Quake strikes eastern Indonesia: seismologists

JAKARTA (AFP) – A strong 6.4-magnitude quake struck Indonesia's remote eastern Sumba island on Monday, the geophysics agency said.

The quake struck at 7:52 pm (1052 GMT) with an epicentre 107 kilometres (67 miles) northwest of the main island town of Waingapu, the Jakarta Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

It was measured at a depth of 86 kilometres.

The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 6.1.

Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the earthquake-triggered Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 that killed more than 220,000 people, including over 168,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and Nias island.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.

Nearly 700 homes as well as office buildings, schools and health clinics were damaged when a 7.2-magnitude quake struck the remote Talaud Islands in North Sulawesi province in February.

Two shot dead in renewed unrest in China's Xinjiang

By David Gray

URUMQI, China (Reuters) – Chinese police shot dead two people on Monday in renewed unrest in the far northwestern region of Xinjiang, state media said, after at least 184 people died in riots last week.

The official Xinhua news agency said the two people killed in the regional capital Urumqi were Uighur. Police were trying to stop them attacking another Uighur when the security forces opened fire, the report said. Another Uighur was injured.

"An initial investigation found that the three people were attacking the fourth person with clubs and knives at 2:55 p.m. near the People's Hospital at Jiefang Nanlu," Xinhua said. "Police on patrol fired warning shots before shooting at the three suspects."

Of the official death toll from the July 5 riots, 137 were Han Chinese, who form the majority of China's 1.3 billion population, and 46 were Uighur, a Muslim people native to Xinjiang and culturally tied to Central Asia and Turkey.

Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi that day after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China. Han Chinese in Urumqi launched revenge attacks later in the week.

State media said earlier in the day that demonstrations against Chinese consulates in Europe and the United States showed that ethnic riots were orchestrated.

Demonstrators threw eggs, Molotov cocktails and stones at several Chinese embassies and consulates, including in Ankara, Oslo, Munich and the Netherlands, Xinhua news agency said.

"Supporters of the East Turkestan separatists started well-orchestrated and sometimes violent attacks on Chinese embassies and consulates in several countries soon after the riots occurred," Xinhua said.

"The attacks against China's diplomatic missions and the Urumqi riots seemed to be well-organized."

While security forces blanketed the city, more and more businesses are reopening.

"In general, things are slowly getting back to normal. I think the situation is getting better and under control," said one Han resident. But some Uighur residents remained wary.

A Uighur security guard, who declined to give his name, said that while he did not support the violence, he understood people's frustration.

"Look around you -- 90 percent of all the businesses are owned by the Han," he said, standing in Urumqi's main bazaar.

"All I can do is get a job as a security guard," complained the university graduate. "The Han here can't even speak Uighur."

Beijing cannot afford to lose its grip on Xinjiang, a vast desert territory that borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

In another sign the government is not going to relax its grip in Urumqi anytime soon, Xinhua said police will take in for questioning anyone who cannot produce an identity card or driving license.

People are also banned from "shouting slogans, posting banners, distributing leaflets or gathering for lectures in city streets or public venues," the report cited a police notice as saying.

"Police will immediately disperse gatherings and confiscate the propaganda materials and take away key members for interrogation according to law," Xinhua added.

China has blamed Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur businesswoman, for instigating the unrest.

Xinhua also blamed the World Uighur Congress, an umbrella group for organizations of exiled or overseas Uighurs, for the demonstrations at the embassies.

Deadly riots in Lhasa in March 2008, and a subsequent Chinese crackdown across the Tibetan plateau, also spurred a series of demonstrations at Chinese embassies in countries with significant exiled Tibetan populations.

Chinese miners freed after 25 days in flooded mine

By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – Three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China by drinking dirty water and chewing coal before rescuers burrowed through a collapsed tunnel to reach them, a local official and state media said Monday.

The men and 13 others became stuck when the Xinqiao Coal Mine flooded June 17. On Sunday, rescue workers digging into the mountainside cleared a path to the miners and saw their lights, which still gave off a dim glow, said Wang Guangneng, a Communist Party spokesman in the Guizhou province county of Qinglong.

The miners stayed alive by drinking water that seeped through the earth, Wang said. The official Xinhua News Agency cited a rescuer saying that oxygen was also able to get into the tunnel easily.

They also chewed on coal to stave off their appetite, the Guiyang Evening News, based in the provincial capital, reported.

It was not clear whether the men had any information on the others still missing. Rescuers had found the body of one miner a week after the flooding, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

A Xinhua photo showed one of the rescued miners, Wang Kuangwei, his bones prominent through his skin, getting medical attention Sunday, with his eyes covered to protect them from the light. The party spokesman said the three men were in stable condition.

During an interview with Shenzhen Media Group television, one of the miners, 36-year old Zhao Weixing, who was lying down with his eyes and face covered, told reporters: "I feel OK."

The miners' rescue after 604 hours underground was a rare tale of survival in China's coal mines, the world's deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day. Most accidents are blamed on failures to follow safety rules, including a lack of required ventilation or fire control equipment.

