DUBAI  - Saudi Arabia has deployed more troops in the oil-rich Eastern Province and cancelled some military leave amid worries of fresh unrest by Shi'ite Muslims in the kingdom and regional tensions, Saudi government sources and diplomats said on Thursday.

A Saudi government source said that top commanders, in a directive issued on June 26, ordered extra security forces to be stationed in the kingdom's crude-producing east where the majority of the Saudi Shi'ite population live. The source said Saudi troops were put on alert and summer leave was cancelled for some officers but "those already on holiday are not being called back." Western diplomats confirmed that holidays were suspended since the end of June.
Speculation of an Israeli attack on Iran, locked in a standoff with Western powers over its disputed nuclear programme, are again on the rise. The West believes Iran's nuclear work is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
Israel has hinted it may attack Iran if diplomacy fails to secure a halt to nuclear enrichment. The United States has also mooted military action as a last-resort option but has frequently nudged the Israelis to give time for intensified economic sanctions to work against Iran.
Iran has threatened to destroy U.S. military bases across the Middle East and target Israel within minutes of being attacked, according to Iranian media reports last week.
Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the region, fears that any Israeli attack on Iran could involve retaliatory strikes on its territory, or it might ignite protests among its restless Shi'ite Muslim community.
The shooting down of a Turkish jet plane by Iran's regional ally, Syria, has ratcheted up tensions and increased worries of an imminent conflict, the sources said.
"It's been the norm for a long time that the National Guard is ready for backup for any security threat," the source added.
The source said that up to 1,200 additional National Guard members - an elite Bedouin corps led by King Abdullah's son Prince Miteb that handles domestic security - had been sent to the Eastern Province.
"The deployment has been taking place as a show of force ... a deterrent policy," he said, adding that the total count of National Guard forces in the region was now more than 3,000.
Officials from the Interior and Foreign ministries referred calls to the Defence Ministry and no spokesman was available to comment.
Columnist David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post on Thursday, said that Saudi Arabia had alerted some of its military and security officials to cancel their summer leaves.
"Saudi and U.S. sources say this limited mobilization reflects worries about possible military conflict with Iran, the war of succession in Syria, and Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in neighbouring Bahrain," he wrote.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has already accused Shi'ite Iran of fomenting unrest in the Qatif region of the Eastern Province, home to many of the kingdom's Shi'ite minority, and in neighbouring Bahrain, charges Tehran denies.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are regional rivals and have backed opposing sides in the violence convulsing Syria.
Western diplomats confirmed that more Saudi security forces have been deployed to the Eastern Province, saying it was related to Iran but gave no further details.
Two Saudi Shi'ites died during protests with police in the Qatif region this month after a Shi'ite cleric was arrested.
CLOSING HORMUZ
Saudi Arabia may be further worried about Tehran's reaction after a European Union oil embargo, widely expected to hurt Iran's vital energy exports, went into effect on July 1, over its disputed nuclear programme.
Iran has threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway at the mouth of the Gulf were about a third of sea-borne oil exports pass, if it came under attack over its disputed nuclear programme.
A member of Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said on Monday that a draft bill calling for Tehran to try to stop oil tankers from shipping crude through the Strait of Hormuz to countries that support sanctions against it.
Saudi Arabia has already taken some precautionary steps against the possibility of Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, including the reopening of an old pipeline built by Iraq to bypass the strait and export more crude via the Red Sea terminals.
The United States has also sent four minesweepers to the Gulf to bolster the U.S. Fifth Fleet after an Iranian military chief refreshed threats of blocking Hormuz.
Analysts played down the likelihood of Iran being able to stir up protests in eastern Saudi Arabia.

I suppose you do have to take some consideration of the fact that there might be unrest in the Shi'ite provinces should there be any tension (between Turkey and Syria)," Stephens said.
But the Iranians don't have that much sway in the Eastern Province. "It's not like they can just call someone up and tell them to make trouble," he added.



