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Indonesia searches for life beyond Earth

Is there life beyond Earth? Indonesian astronomers are hoping to find the answer through a new exoplanet search program at Mount Timau National Observatory in Kupang, Timor.

VIDEO Indonesia searches for life beyond Earth |

Krefeld Zoo: Overcoming the trauma of a deadly fire

On New Year's Day 2020, images of a deadly fire in a German zoo's ape enclosure went around the world. One year on, national and international support has helped employees to look to the future.


The grand baboon stone sculpture at the zoo's entrance has become a commemoration site


In late November the demolition of the ape house in Krefeld Zoo was completed. "That was a huge relief," says zoo director Wolfgang Dressen. "Not having to walk past the charred ruins anymore allows us to get some sense of closure."


Eleven months after the fire, the ruins of the Krefeld zoo's ape house had been razed to the ground

Dressen recalls his sense of helplessness as the fire raged through the night, and upon hearing that 50 animals, including 8 great apes, had perished in the flames. Then there was the immediate onslaught of accusations of negligence and of personal threats via social media. 

"It started not long after the fire had broken out," says zoo press spokesman Adam Mathea. "There were threats, accusations and conspiracy theories, which was very upsetting to our staff," he explains. In the end the zoo deleted hate speech and flagged some threatening comments to the police." 

Zoo Director Wolfgang Dressen is beginning to plan a new larger ape enclosure

Criminal investigation

The zoo rejects all accusations of negligence: The ape house, built in 1975, had its roof replaced and was found to be in accordance with fire safety requirements in 2009. The guard patrolling the zoo just happened to be in a faraway corner of the 14-hectare compound when the fire broke out.

It quickly became clear that a "sky lantern" — a small hot-air balloon made of paper — had caused the fire. An expert reconstruction of the event showed how such a lantern landed on the plexiglass roof, its highly inflammatory liquid spilling out and burning a large hole through the four layers of acrylic panes. The hole allowed the warm air from within the house to rise like a funnel and fan the flames. Firefighters managed only to prevent the fire from spreading to adjacent areas where gorillas and kangaroos were kept.

Sky lanterns are mini hot air balloons made of paper on which affectionate messages are written

The perpetrators were quickly identified: Three German women, a mother and her two adult daughters who live near the zoo, came forward on the day of the tragedy. They admitted to having set off several sky lanterns that they had bought on the internet, unaware that they had been banned in 2009 as fire hazards. They have been fined a total of around 20,000 euros for criminal negligent arson. 

The zoo director and his team feel sorry for the perpetrators, rather than angry, he says. Dressen's main focus was to support his team and help them overcome the trauma. Counsellors were on hand quickly for individual and group sessions, which continue today.
Compassion and support

The first bit of good news that came once the fire had died down was the discovery oftwo surviving chimpanzees: A young male and an elderly female managed to hide and escape the flames almost unscathed. They have been nurtured back to health in a secluded area in the zoo. Visitors can see live footage of them on a screen. 

The two surviving chimpanzees can be watched live on a screen by the undamaged gorilla enclosure

Condolence messages came from around the world. Cards arrived from zoos in the United States, where individual zoo employees each took the trouble to write personal messages.

"International media interest was huge," says zoo spokesman Mathea. "We gave interviews to stations in the US and Canada. Even a Chinese broadcaster sent a reporter to investigate whether the sky lantern had been imported from China and whether the perpetrators were Chinese." 

"The immediate tremendous outpouring of grief and support in the city was a big source of consolation," says Dressen. In the days after the fire, the entrance to the zoo turned into a sea of candles, condolence cards, flowers and toys.



On New Year's Day 2020 the entrance to the zoo was quickly flooded with candles, flowers and toys

Krefelders love their zoo

"The zoo is a point of identification for Krefeld's 230,000 inhabitants," says city spokesman Christoph Elles. "No child grows up here without visiting the zoo with parents, grandparents and on school outings."

