By Allyn Fisher-Ilan | Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli navy Friday boarded two boats carrying pro-Palestinian activists toward the Gaza Strip in a fresh challenge to Israel's blockade of the Islamist-controlled territory.

The military said in a statement that the Canadian "Tahrir" and Irish "Saoirse" vessels, which had 27 people on board, would be taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

"The Israel Navy soldiers operated as planned, and took every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of the activists onboard the vessels as well as themselves," the statement said. A military source said nobody was injured in the operation.

In May 2010, Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish Mavi Marmara aid vessel to enforce the naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave, and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists, some of them armed with clubs and knives.

Israel spurned Ankara's demand for an apology over the incident. Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador two months ago.

Carrying a small amount of medical supplies, the "Tahrir and "Saoirse" had sailed from Turkey Wednesday. The Israeli military said the boats were in international waters when they were stopped, between 40 and 60 miles from the coast.

The activists on board came from Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United States, and included Palestinians and at least one Arab citizen of Israel, organizers said.

The two boats had continued sailing toward Gaza, ignoring instructions to turn around or unload their supplies in Israel or neighboring Egypt, Israeli military officials said.

Citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling, Israel has blockaded Gaza since the Islamist group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

A U.N. report on Israel's interception of the 2010 Turkish ship said the blockade was a "legitimate security measure," adding that "its implementation complied with the requirements of international law." Turkey has rejected that ruling.

Pro-Palestinian groups behind the latest attempt to reach Gaza by sea condemn the blockade as illegal and inhumane.

DEPORTATION AWAITS

Paul Murphy, a socialist member of the European Parliament on board one of the ships, wrote in a blog posted earlier on the Internet that the mission was in "response to the call from people within Gaza to try to break the siege they suffer under."

Israeli authorities said that once the two boats had reached Ashdod, they would undergo security checks. Those on board would be questioned, then taken to prison service holding facilities where they will wait until booked on flights back home.

They have the right to a court hearing before being deported.

Israel allows humanitarian aid, food and some other supplies into Gaza for its 1.7 million people, many of them impoverished refugees, via land crossings it closely monitors. Gaza also has a border with Egypt over which goods are imported.

Gaza's Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the attempt to break the blockade in a sermon at a mosque on Friday: "We appreciate highly those activists who came in solidarity and we stress that their goal is being achieved whether or not they arrived by exposing (Israeli) occupation (measures)."

Turkey had threatened to give naval protection to future aid flotillas following the 2010 violence, but Ankara has kept largely quiet about this latest operation.

Some of the activists, who dubbed their mission "Freedom Waves," had participated in a thwarted seaborne attempt in June to reach Gaza, which was blocked from setting sail from Greece.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: 

http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/israeli-navy-told-intercept-gaza-bound-boats-idf-132352824.html?back=%2Fworld%2F&.ts=1320434961&.intl=us&.lang=en&.tsrc=emul

AFP

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday apologised for having received cash from foreigners in an echo of a donations scandal that brought down a previous minister.

Noda admitted having "unknowingly" received 471,000 yen ($6,000) from two foreign nationals but said he had already returned the funds.

"I sincerely apologise for causing concerns and trouble," Noda said. "I will pay full attention from now on so that such cases will never happen again."

According to the prime minister, one of the unidentified foreign donors had provided him with 261,000 yen over seven years to 2006, while the other gave him 210,000 yen over a three-year period up to 2003.

In March, then foreign minister Seiji Maehara resigned after opposition parties piled pressure on him over money he received from a foreign resident of Japan, in violation of the law.

Funding laws in Japan bar politicians from receiving any money from non-Japanese, even those who were born in Japan but do not have Japanese citizenship because of the country's strict nationality laws.

Source:  

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-pm-apologises-over-foreign-donation-192236748.html

By Masroor Gilani | AFP

More than 30,000 supporters of Pakistan's main opposition party took to the streets in a protest rally Friday, burning an effigy of President Asif Ali Zardari and demanding that he quit.