UN, Congolese gunships attack mutineers
RUMANGABO, DR Congo (AFP) - The United Nations and Congolese government on Thursday used gunships to attack mutineers perceived to be threatening the main eastern city of Goma.
The UN and the Congolese army, who claim the M23 rebels are a Rwandan proxy, had deployed tanks around Goma but the mutineers said they had no plan to seize the regional capital and only wanted to negotiate with Kinshasa.
Three helicopters from the UN's mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) and two from Congolese army (FARDC) were seen around the villages of Nkokwe and Bukima, where the rebels are thought to have some positions.
"The FARDC are currently attacking our positions, but they don't know where we are. There's no problem," a colonel from the mutiny told AFP.
The two locations are on the western border of the Virunga national park, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Goma.
The M23 mutineers, who defected from the army in April, had launched an offensive in recent days, easily overwhelming the FARDC. Around 600 regular troops and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to seek refuge in Uganda.
"Our mission is not to go to Goma. We are strong but we are also disciplined," M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama told AFP.
The mutineers had seized a number of towns along the Ugandan border and promptly withdrew from all but Bunagana, a town on the border with Uganda.
"We have pulled out of those towns, our mission is not to control them. What we want is that the Congolese government sit down at the negotiating table," Kazarama said.
M23 -- named after a failed 2009 peace deal signed on March 23 -- is led by Bosco Ntaganda, a man nicknamed the "Terminator" who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
The mutineers are ex-rebels who were integrated into the regular army in 2009 as part of a deal that followed their failed 2008 offensive on Goma, under the command of Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda.
They defected in April, ostensibly over pay, but experts argue Ntaganda and his men are flexing military muscle to clinch further rights over the area's lucrative mines.
Almost uninterrupted conflict over DR Congo's vast mineral resources -- which include gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, tungsten and many others -- has left at least two million people dead since 1999, according to rights groups.
A diplomat in Kinshasa said an M23 offensive on Goma appeared unlikely.
"Everything in the way that the mutineers have withdrawn from Rutshuru indicates that they don't intend to take big towns like Goma," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
The DR Congo government and a UN panel of sanctions experts have said Rwanda is supplying arms and fighters to M23 rebels. Rwanda has denied involvement.
Ban "expressed grave concern" over reports that the M23 "are receiving external support and are well-trained, armed and equipped," spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
"Stressing the need do everything possible to dissuade the M23 from making further advances and to cease fighting immediately, the secretary general urged Presidents Kagame and Kabila to pursue dialogue in order to defuse tensions and bring an end to the crisis," he said.
The UN's mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, is one of the largest UN peacekeeping operations in the world.
Neighbouring Uganda also warned that fighting between the rebels and DR Congo troops risked destabilising the wider region.
Tens of thousands have fled fighting into Uganda in recent months.
"The crises and conflicts affecting eastern DRC can rapidly destabilise the country and also spread even to the entire region," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Uganda said it had called for a special meeting of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region to discuss the crisis, on the sidelines of an African Union summit beginning Sunday.
Ntaganda is wanted by the ICC for recruiting child soldiers in the Ituri region a decade ago. His co-accused and former boss Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail on Tuesday.



White House authorizes $10 million for Mali refugees
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama authorized the use of $10 million in emergency funds on Thursday for people displaced by the conflict in northern Mali, the White House adding it was "deeply concerned".
The funds will support efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
Already, almost 230,000 Malian refugees have fled to Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, while an additional 155,000 Malians are internally displaced, he said in the statement.
Leaders in Mali, formerly one of West Africa's most stable democracies, are discussing the formation of a unity government to deal with a crisis which has seen the country split in two.
The north of Mali is in the hands of Islamist fighters and a Tuareg separatist faction, and has seen the destruction of ancient World Heritage treasures in Timbuktu by hardliners.
"The United States is deeply concerned about the situation of the Malian people," Vietor said. "We call on all parties to support the restoration of democratically elected civilian governance in Mali as soon as possible."
Vietor also called on rebels in northern Mali to renounce any connection with terrorist groups and enter into legitimate political negotiations.
"In addition, we urge all parties to ensure neutral, impartial, and unhindered humanitarian access to all populations in northern Mali," he said.






















