras’ return stateside, allowing users to submit articles to a panel of volunteer editors who then vet and publish the pieces.

The site is receiving 200,000 unique visitors per month. Now Foer and Thuras have organized a day dedicated to their vision. Obscura Day, taking place Saturday, aims to incorporate the site’s mission into a day of collective global pilgrimages.

Capitalizing on the vast network of users the site has accumulated — through the use of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as a rabid networking campaign — they’ve been able to coordinate day trips guided by volunteers around the world. Go to atlasobscura.com/obscura-day to sign up for Saturday’s events.

The organized events are as far-flung and disparate as their locations. About 200 people have committed to a trip to California City, California, a planned city in the middle of the Mojave Desert that was never finished. It is now home to about 15,000 people, many of whom live within a surrounding network of crumbling roads, the vestiges of the abandoned city plan.

In Belgrade, Serbia, an expedition will be led to famed scientist Nikola Tesla’s eponymous museum, and in Dunedin, New Zealand, explorers will visit the Beverly clock, which is powered only by changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature. Established in 1864, the clock is one of the world’s longest running science experiments.

The initial role of Atlas Obscura was not only to uncover the world’s overlooked and underappreciated intrigues but to counteract what Foer and Thuras felt was an increasingly homogeneous tourist culture.

“There are so many amazing, fascinating, wondrous places in the world that most people just don’t step foot in or bother to seek out. Florence, Italy, is a great example, where the tourists all tend to go to the same five places,” Thuras said.

To Obscura enthusiasts, Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell is just a broken piece of copper and tin. A real attraction in Philly is the Eastern State Penitentiary, a spectral urban prison that once housed Al Capone, among many others.

And in Brussels, Belgium, the chocolates and beers are nothing more than a tasty accompaniment to Mini-Europe, a theme park featuring miniature, 1:25 scale models of monuments in the European Union, an ironic twist on the Atlas Obscura theme of avoiding popular landmarks.

These are just two of many examples of articles that pop up on the site.

“Our goal is not merely to catalog these incredible places, but to get people out in the world exploring them. Too often the sorts of spots described in the Atlas are under-appreciated and under-celebrated. And too often, they end up closing their doors,” Foer said via e-mail.

“Our mission is to celebrate these places, and hopefully help preserve them. We like to think of ourselves as UNESCO’s weird little brother.”

The friends are quick to point out the essential role social media play in sustaining a thriving fan base and attracting participants for Obscura Day.

“The Atlas is the creation of a network of far-flung contributors. I’m not sure if we’d have had the success we’ve had without Facebook and Twitter, which are our main tools for staying in touch with, and growing, our community,” Foer said.

Marina Popovic, 29, organizer of the Obscura Day tour of the Nikola Tesla museum, found out about the site through Twitter.

“This is a truly open online collaborative network manifesting as a set of explorations in the real world, and I’m proud that Belgrade is a part of it,” said Popovic, a Belgrade architect.

With a few exceptions, the response to Obscura Day has been positive. Bureaucracy and politics crushed an event in Syria, where plans to visit the Damascus Bimaristan, an Arab science and medicine museum, were scrapped over concerns that retaliation against organizers would be staged based on Atlas Obscura’s involvement with an event in Israel.

“I think the place with the fewest RSVPs is our event in Havana, Cuba. But that’s only because most Cubans don’t have access to the Internet. We happen to know that there will be people there. Also, the Iceland Phallological Museum in Husavik has only two RSVPs, but it’s in a tiny little town four hours north of Reykjavik,” Foer said.

When Foer and Thuras started the site, they wondered whether there would be enough curiosities to sustain it. But the doubt was unfounded, Foer said.

“When we started the Atlas, we feared there’d be only a limited number of wondrous and curious places in the world for people to catalog. So far it’s turned out we were wrong. We get new, incredible places pouring in every day.”

Dubbing ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka as a “fool”, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ruled out an early pardon for the General, who is being court-martialled on charges of engaging in politics while in uniform and defence procurement irregularities.

“He is a fool. On 16th November (2009) he was sitting right here (President’s office in Colombo) and I asked him if he was interested in contesting (the presidential election) and he said, No, sir… I haven’t made up my mind. Even on the day of his last visit he didn’t tell me,” Rajapaksa said in an interview to Singapore’s Straits Times published today.

