Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the incumbent Indonesian president, has vowed to push ahead with economic reforms as the country’s election commission said initial results from Wednesday’s election put him in the lead to win a second term.

Final results are not due to be released until July 27, but according to the commission preliminary figures have given Yudhoyono 62 per cent of the ballot – making it all but certain that he will avoid a second run-off with his nearest rival.

The figures released on Thursday support data from earlier exit polls and quick counts of votes across the world’s third largest democracy.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia’s former president, was running second with 28 per cent according to the commission; while Jusuf Kalla, Yodhoyono’s current deputy, was a distant third with 10 per cent.

“My first priority will be recovering our economy,” Yudhoyono, a former army general told reporters at his home on Wednesday as a stream of polls appeared to point the way to his victory.

“I just want to say how grateful I am to God Almighty, a big thank you to all my fellow colleagues, and my gratitude to all Indonesians that have cast their vote during today’s presidential election” he said in televised comments.Fraud claims

Yudhoyono’s rivals have been cautious about conceding defeat, with opponents hinting at the possibility of electoral fraud and questioning the validity of quick count polling.

“The current attempt to create perception that one candidate has practically won the election is completely wrong and we appeal to all sides to refrain from making such claims,” Prabowo Subianto, Megawati’s vice presidential running mate, told reporters ahead of the election commission’s announcement.

The possibility of a challenge to the final result has raised fears of political deadlock in the wake of the vote.

Wednesday’s election was only Indonesia’s second direct presidential ballot and has been seen as a test of the country’s young democracy.

There were no reports of major incidents or unrest at the roughly 450,000 polling stations set up across the sprawling archipelago.

More than 170 million Indonesians were eligible to vote, although the election commission has yet to release figures on the actual turnout.

The vote was a three horse race pitting Yudhoyono against Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first post-colonial leader of Indonesia; and Kalla, Yudhoyono’s current deputy who teamed up with Indonesia’s former army chief Wiranto to mount a challenge for the presidency.

Stability

Just 10 years ago, Indonesia was labelled the “sick man of Asia”, standing on the brink of political, social, and financial collapse after decades of entrenched corruption and nepotism under the former Suharto regime.

But observers say that Yudhoyono’s government has brought political stability and peace to Indonesia and the best economic performance in a decade.

Yudhoyono’s influence was strengthened in April’s parliamentary election that saw his Democrat Party win about a quarter of the seats against only 7.5 per cent of the vote in 2004.

Despite the campaign promises, Indonesia continues to face huge obstacles on the path to democratic reform and many voters said they wanted candidates to make greater strides against corruption and widespread poverty – major challenges facing the predominantly Muslim country of 235 million.

With about 100 million Indonesians living on less than $2 a day, capturing the vote of the poor has been a priority throughout the campaign. – Al Jazeera

Thousands of Chinese troops are patrolling the streets of Urumqi, capital of the far western Xinjiang region, in an effort to maintain the peace between the city’s ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese.

Clashes between the groups have paralysed the city since Sunday when a street protest by Uighur demonstrators turned into some of the bloodiest ethnic violence seen in China in years.

Chinese officials say the violence has left more than 150 people dead and around a thousand injured.

Reporting from Urumqi on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan said that while a strong military presence remained, the city appeared to be returning to some kind of normality.

However, she said tensions remained high athough there had been no reports of further clashes as had occured on previous days.

Long convoys of armoured cars and troop trucks have been patrolling the streets of Urumqi, with a particularly heavy presence in Uighur neighbourhoods of the predominantly Han Chinese city.

Army helicopters have also been conducting regular flights over the city.

The patrols and an overnight curfew are part of a sweeping crackdown ordered by the Chinese authorities in an effort to keep a lid on the unrest.

‘Execute them’

More than 1,000 people are reported to have been arrested and on Wednesday a senior official warned that anyone found guilty of murder would be executed.

“To those who committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” Li Zhi, the Communist party chief for Urumqi, told reporters.

