China 'jeans capital' tense after riots

Xintang, China (CNN) -- Noisy traffic and bustling crowds returned to the streets of Xintang on Friday after days of rioting by migrant workers, but security remained heavy in this industrial town in southern China that produces almost half of the jeans sold in the United States.

Police and guards were manning checkpoints at major intersections, questioning some drivers. Anti-riot police patrolled the streets as propaganda vans touted the importance of stability. Fire trucks with high-pressure water cannons stood ready to deal with potential unrest.

Authorities have arrested 19 men, including nine teenagers, on charges related to the riots, the local government said on its website.

Outside the Longjiafu supermarket, where a scuffle between two street vendors and town officials triggered the unrest on June 10, people were reluctant to recount the incident to foreign reporters.

Witnesses and media reports said local officials beat up a pregnant migrant worker and her husband, pushing the woman to the ground. Mass protests ensued, quickly spiraling to violent clashes with government forces that spread to other parts of Xintang, a city of 400,000 residents, almost half of them migrant workers.

Photos posted online showed torched police cars and government offices by angry demonstrators. Witnesses told CNN of looting and other violence at night. Anti-riot police and paramilitary troops were sent in, reportedly using tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Although local authorities put the number of "troublemakers" at several hundred, tens of thousands are said to have taken to the streets during three days of riots, some of the worst seen in China in years.

Zhang Jihe, who owns a jeans factory that churns out up to one million pairs a year, said he hoped to see things return to normal soon, especially in light of an already-tough business climate.

"Our production cost has gone up," Zhang said. "Workers' wages are higher, fabric and other materials are pricier."

At a labor market next to Xintang High School, now a makeshift anti-riot command center, migrant workers also saw a darker future in this export-oriented town.

"Factories are not getting enough orders," said Tan Zhijian, 33, who has worked in clothing factories in Xintang for 17 years. "Many owners owe workers back pay. Some just run away."

Although they did not get involved in the riots, the workers at the job market say they share the frustrations of the street vendors whose treatment by officials unleashed the turmoil.

For years, booming industries in southern China, particularly Guangdong province where Xintang is located, have attracted millions of migrant workers from poor rural provinces looking to find factory jobs and a better life.

Mirroring the rest of the country, a slowdown in economic growth here is now stoking social tensions in various dimensions --- rural versus urban, ethnic minority against majority, and haves versus have have-nots.

"The people who were being squeezed now feel like they are being squeezed even more, to the point where they can't bear it anymore," said Patrick Chovanec, a political analyst with Tsinghua University in Beijing. He said China's one-party system fails to provide people with a proper mechanism to air grievances or resolve disputes.

"When those violent outbreaks do take place, especially in light of what's happened with the Arab Spring, the government feels the need to simply throw in the use of force," he added.

Back in Xintang, authorities are taking no chances. Propaganda officials stopped CNN from filming on the streets and questioned the journalists in their office for an hour. The team was ordered to leave the town just as night was falling --- the time local residents have said when the risk of rioting is highest.

China's riot town: 'No one else is listening'

CNN

Syria says 120 forces dead in tense northern town (AP)

BEIRUT – Armed men attacked Syrian security forces in a tense northern city on Monday, state television said, and 120 policemen and security forces were killed in a region where the army has carried out days of deadly assaults on protesters calling for the end of President Bashar Assad's rule.

Communications were cut to the area around Jisr al-Shughour on Monday and the details of the attack were impossible to verify, but there have been unconfirmed reports in the past by residents and activists of Syrians fighting back against security forces.

The government promised a "decisive" response, setting the stage for an even stronger government crackdown against a popular uprising that began in mid-March and poses the most potent threat in years to the 40-year regime of the Assad family.

"We will deal strongly and decisively, and according to the law, and we will not be silent about any armed attack that targets the security of the state and its citizens," said Interior Minister Ibrahim Shaar.

Jisr al-Shughour, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Turkish border, has been the latest focus of Syria's military, whose nationwide crackdown on the revolt has left more than 1,200 Syrians dead, activists say. The town was a stronghold of the country's banned Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Human rights groups said at least 42 civilians have been killed there since Saturday.

Syria's government has a history of violent retaliation against dissent, including a three-week bombing campaign against the city of Hama that crushed an uprising there in 1982. Jisr al-Shughour itself came under government shelling in 1980, when it was a stronghold of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, with a reported 70 people killed.

Monday's state television report said the officers were ambushed as they responded to calls from residents for protection from the armed groups. It said 20 policemen were initially killed, and then the groups blew up a post office and attacked a security post, killing other forces.

The report said the armed groups were hiding in homes and firing at security forces and civilians alike, using residents as human shields.

The TV reports could not be independently confirmed. The Syrian government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events.

Details of the operations in Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun have been sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful.

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso cast doubt on the government accounts.

"The protesters have so far been peaceful and unarmed," he said. Osso said there were unconfirmed reports of a few army deserters who switched sides and were fighting security forces.

Ahead of Monday's report, another activist said gunmen had successfully kept security forces out of the area, but he had no details. Fearing retaliation, the activist requested anonymity.

Yahoo! News

Clinton arrives in Pakistan amid tense ties (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad on Friday in a surprise visit amid frayed relations with the U.S. nuclear-armed ally after the death of Osama bin Laden.

The discovery of the al Qaeda leader in a garrison town just 50 km (30 miles) away from the capital Islamabad raised fresh doubts about Pakistan being a reliable partner in the U.S.-led war on Islamist militancy.

The Pakistan government welcomed the death of the al Qaeda leader but has criticized the U.S. secret mission in Abbottabad, where bin Laden lived for years, as a breach of its sovereignty.

Many U.S. lawmakers, skeptical that Pakistani officials did not know of bin Laden's presence, want to cut U.S. aid to Pakistan, which the White House views as vital to counter-terrorism and to hopes of stabilizing neighboring Afghanistan.

In a sign of deepening distrust, Pakistan has told the United States to halve the number of military trainers stationed in the country.

But just a day before coming to Pakistan, Clinton said working with Pakistan was a strategic necessity for the United States, even as she pressed Islamabad to act more decisively to counter-terrorism.

She praised Pakistan as a "good partner" in global efforts to fight terrorism, though she acknowledged that the two countries have disagreed on how hard to fight al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban fighters and other militants.

"We do have a set of expectations that we are looking for the Pakistani government to meet but I want to underscore, in conclusion, that it is not as though they have been on the sidelines," she told a news conference in Paris on Thursday.

"They have been actively engaged in their own bitter fight with these terrorist extremists."

(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider)

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