Cang Lang

Syrian prime minister survives bomb attack

Written By Unknown on Senin, 29 April 2013 | 21.50

BEIRUT: Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived a bomb attack on his convoy in Damascus on Monday, state media and activists said, as rebels struck in the heart of President Bashar al-Assad's capital.

Six people were killed in the blast, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, the latest in a series of rebel attacks on government targets including a December bombing which wounded Assad's interior minister.

Halki wields little power but the attack highlighted the rebels' growing ability to target symbols of Assad's authority in a civil war which has cost more than 70,000 lives, according to the United Nations.

Assad picked Halki in August to replace Riyadh Hijab, who defected and escaped to neighbouring Jordan just weeks after a Damascus bombing which killed four of the president's top security advisers.

In comments released by the state news agency SANA but not shown on television, Halki was quoted as condemning the attack as a sign of "bankruptcy and failure of the terrorist groups", a reference to the rebels battling to overthrow Assad.

The blast shook the Mezze district soon after 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) and sent thick black smoke into the sky. The Observatory said one man accompanying Halki was killed as well as five passers-by.

State television showed firemen hosing down the charred and mangled remains of a car. Close by was a large white bus, its windows blown out and its seats gutted by fire. Glass and debris were scattered across several lanes of a main road.

"The terrorist explosion in al-Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Doctor Wael al-Halki is well and not hurt at all," state television said.

It later broadcast footage of Halki, who appeared composed and unruffled, chairing what it said was an economic committee.

Mezze is part of a shrinking "Square of Security" in central Damascus, where many government and military institutions are based and where senior Syrian officials live.

Sheltered for nearly two years from the bloodshed and destruction ravaging much of the rest of Syria, it has been slowly sucked into violence as rebel forces based to the east of the capital launch mortar attacks and carry out bombings in the centre.

Chemical weapons

Assad has lost control of large areas of northern and eastern Syria, faces a growing challenge in the southern province of Deraa, and is battling rebels in many cities.

But his forces have been waging powerful ground offensives, backed by artillery and air strikes, against rebel-held territory around the capital and near the central city of Homs which links Damascus to the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean.

As part of that counter-offensive, Assad's forces probably used chemical weapons, the United States said last week.

Despite congressional pressure on President Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels, he has made clear he is in no rush to intervene on the basis of evidence he said was preliminary.

Russia, which has criticised Western and Gulf Arab support for the anti-Assad fighters, said that attempts by Western countries to expand a UN inquiry into chemical weapons in Syria amounted to a pretext to intervene in the civil war.

"There is not always a basis for the allegations (of the use of chemical weapons)," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Monday after meeting the head of the African Union Commission.

"There are probably governments and a number of external players who believe that it is fine to use any means to overthrow the Syrian regime. But the theme of the use of weapons of mass destruction is too serious and we shouldn't joke about it. To take advantage of it (to advance) geopolitical goals is not acceptable."

The United Nations said in February that around 70,000 people had been killed in Syria's conflict. Since then activists have reported daily death tolls of between 100 and 200.

Five million people have fled their homes, including 1.4 million refugees in nearby countries, and war losses are estimated at many tens of billions of dollars.

The Beirut-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that 400,000 houses have been completely destroyed, 300,000 partially destroyed and a further half million have suffered some kind of structural damage.

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40 injured, 4 dead in Prague's powerful blast

PRAGUE: A powerful blast ripped through a multi-storey building in Prague's historic centre on Monday, leaving about 40 people injured and possibly up to four dead trapped in the rubble, rescuers said.

The force of the explosion, which police said was believed to have been caused by a gas leak, blew out windows in nearby streets, and shook buildings across the Vltava river in the Czech capital.

Police have sealed off the popular tourist area and evacuated around 220 people from several nearby buildings, Prague police spokesman Tomas Hulan said.

Emergency services chief Zdenek Schwarz told the novinky.cz news website that three or four dead people may be buried in the rubble

of the damaged building, which is near Prague's historic National Theatre.

"The gas company workers haven't allowed rescuers in the building where the blast occurred, but (detection) dogs have marked the place a few times so we suppose there might be three or four dead people there," he said.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw dozens of people with cuts, likely sustained by shattered glass from windows along the debris-covered Divadelni Street. Injured victims were treated on the spot for cuts, some with blood streaming down their faces and bandages on their heads and many of them in shock.

Prague emergency service spokeswoman Jirina Ernestova told AFP that about 40 people had been taken to hospital for treatment.

Schwarz also told Czech TV that four people had suffered serious injuries, while other Czech media said up to 55 may have been hurt.

"A gas blast seems to be the most likely cause. The explosion was rather massive and damaged windows in several streets," Hulan told the television station, adding that several hundred Prague police officers were in action.

Czech media said the blast moved the wall of the building, a former block of flats now used as office space, by five centimetres (two inches) and quoted witnesses as saying they could smell gas in the street.

Prime Minister Petr Necas said in a statement that he was "deeply affected by the tragedy".

The buildings in the area were mostly built in the 19th century, including the ornate National Theatre, whose adjacent modern section was damaged by the blast.

Students and teachers from two nearby universities panicked and ran out when the blast shook their buildings, fearing a terrorist attack, an unnamed student told Czech TV.

"Blast in Divadelni (street), many injured. Windows broken at journalism faculty," Milos Cermak, a Czech journalist who was lecturing in an adjacent university building at the time, wrote on Twitter.

"Police say gas still leaking. Helicopter above us. Classes cancelled for rest of week," he added.

Cermak described the explosion as "a terrible blast."

"We don't know what happened. The firefighters helped some students covered in blood out of the building," Tomas, a student at the faculty, told the website of the Lidove noviny broadsheet.

The Czech capital welcomed more than 5.4 million tourists last year.

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Hopes fade for Bangladesh survivors

DHAKA: Rescue officials in Bangladesh said on Monday they were unlikely to find more survivors in the rubble of a factory building that collapsed last week burying hundreds of garment workers in the country's worst industrial accident.

Heavy cranes were being used to lift huge concrete blocks from the wreckage of Rana Plaza, where 381 people are now confirmed to have been killed according to the latest official toll. The building housed factories making clothes for western brands.

Hundreds more of the mostly female workers who are thought to have been inside the building when it caved in last Wednesday remain unaccounted for. A fire overnight further hampered the last desperate efforts to find survivors.

"We are giving the highest priority to saving people, but there is little hope of finding anyone alive," army spokesman Shahinul Islam told reporters at the site.