Correspondent Steve Chao, reporting from Beijing, said China’s leaders appeared to be pushing for a tough response to the violence and more people were likely to be arrested in the coming days as authorities round up anyone they suspect could stir up unrest.

On Thursday reports said an outspoken economist who had championed Uighur rights had disappeared after presumably being arrested by police.

Friends of Ilham Tohti said he had called them earlier to say police had given him formal notice to say he would be detained.

Fearful

On Wednesday Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, cut short a visit to the G8 summit in Italy, returning home to personally oversee the government’s handling of the crisis.Since Sunday’s riot tensions have remained high in Urumqi with mobs wielding makeshift weapons roaming the city and many residents fearful for their safety.

On Tuesday thousands of Han Chinese rampaged through Urumqi’s streets, smashing Uighur-owned shops and stalls and calling for revenge against the Uighurs who they say started the unrest.

Groups of Uighurs also took to the streets and government forces fired tear gas at the crowds before ordering the curfew in an effort to maintain control of the city.

Chinese authorities have blamed Uighurs protesters for Sunday’s unrest, but have also condemned members of the Han Chinese community for stirring up tensions in the wake of the riot.

Repression

Uighur groups say repressive policies by China combined with years of mass migration to Xinjiang by Han Chinese, China’s largest ethnic group, have stoked ethnic tensions and sown the seeds for violence.

The Turkic-speaking Uighurs have long complained of repression and discrimination under Chinese rule, but Beijing insists it has brought prosperity to Xinjiang, a region that has seen annual growth rates of up to 17 per cent in recent years.

On Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, called for an end to the violence.

“Our expectation is for these incidents that have reached the level of savagery to be rapidly stopped,” he said.

The prime minister and Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, made separate calls to China to bring “those responsible to account” in a transparent manner.

“We are following the events with great concern, worry and sadness,” Erdogan said

According to Chinese state media, Sunday’s clashes erupted after a demonstration over an industrial dispute in southern China in which two Uighurs died, turned violent.

Beijing singled out Rebiya Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress, for “masterminding” the unrest.

But Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman who was jailed for years in China before being released into exile in the US, has rejected the accusations, saying from Washington DC that they were “completely false”. – Al Jazeera

Chinese President Hu Jintao, forced to abandon a G8 summit in Italy by ethnic violence in restive Xinjiang, said that maintaining social stability in the energy-rich region was the “most urgent task”, state television reported on Thursday.

Hu described Sunday’s riots in the regional capital Urumqi, where 156 people were killed and 1,080 wounded when minority Muslim Uighurs attacked majority Han Chinese, as a “serious violent crime elaborately planned and organized by ‘three forces’ at home and abroad”, an apparent reference to religious extremists, separatists and terrorists.

Hu, who doubles as Communist Party chief, told the decision-making Politburo late on Wednesday that local authorities should “isolate and deal a blow to the small group” of rioters and to “unite and educate the majority” of Uighurs.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang shrugged off Turkey’s call for the U.N. Security Council to discuss ways of ending the violence, saying Xinjiang was an internal affair.

Thousands of Chinese troops took up position in riot-damaged streets of Urumqi, a show of force aimed at stifling ethnic violence.

But some residents worried about how the two sides could ever co-exist again.

Beijing cannot afford to lose its grip on Xinjiang, a vast desert territory that borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China’s largest natural gas-producing region.

“This whole thing may go on for a few days, but eventually the government has to use force, there’s no question about that,” said Bo Zhiyue, senior research fellow and China politics expert at National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

The notices, posted on walls in the Chinese and Uighur languages, say that those who hide or protect “criminals” will also be punished. The death penalty is common in China, even for economic crimes.

The line of troops, armored vehicles and trucks measuring several kilometers and blasting out the propaganda passed for about 25 minutes through Saimachang, the Uighur neighborhood where hundreds of women protested on Tuesday.

Helicopters flying only a few meters above rooftops scattered propaganda leaflets over the crowd of hundreds who gathered to watch the security forces march by.