In August 2007, two brothers were forced to chew on coal and sip their own urine from discarded water bottles after nearly six days in a mine tunnel. They even managed to crack jokes during that time about their wives remarrying after they were declared dead.

In Sunday's rescue, the miners — all of whom were from central Henan province — were found 500 to 600 yards (meters) from the entrance to the mine shaft, on a level intersection that protected them from the flood, the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper reported. The ceiling had collapsed, blocking a path to the tunnel opening.

The county's head of work safety, Li Xingwei, was digging a channel into the mountain and found an unblocked pathway, then noticed the miners' lights, the newspaper said.

"We crept along the tunnel in excitement," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

Rescuers shouted to the men to remain calm, the Beijing Youth Daily report said.

Once rescued, it said, the miners did nothing but ask for water.

Demjanjuk charged in Germany over WWII killings

By ROLAND LOSCH, Associated Press Writer

MUNICH – German prosecutors formally charged John Demjanjuk on Monday with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp during World War II.

The charges against the 89-year-old retired auto worker, who was deported from the U.S. in May, were filed at a Munich state court, prosecutors in the city said in a brief statement.

Doctors cleared the way for formal charges earlier this month, determining that Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk) was fit to stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day.

The court must now decide whether to accept the charges — usually a formality — and set a date for the trial. Court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel said the trial was unlikely to start before the autumn.

Demjanjuk lawyer Guenther Maull had no immediate comment on the charges, saying he had not yet seen them.

Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany.

Prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.

Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.

But Nazi-era documents obtained by U.S. justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor death camp and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Nazi-occupied Poland. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine.

Demjanjuk gained U.S. citizenship in 1958. The U.S. Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship in 1977, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard, and it was revoked in 1981.

Demjanjuk was tried in Israel over accusations that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

That decision came after Israel won access to Soviet archives, which had depositions given after the war by 37 Treblinka guards and forced laborers who said "Ivan" was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.

Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored in 1998. However, a U.S. judge revoked it again in 2002 based on fresh Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials.

A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him in March.

They accused him in that warrant of being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases. However, that number was reduced in the charges because, of the people transported to Sobibor, "many did not survive the journey," said Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, welcomed the filing of formal charges.

"This is obviously an important step forward," Zuroff said by telephone from Jerusalem. "We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment."

"The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator," Zuroff said.

China says police kill 2 Uighur men, wound third

URUMQI, China – China's government says police shot dead two Uighur men and wounded a third after the men attacked officers who were breaking up "a violent incident."

A government official in the western city of Urumqi who would give only his surname Fan said Monday that police were attacked after they stopped the three men from assaulting another man with knives and rods.

The incident in front of frightened residents broke a relative calm in Urumqi still tense from more than a week of ethnic violence that has left more than 180 people dead.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

URUMQI, China (AP) — Frightened Urumqi residents watched Monday as police in bulletproof vests carrying pistols, shotguns and batons chased down a man and kicked and beat him, shattering a relative calm in the tense city in western China.

Gunfire was heard before and during the brief incident in Urumqi — where recent ethnic unrest left 184 dead — near one of the city's main Uighur neighborhoods. Some bystanders threw themselves to the ground and others fled.

One policeman was seen raising his rifle to strike the man. Beaten, the man in a blue shirt with blood on his right leg lay on the ground. Police formed a ring around him, pointing their guns up at surrounding buildings as if worried about retaliation.

Hong Kong's radio RTHK reported on its Web site Monday that at least two police officers were shot and three Uighurs killed near a Uighur neighborhood. It did not give any more details. The Urumqi police telephone line rang busy all Monday.

The incident came as authorities try to impose a sense of normality on Urumqi after the July 5 riots and subsequent unrest that also left 1,680 wounded. The death toll in China's worst ethnic violence in decades could rise as 74 of the more than 900 people still in hospitals have life-threatening wounds, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

People ran into their homes and shops, slamming their doors. An armored personnel carrier and paramilitary police arrived on the scene, and police waved their guns and shouted for people to get off the streets.

Security vehicles previously deployed on People's Square were no longer there Monday but helmeted riot police remained in the area. Small groups of paramilitary police with riot shields stood guard on street corners and helicopters flew over the city.

Most roads leading to the Grand Bazaar market were reopened and in Uighur districts, more shops lifted their shutters, vendors pushed carts full of peaches and watermelon sellers sliced up their wares. Restaurant staff set up tables under trees next to the road.

Xinhua said police manned checkpoints and searched buses for any suspects involved in the violence, and people were ordered to carry identification for police checks when traveling in Urumqi.

It quoted the Urumqi Public Security Bureau as saying anyone without proper identification would be taken away to be interrogated.

"Citizens are strictly banned from holding dangerous articles including batons or knives in urban streets or public venues," the notice said.

The move was to "prevent a tiny number of individual criminals from the riot who were still at large from seeking revenge," it said, according to Xinhua.

The violence began when Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) who were protesting the deaths of Uighur factory workers in a brawl in southern China clashed with police in Urumqi. Crowds scattered throughout the city, attacking ethnic Han Chinese and burning cars.

