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Following are latest key developments in the Iraq crisis:

　　UNITED NATIONS — Iraq informed chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix on Thursday that it has agreed to destroy Al-Samoud missiles with a banned range.

　　In a short statement, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) confirmed that ithad received a letter from Iraq stating “in principle” it accepts the request for the destruction of the missiles and other items listed by UNMOVIC.

　　SALAH AD-DIN, Iraq — A spokesman of the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) said here on Thursday that all the opposition parties stood against Turkey’s military intervention into northern Iraq.

　　Hushar Zibari made the remarks at a joint press conference after a two-day Iraqi opposition conference held in the northern Iraqi city of Salah Ad-din.

　　CAIRO — Iraq will announce its response to the order by UN fordestroying Al-Samoud 2 missiles on Thursday or Friday, Egypt’s official MENA news agency reported.

　　The report quoted Iraqi sources in Baghdad as saying this step aims to rebut any US excuses for war.

　　LONDON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair will not waver in his policy on Iraq despite suffering the biggest Commons rebellionof his leadership, a Downing Street spokesman said Thursday.

　　UNITED NATIONS — After a three-hour intense closed-door consultation Thursday, the United Nations Security Council remained deeply divided over whether it is time to use force to disarm Iraq.

　　On the table were a draft resolution presented by the United States, Britain and Spain, and a memorandum by France, Germany andRussia.

　　WASHINGTON — The United States government lowered the nationalterror alert level from orange, the second highest level, back to yellow Thursday but warned that there was still significant risk of terror attacks.

　　LONDON — A draft report by the chief UN weapons inspector HansBlix would say the inspections aimed at disarming Iraq have produced “very limited” results, the BBC reported Thursday.

　　The draft report was expected to submit to UN Security Council on Saturday, said the BBC, which claimed it obtained a copy of theinspections report Thursday.

　　BERLIN — Germany on Thursday rejected NATO request for sendingfurther military aid to Turkey to protect it from a possible Iraqiwar.

All the hostages in the hijacked Ethiopian plane were released Friday and the university students who seized the plane with grenades and pistols are now in the custody of Sudanese police, Sudanese Information and Communication Minister Ghazi Salah al-Din Atabani said.
“All of them (hostages) have been released. The hijackers will be tried according to international laws,” Atabani said.
The plane is now under the control of the Sudanese authorities, the minister added.
The hijackers earlier freed 11 women and children, but held 40 others on board as the plane sat on the tarmac at the Khartoum airport.
The students hijacked the plane Thursday on a domestic flight from Bahir Dar, capital of the northern state of Amhara, to Addis Ababa, international airport security officials told Xinhua.
After the plane landed safely at Khartoum, the students announced that they wanted to seek political asylum abroad and were waiting for talks with the United States or British embassy officials in Sudan, officials added.

Nearly two weeks after the July 5 riot in Urumqi of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, social order and people’s lives are returning to normal. Yet in retrospect, a mass of evidences show that the unrest was a well-planned violent criminal incident of terrorist nature.

FEINT BEFORE VIOLENCE

Investigations by reporters reveal a salient feature of the riot, that is the perpetrators adopted the tactic of mass rally and making trouble in the open, which attracted people’s attention and police force, while committing beating, smashing, robbery and arsons in other places.

At about 6:00 p.m. July 5, some persons gathered in the People’s Square, continuously making phone calls and sending text messages. Some people were shouting slogans to attract passersby. The crowd grew larger and larger.

According to the local police department, about 1,500 policemen were sent to the place to maintain order and disperse the crowd.

At about 8:00 p.m., the police were told that a group of thugs were beating innocent people, smashing cars and buses, and burning police cars at Er Dao Qiao in a southern area of the city.

Xinhua reporters at the area spotted the body of a victim under a bridge, people fleeing in all directions, shops closing, mobsters smashing and setting fire as they walked along, more and more shops, automobiles and public facilities got destroyed and people got hurt.

At the same time, people gathered in the People’s Square began to walk to the south.

According to two officials from the local committee of ethnics and religions who walked after these people, at the Longquan Street intersection, someone jumped out of the crowd and began to instigate people to join and follow them. The Longquan Street is a major passage leading to the Er Dao Qiao area.

