Hundreds protest in Iran, defying crackdown vow

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – Hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator," confronting police wielding batons and firing tear gas in the capital Thursday as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to "smash" any new marches.

For days, supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been calling for new protests in Tehran and other cities on Thursday, their first significant attempt to get back on the streets since security forces crushed massive demonstrations nearly two weeks ago in Iran's post election turmoil.

Tehran governor Morteza Tamaddon warned that any new march Thursday would meet the same fate.

"If some individuals plan to carry out any anti-security actions by listening to calls by counterrevolutionary networks, they will be smashed under the feet of our aware people," he said, according to the state news agency IRNA in a report late Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, a stepped-up number of uniformed policemen along with plainclothes Basiji militiamen stood at intersections all along Revolution Street and at nearby near Tehran University, some of the sites where protests were called.

Still, a group of around 300 young people gathered in front of Tehran University and began to chant, "Death to the dictator," witnesses said. Many of them wore green surgical masks, the color of Mousavi's movement.

Police charged at them, swinging batons, but the protesters fled, then regrouped at another corner and resumed chanting, the witnesses said. Police chased them repeatedly as the protesters continued to regroup, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared government retribution.

Within an hour, the number of protesters grew to about 700 and marched toward the gates of Tehran University, the witnesses said. A line of policemen blocked their path, but they did nothing to disperse the gathering as the protesters stood and continued to chant, the witnesses said.

At another location, on Valiasr Street, around 200 protesters gathered, and police fired tear gas to disperse them, but the demonstrators sought to regroup elsewhere, the witnesses said.

Soon after the confrontations began, mobile phone service was cut off in Tehran, a step that was also taken during the height of the post-election protests to cut off communications. Mobile phone messaging has been cut in the country for the past three days.

They were the first such protests in 11 days, since the crackdown — though it did not compare to the hundreds of thousands who joined the marches that erupted after the June 12 presidential election, protesting what the opposition said were fraudulent results.

The calls for a new march have been circulating for days on social networking Web sites and pro-opposition Web sites. Opposition supporters planned the marches to coincide with the anniversary Thursday of a 1999 attack by Basij on a Tehran University dorm to stop protests in which one student was killed.

Ahead of Thursday's planned march, authorities appeared to have taken a number of other steps to prevent participation, including the halting of SMS messaging. The government also closed down universities and called a government holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday, citing a heavy dust and pollution cloud that has blanketed Tehran and other parts of the country this week.

Mousavi and his pro-reform supporters say he won the election, which official results showed as a landslide victory for incumbent hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the results valid after a partial recount and warned that unrest would not be tolerated.

In the crackdown since the election, at least 20 protesters and 7 Basijis were killed.

Police have said 1,000 people were arrested and that most have since been released. But the state-run English language news network Press TV quoted prosecutor-general Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi saying Wednesday that 2,500 people were arrested and that 500 of them could face trial. The remainder, he said, have been released.

Arrests have continued over the past week, with police rounding up dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers.

In the latest detentions, a prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was taken away by security forces from his office Wednesday along with his daughter and three other members of his staff, the pro-opposition news Web site Norouz reported. A former deputy commerce minister in a previous pro-reform government, Feizollah Arab-Sorkhi, was also arrested at his Tehran home, the site reported.

A large number of top figures in Iran's reform movement, including a former vice president and former Cabinet members, have been held for weeks since the election.

Iranian authorities have depicted the post election turmoil as instigated by enemy nations aiming to thwart Ahmadinejad's re-election, and officials say some of those detained confessed to fomenting the unrest. Opposition supporters say the confessions were forced under duress.

2 NATO soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan

KABUL – NATO says a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan has killed two of its soldiers.

The military alliance gave no further details about Wednesday's attack or the nationalities of the victims.

NATO forces in the south include U.S. Marines engaged in a major anti-Taliban offensive in Helmand province. Troops from Britain, Canada and other nations also fight under the alliance's command in the volatile region.

Indonesia's president: a crooner and a general

By NINIEK KARMINI, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, heading for a sweeping re-election victory, is a retired four-star general who rose through the ranks of Indonesia's former dictatorship yet has recorded his own albums of romantic ballads.

Critics call Yudhoyono indecisive, but he has cultivated an image as a tough and dedicated corruption fighter with high moral integrity. He also ushered in an era of financial and political stability, ending a series of secessionist conflicts and restoring economic growth after the devastating Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 wiped out millions of jobs.

Yudhoyono, 59, the nation's first directly elected leader, gained widespread praise for a crackdown on Islamic militants after a series of suicide bombings killed 240 people.

Sometimes called "the thinking general," friends say he is a solitary and well-read man with a sharp intellect.

