Asia Observer Blogs

Saudis 'foil hajj attack plot'

2007-12-23T17:55:00.000-08:00

Nearly three million people travelled to Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj season [AFP]

Saudi Arabia has arrested a group of men said to have been planning a "terrorist act" during the annual Muslim pilgrimage, according to the Interior ministry.

The ministry said on Friday that security forces had foiled a plot to carry out an attack on security forces during the hajj (pilgrimage).

Mansour al-Turki, an interior ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press: "The group was arrested three days before the hajj season."

Al-Turki gave no further details on the identity of those arrested, but the Saudi-owned Arabiya satellite news station described them as Saudis.

"The group aimed to trouble the security of the pilgrimage," the television report said, but quoted Saudi sources as saying the attack did not target Islam's holiest sites in Mecca or the pilgrims.

Security threat

In depth

Hajj incidents

They said the arrests were made in several different cities of the oil-rich kingdom.

Sami Zeidan, reporting for Al Jazeera from Mecca, said Saudi authorities had affirmed the group was "not only linked to al-Qaeda but also intended to disrupt the hajj".

"We've heard of arrests before in Mecca," he said, "But the talk of al-Qaeda targeting hajj is a new element."

He added: "It's difficult to see what al-Qaeda would gain from an attack that would disrupt the Muslim pilgrimage ... It leaves a lot of question marks."

Pilgrimage

Nearly three million pilgrims travelled to Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj season, which ended on Friday with a final visit to Mecca after days rituals in the surrounding hills.

The authorities were on high alert this year because of the participation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the first president from Iran to take part in the pilgrimage.

Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Arabia's interior minister, said in early December that his forces had foiled "more than 180 terrorist operations" since a wave of bombings and shootings by the Saudi branch of al-Qaeda broke out four years ago.

The Muslim kingdom also said it arrested 208 suspected al-Qaeda fighters over the past few months.

source: http://english.aljazeera.net/

Japan halts humpback whale hunt

2007-12-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

Tokyo still plans to kill nearly 1,000 whales,
mostly of the minke variety [EPA]

Japan has dropped a plan to kill humpback whales following strong protests led by Australia.

"Japan will not hunt humpback whales," Nobutaka Machimura, Japan's chief government spokesman, said on Friday.

"It's true that Australia expressed quite a strong opinion to Japan on this," he said.

"As a result, I hope that this will lead to better relations with Australia."

Japan had planned to harpoon around 50 humpbacks on its current expedition - the first time since the 1960s that Tokyo would have hunted the species, which are popular with Australian whale-watchers.

Antarctic expedition

Tokyo, however, is still going ahead with its expedition in the Antarctic, planning to kill nearly 1,000 other whales, mostly of the smaller minke species.

Machimura said Japan and Australia had cultural differences over whales but that Tokyo hoped to preserve relations with Canberra, where the new left-leaning government has stepped up pressure against the hunt.

"Australians consider whales to be very affectionate, something I can't really relate to. But apparently they give names to every whale and there's quite strong public sentiment," Machimura said.

But he denied that Japan was backing down in response to Australia, saying it made its decision after talks with the head of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

"Japan is thinking of the IWC as an organisation as a whole and that is why we decided on this, instead of particularly thinking about Australia," Machimura said.

Japan, which says whale meat is part of its culinary culture, hunts whales using a loophole in a 1986 IWC moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals.

Welcome move

In Canberra, a spokesman for Stephen Smith, the foreign minister, said: "The Australian government welcomed Japan's announcement.

"While this is a welcome move, the Australian government strongly believes that there is no credible justification for the hunting of any whales and will vigorously pursue its efforts ... to see an end to whaling by Japan," he said.

Meanwhile, the Australian embassy in Tokyo said it, along with other embassies, would deliver a document on whaling to Japan's foreign ministry on Friday.

The embassy has declined to disclose the contents of the document or say how many other countries were involved.

While the whales are killed for "scientific purposes", their meat ends up in Japanese supermarkets and restaurants, although the public appetite for what is now a delicacy is waning.

