Beijing, October 27
Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has pledged to help China fight Islamist extremists, a senior Chinese official said on Tuesday, after Ghani met President Xi Jinping in Beijing on his first visit abroad since his September inauguration.

China, which is connected to Afghanistan by the narrow, almost impassable Wakhan Corridor, says militants seeking to set up a separate state called East Turkistan in its western Xinjiang region are holed up along the ungoverned Afghan-Pakistani border.

Leaders in Beijing, who have been bracing for more responsibility in Afghanistan as the bulk of US-led troops pull out, worry that ethnic Uighur separatists from Xinjiang will take advantage if the country again descends into chaos.

"In the area of security, President Ghani expressed the readiness and staunch support from the Afghan side in China's fight against East Turkistan Islamic Movement terrorist forces," Kong Xuanyou, Director General of the Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department, told journalists after Ghani and Xi met.

Kong said China would give 1.5 billion yuan ($245 million) in aid to Afghanistan over the next three years and would help train 3,000 Afghan professionals over the next five years.

China says it does not seek to replace the departed Western troops in Afghanistan but has promised to play a "huge" commercial role in helping rebuild the country.

So far, China's commitment to Afghan reconstruction since the fall of the hardline Islamist Taliban regime in 2001 has been around $250 million and its security support has been mostly limited to counter-narcotics training.

Xi has repeatedly urged Central Asian countries to step up the fight against religious militants, which the Chinese government says were behind a spate of attacks in Xinjiang and across China that have left hundreds dead in the past two years.

Experts, however, dispute the influence of foreign militant groups within China, and argue that economic marginalisation of Muslim Uighurs, who call Xinjiang home, is one of the main causes of ethnic violence there. — Reuters

Vatican City, October 28
The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not "a magician with a magic wand," Pope Francis has declared.

Pope Francis said the "Big Bang" theory as a model for the origin of the Universe "does not rule out the intervention of a divine Creator, but rather demands it" and that "the origin of the world is not a product of chaos, but is derived directly from the supreme power that created love."

The Pope made the remarks during a speech Monday at the inauguration of a bronze bust depicting his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, in the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The Pontiff criticised the interpretation of the creation myth found in the Book of Genesis that assumes that "God was a magician" who created things "with a magic wand." "He created beings and left them to develop in accordance with the internal laws he gave to each one, so that they could evolve and reach their fullest state," Pope Francis argued.

Thus, the creation process has been going on for centuries and millennia until life became what we presently know, he underlined.

"The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.

"Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve." "Pope Endorses Evolution". And embodies it, too. — IANS

Ouagadougou, October 28
The police fired tear gas at rock-throwing protesters after tens of thousands of people marched through Burkina Faso's capital on Tuesday, calling for President Blaise Compaore to abandon plans to change term limits to stay in power.

An early morning march through the heart of Ouagadougou, where many businesses closed their shutters in anticipation of the protest, was peaceful. But clashes erupted later as protesters tried to advance towards the National Assembly.

Tuesday marks the start of a campaign of civil disobedience announced by opposition parties after the government asked the National Assembly to order a referendum on changing the constitution to allow Compaore to stand for re-election next year, when he is due to stand down.

"The people have decided to start a general popular resistance. The first grievance is to get the withdrawal, pure and simple, of this legal project," Zephirin Diabre, head of the opposition delegation, told the crowd of thousands.

A government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Protesters chanted "Step aside!" and "Don't touch Article 37", referring to the clause in the constitution that needs changing to allow Compaore, who has been in power for 27 years, to stand again next year.

Others carried banners comparing Compaore to Ebola, the virus that has killed nearly 5,000 people in the nearby states of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. "We must disinfect ourselves," read one.

Protesters burnt tyres and threw rocks during the clashes that centred around the United Nations roundabout. — Reuters

Hong Kong, October 28
Hong Kong democracy activists today marked one month of mass protests, calling on supporters to gather for an evening rally wearing the masks they have used to ward off police tear gas and pepper spray.

Organisers striving to inject new momentum into the movement told crowds to gather at the main protest camp opposite the city's government headquarters for commemorations starting with an 87-second silence at 0957 GMT.

At that time on September 28, riot police shot 87 volleys of tear gas at crowds of largely peaceful protesters who had taken over a highway near the city parliament.

That decision backfired, drawing tens of thousands of sympathisers onto the streets and kickstarting a movement that has become the most concerted challenge to Beijing since the bloody 1989 Tiananmen protests.

Demonstrators are calling on Beijing to rescind its insistence that candidates standing to be the city's leader in 2017 must be vetted by a loyalist committee, an arrangement demonstrators deride as "fake democracy".

But the Chinese government shows no sign of backing down and protest leaders are unsure of how to achieve their goals.

Occupy Central, one of the main protest groups, called on supporters to don the same protective masks and goggles they wore to defend themselves when the street rallies descended into chaotic confrontations.

The protests have been dubbed the "Umbrella Movement" following the creative ways demonstrators used to shelter themselves from the heat, torrential rain, pepper spray and police batons.

A Facebook group has called on supporters to open umbrellas en masse at 6 PM to "express our disappointment and outrage" over police heavy-handedness and the lack of political progress. Nearly 10,000 people have so far pledged to take part. — AFP

The Lahore High Court has sought a reply from the federal and Punjab governments on a petition by Jamatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed who challenged special privilege and status to VIPs in the country.

Hafiz Saeed’s counsel AK Dogar submitted the petition and contended that public functionaries were “living like kings and princes in palatial government houses which violated the teachings and examples set by the Holy Prophet Mohammad and also the principles laid down in Pakistan’s Constitution”.

He said Pakistani rulers built air-conditioned stables and offered costly jams to horses, whereas thousands of Pakistanis were compelled to collect leftovers from garbage.

The counsel said the government spent billions daily on the staff, household and allowances of the Presidency, Prime Minister’s office, Senate, National Assembly and the Cabinet Secretariat.

Dogar urged the court to direct the government to follow the example of state functionaries in the UK, who traveled even in buses and trains.

The bench directed law officers of federal and provincial governments to submit replies by November 7.