The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) called the rally in Lahoreto build pressure for early elections in its political heartland, where it controls the Punjab provincial government despite being in opposition at national level.

Party faithful denounced corruption and widespread power cuts, calling on the 56-year-old president, dubbed "Mr Ten Percent" over graft allegations, to step down before the government's five-year mandate expires in 2013.

Smaller rallies converged into a sea of people, packed left and right for up to two kilometres (one mile), which massed at one of the entrances to the old city of Lahore, witnesses said.

"Go Zardari, go corruption, go load shedding," they chanted, in reference to the crippling power cuts that blight homes and businesses in much of Pakistan.

Lahore, with a population of eight million, is Pakistan's second-biggest city and the capital of the most populous province Punjab, which commands the greatest number of seats in the national parliament.

That makes it bitterly contested territory where opposition leaders are targeting the unpopular Zardari and trying to whip up future votes.

They are looking to exploit disillusionment with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) which swept to power in February 2008, two months after Zardari's wife, ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated.

"Step down Zardari and hand over your money otherwise we will hang you here," cried Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab, addressing the crowd.

His brother, party leader Nawaz, did not attend because he was in Turkey.

After the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Shahbaz said the party would take to the road leading a nationwide campaign calling for Zardari to go.

An effigy of the president was beaten and set ablaze, while other followers danced to party songs blasted out at top volume.

Others carried toy lions -- the animal is Sharif's election symbol -- shouting "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif".

One police official told AFP on condition of anonymity that more than 30,000 people were in the crowd. An AFP reporter earlier estimated 10,000.

Amid tight security, a large stage was set up with bulletproof glass next to hoardings of Nawaz and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab.

Police commandos were seen on the rooftops of buildings and Lahore police told AFP officers were on high alert to prevent any possible attack by Islamist militants.

Members of Zardari's party have lashed out at the Sharifs, accusing them of misappropriating public resources for a political rally.

"It was a comedy show and government resources were used to organise it. They used police, health and all other departments to bring people to the rally," said senior PPP leader and former law minister Babar Awan.

An irritant for both Sharif and Zardari is cricket-hero-turned-politician Imran Khan, who is holding his own rally on Sunday at the Minar-e-Pakistan ground, where the resolution for the creation of Pakistan was adopted in 1940.

Campaigning by his Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party, which boycotted the 2008 election, has sparked debate about the extent to which he will deprive the Sharifs of political support.

Defence and political analyst Talat Masood told AFP that Friday's rally could help the PML-N build up pressure for early elections and wrest back some initiatives from perceptions that Khan is eating into its support base.

"But only time will tell if they succeed or not. The performance in Punjab can be a litmus test for the campaign for change," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/30-000-call-pakistan-president-162639205.html

BANGKOK: Floods that have sparked an exodus from the Thai capital crept closer to the city centre today, but hopes grew that emergency barriers would prevent a major overflow from Bangkok’s main river.

The city of 12 million people is on heightened alert because of threats on two fronts – a seasonal high tide this weekend that is expected to coincide with the arrival of a mass of water from the flood-stricken central plains.

The three-month crisis – triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains – has left at least 377 people dead and damaged millions of homes and livelihoods, mostly in northern and central Thailand.

While the government is largely focused on defending the capital, people in the worst-hit provinces north of the city have endured weeks of flooding.

Thousands of residents have left Bangkok after the government declared a special five-day holiday, flocking to rail and bus stations in the city and jamming roads as they head to areas out of the path of the water.

So far, however, central Bangkok has only seen minor inundation in areas along the main Chao Phraya River, including near the Grand Palace, with most of the city centre still dry.

“The Chao Phraya overflowed and flooded some areas along the river but it receded quite quickly,” a spokesman for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said after today morning’s high tide.

Tourists walking through ankle-deep water near the Grand Palace appeared unfazed, despite a slew of travel warnings from foreign governments.

“It’s adding to our experience,” said 32-year-old British honeymooner Melanie Willoughby. “They all seem to be coping well. The only thing we found is that it’s been hard to get (drinking) water.”

