Earthquake kills 13 in central Asia

Afp, Tashkent

A major 6.2 quake in Uzbekistan killed at least 13 people and injured 86 others, when it struck on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border in the remote Fergana Valley region, Uzbek officials said.
The quake struck at 1:35am (with the epicentre just inside neighbouring Kyrgyzstan but 42 kilometres southwest of the Uzbek city of Fergana, the US Geological Survey said.
"As a result of the earthquake, some old buildings were destroyed in the Fergana region," the Uzbek emergencies ministry said.
It said that the quake registered 5.0 even in the capital Tashkent, some 235 kilometres away from the epicentre.

UN declares famine in southern Somalia

Afp, NairobiUN's definition of famine:
--Acute malnutrition of more than 30 percent of children
--Two deaths per 10,000 people a day
--Access to less than four litres of water and 2,100 kilocalories a day
--Complete loss of assets or income
--Large-scale displacement of people and civil strife
The UN officially declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia yesterday as the world slowly mobilised to save the 12 million people battling hunger in the region's worst drought in 60 years.
The United States urged the al-Qaeda-inspired rebels controlling the area to allow the return of the relief groups they expelled two years ago while aid groups warned many would die without urgent action and funding.
"The United Nations declared today that famine exists in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool, and Lower Shabelle," a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said.
The region is Somalia's breadbasket and the UN said that an estimated 3.7 million people -- or nearly half of the war-torn country's population -- were facing a food crisis.
"If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden told reporters.
"If we are not able to intervene immediately, tens of thousands more Somalis may die," the UN added.
Somalia, which has been affected by almost uninterrupted conflict for 20 years and become a by-word for "failed state", is the worst affected nation but parts of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti are also hit.
Famine implies that at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition in over 30 percent of people, and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to UN definition.
Malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world, with peaks of 50 percent in certain areas of southern Somalia, Bowden said.
Over 78,000 Somalis have fled to seek refuge in neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya in the last two months.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation appealed yesterday for $120 million for the 12 million drought victims in the Horn of Africa.
Aid group Oxfam said only $200 million of the needed one billion had been provided.
UN agencies will hold a meeting Monday in Rome over the drought-sparked humanitarian crisis.

Hillary urges India to play lead role in Asia

Afp, ChennaiUS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged India yesterday to be more assertive in Asia, reflecting US desire for New Delhi to emerge as a counter-weight to Chinese power.
Speaking in the Indian city of Chennai -- a southern trading port looking out towards east Asia -- Clinton argued that India needed to play a bolder leadership role in building security and prosperity in the region.
"India's leadership has the potential to positively shape the future of the Asia-Pacific... and we encourage you not just to look east, but continue to engage and act east as well," she said in Chennai.
Washington has actively courted India, regarding the country as a natural ally because of the two countries' shared belief in democracy, human rights and market-oriented economic policies.
China, militarily and economically superior to India, is Asia's dominant power and has been spreading its influence into India's immediate neighbourhood, notably in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Beijing has also been involved in several incidents in the disputed South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas, leading to fears it is prepared to assert its power more forcefully.
Clinton stressed that India should play a role as a US ally in regional forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and a planned East Asia Summit later this year.
She made only one explicit mention of China in the speech, saying that she was "committed to a strong, constructive relationship" between Washington, New Delhi and Beijing.
But alongside the praise and advocacy for India, Clinton returned to the issue of New Delhi's stance on human rights abuses in Asia, which was also highlighted by US President Barack Obama in his visit to the country last year.
India has formed close ties with military-ruled Myanmar, a northeastern neighbour, and the US believes New Delhi should exert more pressure on its generals over the country's record.
On Tuesday, Clinton met Indian leaders in New Delhi including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister SM Krishna to push for easier access to the country's nuclear market and closer security cooperation.
She stressed that the US-India relationship, which President Barack Obama described as the "defining partnership of the 21st century", had made great progress in recent years, but was yet to fulfill its potential.