Some experts say Japan fears that limits on whaling will lead to limits on all Japanese fishing. Others argue the whaling campaign is a form of nationalist diplomacy.

source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/

Many die in Tajikistan avalanche

2007-12-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

At least 16 people have been killed in Tajikstan in an avalanche that swept down onto a road linking the capital, Dushanbe, with another city, Khudjand.

Russian television broadcast pictures of the area affected by the avalanche [EPA]

"We extracted 15 bodies from underneath the snow, it is unknown how many remain there," Khudoinazar Asoyev, a spokesman for the central Asian state's interior ministry, said on Friday.

He said: "A massive avalanche on Friday closed off a mountain road, trapping large cargo trucks travelling from the north to Dushanbe.

"Yet another avalanche crashed down on the vehicles when they stopped."

However, the emergency ministry contradicted the death toll, saying that a minimum of two people were killed in the avalanche.

"Rescuers have so far reported two people killed but because of bad weather they are only able to phone in occasionally," Munira Nazariyeva, the minsitry spokeswoman, said on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear how many people were trapped at the site, 70km north of Dushanbe.

"There are still people under snow, we cannot say how many at the moment. The rescue operation continues," she said.

Pictures shown on Russia's Vesti-24 news channel showed rescuers digging through the snow with shovels.

The interior ministry source said all victims were either drivers or passengers of cars trapped in the snow.

The vital link usually closed for the winter season, stayed open this year thanks to the newly built $31 million Anzob tunnel that goes under a snow-covered pass.

Egypt ferry accident kills several

2007-12-23T17:40:00.000-08:00

A ferry disaster off Egypt in 2006 killed
more than 1,000 people [EPA]

At least 16 people, including six children, have drowned after their minibus fell off a ferry carrying it across the river Nile in Egypt, security officials said.

Several people were also injured and it is feared the death toll could rise as bodies were reported to be trapped in the wreckage.

The incident, the third major transport accident in Egypt since the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday, took place in Minya governorate, about 200km south of Cairo.

A local police chief said the driver had not used the emergency brakes to keep the vehicle still during the crossing, AP reported.

However, state media said the bus fell off the ferry while boarding.

Among the dead were six children aged between two and 13, authorities said.

There were conflicting reports about the minibus driver, with one report saying he had drowned and others saying he had turned himself in to authorities, fearing retribution from the families of those killed.

Series of accidents

Many of the dead were from an extended family who had been travelling back to Cairo after spending the holiday with family, the state MENA news agency reported.

A series of deadly accidents involving Egypt's ferry system has led to public anger over the government's handling of transport safety.

Many of the accidents have occurred on public holidays, when Egypt's transport system becomes overloaded.

In October at least four people died, also in Minya, when passengers fell into the Nile as they tried to board a ferry.

And in February 2006 about 1,000 people died when a ferry sank in the Red Sea as it travelled to Egypt from Saudi Arabia.

Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/

Hezbollah's Scout brigade

2007-12-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

The Mahdi Scouts has rejected claims that it indoctrinates its members

Despite its rather unfashionable image, Scouting remains one of the most popular organised youth activities in the world.

Enjoyed by about 38 million children and young people in more than 200 countries, Scouting has a reputation for teaching life skills to its members in a fun and stimulating environment.

Yet in politically divided Lebanon, sectarian divisions are apparent even in the country's 27 youth groups, with each political party possessing its own organisation for young people.

And Hezbollah, the main Lebanese Shia party and armed movement, is among those with its own youth group, the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, some of whose members go on to become fully-fledged Hezbollah fighters.

Physical training is one of the elements
|of the Mahdi Scouts programme

Dr Bilal Naim, president of the Mahdi Scouts, told Al Jazeera that the group places importance on telling Scouts about the work of the Islamic Resistance, Hezbollah's armed wing.

"After 15 or 16 years old, we say to everybody that the Islamic Resistance is one of the foundations that defends against Israel and that the jihad [struggle] against Israel is one of the concepts of Islam," he said in the district of Haret Hreik, Beirut.

But Naim said that the group, which caters for boys and girls, also has a programme of activities similar to those of other Scout brigades across the world.