As anger continued to mount over the disaster, the owner of the building was arrested by police commandos on Sunday. Police said he had been trying to flee to India.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the wrecked building in the commercial suburb of Savar, about 30km (20 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.

Late on Sunday, sparks from rescuers' cutting equipment started a fire in the debris as they raced to save a woman who may have been the last survivor in the rubble. Smoke was rising from the site on Monday.

Arrests and protests

Officials said the eight-storey complex had been built on swampy ground without the correct permits, and more than 3,000 workers — most of them young women — entered the building on Wednesday morning despite warnings that it was structurally unsafe.

A bank and shops in the same building closed after a jolt was felt and cracks were noticed on some pillars on Tuesday.

Seven people have been arrested over the disaster, four factory bosses, two engineers and building owner Mohammed Sohel Rana. Police are looking for a fifth factory boss, who they said was a Spanish citizen.

Rana, a local leader of the ruling Awami League's youth front, was shown on television being brought to Dhaka in handcuffs after he was seized in the border town of Benapole by the elite Rapid Action Battalion following a four-day manhunt.

Officials said he faced charges of faulty construction and causing unlawful death.

The collapse was the third major industrial incident in five months in Bangladesh, the second-largest exporter of garments in the world behind China. In November, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory in a suburb of Dhaka killed 112 people.

Such incidents have raised serious questions about worker safety and low wages, and could taint the reputation of the poor South Asian country, which relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports. The industry employs about 3.6 million people, most of them women, some of whom earn as little as $38 a month.

In a development that may raise questions about the authorities' handling of the rescue operation, a spokesman at the British High Commission on Monday confirmed that an offer of technical assistance from Britain had been declined.

Anger over the disaster has sparked days of protests and clashes, and paramilitary troops were deployed in the industrial hub of Gazipur as garment workers took to the streets again on Monday, smashing cars and setting fire to an ambulance.

The unrest forced authorities to shut down many factories, which had reopened on Monday after two days of closures. Police fired teargas to disperse protesters.

The main opposition has called for a national strike on May 2 in protest over the incident.

Emdadul Islam, chief engineer of the state-run Capital Development Authority, said last that week that Rana had not received the proper construction consent for the building, and had illegally added three storeys to the original five.

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Taliban vow suicide and 'insider' attacks

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 27 April 2013 | 21.50

KABUL: The Taliban in Afghanistan vowed on Saturday to start a new campaign of mass suicide attacks on foreign military bases and diplomatic areas, as well as damaging "insider attacks", as part of a new spring offensive this year.

The offensive was announced via emails from Taliban spokesmen. The Islamist group has made similar announcements in recent years, which have sometimes been followed by spikes in violence after Afghanistan's harsh winter months.
The announcement of more mass suicide and insider attacks will likely be greeted with concern by the Nato-led military coalition, which is in the final stages of a fight against the Taliban-led insurgency that began in late 2001.

However, there was no immediate reaction to the Taliban's statement from the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
After announcing their spring offensive last year, the Taliban launched a large attack in Kabul involving suicide bombers and an 18-hour firefight targeting Western embassies, ISAF headquarters and the Afghan parliament.

The start of the traditional "fighting season" is particularly important this year, with ISAF increasing the rate at which it hands security responsibility to Afghan forces before the withdrawal of most foreign troops by the end of 2014.

The Taliban statement said this year's offensive, named after Khalid bin Waleed, one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Mohammad, will involve "special military tactics" similar to those carried out previously. "Collective martyrdom operations on bases of foreign invaders, their diplomatic centres and military airbases will be even further structured while every possible tactic will be utilized in order to detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors," the statement said.

Insider attacks, also known as "green on blue" attacks, involve Afghan police or soldiers turning their guns on their ISAF trainers and counterparts. They have grown considerably since last year and have strained relations between Kabul and foreign forces.

However, there is considerable debate over how many can be attributed to infiltration by insurgents and how many are by disgruntled members of the Afghan security forces. Last August, then ISAF commander, US General John Allen, said about a quarter of such attacks involved the Taliban.

The spring offensive was coordinated to begin on April 28 to coincide with a national holiday to mark the overthrow of the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, the statement said.

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Thousands charged with corruption in China

BEIJING: China's prosecutors handled 3,657 corruption cases, and 1,481 cases involving dereliction of duty and rights violations during the first quarter of 2013, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said on Saturday.
All these violations had directly infringed upon peoples' interests, according to an SPP statement, which added that 5,102 people as well as a total volume of 540 million yuan ($87.5 million) were involved in the corruption and bribery cases, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The first three months saw 2,054 people found culpable of dereliction of duty or rights violations, including five municipal-level cadres.
The SPP statement said it will continue focusing on such cases that have a direct bearing on people's interests, namely cases in such sectors as food and drug safety, agriculture, education, employment, social security, medicine, housing, the environment, safe production, public security and law enforcement.

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Iraqi PM points to Syria over deadly 'sectarian' unrest

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki pointed a finger on Saturday at the civil war in neighbouring Syria for the return of sectarian strife to Iraq, as a five-day wave of violence has killed 215 people.

And the head of the Sahwa anti-Qaida militia forces threatened war on militants if those who have killed Iraqi soldiers are not turned over.

Sectarian strife "came back to Iraq, because it began in another place in this region," Maliki said in televised remarks.

A civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, has killed more than 70,000 people.

In Iraq, Sunni-Shia sectarian violence, which peaked in 2006 and 2006, killed tens of thousands.

This week, 215 people have died in a wave of violence. "Sectarianism is evil, and the wind of sectarianism does not need a licence to cross from a country to another, because if it begins in a place, it will move to another place," Maliki said.

"Strife is knocking on the doors of everyone, and no one will survive if it enters, because there is a wind behind it, and money, and plans," he added, two days after warning of the danger of a return to "sectarian civil war."

A wave of violence began on Tuesday when security forces moved in against Sunni anti-government protesters near the northern Sunni Arab town of Hawijah, sparking clashes that left 53 people dead.

Subsequent unrest, much of it apparently linked to the Hawijah clashes, killed dozens more and brought the death toll to 215 by Saturday.

Iraqiya state television today quoted Sahwa chief Sheikh Wissam al-Hardan as saying that if those who have killed soldiers are not handed over, "the Sahwa will take the requested procedures and do what it did in 2006."

Sahwa militiamen fought pitched battles against Sunni militants from 2006, helping turn the tide of the Iraq war.

