China on Thursday sentenced six more people to death over bloody ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region in July, bringing the total to 12 as it delivered tough retribution over the violence. Three of the six were given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, a sentence usually commuted to life in prison, over the riots that the government says left 197 dead, in the worst ethnic violence in China in decades. A court in the regional capital Urumqi sentenced three others to life in jail and five people to lesser prison terms for their role in the unrest that rocked the city, according to a Xinjiang government statement faxed to AFP... click here for more on this story from, The AFP.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will go on trial at The Hague on Monday 26 October, the court says. It is the second time in a week that the trial - originally due to start on 19 October - has been put back. But Mr Karadzic's attempts to have the start delayed by 10 months have been rejected by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia... click here for more on this story from, The BBC.

A furious Israel said it would not continue with the peace plan if the UN Human Rights Council endorses a controversial report condemning the Jewish state for war crimes during the Gaza offensive in January. Britain is planning to abstain in the vote, the Times reports, prompting a heated telephone call between Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Gordon Brown on Wednesday night... click here for more on this story from, The Telegraph... click here for more on this story from, The Telegraph.

In July 2008, after many months of calm, Taleban militants operating around Sarobi, 40 miles (64km) to the east of Kabul, noticed a sudden change in the behaviour of the Nato forces they faced. The local insurgent groups understood that their leaders had reached an agreement with the Italian forces who operated in their area. Under the terms of the deal, they would later complain, the Italians were not supposed to step on territory they controlled — and, in return, they would not attack... click here for more on this story from, GRN correspondent, Tom Coghlan in, The Times.

A hardline faction in Nigeria's main armed group says it is ending a three-month ceasefire and will resume attacks on the oil industry. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) had called the truce in the wake of an amnesty offer from the president. Most Mend commanders and thousands of militants have disarmed under the deal... click here for more on this story from, The BBC.

Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama lashed out on Saturday against the "deceptive and dishonest" efforts of health insurance companies, who he said are trying to kill healthcare reform, no matter the cost to the country. The Democratic president's push to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry, his top domestic policy priority, received a big boost this week when the Senate Finance Committee approved its version of a reform measure with the support of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. Many experts expect some version of a healthcare bill will pass this year, but there are still major disagreements on details including whether the measure will include a government-run insurance program, the "public option." "For the first time ever, all five committees in Congress responsible for health reform have passed a version of legislation," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "As I speak to you today, we are closer to reforming the health care system than we have ever been in history." However, he acknowledged the overhaul still must clear significant hurdles before becoming law. "And there are still those who would try to kill reform at any cost," he said.

 

The BBC: Ousted Hondurian President Manual Zelaya has suspended dialogue with the interim government. Speaking from the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, Mr Zelaya said the proposal to allow legislators to vote on his future was "disrespectful". But negotiators for interim President Roberto Micheletti said talks would continue regardless. Mr Zelaya is insisting he be allowed to serve out his remaining weeks in office before elections on 29 November. The interim government, which seized power in a coup in June, says the Supreme Court must decide. Interim leader Roberto Micheletti says Mr Zelaya was legally removed from office as he had violated the Honduran constitution. There had been talk of progress earlier in the week, but an initial deadline of Thursday set by Mr Zelaya passed without result. Speaking from the capital Tegucigalpa, Mr Zelaya told Associated Press: "The dialogue is suspended. They say they will present something on Monday and if they do we will listen to it." "But the dialogue is suspended due to this unilateral and practically disrespectful offer from them, which we consider to be just another mocking, dismissive act against the Honduran people and the international community," he added. In a statement released later, Mr Zelaya urged Western Hemisphere countries to step up economic sanctions "against the de facto regime".

Cardinal Rosales issued the appeal on Catholic radio network Radio Veritas on Saturday after conferring with the Irish superiors of Father Sinnot. Rosales, the highest ranking Catholic cleric in the Philippines said, “All priests preach only what is good for everyone.” Rosales adds, “I am not certain of what’s on the mind of people who did this. They should think ahead of what they will do, if it will be of good for others.” A task force composed of local police and the military were reported to have tracked the kidnappers of Father Sinnott into a town in the province of Lanao del Norte. An artists sketch of the kidnappers will be released to the public as the province of Zamboanga del Sur where Father Sinnott was kidnapped released 10,000 copies of flyers appealing for leads on the whereabouts of the Columban father. The superiors of Father Sinnott have expressed their concerns over the health of the 79 year old Irish missionary who has been in the Philippines for 40 years. Sinnot has a heart condition requiriing him to take at least once a day a certain medicine.