Fonseka, who led the Sri Lankan army to victory against the LTTE last year, was the joint opposition candidate in the January 26 Presidential polls in which he was defeated by Rajapaksa.

“So I advised him. I told him that politics is not the army. In the army, when you have an order they follow. In politics you give order and they react in a different way… I told him, whatever he might think, I know this game and I am going to win this election. Whoever is my opponent doesn’t matter to me,” Rajapaksa said.

He made the remarks when asked about his feelings towards Fonseka and whether the former army chief could be accommodated under the planned national reconciliation.

Rajapaksa said he could have prevented Fonseka, who is being detained at the Naval Headquarters in Colombo since his arrest on February 8, from contesting the Presidential polls by delaying his retirement.

“I could have stopped him (from) contesting, because he couldn’t retire until I permitted him to. I could have just sat on his retirement request until after the nomination papers were filed… But I let him contest. I didn’t want people to say I was frightened,” he said.

Claiming that Fonseka was on “holiday” in China when the war against the LTTE was in its last days, the President ruled out an early pardon for him.

“But if I pardon him what about army discipline? What about the court martials of other officers? What can I do! This is the British law. They gave it to India and us,” he said.

“Fonseka himself put thousands of soldiers under court martial. At one time the figure was 8,500. I shouted at him and I had to release them,” Rajapaksa told the paper.

He said Fonseka wanted to increase the size of the army to 450,000 from 200,000 after the war got over as the General treated India as an “external threat.”

“India’s standing army is 1.5 million, its paramilitary forces are about 1 million. So what can 450,000 do against 2.5 million? I told him, let me worry about external forces,”
Rajapaksa said.

He also alleged that Fonseka had “placed cash of 700,000 dollars in a bank after the elections.”

Asked about charges that the former army chief was plotting a coup, Rajapaksa said “there was something going on.

I cannot discuss all details as inquiries and legal proceedings are on.”

“It is up to the police and security forces to frame the charges. It is not for me to get involved. Let them handle it.

Whether he is found guilty or not guilty is not my concern. But the procedure must go on. The law must be enforced irrespective of persons,” he said.

BEIRUT - A 2-year-old lion, emaciated and barely breathing, is found in a tiny cage off a Beirut highway. Monkeys are hauled through the dark tunnels of Gaza, bound for private zoos. Rare prize falcons are kept in desert encampments by wealthy Arab sheiks.

The trade in endangered animals is flourishing in the Middle East, fueled by corruption, ineffective legislation and lax law enforcement.

“It’s a problem in the Arab world that we can no longer ignore,” said Marguerite Shaarawi, co-founder of the animal rights group Animals Lebanon.

The group is pushing for Lebanon to join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, whose signatories are meeting this month in Qatar. It is the first time the 175-nation convention is meeting in an Arab country.

Lebanon and Bahrain are the only Arab countries yet to sign the convention.

Delegates at the U.N. conference are considering nearly four dozen proposals on a range of endangered species from rhinos to polar bears.

John Sellar, chief enforcement officer for CITES, said it is difficult to estimate the extent of the illegal trade in the Arab world, but Animals Lebanon estimates that it is the third largest illegal trade in the region, after weapons and drugs.

“Much of the illegal trade that takes place here is of a specialized nature,” Sellar said, citing the example of prize falcons, kept by many Arab sheiks in desert encampments, particularly in the United Arab Emirates.

“We’ve also seen some smuggling of very exotic species … like very rare parrots, young chimpanzees, gorillas and leopards that seem to be for the private collections of some of the rich individuals in the Gulf area,” he said.

Abusers fined just $15
Several recent incidents have underscored the plight of animals in Lebanon — a country where the only law that refers to animal rights stipulates that anyone who purposely harms an animal has to pay a fine of up to $15.

Willem Wijnstekers, the secretary-general of CITES, said countries must have strong laws in place to discourage animal smuggling. Otherwise, he said, smugglers will simply see the penalties as part of the cost of doing business, and not a deterrent.

In December 2009, Animals Lebanon began a campaign against Egypt’s Monte Carlo Circus after it received a tip that the circus animals — six lions and three tigers — did not have proper certificates and had not received water or food during the six-day trip from Egypt to Lebanon.

The group sent several activists and a veterinarian to the circus grounds to investigate, and they reported the animals were malnourished and that one cub had been de-clawed.

