Vietnamese police have arrested a blogger accused of posting
"erroneous and slanderous" information about the communist government,
the third blogger to be locked in the past month in an intensifying
crackdown against dissent.
The state-run Thanh Nien newspaper
reported on Monday that Dinh Nhat Uy was taken into police custody in
southern Long An province on Saturday. He is accused of "abusing
democratic freedoms," an offense that carries up to seven years in
prison.
The 30-year-old is the brother of Dinh Nguyen Kha, a
student who was sentenced last month to eight years in jail for
spreading propaganda against the government.
Two well-known bloggers have been arrested over the past three weeks on the same charges.
Torrential rain and floods have washed away buildings and roads,
killing at least 26 people in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand,
officials have said.
Monsoon rains have lashed all of India one month ahead of schedule, officials said on Monday.
"Twenty-six
people have died and more than 50 persons are missing, due to flooding,
landslides and building collapses caused by heavy rain," Piyush
Rautela, director of Uttarakhand state's disaster management centre,
said on Monday.
Three members of a single family, including a boy
died when their house collapsed, crushing them in the state capital
Dehradun, Rautela told the AFP news agency.
"Dehradun received a record 220 millimetres of rain in a
24-hour-period yesterday. It has been raining non-stop since Saturday
morning," he said.
More than 10,000 pilgrims stranded along a
mountain pass leading to a Hindu religious site were being evacuated by
helicopter after roads to the pilgrimage spot were blocked by
landslides.
Army and paramilitary troops were leading efforts to rescue scores of people from the rooftops of their flooded homes.
The
state government was readying food parcels and drinking water pouches
to be air dropped to villages cut off after roads were washed away.
The River Ganges and its tributaries are flowing above the danger mark in several areas in the Himalayan state.
"The
situation is very grim. The meteorological office has predicted that
the rain will continue for another three days at least," Amit Chandola, a
state government spokesman, said.
State authorities were preparing to evacuate people from the worst-hit districts to relief camps, he said.
A
high alert and flood warnings have been issued across Udhampur district
and in the Hindu holy city of Haridwar as rivers breached their banks.
The
rains usually cover all of India by mid-July, but this year it happened
on June 16, the earliest such occurrence on record, a senior official
at the India Meteorological Department said.
"We expected an early
coverage, but not so fast," said the Meteorological Department
official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak
to the media.
Boosting economic hopes
The early onset of the annual monsoon has boosted hopes for the country's farming sector and its slowing economy.
The
rains that lash the subcontinent from June to September are dubbed the
"economic lifeline" of India, one of the world's leading producers of
rice, sugar, wheat and cotton.
The weather department has forecast
India will receive normal rains this year, raising prospects of a
stronger performance by Asia's third-largest economy.
Last year India got below-normal rain in the first half of the wet season.
The rains picked up in some areas later, but large areas of west and south India did not benefit.
The
monsoon will be crucial for parts of Maharashtra state, India's biggest
sugar-producer, which has been reeling from the worst drought in more
than four decades.
Agriculture contributes about 15 percent to
gross domestic product but the livelihood of hundreds of millions of
Indians living in rural areas depends on the farming sector.
More
than 140 workers, mostly women, at two Bangladeshi garment factories
near the capital Dhaka have fallen ill after drinking suspected
contaminated water in their workplace, police said.
Sunday's
development comes less than two weeks after up to 600 workers at another
garment plant were rushed to hospital after falling sick due to
contaminated water.
Humayun Kabir, a police inspector, told the
AFP news agency that several garment workers fell sick at two garment
plants at Joydevpur, an industrial town north of Dhaka.
"At least
141 of them were rushed to one hospital. Some others were taken to other
hospitals. The factories were closed for the day," he said.
"Primarily we suspect the water supply of the factories could be contaminated," he added.
The
incidents follow the collapse of a building housing five garment
factories in April that killed 1,129 people, highlighting appalling
safety conditions in Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories.
A
series of tragedies since last November when a fire killed 111 people in
another factory have triggered renewed scrutiny of "made-in-Bangladesh"
clothes commonly sold in the West.
Officials said the workers were engaged in making garments for Western labels, but did not immediately identify the brands.
