The fish, of the Chimaera genus, is about 30-40 centimeters (12-16 inches) long and is found at depths of 400 to 600 meters (1,300 to 2,000 feet), scientists said Thursday.

"This is a fantastic discovery, because before this we believed there were no Chimaera off the Brazilian coast," said ichthyologist Jules Soto, who discovered the fish.

Soto is the curator of the Oceanography Museum at the Vale do Itajai University and co-author of the fish's scientific description, which will be published in the upcoming edition of the U.S. scientific journal Zootaxa.

Soto said the fish was discovered on a Spanish fishing boat trawling off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state in 2001.

Soto said his students first photographed the Chimaera aboard the vessel as part of a research project, but they were unaware of the fish's importance and threw it back in the ocean.

Soto realized the significance of the discovery while examining the photographs.

"I could see right away it was a very different animal, just from the shape of the fins," Soto said by telephone from Santa Catarina state, 450 miles (700 kilometers) southwest of Rio de Janeiro.

It took Soto and his team two more years to locate more specimens and to complete the scientific work needed to prove it was a new species.

The fish, which Soto has named Hydrolagus mattallansi, has a snub nose, winglike side fins, a spiky back fin and stinger tail. It is closely related to sharks and skates.

The Chimaera can sense the presence of other animals by scanning the electromagnetic field around it, but it also has large eyes that can sense even the smallest bit of light, Soto said.

Ichthyologists called the new Chimaera an "important discovery."

"Deep water fish have been little studied here and it's very difficult to get information about that environment. The sad thing is that environment is being devastated by industrial fishing so species new to science are likely disappearing even before they are discovered," said Adriano Lima, an Ichthyologist at Rio de Janeiro's National Museum.

Scientists have identified about 25,000 fish species in the world but suspect there may be as many as 40,000 yet to be discovered.

Soto said it was rare that such a large vertebrate animal should be undiscovered but that the deep waters off Brazil's coast have not been extensively explored.

He claimed to have discovered three other new species that he is still in the process of describing.

Chimaera evolved 400 million years ago during the Devonian Period and are one of the oldest fish species alive today.
 

Human Rights Watch Urges Venezuela To Halt Court-Packing Scheme
Human Rights Watch urged Venezuela to repeal a new law that allows President Hugo Chavez's government to pack the nation's highest court with judges allied to his party.

Unless the law is rescinded, the Organization of American States should intervene to address the threat to the independence of Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal, the New York-based group said in a report Thursday.

Critics fear pro-Chavez deputies who dominate Congress will use the law to seize control of the tribunal, which would decide any dispute arising from a presidential recall vote Aug. 15.

The law expands the court from 20 to 32 members and allows Congress to hire and fire justices by a simple majority vote under certain conditions. Congress used the law Tuesday for the first time to fire the tribunal's vice president, Franklin Arrieche.

"The crisis facing Venezuela's judicial system could have a profoundly negative impact on the country's democracy," the Human Rights Watch report said.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel called the report "unacceptable" and accused Jose Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Americas Division, of being a "mercenary" and "provocateur."

Rangel called the group "an imperialist instrument" supporting the opposition's efforts to recall Chavez in the referendum.

Francisco Ameliach, the president of Venezuela's National Assembly and a leader of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party, proposed that the legislature declare Vivanco "persona non grata" in Venezuela, the state news agency Venpres reported. It was not clear when the Chavez-dominated National Assembly would vote on the measure.

Human Rights Watch insisted its report was nonpartisan and reminded the government that the group had condemned a brief 2002 coup against Chavez.

Arrieche's firing was based on a report by a congressional panel -- composed exclusively of ruling party members -- alleging he gave false information on his credentials when he was appointed.

It cited Arrieche's ties to Luis Miquilena, once one of Chavez's closest collaborators and now one of Chavez's most vociferous critics.

The firing comes as both sides prepare for a recall referendum on Chavez, who was elected to a six-year term in 2000. For a recall to succeed, more Venezuelans must vote against Chavez than the 3.7 million who elected him four years ago.

If Chavez loses, new elections must be called within 30 days. The winner would serve out the remainder of Chavez's term.

Chavez is a deeply divisive figure. Critics say he is steering the world's No. 5 oil exporter toward Cuba-style dictatorship. Supporters say he is improving the lives of Venezuela's majority poor.
 

U.N. Calls Killing Of 34 Colombian Peasants "Crime Of War"
The United Nations yesterday called Tuesday's slaughter of 34 peasant cocaine harvesters in northeastern Colombia a war crime, Xinhua News Agency reports.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the massacre was "a crime of war because its authors gave a premeditated death to unarmed civilians, put in a total state of defenselessness and inferiority."

The peasants were asleep in their hammocks at a ranch 435 miles northeast of Bogota when suspected Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia members burst in, tied the workers up and executed them.

The United Nations said international humanitarian law "bans the attempts against the lives and physical integrity of people that do not directly participate in hostilities" (Xinhua News Agency, June 17).

General Carlos Alberto Ospina, the chief of Colombia's armed forces, said the murders were instigated by a dispute between the leftist rebels and far-right paramilitary gunmen over control of the production of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.

A survivor of the killings said the perpetrators were young FARC members who accused the workers of being paramilitary members, a charge the survivor denies.

"All we care about is (finding) work, not who the boss is," he said.

In addition to the 34 dead, seven others were wounded. The killers allowed two women to escape.

"They tied us up and threw us on the floor like dogs and shot us," said a survivor who was shot once and then played dead.

Tuesday's attack was the worst mass killing since May 2002, when FARC members fired a mortar at a church in northwestern Colombia, killing 119 civilians.