Eco feminist killed by snake bite

Renowned Australian feminist and environmental activist Val Plumwood who survived a horrific crocodile attack more than 20 years ago has been killed by an apparent snake bite, a friend said yesterday. She was 68 years old. Plumwood's body was found on Saturday in the octagonal stone house where she lived alone near Braidwood in New South Wales, said friend Jane Salmon. Salmon said it appeared that a snake bite had killed her. State police Detective Sergeant David Kay declined to comment on the cause of death other than to say there were no suspicious circumstances. A coroner has yet to make an official finding on the cause.

Plumwood wrote the seminal environmental texts Feminism and the Mastery of Nature and Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason in 1993 and 2002, but she had been a leading campaigner against the logging of Australia's native forests and for the preservation of biodiversity since the 1960s.

"She was considered by a lot of people a pioneer of the environmental movement," Salmon said.

Plumwood was attacked by a crocodile in Australia's northern Outback in 1985 and escaped with terrible wounds to her legs and groin after the beast dragged her underwater three times.

Indian 'spy' held 30 years to be released

An Indian man who has spent more than 30 years on death row in Pakistani prisons for alleged spying was to be released yesterday, Pakistan's government said.

Kashmir Singh, who is about 60 years old, will be released from a prison in the eastern city of Lahore on the order of President Pervez Musharraf, said Ansar Burney, Pakistan's minister for human rights.

Singh will be reunited with his family today on the Indian side of Wagah, the main border crossing between the two countries, Burney said.

Pakistan and India, who have fought three wars in the 60 years since independence from Britain, frequently arrest each other's citizens, including many fishermen and others who say they strayed across the border inadvertently.

Many are accused of spying and held for years, usually with no contact with their families while they are in custody, though Singh's case appears extreme.

A former policeman from Hoshiarpur town in the Indian state of Punjab who became a trader in electronic goods, Singh was arrested during a business trip to the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi in 1973, Burney said.

Malaysian PM fighting lazy claims

Malaysia's prime minister rejected critics' claims yesterday that he deserved to lose in this week's general election for being a poor leader who sleeps on the job.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi insisted that his time in office since October 2003 has "not been a time of failure, but of success," citing steady economic growth and bolstered job opportunities under his government.

Opposition officials have urged voters not to hand Abdullah another five-year mandate in Saturday's general election, claiming that crime, corruption and racial and religious tensions have mounted because of his weak leadership.

"We are not deaf for we hear what the people say," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama. "We are not asleep for we are working."

Agencies

(China Daily 03/04/2008)