That applies also to Krefeld native Caroline Gappel, who heads the "Friends of Krefeld Zoo" association, which has seen a surge in membership. Gappel speaks fondly of the many trips to the zoo with her grandparents. Now, her five-year-old son Maximilian is a regular there, too. "On New Year's Eve we were there," Gappel recalls. "I asked him, 'Shall we go visit the apes?' But he was tired. 'Not today, we'll go there next time,' he said. It made me so sad when just a day later the building went up in flames and I realized that there would not be a next time." Talking a five-year-old through what happened was difficult, Gappel says, but believes it has helped her come to terms with it too. 


Maximilian donated a part of his savings to the zoo for the new ape enclosure

Maximilian insisted on donating part of his savings to the zoo, as did many other Krefeld children. There was a total of well over €2 million in donations ($2.43 million) this year — a record sum.

The zoo has long been an important economic factor in the western German city, which battles high unemployment of more than 11% — almost double the nationwide average. "The zoo is comparable to a medium-sized company," city spokesman Elles explains. "It has 85 full-time employees. It attracted 320,000 visitors in 2019 from the whole region and as far afield as The Netherlands, and it makes millions through tickets and donations each year." 

Financially Krefeld Zoo would have done well in 2020, despite having to close in March and April due to coronavirus restrictions. In the summer months it saw a surge in visitor numbers. But the second shutdown, amid the new nationwide lockdown that began in early November, has taken a toll on finances and the mood of the employees, who were planning a year-end get-together.

Watch video 02:17 Mourners grieve animals killed in Krefeld zoo blaze


Grand plans for the future

The zoo was quick to decide to invest the donations into the construction of a new ape enclosure: A state of the art construction with in- and outdoor areas in accordance with the guidelines of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA.) The Krefeld Zoo director estimates that the new construction will take up to 10 years to complete and will cost over €20 million.

These plans have been met with vehement criticism from some conservationists.

Animal rights organization PETA collected 30,000 signatures against the Krefeld Zoo plans. "Rather than spending millions on the construction of a new prison for pitiable inmates, the money could have been used to protect their natural habitats in Africa and Asia for many years, which would be a more efficient way to secure the future of these species for the long-term," said PETA spokesperson Yvonne Würtz.


48-year-old Massa died in the flames. He has over 100 offspring in zoos across Europe.

Zoo director Dressen disagrees: Without the direct encounter with threatened species in European zoos, he argues, many people could not be prompted to make donations supporting conservation efforts. He describes the animals in German zoos today as "ambassadors" for their respective endangered species, who generate funding for conservation efforts in other parts of the world. 

Germany has a network of more than 60 zoos, which count over 40 million visitors each year and whose donations finance partnerships with conservation projects across Asia and Africa.

All big apes in Europe's zoos are born and bred in captivity and are distributed via EAZA. The gorillas, orang-utans and chimpanzees that perished in the flames a year ago have over 100 offspring living in zoos around the world.

It is not out of the question that one of them may make his way back to Krefeld.

"That would make us very happy," says Dressen with a smile.

Date 01.01.2021
Author Rina Goldenberg

Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3mru6

How Pakistan is trying to boost industrial hemp production

Pakistan's government is optimistic that hemp production could help farmers tap into the lucrative global cannabis market and earn some foreign exchange.


A commercial hemp farm

Pakistan's government announced in September that it would allow the industrial production of hemp, a type of cannabis plant containing cannabidiol (CBD) that advocates say has numerous medicinal and relaxing properties. Hemp, however, does not contain significant quantities of high-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Prime Minister Imran Khan's government has struggled to boost the country's foreign exchange coffers, which have been drained by a struggling economy, fiscal deficits and inflation.

Fawad Chaudhry, the science and technology minister, said Pakistan could rake in about $1 billion (€820 million) in revenue over the next three years by capturing a share in the booming CBD market. Chaudhry said the industrial hemp market was worth about $25 billion globally and several countries were relaxing laws targeting cannabis-based products such as CBD oils.

