LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY "The key is whether this is an indicator of future
sectarian violence." Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday's pair of attacks in Baghdad Article, this pageChina readies trials for 200 riot suspects
BEIJING - More than 200 people are expected to go on trial this week for their involvement in sectarian riots last month that killed nearly 200 people in China's eastern region of Xinjiang, a state-run newspaper reported Monday.
The trials will take place in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang and the site of China's worst ethnic violence in decades, in which an additional 1,700 people were injured, the China Daily reported. The rioting pitted Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs against members of China's dominant Han ethnic group.
Since the riots, the government says life has largely returned to normal in the city, although officials remain wary of renewed outbreaks of violence.
The newspaper reported last week that more than 3,300 items of physical evidence had been collected, including bricks and clubs stained with blood.
The evidence included 91 video clips and 2,169 photographs, it said.
Most of the arrests were made in Urumqi and Kashgar, a city in southern Xinjiang with a heavy concentration of Uighur people, the newspaper quoted an unidentified Urumqi prosecutor as saying.
The charges range from vandalizing public property to murder, the China Daily said.
The newspaper did not give a breakdown on how many Uighurs and how many Han would go on trial, but it said more than 170 Uighurs and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned to the suspects.
The riots broke out July 5 after police stopped an initially peaceful protest by Uighur youths. Uighurs then smashed windows, burned cars and attacked Han. Two days later, the Han took to the streets and staged retaliatory attacks.
Typhoon death toll
climbs in Taiwan
TAIPEI, Taiwan - The death toll from Typhoon Morakot was raised to at least 650 on Sunday after the worst weather disaster to hit Taiwan in half a century.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said 160 people were confirmed killed, with another 490 listed as missing and presumed dead.
DNA tests will be conducted on bodies that authorities have not been able to identify, Liu said.
The storm that hit two weeks ago triggered landslides and widespread flooding that trapped thousands of people in remote southern villages for days.
Television footage Sunday showed soldiers and students scrubbing homes and streets in the southern city of Linbien in Pingtung county, which was still flooded in knee-deep waters because drainage ditches were blocked by debris.
Scotland defends
bomber's release
LONDON - Scotland's government defended itself Sunday against criticism from the U.S. over the decision to free the Pan Am Flight 103 bomber on compassion grounds.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan convicted of killing 270 people in the 1988 airline bombing, was released Thursday because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. He has returned to Libya to die.
His release was met with anger by families of victims of the bombing and criticized by President Barack Obama as "highly objectionable."
Speaking Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that releasing the bomber was "obviously a political decision."
But Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told BBC Radio that it was wrong to assume that all those affected by the bombing were opposed to al-Megrahi's release.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 08/24/2009