Taliban deny Mullah Omar death claim

Afp, Kandahar

The Taliban said yesterday that their reclusive one-eyed leader Mullah Omar was alive and accused the United States of hacking their mobile phones to claim that he was dead.
A text message sent to media from a phone belonging to a spokesman for the Islamists said: "Leadership council of IEA announces that Ameer-ul-Mumineen (Mullah Omar) has passed away. May mighty God bless him."
The IEA is the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name the Taliban gave themselves while in power from 1996 to 2001.
Some journalists also received an email, also seemingly from the Taliban, saying Omar had died from a heart condition, giving a lengthy obituary and naming his successor as Gul Agha, described as a close aide.
But Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied Omar's demise and said his phone -- where the text message appeared to come from -- had been hacked.
"We strongly reject this claim. We are not aware of such news. Americans have hacked our mobile phones with advanced technology and sent the message to the media," said Mujahid.
A second Taliban spokesman, Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, told AFP by telephone that the messages were false and made up by Westerners to "deceive the Afghan people".
In a subsequent email he denounced the hacking as "technical larceny" and claimed the Taliban's own technical wizards were on the case.

Saudi woman to be tried for driving

A SAUDI woman will be tried for taking the wheel, in what she said was an emergency, despite the ultra-conservative kingdom's ban on females driving.
The unnamed 35-year-old was arrested in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, then released with her father as her guarantor, Saudi newspaper Okaz reported yesterday.\
The woman said she had to drive because she was suffering from a haemorrhage and, "in the absence of public transportation" and no driver of her own, she had no other way to get to the hospital, Okaz reported.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving.
There is no law banning women from driving, but the interior ministry imposes regulations based on a fatwa, or religious edict, stipulating that women should not be permitted to drive.
A group of defiant Saudi women got behind the wheels of their cars on June 17 in response to calls for nationwide action to break the ban.

The call spread through Facebook and Twitter was the largest mass action since November 1990, when 47 Saudi women were arrested and severely punished after demonstrating in cars.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly threw her support behind the campaign, saying that "what these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right".
The icon of the campaign was Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old computer security consultant, who was arrested on May 22 and detained for 10 days after posting on YouTube a video of herself driving her car around the eastern city of Khobar.
Last week, Saudi Arabia detained two Omani women for driving, releasing them after they signed a pledge not to do so again.
Women in the kingdom must hire drivers, or depend on the good will of male relatives if they do not have the means.
The ban, paradoxically, encourages hired male drivers to be in close proximity with their female passengers, in a country where mixing of unrelated men and women is prohibited.

