ISTANBUL, June 17 (Reuters) - Turkish police detained 441 people in connection with clashes in Istanbul on Sunday between police and demonstrators protesting against the government, an official at the city's bar association said on Monday.
Throughout Sunday, police in Turkey's largest city fired water cannon and tear gas at thousands of anti-government demonstrators seeking to enter Istanbul's central Taksim Square. An official from the Ankara bar association said 56 people were detained in the capital.
DHAKA, May 9 (Reuters) - Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900.
The fire, in an industrial district of Dhaka, comes amid global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry following the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the city, in the world's deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984.
"It is not clear to us how the accident happened, but we are trying to find out the cause," Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.
On Wednesday the Bangladesh government said it had shut down 18 garment factories for safety reasons following the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed five garment factories making clothes for Western brands. Six were cleared to re-open on Thursday after inspectors issued safety certificates.
Salvage teams were still pulling bodies from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, around 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Dhaka, and on Thursday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 912.
Roughly 2,500 people were rescued from the building, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.
The government has blamed the owners and builders of the eight-storey complex for using shoddy building materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and not obtaining the necessary clearances.
Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the poor South Asian country's exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.
The latest fire, in an 11-storey building in the Mirpur industrial district, broke out at a factory belonging to the Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter.
"The factory was closed and all the workers had left the premises an hour earlier," said fire service official Bhazan Sarker.
A fire service official and BGMEA president Islam said the Bangladeshi managing director of the company and a senior police officer were among the dead. The others killed were friends and personal staff of the factory boss, officials said.
Tung Hai Group says on its website that it has more than 1,000 employees and its customers include major Western retailers including Britain's Primark, and Inditex Group of Spain. It makes products including cardigans, jumpers and pyjamas.
CLEVELAND, May 8 (Reuters) - Three young women newly freed from a decade-long kidnapping ordeal in Cleveland endured their captivity in the dungeon-like confines of a squalid house, where they were raped, starved, beaten and kept in chains by the man who abducted them, authorities said on Wednesday.
Their accused tormentor, Ariel Castro, 52, a veteran school bus driver fired from his job last fall, was formally charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping the women, who were rescued from his house on Monday evening shortly before his arrest.
His two brothers, initially arrested as suspects in the case, were not charged, and police said investigators had determined they had no knowledge of the abductions or captivity of the women.
The three victims, believed to have been abducted separately from the surrounding neighborhood and held prisoner for years, were found alive together when neighbors were alerted to their presence by cries for help from one of the women, Amanda Berry.
She told police that her escape two days ago was her first chance to break free in the 10 years that she was imprisoned in the house, during which time she conceived and gave birth to a daughter, now 6, and rescued along with the three women.
Additional details of their captivity emerged in a police report from the initial investigation, including that the three were held in the basement for periods of time, restrained with ropes and chains and occasionally starved, according to Cleveland City Councilman Brian Cummings, who read the report and said he was briefed by multiple sources in the police department.
Cummings said that one of the three - he did not know which - had suffered at least five miscarriages, which Castro is accused of causing by starving her for weeks and beating her in the stomach.
Freed from the house along with Berry and her daughter were Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32.
Castro, owner of the modest, two-story house, had been thought by neighbors to live there alone. Berry has said she only managed to call for help when Castro briefly left the premises on Monday.
"The only opportunity, after interviewing the young ladies, to escape was the other day when Amanda escaped," Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said at the news conference. "They don't believe that they've been outside that home for the last 10 years respectively."
Authorities said the women recalled leaving the house twice, only to go to the garage on the small lot, when they were disguised in wigs and hats.
Tomba said Berry, DeJesus and Knight had been kept separately in the house, where police have found ropes and chains.
"They were not in one room, but they did know each other and they did know each other was there," he said.
Berry's daughter was born on Dec. 25, 2006 during her mother's captivity, authorities said. A paternity test will be conducted to determine the girl's father.
TELEVISED HOMECOMINGS
As authorities readied their case against Castro, Berry and DeJesus went to their families' homes on Wednesday. Knight was in a Cleveland hospital where a spokeswoman said she was in good condition.