The AP: France's foreign minister urged Afghanistan's political rivals Sunday to accept the findings of a fraud investigation that could decide whether the nation's disputed election goes to a runoff. The Aug. 20 vote was marred by charges of ballot-stuffing and voter coercion, mostly to President Hamid Karzai's benefit. Both he and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah say the results of the fraud probe, which have been expected since Saturday, are in their favor. Karzai says there will be no second round; Abdullah says there definitely will be. "For the moment we are worried ... because it seems that not everybody is ready to accept the results," Kouchner told reporters in Kabul. "They must accept the results." International pressure is mounting on the rivals to find a way out of the deepening political impasse, which threatens the legitimacy of the Afghan government and the future of the U.S.-led military mission in the insurgent-wracked country. The U.S. effort is already troubled by a spike in deaths that has damaged public support for the war at home. In the latest violence, an American service member was killed by a bomb attack in the south Sunday, the military reported. Fearing the political crisis will worsen, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have telephoned both Karzai and Abdullah in recent days to express concern over the stalemate. U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, are all in Kabul for talks with Afghan leaders.

Two members of Irish aid agency GOAL kidnapped at gunpoint in Sudan's Darfur region in July were freed early Sunday after more than 100 days in captivity, a Sudanese minister told AFP. "They are free, they are in good health," said state humanitarian affairs minister Abdel Baqi Gilani. Irish national Sharon Commins, 33, and Ugandan Hilda Kawuki, 42, were kidnapped in the North Darfur town of Kutum on July 3. They were taken by a gang of armed men from a compound run by GOAL. "No ransom was paid," Gilani stressed, adding that local tribal chiefs had pressured the kidnappers to free their hostages. Gilani said the two women were in Kutum and were due later Sunday to fly to Khartoum before returning to their respective countries. "We are all relieved," John O'Shea, president of GOAL told AFP. "We don't yet know when they will go home but we hope it is as soon as possible," he said by telephone. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the kidnappers had late on Saturday contacted its representatives in Kutum to say they were ready to free the hostages. "Last night we received a phone call from the kidnappers saying they were ready to hand over the two ladies," ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told AFP. "We did not participate in the negotiations in any way."

Iran's president has accused Pakistan of having links to the bombers who carried out a suicide attack on Sunday in the republic's Sunni-majority southeast that left at least 42 people dead. The Fars news agency on Monday quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that he knew "some security agents in Pakistan are co-operating with the main elements of this terrorist incident" in Sistan-Baluchistan province.

"We regard it as our right to demand these criminals from them", he said, without giving further details. State television said Iran's foreign ministry summoned a senior Pakistani diplomat in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and informed him that "the perpetrators of this attack came to Iran from Pakistan". But a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman rejected the claim. "Pakistan is not involved in terrorist activities ... we are striving to eradicate this menace," he said. Ahmadinejad's accusation came after Iranian state media blamed Sunni group Jundallah for the attack in the city of Pisheen. But other Iranian officials and academics point the finger of blame at the United States and the United Kingdom. For Al-Jazeera full article, click here.

The Afghan electoral crisis intensified Monday as the commission responsible for declaring final results in the August presidential balloting refused to accept findings of a U.N.-backed investigative panel that would force a runoff, officials said. The Electoral Complaints Commission completed its investigation last week into allegations of ballot-stuffing and intimidation in the Aug. 20 balloting. Two international officials who have seen the results said enough votes for President Hamid Karzai were thrown out that his totals dropped below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with top challenger Abdullah Abdullah. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been released. One of them said the findings were "incontrovertible." However, the separate Independent Election Commission — which is dominated by Karzai allies — has rejected the data, the officials said. Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar said the president will not commit to accepting the findings until they are publicly released. That has raised fears that Karzai may refuse to go along with a runoff even after the figures are announced — further delaying formation of a government that the U.S. believes is needed to help combat the growing Taliban insurgency. The White House says President Barack Obama will not send more U.S. troops until a credible government is in place. For the AP full article, click here.

Philippine authorities applied the lessons from recent deadly storms Monday by stocking up on food and clothes early while moving residents out of harm's way as a powerful typhoon threatened the country's rain-soaked northeast. Typhoon Lupit, packing winds of 108 miles (175 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 130 mph (210 kph), was not expected to make landfall before Thursday, giving officials time to organize food supplies and issue landslide and flood warnings. The government was moving fast to prevent any loss of life after back-to-back storms on Sept. 26 and Oct. 3 killed more than 850 people, most of them buried in dozens of mudslides along the northern Cordillera mountains. "These days we no longer have a problem convincing residents to evacuate," said Loreto Espineli, police chief in Benguet province where 300 people died. Hundreds of families living in danger zones — low-lying areas, near cliffs and mountain slopes — were still in evacuation centers or staying with relatives since Typhoon Parma damaged their homes early this month. They will ride out the latest typhoon in shelters, Espineli said. "In most houses, one male is left behind just to look after their belongings, and when the typhoon is already near, we will go house-to-house to evacuate everyone," he said. Village heads were using megaphones to warn about the impending typhoon, and sirens will be sounded once it makes landfall, Espineli told The Associated Press.

