On the other hand, Bhutan has porous borders with India and China, where there are lucrative markets for tiger parts, and some poaching occurs. At present, Bhutan has too few people trained to detect poachers, and no legislation empowers its law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute foreign traders. One goal of the new plan is to address this deficiency and to begin dialogs with China and India about working jointly to curb the cross-border trade.

Bhutan’s fast-moving rivers are harnessed for electricity.

The lack of roads, while a boon to conservation, hampers Bhutan’s economic development, and plans are in place to expand the country’s road system. Road construction and other development activities, such as installation of power transmission lines for rural electrification and export (Bhutan’s largest single source of income is selling hydroelectric power to India), threatens to fragment tiger habitat in the future. Finding ways to identify and mitigate potentially adverse effects of these activities on tigers is a key goal of the plan, and will require close cooperation between a multitude of governmental and private organizations.

Knowledge is Power

Little is known about tigers in Bhutan.

The current status of Bhutan’s tiger population is unknown. The last nationwide survey was conducted in 1998, yielding an estimate of 67 to 81 breeding individuals (or 115 to 150 total animals including juveniles), but there is no information on whether the population has since increased, decreased, or stayed about the same. Moreover, there is little understanding of the ecology of tigers living in Bhutan’s mountain habitats, the distribution and ecology of prey species, or the relationships between tigers and their prey. Neither has the genetic diversity of the tiger population, which is key to its long-term viability, been studied. Research proposed in the draft plan, along with a permanent monitoring scheme to be put in place, will address all of these questions. Finally, the draft plan outlines a series of actions to address one of Bhutan’s most pressing problems. There is a severe shortage of trained people carry out tiger conservation—to conduct surveys, research, and monitoring; to implement education and outreach programs; and to manage protected areas. Among the proposed actions are inviting the National Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation and Management Training Program staff to conduct training programs in Bhutan, and sending Bhutanese biologists to the Zoo to receive training in genetics. Bhutan is committed to securing the tiger’s future. This new plan promises to help it succeed.

The 2004 international meeting was coordinated by WWF Bhutan and its government partner, the Nature Conservation Division of the Department of Forests. It was funded by the Save The Tiger Fund, whose council is chaired by John Seidensticker.

   Python found in Indonesia is 14.85m (49ft) long and has a maximum body circumference of 85cm (almost three feet). It weighs, they say, 447kg (70 stone, 3lbs).

The Guinness Book of World Records lists the longest captured snake as a 9.75m (32ft) reticulated python found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1912. The heaviest is a 182.76kg Burmese python in Illinois, US.Republika quoted a keeper at the zoo, Rohmad, as saying that when the unnamed snake was captured, in Jambi province on Sumatra in mid-2002, it was 19m long.Reticulated pythons, found across south-east Asia, are considered the longest snake species but adults usually measure only between three and six metres long. They kill their prey by biting it, hanging on with their 100 teeth and then squeezing it to death by wrapping their bodies around it.Python sheds its skin every 35 days, taking 10 days to do so.
It was captured by a 58-year-old python expert from east Java who was summoned to Jambi after locals, who stumbled upon it while foraging for wood, were too afraid to approach it.
The expert reportedly needed 65 helpers to snare the python and the blessing of tribal leaders as pythons are regarded as deities by many locals.
The python is proving a major attraction. About 700 people visit the Curugsewu zoo every day to admire the new, albeit rather lazy, star.

Python found in Indonesia is 14.85m (49ft) long and has a maximum body circumference of 85cm (almost three feet). It weighs, they say, 447kg (70 stone, 3lbs).

The Guinness Book of World Records lists the longest captured snake as a 9.75m (32ft) reticulated python found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1912. The heaviest is a 182.76kg Burmese python in Illinois, US.

Republika quoted a keeper at the zoo, Rohmad, as saying that when the unnamed snake was captured, in Jambi province on Sumatra in mid-2002, it was 19m long.

Reticulated pythons, found across south-east Asia, are considered the longest snake species but adults usually measure only between three and six metres long. They kill their prey by biting it, hanging on with their 100 teeth and then squeezing it to death by wrapping their bodies around it.

