The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- China warns Japan over defence policy paper
- WITNESS - Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial
- Syrian tanks thrust into Hama, 45 killed - activist
| China warns Japan over defence policy paper Posted: 03 Aug 2011 08:25 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China has warned Japan over a defence white paper voicing wariness about Beijing's military build-up, telling Tokyo that it should instead focus on the economic opportunities brought by China's growth. The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry joined in condemning Japan's latest annual defence report, which laid out worries about China's military modernisation and expanding maritime reach. Japan, which is at odds with China over parts of the East China Sea, is planning to boost the number of its submarines to 22 from 16. In his response to the Japanese report, which was issued on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu obliquely warned Tokyo not to depart from its longstanding defence posture. The Japanese report contained "irresponsible comments" and "the Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction about this", Ma said in remarks issued on his ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Wednesday. Geng Yansheng, the Chinese defence ministry spokesman, accused Japan of "deliberately exaggerating the 'China threat' and acting out of ulterior motives," according to the ministry's website (http://www.mod.gov.cn). China's predictably dismissive reaction to Tokyo's policy statement underscored the mix of interdependence and mutual wariness driving ties between Asia's two biggest economies. "China's development has brought major opportunities to every country in the world, including Japan, and China has not and will not constitute a threat to any country," said Ma, the foreign ministry spokesman. "We hope that Japan will use history as a guide, and earnestly reflect on its defence policies, and do more to enhance mutual trust with its neighbours," he said. Japan has a standing military of about 230,000 personnel, one-tenth of China's. China's defence budget has shot up nearly 70 percent over the past five years, while Japan -- tied by a public debt twice the size of its $5 trillion economy -- has cut its military outlays by 3 percent over the same period, the Japanese report said. The Japanese white paper expressed concerns over China's rapid military buildup, the murkiness of Beijing's defence budget, and its assertiveness in dealing with international conflicts. "China's strengthening of its defence and modernising of its military forces is entirely for the sake of protecting national sovereignty and territorial integrity and ensuring smooth economic and social development," said Geng, the Chinese defence spokesman. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| WITNESS - Signs of old era as Egypt turns page with Mubarak trial Posted: 03 Aug 2011 07:53 PM PDT CAIRO (Reuters) - Like many Egyptians, the closest I had ever got to the country's fallen president was when I waited in frustration in gridlocked traffic as his motorcade raced through the streets of Cairo.
On Wednesday, I got a bit closer to the only Egyptian president I have ever known. Hosni Mubarak lay on a hospital bed just metres away, behind bars and in the dock for conspiring to kill protesters during the uprising which ended his 30 years of power in February. Oddly, this real-life drama opened on a series of television screens propped on the courtroom walls. Before Mubarak and his sons arrived for their trial, people crammed into the courtroom at a Cairo police academy chatted excitedly, some pointing to television cameras broadcasting the session. "Did the camera catch me? I think that was me on TV. I want history to show I was here," one policeman told a colleague after spotting himself on the TV screens. "I never thought I would live to see a day like this. No other day can top this." Then a helicopter appeared on the screens, flying into the barracks compound as it brought Mubarak on the last stage of his journey from a hospital bed to the courtroom cage. At last our attention turned from the screens to the cage, where defendants in Egyptian criminal trials usually stand. Inside, a metal door opened to let the defendants in. Mubarak's son Gamal, who many thought was being groomed for top office, looked into the courtroom, glancing at his watch, arms folded and waiting for a request to step inside. Far from being bowed, Gamal looked more like he was on the way to another meeting of his father's now disbanded political party. "That's Gamal! He is still acting like he is going into a National Democratic Party conference," an onlooker said. Gamal's brother Alaa followed, avoiding eye contact with the crowd. But the shock of seeing Mubarak's two sons in the dock lasted only the few moments until their father entered on the hospital trolley. The courtroom gasped. "That's the president! There he is!" someone said. Mubarak, who dyed his hair as he aged in office, still had jet black hair but seemed more frail than in his last appearance before he left Cairo and the presidency behind for the resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh. STEALING GLANCES Even the policemen, who were supposed to be watching people in the courtroom, stole glances at Mubarak. "I'm dizzy. I can't believe my eyes," said Khaled, an electrician overseeing the court's sound system. Mubarak was separated from the crowd not just by the cage bars. His sons, who appeared holding the Koran, seemed to be trying to hide their father from the cameras. Dozens of policemen also blocked the view. The first day of Mubarak's trial may have opened a new chapter in Egypt's transition from decades of dictatorship. Yet, it was a trial that kept much of the "old Egypt" in tact. Although the head of the old Egypt was on trial, overwhelming security inside and outside the courtroom showed that the methods of the police state that kept Mubarak in power for three decades are little changed. Some lawyers representing victims of the uprising that toppled Mubarak and relatives were denied entry due to a lack of space. Yet I watched hundreds of plain-clothes police fill much of the courthouse. Only four family members of the victims or 414 plaintiffs involved in the case made it into the courtroom. With more than 100 lawyers in the room -- representing Mubarak, his two sons, the former interior minister and six senior former officers, as well as the plaintiffs -- the patience of the judge seemed to run thin. "What else do you want? Are those your demands? Quickly please," judge Ahmed Refaat said as lawyer after lawyer took to the stand to make requests during the four-hour session. Finally Refaat set the date for the next session, ended the hearing and Mubarak was wheeled out. But I was left wondering how long this complex trial would last, just as before I would wonder how long I had to wait for the presidential motorcade to pass. (Editing by David Stamp) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Syrian tanks thrust into Hama, 45 killed - activist Posted: 03 Aug 2011 07:53 PM PDT AMMAN (Reuters) - At least 45 civilians were killed in a tank assault by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces to occupy the centre of Hama, an activist said on Thursday, in a sharp escalation of a military campaign aimed at ending an uprising against his rule.
