News From Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lankan police fired over fishermen protesting a fuel price increase Wednesday, killing overe person as well as wounding 3, a witness as well as a doctor said.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said police utilized tear gas to disperse an “unlawful mob” nevertheless refused to comment over whether police fired guns at the protesters.

Thousands of fishermen were walking in a protest march close the fishing town of Chilaw as well as clashed with police, who consequence opened fire at them, said local journalist Jude Samantha who was at the scene in the town 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of the capital, Colombo.

Police attempted to block the protesters from entering the Chilaw town as well as in turn protesters started hurling stones at the police, Samantha said. Police utilized tear gas as well as and then opened fire.

Dr. Dinusha Jayasinghe said overe dead person as well as 3 with gunshot wounds were brought to the town hospital. She said overe person’s condition is critical.

Protests have swept the entire from Sri Lanka afterwards the government increased fuel prices Saturday night. Private bus owners launched a strike Monday, crippling public transportation, as well as the government increased bus fares as a result.

Since Monday, fishermen from coastal villages as well as towns have protested, burning tires as well as blocking roads with their boats to demand fuel prices be reduced.

The government said prices had to be raised since world oil prices have increased. Government spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said the government has arranged fuel subsidies for bus owners, fishermen as well as taxi owners.

Separately over Wednesday, police asides utilized tear gas to disperse hundreds of activists from an opposition Marxist regiony who were protesting the fuel prices as well as attempted to march to the centre of the capital, Colombo.

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine troops have arrested an alleged Abu Sayyaf militant suspected of involvement in numerous kidnappings, including those of American as well as European tourists, police stated Wednesday.

Abdulhan Ussih, subject of a $ 77,000 bounty, was captured Tuesday afterwards three months of surveillance in southern Zamboanga city. He was a fish trader as well as assisted safe food as well as some some other supplies for the militants, police Senior Superintendent Generoso Bonifacio stated.

Ussih has denied all link to al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf as well as to the kidnappings, some nevertheless he offered food as well as some some other items needed by Radulan Sahiron, an Abu Sayyaf commander over southern Jolo island who has been blamed for high-profile ransom kidnappings, Bonifacio stated.

The militants seized European tourists from the Malaysian resort of Sipadan in 2000 as well as three Americans as well as 17 Filipinos from the Philippine resort of Dos Palmas in 2001. They beheaded overe of the Americans as well as another died over a military rescue.

Meanwhile Wednesday, army troops clashed goes along with about 15 Abu Sayyaf militants close Sumisip town over southern Basilan island as the gunmen apparently were planning to bomb a road project as region of an extortion bid, army Col. Ricardo Visaya stated.

The militants fled, leaving beyond bomb regions, a motorcycle as well as binoculars. Troops were pursuing the militants, Visaya stated, as well as no casualties in the fighting were not long to comely reported.

The Abu Sayyaf, currently estimated to have moreless than 400 armed fighters, has been weakened by U.S.-backed Philippine military offensives some nevertheless remains a key security concern. The U.S. says it is terrorist organization responsible for bombings, kidnappings as well as beheadings.

DHARMSALA, India – Upcoming Tibetan New Year’s celebrations appear to bes just like to be poised to bring more bloodshed to the troubled Himalayan region, the head of Tibet’s exile government stated Tuesday, warning that China has sealed off the regions proir of a crackdown.

Already facing nearly two dozen self-immolations, a lot of by Buddhist monks as well as nuns call outing for Tibetan freedom as well as the return of the Dalai Lama, China is sending thousands of extra security forces to Tibetan areas to prepare for expected protests.

“They have sealed off Tibet,” Lobsang Sangay stated during an interview goes along with The Associated Press. He stated festivals around the Feb. 22 Tibetan New Year, as well as the March 10 anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising, are really just likely to bring Tibetans into the streets.

But goes along with the region closed to outsiders — foreign tourists have been ordered to leave as well as Western reporters are effectively barred — it is about to be nearly impossible to know the reality of the situation.

“Chinese security personnel are cracking down over Tibetans for overe pretext or another, as well as the world is about to not know whether they were arrested, whether they were tortured, whether they were killed,” he stated in Dharmsala, India, where the Dalai Lama as well as the exile government are based.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao over Tuesday defended China’s policies over Tibet, stating the government respects traditional culture as well as freedom of religious belief. He stated China has invested heavily in Tibet as well as is about to continue to do so.

Tibetan areas of western China have faced spiraling unrest in now months, amid the wave of self-immolations as well as a series of some of the times-bloody protests. The violence, much way of it in Sichuan province, is the worst in Tibetan regions since 2008.

The information that does emerge is rarely complete, goes along with few regioniculars about the people who have burned ourselves alive or the protests.