Today morning’s high tide – measured at 2.47 metres above sea level – was lower than expected, raising hopes that the river’s flood barriers would prevent a major overflow.

“The Navy predicted 2.57 metres tomorrow but I think it will be bit lower based on today,” said an official at the city’s Drainage and Sewerage Department who did not want to be named.

“So the walls can still hold it back, despite flooding on the river banks which is usual during high tide.”

Force of nature

At the same time billions of cubic metres of water lie north of the capital, creeping slowly southwards as the authorities attempt to channel the muddy brown liquid through the city’s canals and rivers.

Some areas in northern Bangkok have seen waist-deep flooding, leading to the shutdown of the city’s second airport, Don Mueang.

Yesterday, an emotional Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, in office for barely two months, warned that the country could not resist the “force of nature” by trying to hold back the water forever.

The authorities have opened sluice gates around the city to allow water to flow through canals but experts and officials have given conflicting information about the risks of major flooding in downtown Bangkok.

More than 100,000 people have sought refuge at emergency shelters and tens of thousands of troops have joined the relief efforts.

The crisis is taking its toll on the lucrative Thai tourism industry, with the United States joining other countries including Britain, Singapore, Canada in advising against all but essential travel to Bangkok.

Most of the country’s top tourist destinations have been unaffected by the disaster and Suvarnabhumi Airport, the main gateway to Thailand, is operating as usual, along with the city’s subway and elevated train.

- AFP

Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/10/28/thai-floods-inch-closer-to-city-centre/

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan strongly denied Thursday a BBC report that alleged the Pakistani military, along with its intelligence arm, supplied and protected the Afghan Talibanand al Qaeda.

A number of middle-ranking Taliban commanders detailed what they said was extensive Pakistani support in interviews for a BBC documentary series, the first part of which was broadcast Wednesday.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on a visit to Britain, criticized the program, telling a London news conference that the Taliban were trying to create a wedge between their adversaries by making such allegations.

"We are victims, victims of war, we have lost over 35,000 innocent people, including senior officers, policemen, and normal foot soldiers. I think doubting us is really heartbreaking ... We have stood in the front line," Malik said, referring to Pakistan's fight against militant groups.

"We are facing daily these suicide bombers. If they had been trained by us, we should not be getting ourselves killed," he said.

A former Afghan intelligence head also told the BBC that Afghanistan gave former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf information in 2006 that Osama bin Laden was hiding in northern Pakistan, but the intelligence was not acted on. The al Qaeda leader was killed in the same area by U.S. special forces in May this year.

Pakistan's military denied the BBC report.

"We consider that this report is highly biased, it is one-sided, it doesn't have the version of the side which is badly hit or affected by this report," Major General Athar Abbas, spokesman for the Pakistani military, told Reuters.

"So therefore, other than that, it's factually incorrect."

CREDIBILITY QUESTIONED

One Taliban commander, Mullah Qaseem, told the BBC that Pakistan had played a significant role in providing supplies and a hiding place for Afghan Taliban fighters.

Abbas denied this, questioning Qaseem's credibility.

He said the head of Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had already said "not a single bullet or financial support" had been given to groups named in the BBC report.

The United States has long suspected Pakistan, or elements within the ISI, of supporting militant groups in order to increase its influence in Afghanistan, particularly after NATO combats troops leave in 2014.

In September, Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top U.S. military officer, accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets including the U.S. embassy in Kabul. He said the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, blamed for a September 13 embassy attack, was a "veritable arm" of the ISI.

Pakistan denies the U.S. allegations.

Malik said that "if Pakistan has recruited some people for intelligence purposes," that did not mean it supported them.

He suggested the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's security service also had connections with the Haqqani group or other militants because they were hunting for intelligence and recruiting sources.

Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It was one of only three countries to have diplomatic relations with the Islamist group.

(Source: By Chris Allbritton | Reuters)

Britain called on Philippine Muslim rebels Monday to end attacks that have killed 35 since last week, and backed President Benigno Aquino's stand to press ahead with peace talks.