But some analysts say Yudhoyono is slow to make decisions. "Everyone knows he is an indecisive leader," said Satya Arinanto, a political professor at the University of Indonesia. With a strong mandate from the public, however, "there will be no more excuse for him to hesitate," he said.

During an otherwise dull campaign period before Wednesday's vote, Yudhoyono came out last week as a believer of Javanese mysticism, saying his family had prayed to repel attacks from opponents.

"In this period of campaigning, there are many people out there who use black magic," he was quoted by local media as telling an Islamic prayer session at his home. "Thankfully we got to our destination safely."

Dino Patti Jalal, a close aide and presidential spokesman, defended Yudhoyono's governing style in a new book, "We Can!" He describes the head of state as "a troubleshooter" who carefully listens to staff, has a keen memory for detail and prefers action over words.

One of the greatest challenges for Yudhoyono came in the first year of his presidency when the 2004 Asian tsunami killed 130,000 people and displaced half a million more on Aceh province.

Foreign governments said he effectively managed one of the largest donor programs in history and then forged peace with rebels in the province in the wake of the disaster.

Yudhoyono, whose father was an army lieutenant, graduated from the national military academy at age 24 at the top of his class. He has a master's degree in management from Webster University in St. Louis, Mo. He received military training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

During later deployments to the former Indonesian territory of East Timor, where around 174,000 Timorese died as a result of Indonesian military operations, Yudhoyono headed a battalion of soldiers.

His name has been mentioned by opponents in connection with atrocities, but there have never been trials for past military rights abuses and no evidence has ever been presented linking him to wrongdoing.

It was his reputation for integrity and respect for human rights that led to his appointment in 1995 as a top military observer with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia, where he headed a contingent of Indonesian soldiers.

As Indonesia entered a period of instability at the end of the 32-year Suharto dictatorship in the late 1990s, Yudhoyono continued to climb the military ladder.

Joining the first post-Suharto government as mining minister, he quickly rose to the prominent post of security and political affairs minister. His resignation after a political spat over the country's future with the president earned him public support and he handily won the 2004 presidency.

Married with two sons, the president has released several albums featuring his own love songs, some of them now covered by Indonesian boy bands and sold in record stores.

They "express my feelings and thoughts as president and an ordinary human being," he said on his Web site.

Obama broadens push for climate change pact

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

L'AQUILA, Italy – Rallying rich and surging nations alike, President Barack Obama wants the world's top polluters to keep driving toward a deal to halt global warming.

Nearing six months on the job, Obama has some momentum: a new agreement among developed and emerging nations to cap rising global temperatures, plus good will from his peers for repositioning the U.S. as an aggressive player in the debate.

Yet when Obama helps lead a gathering of the world's major economies here Thursday, he will run smack into the same old problem: Neither the wealthy nor the developing countries think the other side is doing enough. And only when the pollution emitters work together on a binding plan will a climate strategy work, experts say.

Even victory came with a setback on Wednesday. The G-8 nations set a goal of cutting all greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, but developing nations refused to go along.

Confronting global warming — a trend scientists say could unleash devastating droughts, floods and disease if left unchecked — is a dominant theme again at this year's G-8 summit of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Obama will take part in discussions all day on climate and a host of economic issues, and the number of countries represented at the table will just keep growing.

First, the traditional industrialized powers will expand their forum to other strategic economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, plus a special invitee, Egypt.

And Obama later will help lead a forum of major economies that also includes Australia, Indonesia and South Korea. Together, including the U.S., the represented countries account for about 80 percent of the emissions of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.

The results this week will be a pivotal marker of what could happen in talks in December in Copenhagen, when the United Nations tries to conclude a new worldwide climate deal.

"This will also be an opportunity for the president and the other leaders to discuss what they can do collectively to add political momentum to the negotiations," Mike Froman, a national security aide leading the administration's G-8 efforts, said ahead of Thursday's events.

The two blocs — the richest countries and the fastest growing ones — did strike an important agreement Wednesday. Their unified position now is that global temperature should be kept from rising by more than 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius).

That's the point at which the Earth's climate system would fall into perilous instability, according to the United Nations' chief panel on climate change.

The U.S. and the other G-8 nations set a new goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050, part of their global goal of a 50 percent cut.

More steps by developed and developing countries will be announced Thursday, Froman said.

But the emerging countries are refusing to commit to specific reduction targets.

They are upset that the industrialized G-8 has not been forthcoming on either midterm emissions reductions — well before 2050 — or pledges of financing and transferring technology to the developing world. And they worry that major reductions could hamper their economies.

"Support from the G-8 is only the first step in what is likely to be a long and difficult process," said Guy Caruso, a senior adviser for the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

"The Major Economies Forum recognizes this reality," he said. "The bottom line is that the industrialized countries will need to provide the incentives to the emerging economies."