"It is similar to other Scout groups, maybe in the West - in the activities, in the costume, in the song [and] in the protocol of the Scouts," he told Al Jazeera in the Haret Hreik district of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.

He said that an "Islamic culture", intrinsic to the group's identity, was also taught to children across several age groups.

"We have different programmes - one for prayer, one for fasting - everything to do with Islam."

Scout meeting

At a meeting in Beirut's southern suburbs, the Scouts assemble in their respective age groups and swear allegiance to the organisation before they start two hours of physical and intellectual activities.

Adel says camping is one of the highlights
of going to Mahdi scouts

About thirty Scouts in their early teens learn computer skills in a room full of new PCs while older Scouts (called Rangers) lift weights and batter and kick a punchbag in the main hall.

Meanwhile, in a smaller room the youngest Scouts (Cubs) have reading classes and swap notes on school homework.

But evidence of the politicised nature of the Mahdi Scouts was also on display.

Some of the younger Scouts, quite unprompted by their adult leaders, told Al Jazeera that they were already certain of their loyalty to the party.

"We want to be good Muslims and defend our land against Israel," 14-year-old Adel Ahmar said.

His friend Hussien Hamade, also 14, said that he shared the same view.

"Al-Mahdi Scouts told us to be martyrs defending our land from all the countries that attack us," he said.

"We should defend our country through the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon and be martyrs finally."

Farhat Hasosoun, Scout leader of the group Al Jazeera visited, insisted that most of the Mahdi scouts' time was spent engaging in community-based work.

"The motto is 'together to serve'. Our Scouts work to clean places of worship, including mosques and churches," he says.

"We also volunteer to assist those who has special needs or who have mental handicaps."

Tailored programme

Hasosoun says that while some Scouts go on to become a member of the Hezbollah's armed Islamic Resistance group, there is no compunction on them to do so.

Hasosoun says there is no obligation for Mahdi
scouts to join Hezbollah's armed resistance

"Yes, it is continuous [that Scouts go into the resistance]. We also teach them administrative skills. We cater to an individual's personal desires and needs," he says.

"But it is not obligatory that everyone will join the resistance."

The Scouts themselves say that the group provides them with the chance to take part in fun activities that they would not otherwise get the chance to follow.

"I learn about the Islamic religion here. I make ropes and we go on camps. We meet old friends and make a lot of new ones too," Ahmar says.

Hamade says the group has taught him to value the environment and encourage other Lebanese to protect it.

"I learn to respect nature here - not to cut down trees and to put out fires after I have finished and not cause forest fires," he says.

'Indoctrination'

The Mahdi Scouts was founded in 1985, three years after Hezbollah was founded in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon during its civil war.

The Scout group was licensed by the Lebanese ministry of education in 1992 and joined the Lebanese Scout Federation six years later, but it has faced criticism for allegedly indoctrinating children.

A 2006 report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Centre at the Centre for Special Studies in Israel alleged that Mahdi Scouts are "indoctrinated with the principles of radical Iranian Islam".

Hezbollah receives substantial support from Tehran.

The report said that scouts in the group follow "the personality cult of Iranian leader Ali Khamanei", Iran's spiritual leader.

The Intelligence Centre also said that the Mahdi Scouts were encouraged to read a book entitled 'Sharon the Evil', in reference to Ariel Sharon, who was Israel's defence minister during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The claims of indoctrination have been rebuffed by the Scout group, which has called the report "an organised attack [which] aims at erasing the culture of the resistance," in its own published response.

As for the contentious literature, "Sharon will always be a criminal in the minds of the Lebanese children for he has committed hundreds of massacres," the Mahdi Scouts say.

Controversy will remain over whether the Mahdi Scouts is a simple youth organisation or a dedicated 'feeder' group for Hezbollah.

But for the members themselves, it is the traditional Scouting activities such as camping, fishing and team sports that encourage them to salute their Fleur de Lis twice a week.

Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E26C2338-1AB9-4764-8972-F2B9AFB7989B.htm

South-East Asia's Pakistan?