Ref: http://www.news.com.au

Serbia arrests war crimes fugitive Hadzic

SERBIA has arrested Goran Hadzic, the one-time Croatian Serb rebel leader accused of overseeing mass murder and the last remaining fugitive wanted by the UN war crimes court in The Hague.
Hadzic, 52, faces 14 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the murder of hundreds of civilians and the deportation of tens of thousands of Croats by troops under his command during the 1991-95 Croatian war.
The European Union (EU) hailed the arrest as an "important" step forward in Serbia's bid for EU membership while Serbian President Boris Tadic said it was the end of a "difficult" chapter in Belgrade's dealings with The Hague court.
The US said his arrest was a "milestone for the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and an opportunity for justice".
Within hours of the arrest overnight, a pale Hadzic was brought before Serbia's national war crimes court in Belgrade, which ruled he could be extradited to The Hague. His lawyer, Toma Fila, said he would not lodge an appeal and that Hadzic could be transferred within the next few days.
"I will not lodge an appeal. He has been allowed to receive family visits tomorrow (Thursday local time) and the day after. After that, as far as I'm concerned, he can leave for The Hague," Mr Fila said outside the court.
Hadzic's arrest comes less than two months after Serbian authorities finally captured wartime Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, the UN court's most wanted fugitive.
Hadzic, who had been on the run since his indictment in 2004, appeared haggard and heavier during his brief court appearance in Belgrade overnight and bore little resemblance to the dark-haired bearded man in his wanted poster.
He is wanted for the massacre by Croatian Serb troops under his command of 250 Croats and other non-Serbs taken from a hospital in Vukovar after the city fell to Serbian troops following a three-month siege in November 1991.
"At the time Hadzic was the master of life and death who decided the fate of numerous prisoners in Vukovar," Zdravko Komsic, the head of an organisation of former Vukovar prisoners of war, told Croatian media.
The siege of Vukovar and the subsequent massacre is one of the darkest chapters of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Vladimir Vukcevic, Serbia's chief war crimes prosecutor, said the breakthrough in the hunt for Hadzic came when he tried to sell a painting by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani last year.
"At that moment he was penniless. He probably got (the painting) during the war in Croatia," Mr Vukcevic said.
The painting was found in December last year at the home of an alleged helper of Hadzic and seized by the Serbian police.
Hadzic was arrested in the idyllic mountain region of Fruska Gora near the northern city of Novi Sad. He was armed but offered no resistance when arrested, prosecutors said.
Hadzic, a former warehouse employee at an agricultural plant, rose to prominence as the president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) in Croatia between 1992-1993.
Chosen for the post with the backing of late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Hadzic was seen as a "yes man" who wielded little real power compared with other wartime Serb leaders.
Milosevic died in March 2006 in his cell at The Hague where he was being tried for war crimes and other charges related to the 1991-95 Balkan wars.

Ref:  www.news.com.au

News International websites hacked

Afp, London

Websites owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International were down yesterday after the Lulz Security hacker group replaced The Sun's online version with a fake story pronouncing the mogul's death.
The British tabloid quickly took down reports that the 80-year-old had been found dead in his garden after ingesting palladium but visitors to the site were redirected to LulzSec's Twitter feed, which celebrated the high-profile attack.
News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm, is believed to have swiftly pulled all of its websites as a precautionary measure.
"We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days," a message from the group warned.
Another message taunted "We have joy we have fun, we have messed up Murdoch's Sun"
A News International spokeswoman said the company was "aware" of the attack.
The hacker collective said it was "sitting on their (the Sun's) emails" and was prepared to publicise them yesterday.
Lulz has been in the spotlight after taking credit for cyberattacks on high-profile companies including Sony and Nintendo.
News International has been under fire over accusations that its now defunct News of the World tabloid hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Iran upgrades nuclear centrifuges

BBC Online:

Iran said yesterday it is installing centrifuges with "better quality and speed" to improve the uranium enrichment process at its nuclear plants.
The foreign ministry statement comes despite international demands for Iran to halt its nuclear activities.
It said the UN atomic watchdog had "full supervision" of the centrifuges.
The US, UK and other Western nations have long believed Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at developing atomic weapons - a claim rejected by Tehran.
Tehran says it is refining uranium for electricity generation and medical applications.

Murdoch's websites hacked

 Afp, London:

AFP tells, websites owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International were down yesterday after the Lulz Security hacker group replaced The Sun's online version with a fake story pronouncing the mogul's death.

The British tabloid quickly took down reports that the 80-year-old had been found dead in his garden after ingesting palladium but visitors to the site were redirected to LulzSec's Twitter feed, which celebrated the high-profile attack.

News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm, is believed to have swiftly pulled all of its websites as a precautionary measure.

"We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days," a message from the group warned.

Another message taunted "We have joy we have fun, we have messed up Murdoch's Sun"

A News International spokeswoman said the company was "aware" of the attack.

The hacker collective said it was "sitting on their (the Sun's) emails" and was prepared to publicise them yesterday.

Lulz has been in the spotlight after taking credit for cyberattacks on high-profile companies including Sony and Nintendo.

News International has been under fire over accusations that its now defunct News of the World tabloid hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.