Explosion in Chinese mine kills 20

BEIJING: An explosion in a Chinese coal mine killed 20 and trapped more than 30 workers underground Saturday in the country's central region, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The China blast comes shortly after the world was riveted by the Chile's dramatic rescue of 33 trapped miners after they spent more than two months underground.
China Central Television said the blast happened Saturday morning in Henan province. An official surnamed Wu with the province's coal mine safety bureau confirmed accident but had no details.
Xinhua cited mine officials in Yuzhou city as saying Saturday's 6 a.m. blast happened in a pit owned by Pingyu Coal & Electric Co. Ltd.
A man answering phones at the mine said he had not heard anything an accident.China's mining industry is the most dangerous in the world, and more than 2,600 people died in mining accidents last year.
The People's Daily newspaper reported Thursday that China has shut down more than 1,600 small, illegal coal mines this year as part of an effort to improve safety standards.
China mining fatalities have decreased in recent years as the government closed many illegal mines, but deaths jumped again in the first half of this year.
In October, the State Administration of Work Safety said mine managers and bosses who do not accompany workers down into mine shafts would be severely punished.

PPP, MQM to avoid provocative statements

KARACHI: The Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement have agreed to stop their leaders and workers from issuing provocative statements against each other.
The decision was taken at a meeting between leaders of the two parties convened and chaired by Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad here on Friday evening. According to sources, the meeting was called to pacify the situation which had developed after the two parties started leveling allegations against each other. The MQM had accused the provincial home minister of patronising elements involved in the Lyari gang war while the PPP alleged that it also had proofs against some MQM leaders. Senior Sindh Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq, Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza, Law Minister Ayaz Soomro and Najme Alam represented the PPP. The MQM team comprised Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Dr Farooq Sattar, Sindh Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmad, Information Technology Minister Raza Haroon and Public Health Engineering Minister Adil Siddiqui. The sources said that the governor had stressed the need for stabilising and strengthening the reconciliation process between the PPP and the MQM. He asked the two parties to stop issuing statements against each other and utilise their energy for strengthening the government and serving the masses. The meeting also discussed the law and order situation in the province. BY-ELECTION: All arrangements have been made for a by-election in Sindh Assembly constituency PS-94 (Orangi Town) to be held on Sunday, deputy chief election commissioner of Sindh Mohammed Najeeb said on Friday. The seat fell vacant after the murder of MQM MPA Raza Haider who was gunned down on Aug 2, along with his police guard, in a mosque in Nazimabad. Mr Najeeb said that five candidates -- Siafuddin Khalid (MQM), Riaz Gul (ANP) and three independent candidates, Zeenat Yasmeen, Abdul Haq and Masood Alam -- were contesting for the seat. He said that 86 polling stations accommodate 287 polling booths had been established. District returning officer Tanvir Zaki and returning officer Nadeem Haider will supervise the polling.—APP

US drone attacks kill nine militants in North Waziristan

MIR ALI: Suspected US unmanned aircraft launched two missile strikes in a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border, killing nine people, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
A militant attack on an army checkpoint killed five Pakistani soldiers elsewhere in the northwest on Friday, other officials said.
The missile attacks targeted two villages near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the press.
The officials said three were killed Friday during the first missile strike, which hit a vehicle in Machi Khel. The dead have not yet been identified, but the village is known to house a mix of militants from the Afghan Taliban and local Pakistani insurgent groups.
The second missile strike occurred several hours later, killing six suspected militants at a house in Aziz Khel.
The US has sharply escalated its use of unmanned drone missile strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s border region in the last two months.
The US rarely acknowledges the covert missile program, but officials have said privately the attacks have killed several senior Taliban and al Qaeda commanders. Pakistan officially opposes the program but is believed to secretly support it.
The US carried out 21 such strikes in September, nearly double the previous monthly record, and it has already launched 16 this month including those Friday, according to an Associated Press count.
In an early morning attack in South Waziristan on Friday, five Pakistani soldiers were killed when militants sprayed an army checkpoint with gunfire, two other intelligence officials said, also on condition of anonymity. One other soldier was missing after the attack at the checkpoint in the village of Sararogha, they said.
Pakistan launched a major ground operation in South Waziristan last year that they claimed had cleared the area of militants, but sporadic attacks have continued.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, gunmen ambushed a truck early in the morning as it was returning home after delivering Nato supplies in Afghanistan, killing the driver and his assistant. Local official Iqbal Khan said the truck was attacked near Jamrud in the Khyber tribal region.
It was the most recent in a rash of assaults on the Pakistan supply line used to carry non-lethal goods including fuel, military vehicles, spare parts and clothing to foreign troops in landlocked Afghanistan.
Nearly 150 trucks were destroyed as they sat idle during the 11 days Pakistan closed a key border crossing in protest of a Nato helicopter strike that killed two Pakistani border guards. Pakistan reopened the route Sunday.
The US and Nato at one point sent about 80 per cent of their non-lethal supplies through Pakistan into Afghanistan, but have been steadily reducing that amount.
Now about 40 per cent of supplies now come through Pakistan, 40 per cent through the Central Asian routes, and 20 per cent by air. —AP