Government officials have yet to make public key details about what happened next, including how much force police used to restore order. In the following days, vigilante mobs of Han Chinese ran through the city with bricks, clubs and cleavers seeking revenge.

Of the dead, the government has said 137 Han Chinese and 46 Uighurs died, with one minority Hui Muslim also killed. Uighurs say they believe many more from their ethnic group died in the government crackdown.

Since last week, tens of thousands of Chinese troops have poured into Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee) and other parts of Xinjiang to impose order. A senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting.

The Uighurs, who number 9 million in Xinjiang, have complained about an influx of Han Chinese and government restrictions on their Muslim religion. They accuse the Han of discrimination and the Communist Party of trying to erase their language and culture.

Han Chinese, many of whom were encouraged to emigrate here by the government, believe the Uighurs should be grateful for Xinjiang's rapid economic development, which has brought new schools, highways, airports, railways, natural gas fields and oil wells to the sprawling, rugged region.

Uighurs favor independence or greater autonomy for Xinjiang province, which takes up one-sixth of China's land mass and borders eight Central Asian countries. The Han — China's ethnic majority — have lately been flooding into Xinjiang as the region becomes more developed.

US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 657

By The Associated Press

As of Sunday, July 12, 2009, at least 657 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

Of those, the military reports 489 were killed by hostile action.

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 68 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, three were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen.

There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.

2 US Marines die in S. Afghanistan bomb blasts

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – A bomb blast killed two U.S. Marines in Afghanistan's dangerous south, where thousands of American troops have deployed in a massive operation to oust Taliban fighters from the country's opium poppy region, officials said Sunday.

Some 4,000 Marines moved into Helmand province this month, the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion. They have met little head-on resistance but remain vulnerable to guerrilla tactics like suicide and roadside bombs.

"These terrorist attacks are hard to prevent, can be carried out by a few individuals, and do not require a military force capable of confronting the Marines," said Arturo Munoz, an expert on the tribal environment in Helmand province with the Washington-based RAND Corp.

"I would expect the Taliban to avoid pitched battles with the Marines in order to avoid a large number of casualties," he said. "This does not mean they will avoid violence."

The two Marines were killed Saturday in Helmand. Military officials did not release any other details nor give a specific location. The military initially reported four Marines had died but later corrected the figure, saying the deaths were mistakenly double-counted.

The American casualties come after eight British deaths in Helmand in a 24-hour period ending Friday, triggering debate in Britain about its role in Afghanistan. Britain has now lost more troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

In an interview broadcast Sunday, President Barack Obama called Britain's contribution critically important and said U.S. and British troops face a difficult summer ahead of elections in Afghanistan late next month.

"We've got to get through elections," Obama told Sky News. "The most important thing we can do is to combine our military efforts with effective diplomacy and development, so that Afghans feel a greater stake and have a greater capacity to secure their country."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan will help keep extremist groups from launching attacks inside Britain. And he told Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a telephone call Sunday that Britain would stand "shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Afghanistan for the long haul," according to a statement by the Afghan presidency.

The embattled prime minister told his troops in an interview Sunday with the British military radio network that it was proving to be a "difficult summer" in Afghanistan but that operations in Helmand were making "considerable progress" toward defeating the Taliban.

But in an editorial Sunday, The Observer newspaper predicted the British public will soon decide the war is not worth the casualties.

"Lives saved by bringing soldiers home will seem a surer benefit than the unproven hypothesis of preventing terrorism with a war thousands of miles away," the newspaper said.

Another American service member died Friday in the U.S. of wounds suffered in Afghanistan in June, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, who confirmed the deaths of the two Marines.

The three deaths bring to 104 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year, a record pace. Last year 151 U.S. troops died in the country. Overall, 193 international troops have died in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count based on official announcements.

Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan earlier this year to help put down an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. Some 10,000 Marines and 4,000 soldiers from the Stryker Brigade — the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis, Wash. — are deploying in the south, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and stronghold.

The troops will help provide security for the Aug. 20 election, when Afghans will choose a president and provincial councils, and help train army and police units that the U.S. hopes one day can provide security for the country. By fall, a record 68,000 U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan.

Violence flared elsewhere around the country over the weekend, illustrating again that security is deteriorating. At least 22 people were killed, including seven police officers, officials reported on Sunday.

• In southern Uruzgan province, international troops and Afghan police killed 12 militants in a gunbattle Saturday, police spokesman Mohammad Musa said.

• In Logar, four policemen died when a roadside bomb hit their car in Charkh district Saturday, said provincial police chief Gen. Mustafa Mosseini.

• In Helmand, two police were killed in a roadside bombing in the Helmand provincial capital of Lashkar Gah late Saturday, said Dawood Ahmadi, the governor's spokesman.

• In a gunbattle in eastern Paktia province between insurgents and Afghan police, two militants and one police officer were killed, said Rahullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor.

• In eastern Kunar province, one civilian was killed and five wounded when shells from a gunbattle between insurgents and Afghan and coalition forces hit a house. Provincial Police Chief Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal said it was unclear which side fired the shots that hit the house.