On Saturday, gunmen killed five soldiers from army intelligence and five anti-Qaida militiamen.

One group of soldiers were driving near the site of a long-running anti-government protest near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, when they were stopped by gunmen.

They shot one of the gunmen, wounding him, and clashes broke out in which four of the soldiers were killed and another wounded, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said.

Gunmen also killed a soldier and wounded another in a similar incident involving a second vehicle in the same area, the same sources said.

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'78k Bhutan refugees resettled in west'

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 26 April 2013 | 21.50

KATHMANDU: Some 78,000 Bhutanese refugees have moved to the west from camps in Nepal where they have been living for two decades after being forced out of their homeland, the United Nations said on Friday.

The refugees have been offered new lives in the United States and other countries following the failure of years of negotiations to secure their return to Bhutan, which says they were illegal immigrants.

Another 38,000 refugees remain in the camps. All are ethnic Nepalese who fled across the border in the early 1990s, claiming persecution after Bhutan made national dress compulsory and banned the Nepalese language.

The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a statement on Friday that 100,000 have submitted applications for the resettlement so far.

"Making 100,000 submissions and reaching nearly 80,000 departures are incredible achievements in the history of this refugee programme and for UNHCR," said Diane Goodman, acting representative of the UNHCR in Nepal.

"We have been able to achieve these major milestones thanks to the generosity of the resettlement countries and our donors, the great support of the government of Nepal, and the resilience of the refugees."

The programme began in 2007 following a lack of progress in years of high-level talks to secure their return to Bhutan.

Some 66,000 refugees have left for the United States, while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain have also taken thousands.

The UNHCR said the total number of refugees to be resettled in the west is expected to reach 100,000 by the end of 2014.

"We spent more than 20 years in the camp but Bhutan didn't show any interest in repatriation so I think resettlement is the best option," Sher Bahadur Khadka, 30, who leaves for the United States next week with his wife, said.

"My wife and I will try to get jobs there. I would also like to study. I hope to manage time both for my work and education," he told reporters on Friday.

Refugee leaders have expressed fears that with so many people leaving the Nepal camps, pressure on Bhutan to allow the rest home will evaporate.

However, Goodman said UNHCR representative held talks with the Bhutanese government officials last year about repatriation and with the international community would continue to work towards the option of voluntary repatriation.

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Bangladesh collapse toll tops 300, many missing

SAVAR, BANGLADESH: More than two days after their factory collapsed on them, at least some garment workers were still alive in the corpse-littered debris on Friday, pinned beneath tons of mangled metal and concrete. Rescue crews struggled to save them, knowing they probably had just a few hours left to live, as desperate relatives clashed with police in their anger and grief.

Amid the chaos, the cries for help and the smell of decaying bodies at the eight-story building where more than 300 died, what happened to 18-year-old Mussamat Anna passes as luck. Rescue workers cut off the garment worker's mangled right hand to pull her free from the debris Thursday night.

"First a machine fell over my hand and I was crushed under the debris. ... Then the roof collapsed over me," she told a cameraman from a hospital bed on Friday.

The death toll topped 300 on Friday and it remained unclear what the final grim number would be. Military spokesman Shahin Islam told reporters that 304 bodies had been recovered.

Brig Gen Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing rescue operations, said 2,200 people have been rescued. The garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed Wednesday in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.

An army rescue worker, Major Abdul Latif, said on Friday that he found one survivor still trapped under concrete slabs, surrounded by several bodies. At another place in the building, four survivors were found pinned under the debris, a fire official said. A cameraman who accompanied a rescue crew heard two men's anguished cries for help; it was unknown on Friday whether they were still alive.

Rescue workers said they were proceeding very cautiously inside the crumbling building, using their hands, hammers and shovels, to avoid more injuries and collapses. But they said the trapped workers were so badly hurt and weakened that they would need to be extricated within a few hours if they are to survive. Facing high humidity and temperatures as high as 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and dropping to about 24 C (75 F) at night, many survivors could also be badly dehydrated.

A military official, Maj Gen Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, told reporters that search and rescue operations would continue until at least on Saturday.

"We know a human being can survive for up to 72 hours in this situation. So our efforts will continue nonstop," he said.

Hundreds of rescuers, some crawling through the maze of rubble, spent a third day working amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, which housed numerous garment factories and a handful of other companies.

Police cordoned off the building site, pushing back thousands of bystanders and relatives, after rescue workers said the crowds were hampering their work.

Clashes later erupted between relatives of those still trapped and police officers, who used batons to disperse the mobs. Police said 50 people were injured in the clashes.

"We want to go inside the building and find our people now. They will die if we don't find them soon," said Shahinur Rahman, whose mother was missing.

Elsewhere, many thousands of workers from the hundreds of garment factories across the Savar industrial zone and other nearby industrial areas took to the streets to protest the collapse and poor safety standards.

Local news reports said protesters smashed dozens of vehicles at one strike Friday. Most of the other protests were largely peaceful.

Dozens of people have been rescued from the wreckage well after Wednesday morning's collapse.

Forty people had been trapped on the fourth floor of the Rana Plaza building until rescuers reached them Thursday evening. Twelve were soon freed, and crews worked to get the others out safely, said Brig Gen Shikder. Crowds at the scene burst into applause as survivors were brought out.

Police say cracks in the building had led them to order an evacuation Tuesday, but the factories ignored the order and were operating when it collapsed Wednesday. Video shot before the collapse shows cracks in the walls, with apparent attempts at repair. It also shows columns missing chunks of concrete and police talking to building operators.

Officials said soon after the collapse that numerous construction regulations had been violated.

Abdul Halim, an official with Savar's engineering department, said the owner of Rana Plaza was originally allowed to construct a five-story building but added another three stories illegally.

Mahbubul Haque Shakil, a spokesman for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said she had ordered police to arrest the owner of the building as well as the owners of the garment factories in "the shortest possible time."

Local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital Development Authority have filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.

Habibur Rahman, police superintendent of Dhaka district, identified the owner of the building as Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front. Rahman said police were also looking for the owners of the garment factories.

Police on Friday detained two of Rana's relatives for questioning, police officer Mohammad Kawser said.

The disaster is the worst ever for Bangladesh's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 people and brought widespread pledges to improve the country's worker-safety standards.

Instead, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where wages, among the lowest in the world, have made it a magnet for numerous global brands.

Bangladesh's garment industry was the third-largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy. It has grown rapidly in the past decade, a boom fueled by Bangladesh's exceptionally low labor costs. The country's minimum wage is now the equivalent of about $38 a month.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.