The Turkish deputy prime minister has said that the army could be
deployed to halt protests that have swept the nation over the past two
weeks.
Bulent Arinc on Monday said the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) could be pressed into action if the police failed to restore order.
"What
is required of us is to stop if there is a protest against the law.
Here is the police, if not enough gendarme, if not TSK," he said in a
televised interview to the A Haber channel.
The threat came as members of two union federations in Turkey went on
a one-day strike over the forced evictions of protesters from
Istanbul's Gezi Park a day earlier.
Labour groups representing
doctors, engineers and dentists are also said to have joined the strike
on Monday. The striking groups represent about 800,000 workers.
The Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the strike was "illegal" and warned of police action.
The
call for the strike came as police and protesters clashed sporadically
in Istanbul overnight following a weekend of scuffles in the city.
Riot
police, some in plain clothes and carrying batons, backed by a
helicopter, fired teargas and chased groups of rock-throwing youths into
side streets around the iconic Taksim Square and Gezi Park late on
Sunday night, trying to prevent them from regrouping.
There were
also disturbances in other parts of the city that had so far largely
been spared the violence, including around the Galata bridge, which
crosses to the historic Sultanahmet district, and the upmarket Nisantasi
neighbourhood.
Erdogan supporters
The
police had earlier during the day moved in to clear Gezi Park of
protesters occupying the area adjoining Taksim Square, as Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed hundreds of thousands of his supporters
at an Istanbul parade.
Erdogan told thousands of
flag-waving supporters that two weeks of unrest had been manipulated by
"terrorists" and dismissed suggestions that he was behaving like a
dictator, a constant refrain from those who have taken to the streets.
"They
say 'you are too tough', they say 'dictator'. What kind of a dictator
is this who met the Gezi Park occupiers and honest environmentalists? Is
there such a dictator?" Erdogan said to roars of approval from the
crowd.
He dismissed the demonstrations as "nothing more
than the minority's attempt to dominate the majority ... We could not
have allowed this and we will not allow it."
A small-scale
environmental protest against government plans to redevelop Gezi Park
had developed into a larger movement against the government of Erdogan.
The
clashes pose no immediate threat to Erdogan's leadership, but they have
tarnished Turkey's image as a stable country on the fringes of the
volatile Middle East, and presented him with the greatest challenge of
his 10-year rule. Show of strength
The
prime minister has long been Turkey's most popular politician,
overseeing a decade of unprecedented prosperity, and his AK Party has
won an increasing share of the vote in three successive election
victories.
Erdogan, who also addressed supporters of his ruling AK Party in
Ankara on Saturday, said the rallies were to kick off campaigning for
local elections next year and not related to the unrest, but they were
widely seen as a show of strength.
The crowds who packed
Istanbul's Kazlicesme festival ground, many of whom walked for
kilometres, turned out to support a leader who they feel has been under
siege.
"We are the silent majority, not the riff-raff who are
trying to frighten us," said Ruveyda Alkan, 32, her head covered in a
black veil and waving a red Turkish flag.
The two weeks of unrest have left four people dead and about 5,000 injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.
Britain and Ecuador have failed to break the deadlock over the
unresolved asylum case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, nearly a
year after he took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid
extradition to Sweden.
UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague and
his Ecuadorean counterpart, Ricardo Patino, agreed on Monday to
establish a working group to try to resolve the diplomatic standoff.
"The two ministers held a bilateral meeting this morning for 45 minutes," the Foreign Office said in a statement.
"Ministers
agreed that officials should establish a working group to find a
diplomatic solution to the issue of Julian Assange, but no substantive
progress was made."
The Foreign Office said any solution would have to fall within the law of the United Kingdom.
Patino, who is on a visit to Britain, met Assange at the South American country's central London embassy on Sunday.
He
told reporters after meeting Hague: "The Ecuadorean government
maintains that the reasons for which Ecuador granted asylum are still
relevant and therefore there is going to be no change in his
circumstances."
Assange, 41, fled to the embassy last June to
avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault and
rape, which he denies.
Ecuador granted him political asylum last
August, saying it feared for his safety, but Britain has made it clear
he will be arrested if he tries to leave the embassy.
Assange
fears that if he is sent to Sweden he might be liable for onward
extradition to the US to face potential charges over the release of
thousands of confidential US documents on the whistleblower website
WikiLeaks.
