Turkey attacks China 'genocide'

Turkey's prime minister has described ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region as "a kind of genocide".

"There is no other way of commenting on this event," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

He spoke after a night-time curfew was reimposed in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, where Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese clashed last Sunday.

The death toll from the violence there has now risen from 156 to 184, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reports. More than 1,000 people were injured.

Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, shares linguistic and religious links with the Uighurs in China's western-most region.

After Friday's prayers, a small group of Uighur Muslims marched along an Urumqi street demanding the release of men detained for their alleged role in last Sunday's riot.

A large number of riot police surrounded the group, they punched and kicked the protestors - one officer used his baton to beat one of the Uighurs. A number of foreign journalists had their equipment seized, some have been detained.

Earlier the group said they feared for their safety. There's no word from the authorities as to what happened to them.

"The event taking place in China is a kind of genocide," Mr Erdogan told reporters in Turkey's capital, Ankara.

"There are atrocities there, hundreds of people have been killed and 1,000 hurt. We have difficulty understanding how China's leadership can remain a spectator in the face of these events."

The Turkish premier also urged Beijing to "address the question of human rights and do what is necessary to prosecute the guilty".

Mr Erdogan's comments came a day after Turkish Trade and Industry Minister Nihat Ergun urged Turks to boycott Chinese goods.

Beijing has so far not publicly commented on Mr Erdogan's criticism.

But it said that of the 184 people who died, 137 were Han Chinese.

Uighurs defiant

Earlier on Friday, the Chinese authorities reimposed a night-time curfew in Urumqi.

The curfew had been suspended for two days after officials said they had the city under control.

Mosques in the city were ordered to remain closed on Friday and notices were posted instructing people to stay at home to worship.


XINJIANG: ETHNIC UNREST
Main ethnic division: 45% Uighur, 40% Han Chinese
26 June: Mass factory brawl after dispute between Han Chinese and Uighurs in Guangdong, southern China, leaves two Uighurs dead
5 July: Uighur protest in Urumqi over the dispute turns violent, leaving 156 dead - most of them thought to be Han - and more than 1,000 hurt
7 July: Uighur women protest at arrests of menfolk. Han Chinese make armed counter-march
8 July: President Hu Jintao returns from G8 summit to tackle crisis

Taboo of ethnic tensions
Profile: Rebiya Kadeer
Xinjiang: Views from China

But at least two opened after crowds of Uighurs gathered outside and demanded to be allowed in to pray on the holiest day of the week in Islam.

"We decided to open the mosque because so many people had gathered. We did not want an incident," a policeman outside the White Mosque in a Uighur neighbourhood told the AP news agency.

After the prayers, riot police punched and kicked a small group of Uighurs protesters, who demanded the release of men detained after last Sunday's violence, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville says.

Meanwhile, the city's main bus station was reported to be crowded with people trying to escape the unrest.

Extra bus services had been laid on and touts were charging up to five times the normal face price for tickets, AFP news agency said.

"It is just too risky to stay here. We are scared of the violence," a 23-year-old construction worker from central China said.

The violence began on Sunday when a Uighur rally to protest against a deadly brawl between Uighurs and Han Chinese several weeks ago in a toy factory in southern Guangdong province turned violent.

Tensions have been growing in Xinjiang for many years, as Han migrants have poured into the region, where the Uighur minority is concentrated.

Many Uighurs feel economic growth has bypassed them and complain of discrimination and diminished opportunities.

MPS DEMAND INQUIRY OVER PHONE TAP SCANDAL

THE integrity of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire was in question last night amid demands for a police investigation into allegations that his journalists routinely tapped private phone calls of public figures.

Scotland Yard has indicated that thousands of people – including senior politicians, celebrities and sports stars – were targets in the scandal, despite executives at News Group claiming to know nothing about the illegal activity.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the officer in charge of examining allegations of criminal conduct, said on Thursday that he would not reopen an official inquiry.

But last night lawyers and former police officers demanded a fresh inquiry, while leading politicians said the revelations called into question the “integrity and veracity” of Mr Murdoch’s business and said some of his senior executives had urgent questions to answer.

News Group is facing three separate investigations into claims that they turned a blind eye to reporters and private detectives breaking the law.

The Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has ordered a review of previous allegations while the Press Complaints Commission and the Commons culture, media and sports select committee are also planning inquiries.

There was mounting anger last night over Scotland Yard’s decision not to reopen their investigation, which was launched in 2007 when the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for listening into private phone calls involving members of the Royal household.

Executives insisted that Goodman had been acting alone and promised to ensure that the illegal activity never occurred again.

But it has emerged that News Group paid other targets in the scandal more than £1million to keep them quiet. One of them, Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, was paid £700,000 in damages and costs.

