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ANKARA: More than 150 Kurdish rebels from the separatist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been killed in Turkish bombing
raids carried out in northern Iraq this week, the Turkish army said
Saturday. But a PKK spokesman dismissed the figures as false,
describing them as psychological warfare. Several senior PKK
commanders may have been among the dead, the statement said, adding
that the raids caused “panic among [PKK] members.” The raids in
the mountainous Qandil region, which began late Thursday and
continued into the night, hit 43 targets including shelters and a
PKK communications center, which were all destroyed, the army said.
-- AFP
BEIJING: The regional autonomy for ethnic
minorities is a basic political system of China, and the Chinese
government will continue to abide by this system, said Chinese
President Hu Jintao. Hu said the system of regional autonomy for
ethnic minorities was prescribed clearly in China’s Constitution.
Hu also outlined the basic content of China’s ethnic minorities
policy, saying all the ethnic groups in China were equal, and the
state ensured the legitimate rights and interests of all the ethnic
minorities, maintained and developed a socialist ethnic relationship
that featured equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony.
-- Xinhua
PHNOM PENH: An Australian man convicted and
imprisoned in Camdodia in 2003 for raping underage girls has been
found dead in his jail cell in the country’s northwest, a court
official said Sunday. Former English teacher Bart Lauwaert, 41, was
sentenced to 20 years for raping his nine maids, aged between 12 and
14, in Siem Reap province, the tourist gateway to the kingdom’s
famous Angkor Wat temple complex. Prosecutor Bou Bun Ham told that
Lauwaert’s body had been sent to the Australian Embassy in Phnom
Penh.
-- AFP
TOKYO: A US expert on Korea will visit Pyongyang
on Monday, in his first trip after the White House detailed
allegations that the North had helped Syria build a reactor, a
Japanese news agency said Sunday. Sung Kim, director of the US State
Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, will visit the North for
talks over Pyongyang’s declaration of nuclear programs, following
his trip to the communist state in late April, Kyodo news agency
reported citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Beijing. Both North
Korea and the US envoy, who met with the North’s nuclear
negotiator Kim Kye Gwan during the April 22 to 24 visit, said
progress had been made during the trip.
-- AFP
BEIJING: Chinese President Hu Jintao said here
Sunday that he hoped the contacts between the central government and
Dalai Lama would yield positive results. Hu, who is scheduled to
visit Japan from May 6 to 10, made the remarks during an interview
with journalists from 16 Japanese media organizations stationed in
Beijing. He also confirmed that Chinese central government officials
would meet with private representatives of the Dalai Lama on Sunday
in view of the requests repeatedly made by the Dalai Lama side for
resuming talks.
-- Xinhua
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