Russia: Hundreds detained to prevent ethnic clashes

Russian police detained hundreds of people in Moscow and St.Petersburg on Wednesday, aiming to prevent new outbreaks of ethnic violence that erupted in the capital last weekend.

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Law enforcement authorities turned out in force near the central Kievsky railway station in Moscow, where nationalist ethnic Russian youths and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia had been gathering for a rumoured confrontation. About 800 people were detained during the day-long operation, many of whom were armed with knives, clubs or stun guns, Moscow police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said, according to Russian news agencies. In St.Petersburg Russian police detained more then eighty people near one of the central metro stations. The police said they had managed to take control of the situation and no violence or serious injuries were reported in the city. Simmering tension between ethnic-Russian nationalists and minorities from the largely Muslim Caucasus and Central Asia escalated after the fatal shooting of a soccer fan last week in a Moscow street fight between members of the two groups.

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Russia ethnic violence: Hundreds rounded up, arms seized

Russian police detained hundreds of people in Moscow and St.Petersburg on Wednesday, aiming to prevent new outbreaks of ethnic violence that erupted in the capital last weekend.

Law enforcement authorities turned out in force near the central Kievsky railway station in Moscow, where nationalist ethnic Russian youths and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia had been gathering for a rumoured confrontation. About 800 people were detained during the day-long operation, many of whom were armed with knives, clubs or stun guns, Moscow police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said, according to Russian news agencies.

In St.Petersburg Russian police detained more then eighty people near one of the central metro stations. The police said they had managed to take control of the situation and no violence or serious injuries were reported in the city. Simmering tension between ethnic-Russian nationalists and minorities from the largely Muslim Caucasus and Central Asia escalated after the fatal shooting of a soccer fan last week in a Moscow street fight between members of the two groups.

Thousands of soccer fans and nationalists rioted in Moscow central square outside the Kremlin on Saturday (December 11) and attacked passersby who appeared not to be Slavs — violence President Dmitry Medvedev denounced as pogroms.Medvedev vowed on Monday to ensure those responsible for the violence were punished, in a warning that suggested the Kremlin is worried ethnic violence could intensify and spread.European Russia, and particularly Moscow, is home to a volatile mix of disenchanted ethnic-Russian youth and migrants from the Caucasus, part of which is in Russia, and impoverished ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Suicide bomber kills at least one in Tajikistan

DUSHANBE: A suicide bomber blew himself up at a police station in northern Tajikistan on Friday, killing at least one person and wounding 20, a police source said.

“There were people in the buiding and it’s now burning,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

He said the death toll was likely to rise but that it was not immediately clear if the dead included the suicide bomber.

The attack occurred in Khujand, about 340 km (211 miles) north of the capital Dushanbe and near the border with Uzbekistan.

Governments in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia are clamping down on what they see as growing radicalism in the predominantly Muslim, though secular, region after a rise in clashes between security forces and armed groups

Tajikistan, which has a porous 1,340-km (832 miles) border with Afghanistan, has jailed 115

Ahmad Faraz’s 2nd death anniversary today

Staff Report

KARACHI: Today marks the 2nd death anniversary of progressive Urdu poet, Ahmed Faraz. He was considered one of the greatest modern Urdu poets of the last century. Faraz is his pseudonym (takhallus); his real name was Syed Ahmad Shah. Ahmed Faraz died in Islamabad on August 25, 2008.

Ahmed Faraz, who has been compared with Faiz Ahmed Faiz, holds a unique position as one of the best poets of current times, with a fine but simple style of writing. Ethnically a Hindko speaking Pashtoon, Ahmed Faraz studied Persian and Urdu at Peshawar University, where he later became a lecturer.

Ahmad Faraz was born in Kohat, Pakistan, to Syed Muhammad Shah Barq. His brother is Syed Masood Kausar.

In an interview with Rediff, he recalled how his father once bought clothes for him on Eid. He didn’t like the clothes meant for him, but preferred the ones

Fishermen hunt for flood survivors

SHAHDADKOT: Fishermen are helping scour the flooded countryside of the southern province of Sindh for people marooned in the deluge and now running out of food.

More than three weeks after torrential monsoon rains fell over the upper Indus River Basin, many people across Sindh’s flat rice belt in the province’s northwest remain cut off in their flooded homes.