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MPs from all parties voiced deep concern over the statement from Mr Yates that no additional evidence had come to light and so no fresh investigation could be justified.

Liberal Democrat media spokesman Chris Huhne said he was so concerned about the lack of police action that he had referred the matter to the watchdog body the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

He said: “John Yates’s statement leaves open as many questions as it answers, not least because he says he has only been asked to look into the facts around the inquiry into Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, and not whether any further investigations into other journalists or investigators should have been undertaken.

“This was a suspiciously quick review of what Mr Yates describes as a complex case.

“Where there is a potential neglect of duty by a police force, surely another police force or the Independent Police Complaints Commission should look into the matter.

“Instead, we merely have assurances from the same department that conducted the original investigation that it did so well and thoroughly.

“Mr Yates says that in the majority of cases there was insufficient evidence to show tapping had been achieved, but the standard of evidence was clearly high enough in the case of Gordon Taylor to secure a very substantial out of court settlement.”

Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott – one of the politicians allegedly tapped – also expressed disappointment over Mr Yates’ announcement.

“He has defined in a very narrow way what he is going to look at, and then gives a report that everything is OK,” he said.

Brian Paddick, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met, said: “John Yates is in charge of the department that did the initial investigation, so not only have we the police investigating themselves, but the department that investigated it investigating themselves.”

Last night News International, publisher of the News of the World, said in a statement that following an internal investigation it was confident there had been no fresh cases of its journalists tapping people’s phones.

It also denied that the paper or its staff had instructed private investigators to access voice mails or that there had been “systemic corporate illegality” to suppress evidence.

“It goes without saying that had the police uncovered such evidence, charges would have been brought against other News of the World personnel,” News International said.

“Not only have there been no such charges, but the police have not considered it necessary to arrest or question any other member of News of the World staff.”

Police walk 'ghetto' in new anti-violence strategy

Eglinton Avenue West: no other neighbourhood in Toronto has seen more violence this year than the square mile centred around Keele Street, but tonight it is quiet as seven officers walk the hilly, concrete landscape.

Const. J.C. Tremblay, a husky 28-year-old officer with an earnest, congenial demeanour, greets a young black man in a hoodie slouched at a table inside the Coffee Time at Keele and Eglinton. He asks, cheerily, for his name, his address and phone number while filling out a small form that will serve as a record of their conversation.

"How tall are you? How much do you weigh? What is that scar on the side of your neck? A tattoo? Is that your street name?"

The man answers flatly: "My rap name."

"Stunner" is 22 and lives near Jane Street and Driftwood Avenue or where he calls "the ghetto."

After the officer has left, he secures his hood over his head with a ball cap. "They just keep harassing people. First thing they do is they say, ‘What are you doing around here?' Then they get to the point where they ask for ID. They're not supposed to do that. That ain't cool. You have no right to ask people their status if the person is not making trouble."

"Because a guy is black, his pants are down there, it doesn't mean he's a gangster. It's just a style."

There is something jarring about watching seven police officers move through a neighbourhood, questioning young men whose only apparent crime at the moment may be loitering. The cards that the officers fill out on every contact are saved, and some names are checked on the police database, even though no crime has been committed, or is even necessarily suspected.

But, in a district pockmarked by bullet holes, many regard such tactics as a necessary evil, even the salve for its wounds. Const. Tremblay and his fellow officers are part of the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy, or TAVIS, which combines tough enforcement and friendly community outreach, instituted after 2005's Summer of the Gun.

Chief Bill Blair, who was once a "neighbourhood cop" and is structuring the force using the lessons he learned on the street, says a drop in crime since that summer (30% overall) can be attributed partly to the three-year-old initiative.

The success has been rewarded. On Tuesday, Rick Bartolucci, Ontario's Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, toured the Keele Street and Eglinton Avenue area and then announced a $10-million boost that will ensure TAVIS's continuation over the next two years.

Officers have patrolled the west end neighbourhood every day for weeks following a spate of gang-related shootings in the spring. In May, the drug squad swept the area, arresting alleged drug dealers and users, before the TAVIS team came in.

"What we try to explain to people is that we're not here to harass you," Sgt. Peter Troup says. "We don't know who you are. We're trying to get out and get to know who's in the neighbourhood. You shouldn't have a problem talking to us if you're a good citizen of the community. You should want us to be here keeping you safe."

Sgt. Troup, 47, is the only veteran officer on foot patrol tonight. His soldiers, who are among the 75 officers seconded to the neighbourhood from across the city, as well as to the Jane/Finch area, are mostly in their late twenties and early thirties with a few years of experience.