The government's decision came after a UN commission voted to remove the cannabis made for medicinal purposes from a category of the world's most dangerous drugs. Experts view this change as a "watershed moment" for greater medical research and legalization globally.

Watch video 01:45 CBD: Is cannabidiol a miracle cure or fad?

Cannabis's huge potential

Hemp production could open up new opportunities for farmers in Pakistan at a time when they're struggling with the slowdown in the cotton industry. Cotton accounts for 8% of the South Asian nation's GDP and 64% of exports, but production dropped by a staggering 20% in 2019, slashing growers' incomes.

Hemp grows almost as a weed in parts of Pakistan — including in great abundance in the capital, where huge bushes can be seen sprouting at traffic roundabouts.

"Hemp is highly resistant to bad weather. There are no pesticides needed in its production, which makes it eco-friendly and safe. It can also be grown in abundance on little land and requires less water than cotton," Helga Ahmed, a German environmentalist who has been living in Pakistan for the past 60 years, told DW.

Ahmed has been actively lobbying for the legalization of hemp production in the country and noted that the applications of hemp go beyond consumer products like textiles and CBD oils. She shared that greener hemp production practices can be leveraged to tackle climate change and promote sustainable social housing.

In conservative Pakistan, where the consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden for Muslims, many people are surprisingly open to using cannabis, with the spongy, black hash made from marijuana grown in the country's tribal belt and neighboring Afghanistan the preferred variant of the drug.

Across the subcontinent people have been cultivating cannabis and smoking hash for centuries. The plant predates the arrival of Islam in the region, with reference to cannabis appearing in the sacred Hindu Atharva Veda text describing its medicinal and ritual uses.

Bureaucracy and bottlenecks

Despite its potential socioeconomic benefits, Pakistan faces bottlenecks in ramping up hemp's production. Environmentalists who have been lobbying for hemp's legalization are worried about the vertical integration model the government may adopt.

"Hemp is an inherently carbon negative plant, but if the government goes solely with vertical integration, it will become carbon positive," Mo Khan, Green Gate Global, UK, told DW. "Technology needs to be brought in but also the indigenous knowledge base of farmers that have been tending hemp over the past 2,000 years," he said.

Khan, who has been working with grassroots farmers, said allocating at least 25% of the hemp production to small-scale farmers was the only way to ensure its sustainable production. He also noted that there are significant logistical challenges involved even if the climate and landscape are ripe for hemp, pointing to the lack of adequate infrastructure and onerous licensing and certification requirements in the country.

Junaid Zaman, the CEO of Shamanic Biohacker, launched a successful CBD e-commerce venture in 2020. His operation does not have a local supply chain, and the CBD extract used is sourced internationally through reputable biotech lab partners that adhere to the US Food and Drug Administration regulations.

The carrier oil used in the finished product, however, is sourced and made locally. Zaman plans on moving this supply chain in-house once the locally grown crop is available in March next year in Pakistan.

But such startups worry that major contracts will be allotted to existing big players. "As per my understanding, the approved license to grow industrial hemp as a crop in three districts has gone to existing and established players from the tobacco industry," Zaman told DW. "The multinational organizations concerned will this year apparently grow the crop instead of tobacco in those districts with the approval."

Observers, however, remain optimistic and believe that Pakistan has the potential to emerge as an industry leader in this sector if the government avoids repeating the mistakes of other countries and actively engages local and foreign experts to ensure sustainability.

Genetic mutations that cause malaria drug resistance common in Asia, Africa


Genetic mutations that cause drug resistance in malaria may be more common than previously thought. File Photo by Mycteria/Shutterstock

Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Genetic mutations that fuel resistance to a drug intended to prevent malaria in pregnant women and children are common in countries that are fighting the disease, according to a PLOS Genetics analysis.

