Doctors to say soon whether Nazi guard fit for trial

(DEMJANJUK, TRIAL, GERMAN, SHOULD, WINKLER, WITHIN, WE`LL)

By Dave Graham
BERLIN (Reuters) - Doctors should rule this week whether accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial on charges of assisting in the killing of thousands of Jews in World War Two, German prosecutors said Monday.
The 89-year-old Demjanjuk arrived last month from the United States to face charges he aided the killing of 29,000 Jews in 1943, and has been held in a German jail since May 12, pending a medical examination of whether he is fit to appear in court.
His family have fought efforts to put him on trial, arguing he suffers from spinal problems, kidney failure and anemia.
Munich state prosecutor Anton Winkler said doctors were expected to deliver their report this week.
"We believe he should be fit to stand trial within limits at least," said Winkler. "Once the assessment is there, I think we`ll bring charges within two weeks -- so at the moment that should be by mid-July."
Though Demjanjuk would probably have to be examined in court for shorter periods than younger suspects, available evidence suggested a trial should be possible, Winkler added.
If it goes ahead, it would likely be Germany`s last major Nazi trial.
Born in Ukraine, Demjanjuk tops the Simon Wiesenthal Center`s list of its 10 most-wanted suspected war criminals. Munich prosecutors want him tried for assisting in murders at Sobibor extermination camp, in what is now Poland.
He denies any role in the Holocaust.
Guenther Maull, Demjanjuk`s German lawyer, declined to make an assessment of his health.
"We`ll have to see what `within limits` really means," he told Reuters in response to Winkler`s comment. "And we`ll have to look into that again if it should go to trial."
Both prosecutors in Munich and Maull say Demjanjuk could go on trial by the autumn if he is deemed fit to stand.
Demjanjuk has said he was drafted into the Russian army in 1941, became a German prisoner of war a year later and served at German prison camps until 1944. He immigrated to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958.
In 1981, he was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988 after Holocaust survivors said he was the notorious guard "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka camp, where 870,000 people died.
Israel`s Supreme Court later overturned his conviction when new evidence showed another man was likely the Treblinka guard.  Continued...
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Nigerian militants say attack Shell despite amnesty

(DELTA, NIGER, MEND, SHELL, AMNESTY, MILITANT, ATTACKS)

By Nick Tattersall
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria`s main militant group said its fighters had attacked an oil facility belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the Niger Delta on Monday, in the face of an amnesty offer from President Umaru Yar`Adua.
Shell said it had shut in some production as a precautionary measure while it investigated reports of attacks on two well clusters in its Estuary Field in the western Niger Delta, which feeds into its Forcados oil export terminal.
"Hurricane Piper Alpha has struck at the Shell Forcados platform in Delta state today ... at about 0330 hours," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement emailed to media.
It said parts of the facility were on fire.
Forcados is one of Nigeria`s benchmark crude oil grades but production has been interrupted by militant attacks.
On June 17 Shell extended a force majeure on its Forcados oil shipments for the rest of June and all of July. The measure, which frees it from contractual obligations, was first imposed in March after an attack on its trans-Escravos pipeline.
Yar`Adua on Thursday offered a 60-day amnesty to gunmen in the Niger Delta who have been responsible for pipeline bombings, attacks on oil and gas installations and the kidnapping of industry workers over the past three years.
The unrest has prevented the world`s eighth biggest oil exporter from pumping much above two thirds of its installed capacity of 3 million barrels per day, costing it billions of dollars in lost revenue and pushing global energy prices higher.
MEND questioned the sincerity of the government and dismissed the amnesty offer as a program directed at "repentant criminals" rather than genuine "freedom fighters."
MILITANTS DIVIDED
Some militant leaders have said they want talks with Yar`Adua to work out the details of a deal, but MEND has publicly dismissed the amnesty offer, seeing it instead as an opportunity to distinguish itself from criminals.
"It will separate the wheat from the chaff and allow the government to focus on the root issues instead of tying militancy with criminality as an excuse for not addressing the grievances of the Niger Delta people," it said.
"MEND will negotiate as a group when the right time comes ... Only those who are willing to sell their birthright for a bowl of porridge will accept while the rest of us will continue the struggle until justice is achieved."
Representatives of Ateke Tom, Farah Dagogo, Soboma George and Boyloaf -- key leaders of armed gangs behind some of the most spectacular attacks -- issued a statement on Friday saying they wanted to meet with Yar`Adua.
MEND -- a loose coalition of various armed gangs in the delta -- denied Dagogo and Boyloaf would take part.  Continued...
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In China, parents mourn children abducted by traffickers

(CHILDREN, CHINA, CHILD, POLICE, TRAFFICKING, PARENTS, LOCAL)