The officers stroll past pavement spray-painted with MS13 (Mara Salvatrucha, a Central American gang) and EWC (Eglinton West Crypts). They climb Eglinton Avenue, with its beauty supply stores with wigs on display and its variety stores with food labels taped over bullet holes in the front window. They greet almost every person they pass and they stop to talk to shopkeepers.

At one point, Const. Carmen Wong, 31, glances up at the balconies of a high rise on Gabian Way. Sometimes, people throw things.

The officers stop to distribute flyers to youths playing basketball in Coronation Park. Further up the path, an 18-year-old man is slumped on a railing in front of a low-rise apartment building. Even his face is slumped as he looks at the officers but does not react.

"Hey man, how's it going?" Const. Tremblay says from several metres away.

"What brings you here? What are you doing?"

His answer is barely audible: "Waiting."

They record his information, thank him and then invite him to play soccer at a nearby school. "It's all free," Const. Andrea Tristao, 24, says. "We help put it on but we don't bother anyone there."

After they move through Coronation Park, Sgt. Troup - pulled here from the drug squad's clandestine laboratory unit - identifies a few of the young men they pass as "hard core gangbangers .... Guys who would shoot you as soon as look at you. One of the kids had been found with a Tech 9 machine gun."

Down an alley parallel to Eglinton Avenue where trees hang over corrugated metal fences and the smell of marijuana is almost hidden by the stench of garbage, an eight-year-old boy with a pink popsicle waits for his mother who is inside what police allege is a "24-hour booze can."

As four officers approach, a crowd behind the bungalow at the end of the alley disperses. Visitors allegedly come all day and night to the two rental homes facing Keele Street for alcohol and drugs.

From afar, Joy M., who has lived in the neighbourhood for 36 years, watches the officers and clucks her tongue. Later, in front of her home on Gabian Way, she censors her comments to them.

"You know something, a lot of kids are afraid of you," the mother of six tells Sgt. Troup. "I think some of the cops intimidate the kids a lot. The cops are supposed to get to know the kids."

They speak for several minutes; Sgt. Troup invites her to an upcoming community event.

"We talk to kids. We find out who they are, where they live. Once we know them and we know they're good kids, the next time, we walk up to them and say ‘hi,'" he says.

"Some people have an opinion that we're an occupying force and any wrong move they make, we're busting them. It's not like that. It's about changing attitudes. Sometimes we're changing our attitudes too."

Daughter disowns triple family killer

A policewoman whose father murdered her mother and children and tried to kill her with an axe has confronted him in a Sydney court, telling him "I am no longer your daughter".

The 70-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering his wife and two grandchildren and trying to kill his daughter in the central western New South Wales town of Cowra in June last year.

He sat in the dock looking down today as his daughter told his sentencing hearing that her 12 years of policing did not prepare her for what she found when she came home from work that day.

The senior constable broke down as she described how her five-year-old daughter had been drowned in the bath, and her seven-year-old son and 52-year-old mother were stabbed and bashed with a lump of wood and a hammer.

She said her father hit her in the head with an axe when her guard was down and escaped, causing police to launch a statewide search.

Officers found the man that night after getting a tip-off from a motel owner who recognised him from news coverage more than 400 kilometres south-west of Cowra in Hay.

The woman today told Sydney's Supreme Court her father had instilled fear and manipulation in the family.

At the end of her victim impact statement, she told him to look at her and said, "When you go back to your jail cell, you will never see me again."

"I am no longer your daughter," she told him.

The murderer's lawyer told the court his client could not explain his actions but was depressed when he killed his family, after his son committed suicide.

Outside court, the children's father said that was no excuse.

"I can't understand how somebody can do anything and not know why," he said.

The deaths shocked the town of Cowra and the state's police force.

The family cannot be named for legal reasons.

Baby got Barack !!!

The leader of the free world and his French counterpart were caught sneaking a peek at a the pink-satin-draped booty of a 17-year-old junior G-8 delegate just moments before the summit's official group photo was snapped in Italy yesterday.

Obama: Full Economic Recovery Is a Ways Away

Obama wasn't the only head of state getting Yankee Doodle randy.

The president got a show of support for his stimulus package from French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- whose wandering eyes also couldn't help but take in the view.

The beauty who prompted the president to channel his inner Bill Clinton was identified as Rio de Janeiro resident Mayara Tavares. The girl from Ipanema had been selected to attend a meeting of young people held in conjunction with the summit.

While Obama and Sarkozy were playing, their wives were enduring an awkward time. The summit host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was recently ditched by his wife because of a sex scandal, throwing social events for spouses into chaos.

Later, a video from ABC News, showed that Obama was turning to offer his arm to another woman who was coming down the stairs behind him. Sarkozy craned his neck in order to get a better view of the young woman's derriere.