At about 8:40 p.m., the crowd reached the Tianchi Road - close to the Er Dao Qiao area — and were joined by about 200 people with clubs.

The two officials said that as fewer than 20 policemen lined up across the street to stop the crowd, someone in the crowd commanded the crowd to dash through the police line. A policeman was beat down and the crowd continued to move south with more violent behaviors.

According to the policemen who were at the scene, the crowd walked as long as several kilometers and more people joined in when the violent situation was worsening.

SUDDEN ERUPTION ALL OVER

According to the local public security department, at about 9:00 p.m., the department received reports that thugs were making violence in more than 50 places in the city, attacking passersby, cars, shops, resident buildings, police and government offices.

The city’s first aid center said they received numerous SOS calls starting from 8:23 p.m., resulting in the breakdown of the telephone switching system.

According to the center, from the night of July 5 to the next morning, it sent out ambulances for 737 times to give medical support to about 900 injured people.

A young woman told Xinhua that she was in a bus when the thugs started the violence. “There were also thugs in the bus. It was like they colluded over the whole thing and just waited in the bus for the time to come.”

The girl said that she was beat “powerfully” in the head while trying to get off the bus after the driver opened the door. She was later sent to hospital for treatment.

“If there were no plan or organizing in advance, how could so many people appear in more than 50 places at the same time with the same violent behaviors?” an expert on public security told Xinhua.

WEAPONS PREPARED BEFOREHAND, DIVISION OF TASKS CLEAR

According to the security department, these misdoers were mostly from outside Urumqi, and several leaders among them wore similar clothes.

The weapons used during the riot were mostly stones, bricks, wood and iron clubs, as well as some knives and guns. Some businessmen in the city told reporters that knives became hot selling products two or three days before the unrest.

The department said that two tickets were found in a captured suspect. One was a used ticket from south Xinjiang to Urumqi on July 4, the other was a return ticket on July 6.

Information revealed by a principal from a company at the Tianchi Road showed that, at about 8:40 p.m., a woman in a black robe ran to a man with about 30 thugs following. The man gave her several clubs and she gave out the clubs to the followers.

The principal said the stones and bricks used by these people were not from the Tianchi Road as the bricks on the road were not damaged. “There were also some stones which looked like to be from some building sites. It was like they had prepared them beforehand.”

According to witnesses, the misdoers’ wood clubs were actually used to support the small trees along the Tianchi road. Each one of them was about 1.2 meters long, with a diameter of 5 to 10 cm.

Local residents told reporters that about 60 small trees were planted along the road just in June. They thought the thugs chose here because of the “ready-made” weapons. Also, the residents said there were many alleys and lanes along the road, making it hard to chase the thugs.

Witnesses from other places also claimed that the stones used during the riot were never seen in the city.

Businessmen from the area of the city’s woman-children health care center told reporters that they saw people dropped stones from upstairs on passersby and cars along the road. “The stones must be carried upstairs beforehand… How come there were so many stones in the buildings?” One of them said.

Many witnesses’ accounts coincide with the records of monitor cameras in which young women repeatedly appeared in black, white or brown robes and black hoods and young men in blue T-shirts.

PROFESSIONAL AND CRUEL

In interviews, reporters found the main attacking method during the unrest was to hit people in the head with wood clubs and stones.

According to several local hospitals which received injured people during the riot, most of the patients had serious head injuries, and those who died were also due to head injuries.

Photos from the local police also showed that many victims were lying beside scattered stones and bricks — some were as large as a watermelon.

Transportation facilities were also one of the main targets.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group told Xinhua that a total of 28 buses were burned and 266 got smashed. The damaged vehicles accounted for one tenth of the company’s total.

A worker from a bus station which was attacked recalled that some misdoers had set up road-blocks in several main streets and they were “very good at driving” and familiar with the structure of vehicles.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group said at about 9:30 p.m., a group of thugs rushed into the company’s yard and took out the electrical wires from the circuit board and started the vehicles. They drove the vehicles to crash the telegraph pole to which a monitor camera was attached.

Witnesses also said that many burned gas-fired vehicles were first ignited from the rear end of the buses where the gas tank was located.

