KABUL, An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale shook the mountains in the north of the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, Monday morning, killing at least 7 people and injured 30 others

KABUL, An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale shook the mountains in the north of the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, Monday morning, killing at least 7 people and injured 30 others. Before the quake struck at 01:00 local time or 03:30 o’clock AM in Samangan Province, halfway between Kabul and the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north. Said Deputy Governor of the Province of Samangan Kulam Baghlani Sakhi.

Roads and communications equipment in the area are classified as difficult, and need long time to submit reports about the victims to the authorities. The quake was felt up in Kabul and neighboring countries, like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Baghlani said the three adjoining districts are also affected by the earthquake. At least 300 homes were damaged and dozens of cattle died as a result of the disaster. Landslides triggered by the earthquake has closed some roads and make the winding road in a mountainous area that became increasingly difficult to pass.

“The quake was felt in the remote mountain areas,” said Baghlani. He also said the three units of civil defense forces have been sent to inspect the damage and casualties. Hindu Kush region classified as earthquake prone, especially along the plate meeting the Indian subcontinent and continental plates. In 1998, a pair of earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 6.6 SR SR struck the Afghan border with Tajikistan. Two earthquakes killed more than 6,000 people. A 5.3 Richter quake also hit in the Baghlan province of Samangan in 2002, killing about 1,000 people.

U.S. sent two brothers Uighurs detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Switzerland

Beijing – China expressed anger and strong opposition Thursday after the U.S. sent two brothers Uighurs detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Switzerland. The announcement about the transfer of two Uighur men were delivered by the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday.

Beijing in the past demanded that the Uighurs held at Guantanamo were sent back to China. The U.S. government says can not do that because those people will face torture, and for several months to find countries willing to accept them. “We strongly reject U.S. measures to protect the suspects in a third country, and oppose any country that receives them,” said the spokesperson of China Foreign Ministry Qin Gang told a news conference.

“We have sent our strong protest to the countries concerned,” Qin added. The two people who moved to Switzerland it is Bahtiyar Arkin Mahmud and Mahmud, their lawyer said. The men were arrested by the U.S. government during the Afghanistan war, launched after the attacks, 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.

Muslim Uighur people and a native of Xinjiang, far western China.

In the ethnic violence in July 2009, the Uighur people of China attacked the majority Han people in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s provincial capital, after falling to the streets to protest the attack on Uyghur workers at a factory in southern China in June that killed two Uighur men.

Beijing says, at least 197 people were killed in riots on July 5 in Urumqi between people and the Uighur minority group Enik dominant Han China. More than 1,600 people were also injured in the riot. Violence experienced by the Uighur people has led to a wave of protest marches in various cities of the world such as Ankara, Berlin, Canberra and Istanbul after the riots.

Uyghur people speak Turkish and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the most harsh criticism and calls asking what is happening in Xinjiang as “a kind of massacre”.

Uyghur people in exile claimed that China’s security forces to react too much for peaceful protest and to use deadly force. Eight million Uighur people, who have more contact with their neighbors in central Asia than with the Han people of China, amounted to less than half the population of Xinjiang. Together Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most vulnerable areas of politics and the two regions, the government of China tried to control religious life and culture growing promising economy and prosperity.

Beijing does not want to lose control of the region, which borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and has large oil reserves and is the largest natural gas producer in China. However, the minority population has long complained that China’s Han majority rake profits from government subsidies, while making local residents feel like outsiders in their own country.

Beijing says that the riots, the worst in the region in recent years, the work of separatist groups abroad, who want to create an independent region for the Muslim Uighur minority. The groups deny these violent and manage to say, the riots are the result of accumulated anger against the government policies and economic domination of Han China.(Reuters)

Tajikistan About 20,000 people in Tajikistan were left homeless by an earthquake

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan About 20,000 people in Tajikistan were left homeless by an earthquake that hit a mountainous region of the impoverished Central Asian nation, officials said Sunday.No deaths were reported after the magnitude 5.1 quake struck the Pamir Mountains on Saturday, the Emergency Situations and Civil Defense Committee said.The temblor leveled hundreds of mud-brick houses in several villages in the Gorno-Badakhshansky region. The quake also cut electricity supplies and communications and blocked the main road between the regional center, the town of Vanch, and nearby villages.Earthquakes are fairly common in the mountains of Tajikistan, one of the poorest of the former Soviet nations.(AP)