■CHINA
Dissident meets lawyers
Lawyers for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) met with the writer for the first time since he was detained more than six months ago, a rights group said yesterday. Lawyers Shang Baojun (尚寶軍) and Ding Xikui (丁錫奎) met with Liu on Friday afternoon for 40 minutes at a police detention center in Beijing, according to the Hong Kong-based group Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). Liu, 53, was detained in a secret location in early December for his involvement in Charter 08, a manifesto calling for increased protection of human rights and political reforms. He was formally charged on June 23 with “inciting subversion of state power.” At the meeting, Liu told the lawyers that police investigations focused on his involvement with the charter and more than 20 other articles he published between 2001 and last year, CHRD said. Liu said he had not been tortured to force a confession during his detention and maintained that he was not guilty of any crime. The lawyers told CHRD that the authorities violated proper procedures on several occasions, including not allowing them to talk privately with their client.
■PHILIPPINES
Freak diving fatality
A 52-year-old Japanese tourist was killed in a freak diving accident in the central Philippines, police said yesterday. Etsuko Kosaka from Ishikawa was hit on the head by a boat’s propeller as she surfaced from a dive in waters off the city of Lapu Lapu in central Cebu province on Thursday, police said. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but later died of her injury, police said. The waters around Cebu are popular diving spots for foreign tourists, but have seen a growing number of incidents in recent months. In March, two Chinese divers drowned after failing to resurface.
■PAKISTAN
Twelve militants killed
At least 12 militants were killed and more than a dozen wounded yesterday when government forces attacked the suspected bases of a feared Taliban chief, officials said. “Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddha, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others,” local tribal police official Syed Akbar Khan said. Makeen and Laddah are the main South Waziristan strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for a number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Pakistan. The tolls could not be verified independently as the areas are out of bounds to journalists because of the ongoing military operation and presence of Taliban militants.
■CHINA
Ethnic tensions spark brawl
Ethnic tensions between workers at a toy factory in the south sparked a brawl that left two dead and 118 injured, state media and a government spokesman said yesterday. The official China News Service said hundreds of workers at the Xuri Toy Factory in Shaoguan City fought for two hours before more than 400 police restored order early on Friday morning. A spokesman from the Shaoguan City government said the brawl was due to tensions between Uighurs — Turkic-speaking Muslims — and Han Chinese. The spokesman said the fight started after a Han Chinese girl entered a dormitory where Uighur workers were staying. Uighur workers allegedly tried to harass her, and she screamed. The spokesman would not give his name or give details on the two people who died.
■AUSTRALIA
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