Reacting to intensifying assaults on Syrian cities and towns, the U.N. Security Council overcame deep divisions and condemned Assad's bloody crackdown on civilian protesters. It was the first substantive action by the U.N. on Syria's five-month-old uprising for political freedoms. An activist who managed to leave the besieged city told Reuters that 40 people were killed by heavy machinegun fire and shelling by tanks in al-Hader district north of the Orontes river on Wednesday and early on Thursday. The activist, who gave his name as Thaer, said five more people from the Fakhri and Assa'ad families, including two children, where killed as they were trying to leave Hama by car on the al-Dhahirya highway. Syrian authorities have expelled most independent media, making it difficult to verify witness accounts and official statements. Residents earlier said tanks had advanced into central Hama on Wednesday after heavily shelling the city and occupied the main Orontes square, the site of some of the largest protests against Assad, who succeeded his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, in 2000. Snipers spread onto rooftops and into the nearby citadel. They said shelling concentrated on al-Hader district, large parts of which were razed in 1982 when forces loyal to Hafez al-Assada overran Hama to crush Islamist insurgents, killing many thousands of people. Human rights campaigners say more than 90 people, not counting the latest toll, have been killed in Hama since Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, launched a military assault on Sunday to crush dissent against his autocratic rule. Graphic on violence, click http://link.reuters.com/muw82s The assaults triggered international condemnation and calls from U.S. senators for sanctions on Syria's energy sector, concentrated in eastern Syria. Last week tanks moved into the eastern provincial capital of Deir al-Zor and the town of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq's Sunni heartland. Both town have also witnessed large pro-democracy protests. TANKS USED WITH "TARGETED FEROCITY" "The security apparatus thinks it can wrap this uprising up by relying on the security option and killing as many Syrians as it thinks it will take," a diplomat in the Syrian capital said. "Tanks are firing their guns at residential buildings in Hama and Deir al-Zor after the two cities were left for weeks to protest peacefully. This is the first time the regime is using tanks with such targeted ferocity," the diplomat said. The official Syrian news agency said "armed terrorist groups" had abducted three oil-well guards in Deir al-Zor on Wednesday, and killed one policeman. Authorities say the army had entered Hama to confront "terrorists" who were intimidating inhabitants. State television broadcast footage of armed men who it said had attacked security forces and government buildings in Hama. U.S., TURKEY, HARDEN STANCE A Syrian pharmacist who managed to talk with her family in Hama told Reuters that they had tried to flee but that the 'shabbiha' were randomly shooting residents. Several buildings in Hama had caught fire from tank shelling and snipers were in position on rooftops in Orontes Square, she said. The Local Coordination Committees grassroots activists' group said in a statement that the authorities were trying prevent any news emerging on the ferocity of the assault. The group said it could no longer contact its members in Hama. "Communications have been totally cut off in Hama, together with water and electricity. There is a big movement of refugees trying to flee the city," the statement said. In New York, Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, president this month of the Security Council, read out a statement condemning "widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities". But it urged all sides to act with restraint, reflecting divisions among the West on one hand and China and Russia, which has a naval base in Syria, on how to deal with Assad. The only dissenter in the council was Lebanon, where Syrian influence remains strong after a 29-year military presence that ended in 2005. In a rare move, Beirut dissociated itself from a formal statement agreed by the other 14 members. Syria backs the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, against the wishes of Syria's Sunni majority population. The U.N. document agreed after three days of hard bargaining, instead of a full council resolution the West would have preferred, urged Damascus to fully respect human rights and comply with its obligations under international law. The White House slightly hardened its stance against Assad on Wednesday, saying the United States viewed him as the cause of instability in the country. "Syria would be a better place without President Assad," White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a news conference. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Arinc Bulent, whose country had grown close to Assad in recent years, issued the strongest condemnation yet of the Syrian president by a Turkish leader. "I'm saying this on my behalf, what's going on in Hama today is an atrocity ... Whoever carries this out can't be our friend. They are making a big mistake," he said. The plight of Hama has prompted many Syrians to stage solidarity marches since the start of the holy month of Ramadan earlier this week. The Syrian Revolution Coordination Union said seven demonstrators were shot dead in attacks by security forces on protests after nightly Ramadan prayers across Syria on Wednesday. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Michael Roddy) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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