Britain's Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not recently ordered garments from them.

Wal-Mart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the collapse underscored the "urgent need" for Bangladesh's government, as well as the factory owners, buyers and labor groups, to improve working conditions in the country.

Human Rights Watch says Bangladesh's ministry of labor has only 18 inspectors to monitor thousands of garment factories in the sprawling Dhaka district, where much of the nation's garment industry is located.

John Sifton, the group's Asia advocacy director, also noted that none of the factories in the Rana Plaza were unionized, and that had they been, workers would have been in a better position to refuse to enter the building on Wednesday.

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France gay marriage may affect adoptions: Putin

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Russia could change agreements for the adoption of Russian children made with France and other western states that are legalizing gay marriage. "I consider it fully correct to make changes to the appropriate documents. It is a current issue and we need to think about it," Putin said at a meeting with lawmakers.

"We need to react to what is going on around us. We respect our partners but ask (that they) respect the cultural traditions and ethical, legal and moral norms of Russia," Putin said, quoted by Russian news agencies. The Russian parliament, in a law signed by Putin, had already caused a storm last year by banning the adoption of Russian children by American families.

That law was adopted as part of retaliation for human rights legislation adopted by US lawmakers. The Interfax news agency said Putin's comments on Friday were in response to a question posed by a lawmaker from the western Russian region of Kaliningrad who directly referred to the adoption this month of a bill by the French parliament legalizing same-sex marriage.

The lawmaker, named as Marina Orgiyeva, suggested making changes in adoption agreements with France to ensure that Russian children did not fall into the hands of same-sex parents. Putin did not specify what changes he wanted to see in the agreements.

French President Francois Hollande has promised to sign the gay marriage bill into law as soon as France's constitutional council rules on a challenge filed by right-wing lawmakers. Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993 and officially removed it from the list of psychiatric disorders in 1999. However, homophobia remains widespread and socially acceptable, and almost no public figures have come out as gay.

Putin prides himself on a virile, heterosexual image. Several Russian regions have outraged rights campaigners by approving local laws banning gay propaganda among minors, in legislation which is now in the initial stages of discussion at the federal parliament.

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US asks China to safeguard rights of Uighurs

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 25 April 2013 | 21.50

WASHINGTON: The US has asked China to safeguard the rights of its Uighur minority in Xinjiang province and carry out a transparent probe into the latest incident of violence in which 21 people died.

"We are deeply concerned by the reports of violent confrontation in Xinjiang that left 21 people dead. We will continue to monitor the situation carefully," US state department spokesperson Patrick Ventrell told reporters.

"We regret the unfortunate acts of violence that led to these casualties, and we'll continue to encourage Chinese officials to take steps to reduce tensions and promote long-term stability in Xinjiang," he said.

Ventrell asked the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation of this incident, and to provide all Chinese citizens, including Uighurs, the due process protections to which they are entitled not only under China's constitutional laws but under their international human rights commitments as well.

During the press conference, Ventrell also urged China to release Memetjan Abdulla, who worked as an editor of the state-run China National Radio's Uighur Service and was detained in July 2009 for allegedly instigating ethnic rioting in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region.

On April 1, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. "The exact charges against Abdullah were not disclosed, but Radio Free Asia reported on the sentence and cited a witness at the trial that stated that Abdullah was targeted for talking to international journalists in Beijing about the riots as well as translating articles on the website.

"We call on the government of China to release Memetjan Abdulla and all other journalists imprisoned for their work," the US official said.

When asked about the US assessment of the situation with the Uighurs in China, Ventrell said the state department is "deeply concerned" by ongoing reports of discrimination against and restrictions on Uighurs and other Muslims in China.

"We urge the Chinese government to cease policies that seek to restrict the practice of religious beliefs across China. But we've been particularly concerned about the Uighurs and have stated so publicly in the past," he said.

Further the US also remain "deeply concerned" that Chinese authorities continue to hold Liu Xia, wife of Nobel Laureate and imprisoned activist Liu Xiaobo under unjustified and extra-legal house arrest, he said.

China frequently voices anger at US criticism of its human rights record, although the world's two largest economies cooperate frequently in other areas, including trade and on the showdown with Beijing's ally North Korea.

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Mexican teachers sack offices of political parties

CHILPANCINGO (MEXICO): Teachers angered at education reform stormed the offices of political parties in southwestern Mexico, breaking windows and setting fire to the ruling party's offices.

Plumes of black smoke billowed from the rectangular-shaped headquarters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Guerrero state on Wednesday after masked protesters broke into the building and tossed chairs, papers and plants from windows.

Some spray-painted anti-government graffiti on the building, while others tore pictures of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who pushed through an overhaul of the nation's flagging education system with the backing of opposition parties.

Thousands of members of a teachers' union marched in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and groups wearing masks took their anger out on the offices of the PRI and three other political parties.

The protesters used pipes and sticks to destroy windows and doors at the local headquarters of the National Action Party (PAN), the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the Citizen Movement. Protesters wrote "traitors of the people" on the PRD's walls.

Teachers have held protests in recent weeks, twice blocking the highway between Mexico City and the Pacific resort of Acapulco to denounce the reform that passed the federal Congress in December.

The latest demonstration erupted one day after the Guerrero state legislature approved an education bill that fell well short of protesters' demands to water down the federal law, which requires teachers to pass periodic tests to get jobs and promotions.

Chilpancingo mayor Mario Moreno asked for federal security support to control the situation.

"We as a municipality do not have the ability to face a mob of 4,000 or 5,000 people," Moreno told Milenio TV.

Meanwhile, students in schools to become teachers blocked two federal highways in the neighboring state of Michoacan, demanding that graduates from their college automatically get teaching positions.

Protests have also taken place in recent weeks in Oaxaca, which is among the country's poorest states along with Guerrero and Michoacan.

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Putin taunts west on Boston

MOSCOW: The Boston bombings should spur stronger security cooperation between Moscow and Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, adding that they also show that the west was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya.

Putin said that "this tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them."

The two brothers accused of the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens who had lived in the US for more than a decade.

Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's orders.

"The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said.

Speaking in an annual call-in show on state television, Putin criticized the west for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past.

"I always felt indignation when our western partners and western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said.

The US has urged the Kremlin to seek a political settlement in Chechnya and criticized rights abuses by Russian troops during the two separatist wars since 1994, which spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region.