British ambassador Stephen Lillie said the leadership of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) must show they were committed to the talks and order its commanders on the ground to silence their guns.

He also bucked growing calls from some politicians for Aquino to abandon the negotiations and launch an all-out war against the 12,000-strong MILF.

"I am seriously concerned by the reports of ambushes by MILF members in different parts of Mindanao over the past week," Lillie said in a statement.

"The current spate of ambushes must stop," he added.

But he warned that meeting violence with violence could "likely lead to a downward spiral of killing, with untold misery and suffering for innocent civilians."

Britain is a member of the so-called International Contact Groupthat is monitoring and supporting the peace talks.

Aquino has come under increasing pressure from restive military officers and critics to suspend a ceasefire with the MILF after week-long attacks saw the biggest flare-up of violence in years.

Nineteen special forces were gunned down October 18 after they strayed into an MILF territory on Basilan island province while going after a rogue rebel commander.

Two days later, eight soldiers and policemen were killed in similar attacks elsewhere in the south, while on Sunday, five rubber plantation workers and three soldiers were murdered.

About 200 MILF fighters fleeing a government manhunt meanwhile occupied two elementary schools in remote farming villages at the weekend, stealing cattle and harassing the residents.

The MILF has waged a rebellion since the 1970s in Mindanao, the country's southern third which is considered an ancestral homeland by the minority Muslims.

The rebellion has claimed about 150,000 lives, and stunted efforts to develop the mineral-rich southern region.

A ceasefire signed in 2003 paved the way for peace talks between the MILF and the government, but the truce is often marred by violence and the talks are currently at an impasse.

Source: Yahoo Daily News

VAN, Turkey (Reuters) - As many as 1,000 people were feared killed on Sunday when a powerful earthquake hit southeast Turkey, flattening buildings and leaving survivors crying for help from under the rubble.

As night fell, survivors and emergency workers battled to pull people out of the debris in the city of Van and town of Ercis, where a student dormitory collapsed.

Residents in Van joined in a frantic search, using hands and shovels and working under floodlights and flashlights, hearing voices of people buried alive calling from under mounds of shattered concrete in pitch darkness and bitter cold.

An official at the Van provincial crisis center told Reuters more than 100 people had been confirmed killed so far and hundreds more were missing under destroyed buildings.

More accounts of dead bodies and destruction were emerging from smaller settlements across the remote area near the Iranian border, most of them left without electricity or phone access.

BODIES

"The death toll is rising. Rescue teams are taking out dead bodies all the time," Reuters photographer Osman Orsal said in Ercis, a town of 100,000 some 100 km (60 miles) north of Van where a student dormitory collapsed.

In Van, an ancient city on a lake ringed by snow-capped mountains and with a population of 1 million, cranes were used to shift the rubble of a crumpled six-storey apartment block where bystanders reckoned there were around 70 people trapped.

"We heard cries and groaning from underneath the debris, we are waiting for the rescue teams to arrive," Halil Celik told Reuters as he stood beside the ruins of a building that had collapsed before his eyes.

"All of a sudden, a quake tore down the building in front of me. All the bystanders, we all ran to the building and rescued two injured people from the ruins."

At another site, three teenagers were believed trapped under a collapsed building. People clambered over the masonry, shouting: "Is there anyone there?"

An elderly rescue worker sat sobbing, his exhausted face covered in dust. Police tried to keep onlookers back. Ambulance crews sat waiting to help anyone dragged out of the debris.

There were reports of more bodies being pulled from rubble in hamlets outside Van. One village chief told NTV broadcaster: "Nobody has reached us, we have received no medical aid, the tents they sent are plain canvas. We are freezing."

No information was available on the fate of a 10th century Armenian church on Akdamar Island -- one of the last relics of Armenian culture in Turkey, which was recently reopened by the government as a peace gesture toward Armenia.

Kandilli Observatory general manager Mustafa Erdik told a news conference he estimated hundreds of lives had been lost. "It could be 500 or 1,000," he added. He said he based his estimate on the 7.2 magnitude of the earthquake, the strongest since 1999, and the quality of construction.