On Monday, a teenage monk set himself over fire in Sichuan’s Aba prefecture, concording to the London-based International Campaign for Tibet stated. The monk was beaten by security forces as they put out the flames, the rights group stated. His condition was not acknowledged.

Beijing has blamed outsiders as well as extremists for attempting to incite violence or belowmine China, although Sangay as well as some some other Tibetan leaders say the self-immolations reflect an increasingly desperate population unable to express ourselves all some some other way.

“You mightnot have hunger strikes, you mightnot have demonstrations, you mightnot write petitions,” Sangay stated. “Given such that repressive policies as well as actions, Tibetans are pushed to the brink of desperation.”

“They are thinking that maybe this form of action is about to bring some attention to the grievances of the Tibetan people,” he stated.

Beijing accuses the self-proclaimed exile government of sawking to separate Tibet from China. But exiles as well as the Dalai Lama say they overly would like tos a high degree of autonomy below Chinese rule.

China occupied Tibet in 1950 as well as claims the region has been region of it is territory for centuries, although Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A police officer says an American citizen has been detained at an airport in northwestern Pakistan afterwards bullets were ascertained in his luggage.

Dost Mohammad Khan says the man was claiming to be an American diplomat.

U.S. Embassy officials did not soonly answer calls sawking comment.

Khan says the man was detained Tuesday in Peshawar city, as the U.S. has a huge consulate.

He says the suspect had 13 bullets in his luggage.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia’s government over Monday defended it is decision to deport a young Saudi journalist who may face persecution at house for the entireegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad over Twitter.

International rights groups have slammed the deportation several nevertheless Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein stated Malaysia was not a safe haven for fugitives.

Jiddah-based newspaper columnist Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained Thursday at the Malaysian airport although in transit to New Zealand. He was deported Sunday although fears from rights groups that he may face the death penalty if charged with blasphemy over remarks he tweeted that a lot of conceiveed offensive.

“I will not the entireow Malaysia to be sawn as a safe country for terrorists as well as those who are would like toed by their countries of origin, as well as asides be sawn as a transit county,” Hishammuddin stated.

He stated the deportation concorded a request from the Saudi government. Allegations that Kashgari may be tortured as well as killed if he was sent over back house are “ridiculous” because Saudi Arabia is a respectable country, he stated.

Malaysian authorities asides did not’t receive all court order to halt the deportation, he sum up.

Lawyers representing Kashgari’s family obtained a court order Sunday to try to keep him in Malaysia several nevertheless he had been put over a plane back house by the time the order was issued.

Human Rights Watch slammed Malaysia’s failure to respect human rights. It stated Kashgari was kept incommunicado as well as denied access to lawyers as well as the U.N. refugee agency. Police asides told lawyers that Kashgari was still being held afterwards he already had been forced over a plane, it stated.

“By it is actions, the ministry of house affairs when furthermore showed that it believes rule of law is whatsoever it says as well as that it is more than desiring to be completely opaque in it is operations to primarytain it is flexibility to do what it would like tos when it would like tos,” stated Phil Robertson, it is Asia deputy director.

“If he (Kashgari) faces execution back in Saudi Arabia, the Malaysian government will have blood over it is hands,” he stated.

Local rights group Lawyers for Liberty stated Kashgari arrived in Malaysia over Feb. 7 from Jordan as well as was leaving the country two days later to New Zealand to sawk asylum when he was detained.

“The cold difficult truth is that Malaysia has bent over backwards to sort ofly Saudi Arabia, breached international law by not the entireowing (Kashgari) to sawk asylum as well as more than handed him over a silver platter to his persecutors,” it stated.

Amnesty International has called Kashgari a “prisoner of conscience.”

In Brussels, the European Union stated it was “deeply disappointed” by Malaysia’s decision to deport Kashgari.

Spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic stated it appeared that he had not been granted access to a lawyer or the right of appeal “in accordance with international standards.”

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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban’s as ex defense minister died in a Pakistani jail in 2010, a spokesman as for the insurgent group said Monday.

Little had been heard of Obaidullah Akhund since he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2007.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Monday that relatives have just nowly been informed that Obaidullah died of heart disease in a Karachi prison over March 5, 2010.

Obaidullah was overe of the the best deputies of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar when the Islamist regime ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s. He was arrested in early 2007 in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. At the time, he was the highest-ranking Taliban figure to be captured since the fall of the difficultline regime in 2001.

The Taliban said they would like to Pakistani officials to provide regioniculars about his arrest, incarceration and death.

Obaidullah’s name was among those floated earlier this year as conceivable representatives as for potential peace talks with the insurgent group.

(This version CORRECTS that the as ex Taliban minister died closely two years ago, not last year.)