Troops mounted on the truck with guns and riot shields shouted slogans in unison and some of the trucks carried signs in Chinese, one of which read “separatists bring calamity to the country and its people”.

The Uighur woman, Adila, said her husband had been taken away on Monday by police although he had just arrived back from the city of Yili in Xinjiang where he works as a truck driver.

“He works for a Han man, but I’m not sure we can work with Han people now. They hate us, and we are scared of them.”

The violence prompted President Hu Jintao to abandon a G8 summit in Italy and he returned home to monitor developments in Xinjiang where hundreds have been arrested in the ensuing crackdown. Financial markets have been unaffected.

Sunday’s rioters were mostly from the southern part of Xinjiang, the English-language China Daily quoted Adina, the wife of a neurosurgeon at the regional People’s Hospital, as saying.

“They had different accents, wore different clothes, and beat up even Uighur girls who wore short sleeves (for violating fundamentalist customs),” Adina added.

Shi Guanzheng, a retired teacher originally from Shanghai, dared not venture too far despite the heavy security presence.

Shi blamed the government for failing to quell protests by Han on Tuesday, when, armed with knives, clubs and bars, they thronged parts of the city demanding revenge against Uighurs.

“That should never have happened. It should have been nipped in the bud. The killings of innocent people is never justified, but now both sides are so filled with emotion that the repercussions will last a long time,” he said.

“I’m scared about what will happen when the (paramilitary) People’s Armed Police have to leave. It’s not about tomorrow or the next day. It’s about next month or after. What then?”

Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tension, fostered by an economic gap between Uighurs and Han, government curbs on religion and culture and an influx of migrants who are now the majority in Urumqi.

PREPARED FOR TROUBLE

Overnight in a Uighur neighborhood near the main bazaar, residents prepared for trouble, readying themselves with clubs.

One middle-aged woman in a headscarf walked by carrying a machete and a carving knife mounted on a stick.

Down the road, a group of seven Uighur men built a barricade out of planks with broken shards of beer bottles in front.

“We’re protecting ourselves,” one of the men said.

Turkonate, a lean Uighur man in his 20s standing outside with several friends, said police were taking away young men who had any recent injuries, who could not produce any identification or did not have residence papers.

“They’re taking our people every day. I don’t know how this is going to end.”

In a display of ethnic unity, state television showed Shanghai Communist Party boss Yu Zhengsheng and mayor Han Zheng visiting Uighur restaurants in the commercial hub of the country’s financial capital.

“If there is no stability or harmony, the lives of the people cannot get better and there will be no economic development,” Yu was quoted as telling his Uighur hosts.

The government has blamed Sunday’s killings on exiled Uighurs seeking independence, especially Rebiya Kadeer, an activist who lives in exile in the United States. Kadeer has denied the accusations. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Shanghai and Yu Le, Lucy Hornby and Benjamin Kang Lim in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie) – Reuters

Riot police on Tuesday fired tear gas to try to break up rock-throwing Han and Uighur protesters who clashed in the capital of China’s Muslim region of Xinjiang two days after bloody clashes killed 156 and wounded more than 1,000.

Hundreds of protesters from China’s predominant Han ethnic group, many clutching meat cleavers, metal pipes and wooden clubs, smashed shops owned by Uighurs, a Turkic largely Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.

Some Han Chinese protesters shouted “attack Uighurs” as both sides hurled rocks at each other.

Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd, but it only emboldened the demonstrators, caught between two sets of anti-riot police 600 meters apart.

Some used water to wash the gas out of their eyes as they pressed toward police at the mainly Uighur end of the street.

“They attacked us. Now it’s our turn to attack them,” a man in the crowd told Reuters. He refused to give his name.

Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China and in both places the government has sought to maintain its grip by controlling religious and cultural life while promising economic growth and prosperity.

The violence, which has showed signs of spreading in the volatile region, appeared to have little impact on China’s financial markets. Stocks slipped on technical factors while the yuan was trading higher against the dollar.