A nurse at a public hospital in Ercis said hospital workers were attending the wounded in the hospital garden because the building was badly damaged.

"We can't count dead or injured because we're not inside the hospital. There should be more than 100 dead bodies left next to the hospital. We left them there because it's dark and we didnt want to step on bodies," Eda Ekizoglu told CNN Turk television.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went by helicopter from Van to Ercis to see firsthand the scale of devastation. The cabinet was expected to discuss the quake on Monday morning.

"A lot of buildings collapsed, many people were killed, but we don't know the number. We are waiting for emergency help, it's very urgent," Zulfukar Arapoglu, mayor of Ercis, told news broadcaster NTV.

"We need tents urgently and rescue teams. We don't have any ambulances, and we only have one hospital. We have many killed and injured."

Turkey's Red Crescent said one of its teams was helping to rescue people from a student residence in Ercis. It had sent 1,200 tents, more than 4,000 blankets, stoves and food supplies, along with two mobile bakeries.

More than 70 aftershocks rocked the area, further unsettling residents who ran into the streets when the initial quake struck. Television pictures showed rooms shaking and furniture toppling as people ran from one building.

DAZED

Students gathered around a camp fire in Van's center and told journalists bread prices on the black market had more than quadrupled. Dazed survivors wandered past vehicles crushed by falling masonry.

Anatolian news agency reported that 200 prisoners escaped from Van's prison after the quake, but 50 returned after seeing their familes.

Turkish media said phone lines and electricity had been cut. The quake's epicentre was at the village of Tabanli, 20 km north of Van city, Kandilli said.

International offers of aid poured in from NATO, China, Japan, the United States, Azerbaijan, European countries and Israel, whose ties with Ankara have soured since Israeli commandoes killed nine Turks during a raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010.

Serzh Sarksyan, the president of Turkey's longtime regional rival Armenia, phoned Turkey's President Abdullah Gul to offer his condolences.

Major geological fault lines cross Turkey and there are small earthquakes almost daily. Two large quakes in 1999 killed more than 20,000 people in northwest Turkey.

An earthquake struck Van province in November 1976, with 5,291 confirmed dead. Two people were killed and 79 injured in May when an earthquake shook Simav in northwest Turkey.

(Additional reporting by Seda Sezer, Ece Toksabay and Seyhmus Cakan, writing by Ibon Villelabeitia and Daren Butler; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source:  REUTERS - By: Jonathon Burch @yahoonews

VAN, Turkey (Reuters) - As many as 1,000 people were feared killed on Sunday when a powerful earthquake hit southeast Turkey, flattening buildings and leaving survivors crying for help from under the rubble.

As night fell, survivors and emergency workers battled to pull people out of the debris in the city of Van and town of Ercis, where a student dormitory collapsed.

Residents in Van joined in a frantic search, using hands and shovels and working under floodlights and flashlights, hearing voices of people buried alive calling from under mounds of shattered concrete in pitch darkness and bitter cold.

An official at the Van provincial crisis center told Reuters more than 100 people had been confirmed killed so far and hundreds more were missing under destroyed buildings.

More accounts of dead bodies and destruction were emerging from smaller settlements across the remote area near the Iranian border, most of them left without electricity or phone access.

BODIES

"The death toll is rising. Rescue teams are taking out dead bodies all the time," Reuters photographer Osman Orsal said in Ercis, a town of 100,000 some 100 km (60 miles) north of Van where a student dormitory collapsed.

In Van, an ancient city on a lake ringed by snow-capped mountains and with a population of 1 million, cranes were used to shift the rubble of a crumpled six-storey apartment block where bystanders reckoned there were around 70 people trapped.

"We heard cries and groaning from underneath the debris, we are waiting for the rescue teams to arrive," Halil Celik told Reuters as he stood beside the ruins of a building that had collapsed before his eyes.

"All of a sudden, a quake tore down the building in front of me. All the bystanders, we all ran to the building and rescued two injured people from the ruins."