It also provided humanitarian aid to the region during the high points of fighting there in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that rebels in Chechnya have close links with al-Qaida. They say dozens of fighters from Arab countries trickled into the region during the fighting there, while some Chechen militants have gone to fight in Afghanistan.

Putin said the west should have cooperated more actively with Russia in combatting terror.

"We always have said that we shouldn't limit ourselves to declarations about terrorism being a common threat and engage in closer cooperation," he said. "Now these two criminals have proven the correctness of our thesis."

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Bangladesh: 80 killed in factory collapse

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 24 April 2013 | 21.50

DHAKA: At least 80 people were killed and 700 others injured on Wednesday when an eight-storey commercial building that housed several garment factories and thousands of workers collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital.

The Rana Plaza in Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka, collapsed with rescue work being carried out to pull out survivors from the rubble.

The eight-storey commercial building housed three garments units, a bank branch and around three hundred shops.

Locals said around 6,000 workers used to work in the factories located in the building.

The dead bodies and the injured were being retrieved from the pile of debris with makeshift slides being made from cloth.

Savar circle Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Moshiuddoula Reza was quoted by BD News as saying that he had information about recovery of 76 bodies.

Most of the bodies were taken to the Enam Medical College from the site, which is located near the Savar bus stand.

According to rescuers, at least four more bodies have been taken to local hospitals and clinics.

Director of the Industrial Police Mostafizur Rahman blamed the garment factory owners for the collapse tragedy.

He told reporters that the owners were operating their units ignoring the cracks spotted in the ill-fated building yesterday.

Some workers also complained that the building had developed cracks last evening, but were not able to evacuate as they were forced back by their managers, media reports said.

A senior army officer overseeing the rescue campaign said at least 700 people were injured and were sent to different medical facilities for treatment including the Enam Hospital.

Home minister Mahiuddin Khan Alamgir said army troops, fire service, police and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) troops had been mobilised on orders of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to activate all efforts to rescue trapped people.

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China calls Japan-US island drill 'provocative'

BEIJING: China said on Wednesday that "provocative actions" would not sway it from defending its territory, after Japan confirmed it would conduct military drills with the United States amid tension between Beijing and Tokyo over disputed islands.

Japan said on Tuesday that the joint drill, scheduled for June off California, involved the recapture of an isolated island but was not aimed at scenarios involving a specific country, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said "foreign pressure" could not sway China from protecting its territorial sovereignty in the East China Sea.

"For any related provocative actions, the Chinese government will maintain a resolute response," Hua told reporters at a regular news briefing when asked about the drills.

"We have always upheld the same stance on issues related to the Diaoyu Islands: to appropriately solve, manage and control the relevant issues through bilateral dialogue and negotiations."

Beijing and Tokyo have both protested over an incident on Tuesday in which Chinese patrol vessels played cat-and-mouse with a flotilla of Japanese nationalists near the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

The Japanese government bought the islands near rich fishing grounds and potentially lucrative maritime gas fields from a private Japanese owner last year, sparking sometimes-violent anti-Japanese protests across China.

The issue has brought Chinese-Japanese relations to their lowest point since normalisation of relations more than 40 years ago.

China also chastized Japan for Tuesday's visits by at least 168 lawmakers to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 14 leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal along with Japan's war dead.

The pilgrimage came after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an offering and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and two other ministers visited Yasukuni over the weekend.

Homage paid by leading Japanese politicians at the Tokyo shrine typically angers Japan's neighbours, who contend that it glorifies wartime aggression.

US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Martin Dempsey told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday on the last day of his trip to China that he had reminded Chinese officials of US obligations to Japan.

"Our position is that we don't take a position on territorial issues. In the case of Japan in particular, however, I was careful to remind them that we do have certain treaty obligations with Japan that we would honour," he said.

The US-Japan security treaty commits the United States to intervene in defence of Japan if there is an attack on Japanese-administered territory.

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Afghan quake: 7 killed, dozens hurt

JALALABAD (AFGHANISTAN): Seven people were killed, dozens injured and many homes destroyed when a powerful earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said.

The quake, measured at a magnitude of 5.6 by the US Geological Survey, sent people rushing from their homes in worst-hit areas and was felt in the Afghan capital Kabul and in Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan.

It struck at 0925 GMT at a depth of 62 kilometres (39 miles), with its epicentre 24 kilometres northwest of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad near the Pakistani border, the USGS said in a revised update.

Six people died in Nangarhar province of which Jalalabad is the capital, said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, and 75 people were injured. Forty of them were given first aid and the rest admitted to hospital for further treatment.

"We are still in the process of getting information from the affected areas. Among the dead are some children," Abdulzai told AFP.

One person was killed and one injured in neighbouring Kunar province and many homes were destroyed, said provincial spokesman Wasefullah Wasef.

In Kama district outside Jalalabad, people ran from their mudbrick homes in panic when the tremor was felt, a witness said, describing it as "very powerful". Two walls in one village collapsed, he said.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range which lies near the juncture of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

In June 2012 two quakes in the area triggered landslides that killed at least 75 villagers.

Wednesday's tremors came a week after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake centred in Iran affected thousands of people in remote southeastern Pakistan and killed 41 people.

Pakistani victims have staged angry protests, accusing the government of failing to provide adequate relief after hundreds of homes were destroyed or damaged.

On October 8, 2005 a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and parts of northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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Syria's Assad 'using chemical weapons': Israeli army

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 23 April 2013 | 21.50

JERUSALEM: President Basharal-Assad is using chemical weapons, most likely sarin, against rebel forces in Syria, a senior Israeli army officer told a conference on Tuesday.

"Assad is using chemical weapons in Syria," said Brigadier General Itai Brun, head of research and analysis in the army's military intelligence division, in remarks quoted on the army's official Twitter feed.

In remarks to the annual INSS security conference in Tel Aviv, Brun listed the physical symptoms suffered by those who had apparently been exposed to chemical agents.

"The pupils are small, the foam coming out of the mouth and other additional signs testify as evidence that use has been made of chemical weapons," he said in remarks broadcast on Israel radio.

"Which chemical weapons? Apparently sarin."

Developed as a pesticide in Germany in 1938, sarin is a deadly and volatile nerve agent that is colourless and odourless.

In high doses, it paralyses the muscles around the lungs and prevents chemicals from "switching off" the body's secretions, so victims suffocate or drown as their lungs fill with mucus and saliva.

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North Korea demands recognition as nuclear state

SEOUL: North Korea on Tuesday renewed its demand for recognition as a nuclear power, saying it was a pre-requisite for the start of any dialogue with the United States.