Many company workers were shocked that the misdoers knew so much about their vehicles and said some of the knowledge could only be acquired through professional trainings.

They recalled that in the last two years, some young men were practicing to drive vehicles every night in the area around the bus station. Many workers on night shift heard the noises of engines and screeching sound.

AIM AT GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

During the riot, one policeman was killed and tens were injuredwhen they tried to prevent mobsters from storming into government offices.

The buildings of the Xinjiang regional committee of the Communist Party of China, public security department, fire department and media organizations were all attacked, indicating that the July 5 riot was not a simple violent incident, according to the local public security department.

At about 6:00 p.m., reporters saw a crowd gathered in front of the gate of the party committee and tried to dash to the yard. The police stopped them.

At about 8:00 p.m., over one hundred thugs attacked a police station at the Longquan Road. Sources with the station said that the crowd kept confronting the police for some 20 minutes and finally scattered when the policemen took out their guns.

At 11:20 p.m. about forty to fifty misdoers attacked the Xinjiang People’s Broadcasting Station and the Xinjiang Television Station. An official with the Xinjiang Radio & Television Bureau said the attackers left after policemen shoot guns into the air.

Analysts said that mob usually wouldn’t attack organizations such as party committee, public security department and media if they were not organized or instigated.

Analysts said their conspiracy was far beyond an ordinary violent matter.

Official says 12 mobsters in riot shot dead, Xinjiang confident of revival

URUMQI, July 19 (Xinhua) — A senior official of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said here Saturday Xinjiang has the confidence to erase the negative impacts of the July 5 riot “in the shortest time” in an interview with overseas reporters.

Nur Bekri, chairman of the regional government, also said in the interview that on the night of July 5, policemen in the regional capital Urumqi “resolutely” shot 12 mobsters after firing guns into the air had no effects on these “extremely vicious” thugs. Full story

Xinjiang seeks to ensure farm produce sales after riots

URUMQI, July 18 (Xinhua) — Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region are seeking to promote sales of local farm produce in the wake of the deadly riots in the regional capital Urumqi on July 5.

Qian Zhi, vice chairman of the regional government, Saturday urged using multiple ways to sell agricultural products. Full story

Many countries say Xinjiang riot China’s internal affair

BEIJING, July 17 (Xinhua) — Many countries around the world said the July 5 riot in northwest China is an internal affair of the country, and the Chinese government is handling the incident properly.

A spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, Andrei Popov, said Xinjiang is an inalienable part of China, and the unrest is a purely internal matter of China.

A roadside bomb went off Thursday morning in Mohammad Agha district of Logar Province, some 50 km south from Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least 25 people, mostly civilians, officials said.

“It occurred at around 8 a.m. (0330 GMT) when large quantity of explosive material planted by militants in a truck went off this morning while a group of teenage students passing by in Mohammad Agha district,” spokesman of provincial administration Din Mohammad Darwish said.

Darwish said so far 25 people, including 12 students of the nearby school, were killed in the remote-controlled roadside bombing.

“Majority of the victims are civilians while four policemen were also among the death,” he added.

No group or individuals have claimed of responsibility. However, Darvish put the attack on the enemies of Afghanistan a term used against Taliban insurgents.

A massive operation against Taliban militants, jointly launched by U.S. Marine and Afghan security forces, is going on in the restive Helmand province while the rebels, in response, intensified assault in other parts of the countries, mostly in the shape of roadside and suicide bombings.

A prominent Iraqi Shiite, member of the constitutional preparatory committee, has escaped an assassination attack, sources from the Iraqi Governing Council said Monday.

　　Jalal Din al-Saghir was targeted when he was driving back home in Baghdad on Sunday afternoon, the sources added.

A prominent Iraqi Shiite, official of the constitutional preparatory committee, has escaped an assassination attack, sources from the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) said Monday.

　　Jalal Din al-Saghir was targeted when he was driving back home in Baghdad on Sunday afternoon, the sources added.

　　The attack came days after Washington gave the US-backed governing council six months to prepare a draft constitution.

　　US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said the timeline should start from the formation of a constitutional assembly.