2007-12-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

“WE'RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand's poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People's Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin's name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.

Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.

Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand's first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.

The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drug-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.

On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol's 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta's accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country's revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok's royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an arch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king's chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.

Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin's policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran's, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.

The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin's abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand's quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats' leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.

Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.

General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.

The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand's economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.

Thailand's judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.

The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.

Source: ZIA

Technology in 2008

2007-12-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

Three fearless predictions

1. Surfing will slow

PEERING into Tech.view’s crystal ball, the one thing we can predict with at least some certainty is that 2008 will be the year we stop taking access to the internet for granted. The internet is not about to grind to a halt, but as more and more users clamber aboard to download music, video clips and games while communicating incessantly by e-mail, chat and instant messaging, the information superhighway sometimes crawls with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The biggest road-hog remains spam (unsolicited e-mail), which accounts for 90% of traffic on the internet. Phone companies and other large ISPs (internet service providers) have tolerated it for years because it would cost too much to fix. Besides, eliminating spam would only benefit their customers, not themselves.

How so? Because the big fat pipes used by ISPs operate symmetrically, with equal bandwidth for upstream and downstream traffic. But end-users have traditionally downloaded megabytes of information from the web, while uploading only kilobytes of key strokes and mouse clicks. So, when spammers dump billions of pieces of e-mail onto the internet, it travels over the phone companies’ relatively empty upstream segments.

That can’t last. For a start, millions of gadgets are joining the human hordes. Any gizmo worth its silicon these days has its own internet connection—so it can update itself automatically, communicate autonomously with other digital species,

Soon, portable media-players, personal navigators, digital cameras, DVD players, flat-panel TV sets, and even mobile phones won’t be able to function properly without access to the internet. Expect even digital picture frames to have a WiFi connection so they can grab the latest photos from Flickr.

Meanwhile, users are changing the way they use the internet: they are now uploading, as well as downloading, gigabytes galore—thanks to the popularity of social networks like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace.

Hailed by the industry as the wave of the future, “user-generated content” is proving to be a tsunami of unprecedented proportions. Everyone, it seems, is suddenly a budding Martin Scorsese, bent on sharing his or her home-made videos with fellow YouTubers.

Once the biggest files being shared via Napster and other P2P (peer-to-peer) networks were MP3 music tracks occupying a few modest megabytes. Today, music videos and TV episodes of hundreds of megabytes are being swapped over the internet by BitTorrent, Gnutella and other file-sharing networks.

And it’s all two-way traffic. The whole point of P2P is that everyone who is downloading is simultaneously uploading to others.

That’s just the beginning. Legal or otherwise, swapping multi-gigabyte high-definition video and movie files is becoming increasingly common.

In fact, it will soon be the norm. Television networks have found they can make more money from advertising while giving their show away for free over the internet than they can from broadcasting them. Now the movie studios are learning to do much the same.

The result is a gridlock. That the telephone companies are running out of bandwidth can be seen from their equipment orders.

Cisco, the leading supplier of core routers used to direct traffic over the internet’s backbone, has just had another bumper quarter, with net income up 37% over the same period a year ago. Juniper Networks, another information-technology firm, did even better. Both companies credit the proliferation of social networks, the craze for internet searching, multimedia downloading, and the widespread adoption of P2P sharing for the surge in new business.

While major internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast all plan to upgrade their backbones, it will be a year or two before improvements begin to show. By then, internet television will be in full bloom, spammers will have multiplied ten-fold, WiFi will be embedded in every moving object, and users will be screaming for yet more capacity.

In the meantime, accept that surfing the web is going to be more like travelling the highways at holiday time. You’ll get there, eventually, but the going won’t be great.

2. Surfing will detach

Earlier this month, Google bid for the most desirable chunk (known as C-block) of the 700-megahertz wireless spectrum being auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in late January 2008. The 700-megahertz frequencies used by channels 52 to 69 of analog television are being freed up by the switch to all-digital broadcasting in February 2009.