A commentary in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper rejected as "totally unacceptable" a US demand that North Korea commit to abandoning its nuclear weapons and missile programme before any talks can begin.

Any meeting at the negotiating table must be "between nuclear weapons states", it said.

The United States has made it clear that it will never formally accept the North, which carried out its third nuclear test in February, as a nuclear power.

After a month of escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula, Seoul, Washington and Pyongyang have begun skirting around the possibility of dialogue.

For the moment, however, most energy is being expended on rejecting each other's pre-conditions.

During a trip to Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo earlier this month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Pyongyang must first prove it was serious about reining in its nuclear programme.

North Korea responded by demanding the withdrawal of UN sanctions and an end to all future South Korea-US joint military exercises.

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Iran denies involvement in Canadian terror plot

DUBAI: Iran on Tuesday denied involvement in a plot to derail a passenger train in Canada that police say was backed by al Qaida elements based in Iran.

Canadian police said there was no indication that the plot was sponsored by the Iranian state, with which Canada severed diplomatic relations last year. Iran nevertheless reacted angrily.

"No shred of evidence regarding those who've been arrested and stand accused has been provided," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the Mehr news agency.

He said al-Qaida's beliefs were in no way consistent with the Islamic Republic, and that Iran opposed "any kind of violent action that endangers lives".

"In recent years, Canada's radical government has put in practice a project to harass Iran and it is clear that it has pursued these hostile actions," he added.

Last September, Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran over its nuclear programme, its hostility towards Israel and what Ottawa said was Iran's support for terrorist groups.

US officials said the attack would have targeted a rail line between New York and Toronto.

Canadian authorities arrested two suspects, Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, linking them to extremist al-Qaida factions based in Iran. As a Shi'ite Muslim theocracy, Iran has little in common with the Sunni-based al-Qaida.

However, a US government source said Iran was home to a little-known network of al-Qaida fixers and "facilitators" based in the Iranian city of Zahedan, very close to Iran's borders with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The source said they serve as go-betweens, travel agents and financial intermediaries for al-Qaida operatives and cells operating in Pakistan and moving through the area.

According to the source, they do not operate under the protection of the Iranian government, which periodically launches crackdowns on al-Qaida elements, though at other times it appears to turn a blind eye to them. It is also an area where Iranian authorities have battled a insurgency of their own in recent years from Sunni Muslims complaining of discrimination.

The Jundollah group, believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, has claimed several attacks including a bombing that killed 42 people in 2009, and attacks on mosques in Zahedan and elsewhere in the region. Iran says Jundollah has links to al Qaida and has accused Pakistan, Britain and the United States of supporting it to stir instability in the region, allegations that they deny.

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Boston arrest sparks debate over reading of rights

Written By Unknown on Senin, 22 April 2013 | 21.50

WASHINGTON: The arrest of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect has ignited debate over a legal exception that allows police to interrogate individuals without reading them their rights.

The suspect, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old naturalized US citizen, was in hospital to receive treatment for injuries he sustained during a shootout with police on Friday.

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick said the seriously wounded Tsarnaev was "not able to communicate yet," hinting that he may not have been questioned so far.

However, rights advocates were quick to express concern over possible efforts by President Barack Obama's administration to use a provision waiving the need to inform Tsarnaev of his right to an attorney or to remain silent.

American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero called for a narrow read of the "public safety" exception, which is only allowed in cases where there is a "continued threat" to public safety.

"We must not waver from our tried-and-true justice system, even in the most difficult of times," he said in a statement.

"Denial of rights is un-American and will only make it harder to obtain fair convictions."

US attorney Carmen Ortiz told reporters after Tsarnaev's arrest that the authorities had invoked the public safety exception and delayed reading him his rights, or Miranda warning.

Republican lawmakers have gone a step further, arguing that Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who lived in the United States for a decade, should be declared an "enemy combatant," the same legal status as detainees being held at the Guantanamo military prison.

"A decision to not read Miranda rights to the suspect was sound and in our national security interests," read a joint statement by senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Representative Peter King.

"However, we have concerns that limiting this investigation to 48 hours and exclusively relying on the public safety exception to Miranda could very well be a national security mistake."

However, Senate armed service committee chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, disagreed and expressed full confidence in the US justice system to try the suspect in federal civilian courts.

He warned that there was "no legal basis for his detention as an enemy combatant."

"I am not aware of any evidence so far that the Boston suspect is part of any organized group, let alone al-Qaida, the Taliban or one of their affiliates — the only organizations whose members are subject to detention under the Authorization for Use of Military Force," Levin said.

"To hold the suspect as an enemy combatant under these circumstances would be contrary to our laws and may even jeopardize our efforts to prosecute him for his crimes."

Tsarnaev was caught after a massive manhunt that saw his older brother and fellow suspect Tamerlan killed.

A 1966 Supreme Court ruling requires that police read suspects their Miranda rights, in order to protect them against involuntarily incriminating themselves.

Under normal rules, only comments made by a suspect who has been read his rights is able to be used in a subsequent trial.

The court created an exception in 1984 allowing police to interrogate a suspect without reading the rights if there is deemed to be an immediate threat to themselves or to the public.

In a 2010 policy memo, the FBI ordered agents to interrogate suspected "operational terrorists" about immediate threats to public safety without first advising them of their Miranda rights.

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Sinn Fein chief testifies against brother in rape case

DUBLIN : Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is testifying in a Belfast court against his brother, who is charged with raping his own daughter.

The long-delayed case has raised awkward questions for the Irish nationalist party, because Adams admits he knew for decades about the criminal allegations but didn't tell police. That reflected Sinn Fein's traditional hostility to law enforcement agencies in the British territory of Northern Ireland.

Adams testified Monday that his niece Aine told him of abuse allegations in 1987 when she was 14. He said he confronted his brother in 2000, when his brother admitted one act of abuse.

Liam Adams denies 10 counts of rape, indecent assault and gross indecency from 1977 to 1983. He fled to the Republic of Ireland in 2009 but was extradited in 2011.

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'Japan nuke cleanup may take more than 40 years'

TOKYO: A UN nuclear watchdog team said Japan may need longer than the projected 40 years to decommission its tsunami-crippled nuclear plant and urged its operator to improve plant stability.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency team, Juan Carlos Lentijo, said on Monday that damage at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is so complex that it is "impossible" to predict how long the cleanup may last.