Mutations of a gene linked with resistance to the drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in the parasite that causes malaria were discovered in one-fourth of the samples collected in southeast Asia and one-third of those obtained in Africa, the researchers said.

The growth in the number of malaria parasites with mutations to the gene pfgch1 are concerning because they may increase resistance to the drug, they said.

"We need to understand how these mutations work and monitor them as part of malaria surveillance programs," study co-author Taane Clark, a professor of genomics and global health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in a statement.

RELATED Self-deleting genes to be tested as part of mosquito population control concept

Malaria causes more than 400,000 deaths worldwide annually, with most occurring in young children in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

Efforts to control the disease have been hampered by the rise of drug-resistant strains of the parasite species that causes the disease, according to Clark and his colleagues.

Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, once a first-line anti-malaria treatment, now is used primarily to prevent infection in pregnant women and children because the parasite Plasmodium falciparum has become resistant to it, the researchers said.

RELATED WHO: North Korea malaria cases trending downward

Malaria is spread when female Anopheles gambiae mosquitos carrying the parasite bite humans and feed on their blood, according to the researchers.

For the study, Clark and colleagues analyzed genome sequences from 4,134 blood samples of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite collected from 29 countries in which malaria is endemic.

They discovered at least 10 different versions of the gene in the samples, which they said indicates that strains carrying the mutations may be on the rise.

RELATED Study: Salt-based mosquito-control products don't work

The growth in these mutations could threaten efforts to use sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to prevent malaria in communities at high-risk for severe disease, the researchers said.

However, with the identification of these mutations, researchers may be able to monitor their presence in parasite populations to understand where the drug can be used effectively and where rates of drug-resistance already are too high.

That may be particularly crucial given that a separate analysis, also published Thursday by PLOS Pathogens, found that multiple bouts of blood feeding by malaria-carrying mosquitos shorten the incubation period for the virus and increase its transmission potential.

An additional blood feed three days after infection with Plasmodium falciparum accelerates the growth of the malaria parasite, shortening the incubation period required before transmission to humans can occur, the researchers said.

Given that mosquitoes feed on blood multiple times in natural settings, malaria transmission potential is likely higher than previously thought, making disease elimination more difficult, they said.

In addition, parasite growth is accelerated in genetically modified mosquitoes with reduced reproductive capacity, suggesting that control strategies using this approach, with the aim of suppressing Anopheles populations, may inadvertently aid malaria transmission, according to the researchers.

The parasites can also be transmitted by younger mosquitoes, which are less susceptible to insecticides, the researchers said.

The findings could help to more accurately understand malaria transmission potential and better estimate the true impact of current and future mosquito control measures, according to the researchers.

"We wanted to capture the fact that, in endemic regions, malaria-transmitting mosquitoes are feeding on blood roughly every two to three days," study co-author W. Robert Shaw said in a statement.

"Our study shows that this natural behavior strongly promotes the transmission potential of malaria parasites, in previously unappreciated ways," said Shaw, a research scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Ticketmaster to pay $10 million for hacking competitor


A photo of a Ticketmaster ticket in Los Angeles on February 12, 2009. Ticketmaster agreed to pay a $10 million fine in connection with a former employee computer hacking a competitor. Photo by Andrew Gombert/EPA


Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Ticketmaster on Wednesday agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle charges it repeatedly hacked the computer system of a competitor to steal information, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

The case resulted from the 2019 guilty plea by Zeehan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's Artist Services division, to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and wire fraud.

Ticketmaster was charged with five counts of computer intrusion and fraud.

"Ticketmaster employees repeatedly -- and illegally -- accessed a competitor's computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence," Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said. "Further, Ticketmaster's employees brazenly held a division-wide 'summit' at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company's computers as if that were an appropriate business tactic.

"Today's resolution demonstrates that any company that obtains a competitor's confidential information for commercial advantage, without authority or permission, should expect to be held accountable in federal court," DuCharme said.