Berry and her daughter could be seen from an aerial television camera arriving in a convoy of vehicles at her sister's house and going in the back door.
Before Monday evening, Berry had last been seen leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant the day before her 17th birthday in April 2003. Her disappearance as a teenager was widely publicized in the local media.
DeJesus was rushed into the home she had not seen in nine years, clenched in a tight embrace by her sister Mayra. DeJesus hid her face in a yellow hooded sweat-shirt but raised her hand in a thumbs-up sign to spectators chanting "Gina. Gina."
Her mother Nancy DeJesus came outside after a little while.
"I want to thank everybody that believed," she said. "Even the ones that doubted, I still want to thank them the most because they're the ones that made me stronger, the ones that made me feel the most that my daughter was out there."
Neither Berry nor DeJesus, who vanished while walking home from school at age 14 in 2004, spoke publicly. Knight was 20 when she disappeared in 2002.
Castro, who is not a suspect in any other cases, faced arraignment on Thursday morning, the prosecutor said.
Investigators took some 200 pieces of evidence from his house, which Tomba said was "in quite a bit of disarray," but found no human remains on the site. Police were still searching a second house.
The three brothers were arrested on Monday evening within hours of the women's escape. However, there was no evidence Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50, were involved, the prosecutor said.
The two brothers would be appearing in court on Thursday on unrelated outstanding misdemeanor warrants.
"There is nothing that leads us to believe that they were involved or had any knowledge of this, and that comes from statements of our victims, their statements and the brothers' statements," Cleveland city prosecutor Victor Perez said at a news conference, adding, "Ariel would have kept everybody at a distance."
Berry can be heard naming Ariel Castro as the man she was fleeing on the frantic emergency call she made to a 911 operator after a neighbor heard her scream and helped her break through a locked screen door.
Born in Puerto Rico, Ariel Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area. Records show he was divorced more than a decade ago and his ex-wife had since died. He is known to have at least one adult daughter and son.
In 2005, Castro was named in a complaint of domestic violence in a custody dispute with his ex-wife that accused him of breaking her nose twice, knocking out her tooth, dislocating her shoulder twice and threatening to kill her and her daughters several times.
The complaint was eventually dismissed. (Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta and Barbara Goldberg; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernard Orr and Eric Walsh)
BOSTON/WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said.
The source said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their attack because they completed building bombs more quickly then they originally anticipated. The official declined to be identified and did not offer more details.
Police say the brothers detonated two bombs made with pressure-cookers in the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 264.
An attack on Boston's packed July 4 celebrations would have carried the extra symbolism of disrupting the city's widely followed Independence Day celebrations.
News of the alleged July 4 attack plan was earlier reported by The New York Times.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 19. His brother was wounded in the shootout and captured later that day.
The remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev were claimed on behalf of his family on Thursday. His body had been kept at a Boston facility for more than a week.
Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, said a funeral services company retained by the family had claimed the body. Harris declined to provide details including the cause of death or where the body had been taken.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged with crimes in connection with the bombing that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted, and is being held at a prison medical facility in Devens, Massachusetts.
On Tuesday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, said through an attorney that she wished his remains to be released to the Tsarnaev family.
Russell's attorney could not immediately be reached on Thursday.
Investigators have questioned Russell as they seek clues about how the ethnic Chechen brothers allegedly built the two bombs used in the attack and whether they had help.
The suspects' parents previously lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but have since returned to Russia. Other relatives remain in the United States, including an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Maryland, who has been seen in Rhode Island in recent days.
Officials said on Thursday that three men who had been charged with interfering with the investigation of the bombing were in custody at a jail in Middleton, Massachusetts, a small town about 20 miles (30 km) North of Boston.