"As for the duration of the decommissioning project, this is something that you can define in your plans. But in my view, it will be nearly impossible to ensure the time for decommissioning such a complex facility in less than 30-40 years as it is currently established in the roadmap," Lentijo said.

The government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. have predicted the cleanup would take up to 40 years. They still have to develop technology and equipment that can operate under fatally high radiation levels to locate and remove melted fuel. The reactors must be kept cool and the plant must stay safe and stable, and those efforts to ensure safety could slow the process down.

"You have to adopt a very cautious position to ensure that you always are working on the safe side," Lentijo said.

The plant still runs on makeshift equipment and frequently suffers glitches.

Just over the past few weeks, the plant suffered nearly a dozen problems ranging from extensive power outages and leaks of highly radioactive water from underground water pools. On Monday, TEPCO had to stop the cooling system for one of the fuel storage pools for safety checks after finding two dead rats inside a transformer box. Earlier this month, a rat short-circuited a switchboard, causing an extensive outage and cooling loss for up to 30 hours.

The problems have raised concerns about whether the plant, crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, can stay intact throughout a decommissioning process. The problems have prompted officials to compile risk-reduction measures and review decommissioning plans.

Lentijo, an expert on nuclear fuel cycles and waste technology, warned of more problems to come.

"It is expectable in such a complex site, additional incidence will occur as it happened in the nuclear plants under normal operations," Lentijo said. "It is important to have a very good capability to identify as promptly as possible failures and to establish compensatory measures."

The IAEA team urged the plant operator to "improve the reliability of essential systems to assess the structural integrity of site facilities, and to enhance protection against external hazards" and promptly replace temporary equipment with a more reliable, permanent system.

The 12-member mission plans to release a report next month.

Among the most pressing issues recently was the leak of tons of highly radioactive water from three of seven underground storage pools into the soil. TEPCO and regulatory officials said none of it was believed to have reached the ocean. TEPCO has moved underground water from the pools to more reliable tanks.

The contaminated water storage has been a problem since early in the accident, but officials acknowledged this month that a lack of storage space has become a "crisis." TEPCO has promised to speed up building more reliable steel tanks and eventually empty the underground tanks, but the leaks will continue until then. Runoff from the three reactors melted in the aftermath of the March 2011 quake-tsunami and a steady inflow of groundwater seeping into the basement of their damaged buildings produce about 400 tons of contaminated water daily at the plant.

TEPCO says 280,000 tons of contaminated water has been stored in tanks on the plant, and the amount would double within a few years.

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Protesters in final bid to block France gay marriage law

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 21 April 2013 | 21.50

PARIS: Thousands of opponents of a gay marriage bill thronged the streets of Paris on Sunday in a last-ditch bid to block the legislation, under the watchful eye of police after recent violence.

The demonstration came after days of sometimes vicious protests and several homophobic assaults in France, as parliament prepares to vote on -- and likely pass -- the bill Tuesday, making France the 14th country to legalize same-sex marriage.

The recent unrest has sparked concern over Sunday's mass demonstration -- particularly as supporters of the legislation are also poised to begin a rival protest in Paris. Both organizers and security forces are on high alert.

Many parents and their children were part of the procession, holding French flags and pink and blue banners, the colour of the "Manif pour tous" (Demo for All) group -- the spearhead of the movement against the bill, which would also legalize adoption by gay couples.

"We've been to all the protests," said a 32-year-old mother who only gave her first name Camille, as she breast-fed her four-month-old son.

"We're here for children's rights. We don't want the state to be complicit in a child being deprived of a father or a mother," she said.

France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who was on site Sunday to support police forces, warned organizers last week that far-right extremists had infiltrated the opposition movement and were intent on provoking unrest.

"We want a peaceful demonstration and we reject all groups that directly target homosexual people," said Frigide Barjot, spokeswoman for the "Manif pour Tous" group.

She said she had called on "professional security services" to help out, adding that any excesses would be reported to specially designated people along the way, who would in turn report them to police.

And even before the start of the protest, one man carrying six canisters of tear gas spotted by organizers was detained by police.

Tension over the imminent adoption of the law, which is going through a second reading in the lower house after already being approved in the French parliament's upper and lower houses, reached breaking point last week.

In Paris, opponents marched for three nights in a row from Wednesday to Friday, and a hard-core of activists, some wearing masks, clashed with police, who made more than 100 arrests during the week.

Two journalists were attacked during Wednesday's march, and cars along the route were vandalized.

In parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, a final debate on the legislation was marred by unprecedented scuffles between deputies.

Rights groups have also reported a rise in verbal and physical assaults against homosexuals, and two gay bars came under attack last week in different cities.

Opponents have accused the government of rushing the bill through its final legislative stages, and say President Francois Hollande has not listened to dissenting voices.

Opinion polls regularly show that while most French people support same-sex marriage, a majority oppose adoption by gay couples.

"A mayor to marry one mother and one father, not a pair of mothers nor a pair of fathers", "A child is not a right" read some of the banners seen in Sunday's procession.

Organizers say the protest was expected to include some 30,000 to 50,000 people, but numbers were not immediately confirmed.

While supporters of the legislation in France have been less vocal than opponents, they have also staged large-scale protests.

On Saturday, several hundred people marched in the northwestern city of Nantes to denounce what they said was a climate of fear created by a "fascist" wave of homophobia.

The bill is largely supported by the ruling Socialists, their allies in the Green Party and the Communists, and opposed by the main opposition UMP and other right-wing and centre-right parties.

It has proved hugely divisive in a country that is officially secular but predominantly Catholic.

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US pushes Turkey-Israel reconciliation

ISTANBUL: Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts.

President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

On a trip to Israel last month, Obama secured a pledge from Turkish and Israeli leaders to normalize ties that broke down after a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American. However, the rapprochement has been slow, sparking concerns that Turkey may be backsliding on its commitment.

US officials say they are hopeful that a meeting this week of Israeli and Turkish diplomats to discuss Israeli compensation for victims of the flotilla raid will jumpstart the process of restoring full diplomatic relations and exchanging ambassadors between the two countries that Washington sees as key strategic partners in the volatile Middle East.

Kerry said at a news conference that he had a "prolonged and constructive" discussion with Davutoglu, about "the importance of completing the task with respect to the renewal of relations between Turkey and Israel."

Kerry said he believes that Davutoglu and Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan "are deeply committed to fulfilling all of the obligations of that understanding. I think they are committed to doing so."