The tech website The Verge identified the victim as CrowdSurge, which eventually merged with another company and shut down altogether in 2018.

Ticketmaster said it was pleased to get the issue behind it and had long ago fired Zaidi.

Under the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, Ticketmaster will pay a criminal fine, and maintain a compliance and ethics program for employees. Ticketmaster also must report to the office annually over the next three years on its compliance efforts.

U.N. agency condemns Iran's execution of child offender


The Iranian flag is shown. File Photo by Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI | License Photo


Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The United Nations Human Rights Office condemned the execution of an Iranian man Thursday for a crime allegedly committed when he was 16 years old.

Mohammad Hassan Rezaiee was executed in Iran in the early morning even though execution of child offenders is strictly prohibited under international law. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the execution was the fourth confirmed for a child offender.

"The UN has repeatedly urged Iran to cease the appalling practice of executing child offenders, but we understand that at least 80 child offenders remain on death row," Shamdasani said in a statement. "The High Commissioner urges Iranian authorities to halt all executions of child offenders and immediately review their cases in line with international human rights law."

Rezaiee, who turned 30 this month, was arrested in 2007 at age 16 in connection with a group fight where a man was fatally stabbed. Human rights groups allege violations of his right to a fair trial and torture.

His conviction was based on "confessions" extracted under torture, his trial was "grossly unfair" and authorities failed to investigate the torture allegations, Amnesty International Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Diana Eltahawy said in a statement earlier this month.

"Despite his young age, the authorities held him in prolonged solitary confinement, without access to his family and lawyer," Eltahawy's statement said. "They repeatedly tortured him to 'confess,' including by beating him with sticks, kicking and punching him, and whipping him with pipe hoses. In 2008, the trial court relied on his forced 'confessions' to convict and sentence him to death -- even though he retracted his 'confessions' at trial and said they were given under torture."

Shamdasani said that along with the "deeply troubling allegations" Rezaiee was forced to confess through torture, there were numerous other serious concerns about violations of his fair trial rights, and failure to pursue legal avenues to grant Rezaiee a retrial.

On Wednesday, United Nations experts urged members states to condemn a separate violation of international law in the United States. The U.N. experts said President Donald Trump's pardon last week of four former Blackwater Worldwide military contractors convicted of killing 14 Iraqis in 2007 violates U.S. obligations under international law. They urged member states to condemn the presidential action.

(FUNNY) 

Clowns help hospitalized kids cope, study shows
By HealthDay News


Researchers say hospital clowns can help improve both physical symptoms and the psychological well-being of children and teens through laughter and play. File Photo by Francisco Guasco/EPA-EFE


Send in the clowns -- they could help hospitalized children cope with pain and anxiety.

New research shows that hospital clowns can help improve both physical symptoms and the psychological well-being of children and teens through laughter and play

For the study, researchers from Brazil and Canada reviewed databases to find clinical trials on the subject of hospital clowns published up until February 2020. They found 24 relevant trials involving 1,612 children and adolescents.

In those trials, anxiety was the most frequently analyzed symptom, followed by pain, psychological and emotional responses, perceived well-being, stress, cancer-related fatigue and crying.

The results suggested that children and adolescents with both short-term and long-term illnesses who were in the presence of hospital clowns, either with or without a parent present, reported significantly less anxiety during a range of medical procedures.

They also experienced improved psychological well-being compared with standard care.

The study was published online this month in the BMJ.

Three trials that evaluated chronic conditions, including cancer, showed significant reductions in stress, fatigue, pain and distress in children who interacted with hospital clowns compared with standard care, the study authors said in a journal news release.

Only one trial found no difference in levels of distress between a group of children who interacted with hospital clowns and those who didn't, according to Luís Carlos Lopes-Júnior, from the Federal University of Espírito Santo, in Vitória, Brazil, and colleagues.