The AFP: South Korea Monday described North Korea's admission of an enriched uranium nuclear weapons programme as a "very worrying" development and questioned whether the country is committed to disarming. "North Korea indicated in a letter to the UN Security Council chairman that it had attempted to enrich uranium and succeeded to a degree," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan told reporters. "Since this is a very worrying development, this issue is expected to be discussed separately by the United Nations." Visiting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and his Korean counterpart will assess the North's nuclear and missile threat at a meeting Thursday. North Korea said last month it had reached the final stage of enriching uranium, a second way of making nuclear bombs on top of its plutonium-based programme, in a defiant response to United Nations sanctions. The sanctions were tightened after the North in May conducted its second plutonium-based nuclear test. Experts believe the North has enough plutonium for possibly six to eight bombs. A full-scale enriched uranium programme is seen as a distant prospect, but troubling because it could be easily hidden from spy satellites. Early this month, the North expressed willingness to return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks which it quit in April, on condition it first makes progress in a bilateral meeting with the United States.

Bosnia is heading for a new civil war as a constitutional crisis threatens to cause the collapse of the political system, the country's leaders have warned. The concerns have been triggered by Bosnian Serb leaders who have stepped up their demands for independence with a warning the country is no longer "sustainable". The growing ethnic divisions have raised fears of a return to the fighting which claimed the lives of up to 110,000 people between 1992 and 1995... click here for more on this story from GRN correspondent, Bruno Waterfield in, The Telegraph.

Fierce fighting has broken out as Pakistani troops battle to gain control of the key militant town of Kotkai in South Waziristan. The army said it had secured the heights around Kotkai, home of Qari Hussain, the man reportedly responsible for training Taliban suicide bombers. Up to 100,000 civilians have fled the conflict zone, according to the army. The army say they have killed nearly 80 militants so far. The Taliban claim not to have lost a single fighter... click here for more on this story from, The BBC.

The AP: Israeli leaders are to discuss Tuesday whether to set up an independent panel to investigate the military's conduct during the winter war in Gaza — a move that could scuttle efforts to bring Israel before a war crimes tribunal. International pressure to set up a commission of inquiry mounted last week after the U.N. Human Rights Council endorsed a U.N. report accusing Israel and Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers of war crimes. That vote, and a council resolution that singled out Israel but did not mention Hamas, could potentially set in motion further moves to refer Israel to international war crimes prosecutors. Although Washington likely would block any such move in the U.N. Security Council, the Human Rights Council's vote has kept attention on the report that has badly tarnished Israel's image. An independent Israeli probe, however, could blunt the U.N. report's effect. The report's authors recommended that both sides to the conflict carry out impartial probes as a means to stave off war crimes proceedings. Leading Israeli allies have urged Israel to set up such a panel.

Reuters: Iran will never abandon its "legal and obvious" right to nuclear technology, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday. "The meetings with world powers and their behavior shows that Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them ... Iran will never abandon its legal and obvious right," Mottaki told a news conference. Talks between Iran and world powers on a deal to allay concerns about Tehran's nuclear program started on Monday in Vienna and were resuming on Tuesday. The U.N. atomic agency chief said the talks started well. The meeting hosted by the IAEA offered the first chance to build on proposals raised at Geneva talks on October 1 to defuse a standoff over suspicions Iran's uranium enrichment program is covertly intended to develop nuclear weapons. Mottaki praised the talks. Iran agreed in Geneva in principle to sending low-enriched uranium abroad for processing into fuel for a Tehran reactor producing medical isotopes. "We see serious development in the talks ... the continuation of talks can lead to a deal over supplying Iran with the 20 percent enriched uranium," Mottaki said. The West hopes the step will minimize the risk of Iran refining the material to high purity suitable for bombs. State-run Iranian television said on Monday Tehran would not deal directly with France since it had failed to deliver nuclear materials in the past.

The Philippines put seven northern coastal areas on alert Tuesday for fast-approaching Typhoon Lupit, as the church offered prayers that the storm will spare the battered country still reeling from deadly floods and landslides. Lupit is forecast to make landfall Thursday in the extreme north of the main island of Luzon with winds of 120 miles (195 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 143 mph (230 kph), the weather bureau reported. The third storm in a month was projected to slice through northeastern Cagayan and neighboring provinces toward the South China Sea, dumping heavy rainfall in and around the mountainous north where mudslides set off by back-to-back storms since Sept. 26 killed more than 850 people. The government was moving fast to prevent any loss of life this time, stocking up on food and clothes and moving residents out of harm's way. "These days we no longer have a problem convincing residents to evacuate," said Loreto Espineli, police chief in Benguet province where 300 people died early this month. Village heads were using megaphones to warn about the impending typhoon, and sirens will be sounded once it makes landfall, Espineli told The Associated Press.

