23 dead, 300 hurt in Kyrgyz clashes

At least 23 people were killed and 300 injured in ethnic clashes in south Kyrgyzstan, a stronghold of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, prompting the interim government to declare a state of emergency in the Central Asian nation that hosts US and Russian military bases.
The interim government, which came to power on April 7, has declared a state of emergency in ethnic clashes involving Uzbek minority in southern Osh region of the country, on Thursday night. The police and Army have been ordered to open fire.
The rioting coincided with the opening of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent, capital of neighbouring Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan.
Speaking at the summit Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that SCO is sending a monitoring mission to Kyrgyzstan, which is a founder-member of the regional grouping led by Russia and China.
“I have declared a state of emergency in our Southern Capital (Osh)”, acting President Rosa Otunbayeva said in her televised statement.
Ms Otunbayeva said the rioting erupted after clashes between the youth groups of the two communities and spread over the whole of Osh and neighbouring districts of Karasu, Aravan and Uzgen. She said after the local government lost control over the situation Army was called in to restore the law and order and curfew was in place. Russian agencies report that shops and business owned by ethnic Uzbeks were looted and set on fire.
Buildings of two theatres including Uzbek Babar Drama Theatre were set on fire. The Russian foreign ministry expressed Moscow’s concern over deadly clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan. “We are concerned over the outbreak of violence in Kyrgyzstan and express our condolences to the relatives of those who died,” deputy spokesman of ministry Igor Lyakin-Frolov said. In the past at several occasions Russia and China have conducted joint military drills to cope with situations like the current volatile situation in Kyrgyzstan.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/17322" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b445a96e2c3f55bc64a1788a49e57c5b" value="form-b445a96e2c3f55bc64a1788a49e57c5b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="79847949" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.