"Hospital clowns might contribute to improved psychological well-being and emotional responses in children and adolescents in hospital with acute or chronic conditions," the researchers reported.

"Our findings also support the continued investigation of complementary treatments for better psychological adjustment during the hospital admission process in pediatrics," they wrote.

Previous studies had suggested that hospital clowns could help to reduce stress and anxiety in children before and after surgery, but results were inconsistent.

The trials researchers examined were designed differently and of varying quality. Limitations of the study include differences in data collection, follow-up time points, severity and onset of conditions and risk of bias.More information

Discover how clown care works at Children's National hospitals.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

upi.com/7064274

Icelanders take New Year's fireworks to dizzying heights 

Friday 1 January 2021 - 

Icelandic people celebrate New Year's Eve and hope for a brighter 2021 as fireworks light up the sky in Reykjavik, Iceland. AFP/Halldor Kolbeins

REYKJAVIK - While New Year's Eve fireworks are hardly rare, Icelanders take the tradition to breathtaking heights, firing the dazzling incendiary devices from back gardens, streets, hilltops or city parks across their Nordic island.

Each year the nation's 365,000 inhabitants buy around 600 tonnes of fireworks, more than a kilo and a half per person, according to Statistics Iceland.

The bulk of the devices go up on New Year's Eve, turning the sky above the subarctic island into a glittering canopy from the capital Reykjavik to the smallest village.

"We sort of burn away the past year and make way for the new one, which I think we'll be very happy to do this year," said Dagrun Osk Jonsdottir, a doctoral student and expert on Icelandic folklore.

The tradition, dating to the early 20th century, is rooted in the Nordic bonfire, a much older custom that is banned this year anyway because of the pandemic.

Once too expensive for most Icelanders, fireworks became more accessible to the general public thanks to a fund-raising campaign launched in 1968 by the volunteer Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (ICE-SAR).

While many of the fireworks are fired from private gardens, the New Year's Eve displays follow a common timetable.

A first-round, lasting around an hour and a half, begins around 8pm after the prime minister's year-end speech.

The sky goes dark and quiet for the next hour as just about every breathing person in Iceland -- a record 99.7 percent of the population in 2019 -- turns on the TV for "Aramotaskaup".

Warmed and amused by the show, Icelanders venture back out into the cold to set off their fireworks extravaganza in earnest. 

As with many traditions elsewhere, Icelanders' fireworks excesses have recently come under scrutiny.

In 2018, unfavourable weather combined with the fireworks to pollute Reykjavik's usually pure air with microparticles, reaching levels associated with megacities like Beijing or New Delhi.

The government is considering cutting the fireworks purchasing window to three days from the current 10.

Source

AFP

German government at odds over armed drones


Issued on: 01/01/2021 

Israeli Heron TP drones are used for surveillance but can also be equipped with missiles 

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND AFP

Berlin (AFP)

Should the German army be equipped with killer drones? With less than a year to go before a general election, it's a question that has bitterly divided Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government, testing NATO's patience.

German armed forces have so far only been allowed to use reconnaissance drones as part of military missions in Mali and Afghanistan, leaving it to other international partners to deploy armed drones.

In 2018, Germany signed a contract to lease five new Heron TP drones from Israeli manufacturer IAI with the initial purpose of using them only for surveillance, although they can be equipped with missiles if desired.


Merkel's conservatives and their centre-left Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partners agreed at the time that parliament would have the final say on any future arming of the drones.

Any kind of military action remains a sensitive issue in Germany, a nation scarred by its past as the instigator of two world wars.

But calls have also grown louder in recent years for Germany, as a major European country with considerable political and economic clout, to take on more international responsibility in matters of defence and security.

Merkel's CDU/CSU conservatives have backed arming the remote-control drones, along with some SPD members. The liberal FDP and far-right AfD opposition parties are also in favour.

The opposition Greens and the far-left Die Linke are fiercely opposed.