The rains triggered Pakistan’s worst natural disaster in terms of damage and number of people affected.

But many ignored government warnings to leave as the flood swept down the Indus, doubting the scale of the inundation and determined to look after farms and precious animals.

But their food is running out.

“There are a lot of people still stranded,” said boatman Muzaffar as he set off into the flood near the town of Shahdadkot, 70 km (43 miles) west of Sukkur, in a 20-foot (6-metre)

Sutlej to face flood if India releases water

ISLAMABAD: The low lying areas of River Sutlej are likely to face a flood in the coming days if India releases water, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).

The present Met situation suggests that water reservoirs in India on River Sutlej are near their maximum conservation level and it is very likely that India may release water in coming days.

As a result, River Sutlej at G.S. Wala may rise in water flow and create inundation in the low lying areas of River Sutlej, especially affecting the inhabitants near river bed.

The Met office has directed local authorities to take precautionary measures besides warning the people residing near the river.

However, the Met office will issue the warning as it receives any water release information from India.

The increased flow in River Ravi has mainly been due to continuous rains in

Pak, IMF to discuss final round of talks

WASHINGTON : The International Monetary Fund and Pakistan will discuss on Wednesday revision of the existing lending program and the possibility of emergency funding to help the country recover from the worst flooding in its history, an IMF official said Tuesday.

Beyond easing the terms of the nearly $11 billion financing arrangement in place since 2008, the IMF is considering more immediate measures to help Pakistan cope with the ongoing disaster, said Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department.

“We already have a program in place and we also have the possibility of providing financing through an emergency instrument for natural disasters, and we’ll be discussing both of those with the visiting delegation,” Ahmed said in an interview with the fund’s online magazine, IMF Survey.

Pakistan’s finance minister, Abdul Hafeez

Kyrgyzstan to hold referendum

BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan is to vote in a constitutional referendum Sunday that interim authorities insist is vital for easing tensions after deadly ethnic clashes but that some fear could spark new unrest.

Kyrgyzstan”s provisional government, which came to power after former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in riots in April, has pushed ahead with the vote despite the violence this month.

The new constitution proposed in the referendum would significantly reduce the powers of the president and make the country Central Asia”s first parliamentary republic moves the interim government says are essential for stability and fighting top-level corruption.

It will also limit any single political party from holding more than 50 seats in Kyrgyzstan”s 90-seat parliament in a bid to prevent the kind of super-majorities that previous leaders enjoyed. The referendum would set the stage for parliamentary elections that authorities this week moved forward by a month, from October to early September, in an effort to bring in a legitimate government as quickly as possible.

China says Xinjiang terror cell busted

BEIJING: Chinese police said on Thursday they had broken up a terrorist cell in Xinjiang that had carried out attacks in the restive region.

The announcement was made during a Beijing press conference that came as authorities in Xinjiang brace for the July 5 anniversary of deadly rioting in the capital Urumqi by the region”s Muslim ethnic Uighurs.

“Since 2008 this terror group planned and carried out many terror acts in Xinjiang, including an attack on police and border guards in Kashgar during the Olympics,” Public Security Bureau spokesman Wu Heping told reporters.

Wu said the break-up of the cell proved that China faces a “terrorist threat” in Xinjiang.

Seventeen Chinese border police were killed the Xinjiang city of Kashgar in August 2008, according to state media, just days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, in an attack authorities had previously blamed on terrorists.

Two men reportedly ploughed their lorry into a group of 70 officers on a morning jog, then jumped out, tossing explosives and hacking at the shellshocked officers with machetes before being arrested, according to local state media and witnesses.

Wu did not take journalists” questions.

Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia, has more than eight million Uighurs, and many are unhappy with what they say has been decades of repressive communist Chinese rule.

That resentment burst out into savage violence on July 5, 2009 in Urumqi, when Uighurs attacked members of China”s dominant Han ethnic group, leaving nearly 200 people dead, according to government figures.

US urges Kyrgyzstan to end humanitarian crisis

BISHKEK: The US envoy for Central Asia urged Kyrgyzstan on Saturday to create conditions for a safe return of hundreds of thousands of refugees uprooted by last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

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US urges Kyrgyzstan to end humanitarian crisis

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