Xinjiang has long been a hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by a yawning economic gap between Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han Chinese migrants who now are the majority in most key cities.

Beijing has poured cash into exploiting Xinjiang’s rich oil and gas deposits and consolidating its hold on a strategically vital frontierland that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, but Uighurs say migrant Han are the main beneficiaries.

“TIME TO FIGHT BACK”

Part of the crowd briefly surged forward singing the Chinese national anthem before police drove them back with tear gas.

Anti-riot police armed with clubs and shields pushed protesters away from a Uighur neighborhood but hundreds managed to break through police lines.

There was a standoff between police and a crowd of mainly Han Chinese and some Hui Muslims. They chanted slogans including “Unity is Strength” and “Defend Stability, Protect the People.”

Many of the Uighur protesters were women, wailing and waving the identity cards of husbands, brothers or sons they say were arbitrarily seized in a sweeping reaction to Sunday’s rioting in the city of Urumqi.

“My husband was taken away yesterday by police. They didn’t say why. They just took him away,” a woman who identified herself as Maliya told Reuters.

The crowd began to march toward the Xinjiang regional government, saying the government was too weak. “Now it’s time to go to the government,” one protester surnamed Zhang said.

Abdul Ali, a Uighur man in his 20s who had taken off his shirt, held up his clenched fist. “They’ve been arresting us for no reason, and it’s time for us to fight back,” he said.

Ali said three of his brothers and a sister were among 1,434 suspects taken into custody. Of the 156 killed, 27 were women.

Human rights groups have warned that a harsh crackdown on Uighurs in the wake of Sunday’s violence could merely exacerbate the grievances that fueled ethnic tensions.

Urumqi Communist Party boss Li Zhi defended the crackdown.

“It should be said that they were all violent elements who wielded clubs and smashed, looted, burned and even murdered at the scene,” he told a news conference.

Earlier on Tuesday, Xinjiang’s Communist Party boss Wang Lequan said that although Sunday’s unrest had been quelled, “this struggle is far from over.”

Xinjiang’s state-run media quoted Wang as calling for officials to launch “a struggle against separatism.”

But Human Rights Watch’s Asia advocacy director Sophie Richardson called for an independent investigation.

UNREST SPREADING?

Some Xinjiang newspapers carried graphic pictures of the violence, including corpses, at least one of which showed a woman whose throat had been slashed.

Despite heightened security, some unrest appeared to be spreading in the volatile region, where long-standing ethnic tensions periodically erupt into bloodshed.

Police dispersed around 200 people at the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar in southern Xinjiang on Monday evening, Xinhua said.

The report did not say if police used force but said checkpoints had been set up at crossroads between Kashgar airport and downtown.

Almost half of Xinjiang’s 20 million people are Uighurs, while the population of Urumqi, which lies around 3,300 km (2,000 miles) west of Beijing, is mostly Han.

Chinese officials have already blamed the unrest on separatist groups abroad which it says want to create an independent homeland for Uighurs.

The Chinese embassy in the Netherlands was attacked by exiled pro-Uighur activists who smashed windows, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. China condemned the attack.

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison, Yu Le and Benjamin Kang Lim in Beijing; Paul Eckert in Washington; and Ben Blanchard in Shanghai; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jeremy Laurence) – Reuters

At least 700,000 people are now reported to have fled rising flood waters in southern China, as rainstorms continue to drench large areas of the country.

Twenty people are also reported to have died in some of the worst flooding seen in China for more than a decade.

Across several provinces heavy rains have toppled houses, flooded roads and seriously damaged a dam, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

In some towns and cities main roads have been rendered impassable by waters up to 2.5 metres deep.

In worst-hit Guangxi region, 300 students have been trapped inside their school since Saturday by the high flood waters.

Flood control officials have used boats to deliver food, mineral water and other supplies.

The heavy downpours also inundated crops and cut power across several provinces.

Last week China’s national flood prevention office estimated that the floods had caused losses of more than $1.58bn.