By James Pomfret and Venus Wu
DONGGUAN (Reuters) - In the quiet village of Shang Di, wedged among factory towns in southern China, Deng Huidong wheels out a dusty two-seater tricycle that her 9-month-old son rode the day he was abducted outside her family house in 2007.
Little Ruicong, who was snatched by men in a white van as he played in an alleyway, hasn`t been seen since.
He is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of children who go missing in China each year, victims of roving criminal gangs preying on vulnerable areas.
"My heart is bleeding," said Deng as she cried beside a framed photograph of her son splashing in a bath tub.
"I just want to find my son. Every time I see a child, it reminds me of my son and I wonder whether I will see him again."
While China has made giant economic and social strides over the past few decades, the number of abducted children remains alarmingly high in a nation whose wrenching one-child policy and yawning income disparities have fueled demand for children particularly male heirs, trafficked by underground syndicates.
Human trafficking is widespread across China with kidnapping cases reported in numerous provinces across the country, according to witnesses and postings on missing child websites. Some children are abducted to serve as props for beggars and women are also kidnapped and sold into prostitution or as forced labor in factories.
While many parents are aware of the problem and have bolstered supervision of their kids in known blackspots, elsewhere, particularly in rural areas, a lack of publicity and media exposure means parents are unaware of the problem and often let their children play outdoors unsupervised.
Estimates are difficult to come by, though the China Ministry of Public Security reported investigating 2,566 potential trafficking cases in 2008.
"Due to lack of information and the difficulty of tracing children in a vast country such as China, very few children have actually been found," Kirsten Di Martino, UNICEF`s Chief of Child Protection in China told Reuters in a written response to questions.
FIGHTING BACK
The plight of such torn families is often made worse by indifferent, sometimes callous treatment by local police, lax child trafficking laws and poor enforcement.
"In one case, the traffickers even dared to abduct a child right inside a police station ... this shows how rampant they are," Zheng Chunzhong, a bakery owner in Dongguan whose son was kidnapped in 2003, told Reuters.
Since then, the slim, softly-spoken Zheng has pressured Dongguan authorities to do more to fight the problem, forming a local alliance of some 200 parents who held a recent protest march outside local government offices.
"There are too many cases of missing children. They (the police) are too embarrassed to let higher-level officials know," he said during a lunch that was interrupted by a public security officer, a reminder of the police surveillance he says he`s long endured due to his outspokenness on the issue.  Continued...
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Iraq PM says forces can handle security without U.S.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq`s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Saturday that the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities at the end of June showed Iraq can handle its own security, despite a wave of bombings this week.
The U.S. pullback from Iraq`s urban centers scheduled to be finished at the end of the month has been seen as a milestone on Iraq`s road to sovereignty after years of military occupation.
But a spate of bombings in the capital and in northern Iraq this week, including two of the bloodiest attacks in more than a year, have shaken the confidence of Iraqis in their own forces.
"We are on the threshold of a new phase that will bolster Iraq`s sovereignty," Maliki said. "It is a message to the world that we are now able to safeguard our security and administer our internal affairs."
Two big bombings in Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk this week killed more than 150 people between them. On Friday, a bomb killed at least 13 people at a market in Baghdad. A spattering of other bombs has also fueled apprehension.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned they expect the number of attacks to rise as the U.S. troops pull back, and also in the run-up to parliamentary elections next January.
"We have high trust in our security forces to administer security and pursue al-Qaeda remnants and criminal gangs," Maliki said.
He added that Iraq had achieved comparatively good levels of security, not just through better policing but efforts at political reconciliation between Iraq`s divided factions -- something his critics often accuse him of dragging his feet on.
"If they (militants) want to bring down the political process, we say, it won`t collapse, unless national unity is shaken," Maliki said.
(Reporting by Khalid al-Ansary; Writing by Tim Cocks)
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Amnesty urges Thailand to open lese-majeste trial

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty International urged Thailand on Friday to open the trial of a political campaigner charged with insulting the monarchy after it was closed for reasons of "national security."
Amnesty said the court`s decision to bar the media and public from attending the trial of Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul, a "red shirt" supporter of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, could jeopardize her chances of receiving a fair hearing.
Darunee, 46, also known as "Da Torpedo," was arrested and charged with lese-majeste last July after delivering an exceptionally strong speech on the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin.
"When a judge closes the doors on a trial it significantly raises the risk of injustice taking place," Amnesty`s Asia-Pacific director, Sam Zarifi, said in a statement.
"The Thai government will have a very difficult time explaining why the trial of someone charged with making an insulting remark could compromise Thailand`s national security.
"In this case, a fair trial means that the doors should remain open," Zarifi said.
On Tuesday, Judge Prommas Phoo-sang ordered journalists and Darunee`s supporters to leave the courtroom in Bangkok`s Criminal Court because her case was a "matter of national security.
In an emotional response to the ruling, Darunee she could not be guaranteed justice if the public were barred from attending. Her lawyer has filed an appeal.
The trial, which resumes on July 28, is the latest in a slew of lese-majeste cases critics say are stifling dissent and freedom of speech.
Lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, is a very serious offence in Thailand, where many people regard 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine and above politics. It is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Judge Prommas said he had no comment on the Amnesty statement, but stood by his decision to close the trial.
"One thing I can say, I am impartial," he told Reuters.
(Reporting by Martin Petty and Kittipong Soonprasert; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Sanjeev Miglani)
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