Erdogan is due to visit Obama at the White House on May 16 and US officials are keen to see substantive process by then.

However, Erdogan's plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip sometime in May after his trip to Washington have raised concerns. The State Department has said such a journey would be unhelpful. Both Israel and Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the West Bank, are opposed.

With Abbas, Kerry was talking about ways to improve the Palestinians' living conditions as a confidence-building measure to improve the atmosphere for a resumption in stalled peace talks with Israel.

Kerry has said he fears there is only a two- or three-year window of opportunity to reach a deal on a two-state solution that would end the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wants to move as quickly as possible. He has met with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times already to that end since becoming secretary of state.

Kerry was in Istanbul primarily to attend an international conference on Syria that began on Saturday afternoon and stretched into early Sunday morning as participants debated how best to boost aid to rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

At the conference, he announced that the Obama administration would double its non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition with an additional $123 million in supplies that could include for the first time armored vehicles, body armor, night vision goggles and other defensive military supplies.

"I can't tell you how quickly it will change things on the ground," Kerry said Sunday. "I can promise you that as soon as I return to Washington, I am going to press as hard as I can" to get it to the opposition within a matter of weeks.

"This has to happen quickly, it has to have an impact," he added.

The additional aid, which brings total non-lethal US assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began more than two years ago, "underscores the United States' firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition's advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria," Kerry said.

The US pledge was the only tangible, public offer of new international support at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the 11 main countries supporting the opposition and fell well short of what the opposition has been appealing for: weapons and direct military intervention to stop the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

The Syrian National Coalition is seeking drone strikes on sites from which the regime has fired missiles, the imposition of no-fly zones and protected humanitarian corridors to ensure the safety of civilians.

While pleased with the US moves, the opposition appeared deeply disappointed, especially as it lost some ground in the latest clashes with Syrian troops backed by pro-government gunmen capturing at least one village in a strategic area near the Lebanese border.

"We appreciate the limited support given by the international community, but it is not sufficient," it said in a statement released at the end of the conference. "We call on the international community to be more forthcoming and unreserved to fulfill its responsibilities in extending support that is needed by the Syrian people."

With the exception of the United States, none of the participants offered new assistance, although European nations are considering changes to an arms embargo that would allow weapons transfers to the Syrian opposition. But European Union action is unlikely before the current embargo is set to expire in late May.

Obama has said he has no plans to send weapons or give lethal aid to the rebels, despite pressure from Congress, some administration advisers and the appeals from opposition.

There are no plans to change that policy, although US officials say they are not opposed to other countries sending arms, as long as the recipients have been properly vetted.

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Brazil police sentenced for 1992 prison 'massacre'

SAO PAULO: Twenty-three Brazilian police officers were sentenced to 156 years in jail each on Sunday for their role in the killing of 111 inmates during Brazil's deadliest prison uprising in 1992.

The 23 were among 26 military officers on trial before the Sao Paulo state tribunal. The three others were cleared.

The officers, most of them now retired, were accused of killing 15 prisoners in Sao Paulo's Carandiru prison during the operation to quell the revolt on October 2, 1992, which came to be known as the " Carandiru massacre."

The defence, which argued that the police officers fired in self-defence after being threatened and assaulted by the prisoners, said it would appeal.

None of the officers involved in the operation were harmed. In addition to the 111 prisoners killed, some 87 others were wounded.

Survivors accused police of firing on inmates who had already surrendered or were hiding in their cells.

Authorities initially claimed the police were trying to break up a fight between prisoners who had seized control of one of the cell blocks.

But evidence uncovered later suggested military police had shot prisoners and then destroyed evidence which could have determined individual responsibility for the killings.

No one is currently in prison for the murders. The commanding officer of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in jail for his mishandling of the revolt and the subsequent killings.

But in 2006, a court voided the conviction because of mistrial claims. Later that year, Guimaraes was found dead in his apartment under unclear circumstances.

The massacre in what was then Latin America's biggest prison, with 8,000 inmates, sparked outrage among inmates, and prosecutors said it was a key factor in the emergence of a criminal gang known as First Command of the Capital (PCC) in 1993.

The PCC is believed to have ordered the death of the director of the prison at the time, Jose Ismael Pedrosa.

From the prison, PCC bosses organized a series of assaults on police stations and other buildings that left more than 170 people dead and paralyzed Sao Paulo for four days in May 2006.

The unrest eventually spread to other cities, and scores of suspected criminals were gunned down in a subsequent wave of police reprisal attacks.

Late last year, the PCC was also blamed for a wave of police killings and bus burnings.

The Carandiru prison was demolished in 2002.

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Dozens killed in battle near Damascus

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 20 April 2013 | 21.50

BEIRUT: At least 69 people, many of them rebels, have been killed in a four-day battle pitting Syrian insurgents against government forces in Jdaidetal-Fadl near Damascus, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

"Regime troops are trying to seize total control of the town of Jdaidet al-Fadl" southwest of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Sixty-nine people were killed in violence raging there over the past four days," added the Britain-based watchdog, citing activists on the ground, who said many were killed in shelling and also in summary executions by the army.

Violence also raged in Sunni areas of the nearby majority Christian town of Jdaidet Artuz.

The two towns are near Daraya, the scene of fierce fighting for several months.

"Daraya was subjected to tank and rocket fire, and fresh clashes broke out in the morning on the southern and western fronts," the town's opposition local council said in a statement.

It added that regime troops had deployed reinforcements including "30 tanks and military vehicles" to the town.

Since last year, the army has tried to root out rebels positioned southwest and east of Damascus, in a bid to secure the capital.

In southern Damascus, meanwhile, the army renewed shelling on several rebel enclaves, said the Observatory

Violence also raged in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor where an unspecified number of people died in an attack on a bus on the edges of the provincial capital while a woman and three children were killed in army shelling of Kharita town.

In the central province of Homs, regime troops took control of Radwaniyeh village near the flashpoint rebel town of Qusayr, the Observatory added.

Fierce firefights between insurgents and regime troops, pro-regime militiamen and fighters loyal to Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah were also reported in several areas around Qusayr near the border with Lebanon, it said.

A Lebanese security source told AFP that two shells launched from across the border fell near Sahlet al-May in the Hermel region of eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, without causing any injuries.

Cross-border shellfire from the Syrian war has regularly hit Lebanon, on occasion killing Lebanese.

Saturday's violence comes a day after at least 157 people were killed across Syria, according to the Observatory.

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Heavy clashes near Syria-Lebanese border