　　The preparatory committee, handpicked by the IGC in mid-August, is in charge of finding an effective way to write a new constitution.

　　Several Shiite figures have been targeted in recent weeks.

　　Akila al-Hashimi, one of the 13 IGC Shiite members, died of gunshots on Thursday, five days after she was gunned down by unknown assailers.

　　Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baquer al-Hakim was killed along with 81 of his followers in a double-car bombing attack at the end of last month.

　　A week before, a gas cylinder connected with a detonator went off outside the house of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, killing three guards and injuring the Shiite leader.

The organizers of the Miss World contest assured on Friday that the events would continue as scheduled though there were chaos emerging in Nigeria’s capital Abuja in the wake of bloody riots in northern Nigeria.

　　A Miss World spokesman told a news conference in Abuja that thecontest would go ahead as planned because the organizers believed that the Nigerian authorities are able to deal with the matters concerned the riots properly.

　　”It is, however, pertinent to point out that the present situation has nothing to do with the hosting of this pageant, we are reliably informed by the appropriate authorities,” Guy Murray-Bruce said.

　　About 90 Miss World contestants have arrived in Nigeria ahead of the final contest in the capital Abuja on Dec. 7.

　　The programs for the pageant include a dress rehearsal on Dec. 6 and the grand finale at the international Conference Center in Abuja on Dec. 7. A coronation ball is also scheduled to take placeafter the contest.

　　On Friday, unrest spread to the central area of Abuja when Muslim worshippers stampeded after prayers at a national mosque. Witnesses said dozens of cars were set ablaze as people ran through the streets in all directions.

　　Witnesses said that as at 3 pm (1400GMT), the remains of at least 11 burnt cars littered the Olusegun Obasanjo way, which was named after the incumbent president while more than double the number were still in flames.

　　As anger grew over the Miss World beauty pageant, large numbersof riot policemen had been deployed to the subtle areas in Abuja.

　　Abuja Police Commissioner Audu Abubakar said the situation was under control.

　　”We have sufficient manpower to contain the situation, we are taking our time to avoid further damages,” Abubakar said.

　　It was reported that at least four people were injured during the stampede.

　　The Abuja police authorities warned people with evil intentionsto steer clear of Abuja as the police would not fold its arms and allow any one to take the law into his hands.

　　At least 100 people have been killed in riots in northern city of Kaduna following violence by Moslems, who are in protest against the hosting of Miss World beauty contest in Nigeria and the alleged blasphemy of Prophet Mohammed by a local independent newspaper.

　　Kaduna, one of Nigeria’s most volatile cities, had been witnessed more than 2,000 people dead in clashes between Christians and Muslims two years ago.

　　The beauty queens have said Nigeria is safe for them and they cannot abandon the Miss World contest midway.

　　Murray-Bruce said the participating beauty queens, who were nowin Abuja, were in “High spirit” and were looking forward to the ethnic fashion show scheduled to take place in southern city of Port Harcourt on Saturday.

　　The beauty queens departed Nigeria’s southern city of Calabar on Thursday afternoon for Abuja to pick some of their personal effects before going to Port Harcourt with the fashion show.

　　There were reports that though some parents had advised their children to come home, and the 94 beauty queens said their parents’ fears were unnecessary.

　　A few of them said that their home countries were not aware of the reports while others confirmed that they were asked to return home.

　　Among those who received warning were Miss Colombia, Miss Curacao, Miss Chile, Miss Latvia and Miss Kenya.

　　Commenting on the Kaduna riots, Stella Din, the International Press Liaison officer of the organization, said the beauty queens were concerned by the development but none of them had signified an intention to pull out.

　　”Naturally, reactions are bound to take place in any human being in the light of such development, so if they react in any form, they are entitled to it,” Din said.

　　To curb the ongoing violence, the Kaduna State government has decided to impose a 24-hour curfew “in Kaduna and environs with immediate effect.”

　　In order to forestall the spread of the riots to neighboring city of Kano, the police directed deployment of 10,000 riot policemen in the city.

　　This Day newspaper had in its Nov. 16 edition published a storyon the Miss World Beauty pageant, a portion of which its Muslim readers considered blasphemous of the Holy Prophet Mohammed.