Ecuador says that Assange's extradition to a third
country without proper guarantees is probable, and that legal evidence
showed he would not get a fair trial if eventually transferred to the
US.
President-elect Hassan Rouhani has expressed hope that Iran can reach
a new agreement with Western powers over its disputed nuclear
programme, saying a deal should be reached through more transparency and
mutual trust.
"The idea is to engage in more active negotiations
with the 5+1, as the nuclear issue cannot be resolved without
negotiations," Rouhani said on Monday, referring to the UN Security
Council's five permanent members plus Germany.
During his first
press conference since being declared winner of Iran's presidential
election on Saturday, Rouhani also described as unfair and unjustified
US and EU sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over the
nuclear issue.
But Rouhani also ruled out a halt to his country's
controversial enrichment of uranium. "This period is over," Rouhani
said, referring to international demands for an end to the programme.
There
were "many ways to build trust" with the West, he added, as Iran would
be "more transparent to show that its activities fall within the
framework of international rules".
"Our nuclear programmes are
completely transparent. But we are ready to show greater transparency
and make clear for the whole world that the steps of the Islamic
Republic of Iran are completely within international frameworks," he
said.
"I hope that all countries use this opportunity," the president-elect said.
The
news conference came to an abrupt end when a man in the audience sprang
up and shouted a slogan in favour of reformist leader Mir Hossein
Mousavi, held under house arrest since 2011.
"Mir Hossein should be here" the man shouted live on state television as security guards bundled him away.
Committed to dialogue
On
Monday UN nuclear agency chief told the Reuters news agency that Iran
was making "steady progress" in expanding its nuclear programme despite
international sanctions.
Yukiya Amano, director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also said he remained
committed to dialogue with Iran to address concerns of possible military
dimensions to its nuclear activity.
But no new meeting had yet been set after 10 rounds of talks since early 2012, he said.
Meanwhile,
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said it hoped the new Iranian
government would make efforts to reach a negotiated settlement on its
nuclear programme following Rouhani’s election.
Hague said efforts
to reach a settlement would be met "in good faith" by Britain, adding
that Iran should not doubt British resolve to prevent nuclear
proliferation.
Nuanced approach
Rouhani won Friday's presidential election with more than 18 million of the votes.
The
country's Interior minister, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, said 72 percent
of the 50 million eligible Iranians had turned out to vote, and that
Rouhani had secured just over the 50 percent of the vote needed to avoid
a run-off.
His closest rival, Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, garnered six million votes.
Though
an establishment figure, Rouhani was known for his nuanced,
conciliatory approach when he was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.
He
inherits an economy that has been badly hit by Western sanctions
targeting the key oil and banking sectors because of its nuclear
programme.
Rouhani has previously vowed to restore diplomatic ties
with the US, which cut relations in the aftermath of the 1979
revolution and seizure of the US embassy by Islamist students.
The
US was behind a 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically-elected
prime minister and put into power the Shah who ruled Iran until the 1979
revolution.
A car bomb has struck near the Syrian northern city of Aleppo,
killing at least 60 members of President Bashar al-Assad's troops,
activists have told Al Jazeera.
Monday's blast, carried out by a
jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaeda, hit near a military complex in
the town of al-Douwairinah near Aleppo's international airport, Mohammad
al-Hadi, an activist in the city, said.
"The car was filled with six tonnes of explosives," he told Al Jazeera.
The blast was one of the largest attacks targeting regime forces. Activists posted a video
on social media that purports to show the moment of the explosion.
However, the authenticity of the video could not be verified.
It came hours after a car bomb attack targeting a checkpoint near a military airport in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The
UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were 20
casualties in the blast on Sunday night in the western Damascus district
of Mazzeh, but did not state how many were killed or injuried in the
attack.
Syrian state media confirmed the blast that occurred late
on Sunday, but have not released the number of those killed and injured.
Mazzeh is an upscale neighbourhood of Damascus that houses several embassies and a military airport.
At least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria's two-year-old conflict.
Four more people have died from the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia,
bringing the death toll from the SARS-like virus in the kingdom to 32,
the health ministry has said.