Python sheds its skin every 35 days, taking 10 days to do so.
It was captured by a 58-year-old python expert from east Java who was summoned to Jambi after locals, who stumbled upon it while foraging for wood, were too afraid to approach it.
The expert reportedly needed 65 helpers to snare the python and the blessing of tribal leaders as pythons are regarded as deities by many locals.
The python is proving a major attraction. About 700 people visit the Curugsewu zoo every day to admire the new, albeit rather lazy, star.

Reticulated pythons, found across south-east Asia, are considered the longest snake species but adults usually measure only between three and six metres long. They kill their prey by biting it, hanging on with their 100 teeth and then squeezing it to death by wrapping their bodies around it.
This is rly scary..Dunno what would i do if i would be near that snake…Probable run 

Posted by Stupid Beaver on Monday, April 16th, 2007

  The King Siha Nouk is the best king in Cambodia.All the people respect him even he is the leader of the good ………… .

 Early life   

Norodom Sihanouk received his primary education in a Phnom Penh primary school, the École François Baudoin. He pursued his secondary education in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam at “Lycée Chasseloup Laubat” until his coronation and then later attended Cavalry military school in Saumur, France. When his maternal grandfather, King Sisowath Monivong, died on April 23, 1941, the Crown Council selected Prince Sihanouk as king of Cambodia.

His coronation took place on September 1941. Rumors abounded during this period that the influence of France (the regional colonial power) accounted for his accession. Norodom Sihanouk is well-known for leading what some have termed an extravagant lifestyle, and being an unabashed “ladies’ man.” He married his sixth wife, Monique Izzi, a young woman of French, Italian, and Cambodian ancestry, in 1952.

 Leadership turmoil

After World War II and into the early 1950s, King Sihanouk’s politics became more nationalistic and he began demanding that the French grant the country independence and depart, echoing the sentiments of many nations in Indochina, including Vietnam, and Laos. He went into exile in Thailand in May of 1953 and refused to return until independence was granted. He returned when his overtures met with success and Cambodia became independent on November 9, 1953. On March 2, 1955, King Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his father, taking the post of prime minister a few months later. Following his father’s death in 1960, he gained election as head of state, but received the title of prince rather than king. In 1963, he forced a change in the constitution that made him head of state for life. While he had officially abdicated as king, he had created a constitutional office for himself that was exactly equal to that of the former kingship.

While the Vietnam War raged, Sihanouk promoted policies he claimed would preserve Cambodia’s neutrality. Alternately taking sides with the People’s Republic of China, supporting the United States and espousing Third Way policies. In the spring of 1965, he made a deal with China and North Vietnam to allow the presence of permanent Vietnamese bases in eastern Cambodia and to allow military supplies from China to reach Vietnam by Cambodian ports. Cambodia and Cambodian individuals were compensated by Chinese purchases of the Cambodian rice crop by China at inflated prices. He also at this time made any number of speeches calling the triumph of Communism in Southeast Asia inevitable and suggesting Maoist ideas were worthy of emulation. In 1966 and 1967, Sihanouk unleashed a wave of political repression that drove many on the left out of mainstream politics. His policy of friendship with China collapsed due to the extreme attitudes in China at the peak of the Cultural Revolution. The combination of political repression and problems with China made his balancing act impossible to sustain. He had alienated the left, allowed the Vietnamese to establish bases within Cambodia and staked everything on China’s good will. On March 18, 1970, while he was travelling out of the country, Lon Nol, the prime minister, convened the National Assembly which voted to depose Sihanouk as head of state and give emergency powers to Lon Nol. Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, a royal prince who, in 1941, had been passed over by the French government in favor of his cousin Norodom Sihanouk’s leadership role, retained his post as Deputy Prime Minister. Prince Sihanouk fled to Beijing and began to support the Khmer Rouge in their struggle to overthrow the Lon Nol government in Phnom Penh. When the Khmer Republic fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Prince Sihanouk became the symbolic head of state of the new régime while Pol Pot remained in power. The next year, on April 4, 1976, the Khmer Rouge forced Sihanouk out of office again and into political retirement. During the Vietnamese invasion, he was sent to New York to speak against Vietnam before the United Nations. After his speech, he sought refuge in China and in North Korea.  The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 ousted the Khmer Rouge. Although claiming to be wary of the Khmer Rouge, Prince Sihanouk was more than willing to again join forces with them in order to provide a united front against the Vietnamese. In 1982, he became president of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), which consisted of his own Funcinpec party, Son Sann’s KPNLF, and the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnamese withdrew in 1989, leaving behind a pro-Vietnamese government under ex-Khmer Rouge cadre Hun Sen to run the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). Restoration

