January 7, 2013

KASHMIR CLASH WITH SOLDIERS FROM INDIA KILLS PAKISTANI

[Still, military and ideological hard-liners in both countries consider the bitter conflict over Kashmir, which erupted just after independence in 1947, as the core issue that needs to be resolved. Pakistan and India, both of which claim the mountainous territory in its entirety, have fought two wars over the region.]
By Declan Walsh
Mukesh Gupta/Reuters
Kashmir remains a point of confrontation between India and Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged gunfire across the disputed Kashmir border early Sunday, leaving one Pakistani soldier dead in a relatively rare fatal confrontation between the two neighbors.
As usual, the rival armies, which have been engaged in a face-off in Kashmir for decades, disagreed about who started the shooting or what happened next.
Pakistan said Indian troops crossed the disputed boundary, known as the Line of Control, into Pakistani-controlled territory, where they attacked a remote outpost and wounded two soldiers, one of whom later died.
“Our army troops effectively responded and repulsed the attack successfully,” said a Pakistani military spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Indian Army troops left behind a gun and a dagger.”
But the Indian military said that its troops had not crossed into Pakistani territory and that it was only responding to an unprovoked Pakistani shelling across the Line of Control that destroyed a civilian house.
“None of our troops crossed the Line of Control,” Col. Jagadish Dahiya, an Indian Army spokesman, told Reuters. “We have no casualties or injuries.”
The clash was an unusual breach of an almost decade-long cease-fire that has largely held between the two rivals, whose leaders have concentrated on building economic and diplomatic ties.
In the last major shooting, in September 2011, Pakistan claimed to have lost three soldiers while India said one of its officers was killed. There have been other, smaller, clashes in recent months.
But in the last year, encouraging signs have emerged that relations are thawing.
The two countries have eased travel restrictions for Kashmiris living on both sides of the de facto border, and introduced encouraging economic initiatives intended to foster bilateral trade.
It was unclear whether Sunday’s clash would affect any of that. The Pakistani cricket team is visiting India, and on Sunday, a match was played between the two sides in New Delhi, the Indian capital.
Still, military and ideological hard-liners in both countries consider the bitter conflict over Kashmir, which erupted just after independence in 1947, as the core issue that needs to be resolved. Pakistan and India, both of which claim the mountainous territory in its entirety, have fought two wars over the region.
Pakistan said that Sunday’s clash occurred at a remote border post in the Bagh district, more than 50 miles east of the capital, Islamabad.
One encouraging sign is that the recent warming of relations could not have taken place without approval from Pakistan’s generals, who at any rate are increasingly absorbed by the fight against Islamist militants along their western border with Afghanistan.
That fight has been complicated by tense relations with the United States. On Sunday the Central Intelligence Agency continued to press its drone strike campaign in Waziristan, with three missile attacks against suspected militant bases that killed at least 12 people, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
In one strike, in South Waziristan, a remotely piloted American aircraft fired 10 missiles into a suspected Pakistani Taliban training camp, one intelligence official said, speaking by phone on the condition of anonymity.
A senior Taliban militant, speaking by phone from Waziristan on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the strike. Three senior Taliban commanders were believed to have died, he said, including one who had masterminded a jailbreak in nearby Bannu last year that allowed 390 inmates to escape.
Another commander who is believed to have died, Wali Muhammad, who is also known as Tuffani Mehsud, was considered to be the leader of the Pakistani Taliban’s suicide bomber squad.
“It is a major blow to our organization,” the Taliban militant said.
Salman Masood and Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud contributed reporting.

SUPPORTERS BACK STRIKE ATNEWSPAPER IN CHINA

[Many of the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper offices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with slogans and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning. One banner read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.” Police officers watched the protesters without immediately taking any harsh actions.]

By Edward Wong
BEIJING — Hundreds of people gathered outside the headquarters of a newspaper office in southern China on Monday to show their support for journalists who had declared a strike to protest what they called overbearing censorship by provincial propaganda officials.
The journalists, who work for Southern Weekend, a relatively liberal newspaper that has come under increasing pressure from officials in recent years, also received support on the Internet from celebrities and well-known commentators.
“Hoping for a spring in this harsh winter,” Li Bingbing, an actress, said to her 19 million followers on a microblog account. Yao Chen, an actress with more than 31 million followers, cited a quotation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate and dissident: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”
Many of the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper offices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with slogans and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning. One banner read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.” Police officers watched the protesters without immediately taking any harsh actions.
The angry journalists at Southern Weekend have been calling for the removal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, whom the journalists blame for overseeing a change in a New Year’s editorial that ran last week and was supposed to have called for greater respect for rights enshrined in the constitution under the headline “China’s Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism,” according to the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. The editorial went through layers of changes and ultimately became one praising the current political system, in which the Communist Party exercises authority over all aspects of governance.
A well-known entrepreneur, Hung Huang, said on her microblog that the actions of a local official had “destroyed, overnight, all the credibility the country’s top leadership had labored to re-establish since the 18th Party Congress,” the November gathering in Beijing that was the climax of the leadership transition.
One journalist for Southern Weekend said Monday afternoon that negotiations between the various parties had been scheduled later in the day, but there were no results from any talks as of Monday evening.
It was unclear how many employees in the newsroom had heeded the calls for a strike. It appeared Sunday that many of Southern Weekend’s reporters had declared themselves on strike. A local journalist who went by the newspaper’s Beijing office on Monday said the building appeared to be open but quiet. One employee told the journalist that the people there were not on strike. Dozens of supporters showed up outside the building at various times, some carrying signs and flowers.
The conflict was exacerbated Sunday night by top editors at the newspaper, who posted a message on the publication’s official microblog saying that the New Year’s editorial had been written with the consent of editors at the newspaper.
According to an account from a newspaper employee posted online on Monday, that statement was made after pressure was exerted on the top editors by Yang Jian, the head of the party committee at Southern Media, the parent company that runs Southern Weekend and other publications. Southern Weekend’s editor in chief, Huang Can, then pressured an employee to give up the official microblog password so the statement could be posted on the microblog.
Neither Mr. Yang nor Mr. Huang could be reached for comment Monday.
Some political analysts have said the conflict raises questions about whether the central government, led by Xi Jinping, the new party chief, will support the idea of a more open media by moving to support the protesting journalists. In his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled to Guangdong and praised the market-oriented economic policies put in place by Deng Xiaoping, the former supreme leader. But more recently, Mr. Xi has said that China must respect its socialist roots.
Resolving the Southern Weekend tensions could also be a test for Hu Chunhua, the new party chief in Guangdong and a potential candidate to succeed Mr. Xi as the leader of China in a decade. Mr. Hu’s predecessor, Wang Yang, was regarded by many Western political analysts as being a “reformer,” but he presided over a tightening of media freedoms in the province and specifically over Southern Media.
On Monday, People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, ran a signed commentary that referred to a recent meeting of propaganda officials in Beijing and said propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times” and help the authorities establish a “pragmatic and open-minded image.” Some people have interpreted that as support for officials in adopting a more enlightened approach in dealing with the news media.
But Global Times, a populist newspaper, ran a scathing editorial that said Southern Weekend was merely a newspaper and should not challenge the system.
“Even in the West, mainstream media would not choose to openly pick a fight with the government,” the editorial said. Xinhua, the state news agency, published the editorial online.
Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting. Mia Li and Shi Da and contributed research.