 













French president was 'stunned' by partner's tweet, says son
PARIS (AFP) - An incendiary tweet by French President Francois Hollande's companion ahead of parliamentary elections last month has "destroyed the normal image he has built up," his eldest son said.
The 27-year-old Thomas Hollande said his father was "stunned" after Valerie Trierweiler's tweet backing a dissident contesting against Segolene Royal, the president's ex-partner and mother of their four children.
In comments published in this week's edition of French weekly Le Point, he said: "What I criticise about the tweet is that it pushed private life into the public sphere," said Thomas Hollande, a lawyer.
"I really felt for my father, he hates his private life being brought out into the open.
"It destroyed the normal image he had built up," he said, referring to Hollande's pledge to usher in a "normal" presidency after the perceived "bling-bling style" of his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Twitter message from Trierweiler wishing good luck to an opponent of Royal, who lost the election, livened up an otherwise lacklustre campaign in its final stages.
"I knew that something from her could have emerged one day but not such a hard blow," Thomas Hollande said. "It's mind-blowing."
He added that his father then asked him out to dinner and told him not to do anything to take the "soap opera" further.
The younger Hollande's advice to Trierweiler was simple: "No second tweet!"
However, Thomas Hollande denied to AFP that he had given an interview to Le Point and accused the weekly of distorting his words.
"I deny having agreed to an interview with Le Point. What they reported me as saying, some of which was distorted or taken out of context, was said during an informal conversation" with a Le Point journalist.
The Le Point journalist, Charlotte Chaffanjon, tweeted in response that: "It was an article not an interview. No statement was deformed."
The French press called Trierweiler's tweet "France's First Gaffe" and an "embarrassment".
There has long been speculation of intense rivalry between Royal and Trierweiler.
Hollande stood loyally by Royal as she battled former president Sarkozy for the presidency in the 2007 race, but he had reportedly been in a relationship since 2005 with Trierweiler, a twice-divorced 47-year-old mother of three.



Ruling Islamists urge Tunisia consensus at congress
AL KARM, Tunisia (AFP) - The head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party Ennahda on Thursday called for "national consensus" at the launch of its first congress at home in 24 years, held at a time of political and religious tensions.
"We want to convey a message from this congress, this congress of a union of the Tunisian people. We are a united people," Rached Ghannouchi told the crowd of about 10,000 supporters.
"I want to assure the people that the country is in good hands," he said.
"This country needs a national consensus. We call for national reconciliation," said Ghannouchi, playing down the crises which have shaken Tunisia and its ruling coalition as "normal" for a post-revolutionary state.
"In Tunisia, all movements can cohabitate," he said.
The three-day gathering was being held at a congress centre in Al Karm, a Tunis suburb that in the past served to host meetings of toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's party, now disbanded.
Ennahda (Renaissance) now dominates the government along with centre-left parties the Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakatol, which won 33 percent of the seats in the assembly.
"We must combat dictatorship, whether it be in the name of religion or of modernity," said Ettakatol chief Mustapha Ben Jafaar in his speech.
"Our future is in our hands to form a civil society and set up a civil republican regime for a modern state which guards the identity of the Arab-Muslim people," said the former opposition figure.
Some 25,000-30,000 people are to attend the congress, which is also the party's first since it came to power following Ben Ali's ouster in protests that touched off the 2011 Arab Spring.
Among the foreign guests invited are Khaled Meshaal, political chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, who received a rousing welcome from the crowd.
The participants also rallied in support of the uprising in Syria. "Bashar, get out!" they chanted, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
About 1,100 delegates will have to determine the party's position on political alliances, as the dominant partner alongside two centre-left parties in Tunisia's tripartite government coalition.
The congress will also seek to reconcile different trends within the party, between moderates and more radical ideologues, even if founding leader Ghannouchi is expected to keep his post.
On Wednesday, Ghannouchi reiterated in an online interview that the party wanted to present itself as a "moderate Islamist movement" promising "hope and prosperity" to Tunisian men and women.
Established in June 1981 by Ghannouchi and a group of intellectuals inspired by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda was banned by Ben Ali after a major electoral success in 1989, and its leaders jailed or forced into exile.
Ghannouchi returned in January 2011 after 20 years of exile in London.
His party then won Tunisia's first post-uprising poll, in October.
It took 41 percent of the seats in the National Constituent Assembly, the interim body tasked with drafting a new constitution and preparing fresh elections, due in March 2013.
Made up largely of moderates, Ennahda said in March that Islamic sharia would not be inscribed in Tunisian basic law, much to the relief of its coalition partners, who feared the Islamist majority in parliament might open the door to a theocracy.
"Finally, after 40 years of prison and exile, we are reunited," Ennahda official Riadh Chaibi told the crowd in Al Karm, to roars of approval. "We pay tribute to the martyrs of the movement."
The challenges facing the government are wide-ranging.
Tunisia's latest political crisis -- and deepest so far -- came just last month, when Jebali ignored President Moncef Marzouki's opposition to the extradition of former Libyan premier Baghdadi al-Mahmudi.
The row between Jebali and Marzouki, a member of the CPR, exposed the uneasy nature of the governing coalition.
Tunisia is also regularly shaken by social unrest.
The party aims to reduce unemployment, a driving factor behind the revolution, to 8.5 percent by 2016 from around 19 percent now, but with the economy still struggling to recover that is a sensitive issue.
Ennahda has also struggled to clarify its line on the Salafists -- hardline Islamists who have grown more confident since the revolution -- with recent violence sparking criticism that it has done too little to stop them.
The Salafists went on the rampage in mid-June, torching police stations and political offices, after taking issue with art works at a Tunis exhibition they deemed offensive to Islam.



