AT LEAST 175 PEOPLE WERE DEAD AFTER EARTH QUAKE HITS SOUTHWEST CHINA

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9ogPfOiP_Ay-5eNOudxEgaP_2HO42guItqQc0vn4_eyqzodONxTUB96G3jHMgs8GxTCVAuE07MyaW9EuHJH3aFCjPM_6pjymNnOR4SvLDR4lb7mifgR9HGq2GWi8apdYGiqnHHpTtJg/s1600/China3.jpg" /></div> <span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">BEIJING (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck southwestern China on Sunday, killing at least 175 people and leaving more than 180 missing and 1,400 injured in a remote area of Yunnan province, causing thousands of buildings, including a school, to collapse.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered at a shallow depth of less than 1 mile (1.6 km). Chinese state media said it was felt most strongly in Yunnan as well as in the neighbouring provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan.The official Xinhua news agency said the epicentre was in Longtoushan town in Yunnan's mountainous Ludian county.Communications have been seriously affected and rescuers have begun arriving on the scene, the report said.Pictures posted online by state media showed troops stretchering people away and cars damaged by fallen bricks.Many people rushed out of buildings onto the street after the quake hit, electricity supplies were cut and at least one school collapsed, Xinhua added, with more than 12,000 houses having collapsed and 30,000 sustaining damage.Ludian resident Ma Liya told Xinhua the streets were like a "battlefield after bombardment".The government is sending 2,000 tents, 3,000 folding beds, 3,000 quilts and 3,000 coats to the disaster zone, where heavy rain forecast for the coming days will add to the misery, the report said.Ludian is home to some 265,900 people, Xinhua added.This region of China is frequently struck by quakes, with one killing more than 1,400 in the same part of Yunnan in 1974.A quake in Sichuan in 2008 killed almost 70,000 people. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Matt Driskill and Gareth Jones)This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.</span>

AT LEAST 175 PEOPLE WERE DEAD AFTER EARTH QUAKE HITS SOUTHWEST CHINA

BEIJING (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck southwestern China on Sunday, killing at least 175 people and leaving more than 180 ...

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Imam of China's biggest mosque killed in Xinjiang

<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <strong style="color: #555555; font-size: 13px;"><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;"><br /></strong><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OmF-MNtHRNBF3krB853CpTzd6iZRb_bTtE-eDDO6US0-iaU51Q83bdb9EC_9SFly1q86rX234J1uB9hD1h-Jdc7Cx-Pp8yfo5SCl3fd1Ze0RWwt65rPF6lsydUlGGIwASUM_vwFTYk8/s1600/742946-bdbcfcebfceceeebetlhb-1406893192-975-640x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OmF-MNtHRNBF3krB853CpTzd6iZRb_bTtE-eDDO6US0-iaU51Q83bdb9EC_9SFly1q86rX234J1uB9hD1h-Jdc7Cx-Pp8yfo5SCl3fd1Ze0RWwt65rPF6lsydUlGGIwASUM_vwFTYk8/s1600/742946-bdbcfcebfceceeebetlhb-1406893192-975-640x480.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">Jume Tahir, the government-appointed imam of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque in the city of Kashgar, was killed Wednesday by "three thugs influenced by religious extremist ideology", the Xinjiang government web portal Tianshan said. </span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <strong class="location" style="display: block; float: left;">BEIJING: </strong>The head of China’s largest mosque was murdered after conducting morning prayers, the local government in far western Xinjiang said Thursday, amid intensifying violence in the turbulent region.</strong></div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Jume Tahir, the government-appointed imam of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque in the city of Kashgar, was killed Wednesday by “three thugs influenced by religious extremist ideology”, the Xinjiang government web portal Tianshan said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Police launched an all-out investigation and shot dead two of the alleged assailants while capturing the other at about noon on Wednesday as they violently resisted with “knives and hatchets,” Tianshan said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tianshan said Tahir’s killing was “premeditated” and that the suspects intended to commit a “ruthless murder”.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> It also said they wanted to “increase their influence through ‘doing something big’”.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tianshan identified the suspects by their names in phonetic Chinese. The official <i>Xinhua</i> news agency in an English-language report gave their names as Turghun Tursun, Memetjan Remutillan and Nurmemet Abidilimit.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Neither Tianshan nor <i>Xinhua</i> initially identified who among them was shot dead and who was apprehended.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tahir was found dead in a pool of blood outside the mosque’s prayer house, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported earlier on its website.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Xinjiang, home to China’s mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, has seen escalating violence which in the past year has spilled over into other parts of China.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> RFA cited what it described as “witnesses and other officials”, including the director of a neighbourhood stability committee in Kashgar, who described the killing as an assassination.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Imams and other religious leaders in China are appointed by the government and subject to strict control on the content of their preaching.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> US-based RFA said that Tahir had been critical of violence carried out by Uighurs, and China’s official <i>Xinhua</i> news agency in early July quoted him as condemning terrorist violence carried out in the name of ethnicity and religion.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tahir, 74, “enjoyed a high reputation among Muslims nationwide”, <i>Xinhua</i> said in its dispatch Thursday.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Dilxat Raxit, spokesperson for the exiled World Uyghur Congress (WUC), did not condemn the killing.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Chinese policies in the area have caused things to happen which should not happen,” he told AFP in an email.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “According to local Uighurs, Jume Tahir consistently cooperated with the government, aided the monitoring of religious activities, and used his position in the mosque to promote Chinese policies which are unacceptable to Uighurs,” he said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Local Uighurs suspected he had a special relationship with the Chinese ministry of security.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Id Kah mosque is said to have a capacity of up to 20,000 people.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Kashgar, where the mosque is located, is an old oasis city that was part of the Silk Road trade route that ran from Europe to Asia.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The killing of Tahir came two days after dozens of people died in violence between Uighurs and security authorities in the Kashgar region.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Nearly 100 people were left dead or wounded, the WUC said, while authorities put the toll in the “several tens” in what they called a “terror attack” on a police station and township in Shache county, known as Yarkand in the Uighur language.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Beijing commonly blames separatists from Xinjiang for carrying out terror attacks which have grown in scale over the past year and spread outside the restive and resource-rich region.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> A market attack in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital city, in May left 39 people dead, while a deadly rampage by knife-wielding assailants at a train station in Kunming in China’s southwest in March killed 29 people.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> They came after a fiery vehicle crash at Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s symbolic heart, in October last year.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The violence has led China to carry out a broad crackdown on terrorism. President Xi Jinping on a visit to Xinjiang in late April called for a “strike first” strategy to fight terrorism and said the Kashgar area is China’s “front line in anti-terrorist efforts”.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Chinese prosecutors on Wednesday brought charges of separatism — which can carry the death penalty — against prominent Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, detained earlier this year.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Rights groups and analysts accuse China’s government of cultural and religious repression which they say fuels unrest in Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia.</div> <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', times-roman, serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 7px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The government, however, argues it has boosted economic development in the area and that it upholds minority rights in a country with 56 recognised ethnic groups.</div>

Imam of China's biggest mosque killed in Xinjiang

Jume Tahir, the government-appointed imam of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque in the city of Kashgar, was killed Wednesday by "three t...

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