The three 19-year-olds - Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos - had been transported to the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton on Wednesday after they were charged in Boston. Authorities have described them as college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. (Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
* Tells Russian interviewer FBI was monitoring older son
* Both parents says Internet use was monitored (Adds father, details from mother)
By Timothy Heritage
MOSCOW, April 20 (Reuters) - One of the two ethnic Chechens suspected by U.S. officials of being behind the Boston Marathon bombings had been under FBI surveillance for at least three years, his mother said.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told the English-language Russia Today state television station in a phone interview, a recording of which was obtained by Reuters, that she believed her sons were innocent and had been framed.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar was captured after a day-long manhunt.
"He (Tamerlan) was 'controlled' by the FBI, like, for three to five years," she said, speaking in English and using the direct English translation of a word in Russian that means monitored.
"They knew what my son was doing, they knew what sites on the Internet he was going to," she said in what Russia Today described as a call from Makhachkala, where she lives in Russia's Dagestan region after returning from the United States.
Tsarnaeva echoed the boys' father, Anzor, who said on Friday that he believed they had been framed. Both suggested in separate interviews that the FBI had made no secret of the fact that at least one of the brothers was being watched.
"I do not believe that my sons could have planned and organised the terrorist act, because they knew U.S. national security services were keeping an eye on them," Anzor Tsarnaev told Russia's Channel One television.
"They (the security services) said 'We know what you eat, what you read on the Internet'," he said, without making clear how the security officers had made contact.
In her interview with Russia Today, Tsarnaeva suggested FBI officers had visited her home when she still lived in the United States and told her that Tamerlan "was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him."
"It is really, really a hard thing to hear. And being a mother, what I can say is that I am really sure, I am, like, 100 percent sure, that this is a set-up," she said.
She did not say whether the FBI had started to take an interest in Tamerlan although she also referred to the security services' interest in what Internet sites he visited.
U.S. government officials have said the brothers were not under surveillance as possible militants.
But the FBI said in a statement on Friday that in 2011 it interviewed Tamerlan at the request of a foreign government, which it did not identify.
It said the matter was closed because interviews with Tamerlan and family members "did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign".
The FBI statement was the first evidence that the family had come to security officials' attention after they emigrated to the United States from Dagestan about a decade ago.
SEOUL, April 20 (Reuters) - North Korea reiterated on Saturday that it would not give up its nuclear weapons, rejecting a U.S. condition for talks although it said it was willing to discuss disarmament.
North Korea, in a sign of a possible end to weeks of heightened hostility on the Korean peninsula, offered the United States and South Korea a list of conditions on Thursday for talks, including the lifting of U.N. sanctions.
But the United States said it was awaiting "clear signals" that North Korea would halt its nuclear weapons activities.
"The U.S. should not think about the denuclearisation on the peninsula before the world is denuclearised," the North's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
"There may be talks between the DPRK and the U.S. for disarmament but no talks on denuclearisation," it said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
North Korea signed a denuclearisation-for-aid deal in 2005 but later backed out of that pact. It now says its nuclear arms are a "treasured sword" that it will never give up.
It conducted its third nuclear test in February.
The test triggered new U.N. sanctions which in turn led to a dramatic intensification of North Korea's threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited China, South Korea and Japan this month for talks on North Korea and stressed his interest in a diplomatic solution to the tension on the peninsula.
He later told a U.S. Senate hearing that North Korea's list of conditions was "at least a beginning gambit", but added that it was "not acceptable, obviously, and we have to go further".
The Rodong Sinmun said U.S. talk of dialogue was "nothing but rhetoric".
North Korea has a long record of making threats to secure concessions from the United States and South Korea, only to repeat the process later. Both the United States and the South have said in recent days that the cycle must cease. (Reporting by Robert Birsel; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Thursday it would be inaccurate to suggest that North Korea has proven it has the ability to launch a nuclear-armed missile.
Reacting to the release of a defense intelligence assessment saying North Korea could launch a nuclear missile, Pentagon spokesman George Little said "it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage." (Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Paul Simao)
LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) - North Korea said it had "ratified" a merciless attack against the United States, potentially involving a "diversified nuclear strike".