Obama begins his agenda Thursday by meeting with Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has called on rich nations to bear more of the cost of fighting global warming.

The Silva meeting is a late add. It comes during the slot when Obama was to have met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who returned home to deal with an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Hu's departure is seen by analysts as weakening the chances that the U.S. and other G-8 countries can advance climate talks at this summit with China and a few of its close peers.

Blast in central Afghanistan kills 25

By RAHIM FAIEZ

KABUL – A massive blast triggered Thursday in an overturned timber truck in central Afghanistan killed 25 people, destroyed shops and propelled pieces of the vehicle more than a mile (about 2 kilometers) away, officials said.

The explosion killed 21 civilians and four policemen in Logar province, south of Kabul, and also demolished nearby dairy shops, ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary said.

Authorities suspect the truck may have been heading into Kabul with the explosives, but that it overturned on the main road between Logar province and the capital late Wednesday, provincial police chief Mustafa Khan said.

After police arrived to clear the road, militants apparently decided to blow up the truck where it overturned, Khan said, adding that authorities believe the explosives were mingled with timber in the back of the truck and that they were remotely detonated.

The power of the blast sent truck pieces more than a mile away (some 2 kilometers away), another police official said.

The blast took place in Mohammad Agha district, close to shops that collect milk from farmers. At least six of those killed were students from a nearby primary boys school, the second police official in Logar said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The blast happened as thousands of U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan are involved in the biggest American military offensive in country since the ouster of the Taliban from power in 2001.

Chinese armed police watch over a calmer Urumqi

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Security forces kept a firm grip on the tense Xinjiang capital Thursday after days of ethnic violence that killed 156 people, and alarmed Chinese leaders vowed to deal firmly with those behind the attacks.

Crowds of Han Chinese, China's dominant ethnic group, cheered as trucks full of police and covered in banners reading "We must defeat the terrorists" and "Oppose ethnic separatism and hatred" rumbled by. The minority Uighurs became far more fearful about talking to reporters.

The region's worst ethnic violence in decades has already forced President Hu Jintao to cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in a Group of Eight summit and hold talks with President Barack Obama. It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of communist rule in October.

Public Security Minister Meng Jiangzhu, who is in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee), has said "key rioters should be punished with the utmost severity."

The hundreds of troops that had camped out in the central part of Urumqi for the past three days were gone, but paramilitary police still guarded People's Square and military helicopters flew over the city of 2.3 million.

Xinjiang — a sprawling, oil-rich territory that borders several Central Asian countries — is home to the Uighurs, largely Muslim, who rioted Sunday and attacked Han Chinese after holding a protest that was ended by police.

Officials have said 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 people hurt as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing in anger over the late June deaths of Uighur factory workers during a brawl in a southern Chinese city. State-run media have said two workers died, but many Uighurs believe more were killed.

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) say trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of Sunday's protesters. Officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.

The People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's main newspaper, ran an editorial Thursday saying the violence was "in extreme violation of China's laws."

Fear was almost palpable in a Uighur neighborhood called Saimachang, where two days ago a large group of sobbing women scuffled with police and accused them of rounding up their husbands and sons for being suspects in the rioting.

On Thursday the Uighurs were far more cautious.

"We can't tell the truth, my friend," said one elderly man who would not give his name.

One woman led an Associated Press reporter to her home in a back alley. Four women quickly gathered and began complaining about their missing husbands and sons.

"The men they arrested still have not returned," said one woman, who said her name was Guli. "It has been three days and we haven't been able to talk with them. We have no news."

After an hour, a Uighur official approached reporters and politely asked everyone to leave.

Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have complained about the influx of Han Chinese in the region and government restrictions on religion, said the incident was an example of how little the government cared about them.

Government officials and state media continued to accuse U.S.-exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her overseas followers of being behind the violence. She has denied the allegations and accused China of inciting the violence.

Urumqi's mayor, Jierla Yishamuding, was quoted by state media as saying Wednesday that the government would create a 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) Comfort Fund to help families of the dead, as well as those who were injured or disabled in the riot.

Chinese troops flood streets after riots

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Thousands of Chinese troops flooded into this city Wednesday to separate feuding ethnic groups after three days of communal violence left 156 people dead, and a senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting in western China.

Long convoys of armored cars and green troop trucks with riot police rumbled through Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million people. Other security forces carrying automatic rifles with bayonets formed cordons to defend Muslim neighborhoods from marauding groups of vigilantes with sticks.

Military helicopters buzzed over Xinjiang's regional capital, dropping pamphlets urging people to stay in their homes and stop fighting. Special police from other provinces were called in to patrol the city.

The crisis was so severe that President Hu Jintao cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in a Group of Eight summit. It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist rule.