Japan govt, media colluded on nuclear: Nobel winner
TOKYO (AFP) - Nobel-winning author Kenzaburo Oe said Japan's post-war government and media colluded to give nuclear power a stranglehold, as activists readied for what they hope will be the biggest rally in decades.
The 77-year-old laureate with anti-nuclear views said the media magnate who controlled mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun had used his newspaper to promote atomic power, in concert with one-time Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
"(Nakasone) said because this country does not have resources, Japan would need to find a new source of energy, which the United States had already invented," Oe told reporters in Tokyo.
Nakasone had pushed for nuclear power in the 1950s, and held a number of ministerial posts before becoming prime minister in 1982.
"The United States offered the know-how, the machines and the fuel -- which became the very first bit of nuclear waste now causing a big problem for us -- for free to Japan."
Yomiuri tycoon Matsutaro Shoriki -- who had briefly led the government's science and technology agency -- "jumped at this opportunity" and unquestioningly promoted the technology, Oe said.
"The structure of the Japan in which we now live was set at that time and has continued ever since. It is this that led to the big tragedy" of Fukushima in March 2011, said Oe.
Oe, awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature and whose novels include "A Quiet Life", was speaking to reporters ahead of what activists say is expected to be one of the biggest demonstrations in Japan of the last two decades.
A series of increasingly large gatherings have been held in Tokyo since the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima, with protestors demanding an end to nuclear power.
The demonstrations have ramped up in the last few months as the issue of nuclear restarts came to prominence, and on Monday, organisers hope 100,000 people will turn up in a park in the west of the capital.
Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and several other prominent cultural figures, including journalist Satoshi Kamata and economics critic Katsuto Uchihashi have also been involved in the protests.
At the same conference Kamata said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had disregarded the will of the people when he ordered the restart of reactors at the western Oi plant the day after receiving a petition of 7.5 million names.
"It was an extremely insulting gesture," Kamata said.
Uchihashi said Japanese media in general should be more active in covering the demonstrations, including those that have taken place outside the prime minister's office every Friday.
"Before March 11 (last year), all the media played the role of supporting the myth of nuclear safety... It is important for media to be aware of and make known what citizens want in this movement," Kamata added.