　　The management of the newspaper immediately retracted the offensive portion and published a comprehensive apology.

　　The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo appealed for calm,and warned that anyone found fomenting disorder would be decisively dealt with.

　　The 52nd global beauty contest had met with stiff opposition from the host country’s Muslim groups, who complained that Miss World contest is un-Islamic and were upset that it began during the holy month of Ramadan.

　　Responding to protests against holding the contest in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the pageant’s organizers postponed the grand finale by one week.

　　The pageant is being boycotted by 12 countries to demonstrate protest against ruling of the Amina Lawal’s case. Among those are Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama.

　　Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning by a Sharia court for alleged adultery in northern Sokoto State in August this year and her fate has drawn high international concern since then.

China’s FAW Car Co., Ltd. is recalling 1,182 Besturn models over defective roof windows, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China’s quality watchdog, said Monday in a statement on its website.

A quality problem caused glass on the roof window to loosen from the metal frame, which might lead to noise and water leakage, according to the Jilin-based auto maker.

In extreme cases, roof windows could fall off causing safety risks. The sedans to be recalled were manufactured from March 5 to30 this year.

Car dealers would carry out maintenance and replace the defective parts free of charge, and the recall started from Monday, according to the statement.

Two of Saddam Hussein’s daughters planned to seek asylum in Britain after the collapse of their father’s regime, The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday.

　　Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, told London-based Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that he was trying to arrange an asylum application for Raghad, 35, and Rana, 33, who were said to be living in a humble safe house in Baghdad, the newspaper said.

　　Al-Majid, a London-based exile who returned to Iraq in April, said Britain was at the top of the sisters’ list of asylum destinations, followed by Egypt, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates.

　　He was quoted by the newspaper as saying that he met the sisters several times in the past month, but neither the sisters nor he had any idea where Saddam or his sons, Uday and Qusay, werehiding.

　　Al-Majid was also a cousin of the sisters’ late husbands, brothers General Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, who defected to Jordan in 1995. They were lured back in 1996 and killed shortly afterwards on Saddam’s orders on suspicion of passing information about Iraq’s weapons programs to western officials.

　　The Guardian quoted a Home Office spokesperson as saying: “Under the Geneva convention, the UK is not required to offer asylum to known war criminals or those who have breached the humanrights of others, but I am not saying this would apply in these cases.”

Indonesian voters arrived at polling stations on Wednesday morning one after another following the opening of Indonesia’s 2009 presidential election.

In the capital city of Jakarta, same people lined up at a polling station TPS 4 in Menteng district, central city, to cast their votes.

“I came here at 7:30 a.m. to make preparations for the election, and the elections started at 8:00 a.m.” a policeman told Xinhua.

After casting her vote, a young woman namely Dwita said she is already the 80th voter by 8:40 a.m., which meant that the voters were more enthusiastic this year’s than before.

She said this election was very important for Indonesia’s development in the future. The Indonesian people should elect a good leader to lead the country.

“We hope peace, stability and prosperity under the leadership of a good president,” a contractor namely Aidi said.

Some voters said all the presidential candidates are old faces, and as people have seen their performances before, so they would vote in favor of the person who had good record.

According local TV, the election in other cities and villages in the country are also going on smoothly.

Most areas of the country’s 33 provinces were set to open the election at 8:00 a.m. Western Indonesian Time (0100 GMT) and close at 13:00 p.m. (0600 GMT).

About 176 million eligible voters are going to pick the country’s president and vice president for the period of 2009 to 2014.

The incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Democratic Party will be challenged by Jusuf Kalla of the Golkar Party and Megawati Soekarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in the election.

According to the Indonesian election law, the individual candidate could be elected when he or she gets more than 50 percent of the total votes. If none of the three candidates get more than 50 percent in the first round of election, two candidates who got majority of votes will fight in the second round of election to be held in September this year.

Dozens of foreign observers’ teams including some senior officials from 50 countries were invited to join hundreds of thousands of observers from local monitoring agencies registered with the General Elections Commission to monitor the elections.

Meanwhile, about 247,000 policemen had been deployed in the country to safeguard security of the election.

The quick count’s preliminary results are expected at 3 or 4 p.m. on Wednesday.