Australia says very high risk of terror attack in Yemen

SYDNEY: Australia has raised its travel warning for Yemen to its highest possible level, saying there was a “very high threat of terrorist attack” in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest nation.
The updated travel advisory released late Friday comes just days after United States President Barack Obama warned that al Qaeda was pursuing a “murderous agenda” in the increasingly violent state.
“The overall level of the advice has increased to ‘do not travel’ because of the very high threat of terrorist attack,” Australia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement advised Australians against travelling to Yemen because of the volatile security situation and urged those already in the country to leave.
“Terrorist attacks are likely and could occur at any time anywhere in Yemen with little or no warning,” it said, adding that embassies and hotels could be targeted for suicide attacks.
The advisory noted that a Yemen-based terrorist group had made statements online this year indicating “a continuing intent to attack Westerners and western targets”.
Earlier this month a British embassy vehicle came under rocket attack, injuring a number of people.
In a statement this week, US President Obama said that al Qaeda continued to use Yemen, along with other places, as a platform from which to pursue its “murderous agenda”. —AFP

FBI was warned about key figure in Mumbai attacks

WASHINGTON: The wife of a key figure in the 2008 Mumbai attacks warned US federal agents three years beforehand that her husband was training with a Pakistani militant group, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Citing sources close to the case, the Post said the wife of David Coleman Headley warned FBI agents in August 2005 that her husband had undergone intensive training with Lashkar-e-Taiba and was in contact with extremists.
Headley is accused of having scouted locations for the coordinated attack, which terrorized the Indian city over the course of three days, leaving 166 people dead and over 300 others wounded.
Headley’s wife, who was not named in the report, called a terrorism hotline after getting into a fight with him in August 2005, the Post said.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents followed up, and interviewed her three times, the newspaper reported in a story co-authored with journalism foundation ProPublica.
She told agents that her husband “was an active militant in the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, had trained extensively in its Pakistani camps, and had shopped for night vision goggles,” the Post reported.
Despite the warning, Headley was able to continue moving freely, travelling to Pakistan, India, Dubai and Europe in 2006, gathering information and material that made the deadly attack possible.
US anti-terrorism agencies did warn Indian counterparts about a possible Lashkar plot to target Mumbai in 2008, but it was unclear whether the warnings were based on Headley’s wife’s tip-off two years earlier.
In a bizarre twist, Headley was reportedly also bragging about being a US government informant before the attacks, telling his wife and others that he working for the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI.
Headley did work as an informant for the DEA in the 1990s when he was known by his birth name Daood Gilani and had been arrested for smuggling heroin from Pakistan.
After a second arrest and more work for the agency, he went to Pakistan, where he became radicalized, the Post reported.
Then, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, he began telling people he was working for a joint DEA-FBI project.
But federal officials told the Post they did not believe Headley, who changed his name in 2006, had ever worked for the FBI.
Headley, the son of a former Pakistani diplomat and a white American woman, is being held in the United States.
He confessed to plotting the attacks and in exchange for pleading guilty, US prosecutors agreed he would not face extradition to India or the death penalty. –AFP