DR Congo mutineers say no plan to attack Goma
GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) - Congolese mutineers said Thursday they had no plans to attack Goma after the UN, which accuses Rwanda of backing the rebels, deployed tanks around the regional capital and called for dialogue.
The M23 mutineers, who defected from the army in April, seized several towns in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in recent days, forcing troops and civilians over the Ugandan border and prompting fears of an attack on Goma.
"Our mission is not to go to Goma. We are strong but we are also disciplined," M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama told AFP.
The United Nations stationed tanks around Goma on Wednesday and UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the presidents of DR Congo and Rwanda to "defuse tensions" over the rebellion in the resource-rich but war-plagued central African nation.
The mutineers had seized a number of towns along the Ugandan border, including Rutshuru, before withdrawing over the weekend from all but Bunagana, a town on the border with Uganda.
M23 -- named after a failed 2009 peace deal signed on March 23 -- is led by Bosco Ntaganda, a man nicknamed the "Terminator" who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
About a dozen UN tanks were stationed around 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Goma, which lies on Lake Kivu on the border with Rwanda, on a road linking the city to Rutshuru which the mutineers seized briefly at the weekend.
At least two Congolese army tanks were also seen on the road, an AFP photographer reported.
Goma was calm on Thursday morning, with no sign of panic among residents.
"We have pulled out of those towns (we had captured), our mission is not to control them. What we want is that the Congolese government sit down at the negotiating table," Kazarama said.
The mutineers are ex-rebels who were integrated into the regular army in 2009 as part of a deal that followed their failed 2008 offensive on Goma, under the command of Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda.
They defected in April, ostensibly over pay, but experts argue Ntaganda and his men are flexing military muscle to clinch further rights over the area's lucrative mines.
Almost uninterrupted conflict over DR Congo's vast mineral resources -- which include gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, tungsten and many others -- has left at least two million people dead since 1999, according to rights groups.
A diplomat in Kinshasa said an M23 offensive on Goma appeared unlikely.
"Everything in the way that the mutineers have withdrawn from Rutshuru indicates that they don't intend to take big towns like Goma," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
The DR Congo government and a UN panel of sanctions experts have said Rwanda is supplying arms and fighters to M23 rebels. Rwanda has denied involvement.
Ban "expressed grave concern" over reports that the M23 "are receiving external support and are well-trained, armed and equipped," spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
"Stressing the need do everything possible to dissuade the M23 from making further advances and to cease fighting immediately, the secretary general urged Presidents Kagame and Kabila to pursue dialogue in order to defuse tensions and bring an end to the crisis," he said.
Rwanda and DR Congo must sit down for talks if they want to resolve the unrest, said Thierry Vircoulon, director for Central Africa at International Crisis Group.
"Everyone wants things to be resolved this way. We'll see if the Rwandans say yes and come along. The objective is discussion between Rwanda and DR Congo to stop the problem," he said.
The UN's mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, is one of the largest UN peacekeeping operations in the world.
Neighbouring Uganda also warned that fighting between the rebels and DR Congo troops risked destabilising the wider region.
Tens of thousands have fled fighting into Uganda in recent months.
"The crises and conflicts affecting eastern DRC can rapidly destabilise the country and also spread even to the entire region," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Uganda said it had called for a special meeting of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region to discuss the crisis, on the sidelines of an African Union summit beginning Sunday.
When M23 fighters on Friday seized Bunagana, the rebels forced around 600 DR Congo troops to flee into Uganda where they were disarmed and placed under the supervision of the Ugandan military.
Ntaganda is wanted by the ICC for recruiting child soldiers in the Ituri region a decade ago. His co-accused and former boss Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail by the tribunal, based in The Hague, on Tuesday.












BBC World Service bids farewell to Bush House
LONDON (AFP) - The BBC World Service transmits its final broadcast from Bush House in London on Thursday, ending 72 years of radio programmes from the building that kept millions informed across the globe.
The World Service, which now broadcasts in 27 languages from Arabic to Vietnamese, has been gradually moving since March from the imposing stone building between the Aldwych and The Strand roads.
Region by region, services have moved out to the new east wing attached to Broadcasting House in Portland Place.
The final five-minute bulletin was to be read at midday (1100 GMT) Thursday, before the signal finally goes off-air at Bush House.
Outgoing BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has recorded a special despatch to be included in the final broadcast.
"This benign Tower of Babel, the scene of so many great broadcasting moments, and the home of so many great broadcasters over the years, is now silent; its corridors deserted; its studios empty," it will say.
At its peak, World Service broadcasts from Bush House were made in 45 languages.
Niche services included Welsh for Patagonia, and Portuguese for the Channel Island of Jersey, targeting expat hotel staff.
For many, broadcasts from Bush House have been a lifeline, with people living under oppressive regimes tuning in for trustworthy, impartial news about their country and the rest of the world.
Leonid Finkelstein who worked in the Russian Service for nearly 30 years, first heard the BBC in a Soviet labour camp in 1948, the corporation said.
A fellow detainee, an engineer, constructed a radio out of scraps of metal.
"And that is how I first learnt about the Chelsea Flower Show in London," he said.
The World Service counts more than 160 million listeners across the globe.
"Since the Second World War, this has been the home of the BBC's global services," Thompson said, after recording his insert.
Though the corporation was set up for a domestic audience, "That other mission which was speaking to the entire world -- 'Nation shall speak peace unto nation' is the BBC's motto -- has been very close to the BBC's heart and in many ways even for people in the UK, the World Service and what its stands for has often felt like the jewel in the BBC's crown.
"Bush House was the icon for that idea of a world broadcaster broadcasting to people in every continent.
"When you think of the voices and the sounds and all of the moments of world history which have been reported on and broadcast and discussed, there's an enormous weight of broadcasting history here.
"This is still a sad and very memorable moment for us."