At another site, three teenagers were believed trapped under a collapsed building. People clambered over the masonry, shouting: "Is there anyone there?"

An elderly rescue worker sat sobbing, his exhausted face covered in dust. Police tried to keep onlookers back. Ambulance crews sat waiting to help anyone dragged out of the debris.

There were reports of more bodies being pulled from rubble in hamlets outside Van. One village chief told NTV broadcaster: "Nobody has reached us, we have received no medical aid, the tents they sent are plain canvas. We are freezing."

No information was available on the fate of a 10th century Armenian church on Akdamar Island -- one of the last relics of Armenian culture in Turkey, which was recently reopened by the government as a peace gesture toward Armenia.

Kandilli Observatory general manager Mustafa Erdik told a news conference he estimated hundreds of lives had been lost. "It could be 500 or 1,000," he added. He said he based his estimate on the 7.2 magnitude of the earthquake, the strongest since 1999, and the quality of construction.

A nurse at a public hospital in Ercis said hospital workers were attending the wounded in the hospital garden because the building was badly damaged.

"We can't count dead or injured because we're not inside the hospital. There should be more than 100 dead bodies left next to the hospital. We left them there because it's dark and we didnt want to step on bodies," Eda Ekizoglu told CNN Turk television.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went by helicopter from Van to Ercis to see firsthand the scale of devastation. The cabinet was expected to discuss the quake on Monday morning.

"A lot of buildings collapsed, many people were killed, but we don't know the number. We are waiting for emergency help, it's very urgent," Zulfukar Arapoglu, mayor of Ercis, told news broadcaster NTV.

"We need tents urgently and rescue teams. We don't have any ambulances, and we only have one hospital. We have many killed and injured."

Turkey's Red Crescent said one of its teams was helping to rescue people from a student residence in Ercis. It had sent 1,200 tents, more than 4,000 blankets, stoves and food supplies, along with two mobile bakeries.

More than 70 aftershocks rocked the area, further unsettling residents who ran into the streets when the initial quake struck. Television pictures showed rooms shaking and furniture toppling as people ran from one building.

DAZED

Students gathered around a camp fire in Van's center and told journalists bread prices on the black market had more than quadrupled. Dazed survivors wandered past vehicles crushed by falling masonry.

Anatolian news agency reported that 200 prisoners escaped from Van's prison after the quake, but 50 returned after seeing their familes.

Turkish media said phone lines and electricity had been cut. The quake's epicentre was at the village of Tabanli, 20 km north of Van city, Kandilli said.

International offers of aid poured in from NATO, China, Japan, the United States, Azerbaijan, European countries and Israel, whose ties with Ankara have soured since Israeli commandoes killed nine Turks during a raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010.

Serzh Sarksyan, the president of Turkey's longtime regional rival Armenia, phoned Turkey's President Abdullah Gul to offer his condolences.

Major geological fault lines cross Turkey and there are small earthquakes almost daily. Two large quakes in 1999 killed more than 20,000 people in northwest Turkey.

An earthquake struck Van province in November 1976, with 5,291 confirmed dead. Two people were killed and 79 injured in May when an earthquake shook Simav in northwest Turkey.

(Additional reporting by Seda Sezer, Ece Toksabay and Seyhmus Cakan, writing by Ibon Villelabeitia and Daren Butler; editing by Andrew Roche)

People rescue two women trapped under debris in Van eastsern Turkey after a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey, collapsing about 45 buildings in Van province, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011 according to the deputy Turkish prime minister. Only one death was immediately confirmed, but scientists estimated that up to 1,000 people could have been killed. The worst damage was caused to the town of Ercis, in the mountainous eastern province of Van, close to the Iranian border. ( AP Photo/Ali Ihsan Ozturk, Anatolia) TURKEY OUT

Source: By Jonathon Burch

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday demanded the return of two of its citizens found on a small wooden boat in South Korean waters, a day after nine other North Koreans spotted off Japan's coast were sent to the South for settlement.
More than 21,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, with defections surging in recent years amid economic hardship in the North.