The frequencies concerned are among the world’s most valuable. They were used for broadcasting UHF television because they suffered little atmospheric absorption, could be beamed for miles, and could then penetrate all the nooks and crannies in buildings. Their relatively short wavelength makes the transmission equipment compact and the antennas small.

Mobile phone companies lust after the 700 megahertz frequencies because of their long range and broadband capabilities. They see lots of lucrative things like mobile television and other broadband services to offer customers.

But the 700 megahertz band is also the last great hope for a “third pipe” for internet access in America. Such a wireless network would offer consumers a serious alternative to the pricey and poor DSL (digital subscriber line) services they get from the likes of AT&T and Verizon, and to the marginally better cable broadband Comcast provides.

Over the past couple of months, techdom has been abuzz with rumours about Google getting into the mobile phone business—with a G-Phone to trump Apple’s iPhone. That’s highly unlikely.

The speculation was triggered by the company’s recent unveiling of its Android operating-system for mobile phones. But the whole point of Android is not to allow Google to make fancy handsets, but to make it easier for others to do so.

The aim, of course, is to flood the market with “open access” phones that have none of the restrictions that big carriers impose—like not being able to download software and games from other makers, or search the internet freely, or make free VoIP (voice of internet protocol) calls from within a WiFi hotspot.

Android has been made available to a group of manufacturers orchestrated by Google and known as the Open Handset Alliance. One of the nimblest of the group, HTC of Taiwan, has already started showing a BlackBerry-like prototype based on the Android operating system. Expect to see a raft of Android phones from other manufacturers over the coming months.

Nor is Google in the business of building a network of cellular antennas and fat communications pipes. Should it win the bidding for C-block, it would presumably team up with Frontline Wireless, a startup with serious expertise and money behind it.

That’s because Google’s core business is organising knowledge and giving users access to it. Google makes its money—and lots of it—from matching advertisers to consumers who use its search engine to look up things, not from tinkering with slim-margin ventures like wireless networks.

But despite owning the world’s largest knowledge base—with over 60% of the online search market—Google is at the mercy of others who control the on-ramps to the internet. That rankles.

Source: ZIA

Malaysia urged to protect temples

2007-12-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

A US congress-appointed panel has called for Malaysia to do more to protect sacred places and bring an end to alleged discrimination faced by the country's religious minorities.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom cited the destruction of Hindu temples as a particular cause for concern and urged the Bush administration to raise the matter with Malaysia's government.

The commission's comments follow a protest last month by thousands of ethnic Indians against what they say are discriminatory policies by the Malaysian government in favour of the majority ethnic Malays.

The protest in Kuala Lumpur was broken up by police using tear gas and water cannon and several protest organisers have been arrested.

The Hindu Rights Action Task Force, the group which organised the rally, says an average of one Hindu temple is being demolished every three weeks.

'Fuelling unrest'

In its comments on Thursday the US commission said it was "concerned" by recent Malaysian government actions against the ethnic Indian Hindu minority "curtailing their human rights, including the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion".

Michael Cromartie, the commission chairman, said "continued discrimination against members of the ethnic Indian Hindu minority, including the destruction of sacred places and images, only fuels religious unrest and intolerance".

The government says it does not target the Hindu community and its demolition of places of worship are because they are illegal structures or because land is needed for development.

It has also rejected accusations of discriminatory policies against ethnic Indians.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister, has accused ethnic Indian activists of stirring up racial conflict and threatened to use a law that allows for indefinite detention without trial.

In an opinion piece published on Friday in the Asian Wall Street Journal, Abdullah wrote that "the right to protest is fundamental, but it is a right that must be matched by a responsibility to respect general public safety".

While maintaining that he would listen to "all points of view and concerns that are honestly and reasonably presented", he said "we cannot and shall not tolerate those who seek to incite or provoke violence for their own personal gain".

The November 25 protest followed another rally on November 10 – also dispersed by force - to demand electoral reforms.

Together, they have presented the biggest challenge to Abdullah's authority ahead of elections which are expected to be called soon.

source: http://www.asiaobserver.com/component/Itemid,453/func,view/catid,9/id,4180/#4180