The circus was declared illegal in January after Agriculture Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan sent the ministry’s own experts to investigate, but the circus has appealed. While the case continues, the circus is still giving daily performances attended by small crowds.

“The case of the circus, and the trade of the lions and tigers, highlighted the urgent need to have Lebanon join CITES and protect these endangered species,” Hajj Hassan said.

A circus employee at a recent performance denied the animals were treated badly.

“They say we are not feeding them. Look at them, do they look hungry to you?” the employee asked the audience as lions and tigers dutifully performed acrobatics around a caged tent near a highway just north of Beirut.

There was no official comment from the circus.

The animals looked healthy at the performance, weeks after the allegations were made.

Thailand’s red-shirt demonstrators have splashed blood under the gates of Government House in a protest against a leadership they say is illegitimate.

Earlier the protesters lined up to donate their blood, as the anti-government rallies entered a third day.

So far the protests have remained peaceful and both sides say they want to avoid violence.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday rejected a demand from protesters to quit and call elections.

The stand-off is the latest in a deep political schism in the country linked to the 2006 military coup which deposed former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

Tens of thousands of security forces remain on standby and army leaders say they plan to be flexible and gentle with the demonstrators as their protests continue.

In Bangkok, red-shirt leader Veera Musikapong was the first to donate blood for the protest.

“This blood is a sacrificial offering. To show our love for the nation, to show our sincerity,” he said.

“If Abhisit is still stubborn, even though he does not have blood on his hands, his feet will be bloodied with our curses,” another leader, Nattawut Saikur, said.

As night fell, protesters converged on Government House. Police allowed a group of them to approach the gates and splash the blood, a gesture shown on national television.

Not all of the blood has been used. Red-shirt leaders said more would be poured at other sites if their demands were not met.

Health officials, the Red Cross and even the protesters’ figurehead, Mr Thaksin, expressed concern about how hygienic the mass blood donation was.

But the protesters, including several monks, brushed off the concerns.

“We have three tents for blood donations. All people who conduct the blood drawing will be doctors, nurses or other qualified people who came here voluntarily,” said senior red shirt leader, Dr Weng Tojilakarn, who normally runs his own medical practice.

Somsak Janprasert, a retired railway official from Bangkok, told AFP news agency that he was donating blood because he wanted a democracy.

“This is a very symbolic way to express that our blood, the people’s blood, is power,” he said.

For its part, the government remains quiet on the sidelines.

A cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday appears to have been cancelled, and calls from members of Mr Abhisit’s coalition for a parliamentary hearing have been ignored.

Mr Abhisit, meanwhile, said the government was making every effort to avoid confrontation.

“I want to insist that there was an attempt to create conflict and the government has proved that it will not use violent means against the protesters,” he said.

“The symbolic event they are talking about is bloodshed, but that is not correct. It is not as if the government is trying to use violence to create bloodshed, it’s not the case at all.”

The protest, led by red-shirted supporters of Mr Thaksin has been one of the largest in recent years, although the BBC’s Rachel Harvey, at the scene, says the numbers appear to be dwindling.

The protesters say the present government was installed illegally after Mr Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in 2006, and two subsequent allied governments were deposed by court action.

On Sunday they held a mass rally in central Bangkok.

Local newspapers have reported that protests were also being held in several northern provinces to coincide with the Bangkok actions.

Former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka is set to face a court martial on Tuesday by a three-member tribunal that will try the detained ex-army chief on charges of participating in politics while in office and violating military procurement procedures.

Fonseka was arrested by the army last month after he lost a January presidential election to incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva told reporters that Fonseka cannot be tried because under Sri Lanka’s Army Act because he would not be considered an army officer or soldier.

Instead Fonseka would have to be tried in a civilian court, Silva said.

On the streets of Colombo, protesters rallied for Fonseka’s release, holding placards reading: “Scrap Illegal Military Tribunal. Release General Immediately”

Rajapaksa and Fonseka had been allies in the successful offensive that ended the country’s 25-year civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, but they split following the end of the conflict last year.

Fonseka, who led government forces in crushing the rebels before defecting to the opposition, has claimed fraud.

Despite his detention, Fonseka will contest parliamentary elections on April 8.

The court-martial will be held at the naval complex where Fonseka is detained.