Defections are a sore point in relations between the divided Koreas; South Korea accepts those who choose to defect and repatriates those who wish to return home. But the North often claims that its citizens are held against their will in the South and that South Korean officials pressure them to defect.
On Wednesday, the North's Red Cross sent a message demanding that South Korea repatriate the two North Korean men found south of the eastern Korean sea border earlier this week, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

Officials were investigating whether the North Koreans intended to defect or had simply drifted south, and South Korea will honor their wishes, spokeswoman Park Soo-jin said.

In June, North Korea reacted angrily when South Korea refused to send back a group of nine North Koreans who crossed into South Korean waters by boat, citing their desire to defect. Earlier this year, Seoul allowed four of 31 North Koreans who had drifted south aboard a boat to remain in South Korea.
On Tuesday, nine North Koreans arrived in South Korea about three weeks after they were found on a wooden boat off the coast of Japan. Tokyo decided to honor their wishes to be sent to South Korea.

South Korean television footage showed the defectors wearing sunglasses, masks and hoods in an apparent attempt to conceal their identifies to protect the safety of their families left behind in the North. Those family members could be punished because of their relatives' defections.
North Korea has not officially commented on the nine defectors.

The two Koreas remain technically at war and their border is among the world's most fortified, meaning North Koreans seeking to flee often leave through the relatively porous frontier with China, some making their way to South Korea through Southeast Asia. Defection through Japan is rare.

Tens of thousands North Koreans are believed to be hiding in China, which is required to send them back under a treaty arrangement with Pyongyang. A South Korean civic group said that China arrested 35 North Korean defectors in border towns last month and is prepared to send them home, where severe punishment likely awaits.
South Korean officials were to visit China this week to try to verify the claim and stop any moves to repatriate the 35 defectors against their wishes, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Suspected Sunni extremists shot to death 13 Shiite Muslims execution-style after ordering them off a bus and lining them up Tuesday in southwestern Pakistan, ramping up a campaign of sectarian violence that has exposed Islamabad's inability to protect minorities.

Sunni militants with links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have carried out scores of bombings and shootings across the country against minority Shiites in recent years, but this summer has been especially bloody in Baluchistan province, with at least four major attacks since May.

The gunmen who attacked Tuesday were riding on motorbikes and stopped a bus carrying mostly Shiite Muslims who were headed to work at a vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said police official Hamid Shakeel.

The attackers forced the people off the bus, made them stand in a line and then opened fire, said Shakeel.
The dead included 13 Shiites and one Sunni, he said. Six people were wounded — four Shiites and two Sunnis.
Local TV footage showed relatives wailing at the hospital where the dead and wounded were brought. One relative hugged a wounded man as another walked by, his clothes soaked with blood.

Shiites blocked the main highway on the outskirts of Quetta to protest the killings. They also set fire to the bus that had taken the dead and wounded to the hospital.
Sunni extremists carried out a similar attack on Shiite pilgrims traveling through Baluchistan via bus about two weeks ago, killing 26 people.
Both incidents targeted the Hazaras, a Shiite tribe that lives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they have also been attacked by Sunni militants. Security forces in the Baluchistan region, who are also battling separatist rebels, have proved largely powerless to stop the violence.

Pakistan is a majority Sunni Muslim state, with around 15 percent Shiite.
Most Sunnis and Shiites live together peacefully in Pakistan, though tensions have existed for decades.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan became the scene of a proxy war between mostly Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with both sides funneling money to sectarian groups that regularly targeted each other.

The level of sectarian violence has declined somewhat since then, but attacks continue. In recent years, Sunni attacks on Shiites have been far more common.
The groups have been energized by al-Qaida and the Taliban, which are also Sunni and share the belief that Shiites are infidels and it is permissible to kill them. The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Islam's Prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of the country's most ruthless Sunni militant groups, claimed responsibility for the attack in Baluchistan two weeks ago. One of its alleged leaders, Malik Ishaq, was released from prison on bail in July after being held for 14 years on charges, never proven, of killing Shiites.
Ishaq was re-arrested about a week ago after making inflammatory speeches against Shiites in the country. He was not charged but detained under a public order act, which means he can be held for three months.

