วันเสาร์ที่ 29 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2557

Death and the goddess: The world's biggest ritual slaughter

By Manesh Shrestha, for CNN
November 29, 2014 -- Updated 1852 GMT (0252 HKT)
The bodies of sacrificed water buffalo litter the fields at the world's largest ritual animal slaughter.The bodies of sacrificed water buffalo litter the fields at the world's largest ritual animal slaughter.
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Nepal's controversial Gadhimai festival
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Thousands of water buffalo and goats will be slaughtered in Nepal's Gadhimai festival
  • Held every five years, the festival is dedicated to a Hindu goddess of power
  • Animal rights activists have campaigned to change attitudes and reduce the killing
Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- Motilal Kushwaha had promised the Hindu goddess Gadhimai that he would offer her a male goat if one of his children found a job.
Last year his son was successful -- and on Saturday he was one of tens of thousands of people killing the animals at the temple of Gadhimai in southern Nepal as part of the biggest religious mass slaughter in the world.
"From my village everyone has made a vow [to offer animals]," says Kushwaha from Bariyarpur, a community in Bara district about 60 miles south of Kathmandu. Some, he explains, are glad they have got a son or a daughter, others that a different form of good fortune has befallen them.
The ritual sacrifice of goats, buffaloes and roosters in temples and at home is widespread in Nepal where 80 percent of the population are Hindu.
Some five million people from adjoining districts -- and also from the bordering Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh -- will attend the festival, according to local authorities, although only two days are dedicated to the sacrificial ritual itself.
The slaughter follows a set pattern: on Friday male water buffalo calves are killed while on Saturday attentions switches to goats.
Officials estimate that up to 10,000 buffalo calves and 150,000 goats will be offered to Gadhimai -- the goddess of power -- during the ritual. Watch a CNNi report on the ritual
But these numbers will be much lower than those of 2009, the last time the five-yearly Gadhimai festival took place, thanks to advocacy efforts by animal rights activists. In that year nearly 20,000 buffalo calves were killed, according to temple officials and more than 200,000 goats were slaughtered.
"We object to the cruelty with which animals are treated," says Pramada Shah of Animal Welfare Network Nepal. "There is random hacking of animals in open space. Not all animals have their heads chopped off. Some take up to 40 minutes to die."
The participants -- who hack the animals in an enclosed arena with large knives -- are licensed by the Gadhimai Festival Management and Development Committee. This year about 400 people will kill animals, according to Kushwaha, who is also the committee's secretary.
The animals not only suffer while they are being killed: they are also transported over long distances on foot. "By the time they get to the festival venue they are half dead," says Shah. "They are kept two or three days without food after they are brought here."
Activists have gone to the courts in Nepal and India to halt the sacrifices. Last month Nepal's Supreme Court did not stop the animal sacrifices but ruled that existing laws have to be followed.
"If the existing laws are implemented there would be no ritual sacrifices," says Shambhu Thapa, the lawyer who filed the case, explaining that only animals killed in a slaughterhouse are fit to be eaten. (The meat of the sacrificed animal is usually eaten, or given away to meat-eaters for their consumption.)
Courts in India also directed the Indian government not to control the unnecessary export of animals to Nepal. The Indian authorities, for their part, had directed security agencies and state governments to check the flow of livestock to the neighboring country. In a letter to the Uttar Pradesh government seen by CNN, India's Home Ministry estimated in September as many as 90,000 buffaloes would be "illegally" transported to Nepal for the festival.
But animals continue to flow into Nepal through the porous and open border. "The border cannot be controlled and corruption is endemic," says Shah.
Nepalese authorities are also reluctant to stop the ritual sacrifice. "We cannot do this," explains chief district officer Dulal. "We cannot speak against it. This is something to do with culture."
Kushwaha adds: "If we tell the people to stop the sacrifices, they will come to kill us. This is something related to people's religion and faith." Hindu religion does not support the ritual sacrifice of animals, says Shah. "We consulted religious priests on the matter," she says.
Activists in Gadhimai, meanwhile, are confident that there will be changes in people's attitudes.
Uttimlal Chaurasiya, from Bariyarpur, claims that some 40 percent of the women in the village have said that they will not sacrifice animals. Three years ago he started a campaign showing videos of cruelty to animals at the festival to villagers. While awareness is being raised at a local level, he believes binding laws are still needed to stop the sacrifices.
"All living creatures are equal in the eyes of god," he says. "Instead of animals we can offer gourds, pumpkins, coconuts and sweets to the goddess."
The festival management committee cannot stop the animal sacrifices, but if the government asks the committee can discuss the issue, says Kushwaha.
Shah and other activists had been working with the government since the last festival in 2009 to stop the sacrifices but although there was some progress, a government decision was not reached.
Meanwhile, on Friday morning tens of thousands of people gathered around the temple in Bara district, southern Nepal, waiting for the sacrificial ritual to begin. "People seem to be in a merry mood and look like they have been waiting for this moment for ages," says Niraj Gautam, an animal welfare activist, from Bariyarpur. "But it is a sad day for us."
He estimates 6,000 to 8,000 water buffaloes will be randomly hacked, not necessarily by having their heads chopped off.
"Any part of the body can be cut," he says. "Last time round we saw buffalo walking with their head hanging."

วันศุกร์ที่ 28 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2557

Creating an ocean giant, in pictures

  1. The Pieter Schelte is the world’s biggest ship. But this outsized sea giant isn’t a supertanker, nor a container carrier. Its role is much more specialised – which is why it has to be such an enormous vessel.

    The ship – which set sail last weekend from South Korea to the Dutch port of Rotterdam – is an oil support vessel, designed to install or move oil rigs in the deep ocean, lay oil pipeline, or even help construct bridges. And it’s those heavy-lifting jobs that require it to be so big; the Pieter Schelte is 382 metres (1,260 ft) long, and 124 metres (406 ft) wide. So, how do you construct such a large ship from scratch? 
  2. The vessel is essentially a giant catamaran, “based on the concept of joining two large tankers rigidly, with a slot at the bows to lift platforms in one piece,” according to Kristian Hall from the boat’s Swiss owners, Allseas. The boat was built section-by-section in South Korea, on a giant floating dock in Okpo-dong harbour.
  3. Blocks of the ship were pre-assembled and then merged to make two “half-hulls” in floating docks.
  4. It took 16 million man hours to build the ship. If one person was working 40 hours a week it would take nearly 7,700 years to complete.
  5. The two hulls of the ship are so big they had to be towed to a new site to be spliced together.
  6. The ship reportedly cost £1.9bn ($3.1bn) to build.
  7. It has enough room to house 571 people – not just the crew, but the engineers and technicians needed to carry out the oil-support role.
  8. The Pieter Schelte displaces 365,000 tonnes – and that’s before you add the 48,000-tonne weight of an oil rig platform. The ship's weight is the equivalent of:
  9. The Pieter Schelte isn’t the longest boat on the high seas – that’s the container ship Maersk Triple E class, the first of which came into service in 2013. Here’s a comparison:
  10. And here’s how big the ship is compared with another Allseas support vessel, the Deepwater Asgard.
  11. The ships can generate 95mW of power to move its massive bulk – that’s enough electricity to power 5,000 homes for a day.
  12. It left port last week, and will take 50 days to reach Rotterdam, travelling via Singapore and Cape Town.
  13. You can keep track of it on the MarineTraffic website:
  14. And if you think this is big, Allseas are already planning an even bigger vessel that is expected to enter service in 2020…
  15. If you would like to comment on this, or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook or Google+ page, or message us on Twitter.