Since then the floods have spread, likely pushing up the costs to families and businesses.

Forecasters say worse weather may be on the way as the peak of the annual wet season nears. – Al Jazeera

At least 140 people were dead and more than 800 others injured after weekend violence in China’s far west Xinjiang region, the officials said Monday, according to state-run media.

The death toll was expected to climb, according to a regional government spokesman, as reported by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

Ethnic Uyghur residents in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, took to the streets Sunday afternoon in a rare public protest that prompted a police lock-down of the city.

By Monday, police had arrested several hundred participants, the Xinjiang Public Security Department said, according to Xinhua. Police were searching for about 90 other key figures.

“Traffic control was partially lifted Monday morning in parts of Urumqi … but tension still exists in the city,” Xinhua said. “Debris has been cleared from the roads and normal traffic has resumed. Workers are still pulling away damaged vehicles from the worst-affected roads in the city.”

Most businesses in the area where the violence took place remained closed on Monday, Xinhua said.

State-run media reported that protesters attacked passersby, burned public buses and blocked traffic on Sunday. The report did not say how many people took part in the protest or what their grievances were.

But a witness in Urumqi told CNN that, soon after the protest started at about 5 p.m., hundreds of protesters “grew into easily over 1,000 — men, women and children, all ethnic Uyghurs — screaming and chanting.”

Police arrived quickly and tried to control the swelling crowd by erecting barriers in the street, but “people pushed them over,” the witness said. “They were throwing rocks at passing cars and buses.” As the violence escalated, hundreds of riot police arrived, the witness said.

“They used tear gas and fire hoses to disperse the crowd. I saw fire trucks, ambulances, armed personnel carriers and what looked like tanks. I heard random gunshots.”

Late Sunday, the witness said, Urumqi was in a lockdown, with hundreds of People’s Liberation Army soldiers in the streets. He reported seeing riot police chasing protesters into alleys and rounding up many of them.

The witness speculated that the protest, which took place in the predominantly Uyghur-populated Bazaar district, may have been a reaction to racial violence in southern China.

The violence reportedly happened at a toy factory in Guangdong province, where many migrants, including Uyghurs, have moved in search of work. A massive brawl reportedly broke out between workers of Uyghur and Han nationalities. Two Uyghurs reportedly died. Watch more on the unrest in Xinjiang »

Xinjiang is home to many Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic group. China’s constitution guarantees ethnic minorities equal rights and limited autonomy. However, ethnic tensions run deep. Minority groups such as the Uyghurs complain that they are treated as second-class citizens and are subjected to discrimination by the majority Han nationalities.

“What was clear was, the Uyghur protesters were not happy,” the witness in Urumqi said. “They broke windows of public buses, threw bottles and rocks at the police, and harassed what looked like Chinese of Han or Hui nationalities. I saw a Uyghur man kick a Han woman in the behind as she tried to get away from the crowds.”

A spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, a dissident Uyghur group based in Munich, Germany, told CNN that Uyghur people in Urumqi and Xinjiang had told him by telephone that they had seen bodies thrown into military vehicles.

Dilxat Raxit added that tens of thousands of demonstrators had gathered in every Uyghur neighborhood in Urumqi to protest peacefully against what he described as the government’s ethnic cleansing in Guangdong’s Shaoguan City.

After about 40 minutes — during which the crowd shouted slogans, calling the incident in Guangdong’s Shaoguan City a planned ethnic cleansing — the Chinese military began to crack down by sending more than 50 military vehicles, including tanks, carrying troops into Urumqi.

All Uyghurs were ordered off the streets, he said.

Sources in Kashgar said a “massive number” of Chinese People’s Liberation Army forces entered that city as well, and that students were ordered to remain inside.

People were also arrested along roads leading to Urumqi, he said.

“According to the Chinese law, people have the right to protest peacefully,” the World Uyghur Congress said in an appeal. “We call for attention to this kind of ethnic discrimination.”

The government in Xinjiang blamed “foreign forces” for Sunday’s rioting.

