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Guwahati, India (AFP) Feb 7, 2011 Three female volunteers working for the WWF environmental group were freed in northeast India after being kidnapped by unidentified gunmen, officials said Wednesday. Three male volunteers remain held hostage in the restive state of Assam after the group, which had been counting tigers and elephants in the Manas National Park, were taken on Sunday. Several militant groups are active in the area. A police spokesman said the three women were released late on Tuesday about 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of Assam's main city of Guwahati. "They were brought by bicycles and let off by a road. They managed to reach the local police station unharmed," Kampa Borgoyary, deputy chief of the local Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), told AFP by telephone. The six volunteers, all Indian nationals, were taken hostage by about 20 armed rebels on Sunday close to the border with Bhutan. The best known rebel group in the region is the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which is fighting for an independent homeland for Assam's Bodo tribe. It was blamed for a series of explosions in 2008 that killed about 100 people and injured hundreds more. Violent insurgencies have wracked India's northeastern states for decades. The rebels accuse the government of exploiting the area's rich natural resources while doing little for local people. No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.
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U.K. says forest-sale plans still aliveLondon (UPI) Feb 7, 2011 A controversial plan to sell off some of Britain's heritage forests is not a done deal, the U.K. environment secretary says, but neither has it been abandoned. Widespread criticism and public protests about the proposals were cause by "wild speculation," Minister Caroline Spelman told the BBC Saturday. Controversy erupted at plans by the Forestry Commission to offload 638,000 acr ... read more |
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