The BBC: Somali pirates have hijacked a Chinese cargo ship with 25 crew on board, the EU's anti-piracy naval mission says. The De Xin Hai, which was transporting coal, was seized early on Monday in the Indian Ocean, about 1,100km (700 miles) east of the Somali coast. The hijacking is believed to have been the first time a ship has been seized between the Seychelles and Maldives. It is also the first successful attack on a Chinese vessel since the country deployed three warships to the region. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Navfor Maritime Patrol, said one of its aircraft had located the vessel after Monday's attack. "The aircraft spotted at least four pirates on the deck and the vessel is towing two skiffs. It was last reported heading west towards the Somali coast," he said. Later, one of the pirates, Hassan, told Reuters news agency that the hijacked ship would be sailed to either Haradheere or Hobyo. The ship, which is owned by the Qingdao Ocean Shipping Company, was on its way from South Africa to India when it was captured. Monday's hijacking brings to six the total number of vessels currently in the hands of Somali pirates. Joel Morgan, the Seychelles' minister of state for piracy, said maritime traffic in the area had dropped by a third recently due to the threat.

A fugitive German doctor who went on the run after poisoning his lover's 14-year-old daughter more than 27 years ago has been dumped, bound and gagged, outside a French court. The girl's father has been arrested after taking the law into his own hands by tracking down and kidnapping Dieter Krombach, 74. André Bamberski, 71, had waited for more than a quarter of a century for the man who caused the death of his daughter, Kalinka, to be arrested and jailed. The suave cardiologist, who treated diplomats, was convicted of manslaughter in his absence over the death of his lover's blonde daughter. She died suddenly after receiving a mystery injection at his home in Lindau in Germany while visiting with her mother in 1982. For Henry Samuel's Daily Telegraph full article, click here.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday the United States will never accept a North Korea with atomic bombs, saying the communist regime poses threats "even more lethal and destabilizing" than before. Gates arrived in Seoul on Wednesday for a two-day visit for annual defense ministers' talks with South Korea after a stop in Tokyo. "There should be no mistaking that we do not today — nor will we ever — accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons," Gates told a group of American and South Korean troops at the U.S. military headquarters in central Seoul... click here for more on this story from, The AP.

Months after security forces seized them in the wake of ethnic riots in July, at least 43 ethnic Uighur men from far western China have disappeared, an advocacy group said in a report released on Wednesday. The report, by Human Rights Watch, asserted that the number of vanished Uighurs was likely higher, although the group could conclusively document only 43 cases during weeks of secret investigations in the Xinjiang region of China. At least 197 people died and another 1,600 were injured during three days of protests and rioting by thousands of Uighurs in early July in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. The riots, the worst ethnic violence in recent Chinese history, led police and security forces to round up hundreds of Uighurs, mostly men, in subsequent weeks... click here for more on this story from, The New York Times.

The Philippines prepared for the onslaught of a powerful typhoon on Wednesday as it struggled to recover from damage left by two deadly storms in the past month, officials said. The government weather station said Typhoon Lupit's advance had slowed, and it was now likely to hit the the north on Friday, a day later than forecast. Lupit will then cross the tip of the main island of Luzon before blowing out to the South China Sea over the weekend, it said. Rescue and relief units and supplies have already been positioned in parts of the northern Philippines which are expected to feel the brunt of the typhoon. "We are alerting the mayors of the towns to be affected. We are ready with a large number of relief goods which can be delivered when needed," said Grace Padaca, governor of the northern province of Isabela which is in Lupit's path... click here for more on this story from, The AFP.

New York Times: President Obama’s effort to buy some time for diplomatic engagement with Iran appeared to run into further obstacles on Tuesday, when an Iranian delegation here balked at a deal in which it would ship much of its nuclear material out of the country temporarily, so that it could be converted for medical purposes. At the end of a long day and evening of direct talks between American and Iranian officials, the two sides agreed to extend the discussions into a third day, in hopes of reaching an agreement. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who intervened in the discussions on Tuesday, said, “We are making progress, although slower than expected.” Later, Dr. ElBaradei, whose term ends soon, insisted that “we are moving forward” and held out hope for an agreement.Privately, even members of Dr. ElBaradei’s own staff were more pessimistic, saying they had grave doubts that Iran would agree to give up what in nuclear parlance is called “breakout capacity.” That is the ability to renounce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and try to convert reactor fuel into bomb fuel.