News from around the World

CHINA – Thousands of cameras turned on restive city

Beijing | Officials plan to put the city of Urumqi under full surveillance with tens of thousands of cameras, the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

The state media said almost 17,000 cameras were installed in the western city last year, and the coverage will grow this year.

Long-running tensions between the region’s minority Uighurs and majority Han Chinese migrants turned violent in July 2009. The government says 197 people were killed.

CHILE – Daredevil president says he won’t change his ways

Santiago | President Sebastian Pinera said Tuesday that he’s not about to give up his passion for adventure sports such as skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climbing and piloting his helicopter just because some think he should play it safe.

He promised to be responsible about his activity, but maintained that “one can’t change his way of being.”

The billionaire president has been criticized for making an emergency helicopter landing when it ran low on fuel on his way to a family getaway. Authorities are investigating.

Pinera asked that “critics not worry so much about what the president does” in his leisure time.

ZIMBABWE – Rhino horn poachers striking from planes

Harare | Poachers are using aircraft to hunt and kill rhinoceros, Zimbabwe’s wildlife chief said Tuesday, amid growing demand in Asia for their horns’ supposed medicinal benefits.

Seven endangered rhinos were killed from early December to Jan. 19 in southern Zimbabwe, representing about one-third of all 22 rhinos poached throughout 2010, Parks and Wildlife Director General Vitalis Chidenga said.

RUSSIA – Airport bomber targeting foreigners, Russians say

Moscow | The suicide bomber who killed 35 people at Moscow’s busiest airport was deliberately targeting foreigners, investigators said Saturday, which would mark an ominous new tactic by separatist militants in southern Russia if he was recruited by an Islamist terror cell.

Investigators know the identity of the bomber, a 20-year-old native of the volatile Caucausus region, where Islamist insurgents have been battling for years for a breakaway state.

But the country’s top investigative body stopped short of naming him, fearing that it would compromise ongoing attempts to identify and arrest the masterminds of the Domodedovo Airport attack on Jan. 24. The blast also wounded 180 people.

The violence stemming from the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region began with two bloody separatist wars in Chechnya in the past 15 years. The rebels seek an independent Caucasus emirate that adheres to Shariah law.

PAKISTAN – Islamic leaders demand detention of U.S. official

Lahore | Hard-line Islamic leaders Sunday rallied at least 15,000 people against an American official arrested in the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis and warned the government not to cave in to U.S. pressure to release the man.

The protest in the eastern city of Lahore, where the shootings took place, came as the U.S. Embassy once again insisted that the American has diplomatic immunity and was being detained illegally by Pakistan. But Pakistan has refused to budge, saying the matter must be decided by the courts.

The U.S. has said the American, who has not been named, acted in self-defense when he shot two armed men who approached his car in Lahore.

(The news briefs above are from wire reports and staff reports posted at:  tulsaworld.com on Jan. 26, 30 and 31, 2011.)