"We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever-escalating U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK (North Korea) and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means of the DPRK and that the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by the English language service of the state news agency KCNA
SEOUL, April 4 (Reuters) - North Korea has moved what appears to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Thursday, quoting multiple government sources privy to intelligence from U.S. and South Korean authorities.
It was not clear if the missile was mounted with a warhead or whether the North was planning to fire it or was just putting it on display as a show of force, one South Korean government source was quoted as saying.
"South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have obtained indications the North has moved an object that appears to be a mid-range missile to the east coast," the source said.
The Musudan missile is believed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,875 miles) or more, which would put all of South Korea and Japan in range and possibly also the U.S. territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. North Korea is not believed to have tested these mid-range missiles, according to most independent experts
South Korea's defence ministry declined to comment.
North Korea has threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam. Those threats followed new U.N. sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February.
The missile was moved to the coast by train. The North has a missile launch site on the northeastern coast, which it has used to unsuccessfully test-fire long-range rockets in the past.
The Yonhap report did not say if the missile had been moved to the missile site.
Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper issued a similar report on Thursday, saying the North had moved what appeared to be a long-range missile to its east coast.
SEOUL, March 21 (Reuters) - North Korea said it would attack U.S. military bases on Japan and the Pacific island of Guam if provoked, a day after leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a mock drone strike on South Korea.
The North also held an air raid drill on Thursday after accusing the United States of preparing a military strike using bombers that have overflown the Korean peninsula as part of drills between South Korean and U.S. forces.
North Korea has stepped up its rhetoric in response to what it calls "hostile" drills between South Korea and the United States. It has also been angered by the imposition of fresh U.N. sanctions that followed its Feb. 12 nuclear test.
Separately, South Korea said a hacking attack on the servers of local broadcasters and banks on Wednesday originated from an IP address in China, raising suspicions the intrusion came from North Korea.
"The United States is advised not to forget that our precision target tools have within their range the Anderson Air Force base on Guam where the B-52 takes off, as well as the Japanese mainland where nuclear powered submarines are deployed and the navy bases on Okinawa," the North's supreme military command spokesman was quoted as saying by the KCNA news agency.
Japan and U.S. Pacific bases are in range of Pyongyang's medium-range missiles.
It is not known if North Korea possesses drones, although a report on South Korea's Yonhap news agency last year said it had obtained 1970s-era U.S. target drones from Syria to develop into attack drones.
"The (drone) planes were assigned the flight route and time with the targets in South Korea in mind, Kim Jong-un said, adding with great satisfaction that they were proved to be able to mount (a) super-precision attack on any enemy targets," KCNA reported.
It is extremely rare for KCNA to specify the day on which Kim attended a drill. It also said a rocket defence unit had successfully shot down a target that mimicked an "enemy" Tomahawk cruise missile.
North Korea has said it has abrogated an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and threatened a nuclear attack on the United States.
Although North Korea lacks the technology to carry out such an attack, Washington said it would deploy more anti-missile batteries in Alaska to counter any threat.
PYONGYANG HAS HACKED SOUTH KOREA BEFORE
The hacking attack brought down the servers of South Korean broadcasters YTN, MBC and KBS as well as two major commercial banks, Shinhan Bank and NongHyup Bank.
South Korean communications regulators said the attack originated from an IP address based in China.
An unnamed official from South Korea's presidential office was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying the discovery of the Chinese IP address indicated Pyongyang was responsible.
Investigations of past hacking incidents on South Korean organisations have been traced to Pyongyang's large army of computer engineers trained to infiltrate the South's computer networks.
At least one previous attack was traced to a Chinese IP address.
South Korea's defence ministry said it was too early to blame the North but said such a cyber capability was a key part of its arsenal. Experts say thousands of North Korean engineers may have been recruited for the purpose.
"Throughout the world, states that create cyber warfare and engage in those types of activities are precisely the same countries that develop nuclear weapons," Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
"North Korea has strongly stepped up development of asymmetrical strategy with nuclear development and many types of ballistic missiles as well as a special forces of 200,000 strong." (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park. Editing by Dean Yates)