The heightened security came amid the worst spasm of ethnic violence in decades in Xinjiang — a sprawling, oil-rich territory that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. The region is home to the Uighur ethnic minority, who rioted Sunday and attacked the Han Chinese — the nation's biggest ethnic group — after holding a protest that was ended by police.

Officials have said 156 people were killed as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing the Han Chinese. The Uighurs allege that trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of the protesters, and officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.

In Rome, a Germany-based Uighur leader, Erkin Alptekin, told The Associated Press that "our countrymen in China" reported that 600-800 Uighurs were killed in the past few days and 3,000 were arrested.

"We were told (by fellow Uighurs) that 140 were dead on the spot" on Sunday and that their bodies were tossed into trucks and taken away by Chinese security forces, said Alptekin, who briefed the human rights commission in the Italian parliament.

"When the Uighurs heard the people were fired upon, parents all came out looking for their sons and daughters," he said, adding that security forces started to "disperse them by force, then started to beat them, tear gas them and shoot them."

His account could not be independently confirmed.

More than 1,100 people were wounded in the violence. Dr. Yuan Hong of Urumqi People's Hospital said most of the people treated at his facility were clubbed, while others had been cut by knives.

Li Zhi, the highest-ranking Communist Party official in Urumqi, told reporters that some of the rioters were university students who were misled and didn't understand what they were doing. They would be treated leniently, he said, as long as they weren't involved in serious acts of violence and vandalism.

But Li added: "To those who committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them."

He also repeated allegations that the riot was whipped up by U.S.-exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her overseas supporters. "They're afraid to see our economic prosperity. They're afraid to see our ethnic unity and the people living a stable, prosperous life," he said.

Kadeer has denied masterminding the violence, and many Uighurs laughed off the notion that they were puppets of groups abroad.

"Not even a 3-year-old would believe that Rebiya stirred this up. It's ridiculous," said a shopkeeper who only identified himself as Ahmet. Like other Uighurs, he declined to give his full name because he feared the police would detain him.

Ahmet was quick to rattle off a long list of grievances commonly mentioned by Uighurs. He accused the Han Chinese of discrimination and alleged that government policies were forcing them to abandon their culture, language and Islamic faith.

"After all this rioting, I'm still filled with hatred. I'm not afraid of the Han Chinese," Ahmet said.

His neighborhood in southern Urumqi was targeted by mobs of Han Chinese who roamed the capital Tuesday seeking revenge. Ahmet's friends had video shot by mobile phones and cameras that showed the stick-wielding Han men beating Uighurs. He pointed to blood stains on a white concrete apartment wall, where he said a Uighur was severely stabbed.

A Uighur college student who called herself Parizat added, "The men were carrying a Chinese flag. I never thought something like this would happen. We're all Chinese citizens."

The Uighurs accused paramilitary police of allowing the Han Chinese to attack their neighbors. But in the video, the troops appeared to be trying to block or restrain the mobs.

On Wednesday, the government warned residents against carrying weapons on the street, and most people generally complied. But there were groups of Han Chinese who tried to find soft spots in police cordons and rush into Uighur neighborhoods.

One such failed attempt sent a wave of terror and panic through the biggest Uighur neighborhood, Er Dao Qiao.

When someone yelled, "The Han are coming!" children scampered indoors and women ran shrieking through a backstreet market with carts of watermelons, shops selling cold soft drinks and smoky grills with sizzling lamb kebabs.

Within seconds, the men armed themselves with spears stashed behind doors and under market stands. The weapons were long poles with knives and meat cleavers tied to the ends. Piles of rocks were placed across the street for ammunition.

One Uighur graduate student who called himself Memet greeted a foreign reporter in English by saying, "Welcome to the jungle!"

"I think the Uighur people lately are kind of happy. You can see it in their eyes, a bit of happiness. We've spoken up. People know we exist now," he said.

The ethnic hatred in Xinjiang appears to run so deep that many Uighurs won't express sorrow for the Han Chinese who were attacked Sunday.

One of them was Dong Yuanyuan, 24, a newlywed who said she was on a bus with her husband getting ready to leave on their honeymoon. She said Uighur attackers dragged them off the bus and beat them until they were unconscious. Her husband was still missing, said the woman, who had abrasions on her face, arms and knees.

"My aunts have been going to all the hospitals to search for him. He must still be unconscious," she told reporters who joined a government tour at the People's Hospital.

Abdul Rehim, a Uighur with his left arm in a sling, said he was walking with his brother when a group of Han Chinese "just came out and did this to me."

Another victim was Ma Weihong, who said she was walking home from a park with her 10-year-old son when the riot started. The boy suffered minor injuries, but the mother had a broken arm and wrist, missing teeth and head wounds.

"The stores all closed up and we tried to run for home," she said. "That is when they caught us. We couldn't get away."