Little hope for 15 trapped miners in India: police
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian authorities on Thursday said they had all but given up hope of rescuing 15 coal miners trapped in a flooded mine hundreds of feet (metres) underground in the northeast of the country.
Blinding rains hampered efforts to rescue the miners stuck at depths of up to 200 metres (650 feet) since last Friday, Meghalaya state Director General of Police N. Ramachandran said by telephone from the state capital of Shillong.
"We have very little hope of getting them out alive as water has filled the coal pit which is between 100 and 200 metres deep," Ramachandran told AFP.
Thirty miners were trapped when water gushed into a pit after they accidentally punched a hole in the wall of an adjacent mine in Rongsa Awe village, 370 kilometres (230 miles) from Shillong, he said.
Fifteen of them escaped while the rest were trapped.
"These miners work in a labyrinth of tunnels as there is no scientific mining" of coal in Meghalaya, he said.
Ramachandran said a unit of the National Disaster Response Force had joined the rescue at the privately owned mine in Rongsa Awe.
"This is the planet's rainiest zone and communication is also bad. Even police wireless sets do not work as the area is ringed by mountains," he said as rescuers pumped out water from the coal pit.
"I am not at all hopeful they will survive," he said.
Ramachandran said haphazard excavation is rampant in Meghalaya as land owners traditionally stake claim to coal deposits beneath their estates.
The mine owner failed to inform authorities immediately after the accident, the police chief added. The owner was now in police custody.
The miners were working in a "rat-hole" mine in which workers crawl into a tunnel and use primitive hand implements to extract coal, he said.
Meghalaya holds an estimated 640 million tonnes of coal that is mined mainly to generate electricity and to fuel operations in cement plants in India and neighbouring Bangladesh.
India's worst colliery disaster occurred in December 1975 when an estimated 372 miners perished after an explosion caused a flood in a mine in the coal-rich district of Dhanbad in eastern India.



Ukraine postpones Tymoshenko appeal for third time
KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's high court on Thursday postponed the appeal of jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko against her seven-year sentence for abuse of power for a third time at the request of the prosecution.
Judge Stanislav Mishchenko said the next hearing would be held on August 16 and demanded to see records of the hospitalised opposition leader's condition before proceeding with the case.
Two previous court delays in the hearing disappointed Tymoshenko attorneys who want the case to go before the European Court of Human Rights once all legal avenues are exhausted in Ukraine.
Tymoshenko did not attend the hearing because she is being treated in a Ukrainian state hospital for debilitating back pains she began experiencing shortly after her October conviction over a disputed gas deal with Russia.
But about a thousand of her supporters rallied outside the court building in central Kiev -- host city of the Euro 2012 football tournament final that was played on July 1 under of fears of an EU diplomatic boycott.
Many European leaders ended up attending the matches played in Ukraine after the ex-Soviet country postponed all court proceedings involving the flamboyant political rival of President Viktor Yanukovych.
But EU officials have also backed Tymoshenko's claims that her case was politically motivated and have demanded her quick release.
The defence team -- expecting the judge to uphold the sentence -- had asked the court to review the appeal without Tymoshenko so it could then file papers with the Strasbourg court.
The 51-year-old former Orange Revolution leader has refused to be either treated or touched by Ukrainian doctors as both a form of protests and alleged fears of being contaminated with a fatal disease.
The face of her one time ally and former president Viktor Yushchenko was disfigured by a mysterious poisoning that blamed on shadowy forces linked to Moscow. The incident was never solved.
Another a former top Tymoshenko cabinet member, ex-interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko, developed hepatitis in jail.
The back pains have also kept Tymoshenko from attending a new tax case launched by prosecutors since her conviction that could almost double her time in jail.
Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka has also raised the possibility of charging Tymoshenko with involvement in the deadly November 1996 airport shooting of lawmaker and businessman Yevgen Shcherban.
Pshonka has alleged that Tymoshenko's business interests conflicted with those of the slain billionaire and claimed to hold enough evidence to go to court.
He suggested on Wednesday that Tymoshenko was only feigning illness so that she could push back her new trial and possibly avoid other charges hanging against her.
"Someone really wants Tymoshenko to be sick," Ukrainian media quoted Pshonka as saying.
"Is this right -- to drag a court case out lik