“The violence is premeditated, organized violent crime,” said Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the equivalent of a governor. “It was instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country.”

Bekri accused the World Uyghur Congress of spreading rumors and inciting anger that led to the rioting, in a speech he gave over Xinjiang television.

The World Uyghur Congress is led by Rebuya Kadeer, a successful businesswoman of Uyghur ethnicity, who was detained in 1999 and accused of harming China’s national security. She was freed on bail in 2005 and was allowed to leave for the United States for medical care.

Bekri accused Kadeer of instigating the unrest via the Internet and said the fight at the Guangdong toy factory was exploited to incite ethnic strife.

“We should bear in mind that stability is to the greatest interest of all people in China, including the 21 million-plus people from all ethnic groups in Xinjiang,” he said. – CNN

Three people have been killed and more than 20 injured in violence in the city of Urumqi in China’s restive Xinjiang region, state media says.

Xinhua news agency said police restored order after demonstrators attacked passers-by and set fire to vehicles.

Xinhua did not say how many people were involved or what their motive was.

But activists and eyewitnesses said that those involved in the unrest were minority Muslim Uighurs. An overnight curfew has been declared.

Xinjiang is home to about eight million Uighurs, some of whom want independence.

“It started as a few hundred, and then there were easily over 1,000 involved,” one unidentified eyewitness told Reuters news agency.

Ethnic tensions

Adam Grode, an American national studying in Urumqi, said he has seen protesters knocking over police barriers and smashing bus windows.

Police responded with tear gas, hoses and batons, he told the Associated Press news agency, and once night fell more police and soldiers poured into the city.

Uighur activists in Japan and Germany said that they had received reports of multiple arrests.

Xinhua said that the three dead were Han Chinese.

It is not clear what triggered the unrest, but relations between the Han Chinese community and the Uighurs can be tense.

China enforces tight controls in Xinjiang and rejects calls from the Uighurs for self-rule.

The US state department accuses Beijing of human-rights abuses in the region.

In a report released earlier this year, it said that “severe cultural and religious repression” of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang had increased.

Uighur separatists, meanwhile, have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades and there are sporadic outbreaks of violence. – BBC

A bomb blast outside a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines has killed five people and injured at least 26 others, officials say.

The military immediately blamed the attack in the town of Cotabato, Mindanao, on a militant group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The group has been fighting to establish a separate Islamic state.

One of its leaders denied any involvement in the attack, saying there was no religious conflict in the south.

The bomb went off outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception as people were leaving Mass, the army said.

Police told AFP news agency that two of the dead were soldiers guarding the cathedral.

Militant denial

A military spokesman, Col Jonathan Ponce, said rogue MILF militants were suspected of planting the bomb.

“The rebels are getting desperate and they are no longer choosing their targets,” he said.

“They are now attacking even places of worship.”

But a leader of the MILF, Mohaqher Iqbal, denied his group had been involved in the attack.

“Who needs a Christian-Muslim conflict?” he told Reuters news agency in a mobile phone text message.

“There’s no religious conflict in the south. We’re fighting for our right of self-determination. We’re only defending our people and our communities.” – BBC

The U.S. pointman for sanctions on North Korea begins talks in Malaysia on Sunday, possibly on links banks have to the North’s finances, while a report said Pyongyang may have shot mid-range missiles in a series fired on Saturday.

North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles, South Korea’s defense ministry said, in an act of defiance toward the United States on its Independence Day, further stoking regional tensions already high due to Pyongyang’s nuclear test in May.

“We are on high alert,” a South Korean Defense Ministry source said, adding there were no initial signs more launches were coming on Sunday.

The launch, which marks an escalation of tensions by the North, will likely weigh on sentiment when markets open in Asia on Monday, but investors do not expect a major impact.

The North appears to have fired two mid-range Rodong missiles, which can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan, and five Scud missiles, which can strike most of South Korea, Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean official as saying.

The official said two of the missiles travelled at a greater velocity than the others, indicating they were the Rodong type.

