NSA Leak: UK Urges No-Fly Ban on Snowden

According to the Associated Press news agency, the British government has warned airlines around the world to refuse to fly ex-CIA worker Edward Snowden, who leaked information on top-secret US government surveillance programmes.

The agency, in a report, said that they saw a photograph of the document taken on Friday at a Thai airport of a British travel alert, dated on Monday on a Home Office letterhead, telling carriers to stop Edward Snowden, 29, boarding any flights.

The alert was issued by the Risk and Liaison Overseas Network, part of the UK Border Agency that has staff in several countries identified as major transit points for inadequately documented passengers.

They added that the alert was specific in mentioning that he "is highly likely" to be refused entry to the UK and that such a carrier may "be liable to costs relating to the individual's detention and removal" should they allow him to travel.

A British diplomat confirmed that the document was genuine and was sent out to airlines around the world. Airlines in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore confirmed the alert had been issued.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said such alerts were issued to carriers that flew into Britain and any carrier that brought Snowden would be liable to be fined 2,000 pounds ($3,000)

Reports from the US inidcated that the US government has begun to take steps to prosecute the  who now lives in Hong Kong, for exposing high confidential information on the secret NSA surveillance programme.

Only last Sunday, Snowden revealed that he was the source of top-secret documents about NSA surveillance programmes that were reported earlier by The Guardian newspapers in UK and Washington Post of the US.

Mr Snowden was last seen in Hong Kong. However, Snowden would have few options for seeking refuge if he were not allowed to stay in his preferred sanctuary which is a semiautonomous Chinese territory.

The revelation that the NSA is collecting millions of US phone records along with digital communications stored by nine major Internet companies has incited worldwide protests, majorly in New York and Hong Kong where about 1,000 protesters were expected to march to the US consulate and then the government to urge the administration of the semi-autonomous territory to not extradite him.
 
By using intrusive surveillance methods, the Obama Administration has sparked a national debate between security and invasion of privacy on an extremely large scale.

21 Dead as Violence Erupts In Xinjiang, West China

There have been reports of a violent clash involving police officers and local officials which resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people, with 15 others injured.

According to a statement released by the Xinjiang government, three local officials alerted their superiors after they discovered a group of ‘several suspicious individuals’ with knives hiding in one house on Tuesday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the occupants of the house took them hostage before the Police rushed to the scene. Violence erupted, resulting in the deaths of six ‘gang members’ with 15 others.

Eight of the ‘gang members’ were captured, while 15 others that died in the ensuing violence were either police officers or social workers, comprising of 10 Uighurs, three Han and two Mongolians of ethnic minority living in Xinjiang.

According to Hou Hanmin, a spokesperson for the Xinjiang government, who spoke to CNN, some of the knives recovered by the authorities were more than a meter long, and that the arrested individuals under interrogation claimed to have watched videos ‘from overseas’ that exhibited violence and acts of terrorism.

She also said, ‘‘then they made those large, lethal knives and wanted to use them for jihad. They had been training in their own house for several months. They were affected by extremism and hoped to commit themselves to jihad.’’

According to Tianshan Net, a government-owned online news site, the fighting has been described as a ‘violent terror incident’. The clash only shows how chaotic the Xinjiang violence is, and the poor response of the authorities to such events.

 
West China has suffered much unrest. The worst of the violence occurred in Urumqi, July 2009, between Uighurs (predominantly Muslim ethnic Turks) and Han Chinese that left over 200 people dead and 1,700 injured.  The latest clash occurred in Bachu County, east of Kashgar.

156 Dead As Earthquake Hits China’s Sichuan Province

156 people have been killed and 5,000 others were left injured by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked a hilly area of Sichuan province, southwest of China on Saturday morning. It's been five years since an earthquake has laid waste to the hilly Lushan county, but the quake of 2008 was more destructive, leaving about 87,000 people either dead or missing in May.


The earthquake struck at 8:02 am Beijing time and the epicenter was located just eight miles deep in Ya’an county, home to about 1.5 million people. Panicked residents ran down apartment stairs, rushing into the street, where many remained overnight, in fear for their lives.

Many flights were either cancelled or delayed at Chengdu's airport, while many scheduled train rides were stopped at the railway station, according to media reports. It was also mentioned that the famous Bifengxia panda reserve, near Lushan, was unaffected by the quake. Recall that these pandas were moved from their previous habitat in the 2008 earthequke disaster which remains the worst disaster ever to be seen in decades of Chinese history.

With the forecast reports from the China Meteorological Administration issuing warnings of more rainfalls, possible landslides and other disasters, thousands of people have taken refuge in either cars or tents, too afraid to go back to the unstable region.

 While Li Keqiang, the Chinese Premier, rushed to the scene to coordinate rescue efforts, rescuers turned the space outside Lushan County Hospital to a triage center for medical personnel to treat victims of the disaster.

Most of the area was still in disarray, with tens of thousands sleeping outside and low supply of bottled water, even when it was reported by Xinhua News Agency that the Ministry of Civil Affairs had dispatched 30,000 tents, 50,000 cotton blankets and 10,000 makeshift beds to the area.

According to Gao Hengchun, 49, a self-employed driver from Liberation Village in Tianquan county, he saw rocks rolling down the mountainside and tiles tumbling from rooftops when the quake struck. At that time, he was heading to his nephew’s wedding. His nephew got injured from falling down the stairs when the earthquake took place, injuring his ankles. Luckily no one among over 100 people at the venue got hurt, besides his cousin.

We know that nothing can close the wounds of the families who have lost someone in the province, but we hope the nation can stand together to deal with the aftermath of the disaster