Peace negotiations between the CGDK and the PRK commenced shortly thereafter and continued until 1991 when all sides agreed to a comprehensive settlement which they signed in Paris. Prince Sihanouk returned once more to Cambodia on November 14, 1991 after thirteen years in.In 1993, Sihanouk once again became king of Cambodia. During the restoration, however, he suffered from ill health and traveled repeatedly to Beijing for medical treatment.

Sihanouk’s leisure interests include music (he has composed songs in Khmer, French, and English) and film. He has become a prodigious filmmaker over the years, directing many movies and orchestrating musical compositions. He became one of the first heads of state in the region to have a personal website, which has proven a cult hit. It draws more than a thousand visitors a day, which constitutes a substantial portion of his nation’s Internet users. Royal statements are posted there on a daily basis.   

  King Sihanouk went into self-imposed exile in January 2004, taking up residence in Pyongyang, North Korea and later in Beijing, China. Citing reasons of ill health, he announced his abdication of the throne on October 7, 2004. The constitution of Cambodia made no provision for such a move. Chea Sim, the President of the Senate assumed the title of acting Head of State (a title he has held many times before), until the throne council met on October 14 and appointed Norodom Sihamoni, one of Sihanouk’s sons, as the new king.

  Family

In his lifetime, King Norodom Sihanouk reportedly has had several wives and concubines, producing at least fourteen children in a period of eleven years. According to Time magazine (30 June 1956), however, his only legal wives have been Princess Samdech Norleak (married 1955) and Paule Monique Izzi (married 1955), who is a granddaughter of HRH Prince Norodom Duongchak of Cambodia and the younger daughter of Pomme Peang and her second husband, Jean-François Izzi, a banker. A profile of Sihanouk in The New York Times (4 June 1993, page A8) stated that the king met Monique Izzi in 1951, when he awarded her a prize in a beauty pageant.

According to Royal Ark’s genealogy of the Cambodian royal family, however, Sihanouk has been married seven times, his consorts being:

(1) Neak Moneang Phat Kanhol (1920-1969, a member of the Royal Cambodian Ballet; married 1942, later divorced)

• HRH Samdech Preah Ream Bupha Devi (1943-)
• HRH Samdech Preah Krom Norodom Ranariddh (1944-)

(2) HRH Princess Sisowath Pongsanmoni (1929-1974; married 1942, divorced 1951)

• HRH Samdech Borom Reamea Norodom Yuvaneath (1943-)
• HRH Samdech Norodom Racvivong Sihanouk (1944-1973)
• Samdech Preah Mohesarra Norodom Chakrapong (1945-)
• HRH Samdech Princess Norodom Sorya Roeungsay (1947-1976)
• HRH Princess Norodom Kantha Bopha (1948-1952)
• HRH Samdech Norodom Khemanourak Sihanouk (1949-1975)
• HRH Samdech Princess Norodom Botum Bopha (1951-1976)

(3) Anak Munang Thach (married 1943)

(4) HRH Princess Sisowath Monikessan (née HRH Princess Sisowath Naralaksha Munikesara, 1929-1946; married 1944)

• HRH Samdech Norodom Naradipo (1946-1976)

(5) HRH Princess Samdech Preah Reach Kanitha Norodom Norleak (née Princess Devisa Naralakshmi, born 1927; married 1946 and “more formally” on 4 March 1955)

(6) Mam Manivan Phanivong (née Mam Munivarni Barni Varman, 1934-1975; married 1949)

• HRH Princess Norodom Socheatha Sujata (1953-1975)
• HRH Samdech Preah Anoch Norodom Arunrasmy (1955-)

(7) HM Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk (née Paule Monique Izzi, born 18 June 1936; married 12 April 1952 and “more formally” on 5 March 1955)

• HM King Norodom Sihamoni (1953-)
• HRH Samdech Norodom Narindrapong (1954-2003)