It's not clear whether Ishaq's speeches have been connected to the recent wave of sectarian attacks.

BEIJING (AP) — A tropical storm has hit southern China, bringing heavy winds and rain and forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights. It is the second storm to hit the area in a week.

The provincial weather office in the southern island of Hainan says Tropical Storm Nalgae made landfall on Tuesday with winds of about 55 mph (90 kph).

The airport in Sanya on the southern end of the tropical island said it had been forced to cancel or postpone dozens of flights.

Hainan was lashed by Typhoon Nesat last week, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and killing three people.
Both storms battered the Philippines before moving on to China.

PULILAN – Typhoon “Quiel” (international codename: Nalgae) slammed into the northern Philippines on Saturday, packing gusts up to 195 kilometers per hour and threatening victims still trapped by previous storm floods, officials said.
Signal number 3 was raised in Isabela, Northern Aurora, Mt. Province, Ifugao, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Benguet, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration said.
Areas under signal number 2 are Cagayan, Apayao, Ilocos Norte, Abra, Kalinga, rest of Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga, Zambales, Bulacan and Northern Quezon including Polillo Island.
Signal number one is up in the rest of Quezon, Camarines Norte, Rizal, Bataan, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Lubang Islang, Babuyan and Calayan Group of islands and Metro Manila.
“Quiel” made landfall in Luzon at 9:00 a.m. (0100 GMT) and was tearing west across the Philippines’ main island with sustained winds of 160 kilometers (99.2 miles) per hour, the state weather service said.
The storm was tracking roughly the same path as Typhoon “Pedring” (international codename: Nesat), which ravaged Luzon with huge floods on Tuesday, Science Undersecretary Graciano Yumul said.
“At this point in time, all the flooded areas should be emptied of people. Local officials should implement forced evacuation,” he told a news conference.
Officials say more than a million of Luzon’s 48 million people remain trapped in floods unleashed by Pedring, many from farming towns across central Luzon, where rainwater from nearby mountain ranges flush out into Manila Bay.
Pedring killed 50 people and left 31 others missing, according to an updated official tally by the government’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
It said some 180,000 people were sheltering at state-run evacuation centres, mostly those displaced by Pedring.
Its director Benito Ramos said thousands of rescue workers deployed across Luzon ahead of Quiel’s landfall, and the island’s sparsely populated northeast coast was evacuated from Friday on orders from President Benigno Aquino III.
“We’re implementing persuasive evacuation operations,” said Ramos, a retired general, telling Agence France-Presse: “If I have to handcuff people to remove them from their homes I could be charged with human rights violations.”
There had not yet been any reports of casualties or damage, he said.
Ida de la Cruz, a 37-year-old farmer’s wife, was sitting out the disaster on her rooftop after floods engulfed her home and the rest of Pulilan, a town of 70,000 people an hour’s drive north of Manila.
“We can’t leave our 15 ducks as most of our income come from the eggs that they lay,” she told AFP while she washed clothes using the murky brown floodwaters that had swamped her farmhouse. Chickens and dogs shared her perch.
She said no help had arrived since the floods descended on Wednesday, when their three children were dispatched to her mother’s home. She and her husband were down to five kilogrammes (11 pounds) of rice.
Raul Agustin, a provincial disaster official in the area, said on television in an interview flood victims were generally reluctant to leave for fear their homes would be looted.
“When we send out rescue teams to help them, they ask for food instead. Today we gave instructions to convince all those marooned on rooftops to move to evacuation centers.”
Pedring dumped the biggest single-day volume of rain on the disaster-weary Philippines this year, and Quiel was expected to bring just as much over the same areas, it added.
The capital, Manila, is on the edge of the new typhoon’s 500-kilometer footprint, though the metropolis was calm under leaden skies on Saturday.
Luzon and nearby islands are hit by an average of 20 major storms a year.