The debate came to a head in mid-December when SPD co-leader Norbert Walter-Borjans and the chairman of SPD's parliamentary group, Rolf Muetzenich, unexpectedly spoke out against the arming of the unmanned aerial vehicles.

A vote in the German parliament has now been postponed indefinitely.

- 'Killing by joystick' –



"The line between defending the lives and limbs of our soldiers and killing with a joystick is very thin," Walter-Borjans said.

But the chairman of the prestigious annual Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, disagrees.

"What does a pilot (of a fighter plane) do, if not kill by joystick, by pressing a button 50 kilometres away, without seeing his target, and firing an air-to-ground missile?"

Muetzenich said he wants a comprehensive ethical debate on "automated killing" by the Bundeswehr armed forces, which he says half of Germans oppose.

"It disturbs me that almost only the military -- those responsible for armaments and defence -- have a say, but never doctors or Church representatives," he said.

Andre Wuestner, the head of Germany's armed forces union, said there had been several years "of discussions on five, I stress, five armed drones".

The blockage has been criticised even within the SPD. The party's defence spokesman, Fritz Felgentreu, resigned in protest at the SPD's decision.

- 'Cowardice' –

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close Merkel ally, has accused the junior coalition partner of "cowardice".

"We have drawn up operational principles, which stipulate that armed drones can only be used defensively by the Bundeswehr -- to protect its own people," she said.

Other conservatives, including the CDU's defence expert Henning Otte, have accused the SPD of trying to score points with left-wing voters in the run-up to the elections.

Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg of the NATO military alliance has also waded into the spat.

"These drones can support our troops on the ground and, for example, reduce the number of pilots we put at risk," Stoltenberg told German news agency DPA, pointing to the use of the technology against the jihadist Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

NATO members France and Turkey are among those already using armed drones.

Armed drones, manufactured by Israel or Turkey, were also deployed by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Weaponised drones are also a key part of a cross-border project, led by France, Germany and Spain and known as FCAS, to develop a new air-combat system for European forces by 2026.

In Germany, the issue won't be settled "during this parliamentary term", Walter-Borjans said, setting the stage for months of heated discussions between the warring parties before Germans head to the polls in September.

© 2021 AFP

PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

Afghan dairy entrepreneur walks political tightrope to stay afloat

Issued on: 01/01/2021 -

The Milko factory in Afghanistan's Kandahar province has to tread a careful line with both the Taliban and government officials WAKIL KOHSAR AFP

Arghandab (Afghanistan) (AFP)

Brightly coloured milk bottles whizz off the production line at the Milko factory in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, the result of entrepreneur Ghami Mia treading a careful line with both the Taliban and government officials.

To keep Milko afloat, Mia has become adept at skillfully pleasing the warring rivals, which are preparing to restart peace talks next week in Qatar.

People from both sides want a share of his success.

"The Taliban only take their taxes, but the government take taxes and also our products," he explains.

The company's dairy products including flavoured milk drinks and ice creams have become well-loved throughout the region.

The company supplies some of the most dangerous towns in southern Afghanistan, such as Zabol, Ghazni and Lashkar Gah, encircled by Taliban territory.

With his clean-shaven face and affable smile, Mia says he just a pragmatic businessman who does what he needs to to make the company thrive.

"I want to continue living in Afghanistan, and working here. I don't want to go and invest abroad," he argues.

At war for 40 years, Afghanistan regularly ranks as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Khan, a delivery driver for the dairy who goes by one name, says the local police are his biggest hurdle.

"They ask me for money... and if I don't have any, they want my goods," he explains.

Despite also contending with a lack of electricity and skilled labour, the owner has managed to grow the business employing hundreds of people and offering more than 30 products, using 250 of its own cows as well as relying on farmers in rural areas.

In Arghandab district, farmers line up to drop off their fresh milk at a Milko collection point, an opportunity that has substantially boosted the income of many.

"If the situation persists, we will be forced to close," Mia says.

"But I don't want to let the farmers down."