“We found five of the seven missiles fell near the same spot in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), which indicates that their accuracy has improved,” another official told Yonhap.

The missiles flew about 420 kms (260 miles) and it will take a few days to confirm what was fired, the official said. Initial reports on Saturday said all the missiles appeared to be Scuds.

The Scud and Rodong are ballistic missiles. Their launch would mark an escalation by the North, which has fired several non-ballistic, short-range missile since the May 25 nuclear test.

North Korea is barred by U.N. resolutions from firing ballistic missiles. It has more than 600 Scud type missiles and 300 Rodong missiles which have been deployed and target U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, defense officials have said.

The North’s last major missile launch was in 2006 near the July 4 U.S. holiday when it fired ballistic missiles including its long-range Taepodong-2, which could hit U.S. territory but has not had a successful test flight.

Japan is considering introducing a new ground-based missile defense system to complement interceptors it currently has, the Japanese daily Mainichi reported.

U.S. PRESSES SANCTIONS

The launches came as the United States has cracked down on firms suspected of helping the North in its arms and missiles trade, which was subject to U.N. sanctions imposed after the nuclear test and is a vital source of foreign currency for cash-short North Korea.

The United States may have found several bank accounts in Malaysia suspected of belonging to North Korea and may freeze them as part of the crackdown, Yonhap reported, citing an unidentified source in Washington.

U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, will discuss the banks with officials in Malaysia, the source said.

However, Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Chor Chee Heung cast doubt on the report when asked if such discussions were the object of Goldberg’s visit.

“I don’t think so,” he told Reuters. “Many U.S. officials have been wanting to visit to find out about things here for themselves, and to visit and discuss with our officials and this is one of those visits … I believe this visit is just routine.”

Goldberg arrives in Malaysia on Sunday evening.

The U.N. resolution, passed June 12, bans export of all weapons by North Korea. It also bans financial transactions that could aid the North’s nuclear or missile programs.

Goldberg went to Beijing last week for talks with Chinese officials on enforcing sanctions. The help of China, the North’s biggest trade partner and benefactor, is essential for enforcing sanctions, experts said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement on Sunday regarding the missile launches: “China has taken note of this situation and hopes all sides will show restraint and together maintain the peace and stability of the region.” Russia has made a similar comment.

The U.S. Treasury brought North Korea’s international finances to a virtual halt in 2005 by cracking down on a Macau bank suspected of aiding the North’s illicit financial activities. Other banks, worried about being snared by U.S. financial authorities, steered clear of the North’s money.

The impact was seen as especially painful for the country’s leadership, which was unable to move money around easily.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo, Tom Miles in Beijing and Razak Ahmad in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Jerry Norton) – Reuters

Burma’s junta has refused to allow visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to meet jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Ban was told of the refusal when he held a second round of talks with military leader Gen Than Shwe.

“I’m deeply disappointed,” he told reporters. “I’m very sorry to report to you that this is not possible.”

Ms Suu Kyi’s trial on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest was postponed again on Friday.

Mr Ban said Than Shwe had told him during their 30-minute meeting, in the remote administrative capital Nay Pyi Taw, that Ms Suu Kyi was on trial and he did not want to interfere with the judicial process.

The UN leader later left for Burma’s main city, Rangoon. Mr Ban’s had a two-hour meeting with Gen Than Shwe on Friday.

Mr Ban said he had been assured that elections planned for 2010 would be “held in a fair, free and transparent manner”.

The UN chief is due to make a speech outlining his vision for Burma later on Saturday.

Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has spent much of the past two decades in prison or under house arrest.

She was transferred from house arrest to prison in May after an American man swam to her lakeside house. She faces up to five years in jail if convicted.

Next year’s elections are part of the military government’s “roadmap to democracy,” but critics say they will be a sham designed to strengthen the generals’ four-decade grip on power.

Opposition activists say Ms Suu Kyi’s trial is designed to keep her out of the way until after the elections. – BBC