A statement on the ministry's
website said on Monday two people had died in the western city of Taif
and the other two were pronounced dead in the Eastern Province, where
most cases have been registered.
Two weeks ago, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) had raised the global death toll from the SARS-like
virus MERS to 31, after a new fatality in hard-hit Saudi Arabia.
Previously
known as novel coronavirus, the disease was last month renamed Middle
East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, reflecting the fact
that the bulk of the cases are in that region.
Taliban will open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar on Tuesday, Al Jazeera has learned.
The office of the Afghan armed group in Doha will aim at facilitating peace talks.
In
March, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, met the emir of Qatar to
discuss plans for the Taliban to open an office in the Gulf state.
He
discussed "issues of mutual interest" with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al
Thani, the state news agency QNA said, without elaborating on the
substance of their talks.
Karzai also met Afghan and Arab officials and business people.
The
delegation travelling with the Afghan president included Zalmai
Rassoul, the foreign minister; Salahuddin Rabbani, the head of the High
Peace Council.
Until earlier this year, Karzai was strongly
opposed to the Taliban having a meeting venue outside Afghanistan, but
the US has pushed for the Taliban to be present at the negotiatiing
table as Washington prepares to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in
the next two years.
The G8 summit of leading industrial nations has kicked off in
Northern Ireland with Western leaders upping pressure on Russia over its
support for Syria's regime.
Host Prime Minister David Cameron
welcomed the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia
and the United States on Monday, and said there was "a big difference"
between the positions of Russia and the West on Syria.
Western
leaders have criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin for supporting
Syria's Bashar al-Assad in his battle to crush a two-year-old uprising,
setting the stage for what could be a difficult meeting of world leaders
over Monday and Tuesday.
Moscow said it would not permit no-fly zones to be imposed over Syria.
Barack
Obama, the US president, will meet Putin later on Monday and will try
to convince the Kremlin chief to bring Assad to the negotiating
table. They are due to meet at about 6:30pm local time (0530 GMT) at the
luxury lake-fringed Lough Erne golf resort in County Fermanagh.
Both
leaders now offer military support to opposing sides in the war. The
European Union has also dropped its arms embargo on Syria, allowing
France and Britain to arm the rebels.
Germany, France, Japan, Italy and Canada will be represented in the two-day summit at the resort.
'Little trust'
In
London, Putin insisted that Moscow had abided by international law when
supplying weapons to Assad's regime and demanded that Western countries
contemplating arming the opposition do the same.
"We are not breaching any rules and norms and we call on all our partners to act in the same fashion," Putin said.
The
Russian leader referred to a video released last month purportedly
showing a rebel Syrian fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier.
He
asked if the West really wanted to support rebels "who not only kill
their enemies but open up their bodies and eat their internal organs in
front of the public and the cameras".
Obama in his meeting with
Putin will emphasise that Washington wants to keep alive a mooted Geneva
peace summit co-organised with Moscow.
"There will be a lot of
talk in the next couple of days about the idea of a peace conference in
Geneva," Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from County Fermanagh, said
"The
reality, though, is this: the Russians believe the US has not done
enough to bring the opposition to the negotiating table. The US and its
western allies for their part believe that Putin could do more to stop
Assad's ongoing onslaught.
"There's very little trust here and not much hope of a breakthrough." Trade talks
The
leaders of the most industrialised countries - representing just over
half of the $71.7 trillion global economy - will also discuss global
economy and trade.
The British prime minister has made tackling
tax avoidance - which campaigners say costs about $3 trillion a year - a
main part of the formal agenda at the summit.
He has turned up the pressure to clamp down on secretive money flows by pressing Britain's overseas tax havens into a transparency deal and announcing new disclosure rules for British firms.
The
EU and US are due to announce the start of formal negotiations on a
free trade deal that could be worth more than $100bn a year to each
economy.
The summit is surrounded by the biggest security
operation in Northern Ireland's troubled history, with around 8,000
officers on duty.
Heavily armed police in armoured vehicles are
stationed at frequent intervals along the country roads leading to the
summit venue near the town of Enniskillen.
Police say the expected anti-globalisation demonstrations have been smaller than expected so far. They expect about 2,000 protesters to take part in an anti-G8 march in Enniskillen on Monday.
