The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Six killed in China's Xinjiang after explosions - reports
- Saudi, most Gulf states to start Ramadan on Monday
- Strong earthquake jolts northeast Japan, no tsunami
| Six killed in China's Xinjiang after explosions - reports Posted: 30 Jul 2011 08:47 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - Two men wielding knives attacked a truck driver and then a crowd of people following two explosions in China's far west, killing six people before one attacker was killed and the other captured, government-run media reported Sunday. The blasts and attack occurred late on Saturday in the city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang region near China's border with Tajikistan, according to tianshannet.com, a Xinjiang government-run website, and the state-run news agency Xinhua. One of the blasts was from a minivan while another occurred in a food market, Xinhua said. Xinjiang is home to many Uighurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people native to the region, many of whom resent the growing presence of majority Han Chinese who have moved there and some groups have campaigned for independence. It was the second incident of serious violence in the region in two weeks. Eighteen people including 14 "rioters" were killed in an attack on a police station in Xinjiang on July 18, according to the government. The dead included two policemen and two hostages in what Chinese authorities described as a terrorist attack. That clash was the worst violence in about a year in Xinjiang. Saturday's attacks began with the two blasts, Xinhua said. Two men jumped into a truck waiting at a stoplight and stabbed to death the driver, Xinhua and tianshannet.com said. The pair then escaped in the truck, striking several people as it drove off, according to Xinhua. Tianshannet.com gave a somewhat different version, saying the attackers drove the truck into a crowd, left the truck and started attacking people, killing six. The crowd retaliated, beating one of the attackers to death and capturing the other, according to the account, which did not further identify the attackers. Twenty-eight people were hospitalised, it said. There were no other immediate details. The reports did not say if authorities suspect there is any link to a Uighur separatist movement or to the July 18 attack. Xinjiang is strategically significant because it is adjacent to Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and it has oil, gas and coal deposits. Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Saudi, most Gulf states to start Ramadan on Monday Posted: 30 Jul 2011 08:16 PM PDT DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, will start the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on Monday along with most other Gulf states, regional media said on Saturday. Reports from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates said the new moon had not been sighted after sunset on Saturday, indicating that Sunday would be regarded as the last day of the Muslim lunar month preceding Ramadan. In nearby Yemen, Ramadan will also start on Monday. Muslims scan the sky at night in search of the new moon to determine the start of Ramadan, the holiest month for the world's more than one billion Muslims, during which observant believers fast from dawn to dusk. Businesses and offices reduce opening hours during the day and often re-open in the evenings. (Reporting by Firouz Sedarat; Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; Editing by Andrew Heavens) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Strong earthquake jolts northeast Japan, no tsunami Posted: 30 Jul 2011 08:16 PM PDT TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 jolted northeast Japan on Sunday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The quake, at 3:54 a.m. (1854 GMT Saturday), was also felt in Tokyo. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, and no tsunami warning was issued. The focus of the quake was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture. There were no abnormalities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said. A 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami on March 11 knocked out the Fukushima plant's reactor cooling systems, triggering a radiation crisis. Police in Fukushima and neighbouring Miyagi prefecture said they had received no reports of damage or injuries Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater. The March 11 earthquake, the strongest in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, since Chernobyl. The disaster left up to 23,000 dead or missing. (Reporting by Michael Watson; Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Edmund Klamann) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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