Thai military denies using toxic gas in the battle of Cambodian border

April 23, 2011, 11: 38 am EDT by Daniel Ten Kate

April 24 (Bloomberg) - Thailand, denied the accusations that his soldiers have used toxic gas against Cambodian troops in the bloodiest fighting along the disputed border since tensions broke out three years ago.

Battles which began April 22 killed five Thai and six Cambodian, according to army officials of, and reports, ending two months of peace since the United Nations Security Council urged a permanent ceasefire on February 14 of press. Used Thai soldiers "guns heavy loading of the toxic gas" fighting yesterday, Ministry of defence of Cambodia said in a statement. "Cambodians are really incredible for a story like that," Veerachon Sukondhadhpatipak, Deputy spokesman of the Thai army, said by telephone from Bangkok. "" " They still make stories publish us poorly. "The resumption of the fighting at the time when the Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vejjajiva is preparing to call an election in early May. The Thailand member is causing clashes raise his popularity in the event where he stages an another coup, the Cambodian Government Phay Siphan said by telephone from Phnom Penh, the capital. "The Thai military to move against us so they can say they are protecting Thai land and earn the credibility of their people,"he says. "We are a small country and we cannot afford to take Thai land." We need peace to build our country. "Southeast Asian neighbors have blamed each other for cause the battles which took place several hundred kilometres west of border clashes in February near the temple of Preah Vihear a world heritage site. Ministry of defence of Cambodia, said Thai troops were aimed to support the temples in dispute, while said Abhisit Thailand would not invade its neighbours and reprisal of the Cambodian attack. "International rules"our movements are consistent with international rules", Abhisit said today in a weekly televised speech. "In our retaliation, we attack military points only.". Our retaliation will be appropriate with Cambodian attacks. "Five Thai soldiers died in the two days of fighting, said Veerachon. Fighting also killed six Cambodian soldiers, Xinhua Chinese news agency reported, citing Suos Sothea, a commander of a unit of artillery on the border.Clashes resume tensions along the border escalated in 2008 after the Thailand opposed efforts in Cambodia to list temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site. Fighting in February was at least 10 dead and 30 000 people travel.The Thailand refused to accept observers from the border of the Indonesia, which holds the rotating Presidency of the 10 Association members of Southeast Asia Nations.International Arena "the shock of the latter is another attempt by Cambodia to raise bilateral dispute on the international scene."said today accused Abhisit.Cambodge Thailand of the use of cluster bombs during the fighting in February, a charge confirmed by established the United Kingdom Cluster Munition Coalition, which grows to an international ban on the weapons these munitions scatter over a large area to the detonation. Cambodia and the Thailand are not among the 108 countries which have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions.In 1962, the International Court of Justice decided in a vote of 9-3 that Cambodia had the sovereignty of Preah Vihear. He did not rule on the lands surrounding the temple, and the two countries have not yet reconciled 10,422 miles square (26,993 square kilometres) waters contested in the Gulf of Thailand which can contain oil and gas reserves.264 Billion in the Thailand economy is more than 26 times the size of Cambodia. The Cambodian army spent $ 191 million in 2009, compared with 4.9 billion for the military in Thailand, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

-With the help of Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok. Editors: Paul Tighe, Anand Krishnamoorthy

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok to dtenkate@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at the ptighe@bloomberg.net

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The Battle Royal for Supercorn

Illustration by Yuko Kondo

By Jon Birger

Marc Albertsen, the Director of research bespectacled, aged 62 years at Pioneer Hi-Bred, DuPont (DD) seed development unit, was catching up on paperwork one morning in July 2007, when he received a call from an assistant, Sharon Cerwick. "Marc," Cerwick said, "" you would be better come here and see this. ""

Cerwick had been in the area, literally, inspecting the experimental corn planted next to the headquarters of the pioneer in Johnston, Iowa). Corn has been genetically modified by Albertsen and his colleagues in the hope of reaching a new stroke: a more efficient use of nitrogen. It is at the top of the list of wishes of corn producers, because the cost of fertilizer ammonium nitrate has soared to $450 per tonne, up to 130% since 2002. Albertsen and other scientists from seed have tried to build stems of nitrogen-effective for at least five years, but their supercorn is still far from 5 to 10 years. "You speak of our Holy Grail," explains Pamela Johnson, Member of the Council National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) with 1,200 acres of Floyd, Iowa.

In the field, Albertsen was found a row of corn whose leaves were affected by a v-shape yellowing, the eloquent sign of nitrogen deficiency. The other line - plants which had been designed for the efficiency of nitrogen - was green and prosperous. Both had been planted in the severely deficient soil nitrogen, but plants genetically seemed unaffected.

Seedlings of malnutrition recalled the past Albertsen: sickly ranks, he saw as a boy on his family farm near Danbury, Iowa). Healthy, growing in the same tired soil, talks about the future. He immediately telephoned to his team in Woodland, California, where Pioneer was running a similar trial in central California farmland and asked them to check their seedlings. "Even today, it gives me goose bumps," he said. "Their field checks are returned with the same results."

Other than the water and the Sun, there is nothing more important to the culture of corn - most valuable crop in the U.S., more than 66 billion in 2010 - than nitrogen. Generous applications of fertilizer nitrogen are essential for the bushel of 180 to 200 - a - yield acres that have become commonplace in large States such as the Iowa and Illinois farm, double that farmers produced 35 years, according to the U.S. Agriculture Dept. wheat and rice in the world farmers saw yields plateau; corn is the only high culture for which per acre production continues to increase.

This extraordinary productivity comes with a price economic and environmental. Nitrogen fertilizer is the largest or the second large fees for most American farmers, said Rod Williamson, Director of research at the Iowa Corn Growers Assn. V. The average cost of 60 cents per pound, the 150 pounds of nitrogen that farmers over each of the acres 90 million U.S. corn fields correspond to a bill of eight billion dollars per year.

More difficult to quantify, but not less expensive is that the runoff of fertilizer damage to aquatic life. More than half of American farmers fertilizer to apply to the corn gets wasted. Some of them leaching in aquifers, local pollution of drinking water. More it ends in the runoff of rain water, flowing into streams and rivers that feed the Bay Chesapeake, the Mississippi River and other ecosystems. The Mississippi river runoff finish in the Gulf of Mexico, where it dynamically generates algal blooms fatal fly the oxygen of fish and plants. The Gulf today is home to the second Ocean dead zone, according to a study prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency and USDA scientific and 2010 are still debating which was more damaging - the year oil spill last BP (BP) or permanent agriculture of the United States nitrogen pollution.

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